Lisrey's New Writeups

Jonathan Carroll (person)

2001-01-28T02:41:23Z

Expatriate American novelist and short story writer whose imaginative and quirky works defy genre categorization. Carroll has lived in Vienna, Austria, for years, and is much better known in Europe than in the United States. Some of Carroll's writings lean toward horror, others mystery or fantasy. He calls them "fairy tales for adults." Author Neil Gaiman, who wrote the introduction at the Jonathan Carroll web site, describes his turf as magical realism.

Carroll has a very distinctive voice. His books are a breeze to read, but exploring their subtle moral complexity requires a closer look. They often plop a fantastical element down in the middle of a real world situation, and are populated by intriguing characters, often rather untrustworthy narrators. A minor character in one book will frequently become the protagonist in a future story. And there are lots of talking animals, especially dogs... especially bull terriers.

His first…

You Can Count on Me (thing)

2001-01-26T21:30:46Z

You can count on me is an independent film written and directed by Ken Lonergan, who also scripted Analyze this. This is his first outing as a director, and he has made an absolutely beautiful movie. It shared the Grand Jury Prize at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, and also won the Screenwriting Award there. Many critics, Roger Ebert among them, call it one of the year's best.

The intelligent and subtle script makes you really care about the complex characters it presents, and the acting throughout is phenomenal. The story centers around the relationship of an adult brother and sister who were orphaned at a young age. The sister, Sammy (Laura Linney), still lives in their family's old house in a sleepy little town in the Catskills. Her brother Terry (Mark Ruffalo) is an unpredictable drifter. He's returned to visit Sammy after a long absence; it starts out as just a quick stop to ask for money, but turns into something more.

Sammy is a single mom. Rory…

Some nights, I lie in my bed and stare up at the stars... (idea)

2001-01-25T04:55:16Z

When I was a kid I bought a big set of glow-in-the-dark adhesive stars and decorated the ceiling of my room with them. The ceiling was sloped on the sides because it was right under the apex of the roof. It really was like having my own personal planetarium, although I didn't bother to arrange the stars as they actually appear in the night sky.

I spent many nights reading great books, then turning off the lights and thinking over the stories under those phosphorescent stars... What bliss!

Bitten at the public library (idea)

2001-01-25T03:30:56Z

One Saturday morning last summer I woke up to discover that Ripley, my dear black and white cat, had died. He was only six years old, and had shown no signs of illness. The other household cat, Dugan, cried and cried. Though not littermates, they'd been raised together. We were both in a state of shock. I was due at work at the library, and my husband was out of town. As calmly as I could, I called to give him the news. I phoned work and told them I would be late. Eventually, I took Ripley down into the basement, where it would stay cooler during the day, and tearfully laid him in state on a blanket on top of the dryer. Thus began my day...

I was about an hour late to work. I was the person "in charge," and shortly after I arrived one of the high school girls who shelves our books (a Page) flew hysterically into our back room. One of the other Pages had bitten her. Yes, you read that right, bitten her.

I…

Tim Allen (person)

2001-01-23T01:17:40Z

Popular American comedian. Tim Allen was born Timothy Allen Dick in Denver, Colorado, in June, 1953. When he was 11 his father was killed in a car accident. Two years later the family moved to Michigan and his mother remarried.

Allen attended Western Michigan University, graduating with a degree in television production. He was arrested in 1978 for dealing cocaine, and spent 28 months in a federal penitentiary. His wife, Laura Diebel, stood by him while he was incarcerated, and afterward supported his foray into stand-up comedy.

His comic routine "Men are Pigs" featured grunting and centered on men's love of hardware (you pretty much have to see it to understand how the two correlate). A Showtime special in 1990 caught the attention of Disney, eventually leading to an ABC TV series based on the act, Home Improvement. The situation comedy became a huge hit and ran from 1991 to 1999.

On the show Allen played Tim Taylor,…