Once, in one of my Drama classes, we got into a discussion about blackface. A lot of drama students are interested in musical theatre, and one of the ancestors of American musicals as we know them today is the minstrel show, in which white actors (and sometimes African-American ones, too)…
3D movies have never worked for me. Sometimes, they give me a fleeting sense of motion, but when I saw The Dark Knight in IMAX, I didn’t notice much of a difference from a regular movie screen. I remember seeing Spy Kids 3D and getting those cool glasses with one…
OK, as you may have noticed from the number of entries that mention the show, I’m trying to get into House M. D. I’ve watched a number of episodes. I like the way the characters interact and the witty dialogue. But every time I feel like I’m about to really…
I generally enjoy reading Richard Dawkins’s books. I find the man himself to be more or less reasonable in interviews (or, at least, as reasonable as everyone else I’ve seen). I share his skepticism of religious and supernatural phenomena; I share his belief that science really does bring us closer…
I’ve been working on some short stories lately, and I can’t help but notice a pattern in them and some of my novels: many of them are about how the main character comes to be the villain of the narrative.
Why am I writing a third entry on this theme? Because, man, it’s easier to write about writing than it is to actually write! Just kidding! (Well, not about the relative ease thing – that’s true. But the implication that I’m not working on my regular stuff isn’t.) So far,…
Last week, I blogged about writers having to balance between accepting other people’s criticisms and choosing what makes them feel best about their own story (and about how usually you can do both). As examples, I purposely chose some silly stuff: murdering circus clowns and being anti-letter-E-ist. But part of…
I’m reading a book right now on how to write mysteries. The author is clearly someone who prefers more hard-boiled stuff with lots of sex and violence, as he accuses mysteries without these features of being (respectively) repressed and lacking. (To be fair, if you read between the lines, he…
New Year’s never feels like a new beginning to me. I think it’s a combo of being Jewish and being a student: both the lunar year and the school year start in the fall. The real new year for me is the solemn liturgy demanding I reflect on my actions…
OK, I lied – these have nothing to do with New Year’s, except for the fact that I have lots more free time around this time of year and my parents like to watch movies, so I have a lot more filmic contributions this time. Porco Rosso (Studio Ghibli, 1992)…