#also we know it was filmed at least partially on the east coast. like near ny. literally just set it there

[egg-on-a-legg]

bethesda setting the fallout tv show in los angeles. theyre really swinging a bat at a hornets nest huh.

[sweetsango24]

Ring of Fire

Three volcanoes in Indonesia show increasing activity almost in the same time. After Merapi, Ili Lewotolok, and now Mount Semeru. Earlier today (1/12), the highest mountain on the island of Java spewed glowing lava flowing into the Besuk Kobokan river. Hundreds of residents around the mountain evacuated. Despite this, the status of this mountain remained at the alert level (level 2). Previously, Mount Ili Lewotolok in East Nusa Tenggara also experienced an eruption. Meanwhile, Merapi has shown increased activity since the beginning of last month. Until now, these two mountains are on alert status.

This news remind us why our country were called “Ring of Fire”. With a lot of volcanic activities, we are marketplace for disaster. An old writing from one of my favourite author, described this perfectly. And i tried to translated it as good as i can. The original text can be found here.

Two Tower When watching fantasy films like Lord of The Ring, people may be horrified when they see Mount Doom, the volcano ruled by Sauron. It's a fantasy film, so you know what to expected. But in the real world, people won't begin to understand that we have the real Mount Doom. Near our house, slowly but surely, it begins to rise, a mountain that the whole world calls a super volcano. In 1883, when it erupted, the mountain was only 798m high, but in its belly, which was in the sea, was bubbling magma. The sound of this volcanic eruption in that year reached Perth, Australia, 3,000 km south of Earth, and up to Mauritius, 4,000 km. The earth's sky darkened, the air temperature dropped, the world changed immediately after the eruption. If the atomic bomb that was released on Hiroshima had the strength of 1, then when this mountain erupted, the power of the explosion was 13,000 times of that atomic bomb. In 1883, there were only 978 million inhabitants of the earth, the casualties recorded when this eruption occurred were over 36 thousand people. hundreds of villages, the surrounding cities was destroyed. Not only by the eruption, but by the tens of meter high tsunami that swept across the coast hundreds of kilometers from the volcanic explosion. The explosion was so powerful, if someone stood 16 km from the mountain when it erupted, he would automatically deaf because of the sound. It took more than 5 years for the earth's temperature to return to normal. When it erupted, the island where this mountain was located was destroyed, let alone the mountain, disappeared. But in 1927, her child had returned, growing 9 meters. In 1933, it grew to 67 meters, in 1960 to 138 meters, in 1992 to 250 meters, and in 2012, it grew to 813 meters. This mountain was already taller than when it erupted in 1883. If you have time, please read about this mountain, Mount Krakatau (Krakatoa), please googling it in the internet. Whether you want to know it or not, whether you care or not, this mountain will continue to grow, stretch. The year 2012 erupted on a small scale, releasing some of its energy. The next year will also continue to erupt, continuing to release its energy. Who knows how long, when in the end the huge energy was not released by a bit, but all at once, with a bigger eruption. Will this mountain explode violently? I do not know. But the natural cycle is a necessity. Humans cannot predict it, but natural law is a necessity. I'm going to 'joke', but this is serious. If our country is getting more and more damaged, this country is getting more and more chaotic, and there is nothing left for the people to care about, then it is easy for nature to finish us off. Mount Krakatau just erupted just like 1883, a hundred years ago, then that is enough to finish us off. Once hit, Banten, Jakarta, Lampung, West Java, immediately collapsed. Once hit, erupted, followed by a devastating earthquake, Jakarta could be leveled. Take note, Hiroshima was destroyed by just one atomic bomb. Krakatoa erupted with the power of 13,000 x Hiroshima atomic bombs, so even though Jakarta is at least 150 KM away from this mountain, the impact of the eruption was more than sufficient. And remember well, the sound of the eruption of Mount Krakatau in 1883, was heard up to 4000 KM away. The earth's sky darkened. We can't beat nature. No matter how arrogant we are. * Tere Liye

Addition note : On 22 December 2018, a tsunami that followed an eruption and partial collapse of this volcano, struck several coastal regions of Banten in Java and Lampung in Sumatra, Indonesia. At least 426 people were killed and 14,059 were injured.  

[khorazir]

A cartographic plot

The first part of this was written for Spark. I went a bit over the wordcount while talking about the importance of places in my fanfics, and decided to post the entire thing here on tumblr. The bit published in Spark is above, the rest below the cut.

I started writing BBC Sherlock fanfiction in the back of my parents’ car after a week spent cycling in the French Alps. For years, my father had talked about tackling the Col du Galibier, a pass of Tour de France fame, by bicycle. In the summer of 2012, we finally did it. Ah, but Sherlock and cycling? Where’s the connection? When I began writing the story, scribbling on whatever scrap of paper was available in the car, at first the only connection was that I loved both Sherlock and cycling, and that my recent experiences in the mountains, spending hours in the saddle arduously ascending winding roads, had made a deep impression on me. I was desperate for an outlet for my pent up inspiration.

