Five years and counting . . .

A scene from last year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

It's that time of year again - so here's a sincere wish for a Happy Thanksgiving from me to you.

I also thought it was worth noting (in passing) that this is the fifth Thanksgiving for the Hub Review. Yes, on November 15, 2006, under the banner "Welcome to the Hub Review," I posted the following:

You've found it - the only site devoted to Boston (high) culture that tries to cover everything that matters (at least to me). Yes, I'm elitist. Yes, I'm gay. If you don't like either of those things, there are plenty of middlebrow-religious-hetero sites around to tickle your fancy. So get outta here and go crazy. Just don't whine that my standards are too high or that I'm a pervert threatening the arts or what have you. 'Cause I don't put up with that you-know-what.

As you can see, the tone was there right from the start.  I think that post had about twenty readers - basically, my close friends and the folks at the office who knew I'd begun blogging.  Now I reach about forty or fifty times that many - still a small audience, but a pivotal one, I believe.

Or at least a lot of people seem to think so.  For this has been a rough year, frankly, for the Hub Review - I've always gotten personal threats, but for the past two years or so there was a concerted effort afoot to silence me from various powers-that-be on the local scene - an effort which came to a head last spring.  Things looked pretty dark for a while; but it turned out I had plenty of supporters, too.  (I think the most common thing I heard from readers this year was, "I don't always agree with you, but you're the only real critic Boston has.")  So I hung in there, and rest assured, things seem to have turned a corner - I'm still here, and hope to be so for the foreseeable future, with, perhaps, more influence than ever.  And at least I think that's something to be thankful for.