December 2011
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I am seated in a new office chair writing at my desktop computer, which sounds quite boring but is, in fact, very exciting for me. The desk that makes this situation possible was an acquisition my wife made a few years back. She discovered that our neighbor was going to throw it away and promptly…
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To grow up in New England is to have an intimate knowledge of snow and ice and all the other joys of winter. The discovery in early childhood that snow created more than soft slopes and sticky snowballs is a profound one. It signals one of the many subtle changes in a life where the…
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After recently watching a movie and disliking it greatly, I did what I so often do; I decided to watch the special features. This has become something of a pattern for me, I watch a movie and if my response to it is strong (in either direction) I immediately want to delve into the special…
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There are many wonderful things to be gained by uprooting yourself and moving to a new place. I think many would argue it is the only sure way to ever appreciate where you lived previously. There are also many advantages to moving to a city if your prior homes have been in rural areas. All…
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It is an odd thing to celebrate Halloween as an adult. I do not yet have a child to celebrate the holiday with. My wife is fiendishly imbued with the spirit of the day and her enthusiasm, regardless of our limited roles as candy dispensers, is certainly infectious. Each year our hopes soar as the…
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During a recent visit with my landlord, I was informed for perhaps the twentieth time, that the building which I live in has character. I believe he used the word to mean personality, claiming that what one person may perceive as a flaw would be a charming feature to someone else. I find, being the…
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Each year at this time my thoughts inevitably turn to one thing: cleaning my apartment. This urge is an odd one and I do my utmost to fight it each time it rears its ugly head. I am not opposed to cleaning and in fact I tend to vote in favor of cleanliness whenever polled.…
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How movies are assigned their ratings has become something of a hot topic in the past few years. Although I have never seen much written about the subject, listening to the commentaries on several DVD’s (Kevin Smith’s in particular) have offered some insight into how the MPAA rates films. There is of course the documentary…
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Whether you are a casual moviegoer or a film buff chances are unless you are also a cinematographer you don’t pay too much attention to this particular profession. Certainly we all notice the way films look and when it is either exceptionally beautiful or painfully drab the credit nearly always falls on the person making…
The Writings of John Ryan Sullivan 