Spotlight on Stephen King's Fairy Tale

 

Really digging this new EP from Spotlights. Order from Ipecac Records HERE.

 

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NCBD:

As of Monday, I'm finally back from my two weeks in LaLaLand. Trapped up in West L.A./Santa Monica at the Sonder hotel at Found, I didn't get a chance to hit up my beloved Comic Bug until my final day in town, but I saw some old friends and got to pick up a few books that weren't on my list. Also, will be returning to Rick's Comic City today to grab my Pull-List books from the last two weeks, so here's everything I will have acquired starting back on NCBD 3/08/23:

This Week's Pull 3/22/23:

Last week's Pull, 3/15/23:

This, the penultimate issue of Hulk, is one I actually missed out on; I never added to my Pull, and The Bug was sold out, so I'll have to find it online somewhere.

The only one I've read at the point of reading this, I started out feeling pretty non-plussed, but ending up really liking where this second issue of Immoral X-Men went. I don't love Sins of Sinister, however, I'm reading through it simply to see the pretty big-swing ideas the X-writing stable are taking with it.

LOVE LOVE LOVE this cover!

Two Weeks Ago, 3/08/23:

Based on the Master of Reality and now Back in Black homage covers, I am SO hoping they do one for Mercyful Fate, Don't Break the Oath on a future issue of this series!

I'm glad this regular X-Men book isn't adhering or pausing for Sins of Sinister. With issue 19's start of a Brood-based story, I thought I was going to roll my eyes, however, the entire set-up was fantastic (the Nowhere thread is amazing!). I'm really looking forward to this one!

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Read:

While in LaLaLand, I had a couple of occasions to catch up and hang out with my good friend Chris Saunders, formerly of The Thirsty Crows, and my co-host on the hiatus-ending-soon podcast A Most Horrible Library. Chris gifted me a beautiful Hardcover copy of Stephen King's newest novel Fairy Tale, and at ~120 pages into its ~600 pages, I'm hooked!

I haven't read a new King novel since 2010's Doctor Sleep (thanks to Mr. Brown!) and reading Fairy Tale makes me remember how much I adore the man's prose. I'm realizing now that one of the everlasting endearments of King's mind and how it translates to the page is he writes about a world that, while modern and incorporating modern elements (the internet, online shopping, current cultural establishments), King's world still feels very much like the world I grew up in, the one-two weeks in LaLaLand convinced me did not exist at all anymore. That's a very welcome refresher at the moment, as it gives me hope humanity isn't as far gone as it often feels when in a high-population center or tooling around online.

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Playlist:

Le Butcherettes - A Raw Youth

Screaming Females - Desire Pathways

Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission

Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy

SQÜRL - Silver Haze

The Police - Regatta de Blanc

Burial - Untrue

Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right To Children

Boards of Canada - Geogaddi

Wayne Shorter - The All Seeing Eye

Spotlights - Seance EP

Spotlights - Love & Decay

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Emotional security leads to an Emotional breakthrough that ultimately could turn into a profitable partnership. 

Me and That Man - On The Road

Holy cow. A good friend sent me a link to this 2017 album Songs of Love and Death by Me and That Man. Dark, fuzzy, gothic country, this entire album is fantastic. I know nothing about this band, but this album hits a perfect harmonic with the new Federale and a few other albums I've had on heavy rotation lately, most of which I'll get to posting from in the next few days.

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Last night K and I went to the theatre to see Mike Flanagan's adaptation of Stephen King's Doctor Sleep.

The best cinematic sequel ever.

Honestly, I miss spoke above, because Flanagan - who I now think might be the greatest living modern horror director - has made a film that is a sequel to both King's book and Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining, which are two very different entities. There's an article in the most recent Fangoria Magazine where Flanagan talks about how he approached this, and all I can say is, he hit it out of the park. Doctor Sleep is also a very tight adaptation of the novel, so it has the dual quality of feeling like a novel first, and a movie second. In other words, the three-act structure moviegoers have unconsciously come to expect is there, but in an over-arching way. The way the individual scenes are woven together, moving back and forth seamlessly between characters, events, and places, feels literary, as though you're plowing through sections or chapters in a book.

I loved Doctor Sleep when I read the novel back around the time it came out - many thanks to Mr. Brown for mailing me his copy just to be sure I read it, as our love for both King's book and Kubrick's film goes back a looooong way. And now I love the film. Win-win.




Playlist from 11/08:

Federale - No Justice
Billy Idol - Greatest Hits
Black Pumas - Eponymous
TVOTR - Return to Cookie Mountain
Revocation - Teratogenesis EP
Sunn O))) - Life Metal
John Coltrane - Coltrane's Sound

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Card of the day:

Balance and harmony; coherence and the intuition of a guiding light. I think so. Tonight we're doing a Horror Vision taping and I'll be premiering the finished version of this story I've been working off-and-on for over a year now to five people by reading it out loud. As Cap'm says, Proof is in the Pudding.

2019: June 14th - Dr. Sleep Teaser

Holy. F*&k. This, this I can't wait for. IT chapter 2 is exciting, but Doctor Sleep directed by Mike Flanagan... words can't describe my anticipation. Which is a little unnerving, because I had a lot of anticipation for Pet Sematary, too, and look how that turned out. That said, I'm still inclined to think the problem with PS was the studio not allowing Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer make the movie they wanted to make, while Flanagan has such a solid, lengthy track record at this point, I'm sure he will be able to do what he wants, just as I'm sure what he wants to do is make a great Stephen King adaptation from a great Stephen King novel.

If you haven't read Doctor Sleep, do so. Now, if you're able. It's fantastic.

And thanks to Mr. Brown, for lending me his copy back when it came out, ensuring I had a chance to read it early on.

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Hey, hey! That new Baroness dropped today. I'll be listening to it all morning, but tell ya what - this opening track freakin' rules!



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Playlist the last few days:

Soul Coughing - Irresistible Bliss
Deafheaven - New Bermuda
Ghost Cop - One Weird Trick
Marissa Nadler & Stephen Brodsky - Droneflower
Arthur Ahbez  Gold
King Woman - Doubt EP
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - Final Blindness 7"
Finitribe - Make It Internal
Orville Peck - Pony
Helmet - Aftertaste
Deftones - Koi No Yokan
Helmet - Size Matters
Helmet - Dead to the World
Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
Spotlights - Love and Decay

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Card of the day:

Leaving behind the symmetry of the sixes and moving into uncharted - and possibly murky - waters. I'm reading this as caution going forward with the next project, as I have less than three hours of work remaining on Shadow Play before I order the proofs. It's been a hell of a battle to finalize this, and I'm still not convinced I won't be reading it again in full when the proof arrives. Either way, my time on Ciazarn is coming back around again, but where that should feel strong, I've got two shorts hanging on as loose ends. Should I begin with those, knock them out and then dive back into the Dust Bowl? Not sure.