Howard Kolus of the Lebanon Daily News recently conducted the most comprehensive interview I've ever done, and it appeared in the December 26th edition of the paper. I'm not sure how long this link will last, but I hope you'll take a look. Howard is a gentleman and a journalist of the old school; in conducting this interview he looked at pictures of me as a kid and talked to my daughter. He not only made sure he got my cat's name right, but mentioned the fact that he's got two different colored eyes. And he did it all with handwritten notes.
Like I said, old school.
It was inspiring enough that I've actually modeled a character in The Black Wing after him, an editor of a smalltown paper who's displaying unexpected heroism as the story reaches its climax. You go, Howard.
Meanwhile, Ray Walsh at the Lansing State Journal gave a glowing review to Chasing the Dead along with the new Dean Koontz novel Brother Odd, as two novels that take place during terrible blizzards. Now if only we could get some actual snow here in central Pennsylvania...
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Finding Chaze
I don't spend as much time lurking around used book stores as I used to, partly because there aren't many in my area. Also, I just don't have the time.
I miss it. Especially on late winter afternoons.
Having lots of good used bookstores around and hours to explore them, as I did during my college years in Ann Arbor, can be a blessing, even salvation, to a young writer without much money. Some of the finest and strongest memories of that time in my life were accompanied by the smell of old paper.
There are at least two kinds of treasures here. The first is the book that strikes you as interesting, only to find its way permanently into your heart. For me, such titles included Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler, or Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind, books that set you free, at least for a while. Titles that you'll be recommending for the rest of your life.
The second kind of discovery, less illuminating but more viscerally exciting, is the book you already love, even though -- or perhaps because -- you've never actually laid hands on it. This is the book you've always dreamed of stumbling across, but never really expected to, and its discovery is always accompanied by a flush of blood to the face, a sudden, childlike sense of delight. For every person out there who thinks this description is a bit ripe, there are probably plenty of others who know exactly what I'm talking about. Not only bibliophiles, but record enthusiasts, comic book collectors, fan boys and girls of every walk of life.
For me, the pinnacle of this moment was discovering a copy of Elliott Chaze's noir masterpiece Black Wings Has My Angel at Kaleidoscope Books in Ann Arbor. Black Wings isn't just great; it's genius -- nominally the story of an armored car heist/doomed love affair gone wrong, but really the tale of the heart's desperate, deceitful and ultimately solitary nature. I've read everything I can get my hands on by Chaze since then and I think he was at the height of his powers when he cranked out this little 200-page honey. The moment that I found it squashed between stacks of old Gold Medal paperbacks that cold late winter afternoon in 2000, on sale for three dollars, I just about levitated off the floor.
I'd read Barry Gifford's captivating article about Chaze in the Oxford American several years earlier -- it had, in fact, ignited an enthusiasm for noir that endures to this day. Since then I've read the masters, from Thompson and Goodis to Robert Edmond Alter's Swamp Sister, but for me the essence of pulp is personified by Elliott Chaze. And the dark amazement that accompanies it is embodied by that moment of discovery in the corner of the shop on State Street that afternoon, with winter dusk already gathering at the windows.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Blood Under the Tree
Just 'cause Christmas is over, doesn't mean you can't find that perfect horror suspense novel for your loved ones...
Garrett Peck wrote a terrific combined review of Chasing the Dead and Joseph Wambaugh's new novel Hollywood Station over at Up Against the Wall, called "Not Your Ordinary Joes." Obviously I'm delighted to be reviewed in such good company, and doubly pleased that he liked the book so much. Thanks, Garrett!
Garrett Peck wrote a terrific combined review of Chasing the Dead and Joseph Wambaugh's new novel Hollywood Station over at Up Against the Wall, called "Not Your Ordinary Joes." Obviously I'm delighted to be reviewed in such good company, and doubly pleased that he liked the book so much. Thanks, Garrett!
Best. Stocking. Ever.
If I didn't already feel like the luckiest guy alive, my wife reminded me of it by filling my stocking with the best imaginable stuff. From left to right, we have:
1) A vintage container of Monkey Grip tire sealant, with a monkey illustration by Lawson Wood, 2) A bottle of excellent small-batch bourbon, 3) A wind-up robot pencil sharpener and 4) A copy of one of the best books of the year, Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which I haven't read but soon will.
What did I tell you? Perfection in a stocking.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Christmas Pie
Here's a bit of seasonal fiction. Consider it my creepy holiday card to all of you.
Eli Breen loved fat girls.
In the beginning, yes, he’d viewed them in their crudest light, as God’s consolation prize to the lonely man, the shy and not-quite-handsome wallflower, the homely scholar who could never quite win the adoration of the glamour girls, the hotties, the babes.
But with time’s wisdom Eli came to view their plus-size beauty in a truer and more endearing incarnation. These humble, grateful creatures, so abundant around the office where he’d worked the last ten years, had come to represent his feminine ideal. The bigger, the better, in Eli’s eyes. Those flint-hearted souls who suspected that Eli sought such women out of pity or some misguided sense of Christian charity only needed to spend a moment gazing into his most debauched imaginings as he buried himself in the deep and yielding cushions of their flesh. What he felt for them was no more sympathy than a bedazzled coyote feels beneath the full moon.
Of course nothing worthwhile came easily. One could not simply introduce oneself to the new girl over a box of donuts and rip her clothes off. After all, most of these women had spent their lives as the butt of every cruel joke and instantly distrusted all but the most innocent overtures of kindness, particularly from men. And who, Eli thought, could blame them?
Around the office, the holidays were his equivalent of spring break in Daytona Beach, and he reveled shamelessly in its bounties. As the temperatures dropped, vast amounts of cakes and cookies appeared on every counter and desk, and even the most malnourished clerical waifs became voluptuous in his eyes, while the potential fatties came to embrace their destiny as whip-yielding dominatrices of his libido. Eli had long ago freighted the shelves of his modest bachelor kitchen with rows of cookbooks and every manner of professional bakeware. Like a scientist in his lab, he’d devoted countless evenings to quietly and studiously transforming himself into a wizard of sugar and cream, butter and glaze, chocolate and icing. With Thanksgiving’s arrival he positively blossomed, plying his female coworkers with such an endless cornucopia of sweets that some of the more suspicious minds had cause to question his own sexual proclivities. Whenever such speculation arose, the only ones who didn’t contribute were inevitably the larger, single women of the office, who only looked away shyly -- albeit hungrily.
Over the years Eli had discovered that food itself, given freely and in sufficient quantity, not only gained these women’s trust, but the additional weight gain made them more irresistible in his eyes. As their bodies swelled, their professional attire tightening over burgeoning bellies, breasts and thighs, Eli became queerly proprietary about their appearance. Those were his extra ten pounds they were sporting, thanks to the pumpkin roll he’d brought in the week before, the regiment of frosted gingerbread men, the baked stuffed apples that for all intents and purposes he might’ve glazed with crack cocaine. In his giddiest imaginings he dreamed of dating a woman long enough to double her size, so that he might rightfully lay claim to a full half of her thighs, her torso, her chins. He imagined such a woman sprawled over an entire queen-sized bed on their honeymoon, indulging his basest carnal desires while at the same time devouring whole layers of her wedding cake with her bare hands.
But of course this never happened. Like all relationships built solely on the physical, Eli’s dalliances with his blushing, quivering priestesses never lasted more than a few delicious weeks, a sweet month or two, before they inevitably began to find his attentions boring. The interminable praise he’d lavished on their bodies, once mesmerizing, became monotonous. His endless insistence on taking them out for dinner and insisting they eat whatever they want, however much they wanted, went from charming to downright odd. But the cruelest cut was yet to come. As objects of genuine desire, the confidence of these women increased and, with terrible inevitability, they began to shed the very weight that had lit the fires in Eli’s loins to begin with. It always ended with them breaking up with him over dinner where he was dismayed to discover they ordered a salad.