Eventually, what started out as a cracky premise for a Post-Reichenbach Sherlock story became Over Hill and Under Hill, a fanfic of 75k words and the first finished instalment of my Over/Under series. In the story, the extreme, beautiful landscape of Savoyen serves as a backdrop for the Baker Street boys to deal with the fallout of the Fall (written before Series 3 aired, my version of Sherlock’s reunion with John is different from canon) and their feelings for each other while basically doing what I had just done: climbing Alpine passes on their bicycles. At some point, a case creeps into the story, too, which Sherlock solves from abroad.

Apart from telling my version of the reunion, I wanted to write a story about grandiose nature, the hardship of ascending two thousand metres of altitude on a bicycle, the elation of standing on top of the pass glancing over the mountains, and the rush of adrenaline during the steep descents. I yearned to include some of the strange people we’d met on the way and who return as minor characters in the story, such as the chap cycling all the way in tight black swimming trunks and nothing else. How fortunate for the storyteller that the long ascents give John and Sherlock time to think and to talk, while the descents make their adrenaline junkies’ hearts soar. They have to share a room and a double bed at the hotel, of course, which leads to ... things. The plot itself is structured by the landscape, almost following the roads they cycle on bend for bend and landmark for landmark. Weather conditions such as hot, relentless sun and a sudden thunderstorm add a touch of drama. Stops along the way provide incentives for reflections, conversations and realisations, and for the boys getting to know each other again after their separation.

I was surprised by how well it worked to transfer these very urban characters so closely associated with London into this new setting and unfamiliar activity, keeping their essence (hopefully) while letting the landscape and its particular blend of beauty and danger work its magic, moulding the two men into the couple they hadn’t realised they’d been all along.

Looking back, the way Over Hill and Under Hill came about shouldn’t have surprised me. Of the books and stories I grew up with, and which have left a lasting impression on me, most have a very specific setting and precise sense of place. Be it the stories by Astrid Lindgren, mostly set in the Swedish region of Småland during the time of her childhood in the early 20th century, or Vasapark and the small islands around Stockholm of her adult life, or Otfried Preußler’s masterful descriptions of the Lausitz region in Eastern Germany where his captivating novel Krabat is set. Or be it JRR Tolkien, the master of making the fictional yet reality-grounded landscape of Middle-earth absolutely integral to the plot and structure of his writings. Even if many believe Middle-earth to be found in New Zealand, based on Peter Jackson’s film adaptations, the true inspiration for the Shire are Tolkien’s beloved West Midlands. The hemlock glade where Beren sees Lúthien dance for the first time in The Silmarillion is based on a similar glade near Great Haywood Tolkien watched his wife dance. And the gruesome Dead Marshes on the borders of Mordor Tolkien experienced himself on the war-torn battlefields of the Somme. I think it’s safe to claim that the landscapes that he encountered as a child and young man seeped into his writings, in many cases becoming not just interesting tableaux to add colour to the stories, but important tools to provide characterisation, suspense, and poignant reminders of the preciousness of the natural world.

For me, the spatial setting of a story and its detailed description have always been an important requirement for my enjoyment of a tale. The “willing suspension of disbelief”, to quote Tolkien, works best for me when the setting of a story is as detailed and well observed as possible, grounded in physical laws and restrictions as well as the distinctive laws of the story. Weather, vegetation, distances, languages and the effects they have on the characters have to be realistic – both when existing and imagined places are described –, otherwise I’m quickly pulled out of the narrative and lose interest (by the way, this is one of my major gripes with “The Final Problem”: the way it sets at naught many of the basic “laws” established in previous episodes of Sherlock). Hints at local customs and peculiarities add colour, depth and believability to a setting, providing the characters with material to rub against and to engage with, to test their limits and limitations.

For me as an author (and illustrator), researching locations for fanfics or art is part of the enjoyment of writing, especially when it can be linked with visits to said locations (my excuse for frequent trips to the UK – I’m based in Germany). I’m a stickler for detail born out of a profound interest in the natural world, in botany, eco-systems, geology and geography, but also in the way historic events shape and influence landscape and its inhabitants. All these aspects I need to see reflected in fiction, and rendered faithfully, or else I can’t take a setting seriously, not the characters and their motivations. Most of the fanfics I’ve enjoyed so far have a very strong sense of place, be it London, Edinburgh, New York, Continental Europe, the Near East or the English countryside. In my own stories, I try to emulate this, preferring to write about places I’ve come to know through repeated visits and extensive literary and online research, as well as correspondence with locals.

