“I don’t believe in God, but I miss Him”

“I don’t believe in God, but I miss Him,” the book begins. Julian Barnes, an atheist turned agnostic, has decided at the age of 62 to address his fear of death — why should an agnostic fear death who has no faith in an afterlife? How can you be frightened of Nothing? On this simple question Barnes has hung an elegant memoir and meditation, a deep seismic tremor of a book that keeps rumbling and grumbling in the mind for weeks thereafter. - GARRISON KEILLOR

NVDL: Looks interesting, and I can certainly empathise.

clipped from www.nytimes.com Thanatophobia is a fact in his life — he thinks about death daily and sometimes at night is “roared awake” and “pitched from sleep into darkness, panic and a vicious awareness that this is a rented world . . . awake, alone, utterly alone, beating pillow with fist and shouting ‘Oh no Oh No OH NO’ in an endless wail.” He dreams about being buried and “of being chased, surrounded, outnumbered, outgunned, of finding myself bulletless, held hostage, wrongly condemned to the firing squad, informed that there is even less time than I imagined. The usual stuff.” He imagines being trapped in an overturned ferry. Or locked by kidnappers in the trunk of a car that is then driven into a river. He imagines being taken underwater in the jaws of a crocodile.

Landline [PHOTOGRAPHY]

Chasing Ryk's Dream

I started reading my autographed copy of Ryk Neethling's book, Chasing the Dream, and so far I am on page 22. At turns I feel a breathless excitement that I might be mentioned, since Ryk describes a childhood swimming experience that is almost a carbon copy of my own life. It is also fascinating to observe that Ryk also stuttered as a young boy, and grew up on a farm, and excelled in other sports.

While Ryk nearly drowned as a young boy, my brother suffered the same experience as a babe (as a three year old my father found him at the bottom of the pool, and my father fished him out - no tears, as though he'd been sleeping there).

Ryk's sister Elsje was the classmate of my girlfriend at the time, Samantha.
I think as his story progresses into High School at Grey, the projectories of our lives became very very different. I think I started off with a few incidental similarities. At the age of 5 I could swim 50 metres butterfly, non-stop. I think at the age of 11 I was awarded a trophy (still in junior school) for Most Promising Swimmer (Ryk earned this accolade in his first year).

I was also surprised to learn that Tanya Oosthuizen was such a pain in the arse. She was verskriklik neus in die lig when I knew her, because she had an Angelina Jolie type body. Seeing that in bathing suit each day wasn't easy, and she knew it. The girls at swim practise were bizarrely snooty - which today I ascribe to high levels of Christian indoctrination, horrid levels of shyness and a certain number of them were homosexuals (I would only discover later).

But, I digress. I feel the same thing reading Ryk's story as I did reading about Hansie Cronje. It's also not just because they also went to Grey and grew up in Bloemfontein. I've felt similar attacks of painful envy reading Alex Garland's The Beach. Why? Because I was 27 when I read The Beach, and Garland was 26 when he published it. To the extent that these three separate individuals have inspired me, they also awaken the deep seated frustration - very painful frustration - associated with not achieving one's potential.

I know in South korea I confronted some of those powerful feeling's of incompetency, and I did so bravely where I was, alone in an apartment in a polluted satellite of Seoul. I realised at the time how ordinary friends of mine were achieving great things. One of them was a Prince of Industry, living in Houghton, having jumped higher and higher up the corporate finance ladder. And I asked myself the hard question:

What can you do?
What talent do you have?

For the first time in some years I conceded that writing was something I could do, and began to invest in it (this blog is one offshoot). 2 years later I am working for a Media Company, with several feature articles published in magazines and newspapers, and one or two other achievements. I am not a trained journalist, or a trained photographer, but I seem to be a natural at both. Do I feel satisfied with these paltry achievements? Not even close. But it is better than being a second language English teacher, a yopgi weygoygin (crazy foreigner) holed up somewhere in South Korea. It's an improvement, but it's still not that far - as far as I'm concerned - from the starting line (I can still hear the starting gun echoing in my ears...)

