http://www.edrants.com a blog in ever-shifting standing Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:11:12 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en http://www.edrants.com/the-possibilities-of-small/ The Times's Ben Macintyre has mangled his mind in a senseless shower of his own hysteria. The Internet, he writes, is killing storytelling. I could respond to Mr. Macintyre's foolish article with a vigorous list of items, pointing to such recent projects as Significant Objects, which has featured ... http://www.edrants.com/ben-macintyre-the-latest-sourpuss-to-run-away-from-possibilities/ Headspace hijacked by entirely unanticipated events. A slight reconfiguration of the brain, a sudden impulse to stop here and start there. Whittling down distractions. The very thing keeping so many others mired in pathetic fixations and unhealthy obsessions and desperate gropes at credibility as the whole operation ... http://www.edrants.com/untapped-currency/ This is a quick reminder that Sarah Hall and I will be in conversation tomorrow night (i.e., the evening of the week commonly referred to as Tuesday) at McNally Jackson at 7:00 PM. Since there is a good deal of weather within Hall's most recent novel and weather forms ... http://www.edrants.com/reminder-live-conversation-with-sarah-hall-on-tuesday/ At 5:30 AM, you know who is truly fearless. Early birds shuffle into the guarded lobbies of fitness centers, jutting their chins and sticking their hands into hoodies not for warmth, but for protection against the unpredictable aperture between the end of night and the promising onset of the sun. ... http://www.edrants.com/five-three-oh/ Marjorie Rosen recently appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #311. Marjorie Rosen is most recently the author of Boom Town: How Wal-Mart Transformed an All-American Town Into an International Community. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Kicked out of bed. Author: Marjorie Rosen Subjects Discussed: The white and non-Hispanic white majority in Bentonville, Arkansas, numerous houses ... http://www.edrants.com/the-bat-segundo-show-marjorie-rosen/ I don't know if the world really needed a parody of the Twilight books. Stephenie Meyer's acolytes, as cultural observers have opined, are quite fixed in their passions. I've always subscribed to the middle ground version of the "gateway drug" theory. You may not get the kids ... http://www.edrants.com/when-parody-replaces-opportunity/ I used to write in longhand all the time, filling up five-subject notebooks with the predictable angst of a young man in his early twenties and several early starts on stories, plays, and screenplays that I would revise or abandon. Taking notes was once the thing to do. ... http://www.edrants.com/the-benefits-of-notebooks/ A few hours ago, I learned that a notable writer wrote into The New York Post to express his disguised hatred for his ex-girlfriend. Therefore, my audio series -- Hate Mail Dramatic Reading Project -- must continue. The following clip represents my dramatic reading of the hate mail ... http://www.edrants.com/hate-mail-dramatic-reading-8/ "It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself." -- Eleanor Roosevelt That's some sensible advice from my favorite First Lady. (Dolley Madison is a close second.) Her other spiffy idea, which is very wise, is that nobody can make you ... http://www.edrants.com/slowdown/ A few days ago, I learned that a former college friend, who had initiated contact with me, had transformed into an incoherent lunatic. My girlfriend has benignly suggested, based on the evidence I have presented to her, that this man was likely a lunatic all along. I'd prefer ... http://www.edrants.com/hate-mail-dramatic-reading-project-7/ http://www.edrants.com/brave-bulging-buoyant-clairvoyants/ The office was ensconced within a vicious slab that prioritized desperate spendthrift tendencies over comfort and efficiency. The man who rented out this thin rectangle on the 33rd floor seemed to believe that the $1,200 he paid each month granted him some illusory status. He took advantage of ... http://www.edrants.com/offices-within-offices/ The Bat Segundo Show may be on temporary hiatus (with several shows still in the backlog). But that doesn't mean that I'm not talking with authors. Sarah Hall, author of How to Paint a Dead Man (the subject of a recent roundtable discussion on these pages), will be ... http://www.edrants.com/live-conversation-with-sarah-hall-november-3-2009/ In 1993, I took a film class and was grouped with an amicable ragtag crew. We filmed little shorts with