Woof Winners

I ran across a blog contest via Twitter and decided to enter for the fun of it. I had a little trouble with the entry form, so I think a few people dropped by to read a January post of mine instead of the piece on Ceremony and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but it's always nice to have new friends, and the contest results offer links to some cool writing of many types.

WOOF Contest – Top Picks

Poetry

Zorlone – “The Ice King's Vow” - "The message of the poem is slowly unravelled in exquisite lines. First it deals with thoughts and desires, then flows unerringly into the climax/denouement and finally the explosive ending or rather the chilling final lines..." -- JenaIsle

Jennifer M Scott – “Icicles” - A picture poem comparing ice to love.

Roy – “I Thought I Was Tough” - Another poem borne out of frustrations of not being able to beat what life has to dish out tome.

Zorlone – “Shy Guitar” - "Melodious, a story about love and music intertwined." - Strawberry Girl.

Dragon Blogger – “Icy Passion” - Challenged to write a poem about love and comparing it ICE without using the words heart or love, I came up with this poem about "Icy" love.

Fiction

Ferox – “The She-Demon's Anatomy” - Part one of a demonic confrontation in a fantasy novel.

Webbielady – “What's the True Measure of Intelligence?” - A recent call to two of her friends made Rogue question what is the real meaning of intelligence... Why? Why? How can we tell if a person is really intelligent? Can we really measure this thing?

Brought to you by PlotDog Press with the Serial Suspense Screenplay "Intervention

Presenting the finest of the writer’s blogs by the bloggers who write them. Highlighting the top posts as chosen by the May 29, 2009 WOOF Contest participants. Want in to join the next WOOF? The next contest ends June 12. Submit a link to your best writing post of the last 3 weeks using the form on this page. Participants, repost the winning link list within a week and you’re all set.

Other WOOF Contestants for 05/29/09

Prose

Sidney Williams – “What's on the iPod? - Montego Bay” - As I drove through another rainy morning cloaked with a grey, wet blanket, Bobby Bloom's Montego Bay popped up as my iPod shuffled songs.

About Writing

Izzy Daniels – “7 Things I Learned in High School that Can be Applied to Writing/Life” - Taking lessons learned from high school and applying them to writing.

Poetry

Roy – “I'm A Bad Liar” - A satirical poem about earning money online.

Jennifer M Scott – “Garnet Teardrops” - Inspired by a art created by a fellow blogger.

Dragon Blogger – “You've Got Mail” - Poem crafted from random words about a spam email.

Dragon Blogger – “Strength of Loss” - Memorial Day poem about losing a loved one in the service.

When I Wander – “European Patent Office (EPO) Experience, Cherished” - I have so many good things to tell about my previous colleagues and how I wish I still work with them. Now that I am in another company, all I can do is to thank each of them in a form of poem.

Deeptesh Sen – “Boatman and some love songs” - The divine, a girl and a boatman.......the air of surreal tunes.

Deeptesh Sen – “Angel of dark” - Surreal love and fear....and some soft magic!

Blog Book Tour - Pamela K. Kinney and Haunted Virginia

Pamela K. Kinney, whose Cthulhu mythos story is featured in my horror fiction podcast Fear on Demand, has a new book called Haunted Virginia, and she's doing a blog book tour since the book's official release is today.

I'm happy to welcome her here as a guest here on my corner of the web today, and I hope you'll seek out her book. Part of my goal with Fear on Demand is to promote the authors who are contributors, so let's help make her appearance on the 'cast worthwhile. And of course, feel free to share this information with anyone who's interested in the paranormal.

Haunted Virginia sounds interesting. Apparently even Mothman, one of my favorite monsters, has put in an appearance within the state's borders.

From Pamela:
"Today, my new nonfiction ghost book, Haunted Virginia: Legends, Myths and True Tales is officially released. You can find it at brick and mortar bookstores and online retailers (like Amazon). If it is not in the bookstore, they can order it for you.

So, if you like ghost stories, monsters, myths, legends, urban legends, little known myths of famous Virginians like Edgar Allan Poe and George Washington and much more, then this might be the book for your summer beach read.

Be prepared to take a journey into Pamela K. Kinney's fantastic dreams of horror, science fiction and fantasy, plus the ghosts and legends of two nonfiction ghost book, Haunted Richmond, Virginia and Haunted Virginia: Legends, Myths and True Tales."

From the back cover
ISBN: 978-0-7643-3281-4
$14.99
256 Pages

Virginia is unique with haunting myths, legends, and yes, even true stories that may sound like legends.

Take a ghostly tour of this historic state to learn about the Bunnyman urban legend and what happens to mortals at his Bunnyman Bridge in Clifton at midnight on Halloween. Discover the myths that surround Edgar Allan Poe and other famous Virginians.

See why Natural Bridge is actually a haunted tourist attraction; and what makes the Great Dismal Swamp so creepy: Is it the ghosts or Bigfoot? Meet the Witch of Pungo in Virginia Beach.

Find out that Mothman and the Jersey Devil weren’t just seen in their own states, but actually visited Virginia at one time.

Read about witches, demons, monsters, ghosts, pirates, strange animals, and Civil War legends. Visit an amazing, frightening, and even intriguing Virginia that you never knew existed.

A little about Pamela
Pamela K. Kinney is an author of published horror, science fiction, fantasy, horror, poetry, and so far, two nonfiction books, Haunted Richmond, Virginia and Haunted Virginia: Legends, Myths and True Tales, both published by Schiffer Publishing. Using the pseudonym, Sapphire Phelan, she has published erotic and sweet paranormal/fantasy/science fiction romance, also poetry and a couple of erotic horror stories, including the current ones, erotic urban fantasy, Being Familiar With a Witch by Phaze Books and erotic Lovecraftian horror novella, Unwitting Sacrifice, by Under the Moon. She also has done acting on stage and in films. Find out more about her at:

http://FantasticDreams.50megs.com

or at either of her MySpaces: http://www.myspace.com/PamelaKKinney and http://www.myspace.com/SapphirePhelan.

She admits she can always be found at her desk and on her computer, writing. And yes, the house and husband sometimes suffers for it!

Order now from these outlets:

Schiffer Books

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Target

BAM

and -- this is Sid speaking again -- Powell's the City of Books is listing it too!

I hope you'll check it out and look for Pamela's other books and stories as well, and you can follow Pamela on Twitter as well.

Giving Voice in Age of the Zombies

A long time ago, I mean that, a long time ago, I decided my artistic leanings such as they are, tilt toward writing rather than acting. A lot of people should probably appreciate that. The world's been spared me as a performer, until now. But as you know, as opportunities come my way I've been doing a little acting of late.

Not too long ago, I got a chance to do some voice acting. I'll be heard on an episode of the audio drama podcast 19 Nocturne Boulevard in the near future, and I'm Jake in a new ongoing audio series called Age of the Zombies.

