Category Archives: writing

Writing Issues

Well readers, I bring the joyous news that you can now, at long last, read the scribblings of yours truly on two internet sites. Primer magazine, which I reviewed in the past, was kind enough to publish an article of mine which I’ll be shamelessly plugging here. In addition, it got me thinking about writing in general, leading to our topic for today.

How can we make writing viable?

See, for the vast majority of would-be authors (myself included), writing simply isn’t a viable career, (excluding TV and movies, which are arguably a very different process). Yes, you’ve got such career novelists like Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, but these people represent the rare exception to the rule that writing is something you do when you’re not at your real job.

We could probably talk all day about the role of the publisher and the marketing team and everyone else involved in the process of getting the work out there, but today let’s just focus on the consumption of the product. I think there are a few factors that really contribute to the situation as it stands today. Continue reading

2 Broke Girls, S3E13 “And the Big But”: A TV Review

bigbut

Welcome back to the CWR 2 Broke Girls Reviews, everyone! Did you miss the show? Did you miss me [writing about the show]? I’m going to say upfront that I appreciated the break like nothing else, and coming back was . . . difficult. Approaching a show from that angle is far from helpful, and I ended up analyzing every little thing, as I am wont to do regardless. But then the tone of the episode, and perhaps the rest of this season, became crystal clear.

2 Broke Girls is channeling the rom-com vibe like a successful séance.  Continue reading

Helix and the Trouble with Tropes

Good science fiction is tough to come by. There’re plenty of factors we could point the finger at for that, but more often than not, it seems the people who produce sci-fi just don’t quite understand how it works.

Science fiction is, at its core, a means of exploring some sort of political or philosophical or ethical question. The spaceships, the time travel, brave new worlds- they’re all framing devices for questions about what makes us human…

…how we treat others…

…or our place in the universe.

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Shame Day: Shia LaBeouf

Writing the first Shame Day of 2014 is a difficult position to be in. The topic must be the source of some terrible wrongdoing, but must also have committed that wrongdoing in a way that truly incenses us as decent human beings. All that being said, let me present today’s subject, Mr. Shia Saide LaBeouf.

Now rest assured, dear readers, I have reasons for targeting the former child star and lead in Disney’s Even Stevens and repopularizer of the word “no.” Believe me, I wouldn’t willingly put myself through having to check and recheck that I’m spelling his surname correctly otherwise. To begin with, midway through December of last year he released a short film titled Howard Cantour.com.

The film follows the titular Cantour, an internet film critic, and received a pretty hefty amount of critical acclaim. Not only that, but it starred my number one favourite stand-up comedian who almost exclusively jokes about food, Jim Gaffigan. It was also a near shot-for-shot adaptation of the comic Justin M. Damiano, by Daniel Clowes.

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What is the Meaning of “Life of Brian”?

In spite of swearing off Family Guy roughly three years ago due to feeling like the show’s creators had zero respect for their audience I watched an episode today for a single reason which Gordon brought to my attention. It branches off pretty naturally from last week’s Culture War Correspondence and post from early 2012 about cartoon death, though that was primarily concerning younger audiences. That reason is, of course [obviously a SPOILER after the jump]: Continue reading

2 Broke Girls, S3E9 “And the Pastry Porn”: A TV Review

pastryporn

You know how I’m always whining about how this show has no momentum as far as its story and how all I really want is for the characters to head in basically any direction? It’s like this entire episode was written to make me shut up already.

We start things out with this week’s zaaaaany character of the week, a one-armed maid named Paulina. I expressed some pretty heavy disdain with the fact that Max and Caroline would ever hire a cleaning lady, but the idea that Sophie cut them a good deal by assigning them an amputee was actually pretty funny. Continue reading