the Panasonic PV-535, the only consumer VHS camera that had chroma key and that was compulsively used at just about every opportunity. The camera had a little mini-camera ... http://www.edrants.com/scene-from-a-mall-1993/ In the mid-1990s, I made my way around various film and theater circles. My interests were mainly centered around the prospect of putting on a good show. I enjoyed being one of those wizards behind the curtain executing an illusion. And it didn't matter whether it was ... http://www.edrants.com/when-i-had-hair/ http://www.edrants.com/am-i-going-to-be-doing-this-at-fifty/ [The following article is an excerpt from my soon-to-be-published book, Eating Young Jewish Writers.] When I was young, I would often spend the weekend at my grandmother's house. She would ask me if I was hungry. And when I would cry, she would tell me that I needed to ... http://www.edrants.com/eating-young-jewish-writers/ http://www.edrants.com/happy-columbo-day/ In all the NYFF madness, I failed to note that my review of Morris Dickstein's Dancing in the Darkappeared in Friday's edition of the Chicago Sun-Times. It begins: While the intrepid academic Morris Dickstein has been noodling around on Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression (W.W. ... http://www.edrants.com/new-review-26/ A last-minute deadline for a very fun and entirely unanticipated eleventh hour project has cropped up. This development means a break in New York Film Festival coverage. I have quite a number of films that I still have to write about (and not just NYFF offerings), and my ... http://www.edrants.com/coverage-interruptus/ [This is the fourth in a series of posts relating to the 2009 New York Film Festival.] The above video was taken from an October 8, 2009 press conference in relation to Life During Wartime. My thoughts on the film will be appearing on these pages soon. http://www.edrants.com/nyff-ally-sheedy/ [This is the third in a series of posts relating to the 2009 New York Film Festival.] At the Life During Wartime press conference, I noticed that director of photography Ed Lachman was a bit grumpy about differences between shooting on film and shooting digital. Life During Wartime had been ... http://www.edrants.com/nyff-an-impromptu-interview-with-ed-lachman/ [This is the second in a series of posts relating to the 2009 New York Film Festival.] There once was a time in which I flocked to a new Pedro Almodovar film with a mad and unstoppable gusto, wondering just what iconoclastic ideas Almodovar would unleash upon the screen. You ... http://www.edrants.com/nyff-broken-embraces-2009/ [This is the first in a series of posts relating to the 2009 New York Film Festival.] (This post will be updated. Review of The White Ribbon TK.) On October 7, 2009, the New York Film Festival held a press conference with writer/director Michael Haneke. To listen to the press ... http://www.edrants.com/nyff-the-white-ribbon-2009/ This morning, the Federal Trade Commission announced that its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials would be revised in relation to bloggers. The new guidelines (PDF) specified that bloggers making any representation of a product must disclose the material connections they (the presumed endorsers) share with the ... http://www.edrants.com/interview-with-the-ftcs-richard-cleland/ Alan Grayson: "Well, listen, I didn't call names. What I said is true. The Republicans have even nothing resembling a plan. And when you don't have a plan, what that means is your plan is 'Don't Get Sick.'" http://www.edrants.com/alan-grayson-the-only-democrat-with-balls/ I spent two weeks reading close to 2,000 pages of an author's work. I wanted to give this author the respect that his work deserved. But this author threw a temper tantrum. The author first suggested that I was talking too loud. (When I played back ... http://www.edrants.com/bat-segundo-hiatus/ We saw Prime Minster John Key on David Letterman's show pushing Cinnabon while reading the Top Ten List. But what happens if you're a world leader who appears on a late night program and you don't even have a choice? Take Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's September 28, 2009 ... http://www.edrants.com/is-conan-obrien-a-corporate-shill/ While David Letterman isn't as prolific as Jay Leno with his in-show hawking, Letterman does shower his opening monologues with products. Applebee's and Hooters are frequent mentions. But very often, Letterman will name a product and speak of it in a way that is reminiscent of a commercial. ... http://www.edrants.com/is-david-letterman-a-corporate-shill/