So I’m reading Lipstick Traces and it’s slow going because these beautiful sentences go on and on until your realize that they might not mean anything at all and you have to go back and read it all again very very carefully to see if there is anything there. And I’m reading about dada and I’m not sure why, but the picture of Alben Barkley (it’s disturbing, and I’ve included it below the fold) at the concentration camp makes me think about Big Hero 6. Read More
ByGD
The Dadaists and Big Hero 6
ByGD
A Five Star Dilemma
I love the speech at the end of the movie Ratatouille that talks about critics. It starts with the statement,
Negative criticism is fun to write and even more fun to read.
[Proof that it is true.] But even a negative review can turn a reader on to something they love. A critic may write, “The food was a confused mishmash,” or “The band was obscene,” but the reader may love fusion food and punk music. I had a friend in college whose movie reviews I trusted completely; the more enthusiastically he spoke of a movie, the more certain I was that I would hate it. Reviews are valuable; but a five star rating tells me nothing. Three stars tells me even less. Read More
ByGD
Ride the Lightning Thief
My daughter discovered Percy Jackson in the third grade and hasn’t read much else since. I have defended this choice, because like Neil Gaiman and education specialists everywhere (stay tuned for my article on the subject in the March issue of ParentMap), I believe that any reading is good reading. My own experience supports this. I too read high fantasy obsessively and exclusively for several years at about the same age, and I have grown to be an adult who reads primarily nonfiction and medieval literature.
Meanwhile, Rick Riordan has become something of a whipping boy for the literary establishment, trotted out as an example of what’s wrong with children’s literature today at every opportunity. It seemed strange to me. Riordan writes long narrative novels that incorporate classical mythology – doesn’t that sound like exactly what literary types would want their kids to be reading? Was it just a case of literary hipsterism that declared something so popular couldn’t possibly be cool? Read More
ByGD
The Truth About Rejection
Have you heard about the writer whose goal was to collect 100 rejections in a year?
Have you heard about the writer who is trying to wallpaper his studio with rejection letters?
Good luck trying to find the origins of these stories – not because they aren’t real but because they are so common. My friend and neighbor, Marisa Vitiello, wrote a post recently about her experience on both sides of the rejection equation. As a working artist, she has been rejected and been responsible for rejecting the work of others.
I think most of us intellectually know the truth in her observations, but we secretly hope that each idea we send out in the world will be met with open arms. So we need constant reminders of the truth about rejection:
On Rejecting and Being Rejected