Researching my WW2/codebreaker AU Enigma constitutes a special challenge in this respect, because it not only requires me to gather information about existing locations like Bletchley Park, Kent or London, but also wartime Britain in general, removed not just by space but by more than seventy intervening years. Although the internet is a brilliant tool for research, while trying to find out more about the history of the Enigma locations, visits have brought the places to life for me, particularly Bletchley Park. The venue has been transformed into a commendable museum that seeks to recreate the atmosphere of it’s hay-day as a secret codebreaker base through reconstructed huts and historical installations, as well as information about important figures such as Alan Turing, and live demonstrations of his inventions. Interestingly, at the museum, I even found factual confirmation of what I had considered an invention for my story. When it came to locating Sherlock’s and John’s billet in Bletchley in 1941, Google Maps was of limited help: most of Bletchley was built after the war – it’s now part of Milton Keynes –, and from the map, it was almost impossible to tell which parts of it would have existed during the war and which were built afterwards. Old maps or arial photographs were scarce. So I used a bit of deductive reasoning and common sense, basically looking at the main roads leading in and out of town and assuming that they would have been built first. On a whim, I chose one of those thoroughfares, Buckingham Road, and placed the billet there. And lo and behold, during a subsequent visit to the Bletchley Park Museum, I found a photograph depicting billets of the park’s staff situated on the very road.

Lucky coincidences aside, nothing beats a visit to a location one wants to write about. However sometimes, due to constraints of time or money, visits aren’t possible and research from afar has to suffice. I worked like that when I started writing The Summer Boy. I’d been toying with the idea of a story partially set in Sherlock’s childhood for a long while. 1980s nostalgia played a part since I was a child during that decade as well, as did the desire to get to know the character better and to speculate what made him the man we encounter in the show, after glimpses of his past shown in Series 3.

However, a fitting setting for my story to unfold long eluded me. I was striving for an atmosphere similar to that of one of my all-time favourite films, “Stand By Me”, a bitter-sweet yet authentic depiction of childhood with a strong sense of spatial setting. I wanted the location to be a rural one, preferably close to London, with a distinctive landscape and somewhat fragile eco-system, the partial destruction of which would feature in the story to symbolise a place Sherlock could not really return to, but that offered him the chance of “growing up“ and finding an alternative retreat through his developing relationship with John.

Given the canonical links Sherlock Holmes has with Sussex, I began looking for potential locations along the Sussex coast and in the South Downs. I didn’t just want to invent a village or landmark, but wanted the story that was going to contain mythical and supernatural elements (based on how it’s interpreted, at least), to be set in a real place. The landscape and particular vegetation of the chalky downlands were going to play an important part in the story. And remember: stickler for detail. The plants, animals and historical sites Sherlock encounters had to be correct. So I researched the South Downs and their particular chalk-based vegetation, read up on South Down sheep, about Bronze and Iron Age settlements and their remains, and about the myths and legends of the area. I found striking similarities to Terry Pratchett’s masterful depiction of the Chalk in his Tiffany Aching series (The Wee Free Men and its four sequels), which is doubtlessly based on the chalky Wiltshire Downs he lived on. The link to Pratchett, his blend of real, meticulously observed, and fantastical elements based on myths and local culture (which are again inspired by the landscapes they originated in) seemed a good foil for my own story, which grew to contain lots of references to his works. I even partly modelled some of the characters on figures from his series of books.

Still, the dilemma remained to find a concrete place, preferably one featuring an ancient site or landmark such as a hill-fort or a barrow that would function as a focal place for young Sherlock to discover and to spend time at with the mysterious friend he encounters there, and who seems to be a personification of the South Downs, and of summer. By chance (and Google Image Search), I stumbled across a place called Chanctonbury Ring, a henge of trees planted in the 18th century on an Iron Age hill-fort. The South Downs Way leads past it, it commands a good view all around. Sheep graze there in summer, and on the grassy and partly wooded slopes surrounding it many rare plants grow. It’s in walking distance of a quaint village (Washington), which I could use as a base for Sherlock to be accommodated at with relatives. And what ultimately made Chanctonbury Ring the perfect location for my story was the fact that during the Great Storm of 1987, the trees of the henge were almost completely destroyed. I had wanted to set the story in that very year, because I imagine BBC Sherlock’s age to be around Benedict’s and my own (we are only seven months apart), which would make Sherlock around nine in the story, pre-pubescent. Perfect. His fake gravestone from TRF even says 1977, so that fit. And we all know what’s said about coincidences and lazy universes ...

So, perfect spatial and temporal setting found, I still faced the sad fact that I hadn’t actually visited Chanctonbury Ring, nor could see any chance of getting there soon. Nevertheless, the story demanded to be written. Consulting Google Maps as well as photographs helped to get an idea of the place. I looked at similar places in my home country across the Channel. Thus equipped, I started writing (the muse wouldn’t suffer any delay and kept pestering me until I relented), in the hope to actually be able to visit Chanctonbury Ring before I had come too far, enabling me to revise potential mistakes.

