About PRISM

Hello! I'm Gabriel Tovar and this is my personal blog. My whole life I've had a huge appreciation for the arts, from the very bottom of my heart of hearts. Here you'll find reviews, fictions or essays about videogames, film, comedy, music, or whatever else inspires me.

Videogames took my heart thanks to my older brother. I used to watch him play games on our creaky family PC in the late 90s and early aughts. His diet consisted mostly of NES, SNES or Gameboy emulation, as well as some PC titles like Ultima VII or the Dune RTS. At our school's computer lab, I was able to dive into Jazz Jackrabbit, which the teacher was kind enough to copy on a floppy for me to take home. Soon after, I mustered up the courage to ask my brother if he would teach me how to wrangle those emulators, and I was off to the races.

Films took my heart thanks to my dad. He and my mom divorced when I was 6 years old, which was pretty tough to handle. It was not graceful. He moved out and would pick me up on weekends and take me to Blockbuster where he, as a cinephile himself, would guide me through those shelves of VHS cases so we could take a good one home. We would often pair it with a delicious bag of microwave popcorn.

Comedy took my heart in a similar way. On those same weekends we would watch Seinfeld. He also showed me Les Luthiers, making me laugh through our car rides. Later I would dive deeper into standup through YouTube and Netflix, as well as Tim and Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job! Of course, I cannot skip mention of the Coen brothers and their luxuriously meticulous brand of dark humor, which I champion to this day.

Music took my heart a little later. Or at least, music taste did (as a small child I listened to a casette of Dragon Ball Z music and a CD of the original soundtrack for the Pokemon movie). Once again I thank my brother for his peculiar preference for 70s progressive rock. He would often play albums on the 5.1 Creative PC speakers he saved up for. Hell, later he purchased a proper 5.1 Panasonic system where we could listen to the pristine sound of the expensive King Crimson DVD audio discs he would order online. Also planted the seed for my audiophilia!

Life is too short to drink enough from all these fountains and more, so join me in doing the best we can.