Last Day to Vote for Jen and Dragon

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Hello Friends,

LAST DAY to vote for the Aurora awards. You get books just for being a member. 

PLEASE consider voting for Dragon and Jen, who have been nominated for their amazing work on How I Taught my Dragon: Kindergarten education through genre media in the category of Best Fan Related Work.

Here are some examples of what Dragon made:

Look at this awesome art that she did as part of her school:

@ericdesmaraisauthor

Fan art by Dragon Desmarais. @authorjendesmarais #AssassinsAccidentalMatchmakers #JenDesmarais #ÉricDesmarais #authors #book #PressesRenaissancePress #pinkpiggy93 #artist #UrbanFantasy #romancebook

♬ original sound – Éric Desmarais

Effectively, it’s a guide (and results) for parents to use films as a jumping off point for kindergarten education, each week a new film with activities and learning sheets designed around the film’s themes and content.

It was designed with the Ontario Curriculum in mind and to supplement our daughter’s 1 day a week of online school. It could easily be scaled up to be a full home school, or down to simply add some extras for parents who keep their kids home.

What she did over 10 months is spectacular, both as a tool for other parents, and as a journey with Dragon.

Please check out the blog and consider voting for it in the the Aurora Awards category of Best Fan Related Work. Dragon is included as an author because her writing is included on the blog as part of the results.

Thank you in advance,

Éric

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle  – JenEric Movie Review

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How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2017 Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.

Story

A rare sequel which is more coherent and better all around. Possibly the best video game themed movie of all time, it both relies on and mocks the usual tropes.

Score: 1

Characters

The main five actors do a phenomenal job at being the kids. It’s mostly believable and impressively detailed. Jack Black is amazing.

Score: 1

Dialogue

The problem with trying to capture the dialogue of teens is how quickly it changes. The dialogue already sounds dated after just five years. Although the quips, jokes, and overall tone is well done.

Score: 0.5

Visuals and Music

The movie looks great and I greatly appreciate that they didn’t try to animate it like a video game.

The music is haunting and exciting all at once.

Score: 1

Fun

The five year old found it a little scary, but she loved the action and humour. It’s nice to see her starting to appreciate word-based humour more.

The rest of us enjoyed it as much as the first few times. I particularly appreciate that the humour around Jack Black’s character was so wholesome.

Score: 1

Overall

A wonderful adventure that balances action, humour, and character development for a near perfect movie.

Final Score: 4.5 Stars out of 5

Guitar Lessons Part 50

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April 20: Too much

I was too enthusiastic during the ballad. My shoulder hurts a bit more today.

But my kids were dancing and singing along with me.

That’s a good excuse, right?

April 21: Do I know what I’m doing?

Spoiler: I don’t.

I did one of the app challenges this week. It was chords. I forget how exacting this app is for chords. My fingers hurt a bit.

Then I did Sugar Plum Fairy and Mountain King. I did… Alright.

Then I tried Get to Know You in a couple different ways. It’s starting to sound wrong and I don’t know what to do about it.

April 22: Changes

I mostly played Get to Know You today, trying to figure out the additional chords. I ended up removing most of them… They just didn’t sound right.

I practised mountain king through the app. Meh. Could have been better.

I played the wedding song and the ballad, trying to pay attention to dynamics. I should maybe consider writing those down…

April 23: Discordant

I had a lot of trouble with mountain king today. I played it twice, hoping that would help. It didn’t.

Then I played my songs, while my daughter accompanied me on the soprano ukulele.

I honestly thought she’d get bored after one song.

She didn’t. She played all 3 with me.

Which is great. I love that she’s so into music.

But she doesn’t play chords or anything… It’s just strumming.

So it ends up being cacophonous discordant accompaniment.

I consider it training my ear to not listen and sing what I know are the notes. I definitely need the practise.

April 24: Feeling better

Mountain king was as difficult as ever. So frustrating.

