Review: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Will Grayson, Will Grayson
Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of the things I enjoy about John Green’s work is that he absolutely does not believe in the Hollywood ending. This isn’t to say he believes in sad, depressing endings, far from it, but he doesn’t believe in the ending we’d come to expect from non-genre YA books. The ending of a John Green book (I’ve read 2.5 so far – this one being the .5 since it’s a co-write) gives the characters a reasonable resolution while not catering to convention or kowtowing to convenience. The other things I enjoy about his works are the complexity and extra-dimensionality of his characters. Now, I’m not saying they’re perfect books, but as someone far removed from the lives and ages of his characters, I can find something in them to identify with. Continue reading “Review: Will Grayson, Will Grayson” →

Pixar Cofounder Ed Catmull on Failure and Why Fostering a Fearless Culture Is the Key to Groundbreaking Creative Work | Brain Pickings

Book Cover

Not much really new here, but it’s all stuff which needs to be said, over and over again.

“Catmull begins by pointing out that failure, for most of us, is loaded with heavy baggage — a stigma that failure is bad and a sign of weakness, engrained in us early and hard.”

This is the result of “Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Words can hurt much more, and have a much more reaching effect than mere “sticks and stones.” Words can destroy us and keep us from being who we are truly capable of being. But at the same time, words can lift us up and and make us better than we ever thought possible.

It all depends on the words we use and how we use them. Words are important.

Pixar Cofounder Ed Catmull on Failure and Why Fostering a Fearless Culture Is the Key to Groundbreaking Creative Work | Brain Pickings.

15 Retronyms for When You’re Talking Old School | Mental Floss

15 Retronyms for When You’re Talking Old School | Mental Floss.

These are really interesting. I wonder how the relate, linguistically, with things like “Hamburger Meat” and “Tuna Fish” both of which have the addition of unnecessarily specifying to which group they belong.

It’s also an interesting conversation starter to think about which words are going to need Retronyms in the future. We already specify 3D vs 2D films, but I could see that becoming something we’d need to be even more specific about in the future. It might even become immersive vs. flat. What about books? Are we already moving into Retronym territory by having to specify print book instead of e-book?

In any case, I think it’s a fascinating look at the way we interact with the words around us.

DAVID Magazine: Paparazzi Me

David may 14My latest article for David Magazine is here.

This is the one I was talking about when I posted recently about the infamous Ellen Selfie.

There’s all sorts of other great stuff in this month’s issue, which marks 4 years of publication this month.

So, congratulations to Max and Joanne, Steve and Brianna and everyone else involved with putting out this consistently entertaining and award winning magazine!

Spring 2014: Day Four – The Magique of Disney

Peter PanThursday morning we had a choice. We had spent two very full days at the parks and seen most of what there was to see. The decision now was whether to forego the parks for a day in Paris or forego Paris and keep the trip Disney. We decided to at least start at Disney since we really wanted to see the Cinemagique show, which would be starting at 11:15 (and had been cancelled yesterday). Of course, since the parks opened at 10, this meant we could sneak in some other stuff before the show and then decide about heading into the City of Lights. Continue reading “Spring 2014: Day Four – The Magique of Disney” →

Spring 2014: Day Three – Movies, Moters and Magic Dreams

StudiosWednesday morning we were up bright and early… so early in fact, it made more sense to walk to the parks than wait for the free shuttle, which we did. Today was designated as a Disney Studio day so that’s where we headed, arriving at 9:30, a half hour before the park officially opened. This park is similar to the Studio park in Florida and parts of California Adventure in Anaheim, focused as it were around movie making so when we got in, walking through a Route 66 style road-stop (food and souvenir shops), we stopped at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine to decide what to do first. Continue reading “Spring 2014: Day Three – Movies, Moters and Magic Dreams” →

Spring 2014: Day Two – Dragons and Squids and a Dangerous Rain Storm

Welcome to DisneylandTuesday morning arrived early, but not as early as it would have had I been at home with the crazy dog! I got to sleep in to the absurdly late hour of 8am! We both woke up, showered and were able to catch the 9:30 shuttle to the parks (which was good since otherwise we wouldn’t know where to catch it to bring us home, and in light of later events, that would not have been good). Continue reading “Spring 2014: Day Two – Dragons and Squids and a Dangerous Rain Storm” →

