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 |    My primary Writing.com blog. |
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Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics). Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:  "The Soundtrackers Group"  "Invalid Item" "Blogging Circle of Friends " "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" "JAFBG" "Take up Your Cross" Thanks for stopping by!  |
| To qualify for my Watch List every month, the following has to be something that I've watched that's new to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a current show, but it can't be reruns or rewatches of something I've already seen. So if I'm including it in this list, it means this month is the first time I've watched it. I'll put "DNF" (Did Not Finish) next to anything that I stopped watching and have no immediate plans to finish. Movies  Haunted Mansion (2023) (DNF) Heist 88 (DNF) Hotel Artemis The Invisible Man (2020) Reptile (DNF)Television Fleabag (Season 1) The Morning Show (Season 2) Parks & Recreation (Season 1) Star Wars Rebels (Season 1) Super Pumped: The Battle for UberOn the movie side of things this month, I ended up DNF'ing quite a few because they were honestly just really boring and failed to spark any interest after a half hour or more of watching. I finally got around to watching Hotel Artemis which was one of the very few movies that I worked on during my ill-fated four-month stint at a former company... and I can't really say that I missed all that much by waiting five years to watch it. And I had heard great things about The Invisible Man remake, but I have to admit that I didn't really love it. Overall, I can't really point to any of the movies I watched in October and say that I loved them or I'd watch them again. For television, there was a lot of stuff that was pretty good ... the current season of The Morning Show is a lot more compelling than the second season, and Star Wars Rebels is a great animated series that was the basis for the live-action Ahsoka show that I enjoyed watching last month, so I was really excited to watch (and not at all disappointed by) the animated series it was based on. I wasn't as impressed by Fleabag as a lot of other people seem to be, but it's a short series so I'll probably finish it up just to say I watched it, and the first season of Parks & Recreation was... not very funny... although I've heard that it's very similar to The Office (the US version) where the first couple of seasons aren't as funny as later on when you get to know the characters and care about them. My favorite show this month was probably Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber. I'm a huge fan of biopic limited series, it stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and it's written by the guys who created Billions so it was just an all-around well done series. I've heard it's actually going to be an anthology series where each season will take on a different story from the business world, and a different company's origins. If they're all as good as this first season, I'm all for it. TOP PICK: Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber |
| Today, November 1st, is National Author's Day. This year, I thought I'd dedicate it to some of the authors I've ready recently (i.e., this year) and what I find compelling about their work. By design, I've read considerably less this year than in years prior, so I don't have a huge selection of books to choose from, but there are still a couple authors that I want to talk about. Blake Crouch. I haven't read a book of his that I haven't enjoyed yet, and each one has tackled a complicated, vastly different subject matter. Crouch has a way of taking a general idea (time travel, the many worlds theory, nanotechnology, etc.) and building it into a believable narrative with compelling characters. He's also really good at pacing and not bogging down the narrative with too much detail despite the extensive research he's done (something a lot of writers try to do... show off all the homework they've done on a book). Honestly, Blake Crouch is the closest approximation I can think of to an idealized version of myself as a writer. Someone who can take a "big picture" idea, make it accessible to the average reader, and do it in a way that doesn't sacrifice the quality of the characters or their narrative. I can't recommend his books highly enough to people who are fans of complex (but not obtuse) science fiction. John Mark Comer. One of my favorite Christian authors and thinkers today, I like him in the nonfiction space for a lot of the same reasons that I like Blake Crouch in the science fiction space; Comer is always coming up with compelling, thoughtful books on a variety of topics. He's tackled concepts like spirituality in a world consumed with hurry, finding identity in the everyday lies others tell us and we tell ourselves, and dealing with afflictions like anxiety and depression through a religious lens. His writing is both casual and insightful, making it really accessible for both Christians and nonbelievers alike. He has a new book on spiritual formation coming out early next year, and I'm super-excited to read it and see where he goes with that book. I've also read a few books by Brandon Sanderson this year (the secret novels from his record-breaking Kickstarter campaign), but I wasn't terrible impressed with them. Sanderson is probably on my all-time list of most influential writers because of his contributions to the fantasy and science fiction genres (both his books and his writing resources like his classes and his podcast), but the stuff that I read this year isn't even close to his best work (IMHO) so I have a hard time including him on a list of current-year faves. I still have a few authors left on my to-read list this year that have the potential to end up high on my year-end list. I'm excited to read Originals by Adam Grant (an author I've been meaning to read for a while), and Rick Rubin's book on creativity is still sitting on my bookshelf. I'm starting to get back onto a nonfiction kick with my reading, so I'm starting to gravitate toward books and authors that have done interesting work and thinking on particular topics. I have two months left in the year to meet my reading goal of 50 books (currently at almost 40), so stay tuned!  |