I played Get to Know You and the wedding song. They both sounded good.

My son requested Disney music after that and I played a bunch from one of my books.

I actually ended up playing for about half an hour and my arm didn’t hurt at all!

And then I tripped coming up the stairs and jarred my arm again… Hopefully I didn’t hurt it too much. I’ll know tomorrow.

April 25: Beginner vs intermediate

Mountain king didn’t go well today. I don’t know why. Lowest score in a while. Bleh.

I played all three of my songs today. I need an allergy pill. My voice was all over the place. It’s kinda hilarious.

I played Get to Know You multiple times; intermediate, beginner, intermediate again. The beginner sounds way too easy and a little weird now. It’s kinda funny.

Makes me glad that I decided to make a version that was a little more complex.

Oh, and yeah, my arm hurts again. Trust me, I’m annoyed with myself.

Spotify Music Playlist

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Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers has some pretty great music in it, so I made a spotify playlist of all the songs, in the order they appear within the book.

Do you think you can figure out what happens during each song?

Songs in order of appearance

  • “Ordinary Day” by Vanessa Carlton
  • “Lapdance” by N.E.R.D.
  • “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” by Barenaked Ladies
  • “I Want You” by Savage Garden
  • “Let me Entertain You” by Robbie Williams
  • “The Nearness of You” by Norah Jones
  • “Bumblebee” by Aqua
  • “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera
  • “Ballroom Blitz” by Sweet
  • “Cartoon Heroes” by Aqua
  • “Deep Enough” by Live
  • “A New Day Has Come” by Celine Dion
  • “If The World Crashes Down” by Enrique Iglesias

One of the first things we did when writing this book was build a 2002 playlist.

I had already started writing my first chapter, and Kennedy had entered a bakery. I thought, shouldn’t there be music playing? What music would have been popular in September 2002?

Cue a post on Facebook asking about our friends’ favourite artists from twenty years ago. (Twenty? What?)

We bought a bunch of CDs to supplement what we already owned, and built an epic playlist to listen to while we wrote to add atmosphere. An entire scene in chapter 5 wouldn’t have been there without this playlist.

Pre-order Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers now!

Jen and Dragon Need your Aurora Vote

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Hello Friends,

It’s time to vote for the Aurora awards. You get books just for being a member. 
You have until July 23rd to vote!

PLEASE consider voting for Dragon and Jen, who have been nominated for their amazing work on How I Taught my Dragon: Kindergarten education through genre media in the category of Best Fan Related Work

Here are some examples of what Dragon made:

She also created a stop motion film:

Effectively, it’s a guide (and results) for parents to use films as a jumping off point for kindergarten education, each week a new film with activities and learning sheets designed around the film’s themes and content.

It was designed with the Ontario Curriculum in mind and to supplement our daughter’s 1 day a week of online school. It could easily be scaled up to be a full home school, or down to simply add some extras for parents who keep their kids home.

What she did over 10 months is spectacular, both as a tool for other parents, and as a journey with Dragon.

Please check out the blog and consider voting for it in the the Aurora Awards category of Best Fan Related Work. Dragon is included as an author because her writing and work are included on the blog as part of the results.

Thank you in advance,

Éric

The Lost City – JenEric Movie Review

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How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2022 film The Lost City.

Story

I love absurdity in my movies, however, it doesn’t often lend itself well to properly exploring human emotions and relationships. I’m in awe at the balance between groundedness and absurdity in this film. As a romantic comedy with an archeological adventure twist, none of the many parts failed to work. If anything, they worked perfectly together in a way that I would love to dissect.

Score: 1

Characters

The characters (except Brad Pitt’s Jack Trainer) start as caricatures, but with every scene, layer on emotion and depth. Although a completely new story, watching this cast in a romantic comedy felt like a new album from your favourite band; comfortable, but still exciting.

