I wish I had the time and talent (are they connected?) to write like Paul Graham. His latest essay, on — of all things — the “The Age of the Essay,” collects historical tidbits, personal vignettes, meta-moments about writing, and a few otherwise unrelated threads into a meditation on how to share your thinking. I…

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I’ve been saving a clipping from the WSJ for a few weeks, mostly to keep some possible book ideas around. Better to put them here, where I can get at them from elsewhere (and throw away the clipping). All recommended by Jim Fusilli, formerly book reviewer of mysteries and crime fiction for the Boston Globe.…

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I’ve been remiss in not welcoming Eliot to the circle of bloggers I know. I look forward to reading him regularly, and I hope he finds the practice personally interesting, if nothing more. Cheers!

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I watched the finale of the Matrix trilogy last night, The Matrix Revolutions. Don’t see it. No matter how brilliant the first one was. I had low expectations after the disappointment of the second one, and I had to struggle to stay awake for this one. Argh. I’ve seen the first one at least three…

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Thoughtful violence. I use that seeming oxymoron to describe the movie Collateral. This was a compelling film. Yes, it’s violent, and the violence isn’t necessarily thoughtful, but the film doesn’t get caught up the action. Instead, the explosions of bullets that occasionally erupt punctuate the film, and change the pace. The beginning of this movie…

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Patrick O’Brian clearly enjoyed writing The Golden Ocean. Three years later, in The Unknown Shore, he used the same source material. The true story of a 1740 Royal Navy squadron sent to the Pacific to take a Spanish galleon becomes the platform from which O’Brian creates a separate story. One of the vessels, the Wager,…

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I’ve spent a lot of time rowing. Not recently, unfortunately, but it was a major focus for a decade or so. So I could smile at these two quotes from the September issue of Rowing News. I don’t even know which article they are from, since I ripped the page out of the magazine solely…

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I’ve spent the afternoon indoors, mostly, but San Francisco is hot today. Up over 90 degrees. Felt great during my run this morning, when it was probably a few degrees cooler, but this is startling. September is often the best month, weather-wise, but what a contrast to the hurricane season lashing Florida right now. I…

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Matt Damon does the sequel right. The Bourne Supremacy keeps moving, and was a worthy evening of entertainment in Lake Placid, New York a couple of weeks ago. The movie Bourne doesn’t have all the darkness and complexity of the book Bourne, but who wants that anyway, in a movie. The performance of the Russian…

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More vacation reading from a few weeks ago. After my speculation about who’s writing the Ludlum books that keep coming out, at least The Bourne Legacy, the newest one, acknowledge that the author is someone else: Eric Van Lustbader. The cover screams “Robert Ludlum’s Bestselling Character Jason Bourne,” but does say “A new novel by…

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