From the Ledge

I think it is so apt that my 135th blog post, written twelve months to the day of From the Ledge’s unveiling to the world, was about Kafka on the Shore, since Murakami wrote a beautiful, sensitive, impactful sentence that Frank Galati wisely preserves in the play:  “In dreams begin responsibilities.”  Having a blog was a dream that lay unrealized for many, many years, as I wandered through the busyness of life, as I second-guessed myself, lost confidence, found excuses not to write about what I’m passionate about.  It really was not “do I have something to say?” since I thought I did, and I had a responsibility to articulate and share it, but “is anyone willing to listen?“.  I really do feel that a blog can only be as good as its readers – it’s a channel for personal expression, yes, but it should also be an avenue for conversation and provocation. It has been quite a year for me and for From the Ledge, with more than 12,500 hits, coming from people not only in Chicago, or the United States, or the Philippines, where the critical mass of my friends and family are, but from places far and wide such as Germany, Brazil, India, Japan, Belarus, and Norway.  It was a year of strongly advocating for Chicago’s talent and artistic life:  for August: Osage County and Steppenwolf Theater, for Sean Graney and the Hypocrites, for Keith Huff, for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNow series, for the Chicago Opera Theater, for the Court Theater, TUTA, Strange Tree Group, the Gene Siskel Film Center, the Chicago International Film Festival, Art Chicago, and the Grant Park summer music Festival- all of them essential and irreplaceable. But it was also a year to reflect and challenge: on the lack of artistic appreciation among my demographic group, on disconcerting hints of Chicago arts parochialism, on the responsibilities of bloggers and blog commenters, on the tension between playwrights’ and directors’ artistic visions.  Most importantly, it was a year of making connections and starting conversations, both on the blog, and via email, of discovering readers, of listening to other people’s points of view, of taking feedback seriously.  A big thank you to everyone, and here’s to another year of delightful dialogue.