Unfettered Brilliance: Walter White Wednesday 113

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Walter White Wednesday 113

Although its final episode aired nearly a year ago, Breaking Bad continues to inspire fans. I've written here before about fan activities, ranging from nail art, to tattoos, to entire conventions, so let's add this to the mix - street art! Click the link to see gorgeous murals and paintings found around the globe - all inspired by Breaking Bad!!

If you're a fan and you're in the Triad area of North Carolina, come on out to see us at the Winston-Salem Barnes & Noble this weekend! We'll be appearing on Saturday beginning at 3 pm to talk Breaking Bad, sign copies of Wanna Cook? (which, c'mon, really is the must-have for AMC's binge-watching party that begins on Sunday, August 10 at 5 pm), and even hand out samples of the blue! Details can be found here!

Also, while Ensley has discussed this over on his blog in the most recent "Meth Monday," it bears repeating. We're broadening the discussion net for Breaking Bad with two upcoming events.

First, we'll be guests (hopefully of the honored variety) tonight at 8 pm on the CultureSmash webcast where we'll talk about Breaking Bad, writing Wanna Cook? and whatever else the fine CultureSmash folks allow us to yammer on about before they cut our mikes. The episode will be available live and also archived on the CultureSmash website as well, so please - check it out and let them know you're listening!

Also, we've been asked to write a regular column for BiffBamPop and our first one (about Breaking Bad, naturally!) goes live this Thursday, August 7. Our column is called "The Ten Percent" (the name comes from science-fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon's observation that "90% of everything is crud") and will focus on that magnificent ten percent of film/television/comics/etc. that isn't crud. Please click on over there as well!

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Points of Interest

Lurker's Guide - Excellent fan-run resource guide for Babylon 5

Breaking Bad - The official AMC site for news and recaps about the best show on television

Mockingbird's Nest - What I do outside of my day job

Ensley Guffey's Blog - Musings and links worth noticing

Nik At Night's Blog - Most things TV, including the 2011 Rewatch

TV Tropes - What you've seen, over and over and why it matters

Slayage - Whedon given the scholarly treatment

Whedonesque - Clearinghouse of all things Whedon

BuffyWorld - Shooting scripts, screenshots, and more

Who?

K. Dale Koontz may have watched too much television as a child. She learned to count via Sesame Street and first learned that genres could cross-pollinate through M*A*S*H. When she discovered Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the die was cast. In 2008, McFarland published her book Faith and Choice in the Work of Joss Whedon which focused on themes such as redemption, choice, and consequences in Whedon's work up to that point. (She's fairly sure Volume 2 could be written to include Dr. Horrible, Dollhouse, and The Avengers.) She is a founding member of the Whedon Studies Association (a great group of people, but don't mention Twilight. Just sayin'). She has presented original work on the Rossum Corporation in Dollhouse, Kitty Pryde, and Japanese anime. In 2014, she and co-author Ensley F. Guffey worked with ECW Press to publish the critically-acclaimed Wanna Cook? The Complete, Unofficial Companion to Breaking Bad. Her most recent project was to team again with Ensley and ECW to publish A Dream Given Form, which is the only guide to all the canonical works in the Babylon 5 universe. That book is currently available for preorder and will be released in September of 2017. Dale is available for speaking engagements and only occasionally uses puppets in her presentations.

What?

I have long been interested in storytelling - how we do it, why we do it, and what happens when we mix things up. This interest might be the result of being born and raised in the American South, a region that has long celebrated the involved story over the quick answer. Television - the good stuff, anyway - does this brilliantly. Far from being film's red-headed tacky cousin, good TV lets characters and relationships build slowly and often mixes up genres, so horror is next door to humor and fantasy rubs shoulders with procedurals. This blog focuses on both the "good stuff" being broadcast that catches my fancy (with a special emphasis on Babylon 5, since that's the book that's in the process of being written right now) as well as film. The films are usually new releases being watched for TV19's weekly Meet Me at the Movies, although I reserve the right to veer off into classics and under-appreciated gems as well. Older posts cover what my introduction to film class was up to - currently, I'm not teaching that course, but who knows what the future may hold.

Notable Whedon Work