Serdar Yegulalp's Blog, page 156

Canonade Dept.

CONSUMER NOTE! I wrote this post while feverish, so I'm even crankier than usual.

Also, INJURY WARNING! Do not read this linked piece unless you want to sprain your eyes rolling them.

What We Lose if We Lose the Canon - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education

those writers who feel the pressure of precursors and who successfully take poetry or prose in new directions deserve consideration beyond what we normally extend to writers who produce satisfactory work in various genres....

Marveling At What They've Done Dept.

Another argument that keeps coming up re: the Marvel movies (yeah, that tired canard again, but bear with me) is that they're not in fact "all the same film". This is something other people have defended pretty vociferously.Winter Soldier is a spy thriller;Guardians of the Galaxyis comic space opera;Thor is cross-universe mythmaking; etc.

But in the end, all of themare the same kind of movie: an action-beat-driven tentpole Hollywood blockbuster with tons of cash and digital effects thrown at t...

Gilliam's Island Dept.

Perpetual Hollywood gadfly Terry Gilliam reads the graffiti on the wall:

Terry Gilliam: Hollywood is just “gray, frightened people” holding on for dear life - Salon.com

In Hollywood, at least when I was making films there, there were people in the studios that actually had personalities. You could distinguish one from the other. And now, I don’t see that at all. It’s just gray, frightened people holding on without any sense of “let’s try something here, let’s do something different.” ... The bi...

These Rules Were Made For Breaking Dept.

Good, nobody tried to blow up the planet while I was sweating and sniffling my face off. On to business:

Zachary Bonelli - "Writing Challenge"

Once you know what a rule is and why it exists and how to follow it, then break it, and then ask yourself how that feels.

This is a fairly foundational prescription for any budding writer: learn your Strunk & White, then see under what circumstances any given rule can be bent or broken, and to what end. I like how Zach throws in "then ask yourself how tha...

It Was A Long Year, It Was A Very Long Year Dept.

I'm sitting here with a scratchy throat, runny eyes, and not the best feeling in my head. I should be under the covers with a shot of NyQuil in me, but I wanted to record the thoughts of the moment before I got lazy and lost the moment-um. Ha ha.

What a year. Putting it mildly. Settled into a new job, lost an old one, started a new side project to replace that lost job, sold my house, moved cross-country, bought a new one, (mostly) finished a new book, started plotting the next one, pruned dow...

You Figure It Out Dept.

What's wrong with the movies? More than we can see, that's for sure:

The Birdcage «

There is no evident love of movies in this lineup, or even just joy in creative risk. Only a dread of losing.... Optimists usually say lighten up, because, after all, good movies always find a way to get through. But here’s the thing: They don’t. The evidence that good movies survive is the fact that every year brings good movies, which is a bit like saying that climate change is a hoax because it’s nice out tod...

The Next Big Thing Dept.

With 2015 poking its nose into the tent, it's high time I looked over all I survey and made some decisions about how things are going to go from here. So, a mission rundown for the new year:

Read more at Genji Press

No Little Pink Glasses For You And Me Dept.

E.W. Dijkstra Archive: On the role of scientific thought (EWD447)

I wanted to be glad and happy with my eyes fully open, without fooling myself in the belief that we lived in a pink world: to be happy to be alive in the full knowledge of all misery, our own included.

When we talk about happiness, it seems to me we ultimately have to speak of it in this light. If happiness at its best means anything, it is the ability to feel joy at least as much despite what we know as because of it, and to do...

All Doors, All Windows Dept.

Mike Leigh, he ofNakedand many other fine films, used an open-ended approach to many of his films. Rather than write a script, he'd have actors improvise on a number of basic themes and with some rudimentary notes about what kinds of characters they were playing. Over time, the scenes would develop a direction and force of their own, and from them he would knit together a more formal story. But the open-endedness, the willingness to trust his performers (and for them, in turn, to trust him),...

Nailing Jelly To The Surface Of The Pond Dept.

LIKE THIS? — Gabriel Squailia

Why is this character straight and not gay? Why is this one Indian and not Black? What would happen if the main character were a woman instead? What if we started the first scene in the middle of an argument? In the middle of a fist-fight? With a man masturbating? What if the first sentence let us know exactly where we were? What if it gave away nothing? What if we never quite learned what was going on? What if we did, but it turned out to be wrong?

Logicians and p...