Starting 6 May 2024, I will be working to change my blog here to reflect my WordPress blog. I will post in this page header each day's WordPress blog until the changeover is complete. 
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OTOSOTU (pronounced “Oh-Toe-So-Two” for “On The Other Side Of The Universe”), a “new genre” Sci-Fu film about what happens to the human soul when Commander Michael Mylo, played by award-winning actor, Daniel S. Janik, accidentally discovers what’s at the other end of our universe. OTOSOTU now has its official first film poster! Co-starring 5-times awarded “best actress” Sakura Kai (aka Setsuko Tsuchiya) and internationally renown author, awarded screenwriter and actor Willia...

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THERE are countless New Year traditions, but as I, actor Daniel S. Janik (aka author Raymond Gaynor) and my partner, actress Sakura Kai (aka author Setsuko Tsuchiya) represent a melding of Western and Asian cultures, one of our favorite New Year traditions is making mochi.

The “recipe” is quite simple: Make some rice, specifically mochigome (糯米), a short-grain glutinous rice. In general, the better the “quality” of the rice, the better the mochi. But that’s only half of what make...

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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...

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FIRST, let me explain that living in Hawaii, we’re always alert to tropical hurricanes, like Calvin, that like to visit our islands this time of year through Christmas. Calvin is about halfway here and so far has been growing in intensity achieving Category Two status yesterday.

WINNOWING — https://winnowing.yolasite.com — on the other hand is a JET Progress film production, currently in post-production. What they have in common is that as WINNOWING progresses through the film festival...

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THESE are [once again] times that try men's souls (Thomas Paine). All known governments have a rise and a fall. Is this the United States' time to stall, trip and fall? It certainly can seem that way, with all the disruptions surfacing these days, and growing, polarized dissension replacing compromise. There seems to be a craziness bubbling up, as if the simmering pot called America were approaching a boiling point. But is this true? 

It certainly is a reflection of the times in which we live,...

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WE’RE not talking pocket change, but we are talking ongoing rather than “thank-God(dess)-we’ve-made-it-so-far” climate change. And as it progresses, the possibility of abrupt directional switches at some point instead of extraordinary warming, extreme cooling, wind and humidity as well. After all, it is called climate “change.”

Personally, I’ve noticed that in addition to the usual climate change (and climate change denial) there’s another kind of climate change/denial going ...

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Although he wouldn't completely understand it until much later, it began well before he was born a pudgy-looking, seven and a half pound naked ball of flesh, fat, gristle and bone, screaming its head off. And why shouldn't he have protested? Every trusted thing he'd known had been ripped from him: the constant warmth; the gentle, protective floating feeling; the ruddy aura that had always surrounded and protected him, the ever-present thump-hiss, thump-hiss, thump-hiss in the background that,...

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THE EDGE OF MADNESS by Raymond Gaynor: "Radically original while chilling and shocking. A dark vision of the future reminiscent of Brave New World but on steroids. The title page should be plastered with a warning: "Not for the sentimental or faint of heart. This is not a game. Enter...at your own peril and keep a defibrillator handy.  Medical power of attorney should be assigned to someone you know very, very well.

"Right away the reader becomes observer of the pulsing, sensate world of the...

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AND I’m even more tired of people asking me what this year’s New Year’s resolutions are. This year, I’m resolved to not make any New Year’s resolutions. Well, except for the one I just made. But you get my drift, and I suspect you get your drift, too. While the idea of bettering oneself through New Year’s resolutions is commendable, not being able to stick to most of them is downright depressing, and there’s enough going on in the world that’s depressing already. If I could, I...

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WHICH one would YOU choose if you could be granted only one?

Health would promise a longer, quality life, which, if you live in the USA, could be a boon. If you live elsewhere that might or might not be a boon. Still, if one has health, wealth and happiness can, if desired, follow.

Wealth wold promise a more varied life, though, without health it might be either tempered, or very short. Then there’s the issue of whether wealth (or it’s one step up cousin, power) ever really brings happi...

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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...

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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...