| To qualify for my Watch List every month, the following has to be something that I've watched that's new to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a current show, but it can't be reruns or rewatches of something I've already seen. So if I'm including it in this list, it means this month is the first time I've watched it. I'll put "DNF" (Did Not Finish) next to anything that I stopped watching and have no immediate plans to finish. Movies Benji (2018) Heart of Stone Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch The Out-LawsTelevision Ahsoka (Season 1) Billions (Season 2) Special Ops: Lioness (Season 1)None of the movies I watched this month were any good. Heart of Stone was an okay action/thriller but ultimately not very original or terribly exciting, and The Out-Laws had some potential as a comedy but really went for predictable, lowest-common-denominator humor and fell pretty flat as a result. The television shows, on the other hand, were all good in their own way. The second season of Billions was just as good as the first, if not a little better because the characters were familiar and it was fun to see them grow (or not) in their own ways and butt heads with one another. Special Ops: Lioness had a really lame first episode, but subsequent episodes really picked up and it ended up being a really well-done show. As much as Taylor Sheridan annoys me, the man knows how to write compelling television.  And Ahsoka was a pleasant surprise. After some pretty lame recent movies and television series, the Star Wars franchise has really found its footing again, first with Andor and most recently with Ahsoka. It got me excited to watch Star Wars again, and to watch the Star Wars Rebels animated series that this series is a sequel to. I'll write more about the plot once I watch those, because it's one of my favorite Star Wars stories and I want to see how it unfolds.TOP PICK: Ahsoka |
| To qualify for my Watch List every month, the following has to be something that I've watched that's new to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a current show, but it can't be reruns or rewatches of something I've already seen. So if I'm including it in this list, it means this month is the first time I've watched it. I'll put "DNF" (Did Not Finish) next to anything that I stopped watching and have no immediate plans to finish. Movies The Amazing Maurice LEGO Disney Princess: The Castle Quest Mummies Spider-Man: Across the SpiderverseTelevision Billions (Season 1) The Idol Jack Ryan (Season 4)For movies last month, I really enjoyed Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse. I thought it was a great sequel to the fantastic Spider-Man: Into the Spidervese and they managed to fit even more awesome references and jokes into this second installment. It was a ton of fun to watch. I wish I could say the same for the other three movies I watched this month, but all three of them were not great in their own ways. The Amazing Maurice was okay but a little boring (although I did love seeing Terry Pratchett's character of Death on screen!), Mummies was just plain lowest common denominator animation, and LEGO Disney Princess was cute, but not exactly my thing. I also just realized that the only movies I watched this month were kids' animation titles.  The television I watched last month was (mostly) good. I finally started watching Billions and really got into it. The two main characters (Bobby Axelrod and Chuck Rhoades are great characters, and the show does an amazing job of showing us how flawed they both are. Damian Lewis plays "Axe," a hedge fund billionaire who became rich after shorting a bunch of stocks on 9/11 and other dubiously legal methods. You kind of know he's a bad guy, but he also tries to be a good dad, takes care of his employees, etc. And Chuck, on the other hand, is a "I'm fighting the righteous fight" kind of person as the US Attorney who prosecutes financial crimes, but he resorts to unethical methods to achieve his ends. It's a really interesting show about smart, flawed people who will stop at nothing to succeed. The fourth season of Jack Ryan was pretty good. The first (and probably only) season of The Idol was not good at all. It's only five episodes long and I literally could not muster the energy to make it to three episodes. It's about a pop music idol who falls under the influence of a dangerous guy who's basically a cult leader (played by musician The Weeknd). I realized after the fact that The Weeknd also created the show and executive produced it, and suddenly that made a lot more sense... because the show was basically about every character in the narrative falling all over themselves to flatter the character The Weeknd plays, even though the character himself is unlikeable and uninteresting. It felt like a vanity project where The Weeknd was like, "Okay, I want to do a show where I'm the coolest, most interesting, most compelling person you've ever met. So everyone just act like that around me." No thanks.TOP PICK: Billions (Season 1) |
