deeplyshallow // about

about deeplyshallow

This is Deeplyshallow, and I'm the guy you can blame for it.

DS turns ten years old in 2008. It began as an online literary journal, published until 2001 (though I receive submissions from writers to this day). That year I finally bought the domain and the site became my personal archive of work. I began writing a blog in 2001 as well. (The current archive dates back to 2002; the first eighteen months of posts were lost in a series of misadventures. Wayback has a few cached pages of the missing content here. You're not missing much.)

In 2004, after working six years as a web designer, I left my day job and began freelancing full-time. Since then the site has evolved to include a portfolio of my work -- though most of the work shown is from the freelance years. I stopped freelancing in 2006 and went back to the design grind. The work I do now is generally of a higher-profile nature and cannot always be shared, though what can be may also be found here and there on DS.

About Me
Content Features
Photography
Fine Print

about me

I was born in 1978, and raised alternately in Alaska and Texas. I have since lived in Washington (not bad) and Nevada (downright evil). I happily reside with my girlfriend, Felicia, in Morro Bay, California, where the weather is always fine, even when it isn't. I work as an art director for Web Associates in San Luis Obispo.

I am: a shameless movie geek who once drove three thousand miles just to see a movie I'd already seen fifty times before. A factoid in The Wall Street Journal. A competent (at best) third baseman. A drummer with wrist problems, which makes me all angsty and shit. A writer with a couple of not-that-special novels under my belt, along with one (still unfinished) really good one.

I am known for: occasionally dancing (in cowboy boots, no less). Stomping around in said cowboy boots. My inability to see or hear anything Alaska without becoming homesick. Southern Comfort and Coke. Being that guy in the office with the chronic insomnia. Being a night owl (which makes the insomnia less problematic, now and then). Sneezes so famous that they've been sampled in last year's number one hit record (Billboard Brazil, Dec. 2007).

I believe: that night skiing is the only ski worth ing. That there's not much better than a road trip through the Pacific Northwest. Except maybe any road trip to just about anywhere. That Darryl Strawberry had the sweetest swing the game has ever seen (and I totally dare you to prove otherwise).

features
Scattered amongst the unforgivably large number of posts about insomnia is some actual, unique content that's got some value, if you don't mind slogging through the archives to dig it up. To that end I've tried to make it a little easier to find (hence the heart-stoppingly long columns of links). Here are some points of interest:

The Eleanor Sketches
Eleanor is the working title of a novel I have been writing since 2002. Unlike previous books, this one has proven a greater challenge. I've been writing and publishing 'sketches' on DS since early 2004 -- short-form explorations of plot, character studies, and so forth. Not all will conform, chronologically or otherwise, to the actual novel's story. All, however, have helped me to better write that actual story (which is at present still very much unfinished). The sketches are always available in the sidebar, or can be read here.

Movie & TV Reviews
Anybody who knows me has probably regretted a number of conversations they've had with me about movies. I tend to go on and on. In 2004 I started writing occasional reviews of movies that interested me, whether they were current or not. The review archive includes everything from classics (The Hustler) to personal favorites (The Mosquito Coast). Reviews are located in the sidebar.

The Dialogue Archives
For a short time several years ago, I abandoned the site's traditional blog format and began writing (mostly) fictional conversations. I've always been a sucker for well-written dialogue, and wanted to try my hand at it. The dialogue archives can be found here, but since they're a dusty relic of the site that was, they exist on gloriously broken pages. If you can ignore the chaos of broken images and code, you'll find they're worth a few looks.

Manual
In 2002 I was part of a writing experiment that produced Manual, an anthology of fiction, essays and a single lonely poem. Seventeen writers participated, and offered the anthology for download on each of their web sites. Last I heard, the thing had been downloaded some forty thousand times rather quickly after its release. That was six years ago, so who knows who's been reading. If you haven't, then you should. It's not like you were planning on actually doing anything today.

photography
Most of what you see on this site I'm probably responsible for. Good photos are probably accidents. Older photos -- childhood pictures, 1980s Alaska, etc. -- were shot mostly by my folks, back in the days when they were young and life was all boundless and such. The really crisp photos were taken with a Canon Digital Rebel that doesn't belong to me. The rest were shot either with my older-than-shit first digital camera, the Kodak DX3700, or with my trusty Canon Powershot A620.

the fine print
Hosted by Kionic. Studiously observed by Mint. Content published in Wordpress. Content publication wonderfully prettified by Tiger Admin. Graphical type set in Proxima Nova. Icons are from Stockholm. Kickass favicon courtesy of Mr. Keberly. 9rules member since 2006. Content remains, unless otherwise specified, copyright Jason Gurley, and you better believe my girl will kick your ass.