SEO, UX, FX, Art, Interviews, Complaining
Summer 2022. Maria tells me about a microfiction contest. Naïve me takes the bait. “A story in 400 words or fewer?! How could you even...” I trailed off. My first attempt was “The Wind,” a sordid Hitchcock & Bradbury meet mutated-haiku tale set on an idylic college campus. It’s particularly terse, fewer than 300 words. … Continue reading The Chill Bill Contingency
Is our "good" just a thin coating? Veneer theory considers morals a cultural overlay, a thin veneer hiding an otherwise selfish and brutish human nature. Our author argues veneer theory can coexist with the Darwinian model.
In May 2001 I interviewed Ned Beatty at the 28th Athens (OH) International Film Festival. Ned passed away a few days ago. This interview, originally published in the Athens News, was read by many hundreds of or perhaps a few thousand people. Buried on one of my crusty, dusty websites for decades, it's time to … Continue reading Ned Beatty Interview
Or: How I learned about EVERYTHING from a coin. Who likes to collect money? I do! If you travel abroad, it’s not strange to see different sorts of money, but 35+ years ago when I first stumbled across a coin bearing non-Latin characters, it seemed a magical treasure. A mystery to be solved. So money! … Continue reading A Comprehensive Coin-based Curriculum for Curious Kids
Or: I used to write a weekly column. Big piece about coins and COVID in the works, kids, but it's been stuck at the 88% done mark for a few weeks. Maybe this'll help to break the blog content logjam? (It did!) Well, I actually have drafts of several mundane blog posts gathering digital dust, … Continue reading Me Writing About Me Writing About Me Writing
Perhaps influenced by Jonathan Richman, James Mercer frequently used the mall as lyrical metaphor. Well, at least for a few productive years he did. Before that, the mall was more mall than metaphor. ...At some point, Mercer and the mall had a falling out. The Early Mall Period: The Mall as Friend Know Your Onion … Continue reading James Mercer and the Shopping Mall
This is a film review. I promise. But when hack-writer prima donnas edit ourselves, we get to scribble a few unnecessary intro paragraphs for literary effect. If you want to skip the setup and get to the fake beef, click this to go to the meat of the review, slacker. But don't blame me when … Continue reading Review of Zombarella’s House of Whorrors
I found this story under a rock a while ago. (figuratively speaking) ...Which is fitting, because it's a tale of things hidden under a rock. (figuratively speaking) It starts on a farm My Granddaddy John grew up on a farm in Virginia. It was a big farm. It is possible that his family owned slaves … Continue reading WWII, Australia, Paintings, Families, Rocks
Here's the thing. The Drumpf movement is just making fun of somebody's name that changed when they immigrated to the United States. I have many friends with "weird" names, or whose Americanized/Anglicized names aren't the names their ancestors had a few generations ago. Should we make fun of their names? Are they worth less because … Continue reading #DumpDrumpf
A member of my stalwart Wednesday evening badminton crew introduced me to fifty-cent slice night at a local pizzeria. I was reminded of a pizza poem I crafted circa 1998. I think it's a metaphor, or something. I ate a slice of it for lunch I'd like to have some more I can not get … Continue reading Pizza Poem
Dan Dreifort 