Showing Tag: "violence" (Show all posts)

WINNOWING – THE DIRECTOR’S CUT

Posted by Daniel S. on Saturday, July 22, 2023, In : books and movies 

IT’S my pleasure as director of the JET Production of WINNOWING -- https://winnowing.yolasite.com -- to announce the creation of a director’s cut. This novel “soft” neo-noir film features Setsuko Tsuchiya in her debut lead actress role with actor-companion Daniel S. Janik, together playing eight roles each from a screenplay by the incomparable author/screenwriter William Maltese. Incorporating storylines from six Maltese books, WINNOWING brings diversity to a new level and, I believe,...


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THE THIRD LIFE OF “CLEAN WATER, COMMON GROUND”

Posted by Daniel S. on Wednesday, June 14, 2023, In : books and movies 

MANY readers are aware of my premier debut as co-producer, director and co-star of the upcoming film WINNOWING — https://winnowing.yolasite.com — scheduled for release in late 2023/early 2024. Not so many know about my 1999 Two-Telly-Award-Winning film that I executive produced, CLEAN WATER, COMMON GROUND — https://clean-water-common-ground.yolasite.com.


CWCG, a cinematic short that seems even more relevant today than during its inception, is a documentary about water and the environme...


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CHANGING THE WORLD OF ENTERTAINMENT

Posted by Daniel S. on Wednesday, June 7, 2023, In : books and movies 

WE’VE long known that much of human behavior comes from the old adage, “Monkey see, monkey do,” but if this is true then the entertainment industry has done little to curb the escalating impulsivity and violence being experienced today. And yet, it affect billions of viewers and readers worldwide. In the past, as the owner of Savant Books and Publications, I vowed to produce books that uplifted the human condition without gratuitous sex or violence. That policy made Savant the powerhous...


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BREAD AND CIRCUSES

Posted by Daniel S. on Sunday, June 4, 2023, In : books and movies 

BEING an actor, author and the owner of JET Progress studios, I’m often challenged to define what constitutes entertainment in the contemporary world. It sounds like truism, but, in fact, defining entertainment, especially “healthy” entertainment is neither intuitive nor obvious as is often offered. Entertainment for one can be the abject opposite for another.


Thinking of mass entertainment, I catch myself falling on the Roman sword, so to speak: the “political” entertainment conce...


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“LIVING ROBOTS” CAN NOW THINK AND REPRODUCE

Posted by Daniel S. on Thursday, March 2, 2023, In : books 

IF you find plastic/metal/code Artificial Intelligence somewhat daunting (think of the AI inside your cellular phone that translates what you say into text), then fasten your seatbelt before reading this report: https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/29/americas/xenobots-self-replicating-robots-scn/index.html. Scientists “at at the University of Vermont, Tufts University and Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering said they have discovered an entirely new form of bi...


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WILL MOVIE/TV VIOLENCE BECOME EVEN MORE VIOLENT IN 2023?

Posted by Daniel S. on Thursday, December 22, 2022, In : books and movies 

WHAT exactly is it with “entertainment” and gratuitous violence? While it may be partially or even mostly the case that viewers today want and are willing to pay for more violence and more “authenticity” surrounding violence. as an author and actor, I believe it’s not as simple an equation as that. As evidence, I present a recent BBC article entitled, “1923 and the violent TV universe that has electrified the US” — https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20221213-1923-and-the-rise...


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A GAIAN HIATUS

Posted by Daniel S. on Wednesday, July 6, 2022, In : books and movies 

IS our world, as James Lovelock’s GAIA — https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/gaia-hypothesis — would have us believe, a living, breathing being? I tend to think so. Lovelock has been “right” so many times, it would be an insult to not take The Gaia Hypothesis for real. If so, surely, Gaia is letting out a long sigh, after so tumultuous a half-year. The Return (or call it the REVENGE) of COVID, Putin’s War, another year of increasing over-population an...


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SPECTACLE AND VIOLENCE

Posted by Daniel S. on Thursday, June 23, 2022, In : books and movies 

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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RE-COVER-Y

Posted by Daniel S. on Saturday, May 28, 2022, In : Knowledge/Wisdom 

SOME say that revenge is sweet, but I fear that whether sweet or not, it simply continues the cycle of violence into which today’s world seems trapped. It takes faith, trust, empathy, courage and strength to not respond to violence with violence. And re-cover-y, an odd word suggesting that the ultimate goal of recovery is to re-cover an act of violence. Sweep it under the rug, so to speak. But it’s not like that at all.


If every perpetrator of violence had to pay for the victim’s recov...


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REVENGE

Posted by Daniel S. on Thursday, May 26, 2022, In : Knowledge/Wisdom 

“AN eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth.” How many eyes and teeth does it take to satisfy one hurt person’s desire for revenge? The answer: an infinite number, as one revenge begats another. Add hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, even millions of personal revenge desires and what do you have? Today’s world, a stage upon which literally untold numbers of revenge desires being acted out, in the process, creating new ones. The problem, of course, is how to stop it.


“Turning the o...


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THE BIG, THE SMALL AND THE UGLY

Posted by Daniel S. on Tuesday, May 3, 2022, In : books 

I’VE been hearing reports that the James Webb telescope is being readied to look back in distance and time to the very formation of our unique expanding-bubble-universe; back to when things physical first formed and formed the framework for everything we know and experience today.


