Tonight, Olga and I went to a book discussion at our local library. The book, The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi, is one that I had read before, but I re-read most of it for the book club discussion. I needn't have bothered, at least not for the purposes of contributing to the discussion. The majority of the people in attendance claimed to have ( Read more... )

In recent conversations, I've been returning to the idea that Facebook and social media generally are driving us insane. Social media, and Facebook in particular are certainly useful. I went to my 30-year high school reunion last year, and Facebook played a major role in shaping that gathering. The Friends of the C-Realm group on Facebook puts me ( Read more... )

When you were a little child, your parents would probably make allowances for you when you cried. As you got older, if you lived with your mother and your father, they probably diverged in their response to your tears. If you were still crying as a teenage boy, your mother may have continued to concede to your wishes in response to your waterworks ( Read more... )

A seemingly unavoidable hazard of internet celebrity, no matter how minor, is the argument that spills out into the public view, attracts gawkers and commentators and makes you known not for any cause you advocate or topic that inspires you, but for being so-and-so's enemy. How tedious.

Given that I've been podcasting for more than a decade, I ( Read more... )

A while back, before it got cold, Olga and I went to a fund-raiser for an organization that helps veterans become organic farmers. It was a pizza dinner at a family farm, and I found myself across a long picnic table from a Vermont police officer who was telling everyone in earshot about the need to sterilize Holyoke, Massachusettes. Holyoke is ( Read more... )

Are there people you admire but don't like to talk to because you don't like your side of the conversation whenever the two of you get together? I really notice it as a podcaster. There are some interviewees with whom I fall into an easy conversational vibe and the hour flies by. Other conversational partners are like my counterpart in a duel, but ( Read more... )

I live in a walkable village, but I rarely walk anywhere. I'm usually picking up or dropping off cameras and recording equipment when I leave the house, or I'm going to the grocery store, so I need to drive, even though the distances involved are ones that I could easily cover on foot. Easy in the summer time that is. I was filming a selectboard  ( Read more... )

Start in the middle, loop back to the beginning, when you reach the middle you already wrote, scrap it and keep going from the beginning you looped back to. Write clean through to the end and then pour gasoline over the whole mess and make it sacred.

When the creativity really feels like it's flowing, you're most likely fooling yourself. Let it flow ( Read more... )

I mentioned recently that it's hard to hang tough with the Peak Oil narrative when the mainstream media narrative is that oil has never been more plentiful and that the real problem is low prices. Add to that the techno-utopian narratives of electric cars and power walls and super batteries, and the idea that industrial civilization is crucially ( Read more... )

Since the Internet ate television, it has issued a seemingly never-ending bounty of innovative, high quality, and occasionally challenging original programming. There are so many shows with committed fanbases to attest to their worthiness that I couldn't possibly follow all of the ones that I have reason to believe would be worth my time. I still ( Read more... )