tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67558429108043593552024-03-05T14:19:31.631-08:00Eclectic Reviews by Amy SissonAmy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.comBlogger190125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-35731233034784448072023-04-02T10:33:00.000-07:002023-04-02T10:33:08.378-07:00Who's on First? Why, it's ChatGPT!
Image by Gerwin Paul Echegoyen obtained via Scopio subscription
This isn't a review per se, but I thought my consversation today with ChatGPT was interesting.... I have screenshots, but they don't show up well (text is too small), so I'm copying and pasting instead. And sorry, I know this is difficult to read as well, but my HTML skills are limited!
Amy: Whatever happened to the winner Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-85397084619810067482022-01-31T19:38:00.007-08:002022-02-01T13:00:23.168-08:00Short Fiction read in January 2022
Short Fiction read in January 2022
Image by Alex Myers on Pixabay; used with permission
I've restarted my short-story-a-day reading, and am excited to share a few of the excellent stories I've read this month. Basically, my goal is to read at least one story for every day of the year, but I often read more than one, especially when it comes to flash fiction. This month, I read 47 stories (Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-1223447836783553802020-12-04T21:00:00.001-08:002022-01-02T18:48:50.059-08:00Other World's Film Festival 2020: Shorts 1: Conflict, Resistance, and Laundry
This is my first time experiencing Austin's Other Worlds Film Festival, now in its seventh year, and I'm excited! This science fiction festival has been named as one of “The World’s Best 50 Genre Fests” by MovieMaker Magazine, and this year features more than forty films, including features, documentaries, and short films. This being 2020, it is of course virtual this year. But there's somethingAmy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-3578539779995234122020-10-13T23:38:00.005-07:002022-01-02T18:49:37.832-08:00Private Snafu Flies to the Moon!
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//ThisAmy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-54682000549825378352020-06-02T08:56:00.000-07:002020-06-02T08:56:03.851-07:00Retro-Review: Season One of Top Chef
I'm doing a Hulu free trial for a month, and lo and behold, I saw that they have several past seasons of Top Chef. So I decided to take a fresh look at Season One from 2006. I watched it back then, and remembered a lot of the contestants, including Harold, Dave, Tiffani, and Lee Anne. But there was something I'd forgotten: the judges were mean. Outright mean. Yes, I'm talking about Tom Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-91102223079194856032020-05-09T22:46:00.003-07:002020-05-09T22:46:50.189-07:00Top Chef: All-Stars L.A. - Playing "Ketchup" with Episodes 6 and 7[The Walt Disney Concert Hall, where the Top Chef contestants cooked to celebrate the L.A. Philharmonic's 100th anniversary]
Episode 6: Get Your Phil
The Quickfire challenge this time around featured all kinds of flour, with the exception of all-purpose flour -- which of course threw the chefs for a loop. The guest judge was Chris Bianco, who looked to me like a nice version of the Heat Miser Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-46354604349954889562020-04-23T19:52:00.000-07:002020-04-23T19:52:40.837-07:00Top Chef: All-Stars L.A. - Playing "Ketchup" with Episodes 3, 4, and 5[L-R: Ludo LeFebvre, Padma Lakshmi, Tom Colicchio, and Gail Simmons]
If I can't keep up with Top Chef blogging when I'm stuck at home 24/7, it's probably hopeless, but I'm going to try and catch up anyway with this summary of Episodes 3, 4, and 5.
