While it’s not my favorite war film, I confess I do often have an itch to watch The Longest Day on June 6th… and then I think of all sorts of moments from the film, including the repeated use of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Maddy Shaw Roberts assembled a collection of music connected to World War II or in remembrance thereof in honor of the 80th anniversary of D-Day last year, but it’s still a good…
I’m deep in writing on one project and also reading books by writers about writing, almost an ouroboros about creativity, and this multi-part piece on creativity by Matthew Inman must have sensed it through the algorithm and it came up in one of my feeds. I had seen it when it first came out, but it’s been a while. All praise the algorithm! (It might be listening). You get a sense of Inman’s journey and…
I posted about the accuracy of The Bear on Wednesday and I’m still into these sorts of YouTube videos, possibly because I’ve been watching a number of docu-drama or other historical films of late. Here, historian Dan Snow looks at five historical films audiences give high marks to… but we all know that doesn’t mean they pass factual muster, right? I like how he can rave about the storytelling power of a give film or…
The Bear, FX’s much-lauded, frequently-awarded show is coming back for its fourth, and potentially final, season. Readers of this blog may recall I love the show for a number of reasons, none of which are dependent on it being a comedy. In fact, an arguable element to admire in the show is its depiction of the inherent drama within a restaurant kitchen. But how accurate is that portrayal? Veteran chef and restaurateur Paul Liebrandt weighs…
On this uniquely American holiday, it’s perhaps not unusual to wonder who a typical American might be. And in his usual wonky way, John Green delivers: And if you want a more dynamic video about all the many people who are American, perhaps with stirring music you may have originally heard in The Truman Show, John Cena has you covered: E pluribus unum, indeed.
It’s 2025 and the first Super Soakers went on sale 35 years ago, changing backyard water gun fights forever. Invented by Lonnie Johnson, the Super Soaker (initially with the entirely accurate if less glib name “Power Drencher”) was a game-changer from a toy company called Larami. My siblings and I were already familiar with Larami doing for water guns what Activision did for Atari 2600 game cartridges. Translated from the Gen X: this was a…
The official unofficial start of summer is coming, which means more than a few families are planning some road trips. And on those trips, you may be tempted to stop at a restaurant that isn’t as familiar, perhaps a regional chain. But did you realize some of these regional chains might have once had visions of national grandeur? Ernie Smith, in an article on Atlas Obscura, dives into the occasionally deep-friend origins of some of…
I’ve been looking more into urban planning for both story research and rabbit hole reasons and came across this video by the same folks who did some informative videos about cities I linked to a few years ago, so here you are: In some ways, I feel like this is draft research for an upcoming John Oliver segment, so no jokes or what do we do… because how bad or not is it? Your mileage…
It’s Friday, so let’s keep things light. Building on the post for Shakespeare’s birthday from two weeks ago, it’s worth remembering that writers, the folks who are supposed to be lovers of language will go ahead and just invent words. Without a permit! Why it’s outrageous! Possibly treaso- oh, who am I kidding? I run an outfit called Jabberwocky Audio Theater for crying out loud. I love nonce words. I’ll let Dr. Erica Brozovsky take…
While not being a chess junkie –yes, despite the ‘Bjorn’ connection— I nevertheless find learning various variants and cousins of chess to be interesting, from the traditional shogi to the fantastical tridimensional chess. One variant I haven’t played in an age is Hnefatafl or “Viking Chess” which, to my mind, is very thematic for an abstract game and enjoyably asymmetrical. So, to prepare you the next time some wandering Viking challenges you to a tabletop…