Score: 1

Dialogue

I’m not a fan of bodily function humour or crude humour. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the majority of this film’s laughs were dialogue and banter-related. It was both intelligent while still throwing in the occasional dick joke.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

Tropical islands, volcanoes, ancient temples, and archeological digs are hard to screw up as a backdrop. The movie uses its special effects sparingly and the location very well. There were only one or two instances of green screen that didn’t look quite right.

The music wasn’t in your face, but definitely accentuated the action and was instrumental in one of my favourite jokes.

Score: 1

Fun

I’ll be honest, a movie about a writer is an easy sell for me. However, it’s really easy to screw it up and there are very few of them that I consider any good. This managed to have everything in it that I like and none of the whiny writer stuff. I also really appreciated the archeological twist and that it wasn’t reversed.

I do take offence to the villains categorizing romance as porn, but the positive portrayal from other characters more than made up for it.

Score: 1

Overall

This is an action-packed, witty, and extremely fun take on the romantic comedy genre. Despite following the genre’s standard tropes, it felt fresh. If you enjoyed Sandra Bullock in anything from the 90s or aughts, you’ll love this.

Final Score: 5*

*A 5 star review doesn’t mean the movie was perfect nor that it is perfect for everyone but it is a movie I believe is as close to perfect as possible.

Guitar Lessons Part 49

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April 14: Almost

I almost beat my high score on mountain king. I’m so close!

I played Get to Know You. There’s something off about the chords. I’m not sure what it is. I’ll figure it out eventually.

I then played The Rose. I love this song. It’s fairly easy to play and I know the tune really well, so even though I haven’t played it in months, it sounded great. IMHO.

Oh! And I have good news! I signed the contract for Crushing It to be published by Renaissance Press! Get to Know You will be out in the world in spring 2023!!!

April 15: Harumph

I played a very little bit today, not even bothering to set up my music stand.

It is very difficult to play from the learning app with my phone on my knee. I didn’t do very well, but that was to be expected.

I know Get to Know You well enough to be able to play without my sheet music, even with the added chords.

I think the first verse is better without the added chords, and that bothers me, because it feels unfinished. (For the intermediate version. It’s fine for the beginner version.)

Bah. I don’t know.

April 16: Yeah no

We had family over for most of the day, plus a bbq shopping fiasco, so guitar playing was not done.

I completely forgot about it.

April 17: I played!!

I actually played today!

I did mountain king… I did okay.

I played Get to Know You, both the beginner and intermediate versions. I’m still undecided on the extra chords.

I even played the wedding song! (What?) My shoulder hurt a bit after that, but not too much, so I didn’t push it too far.

That one, I feel almost confident enough to record. But not the first one.

Maybe I’m overthinking it.

April 18: Shake it off

I played a little more than I should have, but Pegasus was jamming along with me and we were having fun.

I played Mountain King and did very well, score-wise, somehow.

Then I played Get to Know You and the ballad (at Pegasus’s request).

And then I played a bunch from the new guitar book.

My arm doesn’t hurt too badly now (although it did right after playing). I think that’s an improvement?

April 19: Fun

I played all my usual practice session today!

That means mountain king (which I got almost a high score on, somehow), my 3 songs, and the French song!

It was nice to play the full set again.

I may have pushed it a little far.

I don’t want to physically suffer for my art.

But my kids were both singing along with me and it’s hard to stop when that happens.

Site Maintenance

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Hello,

We recently changed hosts. And somebody forgot to tell the host to migrate the sites. That somebody was me. So last night, our old host took us down because we hadn’t paid because we weren’t with them anymore, and the new hosts didn’t have anything, so let’s just say I’ve had a long twenty-four hours trying to get everything back together.

The site is back up now. But we are going to have to slowly reinstall our plugins and other things to make sure there’s no major issues, so for the moment it’s going to look a little ugly, but I’m working on it slowly. Mostly because of health issues.

Thank you for your understanding.

Éric