Stacey E. Bryan's Blog, page 11
March 26, 2017
How To Keep Going
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When I was a teenager, my mother was driving us through the San Fernando Valley one winter afternoon. We had probably been doing errands together; groceries, gas, maybe some hot dogs from Wienerschnitzel. No, eating hot dogs isn’t considered an errand, but consuming them usually does facilitate “errand completion.”
Winter in Los Angeles isn’t really winter, as everyone knows. It was probably brisk outside, sustaining a nip in the air that people in, say, Canada or Northern China or even the...
February 26, 2017
The Business of Life and Death
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It started several years ago, unobtrusively, just annoying little changes.
He’d say, “God, I hate getting older.”
I’d say, “Why?”
He’d say, “Because I can’t see anymore.”
He could still see. But something mysterious was happening, an obstinate and diligent takeover. An internal invasion occurring in slow motion. As his peripheral vision started to fade, an opaque fog crowding the larger part of the world away, he finally relented to having to see a doctor.
At the ophthalmologist’s the d...
January 30, 2017
Inarritu’s The Revenant: And Our Possible Return From Trump
Origin of revenant: 1820-30; French: ghost, noun use of present participle of revenir to return, equivalent to re- + ven (ir) to come (Latin venīre); a person who returns as a spirit after death; a person who returns.
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I could talk about Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s “The Revenant” solely in terms of its beauty and savagery, due not only to the execution of the film but also due to the subject matter of a wounded, abandoned figure fighting for survival, almost completely alone, in the epic an...
January 14, 2017
Review: ‘Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation’
Re-blogging Mr. Chamberlain’s post about Octavia Butler’s “Kindred.” One of my favorite authors ever, with a rare, uniquely seen perspective when it comes to sci-fi. She passed, in my opinion, too early, and we are bereft of new work from her. But at least we have what we have.
“Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation”
There’s a ragged and raw quality to Octavia Butler’s novel, “Kindred,” first published in 1979, about a young African American woman who time travels to America du...
January 9, 2017
Marguerite Duras: Love Until Death
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I can’t remember if I saw the movie first or read the book first. But in a rare circumstance, Marguerite Duras’ “The Lover” is riveting in either medium. France’s Goncourt prize winner of 1984 is set in prewar Indochina where Duras was born and grew up. As the affair between a 15-year-old French girl and a 27-year-old Chinese man unfolds, the fluctuating entanglements and fitful treachery of colonialism is unsubtly mirrored by the volatile passions and shifting dynamics of the couple’s forbi...
December 13, 2016
Writer’s Block: Unbound
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Someone once said there was no such thing as writer’s block. You’re just out of ideas. Um….well, I’d call that a block, wouldn’t you? If you’re out of ideas, you’re blocked out of writing. You’re blocked by the fact that your synapses aren’t firing fast enough or in an applicable sequence. You’re not cock blocked, but you’re brain blocked. You’re blocked, plain and simple. From words. From ideas. From sentences. From endings. Beginnings. Writing.
Below is an ode to writer’s block. And also h...
Unbound
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Someone once said there was no such thing as writer’s block. You’re just out of ideas. Um….well, I’d call that a block, wouldn’t you? If you’re out of ideas, you’re blocked out of writing. You’re blocked by the fact that your synapses aren’t firing fast enough or in an applicable sequence. You’re not cock blocked, but you’re brain blocked. You’re blocked, plain and simple. From words. From ideas. From sentences. From endings. Beginnings. Writing.
Below is an ode to writer’s block. And also h...
November 26, 2016
The Brady Bunch: What Fresh Hell?
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What fresh hell is this? Now, on top of everything else, Florence Henderson, Mrs. Brady is gone?
2016 is wapping up damatically, a lot of which we could do without. Ms. Henderson was up there, but you never wanna see Mrs. Brady make the final exit. Who’s next, Greg? Cindy?!
Come on, now, though. How much more can we take? First it’s the harrowing political roller coaster ride–not over yet. One of my favorite blogs, Idiot Joy Showland, says it all. Starting with a post entitled: “What To Do W...
What Fresh Hell?
What fresh hell is this? Now, on top of everything else, Florence Henderson, Mrs. Brady is gone?
2016 is wapping up damatically, a lot of which we could do without. Ms. Henderson was up there, but you never wanna see Mrs. Brady make the final exit. Who’s next, Greg? Cindy?!
Come on, now, though. How much more can we take? First it’s the harrowing political roller coaster ride–not over yet. One of my favorite blogs, Idiot Joy Showland, says it all. Starting with a post entitled: “What To Do W...
November 13, 2016
Trump President Elect: Scrape the Black Stuff Off
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It happened. Previously when talking about the similarities between a particular Battlestar Galactica episode and this year’s election, I ended with the fact that although I wasn’t enthralled with the democratic offerings, the alternative was unthinkable. And now it appears that it happened. The unthinkable. The unthinkable has happened.
While the world is in shock and nobody quite understands how Trump, this Baltar-like candidate (sans the genius IQ) came to be the president elect, nobody i...
