If the 100th anni was a high point, let’s see out this decade with your news and pictures . . .
FRIDAY DECEMBER 16, will mark the 100th Anniversary of the founding of Variety in New York. It will also mark the rather more modest third Anniversary of Sime’s site.
Maintaining this web site, with its multiple pages of text and pictures, has been the joint effort not only of its founders, Peter Besas and Roger Watkins, but also of all those who have contributed to the site over the past years. Without these contributions – all unique and many of them beyond value – Sime’s site would have long since withered away and become meaningless.
The Centenary of the paper was successfully and magnificently feted at Sardi’s restaurant in New York on September 24, thanks to the generosity of Joan and Syd Silverman. So the challenge NOW is to keep the site alive, which can be done only with the cooperation and effort of all of you out there, the world around.
In essence this means YOU keeping in touch with us.
The nostalgia vein is, naturally enough, running thin. So let’s all focus on news, no matter how brief. We want to hear of YOUR activities – and that includes letting us have photos for publication in our Pics section.
If you have a new job, gotten hitched, are blessed with a new offspring, have won the Pulitzer Prize, published a book, won the marathon in your home town, or have decided to start a new company – all this is welcome grist for Sime’s Site’s mill. What you send will be warmly greeted by those who know you and, more widely, by those who are interested in knowing what you’re up to.
For our part, we will maintain our small slice of cyberspace, increasingly with help on the technical side from Ian Watkins.
Though for the moment we have no plans for further reunions (the last one took two years of planning and work), we will welcome your participation at the next Oscar sweepstakes and maybe at other events in 2006.
If anyone has any suggestions for promoting even more cohesion among the ex-muggs, or ideas for sparking added interest in the site, don’t hesitate to drop us a line or two.
Also, we still have plenty of leftover copies of the Souvenir Album, both in New York and in Madrid, so if anyone wants an additional copy, or if you haven’t received one yet, again, drop us a line and we’ll be glad to send you one.
It remains only for us to wish you all a happy Holiday Season and above all else, good health for the coming year.