I’m sitting on a park bench, part of the massive flock of tourists surrounding the cathedral. A French woman approaches, situates herself on the second half of the bench, and commands her boyfriend to sit in the spot where my bag rests. I take the hint and move the bag. The boyfriend doesn’t sit, even though she tells him to do so a second and third time. While he stands and snaps a few photos of the park, she delivers a steady stream of concerns about the unfulfilled aspects of their Barcelona ...

The Black Cauldron, the Twits, some discussion of The Island of Dr. Moreau, and picture books

I've been revising a screenplay that I originally drafted many years ago with some combination of physical index cards and Scrivener. Now, I've converted it to Fountain, and plopped it into along with this handy plugin. Although the plugin does have a PDF export function, afterwriting.com is kind of amazing for getting the format just right. It also has an option to export for mobile/Kindle reading.

My favorite art teacher, Ben Stahl, said that Nature is an artist but only [a human] can make art. Remembering more of my life allows me to make greater art of it. There's stuff I don't like, stuff I do, and every day I go through a process of recombining all the elements in ways that feel better and more meaningful to me. I woke up remembering the feeling of a snow day. That feeling is so good. Like, we're all gonna take a break from this charade we call school, we're gonna hang out, we're prob...

Here I am at a lovely apothecary in Lyons, Colorado. I’m drinking magic tea with honey in it. In front of me is tiny tiny tea set. I pretended to make tiny tea. The invisible sugar, cream, spoon — how are those more real than the tea I’m drinking?

friendships from the early Internet

Island of the Blue Dolphins, by Scott O'Dell, scared the shit out of me as a kid. The setting is often primal, wet, and chilly, the main character is isolated from everyone she’s ever known, and I was haunted by the image of her little brother being killed by the wild dogs that roamed the island, and the threat that they consistently present to her as each day turns to night. Only by recently revisiting the story was I able to appreciate its other dimensions and O'Dell's masterful storytelling. ...

And why I think this film belongs in the fantasy genre

I made this arrangement in appreciation of Sean Lock. Thank you for making me laugh when I really, really needed it.

plus a surprising revelation

Why Jaws is so good: It's a subliminally effective war movie. Quint's monologue reveals a poetic displacement submerged deeply in the film.

These stories are relevant to any modern person trying to find their own standpoint within a culture that thinks that war is a viable solution to its own illness.