I was in the mood for mellow, and Eluvium‘s “Don’t Get Any Closer” (which has a definite ambient film score tinge to it) fits the mellow bill.
Shoegazer Sunday: Eluvium’s “Don’t Get Any Closer”
December 8th, 2013Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark
December 6th, 2013Thanks to the keen eye of SF Signal’s John DeNardo, we have word that the auteurs at The Asylum or offering their homage to Terror of MechaGodzilla: Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark.
It looks like pretty much everything we’ve come to expect from The Asylum…
Library Additions: Dan Robertson’s The Ideal, Genuine Man inscribed by Stephen King
December 2nd, 2013While it’s gotten much harder to find undiscovered gems in used bookstores thanks to the Internet, there are still bargains to be had if you know what you’re looking for.
Take, for example, this:
Robertson, Dan. The Ideal, Genuine Man. Philtrum Press, 1987. Second Printing of the first edition hardback (numberline starting with 2 and “Distributed by the Putnam Group” on the copyright page), a Fine copy in a Fine- dust jacket with a slight indention and 1/16″ closed tear along spine. Signed by Robertson and inscribed by introduction author Stephen King: “1/29/88” then further down: “To Lady Pat and/Sir Barr/all best,/Stephen King”//.
Friends tell me that King used to regularly attend SCA events on the east coast (which is where his cameo in Knightriders came from), and the inscription suggests that this might have been inscribed to someone King knew in that context.
Philtrum Press, of course, is Stephen King’s own press, and he did initially tour with Robertson (a writer King long admired) to promote the book. So I always check copies when I come across them. This one I found at the Half Price Books on outer Westheimer in Houston for $18, minus roughly 25% off thanks to a coupon for the day after Thanksgiving.
This is, I think, the 6th book signed Stephen King book in my library, but the first I’ve found cheap in a used bookstore…
William Shatner’s Annual Warning Not To Set Yourself On Fire Frying a Turkey
November 27th, 2013Just as I’ve done the last two Thanksgivings, I bring you a public service announcement from William Shatner: try not to set yourself on fire while frying a turkey.
For those with low Shatner thresholds, the advice is:
If you’re going to fry a turkey, this is pretty sound advice.
The remix!
Shoegazer Sunday: Golden Garden’s “Ghostwood”
November 24th, 2013I was in the mood for something mellow, and Golden Garden‘s “Ghostwood” admirably fits the bill, even if the video comes in almost entirely on the cheap side of the “cheap but arty” continuum.
Lead singer Aubrey Rachel Violet Bramble (if in fact that’s a single person’s real name and not a real name + fake name combo) has the most obvious “little girl” voice this side of Alison Shaw of Cranes.
Reader Requested Book Scan: Joe R. Lansdale’s Molly’s Sexual Follies
November 22nd, 2013Over on my post about the first hardback edition of Texas Night Riders, reader Jason Bovberg asked for a scan of Joe’s rarest book, the pseudonymous porn novel Molly’s Sexual Follies, since he had never seen one before. I checked online, and indeed there seem to be no scans of this book’s cover, so here’s a scan of my copy.
Lansdale, Joe R. with Brad Foster (as Mark Simmons). Molly’s Sexual Follies. Beeline Books, 1982. First edition paperback original, a VG- copy with considerable creasing and 1/2″ of separation between front cover and spine at heel.
Any other rarities from The Person Collection (he said vaingloriously) people want to see?
The Complete Monty Python Reunion Press Conference
November 21st, 2013In case you hadn’t heard, Monty Python’s Flying Circus is reuniting for a live show at London’s 02 Arena next July 1st.
Because I like Monty Python, and because I’m not above blatant click-bait, here’s a video of the entire press conference announcing the reunion.
Random Notes:
- The sound seems screwed up after about 5 minutes, but you can still hear them.
- Love the wrong names.
- Love Gilliam’s Mr. Bill shirt.
- Carol Cleveland looks really, really good for her age.
Finnish Bread Ad, As by Ingmar Bergman
November 19th, 2013Don Webb alerted me to this Finnish bread ad which is so depressingly grim that it’s hilarious:
Translation to the only dialog: “Well are you hungry or not?”
On Don’s Facebook page, Marc Laidlaw suggested that the father and son might be the same actors who were in Rare Exports, and I think he might be right.
I worked with a Finn once, and he said Finnish National Health care didn’t bother with such frivolities as Novocaine when they were drilling your teeth when he was growing up. No wonder they kicked the Soviet Union’s ass in the winter war…
Library Additions: A Random Collection of Signed Books
November 18th, 2013Some more library additions, with no particular theme except books signed by the author.
Quick Impressions: Almost Human Surprisingly Good
November 17th, 2013By accident I tuned into Fox just as Almost Human was premiering, expecting to watch The Simpsons, and actually got sucked in, almost against my will, since I had zero initial interest in a cop/robot buddy series.
But what what the show is actually doing is broadcast American TV’s first serious attempt to rip-off Blade Runner and much of the entire cyberpunk canon for a cop show, and it actually does (considering the constraints of the form) a halfway decent job of it. The cop/robot interaction is (thus far) only a subplot to the main story of an injured cop returning to the force just as the powerful criminal syndicate that killed his partner and blew off his leg has returned to the scene. Surprisingly, none of the science fiction elements struck me as egregiously stupid, and they actually seem to have put some thought into the near-future setting of the show. Michael Ealy (Dorian the robot partner) hits the underplayed robot cop part very well, Mackenzie Crook brings brings some Whovian British Geek charm to the department’s robot specialist, and Karl Urban is pretty good as the lead; he needs to dial back his Gruff Stoic setting about 15%, but is otherwise fine. I could do without the “look, here’s a flying whatsit at the edge of the scene-bump just to say it’s SF” trope, but it’s not annoying.
Actually, the most problematic bits are on the police procedural end rather than the SF end. The building they work in looks entirely too clean, sparse and modern to be a real police office (like everything else, Blade Runner did it better with a real lived-in look); it’s too clean even for the already too clean CSI look. Ditto the “look at my spacious, open city apartment on a cop’s salary.” And you can already tell which characters (“Hi there, I’m the love interest!”) are going to be doing which buddy cop cliches. You have bits of The Dark Knight and (I’m guessing) Saw in the “over-complicated villain plotting” device. And it has the “lots of shoot-outs” modern cop/action show trope going on, which may or may not be a problem, depending on the direction they take.
I’m actually planning on watching this, which may be my first regular non-animated US broadcast series since, geeze, maybe Homicide: Life on the Streets. (I’m not much of a TV watcher, what with all the writing and book buying and Internetting and the Glavin!)
But despite that, it blends the cyberpunk and police procedural bits pretty (plus obvious dollops of The Caves of Steel and Starsky & Hutch). It’s obviously got money behind the production, which goes pretty far in TV. J.J. Abrams is the executive producer, so it’s possible the characters will turn into idiots further down the line. And it’s not as a good a cyberpunk police procedural as Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. But for now I actually think it may be worth your attention.