I wrote an adaptation of War of the Worlds--$5.95 on iTunes--a couple of years ago, and that was recorded in the usual radio way with actors together in a studio, but digital audio and iPod popularity are making all kinds of new dramas possible.

Vocal talent extraordinaire Glen Hallstrom, aka Smokestack Jones, who's doing intros and reading some of the stories for Fear on Demand, discovered the Age of the Zombies auditions and suggested I send in a tryout. They needed a Southern voice.

So, I sent in my mp3 files, and they asked me to be an ex-military guy in a world overrun by zombies.

The result is available now on iTunes or on the Necropolis Studios website, all for free. Glen's in the show, too.

It's really a cool zombie story, written by Dave Frizzell, and it's fun to play in his sandbox, participating in the storytelling by giving voice to a character he created.

Check it out for a great Romero-esque universe narrated by a young woman caught in the midst of the madness.

New Horror Podcast Episode - Ashes to Ashes

We have a new episode posted at FearonDemand.com. It's the first in our "Flash of Fear" flash fiction installments.

We're trying to keep to a monthly schedule, but occasionally, short installments will come along as mid-month bonus episodes.

This installment is from Amy Grech, and it's a ghostly little tale called "Ashes to Ashes."

Jump to FearonDemand.

The Wind-Up Ceremony And The Humanities

My critical paper is in the mail. Funny, for as much as I hammer keyboards and churn out words, sometimes it's tough to switch gears and slip into critical mode.

I spent the better part of a couple of weeks researching and contemplating Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony and their diverse use of magical realism.

We'll see how the paper flies with my advisor, but regardless of the outcome or requests for second drafts, it's been an interesting experience.

The novels harness the incursion of magical elements into realistic settings in quite different ways, though both follow heroes on voyages, postmodern journeys to adopt the patois of academic speech.

Toru, hero of Wind-Up Bird is an unemployed thirty-year-old slacker in '90s Japan, a man out of step with Japanese culture given his laid-back style. When he's faced with finding a missing wife, he isolates himself at the bottom of a dry well and is drawn into a dreamlike world to rescue wife Kumiko, after discovering his marriage is not as mundane as he thought. Ultimately he's faced with breaking curses of many kinds from the past in order to save the present.

The Silko novel is about a different journey. Tayo, a native American veteran, is struggling to recover from his experiences on the Bataan Death March. He must meet with a shaman who has modified and modernized sacred Native American stories to help him heal from the modern witchery of war and loss. Ultimately he's drawn into the stories of his people and meetings with sacred, legendary figures that put him on the path to recovery.

Both books are great, immersive stories, and after reading my paper Christine had observations about the works as well. She'd read an article a while back about the dangers to the humanities in troubled times that quoted Yale professor Anthony T. Kronman:

“...the need for my older view of the humanities is, if anything, more urgent today,” he added, referring to the widespread indictment of greed, irresponsibility and fraud that led to the financial meltdown. In his view this is the time to re-examine “what we care about and what we value,” a problem the humanities “are extremely well-equipped to address.”

In Wind-Up Bird and Ceremony, Christine observed, the authors are looking into the soul and the core of what it means to be human.

It's certainly meritorius effort, and I'm glad to have spent some time working to understand the novels better.

Novels reject the pat answers, the party line, the rhetoric and the pablum of doctrinaires, and they explore the heart of existence, and those explorations should not be shouted down by the shrill voices that fill our universe and refuse contemplation while repeating tired mantras.

Kafka said we should read novels that wound and stab us. It's true, because they seek truth, challenge complacency and take us on quests toward questions that open new understanding.

Wrestling a week with words, I feel a little stronger.

I have come out the other side as I promised, standing perhaps a little straighter.

I'm Working on a Paper

As part of the MFA program, we have to write one long critical paper. It's a 20-pager. We all write 20 pages in our sleep, right?

Still it's a tough 20 pages to craft, must be thoughtful, analytical and meaningful.

I'm looking at how magic realism is harnessed in the books The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Ceremony. One is Japanese, and one is Native American. I recommend them both.

They're both great novels, fantastical and thoughtful, perplexing and engaging. Formulating all that into critical analysis is a little rough.

I'll be back when I come out the other side. In the meantime, like the protagonist of Wind-Up Bird, I'll be down a dry well confronting demons.

See you soon.

New Episode of Fear on Demand - Dark Eyes is now available

A new episode of Fear on Demand is live today. It features a great story by Pamela K. Kinney, and it's read by Sonia Perozzi who plays sparrow and Rachel Nolen on Wormwood: A Serialized Mystery audiodrama podcast.

Pamela is author of several books including Haunted Richmond and Haunted Virginia. Visit her website here. I don't want to give too much away about "Dark Eyes," because it's a really cool, Lovecraftian story with some surprises.

It reminds me of a female version of Lovecraft's Shadow Over Innsmouth.

Checkout the Wormwood show as well. It's an excellent, ongoing drama that's loads of fun, and it has ghostly and horror elements.

Listen online or download here or via iTunes.

Wonderful World

Guess I can check "Be in a movie" off my Bucket List now. I haven't heard from anyone who's seen it, so I could be on the cutting room floor, but Wonderful World with Matthew Broderick premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last night. That's the flick in which I had the opportunity to work as an extra a while back.

(See some coverage of the premiere here or watch the trailer.)

I play a lawyer, so look for me in a courtroom scene. Shaved the beard, kept the mustache, donned a blue suit. Tried to look lawyerly. Had no idea there were magical realism elements though there appear to be in the trailer.

Here's how it happened
This all started because they were filming Stephen King's The Mist in Shreveport, known these days as SoHo - South Hollywood. Thinking it would be cool to pass through a scene in a Stephen King movie, I sent in my head shot and contact information, and didn't get anything.

Life goes on.

Flash forward to months after I forgot about The Mist. I was in Portland, ironically staying at a movie-themed boutique hotel, when I got an e-mail from the casting agency. They'd been trying to call me. While I hadn't been needed for The Mist, or a multitude of Feast sequels, they'd kept my pic on file, and they needed someone who looked like me for a movie with Matthew Broderick, written and directed by Joshua Goldin, who wrote Darkman. It was thus not without fanboy virtues.

The scheduling worked out, so about a week after I returned to Texas, I drove over to Shreveport one Friday evening. It was the last day of filming, so everyone was pulling an all-nighter.

Holding Pattern
I went to the extras holding area, a former guitar store, where they gave me my blue suit to put on, and introduced me to the other "lawyers." Then we sat for a while listening to people who had been in Feast 2 or 3 discussing running frantically from monsters for eight to 10 hours. I also picked up a story that some of the extras in The Mist passed out while wearing haz-mat suits in the Louisiana heat.

Sometimes, fortuity comes disguised as missed opportunity.