But like any romantic, Eli never gave up hope. With every year he dreamed of a true woman of substance, a soul mate whose very self-confidence would only make her grow larger.
It was in Wanda Newberry that he knew he’d found such a prize.
Wanda’s initial appearance at the office had instantly transformed Eli’s tongue and brain into a twisted pretzel of adoration and worship. She was fabulously pretty, with a black wave of shoulder-length hair, a wide, lascivious mouth and a rolling laugh that sprang up across the cubicles like a bell of early dismissal. She was always immaculately dressed and coifed and smelled like a fascinating combination of sandalwood and fresh cappuccino with cinnamon sprinkled on top. And she weighed, Eli imagined, nearly two hundred pounds, rendering her all but radioactive in the eyes of the office wolves, while simultaneously crippling Eli with lust.
In the weeks before Christmas, he’d outdone himself, raiding his cookbooks each day to produce desserts of almost pornographic allure, until even some of the office bachelors had grudgingly offered to marry him. And while Wanda was always ready with a smile and a plastic fork, Eli never felt her feelings for him tipping past the immediate satisfaction of her appetite. New Year’s, he knew, would be his ticking clock, the morning upon which practically every woman in America decided to torture herself pointlessly before gracefully relaxing back into the body that fate so thoughtfully prepared for her. If he couldn’t win Wanda by the year’s end, he thought terribly certain that he’d never have her. With every passing day she moaned more convincingly over every confection he brought in; with ever day his very being writhed in private torment. Until finally in a moment of feverish disregard, the question was out before he knew it.
“Say,” he said. “What would it take for a girl like you to be interested in somebody like me, anyhow?”
“Eli?” She swallowed the warm bite of cherry pie and blotted her lips. “Are you asking me on a date?”
“If you want to call it that.”
Wanda smiled as if she knew exactly what was really on his mind. “There’s one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“My mother always said never get involved with a man who doesn’t eat his own cooking.”
Eli gaped at her. Could it really be that easy? It had simply never occurred to him to partake of the goodies he made for the women of his dreams -- if for no other reason but there would be less for them. But on that day, as he joined Wanda for a piece of the pie he’d brought in (his first, her third) he realized his own folly. Good Lord, how many others had he driven away by the same moronic oversight? From that day forward he would never go hungry again.
Six days and nine pounds later, Eli was wallowing in the paradise of his new beloved’s arms. Consummation with Wanda was better than he ever could’ve dreamed. Just as he suspected, her abundant size bespoke a general inability to say no to any of life’s more persuasive pleasures. In short he threw herself at her mercy, while at the same time some small and lonely part of him already anticipated the inevitable letdown.
Imagine, then, his delight, when a week before Christmas she invited him home to meet her family. They lived several hours south, in a West Virginia coal town he’d never heard of, far off the beaten path. The long weekend promised more rich food, and thus more wonderful Wanda, then Eli could imagine. He watched in a stupor of awe as she packed clothes that were a size larger then her current wardrobe. Packed into his tiny car they drove south, first on the interstate, then down a series of old back roads, arriving at an old plantation mansion where the party was in full swing. Introductions were made, and Eli found himself immediately at ease among the boisterous parents, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts. Like Wanda they were all fat and red-cheeked and laughing, so healthy they practically squeaked. Eli wrestled with her brothers, who remarked once than once on how deceptively beefy he was “for a wiry little guy from New York.”
That afternoon, as several of the women disappeared into the kitchen to prepare what promised to be a massive Christmas dinner, Wanda glanced across the room at Eli and threw him a glance he’d come to know as an invitation for one thing. Following her back to her secluded bedroom, he shut the door behind them.
“You haven’t eaten much today,” he said, unable to resist.
“I’m saving myself. My mother’s making Christmas pie. It’s a tradition.”
Eli practically rubbed his palms together. “I hope you’re planning on gorging yourself.”
“Oh yes. Every year I bring a guest home for it.”
He smiled, and his eyes fell to an object on the floor so alien that for a moment he almost didn’t recognize it. It was a bathroom scale. He realized in the time he’d spent with Wanda, he’d never seen one in her presence, and its appearance here troubled him like a curse uttered in a church. “What’s that doing here?”
“That?” Her smile hadn’t changed. “That’s for you, dear.”
“Me?” He smiled back, anticipating a joke. “I know I’ve put on a little weight since you made me start eating my own food, but -- ”
“Go ahead, step on it.”
He did, reluctantly.
“Almost ten pounds,” Wanda said. “Not much, but it’ll do. You’re a Yankee -- they’re notoriously lean. But my family will understand.”
Puzzled but still smiling, Eli let the comment pass. In this time of holiday togetherness, he was simply thankful that Wanda and her family had welcomed him into their home.
And they too were deeply thankful for Eli -- and even mentioned him by name -- that evening when they sat down to eat their annual Christmas pie.
***
At the office, Eli’s absence was scarcely noted -- until the holiday season came around again, when people asked, “Whatever happened to that skinny guy who used to work here? He made the best pie.”
Eli Breen loved fat girls.
In the beginning, yes, he’d viewed them in their crudest light, as God’s consolation prize to the lonely man, the shy and not-quite-handsome wallflower, the homely scholar who could never quite win the adoration of the glamour girls, the hotties, the babes.
But with time’s wisdom Eli came to view their plus-size beauty in a truer and more endearing incarnation. These humble, grateful creatures, so abundant around the office where he’d worked the last ten years, had come to represent his feminine ideal. The bigger, the better, in Eli’s eyes. Those flint-hearted souls who suspected that Eli sought such women out of pity or some misguided sense of Christian charity only needed to spend a moment gazing into his most debauched imaginings as he buried himself in the deep and yielding cushions of their flesh. What he felt for them was no more sympathy than a bedazzled coyote feels beneath the full moon.
Of course nothing worthwhile came easily. One could not simply introduce oneself to the new girl over a box of donuts and rip her clothes off. After all, most of these women had spent their lives as the butt of every cruel joke and instantly distrusted all but the most innocent overtures of kindness, particularly from men. And who, Eli thought, could blame them?
Around the office, the holidays were his equivalent of spring break in Daytona Beach, and he reveled shamelessly in its bounties. As the temperatures dropped, vast amounts of cakes and cookies appeared on every counter and desk, and even the most malnourished clerical waifs became voluptuous in his eyes, while the potential fatties came to embrace their destiny as whip-yielding dominatrices of his libido. Eli had long ago freighted the shelves of his modest bachelor kitchen with rows of cookbooks and every manner of professional bakeware. Like a scientist in his lab, he’d devoted countless evenings to quietly and studiously transforming himself into a wizard of sugar and cream, butter and glaze, chocolate and icing. With Thanksgiving’s arrival he positively blossomed, plying his female coworkers with such an endless cornucopia of sweets that some of the more suspicious minds had cause to question his own sexual proclivities. Whenever such speculation arose, the only ones who didn’t contribute were inevitably the larger, single women of the office, who only looked away shyly -- albeit hungrily.
Over the years Eli had discovered that food itself, given freely and in sufficient quantity, not only gained these women’s trust, but the additional weight gain made them more irresistible in his eyes. As their bodies swelled, their professional attire tightening over burgeoning bellies, breasts and thighs, Eli became queerly proprietary about their appearance. Those were his extra ten pounds they were sporting, thanks to the pumpkin roll he’d brought in the week before, the regiment of frosted gingerbread men, the baked stuffed apples that for all intents and purposes he might’ve glazed with crack cocaine. In his giddiest imaginings he dreamed of dating a woman long enough to double her size, so that he might rightfully lay claim to a full half of her thighs, her torso, her chins. He imagined such a woman sprawled over an entire queen-sized bed on their honeymoon, indulging his basest carnal desires while at the same time devouring whole layers of her wedding cake with her bare hands.