Equally exciting are reports that CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) update was in its final stages, promising a look at the very forces that hold the interactive wave-and-particulate world as we know it togeth...


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ADJUDICATING JUSTICE – I

Posted by Daniel S. on Saturday, April 23, 2022, In : Knowledge/Wisdom 

JUSTICE “is a concept on ethics and law that means that people behave in a way that is fair, equal and balanced for everyone,” according to simple.wikipedia.org. On the other hand, legally, justice can be be equally defined as, “n. 1) fairness. 2) moral rightness. 3) a scheme or system of law in which every person receives his/ her/its due from the system, including all rights, both natural and legal” according to Law.com, an online “legal dictionary”. The whole idea of justice ca...


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TGIF

Posted by Daniel S. on Friday, April 8, 2022, In : books and movies 

MEANING, “Thank God it’s Friday,” right? Well, it IS Friday, and I for one am plenty thankful for the start of another weekend, BUT, what I meant was “Thank God(dess) it’s functioning,” whether referring to one’s body (and it’s various parts), our home appliances, the internet, our government (though many would question this), the police or the United Nations. With the slow but significant exit of baby-boomers and the rise of Generation Whatever, I’m reminded of WILLIAM MALT...


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LAUGHING

Posted by Daniel S. on Sunday, March 13, 2022, In : Knowledge/Wisdom 
IN times like these, when people, animals, plants and Mother Earth are falling subject to war as in the Ukraine, I often feel overwhelmed and depressed: overwhelmed by the thought that there are people in this world actually willing to do violence to others; depressed (or, repressed, if you prefer) trying to keep the crushing feeling of disgust and helplessness at being aware of what’s being done to others from destroying the joy we are meant to experience in living. While it may sound anti...

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SO WORLD WAR TWO WASN’T ENOUGH?

Posted by Daniel S. on Saturday, December 4, 2021, In : books 

THE world having survive two global wars between fascist dictatorships and democracies appears to not have been enough for the losers, rising again from the ashes, this time China, North Korea, Russia, Iran and allies are ready and willing to bet the lives of their people on another attempt at conquering the world. Sigh. Isn’t there enough misery in the world without another war? Or is this simply an ill-fated effect of overpopulation, fueled by individual fear, greed and hatred?


I posted ...


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SEARCHING FOR PRIVATE RYAN…

Posted by Daniel S. on Saturday, July 24, 2021, In : books 

I’M often asked in author interviews what I think makes today’s literature “contemporary.” Has it changed over the decades I’ve been authoring? The simple answer is, “Yes, it’s changed and especially so these last couple years.” There is, however, one thing that hasn’t changed: the need to appropriately address and express violence and sex, two intrinsically human issues, if not obsessions. There is so much trauma, or put in a more general way, violation, or, if you prefer, ...


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VIOLENCE AND SEX

Posted by Daniel S. on Tuesday, June 29, 2021, In : books 

EVERY author has to, at some time, master writing about violence and sex, two archetypal experiences intrinsic to and representative of human life at any age and time. By this I truly mean “writing about” rather than writing explicit gratuitous violence or sex. It’s the difference between the emotional experience of a soldier being wounded, and a detailed account of every gory detail as the bullet rips through his or her body. The same with sex.


I can vividly recall an email from my fi...


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WHERE IN THE UNIVERSE IS ALL THE DARK MATTER?

Posted by Daniel S. on Thursday, May 27, 2021, In : books 

I have a theory: Be it romance, love, gender, adventure, drama, science fiction, erotica or sex, t’s been wrapped up in literature and movies for a long time now in the form of gratuitous violence. Darkness, especially in the form of gratuitous violence or overall pessimism in science fiction, isn’t “necessary.” Cities, if they will exist in the future, don’t necessarily have to be foreboding, constantly raining and filled with violent characters. Depending on detailed gratuitous vi...


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THE POLICE CONUNDRUM

Posted by Daniel S. on Monday, May 17, 2021, In : books 

WITH all the recurring reports of excessive police violence in the news, I find myself wondering what can possibly be done about it. Awareness of its existence and effects of violence on both the victim and the public are, of course, a first step, given that not all victims are purely innocent, and all police officers aren’t willing perpetrators of violence. But awareness isn’t enough, especially in the field, in the heat of a life-threatening situation quite possibly requiring lethal for...


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BIRTHDAY WISHES

Posted by Daniel S. on Thursday, July 5, 2018, In : health care reform etc. 
The fourth of July is when everyone American celebrates the birth of the United States of America, right? Maybe. But I've always believed that it's the day when the world celebrates MY birthday, replete with fireworks. Like Yankee Doodle Dandy, I've always been a firecracker, and I guess I will be until I pass from this crazy world. In the meantime, I bring that energy into "thinking outside the box" in everything I do. 


Take education, for instance. A university professor for over 40 years, I...
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About Me


Author/Actor Daniel S. Janik (aka author Raymond Gaynor/Gary Martine) A retired physician turned author, actor, dancer, educator, naturalist, former publisher, Daniel S. "Dan" Janik has plenty to say.

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