Writing

Any Sufficiently Advanced Science Fiction Editor is Indistinguishable from Magic

I grew up reading scores of science fiction short stories from the Golden Age and “New Wave” of science fiction… and then went on to various fantasy and science fiction novels of the day, many of which were published by Del Rey Books, still active today as an imprint of the mammoth publisher, Penguin Random House. What I didn’t know was the role one Judy-Lynn del Rey played in the creation of Del Rey Books…

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Various and Sundry

Real World Scares: Escaping a Sinking Vehicle

Now’s the time of year where many of us muse about what we’d do when entering a darkened room, basement, or forest, especially if there’s creepy background music playing. But what to do about the very real world, very freaky possibility of being in a vehicle that’s sinking into a body of water. Whether it’s been caused by a man wearing the face of Captain Kirk or not, if you find yourself in this situation,…

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Various and Sundry Writing

Short Stories to Get the Imagination Flowing

Okay, so I’ve been posting daily during this Banned Books Week, but perhaps you’re reading this and feeling guilty that you haven’t dived into some banned book. You shouldn’t. The only people who should feel guilty should be people who are say, trying to burn books they haven’t read in a school’s furnace. Bear in mind: Enter Emily Temple compiling a list of 43 of the most iconic and engaging short stories in the English…

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Various and Sundry

The Hunt for Hard-to-Find Films

My post earlier this week about the Paramount sale reminded me of one of the annoying aspects of the streaming era: that films and shows can go missing This isn’t a new phenomenon. Even before the succession of VHS to DVD to Blu-Ray (not to forget the attempts of Betamax, LaserDisc, and HD DVD), prints of films and TV shows could be hard to find. But if a longstanding truth of the way to make…

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Various and Sundry

What’s the Deal with Hold Music?

If you haven’t been on hold with some business or another so far this year, don’t worry: it’ll happen. And when it happens, you might ask yourself, “Why is hold music the way it is?” Alexia Kontolemos has you covered with an informative article for Mental Floss. My main improvement would be the elimination of ads, but I know that won’t happen. And if you want to know more about the grandfather of background music,…

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Raves Various and Sundry

What’s Your Beef?

So let’s say you just finished binge-watching season three of The Bear in the span of a few days and, with not much food in the house, you just want to get a beef sweet and hot ‘n’ wet and talk about it. But maybe you don’t. In fact, maybe you don’t have any idea what I’m talking about. In which case I have two actions for you, should you choose to accept them. 1)…

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Acting

R.I.P., Donald Sutherland

Donald Sutherland, whose acting career spanned generations of filmgoers, has died at age 88. You can read about it in: As one might expect from working so many decades, many in the film industry are mourning and sharing their remembrances. One of the aspects that I find so interesting about the lanky actor with the piercing eyes is he did prodigious character actor work, yet didn’t submerge into the role as some character actors are…

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Various and Sundry

Dulles Airport… in Burke?!?

Here’s a bit of alternate history I learned just last week: before the current site for what is now Dulles Airport, planners were looking to put a new Washington-area airport in Burke, Virginia. Granted, if the Burke residents hadn’t mounted a resistance, we likely would have gotten a new airport in the area before John Foster Dulles was deemed an appropriate man to lend his name to an international aerodrome… and certainly before Carol Burnett…

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Various and Sundry

The Saga of the Washington Metro’s Silver Line

Being a naturalized citizen of the Washington area, I have followed the saga of the Silver Line for, well, decades. The fact that it exists and runs all the way to Dulles Airport is a fact that still doesn’t quite seem real. This video gives a relatively quick explanation of all the twists and turns it took to get there. Now if you’re a DC-area denizen like me, you might wonder about a local perspective,…

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Various and Sundry

Finding the Right Routine

I really should have posted this back in January when New Year’s Resolutions were top of mind… or perhaps when, here in the States, we sprung forward for Daylight Saving Time. However, whether or not our collection of Mason jars in the cupboard can successfully store daylight, having routines is a good idea… and certainly we’ve all heard about the importance of morning routines. In fact, go-getters who manage their extroversion without caffeine can be…

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