J.P. Smith's Blog

• Namedropping.com (amended, due to the vicissitudes of memory)

  June 16, 2009

  • We live in a world where our encounters with celebrity are becoming more and more commonplace, or at least where we believe we’ve seen someone, as in China Miéville’s novel The City & the City, where one sees and then unsees, for fear of trespassing on a forbidden second city occupying the same physical space. I have had emails from friends in L.A. such as “Today I was in a 7-11 and ...
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• Metamorphosis

  June 3, 2009

  • When I was a boy I was put on a train and shipped off to my first summer camp for eight weeks. This was not such an unusual occurrence back then; in fact one had no choice: it was either two months or nothing. Considering my sisters had willingly and happily done this since they were very young was considered a kind of precedent. It killed two birds: it kept me occupied and out of the house for ...
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• Fly Me to Hollywood

  May 9, 2009

  • A good friend of mine, an Englishman based in Vienna and a damned good screenwriter, has been urging me to take the material from my last blog ("Fly Me to the Moon") and turn it into a script. Over the years when I've told that same story, others have also urged me to do something more with it. Because I'm sensitive to the feelings of those mentioned in the piece--The Mystic Barber, Ed ...
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