Raising a Toast for Fan Fun with Damian Lewis

Hello All, Damianista here!

I told you in our anniversary post that one person that has been here since the inception of the blog is Lewisto. He is the one that named this blog (Oh, yes! He said: “You are a big fan and you will be doing this for fun so why not call it Fan Fun with Damian Lewis?”) as well as the one who brushed away my worries about fan blog possibly being a crazy idea (Oh, yes! He said:“Some people love golf. You love Damian Lewis. What’s the difference?”). Just being the rational guy that he is, he suggested I run with this only if I thought I could commit for at least two years so it would be worth the effort. I said I could do that and so this anniversary feels extra special.

In case you missed it, Lewisto guest-blogged earlier here about why he is a Damian Lewis fan! And, weeks before our anniversary, he told me he now wanted to guest-blog about why he is a Fan Fun with Damian Lewis fan 😀 Well, what would you do if your partner asked to write a love letter to your blog? Yes, exactly! Go ahead, hun! 

Being a fan requires love for life, passion for something –in this case, shall we say passion for art, specifically Damian Lewis’ art- a little bit craziness and a lot of courage; yes, courage, because in the boring daily lives of most of us, being a fan is not cool at all. And when done with a dash of wit, this is what we the lucky folks get: Absolutely the most original, most creative, most intelligent, most productive, more importantly most fun fan blog ever! No wonder Fan Fun has become the largest Damian Lewis fan community in a very short time!

This is true. I have not come across (not that I search for one every day, but…) and cannot imagine another fan blog with this level of sophistication and wit. The Ladies at Fan Fun are creating their own folk art by showing a new way of enjoying art: A new way that is full of original content, and without being pretentious. A new way that draws a bigger picture around Damian’s work by connecting cultural, literary, historical and personal dots that are so close to us. And doing it in a genuinely fun way, like a kid curious about what is going to come out of a dot-to-dot puzzle. Well, those Ladies must have kept their inner child alive, no?

Speaking of folk art, I liken the work at Fan Fun to the British street artist Banksy, actually:

First, pretty much nobody knows who Banksy is and I love the fact that the Ladies also use aliases on the blog. Most importantly, Banksy’s art is unpretentious, yet meaningful and full of content that is very close to us: A little girl body-searching a soldier, girl as symbol of innocence, soldier symbol of violence, and a simple yet powerful image of our very desire for peace. Or the forgotten and unloved city rat draws a heart on the wall…

I see such powerful expression on the blog every day. The Ladies use content that we are familiar with, a movie or a play that we might have seen or heard of somewhere, a book that might have shaped our childhood dreams, historical and contemporary events that have touched our lives, works of others that we might have appreciated at some point, tricks (or shall I say, language) of the film industry that we are constantly exposed to. They do investigate for content that none of us might be aware of. They present all that information in the most fun way and show us how all that translates into Damian’s work, man, even the soccer he plays — Soccer Aid, to be precise.

Can you imagine a better way of enjoying art, really? I mean, the wine folks, for example, have been trying that, they have yet to find a way not to sound pompous (hey, no offense, I am a wine lover, too; and in just one quick sniff, I get all that smell of cement, a little rust here, some leather and tobacco there, strawberries, sometimes cherry and plum, tell me) The Ladies have figured it out!

It is an impossible task to select the best from an abundance of fun and high quality writing and I will not attempt to do it. Yet, here is my sample:

Damianista loves going pretty deep into characters. For example, here and here, she derives from her own experience of losing her dad at a young age  in order to uncover Bobby’s experience, understand his motives as well as the process in the writers’ room.

Then she digs an unbroken love out of the broken relationship of Brody and Jess here. True, they kept loving each other until very late, and may be even after, but I could see it only after reading Damianista’s analysis. Brilliant! Definitely not the first time that I went back and watched an episode again after reading reviews here.

With the range of emotions she can cover in a single post, JaniaJania digs into Damian Lewis’ career and acting a bit here, then into Shakespeare, then carefully dissects a reading from Shakespeare by Damian, making a convincing case that the world needs Damian playing more Shakespeare. A brilliant analysis indeed.

A while ago, JaniaJania argued that Damian is the true successor to Laurence Olivier. Later I saw this argument popping up in a media review, I bet she might have inspired some of the reviewers 🙂

With her amazing attention to detail, TBkWrm connects the dots here and finally it all makes sense. Bobby Axelrod is Peter Pan, the boy that never grows up, and well, Wendy is Wendy. As one fan puts it, FanFun-tastic!

Oh, she is an insider inside out. Lady Trader brings in her experience of September 11 as well as her expertise in trading here and makes me finally understand the big boy in Bobby. It could not get any personal than that, and it could not get more explanatory than that of Bobby’s feelings and actions. What a sincere and beautiful story telling!

As a stage performer herself – how fun it would be to see her on stage- Holliedazzle gets deep into Damian’s acting techniques here. She simplifies the terminology of body language and decodes Damian’s acting. It is a must read for anybody who wants to enjoy Damian’s work at a deeper level. Simply wonderful!

In JaniaJania’s words, “Creativity is a strange beast. At its narrowest definition, it is the skill of creating something original and new using nothing but one’s imagination. But that would exclude a lot of us from the act of creativity, wouldn’t it?” Not The Ladies at Fan Fun!

But wait! creativity is only one part of the story. When Damianista came up with the blog idea two years ago, I knew she would create something very fun and very original at the highest quality. And I also knew she would keep doing it and here we are two years later. Damianista, for me, is the definition of endurance. She never quits. Really, I encouraged her so much to quit at certain important junctions in our life, she did not do it, will not do it. She will not quit. Endurance, for me, now expands to the whole Fan Fun community. The Ladies keep rolling the drums, the community keeps growing even bigger, the fans keep sharing the fun and sending their love. What an experience to have in two years, WOW!

So here comes my toast for you, Ladies! I salute you and the brilliant work you are doing. Thank you!

My second toast is for you, the very reader, the crazy, the fun, the young, the old, the male, OK mostly female, the American, the British, the Brazilian, the Arab, the Nigerian, the French, the Polish, the Moroccan, the Canadian, the German, the Italian, the Argentinian, the Indian, the Russian, the Turkish, wherever you are coming from to Fan Fun. Because I know first-hand that you are the very reason and as essential for The Ladies’ continued work as Damian’s art.

Happy Anniversary!