I went to the dentist today and it was not such a pleasant experience. I'm in a program at the dental school at the University of North Carolina where I'm seen by seen by a student, and the one who takes care of me is really great. The program at the university is well run, and I appreciate it not...
Eric Sherman Fear from rumur on Vimeo. Dr. Eric Sherman discusses the role that fear plays in pain syndromes I interviewed Ram Dass the other day for "All The Rage". He told me that when he had a stroke, he was resting in the hospital room surrounded by people who were worried, thinking "the stroke was a bad thing". He cleared...
Last week I posted an article that raised questions about the validity of the data being used to promote the flu shot. This post led to a great deal of interesting debate. It quickly became clear that the article in question had been largely discredited. However, the response on both sides of the issue points to different issues at play. I...
On some level, at its heart, our new film "All the Rage" is largely about ideas related to belief. Modern science uses the word placebo to describe the effect of one's belief on the efficacy of a treatment. When drugs, or procedures, are tested they are only deemed effective if they work better than a sham drug or procedure. The...
The above picture is a leaf growing on a big plant in my living room. The plant was there before I was born and it continues to live today. However, it was a bit sickly until recently. My wife and I re-potted it into a container that was twice the previous size. We also started to pay attention to it....
Half-Cocked - Guiloteens scene from rumur on Vimeo. The modern world is fast paced and full of deadlines. Media Makers are often expected to create work immediately, and to communicate information ever more succinctly. People want their news fast and clear. Unfortunately, things are never as simple as we want them to be. As filmmakers, we often face difficulties because the...
Shortly after my future wife and I moved in together, we got two very cute kittens. We were in our early 20’s and woefully unprepared to take care of ourselves, let alone other living things, but we did the best we could. The only pet I had as a child was a box turtle that I found near the creek....
Ants from rumur on Vimeo. A few years ago, I read Jonah Lehrer's article in Wired "Why Science Is Failing Us". It was a lightbulb moment for me as he connected the dots to so many things that I had been thinking but didn't have the words, or data, to pull together. The deepest connection was his illumination...
A couple of years ago when I was doing research for our Dr. Sarno documentary I came across a blog post by Will Sacks. In this piece he talks about his ups and downs with back pain, surgery, and eventually finding Dr. Sarno’s “Healing Back Pain”. At the end of his intense tale he writes: Despite the fact that we have...
I haven’t written about our film “Battle for Brooklyn” in a while. Other projects have take up my time and attention. However, this weekend it played on Direct TV and we got a slew of messages from people who saw it and were shocked to find that things were not as they had seemed. Also this week it’s been reported...
I'm not too good at grief. My mom is extremely emotional, and though I take after her in many ways, I'm more like my father when it comes to being sad. Like him, I cry in movies, but I have a difficult time accessing my own emotions. When I was in high school I remember sitting in rickety pool chairs,...
Last weekend, a couple of days after my wife’s best friend Letha passed away, we went camping with friends to celebrate their anniversary. Caroline, whose anniversary it was, suggested that we do something to recognize Letha’s passing, so we made a small raft out of sticks and sent it out into the lake with a rock that Suki had gotten...