Steven Barnes's Blog, page 26

INFINITY WAR (2018) review

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WARNING: SPOILERS

 

Infinity war is loud, colorful, logistically amazing and tons of fun. It is also not a film in any ordinary sense of the word. ALL of its emotional texture is borrowed from other movies, and I can’t imagine what this would feel like to someone who hasn’t seen them. All of them, really.

 

The only character who is treated like an actual being is the villain Thanos, whose dream of “restoring balance to the universe” is actually somewhat affecting, especially once we realize...

“Incel” and the Dating Game

Conversation about “Incel” men (“Involuntary Celibate.”)   Guys who can’t make a sexual connection.

I remember back when I taught martial arts, and I was attracted to a couple of ladies in the classes.  One at a time I asked them to stay after class, and as politely as I could,   I asked them out.    They thought about it, and said no.  I was disappointed, but enjoyed them as people and students, and continued to be connected to them in the way that they felt comfortable. One I was friends wi...

In Phoenix, remembering…

I’m in Phoenix right now, drove in yesterday to visit my Aunt Barbara, a lovely, charming, sparkling lady.  Her husband Carver was my father’s youngest brother, for whom I had a special place in my heart.

 

I was raised by my mother and sister, without brothers, or nearby male relations, and my father was out of the picture most times.   Even though Carver lived back in Michigan before he moved to Phoenix, it was this big, bluff, funny black Santa Claus of a man who taught me to play catch, a...

Why “Do the right thing”?

In some discussions of morality, some people will say:

“If I’m not going to be acknowledged for behaving morally, I won’t.

“If there was no God, why would we be moral?”

“If no one was watching, I’d steal.”

“If I wasn’t afraid of getting caught, I’d cheat.”

 

O.K.–they are saying they have no internal compass for morality. That absent the approval of the tribe, or the fear of being cast into hell by God, or of being thrown into jail, or getting a painful divorce…they would do things considered...

Try the Morning Ritual for 30 Days…

 

Seven years ago I was crashing and burning in Atlanta, unable to find my balance, depressed, and scared. The entire map I’d created of my life had been blown up, and I just wasn’t sure what was next.

 

Desperate, I reached out to a mentor, who reminded me of one of the most basic practices: the Morning Ritual.    Desperate, I remembered that I USED to do it, but had abandoned it some years before.

 

I was out of ideas, and committed to trying it for thirty days.

1)Choose an activity where y...

Love and Ignorance and Images

“The evil in the world comes almost always from ignorance, and goodwill can cause as much damage as ill-will if it is not enlightened. People are more often good than bad, though in fact that is not the question. But they are more or less ignorant and this is what one calls vice or virtue, the most appalling vice being the ignorance that thinks it knows everything and which consequently authorizes itself to kill. The murderer’s soul is blind, and there is no true goodness or fine love without...

Finding your theme

The movie “Star Wars” (now “Episode IV: A New Hope”) works not primarily because of the effects, or the music, but because those things reinforced a central theme that resonated powerfully with the audience.

 

In fact, all of your verbal pyrotechnics, extrapolations, witty dialogue and clever plotting will mean little or nothing unless they trigger emotional responses.

 

How do you do this?

 

Just write your story.  The first draft should be having fun, just tearing it off if possible.  If a...

Vertical Integration

Can human beings write across barriers of race, gender, nationality, religion?  What about extreme morality and behavior?  Surely there are limits…

No, I don’t think there are.

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I saw the documentary “Iceman: Confessions of a Mafia Hitman” is back on Netflix.  That’s the tale of Richard Kuklinski, an apparently soulless professional assassin/serial killer, one of the most dangerous human beings whose thoughts  have ever been recorded on film.

I wouldn’t have wanted to be in that room with h...

Sharing Your Dreams and Nightmares

Jason was recently reading DIARY OF ANN FRANK in school.  Couldn’t have approved more. One of the most famous books of the 20th Century, it tells the story of a young Jewish girl whose family went into hiding during the occupation of the Netherlands.  For over two years they hid there…and then were discovered.  Ann died of typhus in a concentration camp, possibly only weeks before it was liberated by the British.

 

Despite this and countless other photographic, literary, historical, eye-witne...

Holocaust Denial

The subject of “Holocaust Denial” and “Gaslighting” came up over the last few days, and I think there is a strong connection: attempting to convince people that something didn’t happen. That they cannot trust their own perceptions. A version of Goebbels’ “Big Lie.”

Sounds reasonable to me.

All right…let me ask the next question. WHY? What is the PURPOSE of such denial? What end does it achieve? I’m starting with the assumption that the phenomenon is very real–no “Deniers” are welcome in this...