MacArthur Foundation hands out genius grants to 23 ultra-talented people

“A phone call out of the blue; $500,000 – no strings attached” Reads the front page for the MacArthur Foundation. Sometimes called the genius grants, they are awarded to the ultra-talented in nearly any field – writers, scientists, photographers. Young and old, this year’s recipients range from 31 to 66 years old. And like the …

Happy 10th Birthday to Daring Fireball – a role model for this blog

Happy 10th birthday, John Gruber, of the curation blog, Daring Fireball. A role model of mine in both style and eccentricity. I hope to one day achieve your level of excellence and also prove to the world that being a blogger can provide a happy life for me and my family. A fellow writer, Robinson Meyer …

John Hughes Never Stopped Writing Until His Heart Stopped Beating

John Hughes, one of my favorite, most beloved screenwriters and filmmakers, passed away three years ago, on August 6, 2009. That his work has managed to stand the test of time, a feat so many writers fail to achieve, is a remarkable phenomenon in itself. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is now over twenty-five years old. …

San Diego’s Comic-Con is becoming the Sundance/Cannes for television

Think of it as TV’s Comic-Cannes. Since its inception 42 years ago, Comic-Con International has been a celebration of fanboy culture. When geek became the new cool, it also worked as a marketing platform for Hollywood and video game makers. Now, it’s the place where the television industry comes to build buzz for new shows …

Goodbye, Nora Ephron – Thank you for everything

What a shock to learn of Nora Ephron’s death, at 71 years old. What a loss to laughter–among the many other gifts Nora gave us. I met Nora when I was a secretary at Esquire magazine, not even a year out of college. My then boss, Binky Urban, (now my agent) became one of her closest …

Kickstarter project: Womanthology – massive all-female comic anthology

I read a lot of comics and it is always upsetting that there are no women creating them. There are female characters everywhere in the stories, many super heroines, and yet, nearly all the top female characters have all-male teams working on them. It is pretty sad, and unfair. The good news is that a …

A determined writer – overcomes Rheumatoid Arthritis – creates first full biography of Dennis Hopper

Readers of Peter Winkler’s new biography of the late actor and artist Dennis Hopper may not realize what a labor of love it represents. Winkler suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and cannot reach his fingers to the keyboard of his computer. Yet he was determined to write Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel, so …