The 14th Anniversary of A Shroud of Thoughts

It was 14 years ago today that I launched A Shroud of Thoughts. At the time I had no idea I would still be writing this blog 14 years later. And in that time things have changed a great deal. In 2004 mobile phones were rather common, but the vast majority of them were feature phones. Smartphones existed, but they were well out of reach for the average person and I doubt most people at the time even knew they existed. Streaming media existed in 2004, but given most Americans still accessed the World Wide Web through dial-up, it really was not practical. Television was still dominated by the broadcast networks, with HBO producing some notable contributions. The era of such cable shows as Mad Men and Breaking Bad was still a few years away.

As to A Shroud of Thoughts, blogs were a bit of a fad in the years from 2003 to 2005. The news was all abuzz about them and it seems as if everyone and his or her brother had his or her own blog. It was a lady friend of mine who had her own blog that led to the creation of A Shroud of Thoughts. Looking at her blog I thought writing a blog might be fun and so I decided to launch my own blog. As to the title, at the time it was popular to give one's blog a title containing variations on the word "thoughts", "musings", and so on. I took the phrase "a shroud of thoughts" from Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage canto iii stanza 113 (I won't quote it here, but you can look it up). I later thought seriously about changing the name to something more fitting a blog dedicated to popular culture and nostalgia, but by that time the blog already had a few readers and I feared a title change might confuse them!

Over the years A Shroud of Thoughts has changed a bit. In the early days, in addition to posts about popular culture and nostalgia, I also included posts of a more personal nature. I soon cut those out, as I figured people were much interested in my personal life (not to mention I am a fairly private person). In the first many years of the blog I also wrote reviews of and articles about more recent movies and TV shows. I never made a conscious decision to stop writing such posts. It was simply a case that I am much more interested in older movies, TV shows, and so on.

Here I should point out that A Shroud of Thoughts is not the only old blog around, as there are several that over ten years still being published. Among these are Immortal Ephemera,  Inner Toob, The Stop Button, Laura's Miscellaneous Musings, The Rap Sheet, Thrillling Days of Yesteryear, and Out of the Past, among others. While it might be unusual for a blog to be 14 years old (the vast majority of blogs last only a few months, sometimes only a day), A Shroud of Thoughts is hardly unique in having been around for several years!

Every year on the blog's anniversary I post what I think were the best blog posts of the past year. Here then are what I consider my best posts from 2017-2018.

"The 100th Anniversary of Dean Martin's Birth" June 7 2017

"Richard Boone: A Knight Without Armour..." June 18 2017

"Les Diaboliques (Diabolique to We English Speakers)" July 21 2017

"Rural Variety Shows of the Late Sixties" August 10 2017

"WKRP in Cincinnati" August 18 2017

"The 50th Anniversary of He & She" September 6 2017

 "The 60th Anniversary of Have Gun--Will Travel" September 14 2017

"The TV Show Perry Mason Turns 60" September 21 2017

"The 60th Anniversary of Maverick" September 22 2017

"The Cisco Kid Was a Friend of Mine" October 7 2017

"Mad Monster Party? (1967)" October 27 2017

"The Devil and Daniel Mouse: A Canadian Made Halloween Special" October 30 2017

"The 50th Anniversary of The Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed" November 10 2017

"The 130th Anniversary of Sherlock Holmes" November 21 2017

"The 50th Anniversary of The Who Sell Out" December 15 2017

"William Schallert: A Man of Many Faces" December 16 2017

12/17/2017-12/23/2017 (A week of Yuletide posts and Audrey Tooter's 100th Birthday

"The 50th Anniversary of The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour" December 26 2017

"The Military Sitcoms of the Sixties" January 30 2018

"The 100th Anniversary of Ida Lupino's Birth" February 4 2018

"The Planet of the Apes Craze Remembered" February 8 2018

"The Hazel Scott Show" February 21 2018

"The Monkees: 'The Devil and Peter Tork'" March 24 2018

"Planet of the Apes (1968) Turns 50" April 3 2018

"Flash Gordon (1980)" April 13 2018

"The Superman Phenomenon in the Late Thirties and Early Forties" April 19 2018

"Our Miss Brooks" April 30 2018

"The Band Wagon (1953)" May 17 2018

"The Road to Hope & Crosby" May 19 2018

"The 50th Anniversary of The Prisoner's Debut in the United States" June 1 2018

"Captain Kronos--Vampire Hunter (1974)" June 2 2018