I tell great stories.

… pation for these upcoming entertainment dates. Surely they’ll excite some of you, too, so update your calendars accordingly. SEPTEMBER 9 Only Murders in the Building (season 5 premiere on Hulu)9 The Secret of Secrets (Dan Brown novel release)12 The Long Walk (Stephen King movie release)17 The Morning Show (season 4 premiere on Apple TV+)24…

Once you’re in Philly, it’s easy to catch a train to New York City. The trick is making sure you’re on the right one. Thanks to the mercy of an Amtrak porter and Amanda’s travel luck, which is far superior to my own, we found ourselves on a train that arrived in Manhattan sooner than…

One of the many enjoyable things about my life these past few years is my wife attends a weeklong, traveling conference every summer. In years when conference leadership chooses a location that interests me, I chip in a few hundred bucks for plane tickets and tag along. It’s a great way to see unfamiliar parts…

I want to launch this next phase of Carv’s Thinky Blog by acknowledging these are difficult times. The worst among us have been promoted to underserved power by simpletons and oligarchs. Despite that, our woes are still relieved by hope, joy, friendship and clever entertainment. I was reminded of that this week in a most…

Humans have learned so much since the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment two and a half centuries ago. We learned our universe was inconceivably larger and older than we had imagined. We learned life on earth began, not in a Mesopotamian garden with magic fruit trees and a talking snake, but in the ocean,…

I’d like to take a few minutes to explain why yesterday’s news from the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in Livermore, CA, was such a big deal — and why it also wasn’t. What I don’t want to do is suggest I’m an expert in nuclear physics. No, I’m a geek with a lifelong affection for…

If you aren’t a Star Wars nerd, you can skip this post, I promise. I think episode 5 of The Book of Boba Fett has been out long enough now that I can share a pet theory of mine here publicly. You might remember that four years ago, David Benioff and D.B. (Dan) Weiss were…

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: There’s a desert planet, OK? And on this planet is a teenage boy with a Biblical first name. He doesn’t want to be there. It’s a world where moisture is currency, rusty mining vehicles share the surface with giant worms, and a tribe of hooded “sandpeople” ambush the…

Have you felt it? I haven’t updated this site in over a year. That changes now. I’ve completed the first draft of a new novel. Expect to hear more about it soon. COVID struck America hardcore in March 2020. With nothing to do but stay home for the summer — my day job is teaching…

We need to rethink how we approach so-called “problem plays.”In Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, a woman is threatened with the death of her brother if she doesn’t submit to sexual assault. The guilty party gets discovered and punished, but the innocent victim is victimized yet again by an allegedly just duke coercing her into a…