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Archive for the ‘Culture’ Category

Redefining Best

Posted in Movies, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 13 May 2013| 2 Comments »

Friday night we screened “Argo,” awarded the Best Picture Oscar™ by AMPAS, and through most of it all I could think was, “Really?”

Was it enjoyable? Yes. Was it exciting? Yes.

But “Best Picture”? No.

I haven’t even seen all of this year’s nominees, but I’ve seen two others from the list: Spielberg’s “Lincoln” and “Silver Linings Playbook”.  In that short, three-title list, “Argo” is third in my opinion.

“Argo” has many virtues. The costume and set design were top-notch. The art direction was quite good. The acting was (for the most part) very good. Where it falls down is in direction and screenplay.

Note: Spoilers follow. (more…)

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Painting the Elgin Marbles

Posted in Culture, tagged , , , , , , , on 10 May 2013| Leave a Comment »

My front doors are like the Elgin Marbles.

Our first trip to London, we planned a trip up to Bloomsbury to visit the British Museum. No surprise there, really, considering who we are (i.e., a couple of nerds). The day of our excursion, I was excited. All my life, I’d heard about the Elgin Marbles, one of the great statuary treasures of Ancient Greece, that resided at “The British.”

Problem was, I’d never read anything about them, didn’t know what they were, knew them only by reputation. I had imagined them to be this fantastic collection of free-standing figures–men, women, warriors, gods–all carved in glorious marble. I love sculpture, and looked forward to walking around them, taking them in from every angle.

When we got to The British, we spent time with the Egyptian collection, wandered past Assyrian masterworks, looked at a bazillion Grecian urns and craters. I was patient. I was saving the best for last.

We walked into the hall with the Elgin Marbles and my wife gasped in awe. I stood there, looking around. Where the hell were the Elgin Marbles? I even had the born-of-ignorance temerity to ask her. “Where the hell are the Elgin Marbles?” She pointed around the room. Right there. All around the room. On the walls.

You know, of course, as I now know also, that the Elgin Marbles are not a collection of free-standing statues. They are a collection of bas-reliefs, taken from the grounds of the Acropolis. They are the friezes that decorated the Parthenon, nearly 2500 years ago.

But at that moment, all I knew was this: they were not statues, not like the Nike or Venus in the Louvre. They were architectural pieces made to go up on a wall. They were not what I expected and then–idiot that I was–I compounded my stupidity and ignorance with a childish mistake: I pouted. It took a handful of years and another trip to London before I finally saw and enjoyed the Elgin Marbles for what they were.

My front doors are like that. (more…)

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Paint it Red

Posted in Culture, tagged , , , , , on 09 May 2013| 3 Comments »

A bit ago, I alluded to a project I’ve undertaken: refinishing the front door. Yesterday, that project took a bad turn.

Short version: We opted for a stain, but used one of the new water-based stains. The result was disastrous, and I was so displeased with the gummy, uneven result, that we decided to go to Plan B: Painting the door.

Painting the door was a last resort; I liked the look of the solid wood, even though it had aged some with the decades. But I just hated the result of the stain, so we switched gears and started talking colors.

Surprisingly, we both wanted to paint it red. Why? No particular reason. We just liked red. We’d seen red doors on houses here and around Britain and, though red rarely matched and at times even clashed with the color of the house, it always worked. Our house is milk-chocolate with a semi-sweet trim, warm in tone, so a red door would work well.

I mentioned this to friends and they told me anecdotes about the meaning of a red door.

Meaning? Of a red door? I’d never heard of a door color having any meaning. Curious, I did what I do: I researched.

(more…)

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Spit in the Ashes

Posted in Culture, tagged , , , , on 07 May 2013| 1 Comment »

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiI’m in serious Writing-Avoidance Mode.

May brings the first Mother’s Day and my mom’s birthday since her passing in December. Family business and concerns literally wake me up at night. My day job has been a frenzy of frustration and chaos. I can’t focus on anything requiring mental acuity for very long, so the garden and household-repair projects are all I can manage.

Writing? What’s that?

But I did come across this interesting article in the Washington Post. A new study has found that several words have a much longer history than we thought possible. (more…)

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Mint Condition, One Owner

Posted in Books, Hi Tech, tagged , , , , , , , , on 06 May 2013| 6 Comments »

Stack of BooksAmazon wants to sell your used ebooks.

Yep, it’s true. Amazon wants to sell your used e-books, and a lot of people are really, really upset by it. “It’ll ruin author’s livelihoods,” some say, and “It’ll destroy the publishing industry” say others.

BTFU.

Before we all go running through the streets with our hair on fire, let’s think about it for a second.

Amazon wants to sell you an e-book for your Kindle and then, once you’ve read it (or not), give you the option to sell it back to them so they can re-sell it to someone else. This allows them to sell it without paying anything to the publisher (and thus, the author), just as if it was a physical book…

Hey…wait a minute…

(more…)

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XX vs XY

Posted in Culture, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 02 May 2013| 2 Comments »

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiWhen I build my characters, I like a full picture. As I practice this craft, I get better at it. My pictures are more complete each time, and one reason for this is Observation.

Observation teaches two things. First, it shows me actual characteristics, physical and mental, that I can use to build my characters. Appearances, mannerisms, vocal traits, behaviors, they all add to a complete portrait. The second thing observation teaches is types. Yes, I’m sorry to say, but people generally can be classed into types.

Understanding types is important because, when I go against type, I want to know it.

Example: by and large, men are more into sports than women. Yes, I know…some women are sports nuts and I’m not saying they aren’t; I’m saying that, in general, men are more likely to have an interest in sports than women. So, will I never write a female character who’s into sports? No, I might do that in this next book. But if I do, I need to know that the characteristic puts the character in the minority. Why? Because if a character is in the minority of her peers, that might shape her, one way or another.

To this point, an interesting characteristic has been discussed on a couple of boards. It’s a characteristic I hadn’t thought of before, but it’s an important one. I’d like to share it with you, and get your feedback.

It has to do with men and women and the friends they have. (more…)

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Artistic Temperament

Posted in Culture, tagged , , , , , , , , on 29 Apr 2013| 2 Comments »

A recent episode of “The Good Wife” made me laugh out loud. (In case you didn’t know, “The Good Wife” is not a comedy.)

In the episode, the management at a (rather ill-defined) software development firm referred to their staff as “artists.” Yes, that’s right; we were supposed to believe that this firm not only believed that the job I do–variously titled Programmer, Developer, Coder–is highly creative in nature, but that this firm also chose to encourage that by building an atmosphere that was conducive to the artistic temperament.

It’s not that software development isn’t creative. It is.

I spend my day solving problems. As a software developer, you bring me a problem and I create a solution for it. That’s it in a nutshell. I create a solution. Oh, sure, there’s a bunch of other bushwa in there, like translating your problem from Business-talk into Tech-speak, like translating it from Tech-speak into something a machine will understand, like trying to break the solution through testing, but the kernel of this job is highly creative in nature.

What I found laughable is the idea that corporate management would recognize this. Anywhere. (more…)

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