Eventually, when the story was already half written, and during the wrong season of the year (the story is set in the summer, I went in December), I visited Chanctonbury Ring. I was pleased to find that my descriptions of the landscape were surprisingly accurate based on what research I’d done, although the visit did add a feeling for the place that hopefully enabled me to make the latter chapters more poignant.

Arguably the most important location for writing Sherlock fanfic is London, a place I’ve become very familiar with in recent years due to frequent visits with long walks and a full timetable of museums, exhibitions, galleries and cultural events, lots of reading about the history of the city, a strong interest in current events, and constant curiosity that lets me explore places off the beaten tracks.

London was one of my favourite places even before I my obsession with BBC Sherlock happened. Actually, I’m convinced the way London is portrayed in the series is one of the main reasons Sherlock struck such a chord with me. Apart from the humour, the obvious chemistry of the protagonists, the cleverness of the dialogues and the overall aesthetics, it was the way modern London was depicted and made an integral character that fascinated me so much about the show. Despite large parts of Sherlock being filmed in Cardiff and elsewhere, they nevertheless feel like parts of the British capital just off the main tourist tracks. Sherlock’s London is both familiar and strange, ugly and beautiful, dark and bright, historic and modern. The character’s particular way of focussing on seemingly unimportant details is reflected in the cinematography. The choice of unusual settings and locations such as Speedy’s Café, Battersea Power Station, the streets of Soho, Leinster Garden, a disused Tube station and the banks of the Thames add atmosphere and colour, making London a living, breathing character in the show – as it was in the original Conan Doyle stories. Occasionally, a touch of Victoriana, ever present even in modern London, creeps into the series, linking it back to the stories it’s based on. Sherlock has definitely rekindled my love of London, or rather, has fanned the already existing embers into hot flames. In the sequels to Over Hill and Under Hill, and several of my other Sherlock fanfics, I’ve tried to honour this tradition by including curious locations in, and little-known minutiae about London to make it come to life as an integral part of the narration, and also to create credibility for the setting.

I have plans to dive even deeper into London past and present. For about a year and half I’ve been working on a Sherlock/London graphic novel in which the location becomes centre point. The story is simple: to alleviate boredom, on his birthday, Sherlock is sent on a “treasure hunt” through London, moving from riddle to riddle and clue to clue set, from one little known location to the next, discovering facts and anecdotes about what he visits in the process. The idea for the book was born out of my many walks through London, along the South Bank, through the City on Sunday mornings when it’s like a ghost town, deserted, along the Regent’s Canal to Camden and on to Hampstead Heath, through the East End and the West End, Chinatown, Soho, Bloomsbury, through Chelsea and Kensington, and further out to the Docklands and Greenwich. I’ve discovered real gems through these walks, some of which Sherlock is going to visit as well – as many as I can realistically squeeze into twenty-four hours without completely exhausting the poor man.

The project is going to occupy me for a good while yet. Also planned are two sequels to The Summer Boy. One is based on a painting I did for the Holmestice Exchange and which depicts John and Sherlock in a disused Tube station. There was some clamouring for a story based on the image, so I’m going to oblige. Since the Tube is such an integral part of London and I’ve long been fascinated with its history, I look forward to researching it.

The second sequel is going to be set in the Lake District. Some of the research for this new story has already been done, and another visit to the area has been booked for the autumn. I haven’t really thought of a plot for the story yet, some vague ideas aside, but I’m very sure that the landscape of Cumbria will provide it once I’m there. A cartographic plot, as usual.

[pjstafford]

