2019: August 26th Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn

I became esctatic yesterday after stumbling across the trailer for a big-screen adaptation of possibly my favorite novel by Jonathan Lethem. I read Motherless Brooklyn about ten years ago, and I absolutely loved it. In fact, I recently ear-marked several of Lethem's books to read/re-read, simply because it's been some time since I revisited his work; I think the last time I picked up Amnesia Moon at the always delightful Dark Carnival Bookstore in Berkley in the spring of 2012. I blew through that one in about a day and a half, and that's pretty standard for Lethem's work, which I've been interested in since his completely insane re-boot of Marvel Comics' Omega the Unknown back in 2007. Also of note is the fact that Lethem took David Foster Wallace's place as a Literary Professor at Pomona College after Wallace's death.

What a delightful surprise this adaptation is. Can't wait to re-read the book now.

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Day four of my Dead Milkmen Appreciation Week and I'm finally getting around to representing my favorite album, the band's 1985 debut Big Lizard in My Backyard. And what better way to represent the album than with the title track, which is both endearing and hysterical.



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New episode of The Horror Vision went up yesterday. In it, we discuss Ready or Not, revisiting Rob Zombie's Halloween, 1972 oddity Grave of the Vampire, Michael O'Shea's The Transfiguration, and a whole lot more. Also, as our featured flick, we watch and give an immediate reaction to Scott Schirmer's Found.

Check it out:

The Horror Vision on Apple

The Horror Vision on Spotify

The Horror Vision on Google Play

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Playlist from 8/25:

Etta James - Etta James (Third Album)
Joy Division - Closer
Deafheaven - New Bermuda
FMLYBND - Letting Go (single)
Ghost Bath - Moonlover
Kevin Morby - Singing Saw

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Today's spread:

When I pulled these, I had a very specific question in mind: I'm caught in a loop on a story that should have been finished weeks ago. It's repeatedly pulled me away from Ciazarn and really been nothing but a pain in the ass. What's more, although I love the core concept, it insists on going to places I'm not particularly comfortable with. So my question was, do I ditch it and start anew? Well, a path is laid one stone at a time (The Fool), and Victory (6 of Wands) often comes at the hands of Instinct (Knight of Disks). I'll give it one more day, as yesterday's writing session was largely instinctual, as I chopped massive sections out of the story in an attempt to stream-line it around an idea I had late Saturday night. One day, then it's back into the piles for it.

RIP Jay Lake

I'm late with this. My good friend and proprietor of my favorite Southbay bookstore The Book Frog Rebecca Glenn contacted me a week ago today to let me know that author Jay Lake had passed away. Several years ago, after wanting to read one of Mr. Lake's books for years I found myself in Berkley, California's Dark Carnival books and it was here that I acquired Pinion, which at the time I mistakenly took to be the first in Lake's Clockwork Earth series. Later I realized Pinion is actually the third book in the series, and it was Becky who ordered the first two, Mainspring and Escapement for me. They are wonderful books and although I only knew Jay Lake through his fiction I'm saddened by his passing. If he was any bit as grand as a human as he was as an imaginative author - which all personal accounts I've read in the past week confirm that he most definitely was - then the Earth lost a marvelous soul last Sunday.

As Kevin Smith would say, big bucket of win.