Left to my own devices

          Several nights ago, I had a very evocative dream. It was, as most dreams are, strange and a bit reality-bending. It was late in my sleep cycle, and actually felt like it occurring immediately prior to waking up that morning. The very last part (referred to here as the "three options" -- you'll understand later) is what impacted me the most. I knew that I had to write it down as a story, but some thought had to be given to how. Dreams are often meandering, and so some structure had to be added to the story. There was magical stuff in the dream that I decided to jettison. It's mostly been replaced by some more sci-fi elements. Ideally it'll make sense once you've read it. This is kind of a long short story -- at least for a blog -- so be prepared. I've also included a minor Christmas theme, given the time of year. It's all a bit bonkers, as you'll see if you take the time out of your busy day to read it. I wasn't sure what to call this ...

Lou Skizas died on November 17th. I just read his obituary in Sunday's paper, and a lot about his life is contained therein. I knew him as "Mr. Skizas" -- he was one of my teachers, so we weren't on a first name basis. It's true that, in adulthood, I've come to know many of my teachers of yore much better. Some of them have becomes friends. Such was not the case with Mr. Skizas, though our paths did cross over the years.

         Yesterday was the closing night of the 32nd St. Louis International Film Festival, and there I watched the new film, All of Us Strangers . It was written and directed by Andrew Haigh, who adapted it from the Japanese novel Strangers , by Taichi Yamada. I've seen two of Haigh's previous movies -- Lean on Pete , and Weekend -- the latter a good, solid film, and the former being my favorite movie of 2018 (when it was widely released here in the United States).     

Well over twenty years ago, I made a mistake. It wasn't my first, and it certainly wasn't my last. This one, like so many others, was well-intentioned. It also resides completely within my own heart and mind. It is something which has been part of my psyche since the late-nineties, but today it envelopes my thoughts to a fairly large degree. Allow me to explain. My dad died twenty-six years ago today. He knew he was sick for almost the last year of his life. During that time, I would visit with him, in an attempt to finally connect with him on a deeper level. It didn't really happen, and there was a lot of anger and resentment on my part about it for a long time, but now I'm glad to have at least made the effort.

My childhood home went on the market last week (already under contract, apparently), and episodes 9 and 10 of Star Trek: Picard season 3 aired last month. Neither one of the aforementioned things at first appear as though they would have anything in common. And they don't, at least not to most people. For yours truly, however, they both represent a fondness for a certain era of the past.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" That was something kids seemed to be asked a lot when I was growing up (which is becoming increasingly further back in time as the years go by). I'm not sure if that is a question commonly put to children today, but it was, for me, a pretty exciting query. At least during my single-digit years. It conjured up an open landscape of possibilities. I don't know.. perhaps I'd be an astronaut? An artist? Mayor? When I entered my teenage years, and began high school, the question -- no longer posed as much by adults, but more to myself -- generated anxiety more than anything. It was crunch time. Crap - what do I want to be?

Last month, I announced the nominees for the 26th annual  Matt Awards , where I highlight my favorites in film from the preceding year. And now, finally (we're pretty late with these this year), here are the winners for the 2022  Matt Awards ! They are... 

Like so many others, I first met Jean Breeze when I was five years old. She would've been thirty-six at the time. Nearly forty-two years later, our time shared on this earth has come to an end. Jean was a kindergarten teacher at Westview Elementary School in Champaign, Illinois. Her classroom -- at least when I was there -- was at the north end of the school, facing John St. It had a row of windows that let in the sunshine, and it was filled with educational materials, toys and various knick-knacks accumulated over the years. We would take naps there every day. Ms. Breeze would read to us daily. It was a fun place to be. I remember my year there fondly.

The first Matt Awards were dispensed in early 1998 (now a quarter-century ago). By me. On my trusty old Brother word processor. No one else really knew about them. I might have read them off to my mom, or my friend Terry, but they were really for me. They were born out of frustration for how the Oscars typically doled-out awards. Basically, I wanted to have my own opinions about movies - something I do regularly over on the Mashley at the Movies podcast . An annual occurrence since they began, I enjoy doing the Matt Awards each year. Sometimes, I do both nominations and then, a few weeks later, pick the winners. Some years, I just go straight to the winners circle. This year, I'm really late - later than I've probably ever been - on getting to these awards. Life's been a bit busy. So, here's what we're doing: This post will be the list of nominations for the 2023 Matt Awards . Then, in a few days, I'll make another blog post with the winners. Sound ok? Cool, ...