To Video or not to Video? Fan Blog on David Duchovny Hell or HighWater Tour: (Second blog in series) I recently attended a book event and concert in Seattle and had intended to write one blog about the experience. I quickly came to the realization that I needed to write several blogs to do the experience justice. I decided the morning after the concert that one blog needed to be on my conflicted viewpoints related to the issue of taping, periscoping, phoning the concert. I want to begin with three contextual things to consider in terms of the experience. 1. Any live concert experience has the potential to be transcendent.. Seeing a performance live is different than a recording, a streaming, viewing concert footage. The concert experience includes the interactions with the people around you and how the artist responds to that audience. Certain artists make each concert experience unique which is why people will go to see one artist night after night in the same tour. At its heart, the best rock concert experiences are a communicative exchange of love and appreciation between the artist and the fans. The musicians’ performance is enhanced or worsened by the audience. Fan enjoyment of the music can be greatly increased by an artist, like Mr. Duchovny, who is working to interact fully with members of the audience. Fans who might have not known each other before the event might feel a special bond with each other because the experience is so magical and unique. I have seen this, for instance, with the Dead. Ever witnessed two Deadheads realizing they were both in Ithaca on the night of whatever in the seventies? Forty years later they are bonded, discussing the moment, heart beating as one. Mr. Duchovny made a statement in the book event in Seattle related to why he toured. He is motivated by the experience with the audience that exists only on that specific night. I’m an experienced concert goer. I have never experienced anything like my experience in Seattle in terms of being in the moment. 2. David Duchovny has a fierce, strong passionate fan base. Mr. Duchovny repeatedly says in interviews that he is not vain enough to think people are coming to see him as a musician but because of his fame. If they come and they don’t like the music that's valid, but if they like the music then that's valid too. I heard people in Seattle say “I just touched Mulder.” I get that. However, I am not sure if Mr. Duchovny and his band fully realize how things have changed in the last year within his fan base. I met in Seattle the Dutch Duchovniacs who, having seen him in Amsterdam, came to the US to see his Portland and Seattle shows. I am virtual friends with people who saw him in Europe who are here for the Eastern half of the tour. They don’t do that because they want to touch Mulder again. They are doing that because they love the music and because they love the concert experience which David Duchovny provides. Also, they come because they love one another: their fellow travelers in the Duchovny community. Much like the Deadheads, the fans of Mr. Duchovny’s music have formed a special bond. They are small but strong. I stood in the rain eating pizza with my friend Cathy to assure we were the first in the line for Duchovny’s Seattle concert. I had just met the man at a book signing. I didn’t stand in line for hours in the rain for a concert for any other reason than a sincere desire to see the musician/songwriter. I hope that David Duchovny recognizes that we didn’t do that because we are crazy for Mulder (although of course we are), but because we truly love the music and the experience –that he doesn’t see us as crazed fans, but as part of a community some call Duchovniacs who want him to feel supported and loved in his musical endeavors. We are grateful for his touring and giving us the experience. We know he has a day job acting and a side job novelist and he doesn't have to do this. Mr. Duchovny has a fandom for his music because of his music. This fandom is growing due, at least partially, to the efforts of this fan base. 3. Mr. Duchovny arrives here as a new musician already a mega star as an actor. That does change the dynamics of the experience. If he was any other musical artist at this stage of his musical career, the desire to take videos and pictures would be less strong. However,he is not. I cannot imagine what it is like for the private individual, David Duchovny, to exist in his day to day world of fandom obsession for Mulder and Moody.. I knew when he left Seattle on Monday. Not that I wanted to. It came up on my Twitter feed. I saw pictures of him on his day off between the West and East Coast tour. Is there anybody on the planet photographed more than him? Yet I’m the first one to say that the planet needs more photographs of him. (No, truly, we need more photographs of David Duchovny). The concert photographs of Duchovny are among the best. He hasn’t banned photography from his concerts. I hope he doesn't. He has at concerts, from time to time, asked people to put away their phones. As much as I love the videos and photographs, if Mr. Duchovny wants this one small aspect of his career to not be about filming his performance, but to be about the opportunity to have a interactive experience with him audience to artist that is in the moment-I’m all in for that. My Seattle experience on this topic. For the book discussion we were told photography was allowed but no flash and no photography for the signing portion. I videotaped a total of ten minutes of the discussion and Q and A. This was my contribution to the fandom now loaded on YouTube. It was various portions of the discussion. I am happy to have my friend’s Cathy’s question and Mr. Duchovny’s funny reaction, thoughtful and in depth answer. She will always have that and is able to share it with others. . I did not feel it was intrusive or would keep me from living the experience as it was happening. It was during this discussion/QA that David made the statement related to why he tours and then said that everyone has a fucking phone and then it's on YouTube and then it's forever. He did not sound happy about that. Therefore, I made the decision not to film any footage at the Seattle concert, not to tweet during the concert, but to be at the concert engaged. It was incredible. Add to David Duchovny’s many varied talents his ability to make everyone in a crowd of 500 feel like they had individualized interactions with him. Two memories are particularly strong from the concert. In Unsaid Unsung, his angry song, he was on the stage near us, bent all the way down so his face seemed within inches of ours when he singed /yelled “I said I’m done.” Then, something I had never seen in concert footage, still bending, his facial expression cold, he put his hands up so they were just beneath his eyes, held them as if in a fist, but not as if about to hit, more as if closing himself off, then backed away while maintaining eye contact. At least it seemed that way to me. I mean I don’t know how he could maintain eye contact with more than one person, but it felt like he was staring directly at me. It was so intense and so appropriate for the song. I can close my eyes right now and see that. Incredible! If I had been trying to capture the moment instead of living it I could not have lived it in the same intense manner. The other moment was during the encore when Mr. Duchovny came into the audience to dance. I was very near but did not move to dance with him. Instead I stood very close to the scene as an observer. Women surrounded him touching him and dancing. There was one moment when he kind of wiggled down and the women around him were wiggling down as well. There is an image framed in my mind’s eye of him with his eyes closed, butt out for a wiggle, hands up, and a facial expression of such joy. It was a beautiful thing to see and for me completely illustrates his reason for touring as stated in his book discussion. The interactive experience with the audience brings him joy. It brought the audience members joy as well. The next day, however, I was delighted when a friend sent me a screen cap from a video of David Duchovny singing with a picture of us looking up at him. Through out the day we found others. Someone near where we sat captured a couple of songs and we kept saying “ooh remember when he did that.” We saw a video of him and Keaton Simon together on stage from the other side of where we were and saw interactions we would not otherwise have seen. There is a video tape which clearly shows me moving out of the front row so another fan could be close for her favorite song and then that fan taking off her bra, throwing it on stage and displaying her breasts until Mr. Duchovny’s fatherly steen shaking of his head convinced her to cover them again. The best part of the video for me is seeing the look on Cathy’s face when it happened. That was part of our concert experience. Even though we were upset by that aspect of the evening at the time, it was certainly fun to watch it the next day. I was concerned about the young woman who had thrown her bra being in the picture, but she has tweeted herself a picture of her bra on stage. She owns the moment and does not seemed regretful. Those videos and photographs enhanced our concert experience. They allowed us to return to the moment in a different way. We watched the footage of “the weight” with David Duchovny and Keaton Simon on repeat. Cathy and I also discussed that without the Duchovniacs footage of the European tour we would likely not have had a desire to attend a concert. It is the fans footage that made us aware of how awesome this live experience might be. The original Duchovniacs have increased the fandom, increased the people who call themselves Duchovniacs, in much the same way the boot legged recordings of Dead increased the fandom of Deadheads. So there’s the dilemma. These videos enhance the post concert experience for those who attended. The videos are important to the fans who cannot afford to travel to the limited locations he is performing. The videos increase the fans desire to go and build the audience. Yet at the actual concert they distract from the experience and might actually impact the quality of the performance. No easy answers here. Mr. Duchovny would be within his rights to prohibit photography and filming. He hasn’t done that yet. He has asked people to turn off their phones during some concerts. One option might be to have each concert professionally videotaped and edited and offered for sale. If there was a video of the concert performance I saw, I would want it. Another option would be to have a section where photography and videotaping was allowed in the audience and ban it in other sections- perhaps in one section of the floor or a higher up section. Again no easy answers. I have conflicted feelings about the issue of whether or not to “phone” the concerts. Those conflicted feelings are also part of my concert experience from Seattle.

