{"id":372,"date":"2016-12-29T07:23:59","date_gmt":"2016-12-29T07:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/?page_id=372"},"modified":"2021-07-06T20:56:30","modified_gmt":"2021-07-06T20:56:30","slug":"a-few-of-my-favorite-things","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/a-few-of-my-favorite-things\/","title":{"rendered":"A few of my favorite things"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe<\/a> is my favorite podcast, and the only science-based podcast I can listen to. All the others frankly just put me to sleep, but there’s something about the lively conversational energy among this group of siblings and friends that brings everything they talk about to life for me. I highly recommend not only the podcast, but the associated blogs.<\/p>\n

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Kate Brubeck<\/a> is my critique partner and the best editor I’ve ever had. And since she does this on a freelance basis for a living, she can be the best editor you’ve ever had, too! Or the best creative consultant, or dissertation coach, or ESL teacher, or whatever you might need to make your words work.<\/p>\n

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I recently bought a new computer specifically to run the neural art software I’m using to create haiku illustrations<\/a> and my other digital art<\/a>, and could not have been happier with the service I received from Puget Systems<\/a>. They not only engaged in a long email discussion of my needs, but agreed to install most of the software for me, before shipping me the new system, just to make sure it would all work. And since then, they’ve continued to respond promptly\u00a0and in detail to followup questions I’ve had.<\/p>\n

Books and Movies<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The Dazzle of Day<\/a><\/em>\u00a0– My favorite sci-fi novel.<\/p>\n

Little, Big<\/em><\/a> – The greatest fantasy novel ever written.<\/p>\n

“Briggflatts”<\/a> – My favorite long poem.<\/p>\n

Coming To Jakarta<\/em><\/a> – My favorite political book (and second favorite long poem — yes, this book combines the two!) about which I recorded a series of video discussions with the author that later turned into a book<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Arrival<\/a> – I can’t sum up how amazing this movie is in one paragraph, so you’ll just have to read my review<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Melancholia<\/a> – Written and directed by Lars Von Trier, who’s often accused (rightly, in my opinion) of misogyny, and who sometimes produces movies that are just unwatchably awful, this is not only a profound\u00a0portrayal of depression (which Von Trier himself suffers from) that features two super strong female leads, but also happens to contain two of the most powerful\u00a0sci-fi type special effects scenes I know of. (An image of the rogue planet Melancholia sharing the night sky with the moon, and the final scene involving Melancholia, which I won’t spoil.)<\/p>\n

Jesus of Montreal<\/a> – I watch this movie every year around Easter, each year with a different friend or combination of friends. i began this practice when I was Episcopalian, but now that I’m an atheist, I continue to get just as much out of the movie as I used to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe is my favorite podcast, and the only science-based podcast I can listen to. All the others frankly just put me to sleep, but there’s something about the lively conversational energy among this group of siblings and friends that brings everything they talk about to… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-372","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1112,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/372\/revisions\/1112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}