Monthly Archives: May 2020

You Should Be Watching

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This article was previously published in Watch The Skies

There has been a lot of binge watching out there since folks have gone into isolation. The global pandemic has put a whole new focus on finding something to watch that doesn’t exacerbate the anxiety of the real world. A number of shows have leaped in popularity that might never have gotten the chance in the past simply for the lack of other entertainment. Many of those shows likely won’t last, but parts of them might endure. It’s difficult to predict. The same has always been the case with the big screen. Movies that “flop” in the theater become cult classics. Movies that people had modest hope for endure for generations. These movies can have an impact that lasts long after their run in the theater is done.

That lasting impact, in the form of physical objects, is the focus of the show Prop Culture now streaming on Disney+. The show hosted by Dan Lanigan digs into the physical props that remain from some Disney films that have had a significant impact on pop culture. The first season includes: Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Mary Poppins, Tron, Nightmare Before Christmas, The Muppet Movie, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Chronicles of Narnia, and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

Dan digs in behind the scenes and hunts down various creators and actors to reconnect them with the objects that helped make these films great. Hats, swords, puppets, matte paintings and all manner of samples. Not all props are small either. Ten foot tall models, cars and tall ships are part of this as well. Seeing these real world things give both the creators and the viewer a very strong sense of nostalgia.

At a half hour in length these episodes are just the right length. They don’t drag and they don’t hold back for the sake of false anticipation. There are expected pieces along with little things that evoke strong emotions for all. Along with strong emotion there is a fun sense of humor. You get quotes like, “There’s a lot of bald yaks out there…” from a effects studio head. It hits all the right notes to help the viewer feel good after each episode.

If you have the opportunity and love to know more about the movies this show is definitely worth a look.

Gone Virtual

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I would have to consider it the negligent misuse of understatement to say that our current global pandemic has changed many things. Everyone has been asked to significantly change our way of living. How we work, how we connect with each other and certainly how we gather… and that is to say that we DO NOT GATHER. We don’t know a lot about the virus that is raging across the world and killing people by the thousands. We do know that if we keep our distance from each other, things slow down.

Everything has slowed down. Meetings take longer to arrange. Work hits unexpected delays. Time off takes on a whole new dimension – if you’re lucky enough to still have a job and still be working.

Part of the slowing down, part of the social distance needed involves not getting together. Conventions that many of my friends and collegues depend on are simply not happening this year. They are not able to gather so many people in a single place. The risk is too great.

Going to conventions – particularly science fiction / fandom cons – are a major part of my life. I have been going to or working as part of the staff of cons for somewhere around the past 27 years. I genuinely don’t remember a year when I haven’t been off to Richmond or Boston or Pittsburgh or Baltimore for a convention. Sometimes a big con, sometimes a small con – always going to see friends and talk about my favorite things. This is part of my life. It is part of my family’s life. My daughter doesn’t know anything else. In her mind this is simply what people of like minds do – they get together to enjoy their favorite things.

I’m not going to any conventions this year. None.

That is at least the plan as it stands right now. Most cons have “shut it down” and declared they will return in 2021. Some are making the effort to push ahead with the program parts they had lined up and are creating methods for holding virtual cons. I am amazed at how quickly some of these fan run, volunteer organizations have turned around the parts they need in order to make something like this work. I applaud them. It’s fantastic to see that they’re doing what they need to in order to survive. I wonder how many of them will. I just don’t see myself doing a virtual con. It feels too much like work at this point.

I understand the value of meeting virtually. I am, on average, attending between 5 and 10 virtual meetings every week now. I have adjusted my computer settings, arranged my working spaces differently along with changing and upgrading some of my hardware… and it’s still not the same. Gathering with friends in the same physical location matters. A hug, a handshake or even a simple hand on the shoulder are very important. Yes, there are down sides to meeting in person. There is expense. It’s time consuming. Scheduling is a challenge. Meeting with your friends is great, dealing with everyone else… not as much. Even with all the challenges (and occasionally the terrible smells) I hope to see the very best of them return for live and in person events. They are what recharge my batteries. It’s how I level up my creativity.

For the first time in decades I will be home on Memorial Day weekend. My family will be having a small gathering to celebrate my sister’s birthday. That’s it. That’s the entire schedule. There are no festivals going on, there are no events other than on the computer. We’ll see how it all goes. It is an odd feeling to know I won’t be part of something so dear to me. Hopefully it will come back around. Until then I’ll have to navigate my way around “the new normal”.

The virtual con is going on!