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Highs and Very Low Lows of 2017

I’ve been forsaking this blog for the past few months, but honestly, you can probably consider yourself lucky I’m still around even to write a blog, because 2017 nearly broke me. Not in a small way either. The fact that I could survive a type of cancer that once had a 40% survival rate but then be taken down by a year full of absolute and total bullshit gives you some idea of what it takes for me to reach said breaking point.

But I don’t want to start this on a downer, and I hope to have time over the holidays to write a few things about other positive aspects of the year including writing something about my favorite albums.

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be 5,000 words complaining about Trump or the government cause as far as I’m concerned, the government has always sucked. Republicans have always sucked, and yet, clearly they have a better idea how to sway votes… to a point. That’s all the politics I’m going to talk about here.

In fact, now that I think about it, I’m not even sure I can find too many “highs” but I guess my trips to the Oxford, Sarasota and Fantasia Film Festivals were all enjoyable, though I’m not sure I’ll be attending any of them in 2018.

I’m not even sure I want to talk too much about my own work situation this year, because my attempt at freelancing failed miserably, and I was lucky to have found a great job, completely by accident.

Most Importantly: Thank You To My Beloved Friends and Family. I Wouldn’t Be Here Without You

Because of some of the sucky things that happened this year, I found myself leaning on my friends more than I normally would, and a couple friends probably found themselves a bit over their heads dealing with “Ed’s summer slump.” I honestly reached a point where I wasn’t sure if I could deal with all the stress and aggravation of living in the city without really earning a living, something that I haven’t had to deal with in 12 years or more.  I have to give special credit to my brother Rob as he, for the second time in five years, came to my rescue when I literally wasn’t sure how to deal with everything that had been piling up on me over the year, including losing a job, struggling as a freelancer, dealing with health issues and just feeling that everyone else’s very vocal aggravations about the President were starting to weigh me down on top of my own personal problems. But there are other great friends who probably would be too embarrassed for me to mention them by name, but if you’re reading this, I’m sure you know who you are.