Got to know my fellow attorneys while we sat around. One was a professor, one a chaplain and one was in oil and gas. Everybody was pretty much there for the fun of it like I was. One guy had walked Kevin Costner's dog in a street scene in Mr. Brooks. Set in Portland, filmed in Shreveport.

I was wondering if any of the stars would be showing up, when the oil man pointed out a guy wearing a Greek fisherman's cap as James Burton.

"Who?"

"You know, Elvis's James Burton."

Or guitar legend James Burton as the case may be.

"Oh yeah, he used to have really long hair."

Matthew Broderick passed through a little while later to shoot a DVD-extra interview in a back room.

After dinner with the crew served from catering trucks, we went down a couple of doors to Shreveport's courthouse to settle in to courtroom where second or third assistant directors put us in place next to Drew Waters now of Friday Night Lights.

Basically, I got to participate in storytelling in a completely different way than I'm used to, and I got a front row seat to watch Matthew Broderick shoot a major speech. I was kind of surprised at how subdued it seemed. On film, larger than life comes naturally I suppose. Theatricality is for the stage.

I pretty much memorized his speech as they filmed it from different angles, though I'll keep it to myself lest it be a spoiler. Kind of makes me aware of how things were for the judges in say The Cain Mutiny Court Martial on Broadway.

Like, I say, I don't know if I wound up on the cutting room floor or not, but it was loads of fun either way. Since I couldn't make it to the premiere ;-), I'll be watching local listings or waiting for the DVD.

Song Title? Cat's On the Baker's Rack

My cat, Oliver Littlechap, makes himself at home on the baker's rack just off our kitchen.

What's on the iPod? - M Roundtable at Twilight Blood

The other night, I was fortunate to join John Moore of Twilight Blood and Julie Hoverson of 19 Nocturne Blvd. in a discussion of Fritz Lang's M.

We had a great time dissecting the classic thriller and Peter Lorre's performance as one of the first serial killer's on film.

The discussion is now posted on Twighlight Blood's website, so drop by and listen there or check out Twilight Blood free on iTunes.

It's a very nice weekly podcast with horror news and reviews of books and movies.


John ribs me a little about Gnelfs in the discussion. Copies of Gnelfs can be found used at Abe Books.

A Poem Found in a Tweet

With apologies to William Carlos Williams:

Christine's gardening
Left a red wheelbarrow
By the back door.

I'm not sure
what depends on it,
but it looks like rain.

The Making of The Apron Pic

I was pleasantly surprised to receive an e-mail the other day from Carole Lanham, The Horror Homemaker, inviting me to join her wonderfully wicked gallery of writers and artists in aprons.

My first thought was to do a quick photo in our kitchen wearing an old apron that my dad used to wear on Saturdays, the one day a week he fixed dinner. Steak and French fries!

Then I realized some cleverness was happening on the gallery page, so I decided I'd better do something a little more than just don the old Hot Tunes/Hot Pans apron.

I asked Christine if she'd participate. She agreed, asking only that I acknowledge that she indulged a whim.

Then I enlisted my buddy, Jeff, photographer extraordinaire. He recently completed his first online photo/Photoshop tutorial on making his girlfriend into a super hero. (It's much better than this one.)

He still had the handy green sheet he'd utilized as a backdrop, so we strung that up, put Christine in a chair and placed my hand strategically.

A few great shots by Jeff later, Phase I was complete.

After dinner, for Phase II, I slipped on the apron, grabbed a few props, and Christine took some shots of me. Selecting one with a slightly-less maniacal expression, I set to work.

Knocking out the green background and making some use of the magnetic lasso tool, I removed Christine's head, then dragged the head as a new layer onto my pic.

With a few tweaks using free transform, I adjusted the size a little. Then I touched up the relatively smooth neckline, so to speak, with a slightly jagged brush acquired long ago from deviantArt.

It was all oddly satisfying in a creative way, though there are far great Photoshop users than I.

The result along with many other fun shots can be viewed at The Apron Hall of Fame. Carole also has an invitation to other writers, so feel free to submit your own. Come on, do it. It's fun.

I Was Zombie When Zombie Wasn't Cool Apparently

Word up is that zombies are all the rage again.

"Zombies are the New Vampires" by Lev Grossman in the new issue of TIME speculates that just as "Night of the Living Dead" symbolically served the Vietnam Era, zombies are now ready to serve our current era of uncertainty.

I've always been fond of zombies, those mumbling shamblers who offer nightmares as they long for brains.

I did a zombie graphic novel for Caliber Press once upon a time. I may have mentioned it here before. I tend to go on that way.

While it tipped the hat to "Night of the Living Dead" zombies, it was really more about voodoo zombies and New Orleans.

It was called "Sirens" because the central villain, Felicity Green, had co-opted voudon for her own, evil ends, and sent young women out to find victims to help her maintain eternal youth.

The hero, Jeff Delmer, encountered one of the "Sirens" and quickly found himself turning into a zombie. The story focused on his efforts to avoid that end. Helping him was a previous victim who wasn't mostly zombie, he was all zombie and shambled through the French Quarter in a floppy hat and trenchcoat to conceal his status.

The artwork by John Drury and Chuck Bordell had a wonderful noir feel., and it's an item on my backlist of which I remain quite proud.

Enjoy a few panels at the right, but don't mess with me. I've got a Creative Commons license.

Addendum

I almost forgot. The audio drama for which I'm providing my voice is zombie-themed. I am in the midst of zombie. Details on that as they develop.

Addendum II
Apparently at least the second part of Sirens is available on ebay at the moment.

My Life Counted In Pages Meme Entry

Memes take time so I've been avoiding most of them since the ubiquitous "25 Things," except for the "Which Doctor Who Are You?" quiz, which I took on Facebook. The Tenth Doctor, thank you very much.

"The Life Counted In Pages Meme" on Alan Baxter's blog, which I discovered via his Twitter Tweet about it, looked interesting, however. And, yeah, it looked like an easy way to get a blog post and stay in touch with everyone in the blogosphere. Sooooo here are my answers.

What author do you own the most books by?

Probably Edgar Rice Burroughs because I have most of his series, some inherited from a neighbor many, many moons ago. Ross MacDonald is probably high as well since I own most of the Lew Archer books and have never given any of them up. Ditto Raymond Chandler. Heavy contenders are Koontz and King as well. Then there's Thomas H. Cook whose work I love and respect a lot.

What book do you own the most copies of?

The books I have the most copies of are books I wrote? Need one? We can barter like Tao Lin.

What fictional character are you secretly in love with?

Go with the first answer that pops into your mind right? This is from the '70s - Irma Arden aka Saturn Girl . She was Lightning Lad, or Garth Ranzz's girlfriend--at least back then--in the "Legion of Super Heroes." Lightning Lad was always my favorite Legion member. In the '70s we had similar hairstyles.

What book have you read more than any other?

