Today was my first day of class at New York University. I graduated from high school back in 2009. Since then, well, army, heart disease, Singapore, blah blah blah. But hey! I'm a college kid now! In New York City! At NYU's Galltin School of Individualized Study! Let's hope my education gap doesn't make me suck!
Essays, Not Rants 024: Imply, Don’t Show Every aspiring writer is at one point treated to the ancient adage of “show, don’t tell”. The idea is that rather than telling us that Sam is an impressive diplomat, it works better if the writer describes her being a great diplomat. It gets boring (and annoying) if a writer keeps on saying that a character is a certain way but never actually shows them acting according to said characterization. That’s well and good for characterization, but what abou
What's that you say? You have $2.99 lying around an a device capable of running the Kindle app (that is, any pc, mac, smart phone, iPod touch)? Why not help two aspiring writers pay for college, food, and other such necessities? You, yes, you can help! And not only will you get the satisfaction of doing something good, but you'll get a collection of no less than SIX short stories! They're stores about being in airports, about that weird feeling of in between you get when traveling. Some du
Essays, Not Rants 023: In Between Most stories are about going somewhere. The quest in The Lord Of The Rings is to get to Mordor and destroy the ring. In any Indiana Jones movie he’s trying to get whichever artifact it is he’s after this time. A New Hope is about getting the princess and defeating the Empire. But sometimes a story’s point isn’t actually the destination or the goal or whatever. The MacGuffin is negligible to the point of being unimportant. The characters’ goal is either arbit
Essays, Not Rants! 022: One Kind of Folks in the 'Verse. Folks. A quintessential part of an American High School education is reading Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. Well, most educations. It’s presented as a classic coming of age tale set amongst racial tensions in the south as seen through the eyes of a young girl. Cool. Except that’s not what it’s about. To Kill A Mocking Bird is about people. It’s about how people are just people. Most chapters highlight one person, be it Calpurn
Essays, Not Rants 021: Shawarma So the other day I was looking for lunch and ended up ordering shawarma at a falafel joint. As such there is a picture of me taking a Thor-sized bite out of it on Twitter. To those curious, it tastes more like a doner kebab than a gyro, just different toppings and stuff. And more Middle-Easty. But why shawarma? I was hungry, but why'd I pick some middle-eastern delicacy over barbecue, burgers or brisket? It wasn't cheaper and I wasn't even sure if I liked it (
Essays, Not Rants! 020: The Avengers > The Dark Knight Rises You read that title right: The Avengers was better than The Dark Knight Rises. Man. Always fun to stir up some controversy. Why do I think this? So glad you asked. But let me preface all this with something: I’ve loved Batman for as far back as I can remember. I loved The Dark Knight, heck, it was one of the first movies I added to my BluRay collection. I’m not some Batman hater championing The Avengers because it’s not Batm
Essays, Not Rants! 019: Sacrifice There’s this trope in fiction called the Heroic Sacrifice. The idea is that a character gives himself up so another can live or succeed. When done right it can be an incredibly powerful writing tool. Doesn’t have to be sacrificing your own life, though. At the end of The Dark Knight, Batman has just saved Commissioner Gordon’s son and the fallen Harvey Dent has tumbled to his death. There is blood on Dent’s hands; the man who came close to saving Gotham has
Essays, Not Rants 018: Legend’s End This weekend the conclusion to Christopher Nolan’s epic Dark Knight Trilogy was released. His was a new Batman, one that took place within the confines of our world rather than some dark/campy alternate. Nolan sought to not only retell the Batman story, but to elevate it from just a story to a legend. In telling the story of how man became myth, Nolan took each aspect of Bruce Wayne’s journey and centered a movie around it: overcoming fear, resisting evil,
So I saw The Dark Knight Rises at the midnight showing last night (er, this morning?). Went with some friends and though we weren't quite as elaborate as The Avengers, we just dressed to the nines like rich Gothamites. Though that would probably make me the guy that Batman forcibly extradited from Hong Kong in The Dark Knight...and then gets burnt alive on a pile of money... Ah well. How was it? Dude. Just dude. This is how you end a trilogy. Not really gonna say much else about it, haha
Essays, Not Rants! 017: Worlds Need Rules I like writing. No, not just my weekly essay (which is certainly not a rant), but fiction. Sometimes I write stuff grounded firmly in this world, but I really enjoy building worlds of fantasy or science fiction. I’ve got a science fiction side project I like to fiddle with here and there and I run a fantasy RPG with some friends. For both of these I’ve made intricate worlds with some semblance of a history and culture. But just as important as the sett
Two years ago yesterday I was told I had a very potentially fatal heat condition. Several doctors later and here I am. I’ve got a bar in my chest and my heart seems to be fine. Yes, like Iron Man. So here's to two years of amazing grace. Your move, heart disease.