This is in part why I cried the other day, watching Clark Kent in an episode of Smallville being told by Lana (the love of his life) that he needs to go out into the world and do his thing. I think that really resonated with me. It is not that I have not gone out into the world - I have. It is that I haven't always done or been able to do what I really wanted to do. This applies to my studies, sport and a large fraction of my working life.

By far the strongest feeling I feel on a daily basis is frustration. I know that even as a young boy, as my brother and I learned of our artistic heritage, and visited our Uncle Gabriel de Jongh, there was a strong sense that our talent would take us somewhere. My brother interpretted this literally, and his singleminded approach paid off because today he is a successful oil painter, and his art work sells for tens of thousands of Rands at auctions.
I interpretted this less literally. I entertained the idea of being a professional triathlete (so far Raynard Tissink is the first and only South African to pull that off).
I also know, as recently as this year, when I visited by brother, I realised that my current frustration was based on not giving vent to my talent. I have been doing so more and more, and some of my frustration isn't due to error or distraction on my part. In the end though, it is up to me to find a way.

The problem with me was that I was blessed with quite a lot of talent as a young boy. I was an excellent runner, an excellent swimmer, a good soccer player, an artist, a writer - and I was winning awards in all of these areas. At school I was good at maths, and science, and art and languages. Despite my stutter, I was very popular at school.

When my brother went to Saint Andrews Grahamstown, and the war between my parents began to escalate, I was really alone at home to make sense of it. I made a critical choice then, which was to quit swimming in order to try something else -tennis, or rugby.
In retrospect, I don't think I would have ever become a Springbok swimmer. I was good, but I have always been a little bit too short (1.77m) and I have fairly small hands and feet for a swimmer. While I thought of the Olympics once upon a time, my best chance was in Triathlon - that was as true then as it is today.

At the time though, swimming was an important counsellor. It kept me occupied, it kept my mind and body strong. Quitting when I did (after winning Free State Champs) as I say was a crucial decision. Unfortunately, right then, due to a confluence of events, I battled to deal with everything - adolescence, family troubles, a crisis of faith, problems with my teeth (braces), and by quitting swimming all the negative energy impacted on my far worse. One of the implications of being from an artistic family is one's sensitivity, and I guess, a certain amount of narcissim. Grey was about being macho champions, and didn't understand either of these (gentlemen or not), and I was really humiliated in high school, as I believe, was my brother. Even today I have no wish to speak to most of the classmates I knew then; many of them have Friend Requested me on Facebook, but I can't think why I would want to have anything to do with such a bunch of doos's.

In this sense, my school life at Grey was very difficult, and very different to Hansie's or Ryk's. I crept into a shell and stayed there for 5 years. My external braces really interferred with the time in a young man's life where you want to and need to step forward and demonstrate who and what you are. I did try, but against an audience of boos, it is not very gratifying.

I attempted a comeback in swimming two years later (which reveals something about how long it took to recover and grow up after those initial painful setbacks) I did so without knowing I was suffering from Tick Bite Fever. Basically this meant that the harder I trained, the weaker I got. High school was a terrible contrast to the success of a few year's earlier, although I did manage half colors in swimming at one point, and I went on a running tour with the school's top athletes.

I am not going to belabor the point, except to say that I still feel the loss of not achieving during those and the following years very acutely. I did achieve Provincial Colors a few times in Triathlon after school. While my brother wanted to be a great artist, for a while I seriously wanted to be a respected author, a writer. But in general I wanted to be a success, so writing was always sidelined, always waiting for studies or exams to be over. It was never the centre,and I was conflicted that it should be. I didn't want to observe life, or others, I wanted to live it. I wasn't interested in journalism or being a reporter (and I still am not). Photography has been a suprise twist. Although I love art, and miss it, photography has allowed me to demonstrate my artistic eye (and feel) fairly quickly and neatly.