I'm not big on re-reading books. I have thumbed and re-thumbed Chandler quite a bit, also "Heart of Darkness."

What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?

There was a book called "The Saturday Gang," I liked a lot. I was probably heavily into The Three Investigators books around that time as well. In those days they were Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators. They investigated ghosts and hauntings that usually turned out to be the schemes of evil-doers though they decided Bigfoot might be out there somewhere.

What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?

I've been reading a lot of respected works for my MFA program. Can't say that I've read a bad one or really even one I didn't like.

What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?

Proably "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" by Haruki Murakami. Intriguing, challenging, imaginative. Great all around. I read Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom!" for the first time recently as well. Definitely inaccessible yet brilliant and ultimately exciting on an entertainment level. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Marquez is another great one that I finished in August.

What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?

"Absalom, Absalom!" would probably qualify. Maybe other works by Faulkner. I've never tackled "Ulysses."

Do you prefer the French or the Russians?

Wow, I'm woefully short on the Russians. I like Dumas, Hugo. Go Musketeers. Go Hunchback. OK the French.

Shakespeare, Milton or Chaucer?

Definitely The Bard. I like "Hamlet," "Macbeth," and "A Comedy of Errors" is one of the funniest pieces ever.

Austen or Eliot?

Austen, I suppose. I rather liked "Clueless."

What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?

I've read a lot of the classics, but there are probably plenty of gaps. Obviously the Russians also.

What is your favorite novel?

That's always a tough one for me. I'm such an eclectic. I like "The Big Sleep," "The Blue Hammer" and Thomas H. Cook's "Breakheart Hill," on the mystery front, Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" and King's "'Salem's Lot," in the horror realm. Also "The Ceremonies." Wayne Sallee's "The Holy Terror." The Faulkner I mentioned and Bradbury in general and "Something Wicked This Way Comes" in particular.William Gibson's "Pattern Recognition." "The Woman in White" by Wilkie Collins.

What is your favorite play?

"Amadaus," I suppose. I saw it on Broadway years ago then read it. Brilliant in many, many ways.

What is your favorite poem?

"The Hollow Men" jumps to mind. So does Frost. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Yeah, because of the "Paper Chase" episode. "The Red Wheelbarrow." I'll try to find ya some more and bring 'em to ya.

What is your favorite essay?

"Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police" by Martin Gansberg about the Kitty Genovese slaying. Read it in a college English class and it's stayed with me. There is another by Orwell about witnessing an execution by hanging. Both are compelling examinations of all of us and our humanity or inhumanity.

What is your favorite short story?

"A Rose For Emily" by Faulkner, "The Light of Other Days" by Bob Shaw, "Grail" By Harlan Ellison. I could go on and on.

What is your favorite non-fiction?

I wish I could recall a piece of poignant, meaningful nonfiction but nothing's surfacing at the moment.

What is your favorite graphic novel?

Pick one of the "Sandman" editions. Brilliant, genius!

What is your favorite science fiction?

Hard to pick a favorite. Maybe "Neuromancer" or Asimov's "Bicentenial Man" novella.

Who is your favorite writer?

Impossible to name just one. Poe, Dickens, Chandler,

Who is the most over rated writer alive today?

It would be kind of crappy to name one. Catch me when I'm not in as good a mood. I will say there are writers who catch on and become very, very popular with people who don't read much. Since these are people who rarely read novels, they read a book by fill-in-the-blank author only because it's what everybody is reading. Then it's pretty good and they think, "This writer is a god." When really the writer they're worshipping is imitating five better books. I could write a whole post about this. Stay tuned.

What are you reading right now?

"Ceremony" by Leslie Marmon Silko. It's for my study of magic realism novels that's part of my MFA work.

Best Memoir?

Do the David Sedaris books count?

Best History?

Shelby Foote's "Civil War

Best mystery or noir?

Chandler and MacDonald as I've mentioned, anything by Jim Thompson plus "The Ice Harvest" by Scott Phillips. John D. MacDonald also.

***

I'll steal the note I read on Alan's blog to wrap up:

Consider yourself tagged if you’ve read this and like the idea. If you do copy it to your own blog, leave me a comment so that I can come and have a look. And leave any comments with your own answers to any of the questions above if you can’t be bothered to do the whole thing.

New Fear on Demand Podcast Episode Up

Episode 4 of Fear on Demand is now posted at FearonDemand.com. This month's featured story is from Michael Laimo. It's a cool, ghostly story called Room 412, and it's read by a great reader named Gord McKenzie.

My portion's still not what I want it to be, but it's a little better than before. Guess I'll get there eventually.

Hope everyone who's interested has a chance to give it a listen.

Treknicalities

Some things you just don't argue about in our office.

This all started because we were talking about high heels. Apparently there are some women's styles in which the heels are pushing four-inches. I keep up with a lot of things, but that's not generally an issue that's on my radar.

I recalled, however, an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which Capt. Picard employed the holodeck to re-create a Dixon Hill private eye novel of the 1940s. Gates McFadden as Doctor Crusher had to don high heels for the first time and had trouble navigating steps in them. Apparently in the future they won't have high heels. Maybe that's science fiction.

"Yeah, that was like the one from the show with Kirk," one co-worker said.

"They didn't have the holodeck in the original series," I said.

"Yes they did."

"Where's Rebecca?" I asked.

We have one uniform-owning Trekkie. Yeah, Trekkie not Trekker, some of you know what I'm talking about, but I figured she'd be suitable confirmation.

She was out.

I went a little further up the hall and found our graphic artist. "You ever watch the Original Series."

"Of Star Trek?

I was willing to forgive him that. He's young, and I am confident he would know what I meant if I said something like: "These aren't the droids we're looking for. " If, you know, I were going to cross references.

"Of Star Trek.," I assured. "You can confirm there were no holodecks in TOS, right?"

"Right, they didn't have holodecks."

We went to the back of the building again where the debate was raging.

"OK," I said, hit it."

"There were no holodecks in the one with Kirk," said the artist dutifully.

"But when I watched with my father, they had them," my co-worker contended, refusing to concede.

We got the Boss.

"Holodecks? Original series?" I asked.

"No," he said.

"But they went into the past?" said the unrelenting co-worker.

"But not with holodecks. Besides on holodecks they weren't really going into the past...but that's a different issue. There were no holodecks in TOS."

"But what about...?"

"Wait a minute," I said. "Are you talking about an episode where they went back to the '30s and met Joan Collins by jumping through the Guardian arch?"

"Yeah."

The Boss, the artist and I all responded in unison: "City on the Edge of Forever."

"Written by Harlan Ellison," I added.

"You know who wrote it?" the co-worker asked.

"It's kind of a big deal. He and Gene Roddenberry used to argue..."

"It's a little like The Big Bang Theory in here," our statistician observed. "You guys know episode titles? It's like Sheldon."

