Category: Personal

A Day in Spain spent Mainly on the Plane – Aga-Boom in Barcelona October 2018

Aga-Boom BillboardThe theme for my weekend getaway with Aga-Boom was “Late.”

Here’s how it all went down: Continue reading “A Day in Spain spent Mainly on the Plane – Aga-Boom in Barcelona October 2018” →

A Survey of Some of the Best Science Fiction Ever Published (Thanks to Judy-Lynn Del Rey) | Tor.com

Reading a collection of short fiction from any given author is always a mixed bag. Same goes for an anthology of works by different authors centered around a certain theme or category. You might like some and some, well, they round out the collection.

But when you have a “Best of” collection, especially one curated by another well known writer or editor, well then, that’s a great way to start a good library. And that’s what Tor.com talks about in this article featuring A Survey of Some of the Best Science Fiction Ever Published (Thanks to Judy-Lynn Del Rey). While I’ve read some of these, and own several, a bunch more are going on my wish list.

Card Sharp: flashback to when Comic Creators delivered some ace playing card art for Childline – downthetubes.net

“Back in 2001, 65 of the world’s leading comic book artists illustrated a deck of playing cards to raise money for the British charity Childline, as part of the 2001 Comics Festival in Bristol.”

I had no idea about this, but as it combines my love of comics and my love of playing cards, I felt it was something I needed to let others know about. The whole story, Card Sharp: flashback to when Comic Creators delivered some ace playing card art for Childline, along with images of all the cards, is here courtesy of downthetubes.net and it’s great. It’s been 17 years since this happened and needs to happen again.

A True Titan: Six of Marv Wolfman’s Best Tales | DC

“Fifty years ago, an up-and-coming creator named Marv Wolfman turned in his first script, and though no one knew it at the time, the DC Universe was about to be changed forever.”

I first met Marv Wolfman in 1983, when he was a relative newcomer, having only been in the biz for about 15 years, and I was a 16 year old punk.

Since then, we’ve been friendly, we’ve broken bread and hung out and shared a number of laughs.

And he is defintely one of the formative writing voices of my own work.

Evidently, I’m not the only one who feels that way.

“So there was this girl…”

IMG_2003

Recently, I was asked by the Baltic Summer University to give a lecture about how I ended up in Lithuania. I titled the lecture Stranger in a Strange Land: How I went from All-American to part-time Lithuanian. That picture to the left is from the talk.

This was all well and good until it came time to actually start to put the lecture together and I realized I didn’t really know what I was going to talk about for 90 minutes. I mean come on, even if you had Neil Armstrong come in for a lecture, he probably didn’t talk more than 60, and he actually did something important (although, if you ask him, it weren’t no big thing).  Continue reading ““So there was this girl…”” →

Baltic Summer University and the birth of documentarians…

IMG_1990.JPG
Filming an interview

So for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been teaching an intensive filmmaking class for the Baltic Summer University. The class itself had gone through various permutations, since this was the first time it was being offered (and so, it stands to reason, my first time teaching it). Originally, the plan was to have the students break into two groups, with half making a scripted film and the other half doing a documentary. With only 5 students, however, that wasn’t going to work. Add in that four of the five were really interested in documentary work and we changed plans on the fly, eventually deciding that each of them would make their own 5 minute documentary.  Continue reading “Baltic Summer University and the birth of documentarians…” →

How YouTube Became the World’s Best Film School | WIRED

man holding clapper board
Photo by Martin Lopez on Pexels.com

Earlier this year, in a post called Two Side of Teaching, I talked about a student who wanted to know what I could teach her that she couldn’t learn from a video. I responded “not much” and then went on to explain my answer.  Continue reading “How YouTube Became the World’s Best Film School | WIRED” →

Elfquest and Comics without Superheroes

When I was a kid, and I started getting into comic books, naturally, my first inspirations were the superheroes. AAron and I would pull whatever was on the rack at the local Safeway, stopping for an hour or more on our way home from Kenny Guinn Middle School to sit and read. Continue reading “Elfquest and Comics without Superheroes” →

On Speaking English as a Second Language

Smart in Russian
A friend on Facebook posted this picture, which then sparked a discussion about speaking English when it isn’t your native language.

So here’s the thing: It’s hard. What this illustration points out is incredibly true. When I moved to Lithuania, I had no idea how to speak the language. Eventually, a few years after I arrived, I had the opportunity to take a basic, entry-level class.

It was hell.

Being a teacher myself, I would talk with my teacher who told me, after that fact, that when she saw she had an American coming in to her class, she was a little nervous. “I hate teaching Americans – any native English speakers, really.”

Now, mind you, the class itself was taught in English as that was the common lingua franca amongst the students, so the idea of speaking English wasn’t the problem.  Continue reading “On Speaking English as a Second Language” →