Periscope Depth

I believe that love alone might do these things for you

Liz Caradonna responded to my post about self-promotion for amateur performers. Her response is great; go read. Liz’s point is that the “asshole strategy” is rarely a conscious strategy per se. If someone can explain to me “this is our marketing strategy because ______,” and reference some insight, some rationale and preferably some demonstrated results [...]

I got so many that I can’t close my safe at night

Fellow marketroid Liz Caradonna wrote a blog post on how to be an improviser on Facebook, a post itself inspired by another excellent article on why your friends are not (or shouldn’t be) your fans. The advice therein doesn’t just apply to improvisers. It’s useful to any performer, or any form of creative business, or [...]

wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave

Some day, thirty or more years from now, you’ll come visit me in my dingy home. I’ll bustle around and play host, offering you a drink or pulling down old yearbooks to show you. You’ll see me bump into coffee tables or misplaced chairs. “I worry about the Professor,” you’ll whisper to your friends. “He [...]

what I do, I do at will

A Dance With Dragons: It’s good. Martin’s strength, more than anything else, lies in creating believable characters and putting us inside their heads. Even the most treacherous bastards in the world – Jaime, Cersei, Theon, Melisandre – earn an ounce of sympathy when we see the world as they see it. You may still hate [...]

I could deal with trying to process pigeons acting like they’re doves

Student #1: I can’t go to your party. We’re going to an anti-war rally. Student #2: I have a question. What does it mean to be anti-war? Student #1: It means you’re anti-war. Student #2: I know, but… What does it do? I could be anti-cancer, but shit’s still gonna happen. – Overheard in New [...]

if I was Santa Claus, I’d cook up a feast

Breaking Bad: Without question, the best show on television. It’s a close fight with Mad Men, but Breaking Bad beats it. The S4 premiere makes that clear. No other show unifies plot, theme and cinematographic vision with as much fidelity as Breaking Bad. No other show tells a grander story with more picayune subject matter. [...]

a perfect storm in a teacup but you must drink it down down down, drink it down down down

Reading A Dance with Dragons*. I am useless to you for at least a few more days. _________________ * Words I never thought I’d type. It still amazes me that I hold a copy of this book in my hands, that I didn’t have to chase a mad monk through a burning library while he [...]

is there an app for that?

I’m sure the following exists, but I can’t find it. And I can’t describe it well enough to Google it*, a maddening feeling in its own right. I throw myself at your feet, Internet, a supplicant for better productivity. Picture a corkboard with index cards full of notes tacked up. I can rearrange the cards [...]

hideous progeny

Hideous Progeny: the weekend that produced Frankenstein has so much drama in its premise, you’d swear it’s as much of a fable as the novel that came out of it. You have Lord Byron, a scandal-ridden celebrity; Percy Bysshe Shelley, a rising star in the world of poetry; and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, daughter of two [...]

you never give me your money; you only give me your funny paper

I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough; swore little; diced not above seven times a week; went to a bawdy-house once in a quarter—of an hour; paid money that I borrowed, three or four times … – Wm. Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1 A few friends shared David Brooks’s [...]

keep looking »

  • Periscope Depth

    The website of John Perich, author of TOO CLOSE TO MISS and editor for Overthinking It. He's learning about writing, marketing, publishing and promotion, and he encourages you to learn along with him.

    perich@periscopedepth.com

  • TOO CLOSE TO MISS




    "... opens with a bang and never relents ..."
    "... from chapter one, I couldn't put the damn thing down ..."
    "... already looking forward to Perich's next book ..."

    Mara Cunningham knew that sleeping with a married man was a bad idea. But when her lover shows up in the hospital after his wife and son are murdered, the rumors about her turn dangerous. Now she's the prime suspect in a double homicide, and the real killers will stop at nothing to silence her ...

    Buy the book that readers are calling "a great, suspenseful thriller" at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online retailers.



  • Tags

    air travel an evening with the professor apartment baltimore ravens barack obama books boston dancing dating davis square drinking driving economics family feminism football friends health hip hop improvboston institutions introvert jiu-jitsu karaoke language mad men marketing meta movies music overthinking it politics poll rant religion rpgs silly the show that never ends the wire tv video games weather wedding work writing