Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford): “I didn’t kill my wife!”
U.S. Deputy Marshall Samuel Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones): “I don’t care!”
—The Fugitive (1993)
Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford): “I didn’t kill my wife!”
U.S. Deputy Marshall Samuel Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones): “I don’t care!”
—The Fugitive (1993)
“It’s one thing to have a great story to tell. But it’s another thing to have it told by a great storyteller. Jerry Mitchell has written this book with power, talent, and conscience.”
–Rick Bragg, author of All Over but the Shoutin’
“That the story has had such long legs says something about how Churches of Christ teach their own history (or willingly and quickly forget about it), and at the same time about how much hunger there is for exactly that history.”
–Greg Bales, manuscript editor of “Distinctions Which God Has Not Made” and grandson of former Harding professor and George S. Benson collaborator, J.D. Bales.… Read the rest
“All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.”
–Ecclesiastes 1:8… Read the rest
The word, appropriately enough, came to me through a text message on my iPhone, one of dozens a day. It was from Number Two Son in Pensacola: “Hey what’s up with your blog? I tried getting on and there’s this weird face and it says you’ve been hacked!”
I was close to a computer, naturally, and even if I hadn’t been, I had my “device” tucked in my white clinic jacket. I clicked on the link to Ocular Fusion–what I saw widened my mouth and caused me to inhale sharply, like a fish out of water, gasping for air.
Instead of seeing 7 years and 75MB worth of middle age angst, I beheld the emerald-eyed, pallid face of a corpse, its mouth covered with strips of tape like a sealed crime scene.… Read the rest
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.–Bob Dylan
I recently passed my fifth blogiversary without so much as a blink. I completely forgot about it until someone else who started blogging about the same time as I did mentioned theirs.
I marked the first one with a post in which I basically interviewed myself (Hubris alert!).… Read the rest
It’s a very busy day in the Deep South as the OMG! beautiful weather and the opening weekend of college football clash like two high pressure systems and create the perfect storm of God-given delight.
And while I’m sporting the new Nike Pro-Game Day La-Z-Boy Bama uni and fixin’ to head out for some eats and Crimson Tide football at a local culinary establishment, I’ve still managed to to hang out with some fellow wannabe writer types over at Elizabeth Esther’s uber-cool Saturday Evening Blog Post.
Maybe you should, too. After the games are over. Roll Tide.… Read the rest
It’s not exactly amoeba to man, but as you can see, there’s been a little evolution going on around here nonetheless. Behold, Ocular Fusion 3.0!
Thanks to Greg Kendall-Ball (known in Church of Christ blogging circles as the “Blogfather”) for lending me a hand and lifting me up from the primordial goo that was WordPress 2.0. The quantum leap forward to 2.8.4 feels downright bipedal. Now if I can just get my cranium to expand a few more centimeters, I should be good to go.
The new WordPress theme is “Deep Silent,” (very apropos considering how quiet I’ve been the last few months), and the “old timey” eye exam header is from The Ophthalmoscope And How To Use It (1st Ed.,… Read the rest
Sometimes a man just needs a little time to go climb his own mental mountaintop and mull things over without the whole world knowing about it. Hence, the “blogbattical.”
But I will return soon, and when I do, there will be some changes. You don’t hold someone’s head in your hands as they pass from this life without being changed.
Changes in cosmetics and content, but plenty of the old familiar, too. Speaking of which, if you’re my friend on Facebook or follow me on Twitter, you know I haven’t been completely silent. Those have been my low-maintenance ways of maintaining community over the past few months without the pressure of producing new content several times a week.… Read the rest
… Read the rest“Authors will perceive the immense advantage of giving their own manuscripts directly to the public without the expensive interference of the type-setter, and the often ruinous intervention of the publisher. All that a man of letters need do will be to pay some attention to legibility of manuscript, arrange his pages to suit himself, and stereotype them instantaneously, as arranged. He may intersperse them with his own drawings, or with anything to please his own fancy, … In the new régime the humblest will speak as often and as freely as the most exalted, and will be sure of receiving just that amount of attention which the intrinsic merit of their speeches may deserve.”
In the past, I always swore that Ocular Fusion would never devolve into one of those TMI “OMG, my big toe aches and I want everybody in the universe to know about it and sympathize with me” kind of blogs.
But that was then, and this is now.
That was before I happily ventured out into the sunny, 65 degree Alabama weather this past Saturday and down to McGucken Park to fling the Frisbee disc with Number One Son and Uncle T. who was visiting from Colorado Springs.
And now my right gluteus maximus is tied-up tighter than King Tut and a tombful of his Egyptian cousins and concubines.… Read the rest
Arrrrgh!
Why am I resorting to pirate talk so early in the morning? Because I’ve been tagged about a gazillion times in yet another internet meme, this time on Facebook: 25 Random Things About Me.
Not that I mind that much, it’s just that it has that whole cheesy, chain-letter feel. When I was a kid, my mother would always make a big production about ripping those up and throwing them in the trashcan whenever we received one, so it’s probably just one of those weird Baby Boomer childhood psychological baggage flashback things. Don’t sweat it if you tagged me; I’ll deal with it like I always do.… Read the rest
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!–Amos 5:24
Regular readers know him as JRB. He’s a Harding grad like me and the most prolific commenter on this blog, the one whose fervent man-passion for his beloved ‘Dores and his meticulous command of the King’s English often get him into a scrap or two with my Bama-lovin’ alter ego, Mike the Redneck.
And through the power of the written word, a cell phone speed dial and a few blessed opportunities to break bread together, he has become one of my best friends and confidantes in the world and the “little brother” I never had.… Read the rest
If you’re among the (*cough*) “elite corps” (aka “The Fusioneers”) that has registered here, you received an email this morning containing a sneak preview of a new blog that I’m rolling out.
It contains the community columns that I wrote this past year for The Huntsville Times, not to mention a “bonus track” from the early years.
Oh, and a few other tidbits, such as a picture of me (kudos to Number One Son for his mad photography and computer animation skillz) and my real name (like it’s so tough to figure out).
You see! Membership really does have its “privileges.”… Read the rest
It was about this time last year that I was a little iffy and burned out on blogging and longing to “shift gears.”
That urge led me to toss my hat in the ring for one of the community columnist positions at The Huntsville Times. As enjoyable as that’s been, the gig will be up soon (I only have one column left to write for December) and these days I find myself asking the question–Now what?
Of course, every wannabe writer dreams of the big bestseller, movie deal, etc, but only a tiny minority actually achieve such lofty heights. For me, that would involve immersing myself in learning the mechanics of writing fiction, research, developing ideas, characters, etc.,… Read the rest