In 2006 I realised again to what extent FRUSTRATION haunted my experience of sport. I arrived at a Free State Championship race without a timing chip, and was refused permission to compete. A few weeks later, at SA CHAMPS in Bloemfontein, David George would be given permission for exactly the same blunder. At the time, I was furious. The anger was really based on the amount of work and effort dedicated to a task, and being frustrated to actually demonstrate one's ability by other people who thought they were doing the right thing, or what looked right.

The race I missed was a crucial one - one my friend Andre said I 'probably' would have won, and it was the first race in several months where I was so well conditioned.

Unlike Ryk, I never had a singleminded dream to go to the Olympics, although I have had dreams of going to triathlon world championships, and seen my training buddies pack their bags for Cancun, but not me. Did I not train hard enough? Was I not talented enough?

Unlike Hansie, I have had a very ambivalent attitude towards money, since there was always a lot of money in our family but it didn't seem to hold the family together. Unlike Alex Garland, I didn't see writing as a career, because so many writers I respected had such troubled lives behind their writing. People like Ayn Rand wrote powerful stories that masked their dysfunctional lives. And having witnessed dysfunction in my family, I didn't want to invite it into my life by taking on a career that causes so many to be dysfunctional.

This has been my weakness - mixed and conflicting feelings. Reading Ryk's and Hansie's story, what they both have in common, that I didn't have, was the consistent support of their families. As a youngster I also had a singleminded approach, and am still capable of that kind of focus. I know my greatest supporter when I grew up was my mother, who attended almost every swim training session, and without exception, every gala. But as I became a teenager, she became a troubled woman and I had to cycle to some of those 5am swim sessions before school. And when your parents are at war with one another, children can seem little more than a distraction. Today, of course, my mother is no longer there at all.
And today, all of us seem to have different memories of the the 80's. My father seems to think it was a trouble free time, my brother blames my mother for all the unhappiness, and my sister was on her own heroin-fueled planet. So is it any surprise that I emerged somewhat mixed up?

There are other reasons, besides, for my present frustration. Some come from the past. But understanding the past is one thing, dewlling there, brooding, and blaming, is another. Solutions come in the present. I can offer a solution to my circumstances, and possibly, if you suffer the same sense of almost debilitating frustration - for yours.

You need to develop a few singleminded goals for your life. These goals are not identified for fun, or because you should. They are goals that address your present circumstances, and deliver you from your frustration.

One of the ways I feel happy is by performing, by achieving something. Simply put - doing something worthwhile, worth caring about.
In 2005 I experienced a glimpse of inner greatness when I finished the Ironman. This year I have worked hard, and achieved less than I had hoped, yet at least I have transformed myself to the point that another Ironman is not only on the cards, but possibly, I can now work on finishing the race fast.

Meaningful goals for me:

1) Ironman 2009
2) To publish a book in the next 2 years, and to finish the present 2 I am working on
3) To start a family by 2010.
4) To start a business which addresses our energy problem
5) To keep my weight below 80kg and all the lifestyle implications that go with that.

I have a few other ideas, but they are more personal.

Before I close on this unusually personal account, I want to mention the day I went to interview Ryk Neethling's baby sister Jean-Marie. At the time I had just returned from South Korea and had started teaching at Brebner High School, where my mother was head girl once upon a time. This was one of the low points of my life. The teaching was incredibly draining. I was struggling a lot financially - I think I was getting around in my girlfriend's car at the time, and this was starting to annoy her. I remember visiting the big white house on the flanks of Naval Hill, and being very charmed with this young, pretty chip off the Neethling block. But beside this positive inspiration, I felt a very strong negative energy. I felt incredibly intimidated meeting Ryk's dad, and realising who I had become vis-avis Ryk. I admitted this when I shook Ryk's dad's big hand. He asked me how things were and I admitted 'they could be better'.

I imagined how this father who had also seen me swim at many galas where Ryk had performed so well, must have viewed me in comparison to a son, younger than I, who probably could not have achieved more than he has...and here I was...could I have achieved any less?