How Jeff Sneider Saved My Life… Twice

In July, I had just gotten back from Fantasia a little less than two months after I’d been let go by a website that you will never hear me mention by name. Things were bad as I had blown through most of the savings I had built up before leaving ComingSoon, and there just didn’t seem to be any light on the horizon. I probably was sending out 9-10 resumes a week and getting zero responses, and I was getting very frustrated, having pretty much given up on making a living as a freelancer.

Can’t remember what I was doing when I saw a tweet from Jeff Sneider about Drew McWeeny joining the Tracking Board as the Chief Film Critic. Many people know that Drew and I haven’t always seen eye to eye over the years, but we’ve known each other for a long time and there’s no denying what he’s brought to the internet entertainment reporting/film criticism game with his years of service at AICN and then Hitfix.

Anyway, learning that the Tracking Board—which i never really knew much about before— had hired Drew was intriguing to me so I went over to check out the site, saw a button that said something like “Work at the Tracking Board.”  So I said, “Why not?” clicked the link and saw that they were looking for an experienced entertainment reporter. I filled out the form, attached my resume and cover letter and as soon as I hit send I saw that they were looking for someone in L.A. “Oh, well,” I thought, “Couldn’t hurt to try.”

A couple days later I got a call from Jeff saying that they might need an East coast person and that they had a couple people they were talking to. So I didn’t really get my hopes up and my luck has been so bad the last year that I was shocked to hear from Jeff at all. The crazy thing is that before Jeff’s call, we had barely had a conversation in many years. I remember him being this young guy in New York around the time we both were starting up (me at CS and him at AICN), and I remember him being treated pretty badly by some of my colleagues (there was a lot of jealousy towards AICN back then). But he seemed okay,  and I was always impressed by the way he made his way as a Variety reporter, then being a top reporter at The Wrap.  To get a call from him kind of blew my mind. To find out a few days later that they were interested in having me join Tracking Board was even more exciting and it only took a few talks to work out a deal and I started at Tracking Board on August 1. 
The thing is that I am loving this job so far. It’s both challenging and satisfying and lets me do what I love while also learning new things about the business of moviemaking beyond what I get out of doing interviews. Besides Jeff, I work with a great group of women in editorial including managing editor Emily and Linda, the TV editor. I’m literally the bottom man on the totem pole and I’m perfectly fine with that.  I’m also learning a lot from Jeff, who is so knowledgable as an industry insider and reporter … I’m especially looking forward to learning how to cut the lines at film festivals under his tutelage. :)

(The second time Jeff saved my life.. or at least, in this case, my job, is below.)

What Can I Say About My Health?

I’m still alive, so there’s that. Not sure if you remember that I had been posting a lot on Facebook mainly about the side effects of the shingles I contracted in Jan 16. I’d love to say that things have improved but they haven’t, and I’ve been suffering from post-herpetic neuralgia for over a year now. That part of my face still flares up with either aggravating itching or burning pain about twice or three times a day and the painkillers I’m on (non-opioids, thank you!) have only gone so far.  If you’ve seen “Marathon Man” you’ll probably remember the scene where Dustin Hoffman was being tortured by putting a metal pick into the nerves of his teeth… that kind of pain is what I feel on half of my forehead.

I decided a few months back to start taking vitamins to maybe help my face repair all the nerve damage in there and I think it’s helping although I think the process of my nerves knitting themselves back together might be causing some of the itching and pain.  Between the shingles and my scratching (usually at night while I’m asleep), it’s left that part of my face quite a mess. (See above.) This is partially why I haven’t been doing any of those video interviews the past two years.and not sure when I’ll be comfortable to do on-camera work again.

Anyway, this is another source of aggravation beyond everything else above and below.

This next section is called “Don’t Know What You Got (Till Its Gone)” (with apologies to Cinderella —the band, not the Disney character)

I Lost a Dear Friend

Probably one of the most tragic events this year was the death of my good friend Sandra Orion, which you can read about HERE. Sandy will be greatly missed for a long time and it’s gonna be hard to get over not having had a chance to say “Goodbye.” You can read that whole story HERE, but if nothing else, this has taught me to always appreciate your friends, loved one and other important people in your life, and never take anyone for granted, because you never know when they’ll be gone.

Cup and Saucer Closes

The night before I was heading up to Fantasia in early July, a friend of mine texted me and asked if I knew that the Cup and Saucer was closing. The Cup and Sauce was a local diner where I have gotten coffee every day for the past 23 years (or at least when I’m in town). I never ordered in. I would always get dressed enough to go out in public to walk the two or three blocks to the Cup and Saucer and get coffee or iced coffee, depending on the weather. Because I don’t really cook (or shop enough), I would eat most of my morning meals there and I’d been going there long enough that they usually could guess what I wanted with just a few words.