But of course this never happened. Like all relationships built solely on the physical, Eli’s dalliances with his blushing, quivering priestesses never lasted more than a few delicious weeks, a sweet month or two, before they inevitably began to find his attentions boring. The interminable praise he’d lavished on their bodies, once mesmerizing, became monotonous. His endless insistence on taking them out for dinner and insisting they eat whatever they want, however much they wanted, went from charming to downright odd. But the cruelest cut was yet to come. As objects of genuine desire, the confidence of these women increased and, with terrible inevitability, they began to shed the very weight that had lit the fires in Eli’s loins to begin with. It always ended with them breaking up with him over dinner where he was dismayed to discover they ordered a salad.
But like any romantic, Eli never gave up hope. With every year he dreamed of a true woman of substance, a soul mate whose very self-confidence would only make her grow larger.
It was in Wanda Newberry that he knew he’d found such a prize.
Wanda’s initial appearance at the office had instantly transformed Eli’s tongue and brain into a twisted pretzel of adoration and worship. She was fabulously pretty, with a black wave of shoulder-length hair, a wide, lascivious mouth and a rolling laugh that sprang up across the cubicles like a bell of early dismissal. She was always immaculately dressed and coifed and smelled like a fascinating combination of sandalwood and fresh cappuccino with cinnamon sprinkled on top. And she weighed, Eli imagined, nearly two hundred pounds, rendering her all but radioactive in the eyes of the office wolves, while simultaneously crippling Eli with lust.
In the weeks before Christmas, he’d outdone himself, raiding his cookbooks each day to produce desserts of almost pornographic allure, until even some of the office bachelors had grudgingly offered to marry him. And while Wanda was always ready with a smile and a plastic fork, Eli never felt her feelings for him tipping past the immediate satisfaction of her appetite. New Year’s, he knew, would be his ticking clock, the morning upon which practically every woman in America decided to torture herself pointlessly before gracefully relaxing back into the body that fate so thoughtfully prepared for her. If he couldn’t win Wanda by the year’s end, he thought terribly certain that he’d never have her. With every passing day she moaned more convincingly over every confection he brought in; with ever day his very being writhed in private torment. Until finally in a moment of feverish disregard, the question was out before he knew it.
“Say,” he said. “What would it take for a girl like you to be interested in somebody like me, anyhow?”
“Eli?” She swallowed the warm bite of cherry pie and blotted her lips. “Are you asking me on a date?”
“If you want to call it that.”
Wanda smiled as if she knew exactly what was really on his mind. “There’s one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“My mother always said never get involved with a man who doesn’t eat his own cooking.”
Eli gaped at her. Could it really be that easy? It had simply never occurred to him to partake of the goodies he made for the women of his dreams -- if for no other reason but there would be less for them. But on that day, as he joined Wanda for a piece of the pie he’d brought in (his first, her third) he realized his own folly. Good Lord, how many others had he driven away by the same moronic oversight? From that day forward he would never go hungry again.
Six days and nine pounds later, Eli was wallowing in the paradise of his new beloved’s arms. Consummation with Wanda was better than he ever could’ve dreamed. Just as he suspected, her abundant size bespoke a general inability to say no to any of life’s more persuasive pleasures. In short he threw herself at her mercy, while at the same time some small and lonely part of him already anticipated the inevitable letdown.
Imagine, then, his delight, when a week before Christmas she invited him home to meet her family. They lived several hours south, in a West Virginia coal town he’d never heard of, far off the beaten path. The long weekend promised more rich food, and thus more wonderful Wanda, then Eli could imagine. He watched in a stupor of awe as she packed clothes that were a size larger then her current wardrobe. Packed into his tiny car they drove south, first on the interstate, then down a series of old back roads, arriving at an old plantation mansion where the party was in full swing. Introductions were made, and Eli found himself immediately at ease among the boisterous parents, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts. Like Wanda they were all fat and red-cheeked and laughing, so healthy they practically squeaked. Eli wrestled with her brothers, who remarked once than once on how deceptively beefy he was “for a wiry little guy from New York.”
That afternoon, as several of the women disappeared into the kitchen to prepare what promised to be a massive Christmas dinner, Wanda glanced across the room at Eli and threw him a glance he’d come to know as an invitation for one thing. Following her back to her secluded bedroom, he shut the door behind them.
“You haven’t eaten much today,” he said, unable to resist.
“I’m saving myself. My mother’s making Christmas pie. It’s a tradition.”
Eli practically rubbed his palms together. “I hope you’re planning on gorging yourself.”
“Oh yes. Every year I bring a guest home for it.”
He smiled, and his eyes fell to an object on the floor so alien that for a moment he almost didn’t recognize it. It was a bathroom scale. He realized in the time he’d spent with Wanda, he’d never seen one in her presence, and its appearance here troubled him like a curse uttered in a church. “What’s that doing here?”
“That?” Her smile hadn’t changed. “That’s for you, dear.”
“Me?” He smiled back, anticipating a joke. “I know I’ve put on a little weight since you made me start eating my own food, but -- ”
“Go ahead, step on it.”
He did, reluctantly.
“Almost ten pounds,” Wanda said. “Not much, but it’ll do. You’re a Yankee -- they’re notoriously lean. But my family will understand.”
Puzzled but still smiling, Eli let the comment pass. In this time of holiday togetherness, he was simply thankful that Wanda and her family had welcomed him into their home.
And they too were deeply thankful for Eli -- and even mentioned him by name -- that evening when they sat down to eat their annual Christmas pie.
***
At the office, Eli’s absence was scarcely noted -- until the holiday season came around again, when people asked, “Whatever happened to that skinny guy who used to work here? He made the best pie.”
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Tis the Season to be Whoring
My friends:
Tomorrow is December 21st -- the date in which the action of CHASING THE DEAD takes place.
So I'm extending the opportunity to have your name appear in my novel in progress, THE BLACK WING, due out sometime in '08.
"Joe, how do I take advantage of this amazing opportunity?"
Easy.
Just buy a copy of CHASING THE DEAD sometime on Dec. 21st and send me a scan of the receipt with the date on it. That's joeschreiber1@yahoo.com.
In exchange for your loyal patronage you shall see your name appear in THE BLACK WING. First come, first served, but I promise I'll do my damndest to accommodate anybody brave enough to partake in this experiment.
It all ends tomorrow at midnight so get out there and get that last minute zombie shopping done.
UPDATE: 12/21
It's been brought to my attention by one of the many voices in my head that since Chasing the Dead is an all-night deal -- the action ends the following morning -- that it's actually appropriate to extend this offer through Friday, December 22nd.
So it is written; so shall it be done.
Tomorrow is December 21st -- the date in which the action of CHASING THE DEAD takes place.
So I'm extending the opportunity to have your name appear in my novel in progress, THE BLACK WING, due out sometime in '08.
"Joe, how do I take advantage of this amazing opportunity?"
Easy.
Just buy a copy of CHASING THE DEAD sometime on Dec. 21st and send me a scan of the receipt with the date on it. That's joeschreiber1@yahoo.com.
In exchange for your loyal patronage you shall see your name appear in THE BLACK WING. First come, first served, but I promise I'll do my damndest to accommodate anybody brave enough to partake in this experiment.
It all ends tomorrow at midnight so get out there and get that last minute zombie shopping done.
UPDATE: 12/21
It's been brought to my attention by one of the many voices in my head that since Chasing the Dead is an all-night deal -- the action ends the following morning -- that it's actually appropriate to extend this offer through Friday, December 22nd.
So it is written; so shall it be done.
Monday, December 18, 2006
WhySpace
It’s been just about two months since I started a MySpace profile as a way of heightening awareness forChasing the Dead—time enough, I think, to get a little perspective on what’s happening.
