JOURNAL | Gregory KengStrasser

From Egypt to Indonesia; A Study in Writer's Block

It has been five months since I began my stay at Yayasan Bali Purnati, perhaps the most magical part of my summer. Since moving to Washington D.C. and entering the grind, I have been inundated in work and I can feel my acceleration beginning to decline. This is not uncommon for me: I frequently experience bouts of intense work periods followed by a brief interlude of laziness -- something I have been trying to rewire my brain as a positive attribute rather than a character flaw (Ellen Burstyn calls these periods "shoudless days," but for me it's usually a "shouldless month"). Of course, the constant unanswered emails, rejected applications, and inevitable self-comparisons will arise (often s

The Odyssey: A Video Game

I'm sitting here typing this to aggressive doorbell chimes from insistent neighbors. I forgot to buy candy. Pure blasphemy. I am so sorry. For the last few days, in addition to working at my day job and on Bleecker Street, I have been busy clicking away learning to CODE. It should be no surprise to anyone that The Odyssey is probably one of my favorite pieces of literature. Having first encountered it very young, it was a formative part of my development as an artist and, well, I guess, human. I have always wanted to stage the epic, but until that happens I decided to take it upon myself to try a different kind of adaptation... In college, I minored in American culture, specifically with a f