Category: articles
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BRYAN COFFEY :: IN MEMORIUM
Bryan Coffey passed away a few days ago. He is survived by his wife Shirley Schaubert-Coffey and children and grandchildren and so, so, so many of us. They have a saying in Spanish: The words are grieved. Means that some things are so heartbreaking that it’s folly to try and speak about them. But…
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Short Film Festivals :: DOs and DON’Ts
I’ve been a judge for several short film festivals in NYC since I moved here and I’ve noticed common threads in the ones I reject (finishing up my list for one of the bigger festivals today). Those of you who have been around the block won’t need to read this — you know this stuff…
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On Haters
Starting to fully understand the concept of the “hater” in rap music. I thought it was simply one-who-hates, but it’s not. It’s pretty specific. The word has a creative bend — remember, rappers are artists: A hater is someone who will always be against you and the good work you want to do in the…
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Novel Online :: How She Dethroned the eBook
Seems these days old men like me can’t keep up with the pace of publishing. And if that’s how I feel at 28 (my birthday’s this month!), I can’t imagine what it feels like to be a sixty-year-old literary agent or legacy publisher. Honestly, I’m excited because I love adapting. Let’s start with a couple of…
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Does Talent Exist?
No. Or rather the existence of talent is so widespread and common that its potency clocks in at around the near-impotent range. Here’s the thing: My buddy used to work for Community Support Services, which helps mentally handicapped people live bright and vibrant lives. His main client was Jerry. Jerry still ranks in the…
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The Hipster Fallacies
INTERVIEWER What about the letters to your fiancée was Pynchonian? JOHNATHAN FRANZEN The tangly sentences, the overfullness of them, and a kind of dirty explicitness. A hipster jadedness. “Seen it all, done it all, don’t mean shit.” Like the dark side of R. Crumb. — from his “Art of Fiction” interview in The Paris Review…
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On Henry Ford, Jews, and Muslims
Henry Ford was the most anti-semitic innovator in American history. So he hired hundreds of thousands of Arabic Muslims to work his Detroit automotive factories. Arab Muslims who moved to Dearborn, just outside of Detroit. Dearborn Muslims who just voted overwhelmingly for a guy who may become the first Jewish President. …
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Only a Clever Human Can Joke About Virtue
“Only a clever human can make a real Joke about virtue, or indeed about anything else; any of them can be trained to talk as if virtue were funny” — C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters “Lord make me chaste, but not yet.” — Augustine And this one is like it: “Perhaps, in the nature of things,…
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“How Likely Is It?” and “That’s inconvenient” are Insufficient Arguments
“We never make much account of objections which merely respect the actual state of the world at this moment, but which admit the general expediency and permanent excellence of the project. What is the best must be the true; and what is true—that is, what is at bottom fit and agreeable to the constitution of…
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Dead Guest Post :: The Fantastic Imagination
Today’s dead guest post is “The Fantastic Imagination.” In this piece, George MacDonald shows how the point of fantasy and science fiction is to change the physical laws of our world so that the spiritual — or moral or ethical — laws behind all worlds come to a sharper point. It’s one of my favorite pieces on…
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Adapting Your Novel to Television is like Entrusting Your Daughter to Her First Date…
The process [of turning my novel into a TV series] that began with Sam Raimi, ended up in the hands of producers and writers that took things in a very different direction. The best way I can describe it (without the gory details); it’s something like letting your daughter go out on her first date.…
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Policemen “Commandeered” Several Kayaks. Wait. What?!
Here in Penn Station waiting for my morning train I heard an absurd news report. Apparently a private plane crashed into the Long Island sound and local police executed a rescue mission. Now I don’t doubt the bravery of these men and should emphasize my gratitude, but a word needs to be said on the…