Stephen Graham Jones's Blog, page 244

Trump

I’m going to start this out in a way I’ve never felt I had to start anything out online: this is just me, talking. Not for any of the schools I teach at, any organizations I’m in. Just me, on my personal site. Check the URL up there: it’s my name, one of my book titles. There’s no corporate or university brands or endorsements or intended associations or anything here. Just me and me alone. Why I’m doing that? Because I’m not sure what country I live in anymore. In a climate of fascism, the elite guards, they can come disappear you. Sometimes physically, sometimes professionally. And, I mean, my people, we’ve got a bad history with being scooped up, having our hair cut, our tongues cut out, our lands taken away. However? We’re still here. Anyway, I guess I should be pasting up images of Trump from They Live, from Back to the Future II, all that, or all those dummied-up images of him in Nazi gear, but I just don’t have the heart, really. Or, I don’t have the . . . I don’t know what to call it, exactly: I don’t feel like it’s going to make me smile. Not anymore. For a long time, Philip K. Dick’s been my bar-none favorite writer of all time. Not for his prose stylings—there’s none—and not solely for his paranoia, his nested narratives, his bootstrap-imagination that comes up with whatever’s needed for this scene. No, it’s his sincerity. Every line I read from him, I  . . . → → →

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Werewolves Out in the World, Part XXII

Just wrapped the extras and okayed the cover and all the rest for the trade paperback of Mongrels, in January. So, seems a good time to stack all these in one place—way too tall a stack, I know. But it’s been a busy last few weeks, so I’ve just been letting them build and build. But, first, in case you’re just now tuning here, here’s all what came before, which rhymes nicely with: the Wolves of Yore one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty twenty-one   And here we go: I too will forever be keeping these three, or four, or five close to my heart. Thank you. Oh, while of course I’d hope never to kill a career—don’t think I could, Craig’s—I’m happy for the read(s):   Since it’s hard to click on that screencap, I’ll put the link it’s supposed to go to here. Also, this is of course a sentiment I share: Adapt This! Stephen Graham Jones’ Mongrels (2016)   And? I can’t guarantee this is the first time I’ve stole this line, either. I know there’s some of that song in The Fast Red Road: And Litsy. Thanks, always, Litsy, and, thanks, Karkar, too:     Wow, thanks: Was cool seeing Mongrels all spooked up for the season: And, always dig being on the wall at Tattered Cover: Always cool being at Litsy, too:   And, yeah, no actual yellow book in this. But there is me. And  . . . → → →

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Halloween Gifs

These are the two I can watch for pretty much ever, I suspect:  

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Horror at the Stanley

Looks like this is the second Stanley Hotel post I’ve done here (the first). This time it’s for teaching, though. Also? Every single place I go on CU campus—bulletin boards, monitors, displays—I’m looking back at me: This is that click. And, for the media fun, here it is on the front page of Boulder’s Daily Camera, and here‘s some video and a write-up from 9News in Denver. I would say click “here” for testimonials, but this is the first time this has ever happened. Gonna be be fun scary.  

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The Ones That Got Away in Italian soon

Racconti is putting it out November 10th or so, here. They’re the publisher with the dead bug: Pretty cool group of people, near as I can tell. And, as the title-in-English loses its punch in Italian, they dialed back to the collection’s original title, “The Meat Tree.” Here‘s their page on it, with the full jacket, but here’s just the front of it. Pretty cool stuff:  

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Wolfing Out

Thanks to Jim Kuhn on fb for connecting to this perfect, wonderful gif:

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The Marky Lights

Waylon’s “Luchenbach, Texas” was, I’m pretty sure, the first song I ever learned all the words to. Or, most of the words. I never knew “marquee” until years and years later. Somewhere around high school, I’d guess, if not undergrad. When I was five, though, and then when I was ten, and fifteen, it was always the “marky” lights. I explained it to myself with magic markers—markers would be “marky,” wouldn’t they? I’m not sure how that fit into lights being lights, but I could get by on some pretty thin explanations back then. Anyway, searching for something else, I stumbled into results I couldn’t click out of, without saving a few. These marquees are far from exhaustive—I limited myself to stuff that was showing up in my initial search, as this is a rabbit-hole I could live in—but they get me thinking. I mean, part of the fascination with these, it’s nostalgia, of course. It’s kind of cleaning up the past and making it perfect. It becomes even more perfect the more unreachable it is. The more we can never have it back. A dynamic we all know, I suspect. But? It makes me wonder: should I be snapping pics of the marquees I walk under now? Someday they’re going to look like this. Once we’re far enough from them. Maybe I’ll start. Or, maybe people are already doing it. I bet there’s a Tumblr or Instagram out there that documents cool marquees. Maybe I’ll stumble onto it one fine day. Until then, here’s  . . . → → →

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Litsy Giveaway

Ending tomorrow. Click here to enter.

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I Want My MTV

oFirst, I audio’d this, which made it sometimes confusing. Being an oral history, which is to say, “block of pertinent quote” led into by attribution, all read here by and in the same voice, I kept having to tap back twenty seconds, to hear again WHO I was listening to. Maybe ten hours in, though, I got into the lope of it, and all was great. Also, audio’ing it was by far the quickest way to get this into my head. And I verymuch wanted it all, faster and faster. So much cool stuff here. The stories behind so many of the videos. The craziness of the VMAs. Sebastian Bach still being my hero. Madonna owning the whole and complete world. Prince ordering everyone around with whispers. Ann and Nancy Wilson still being so, so cool. David Fincher starting out on MTV. The story of that Billy Squier video—that being a video I’d never heard of. The MTV offices and hallways and dinners and off-site parties. The egos. Axl being so, so, so late ALL THE TIME. Some vital-cool stuff. Also, it sent me online, searching for a playlist of every video in here. A playlist that doesn’t exist, I don’t think. I took a couple hours deep one night and made my own, but then I ended up splitting it between hair metal and “etc” (this is the split with everything I ever do, pretty much, and, these are both works in someday-progress—suggestions, please), which I think isn’t the early MTV spirit, which was  . . . → → →

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Wolfen at the Alamo

Was so cool A) to get to intro it, and B) to get to SEE it on the big screen. I mean, was cool just even seeing it on the wall (I’m like Cher in Colorado, yes: just one name): [ That snap’s by Christopher Rosales ] And, yeah, that poster: I guess I see what people are talking about—that Attack the Block owes more than a little to Wolfen. As for why this was also cool: the werewolves in Mongrels, they’re modeled on the wolfen. The Wolfen may have been the first horror novel I read. It kind of imprinted on me. My copy of it’s so falling apart, too: Also, always cool to go to a movie place and see not just a book on the wall, but this book on the wall: Too, last night I was talking about Tom Waits was in the theatrical cut of The Wolfen. It’s true (at about 40seconds): Thanks to Steve Bessette for the opportunity to intro this cool film, to Caleb (named for Near Dark!) for selling books, and to the werewolf people who came out on this rainy Colorado weeknight. If any pics of the intro show up, I’ll slip them into this post . . . and, pics just showed up. Here’s proof that last night really happened, and that I had those two books with me: [ This one: Steve Bessette ]

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