38 replies to this topic

[Jason Panella]

[CrimsonLine]

Woo hoo! Congratulations!

[Darrel Manson]

Peter T Chattaway, on 28 September 2010 - 11:30 AM, said:

And with that, I've reached the magic 20,000. I *was* wondering if I could restrain myself enough so that I could hit the 20,000 mark on Friday, which happens to be my 40th birthday, but whatever.

Tuesday to Friday without posting? HA!

[Rich Kennedy]

Guys. It's a flawed milestone. Politics never counted on the old board and PTC made me look as bad over there as he does, heh, Jeffrey in film by sheer volume. I'd say that he passed 20K last Spring. Nevertheless, way to go Peter! Oh, and you will be 40? Such a baby, eh Darrell?

[David Smedberg]

Well, if he's a baby, then us 25-year-olds are embryos or something.

[Overstreet]

I've been looking at my calendar and trying to think of an upcoming chore so I can start a thread called "Countdown to a millstone" ... but haven't found the right excuse yet. If you think of one, it's all yours.

[Darrel Manson]

Rich Kennedy, on 29 September 2010 - 04:00 PM, said:

Oh, and you will be 40? Such a baby, eh Darrell?

At 40 he should be able to see the time when wisdom comes in his future.

[Rich Kennedy]

Huh. I'm not completely sure I see that time NOW. I wish you hadn't used the word "wisdom". It always seems to appear in someone else.

Edited by Rich Kennedy, 30 September 2010 - 04:50 PM.

[Darrel Manson]

I don't claim to have attained it - but the white hair and beard sometimes fool people.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Rich Kennedy wrote:
: Guys. It's a flawed milestone. Politics never counted on the old board . . .

Yeah, I did wonder about that. Was it just Politics that wasn't counted? I have a feeling Religion might not have been counted either; it might have been just the Arts posts that were counted.

: Nevertheless, way to go Peter! Oh, and you will be 40? Such a baby, eh Darrell?

Heh.

I don't remember turning 10, but I do remember turning 20 and thinking that I could finally look down my nose at teenagers, and I also remember turning 30 and thinking "Oh my God, the next one's 40." But now that I *am* turning 40, I'm not sure that I have any thoughts at all on the matter. Maybe that's because the kids take up so much of my time, whereas I didn't even have a girlfriend (much less a wife or a family) on my previous turn-of-the-decade b-days. Or maybe it's because 40 doesn't really feel all that different from 30 (though I do appreciate what Chris Hitchens told Jon Stewart about 60 feeling different from 50).

One thing I *have* become sensitive to, though, is reports of people my age dying of cancer etc. I found out last year that a journalist whose job-and-apartment I took for two months in 1999 (and a very pivotal two months they were, for me) had died in 2008 at the age of 45, of colon cancer; and then, a couple days ago, I happened to discover a blog written by one of the more prolific student-newspaper writers from my time at UBC (I don't think I ever met him personally, but I certainly worked with friends of his), and in that blog he talks about the fact that he is now 41 and he was diagnosed with colorectal cancer 3.5 years ago and he doesn't expect to live to 45. ("What is it with journalists getting cancer in their butts at 40!?" I asked when I passed this news to my wife. "Maybe it's because you sit on your butts all day?" she hypothesized.)

And for some reason I keep thinking about the fact that I have outlived Gene Eugene, who died suddenly of an aneurysm at the age of 38, back in 2000. I was 29 at the time of Eugene's death, and I wasn't even all that big a fan of his; I was an avid follower of the Lost Dogs, but primarily because of Terry Scott Taylor's involvement. (I didn't listen to an entire Adam Again album until sometime later.) But somehow just knowing that people could die that young got to me, and that was over a decade ago.

Hmmm. A&F has been around in one form or another for at least eight years, maybe nine (or maybe even eleven, if we stretch the history of this community to include the Phantom Tollbooth's OnFilm Yahoo group, where quite a few of us first met). Have any of us died, though? I know friends and relatives of ours have died, but have any actual A&Fers died? (I'm going to feel really awful if it turns out someone did and I forgot.)

Morbid thoughts for a birthday, I know. But as John the apostle says in Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth (1977), "Birth is the beginning of death." Or, as Terry Scott Taylor sang on the album A Briefing for the Ascent (1987), "I die a little every day I live." (And THAT'S the sort of pop culture I was into when I was a teenager...)

