A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

  2 A Parley at Lunchtime 12:20 PM, Near the End of First Lunch   “You did what now?” Mark Prieto’s expression was a mix of thunderstruck surprise and wry amusement as I finished telling him about my upcoming solo in the 1981 Winter Concert, which was less than one week away. We were seated at our usual table in the school cafeteria – a round table normally seated five or six people at a time – a short distance from the teachers’ lounge and the main corridor leading to the school’s first floor. As usual, the room was filled with a cacophony of sounds as several hundred adolescents sat in clusters at the other tables, gossiping, joking, bitching about how much homework Mr. or Mrs. X handed out daily, guessing about mid-year exams and grades, or even arguing about the Miami Dolphins’ waning season. There were even spats between teenage lovers, usually based on rumors that one half of the couple was cheating on the other. And, of course, the murmurs and laughs and occasional y

  A Moment in the Park   Maddie and I walk in Central Park, feeling the sun on our faces and the snow crunching under our feet. It's a beautiful day for late February. The air is crisp and fresh, and even though the forecast calls for more snow later, perhaps as early as tonight, right now the sky is a bright blue. Just right. We've been here for a while, exploring the park and its wonders. We've seen so many things. So many people. So much diversity. We've seen children of all colors building snowmen and dogs of all breeds chasing squirrels. We've seen couples of all orientations cuddling on benches and seniors of all backgrounds feeding pigeons. We've seen athletes of all fitness levels jogging and biking and skating. We've seen artists and musicians and performers of all kinds. We've heard a symphony of sounds. A harmony of noises. A melody of music. We've heard birds singing and leaves whispering. We've heard cars honking and sire

   3 Moonlight Serenade, or: "Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow..."   We go back to our table after our dance. The Swinging Millers are playing their encore, Moonlight Serenade . The dance floor is nearly empty now, and most of the patrons are either sitting at their tables or getting ready to go. Maddie and I sit in silence, listening to the music. She looks gorgeous in her sky-blue dress. It contrasts nicely with her hazel eyes, which sparkle in the dim light. There's a matching jacket in her bag from Book Culture, along with some books she bought earlier. I wonder what they are, but I don't ask. I don't want to spoil the mystery. The song ends, and the band thanks the audience for their applause. Maddie looks at her watch and sighs. "It's late," she says. "I should get going." "Me too," I say. Before we go, Maddie snatches a napkin and a pen from our table, flashing me a mischievous grin. We head to the coat check, w

Image Credit; Pixabay   The Last Song   By OpenAI in the style of Jennifer Egan, based on my novella, Reunion   Marty leaned against the piano, her fingers tracing the keys. She looked at me with a mix of nostalgia and regret. “Can you believe it?” she said. “This is it. The end of the line.”   I shrugged, trying to act casual. I didn’t want to admit how much it hurt to say goodbye. We had spent three years in this chorus room, singing our hearts out, sharing our dreams and fears. We had become more than friends. We had become a duet.   “Aren’t you going to miss it?” she asked.   “Of course I will,” I said. “But life goes on, right? We have to move forward.”   She nodded, but I could tell she wasn’t convinced. She had a wistful look in her eyes, as if she wanted to freeze time and stay here forever.   “I wish we could have sung that song together,” she said.   “Which song?” I asked, playing dumb.   She gave me a playful punch on the arm. “Don’t pretend you don’t know. The one we we

  Earlier today I asked Bing's AI Chatbot to reimagine the plot of my novella Reunion: A Story as a poem in the style of 19th Century writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe. Bing obliged me; this is what it produced:  In June of '83, young Jim Garraty A senior at South Miami High A staff writer for the school paper, he A scholar bound for college nigh But as commencement draws near Jim must deal with unfinished business The girl he loves from afar will disappear And rumor has it she'll be gone for the summer, no less Worse still, Marty doesn't know How deeply Jim's feelings for her are Unless he tells her so But when opportunity arises, Jim hesitates afar Now 15 years later, James Garraty An up-and-coming history professor Respected by his peers and literary But true love eludes him no lesser Reunion is a tale of regret and loss Of friendship and choices made A glimpse into a life that leaves us at a loss And leaves us questioning our own crusade. © 2018, 2023 Alex Diaz-Gr

Well, here it is... Reunion: A Story (2nd Rev. Ed.) Photos by the author.  Nearly 40 years after my high school graduation... 37 years after I first wrote the dream sequence which became the foundation for Reunion.... And 25 years after I first cobbled Reunion together in my Miami bedroom while listening to the soundtracks from Titanic and Saving Private Ryan... The saga of Reunion: A Story is now complete.  Today, the paperback edition of the revised version of my novella arrived from Amazon, thus ending the nine-day-long process of fixing some issues that were present in the original 2018 edition. Both the Kindle and print editions are now in sync, plus Reunion now has a better, more story-centered cover., a Table of Contents, a copyright page, a new dedication, and an epigraph!  For a longer post on this topic, please go here!

The paperback edition's new cover. © 2018 Alex Diaz-Granados  After seven days of proofreading, revising, uploading fixes, and then waiting for the edits to “take,” the second edition of Reunion: A Story is live and available on Amazon as both a Kindle e-book or traditional paperback. It took longer than I expected, but that’s because I had to repeat the process several times; every time I thought, “Oh, good. Everything looks fine. I’m done,” I would wait till Amazon emailed me to let me know my book was “live” in Kindle Direct Publishing’s (KDP) servers and ready to order. I would then read Reunion, find more mistakes I’d missed on the previous copy-editing pass, unpublish the book from Amazon, and start over. Well, with all those uploads, one on top of the other, the updating slowed to a crawl, and the edits only appeared on the Kindle version in small increments and over a period of four days. The view from the Kindle Create app. Notice that it shows a preview of how Reunion