As ever, Brian Lamb not only draws the community together, but provides its most heartfelt and eloquent history. It’s a gift.

My thanks to Brian for all his encouragement and support, as well as to Jim and D’Arcy for being such cool-cat collaborators in our NMC Online Conference session today. Jim and I even had a brief intimate moment of cross-editing our presentation wiki this morning; we share some obsessions, it’s true.

Brian’s already characterized D’Arcy’s and Jim’s contributions far better than I could. He’s also pointed to the crucial contributions of the indispensable CogDog himself, Alan Levine. All I can add here is a humble and slightly awed testimonial.

When a roaring flame goes out, the room can get awfully cold all of a sudden. When the fire starts up, even fitfully, it’s a welcome moment of returning warmth. Last night, as I went through the wiki of nominations and started to think inside the material instead of about it, some of that old fire sparked up a bit. I didn’t want to go to bed. I got more ideas. For a minute or so, the last nine months melted away. Brief as it was, it was a very nice surprise. 

Brian, Jim, D’Arcy, I owe you. Thanks for the invitation. 

P.S. I’m delighted that one of my film students, Brad Efford, has already jumped in with a contribution to the wiki page. I hope he’s the first of many.