Comfort Zone

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I don’t spend a lot of time watching shows or movies that are outside of my comfort zone. I think it’s worth noting that getting outside your own comfort zone is important, but it’s also work. I have declared before that I am a true child of media – the original MTV generation – but over all this time I have really moved away from so many forms of entertainment. I have narrowed my focus and made an effort to get away from the things I just don’t enjoy.

I was drawn to a particular publisher based on the description listed on their submission page:

If it’s a story about a 13 year old girl named Mary coping with the change to womanhood while poignantly reflecting the recent passing of her favorite aunt Gertrude, we DON’T want it! Now, if Mary is the 13 year old daughter of a vampire cowboy who stumbles upon a government conspiracy involving aliens & unicorns while investigating, hard-boiled style, the grizzly murder of her favorite aunt Gertrude, then we’ll take a look at it.

This seemed like a place where I would fit right in. I stick to what I like a lot of the time. It has taken a long while, but I have started to figure out what it is that I like. I can define it. I understand it. Yes, sometimes it’s quite predictable and I’m just fine with that.

So, when I was given a homework assignment for a class I am taking that amounted to reporting on the movie The Peanut Butter Falcon I was… less than enthusiastic. This movie had a lot going against it.

First and easiest, it was assigned homework. I could get past that ~ I am taking the class after all. I’m paying for it, I’m sure as hell going to do the homework.

It’s frequently described as “heartwarming”, “real” and “wholesome” along with a lot of other things that make this story about a man with Down syndrome who goes on a life altering adventure start to sound WAY too close to that description above. Definitely not something I’d consider go-to entertainment.

It also stars Shia LaBeouf. I have never met the man in person. I don’t know him and would genuinely reserve my personal opinions about a person… however he has managed to so thoroughly annoy me that I can’t stand watching him. It doesn’t matter the role, I only see his annoying face. I really can’t stand him. At all. He makes it easy to dislike all things Hollywood.

Normally that’s strike three, that movie would be out. Add to the case against with it’s hard to find. It’s not on any streaming service that I have. I have been told it’s on Hulu, but I wasn’t signing up for an additional service just to dig up this film. Thankfully my Luddite self is still part of the DVD program with Netflix. Yes, you digital natives, I get an actual physical disc in the mail when I request it so that I can play it in my local player. I do not depend on the whims of streaming services nor the speed of the internet when I really want to just sit and watch without interruption. So I added this movie to the que and waited for it to come in.

A couple of Saturdays ago I found myself in possession of said disc and happened to have a couple of hours to deal with it. I treated it like a chore. It was an unpleasant side effect of something I wanted to do, so I sucked it up, sat down and hit play.

I believe your expectations of a film factor heavily in how you feel about the film when you’re done. I had built this up to such a terrible thing in my mind that it would have had to be truly terrible to meet what it had become in my head. Tempered with that in mind, I will tell you that this is a genuinely good movie. It’s not just good, I’d recommend it.

No, I still can’t stand LeBeef. Yes, he was exactly what that part needed. Exactly. I will not hesitate to tell you that Zack Gottsagen’s character hooked me immediately. He’s hilarious and genuine and IS that part. Yes, it was written with him in mind, but I’ve seen films where the script is written with an actor in mind and they still suck. Definitely not the case here. The other characters were dead on. There was no smarmy pandering – Zack is an actor playing a role and he killed it. Yes, it was a little bit predictable, but that does not detract from the story at all. It was real.

I’m glad I watched it.

All The Birds

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All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I didn’t know what to expect heading into this book. I don’t know if I would have picked it up if not for it being a selection of Watch The Skies. I’m glad it was picked, and I’m glad I took that chance to read it.

I enjoyed this book. I fear that my total enjoyment was hindered by the simple fact that I read it during a global pandemic – and there are apocalyptic things happening in the book. It’s a challenging juxtaposition. There were any number of parts to the story that I found completely plausible and that made the rest easy to go with.

I enjoyed the characters. They are certainly not ‘traditional’ in any sense, but they were true I think. They were exactly the sort of people that would be involved in things just the way they were. I was also a little surprised by the peculiar way the romance worked out in the story. Very well done.

I look forward to talking about all the various parts of this book with our group. Like all good science fiction there are a number of ideas worth exploring in here.

IF you get a chance – pick this one up.



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More Dresden!

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I’m still forging ahead with my own Dresden files re-read. I’m going to start with what I’ve got posted over at Goodreads and tack on a little more at the end.

Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files: Ghoul Goblin by Jim Butcher

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I very much enjoyed this story. I’m not sure when it was written vs. when it was supposed to fit into the overall Dresden time line, but this was excellent work.

