Broken Lines: Coming in 2018

I’m very pleased to announce that my story Broken Lines is finally gonna drop early next year. This project has gone through (too) many incarnations in the last twenty-odd years (weird 1-page vignettes, then a comic I wrote and drew and never published, then eight issues of a comic/prose hybrid, then I rewrote the first six issues into a book, then I redid all of the art, then I threw out 97% of the art and turned it into an illustrated novel). Continue reading →

Movies I Watched From January to June 2017, With Brief Comments

A SPECK OF DUST – Sarah Silverman’s latest Netflix standup special. The story about her sister in the bathroom is very moving.

ARENA – Space fighting on a space station.

ARRIVAL – Good science fiction. Went in with low expectations and really enjoyed it.

BABY MAMA – Sometimes I forget that Tina Fey is not Liz Lemon and I am sad when reminded. I think I saw this when it came out? Dead boring; bad acting, gave up twenty minutes in. Is there a baby in it?

BASKETS (s2) – Chip seems to be becoming less of the main character, and less interesting. I still laughed a lot, and Louie A. is great, but the show seems to be drifting a bit in a way I might not stick with. Continue reading →

Fantasy Football? Online Casinos? Sports Betting? YOU BETCHA!


Recently, I received a tempting offer via email. What a wonderful business opportunity! A person named Ankit wrote me, representing a casino company. Ankit wondered: Could I write a minimum of 2 paragraphs relating to either fantasy football, online casinos or sports betting, while including a link to one of his company’s client’s websites? I sat and thought about it.

Could I write about fantasy football?
Do I have anything to say about online casinos?
Where do I stand on the issue of sports betting?
Continue reading →

A Critical Squint: Judging That Thing Your Friend Just Shared

A lot of recent talk around ‘fake news’ focuses on blatant lying and overtly partisan bullshit. Those sites are usually grossly apparent to people with brains, so I’d like to look at a different sort of example – plain old junk news. This is a mediocre flavor of fake news — pseudo-news sites swiping content and adding a little commentary. I thought I’d do a little case study on a link that recently popped up in my Facebook newsfeed. Continue reading →

Zhivago

Doctor Zhivago, a beautiful film, a troubling film. A timely film if you’re a person who feels the struggle between political life and a creative life. Giant red trains. Ice-encrusted homes in the mountains. A British cast portraying Russians for some damned reason. Invite thirteen families into your home to watch this classic film. It is more just.

zhivago

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Doctor Cumberstrange

Saw Doctor Strange last night. With all its spinny foldy landscapes, this was the first 3D movie I’ve seen that felt worthy of the 3D treatment (to be fair, I haven’t seen many). The bad guys were boring and paper-thin. There were, as always, plenty of non-Asian main characters appropriating bits of Asian cultures. A question I asked last night: Why would someone bother hiring Benedict Cumberbatch to have him be not-British? The spinny foldy bits were pretty cool.