My dad, Lewis, was born on this day in 1945. He would have turned 78-years-old today. As regular readers of this blog may know and remember, he died aged 52. Too few years, though more than some. While it's true that sometimes I give March 21st a brief, passing thought (or have even forgotten its significance altogether), this year it looms more prevalent within my psyche, probably because of my mom's recent passing. So, here I am, writing another blog post about my father.

"Hanging on to the past It only stands in our way" - Tina Turner , I Don't Wanna Fight There he was, being exalted. The man (well, he was a young man then) who'd thrown a basketball at me at point blank range after yelling, "Think fast!" then laughing when I'd had no time to react. The ball had hit me square in the head. To this day, I can still remember the immediate blackness after the impact, of not being able to see anything for a few moments, and then the ringing pain that reverberated throughout my skull for what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a few minutes. The aforementioned incident happened during high school P.E. class. The person who did it was someone I rarely, if ever, interacted with. He was just a person in my class who liked to bully people, and I happened to be his choice of assault that day. And then, several months ago, I saw him. Not in-person (thankfully), but online. His picture was posted on a mutual friend's ...

The Verge recently had an article about AI - specifically, how humans perceive AI. It's been a pretty big topic of late, what with ChatGPT and the Bing Chatbot on a roll, having millions of users help them learn and become better... er, I mean just toying around with it for a bit. And major companies expanding its reach by the day. The aforementioned piece from The   Verge  considers the "mirror test," wherein we are faced with something that is really ourselves, and the test is: do we recognize it as such, or do we believe it to be an altogether different entity? Animals and other creatures below us on the evolutionary chain have been faced with such a test before, with a literal mirror. Sometimes, they may perceive themselves in their reflection, other times they're confused, and sometimes they flat out believe their reflection to be another being. The author of the article believes too many people are falling into that last camp when it comes to AI.

It's been nearly two weeks since my mom, Sally Newman, died. I've certainly written in these pages before about friends, family and loved ones who have passed on, and want to write something about my mother in these pages that is truly about her - the life she led, and the life that is now gone - but for now it will have to wait. There's still too much going on in my head and in my heart to write something cogent about her. For the best that I could muster, you can read her obituary . I do, however, want to write about me. Specifically, about how Sally's death has impacted me. That may sound odd, or even self-centered. And it is. But, nearly all mourning is at least partly fueled by our own self-pity at losing someone we knew. It's the difference between, say, someone telling you that a random 76-year-old woman on the other side of the world that you've never known has died, and being told that your 76-year-old parent has perished. Our feelings tend to follow th...

A couple of things happened last month that I wanted to write about, but the holidays (along with a serious bout of depression) got in the way. The first was a case that went before the United States Supreme Court, where a Christian web site designer refused to make custom web sites for same-sex weddings. The second was  news of a restaurant in Richmond, Virginia that refused to honor the reservation of a conservative Christian organization that, among other things, opposes same-sex marriage and abortion rights.

I've been meaning to write about something, but life has been busy of late. So, a week later, I'm finally getting around to it. There was an article that caught my attention, about a guy who used AI -- specifically, ChatGPT (you can Google it, if you want to learn more) -- to write a children's book. He then used something called Midjourney to illustrate it. The person in question, Ammaar Reshi, "wrote" (quotations used purposefully) Alice and Sparkle  for a friend's daughter, and self-published it online via Amazon's digital bookstore. He also had a physical paperback version printed. I'm not sure what the intended recipient thought of the tome, but Reshi talked about his endeavor on Twitter, and the reaction there, and on Amazon, was apparently lackluster. Some criticized the writing, others criticized the use of AI-generated art, claiming it stole the work of actual artists.

I recently read an article that references a study done about love. Specifically, the study's co-authors quizzed their subjects about various scenarios where they were asked to guess how a majority of people would respond to those scenarios. At the end, the co-authors of the article narrowed everything down to four things that would likely make most people feel loved. Those four things are follows... When someone shows compassion toward them during difficult times When a child snuggles up to them When their pets are happy to see them When someone tells them "I love you" There's nothing terribly earth-shattering contained therein. No doubt most of us enjoy having someone say they love us (unless it's in a Fatal Attraction kind of way), and who isn't happy to be treated well, and have their pets glad to see them? So, yeah, these four things make sense, and nearly amount to a dog-bites-man story. Of course, this got me thinking. Something that crossed my mind w...