Dylan Charles's Blog, page 21

It’s on the Air

You can’t sense it, but I can. I step outside and I can smell it, hovering on the fringes, hanging back from the senses; that lingering odor of decay in a basement that promises something hidden under the floor. You don’t notice it.

But it’s coming.

It’s in the way the shadows are cast now; Longer, darker, stretched thinner like tension in a darkened alley when you see a slow movement behind that dumpster. You don’t see it, not like I do.

But it’s coming.

In the back of your mind it tickles; a fi...

My One Word About Chick-fil-A

I am not good at not being angry. I am not good at not letting my emotions run away with my words so by the end of an argument, I’m spewing inarticulate venom at the person I’m arguing.

And, at the end of things, I’m just tired and sadder and unable to understand and empathize.

Let’s start slow and let’s see if I can keep my temper.

Let’s say that you havemisinterpretedthis whole Chick-fil-A thing as a First Amendment issue, which it’s not. It’s about the restaurant donating money to anti-gay gr...

The Adult

I feel like I’m growing up.

Not willingly. I’m not striding into the future, my chest out-thrust and swaggering like roided out version of the Man off Steel. I’ve got my fingers dug in and I’m being dragged, inch by inch, forced by circumstance to stop acting like a ten year old with sudden access to hundreds of dollars and shiny new toys.

I stumble along, pick up a new skill, lose a bad habit and then pick up thirty new bad habits along the way, unable to help myself. Or so I tell myself.

The t...

The American Hero

If you want to learn about a society, you look at the people they revere as heroes; the men and women that they hold up on a pedestal.

For example, if you look at the old Greek myths, their heroes were bloody warriors with longlineagesthat stretched back and far. They were men of honor who bore their burdens with savage ferocity.

With Americans, you have to look to our comic books.

As silly as this might seem to someone who hasn’t been paying attention to the major box office draws of the last d...

Movie Review: Dark Knight Rises

If you didn’t see my earlier entry, let me recap here:

I really love the Batman movies. The ones by Christopher Nolan. I’ve been watching them repeatedly since Batman Begins came out seven years ago. I’ve obsessed over them and in no gentle way.

Partly this has to do with the fact that I grew up with the best cartoon Batman everand partly it has to do with the general awesomeness of what Nolan accomplished with all three movies.

With the newest movie, Nolan has tied it all up, neat and tight. Fr...

The Dark Knight Rises: Prepping

Ever since Batman Begins, I’ve been a little crazy for Batman. I read all the news. Got excited about the casting. Debated the merits of Katie Holmes and how she was going to ruin it.

When The Dark Knight was announced, I nearly exploded from joy. The Joker! Maggie Gyllenhaal! Two-Face! More Batman!

I became certain that I would die before it came out, that I would miss what was surely going to be the best movie ever.

And, now very soon, the third and last movie in the trilogy is coming out and...

Running from the Heat

I want to start running again.

It’s a perfect storm of factors. I have a regular work schedule now that forces me to be up at a perfect running time. I sit a lot at work instead of moving around constantly and I NEED to get some of this excess energy out.

There’s just one problem: it’s so hot that just typing this entry is making me sweat.

The heat is that sticky, limp heat that makes you wilt from the inside out. It’s a heat that reminds me of home and not in a good way.

I spend most of my time...

On the Go

I’m writing this blog while waiting for the bus. I have, after many years, finally joined Legion and purchased a smartphone.

On the bus now.

Having this much information at my fingertips now is paralyzing. Do I watch a movie? Do I tweet a picture of the meal I’m eating at a fancy restaurant? Do I use the GPS to find a quicker way home?

I have the entire goddamn internet wherever I go now. There’s so much power a simple smartphone.

And I’m a little sad, because I know it’s only a matter of time b...

Learning the History

If there’s one thing that I’m particularly weak on, it’s my horror history. I don’t read a lot of horror to start and I read even less of the older examples of the genre. Sure, I’ll pick up some pulps or read more Lovecraft than can fill the forgotten tomb city of R’lyeh, but for the most part I stick to mysteries and detective novels and anything written by Stephen King.

But I think it’s long past time for me to go back to the old classics and relearn the old ways. I started with Lovecraft, b...

The Cost of Wonder

In the stories I read and the stories I write, the world is a place steeped in magic and there are things beyond the ken of the average human being. The world is beyond the explanation of science and reason and what is seen is only the skin of the universe and beneath that is the space between worlds.

I populate that space with monsters and I’m not the only one. Horror writers, fantasy writers, the writers who wrote our first stories filled that abyss with creatures that would drive a body ins...