"I can remember a time I forgot the title of Balance of Terror ," I said defensively, trying not to sound too much like a nerd. Too late.

"You know, it's not part of the cannon, but the Guardian Arch did appear in the animated series," the boss noted.

I had to think for a second. Then I looked at him and nodded.

"Yesteryear!" we said in unison.

"Spock goes back in time to save his younger self," I blurted.

The argument was obviously resolved now.

The Takeaway: Never, never argue with even an aging nerd about The Original Series.

I'm Becoming a Fan of the Dollhouse

I know the future of Fox's Dollhouse is iffy, but I became a full-fledged fan with the revelations in the recent episode "Man On The Street," penned by creator Joss Whedon. I watched on Hulu since it unfortunately aired opposite the Battlestar finale. Friday night really is sci-fi night.

To me, Dollhouse's ongoing mythology has always been the most intriguing part, and certainly the most original element of the series, shining brighter than some of the hour-long stories that have sent programmable heroine Echo (Eliza Dushku) into somewhat familiar perils.

In one installment she was assigned to pose as the fiance of a hunter who tried to make her his prey. In another she was part of a heist team that wound up trapped in the vault they were pillaging, but those contained stories are really side dishes.

Revelations in "Man On The Street" suggest a much more twisty plot ahead for Echo, a college student whose personality was wiped in order to make her one of the "dolls" --human robots of the shadowy title organization that provides wealthy clients with hot escorts, body guards or backup singers, all customized by science-fictiony techniques that print new personalities and capabilities on the empty human vessels.

Some series might stop with just that premise, but Dollhouse stirs the pot with Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett, Battlestar's Helo), one of those rogue, obessive FBI agents, working outside channels in pursuit of answers in a closed case tied to what many superiors believe is an urban myth.

Just as he did with the seemingly cheesy premise of Buffy, Whedon has crafted a unique and offbeat episodic serial. It's not given to the heavy breathing the premise might suggest, especially with the dual motives that seem to be simmering in Dollhouse franchise manager Adelle (Olivia Williams), who's flanked by Laurence Dominic (Homicide's Reed Diamond at his most sinister) and Echo's "handler," the earnest and ethical Boyd Langton (Harry Lennix). It's actually quite a well-rounded ensemble. Especially when nerdy imprint-wrangler Topher (Fran Kranz) is thrown in.

Top all that with generous doses of kung fu, and you've got an entertaining mixture.

Here's hoping the show gets the cable back-up deals needed to survive. It's TV-in-the-den-worthy viewing, for sure.

Catch Up

I don't have anything extremely profound today, just thought I would check in with a brief biographical update to stay in touch.

My Allen Smithee moment

I have had my name taken off a project I put a lot of energy into. It's not a Hollywood project but it had started to feel like one. The camel-back-breaking straw was finally produced after a good bit of back-and-forth with editors. It came while I was in the midst of my school residency at Goddard, and perhaps the climate of art and aesthetics contributed. At any rate I threw up my hands, and I've moved on. I was going to write a longer post about the affair but didn't have that much that was profound to offer.

Miss Daisy

Christine took Miss Daisy to the vet today for a check-up. Dee's been hanging in well of late, and her tests looked good. Considering for a while last summer we thought she might make it only a couple of months, we're very thankful.

School

Got my first packet back today with positive notes from my advisor. I spent a good bit of time reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle for this packet, and my paper on it was viewed positively, so that was nice. Good book by the way. I'll try to get more posted on it.

I'm reading The Wycherly Woman by Ross MacDonald now toward a paper on detective novels. Have about two weeks to get my thoughts together and write that.

Podcast

We're getting lots of subscribers and Fear on Demand is part of the Horror Podcasting Network now which is getting us a little added attention. Everyone is liking the stories thus far.

The Day Job

It's a day job. Guess I'll continue to ride that horse as long as it will run.

That's the big stuff for now. Catch up complete.

One-Page Screenplay Contest

I decided to adapt one of the flash pieces I did for Halloween for a One-Page Screenplay Contest. A lark, a whim, what the heck?

I figured a one-page effort was something I could fit in around other things. Above all, it offered an interesting exercise in economy. An already short effort required even further trimming to fit on a single page with screenplay formatting.

That meant a lot of internal debate:

"Is this word essential?"

"Is that word redundant?"

Eventually, I did it, converting the persona's monologue into a brief exchange between two characters. OK, one character had one line, but still dialog.

I don't know how it will fare. Some of the previous winners were a little more action-oriented, but it was fun to try, and I don't think any effort you make creatively is wasted. You always learn and gain insight.

Entry costs $10 and the deadline has been extended through April if anyone is interested.

Episode 3 of Fear on Demand Horror Fiction Podcast is Live

The third episode of the Fear on Demand podcast is now live at fearondemand.com and via iTunes and other podcatchers. 

This month's installment features a new intro by Glen Hallstrom aka Smokestack Jones, and new music from Black Pharaoh. Glen is also the voice of this month's short story, though he will sound quite different than he did reading Charles's story in Episode One.

The story is a really cool piece by M.F. Korn and David Mathew. It's called "The Red Spectre" and it involves a mysterious, classic film and its mysterious impact.

M.F. is from Louisiana and David is from Great Britain so it's an interesting collaboration. The authors will have a new book out soon called "Creature Feature." Learn more at M.F.'s website.

Visit fearondemand.com to subscribe or jump to the RSS feed here.

Lessons from My Reporting Days - Times Are Tough But Now We Have Cell Phones

(Thanks for Erik for jarring loose a little piece of my memory with his post about Shirley Chisholm.)

I got to meet a lot of famous people when I was a kid reporter thanks to the lecture series at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, LA. That's the town where they filmed Steel Magnolias, and it was about an hour-and-a-half from Alexandria, where the newspaper where I worked was based.

Sometimes I forget how fortunate I was as a kid reporter. Job paid bubkus, but I got exposed to great people, David McCullough, Robert Ballard and Wendy Wasserstein to name a few.

I also got to interview Shirley Chisholm. It was kind of exciting when I drew the assignment because we'd studied her in school as the first black woman elected to Congress. This was a long time ago, not long after she'd wrapped up her her Congressional service. In her lecture she spoke of that election and of her efforts to get a meaningful committee assignment when she took office.

In the mini-press conference afterwards, I asked if she had thoughts about something or other the Reagan administration was doing at the time, an almost naive query since I was wet behind the ears. She gave me a knowing smile, an "Have-I-got-any-thoughts-about-that!" smile, and discussed the policies of the day for a while.

Filing a story on the road was a little bit of an adventure in those days. Only the government had the internet. We had some Radio Shack computers with acoustic couplers that I may have mentioned here at time or two. In a hurry, it was easier to write long hand and file from a pay phone.

After the press conference, the photographer and I pulled into a McDonald's on the portion of Louisiana's Highway 1 that briefly becomes the main drag in Natchitoches or did in those days. We didn't have Interstate Highway 49 then either.