| "Take up Your Cross" | August 9, 2023 What is your greatest struggle with Christianity? My greatest struggle with Christianity is the book it's based on. It's a remarkable text, there's no question about that. And while I do believe that the words are more or less "divinely inspired," there's a lot of uncertainty about just how much of it one should accept at face value. Some believe the Bible is inerrant, while others believe the Bible is infallible. Some think the Bible is meant to be taken literally (as a science text, historical text, etc.) while others think the Bible is to be interpreted in terms of its storytelling (narratives, themes, etc.). Some argue that the Bible is the faithful and true word of God, while others believe that - in the passing of stories down through generations - certain authors took added their own interpretations or perspectives to the text, just as any translator does. There are over 100 currently in-print versions of the Bible in English, and many of them interpret the original-language texts differently. And while there is a lot of general consensus about what the original-language texts say due to consistencies from one to the next, who's to say that the original text is one hundred percent authentic? The four canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) were written - at the earliest - approximately one generation after Jesus had been crucified, and yet tell stories of exactly what Jesus said during his time on Earth. Given that stories in those days were largely passed down by word of mouth from group to group, are we certain that the writers of those gospels (and the books of the Bible that came after) were word for word transcriptions of what happened with no editorializing or creative license? Some Bibles include additional books that others don't consider canon. Most Protestant Bibles contain the standard 66 books (39 from the Old Testament + 27 from the New Testament), but the Catholic Bible contains 73 books (adding Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, and Baruch). There are also additional books in the Apocrypha which are deemed to be non-canonical (1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, Manasseh, and any number of less popular epistles and other religious writings), but then raises the question of who decided which books were relevant to include or exclude and what their motivations were. None of this is meant to invalidate the Bible as a holy book, which I happen to think it is. It's worth studying and worth following; but I do struggle with it frequently. I wonder if the parts of it I read and don't agree with are just me being stubborn and thinking I know better, or if it some monk transcribing things two thousand years ago was like, "I'm going to infuse a little of my own interpretation of what I think this means" into the text. I think it's always dangerous to presume that God thinks exactly like you think and agrees with you on every single matter (that probably means you're not really trying all that hard to understand Him) ... but it's equally dangerous to presume that every word in the Bible is to be accepted without question, discernment, or interpretation of some kind (that probably means you're cherry-picking the parts of the Bible that match what you want it to say and ignoring the contradictions or other pieces of it). The Bible is something I'm pretty sure is meant to be struggled with. It's meant to be challenging and something that you spend a lifetime trying to better process and understand and derive insight from. So I guess it's no surprise that the Bible is the thing I struggle with the most. |
| To qualify for my Watch List every month, the following has to be something that I've watched that's new to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a current show, but it can't be reruns or rewatches of something I've already seen. So if I'm including it in this list, it means this month is the first time I've watched it. I'll put "DNF" (Did Not Finish) next to anything that I stopped watching and have no immediate plans to finish. Movies Barbie Bumblebee Extraction 2 John Wick: Chapter 4 Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 Puss in Boots: The Last WishTelevision The Bear (Season 2) Hoarders (Season 13) Yellowstone (Season 3)This month I finally caught some movies I've been meaning to see (Extraction 2 and John Wick: Chapter 4, specifically), and both were decent but not great. Barbie was a really interesting and different kind of movie; I wasn't quite sure what to expect going into it, and I thought it worked for the most part. I really like Greta Gerwig as a writer/director and always think she has a unique perspective on ideas. This was certainly no exception. Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 was really enjoyable; this remains probably my favorite current action movie franchise (Marvel Cinematic Universe notwithstanding, of course ).As I mentioned in "Inspired by Hoarders" , I watched a recent season of Hoarders to get me in a "spring (okay, summer) cleaning" mood and it certainly did the trick. Yellowstone has been a show that I've loved up until this point, but this season just wasn't doing it for me and I'm not really in any rush to watch the next season anytime soon. The second season of The Bear, on the other hand, was fantastic. It's not a perfect show, and some of the episodes were just hard to watch ("Fishes" actually gave me anxiety watching it), but "Forks" was maybe one of the best episodes of television I've seen all year. It's a really impressive show that's worth watching.TOP PICK: The Bear (Season 2) |
| "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" | Day 2786 What is the most independent thing you have ever done? In the larger "life decision" category, moving to Southern California to go to film school and work in the entertainment industry is definitely the most independent thing I've ever done. I moved 500 miles away from virtually all of my family, to a metropolitan area with 12+ million people, and had to learn to how to support myself and live on my own over the span of two years (my parents gave me a very firm deadline about when they were going to cut me off and stop financially supporting me). In retrospect, them pushing me to figure my life out was good for me in the long run, but it really put me in a tough position where I had to learn to be independent very, very quickly. As far as smaller, more isolated incidents go, it would probably be my first trip to Paris. Up until that point, the only international trip my wife and I had taken was to Spain where we were traveling with a cousin of mine, whose wife's parents were currently living in the area and acted as guides. That sparked our travel bug, and our next trip was