I was living with my folks the last time I saw the Ring Cycle on PBS in the US. I made my parents endure several hours of it before they said, enough! After all I had hi-jacked the TV for several nights. And I was in the middle of Siegfried, and well, maybe….. actually my [...]
Archive for the ‘writing’ Category
Which do you want? Love or Power: Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen Leave a comment
Writing Faith Workshop begins, Feb 10, 5-8pm, Whitehorse United Church 1 comment
How do you write about your “faith”? How do you describe the indescribable, the ineffable, the otherworldly? the grief or joy or miracle or peace or disappointment that you have because of your faith? Everyone can argue about the value or lack of value in “religion”–and it’s an easy connect-the-dots to create your own [...]
My short piece in Geez Magazine #24, “Privilege” issue, on coming out Leave a comment
Ironically, my pastor at RBC suggested I write for Geez magazine. I don’t think he imagined what piece I would eventually write for them. But here it is, Issue #24, on “privilege”. I wrote the fast version of my coming out at church. I centered it on the idea of privilege–of the privileges I had [...]
Characters with Something On Their Minds: the brilliant writing inside Deep Impact 1 comment
Recently, I re-watched Deep Impact, one of two “asteroids-going-to-hit-Earth” movies that came out simultaneously (the other being, the poor-in-comparison, Armageddon). Deep Impact builds slowly, and has amazingly drawn characters. It’s worth it to watch just to pick up some tips on character development. These are my thoughts after watching it. 1. Every character in the [...]
“Amina” Acid and the Ballad of Bill of Tom: deception in the pursuit of activism Leave a comment
What to make of the sudden revelation that two prominent lesbian bloggers, both activists, were really men? Tom MacMaster, an American student studying in Scotland, his subject Middle Eastern Studies, created the blog “Gay Girl in Damascus” as a way to give himself a voice in the debates about what was going on in Syria, [...]
How to Run Your Life as a Creative Professional–JC Herz’s Wisdom and Advice Leave a comment
Found this at Boing Boing (a site that’s like the proverbial treasure chest in your attic, full of both good and whimsical stuff). On May 6 2011, J.C. Herz gave the commencement speech at Ringling College of Art and Design, in her words, “the #1 art school in the country for computer animation and game [...]
X-Men vs. X-Men: First Class Leave a comment
Okay, I just had to re-watch Brian Singer’s original X-Men (2000) after seeing X-Men: First Class. I wanted to see how these two movies played off each other. Call XM:FC what you want–origin story, prequel–it still has to be a good movie. And I think Singer’s original X-Men is a much better movie than X-Men: [...]
Mob Rules and the Art of the Team Movie— a review of X-Men: First Class 2 comments
I saw X-Men: First Class last night. It was a good, solid action movie with stunning special effects. It moves and kept me interested. It never had me on the edge of my seat. It’s an origin story– it has to go through certain details to collect them all–but it doesn’t do it very interestingly, [...]
There Are Stories You’ve Never Heard, Brilliantly Told: a review of The River 1 comment
The Nudge, The Monument, and The Fan Base: thoughts about the endurance of writers 2 comments
Roger Ebert responded recently to an article by Cynthia Ozick written in the New Republic. So goes my reading. I get my Ozick from Ebert, but that’s ’cause I’m reading where Ebert is writing. I don’t have a subscription to the New Republic (but, alas, I should). Anyway, he quotes from her a lengthy passage [...]
