Kurt R.A. Giambastiani's Blog, page 57
July 18, 2014
What’s a Fella to Do?
Lately, the world has been getting on my nerves, and things that otherwise might roll off my back just…aren’t. A friend posted a link to Rebecca Traister’sarticle in the New Republic: I Don’t Care If You Like It Women are tired of being judged by the Esquire metric In it, Traister takes issue with an […]
July 17, 2014
What Once Was Lost
I’ve never really been one who lost things. (Except for gloves. I used to lose gloves all the time.) And I’m especially good about computer files. After once losing the first three chapters of a novel, I got really strict about my file management methods. So, back in the mid-Naughties, when I “lost” a handful […]
July 15, 2014
It’s not Them, It’s Us
I’m going to blame the victim here. Or at least those who see themselves as the victims. We’ve all heard the complaints. The Never Enough Complaint: The news media doesn’t cover [insert pertinenttopic here]. The Corporate Overlords Complaint: The mainstream media only reports what they’re told to report. The Media Bias Complaint: Network news is […]
July 10, 2014
Keeping Track
Okay, so I don’t always think things through. Ages ago, when I was writing nothing but short fiction and sending out MSS to the far corners of the publishing world, I had an idea for a computer application for writers.It was a struggle to keep track of where my dozens of MSS were; where they […]
July 8, 2014
Old Dog Meets New Trick
After successfully avoiding pen and paper during my recent vacation (Thank you, World Cup!) on Sunday I finally grabbed myself by the collar, sat myself down at the deck table, put a pen in my hand and paper before me, and started the short story that has been nipping at my heels like a poorly […]
July 3, 2014
Resurfacing
One evening, when I was courting my wife-to-be, we were at my place when the phone rang. Since we were talking, I ignored the phone. “Aren’t you going to answer that?” Nope. If it was important, they’d call back (I didn’t have an answering machine). This was my relationship with technology in those days. […]
June 25, 2014
Going Dark
I will not be employing a shabbos goythis week. When I lived in Jerusalem, I learned about the shabbos goy. The shabbos goyis a non-Jew who will do tasks of work which are forbidden to Jews on the Sabbath. To keep everything on the up-and-up, the shabbos goyshould be someone who would be on the […]
June 24, 2014
Writing Process Blog Tour – Station Four
Welcome one, welcome all, to the fourth stop on the Writing Process Blog Tour, one of those writerly process-ish bloggy tour-like things that we use as an excuse to talk about our passion: writing. My name is Kurt, and I’ll be your host for as long as you keep reading. Thanks to my predecessor, J.Z. […]
June 19, 2014
Running the Zoo
The other day a friendasked me what my “dream job” would be. The phrase that leapt to mind was: independently wealthy, incredibly influential, international food critic. Then I gave the question a little thought. Whatwould be my dream job? The fact that I did not pick my current job–Software Developer–was no great surprise. Neither was […]
June 17, 2014
Braised Pork Shanks
Say the word “braise” to most home cooks and you’ll likely get a blank stare. Leaving out crock-pots and pot-roasts, I think it’s safe to say that the braise is rarely used in the modern kitchen. Even if you love pot-roasts, you may not know what a braise is or what it does. A braise […]
