Moe Lane's Blog, page 107

Dave Barry’s Year in Review.

I don’t always link to it, but I was wondering how grim Dave Barry found it this year. Turns out… not as grim as some years, but not a bundle of roses, either. Semi-related note: it really is amazing just how bad a year Boeing’s had. You almost have to wonder whether that company ran over a witch’s mother in a hit-and-run, or something…

‘Can’t You See.’

Dammit, YouTube algorithm. Couldn’t you at least pretend sometimes that you don’t know what I like?

Can’t You See, The Marshall Tucker Band

#commissionearned

Please check out the Fermi Resolution Worldbook Launch Party!

Specifically: feedback on what I should add to it. The Fermi Resolution Worldbook Backerkit launches in February, so there’s plenty of time to make tweaks. I really want to burst through and pull in people besides my usual backers, but I also want to keep my loyal readers, so… basically I want everybody to buy everything of mine, forever. Feel free to give me feedback on how to achieve that simple goal!

Jason Momoa to play Lobo.

…I’ll allow it: “Jason Momoa is officially returning to the DC Cinematic Universe, but this time he will be taking on the role of Lobo. It was also revealed that Lobo will make his debut in Supergirl: Woman Of Tomorrow.” It’s actually not a bad fit at all, not least because Jason Momoa can actually act. Action-movie act, at the very least. “Big smirking badass bad-boy” is totally within his range.

12/30/2024 Snippet, NEVER RETURN.

Internet has been wonky this evening.

Patreon!

There is a line from the Old Americans about a magical monster, and never mind that they had none: It burbled as it came! That was the coming of Charlie. The unholy amalgamation of spirit and ghost clanged and crunched like metal smashing into metal. In this form it smelled industrial, too, like one of Greater Hershey’s machines. Rubber and metal and polish and rust, all ground in and baked until hard.

This heartened me. All of that meant that the occult lure was definitely working. To arcanely define an entity is halfway to controlling it – or, in this case, destroying it.

In theory, it would all come down to timing. According to the song, Charlie would be in this station, at this time of day, and ready to receive a crab cake from his wife. Reenacting these conditions would align us arcanely, ritually making us part of the song. From there it would follow well enough: Mistress Hawes would place the crab containing the Old American nickel on the focus, symbolically paying for Charlie’s exit fare. That tacit fulfilling of the curse would weaken the occult link between the spirit and the ghost, and Gallagher and I would exploit that weakness to hammer the two entities apart. From there we would have to improvise. This was First Age spontaneous magic, after all. If people could have planned better against its manifestation, the world might not have ended seven hundred years ago.

My mini-review of A COMPLETE UNKNOWN.

Short version: I don’t have enough folk albums why do I not have enough folk albums?

Slightly longer version: it’s difficult to make a movie about a living person, particularly when they’re a cantankerous genius like, say, Bob Dylan. That means tap-dancing around the minor detail that, like most artists who know that they can get away with it, Dylan was often a jerk to people around him. They had to slaver Allowances Must Be Made For Maestros all over the film to keep Dylan looking cute-jerk, instead of just jerk.

Still, if you’re a Dylan fan, or a Baez fan, this is a fun flick (Johnny Cash shows up, too, with a little less hagiography since he’s dead). Certainly it’s filled me with the urge to get more albums. Even Pete Seeger’s and Woody Guthrie’s, and those two men were Commies. Then again, that’s just something you have to come to terms with if you’re going to listen to 1960s folk music*, and that’s the beginning and the end of it.

Moe Lane

*There was one particular scene where I’m going, Hold on. Am I supposed to be laughing at their horrified expressions? I might be having an anomalous reaction to that, then. You’ll know the scene when you see it.

Tweet of the Day, Sometimes Cyber-bullying Does In Fact Work edition.

It really is impressive, how quickly Sega got the point on this one.

From that to this in 5 years pic.twitter.com/5x4YcW7Dfn

— Galatica (@Galatica877) December 28, 2024

‘Southern Cross.’

I could have done this. I mean, if my family had a maritime tradition instead of a railroad one. I could have done ship stuff.

Southern Cross, Crosby Stills & Nash

#commissionearned

12/29/2024 Snippet, NEVER RETURN.

I am pardonably proud of this bit.

Patreon!

He bore up well under the strain — and, indeed, the costly spellcasting had found us a candidate. “This is Mistress Jaquelyn Hawes, Mistress Dexter,” he told me, absently wiping his face with a handkerchief before waving it at the angry-faced young woman he had in tow. “She has graciously agreed to serve her country in this ritual.”

Mistress Hawes glared in my general direction. “I had conditions. You’re not bringing that cheating bastard back to life, are you?”

“No,” I told her promptly. “That would require a body intact enough to be reinvigorated, quite a lot of magic, a decent amount of good fortune, and most importantly: any willingness on my part to resurrect the man. Sending his soul on to its presumed reward is my goal, this afternoon. I presume you and your husband are… estranged?”

“He’s not supposed to be my husband,” she ground out. “The son of a bitch skipped out on me three months ago. I’ve been trying to serve papers on him ever since. The cop said you’d maybe want them?”

I took the proffered envelope and riffed through the contents. “I might, at that. Do you mind?”

“Will it get rid of the son of a bitch, once and for all?”

“Hopefully.”

“Then no, I don’t mind. I’d say shove them down his throat, except he doesn’t have one, because he’s dead.” The smile on Hawes’ face was truly chilling to behold. “Is it gonna hurt, whatever it is you’re gonna do?”

“As little as possible,” I managed to say.

She scowled. “Well, I guess you can’t have everything.”

The YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN trailer.

This… isn’t bad?

I kind of like the ‘this is the suit a teenager can make’ vibe to YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN. Good banter. A willingness to give the bad guys concussions. This has potential. Assuming Disney+ doesn’t screw it up… oh. Right.

Also, obviously the Osborn thing won’t end well. But then: does it ever?