So the other day we were scrolling through available movies on streaming, and I spotted The Outsiders* on the list. Readers of a certain age** are likely to remember The Outsiders, the novel, which we all read in high school back in the day. Or at least, most of us did.
Continue reading “Trailer Tuesday: “The Outsiders””Me: “Hey, look! The Outsiders!”
Wife: “What’s The Outsiders?”
So not long ago I was reading The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, by Michael Chabon.
So a little while back I read a book called The Rock Child, by Win Blevins:
Apparently this book was later republished under the title Of Love and Demons. The original title refers to a rock formation in the mountains; the revised title refers to … uh … well, I’m not sure, exactly. There’s not really anything supernatural here, but possibly the “demon” would be the book’s main villain, Porter Rockwell, an actual person sometimes referred to as “The Destroying Angel of Mormondom”, who spends most of the novel in pursuit of Our Heroes, consisting of the Mormon-raised half-Indian Asie, abducted Tibetan nun Sun Moon, and … Sir Richard Burton*?!
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday: “The Rock Child””
… but this is 2020. Just you wait.
No, really, it is! Or at least, it was last year — Congress passed a bill designating September 2019 as such! It seems even these days, it’s possible for the parties to agree that Brain Aneurysms Are Bad. Of course, in September of 2019, I was still a couple of months away from being forced to pay attention to such things … 🤷♂️
In 2020 I guess it has only been designated as such in a few states, but you can read more about National Brain Aneurysm Awareness Month here.
Continue reading “September is National Brain Aneurysm Awareness Month”So this week I have a bit of a smorgasbord from our viewing over the last few months: Things that are not long enough to become their own “Not a Review” but that I found amusing at the time. Because, really, this blog is mostly a series of posts about things that amuse me. Mostly.
Continue reading “Odds & Ends from This & That”So a while back (like, in June; I told you I had stuff stacked up), I was reading Hope and Red, by Jon Skovron, a novel which is sort of half pirate adventure and half urban fantasy, with a generous helping of ninja-style shenanigans.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has been raging on, we—like much of California—have been staying home pretty much all the time, as San Diego County’s numbers were not moving in a good direction for some weeks. Check it out: I’ve been keeping charts.
So remember a while back when I said I was waiting for the artwork for my new novel Father’s Books as well as for my reissue of Night Watchman, which became orphaned after Mundania Press abruptly shut down operations last year? And how I said I wasn’t going to release the books until I had the artwork, so as not to have to bother doing it twice? And how, a little while after that, I said, well, okay, maybe I’ll release the eBook versions with the placeholder covers, but that I wasn’t going to release the paperback versions yet? Wellllll, if I may quote Spike from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”:
Continue reading “Limited Edition “Father’s Books” Cover! Get It While It’s Limited! Get It While It’s A Cover!”Spike: “I had a plan.”
Angel, “In the Dark”
Angel: “You, a plan?”
Spike: “A good plan, smart plan, carefully laid out. But, I got bored.”
[Spike pushes Angel against a wall]
Spike: “All that watching, waiting. My legs started to cramp.”
So there are some kids who you can just tell are going to grow up to become artists, because even when they’re little, they’re creating ridiculous good drawings and sketches. For instance, years ago, one of my wife’s 10-year-old students, upon learning that his teacher’s wife was a fellow Doctor Who fan, whipped up this little sketch of a Silent, a member of a group of alien religious fanatics who are one of the Eleventh Doctor’s main antagonists, whose primary ability is that nobody remembers a Silent after leaving his presence, but will still be compelled to act upon whatever instructions the Silent gave them:
Viscosity 