Author: SGJ

Four Movies, Five Days

Which really isn’t that many, I know. I mean, I used to love cueing up the whole STAR TREK series, watching them back to back. Anyway, all over the spectrum here:

SYNECHDOCHE, NEW YORK. Free screening with Charlie Kaufman there for the Q&A. Which was great. Or, great if you like watching somebody writhe under a series of ridiculous questions. But he handles them well, seems like a good guy. And, as for SYNECHDOCHE, I don’t know. I mean, I was all over BEING JOHN M

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Two Fast Links

Texas Monthly‘s been doing this serial novel, TWIN WELLS. I’ve got chapter 11. Podcast too. Here. First line: “Baldwin wished he could have mustered a bit more surprise when the dead man rose from the road in the sheriff’s headlights.”

New interview up at Rain Taxi.

And a third link too: I’m on Facebook now, finally. Been getting the invites forever, never clicked all the way through until now. This could be the link. Maybe?

And fourth non-l…

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Incunabula

That sounds like some secret cousin to the incubus, yeah? If I’m even spelling it right. Anyway, was digging through some old stuff yesterday and found this sheet of paper from 1997, when I was finishing Fast Red Road, trying to make it all straight in my head (somewhat). Think the only other novel I’ve done something along these lines for was All the Beautiful Sinners. Though I did, a while back, while paging through some years-old notebook looking for something I …

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The Least of My Scars

fried zucchini

One of my better memories is working for this seed research company fifteen years or so ago. Way out north of Lubbock, TX. There was this guy called Rooster who ran a lot of cotton and sorghum out there, fields which were all on the way to the plots we worked every day. Rooster was a shortish old guy who wore these round black sunglasses. I only ever saw him sitting in his truck. To paint it better, really, I only ever saw him sitting in his truck when I was running fast away, pretending no…

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Hindsight: Appaloosa

The western may be one of the few if not only genres where character development is actually at crosspurposes with audience expectations. We don’t want the passing-through cowpoke/gunhand/lawman/whatever to actually change, do we? Isn’t it all better if they stay the same? Granted, maybe a more intense version of themselves, of the self they’re trying not to be anymore, as in Tombstone, or even a reversion to who they used to be, as in in Unforgiven, but …

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Beautiful line

It’s by Roger Ebert, in his review for Nights in Rodanthe: “Paul doesn’t evacuate because of some dialogue he is made to say.” I don’t see how I could love anything more than that. It’s even better in context, too. And, as for why I was reading about Nights in Rodanthe. No idea. I was feeling around, seeing if Blindness was going to be watchable (pun?), then got all excited about Appaloosa, and suddenly, bam, there I was finding that beauti…

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Lost in the Funhouse (with a television set)

So, the LOST writers claim not to be lost at all. They’re not just reeling the episodes out from nothing. It’s all going somewhere, somehow, some perfect way. Moreover (first time I’m using that word. cool, yeah?), they also guarantee that this crazy upside-down inside-out unfantasy island, it’s not some form of limbo or purgatory, where dead non-MILLENIUM (the Kristofferson one) plane passengers go, and I’m guessing they’ve pro…

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T-minus 24: Brown U.

I’m there tomorrow night, Family Guy* territory. Reading stuff aloud. Maybe eating a cookie or two, answering questions. Here for more specific type of info.

Too, thanks to my students, I’m now hooked into Salad Fingers. Better late than never, I figure.

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* which I’ve still yet to ever see an episode of — though I did accidentally tune in once, some Star Wars tribute/mockery stuff going on that look

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My New Favorite Hour of Television.

a Clevenger nodFRINGE, yep. Best series opener I think I’ve seen. And that’s including the white bears in LOST, the aliens in X-FILES, the space jellyfish in STAR TREK NEXT GENERATION, the plummeting cheerleader in HEROES, the (if I’m remembering correctly) sewn-up mouths in MILLENIUM, the look on Tom Vail’s face when Alyson denies knowing him in NOWHERE MAN, and even the tomfoolery in BRISCO COUNTY, JR. Too, they’ve set the dynamic up well, it looks like…

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Seven Things I Learned Today

from trying on just a whole lot of women’s clothes:

1) While I can wiggle into 9/10 pants or slacks, 11/12 is a lot more comfortable.

2) Extra-large in a blouse isn’t even a large in men’s sizes.

3) People will watch you, if you carry enough blouses and pants suits into the dressing room.

3b) That makes it better, really.

4) Even when I’ve got them on, still, women’s clothes are hard to get into.

5) Stretch pants are the answer. Reason: they’r

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