Monthly Archives: September 2012

Banned Books Week as “required reading”?

This weekend marks the beginning of Banned Books Week here in the United States (September 30 – October 6, 2012).  One thing that’s worth noting on the list of banned or challenged books published on the American Library Association’s website is how … Continue reading

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“It’s” versus “its” and “who’s” versus “whose”

These are some tricky ones, and even people who kinda-sorta know them will still call me up to ask which spelling to use in a particular sentence.  (Which, in fact, someone did just the other day.) The way most people remember … Continue reading

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Addendum to my “Hunger Games” post

I stand corrected.  Having merely seen the film and not read the Suzanne Collins novels, I completely based my assumptions about District 11 on what I saw in the movie.  Now I’ve done a bit more digging and discovered that … Continue reading

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Why “The Hunger Games” should win the Academy Award for Best Production Design

I was finally able to watch The Hunger Games about a week ago and was extremely impressed by the film’s visual design – the locations, costumes, sets, props, makeup, etc.  Immediately I began thinking about writing a post arguing that the film … Continue reading

Posted in Movies and film, Popular culture, WPLongform (posts of 1000 words or longer) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The “Little House” Books: A new collection looks back

A review in this morning’s “Review” section of The Wall Street Journal alerted me to the recent republication of one of my favorite childhood series, the “Little House” books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  This new collection of Wilder’s nine books is … Continue reading

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A rainbow without rain

Today was a sunny, breezy day in Milwaukee.  But the sky looked so strange!  Mostly this was due to many different types of clouds coexisting oddly in the same space.  Puffy, flat-bottomed cumulus clouds sailed like a scattered armada across the bright blue … Continue reading

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George Martin: the man behind the Beatles’ sound

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a fascinating story on / interview with George Martin, the man who produced all of the Beatles’ music except the Let It Be album.  A BBC documentary titled Produced by George Martin is being released … Continue reading

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Double helix – fire escape and shadow

I hope you’re not tired of photos.  Because here’s another one I took this morning of the fire escape winding down the side of Milwaukee’s City Hall.  The only camera I had with me (again) was my iPod Touch, so … Continue reading

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The Accidental Photograph

I took this photo on the walk to Starbucks this morning.  I liked the contrast between these two buildings’ actual and reflected windows.  Windows upon windows.  Because the idea of taking a picture hadn’t crossed my mind until the minute I looked up … Continue reading

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Red sky at morning

 . . . Sailor take warning. I’m not sure whether Milwaukee will be feeling the effects of Hurricane Isaac’s weather system soon or not.  But sunrise this morning was VERY red.  The sky looked almost like the glow of a … Continue reading

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