My name is Brian Siano, and in between the occasional nine-to-five job, I do some free-lance writing. I've published in the Philadelphia City Paper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, In These Times, Z, the Philadelphia Weekly, but most often in magazines like The Humanist and Skeptic. Right now, I'm looking for a position in the Philadelphia area where I can, well, find success and happiness and a decent 401(k) plan.
This is my personal website. I've only recently settled on a design for the place, and it's still in progress. However, if you'd like to see a sample of a web site I've developed that's more or less finished, have a look at The Flashman Papers Project.
I've made my current resumé available as an Adobe Acrobat file. You can view or download it by clicking here. (You can download the shareware Adobe reader by going to the Adobe web site.)
I made a small video about some tree planting in Clark Park. Enjoy. Hope you like Django.
I've started on a new woodworking/restoration project: a chest of drawers. Click on the link in the navigation bar to the left.
It's been a while since I've updated this site, so here's what's New or Semi-New. The first is that I've put up pictures of a Radiator Cover I built a few months ago.
The second is that I've finally worked up a decent HTML version of an article I'm very proud of. It's called "Blue Smoke, Mirrors, and Designer Science: How the Public Relations Industry Compromises Democracy," and even though I haven't even tried to update it, I put it up here because a number of recent books have come out that expand on the stuff I write about.
A small addition: a collection of scenes I'd like to see in the upcoming Harry Potter books.
A recent camcorder purchase prompts a few changes to the website. I've added some low-quality pictures to my Paint stripping page, for one thing.
But I've added a new page to show off (again, with low-quality pictures) the workshop I've been building in my basement. And to demonstrate that I haven't been stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.
Okay, it's been three years since I last updated this site. However, today, I've uploaded draft of a page about my first woodworking project.
And I've got a blog going on at LiveJournal. Click here to read it.
I'm currently involved with a local community controversy-- namely, a pair of community groups have decided to make the Spruce Hill section of West Philadelphia an Historic District. It basically means higher repair costs, a lot more bureaucratic garbage we'd have to go through to fix our homes, and giving a lot of power to local pecksniffs who'd love to be able to notify the city when someone doesn't install the right kind of porch light.
Right now, the Spruce Hill Neighborhood Alliance is leading the fight against this. I'm one of their organizers, as well as their webmaster, so a lot of what I've written about this issue is over at that website.
But that's the official stuff for an official group, and one has to make compromises when compiling public statements and FAQs. For the stuff I want to say and circulate independently of the SHNA, I'll set up my own page devoted to the Historic District in the next few weeks.
The kind people at Alfred Knopf, Inc. were kind enough to send me a review copy of Robert Caro's The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. So I figure I should earn it by writing a review. You can read it by clicking here.
Neighborhood Activism news this month; a couple of local community groups want to have the Spruce Hill area of West Philly designated an Historic District. I'm pretty certain this is NOT a very good idea, so I've gotten involved in local efforts to prevent this from happening. One such effort is the creation of a website on the issue. I've just posted a draft of it at http://www.briansiano.com/SpruceHill.
I've removed the Kitchen Suggestion materials described below.
I've added a page that asks for help in redesigning my kitchen. If you have any ideas, feel free to have a look, download the files, and get in touch.
Two new additions to the site. The first is "Humanist Error," a longer version of a humor piece I did for the newsweekly In These Times. It's about a pretty silly direct-mail solicitation I received for an atheist-humanist organization.
The second is a very long review of E.O. Wilson's best-seller Consilience that I wrote for Skeptic magazine.
At long last, I've finally settled on a design scheme for this place.
I don't think anyone's going to be surprised that I gave up on the Art Nouveau and Art Deco designs, and decided instead on something that looked nice, printed well, and satisfied my jones for prewar design schemes. And since engraved stock certificates seem to be going the way of manual typewriters, the dodo, and the Bill of Rights, it appeals to my love of things that are gorgeously detailed and complicated.
You may want to hunt down a copy of a lovely coffee-table book of stock certificate art, titled The Art of the Market, by Bob Tamarin, Les Krantz, and George LaBarre.
I worked up a page so friends could look at some of the design elements I've been toying with for this site's final design. I'm mainly looking for feedback and advice, so if you'd like, click here to look at the stuff.
Prior to my putting my articles online, I'm putting up a brief explanation of the Skeptics and the magazines I've written for. It's very informal, but it'll have to do for the time being.
It's springtime here in Philly, and that means hauling out the bottles of chemicals, towels, papers, scrapers, and heat guns, and trying to remove two generations' worth of industrial paint and revealing the oak that's in my house. And to offer and solicit advice, I've worked up a quick page on my own experiences in stripping paint.
Copyright 2000-6 Brian Siano
(unless otherwise noted)