I learned today that my friend Jason conferred the “I Love This Blog” award upon my humble soapbox.
I sincerely appreciate your kindness, Jason. It is a bit embarrassing to me that you emphasize “a fascinating outsider’s perspective on American and British life”, which is something that appears less and less on my blog, but I’ll take any praise that I can get from a friend.
The prize comes with certain obligations:
- Post the award on my blog.
- Link to the person who gave me the award.
- Nominate at least 4 others.
- Leave a comment on their blogs so they can pass it on.
The first two requirements are completed at the top of the post. The last, I suppose, I can entrust to the wonderful statistics of “incoming links” on each of the recipients’ blogs. The thing that is left are the nominations.
- Brian at I Should Be Sleeping is a man of many interests and a great wit, with a curious and critical eye and a disposition for distilling complex issues into easy to understand concepts. His serious fare is moving and insightful and his lighter stuff is tongue-in-cheek hilarious. I know him in person, too, and he is a great guy to share company with.
- The proprietor of Polybloggimous, Nathan, works in the movie industry and frequently offers hilarious outtakes from his experiences on the job as well as insightful behind-the-scenes commentary. He is also known to treat his readers to great photo-essays centered on various Brooklyn, NY, landmarks. At most other times, this fine establishment is home to unadulterated silliness of the best quality.
- Village of Joy is a photo-blog that puts together entertaining and inspiring lists of “Amazing, Interesting, Wonderful, Weird, Odd and Funny things about our World”. The subjects range from stunning architecture to incredible sidewalk paintings to obscure art forms to motivational posters, and so on. It is a wonderful world we live in!
- Retired Navy Warrant Officer Jim Wright can always be counted to be assertive in his opinion on current events at Stonekettle Station. A well-travelled man of many talents, Jim writes with a combination of candor and conviction that is always admirable. And although this manly man wouldn’t want to point it out, but he’s got a softer side too.
And to other twenty or so other people whose blogs I regularly read (and you know who you are!): Please don’t take your absence from this list as a sign that I don’t love to read you. The selection reflects very little, if anything, in terms of my comparative preferences for some blogs over others. If I was asked to nominate twenty-four blogs, I’d mention every single one of you!
Cheers to all!
Ilya, I meant to comment on this way back when you first posted, but life has been hectic the last month (you may have noticed I’ve been doing a lot of catch-up commenting today…)
Anyhow, when I mentioned your “outsider’s perspective” I wasn’t referring only to your observations on the differences between America and Britain, but also to your occasional anecdotes about growing up in the Soviet Union. I find your “you tube’d memories” very interesting, for example, because the music you name as favorites while growing up is almost always stuff I’ve never heard of. The USSR was such a mystery to we Americans in the ’80s, and popular culture didn’t help because it invariably painted the place as the grimmest imaginable variant of George Orwell. I was always curious about the real Russia, and your writing here helps fill in some of the gaps.
I hope that doesn’t embarrass you or anything. I certainly don’t intend it to. I’m just explaining some of my motivation in awarding you this silly little prize… 🙂
Not at all, Jason. I consider myself a well-assimilated American, but I realize that culturally I am going to remain “Russian” for the rest of my life. If that truly adds another facet to my blog and makes it more interesting for you – and, hopefully, others – to read, I’m only happy. Thanks again for the award! 🙂