HAVING just recently spent 5 weeks in Japan, I have to mention my delight in discovering hoshigaki. I came across them my first day and almost every day afterwards, tied together in long strings hung from porch roofs throughout the main island, Honshuu. Looking like beaded curtains of brilliant orange, they are the start of dried Japanese persimmons, which herald December and the pending New Year. 

While Christmas is celebrated by many Japanese families, it's New Year celebration that is the...

YEP! One needn’t look any farther than this High Definition DVD or better yet, a loaded Blu-Ray, of the classic film WINNOWING, winner of 30+ international awards. https://winnowing.yolasite.com. At under $US 25, with no country code, and no gratuitous violence, A “real” holiday gift! Starring Sakura Kai (Setsuko Tsuchiya) and co-starring Daniel S. Janik, this film about persistence is unusual from the start in that Sakura and I play not one, but two different roles and read six differe...

BEING both a movie actor and director, as well as a movie affectionado, I'm well aware of the part that a good soundtrack plays in any and every movie, right down to the ability of "the right" music being able to, almost on its own, invoke viewer emotional attachment and garner views/sales. But I've often wondered exactly how much music also masks the acting and story. So, when world class author and scriptwriter, William Maltese, sent me a script for WINNOWING, I determined to make it an exp...

AS I sit, by the fire…and work on the sequel to THE EDGE OF MADNESS by Raymond Gaynor — https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859 — aptly named PROPHECY and rapidly approaching the finish line during these sometimes madcap, sometimes boring holidays. What could be better than a good new book to while away 2023? Prophecy has the same characters as in THE EDGE OF MADNESS plus one who stirs the pot in a most unusual way. If THE EDGE OF MADNESS is all about the beginnings of life, PROPHECY is ab...

LIVING in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, is like living in a suspended, sunny California day forever. At least until tomorrow, when the weatherfolk are predicting a strong bout of cold, thunderstorms, lightening, thunder, torrential rain and even icy hail, the latter God(dess) forbid. I’m trying to imagine icy roads in Honolulu, if only from momentarily road-coating hail. Actually, I can’t imagine it. The nearest thing is snow on the top of the world’s tallest volcano, Mauna Kea, or the unusual...

INVARIABLY, when the Holidays approach, I become clumsy. Why, I’ve no idea, but it’s like a holiday ritual; something, I can count on, like taxes in January, but much more pleasant. Not that I resent paying my fair share to keep the USA, well, American, and my neighborhood worth living. No, I don’t resent taxes or the Holiday clumsies (by March and tax payment, I’m no longer clumsy). They’re just little hooks upon which I can hang my Christmas and New Year’s feelings on, while I g...

IMAGINE lifting a curvaceous flute filled with the finest bubbly (either champagne or fruit juice depending on your wont and disposition), before a blazing, crackling fire (in a fireplace, please), intimately toasting your BBF or BGF (you decide). That’s what I think of initially, easily forgetting the stress of all the preparation that would have to go into making just such an imaginary scenario into reality. Forget the tree, the trimming, the holiday cards (or, these days, emails), the sh...

IF not, then it’s definitely past time to prepare. I went to the grocery yesterday, and was struck by the presence of actual food lines, not for feee food, simply to get inside the store and have a few seconds to grab what I could of what’s left. Interestingly, the one thing there was plenty of was turkeys. Raw, pre-cooked, stuffed, half and even TV dinnered. Lots of turkey(s). Everything else seemed in limited supply. What’s going on? Is the turkey abundance in response to the Presiden...

ONE thing about advertising: It shoots straight to the target center. It’s also, I’ve learned, the telltale sign of something untrue. “A book you MUST read!” Really? “What everyone’s saying!” Huh? “You gotta have one!” For sure? “The best of the best!” Awe, come on! Having made my claim for the edgewise and oblique, the Amazon genre bestseller, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, is a book you MUST read. Everyone’s saying it’s the best of the best an...

AS a consequence of COVID-19, my principal publisher, Savant Books and Publications, has moved all former face-to-face bookstore activities including book, CD, DVD and merchandise purchases strictly ONLINE and created four regional bookstores to get your purchases to you faster.

https://www.savantbookstoreatlantic.com

https://www.savantbookstoremidwest.com

https://www.savantbookstorepacific.com

https://www.savantbookstorehonolulu.com

All of the above will bring you directly to our secure...

OR, according to Google and Wikipedia (and what more authoritative sources are there these days than these two) Halloween, Hallowe’en, Allhalloween, All Hallows’ Eve, or All Saints’ Eve, a celebration on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows’ (Saints’) Day, which we celebrate with costumes, pumpkins and candy. But it’s also celebrated by some with bonfires, guising or mumming, divination and feasting as Samhain, a Gaelic festival marking the end of the ...

The author Raymond Gaynor THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859 — Book Giveaway Contest is ON with Six Grand Prizes: a signed copy of my book to the eleventh, twenty-first, thirty-first, forty-first, fifty-first and every hundred-and-first person who sends an email (one per email address) to me at gaynor.raymond2@gmail.com with the subject line “I want a copy of THE EDGE OF MADNESS.” NOTE: You must have a USA ship-to address (which I’ll ask for onl...

OH, YES! If you’ve ever imagined coming across a goose that lays golden eggs, you’ve come to the right place! I’m reving up for the holiday season! The author Raymond Gaynor THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859 — Book Giveaway Contest is ON with SIX Grand Prizes: a signed copy of my book to the eleventh, twenty-first, thirty-first, forty-first, fifty-first and every hundred-and-first person who sends an email (one per email address) to me at gayno...

OH, YES! I’m reving up for the holiday season! The author Raymond Gaynor THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859 — Book Giveaway Contest is ON with now SIX Grand Prizes: a signed copy of my book to the eleventh, twenty-first, thirty-first, forty-first, fifty-first and every hundred-and-first person who sends an email (only one per email address) to me at gaynor.raymond2@gmail.com with the subject line “I want a copy of THE EDGE OF MADNESS.” NOTE: You...

TODAY’S post is all about the Amazon genre Bestseller, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor in printed, digital AND audiobook format — https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859. You see, I’m giving away FIVE Grand Prizes: a signed copy to the twenty-first, thirty-first, forty-first, fifty-first and hundred-and-first persons who send me an email (only one entry to an email address, please; multiple entries to same address will be completely discarded) at gaynor.raymond2@gmail.c...

Most people don't think of warm, sunny, Honolulu, Hawaii, when they think of pumpkins or Halloween, which, in my mind is a travesty. We actually do grow pumpkins here. Really! This time of year, one can cruise the island and grab a plump pumpkin from a variety of pumpkin patches. 

And we actually do celebrate Halloween here, and we celebrate it big time in Waikiki. Walking along either side of Ala Moana Boulevard as it courses through the heart of Waikiki, one can observe and even have thei...