Kurt R.A. Giambastiani's Blog, page 77

Dear Left Brain: STFU

Yesterday I tried the “clustering” technique for the first time. I was not pleased. “Clustering” is an idea generation technique where you start with a core idea in the center (the nucleus), and start jotting other notions around it. This sort of random, free-association is what the right-brain does best, and clustering is a way [...]

Ray and Me

I am setting aside work on my new novel. If you have a problem with this, take it up with Ray Bradbury. Some comments on a recent post of mine got me thinking, and I went to get my copy of Dandelion Wine.I hadn’t read it for a long, long (loooong) time; such a long [...]

When the Last Law was Down

The Boston bombings brought out great emotions among my acquaintances, and understandably so. They brought out great emotions in me, as well. One thing I try to avoid, though, is letting my emotions cloud my judgment. Occasionally, in regard to DzhokharTsarnaev, I hear people say, “We didn’t learn anything from him,” and “Great; now we [...]

Another Mint?

I’ve made some additions to my household’s list of neologisms. Newly remembered/added words are: feep gleep slooby I was going to add “squiffers,” a word meaning tipsy or drunk (intensified as “squiffer-doodles”) but I learned that “squiffy” is a word in current use, so it isn’t a true neologism. We obviously just bastardized it. k

Lion’s Tooth

Doc Maynard had a wife. Two of them, actually, and simultaneously, some say. David S. “Doc” Maynard, one of Seattle’s more colorful founders,married Catherine Simmons Broshear Maynard, a widow he had metalong the Oregon Trail. He married heralmost immediately upon divorcing Lydia, his first wife, a decree granted via questionable–and later, contestable–conditions. (Doc may have [...]

Buddy Buddy

We picked up two “buddy” films this weekend. One was a buddy/fish-out-of-water mashup, and the other was a classic buddy/caper film. Both were a lot of fun. “The Intouchables” comes to us from France, but don’t roll your eyes and put it into that “foreign film” category. It is engaging, wry, honest, and very watchable. [...]

Chicken Noodle a la David Chang

The other day I happened across an episode of “The Mind of a Chef.” (How did I miss this show before?) In this episode (“Simplicity”), host and chef David Chang finds places where the chefs have pared everything back to its most simplistic. While the episode was great, at one point Chang frustrated me entirely. [...]

Maintain an Even Strain

It’s been a difficult week for us all, and continues to be so–nowhere more so this morning than in Boston. In reaction I’ve tried to “Keep calm and carry on” by doing normal things and moving forward with projects. I’ve been able to push the line forward a little in some areas: with this blog, [...]

Going _There_

There’s never an egg timer around when you need one. As details began to emerge in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, one of my Facebook ephemera went toxic on our collective hrm-hrms, asking us all if now Obama was going to require background checks for purchase of cooking vessels. Yes. He went there, [...]

were u at dude?

Composing a post for your blog? Writing an email to a colleague?Here are a couple of tips: The letter “r” is not a verb. The letter “u” is not a pronoun. It doesn’t surprise me when blog posts or emails have this sort of embedded “text-speak.” Nor does it surprise me to find them riddled [...]