Through whatever voodoo of publishing we could manage back then, somehow it was possible to write the story, file it by phone to get it edited and the layout started and then drive like a Meatloaf album back to the paper to process the film. We didn't have digital cameras either.

While Lee, the photographer, drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, I scribbled on a yellow legal pad, referring to my reporter's note pad, relying on my memory and generally struggling to put together about 11 column inches in slightly more than 11 minutes. How easy we have it writing now. Word, keyboards. Child's play.

While I worked, some guys pulled up in a pickup truck. I kept scribbling. Lee, finding what they were up to more interesting that watching me produce brilliant event coverage, started staring out the window.

"Oh wow, they've got a rattlesnake out there," he said.

I didn't look up, couldn't, but he gave me a play-by-play of these kids who had a rattlesnake the size of the Buick in the bed of an old Ford pickup. The snake was dead, but that didn't stop everyone from gawking at it.

Eventually I finished my story and went to the pay telephone. Cell phones? I mentioned this was the '80s, right? Cell phones were science fiction.

The phone was outside the McDonald's.

So I called up the paper, and they put someone on the phone to type what I read. In some circles they call that catching. We never had a term for it other than getting stuck on the bleepin' phone with some jackass in the field.

I started reading, on a pay phone, outside a McDonald's on what was then one of the major North-South highways in the state, while a parking lot of teen agers took turns scaring each other with a dead rattlesnake.

"Former Congressman Shirley Chisholm discussed...."

Zurrrrrrrrhhhhhmmmmmuummmmmmmm.

"Watch out they can still bite after they're dead."

"She expressed deep dismay with..."

Whurrrrmmmummmm.

"It moved. Did you see it move?"

Whonk, whonk.

Screech

"In other remarks, the Congresswoman..."

"Get it away, get it away!"

Man I hate to see newspapers die.

Gestation

I've found, for me at least, stories have a gestation period. It's as if dormant seeds get implanted somewhere in my brain, waiting for the right drop of magic water to blossom.

I'm sure that's true in some way for everyone in creative pursuits whether working with pen or pallet. I suppose above all it's a psychological process, not mystical or magical. Though I certainly wish I could perform some sort of creative alchemy to bring seeds to blossom more quickly and with more frequency.

For me, it's often the creative stimulation of other writers and creatives that usually provides the final impetus to take seed to story. In what are now the old days for me, I used to produce a story after each major convention, World Horror, World Fantasy etc. Some have seen light and others not, but they were always satisfying. "Skull Rainbow" became a collaboration with Wayne and ultimately earned us a Year's Best Horror honorable mention. 

The creative magic proved true again when World Fantasy was in Austin a couple of years ago. An idea based on a news item I heard on TV while Christine and I were on our honeymoon in 1991 became a short tale. 

While I was in school last week, we had an assignment to read a couple of authors including Borges and produce a piece of fiction that pushed to the outer edge. 

I started one piece but threw it away because another idea crowded it out. That was a piece based on a news story I read while in San Francisco in 2006 or so. It was one of those true stories that had haunted me in much the way Harlan Ellison was always haunted by the tragedy of Kitty Genovese, who died of a stabbing while a host of people looked on without acting. Ellison penned "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs" about the Genovese incident.

My little piece, "The Desk," drew some positive responses when I read it in class even though I stumbled over some complex passages. After a little more polishing I'll get it in the mail, snail or electronic as required.

It was a completely satisfying process, more satisfying than the struggle with a novel can be. 

How does it happen? It's certainly different for each writer because everyone has varying degrees of output. 

If I could somehow bottle it all or refine the process, well, I'd need help marketing the elixir for starters, but it would save a little time in the gestation. 

The takeaway: Keep your eyes open, I guess. You never know what will plant the seeds that the magic will find.

The Sailor is Home from the Sea

Made it home yesterday a.m. after a long 24 hours of traveling and a longer week of workshops and discussions at Goddard in Port Townsend, WA. 

It's hard to describe exactly how it all works, but somewhere in the mix of reading and talking about great books of all sorts and breathing the same air as a host of very, very--I cannot emphasize this enough--very creative people, the energy almost feels mystical. I don't think it is quite mystical, but it's magical, at least.

Highlights

• A two-part workshop called "Wildness of Mind" led me to a short story I might not have written otherwise, a new sort of piece for me. Will have to see what I can do with it with a little polish.
• Exercises in my advising group crystalized the creation of scenes for me.
• One of my fellow students turned me and others on to poet Tao Lin whose work is found here.
• I read a portion of my master's thesis and the flash pieces that appeared here on the blog around Halloween and got good responses on all of them.
• Heard my friend who's a better writer than I'll ever be read two incredible pieces.
• Heard the graduates talk about their experiences and the struggle of creation. Wept.
• Heard faculty, graduates and other students read in numerous settings. Great times.
• Ate a great seafood sit-down meal at Sea-Tac waiting for my flight to leave.

These are wild times. It's good to get away from the world for a while, to escape and think about the things that matter, really matter, matter in the grand scheme of the world and not the moment. 

As much anxiety as the world has to offer, the reminder that there's more, that there's substance and hope is all good.

It's hard, but it's good. 

Gone A Long Journey

I remember reading a columnist or writer of some sort once. He wrote of  taking a train home from prep school at Thanksgiving. That was alien to my experience, and sounded a little melancholy and lonely. That's perhaps why it stuck with me while the rest of the article is lost. I've usually gone to school close to home.

Now, I go a long way, and my literal and symbolic journeys begin again tomorrow. The literal journey is by plane, by boat, by bus, taking me practically off the continent to Port Townsend, WA. 

I'm not really looking forward to the traveling, but I'll take reading material. I have at least an idea of my reading list for the next semester, though it will be molded in discussion with an advisor. 

I've found inspiration for a few titles in a fabulous podcast I discovered recently, Out of the Past, named for the Robert Mitchum classic.

I have not read The Ice Harvest by Scott Phillips, for example. Film and book are subject of one OOTP episode, and I'm hopeful of getting it green-lighted since Goddard is pretty flexible about letting you pursue titles that reflect sensibilities that might benefit your work.

My master's thesis novel  is a Southern Gothic mystery with a hint of magical realism, an effort to create something with perhaps a bit more weight than my early thrillers, so crime and noir have relevance as do works of Faulkner and The Woman In White, as I've mentioned in earlier posts.

There's a reading journey as well, I guess, enfolded inside the travel and extending beyond.

I'm nervous but excited. Both the trip and the journey will be challenging, but it's time to focus again after a little break, time to contemplate character development from new perspectives and points on plot with my professors.

It's a long trip but a good one. 

Miles to go before I sleep and all that but good miles. I'll keep in touch and keep you posted.

