To start...

So this is the first post. These are the firsts words and I'm just going to keep typing and hope it makes sense. I wanted to give myself a project, some sort of goal. A journey or quest or what have you. As I type this sentence I have already erased and restarted several times. I need to just move.
I chose the Modern Library 100 best novels list (http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html) and the American Film Institute 100 best films list (http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/movies10.aspx), and will be working my way through them simultaneously and in order. There are a few ground rules. I removed all the books and movies I've already read or seen. I'm trying to expand my set of references and reading '1984' for the dozenth time isn't going to do that. I have to go through the lists in order, I can't change it or save something for later or skip it up because I've been wanting to read it for like 6 years. The list of novels is actually two lists: the Board's list and the Reader's list. They overlap in many instances but are very different lists. And here is where I break one of my rules already, books #3,9, and 10 on the Reader's list are by L. Ron Hubbard. I can't. I won't. I wasted 3 hours on 'Battlefield Earth', the movie, that I'll never get back. Plus, the fact that he has three books ranked above Ulysses, Wise Blood, and Brave New World, sounds suspiciously like vote rigging by rabid fans. No thanks.
I'm ashamed to admit as an english major that I haven't read some of the novels on the list (The Sound and the Fury, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, On the Road). And I'm happy I'm finally making myself watch some of the movies (The Graduate, Vertigo, Midnight Cowboy). The silent movies kind of worry me only because they're the most removed from our time. I mean, they are SILENT. If one word could be used to sum up America in 2010, it would not be silent. Electric hum, sound machines, cars with no mufflers, clacking computer keys, jet wash, ipods, text message alerts, confessional reality shows, talking heads, etcetera ad nauseum. Nothing is silent. And then those movies come drifting back and my television stops talking...for just a little while. It might be nice now that I think about it.
But there is one beast on the threshhold that is looming already. It's massive, it's complicated, and it's probably out of my depth. Actually, strike the probably. Even the title is ambiguous and multi-layered. Finnegans Wake. I've enjoyed reading Joyce's novels and I've read them all a couple of times. I don't claim to understand them fully or get every reference packed onto the pages, but I think I've understood them and rightfully appreciated them for the most part. To clarify, I've read them all except for the Wake. And it waits there at #77, staring at me with defiant green drunken eyes.
I think that is enough for now. I can hit "publish post" and this will float out into the electronic stream and I'll officially be a blogger. In the end, I don't want to read these books and watch these films just to say I've watched them and read them. I hope I can learn something and I hope I can see them for what they are and actually take away a sense of the message their individual creators thought so important to pass on.