FOR BUSTER AND BAILEY…
0744 by Jeff HessAfter a brutal Maine winter
the world dissolves
in weak sunshine and water.
Mud sucks at your shoes.
It’s impossible to keep the floors
or the dogs clean.
From Mud Season by Alice N. Persons.
20 May 2007
20 May 2007
FROM MY CHAPBOOK…
0400 by Jeff Hess
My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.
This is a passage I copied from Story: Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting by Robert McKee.
To plot means to navigate through the dangerous terrain of story and when confronted by a dozen branching possibilities to choose the correct path. Plot is the writer”s choice of events and their design in time.
19 May 2007
19 May 2007
THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN IN CLEVELAND…
1820 by Jeff Hess
The German car manufacturer Audi thought it could pull a fast on on Toronto. Some marketing genius came up with the idea of getting special permits to put up double-t sculptures around the city so that they could be filmed for a commercial. The city said fine. But, oops, it turns out that there was no commercial.
Audi was just looking for, and found, a way to put up huge advertisements that violated the city’s public advertising laws.
But Audi wasn’t counting on blogger Rami Tabello and Illegalsigns.
First there was this:
IllegalSigns.ca is asking Councillor Kyle Rae, Chairman of the Economic Development Committee to investigate the Film and Television Office for violations of City policy that resulted in the Audi TT signs fiasco.
Apparently nobody is minding the shop at the Film and Television Office. These signs were installed ostensibly as “set dressing” for an Audi TV commercial in about 50 locations around town, in parks and on road allowance.
But there is no TV commercial and the FTO was hoodwinked into issuing permits for this advertising campaign, because it didn”t follow its own policies.
Which was followed by:
According to Spacing Wire, a political staffer says that Rhonda Silverstone of the City”s Film and Television Office has stated that the Audi signs “have all been removed from city property as of this afternoon” after she requested the applicant to remove them.
Let us know if you see any.
And today by:
City Hall officials had some concerns regarding the use of language in our blog post concerning the illegal Audi signs in city parks. This, from an e-mail that was forwarded to us:
Our blog entry on Wednesday resulted in the removal of about 40 illegally placed billboards in City parks and streets. According to one of our peers, a certain official responsible for the fiasco was “practically in tears” after they read our post “partly because of the language you used on your site.”
Our duty is to destroy billboards. We may hurt somebody”s feelings in the process.
I think I’d much rather have real super heroes like Illegalsigns in Cleveland than Spiderman.
19 May 2007
MY COMMENTS…
1409 by Jeff Hess
Part of being a good citizen of the blogosphere is visiting, reading and, most importantly, taking the time to leave a comment on other’s blogs. It’s all about the conversation. In the interest of setting an example I’ve decided to link to those blog posts that have compelled me to leave a comment.
19 May 2007
MUCKING OUT THE BLOGPILE…
1400 by Jeff Hess
I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is 10 Ways to Do More by Focusing on the Essentials.
19 May 2007
FROM THE SANDBOX…
1200 by Jeff Hess
SGT Brandon White: As I watch the second hand tick by ever so slowly, I cannot help but think of home. What is home? Being in various overseas assignments and combat tours, one starts to develop a greater understanding of exactly what constitutes “home”. Is it this place that I take my boots off in? The location on a map where my lawnmower resides? Is it…
19 May 2007
FROM MY DAD…
0800 by Jeff Hess
I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.
19 May 2007
¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡ ¡…
0719 by Jeff HessBut mainly because I need it-here and now
As I sit outside the Caffe Reggio
Staring at my espresso and cannoli
After this middle-aged couple
Came strolling by and he suddenly
Veered and sneezed all over my table
And she said to him, “See, that’s why
I don’t like to eat outside.”
From Appeal to the Grammarians by Paul Violi.
19 May 2007
FROM MY CHAPBOOK…
0400 by Jeff HessMy name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.
This is a passage I copied from Story: Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting by Robert McKee.
A story climax is a series of acts that build to a last act climax or story climax which brings about absolute and irreversible change.
18 May 2007
18 May 2007
MUCKING OUT THE BLOGPILE…
1400 by Jeff HessI’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is Be The Guy Who Wears A Name Tag Everywhere.
18 May 2007
FROM THE SANDBOX…
1200 by Jeff HessAdrian B.: Getting on a flight is never simple. First you have to draw up a list of who”s going. Then you stage the baggage. Next you confirm the list, which more often than not involves adding or dropping people from your original list, then fix the baggage problems this creates. An hour before the flight you and the rest of the passengers walk down to some holding…
18 May 2007
WHAT THEY SAID…
0831 by Jeff HessMen fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth-more than ruin-more even than death. … Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and com-fortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man. Bertrand Russell
Happy birthday, Mr. Russell.
18 May 2007
18 May 2007
ONE FOR MRS. MARY CAMPBELL…
0809 by Jeff Hess…When she asked me to write
a play, and direct it, and it was a flop, and I
hid in the coat-closet, she brought me a candy-cane
as you lay a peppermint on the tongue, and the worm
will come up out of the bowel to get it.
And so I was emptied of Lucifer
and filled with school glue and eros and
Amelia Earhart, saved by Mrs. Kirkorian.
And who had saved Mrs. Kirkorian?
From Mrs. Kirkorian by Sharon Olds.
18 May 2007
FROM MY DAD…
0800 by Jeff HessI could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.
18 May 2007
STAGNANT GROWTH…? REALLY…?
0741 by Jeff Hess
Two things caught my eye as I read Drivers cut back – a 1st in 26 years in this morning’s USAToday. First, this line in the fourth paragraph: The nation has not seen such stagnant growth in driving since 1981, when the USA staggered through an oil shortage and a recession, wrote Paul Overberg and Larry Copeland.
Suggesting that a reduction in driving miles represents stagnant growth is like telling a cancer patient that their remission is a medical speed bump and that the destructive cells will be back to full rampage in no time.
Second, there was this final bullet point at the bottom of the story:
Demographic shifts that de-emphasize the need to drive. Many Americans, particularly young, upwardly mobile singles, are moving downtown and revitalizing cities. “(They) don’t have to live the way of the Ozzie and Harriet model – two parents, suburban, who drive to the city,” [Ed] McMahon [senior research fellow at the Urban Land Institute] says.
McMahon doesn’t share his data with us, but his assertion seems a bit squinky to me.
Over recent months I’ve been following the data coming out of, and the stories surrounding, the Shinking Cities Institute and what I’m reading makes great sense. And it all runs counter to what McMahon claims.
Sure, there are urban pioneers like George and Adam, but a trend toward moving downtown? Show me the numbers.
Gawd forbid that Exxon should suffer a drop in revenues.
18 May 2007
FROM MY CHAPBOOK…
0400 by Jeff HessMy name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.
This is a passage I copied from Story: Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting by Robert McKee.
When you look at the value-charged situation in the life of the character at the beginning of the story, then compare it to the value-charge at the end of the story, you should see the arc of the film, the great sweep of change that takes life from one condition at the opening to the changed condition at the end . This final condition, this end change, must be absolute and irreversible.
17 May 2007
MUCKING OUT THE BLOGPILE…
1400 by Jeff HessI’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is 7 Easy Ways To Fit Volunteerism Into You Busy Day.