I’ll admit, I avoided MySpace for a long time. It seemed like such a transparent promotional gimmick, the equivalent of the rubber frogman that comes free inside the cereal box. When my MySpace self finally arose from his slab and began doggedly recruiting “friends,” it was a weirdly mechanical project. I started by running searches on authors that I’d been compared to--King, Koontz, Morrell, and when I found people whose profiles listed those authors’ work as their favorite books, I messaged them and added them as friends. I also made friends with other writers, mainly genre authors, some of whom responded personally to my messages, while others didn’t. I found myself befriending filmmakers, musicians, special effects people and a wild gaggle of half-dressed goth girls and B-horror actresses that have brought along an enormous following all their own.
One of the most entertaining things about MySpace is the way it takes on a life of its own when you’re not paying attention. If authors’ blogs are the roses of cyber-self-expression, then the MySpace profile is the African violet, growing in minimal sunlight and modest plant food. I’m not going to say that it thrives on neglect, but it does require significantly less time, which is the coin of the realm for a working writer with a family and a day job. I don’t post updates on my MySpace blog nearly as often as I do on the Scary Parent, but I still go out searching for friends on a weekly basis. I also try to post semi-coherent comments regularly on MySpace profiles that I know get a lot of traffic—from Mark Danielewski to Jesus to Rob Zombie—in hopes of encountering folks who might consider picking up a horror novel. It’s like taking out free space on a highway billboard. In moments of doubt, I like to think of Tess Gerritsen, who once did a signing at a bookstore where I worked, smiling at passersby and offering, with perfect polite professionalism, “Medical thriller?” Every time I go to Buckcherry’s profile and tell them they rock my undead world, I get a few more people requesting friendship with Chasing the Dead.
The strange thing is that MySpace Joe seems to have taken on an identity of his own. He’s peppier than I am, more prone to exclamation points, calling people “brother” and using phrases like “awesome shit,” all of which feels okay when posting a comment to someone that calls himself “SnuffSplatter.” Appropriately, then, MyJoe is kind of like me after a half a dozen drinks, which I suppose is the spirit of “friendship.” There are a few people I’ve met—mainly other writers, editors, and somewhat ashamed bloggers—that I’m more self-conscious about. But many of the prospective readers get straight two hundred-proof MyJoe, complete with bizarro holiday greetings and late-night enthusiastic ravings about the video clips they’ve posted on their own pages of a man happily gulping another man’s brains from his skull with a spoon.
I also started a YouTube account, also free, and posted a few video clips on it—and this was a total shot in the dark because A) None of what I posted had anything to do with the book and B)I never had any real idea what I was doing. The crazy thing about YouTube is how fast people jump on recent uploads. I literally put a 30-second clip featuring items from my refrigerator doing a scene from Out of Sight—a carton of milk as George Clooney, a cantaloupe as Steve Zahn—and had something like 15 hits in the first five minutes. I was immediately informed that I wasn’t Orson Welles and interest swiftly ebbed, but one can’t help but wonder if somehow hitting the right combination of stupid and brilliant could send possible book promotion into the stratosphere. Michael Crichton’s promotional work for Next got a lot of attention, and deservedly so; this alternative is particularly appealing because YouTube isn’t CBS. Anybody can get there—it’s a meritocracy of ideas, cleverness…or at least gimmickry.
Publicity begins with awareness. You can’t buy what you don’t know exists. I’ve encountered plenty of people on MySpace who recognized the Chasing book jacket from Borders or Barnes and Noble but didn’t think of buying it until they heard from me personally, and they emailed me later to tell me they bought the book. And as far as building readership goes—because let’s face it, that’s the name of the game—I think it’s worth the minimal effort. Steve Alten of Meg fame cultivated a following by naming characters after readers, some of whom had emailed him to correct his technical errors. Kevin Smith got a lot of flack by putting the names of all his MySpace friends in the credit crawl for Clerks 2. Neither one of these guys has any delusions about what they’re up against, and there’s something inspiring about their work ethic. They are working, after all—“whoring,” Kevin Smith calls it, and maybe it is, a little, but it’s promoting the work they love.
And like the rubber frogman inside the cereal box, it’s free.
I’ll admit, I avoided MySpace for a long time. It seemed like such a transparent promotional gimmick, the equivalent of the rubber frogman that comes free inside the cereal box. When my MySpace self finally arose from his slab and began doggedly recruiting “friends,” it was a weirdly mechanical project. I started by running searches on authors that I’d been compared to--King, Koontz, Morrell, and when I found people whose profiles listed those authors’ work as their favorite books, I messaged them and added them as friends. I also made friends with other writers, mainly genre authors, some of whom responded personally to my messages, while others didn’t. I found myself befriending filmmakers, musicians, special effects people and a wild gaggle of half-dressed goth girls and B-horror actresses that have brought along an enormous following all their own.
One of the most entertaining things about MySpace is the way it takes on a life of its own when you’re not paying attention. If authors’ blogs are the roses of cyber-self-expression, then the MySpace profile is the African violet, growing in minimal sunlight and modest plant food. I’m not going to say that it thrives on neglect, but it does require significantly less time, which is the coin of the realm for a working writer with a family and a day job. I don’t post updates on my MySpace blog nearly as often as I do on the Scary Parent, but I still go out searching for friends on a weekly basis. I also try to post semi-coherent comments regularly on MySpace profiles that I know get a lot of traffic—from Mark Danielewski to Jesus to Rob Zombie—in hopes of encountering folks who might consider picking up a horror novel. It’s like taking out free space on a highway billboard. In moments of doubt, I like to think of Tess Gerritsen, who once did a signing at a bookstore where I worked, smiling at passersby and offering, with perfect polite professionalism, “Medical thriller?” Every time I go to Buckcherry’s profile and tell them they rock my undead world, I get a few more people requesting friendship with Chasing the Dead.
The strange thing is that MySpace Joe seems to have taken on an identity of his own. He’s peppier than I am, more prone to exclamation points, calling people “brother” and using phrases like “awesome shit,” all of which feels okay when posting a comment to someone that calls himself “SnuffSplatter.” Appropriately, then, MyJoe is kind of like me after a half a dozen drinks, which I suppose is the spirit of “friendship.” There are a few people I’ve met—mainly other writers, editors, and somewhat ashamed bloggers—that I’m more self-conscious about. But many of the prospective readers get straight two hundred-proof MyJoe, complete with bizarro holiday greetings and late-night enthusiastic ravings about the video clips they’ve posted on their own pages of a man happily gulping another man’s brains from his skull with a spoon.
I also started a YouTube account, also free, and posted a few video clips on it—and this was a total shot in the dark because A) None of what I posted had anything to do with the book and B)I never had any real idea what I was doing. The crazy thing about YouTube is how fast people jump on recent uploads. I literally put a 30-second clip featuring items from my refrigerator doing a scene from Out of Sight—a carton of milk as George Clooney, a cantaloupe as Steve Zahn—and had something like 15 hits in the first five minutes. I was immediately informed that I wasn’t Orson Welles and interest swiftly ebbed, but one can’t help but wonder if somehow hitting the right combination of stupid and brilliant could send possible book promotion into the stratosphere. Michael Crichton’s promotional work for Next got a lot of attention, and deservedly so; this alternative is particularly appealing because YouTube isn’t CBS. Anybody can get there—it’s a meritocracy of ideas, cleverness…or at least gimmickry.
Publicity begins with awareness. You can’t buy what you don’t know exists. I’ve encountered plenty of people on MySpace who recognized the Chasing book jacket from Borders or Barnes and Noble but didn’t think of buying it until they heard from me personally, and they emailed me later to tell me they bought the book. And as far as building readership goes—because let’s face it, that’s the name of the game—I think it’s worth the minimal effort. Steve Alten of Meg fame cultivated a following by naming characters after readers, some of whom had emailed him to correct his technical errors. Kevin Smith got a lot of flack by putting the names of all his MySpace friends in the credit crawl for Clerks 2. Neither one of these guys has any delusions about what they’re up against, and there’s something inspiring about their work ethic. They are working, after all—“whoring,” Kevin Smith calls it, and maybe it is, a little, but it’s promoting the work they love.