Episode 3: Strokes of Genius
I was super excited to see Ali Wong and Randall Park as guest judges for the Quickfire Challenge! I adored them in the Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-67718529789269750372020-03-29T22:17:00.002-07:002020-03-29T22:17:51.849-07:00Top Chef: All-Stars L.A. - Episode 2 - "The Jonathan Gold Standard"[The Top Chef contestants arrive at L.A.'s Union Station]
This week's episode had a little change-up in format; instead of competing in a Quickfire Challenge, the chefs spent a day exploring a handful of L.A. restaurants listed in the late food critic Jonathan Gold's guidebook. The first 17 minutes of the episode consisted of the chefs sampling some of Gold's favorite dishes, looking for Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-47603692053104803142020-03-23T20:22:00.002-07:002020-03-23T20:27:36.687-07:00Top Chef: All-Stars L.A. - Episode 1 - "It's Like They Never Left"[Left to right: Jeremiah Tower, Padma Lakshmi, Tom Colicchio, and Gail Simmons]
Although this season of Top Chef is called "Top Chef All Stars L.A.", I'm tempted to rename it "Top Chef 2020 - The Social Distancing Edition". The enforced isolation is giving me the time to blog the episodes again, something I haven't been able to do in a couple of years. And heaven knows I want and need the Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-83512380159415665772019-08-07T19:38:00.001-07:002019-08-07T19:39:39.563-07:00Noël Coward's "Private Lives" at Main Street TheaterLeft to right: Skyler Sinclair as Sibyl, Alan Brincks as Elyot, Elizabeth Marshall Black as Amanda, and Joel Grothe as Victor. Photo credit: Main Street Theater.
Last Saturday I saw "Private Lives" at Main Street Theater in Rice Village. By necessity, this will be a short review that doesn't do the play justice, but I have to post it now because there are only four more performances left: Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-60453609459137939262019-04-02T19:46:00.000-07:002019-04-02T19:46:51.520-07:00Short fiction read in February 2019Short Fiction read in February 2019
This blog post is dreadfully late; here it is April 2, and I'm just now posting about my February short fiction reading. I've kept up with the reading throughout March, but the posting, not so much. But I'm determined to keep with this project, even if I'm a little slow posting about it.
At any rate, my reading for February was a little unusual for me. As Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-44264747445558764282019-02-17T21:15:00.000-08:002019-02-17T21:15:02.969-08:00The Secretary - Main Street Theater
The Secretary
Main Street Theater
[Left to right: Elizabeth Marshall Black as Janelle, Alice M. Gatling as Ruby,and Bree Welch as Lorrie]
The good news is that I didn't miss Main Street Theater's production of "The Secretary", because some extra performances were added to the run. The bad news is that I saw it on the very last night, so I can't urge you to go see it this time around. (ButAmy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-4487327979369730892019-02-04T22:10:00.002-08:002019-02-04T22:33:37.437-08:00Short Fiction read in January 2019
Short Fiction read in January 2019
Image from https://torange.biz/ used under a CC license
New year, new re-start of the Great Short Fiction Reading Project!
Here's what's different this time around: In addition to picking stories of various lengths from different sources, I plan to read every story published this year by Daily Science Fiction (five days a week), Every Day Fiction (Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-13138349558263564762019-01-10T18:56:00.000-08:002019-02-04T22:23:25.915-08:00Short Fiction - September 2018 and Going ForwardShort Fiction - September 2018 and Going Forward
On January 1, 2019, I restarted my short fiction reading project in earnest. As in previous years, I'm reading the minimum equivalent of one short story per day of the year. By minimum equivalent, I mean that it's OK to occasionally miss a day, as long as I make it up. And on many days I will read multiple stories, but I'm not allowed to count Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-14629114525536354112018-09-02T12:35:00.000-07:002019-01-16T12:57:18.957-08:00Short Fiction - August 2018
Short Fiction - August 2018
I've finally managed to re-start my short fiction reading project, in which I read at least one short work every day and then blog about my favorites each month. In August, I read a total of 39 stories. Without further ado, here are my three favorites of the month.
"Who Will Greet You At Home?" by Leslie Nneka Arimah
Length: 5,602 words
Category: Short story - Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-11223312552154060502018-07-15T07:49:00.004-07:002018-07-16T11:59:25.023-07:00Main Street Theater's "Buyer & Cellar"Main Street Theater continues to put on a wide range of intriguing shows; the latest, which opened yesterday, is Buyer & Cellar by Jonathan Tolins. In this one-man, one-set, one-act play, a struggling actor named Alex (Doug Atkins) accepts a job maintaining a small faux shopping mall in the basement of (one of) Barbra Streisand's house(s). There he weaves by night and day, a magic web with colorsAmy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-29056573924425847062018-06-15T15:05:00.000-07:002018-06-15T15:05:43.257-07:00Main Street Theater's "Daddy Long-Legs"I've been horribly remiss; I saw Main Street Theater's delightful production of Daddy Long-Legs a few weeks ago, and meant to post about it immediately, but a whole lotta life got in the way, so I'm only just posting now. And that means there are a few more chances to see it before it closes this Sunday (June 17). And it is so worth seeing!
