Posts under ‘Essays’

In addition to some valuable learning about my songwriting and how to participate more effectively in songwriting contests, my SpinTunes experience led me to some general thoughts on how songwriting contests are — and could be — run.
SpinTown and the others most directly involved in running SpinTunes explicitly made an effort to design the contest [...]

Last night, the final new Tuesday episode aired. As much as it moved things forward and set up the finale, I don’t have much to say other than this:

I remain pretty convinced of the general direction I posed the show taking in last week’s post and the post from the week before.
For a show so [...]

Good and Evil and In Between
The third from the last episode, and we start to see, literally and figuratively, a light at the end of the tunnel. And I believe more than ever in what I’ve said about Lost providing a complicated, atypical look at “good” vs. “evil.”
A Woman kills the twins’ Mother, apologizing to [...]

Yes, I haven’t written about Lost for ages. Yes, I’ve procrastinated across the better part of the entire series in what was intended to be episode by episode commentary. Yes, this isn’t an episode-specific commentary. Yes, I realize nobody probably even reads this or cares much about my take on the show. But here are [...]

Claire dreams of her baby’s disappearance. In the dream, Locke says, “It was your respnsibility but you gave him away, Claire. Everyone pays the price now.” She goes through the crib, only to get blood on her hands. This episode will soon tell us that she wanted to put the baby up for adoption. Is [...]

The survivors can travel with each other, they can bond with others, and they can do so all the more effectively through and after their journeys, but each individual journey is a solitary one.
Sayid finds the cable to the ocean. What is it? A first thought might be some connection to the outside world, reasonable [...]

Boone going through Sawyer’s stash. Next thing you know, Boone’s bleeding, being helped back to camp. “What happened?” Boone: “Sawyer.” Sawyer, the only one who has seemed to horde property, the only one who has claimed property that isn’t personally useful, is now using violence to protect his plunder. A familiar story to any civilized [...]

How many times have you done your resume? Redone it? Done different versions of it for different situations? Put it into different formats, from Word to PDF to plain text to LinkedIn to Monster to individual employers’ recruitment websites and however many others? I’ve done all this too many times for my taste. It’s gotten [...]

In flashback, the priest tells Charlie, “We all have our temptations, but giving into them, that’s your choice.” When Charlie’s brother Liam tells of the promise of a record contract, Charlie only agrees to proceed with the band if they can agree to walk away if things get too crazy. Charlie is keenly aware of [...]

Jin, fishes, willing to club a fish dead. He has no problem getting his food direct from the source, no shock to the system as the island must be for many other survivors. But Jin has his own traits standing in the way of harmony. What pieces make up the whole puzzle? Even Locke, who’s [...]