Todd Lyden

Cover via Amazon Ever revisit a movie that you either LOVED or HATED initially and then did a complete reevaluation of your opinion of it? Don't we do this much of the time anyway? I started thinking about it. You have a similar effect with media that we get ALL the time like radio plays. Eventually, that Lady Gaga song is not going to be as offensive to you just through repetition. I get Entertainment Weekly and saw the reviews of long time reviewers where they reconsidered previously reviewed movies. Here is a decent example: http://movie-critics.ew.com/2010/08/26/owens-reviews-revisited-metropolitan/ However, movies, and other things like food, we don't visit as often. Some we do because we clearly love them. I will ALWAYS stop channel surfing for Raiders of the Lost Ark or Jaws, for example.  Take a gander at the reviews above (go ahead, you can come back). Owen Gleiberman was forced to defend his opinion with the maker of one film! He does after twenty years come to app...

Image via Wikipedia I was struck today when I overheard a conversation. There was a great story being told and my gut wanted so desperately for me to interject at some point about a personal story that compared and related to the story I heard. People probably do this to you many times a day: you tell a personal story about something that happened to you recently or even from 20 years ago. Quickly, even if the person was enraptured by your tale, they quickly tell you one about how it happened to them. And even moreso, how their tale is worse, better or just generally MORE than yours. Why did this strike me? Because I stopped myself for that second when I realized it was just my gut telling me to horn in. I might have missed more, made myself appear a certain way, or even ruined someone's impression of me because of that gut-instinct. There probably isn't anything really wrong with it, but just as important as it is to tell stories well. It's probably just as important to li...

Allow me to explain the lengthy and confusing title.  I had read  Seth Godin's blog about Subtlety   the other day. It was the standard straight forward common sense you expect. However, something was missing that occurred to me while driving in the car and listening to the radio.  Subtle relies on the context doesn't it? In Seth's example, only two  Skull and Bones  folks would KNOW that they were in that organization based on the secret handshake right? It's about the association you can place with the communication. Back to me in the car and the radio, I heard two songs back to back on different radio stations.  First was the sublime Beach Boys song " Don't Worry Baby " that was used to excellent effect in the  Drew Barrymore  movie "Never Been Kissed." I heard the song and I could ACTUALLY see the scene where the song played. It was the final climatic scene. Very nice. Now only someone who saw the movie and probably liked it cou...