Monday, July 13, 2009

"Julie and Julia" and Me


This is going to be a little bit self-indulgent, so bear with me. I just saw a preview for Julie & Julia and I got unexpectly choked up.

I'll explain. Julie Powell started her Julie/Julia project as a Salon blog, around the same time I was starting up my original blog. I feel a kinship to her, even though we've never met and for all I know, she's never even looked at my blog. She was one of us, along with Meg and Patia and the Grumpy Girl and Phil and Nancy and the guy who did Fried Green Al-Qaedas Virtual Occoquan.

And then Julie exploded into a huge phenomenon. I don't think I knew at the time how big it had gotten, but I knew she had gotten to a level that most of us hadn't and probably weren't.

But that's was cool. I'm proud of her, even though, again, nothing whatsoever at all to do with her success. I can't wait to see the movie. And when in the trailer, they showed a quick shot of her computer with the old blog banner (albeit a completely different blogging service), I got a bit verklempt.

So congrats, Julie. I feel a little like the kid who used to play playground basketball with Michael Jordan before he became Michael Jordan. But I'm thrilled that it's come this far, and hope you're having all kinds of success and wish you nothing but more.



P.S. Oddly enough, I just looked up the old blog, and stumbled across this article about the movie. Apparently, there's a bit of controversy about the way her blog is depicted in the movie. Salon's Kerry Lauerman is quoted.

2 comments:

nancy said...

It's so funny you wrote this, because I was just saying the same thing to Norman the other night. I saw a clip and I said "Hey! I KNOW her."

And then backed off that I didn't actually know her at all, but I felt like I did. Salon was such a nice little family, wasn't it? I wish there was someplace like that again.

I'm so grateful for the experience we shared, and to call people like you, a friend.

Sky Bluesky said...

Salon really did feel like a community. Now it just feels like we're all little fish in the biggest pond imaginable. But I'm glad I met you and the rest of our little circle, and I'm so glad that we managed to stay in touch after the great diaspora.