The last time I published a post at this site was January 16, 2015, a little more than 2 years ago. Four months later I lost a job I’d had for more than a dozen years. And about four months after that my marriage fell apart. Two days after that I broke an ankle, which required surgery 2 weeks later. My father had died the year before and I couldn’t shake that grief. You get the idea. Misery, anquish, regret, doubt. Difficult days, difficult years. It felt like I couldn’t keep hold of anything I cared about, it all slipped from my grasp. The metaphor I grabbed onto for a while to explain how it all felt was “aeroelastic flutter,” which is
caused by positive feedback between the body’s deflection and the force exerted by the fluid flow. In a linear system, ‘flutter point’ is the point at which the structure is undergoing simple harmonic motion – zero net damping – and so any further decrease in net damping will result in a self-oscillation and eventual failure.
The collapse of the “Galloping Gertie” bridge in Tacoma, Washington is perhaps the most famous real world example of the phenomena:
But I’m back and I’m leaving all that fluttering behind me. No grudges, no discontent, no ill wishes, no dread, just healing and moving forward. I aim to make my remaining days count in every way I find meaningful and sustaining. That’s where Blog2L2 comes in. I’ve been making a documentary since 2013 about New Orleans chessmaster Jude Acers. If you’re reading this, you may have even sent me–and my documentary partner, Kaitlin Hanrahan–money so we could go to Croatia with Jude in 2013 to document his efforts in the FIDE World Senior Chess Championship (Thanks!). Despite my low profile this past year, we have continued to work on the documentary and I hope we can finish shooting and editing this year. In the coming weeks and months I will be publishing a documentary diary of sorts here. I’ll share video snippets and ideas about how all the bits might fit together to make a compelling and comprehensive documentary about Jude. My hope is feedback I receive here can help us make a better documentary.
To kick off this effort, feel free to download this PDF loaded with articles Jude has written over the years, as well as news stories about his public appearances: PDF.
Stay tuned for more to come, including a proposed documentary outline and related thoughts about the documentary’s structure.
In addition to restarting Blog2L2, I’m also trying to get the gang back together to breathe new life into B2L2, the site where I first published a long profile of Jude that launched this quixotic documentary effort. So keep an eye on that as well.
Jude’s Apartment from K&D Photo + Video on Vimeo.