Great column by Stephen King in the New York Times at the end of Sept. on "What Ails The Short Story." Basically, from King's perspective, it's not that people can't or don't still write great short stories, it's that business concerns have driven short stories to the bottom shelf. The markets for them are failing, [...]
Continue reading about What Ails The Short Story? What’s Different About Today?
The milestones of age I notice most are those of my kids: first time to smile, to laugh, to turn over, to be able to locate middle C on the piano and play a C scale, crossing under with the thumb. Less frequently I notice my own. I'm always startled. Saturday, Aug. 25: Fishing waders, [...]
The kids have come of age. At least the two oldest ones have. They have both reached, this year, an age at which they will tolerate the reading of books with long chapters and few pictures. Tonight we began The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe – which I have been waiting excitedly to read [...]
Continue reading about The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe, The Hobbit, Ahhh, books!
So after playing with Twitter for a few days, I couldn't help but start thinking about fiction applications. I Googled Twitter fiction and found Twitter Fiction – the concept is to tell a story in 140 characters. Microfiction. Cool! What I was thinking, however, is how this might work for a long-format story. For example, a novel [...]
This month’s issue of Guitar World had a great piece that looks (through the eyes of the audio engineer on the sessions) at the making of Sgt. Peppers. The part that really struck me – the limits of the gear, especially the four-track recording that required so many tough decisions before bouncing tracks. Levels and [...]
MM (Mom’s Mom) Holds Isobel Originally uploaded by Ernesto and Kristen Burden. Kristen delivered her (no drugs!) at 6:28 this morning. Labor began, early stages at about 5 a.m. yesterday. Phew! Long day, beautiful baby – 8 pounds 8 ounces, 21 1.2 inches.
* Kris and I saw Pan's Labyrinth the other night - I mention it to recommend it; it was terrific. (Thanks, Rick, for pointing us toward it.) The movie is in Spanish, directed by Guillermo Del Toro, who did the Devil's Backbone (another great Spanish language film - one of my favorite ghost stories ever) as well [...]
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Kris and I saw Pan’s Labyrinth the other night
Continue reading about ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ Is Beautiful, Captivating
Kristen found this in Real Simple‘s list of free stuff the other day — BBC language resources (was that a hint about my bookstore habits as relate to Spanish language learning material)? In any case — great language learning material here for Spanish and a bunch of others…
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