1. This week I held my first 'Classic Cinema Showcase' after-school meeting. The idea is to cultivate students' taste in cinema and fiction by showing them classic films and then explaining what makes them good. Our first film was Back to the Future, which they had all seen and liked, but when I started explaining … Continue reading Saturday Sundry: Back to the Future and Shikata ga nai
On Writing
Friday Flotsam: Christmas, ‘Avatar’ and ‘Rebecca’
1. A Merry Christmas! 2. It's been a very laid back, half-hearted kind of Christmas on my end, keeping with the whole of these past few months. The experience has been (so I imagine) similar to that of a functional alcoholic; there are good days and bad days, and a kind of fog over everything, … Continue reading Friday Flotsam: Christmas, ‘Avatar’ and ‘Rebecca’
Sunday Sundry: Principles of Unity
1. A bout of insomnia this week left me only half-rational, hence why this is extra late. 2. Unity – ‘Oneness’ – is one of the transcendentals: qualities of Being that transcend the Ten Categories. It is the ability to speak of something as a single unit or concept. Coupled with this is Distinction: that … Continue reading Sunday Sundry: Principles of Unity
Friday Flotsam: ‘The Running Man’ and ‘Epic’
1. Last week's movie night was The Running Man, starring Ahnold. It was more or less your typical action-sci-fi film of the 1980s: over-the-top violence, bitingly funny satire, mounds of creative energy, and a charismatic cast (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Conchita Alonzo, Richard Dawson, Yaphet Kotto, Jesse Ventura, Jim Brown, etc). It's not brilliant, but solidly … Continue reading Friday Flotsam: ‘The Running Man’ and ‘Epic’
Payoffs and Ripoffs at Noble Cobra Magazine
As promised, the written version of the talk I gave (to a tiny, self-selected audience) at Legend Haven is up at Noble Cobra Magazine: There is a passage in C.S. Lewis’s seminal essay On Stories which has informed a lot of my approach to fiction. It comes when Prof. Lewis is trying to describe what he calls … Continue reading Payoffs and Ripoffs at Noble Cobra Magazine
Friday Flotsam: Legend Haven, More History, and Some Storycraft
1. Legend Haven, the friendliest fiction convention in the galaxy, is happening this weekend, and I will be there! The con runs from Saturday to Sunday, but all my stuff will be on Sunday, the 19th. I will be hosting an open booth, ask-me-anything from 12-3 MST (so, 3-6 EST), followed by a discussion / … Continue reading Friday Flotsam: Legend Haven, More History, and Some Storycraft
Devil Stories
My sixth graders recently read through The Devil and Daniel Webster, which they enjoyed. For my own part, it struck me that the devil in that story is really less of the devil of Christianity than he is a fairy. He takes the role of Rumpelstiltskin, offering gifts, but at an unacceptable price, accepting the … Continue reading Devil Stories
Sunday Flotsam: Mostly ‘West Side Story’
1. Today was the week of the school play, and I've basically been working non-stop all week up until last night. The good news is that the kids pulled it out and really did a great job with the show. The bad news is that I now have to try to make up all the … Continue reading Sunday Flotsam: Mostly ‘West Side Story’
Bowser vs. Dr. Eggman
Death Battle is a web-show pitting fictional characters against each other in death matches. It's generally pretty entertaining, though it's sometimes a little uncomfortable seeing beloved characters getting eliminated (even if it's all meant to be hypothetical). The funny part is how much effort is put into the analysis, with extensive engineering calculations trying to … Continue reading Bowser vs. Dr. Eggman
‘Discarded Image’ Commentary Part 2
The second part of my commentary on C.S. Lewis's The Discarded Image is finally up. And this chapter gets into some very interesting territory. The Middle Ages, like most ages, were full of change and controversy. Schools of thought rose, contended, and fell. My account of what I call the Medieval Model ignores all this: … Continue reading ‘Discarded Image’ Commentary Part 2
Serpent's Den 