Author Archives: geoffreylong

Geoffrey Long is a media analyst, scholar, and storyteller exploring transmedia experiences, emerging entertainment platforms and the future of entertainment as the Lead Narrative Producer for the Narrative Design Team at Microsoft Studios. He is an alum of the MIT Comparative Media Studies program, a FoE Fellow with the Futures of Entertainment community, and a co-editor of the Playful Thinking book series from the MIT Press. His personal site can be found at geoffreylong.com.

What a long, strange day it’s been.

Today was a very long, very odd, very wet type of day. I woke up this morning raring to go and Get Things Done, an ambition which got dampened (quite literally) by the onslaught of yet another rainstorm dumping down on Boston at around 9:30 AM. I grumbled for a bit and went back to […]

Speed bumps.

I had the plan all worked out in my head. I’d done the preliminary research, I’d laid the groundwork, now all there was left to do was the doing. Whoo boy. What I was trying to do (still am, actually – if anyone can help make this work I’d be grateful): use RSS aggregator functions […]

Good migrations.

Slowly, bit by bit, the new Tip of the Quill is coming online. I spent a big chunk of the evening tonight formatting the individual entry pages for the new version, so they’re mostly ready to roll. There’s a bunch of functionality that I’d specially-built into the old TOTQ that I think I’m going to […]

Equipped.

Like yesterday, today was another extremely full day. My folks and I got up this morning and headed back downtown to explore Beacon Hill, where Mom traipsed down Charles Street poking her head into every antique store she could find while Dad and I grabbed coffee from a gold-plated Starbucks and then wandered around looking […]

Inching closer to a relaunch.

As I write this, it’s about 12:30 AM on the day after Memorial Day. Last week was the end of my first year at MIT and the halfway point to my Master’s degree, and the several days’ worth of aftermath so far has been filled with friends, films, food, family and fun. The biggest news: […]

30:30 Bill

When he first heard the news on the radio he couldn’t believe it — so he switched on the television, since visuals were harder to fake than words. When he saw it on CNN he still didn’t buy it, so he enlisted in the service to see for himself. He went through the training, received […]

30:29 Cody

She tries to tell him it’s a good thing, tries to make him smile, but all he hears is her desire to leave and he stares at his hands on the table. She tries to promise she’ll be back but the words stick in her throat because who is she to say such things when […]

30:28 Kevin

The taste of sawdust is heavy in the air, mixed with sweat, grease and oil. The polishing rag sits abandoned where it fell smack in the middle of the half-gleaming hood of the 1939 cherry red Ford de Soto cut and chopped and remixed into the precide hot rod that the coolest kid in school […]

30:27 Brian and Sherry

When she came home she couldn’t find it, When he left home he couldn’t stand it, When she tried to make a home she failed Because he wouldn’t have any of it. Some of us are homemakers, Some of us are homewreckers, Some of us carry our homes with us Like so many turtles, or […]

30:26 Tats Cru

The graffiti on the overpass on the edge of town is letter-for-letter the same as its sister located on the other side of the world and linked by some arcane tag magic known only to the artists of gates, doors and liminal spaces.