Monthly Archives: April 2015

Recently, we decided that our little boy needs a tracking device, some kind of wearable GPS that would let us know where he is at all times. I was disheartened at the Orwellian implications of this (I am cynical enough to believe that within a generation, life insurance rates will be far, far higher for people who do not volunteer to let smartphones track their location 24/7), but I have to counter-balance this with the obligation to safeguard a five-year-old […]

Our hair looked like rat’s nests. Our fingernails were unevenly chewed. Our long pants showed ample ankle. Our posture resembled that of the three-toed sloth. Our faces had too many pimples, our T-shirts too many words. We were picked last in sports, then exiled to right-field behind the right-fielder. We were verbally taunted as a matter of course, physically beaten on a smattering of occasions. When we gathered together, we were less likely to toss around a ball than a […]

Today, April 24, 2015, has been designated the official centennial of the Ottoman genocide of Armenians. Beginning in 1915, at the height of the Great War, the Ottomans slaughtered about 1.5 million Armenian people. There’s a lot more nuance to any such story, and of course I encourage everyone to do their own research. However, for 100 years, the nation that became Turkey has denied that the killings constituted a genocide, claiming that war is a messy business and there […]

Hi MTTF fans, Last week I wrote about two short films that try to capture the world from an autistic child’s perspective. Monday I wrote about my night at the theater. So it only seems appropriate for this entry to shine a light on a new play that tries to bring you into the world of autism. I haven’t managed to see it yet, though it stars an apparently amazing fifth-grader who is a friend to one of my friend’s […]

Oh, theatre critics and wider internet. How disappointing you can be! Last night, I finally witness with my own eyes the phenomenal musical that will clearly be remembered as the best funny musical of this decade, The Book of Mormon, winner of nine well-deserved Tonys. I go home. I google “Book of Mormon” with “Diff’rent Strokes.” I google “Book of Mormon” with “Happy Days.” I google “Book of Mormon” with “Back to the Future.” Nothing. Sighhhhhhhhhhhh. All right, then, I’ll […]

Among many other award-winning writers and economists, The New York Times’ Paul Krugman enjoys deploying the term “zombie economics” to signify budget planning based on outmoded paradigms that have long since proven their lack of value – “trickle-down economics” is Exhibit A, but hardly the only one. Basically, anyone championing the unreconstructed rules of wealth creation from 2007, pre-crisis, is trotting out “zombie economic policy.” The term Krugman isn’t using – the term I’m not hearing from so-called political analysts […]

Somehow, I missed Hanna Kozlowska’s article “Look at Life Through Autistic Eyes” when the New York Times published it last year, and I also missed it while I was reading, and then reviewing, “Carly’s Voice.” If you’re like me, and this article is new to you, let me make a recommendation. There are two videos on the link. Click the second one, then the first one. The second one is a video version of a scene from “Carly’s Voice,” mostly […]

Everyone’s getting in on the superhero act these days! Where I believe this idea to be original is the idea of perspectives, of “modes” of video/visual representation. I really think I personally would love that, if anyone tried an idea like this. It’s really just a rough sketch, but that doesn’t mean it’s not © copyright Daniel Smith-Rowsey if it comes to it…still, it’s mostly to use this blog the way blogs should be used, to give away good ideas for […]

It’s human nature to believe that we are living in the most consequential of times. However, if you were to dial back Marty McFly’s Delorean 20 years earlier than Marty ever did — to April 1865 in America, 150 years ago this month — you might notice that people wouldn’t pay your Delorean much attention. You probably wouldn’t even make the Top Ten of most astonishing things they’d seen in the last few weeks. On the sesquicentennial of that staggering […]

Today I walked in to the office of Dar’s school. The admin had a sign that read “45 days until summer vacation.” We laughed a little bit about how that didn’t include weekends. The larger point is that the end of the school year is in sight, the end of Dar’s first year in kindergarten. (Next year, as planned, will be his second year in kindergarten.) For the first time ever, I can relate to those moms who have been […]