A Skewed View

“You need to decide: television or movies.   You can’t try to write both and expect either format’s producers to take you seriously.”   “These days you have to be a generalist.   You have to show you can be flexible and have proficiency in a wide range of formats.   No one will take a chance on a new writer who appears to have a tunnel-vision approach to the industry.”   “Stick to one genre.   If you write comedy, become known as the go-to comedy writer.   Anyone seeing you’ve written comedy specs and drama specs will think - and rightly so - that not only do you not know what you are doing, you don’t even know what you want to do.”   “Have spec scripts in a wide range of genres.   There’s too much money on the line for anyone to take a chance on someone whose abilities may be limited.   If you can’t show them you can do more than one genre, they’ll assume you can’t.”   “Send me a half-hour, a one hour, and a feature sample ...

I believe I am done.  Volunteering for small film festivals, that is. Last year I volunteered at one that told everyone to come two hours earlier than necessary.  When someone from the festival finally showed (two hours later), his only comment was "Yeah, we originally needed everyone at five, but then we figured out that would be too early."  I see.  But you didn't figure out you should tell any of your volunteers this.  Later, after I had been told not to let anyone else in because we were at capacity, I apologized and turned away the next person who showed up.  He turned to one of the festival organizers - the one who had told me to turn away people - to complain.  The organizer said "Oh, she's just a volunteer.  I'm telling you you can go in."  Alrighty.  So when that festival mass emailed all previous volunteers to ask if we're coming back, I promptly allowed it to go right in my recycle bin. ...

Found in some old newspaper clippings I've kept because they tickled my funny bone: "It's hard to say you're sorry, especially when you're infallible.  But Benedict offered words of apology.  He's sorry people felt bad.  That's known in Vatican terminology as a "me-a-kinda."  It's a time-honoured tradition in the Catholic Church dating back to the Inquisition when Pope Innocent IV said, 'We deeply regret the fact that so many non-believers happen to be flammable.' " (I don't recall the story to which this refers.  I would cite the author or the paper if I could, for this is no doubt deserved of citation.)

Ecch.  I had me some plans for this here New Year.  Big plans.  Good plans about what I'd do, starting bright and early Jan 1.  Then Jan 1 came, and all I could do was languish in bed coughing and choking on my sore throat and cursing my social activities over the holidays -- because that's where germs are, boys and girls.  On other boys and girls!! I had every single solitary intention of starting this blog over with much more positive thoughts than I had in past.  But heck, since the year's already blown anyway : Note to Tortorella: Saturday's face off was an abomination. Period. But if you send your dancers out to what you suspect will be a promenade, you have no right to track the fiddler down at first intermission feigning outrage that a square dance broke out. Happy 2014!

I have been ranting since last Thursday, both on FB and in my front room to my television.   I have been too angry to really articulate my thoughts here until I saw this online today: It was just so... apt. The unprecedented level of hypocrisy, flagrant and pathological dishonesty, flippant disregard for lawful behaviour, and an inexplicably overinflated commitment to his own untouchable sense of entitlement... I was at a loss.  I truly never thought a politician could sink lower in my estimation than he/she could by simply being a politician.  Kudos.  He's taken a subset of society for whom I had no previous respect or admiration (with barely a handful of exceptions), and made those who came before him kings in my eyes.  No one - and I am talking NO ONE - has ever made me feel better about the homophobic knee-jerk conservatism of my home province politicians than this guy. And no one has ever made me feel better about the men a...

People gripe about funding for the arts.   It’s all touchy-feely, hippie crap, am I right?   And by that I mean, you think money spent on the arts is like tossing cash into the crapper, for as much good as it offers the world at large.   Well, it’s harder for me to convince you of the fallacy of that argument when a recent city-wide all night arts festival offered the following “pieces”: “An artist/poet silently wanders the financial district completely covered in Velcro-like hooked burdock seedpods accompanied by two assistants and a docent.” “Two driverless luxury sedans circle each other in an endless figure eight, teetering on the verge of collision but never quite doing so.” “Participants spin a wheel of fortune to select questions that are put to a 12-foot tall child oracle who offers answers privately over headphones.   These relatively benign proceedings are made menacing by the vengeful spirit of an even larger inflatable hanging spider exploring...

One of the officers involved in the streetcar shooting is going to be charged with second-degree murder in connection with the shooting. (This one incident - and my choice in using it as shorthand to discuss the larger issue - does not invalidate the arguments presented.)