Stephen Graham Jones's Blog, page 248

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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Werewolves Out in the World, Part XVIII

An lo, did we come unto installment number eighteen already. And, let’s just do this to link to the others: Prior Wolves one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen Then let’s start in Johannesburg, South Africa:     My kind of library display:     “Theory?” Ahem.      See how those two kids are running from the werewolf? It’s a species-level instinct:     I’m cool with impressed:     Thank you, thank you:     Hm. Idea for the sequel . . . (related: I have no real idea what’s going on with, in, or around this tweet):     So cool to be on this list:     Yeah, in Missoula. We’re telling dog stories, I think:   Wow, thank you:     These are is from the Lovecraft Arts & Sciences Council bookstore:   And, over the last couple years, I’ve sold more than a few Sandman Slims—it’s required reading for a lot of my students:     Rock, thank you. And, I should definitely be spelling my middle name your way:     Was a fun interview:     I like how Litsy lets you throw up the horns in celebration:     Wow, thanks—Twitter and Litsy:     Was a cool bookstore. Guessing it still is:     Y’know, I checked with William Morrow, and, surprisingly? They’re actually in favor of people doing just this—they’re not worried about running out of copies or anything:     Until next time—breathe  . . . → → →

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Today’s Westerns

What I think about after peeling back through all those years of the Western movie, it’s the western now. As in, why was all the cool stuff back when? Is the myth of the Old West not as vital anymore? Are we telling ourselves different stories today? And how has the Western movie changed? Did Rustler’s Rhapsody effectively redirect the whole genre? Not saying I can answer all or even any of that, necessarily. But, what I do notice is that, where in the old old Westerns, the Indians were usually pretty disposable, in the now-Westerns, we’re just kind of invisible/erased/not dealt with all that much. Which I think is supposed to be a step forward. And, much as I can see how being invisible’s not just all that different from being shot dead off the back of a horse, still, they are kind of more easy to watch. And, no, I’m not forgetting Chavez y Chavez, of course. Who ever could:   We (“we,” yeah) even kept him alive for Young Guns II, which I consider that rare sequel that lives up to the original—the narrative frame was beautiful (never mind that Chavez is kind of Pocahontas’d at the end of it). There was no version of him in Tombstone, however. But still. Christmas 1993, I was in a packed theater in Midland, Texas, and Tombstone flat blew me away. When Wyatt Earp goes on his screamyfaced revenge sequence? Man:     However, I think something had happened between Young Guns and Tombstone, something more than City  . . . → → →

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The First Gif

So important, I made a little movie of it:

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