Don't just stand there...vote!
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Friday, November 2, 2012
New Fiction for November--Automaton
Credit: Oliver Brandt |
You can read "Automaton" here.http://www.innersins.com/
Friday Film Recommendation
I read film scripts for a living and there aren't many that capture my imagination. Two movies I recommended my clients buy are coming out tomorrow. You should go see them.
When I read The Bay, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. It's a terrific found footage film about an ecological disaster. Barry Levinson is the director. Michael Wallach wrote it. The distributor is positioning it as a horror movie, but I'd call it more of a disaster movie. If the movie is half as good as the script, it'll be worth your entertainment dollar.
From the trailer, it looks like the marketing campaign is really pushing a sort of Paranormal Activity vibe and that's not the way it was originally written. But I'll be in line.
I also read and loved A Late Quartet, which is a very different film and Oscar-bait for sure. It stars Catherine Keener, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken and Wallace Shawn. It's so uncommercial it's not even funny but a movie filled with great performances. It's a story about the coming of age and tensions among friends and all in all, it's a movie for grownups. Check it out.
When I read The Bay, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. It's a terrific found footage film about an ecological disaster. Barry Levinson is the director. Michael Wallach wrote it. The distributor is positioning it as a horror movie, but I'd call it more of a disaster movie. If the movie is half as good as the script, it'll be worth your entertainment dollar.
From the trailer, it looks like the marketing campaign is really pushing a sort of Paranormal Activity vibe and that's not the way it was originally written. But I'll be in line.
I also read and loved A Late Quartet, which is a very different film and Oscar-bait for sure. It stars Catherine Keener, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken and Wallace Shawn. It's so uncommercial it's not even funny but a movie filled with great performances. It's a story about the coming of age and tensions among friends and all in all, it's a movie for grownups. Check it out.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Halloween Fiction--Mutton Dressed as Lamb
A short little Halloween story:
MUTTON DRESSED AS LAMB
By Katherine Tomlinson
Vannetti
sighed when Bruce knocked on the door of his study. He could tell from the
sheepish look on Bruce's face that the reason for his unannounced visit was not
anything good.
It was
Bruce's first Halloween after his second birth and Vannetti had hoped he was
out on the town, making the most of his new status and moving about freely, his
pale skin and red-rimmed eyes dismissed as just another costume by the human
revelers.
"Yes
Bruce?" he asked, irritated by his passive body-language he displayed,
more appropriate to prey than to his position as an alpha predator.
"Um,"
Bruce said, which annoyed Vannetti even more. He hated indecision of any sort and verbal hesitancy drove him mad.
He'd been born into an aristocratic Venetian family that had valued intellectual
rigor. He'd been thoroughly trained in the art of conversation by his father's
courtesans and his mother's priests. Of all the changes that had occurred in
the long years since he'd been born into the blood, Vannetti mourned the
decline of meaningful discourse the most.
"I have
a problem," Bruce said and Vannetti sighed again, which is actually not
that easy for someone who doesn't need to breathe but a useful trick he'd found
to communicate his emotions noverbally.
"I need
to show you," Bruce said as he retreated from the doorway in the direction
of the Grand Hall.
Vannetti
wanted nothing more than to return to the book he was reading, but he knew
Bruce would give him no peace until he attended to whatever drama had been
created.
There was a
masked woman standing in the Grand Hall.
Her figure
was sublime, enhanced by a tight, long-sleeved gown of peacock silk that was
wrapped around her like a present.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Eye of the beholder
Water Lilies by Monet |
Wow.
Labels:
Jules Stein Eye Clinic,
Monet water lilies,
Picasso,
Raoul Dufy,
UCLA,
Van Gogh
Thursday, October 25, 2012
My vote is my own....
There are a lot of benefits to working as a freelancer. You can wear bike shorts or jammie pants all day. You never have to deal with office politics unless it's negotiating with your cat over who gets to sit in the big comfy desk chair. You don't have to listen to anyone else's choice of a radio station. You can sneak out to a movie whenever you want because as long as you get your work done it doesn't matter when you do the work.
