| hey-la, day-la |

There’s an R in the month, which can only mean two things: It’s oyster season and it’s also been a long while since I’ve updated this page. But these things happen. I went on a trip. I came back. I got a new phone. I sold my car. Pavarotti died. And the "Scarlett Letter" (see last update) generated some attention on the interweb. All in all, it’s been a cumbersome few weeks, and recently writing’s been made more difficult thanks to an especially potent case of existential crisis.

However, in other news, there are plenty of people I know who are doing some interesting things with their lives and it’s about time I gave them a shout. A small sampling follows.

| distant brother |

Last year, I posted some images of what my brother had been doing with his free time. Recently, the sonofagrunt found a job in sunny Australia and promptly moved his ass across the Pond Pacific. Sydney seems like a nice town and they hate Bush even more than Keith Olbermann so it can’t be all that bad. Anywhen, you can check out his portfolio and demo reel at www.nelsonsousa.com and see what he’s worked on. Just don’t expect it to be updated again anytime soon. He’s a busy feller these days.

| photomagoria |

Jeff Edwards is a photographer. I interviewed him for a story once and we might work on a project together in the near future. His new website is up at www.jeffedwardsphotography.com. Find it filled with all his dark room deeds.

| sister scripter |

I went to college with Olivia Kate Cerrone and she’s one of the few I’ve managed to stay in touch with since graduating. She’s a serious writer who keeps a work ethic I admire. Here are two of her more recently published short stories: Babydoll and The Licorice Men.

| dawkins on hitchens |

The last book I finished was Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great: How Relligion Poisons Everything. It’s a fun read and a nice political addendum to Richard Dawkins’s more science-based tome The God Delusion. In a clever move, The London Times asked Dawkins to review Hitchens. Perhaps even more clever is the review’s title: "Bible Belter."

| in vino veritas |

Francis Ford Coppola has a new film coming out in December. It’s his first since The Rainmaker which I still remember making a point to go see in the theatre in 1997. (Does this make me a bonafide film buff or just the world’s #1 Matt Damon fan?) I haven’t seen the movie since then, but I don’t recall being too impressed by it. An opinion which only bolsters my argument that Coppola hasn’t made a film that lives up to his '70s hype in decades. But seeing the teaser trailer for Youth Without Youth actually gives me some hope—something I thought Coppola could only offer me with his next Pinot vintage. But in this piece from The New York Times, the director explains how his newfound approach to filmmaking involves making films like he did when he was younger, and while it sounds like the usual string of Coppola-spiel (anyone remember how layered Dracula was supposed to be?), I seem to have fallen for it. I’m also impressed by his willingness to finance the film soley on the money earned through his winery. Coppola making independent films like he did decades ago? This could be good.

| lick it, beethoven |

Why does discovering the existence of this Mozart canon make me feel a bit better about the world?