You Absolutely Know More Than I Know

From John Cale's 1974 masterpiece Fear. Cale's delivery in this song is haunting - it's both sarcastic and filled with a tired sense of surrender. Feels appropriate when looking at world leadership from a private citizen's perspective.

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Read:

Somewhere around 2008 I read Stephen King and Peter Straub's The Talisman. I loved about half of that book and didn't care for the other half. No way of knowing if it was the King half I loved, but I'm guessing that, although you probably can't separate a collaboration like this into two completely self-contained 'halves,' that's probably close. Because of this, I never got around to cracking open the copy of 2011's sequel, Black House, and I just kind of forgot about these books. I love King, but I'm nowhere near what I'd call a completist with the man's work. Not because I wouldn't like to be, just because I don't have that much time in my life for his insanely prolific output!

Fast forward to last year, when I picked up a hardcover copy of The Talisman at a thrift store with the intention of sitting down for a re-read. It's not the original cover, but the 2001 edition:

Fast forward to earlier this year, and an article went around the internet where King talked about how the current book he was working on - a third and final book in the Talisman series - might be his last. Then, a few days ago, the press announcement hit for Other Worlds Than These - that third and final Talisman novel. You can read more about that over on the delightful Stephen King fan site Lilja's Library HERE. One thing King talks about here, is how this also ties up the Dark Tower's Mid-World, which King says, "...was always the Territories by another name."

Holy f*ck am I excited!!!

Apparently, although Straub passed away in 2022, the core idea of this one comes from him, and it's certainly nice to see his name on the third and final chapter. That's Stephen King, though. All around great human being. 

Also, the title for the new book comes directly from the very first Dark Tower novel, when Jake Chambers falls to his death and tells Roland, "Go then, there are other worlds than these." 

In some ways, this is one of the most influential and magical literary quotes that I've ever encountered in my life. I read The Gunslinger for the first time way back in early High School, when I found the trade paperback edition with Michael Whelan's gorgeous art in it at the school library. This was early enough in the series that I was able to go to my local public library and find Book Two: The Drawing of the Three (also with Whelan's art) and then wait with bated breath for the third book to come out about a year later. I've toyed with the idea of rereading the Dark Tower books for some time, as while I reread 1 and 2 when 3 came out and then reread 1, 2 and 3 when 4 came out, that cycle of rereading stopped when 5 came out, and I did 1, 2, 3 and 4 in preparation. Of course, due to the years-long hiatus King needfully took on the series after being struck by a car (those were dark years where many of us feared we would never get an end to the series), so 5, 6, and 7 I've only read once, as they came out. Will I have time to do that before I read Other Worlds Than These? Well... maybe. Scheduled for release on October 6, it's not out of the question. First, I'll start with The Talisman and Black House. 

This pushes a bunch of planned reading for the year back, but that's fine. This feels BIG, and I want to be in on it for the full ride, even if just to properly celebrate King and Straub's legacy.

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NCBD Addendum:

I'm sure anyone who keeps up with this page could have guessed this would happen, but I finally broke down and picked up Absolute Batman. In a true old-school maneuver, I grabbed the just-released Absolute Batman Volume 2: Abomination, choosing to jump in without the first arc's setup, much like buying comics off the stand in the 80s, before the proliferation of the write-for-the-trade paradigm. After reading this, I can say is, okay. Now I get it.

It's all about the BIG picture with this book, which is a plus for a Batman book. Nothing against the story of the week feel of the current Fraction and Jimenez run at all - that feels refreshing, too. But in my eyes, Snyder's Absolute Batman's strength seems to be building toward one big story and it has a lot of interesting elements to the setup that make me rabidly curious. 

- Pennyworth's constant references to "The War."

- Ark M as a blacksite just off the coast of Gotham, the surface-level construction hiding something dark and massive underneath. Also, the fact that this Ark M is literally "Ark: M," which I take to mean number thirteen in a proliferation of similar sites around the globe. 

- Genetically engineered snow dropped on the population to ready them for something nefarious

- Doctor Arkham turning men into monsters for purposes as yet unknown.

And of course, all that ties directly into that 16th issue that introduced this Universe's version of Joker - an ageless Billionaire with a butler, a cave beneath his mansion, and a stranglehold on the globe via economic, military and political posturing achieved over his inhumanly long life.

So yeah, reminder to self that sometimes the hype is earned. So that's two Absolute books I've converted to following in trade over the last month. Absolute WW is still the better book, but this one's intriguing as all get out, and combined they have me wondering if, despite my longstanding loathing of Superman as a character, I should check that one out as well. 

... And that 100% dovetails with something that happened to me/occurred to me shortly after typing the above paragraphs. Something I'll talk more about in Wednesday's post.

