Stephen Graham Jones's Blog, page 246

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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Werewolves Out in the World, Part XXI

Y’know? That last one of these, number twenty, I kind of ended it in a “so long farewell been fun see ya later”-way. But I was all mopey-goodbye way too early, turns out. I may keep doing these until the paperback hits in January, I mean. October’s for werewolves after all. Anyway/first, here’s the wolves that came before, which I rhymetastically call: the Wolves of Yore one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty   File under: two books that don’t go great together. Werewolves need meat. Always wanted to be part of a double-feature—specifically, I always wanted to be a in DoubeMint television ad. But this’ll do:   And, these are the type-discussion I’m particularly in favor of:   And, guess what? I typed “Mongrels” into the search on Twitter, and found new reviews, new pics, all kinds of fun:   And, can’t forget facebook:     And Litsy folk are always digging the yellow book:       That’s the second or third French fry pic, yes? I do love me some fries. Maybe more than’s exactly healthy . . . And, I assured Jill that Mongrels isn’t scary, don’t worry: And, ah: a meme-thing that only tracks with inside-the-NBA kind of knowledge. Too cool. Thanks, Lindsay:   Werewolf Wednesday: my favorite day of the week.   And, here‘s one I missed—it’s an eight-minute video on the history of Tattered Cover. Filmed, I guess, in May or June? Mongrels stuff is  . . . → → →

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Scream Queens and Mongrels

Wonder when, or if, I’ll ever stop seeing werewolf stuff everywhere? This is from the second episode of the second season of Scream Queens. Remember how Halloween night is the one night all the werewolves can run free, because no cop’s answering a call about “werewolves?” Mongrels isn’t the only story that knows that.

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My First Reading, ca. 1993/1994

Digging through some old boxes, stumbled onto this little pamphlet. Way I remember my first reading, it was for this story “West Texas Dirt” I’d won an award for, in 1994, the last year of my undergrad work at Texas Tech. I guess I must have done this one too, though—with a friend I’d go onto MA-land with, Ashley. Bill Wenthe was the real draw, of course. As he should have been, and still is. Dude writes some solid poetry. Also, I was so sure that that “Breakfast for Two” story was my first-ever publication, that I looked up my first-ever pub, and, sure enough, I’m wrong again: Back then I was still getting by without a middle name, too. How I ever did it, I don’t know. If I had it do all over, I’d pick a more stage-name kind of thing. Nothing too ostentatious, just . . . like “George RR Martin,” say; that’s a middle space between the first and the last names that really makes you remember the whole thing. Also? He says that he feels that’s when his career really took off—when his name got memorable like that. I dig how Billy Idol came up with his name, too: his elementary school teacher writing onto his work that “Billy is idle.” And, David Bowie, man. IS there a cooler name than that? Okay, Axl Rose, maybe. But “Axl Rose” feels pretty made up. “David Bowie” feels like maybe just good luck, like being born to the right family (never mind  . . . → → →

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