Just say YES (or whatever)

GNUFOTAINMENT

My attention has just been brought to the fact that film director Sally Potter has been keeping a blog about her new film, YES.

YES stars Joan Allen (who has already won Best Actress at the Seattle International Film Festival) as a woman who has an extra-marital affair with a Muslim Lebanese man (Simon Abkarian). The film is interesting, not just because of its relevant to current events, but also because it's entirely written in iambic pentameter...

In an open letter to Shooting People, the UK film-makers' network of whom she has just become the latest patron, Potter writes:

What is it that is so different about writing a blog, compared to other kinds of writing? It is a kind of improvisation where the search for precision and perfection is less important than raw immediacy, and where the moment is more important than the traces one might leave for posterity. As an experience it is closer to being an improvising musician and performance artist (which is how I spent most of my twenties) than the process of screenwriting with its endless rewrites.

I hadn't thought about it that way, but I see that she's right. I've been aiming always to produce blog posts which could (topicality aside) stand up as enduring writing, but I can understand that there is a more appropriate philosophy. As Judith in Life of Brian shouts: "Something's happening, Reg! Something's actually happening!"

That's what blogging is about, isn't it? Saying that something's happening. Here and now. Real-time comment. It seems very Zen, in a way.

So, fellow bloggers, just say 'YES'. Or whatever you feel like saying at this particular moment.