News [http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&ncl=1122153504] is going around how the Hollywood writers are going on strike. The dire circumstances: we’ll probably be without original television for a few months. However, it raises the question of the point of unions in

So…I’ve done the contest three years in a row now, cranking out 2.5 novels. Am I ready for another one? Nah. I’m gonna focus on short stories with a New York theme. I’ll aim for the 50k words, just split between a half dozen works.

Haven’t written as much as I’d like to lately. Trying to pull out legitimate threads from all the craziness. Still unsure of this piece, might as well post it. —– The Healer The day he dies he wakes in a shaft of light, clear air from the open window.

Hearing about the Coen brother’s latest project compelled me to pick up McCarthy’s source novel. The premise is simple enough. A Texas game hunter comes across the scene of a massacre – half-dozen Mexicans shot up with automatic weapons, a truck full of heroin, and a leather satchel of

I went on a Vonnegut binge a few years back, but his 1959 science fiction novel wasn’t part of the stack. Finally picked it up and read it – appropriately – during the Kafkaesque nightmare of 21st century air travel. Malachi Constant, the world’s richest spoiled playboy, has been invited

On the train south, over rolling twilight hills, I spent the drab hours consuming a thick green tome – Best American Short stories 2004. This won’t be a review of the content within. More of a small remark – The title was a lie. False advertising. How could these tales, these

Pictures are up: Also going to be posting travel journals over the next few days, same format as the original Europe Journals.

http://www.observer.com/2007/new-victorians?page=0%2C0 The label is mildly insulting, but I guess I fit the bill. Married (relatively young), career focused, invested in some sort of responsibility… What does that mean? I think I treasure building something outside of myself, a worthwhile community that doesn’

Little Anne Exely pulled herself onto the ragged parapet…There, the city vast, brown clouds pumping from the steam stacks over the stone lowlands. The sun ducked low, still a few dwindling minutes until it bid farewell. Where was the golem? Img from: http://iyasakado.com/steel/ori/37/airship.

Sunny Days in Central Park Free Shows in Brooklyn Late Night Rooftops Holiday Beach Weekend

Started utilizing Google Reader in earnest. Consumption of internet detritus [http://www.boingboing.net/] shot up 1000%. Aside from the requisite tech stuff, I’ve got music [http://www.brooklynvegan.com/] and concert reviews [http://fochemusic.blogspot.com/], freakonomics [http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/], fringe science [http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.

My bookshelf was filling up. My Barnes and Noble gift cards were depleted. The library was on the other side of town. What ever was I to do! Like any lazy self-respecting procurer of digital media, I fired up a few queries on trusty old isohunt. Low and behold, e-books.

People know Philip K. Dick through film adaptations – Total Recall, Minority Report, Blade Runner, Scanner Darkly. The fact that he’s been such a deep treasure-trove for Hollywood says a lot about his imagination, but not much for his actual writing. The Man in the High Castle is one of

Far into the future, a human expedition awakens something from a deep space archive. Soon it consumes the tiny colony, infecting all the fleeing ships, a Blight on the known universe. Only a tiny cargo boat escapes, carrying with it a young family – and the only hope to stop it.

Saw William Gibson [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_gibson] promote his new book, Spook Country [http://www.amazon.com/Spook-Country-William-Gibson/dp/0399154302/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-1749533-1930824?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187140484&sr=8-1] , at the Union Square Barnes and Noble, where he read a scene set

I hit the elevator button the same moment as my iPod, starting up the giddy laughter and calm strums of Did You See the Words. As the metal doors close and we descend, I’m enveloped in a soothing aura of sound, matched with morbid words: Have you seen them,

The summer has been sweltering, goopy heat simmering in the subway stations, the stench of garbage piles permeating. I’ve tried to keep up with my reading (with the help of a 300-volume e-book torrent), despite wanting most of the time to pass out in a cold shower. Children of

In a town where everyone’s an individual, there’s a feeling that style trumps all. The distinctive New York Indy scene is one of weirdness, cacophony, jarring flavors and colors. It’s funny – in this place with such rational design, both naturalistic and geometrical, the cutting edge favors the

By some crack in my English curriculum, To Kill a Mockingbird, skipped me. Thus, I felt some intangible responsibility to remove it from the list-of-books-I-should-have-read-in-seventh-grade. I can see now the rationale for its accolades – the cherry-picked symbolism, precocious pre-teens, an approachable primer on southern race-relations. Yes, Harper Lee handles all

For a while, it looked like Chuck Palahniuk was a one trick pony. Every novel post Fight Club followed the formula – edgy first person narration, repetitive metaphors and hooks, maybe a big third act twist. Sure, there were some gems – Survivor and Choke – but a change was needed. With Haunted

Stuff I’ve been listening to a bunch over the last month ~ Band of Horses – Everything all the time [http://www.amazon.com/Everything-All-Time-Band-Horses/dp/B000E6GBV2/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-4345451-5748908?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1179285889&sr=8-1] Originally released over a year ago, its strange I didn’

Life in the Meta Following a few bored hours browsing Facebook – traversing an endless labyrinth of digital photos, lists of movies, books, tv shows, blogs and distributed snippets of conversation – I wondered about our attitude towards privacy. There’s no denying we’re more open with our interests, our photographs