Otanjohbi omedetohgozaimasu, Kiyoshi Kurosawa! Saturday, July 19, marked Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 53rd birthday celebration and over at The Evening Class I'm giving him something of a belated birthday party by hosting the Kiyoshi Kurosawa Birthday Blogathon, kicking off this coming Friday, July 25, 2008 and running through the week until Friday, August 1, 2008. Todd has given me permission to invite the Twitch readership to the party.

For those of you unfamiliar with the blogathon phenomena, blogathons are the brainchild of Girish Shambu who hosted the first blogathon (orginally termed a "blog orgy") at his eponymous site on Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls. The experience was a winning one and, since then, blogathons pop up as frequently as ... well ... you fill in the blank.

Basically, this is how they work. If you have your own blog or website and want to write a piece on Kiyoshi Kurosawa, just let me know and I'll link it into the Evening Class birthday blogathon. If you don't have a site but still wish to contribute, contact me by email or through the comments section when the party begins and I'll do my best to post an entry for you. By way of further example, the last blogathon I hosted was on producer Val Lewton. The experience was so enjoyable and productive, that I've decided to follow through with the Kiyoshi Kurosawa Birthday Blogathon. I hope to see some of you there!