And like the rubber frogman inside the cereal box, it’s free.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Jurassic Dickens
Over at her blog, Tess Gerritsen takes a look at the small penis rule and the tall shadow it casts across contemporary literature. Now I'm hardly up on this new-fangled phaliteracy, so I may be misunderstanding this (or fabricating it completely), but it appears that in a characteristically controversial move, author and scientist Michael Crichton actually used his penis to write certain chapters his current bestseller Next.
There is, then, the lingering question of how the male genitalia became such a critical part of the creative process for developing writers. Certainly we guys have always done our earliest writing with what Dickens called "the first quill," whether we were aware of it at the time or not -- curlicued lower case q's and z's slashed recklessly across snowdrifts and vacant lots are the most common, although those with the more dramatic flair found themselves whizzing through the whole alphabet, depending on how much Kool Aid we'd had that day. Writing as self-expression, writing as an object-lesson on the reappearance of absorbed material, writing as relief...The simple fact is that many of us found this process so darn satisfying that we just never stopped. Why then (I'm sure Crichton asked himself) ought the ergonomically challenging artifice of a word processor disrupt such spontaneous joy?
Of course there are countless fascinating cases of penile penmanship in literature. While Rudyard Kipling may or may not have actually written parts of The Jungle Book with his man-shaft, there are several historical examples of Hemingway stories written "on the fly," particularly his WW II dispatches from the trenches when both pen and paper were scarce. Of course all of this provides rich precedent to Crichton's most recent bold stroke, leaving us all waiting breathlessly for the next author who will dare greet the empty page with the intrepid cry:
"By Jove! I believe I shall write this one with my penis!"
Friday, December 15, 2006
Big, Thirsty and Alone
The Census Bureau’s 2007 Statistical Abstract is out today, a document whose juiciest raw data I find myself drooling over with almost as much enthusiasm as the JC Penney Christmas catalogue that I used to moon over back in elementary school. According to this report in the Times, “because the abstract is so concrete, the statistics can suggest false precision.”
Now, I can’t tell which I like better, the notion of the concrete abstract or that of false precision, but either way, I’ve already found myself growing fonder than ever of the average American. How can you not love this water-bloated beanbag-dweller whose leisure time has been privatized within an inch of his life, this fun-loving blogger who is almost as likely injure herself with her bed as her bicycle? Who wouldn’t want to share a high fructose corn syrup beverage or perhaps a well-salted snack with some member of this fat, towering race of soon-to-be giants, in between moments of prayer for our respective good health?
Ah, but therein lies the problem.
Apparently we’re not sharing anything with one another, or at least not enough of it. The census report is, of course, already being analyzed and spun in all kinds of shocking ways by experts who sound as if they’ve been in an echo chamber for the last decade. Robert Putnam, a Harvard professor and author, says:
“The distinctive effect of technology has been to enable us to get entertainment and information while remaining entirely alone. That is from many points of view very efficient. I also think it’s fundamentally bad because the lack of social contact, the social isolation means that we don’t share information and values and outlook that we should.”
Now, as much as I like anything being categorized as “fundamentally bad” (how can you go wrong with that?) this quote put me in a somewhat grumpy frame of mind. Mainly because it’s idiotic. It’s also whiny and unoriginal, but that’s of lesser importance. William Gibson once said something to effect that every major cultural change has been a result of technological advancement, and I agree with that to a much greater extent, in part because he doesn’t go on to say, “And it all really sucks.”
Maybe Putnam missed the part of the report that states there are 13 million of us blogging away out there, which is just one example of how technology hasn’t prevented us from sharing information, values and outlooks, or possibly (gasp) even improving our methods of communication. I suppose it’s possible that in days past, back when we got all our shared cultural heritage from hanging out together at Orange Julius, we passed on more unwritten social data through vocal intonation and olfactory cues, but I’d like to believe that there’s a certain compensating factor that comes along with electronic communication, which I’ll call honesty. I know people are being more straightforward in print than they might be face-to-face, and maybe more level headed too. There’s also the matter of distribution and accessibility of information, which wasn’t so much the case when we were more tribal and less water-logged.
Honestly though, I think what bugs me the most about Putnam’s reaction to this is that it’s just so simple-minded and reductionist that it almost sounds like he was misquoted. For somebody to be given airplay in a news organ as big time as the Times, you’d hope for something a little more thoughtful or at least thought-provoking, than what you’d get when your mom thought you were spending too much time playing Frogger.
Now, I can’t tell which I like better, the notion of the concrete abstract or that of false precision, but either way, I’ve already found myself growing fonder than ever of the average American. How can you not love this water-bloated beanbag-dweller whose leisure time has been privatized within an inch of his life, this fun-loving blogger who is almost as likely injure herself with her bed as her bicycle? Who wouldn’t want to share a high fructose corn syrup beverage or perhaps a well-salted snack with some member of this fat, towering race of soon-to-be giants, in between moments of prayer for our respective good health?
Ah, but therein lies the problem.
Apparently we’re not sharing anything with one another, or at least not enough of it. The census report is, of course, already being analyzed and spun in all kinds of shocking ways by experts who sound as if they’ve been in an echo chamber for the last decade. Robert Putnam, a Harvard professor and author, says:
“The distinctive effect of technology has been to enable us to get entertainment and information while remaining entirely alone. That is from many points of view very efficient. I also think it’s fundamentally bad because the lack of social contact, the social isolation means that we don’t share information and values and outlook that we should.”
Now, as much as I like anything being categorized as “fundamentally bad” (how can you go wrong with that?) this quote put me in a somewhat grumpy frame of mind. Mainly because it’s idiotic. It’s also whiny and unoriginal, but that’s of lesser importance. William Gibson once said something to effect that every major cultural change has been a result of technological advancement, and I agree with that to a much greater extent, in part because he doesn’t go on to say, “And it all really sucks.”
Maybe Putnam missed the part of the report that states there are 13 million of us blogging away out there, which is just one example of how technology hasn’t prevented us from sharing information, values and outlooks, or possibly (gasp) even improving our methods of communication. I suppose it’s possible that in days past, back when we got all our shared cultural heritage from hanging out together at Orange Julius, we passed on more unwritten social data through vocal intonation and olfactory cues, but I’d like to believe that there’s a certain compensating factor that comes along with electronic communication, which I’ll call honesty. I know people are being more straightforward in print than they might be face-to-face, and maybe more level headed too. There’s also the matter of distribution and accessibility of information, which wasn’t so much the case when we were more tribal and less water-logged.
Honestly though, I think what bugs me the most about Putnam’s reaction to this is that it’s just so simple-minded and reductionist that it almost sounds like he was misquoted. For somebody to be given airplay in a news organ as big time as the Times, you’d hope for something a little more thoughtful or at least thought-provoking, than what you’d get when your mom thought you were spending too much time playing Frogger.
Link Lank Lunk
The Rake takes Chuck Klosterman to task over his questionably authoritative stoner wisdom.
Gwenda opens up a truly fascinating conversation about the geeky reading we've all done in the years ending in 'teen. For me, it was a paperback copy of Jaws that I couldn't put down for a year, though I don't remember every actually reading it start to finish.
Gwenda also points the way to the smoldering fumerole that all started with somebody's incredulity that hot chicks might read SF. In related news, razib has purportedly im'd Tara Smith asking if she wants to hit the wine bars later with her copy of The Left Hand of Darkness.
And Jason poses the question, is it possible for a cannibal to overstay his welcome?
Gwenda opens up a truly fascinating conversation about the geeky reading we've all done in the years ending in 'teen. For me, it was a paperback copy of Jaws that I couldn't put down for a year, though I don't remember every actually reading it start to finish.
Gwenda also points the way to the smoldering fumerole that all started with somebody's incredulity that hot chicks might read SF. In related news, razib has purportedly im'd Tara Smith asking if she wants to hit the wine bars later with her copy of The Left Hand of Darkness.
