Sentential Links

Some things I’ve seen the last week or so…. :: Bill Altreuter reflects on a visit to Gettysburg: I believe the United States has as its chief value in the world its aspirational qualities, and I believe that those qualities are best expressed in the Constitution and its supporting documents, particularly the Federalist Papers. The Constitution, a living document, is, like all scripture, flawed. The 3/5ths Rule, for starters was the seed for the horrors of the war I’ve spent the weekend thinking about, but we spent the next century plus– up to and including now, today– addressing the problemsDown the rabbit hole….

Bloggers I like react to Leonard Nimoy’s passing: :: I met him one night at an event at the New School. He was there with director Stanley Donen. It was just a quick “Hi, how are you” kind of introduction, but he was one of those celebrities where it was impossible to believe that it was actually him, there in the flesh. His face, as Spock, with the ears and the eyebrows and the hair, is so much a part of our culture that seeing him outside of it, as just a regular elderly guy in a suit, laughing withDown the rabbit hole….

Wheeee! Linking some new blogs (to me, anyway) and blogs that I’ve bookmarked or linked forever but for whatever reason (usually laziness or lack of time) I simply haven’t checked much in a while. :: The negative is that I have been the subject of body shaming and bullying recently and I feel like I need to have a good talk with you all about the importance of watching your language and the way you talk to people. (Cut it out, people. Just stop.) :: I swear to you, I don’t think I’ve been in a better mood than IDown the rabbit hole….

Just to shake things up, some links which are not sentential in nature. Wow! ::  Writer-acquaintance Ashley Carlson (whose new book, The Charismatics, is both available and good!) has some thoughts on strategy for men who are trying to appeal to women on e-dating sites. ::  A good question, asked by Anne Leigh Parrish: “What if we all wrote with the idea that no one might ever read us? Would this silence us, or set us free?” I’m not sure. I don’t like the idea of not being read…but I can’t write with the assumption that a specific group of readersDown the rabbit hole….

Linkage time! :: Always be ready for inspiration to strike. For this reason I have more than a hoarder’s share of notebooks I travel with, not to mention my phone with several apps dedicated to jotting down ideas. For this reason there is no excuse for me not to write. If I want to finish all these ideas I have I’ve got to write write write. Morning, noon, and night. (I know the feeling!) :: Uranus is the only planet to have been named after a Greek God, Ouranos. (Those outer gas giants are so fascinating. It’s amazing to meDown the rabbit hole….

Linkage! :: Overalls should be large enough to wear a cable knit sweater UNDER them. Overalls should have wide enough legs to go OVER boots, not tuck into boots. (Agreed! Oh, and scarves go perfectly with overalls. I love my scarf collection and am planning to add to it.) :: One of the shows I used to watch religiously was MASH. Indeed, I liked it so much, I’d often watch the summer reruns. But somewhere about season 8, I stopped watching the reruns. This article by Ken Levine, who wrote for the show in the later years, touches on why;Down the rabbit hole….

Linkage…. :: If you are going to use a game as a delivery vehicle for a movie, then this is how you need to do it: You need to make a proper movie. I am irritated to the point of intolerance with games that interrupt our playtime for movies that are bad, poorly-paced, cliche-ridden, ham-fisted, utterly predictable, filled with glaring plot holes, tonally confused, boringly shot, and completely tedious[2]. The reflexive defense is, “It’s just a game, you’re not supposed to worry about the story!” Which is kind of my point: If the story doesn’t matter, then why are youDown the rabbit hole….

Hey, want some links? Well tough shit, you’re gettin’ ’em anyway. :: It’s not our fault that someone as an issue with us. We don’t owe anybody an explanation for our life choices, especially some stranger we neither know or respect. :: In hindsight, I should have known. I didn’t mention the case, but the defendant was accused of assaulting a police officer at 3:20 a.m. nearly a year ago. I was undoubtedly bumped by the defense attorney because I was still thinking about my victimization, AND because I was perceived, I’m thinking as too pro-cop. Not the way IDown the rabbit hole….

Time for linkage! These are from blogs of fellow writer type people. :: Sometimes life imitates art, but more often it’s the other way around. As strange as it sounds, what happens to Sara in this chapter happened to me when I was visiting my best friend’s grave. Darbi died in a car accident when we were only seventeen, and I thought of her often while I was writing this book. Her death hit me really hard, but I believe what happened that day at her gravesite was her way of letting me know she was okay. (I haven’t beenDown the rabbit hole….

Linkage. :: But now I understand why people are nostalgic. It’s your brain trying to express a moment, and recognizing that the only people who would ever truly get what you’re trying to express were the ones who were there, and they already know. :: I got in trouble at Graceland, basically, because I wanted to read Elvis’ marginalia. (Wow…why have it on display if you’re going to discourage people reading something Elvis scrawled in a book?) :: Police militarization was a mistake. You can argue that perhaps we didn’t know that at the time. No one knew in 1990Down the rabbit hole….