[Rich Kennedy]

Peter T Chattaway, on 01 October 2010 - 05:38 AM, said:

Yeah, I did wonder about that. Was it just Politics that wasn't counted? I have a feeling Religion might not have been counted either; it might have been just the Arts posts that were counted.

Now that you mention it, that's right. Only Arts counted. No Religion, no Wine, no Coffee, no heh, Bush v Gore, etc. Maybe you hit this last year. I remember eye glazing discussions between you and SDG on Religion. Happy 40.

Oh, and per your last comment, I will have been around 10 years myself next Fall. It was still Chiarroscurro(sic) back then.

Edited by Rich Kennedy, 01 October 2010 - 06:29 PM.

[John Drew]

Re: The Milestone


Peter T. Chattaway, in a recent interview with Larry King...

Quote

" . . . Let me tell you a story, sort of a parable. One day in 1990-something-or-other, I logged on to my computer. My name was Pete Chattaway at the time. I signed on to a new website and added my two cents. Then I bought a house in the hills. It had a swimming pool. Unheated, but it had water in it. One night I came home late, I jumped in the pool, I swam a few laps, I got out, I dried myself off, I put on my clothes, logged back on to the computer, and added another of my two cents to the umpteenth version of this site. Do you see what I'm saying, Larry? 20,000 plus posts, I don't know where they went. Gone like that."

Peter T. Chattaway on Oprah...

Quote

"'Can I tell you a story, Oprah?' In 1990-something-or-other, when I was 27 or 28, I logged on to the first incarnation of what would become Arts & Faith. At the time I lived in a house on Fountain Avenue. It had a swimming pool. I had some opinions on film that I wanted to express... they were running right down the middle of my brain.

"'Then I went out back, I jumped into the pool, I took a shower, got dressed and logged back on to the computer, and expressed some more opinions. That's how quick these 20,000 fucking posts have gone...quick as that.'"

Edited by Baal_T'shuvah, 02 October 2010 - 04:29 PM.

[mrmando]

Overstreet, on 25 September 2010 - 08:45 PM, said:

This takes some of the fun out of what a goal I'd set for myself: to peruse threads and delete comments I've made in the past that I now realize were utterly inconsequential or regrettable.

Wow. If I did that, there'd be nothing left...

[John Drew]

I swear I checked in mid August to see how close Peter was to 25,000. From the total I saw at that time, I figured I'd have 'til the beginning of October to relaunch this thread.

Well, I missed it... by 268 posts. Congrats, Peter, on 25,000 +!!!

Side note: At the rate one of our newest members (Taliesen) is going, he'll reach the 25,000 mark in about 6.8 years. Long before a lot of us "old timers" double our current output. And it's some good stuff coming from him.

Edited by Baal_T'shuvah, 30 September 2012 - 08:36 PM.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Baal_T'shuvah wrote:
: Well, I missed it... by 268 posts. Congrats, Peter, on 25,000 +!!!

Thanks, Baal -- and once again, it was my birthday today (or yesterday, I guess, since it's after midnight now).

[Justin Hanvey]

It took you that long to reach 20,000...man..I've been on some forums where people reach that in weeks. Oh well. Congrats!

[M. Leary]

And yet, I have been watching Peter post for 12 years. If all of his better posts were collected and published, it would make for very good and lengthy reading. I am bummed that PTC has never published a book about biblical narratives in cinema. It would surely be a standard.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Funny you should say that, M. I was approached just yesterday about maybe doing something in that vein... Though it's early days (very very early days), and I don't want to count chickens before they've hatched, etc. The big question for me right now is whether I've got the time, energy or stamina for something of that scope now... But the kids are slowly beginning to spend more of their time in school, and I've managed to finish a few articles in the past few months (one of them -- a trifle, really, but still a paying gig -- just this morning, and this, despite the fact that there's a film festival on right now and two of my kids had a day off from school today) after a year and a half of utter inactivity, so who knows. Thanks as ever for the kind words, in any case.

[J.A.A. Purves]

M. Leary, on 04 October 2012 - 06:17 PM, said:

I am bummed that PTC has never published a book about biblical narratives in cinema. It would surely be a standard.

This needs to happen. Perhaps before reaching a milestone of, oh let's say, 35,000?