Yes, it was still Harry being Harry, but the characters around him all seemed very solid to me. The most powerful, the ones with the most influence and best story were all the women. I won’t spoil it for you but I can say that it’s almost as if Harry is just a catalyst in this one. Heroes, bad guys, powerful influencers… all women. There’s a love story wedged in there too. I wish that were expanded a little more, but there was an awful lot going on in this relatively short book.

Well done and I can’t wait to keep forging ahead with my personal Dresden files re-read.



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So along with the graphic novel I also read the short story “B is for Bigfoot” as this is supposed to be where it fits in the timeline. I don’t know where the story was originally published, but I read it from the collection of stories in “Working for Bigfoot“.

I liked this story for two main reasons.

The first reason is simplicity. This short story delivers an expansion to the world of Harry but doesn’t become a maze of politics and over arcing story. Yes, there are creatures of unearthly origin but they do not become the political mesh that so many others do.

The second, and main reason is that it gives a very clear view of an important part of Harry’s world view / philosophy. Harry has a mission that involves a kid. Harry has to explain, at least in part, why he does what he does. He has to make a clear and cogent argument for using power for protection.

This story is well worth the effort. I like it a lot.

Being Back

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I’ve survived the first week back in the office since the global pandemic shut things down. It was as surreal as I suspected it would be. It was going through the same motions as before, but with something missing. While working from home I used all the discipline I had to stay on the same schedule I had when I was leaving the house and going to the office (thankfully). Getting up at ‘the regular time’ and getting ready for work wasn’t really any different.

Leaving the house was different.

There’s normally a level of activity and noise that are going on in the neighborhood where I live. In the mornings on the way out the door there’s a feeling, a sense that aligns with people going through their daily routine. There are cars I recognize from the area, delivery trucks, buses and all sorts of… well, people. This past week did not have that feeling. It was weirdly quiet when I left of the office. Traffic around the house was down to a handful of cars at the most. It wasn’t terrible, it just gave this sense of something being off.

It became more pronounced once I crossed the bridge. The state capitol building is literally two blocks from my office. It’s always busy on all those streets and alleys during a business day. Three lanes solid to or from either highway, trucks, buses, delivery drivers of greater variety… and none of them were there.

Sure, there were other cars on the road. There are a large number of people that fall under the tag ‘essential worker’, but it was nothing like it was before. I have always attempted to get a feel for the ebb and flow of when traffic was the heaviest and slip in between those times. Some days worked better than others. This week? This week it didn’t matter. I was at the office in what seemed like mere moments.

The biggest thing about actually being at the office? Inconvenience.

Yes, you read that right. We have a relatively small staff with ample social distance. There’s nobody else even sitting in the room I’m in while I’m at work. I’m back on the beefy work computer and connected to the servers. I’ve got two wide screen monitors and all the bells and whistles. So, what inconvenience? Everything is closed. Our communal kitchen with the microwave is closed. The water cooler is shut down. The ice machine is closed off with the kitchen. The restaurants around us are super limited in choice and delivery options. It has actually made certain aspects of getting work done more challenging. I didn’t have to worry about where and how I was going to get some water during the day. I didn’t have to give a second thought to lunch when I was home – I could stroll into the kitchen and get it. It’s odd, but it’s almost like being back in the time when I worked for a construction crew and we had to have a thermos and a lunch box because there were no amenities. Sure, our bathroom is WAY better than a port-a-potty (or a shrub), but it’s almost as if I’m back at a construction site inside the office. If you don’t have it with you, it doesn’t happen until you’re back home.

It took a day or two of adjustment along with a corrected grocery list, but I think I’m back on track and ready for things to start picking up. Construction is underway and requests for all manner of paperwork and sketches are flowing again. Hopefully people will continue to be safe and we’ll get things up and really moving again soon.

Flexible

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One thing that the pandemic has done for me is given me a certain amount of flexibility. There are a number of times when I’d have the motivation to write and then need to be running off someplace where I’d lack the ability to actually get things typed up. Now, since just about everything is locked down it has given me the chance to take advantage of those moments. There is no place to run off to right now.

It’s nice to have the options to say, “I think pajamas and slippers all day today while I work at the computer”. No pressure. It has certainly helped.

It was never going to last. Intellectually that was easy to say, but emotionally it’s been difficult to track. It feels as though this change is never ending. Well, time is up for me.

I have been working from home (thankfully) since things have been shut down. Yes, the hours have been reduced, but I have still been on a schedule. Working days has meant that I don’t have constant ‘free time’ but outside of those hours has still been available. Starting on Monday May the 4th (Star Wars day!) I’ll be back in the office. Construction and related construction activities are coming back on line. Projects are getting underway.

In the future, when we look back at this time I wonder what we will make of the dream like state we floated through during these days of being stuck at home. I look forward to seeing how it has changed who we will become.