By way of quick background, this version of Daddy Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-51081751483892283612018-05-18T22:42:00.000-07:002018-05-18T22:42:48.312-07:00New Short Story at "Page & Spine": The Chia Pet BrigadeMy story "The Chia Pet Brigade" appears today in the online magazine Page & Spine. Although almost all of my published short fiction is science fiction or fantasy, this story just barely skims the surface of the genre pond, and even that little bit may be open to interpretation. Feel free to make up your own mind!
Read this story about a special education teacher named Sandy and her student "Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-18286970514733168722018-05-09T10:01:00.001-07:002018-05-09T10:01:21.401-07:00Curious Fictions: A New Home for My StoriesRecently I joined the Curious Fictions platform, where invited authors post previously published short fiction to share with a wider audience. The stated purpose of Curious Fictions is "to help more authors make a living on the work they do." While readers can read for free, they are asked to sign up with payment information in the event they choose to "tip" for a story, or subscribe to a Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-73742005404592332202018-04-29T07:20:00.001-07:002018-04-30T12:22:59.010-07:00Main Street Theater: "Natural Shocks" reading / "Daddy Long-Legs" cast read-throughLast weekend, I had the pleasure of two very different experiences at Main Street Theater. On April 20, I was privileged to attend a reading of Natural Shocks, a one-woman play by Lauren Gunderson. This was a serious play with some deft comedic touches, about a woman waiting out an imminent tornado in her basement, and using the time to share details of her life, and ultimately some secrets, Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-24367928999522630082018-04-24T11:25:00.002-07:002018-04-30T11:09:41.115-07:00Worldfest-Houston 2018: Comedy-Dark / RomanticThe 51st Annual Worldfest-Houston International Film Festival
Comedy-Dark/Romantic Shorts
Saturday, April 21, 2018, 1:00 p.m.
Continuing an April tradition, this past Saturday I attended the first of several short film sessions at Worldfest-Houston, a local-yet-worldwide film festival that's now in its fifty-first year. Worldfest-Houston has just moved to a new theater home: the Cinemark Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-1829146857647541202018-04-19T19:50:00.003-07:002018-04-19T19:52:22.800-07:00Worldfest-Houston 2018 starts tomorrow!It's time again for Worldfest-Houston, now in its 51st year! Over the next ten days, there will be dozens of feature-length and short films premiering at the festival's new location, the Memorial City Cinemark Theatres. Click here for more info, and don't miss out!
As usual, I'll be reviewing many of the short film selections that will be screened this year, so watch this space. (For reviews Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-63722729638568184442018-04-03T16:22:00.002-07:002018-04-03T16:22:39.097-07:00A Short Review of a Very Short Story: "Fantasy Nights" by Mary Soon Lee[Image from Pixabay; used under Creative Commons license CC0 1.0 Universal]
Lately I've made two mistakes: waiting until I have something "big" to talk about before writing a review, and not reading or discussing enough short fiction. Today I'm going to fix that, by posting a 378-word review of a 469-word story.
If you aren't already familiar with Daily Science Fiction, it's a little gem of a Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-83597504210028920732018-02-28T13:50:00.000-08:002018-04-26T11:09:38.427-07:00Men on BoatsRecently I had the opportunity to see Main Street Theater's production of Men on Boats, a one-set, two-act play by Jaclyn Backhaus that portrays the ten-man Powell expedition that in 1869 traversed the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.
Only in this case it's a ten-woman expedition -- the characters remain male, but the actors are all female -- and quite frankly, now I don't think I can Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6755842910804359355.post-11801950974549106462017-12-13T12:55:00.002-08:002018-04-29T07:24:46.249-07:00There's Something About Mary ... Bennet, That Is!Every year in late November I get the urge to experience a Christmas story that's new to me, so I was excited when I heard that Main Street Theater was staging Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, written by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon and directed by Claire Hart-Palumbo. Assuming this to be a sequel to Pride and Prejudice (as opposed to a prequel), I knew it would have to be about Mary Amy Sissonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11048079879080286675noreply@blogger.com0