Betsy Robinson's Blog, page 4

Short Film for Dog Lovers

Happy New Year!

Thirty-one years ago, with the help of editor/filmmaker Steve Clarendon, my dog, Daisy, and my actor friend Shelley Wyant, I made this little film short that I had written to the score of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. Long before digital technology, adding music from an LP became too cumbersome to attempt, so the VHS of the rough cut languished in a dusty bag on my top book shelf.

Recently, I had the video digitized and finally finished it with the help of Vivaldi, royalty free courtesy of John Harrison with the Wichita State University Chamber Players.

I hope you enjoy this love letter to New York City, seasons in Central Park, human and canine oddities, and angels in dog suits everywhere.

You can see it here: Point of View

(Please excuse the frame counter; there is no way to eliminate it easily and cheaply.)

I'm Making Book Videos

Just in time for all the controversy, I decided to join TikTok--through my computer, not my phone. I have nothing the Chinese government would want to steal, and there's this whole ocean of people who are interested in books, so why not?

If you want to see the videos, you don't have to join. Just go to the URL on your nongovernment-blocked device.

Some of the videos are fun: Betsy's Book Videos

Why I Love The Trouble with the Truth

I'm teaching myself video editing. Hence, new videos. This one is a love letter to both my late mother, author Edna Robinson, and her book The Trouble with the Truth :

VIDEO: Why I Love The Trouble with the Truth

New Audio Play

When I was a kid I used to hole up in my room listening to radio plays.

It occurs to me that people who love audio books may have that same love.



So I made a 3 minute 43 second radio play out of a scene from The Last Will & Testament of Zelda McFigg.

For those who have read the novel, it's the scene where Zelda learns to drive from her errant student Donny Sherman:

The Driving Lesson

Oh Reader—Oh, What a Gift!

I’m a voracious reader as well as a writer, and therefore a lot of my journalism these days focuses on books.

I knew nothing about Oh Reader magazine except that they might be open to articles I’m interested in writing. And I was thrilled when editor Gemma Peckham accepted a piece about finding hilarious books by female writers. She has published it, under the title “Laughing with the Ladies,” in the December 2022 (issue 010) Oh Reader and, oh boy, am I surprised and grateful for the discovery of this magazine.

I just finished reading it cover to cover, and this is a reader’s heaven.

Of course, I like my own piece, detailing the difficulty of finding pee-in-your-pants funny books by women, why that has been a problem, and a list with short descriptions of the 13 books that I’ve discovered since I began my quest eight years ago.

But there’s more.

My favorite stories: how being raised Hindu affected the writer’s (Thulasi Seshan) reverence for physical books; the story of a neighbor’s book collection and how reading it after her demise affected the author (Rebecca Duras); a fittingly short essay by a writer (Steven Allison) who couldn’t read due to his ADHD about the unlikely way he learned he can read whole books; and a deeply moving contemplation by a bookseller (Laura Bridgewater) about what she learned was the true gift of the bookseller-customer interaction.

Not only are the articles wonderful, but the art, layout, and high-quality paper make this a magazine to save.

The December issue will be on magazine stands on December 8, 2022, and you can learn more at Oh Reader.com.

Notes from a Crusty Seeker

Reviews, musings, miscellaneous material.
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