to London. During which I thought it would be romantic to have a weekend getaway to Paris. It was a great, whirlwind two-day trip, but my wife and I went to a foreign country we had never visited and didn't speak the language entirely on our own. There was a lot of stumbling around and struggling to figure things out, but it was an incredibly memorable trip and definitely one of the most singularly independent things I've ever done in my life. ——————————————— "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" | Day 2784Sometimes we miss opportunities or trains or other things. Have you ever missed something like an opportunity or what someone meant when they said something to you? There have been a handful of "sliding doors" moments in my life where I've wondered what would have happened if I had made a different choice. When I first graduated from film school, I got a job at an escrow company to help pay the bills while I was looking for an entry-level position in the entertainment industry (see above about my parents' firm deadline about cutting me off). When I got an offer for that initial low-paid assistant job at a production company, the owners of the escrow company asked me to stay and promised me a six-figure salary within a matter of months if I'd stay and get trained to be an escrow officer. I chose to start my career in the entertainment industry, but I've always wondered what would have happened if I had decided to just forego the "dream" job (and subsequent decade of struggling to make ends meet), and instead just maintained a "for the paycheck" day job where I was banking serious disposable income by age 24. How would my life have been different? Years later, I was at a job working as an assistant for the executive who became my mentor, and he left the small independent production company we worked for to go to a big studio. I had the option of either going with him as his assistant at the new job, or staying at the independent production company and becoming an executive myself. I stayed and it's what started my career climbing the ladder, but I often wonder what it would have been like to go with him and continue working for the guy who first took me under his wing. That guy, incidentally, runs the entire business affairs division for that studio now so... what if? The last one I wonder about (which is also a professional opportunity) is what would have happened if I had decided to focus on my screenwriting or filmmaking rather than prioritizing a steady paycheck. I learned from a young age to be responsible, prioritize stability, etc. So I've always assumed that having a day job was a prerequisite, and that steps that involved big risks were to be avoided. I often wonder what my life would have been like if I had just decided to give myself a year, or two, or five, to just fully pursue being a writer. If I had foregone my corporate salary and agreed to be a writer's assistant in a TV show's writers' room and struggled financially for a few years, but in exchange for developing my writing ability and climbing the creative ladder as opposed to the corporate one. Ultimately, all of these "missed opportunities" aren't necessarily regrets; I'm quite content with how my life turned out and recognize that I wouldn't be where I'm at right now if any of these things had changed. But I'm also an analytical type person, so I can't help but sometimes wonder what the "other me" would be doing right now if I had made a couple of these choices differently. |
| To qualify for my Watch List every month, the following has to be something that I've watched that's new to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a current show, but it can't be reruns or rewatches of something I've already seen. So if I'm including it in this list, it means this month is the first time I've watched it. I'll put "DNF" (Did Not Finish) next to anything that I stopped watching and have no immediate plans to finish. Movies Avatar: The Way of Water Elemental Fast X The Flash The Little Mermaid (2023) Shazam: Fury of the Gods Transformers: Rise of the BeastsTelevision Never Have I Ever (Season 4) Secret Invasion Succession (Season 3) Succession (Season 4)I finally watched Avatar: The Way of Water and found it exactly like the first movie... visually beautiful, but boring as hell from a character and story perspective. At over three hours, it was just way too long with not enough going on to keep my interest. I had to watch it in installments just to get through it all. Elemental, on the other hand, was an incredibly charming romance story from Pixar. I honestly don't know why it's getting so much hate and being called a bomb; it's delightful. Fast X and The Flash and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts were all fine but probably not something I'm going to watch again. The Little Mermaid was probably the best live action update Disney has done to date, but I'm not sure I'll watch that again either. And Shazam: Fury of the Gods was truly terrible. I'm excited that Secret Invasion is finally out in the world; I think it's a pretty solid show and I love it when Marvel does something in the political thriller space. I also finally finished up Succession which I thought ended well, but wasn't quite as amazing as so many other people seem to think. Ultimately, it was a great character drama about flawed people who can't get out of their own way, but there wasn't much more to it, IMO. Never Have I Ever, however, was an absolute delight and did what Succession didn't... it grew and developed its characters and created a satisfying resolution to all of their character arcs. Never Have I Ever is probably one of my favorite streaming series in recent years; it's incredibly funny and heartfelt, especially in the later seasons. TOP PICK: Never Have I Ever (Season 4) |
