Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy
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Rogers over at Kung Fu Monkey has a wonderful discussion of story, plot, act structure, and character arcs. I think I will be studying this a lot, because some of the things he talks about are the very problems I’ve been having of late.
If you’ve ever wondered what the difference is between story and plot, Rogers manages to explain it very succinctly.
Posted on Written by Diane
So there’s this guy, see, and he’s overweight. He out and out calls himself fat. And to do something about it he’s decided to walk from his home in San Diego to New York City.
Yowsa.
Of course, he’s keeping a blog about his journey, called appropriately enough “Fat Man Walking.” He’s evidently managing to put up entries somehow.
(Via Food is Worse Than Crack)
Update 7/29/05: It seems several people who’ve come to this blog don’t understand that I have nothing to do with the Fat Man Walking. If you’re interested in contacting Steve Vaught or in giving him notes of support, please go to his page and contact him and his wife. I don’t know if he’ll ever see this page, and you’ll be sure to let him know how you feel if you write to him instead of me. Thanks.
Posted on Written by Diane
A friend of Darin’s is a big fan of the show Alias. Darin and I watched Alias when it first premiered and gave up on it during the teaser of show 2, I believe. But Darin’s friend really wanted us to watch it, so he loaned us three seasons worth of DVDs. And we sat down to start watching, see what we’ve missed.
Well, we both agree Not much. Still seems pretty silly and fake to us. But I discovered something even odder: real life really can ruin the fantasy experience. I’d find myself thinking, That’s Jennifer Garner. She was married to Scott Foley, but then they broke up and she took up with Michael Vartan, but I guess they’ve broken up because she’s having a baby with Ben Affleck now.
Then we came home last night after Date Night and the babysitter had the Alias season finale on. Sydney’s father was telling the CIA agent—the aforementioned Michael Vartan—that he could marry Sydney. And I thought, How weird is that? On the show they’re going to get married, despite the fact that they’ve broken up and she’s having someone else’s baby? Hope that was a good breakup, ’cause otherwise that’s an acting job that would totally suck.
And mind you: I don’t particularly pay attention to Jennifer Garner gossip and we haven’t watched much of Alias. But what I do know has completely affected how I look at her and look at her show.
In related news, while I am amused by the coverage on the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes relationship—there’s some doubt on its veracity, let’s say, in mainstream gossip publications—I can’t actually imagine what else Tom could do. A man’s got to date somebody.