If you are feeling angry or frustrated, you need to do something, otherwise those feelings persist. If you continue to resist those feelings, there is no one to blame but yourself, because then you will become a Blamer, rather than a Doer, and that is always a signal that you're on track to becoming a Loser, rather than who and what you are destined to be.

Delinquency leads to crime

NVDL: Our environment has an important impact on whether we or our companions became criminals. If the environment is dirty, polluted, already littered, if crime already appears in the area, it is far more likely that more crimes will be committed (see below).

Here it is in simple language: if you care about the environment, the environment cares about you and so on. Once a certain amount of diligence is lost, paradise is lost.

clipped from www.economist.com A PLACE that is covered in graffiti and festooned with rubbish makes people feel uneasy. And with good reason, according to a group of researchers in the Netherlands. Kees Keizer and his colleagues at the University of Groningen deliberately created such settings as a part of a series of experiments designed to discover if signs of vandalism, litter and low-level lawbreaking could change the way people behave. They found that they could, by a lot: doubling the number who are prepared to litter and steal. The writing’s on the wall Dr Kelling’s theory takes its name from the observation that a few broken windows in an empty building quickly lead to more smashed panes, more vandalism and eventually to break-ins. The tendency for people to behave in a particular way can be strengthened or weakened depending on what they observe others to be doing.

Mumbai Attacks - Maps of India and Mumbai

NVDL: Mumbai makes sense as a terrorist target in the sense that it is situated quite close to Khasmir - certainly closer than New Delhi. Ahmedabad has had even more terrorist activity - it's even closer with 16 bombs.

clipped from www.ft.com “I saw a man in his 30s wearing a brown military suit, loading what looked like a Kalashnikov and firing madly. We had to duck underneath the table, wait for the shooting to end. Then I had to walk over two dead bodies which I think were waiters at Leopolds,” said a Lufthansa steward, who identified himself only as Thomas.

Indian commando teams storm Mumbai hotels - Guardian

NVDL: It's about Kashmir.

A militant holed up in the centre phoned an Indian television channel to offer talks with the government for the release of hostages, but also to complain about abuses in Indian Kashmir. "Ask the government to talk to us and we will release the hostages," said the man, identified by the India TV channel as Imran, speaking in Urdu with what sounded like a Kashmiri accent.

"Are you aware how many people have been killed in Kashmir? Are you aware how your army has killed Muslims?" he said.

A German media manager named as 51-year-old Ralph Burkei died from his injuries after trying to escape from an upper floor of the Taj hotel.

"Ralph wanted to flee from an upper floor of the building but he fell," Munich's Abendzeitung newspaper quoted an unnamed friend as saying. The friend said Burkei called on his mobile phone from a lower rooftop saying: "I've broken all the bones in my body. If no one helps me right now, I won't make it." Burkei died on the way to hospital.

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk Dozens held hostage in India after terror attacks that left hundreds dead and injured Briton killed in Mumbai attacks Witnesses describe attackers' arrival by sea Audio: 'There remains a state of siege' In pictures: Terror in Mumbai Interactive map: Where the attacks took place Full coverage of the Mumbai terror attacks LIVE: The latest from Mumbai Tactics suggest homegrown plot Jason Burke: The jumble of tactics and targets seems to indicate a homegrown Indian outfit 81 comments MJ Akbar: After Mumbai, an end to complacency? Richard Norton-Taylor: Echoes of al-Qaida Mumbai attacks put pressure on Pakistan talks Julian Borger: Domestic terrorism with a global twist

Mumbai’s 9/11: death toll hits 125 - but is it Al Qaeda?

