Every Blog has its Day

...and hopefully the Atlantic Community will have many more to come.

Welcome to all our first time readers, and especially welcome back to all our regulars. If you are visiting for the first time or are still a bit in the digital wilderness, then follow this link to cartoon by Peter Steiner

an earlier post explaining some of the features of the AC.

The AC has experienced a fair amount of growth over the last 3 months, both in terms of web traffic (over 300 unique visitors during the last 30 days) and more importantly from the perspective of our mission statement;

"Our aim is to provide a public voice for European scholarship in American Studies, forging stronger communication between the academy and the public on both sides of the Atlantic."

Here are some recent posts which have been part of the AC's recent traffic boom;

Robert Gibbons

Exiled Writing, Translated Knowledge: Andrei Codrescu’s Inroads

Song of America

“They Say They Put a Man on the Moon”: Fallen Astronaut – Violence, Bodies, and Moon Art

Hillary Clinton as Political Icon

A Post-Broadcast Politics

Please feel free to leave comments for the writers. Every article has a comments link found at the end of the text.

This month, I wrote an article about the Atlantic Community which was featured in the February DAAS Newsletter. You can read the article here. If there is a theme for the current Newsletter it is online networking and blogging. David Nye is also featured with an article about his new blog. The Facebook group, "American Studies in Scandinavia." also receives a front page mention.

Steen recently introduced himself here with his first post, "Blogging Thoughts," where he expresses his philosophy of the medium.

If you want to read more on blogging, Sara Boxer has a timely article in the New York Review of Books simply titled, "Blogs." Highly recommended. In the end, I doubt that you or anyone will get any closer to defining the medium or the mode of writing. At best, these assorted articles may provide a "feeling" for blogging, both as a writing form and as sites of community within various cultural contexts.

Let this post serve as an example of the undefinability of blogging.

While thinking about all the connections and references to blogging this past week, I also got to thinking about connections in general. Camelia recently posted, “Beating about Splitting Hairs.” A play off Bent’s post, “Kerouac times.” Here she mentions the new Bob Dylan film, I’m not There, as possible material for her new course. Well, if you missed the Supberbowl last Sunday then you missed the half-time show featuring Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I’m not sure how it may relate to her course, but Tom Petty was a fellow member of George Harrison’s fantastic Traveling Wilburys, along with of course, Bob Dylan. Harrison referred to the Wilburys music as, "that Americana type of stuff." Here’s the first part to a little documentary on the Wilburys. Part 2. Part 3.

Coincidentally, I had also just finished watching the history of Brian Wilson’s Smile. One of the themes behind Smile was an obsessive transatlantic competition between the creative forces of Wilson and the Beatles. Smile is incredible. Too bad Wilson never made his version of an American led British Wilburys.

Responding to Bent’s “Kerouac times,” the director of a new Kerouac film, seemingly came out of nowhere to leave a comment, i.e., “hype his film.” You can read more about the film here. I'm looking forward to it.

Bent has also graciously invited the AC to tag along his course, "The Beat Generation Revisited". Read more.

Well, this post has reached “the end of the line”. So to conclude, here’s the Traveling Wilburys,