I love being a freelancer.
And now it turns out there's another great benefit of being a freelancer. No one thinks they have the right to tell me how to vote. (Half my clients are in Europe or Australia, and they especially couldn't care less how I vote, although they do have opinions about who should be the next President.)
I cannot imagine getting an email like this one Mike White sent out to his employees at Rite-Hite suggesting they consider the "personal consequences" of voting for Barack Obama.
People who work for Rite-Hite can't just thumb their nose at their boss. And of course, they can vote their consciences, because how would White know how they voted? But the kind of not-so-subtle intimidation this email carried is outrageous.
I am grateful that my livelihood does not depend on my political convictions or on how I vote.
This election cycle has brought out some of the most extreme rhetoric and outrageous behavior I can remember. And it's not just the ridiculous and demeaning remarks about rape and abortion. It's the demands for birth certificates and tax returns and passport applications.
The most important election of my lifetime will be over in less than two weeks.
I've already voted.
And nobody told me what choices to make.
The choice was clear.
I love being a freelancer.
And now it turns out there's another great benefit of being a freelancer. No one thinks they have the right to tell me how to vote. (Half my clients are in Europe or Australia, and they especially couldn't care less how I vote, although they do have opinions about who should be the next President.)
I cannot imagine getting an email like this one Mike White sent out to his employees at Rite-Hite suggesting they consider the "personal consequences" of voting for Barack Obama.
People who work for Rite-Hite can't just thumb their nose at their boss. And of course, they can vote their consciences, because how would White know how they voted? But the kind of not-so-subtle intimidation this email carried is outrageous.
I am grateful that my livelihood does not depend on my political convictions or on how I vote.
This election cycle has brought out some of the most extreme rhetoric and outrageous behavior I can remember. And it's not just the ridiculous and demeaning remarks about rape and abortion. It's the demands for birth certificates and tax returns and passport applications.
The most important election of my lifetime will be over in less than two weeks.
I've already voted.
And nobody told me what choices to make.
The choice was clear.
Labels:
abortion rape,
freelancer,
Mike White,
Rite-Hite
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Running the numbers--Equal pay for equal work
One of the candidates for President does not believe that it's a problem that women don't make as much as men in the workplace.
A lot of people believe that the same candidate's wife, who chose to be a stay-at-home mom, said this about equal pay for women: "Why should women be paid equal to men? Men have been in the working world a lot longer and deserve to be paid at a higher rate." It's a great little soundbite, the perfect kind of quote to generate outrage but Ann Romney never said it. For info on who created and propagated the bogus quote, check out this post on About.com's Urban Legend's channel.
So maybe people should quit damning Mrs. Romney for things she didn't say.
Her husband, though, has said a lot of things on the subject and he just will not be pinned down by pesky reporters who keep asking him for his opinion on equal pay for women.
What is known is that he opposed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
(Who is Lilly Ledbetter you might ask. She's a woman who sued her employer, Goodyear, claiming she'd been paid significantly less than her male counterparts.
Here's a thought to take with you into the polling booth--Women college graduates make, on average, $8000 less a year than their male peers. Don't take my word for it, check out this article.
A lot of people believe that the same candidate's wife, who chose to be a stay-at-home mom, said this about equal pay for women: "Why should women be paid equal to men? Men have been in the working world a lot longer and deserve to be paid at a higher rate." It's a great little soundbite, the perfect kind of quote to generate outrage but Ann Romney never said it. For info on who created and propagated the bogus quote, check out this post on About.com's Urban Legend's channel.
So maybe people should quit damning Mrs. Romney for things she didn't say.
Her husband, though, has said a lot of things on the subject and he just will not be pinned down by pesky reporters who keep asking him for his opinion on equal pay for women.
What is known is that he opposed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
(Who is Lilly Ledbetter you might ask. She's a woman who sued her employer, Goodyear, claiming she'd been paid significantly less than her male counterparts.
Here's a thought to take with you into the polling booth--Women college graduates make, on average, $8000 less a year than their male peers. Don't take my word for it, check out this article.
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