NVDL: Al Qaeda similarities:
- organised
- co-ordinated
- sophisitcated
- tactical

Dissimilarities:
- taking of hostages (although arguably the 9/11 Hijackers did that)
- use of hand grenades
- no suicide attacks

Photographs from security cameras showed some youthful attackers carrying assault rifles and smiling as they launched the operation. - NYT

clipped from www.cnn.com The death toll from the series of attacks in Mumbai, India, has risen to 125, Mumbai police said today. Another 327 people were reported wounded. CNN correspondent Sara Sidner reports fresh explosions at the Taj Hotel, the scene of one of the attacks. Earlier, people thought to be freed hostages were seen walking from another besieged hotel, the Oberoi Hotel. full story

Video game industry - is it recession-proof?

NVDL: As more and more people lose their jobs and stay at home, guess what they will be doing?

clipped from news.cnet.com It would be tempting for those in the video game business to take some recent news--for instance, that October sales were through the roof, or that the latest World of Warcraft expansion broke the all-time record for single-day PC game sales--as proof that their industry may be immune from the deep despair confronting the global economy. And indeed, that seems to be exactly what many people in the industry are choosing to believe: that in rough times, people always spend money on entertainment, and that as entertainment goes, video game software and hardware offer much higher value than other options. In other words, the theory goes, the video game industry is recession-proof. But people holding to that notion may yet want to consider getting their resumes ready or holding off on buying that Porsche, since all optimism aside, the future may not be so bright. It's true that sales may be up in the short term, and look good for the holidays, but Wall Street doesn't appear to be impressed.

Remembering Dreams - Six Techniques (and my dreams last night)

NVDL: I had an unnerving dream last night. I dreamt I was in my bed, where I live, and someone was in my house. So when I woke up, I had to be sure I wasn't dreaming.

There was also an unpleasant aftermath to this dream. I dreamt that I was in trouble, and the person that was helping me resembled Daniel Craig. The problem was, he was saving me from an enemy who was someone who looked just like him, which made trusting my protector too much of a risk. Weird eh?

clipped from www.divinecaroline.com 1. Keep a Dream Journal Writing our dreams down as soon as we wake is one of the best ways to remember them; it also helps us decipher them since we’re able to reference them at any time. Craig Hamilton-Parker suggests an experiment for remembering our dreams in his book, The Hidden Meaning of Dreams. Hamilton-Parker recommends investing in a long-lasting, hardcover blank book and resolving to enter at least one dream in it every night for an entire month. Once you’ve got your journal, he suggests drawing a line down the middle of the page; on the left side of the line, write your dream. On the right side, give your interpretation of it. 2. Give Your Dreams a Title

NVDL's Christmas Wishlist: Item # 3

This is a great gift for a loved one or close relation. Stylish, simple, and powerful

clipped from www.wired.com Face it: No one checks your Flickr page. The only time friends see your photos is when you whip out the old digicam and cruise through whatever happens to be stored on it. The crafty folks at Sony know this, which is why they made the Cyber-shot DSC-T700, a pocket snapper that's as adept at displaying images as it is at capturing them. Just 0.7-inch thick, the sleek case incorporates a 10.1-MP sensor and Carl Zeiss lens, giving pictures a crispness rarely found in compact cameras. Flip it over and you'll find that the back is literally all display — a 3.5-inch, 16:9 touchscreen that replaces every hard button except Review, Zoom, Power, and Shutter. But this rig's beauty goes way beyond the surface: 4 gigs of onboard memory hold up to 950 hi-res shots. So enough with the uploading. Quit spamming the world with links to 40 shots of your lunch and start bragging with this.

Firefox to Chrome - why you should switch

The pitch is a one word slam dunk: speed.

clipped from news.cnet.com Sorry if it sounds like I'm drinking the Google Kool-Aid here, but I switched from Mozilla Firefox to Google Chrome as my default browser for the very reason Google's executives said we should: speed. (Get Google Chrome from Download.com.) Years ago, Firefox won me over chiefly with plug-ins, tabbed browsing, and some security advantages. But using Chrome removed a bit of friction from the Web I hadn't realized was there. It felt like discovering I'd been driving with the parking brake on just a bit. Here's what coaxed me away: Chrome starts way faster than Firefox. Web pages load faster when I type in an address or click a link. The Omnibox--Chrome's combination location bar and search box--often gets me where I want to go at least a keystroke faster, and I'm not terribly worried about sending Web navigation and search data to Google.

