Stacey E. Bryan's Blog, page 6
June 3, 2020
Hand in a Pocket
The timing of my last blog, Acting While Black, was a little ironic, coming as it did shortly before the latest incident of police brutality/murder in the U.S.
The premise that black characters rarely survive in movies of certain genres seemed absurdly laughable and it felt worthwhile to jog down that road a little bit, stopping at the glitziest and shiniest of hilarious examples.
After the past week, the humor of Acting While Black has soured in my mouth pretty much. The past week has been a ...
May 3, 2020
Acting While Black
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Lately weve been slumped over on the sofa, unmoving, glassy-eyed, barely blinking and uncommunicative.
Were okay, though. The only virus weve succumbed to (so farknock on wood) is the addictive stupor of movie bingeing while locked up inside like everyone else.
During these dazed purgatorial viewings weve stumbled across that strange convention of mainly Sci-Fi movies but also lots of action movies, diminishing to a lesser degree as you delve into the other genres, where the black character...
March 28, 2020
JUST BECAUSE
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Just because the days are stressful lately and this excerpt sent to me by a friend from David Foster Wallaces The Pale King feels, to me, like a meditation, a gentle inundation, a still, sweet, patient hush
Past the flannel plains and blacktop graphs and skylines of canted rust, and past the tobacco-brown river overhung with weeping trees and coins of sunlight through them on the water downriver, to the place beyond the windbreak, where untilled fields simmer shrilly in the A.M. heat:...
March 11, 2020
Max in America: Into the Land of Trump
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A sheltered, artistic Mexican man.
An overprotective mother who passes away.
A balloon.
A journey across borders…both geographical and psychological.
I know everyone’s beaten down by the present U.S. administration and can probably barely endure another moment even thinking about it, but Henry Chamberlain’s Max in America: Into The Land of Trump comes at us sideways from a different point of view: one of a Mexican national.
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Remember them? The sex offenders and criminals running across our...
February 10, 2020
And The Bear Attack
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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.
Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s “The Revenant” is featured on a random internet list as one of “15 great movies that are incredibly boring.”
I have three words to say to that. Three times: the bear attack. The bear attack. The bear attack.
Although the Arikara onslaught on the fur...
January 19, 2020
What the HELL did I just see?!
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At the premiere of 2001: A Space Odyssey, according to many sources, including The Guardian– https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/oct/21/space-odyssey-kubrick-science-fiction — there were hundreds of walkouts, including Rock Hudson, who asked, “Will someone tell me what the hell this is about?”
The title of this blog is an ode to Rock Hudson’s 1960s frustration and confusion. But not for 2001. Just replace Kubrick’s masterful space odyssey with Mother!, The Book of Henry, and The...
December 29, 2019
The Unseeming Horror of “Unseaming”
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When a story starts out, “You know he’s the one who made your beloved niece disappear,” it doesn’t bode well.
The first line of The Button Bin in Mike Allen’s collection of horror stories, “Unseaming,” is enough to raise the hair on your arms and the back of your neck. Allen, already well known as an editor and writer of speculative poetry, delivered “Unseaming” several years ago in all its luscious, spine-tingling dread and horror.
Imagine standing in front of a window. You’re holding a...
December 16, 2019
December Promote Your Book Party!
Thanks to Charles French again for hosting everyone’s books! Lots of good stuff in there. Too many books…not enough time.
charles french words reading and writing
It is now almost Winter, and it is time once again for a book promotion party! I want to offer an opportunity for all writers who follow this blog to share information on their books. It can be very difficult to generate publicity for our writing, so I thought this little effort might help. All books...
November 8, 2019
A Maggot…. again.
A fellow blogger reminded me of UFOs today, so I’m posting the link to one of the blogs I wrote long ago…when I had many fewer followers! If you’re not interested in the book review, just skip ahead to the paintings at the end, at least, and see if you find them as fascinating as I do. But John Fowles, author of A Maggot, is amazingly brilliant too.
https://staceyebryan.wordpress.com/2017/05/27/a-maggot-by-john-fowles-unidentified-flying-myths/
October 20, 2019
BONE FOLDER
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Writing contests. Maddening. Challenging. Frustrating.
I haven’t had much luck with standing out in the crowd: of the handful I’ve entered, I only won one in college, and then later in life I made the second cut of a sci-fi contest but didn’t rate the final stage.
Sometimes after the contest was over I’d read the winning entry and not be overly impressed. Sour grapes much? Well, no, ’cause it wasn’t ALL the stories. Sometimes I was impressed, surprised, enthralled.
But other times it seemed like a judge’s niece or husb...
