COVID-19 is upon us. New York State is in the midst of a lockdown for all but the most critical employees. I don’t know that I am counted among them; I’ll find out after a manager’s meeting on Monday. It would be nice stay home, although I am certainly privileged enough to have job security and unused paid-time-off hours. I’ve taken this rare opportunity to sit at the computer for several days and make the most of an uncertain situation.
Continue reading “Pandemic Productivity”academic
Energy
onAlthough the Myers-Briggs assessment has fallen out of favor for the Big 5, I’ve derived a lot of personal insight from knowing I’m an INTJ. In recent days I’ve found myself revisiting the nuances of my type in order to understand how I cope with stress. Continue reading “Energy”
literary deathmatch
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In the world of PSYCHO-PASS, paper media has virtually vanished. Makishima Shogo, the central villain of the series, tells his partner that reading a physical book provides his senses with a soft reboot. Books are tactile. Books have an odor. Used books have a history like people do, where the wear and tear of life eventually shows on the surface. The oil and sweat from our fingertips warms and warps pages, and the spine creases where our favorite page is (or just the page we always fall asleep reading). Continue reading “literary deathmatch”
what’s your color?
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As I drew near to ending the first draft of my science fiction noir, I recently found renewed interest in a franchise I hadn’t watched in a long time: PSYCHO-PASS. Continue reading “what’s your color?”
Fate and Death and Rebirth
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One restless night, I logged into Netflix and began Fate/Extra Last Encore. I was so bemused by the show I thought I’d slept through important scenes, or assumed I’d dreamed up some of what I saw. Turns out I was awake: everyone dies in the first episode, which I thought I’d hallucinated, and in similar fashion to the rest of the franchise, dying was only the beginning of the adventure. Continue reading “Fate and Death and Rebirth”
Did Dexter’s Lab Rot My Brains?
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So, I was on Twitter one morning when I stumbled upon some food for thought: Continue reading “Did Dexter’s Lab Rot My Brains?”
the specter of orientalism
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As I explore my place in the fiction-writing world, I find there are many writers from marginalized walks of life–a tragic fact, but I’m comforted in knowing people like me are telling their stories to the world. A question I see on Twitter (quite often, in fact) is how to have discussions about other races, cultures and communities you’re not from. In marveling at the possibilities of writing about anything, the best question a writer can ask is, “Should we write about anything?”
