A final round of thanks to all the contributors of the Maddin-est Blogathon in the World. About 20 entries came in of such stunning variety that made the evaluation process far more difficult than expected. After a process of deliberation whose intensity rivaled that of a Maddin montage, we are now pleased to unveil the identities of the Maddin-est Bloggers in the World.
– Second runner-up goes Lee Price, whose epic three-part analysis of Maddin’s six-minute short film “The Heart of the World” on his blog 21 Essays easily made him the most prolific contributor to the Blogathon. Equally impressive was the separate guises he persuasively assumed for each of his entries: a befuddled film historian, a feminist, and a dinosaur advocate! Lee wins an autographed copy of Guy Maddin: Interviews and a one month free subscription to Fandor!
– First runner-up is Alex Ramon of Boycotting Trends, whose erudite interweaving of Maddin’s My Winnipeg with geo-political theorist Edward Soja’s writings on place, memory and identity left us duly impressed. Alex wins an autographed copy of Guy Maddin: Interviews and a one month free subscription to Fandor!
– As for the Maddinest Blogger, we reveal their identity by way of a personalized prize from Mr. Guy Maddin, a prose poem written in honor of the winning entry. Without further ado:
Kirsten! I can’t thank you enough for that incredible piece you wrote on beloved compact Spanky and the homely little movie I made with him. It’s just a thrown-off edited-in-camera portrait of my doggie, but it turned out to be a record of the last walk we took together, so it’s a handful of emulsion most dear to me, and only now, a few years after shooting it, am I able to watch it without misting over. I never dreamt anyone would put together two consecutive words on this short whatnot — both dog and movie are short whatnots. You really found the right point of the compass from which to approach this furry little collaboration. The tiny hairs on my neck stand up upon reading you and your tribute to the film, and by extension a tribute to the trim fawn nap of that darned dumb pugdog, so mute and loving was he! It was a windy Gimli day with hot autumn gusts that blew the arthritis right outta the dog, filled his deaf ears with the shrill song of lake waves from the south and charged his suddenly pink lungs with a hundred short sprints of youth, great gulping draughts of puppy! He made it to the pier and there was still film in the camera — he almost made it back. He made it there… and he a-a-a-almost made it back. Thank you for watching so closely.
Warmest,
Guy
And there you have it. Congratulations to Kirsten Bialik for her exceptional entry “Circle Back to Spanky” in praise of Maddin’s short film “Spanky: To the Pier and Back.” In addition to the thrill of having a world-renowned director pen her a letter of platonic adoration, Kirsten gets a DVD box set of The Quintessential Guy Maddin, Maddin’s book version of My Winnipeg, an autographed copy of Guy Maddin: Interviews and a two month free subscription to Fandor!
Congratulations, Kirsten! And thanks to Network Awesome, a remarkable new website curating the best videos found on YouTube, for posting the entry as well as their short on their site.
Finally we would be remiss not to thank the team at Row Three, who submitted four wonderful individual entries to the Blogathon. Heartiest thanks to Kurt Halfyard, Marina Antunes, Colleen, and Jandy Stone for putting Row Three squarely on our radar – you most certainly got our attention.
Thanks to all the contributors to the Maddin-est Blogathon in the World – we doubt that henceforth there shall ever be a Blogathon the Maddin-er.
Special thanks to Fandor-ians Jonathan Marlow, Steven Beauregard and Jesse Ataide for reviewing all the entries.
