The Writer’s Market is to aspiring writers what seed catalogs are to aspiring gardeners-something to drool over and think about and have long, usually unrealistic, fantasies about. I bought my first Writer’s Market when I was in high school, submitted my first short stories and poems as quickly as I could roll them out of my old manual typewriter. What a lovely sound those keys made as they slapped the paper. I miss that once in a while. I soon moved up to an electric typewriter. I still refer to the Return key and get blank stares from people who…
Category: random thoughts
The Night Bookmobile
The second time I saw The Night Bookmobile it was another chance encounter. Something wonderfully odd happens to people who have huge bestsellers-they kind of lose their minds. Stephen King, James A. Michener, and J.K. Rowling all decided that having a base of reader meant they could crank out stories with millions of words. Other writers have decided that this means they have been touched by God and need to do a bit more preaching than they used to. And some decide to explore other mediums besides the boring world of the novel. Audrey Niffeneggerwrote one of my all time…
John Lennon-It was 30 Years Ago Today
For me the death of John Lennon was one of the frozen moments like 9/11. I was still a kid sharing a room with my little brother. He was listening to the radio and told me that John Lennon was dead. Only recently becoming an obsessed fan of the Beatles, and not yet that much of a fan of it’s componets, I was still greatly saddened by this news. To the die hard Beatles, there was always the chance that they would get back together. John said in an interview that when Lorne Michaels offered The Beatles $3000 to appear…
Despicable Me
The local second run movie theater charges $1.25 so you can see a movie already avaible on DVD, but most of the time, these are not movies you want to own anyway. So recently, the Dollar Theater has upgraded one of it’s screens to 3D and is charging another $2 for 3D films. This is not too bad a deal, though the theater itself is still way on the run down side and it isn’t stadium seating. But hey, what do you want for $1.25? Anyway. Despicable Me is the story of a Super Villian named Gru trying to keep…
RIP Leslie Nielsen
Leslie Nielsen refered to Forbidden Planet as a movie from his Donald Duck Peirod-and it is possible to hear a bit of fast talking duckiness if you listen carefully. Forbidden Planet was Leslie Nielsen’s one claim to fame before he found immortality on Airplane. Of course, the real star of Forbidden Planet was Robbie The Robot. Leslie Nielsen died of pneumonia at the age of 84. Airplane was an amazing movie and Leslie Nielsen was amazing as Doctor Rumack. His deadpan delivery was pretty much the same as his regular acting, only the lines were changed. Rumack: “Can you fly…
Code 46 Can’t Tell The Players Without a Genome Card
We open with several pages of legalese explaining that it is against the law to have children with people who have either 100%, 50%, or 25% of the same genetic code as yourself. At the same time we see Tim Robbins flying over a vast desert, which surrounds the city of Shanghai. Clearly something has happened, something bad. We are never told what this something is. We are given hints that sunlight is bad-so bad that everyone now works at night and sleeps during the day. We are also told that clones and test tube babies are common. And most…
How To Write a Post Apocalyptic Story
Apocalyptic fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction that is concerned with the end of civilization either through nuclear war, plague, or some other general disaster. Post-apocalyptic fiction is set in a world or civilization after such a disaster. The time frame may be immediately after the catastrophe, focusing on the travails or psychology of survivors, or considerably later, often including the theme that the existence of pre-catastrophe civilization has been forgotten (or mythologized). –Wikipedia You start with one Main Character who has either lost everyone and everything they care about, or who soon will lose everyone and everything they…
Now Is That Graditude?
Danny Elfman has gone on to great success as the composer of soundtracks, but back in the day, he was a rock and roller. The video for Graditude ws one of my all time favorites, right up there with the stop annimation of Big Time and Sledgehammer. I never liked Oingo Boingo, but I did really love this one song by Danny Elfman.
Being a Fattie is a Lifestyle Choice
While diddling away the random hour on Twitter I ran across a link to the Marie Claire blog post Should Fatties Get a Room (Even on TV?) I was amazed to find nearly 4,000 comments weighing in-sorry-on the debate about whether or not overweight people should a) have their own TV show, or b) be allowed out in public where anyone can see them. The post was kind of a silly bit of business, which I’m sure author Maura Kelly thought she was writing a bit of fluff. Think again. The topic of Mike & Molly soon faded as Maura…
Susan Boyle and The Beatles
Singing sensation Susan Boyle has a No. 1 album in the United States and the U.K. simultaneously for the second time in a year — a feat not achieved for more than 40 years. Her record label, Sony, says she is the first woman to reach the milestone achieved previously by the Beatles in 1969 and The Monkees in 1967.-AP My little brother was really into music stats at one time. He bought Billboard magazine and keep up with the Top 40, Top 100, and Top 200 charts. Back then there were only a handful of charts to worry about. …