Recently I’ve had anniversaries on the brain. It started with this blog post by Dayton Ward, where he ran through a list of film anniversaries — twentieth, twenty-fifth, right on up — that are being celebrated this year. You look at the list for 1982, the year that many critics consider to be filmed scienceContinue reading “On Annivesaries and Convention Panel Ideas”
Category Archives: Reading
On Revisiting the Hitchhiker’s Trilogy
Yesterday a package arrived in the mail. It was a book, Douglas Adams’s Starship Titanic by Terry Jones. Hardcover with dust jacket. A first printing, it looks new, even though it was published nearly fifteen years ago. And with that book I am ready. This year — this month, actually — I intend to rereadContinue reading “On Revisiting the Hitchhiker’s Trilogy”
On Guest-Blogging About Tennyson
While blogging here has gone from a nearly-daily thing to a twice-a-week thing (if I’m lucky — life’s become an endless deadline), today saw the publication of a guest blog post I wrote for Stuart Ian Burns, a blogger in Liverpool. Stuart asked me to ponder the two most quoted lines of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’sContinue reading “On Guest-Blogging About Tennyson”
On “Hobbes & Bacon”
I wasn’t the biggest Calvin & Hobbes fan in the world — no, in my family, that title goes to my brother; Peanuts and Bloom County/Outland were always more my speed — but I never didn’t enjoy Bill Watterson’s series. Still, when I saw a link on Facebook to a webcomic about Calvin’s daughter andContinue reading “On “Hobbes & Bacon””
On Ann Brashare’s My Name Is Memory
I read a novel because of Hawkman. As some may know, I love Hawkman. I think I love Hawkman more as a concept than as a character — there’s something indescribably awesome about a character who straps mechanical wings to his back, flies around, and beats the crap out of evildoers with his giant spikyContinue reading “On Ann Brashare’s My Name Is Memory”
On David Nicholls’ One Day
I’ve read a book I wish I’d written. The book is David Nicholls’ One Day, and it’s soon to be a movie starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. (Please Note: My thoughts on the movie are here.) I saw the poster for the film a few weeks ago when I went to see Winnie-the-Pooh, andContinue reading “On David Nicholls’ One Day”
On Kicking Out of Books
I have a rule. Some may think it a silly rule, but it’s my rule. If I’m not hooked by a book by page fifty, I abandon the book. I move on. Maybe, if it’s a really long book, I may stretch it out to page 100. Maybe, if it’s a book that comes highlyContinue reading “On Kicking Out of Books”
On Keeping Calm with Charlie Brown
I have to be honest. I don’t understand the fad over “Keep Calm and Carry On.” I see the phrase all over the place, and I know that it comes from an unused World War II British morale building poster (as I’ve had to write about it at work), and I know that it’s alsoContinue reading “On Keeping Calm with Charlie Brown”
On Attempting Ulysses Once More
Yesterday, a package arrived in the mail. It was the Dover edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses, a reproduction of the original 1922 printing by Sylvia Beach for Shakespeare & Company. Like many people, I have started Ulysses. Like many people, I’ve never finished Ulysses. I tweeted last night about the book’s arrival, and in theContinue reading “On Attempting Ulysses Once More”
On a Sherlock Holmes/Dracula Radio Play
Sherlock Holmes. Dracula. Two iconic characters of Victorian literature. One, the living embodiment of reason and logic. The other, a being of unimaginable evil. I never would have thought of Dracula as a Holmes foe, and then a friend of mine handed me Fred Saberhagen’s The Holmes-Dracula File, and I wanted to gag about two-thirdsContinue reading “On a Sherlock Holmes/Dracula Radio Play”