O. A. Keegan

When designing my book's cover, I had to choose the title's typeface. I wanted something that said: near-future sci-fi mystery. Thanks to Typeset in the Future , I had some ideas. Thanks, Dave Addey!

Brad Bird is an incredible filmmaker. Most of his films are masterpieces. Ratatouille, however, is kind of a failure. I think it fails for a few reasons. Remy is too selfish. Linguine is too flat. The way everyone in France speaks English with different accents is confusing. But I think the biggest problem is the attempt at a poignant resolution. Why not just end it with Gusteau's closing? It still would have been a fun story. Ratatouille always felt like a weird pet project with an uplifting message tacked on at the end. But for Brad Bird, even a failure can be great. Ratatouille is one of my favorite films about food. C'est magnifique!

I believe mysteries work better on page than screen, because mysteries often rely on carefully worded misdirection, leaving much to the imagination.  It's hard to tell a good mystery visually, where so much is laid out in concrete, visually-accessible detail. That said, I believe two recent franchises manage to do mystery well in a visual medium: Knives Out and The After Party. In both cases, the creators use a clever trick to allow for misdirection: multiple characters describe the same event from different perspectives. With each account, new details emerge, often clouding previous accounts. Rian Johnson, Phil Lord, and Christopher Miller are master storytellers, and I am grateful for their work. They prove that, done properly, mysteries can work in a visual medium.

Today, I read this sentence from Paul Henry Lang's book, Music in Western Civilization : "Starting from the south toward the middle of the sixteenth century, the Jesuit theater moved up to the north, conquered the southern German countries and maintained itself until the period of the Enlightenment." On first glance, the opening participial phrase looks wrong. It appears to shift inappropriately from one reference frame to another: i.e., space to time. On second glance, I think the phrase is just poorly worded, but it occurred to me that a participial phrase  could  be written with an incorrect reference frame shift.  Here's an example: "Starting in the East and moving to the middle of the day, the sun crossed the sky." I am not sure what this grammatical oddity is called. It is kind of like a garden path sentence , but not. It also reminds me of a  comparative illusion , but it's not that, either. The best I could find is this weird little PowerPoint ab

Today, I want to talk about one of my favorite topics: Classical Music! More specifically, I want to talk about 19th century composer Ferdinand Ries.  He was a student of Beethoven and, in my opinion, a formidable composer in his own right.  I think his Piano Concertos Nos. 3, 5, 7, and 8 are wonderful.  They have good melodies and rich orchestration (much like Beethoven's works), and although Ries's piano parts may not be as virtuosic as Beethoven's, they are nevertheless delightful.  Unfortunately, for someone who composed 300 works , recordings of Ries's compositions are sadly lacking (at least on my music service of choice, Spotify).  So here is my plea to music directors, publishers, and streaming services alike: more Ries, please!