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Playlist:

Mountain Realm - Stoneharrow

Mountain Realm - Tribal Alliance

Darkswoon - Thread (single)

The Chameleons - Strange Times

Plague Bringer - As the Ghosts Collect, the Corpses Rest

(Lone) Wolf & Cub - May You Only See Sky

Canadia Rifle - Peaceful Death

Drain - ... Is Your Friend

Exhalants - Eponymous

Slow Crush - Thirst

Various - 85 Seconds Playlist

sunn O))) - Metta, Benelvolence BBC6 LIVE: At the Invitation of Mary Anne Hobbs

David Lynch & Marek Zebrowski - Polish Night Music

Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun

Tamaryn - The Waves

Boy Harsher - Careful

Revolting Cocks - Big Sexy Land

Tool - Ænima 

Mastodon - Blood Mountain

Swann Danger - Deep North

Au Pairs - Sense and Sensuality

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• XVII: The Star

• XX: The Aeon

• XXI The Universe

All Major Arcana - rare for me - means BIG ideas, BIG picture, BIG everything. There are a few interesting connections I can make here, but I'm actually going to wait until Wednesday. Aaaaannnnd... I'll retake and light this picture better.

New Music From Sunn O)))

 

From their upcoming self-titled album, out April 3rd on Sub Pop Records. Pre-order HERE.

I'm catching up on a bunch of new music released while I was in the throes of the back-to-back Bowie and Lynch tribute weeks. Not sure when Sunn O))) moved to Sub Pop, but it's weird not seeing their name with Southern Lord. Either way, I'm definitely in the market for a new record from these guys. I kind of check in on them every so often, with Grimm Robe Demos and 2009's Monoliths and Dimensions so far being the only ones I feel truly attached to. For me, it's all about the arranging Anderson and O'Malley add to their core concept of pitch-black drone metal, and "Glory Black" gives me hope that this album may incorporate some new ideas and instrumentation into the classic Sunn O))) sound.

 

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Watch:

We got hit with a "whopping" 2.5" of snow in Clarksville this weekend. I put that in quotes because, being from Chicago, 2.5" shouldn't really be that big of a deal. In a state that doesn't get very much snowfall, though, it is a big deal, and our town's effectively been shut down since Saturday. So K and I sat around and watched movies all weekend. One of those was a first for her and a second timer for me - Martin McDonagh's Seven Psychopaths.

When I watched this for the first time, back around 2014 or 2015, I didn't realize it was essentially McDonagh's version of Adaptation. I don't say that to take anything away from either film - both are brilliant. But where Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation is very 'heady,' Seven Psychopaths is manic and fun. Hilarious at times, really. The cast is a dream cast (Tom Waits!) and the juxtapositon of Los Angeles with Joshua Tree reminds me of an era of my life where I spent a lot of time driving back and forth between the two, staying out in the desert and really getting into a creative groove - which is all the main character in this film - Colin Ferrell's Martin - needs to do to solve all his problems. Well, not all his problems.

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Read:

I've mentioned my reticence to engage with Scott Snyder's Absolute Batman in these pages before; I've read three issues thus far - Daniel Warren Johnson's Annual, the Ark M special, and issue 16 of the ongoing Absolute Batman series. We've reviewed all of these on Drinking with Comics and my cohost Mike and I are pretty much in agreement - the writing's not great. There are some great ideas here, but also, the pull with this one is very much something I recognize as zeitgeist. Will I ever re-read them? Will the fascination outlast the fervor?

Conversely, I don't think I'd ever have considered reading Absolute Wonder Woman until I realized Hayden Sherman is doing the art. I've become a huge fan of this man's work over the last year. Titles Batman: Dark Patterns and the insanely creepy Into the Unbeing introduced and endeared me to Sherman's unique style, and when I saw he was drawing the Absolute version of Diana, I was intrigued.

This book is fantastic! Not your standard take on the character at all, which is great, because this is one of those DC icons that just does nothing for me. Here, Kelly Thomspon writes Diana in a manner that relies heavily on ancient Greek Mythology. Diana was taken from the Amazons at birth and given to Circe in Hell. Circe raised her, teaching her all of her Hecate-worshipping dark magick, and Diana rides the resurrected skeleton of the Pegasus instead of some invisible plane.

I can't stress enough how, despite this being a character I have never been able to take seriously before, Kelly Thompson has dashed those prejudices on the rocks. 

Best of all? Sherman gets to draw a lot of what I really love from him -giant, fleshy monsters! 

I won't be reading this monthly, but I'll definitely be following it in trade.

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Playlist:

David Lynch - The Air is on Fire

The Caretaker - An empty bliss beyond this world

Various - Twin Peaks (Music from the Limited Event Series)

PJ Harvey - Uh Huh Her

USSA - The Spoils

Mountain Realm - Stoneharrow

Saigon Blue Rain - Oko

Sunn O))) - Glory Black (pre-release single)

Mars Red Sky & Monkey3 - Monkeys on Mars EP

Chrystabell & David Lynch - This Train

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Card:

Putting aside Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot again today (which you can buy HERE) to work with my Thoth deck. That's really where my head and heart have been at. 

The Princess of Cups has always felt like a very gentle card to me. Nurturing in a way most other cards in this deck (or most decks) are not. There's an embrace here, reminding us of the importance of love and understanding, but there's also a nod to methodology and escaping the interior for a bit of the exterior once in a while. Princesses are a creative court, and this card tells me to nurture ideas as though they were loved ones.