Amber Carez's Blog

This is quite a departure from my normal ramblings but it came about because of computer problems I began having on the tool I use most often, my notebook computer. It seems that in the 2 ½ years that it has loyally served me, in my travels throughout several countries and continents, that the hardest thing for it to bear was its becoming cluttered. With all the program additions, removals and updates, as well as the leavings of thousands of websites, my trusty sidekick had become bogged...

My Faerie Vortex has a new fountain! The artists who crafted the landing spaces between the splashing waters are Beth and Zeeb Feywood (http://www.feywood.net). I had a stock fountain purchased from one of the major home stores but it was not created for the display of living art and I desired a space where the jshàmay could play.
I used the term jshàmay (pronounced zha'may) because that is closest to what we know in this paradigm as faeries. Jshàmay are ethereal creatures, often considered...

I really enjoy going to the movies and wondered why it was that recently many have left me somewhat depressed, even when they had positive endings. I wondered if it was just my attitude that had shifted. Several months ago a friend of mine sent me a link which discussed digital color grading with a limited palette that highlights teal and orange while muting all of the other colors.
This is done with the idea that complementary colors to flesh tones will make the images stand out...

I was raised in a traditional, monotheistic religion and attended parochial schools. Throughout my indoctrination into the precepts of the church, it was strongly claimed that there existed only 'One True Religion' and that it was the one I was being taught. When I was younger I accepted all of the claims without much question as my parents espoused the same doctrine. However, as I gained life experience, met many truly good people who followed other spiritual paths, traveled throughout the w...

Springtime, what a glorious time of year! It's not that the other seasons lack in splendor or intensity, it is that spring embodies the excitement of that time of year of maximum proliferation, of the tug-of-war between winter and summer, resulting in extreme and rapidly changing weather. The gestation of winter is completed and life is busting out all over!
I recently visited Northern Ohio and while there the high temperatures went from the upper 20s (F) to the mid 70s (F) and after several d...

There is a recent trend by a number of fantasy and horror authors to employ an insidious marketing device often utilized by television shows. It is called a cliffhanger. It is not enough that authors have caved to the siren call of big screen or TV series adaptions of their books by making them more about moving from action scene to action scene than about character development, now books are being purposefully 'ended' without any resolution. This is not simply a good, multi-book, stopping...

"The sins of men are, in part, the fault of women, specifically women in tight-fitting clothing." Or so claims a religious pamphlet being handed out in Bristol, Virginia. It goes on to say, "Scripture tells us that when a man looks on a woman to lust for her he has already committed adultery in his heart. If you are dressed in a way that tempts a men to do this secret (or not so secret) sin, you are a participant in the sin. By the way, some rape victims would not have been raped if they had...

I have a growing unhappiness for all of the 'adult babies' in our culture. You know who I mean – those people who believe that the use of certain expletives, curses, and ethnic terms should be censored by such means as bleeping, disguising, or simply blanking out the sound. Is it because they as cannot bear directness, the possibility of denigration, or expression of intense feelings? Take the following statement for example.
"I was treated like s**t by the f***ing a***hole K**** behind the...

It is amazing how frequently we are seeing people question the underpinnings of their beliefs in popular culture today – and never more prevalent than the fantasy genre. Fantasy is a place where cultural values can be removed from the immediacy of 'real life' and placed into a context where – hopefully – we can view them with less bias.
In most cultures the biggest determinant of a person's beliefs comes through the auspices of religion. While much of what is espoused by organized religion...

One facet of the genre that has always attracted me to fantasy fiction is the opportunity to explore alternate social milieus free of the societal limitations in which we live. To be able to immerse myself in situations without the boundaries of our current culture is priceless. Often a story, that is fantastic for our world, causes me to reassess how I view reality, and that sometimes results in changes that radiate out from me to others.

An interesting spillover from our culture into that...