Terror on Netflix Watch Instantly - Severance

I probably should have been more aware of Severance (2006), a British horror thriller with a healthy dose of humor. Somewhere I picked up a vague notion that it was a slasher film with a little something extra, but I was more than pleasantly surprised when I watched a few minutes on Netflix watch instantly.

A Cut Above

It's more than a bit of all right, just when I was starting to think, there's not much new to be done with the slasher film. Belay that notion. Severance is Hostel meets The Office, both brutal and relentlessly wicked.

It concerns itself with the sales office of an arms company headed for a remote lodge in central Europe for a team-building experience. I don't know why it's a remote lodge and not a motel with meeting rooms, but there wouldn't be much of a story, I suppose.

A slice of the familiar

The heroine is Laura Harris of The Faculty and 24. Speaking of sales offices, I'm sure someone in Severance's decided an American lead would help sell it to Americans.

Also familiar to Americans is James Bond bad guy Toby Stephens, who also provided the voice of Bond in the recent BBC radio adaptation of Dr. No.

A little dialog establishes that there are possibly people at large who hate the office mates'

Severence offers great suspense, interspersed with the occasionally zany moment. To say much more would require that I precede the statements with spoiler warning so I'll count on you getting to experience it for yourself or suppose that you're way ahead of me and you've already discovered Severance.

If not, and if Netflix's recommendation algorithm and site search are failing you, well, this one's a good choice if you have a taste for thrillers.

Terror for the iPod - Two Tales of Frankenstein

Occasionally things turn up that are almost like discovering one more chapter(s) in the Universal Horror series. 

Some are better than others of course, but I'm always happy to gain access to those missing pieces that utilize talents from the Universal heyday, especially when it's what Forry Ackerman might term the Frankenstein Lonster, Lon Cheney Jr.

Tales of Frankenstein

I never knew of the Tales of Frankenstein pilot from Hammer Films in 1958 until QuasarDragon mentioned recently that is was available on the archive.org site, where cool things seem to materialize regularly.  It's directed by Curt Siodmak who penned Universal horror classics such as Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman as well as the classic science fiction novel Donovan's Brain.

The lead-in suggests the resultant series would have been a horror anthology since the opening narration notes "any story that chills the soul and freezes the blood is truly a tale of Frankenstein."

The opener features Dr. Frankenstein (Anton Diffring), somewhat like the Peter Cushing incarnation from Hammer theatrical releases, though it's in a silvery Universal black-and-white instead of the trademark Hammer color--inevitably modified by the adjective lurid.

He's called on to help a young but dying man in the pilot, but instead he uses the man's body to reanimate a VERY Universal looking monster. 

It doesn't rise to the level of the best of the Universal films, but it's an interesting piece to watch either online or on an iPod.

Tales of Tomorrow #16 - Frankenstein

This perhaps more infamous live television adaptation of Frankenstein is a bit more engaging and not to be missed by the Universal fan. It stars Lon Chaney Jr.--best known as The Wolf Man but also a memorable mummy and Dracula in Universal flicks--as the creature in a contemporary re-telling that features One Step Beyond host John Newland as Victor Frankenstein. 

I believe this version's been around on DVD, but I've never picked up a copy. 

It's the adaptation that features the allegedly inebriated Chaney being less destructive on his rampages than planned because he believed he was still in a rehearsal and not performing in a live broadcast. That's actually not as distracting as you'd expect. You kind of have to be looking for it. Sorry. Spoiler warning? 

The creature makeup is interesting in its own way and the gloomy castle sets make for a moody backdrop for the fairly fast-moving story of monster making and destruction. 

I was exciting to find these available, preserved for a new visit and a new experience. If you've any love for the roots of contemporary horror, have a look.

Nobody reads anymore, so...Podcasting!

Addendum (1/19/09). We're now in iTunes. (Link will open the iTunes application.)


That's kind of a "made ya look" headline. I don't really believe that nobody reads anymore. It will take a while--even though we're in a midst of some cultural shifts--for things to change that drastically.

Certainly new things are happening all the time, though. New or newish delivery methods are becoming ubiquitous faster than the generations before us accepted radio or TV.

Podcasting's been around a while now, and I've enjoyed the true play-on-demand opportunities it has provided me. I can listen to NPR at the gym now, audiobooks on the treadmill, tech news in the a.m. and talk shows devoted to topics I'm interested in such as Doctor Who and Battlestar.

I've wanted to try something for a while. For some reason it hit me around Jan. 1 that rather than trying to tackle a discussion show, I could put together a podcast of short horror and suspense fiction. I have a few pieces of my own work that were recorded a while back for an audiobook collection, and I have access to those as potential installments.

There is also a tradition, I percieve, in the podcast community, of podcasters lending their voices to other 'casts, so I decided to dive into what I'm calling the beta version of Fear on Demand to see if I could pull it off at least for a respectable number of episodes and a respectable publishing schedule even when I'm back in school. The goal is for it not to be devoted just to my work but to present a true collection of works of many.

I think, think mind you, I can manage something monthly. I know I can for a few months anyway. After that we'll see.

I'm calling it the beta because it's hosted in the simplest way I can imagine right now, and I'm working on the little details like RSS feeds, getting it into iTunes and available for podcatchers and that sort of thing. As I write this it's pending iTunes approval.

I'm running into some of the usual headaches that I'm sure all novice podcasters have experienced at start up--puh sounds, normalizing, decent Flash players for the blog version. etc. I'm sure I'll have other headaches along the way, but it's an interesting process, and learning is always exciting.

So anyway, Episode 1 is ready for a listen at Fearondemand.com, or you can subscribe to the basic feed manually with iTunes or your favorite podcatcher or get the Feedburner feed plugged in to just about anything you like. The show will play in a Google Reader, for example.

Episode 1

Episode 1 features a tale from Charles Gramlich called "Thief of Eyes." It originally appeared in a collection edited by Del Stone, Jr. called The Parasitorium, and it's read by Glen Hallstrom, aka Smokestack Jones, who hasrecorded many Lovecraft stories at Librivox.org. Glen's blog is Too Much Johnson, and he's available for voice work. Charles tells me the story grew out of an anthology that never breathed life that Thomas Fortenberry and I tried to put together a few years ago. That was sort of a shared-world horror anthology, and that reminded me that concept might also be ripe for a podcast. Who knows? Baby steps. I'm learning the ropes here.

Submissions

For the moment, Fear on Demand is by invitation. I'm not quite ready to open the door to a flood of unsolicited submissions by listing on market news sites, though eventually I'd love to discover someone just starting out.

In the meantime, I'm guardedly moving along quietly. Certainly anyone in our little blog circle here is welcome to e-mail me. One thing I can kind of envision is maybe a Halloween celebration episode collecting some of the flash fiction people did in October.

Payment at the moment is the promotional or promo opportunity it provides only.

