Author Archives: jarelc

If you’ve read this blog with some semblance of regularity (a viewership list that, as far as I know, includes solely my grandmother) you will have noticed a frequent tilt toward politics. I’m not sure what causes my inability to stay away from the topic. I assume growing up in close proximity to Washington thereContinue reading “Might Makes Right: A Look at Lawful-Evil”

I’ve reached, in my own woefully subjective opinion, a relative equilibrium in my sports fandom. There exists some happy medium wherein you care enough about a team to experience genuine joy at success without so deep an involvement as to allow a loss, error, or missed shot to torpedo your evening/day/week/life/career. That’s not to sayContinue reading “Drinking Poison and Waiting for the Other Person to Die”

I hate to start a post by saying I’ve been slightly remiss in updating lately; I’ve seen that spell the beginning of the end of many a fine blog. The posts come fewer and further between, the reasons for skipping them multiplying. But- I’ve been slightly remiss in updating lately. Nothing so nefarious as waningContinue reading “The (Re)Rise of the Gods”

Back in February I wrote in a post on the power of seeing yourself in stories about my enjoyment of seeing archetypical Jewish characters on The West Wing. At the time I wanted to differentiate between stories where a character’s racial identity is an essential part of their background, but not the focus of theContinue reading “I don’t know- but it’s a tradition”

I’ve teased writing this article since I started writing this blog. I spent a few years at an old job developing workforce data reports; the client would ask a (usually poorly-worded) question and we’d figure out what they meant, pour through databases to grab relevant fields, write queries, summarize findings, and deliver. We would usuallyContinue reading “The J.K. Rowling Dilemma”

I half-lied. We’re absolutely going to talk about the power to enact political or institutional change in stories. But the second half of the line has naught to do with anything. I just firmly adhere to the philosophy that one should, paraphrasing Rahm Emmanuel (perhaps the premier American power-broker of the 2000s), ‘never allow aContinue reading “Power (and those too weak to seek it)”

A bit of a different type of post this week. When I created Twenty-five Hundred Stories I broke the blog into two parts; this website (surprise) and an Instagram page. By and large I wanted to limit the former to longer discussions on stories/storytelling and the latter to shorter content like book reviews or pictureContinue reading “Let’s Talk Fantasy (Part 3: My Seven Most Impactful Series)”

Today’s goal is a short post. But that’s been my goal for every other article I’ve written and I had to split one of those into three posts (and counting). So, you know, take that with a pinch of salt. My recent free time has gone toward a more-or-less completionist replay of Legend of Zelda:Continue reading “Et Voilà! The Grand Reveal”

With sincerest apologies to Sara Bareilles and her hit 2007 single ‘Love Song,’ I lied and in fact will attempt to write an article on romance in stories. I realize I’m only one sentence in, but a quick aside- looks like my senior year of high school was a banner year for romantic classics suchContinue reading “I’m not gonna write you a love [blog article] ’cause you asked for it”

February is Black History Month here in the U.S. and I planned to write about why representation, either as the character or as the storyteller, matters. I do however need to pause for a second. While setting up the photo for this post I was surprised and a little disturbed by how few books IContinue reading “Seeing Yourself in Stories”