Solar World offers to buy GM's Opel

SolarWorld wants to develop Opel into "the first 'green' European automotive group" and "produce a new generation of vehicles with energy-efficient, low-emission drives," according to a company statement. It would specifically use the existing Opel model line, modifying it to include electric drive and hybrid electric vehicles. - Candace Lombardi

NVDL: It is far more realistic to attempt to produce solar powered vehicles than electric vehicles, unless your electrcity comes from solar power. Anything that lowers the total energy consumption of human beings must provide a sustainable solution.

clipped from news.cnet.com SolarWorld's offer to General Motors is no joke. The German-based solar-power company is serious about wanting to purchase GM's Opel division, SolarWorld CEO Frank H. Asbeck said Thursday morning on German radio. SolarWorld announced on Wednesday that it's in the process of making an offer to General Motors for its Adam Opel (aka Opel) division for about 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion). GM, which is currently seeking a multibillion-dollar bailout from the U.S. government, publicly dismissed SolarWorld's offer on Wednesday. "This is pure speculation. We are not going to comment on that. Opel is not for sale," Karin Kirchner, a GM Europe representative told Reuters.

Mafutha is Zulu for 'oil' - worth R62bn

Mafutha, Zulu for 'oil', could have a capacity of some 80 000 barrels per day (bbl/d), in addition to Sasol's 150 000 bbl/d in Secunda. - Martin Creamer

At today's use and today's reserves, there is said to be 40 years of crude oil left in the world, 60 years of natural gas and 200 years of coal - and South Africa has that very mineral plus the know-how to turn it into transport fuel. - Martin Creamer

NVDL: Of course no mention of the levels of pollution syn-fuels cause. So you save energy supposedly by making/converting energy, but then food prices escalate as the pollution associated climate change worsens, and then you start to chase your own tail.

clipped from www.engineeringnews.co.za Sasol's proposed Project Mafutha provided an opportunity to develop another stand alone greenfield coal-to-liquids (CTL) plant in a fuel-short South Africa, CEO Pat Davies said on Monday. Davies said that Mafutha was one of a total of 184 projects on Sasol's books worth R62-billion. While Project Mafutha was still at prefeasibility stage, there was an undoubted need for a new inland refinery, Davies said, adding that the company had recently rerun the numbers on the 184 projects under various stages of development and the results benchmarked well against the international energy-industry comparator.

Home Energy - utlising low wind

The Swedish design is also less of a bird killer than conventional blade rotors.

clipped from www.inhabitat.com This results in highly efficient turbine that can take advantage of very low wind speeds. Home Energy primarily designs small-scale energy solutions for homes, communities, businesses and public facilities. In my opinion they should also be designing for amusement parks: perhaps these fun pinwheels could help offset the carbon impact of all those funnel cakes.

Alternative Energy for the Home - Wind Power

NVDL: Nifty little gadget this. I think instead of trying to create massive power stations, there should be a focus either on individual power generation (on a per home basis) or a utility for a neighborhood. We can't afford the first option, and only some can afford the last. The more people who go off the grid, the more affordable energy becomes.

clipped from www.engadget.com As much as we prefer a good old-fashioned bird-killin' three blade wind turbine, apparently they cause a bit too much vibration and disturbance for regular home use. That's where the Energy Ball comes in, with its spherical shape that captures wind less obtrusively and yet more efficiently. At least that's what we're told, we're a bit short on details. We do know that it's in the prototype stages and was designed by Swedish company Home Energy, who claims their smallest Energy Ball can provide about 15% of the necessary energy to power the average Swedish home.

Atlantic hurricane season records signals climate change implications

An average season has 11 named storms, six of which become hurricanes. This year there were eight hurricanes, of which five - Bertha, Gustav, Ike, Omar and Paloma — became major hurricanes.