Authors retain all rights to the story except the podcast audio rights, and I'm including a Creative Commons, no-derivative works license tag on each episode and on the Fear on Demand blog. People can listen, pass an episode along but they can't, you know, make it into a movie, without striking a deal with the author.

If I can get the Paypal donate button working, apparently that's one of those common headaches, I'll be accepting donations to help with the domain mapping and hosting costs, and perhaps at some point it might become a paying market. Time will tell.

If there are any bands out there who want to play, I'm also open for some intro music or a tune to include.

Readers

And anyone with a mic who's interested in reading is welcome to check in.

In the meantime, drop by and have a listen of Charles' excellent story just past my stammering, Southern-accented intro, and listen after dark at your own risk.

WARNING: Fear on Demand contains explicit content such as mature themes, language and subject matter. If you feel you would be better entertained by more gentle stories, hey Google's ready when you are.

What's on the iPod? - Montego Bay

As I drove through another rainy morning cloaked with a grey, wet blanket, Bobby Bloom's Montego Bay popped up as my iPod shuffled songs. I've never been there, and I'm not sure exactly what a BOAC is, but the tune transported me to other places and made me remember people I've passed on the journey.

I've found, sometimes you encounter people randomly but more than once. It may not be anything but serendipity if you're a reporter in a small city, or maybe there's a little more magic to it.

3x
I ran into a man named Glen about three times. He was a small business owner out to live life to the fullest from what I could tell. He spent his vacations travelling, seeing sites, SCUBA diving and more.

The first time I met him, he was just back from Jamaica. It had started as a vacation trip and turned into an adventure.

A hurricane hit the island shortly after he arrived, and he and other vacationers spent about a week trying to survive and get back out of paradise. It was a time with little water and much uncertainty.

When civilization gradually took hold again, he was able to get a flight out. He recalled looking around at fellow travellers, recognizing people from the flight in and wondering what became of those who were missing.

That experience didn't seem to slow him down or dissuade him. I heard tale of other trips he took afterward, hopping here and there.

I encountered him next at the opening of a chest pain center at a local hospital. I don't know how old he was. I was young and everyone looked old, but he was probably around the age I am now. He was there as a spokesman, representing the need for a chest pain center.

He explained how he'd felt a tingling in his left arm as he took a shower one morning. Initially he denied it could be anything serious, but eventually he sought help.

It was a heart attack and they caught it in time to avert major damage. He felt he'd been given a second chance and wanted to encourage others to act quickly and hang onto life.

The last time I ran into him, I was afraid I had a flat tire. I pulled off the freeway and into his auto service center. One of his employees came out to help me check my tire. Glen popped over for a second and, seeing the employee was handling things, went on to wait on other customers. I didn't have a flat, just a low tire. With it re-inflated, I pulled back into traffic and never looked back.

Appointments
A couple of years later, I heard he had died while diving somewhere out West. I was a little sad, though I didn't know him well, not friend, just acquaintance.

The second chance had played out, I guess, or maybe the Reaper had him on a list and didn't give up on that appointment in Samarra.

I guess the important message is that he milked the days, fought for the second chance and tried to make the most of time, had some fun.

When "Montego Bay" came through the speakers this morning, I recalled Glen sitting on his sofa, posing in a straw fedora for photographs, and it was a good thought for a new year. Carpe diem and all that.

Who knows what a year will bring? Maybe the good news is that it's made up of a lot of nows that can be squeezed.

I confess two things. I'm Sid and I'm a cynic.

I confess also, I've been a little down the last few days. I will endeavor to do better, to snatch the joy of each moment, even if it's as simple as humming along with an old song with a catchy beat. I'll cope with the travails as they come, and I'll look ever forward.

I will also seek to heed my own advice.

Them's my new year's resolutions.

And to G., maybe we'll cross paths again somewhere down the line. I'll look for you in the crowd in that distant port when the BOAC lands.

Come sing me La
Come sing me Montego Bay
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

Mostly Recharging

I've been getting a little bit of writing done on a couple of projects, but mostly I've been recharging the last few days, and wondering how I got a write-in-Hindi button on my blogger interface.

I thought I would get more read over the holidays and time off I've had, but I haven't managed to turn as many pages as I'd hoped.

I managed to veg a bit instead and discover a few guilty pleasures:

Legend of the Seeker

I'm guilty of never having read the Terry Goodkind books on which this new syndicated series is based. I'm told they're better than the show, but for the moment the show's what I have time for. It's on Hulu.com, partially in HD, and it's beautifully shot with likable actors, some swift action and a twinkle in the eye and just a slight smirk. For TV, it's Herc and Xena territory, but it's engaging me more than some feature films. I detect a trend of betrayal and redemption, but it's still captivating viewing in the sword and sorcery vein, and there's not much in that vein on the air now.

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog

It's on just about every critic's year-end best list, so this is no revelation, but I liked it. Didn't get to see it when it was hot during the writer's strike. Happily it's also on Hulu in HD also and on DVD now as well. It's from Buffy-producer Joss Whedon, features Neil Patrick Harris of Doogie fame, plus Slither and Firefly's Nathan Fillion, who's soon to be seen in Castle, a mystery series that sounds like it might be fun.

Anyway Doogie is Dr. Horrible, aspiring super villain. I wondered how they were going to give him a suitable nemesis on a budget. Enter Fillion as The Hammer, a Captain Triumph-style good guy who's a bit of a jerk. He has the affections of the girl Dr. Horrible has a crush on, making things worse but paving the way for great songs. Really great show tunes. No kidding. Check it out.

The Big Bang Theory
So why is a show about über-nerds on opposite Heroes, a show they'd probably watch? I missed an entire season of this fab sit-com. It's got some standard misunderstanding gags, but it's brilliantly executed and ropes in Star Trek, online gaming, comic books and more as its youthful geniuses struggle with life outside their physics experiments. I resolve to solve all quandaries and disagreements in 2009 using rock, paper scissors, Spock, lizard!

Steampod

How'd I miss this great podcast for so long? It's a steampunk-themed 'cast with a stellar Christmas episode transposing late-sixties cryonics to the Victorian era, and you can backtrack to a multi-part novella and a great opening episode as well. Put it on your iPod, for sure!

QuasarDragon's Blog

Looking for free e-books, podcast recommendations and more? QuasarDragon's is a great place to stop by. It's a fantasy, SF cool-hunting blog pointing to various online e-zines, free fictionsites and more. It also occurs to me that it's a great guide to writing markets. Well worth a look. It's how I found Steampod.

Well, that's how I've been spending my free time of late. I think it has been energizing a bit as I prepare for the plunge into 2009, which promises to be challenging and busy. I had a tee-shirt in the appropriate year that read "Orwell That Ends Well, I Made it Through 1984." I'm thinking we all deserve an I Survived 2008 tee, and maybe a matching version for this year.

Let's look for fun where we can, and may everyone within the sound of my posts have a good one!