David Raffin

Movie Review: Aaltra

If your complaint up to this point has been “not enough movies about disagreeable men in wheelchairs” and/or “not enough non-Russian films about tractors” then I direct you to the Belgian film AALTRA. It also features Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki (Leningrad Cowboys) in an acting role.

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Insult to Injury

The US medical system has long claimed to be exceptional.

For example, every medical billing department has a team on staff to add insult to injury. They wanted to know if they could keep them under the new law.

And the answer was, “Yes, if you like them.”

 

Postage past due

I received an Xmas card saying, “Don’t get trapped in a snow globe.” Now I am trapped in a snow globe. I have almost no one to blame but mysel…
After all, this was a trap.
The mathematics of culpability, squared.

Years ago postage stamps were bothersome. With the advent of self-adhesion, we finally licked that sticky little problem. Progress, but at great price.

 

The pudding of Xmas past, the gruel of Xmas present

The most famous reindeer of all was Charles Dickens. What a Dickens!
He invented Xmas pudding. Which hardly anybody eats anymore. He started the tradition of orphans eating thin gruel. Now nobody eats gruel. Except orphans. Xmas morning: “Hello gruel world.”
(Gruel world is a future theme park for orphans.)
The Dickens, you say!

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(This festive octopus painting by Richard F. Yates.)

The stuff of monsters and love stories

Every good long-term relationship is built on one of the participants not being eaten by a monster. This is my writing tip for the day.

One of the participants in a love story being eaten by a monster, of course, is the stuff of tragedy.
Unless it’s a comedy.

Whenever I have a character be eaten by a monster I don’t plot it out. Because that’s not the way it happens in the real world.

Remember that a tragic love story is still a love story. This may be viewed as a flaw in the categorization of stories.