Reading: Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters by John Waters
Music: 90s J-Pop
TV/Movie: The Mothman Prophecies
Link o' the Day: interview with John Updike


I've finally gotten around to watching Finding Forrester (2000), directed by Gus Van Sant, written by Mike Rich, and starring Sean Connery, Rob Brown, F. Murray Abraham and Busta Rhymes. Not a bad movie. It's very reminiscent of Good Will Hunting, Van Sant's previous film and he seemed to be aware of it enough to give Matt Damon a brief cameo. But Finding Forrester is a different movie and a lot less angsty. Instead of a Irish-American math whizkid from Southie, we have literary-minded black whizkid from the Bronx. Instead of a talented therapist wrestling with his personal tragedies, we have a reclusive author wrestling with his tragedies. FF is partially set at a private academy, GWH is set partially at Harvard. Both movies have the younger and older lead characters redeeming the other. Yeah, there are parallels, but don't be fooled into thinking they are the same movies. They have different feels to them, and are both pretty inspiring.

Special kudos to Ron Brown who has never acted before and reportedly was only after an extras role when Van Sant ended up tapping him for the lead. He did a great job and it must have been hugely challenging to work with such established and well-trained actors and Connery and Abraham. Speaking of F. Murray Abraham...he does a good job playing the villain-like character--very Salieri in a way--and not the first time he's been the nemesis to one of Connery's characters. Their characters butted heads back in The Name of the Rose in 1986. (Good movie adaptation of the book. Also starred a young Ron Perlman.)

While I'm naming names, I enjoyed Busta Rhymes' character as well. He plays a relatively small, but also very key role.

Finding Forrester...if you liked GWH you'll like this. If you enjoy literary-themed stories, or are a fan of folks like J.D. Salinger, you'll enjoy this film. It's easily worth a rental or cable viewing. Maybe even owning.

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A pretty good week, production-wise. Van Alexander is out for proof, the Bulletin and medical journal are out on proof. The Ray Danton photos are all set--I'm just waiting on the captions and placements--the text layout is pretty much done. So a good week. Today is going to be spent taking care of dozens of loose-end chores, cover art, contracts, and fixing a couple of typos in TumbleTap Presents 2009 before that goes off to the printer.

And without going into sordid details, I got an issue that's been hanging over my head since December not only resolved, but resolved completely in my favor.

So, yeah... good week. To celebrate, here's a sneak peak at the artwork for the next SFWA Bulletin, courtesy of artist Randy Asplund.



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Rumor has it...Statistically, coffee consumption is at its highest when a Democrat is president. Bees also produce more honey. Drug abuse and bank robberies rise during Republican administrations.



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In keeping with an authorial theme, today's link takes you to a short interview with John Updike at The National Book Foundation. His brilliance will be missed, but his words live on.



Cheers!