Three of those — Gustav, Ike and Paloma — made "extreme" Category 4, where winds have to be at least 131 mph. "That's a lot," Bell said. "But it's typical of a very active season such as what we saw."

Curry said this year's large number of Category 4 storms indicates a "signal" of global warming.

NVDL: Call it gut feel, or intuition, but this blog also predicted a record breaking season even when the 'experts' expected 'average' conditions.

clipped from news.yahoo.com Three records showed the hurricane season's relentlessness. Six consecutive named storms — Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike — struck the U.S. mainland, something that had not been seen in recorded history. It's also the first time a major hurricane, those with winds of at least 111 mph, formed in five consecutive months, July through November. And Bertha spun about for 17 days, making it the longest lived storm in July. Two records involve storms hitting the same places repeatedly. Rain-heavy Fay was the only storm to hit the same state — Florida — four times, leaving heavy flood damage in its wake. A record three major hurricanes smacked Cuba: Gustav, Ike and Paloma.

Eco-Disaster Flicks - like HOLIDAY - are in Vogue

Explicit, heart-on-sleeve ecothemes are leaking into mainstream movies. Let us avert our eyes from the Superfund site that was M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening (the crazed Claritin commercial Hitchcock never made) to consider the Seuss-meets-Kubrick trashscapes of Wall-E, the pissed-off pagan nature-spirits of Hellboy II, and the water-hoarding, greenwashing Bond villain in Quantum of Solace. And there are more storms brewing: The Thaw, about a deadly parasite unleashed by melting polar ice caps; Strays, which strands four Americans in a clicking-hot Russian nuke-opolis; Creature From the Black Lagoon, reimagined as a dying-ocean parable; and 2012, a world-ender from disaster-master Roland Emmerich, director of The Day After Tomorrow. As the headlines worsen and vague notions of fear and collective guilt harden into urgent, palpable catastrophes, the greenocalypse, as a premise, looks more and more muscular.- Scott Brown

I love the movies. I love the environment. I love movies about the environment, especially ecological-disaster flicks...- Scott Brown

NVDL: Thus it is only a matter of time before HOLIDAY sees the light of Publication Day.

clipped from www.wired.com Even if the environmental threat still hasn't achieved silver-screen credibility on a par with nuclear devastation or even terrorist attack, it's gaining. And that gives me hope. Hope that the species may survive to make bad movies about tomorrow's man-created crises. Hope that we'll someday remake The Day After Tomorrow as a campy commentary on our catastrophic overabundance of fresh air and bluebirds.

NVDL offered publishing contract for HOLIDAY

Dear Nick

It is exceedingly rare that we write the letter you are holding in your hands. In fact it is fair to say this happens around once or twice a year. We were at first pleased and interested in your mansucript, and then absolutely rivetted. Excellent prose, awesome plot, and such a relevant topic too. Being a fairly short story, I handed it to the Editor and other colleagues, all of whom stayed up the whole night reading HOLIDAY.

At this point we would like to offer you a contract, and request your permission to submit a copy for re-scripting to the Writer's Guild of America. In this way we can get it submitted to a Hollywood Studio. We would really...

clipped from www.nickvanderleek.com I've watched the stars fall silent from your eyes - R.E.M. - The Great Beyond An incinerating moth caught in the exhaust plume glimpsed the ink black jet dancing demonically against the cigarette sky. Even as the burnt flakes of the moth eviscerated into the jet stream, the perpetrator continued to press a cold hard body against the smoky air. Far, far below its belly, a wide wave of foam crushed over a sugary shore. The dark dragon roared over more waters, the sky around it transforming from stained tobacco yellow to the color purple. Running along the inside of the dragon’s purple painted spine was an echelon of people, something like cyclists seen from above in a cycling race, except they had nothing of the organic nature of the peloton. The holidaymakers had placed themselves with machine like precision in columns and rows, like numbers on a spreadsheet. Most of these numbers were asleep. Some were reading, but in Hugh’s case, writing.