Kurt R.A. Giambastiani's Blog, page 39

Writing to the Market

Oops. Sorry. By “writing to the market” I didn’t mean “gearing your work-in-progress to match current market trends” (which, I feel compelled to add, unless you are a spectacularly fast writer with a very good agent, is a fool’s game). I mean “writing to the market’ as in writing copy for marketing. Which is what I’ve been working […]

The Power of You

"Why don't you do something with your life?" Such an awful question.

I, Immigrant

In 1889, my great-grandfather and his brothers left their home in Lucca, Italy and traveled to the port of Le Havre, France, where they boarded a ship bound for New York. They left their homeland to escape the economic misery and political chaos that typified the Kingdom of Italy in the late 1800s. They came to […]

Vignette 25Jan17

— I see a silver-lit night, full moon struggling to pierce slate-colored clouds.I see a ghostly crag, pale rocks rising abovea dark, heathered moor.I see a woman in blue standing at its summit, bare feet on bare stone, hair loose, arms wide, waiting. The clouds marshal their forces, focus their power. Winds rise, rumbling forward, […]

Trashing Paradigms: Dropping the Hammer

Today, we wentdark. Sort of. Today, our cable and land-line were cut off. We still have internet and our mobile phones, but the dedicated connections for television and phoneare as dead as Monty Python’s parrot. During our fortnight-long sanscable experiment, everything about our television viewing habits came under scrutiny: what we watch, when we watch, […]

Are You Not Entertained?

This is the type of shite that makes my brain whirl like a dervish when it wakes me up at 4AM.

Trashing Paradigms: Cutting Cable

On January 1stI woke early, made a pot of coffee, and sat down to watch the Sunday morning punditry. In general, this is not a good idea as it often leads to shouting and throwing things at the television, which tends to wake my wife and scare the cat, but it’s a hard habit to […]

Ending It

I did not wind the clocks this month. They tickdown to silence, measuring out the year’s last hours with ponderous chimes. This New Year’s Eve, the house will be quiet. No television. No dropping ball. No music. No crowds. No friends. No crackling fire. No pop of effervescent wine. No clink of crystal. Not even […]

Voice and Structure in Bang the Drum Slowly

My life and my brain have calmed enough that, for the first time in a long time, I was able to finish reading a book. I’d picked up a dozen or so in the last year, but either they were uninteresting (alot of titles about adolescent angst…what’s up with that?) or I found them annoying […]

Season’s Greetings

In December 1966 — in lieu of their regular station identification — CBS aired a short, animated holidaygreeting for its viewers. (I’ve embedded it, below, for your convenience.) Drawn by R.O. Blechman, a well-known animator and illustrator, the piece was done in his standard minimalist style. Though it has no dialogue, it still delivers a […]