Tensions

Once again, I find myself amazed, puzzled, and a bit dismayed at the continuing evolution of Opus. When I started Opus 5 or 6 years ago, I never had any intention of doing a webzine. It was just a way for me to better my HTML and design skills and use those to communicate with friends of mine. That’s also why I started writing music reviews; not to be a critic, but to tell friends of mine about cool new bands that I’d discovered. I guess I figured it was easier than writing them each an e-mail.

But now look at this thing! Honestly, there’s always this nagging impression that, at some point in the past, I bit off a little more than I could chew. Sometimes I stare at the growing stack of CDs on my desk or the list of unanswered e-mails in my Inbox wondering why I haven’t reviewed this or that CD, and I wonder just what I’m doing.

There’s always this tension between the “professional” and “personal” sides of Opus. The “professional” (for lack of a better term) side of Opus demands that the site be constantly updated, functional, and run with journalistic integrity (whatever that is). The “personal” side wants to be able scrap the design on a whim and start all over without thinking if anyone has to navigate the dumb thing, to ramble on and on about personal B.S., and post goofy photos of my friends and me.

But deep down, those sides both flow from the same source, the same desire… to write about those things that I find valuable, exciting, and enlightening in hopes that others might see them that way as well. It could be a CD, a movie, or maybe just a photo of my friends and I enjoying steak and beer on the front porch. Those sorts of things don’t require deadlines or usability, which I’m grateful for. However, the fact that Opus has grown so big and popular in the past year demands that there be some sort of method behind the madness.

Suffice to say, I’m still learning how to run this site. In some ways, it’ll probably never be everything I want it to be. But in other ways, it’s been more than I ever thought possible.