Stephen Graham Jones's Blog, page 246

High ‘n’ Dry

It’s always driven my crazy, how Guns n’ Roses just apostrophes the truncated ‘d’ of their “and,” but just leaves us all wondering what happened to the ‘a.’ It’s a petty concern, granted, but it seems to me that, if you’re not going to go just with a straight, naked ‘n,’ then you’re kind of compelled to stash an apostrophe on each side of that lonely letter, so that we visually understand it’s really (a)n(d). All of which is to say, quite possibly I was trained on Def Leppard’s High ‘n’ Dry. When in halfway doubt, just put apostrophes everywhere. Only thinking about it because, finally, after so many years of honest devotion and proselytizing and singing along, I saw them last night: They put on a great show, and played everything I wanted, except the one song that was sneaked onto my old cassette of High ‘n’ Dry, as I recall: “Me and My Wine.” But it’s in my head, and my heart. Been singing along with that one since well before I’d ever tasted wine. And, even now—I don’t like wine, but I still love that song. Really, though, Def Leppard was everything I imagined, live. And, man, Tesla was there too, opening. And Tesla still brings it. They were always so good, and still are. Here’s them from last year—same stage, same setup, same guys: Next, I just need to see D-A-D. Somehow, someway.

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The Olden Days

I think when you’re not on facebook all that terrible much—or maybe it’s this way for everyone?—when you do log on, the system serves up some of your old posts for your eyes only, kind of like giving you ideas for how a post works, I guess, or what counts as content, or perhaps it’s, I don’t know, assuming your life is a void now, so it’s time to start mining your own past for shareable stuff. Always feels like it’s saying, “Remember when we used to have fun? Look, here’s proof. It can be this way again.” But maybe I’m assigning more agenda to an algorithm than it deserves. Anyway, while I don’t ever click “(re)share” on those, just because it feels like I’m putting my forepaw into some sort of noose—no, it’s more like a slide, like that’ll be the first slippery step, and them I’m just plummeting down and around and and and—here’s the last two it shuffled up to me. I would think randomly, except I know nothing’s random on social media, everything’s tied to the your profile, to whatever cookie’s you’re dragging, to whatever music you’re playing, to whatever the app can hear in the background, to whatever data place X can buy from place Y, all that truly terrifying stuff meant to direct your clicks here and not there. Reason I’m pasting them up here is that I think it’s kind of cool that they’re from four and six years ago, and they’re both showing some werewolfery. I would say  . . . → → →

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Werewolves Out in the World, Part XIX

Nearly to twenty, here. Somehow/already/amazing/cool. Here’s all the Mongrels before: the Wolves of Yore one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen And, The Wolfen, man. I think The Wolfen wasn’t just the first werewolf novel I read, but one of the first novels I read to just completely thrill me—to fire my imagination, to make me believe in What If.   And: cool, yeah? Black Hole‘s fun. I like how kind of awkward Burns draws all the characters. I’ve always thought that the mechanical ways they move and stand are meant to kind of capture the awkwardness of being a teen:   Good to hear about the audio’d Mongrels:     And, this is only the first superstar/Mongrels appearance in this wrap-up:     I’ve watched way too much Wheel in my short little time on Earth. But I’m not the only one:     Always cool to get written up with Paul:     Okay, not strictly Mongrels, but definitely some werewolfery afoot in this — as near as I can tell — completely accurate, very comprehensive list:     If I only had Stepanie’s last name. Well, I guess I’d be like Erik Storey, except a “Stephen.” I always wanted a writer/book-name, though. Still verymuch do.     My werewolves are all staring at Laura’s avatar:     What an idyllic place for a werewolf novel to land:     Yep: “office rabbit.” Y’all remember Jenny, from the Dallas writeup/interview?      . . . → → →

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The Drinky Bird Endures

Not going to try to claim When Harry Met Sally and Alien are the EXACT same movie, don’t get me wrong. But, I DID watch them back-to-back last night, and found what might be a secret code or symbol or key to the universe—both feature this mesmerizing drinky bird:  

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Stories that aren’t (but are) stories

Which is really probably my favorite thing in the world: a recipe-as-story, a ransom-note-as-story. glossary-as-story. Much etc—honestly, I want to compile them all into a big book of happiness. Anyway, this non-story story, it lines up quite well with Daniel Orozco’s “Officer’s Weep” story, from his Orientation collection (and . . . was it originally in The Atlantic? seems like).  

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StokerCon 2017

I forgot to ever say this here on the site, I think. So: [ click ]

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The Spindly Man

My “The Spindly Man” story, first from Ellen Datlow’s Fearful Symmetries and then from my After the People Lights Have Gone Off, it’s now clickable at Sean Wallace’s The Dark: [ that click ] And, it’s audio’d there as well, by Kate Baker, whom a lot of you may know from Clarkesworld. Fleet Cooper reads it. So, you know how for some of Scalzi’s stuff, you can dial up either Wil Wheaton or Amber Benson for the audio version? Now you can pick between two great readers for “The Spindly Man,” too. Also, I wrote this one right after reading and teaching from Ann and Jeff Vandermeer’s The Weird (which I’m in). It’s one of two kind of ‘tribute’ stories I did that week, or that when. This one of course branches off Stephen King’s excellent “The Man in the Black Suit” (hey, it’s a short film too—who knew). The other’s “Xebico,” which was what I had to write because I couldn’t stop thinking about HF Arnold’s “The Night Wire.” I mean, of course I knew the King story before The Weird, but reading it in the context of all those other stories, it somehow triggered this story. Hope you dig.

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The Night Cyclist

“The Night Cyclist by Stephen Graham Jones is a horror novelette about a middle-aged chef whose nightly bicycle ride home is interrupted by an unexpected encounter.” A Tor.com original e-book, edited by Ellen Datlow. Thought up one night when I was cycling home at night, faster and faster, because I was pretty sure there was something faster behind me. As happens. Order here. For the story, for the scare, sure. But, too, just to support the creation of excellent-cool covers like this:

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Those Winchesters

Yeah, Deadwood and Hannibal and Breaking Bad, and STNG and X-Files and Twin Peaks, and Brisco Co., Jr and The Good Guys and Newsradio and Happy Valley and Monk and Northern Exposure and Psych and all the rest—all my favorite television stuff. Still, none of them have ever been quite this cool:

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How to Know

[ via Tom Mavroudis ]

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