It's All About Story...

 One of the things I run into a lot these days is, people don't read. I am not talking about the quick snippet on the great google machine, or the next greatest post from your favorite influencer, I am talking about literature. With regularity students in my courses, when asked what was the last book they read, will say, "..uh, I don't read." Actually, the response usually is, "you mean books? No." It breaks my heart.  Reading is one of the greatest remedies to the stresses of the world. I often have this conversation when students are suffering from artist's block. I tell them they need to step back and read. The look I usually get is like I have just fed them some camphor oil mixed with ipecac... yes, I wrote that. But it's so true. We need to let our minds relax and begin to paint their own pictures. Hard to do that when we are bombarded with images from the google machine all day. Sitting down with a good book allows your mind to disconnect from ...

Once again, too many years in between posts... my struggles with discipline are real... and also my really crappy ability to sustain a visible presence online. Which is odd, because I teach marketing. Doh. So, new thoughts, centering around Frank Herbert. When I read with the goal of transporting myself to some otherworldly realm, I gravitate more towards the Fantasy genre than to Sci-Fi. It's probably a 60/30 thing, most of my library contains works from authors like Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Robert Howard, L. Spraque de Camp (when writing Conan), Robert Jordan, Ursula K. Le Guin, Terry Brooks, Joe Abercrombie, Patrick Rothfuss, Brain Sanderson, Duncan Hamilton, etc... but I do have almost every work by Ray Bradbury, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and one book by L. Ron Hubbard. Yes, I read through "Battlefield Earth." Curse John Travolta for that crappy film... yes, I watched that as well.  This leads me to Frank Herbert's "Dune." This has got to be one of m...

  This is definitely a reading household. Between myself and their mother, my kids have been introduced to books all across the spectrum. So, it should come at no surprise that we have read through the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings books. As a matter of fact, Dad here is a total sci-fi and fantasy nerd. The four books that got that started: The Hobbit, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, and A Wrinkle in Time. If you have kids, I highly recommend setting aside some time on a Sunday evening and reading these to them. Anyway... I get caught up personally in linking The Hobbit & LOTR and the Narnia series to the messages we find in the Bible. Most of us know that J.R.R. Tolkien was a devout Christian, as was his good friend C.S. Lewis. These two wove their understanding of faith into their work, it's perhaps a bit easier to see it in Lewis' work, but it is there in Tolkien as well. Because I am the tangent King here, I will say if you want a g...

It has been 11 years. When I talk about discipline, I guess I am speaking to myself.  So, I used to have this theory that the insanity that is happening in the US of A dates back to 1977. Why? And How? Well you see, as a kid, I remember all of my friends playing, we all wanted to be the hero, the Lone Ranger, or Superman, the good guy. Then, in May of 1977 all of that changed. George Lucas turned us all to the dark side. Suddenly no one gave a rats patoot about being the hero, everyone wanted to be Darth Vader. I mean everyone. No one even cared who Luke Skywalker was.  I remember it explicitly. I lived in Bonn, Germany at the time. A New Hope wasn't actually released in Germany until February of 1978, so I had heard about Star Wars, but didn't get to see it until early '78. The following weekend on the playground at recess, everyone wanted to be Darth Vader. I remember it so vividly because we were all running around breathing into the cold air and feeling that being able ...

One of my colleagues has just sent me a link to a new blog called ...Pencil Test Depot , a wonderful collection of pencil test animations from some of the greats. If you love animation and would like to see how it is done then click the link above.

At long last one of my favorite Robert E. Howard characters will have his own movie, view the trailer here . The film, directed and written by Michael J. Bassett (with help from Howard of course) couldn't get any funding anywhere, dunno why, perhaps the Puritan (omg did he say Puritan?) nature of the Kane character scared off all of the big production studios. So Bassett shot this whole thing on a skeletal budget and mostly out of his own pocket from what I understand, remember that as you watch the trailer. Official release for the US is September 24, 2009 at the Austin Fantastic Fest. As far as I know there isn't going to be a theatrical release, so this means straight to DVD. Damn shame, but this movie should be fun! Update - 2023 - 14 years later... yeah, the discipline thing is weak with me. I bought this movie on DVD. It's dark, moody, sometimes horrific in nature, but worth the watch. I think Bassett was in the process of making a great film, and then realized, ...

Our newest addition was baptized yesterday. Penelope (Pippa) Aiofe. She was awesome, as were her mother, siblings, family and friends.