And Jason poses the question, is it possible for a cannibal to overstay his welcome?
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Interview with Peter Abrahams
Peter Abrahams is one of my all-time favorite writers, and one of the few who just seem to be getting better. I was lucky enough to sit on a panel with him back in 1994, but not quite lucky enough to know how lucky I was at the time. Since then I've read everything the man's written, and last week Peter was gracious enough to answer some questions about writing and the process.
JS: Your fiction strikes me as the work of a very intuitive writer. What’s the writing process like for you? Do you tend to outline at all?
PA: I write every day – the same way a musician practices. I tend to outline less and less.
JS: Your characters tend to be very real people, flawed, with the capacity for questionable decision-making—Ivy Seidel from End of Story is a great example. How important is it to you that your main character be sympathetic in the traditional thriller-hero sense? Do you ever find yourself worrying that some readers might not identify with a protagonist?
PA: Maybe I should worry about that, but I just don’t. Manipulating aspects of story in the hope of cozying up to the reader is something that goes against my grain, and that therefore I don’t do well.
JS: I remember hearing you say once—this was about Lights Out—how you started out writing one type of novel and discovered these other elements coming into play: I’m thinking specifically about “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” But you do something similar with the fictional Retards Picnic album lyrics—“You don’t even know what’s buried in your own backyard”—in Oblivion. Can you talk a little bit about how you uncover these seemingly tangential parts of the story and how they relate to what’s happening with the characters? Do you innately trust these elements and go with them, or do they more often emerge during rewrites and revisions?
PA: A great question. Lights Out was the book where I started to get the hang of introducing thematic material into the story in a way that deepened it and even elevated the suspense. Also, it’s fun. I trust any element that comes to me out of the blue. In my new book, Nerve Damage, I knew that Roy, the main character, had to be worthy of an obituary in the New York Times, but that he would be a sculptor working in huge forms made from scrap – a notion full of narrative mileage – just popped into my head. I try to keep revision to a minimum.
JS: On your website you talk about going back to the Lew Archer novels and discovering you didn’t enjoy them like you once had. Are there authors whose work you’ve come to enjoy more over the years? Do you go back and read your own work and if so, what kind of emotional reaction does that generate?
PA: When I’m too far gone to write I’ll go back and read my stuff. Or at least leaf through.
JS: William Gibson recently wrote about how the writing process never gets any easier and describes a point in any work in progress where the writer is convinced he’s not only writing his worst book, but the worst book ever written. Do you ever run aground at any point in the process? Has writing gotten any easier for you? Have you ever abandoned a book midway?
PA: I’ve never abandoned a book. Writing is hard, but for me, maybe because I’m so used to it, it’s not quite as hard as it used to be. Knock on wood.
JS: End of Story is, in one sense, a “writing” novel, the way that The Fan was a baseball novel. Was it fun to write about writing? Did you enjoy getting a chance to share insight, even subtly, about the craft?
PA: Yes, I enjoyed that immensely. A well-known writer told me the book was a seminar on writing. On the other hand, when I described the idea to my youngest daughter, she said, “Well, Dad, that means you’re going to have to produce samples of this inmate’s brilliant writing, so forget it.”
JS: What inspired you to start writing YA novels? I loved the character of Ruby in The Tutor—were readers’ positive reactions to her part of the genesis for Ingrid Levin-Hill in the Echo Falls series?
PA: You’re so close. The wonderful Laura Geringer at Harper Childrens read The Tutor and asked if I’d be interested in writing for younger readers.
JS: The Echo Falls books are your first YA novels, as well as the first non-stand alone books you’ve published. Do you put on a different hat when you write about Ingrid Levin-Hill, or is the YA writing process interchangeable with your mindset when you’re writing the adult books?
PA: Interchangeable.
JS: Can you say anything about what you’re working on now?
PA: My next adult book, Nerve Damage, comes out in March. Into the Dark, 3rd in the Echo Falls series, is also finished, and comes out next winter. I’ve just written a short story for a Scholastic YA anthology called Number of the Beast, and am about to start my new novel, a DNA story.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
You Must Be This Tall to Achieve Literary Respectability
It's a proud moment in the Scary Parent's life -- my youngest child is now officially taller than my stack of unpublished work.
In the interest of full disclosure, the stack does include the manuscript for my forthcoming Eat the Dark. What it doesn't include, however, is the (mercifully) lost manuscript for a 600-page fantasy epic that I typed on a 1948 Olympic office manual typewriter my sophomore year of college, along with an even longer, almost as bad novel called Apocrypha, from 1997.
In which case, I would need a significantly taller 3-year-old.
In the interest of full disclosure, the stack does include the manuscript for my forthcoming Eat the Dark. What it doesn't include, however, is the (mercifully) lost manuscript for a 600-page fantasy epic that I typed on a 1948 Olympic office manual typewriter my sophomore year of college, along with an even longer, almost as bad novel called Apocrypha, from 1997.
In which case, I would need a significantly taller 3-year-old.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Fake Buildings, Real Rubble
Just got back from a week in Orlando, land of pre-packaged family entertainment. To the enormous surprise of absolutely nobody, I’m a big dork for amusement parks and the idea of dragging my four-year-old son into the 3D Terminator Stunt Show still seems like I'm doing the universe a favor.
We went to Disneyworld, Universal Studios Florida and Universal Islands of Adventure. What struck me about Disneyworld is how the whole thing seems to be falling apart like a wedding cake left out in the rain. There have to be municipal buildings in Florida that were constructed in 1970 that are holding up better than this. Three different rides broke down while we were on them, including the upgraded Pirates of the Caribbean, where the people in the boat in front of us had to coordinate a kind of get-to-know-your-neighbor side-to-side swaying type thing to dislodge the logjam of boats building up behind us. Disney is Disney, and people will keep going in droves until the wheels literally fall off…but the cracks are showing.
Universal, for me, was where it’s at. The Hulk coaster at Islands of Adventure is probably the most entertaining forty seconds I’ve ever spent with my clothes on, and like the Spiderman ride -- hands-down the single most successful combination of 3D and actual motion anywhere, ever -- the irritating prefatory material is kept to a minimum. I’m not quite sure why Universal feels the need to turn every ride into a story, but what it requires from the participant, twenty minutes of standing there listening to expository fluff that nobody cares about, becomes increasingly taxing. Especially with a four-year-old in hand. Who really cares how Helen Hunt felt while filming Twister? Better was the One Fish Two Fish ride, which actually seems to have an incidental soundtrack provided by Phish, and the fairly credible T-Rex at the end of the Jurassic Park River Ride. Universal also took the time to build an entire life-size replica of the Gardens of Allah apartments where Marilyn Monroe was discovered, which I found weirdly cool, though my wife's question to the tour guide of whether Marilyn's rotting corpse was still inside seemed to illicit more puzzlement than anything else.
Even the best of these tricks, though, wears the somehow not-quite-flavorful aroma of the late ‘90s…already dated blockbusters, like Jerry Bruckheimer’s signature guitar riff that he’s used in every movie since Top Gun. While the ride’s in motion, of course, adrenaline carries the day, but upon a moment’s reflection, everything seems to have burst forth in a single, enthusiastic Lewinsky-era gush about ten years ago, when at least a smattering of people might have actually cared what Bill Paxton had to say about going mano a mano with an F5. Now, though, entering the real and artificial wreckage—and particularly reflecting back on it now that the woozy haze of six days of fried chicken, pizza and cheeseburgers slides its way inexorably out of my system—a kind of postcoital melancholy creeps up, a sense that anybody who remembers this stuff when it was new is now just a little too old to love it like we ought to.
Or, as my four-year-old later said, appropos of nothing: "Do you know what Cyberdyne is? It's the end of the world."
