First off, let me say thank you to everyone who reached out with a kind word regarding the paintings. Thank you.

The Great Works Project continues to move forward. The scripts are on schedule with Season Two, Episode Twelve all set for publishing next Wednesday. Being that it is the final episode of Season Two, I would like to take some time and compile all the episodes into one collection. It will take me a few weeks to compile and format then onto Season Three. I am thinking that it might be time to set up a character and location list. Let me know what you think.

The other part of the project, the List is moving alone nicely. I actually managed to read, watch, and listen to the assignments without feeling crunched for time. I enjoyed myself. I’ll keep to the current schedule of three assigned titles a week. Last week’s I was assigned the movie “Aliens” , the graphic novel “American Born Chinese” by Gene Luen Yang, and the album “All Directions” from The Temptations. A real solid collection. “Aliens” was awesome. One of the things I noticed was how much of the movie I had missed before. I had some friends in high school who loved the movie to the point where they had it playing on loop on the tv one of the weekends I slept over. Watching it last week made me realize how much of the movie I did not notice. For whatever reason, I had no recollection of the scenes on the colony with the colonists. I also did not notice when I was younger how the film could be allegorical for the Vietnam War. American Born Chinese was a great book. I remember first hearing of Gene Leun Yang when he won the Xeric Grant for “Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks”. (That was a really good comic. Check it out if you get a chance.) In “American Born Chinese” I liked how it uses the different characters to explore the feelings of fitting in, feeling like an outside, and empathy. Also a nice little nod to use the shapefting Monkey King to talk about shifting identity. Then there is “All Directions” from The Temptations. It is The Temptations, so you know it is good. The vocal range coupled with the strong tempos, loved it. It also has one of my favorite album covers.

The new assignments are to watch the 1950 movie “All About Eve”, to read the novel “American Gods” by Neil Gaiman, and to listen to the album “All Hail the Queen” from Queen Latifah. Should be an interesting two weeks.