Harry Warden for President
My write-up for My Bloody Valentine‘s finally up. Links to a couple of other reviews in the post below this. Hitting Friday the 13th today, in Chicago. Even brought my mask.
February Updater
— my AWP Chicago events this week (two readings, one panel, a meet-up*, one screening**) : Wednesday the 11th, 6:00, Chiasmus Press Reading and Party , Barbara’s Bookstore, 1218 South Halsted Street; no clue what I’ll read, but likely something from Dugatti Thursday the 12th, 7:00, FC2 Reading and Reception, Curtiss Hall, 10th floor of
AWP 2009
http://www.awpwriter.org/conference/2009offsite.php (W & Th nights) http://www.awpwriter.org/conference/2009schedFri.php (12:00 – 1:15 Friday) Twin Wells
Despereaux
Ninety-nine percent of the time, I’m a fool for an animated feature film. Cars, Wall*E, Bolt. Monsters, Inc, the Shreks, the Toy Storys. Flushed Away, Ratatouillie. Anxiously awaiting Aliens vs. Monsters. Have never quite gotten all the way over the brilliance of Hoodwinked. So, yeah, was expecting The Tale of Despereaux to be another sure
Books: the 2008 installment
Accidentally cribbed a little list down last night, of books I’d somehow, embarassingly, to my own detriment, not got around to reading in 2008. No excuses, really. I mean, as usual, I read just a whole tower of novels, but I couldn’t even start to say how many or what they were. Had never considered
Cinemuck, 2008
At least according to me. But, I don’t know, everywhere I click, people are pasting their best-of lists on-line. Feel all remiss if I don’t play along just a little. However, realizing that, now that I actually live close to a theatre, and to all kinds of opportunities in Denver, I’ve been somehow going to
Infinite Jest
Doing a reading today, a Dead Authors thing, where we all take turns reading stuff from writers who died this year. I’ve got David Foster Wallace, and’ll of course be doing the aloud thing to some Infinite Jest. Too, it was cool: I wrote a friend, asked him what I should read, and one of
Quincy Mueller Forgot How To Die
Can’t imagine what chance I really have here, against who-all I’m up against, but “Captain’s Lament” (from Clarkesworld) is shortlisted for a Black Quill over at Darkscribe. Register and vote? Not necessarily for me, but, y’know, for the best story. As for links for others : –Paul Tremblay’s “The Blog at the End of the
Colored Chalk: Sins of the Father
New story up over there, “These Amber Waves of Grain”. Good company. I wrote it the same sitting almost with that “‘Tis the Season,” in Passages North. And with one I always forget to try to get published, about an archery accident / nipplebotomy (or, not -botomy, yeah, but I don’t know the right-sounding suffix
Barry Lopez’s Whiting Award Talk
Here. Keeping this so short so you can read him instead. It’s so good, so right.
Unread
I’d guess we’ve all got holes in our reading. Which I’m likely saying just to make myself feel better, yeah. Anyway, Faulkner, say. I’ve read maybe five of his novels? But I don’t feel bad about that either, because I was pretty bored about two novels in. And Hemingway, man. Only made it through two
On the way gone
Just two more things: — got a piece (interview, not fiction) up at CU’s InPrint — got a story coming out in Colored Chalk 5 anyway, see some of you in Portland.
Too/two fast
Links, that is: — in the mail today, the French version of Native Storiers. Five stories from Bleed Into Me in it. — the flyer for Wednesday in Portland. Which I really thought I’d linked already, but the world’s a confusing place . . . Anyway, hopefully HEROES and TERMINATOR are both new tonight. Just
Palahniuk & Bond
The only connection there being that I’m writing about both of them now: hit RANT the other day, and, like SNUFF, I really dug it. I’m liking the direction he’s going lately. Anyway, I guess that’s the complete text of my review there, ‘I dug it,’ but, specifically, and all spoilerly, so watch out, he
Thus Spake Pumpkinhead
Don’t know if everybody’s been keeping up, but over at Popmatters Marco Lanzagorta (of the never uncool “Dread Reckoning“) has been doing a Night of the Living Dead fortieth anniversay essay collection the last five days. Some ridiculously cool stuff, including a little intro from Romero. Anyway, got a piece up there today, as a
Four Movies, Five Days
Which really isn’t that many, I know. I mean, I used to love cueing up the whole STAR TREK series, watching them back to back. Anyway, all over the spectrum here: SYNECHDOCHE, NEW YORK. Free screening with Charlie Kaufman there for the Q&A. Which was great. Or, great if you like watching somebody writhe under
Two Fast Links
Texas Monthly‘s been doing this serial novel, TWIN WELLS. I’ve got chapter 11. Podcast too. Here. First line: “Baldwin wished he could have mustered a bit more surprise when the dead man rose from the road in the sheriff’s headlights.” New interview up at Rain Taxi. And a third link too: I’m on Facebook now,
Incunabula
That sounds like some secret cousin to the incubus, yeah? If I’m even spelling it right. Anyway, was digging through some old stuff yesterday and found this sheet of paper from 1997, when I was finishing Fast Red Road, trying to make it all straight in my head (somewhat). Think the only other novel I’ve
The Least of My Scars
One of my better memories is working for this seed research company fifteen years or so ago. Way out north of Lubbock, TX. There was this guy called Rooster who ran a lot of cotton and sorghum out there, fields which were all on the way to the plots we worked every day. Rooster was
Hindsight: Appaloosa
The western may be one of the few if not only genres where character development is actually at crosspurposes with audience expectations. We don’t want the passing-through cowpoke/gunhand/lawman/whatever to actually change, do we? Isn’t it all better if they stay the same? Granted, maybe a more intense version of themselves, of the self they’re trying
Beautiful line
It’s by Roger Ebert, in his review for Nights in Rodanthe: “Paul doesn’t evacuate because of some dialogue he is made to say.” I don’t see how I could love anything more than that. It’s even better in context, too. And, as for why I was reading about Nights in Rodanthe. No idea. I was
Lost in the Funhouse (with a television set)
So, the LOST writers claim not to be lost at all. They’re not just reeling the episodes out from nothing. It’s all going somewhere, somehow, some perfect way. Moreover (first time I’m using that word. cool, yeah?), they also guarantee that this crazy upside-down inside-out unfantasy island, it’s not some form of limbo or purgatory,
T-minus 24: Brown U.
I’m there tomorrow night, Family Guy* territory. Reading stuff aloud. Maybe eating a cookie or two, answering questions. Here for more specific type of info. Too, thanks to my students, I’m now hooked into Salad Fingers. Better late than never, I figure. ____________________________________________ * which I’ve still yet to ever see an episode of —
My New Favorite Hour of Television.
FRINGE, yep. Best series opener I think I’ve seen. And that’s including the white bears in LOST, the aliens in X-FILES, the space jellyfish in STAR TREK NEXT GENERATION, the plummeting cheerleader in HEROES, the (if I’m remembering correctly) sewn-up mouths in MILLENIUM, the look on Tom Vail’s face when Alyson denies knowing him in