We went to Disneyworld, Universal Studios Florida and Universal Islands of Adventure. What struck me about Disneyworld is how the whole thing seems to be falling apart like a wedding cake left out in the rain. There have to be municipal buildings in Florida that were constructed in 1970 that are holding up better than this. Three different rides broke down while we were on them, including the upgraded Pirates of the Caribbean, where the people in the boat in front of us had to coordinate a kind of get-to-know-your-neighbor side-to-side swaying type thing to dislodge the logjam of boats building up behind us. Disney is Disney, and people will keep going in droves until the wheels literally fall off…but the cracks are showing.
Universal, for me, was where it’s at. The Hulk coaster at Islands of Adventure is probably the most entertaining forty seconds I’ve ever spent with my clothes on, and like the Spiderman ride -- hands-down the single most successful combination of 3D and actual motion anywhere, ever -- the irritating prefatory material is kept to a minimum. I’m not quite sure why Universal feels the need to turn every ride into a story, but what it requires from the participant, twenty minutes of standing there listening to expository fluff that nobody cares about, becomes increasingly taxing. Especially with a four-year-old in hand. Who really cares how Helen Hunt felt while filming Twister? Better was the One Fish Two Fish ride, which actually seems to have an incidental soundtrack provided by Phish, and the fairly credible T-Rex at the end of the Jurassic Park River Ride. Universal also took the time to build an entire life-size replica of the Gardens of Allah apartments where Marilyn Monroe was discovered, which I found weirdly cool, though my wife's question to the tour guide of whether Marilyn's rotting corpse was still inside seemed to illicit more puzzlement than anything else.
Even the best of these tricks, though, wears the somehow not-quite-flavorful aroma of the late ‘90s…already dated blockbusters, like Jerry Bruckheimer’s signature guitar riff that he’s used in every movie since Top Gun. While the ride’s in motion, of course, adrenaline carries the day, but upon a moment’s reflection, everything seems to have burst forth in a single, enthusiastic Lewinsky-era gush about ten years ago, when at least a smattering of people might have actually cared what Bill Paxton had to say about going mano a mano with an F5. Now, though, entering the real and artificial wreckage—and particularly reflecting back on it now that the woozy haze of six days of fried chicken, pizza and cheeseburgers slides its way inexorably out of my system—a kind of postcoital melancholy creeps up, a sense that anybody who remembers this stuff when it was new is now just a little too old to love it like we ought to.
Or, as my four-year-old later said, appropos of nothing: "Do you know what Cyberdyne is? It's the end of the world."
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Clowns. Always Clowns.
I'm typing this tonight in a hallway of a outside my hotel room in Orlando -- the wifi's a little sketchy in the room. You know the kind of hallway. Braided red, green, yellow and blue pattern on the rug. Three doors to my right, somebody's watching a Kevin Smith movie.
But I'm not thinking about Kevin Smith.
I'm thinking about clowns.
I've always been scared of clowns. This goes way back before It came out. For me, it started in a hotel room...a hotel hallway, actually. Not unlike this one.
I was five. I think. It would've meant that my brother was two. It was a family vacation (I don't remember where) and I happened to be the first one to wake up that morning. My options were very limited. I knew there were small metal cans of orange juice in the little refrigerator, and I may have opened one, but that didn't hold my interest for long. Turning on the TV, or even the lights, would wake up my parents, and probably my little brother, so there was nothing to do except sit there and wait for the day to start.
I remember very distinctly my decision to push a chair over to the door so that I could look out the peephole. I climbed up and stood there, my eye pressed against the little metal ring, fascinated by the fisheye view it offered of the corridor outside, the way it warped the hallway and the doors opposite me. I don't know how long I stood there staring out, before the clown came by.
Now, I must tell you, I remember this happening with absolute fidelity. Even now, looking back across the years, there is no doubt in my mind that this happened. While I was standing there, staring through the hole at the empty hall, a clown came capering by. I saw him bounce past the door...then stop.
And then come back.
To my door. To the peephole where I still stood, immobile, unable to move. To bring his face up to stare back through it, at me. Knowing, Grinning.
I remember my blood turning cold.
Sitting here tonight in this Orlando hotel room, thirty-some years later, with the laptop on my knees, I still get a chill. Because no matter how hard I try to convince myself that what I saw that night was a product of an overactive imagination, that other feeling still overrides it...the knowledge that what I saw -- and what saw me -- was absolutely real.
The clown.
His grinning, knowing face.
But I'm not thinking about Kevin Smith.
I'm thinking about clowns.
I've always been scared of clowns. This goes way back before It came out. For me, it started in a hotel room...a hotel hallway, actually. Not unlike this one.
I was five. I think. It would've meant that my brother was two. It was a family vacation (I don't remember where) and I happened to be the first one to wake up that morning. My options were very limited. I knew there were small metal cans of orange juice in the little refrigerator, and I may have opened one, but that didn't hold my interest for long. Turning on the TV, or even the lights, would wake up my parents, and probably my little brother, so there was nothing to do except sit there and wait for the day to start.
I remember very distinctly my decision to push a chair over to the door so that I could look out the peephole. I climbed up and stood there, my eye pressed against the little metal ring, fascinated by the fisheye view it offered of the corridor outside, the way it warped the hallway and the doors opposite me. I don't know how long I stood there staring out, before the clown came by.
Now, I must tell you, I remember this happening with absolute fidelity. Even now, looking back across the years, there is no doubt in my mind that this happened. While I was standing there, staring through the hole at the empty hall, a clown came capering by. I saw him bounce past the door...then stop.
And then come back.
To my door. To the peephole where I still stood, immobile, unable to move. To bring his face up to stare back through it, at me. Knowing, Grinning.
I remember my blood turning cold.
Sitting here tonight in this Orlando hotel room, thirty-some years later, with the laptop on my knees, I still get a chill. Because no matter how hard I try to convince myself that what I saw that night was a product of an overactive imagination, that other feeling still overrides it...the knowledge that what I saw -- and what saw me -- was absolutely real.
The clown.
His grinning, knowing face.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
File Under: Never Mind
According to this, after twenty years of development in the hands of Steven Spielberg and others, Stephen King and Peter Straub's beloved 1984 classic The Talisman is finally headed to...the small screen.
The slide-whistle diminuendo SFX you just heard was the sound of my geek detumescence. I loved this book at age fourteen, and nothing about this current adaptation is remotely encouraging. Not the script by Ehren (Skeleton Key) Kruger, not the TNT venue...their high-budget, star-studded, low frisson Nightmares and Dreamscapes episodes I caught this summer was too little bourbon and waaay too much water.
The slide-whistle diminuendo SFX you just heard was the sound of my geek detumescence. I loved this book at age fourteen, and nothing about this current adaptation is remotely encouraging. Not the script by Ehren (Skeleton Key) Kruger, not the TNT venue...their high-budget, star-studded, low frisson Nightmares and Dreamscapes episodes I caught this summer was too little bourbon and waaay too much water.
A Ton of Pictures of Kids Scared of Santa
Get ready, because here comes the holidays, courtesy of Boing Boing and Neatorama!
My own kids have their own issues: my older one is okay with Santa now but the three-year-old will be howling when she hits the Fat Man's lap next week. Something to look forward to, I guess...
My own kids have their own issues: my older one is okay with Santa now but the three-year-old will be howling when she hits the Fat Man's lap next week. Something to look forward to, I guess...
Butt-Numb-A-Thon!!!
If you're one of the fortunate ones headed to the Alamo Drafthouse this weekend for the Ain't It Cool News Butt-Numb-A-Thon 8, you'll find an extra special something-something in your gift bag. The good folks at Random House, including the always wonderous Chris Cabello, have arranged for free copies of Chasing the Dead for all attendees. This is a super-splendiforous idea, and I hope everybody who gets one digs it.
Meanwhile, enjoy the popcorn.
Monday, December 04, 2006
92 in the Squid
Boing Boing has a link to a pretty terrific page over at the USC archives featuring early photos of Disneyland in the '50s. Included among them is one awesome shot of the rubber squid that would later appear in an Ed Wood movie.
