As we begin the trek to next year’s BIYF Festival – our 20th BIYF – it’s once again time to take a look back at both the good and the bad that have brought us to this point. To take a moment to reflect and remark on the stepping stones that have paved the way for such a landmark celebration. Ten years ago, this took the form of a good old-fashioned tournament bracket. But over the last ten years the world has changed.
Smart phones, tablets, streaming services, digital video… all this and more has led to a consumer culture that devours content at a voracious pace. Chewing up and spitting out an entire television series run over a weekend, watching all the films in a series at one sitting…
Binging.
To count down to BIYF XX (BIYF 2017, BIYF 20) I will be re-watching and reflecting on the entire BIYF viewing catalog to date. Not truly binging (I haven’t completely taken leave of my senses, honest), but I intend to get through everything one more time before we get to next year’s festival. Obviously I can’t watch the live events a second time, but I don’t plan to overlook them as I retrace our viewing history. Every year of our journey has unleashed some fresh hell upon us and I plan to find out what stale hell tastes like.
I intend on documenting this odyssey here, at the newly implemented (post BIYF.com apocalypse) “Zardoz Speaks to You” blog. I invite you to join me on this journey at whatever level you are willing or able to do so. Re-watching along with me (yeah, right), commenting on the posts here to add your reflections to my own, or just reading the posts and indulging in a little nostalgia quietly by yourself. Any support will be welcome. I’ll probably need it.
Details will follow over the next few weeks. There’s some logistics to figure out and honestly I need some time to work up to actually doing this. It’s daunting on a number of levels. As a first step, I’ll soon be sending out subscriber logins for this blog so that you can comment here once the posts start flowing. I also plan to link new posts in the Facebook group once the BIYF Binge begins. Not to invite comments at Facebook, but to help let folks know when a new entry appears so you can comment here. If I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do it here on my home turf.
Stay tuned and may Zardoz have mercy on my soul…
Just an FYI if you’re testing out commenting: I’ve got it set so I need to approve your first comment and then all subsequent comments should be posted right away. I think. I’ll do my best to be attentive to this.
Also, please feel free to change those account passwords. I just stuck something in there that was easier to remember than the “IFHI#UH839jlJO!J” type passwords that are automatically generated.
WordPress has turned the password security up to 111. Kind of like you’ve turned up the BIYF volume to 11!