Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste

More on Ken Jacobs
Here is a link to a NY Times article written about my undergraduate film teacher, Ken Jacobs. Read my March 1, 2009 post if you want to know more about him and how he influenced my writing. New York Times: Deconstructing Cinema in Order to Reveal It

Crazy-Making
The things that bother us, our pet peeves and everyday annoyances, provide important information about who we really are and what we really want. It is not a sign of immaturity or shallowness that some habit of a spouse or friend or pet or enemy or parent or cashier or co-worker or whoever, really gets on our nerves. This is how characters are built. Their habits, maybe especially the odd and even annoying ones, can provide insight into who they are on a deeper level. In the same way, the things that bother us as individuals in daily life indicate something deeper about us. Getting a little pissed off isn’t a bad thing. Still, you don’t want to stay in that pla

No Big Whoop
After notifying me of the presence of a piece of lettuce between my front teeth and subsequently confirming its successful removal, a friend recently declared, “Now you’re perfect.” After thinking for a moment, he corrected himself: “No, now you’re intriguing.” I took the latter as the greater compliment. Why? Perfection is boring. It’s Leonard Cohen who said, “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” The imperfections, inconsistencies, oddities, weaknesses, aberrations are what make a person, a place, or thing interesting, worthy of attention, valuable. This is what the use of specific detail in cr