| "Take up Your Cross" | June 19, 2023 What evidence is there in your life that you are a Christian? If you were put on trial, would there be enough evidence to find you guilty of being a Christian? What do you think? What can be improved? Where are you on point? What goals do you have Spiritually for the rest of the year? I guess we should probably take this one question at a time... In terms of "evidence" in my life that I'm a Christian, I suppose outwardly it would be the fact that I read the Bible semi-regularly (not just on Sundays in church), I'm working on improving my prayer life, and I'm doing my best to live a life according to the teachings and lessons found in scripture. I should point out that someone can do all of those things and still not be an actual Christian, but the question is a bit of a "prove something intangible" vibe to it, so this is the best I have. I can't really answer the question about whether a hypothetical trial to determine whether I'm a Christian would find me wanting or not. That's kind of God's domain, yes? I do the best that I can, and I think I'm a pretty good Christian, but part of being a Christian is acknowledging my own failings, my own shortcomings, and my own sin. Part of it is acknowledging that I'm flawed and not equipped to judge anyone, let alone myself. I sincerely hope that one day I'll stand in judgment and not be found lacking, and the only way I know how to do that is to not spend my time on this Earth walking around feeling like I've already crossed the finish line. There's always work to be done, always improvements to be made. I read the Bible and pray a fair amount, but I could be doing more. I'm generous, but I could be more generous. I'm kind, but I could be kinder. I definitely need to work on the whole "love your enemies" thing. I think I do a pretty good job of understanding Jesus' core message of love and sacrifice for others, but I also know that I have a very, very long way to go before I can consider myself anything more than a pale, extremely flawed imitation of Jesus. For the rest of the year, my spiritual goals involve finishing the third translation in my "five translations in five years" Bible reading goal, and to more confidently step out in faith. Which actually brings me to the second entry... "Take up Your Cross" | June 15, 2023Write about your biggest spiritual burden. Has God laid a special burden on your heart? I'm not really sure I'd call it a "spiritual burden" per se, but the thing I struggle with the most is discerning God's will. I know a lot of people who seem so attuned to God and the work of the Holy Spirit; they always have a relevant word, or a feeling, or a picture that resonates with the person they're praying for. I read the Bible, I pray, I worship... and nada. I've never really felt particularly spiritually attuned, so it requires me to lean into the faith aspect of religion even more. Most of the time, I'm "acting as if" because I don't have any concrete experiences to point to with conviction. I've wondered if it's in part because my life has been pretty blessed. While I have definitely gone through hardships over the years, it's nothing compared to the suffering some people go through. Maybe I haven't heard God clearly up to now because I haven't needed to be reliant on him very often up until this point. I can look back in hindsight and see where He's worked in my life, but in the moment I've found that very difficult... but maybe it's because, in those moments, I've often been in a situation where I'll be okay either way, whether he shows up or not. These are the kinds of thoughts I struggle with in the absence of evidence and absolute conviction, so maybe that is my spiritual burden after all ... for someone like me who is generally skeptical and reality-based to have to continue to choose to walk a path by faith rather than certainty that it's the right one.  |
| To qualify for my Watch List every month, the following has to be something that I've watched that's new to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a current show, but it can't be reruns or rewatches of something I've already seen. So if I'm including it in this list, it means this month is the first time I've watched it. I'll put "DNF" (Did Not Finish) next to anything that I stopped watching and have no immediate plans to finish. Movies  Air Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Ghosted Interstellar Planes Planes 2: Fire & Rescue The Princess The Super Mario Bros MovieTelevision  Succession (Season 2) Ted Lasso (Season 3) Top Chef (Season 20)There were a lot of good movies that I watched this month. I totally geeked out over Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves; as a longtime tabletop gamer, it did a great job of capturing the humor and creativity of a great campaign adventure. I also finally saw Interstellar for the first time, which I can't believe I hadn't gotten around to seeing until now since I really enjoy Christopher Nolan movies. Like most of his other films, I didn't think it was a perfect movie, but I did think it was thought-provoking and really interesting. Ghosted was a fun action/romance movie, and Planes and Planes 2 were titles I watched with my kids and were just okay. The Super Mario Bros Movie was good, but I don't necessarily think it's as good as its billion-dollar box office would imply. And The Princess I watched because a couple of friends of mine wrote it and Hulu is about to remove it from the service in order to write down some corporate debt, which is a real tragedy, especially since it was made for Hulu and therefore doesn't have any physical media (DVD, Blu-ray, etc.) to buy or other place online where you can download it. I really enjoyed all of the television I watched this month. I finally got back into Succession in order to catch up so that I can watch the final (fourth) season soon, and I'm truly sad about Ted Lasso ending. It wasn't a perfect season, but it's still one of the best shows on television, IMHO. And the twentieth season of Top Chef was an international all-stars season set in London, which was a lot of fun to watch given how many different cuisines and specialties the contestants brought to compete with. TOP PICK: Ted Lasso |
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