My Top Five Comic-Con Moments
The latest chapter of the saga that has been my life of late is a trip down to (sometimes) sunny San Diego for Comic-Con 2010, where I helped promote and cover press events/panels for TheCinemaSource.com. And considering how easily I am star-struck, what a chapter it was.
My expectations were muddled going in. The convention is singular in its reputation as the gold standard of pop-culture/sci-fi gatherings, and any celebrity whose recent work could be even remotely tied into the event’s content was billed to be on-hand promoting themselves amongst the bravest and most eager genre fans. But I didn’t know how accessible those people and that content would actually be to a media plebian like me, even with my handy press pass. Thus, my mind was promptly blown.
Below are my own personal Top Five Comic-Con Moments, in order of general awesomeness. Some were unexpected successes, some odd accidents, others the kind of disappointments whose memory will likely have me cringing for months.
So yes, I’ll definitely be back next year.
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A Stroke of Luck
How one Columbia alum helped a Holocaust survivor realize a lifelong dream
Brian Brock knew he was on to something.
He could see it, because he had many times before. One question led to another, and then another. As a writer working on another man’s memoir, the 48-year-old Schaumburg, Ill. native and 1985 graduate of Columbia’s MFA Film program knew he couldn’t rely on his own imagination.
Brock needed details-those wild, tragic and bitterly ironic details that he knew would be critical. They were all there, just below the surface, waiting to be tapped.
All he needed was a bit of luck.
“What else did you see along that road?” Brock asked again, unrelenting, despite the old man’s obvious annoyance.
At 84, Pierre Berg’s mind was sharp, his memories vivid. That wasn’t the problem. Brock had learned this after almost two years of interrogating Berg for his memoir, which would depict the horrors he experienced in Nazi Germany, France and Poland during World War II.
Berg, one of the millions of non-Jewish “gentiles” who were also persecuted by fascist Germany, survived an 18-month journey through the unspeakable, including a stint as a slave laborer at the infamous Auschwitz-Monowitz and Dora concentration camps, not to mention the long journey home to normalcy afterward.
More than 60 years after Nazi liberation, it wasn’t the state of Berg’s memories of his traumatic experiences that was the problem; it was what Berg chose not to remember that made all the difference.
“Who cares what I saw?” Berg asked, a clear edge in his voice. “It was a road! What difference does it make?”
But Brock kept pushing. The two sat together every day after work just like this, for up to six hours at a time, Brock pounding away at his laptop and firing questions at Berg. His answers arose either directly from recollection or from the handwritten notes he had frantically jotted down.
Together, the two would slowly stretch the fabric of Berg’s memory until finally, whether Berg knew it or not, it would happen.
It was magic.
“What do you want me to tell you, that I saw a Russian man plowing a field pulled by six German women?” Berg asked.
Brock paused, looked up from his keyboard and smiled.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s exactly what I want you to tell me.” Continue reading ‘A Stroke of Luck’
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Tags: Auschwitz, Brian Brock, Holocaust, Pierre Berg, Scheisshaus Luck
A new study aimed at improving the quality of life for patients suffering from the mental disorder schizophrenia is underway in the Chicago area. Researchers hope a new medication being tested will offer hope to those suffering from the crippling symptoms of mental illness.
The independent Uptown Research Institute, sponsored by drug developer Sanofi-aventis, is looking for patients in Chicago to participate in the ongoing study, which started last year and is taking place in dozens of cities all over the United States. The study tests a new and undisclosed investigational drug for safety and effectiveness in improving cognition-which includes awareness, perception, reasoning and judgment-among schizophrenia patients.
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Too much to see
I’ve just returned from my trip to Europe and am in the process of uploading my photos to Flickr. Check some of them out here. It will be awhile before I get them all uploaded, but I’m making progress.
Also, check out my Video page for the Mugglenet.com news reports I filed from Scotland last month.
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In the months leading up to the launch of its prolific iPhone, computing giant Apple touted the device as the tool that would change the way people looked at the Internet.
What Apple didn’t expect was how the iPhone would change the Internet itself.
In a burgeoning movement to better meet the needs of the more than three million iPhone users, many popular web sites are developing new “iPhone-friendly” versions of themselves. Unlike the stripped-down pages available on pre-existing mobile web platforms, web developers say these new iPhone sites pack the same punch as a regular web site in a leaner, meaner and faster format.
Continue reading ‘iPhone-optimized sites make mobile browsing a ‘tap’’
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Tags: Apple, iPhone, Meebo, Technology, WebApps
Parents at a West Loop elementary school voiced their concerns Monday night about a mounting traffic problem that’s turning their mornings and afternoon commutes into chaos.
Members of the Local School Council of Galileo Scholastic Academy spent more than an hour discussing a new plan to help rid before- and after-school periods of what one council member called “absolute madness” created by aggressive parent drivers.
Altercations among drivers have nearly come to blows, one parent said, which prompted the Council to consider police involvement.
Continue reading ‘Local school grapples with parking lot chaos’
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Five Columbia College students had an unexpected run-in with the law Wednesday at a Streeterville community policing meeting.
The students used voice recorders to capture the 30-minute district 1834 meeting, which was held at the Cityfront Place apartment building on the 400 block of N. McClurg Court. Afterward, several students said they were confronted by a sergeant who said they had broken a rule against recording public meetings
Continue reading ‘Students chastised for legally using recorders at CAPS meeting’
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