Picoreview: Birdman

Picoreview: Birdman: So, wow. That was, so that was a movie. I’m. Wow. Virtuoso performances from the whole cast. Emma Stone eats the screen alive when she’s on screen, and Edward Norton–it’s always fun to watch actors playing actors, but he’s especially good (I shall detail why behind the spoiler cut). Coming from the theatre background that I do, it was a…it was…it rang true in the same way Noises Off does, except without the farce. Mostly. It was…wow. And technically, also, wow. The scene changes, the camera shots, the…wow.…

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Recent Reads: The Paradox Trilogy

As mentioned in last week’s post, I got Rachel Bach (Aaron)’s military sf/space opera last year on the strength of her Eli Monpress books, and, in my quest to get through my TBR shelf in order, read them this month. They’re not as easy to fall into as the Monpress books; Devi Morris, the main character, isn’t as charming or delightful as Eli Monpress. Then again, she’s not supposed to be, so frankly that speaks to Aaron’s strengths as a writer. Book one found its footing after a few chapters,…

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so many conventions

Argh, there are so many conventions I’d like to go to this year. I’d like to go to EasterCon, because Jim’s going to be one of the guests of honor and it’s the perfect place for seeing UK-based friends. I’d like to go to WorldCon because it’s West Coast this year and so loads of people I know will be there and so will Daniel Keys Moran, who doesn’t go to cons and who I would really, really like to meet. And I just found out WFC is in Saratoga…

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reality collides with perception

I asked for Rachel Bach‘s Paradox Trilogy for my birthday last year, and, in my Read The TBR List In Alphabetical Order quest for 2015, I started reading them this week. I also discovered that my interest in them was a source of great confusion to Ted, who knows I hated Honor Harrington and had extrapolated that I disliked space opera/military SF, which is bonkers. I stared at him in utter astonishment and he said, “Well, they look like they’re up the Honor Harrington alley and you don’t like those…

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Irish literary bursary awards clinic

Ireland offers bursaries to artists of varying walks of life. Last night I went to a clinic on Writing Your Bursary, which had some interesting information, like, they had €867K worth of applicants last year and were able to fund about €80K’s worth of them. o.O I’m not clear on whether that was for the full year or for each half of the year, but I think it was for the full year. They have somewhere around 150 applicants per funding period and fund about 15 of them. There were…

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