Spring 2014: Day One – Flying High and Climbing Higher

La Tour EiffelOur trip started fairly easily. I was traveling with my friend Rasa, having decided I was going to go to Disneyland Paris (which is exactly the same as EuroDisney, but not allowed to be called that anymore) and she had decided she wanted to accompany me. It worked out nicely since going to Disneyland by yourself just sucks. So we did a little bit of planning and plotting and had decided that the three full days we were going to be in France (we flew in on Monday afternoon and flew out early in the morning on Friday) would be spent at the two Disney parks (Disneyland and Disney Studios) and so bought three for two day tickets and were ready to go. Of course, since this was going to be Rasa’s first time in France she asked if we could somehow see the Eiffel Tower, so we figured we’d do that on Monday, after we got to town. With all this in mind, we headed out early to catch a train to Vilnius, where our plane left from.

Continue reading “Spring 2014: Day One – Flying High and Climbing Higher” →

Review: Noah

noahWalking out of Noah, Darren Aronofsky‘s new film about the biblical seaman who saved 2 of every living creature so he could replenish the Earth after it was laid waste by god’s vengeance I thought if I had to describe the film in one word, that word would be “ic.” As a film, the music was bombastIC, the storytelling was didactIC and the overall filmmaking pedantIC. So yeah, -ic would be a good way to describe it. This is certainly not what I was expecting from the director of Black Swan or Requiem for a Dream. Granted, I wasn’t expecting much, but this was even less than that.

Continue reading “Review: Noah” →

Review: Pwned

Pwned
Pwned by Christa Charter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In Pwned, Christa Charter once again brings Sexy Sleuth Lexy Cooper to life with a mystery following hot on the heels of her initial outing, Schooled. Once again, Lexy is dragged into a mystery set amidst the high-tech world of video game systems. This time, Lexy gets involved because her paramour, Nate, the married father she can’t stay away from, calls and asks her to check on a member of the team who should be at the airport about to head for Japan… but isn’t. Ever the dutiful “friend,” Lexy heads over only to discover the guy dead on the kitchen floor, a single stab wound to the chest. Continue reading “Review: Pwned” →

Review: Her

herAnyone who says Spike Jonze‘s latest film, Her, is only marginally science fiction doesn’t understand the genre. It’s a remarkable piece punctuated by subtle, spot on performances, especially by Joaquin Phoenix and a beautiful meditation on what it means to be human in a digital age.

The plot centers around Theodore, a writer of personalized letters for other people at the company HandwrittenPersonalizedLetters.com (which, really, is a brilliant idea and one which deserves its own exploration). He’s very good at what he does, able to reach inside and pull out the best of people he’s never met based on a few snippets of information and maybe a photograph or two. Continue reading “Review: Her” →

Review: Perfect Pitch

Perfect Pitch
Perfect Pitch by Mindy Klasky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My initial disclaimer here is I was given this book by the author, Mindy Klasky, as a “thank you” for helping out with something else and she asked if I were to review it, to give it an honest review. That’s fair. Although my personal thoughts, generally, are that if I have nothing good to say, why say anything at all. My secondary disclaimer is that I’ve never read a romance before and baseball is not one of my favorite sports. And yet, here I am, writing a review about a baseball themed romance novel to which I gave 4 stars.

The reason is simple: I enjoyed it. Continue reading “Review: Perfect Pitch” →

Ownership of that Famous Selfie

selfie at the OscarsA few months back, almost a year ago now, I wrote a piece for David Magazine called “Yours or Mine” about Intellectual Property copyright law and who owns what and how that gets determined.

Today, while researching another article for David, I came across this piece from The Wire: Paging Bradley Cooper’s Lawyers: He Might Own Ellen’s Famous Oscar Selfie. It’s a fascinating look at the legal and real world implications of what modern technological trends are doing to IP. Especially when the picture in question can carry a price tag of upwards of $1 Billion US.