Essays, Not Rants! 016: Thrilling Heroics Every boy has his favorite superhero. Doesn’t matter if they’ve never read a comic; pop cultural osmosis will take care of that. Growing up, my favorites were Batman and Iron Man. My brother was a Spider-Man fan. I’ve got a buddy who loved Green Lantern and another who liked Robin. But why is it that we love heroes (super or not)? Whether they’re named Tony Stark, Luke Skywalker, Frodo Baggins, Buffy Summers, or Atticus Finch, we have our heroes. But w
Well, technically three. Sadly, my compatriot in schemes such as these (seen earlier on this blog as Captain America) was away. As such we shall blow more stuff up when he returns. Boom.
I've loved Marc Webb ever since I saw (500) Days of Summer three years ago (and subconciously since I saw his video for Dare You To Move). I really liked Andrew Garfield in The Social Network and even more after Never Let Me Go. And, like most every other boy on the planet, I grew up with a knowledge of the Spider-Man mythos. Simply put, The Amazing Spider-Man was very amazing. The focus was not on Spider-Man, but rather on Peter Parker. You got to know the kid, understand who he was and w
Essays, Not Rants! 015: Abed, I Know What We're Gonna Do Today! My favorite show this past season aired on Thursdays at 8pm on NBC. This was, of course, Community. It also happens to be one of my favorite shows of all time (up there with Firefly, Lost, and Chuck). It’s smart, excellently written, and consistently hilarious. I’m not sure when my favorite cartoon airs. I know it’s on Disney Channel, but I just watch it on Netflix. Phineas and Ferb, my favorite cartoon, is smart, excellently writ
Essays, Not Rants! 014: Why Science Fiction Science Fiction is a setting (not a genre) that frequently gets written off and ignored because it’s deemed inept to deal with more serious topics. But science fiction has leave to deal with heavy subjects in a way ‘regular’ fiction only wishes it could. Science fiction - good science fiction - has and will always be about people. The world will change, but people will always stay the same. People will always want to control, people will always wan
Alright, I did have a group of quotes and anecdotes about my dad for this (like how he perks up if you play the theme to Battle City, or how he kicks all kinds of butt at Pac-Man) but I figured the following information was proof enough that my dad is cooler than yours (and I'm not even gonna get into the whole 30+ years of traveling the world thing): My Dad will casually quote Abed (off of Community) in the middle of conversations. Dang straight.
Essays, Not Rants! 013: The Prequels Aren’t So Bad One of the most controversial series of films released within the past twenty years is the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy. In all seriousness, the Star Wars prequels do get a lot of flak for not living up to the precedence of the Holy Trilogy. But I'm here to say they're not the travesty of film that a lot of us make them out to be. By no means am I saying they're flawless. I grew up with Star Wars and can't recall a time in my life where I didn
Essays, Not Rants! 012: Unawarded Merit I love The Avengers. I’ve seen it five times (no regrets) and it’s probably my favorite movie in the last few years. If you follow this blog you’ve heard over and over again why I love it (great script, excellent direction, etc). The Avengers is a movie that shows how good not only a superhero movie can be, but a summer blockbuster. Yet for all that it won’t get an Oscar or any serious recognition. Okay, so it may get an Oscar for Sound Editing or Visu
