March 27, 2005
happy easter!
file under: my life
happy easter from elaine and rPm
Posted: 03.27.05 at 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 14, 2005
i am legend
file under: books
richard matheson wrote this collection of stories in 1954; the title is that of the main novella in the volume. i didn't read all of the stories, but 'i am legend' was enough to convince me of mr. matheson's talents as an author.
...
it turns out that matheson is about as prolific as writers get, although he may be best known for his work on screenplays for TV and film. notably, he wrote a classic Star Trek episode ("The Enemy Within") and my favorite Twilight Zone episode of all time ("Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," starring William Shatner as a man faced with a demon on the wing of his airplane, one that no one else believes is there).
who knew. i certainly didn't. thanks to ryan and andrew for making me aware of his stuff.
but i digress.
'i am legend' is a great vampire story, one not written in the typical gothic horror vein of anne rice et al (note: i read and enjoyed the vampire chronicles, so don't flame me for any perceived slight to ms. rice). it's a great story because the vampires are only a backdrop to the personal psychological hell experienced by the protagonist of the story. matheson writes with a spare yet affecting style, one that sucked me right in (so to speak).
if you're interested in a good novella, one that's a bit scary, read 'i am legend' and ask yourself, "what would i do?"
Posted: 03.14.05 at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
pajama-clad windbags
file under: thoughts about things
it's hard to pick up a major newspaper these days without finding at least one article about blogging or bloggers or these mysterious things called 'weblogs.' it's getting irritating, but i guess i'm gonna have to get used to it.
whether or not blogging is another burst of Internet–fueled irrational exuberance remains to be seen. personally, i doubt it. i do think blogging is getting a bit overexposed, though. and so do others.
i was reading the paper recently (which one, i don't recall), and there was an article about news and blogging, specifically about how some bloggers were making waves by breaking news items that other "respectable and trusted" news sources were not. at some point in the aforementioned article, one of the interviewees called bloggers a bunch of pajama–clad windbags (or the pejorative equivalent).
hmmm....pajama–clad windbag.
it's true that a lot of bloggers are clad in sleepwear while writing (case in point: i'm writing in my plaid flannel jammies at the moment). it's also true that a number of bloggers are windbags (not unlike a few journalists out there). however, the combination of the two terms is an unfair distortion; it dimishes the possibility that anything reaching the heights of journalistic integrity can come from the world of blogging.
this is clearly nonsense. after all, it doesn't really matter what you're wearing — anyone can be a windbag. in fact, it might be argued that some people consider expensive attire to be a license to spew hot, pompous gas. there's no correlation between clothing and content — just because someone can write while wearing pajamas doesn't necessarily diminish the quality of their writing, their integrity, or their thoroughness.
in my mind, it just demonstrates how little the people reporting about blogs actually have anything intelligent to say about them.
if people want to attack the substance of what people write, fine. that's the way it should be: criticize ideas, not people. or perhaps i should say, "criticize ideas, not distribution mediums."
Posted: 03.14.05 at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