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BLOODSPORT is the term for events of spectacle involving violence to the point of bloodletting. While violence and bloodletting are probably as old as humanity, they are said to have became a spectacle with the ancient pre-Roman Etruscans in or around 600 BCE — https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abi7673 and http://thespectaclesofapuleius.weebly.com/gladiatorial-combats.html#.YrSwcy-B3Fc — and later the Greek Olympics begun in 770 BCE — https://olympics.com/ioc/faq/history-and-or...

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LET’S face it: Information overload is here to stay. And much of it is spun, hoodwinked, tainted, biased or just plain untrue. I’m for a day — today — without any digital news. Nothing. Nada. And a little bit of nothing, I think, will go a long way to regaining my balance. My center. Especially in this unbalanced world. Think “The Qatsi Trilogy – Koyaanisqatsi/Powaqqatsi/Naqoyqatsi” (Hopi for “life out of balance”) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009D004MC. Then think THE EDG...

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I was asked the other day what “sign of the times” I believe is the most significant one so far in this decade. After pondering the usual unusuals, I have to say that it’s what’s happening “in the gnus” (ha, ha) or more correctly how we get the news. But first, a bit more levity: (1) “No gnus is good gnus” (I’ve already labeled that “fake gnus”); (2) “Read only what’s gnus-worthy” (hey, they don’t call them wildebeests for nothing); (3) “any day a call may come...

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FORGET Generation Z; Generation Alpha (folks born 2012 through 2025) is already stepping up to the plate to experience, enjoy and govern our world. Well, at least, some will enjoy it. Others will struggle and many will opt out either by choice or circumstance. The world is, like Douglas Adams once wrote of Earth in THE HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, “mostly safe,” and, while not particularly descriptive, it’s descriptive enough to say along with Alfred E. “Mad” Neuman, “What, me...

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WE in the USA often think of Christmas as “the holidays,” when, I suspect, more people in the world celebrate the New Year holiday. I looked this up on the internet and while I found one site that stated “2 billion” people throughout the world celebrated Christmas, I wasn’t able to find any similar estimate for New Year, so my suspicion remains speculation unless someone reading this has the answer. Sadly, not every question is answerable on the internet, not to mention whether any ...

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EVER get the feeling that something dark is happening underneath all that holiday joy? If so, you’re more connected than most, in my opinion. I’ve been touting over and over during the past year and a half that the Great Pandemic is a much needed “shot across the bow” of contemporary societies, with special emphasis on transactions, namely the absolute need to change from “crowd sales” to “individual service” approaches. The “fuel” that’s feeding COVID today is as much, ...

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It's becoming harder these days to find unbiased news. What used to be dry factual reporting seems to have swung to its counterpoint: interpretation and opinion. What's missing, in my opinion, is BALANCE. But by balance I don't mean the "mean." 

Good news reporting involves presenting the facts (to be interpreted in various ways by the viewer/listener) and meaning (as be interpreted in various ways by the preparer/broadcaster). "Weighting" the news based on popularity moves it into the realm o...
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To my fans and all readers, I send my sincere wishes for a Happy New Year! Keep Reading!
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I don't typically comment on politics, but as a retired academic, I've watched with appall the governance of our great nation under Mr. Donald Trump, a businessman extraordinaire (though not necessarily in the positive sense). I've watched our nation become a corporation, with a single dominant, overbearing CEO focused on one main area: money. I say money, rather than economy, which is an entirely different governmental topic. 

I was, at first, primarily surprised, when I learned that Mr. Trum...
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"Fake news" isn't new. It's been around for centuries in the form of gossip. But society's never had a platform whereby gossip could be shared on a mass global basis, where its mere repetition and topic popularity could elevate it from believability to assumed truth. Bad news in a rapidly globalizing world, where politics and governments can depend on popular "news" to remain in power. 

The ancient Greeks taught us that there are five appeals that we as humans tend to accept: 1) logos (well-re...
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Being both the night of the wolf moon AND a new year, I want to take this moment to wish all my readers, followers and friends

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