Anyway, I was told that Cup and Saucer was closing so I went the next morning before my flight to find out what was happening and the owner John said that they would be closing down but hoped they could still work things out. He also said that they might be around the following week when I’d be back from Montreal.  I got back and sure enough, the place was closed and though I still go by there a lot (mainly to get food at the bodega across the street where neither the food nor service is anywhere on par with C&S), I haven’t seen John or anyone else there anytime it seemed like the place was open.  This past week I noticed that they had put signs for “Pizza” and “Fried Chicken” making it obvious that someone was turning the place into one of those awful cheap food establishments you see near and inside the Port Authority and Penn Station.  Considering how many cheap bus companies have been parking in my neighborhood, clogging up the sidewalks, it’s no surprise that the area is transforming from a dingy but cool Lower East Side melting pot into Port Authority South.

But Cup and Saucer made some of the best coffee in town and I’ve had a hard time finding a cup of coffee that good in my neighborhood.

If this closure wasn’t a significant enough event to affect me, it became an even bigger deal when the Village Voice posted a story on Jeremiah Moss and the cover of that issue? The Cup and Saucer. What a way to go out.

No More Village Voice  (in print, at least)

There might not be such things as coincidences, but it seemed like the writing might have been on the wall for Village Voice after putting my departing diner on its cover. Only a few short months later, it was announced that the city’s free newspaper, the Village Voice, was going to end its print edition. Again, getting a copy of the Village Voice was something I would do on a weekly basis since moving to New York over 30 years ago. 

Bilge Ebiri and his staff had been doing such a great job with the film coverage in the paper, even nabbing more covers than usual for features on David Lynch and others. It made me look forward to Wednesdays more than usual and when the print edition signed off in September (????), it was another tragic end to the era. Obviously, there’s still all the reviews and features online but it’s just not the same thing as grabbing the tome of a paper at the single kiosk in my neighborhood. It’s very strange to lose two traditions and rituals in one year.

311 Is a Joke In This Town

Adding to all those changes above, my neighborhood somehow became even noisier this past year than it’s been in the 24 years I’ve lived in my Lower East Side apartment. I have no idea what’s happening because nothing has changed but the fire engines at the nearby local station seem to be even louder as they blaze past my window, there seems to be more of those annoying Chinatown buses who blare their horns at all hours of the night and morning… and the forklifts. Holy fucking shit… for the entire year I’ve had to deal with these really loud forklifts at the supply companies across the street as early as 3 in the morning. (If you don’t live in Chinatown or work in a Chinese restaurant, you won’t know what I’m talking about, but the supply companies are the ones that get all the food items lik broccolli for the Chinese restaurants in the city, of which there are a lot.)

And those noises start up almost EVERY night at 3 in the morning except for Sundays. The beeping doesn’t necessarily wake me up every night but if I’m awake between 3AM and 3:30 (which happens a lot) I might not be able to get back to sleep due to the beeping… oh, and also the large wooden pallets that drop onto the sidewalk (empty ones) that make it even worse. I’ve called 311 a number of times, I’ve written a complain on the NYC.gov website with no luck because whenever someone is sent out to investigate, they get there when they’re not making noise. And during the daytime it’s almost worse because the entire other side of Allen Street across from my window is made up of these supply/trading companies. (When I’m home, I’ll try to get a picture to show you what kind of chaos I’m dealing with.)

and then came…

November 1

Honestly, I really don’t have much more that I want to say about the events that happened the day after having a wonderful time at Ted Geoghegan’s annual Halloween party the night before, but it was one of the most humiliating and debilitating moments OF MY LIFE. That’s not even an exaggeration. I made a mistake, I apologized and I’m still regretting opening my stupid “mouth” on social media in the current climate. While others might forgive and forget, I lost a lot because of six ill-thought tweets that I don’t even want to get into, but most of the flack I’m STILL being hassled by people who don’t know me well enough to know that THAT WAS NOT ME. (Yes, it was me typing the words, but it wasn’t me or my feelings towards anyone who has been assaulted or raped, so to be called a “rape apologist” by people who don’t know me at all has been one of the most hurtful aspects of a year in which I was already ready to give up just months earlier.)

Anyway, Jeff Sneider had my back again. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for him to convince his bosses I was worth keeping around, but he somehow did, and I’m eternally grateful for that fact. As I said above, I have a new-found respect for Jeff after working with him for a few months.

The six or seven weeks since the above incident have generally improved and I’m getting back into the swing of working the 9 to 5 again. I’m looking forward to everything that’s planned for 2018 both with the site and in my own life.

My own personal hopes for 2018? Well, I have to lose some weight, hopefully join a gym (once I get my finances back together), maybe get past this nerve damage bullshit. (Maybe once I have real insurance again, I can go see a neurologist.)

Hopefully there will be a lot more to place on the “high” side of the ledger next year. (Sorry, Mom, don’t expect another family wedding any time soon.)