"This world is a cruel place...but it's also very beautiful." – Mikasa, Attack on Titan I spent the last part of 2024 and the beginning of 2025 watching Attack on Titan with my son. I'm glad he talked me into watching. As I said before, I'd seen parts of the…
"I ate the whole world, and I'll eat it forever." – Marina My annual write ups are my favorite posts because I get to focus on things that I love instead of the things that vex me. As always, everything may not have come out in 2024, but that's when…
An ongoing issue in the literary community is people weaponizing the language of social justice to excuse wrongdoing, which is not only tacky, but it minimizes real problems and weakens the language needed to discuss them. NaMoWriMo released a statement supporting the use of generative AI, and accused critics of…
A creative mind must be balanced by a disciplined body. Splinter Over five years ago, my sons enrolled in kenpo karate. Even though I've wanted to learn a martial art ever since the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie, an interest reinforced by Sonya Blade and later Buffy, it never…
“A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest, Granny Weatherwax had once told her, because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.” Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett Girls hear early and often the dangers of leaving home alone.…
If your adolescence was anything like mine, Saturdays were all about the orange couch. I'm talking SNICK - Nickelodeon's primetime line-up geared at then-preteens (now tweens) and teens. It opened with Clarissa Explains It All. She was funny and dressed in crazy outfits like Stacy and Claudia in The Babysitter's…
If you've seen my annual wrap ups before, you know I'm often playing catch up. Case in point, Nope (2022), Jordan Peele's brilliant homage to blockbuster creature features that holds up a mirror to society - it's no coincidence a character dubs aliens 'Viewers'. Nope has more in common with…
A son who enjoyed the movie raised his eyebrows and said "wut?" when I asked if it hurt his feelings. Amazingly the thirteen year old boy who loves rats, Fortnite, and the color pink did not identify with any of the characters, least of all the dolls, but understood the social commentary because he's confident and perceptive. Seems to me people feigning offense on behalf of men should give them more credit because the real offense is pretending this gentle hug of a movie attacks them. Kenough already.
Technology can be a useful tool to connect people. It can not be a substitute for connection.
All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain... Time to die. Rutger Hauer as Batty in Bladerunner The monologue including that line was ad-libbed by Rutger Hauer in the film adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. A lot of the novel's…