Ian's Curated Musings

When Donald Trump ran for the 2016 presidency, it was common to hear late night hosts and comedians joke about how their material was writing itself. Then, as time went on, the joke became that they would much rather write their own material than deal with the horrific confederacy of dunces that is the Trump presidency. Now, with a teenager jailed because she didn't complete online schoolwork ,  with our personal data being weaponized by companies to manipulate our opinions , with federal officers abducting people participating in the uprisings in unmarked vehicles , and with the Homeland Security chief terming these as 'proactive arrests,'  it doesn't feel like jokes are writing themselves anymore, but (what should be science fiction) dystopias are. In Marie Lu's Legend , a plague ravages the people as the government tests its people, but only offers them treatment if they can afford it; while in M.T. Anderson's Feed , personal market data is used by companies ...

With Bong Joon-ho's  Parasite (2019) winning the Oscar for Best Picture, and what seems to be a steady stream of films from directors like Jordan Peele ( Get Out, 2017; Us, 2019), Ari Aster ( Hereditary, 2018; Midsommar, 2019), and Robert Eggers ( The Witch, 2015; The Lighthouse, 2019); it seems we've entered into a golden age of arthouse horror films that use the genre to tackle social issues, explore the human condition, and study characters. Natalie Erika James's debut  Relic , released July 3rd by IFC Films, seems to be the latest in this vein; and like those other movies, it succeeds. Relic transcends the genre: it's the kind of horror movie I would tell people who don't typically like horror movies to watch. It's not because of the acting (though I loved the performances, and Robyn Nevin's facial expressions alone make it worth the watch). It's not because of the imagery (though I wondered at the surreal dimensions of the house, particularly in the...

Of the many things New Jersey poet William Carlos Williams is famous for, one of them is the quote "no ideas but in things," which encapsulates the belief that, in poetry, images and symbols work best to create themes and deeper meaning.  That's all well and good in poetry, but I've found the opposite to be true when coming up with ideas for stories: I have nothing without my ideas. In other words, I've found it's important to have a concept when coming up with new ideas for writing, something to give the narration a point, a direction. Pitching Books to Myself The best way I can describe this is like selling myself a book that hasn't been written yet (or at least that I haven't written yet). I write down a few high-concept sentences, as if to prove to myself that there's something worth exploring there. Here's an example for a book I've recently finished writing: It's a dystopia, but in its earliest stages so that we can see how a typi...

In one section of my current work in progress, the main character is kept a captive audience as his English teacher recites lines from Yeats's poem " The Second Coming " as a means of both demonstrating the danger of literature and of change.  The poem itself imagines the end of days, and I've always loved it for this: the description of destruction, its prophetic tone, and the parting images of the "rough beast" moving slowly towards its own birth.  Those cycles of death and birth, the fading of one age into another, is something that has always interested me; and it's something I want to revisit in today's context--hoping and working towards the ebb of racism and the growth of anti-racism. "Turning and Turning in the Widening Gyre" Yeats's theory of history--represented in the double gyre --in its most basic sense is that something has power, and then, as that power diminishes, a new power establishes itself and begins to grow until t...

Five years ago I could have killed someone. I was driving home from work, overtired and under-caffeinated. Cake was on the radio. I blacked out, swerved out of traffic, hit a parked car, hopped the curb, and smashed (finally) into a chain link fence post.  Thankfully, no one was physically hurt. The parked car was empty. My car, which would be totaled by the insurance adjuster, had saved me from damage by martyring itself. The fence post barely moved.  The police came, wrote their ticket, and left. My Scion's carcass was towed away. I walked home. All told, it could have been worse. But one thought stays with me even now: Thank god no one was on that sidewalk. If they were, they would be injured or dead; and it would be my fault. It reminds me how fragile we are, how easily our lives as we know them can end. A split-second, unconscious decision can result in a consequence that changes your, or someone else's life, forever. This is the problem with no-knock warrants: they leave...