This is my first restaurant review, and since I lack the refined culinary vocabulary of a professional gourmand, I have decided to offer my rating cookie monster style. Like cookie monster, I may not understand the intricacies of food preparation, but I know good food when I taste it. So I am rating this in […]
In a magazine article I published in 1998, I had observed that most video games either excluded woman altogether – or cast them in passive roles, such as a princess to be rescued. This might not have bothered me so much – and I may have never been published – if I had been able
Girls, Games and Virtual Freedom Read More »
I have written two fantasy novels, and I have just started another. However, I have a weakness: fight scenes. I have written a few, but tend to avoid them if I can. And yet, they are a huge part of the genre. In fantasy, the culmination of a story is almost always an epic war. Usually
Why Fight Scenes in Fantasy and Science Fiction? Read More »
There was a time that I had decided that all television was dumb and that only books were worth my time. I hated the vacuous sit-coms and the laugh tracks that told viewers how to react. I was fifteen then. Perhaps at that time, in the mid eighties, the quality of many shows were sub-par.
Madmen vs. True Blood Read More »
The best novels are the ones you regret having to finish reading. I was happily surprised to have discovered one by an Abbeville author, within easy driving distance from where I live. Written by Amy Alley, The Absence of Anyone Else is about Grace, a single mother of a toddler and an underpaid art teacher,
“The Absence of Anyone Else” book review Read More »
The name of my blog, \”passionate reason,\” has a strange, personal origin – and for that reason I hesitated to use it. The phrase came about in July 2001, during the height of the Bush administration, right before I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I wrote an emotional, rambling essay or \”manifesto,\” thinking I had
Why Passionate Reason? Read More »
Does Facebook promote narcissism? Many seem to think so. I read an article in CNN a couple of weeks ago, in which the author said Facebook was turning everyone into shallow narcissists, and seemed to think a resistance movement against the site was necessary to avoid impending apocalypse. I have heard this from others too,
Does Facebook really promote narcissism? Read More »
