Status check

Just meta-blogical moment to take stock of things . . .

I'm launching this blog on January 8th, just after Renee Fleming's concert with the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Since October I've been accumulating posts and testing them out with friends and a link on my Facebook profile. Site traffic has been way better than I would ever have expected, given that beyond these two avenues I have done no promotion.

Over the last few days I've been preparing three entries, plus finished versions of posts that are up here but in some state of incompleteness. I've left some unfinished work up here to gauge interest (who knew so many people wanted to read about the "Dolly Parton Paradox"?) The finished products will all be in place sometime between now and January 8th.

I've reread what I have so far and I've been thinking about where I want to go with this. I've always felt that blogs about people's personal struggles were so damn boring. I started this blog mainly to comment on the performances (indeed, the non-Facebook visitors to this blog have almost all been seekers of such things as "nathan gunn", "american tragedy" or "renee fleming") and events (readings, lectures, symposia) that I attend. But I'll also share tidbits about my experience as a literature graduate student at Harvard. It's colorful enough to merit blogspace.