Your host: Another update

A short essay I wrote for the North American Review runs on the last page of the just-released, and somewhat tardy, spring 2012 issue. It's available for sale here.

The idea was to take a previously published piece from the NAR (which goes back to around 1815, I believe) and "bring it up to date," in the words of the editor. I chose as my jumping-off point an essay by William B. Merriam called "The Census of 1900," from the January 1900 issue. If you're interested, Merriam's essay is here.

My essay won't be posted online, and, honestly, I don't really expect you to buy the issue. Perhaps your local library carries it.

I will post the first few sentences here, though:

As I write this, the 2012 presidential election is still many months away, and I’m already having trouble focusing on it. Oh, I know it’s important and I promise to be as well informed about the issues as it’s possible to be. The clattering background noise of TV news and its relentless 24-hour news cycle, however, is making it difficult to determine what’s truly important and what isn’t.

I guess it’s my election-season ennui that makes “The Census of 1900”--a January 1900 essay by William R. Merriam, the Republican former governor of Minnesota and the director of the 12th national U.S. census, then in progress--so interesting, both inspiring and depressing in almost equal measure.

You're running to the library right now, aren't you?

An article I wrote on After Last Season--the oddball film I've posted about a few times here--will be in the upcoming issue of Cashiers du Cinemart. It features never-blogged-about interviews I conducted via email with three cast members.

Here's a quote from ALS star Jason Kulas on the much-remarked-upon MRI machine made out of a cardboard box (seen in the trailer here):

The sets struck me as like from a middle school play. When I saw the cardboard and paper MRI, with moving parts and lights, I will say it was the best cardboard MRI anyone could make. ... It seemed surreal that with all the money, time, and energy going into it that it was really going to be shot this way.

But it was, people. It was.

Further info on that TK. I think it will be published in August.