We're off to Disneyworld the day after tomorrow, where most of the rides are made out of styrofoam and recycled phosphorous. I think Tom McGuane makes brief reference in 92 in the Shade to a polystyrene Donald Duck.
We're off to Disneyworld the day after tomorrow, where most of the rides are made out of styrofoam and recycled phosphorous. I think Tom McGuane makes brief reference in 92 in the Shade to a polystyrene Donald Duck.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
It's the Glitter, Baby
Ah, the holidays, where everyone's thoughts turn naturally enough to rotting corpses and spoiled cider. I found my copy of the Cryptkeeper's We Wish You a Merry Crypt-mas, but in a rare show of common sense, have declined playing it too many times for the children. Heh-heh-heh.
In other mirthful news, it turns out that Chasing the Dead is one of the week's picks in the Rocky Mountain News this week.
And I just found out that Mark over at Burlesque of the Damned has named Chasing the Dead as one of his top ten books of the year. Mark's decided to spend his Christmas holidays writing (or possibly rewriting) what sounds like the coolest zombie novel I've heard of in a long time, so drop by with some milk and cookies and show him some love, okay?
In other mirthful news, it turns out that Chasing the Dead is one of the week's picks in the Rocky Mountain News this week.
And I just found out that Mark over at Burlesque of the Damned has named Chasing the Dead as one of his top ten books of the year. Mark's decided to spend his Christmas holidays writing (or possibly rewriting) what sounds like the coolest zombie novel I've heard of in a long time, so drop by with some milk and cookies and show him some love, okay?
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Goodnight Elizabeth
Keen eyed readers might spot a misprint in this week’s New Yorker—it runs from page 90 to 94. In it, Elizabeth Kolbert launches what appears to be a year-end roundup of recent children’s books: not an impractical thing to have on hand during this holiday season. Oddly, though, somewhere in the second sentence, Martians take over Kolbert’s brain and she winds up describing children’s lit as “an instrument of control.”
Seriously, I’m not kidding: I read it twice and that’s really what it says. The best I can figure is that, in Kolbert’s house at least, a book is apparently what you give your kids to make them go to sleep.
Wait, though, it gets better. Somewhere through the next four pages, after we’ve been indiscriminately reamed six ways to Sunday with a half-dozen randomly selected books that we’re either supposed to look at or ignore, Kolbert tosses in a quick rundown of why nobody should read Goodnight Moon because Margaret Wise Brown didn’t have kids or hunted rabbits on Long Island or wrote the book in a single morning, like maybe it should’ve taken her eight years the way it took Joseph Heller forever to write Something Happened. I can’t honestly tell what she really thinks about Walter the Farting Dog—she plays her cards pretty close to her chest on that one—but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t like it either.
I’ve been reading kids’ books fairly seriously over the last five years. Granted, I’m working with a pretty limited budget, and a lot of them are the fusty old library titles that Kolbert seems so exasperated with. Hell, a lot of them probably reinforce some kind of sinister parental hegemony over children, what with shoehorning them into bed and all. Worst of all, to Kolbert’s mind, these and other goodnight type books get in the way of the idea that “bedtime could be genuinely comedic, that the old order could be uprooted and the fool become king.” Because, you know, there’s nothing more awesome than a comedic bedtime…unless it’s the fool becoming king.
Whatever works for you, Elizabeth, seriously. In my house, bedtime is bedtime, and books are books. We take them both pretty seriously. I’d no more tell you how to get your children to sleep than I would advise you what to fix them for breakfast.
The problem is, though, a lot of us like kid lit, all kinds of it. You can call it protective or permissive—in my house we’ll read Charlotte’s Web after a few chapter of Captain Underpants—but I pay attention to it either way. And when someone comes along and starts politicizing it recklessly in a venue where the casual reader might gulp it down and puke it up again at the next cocktail party without much thought, it sobers me up fast. When they walk in and stomp all over Where the Wild Things Are in some kind of half-baked attempt to prove a point that made sense to them as they were falling asleep the night before, it makes me a little cranky. And when they come out of nowhere reaching for a pop-psychology grace note by doing something as blearily “I’m-steering-with-my-feet” idiotic as comparing a kid going to sleep at night to a parent dying—“you don’t want to go to sleep…I don’t want to die. But we both have to”—it’s time to step up security at The New Yorker.
Somebody obviously walked off with the blue pencil.
Seriously, I’m not kidding: I read it twice and that’s really what it says. The best I can figure is that, in Kolbert’s house at least, a book is apparently what you give your kids to make them go to sleep.
Wait, though, it gets better. Somewhere through the next four pages, after we’ve been indiscriminately reamed six ways to Sunday with a half-dozen randomly selected books that we’re either supposed to look at or ignore, Kolbert tosses in a quick rundown of why nobody should read Goodnight Moon because Margaret Wise Brown didn’t have kids or hunted rabbits on Long Island or wrote the book in a single morning, like maybe it should’ve taken her eight years the way it took Joseph Heller forever to write Something Happened. I can’t honestly tell what she really thinks about Walter the Farting Dog—she plays her cards pretty close to her chest on that one—but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t like it either.
I’ve been reading kids’ books fairly seriously over the last five years. Granted, I’m working with a pretty limited budget, and a lot of them are the fusty old library titles that Kolbert seems so exasperated with. Hell, a lot of them probably reinforce some kind of sinister parental hegemony over children, what with shoehorning them into bed and all. Worst of all, to Kolbert’s mind, these and other goodnight type books get in the way of the idea that “bedtime could be genuinely comedic, that the old order could be uprooted and the fool become king.” Because, you know, there’s nothing more awesome than a comedic bedtime…unless it’s the fool becoming king.
Whatever works for you, Elizabeth, seriously. In my house, bedtime is bedtime, and books are books. We take them both pretty seriously. I’d no more tell you how to get your children to sleep than I would advise you what to fix them for breakfast.
The problem is, though, a lot of us like kid lit, all kinds of it. You can call it protective or permissive—in my house we’ll read Charlotte’s Web after a few chapter of Captain Underpants—but I pay attention to it either way. And when someone comes along and starts politicizing it recklessly in a venue where the casual reader might gulp it down and puke it up again at the next cocktail party without much thought, it sobers me up fast. When they walk in and stomp all over Where the Wild Things Are in some kind of half-baked attempt to prove a point that made sense to them as they were falling asleep the night before, it makes me a little cranky. And when they come out of nowhere reaching for a pop-psychology grace note by doing something as blearily “I’m-steering-with-my-feet” idiotic as comparing a kid going to sleep at night to a parent dying—“you don’t want to go to sleep…I don’t want to die. But we both have to”—it’s time to step up security at The New Yorker.
Somebody obviously walked off with the blue pencil.
Friday, December 01, 2006
$100 Laptop Discovered Off Coast of Greece!
Like the rest of America and the civilized world, I was stunned and awed when scientists off the coast of Greece discovered a $100 laptop that apparently dates back to the second century BC.
Now, my understanding is that using the parts illustrated above, impoverished schoolchildren who lived 1800 years ago were able to surf the web and communicate with other children with a device that looked something like this:
This is just fantastic news. I for one am sick unto death of all this so-called "new scholarship" about how stupid everybody was back in the past. Hopefully this discovery of the ancient third-world computer will force the world to realize that people who lived "back in the day" weren't idiots at all, but actually quite smart, especially compared to the idiots who lived even before they did.
Now, my understanding is that using the parts illustrated above, impoverished schoolchildren who lived 1800 years ago were able to surf the web and communicate with other children with a device that looked something like this:
This is just fantastic news. I for one am sick unto death of all this so-called "new scholarship" about how stupid everybody was back in the past. Hopefully this discovery of the ancient third-world computer will force the world to realize that people who lived "back in the day" weren't idiots at all, but actually quite smart, especially compared to the idiots who lived even before they did.
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