Just posted an interview Jesse did with Cullen Bunn on the ole’ Saint James blog. He’s the writer of the fantastic The Damned and even more fantastic The Sixth Gun.
Check out the interview here.
A new wedding tradition
Crazy!
The first photo (the b&w one) was taken in in 2003 at Jeff’s wedding (he’s the guy 2nd to the right), and the latter picture was taken in 2008 at Nick’s wedding (also 2nd to the right). There was no degree of planning, we just thought it would be fun to re-do the original picture. The funny thing is, in the first picture, Nick, the next to get married, is on the far right. In the most recent photo, Matt is on the far right, and he’s getting married this coming year. See?! Crazy!! Does that mean…I’m next?! Are we predicting the future?!
You decide.
“Blood Quantum” Part 3
Welcome back.
When we left off, Everett Root had just narrowly escaped a deadly rattler attack, still on the run from his mystery assailant, finally drifting into a deep sleep.
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Everett woke at sunrise and his mouth felt dry like cotton. He stretched and yawned and played with his mustache as he drank cold tea made from the leathery darkgreen oak leaves. He packed his things and rode through the morning, attentive to any sudden changes in the landscape and he felt ready if the course of action presented itself. The left side of his abdomen had become sore and he felt a tightness when he inhaled, another complication from his previous conflict, and held no doubts that at least one of his ribs had been broken.
He pressed on further north and another hour went by before he found a broad path that steered back through the mountains which he calculated would eventually spit him out onto the great flood plains north of Mesilla. He smiled and petted the horse’s great brown mane and they began the trek, eventually coming across two sets of naked footprints in the dirt and mud but he didn’t stop. He made himself aware of his surroundings as he rode, practicing his draw and repeatedly turning to speculate on where they’d been. He soon came across a thick strand of creosote bush sandwiched between a narrow pass of land embanked on both sides by inclines. As his horse pressed on he squinted and saw black smoke willow up beyond the last of the soldiered shrubs. Everett ran his hand across the knurl of his gun and he stalled near a thicker expanse that shaded him from view.
He waited and listened and heard a scream belt up and then a carnivorous and mocking baritone laughter follow quickly behind. He moved his horse forward behind the next column of creosote and from his new vantage he saw a small cabin aflame. Out from the rear circled a thin girl in an overgrown coat being chased by two Apaches dressed like Texans, their faces painted with dark soot and the braids of the hair winding down along their shoulders and bouncing as they moved. They danced and chased her and let her believe for a moment she could escape and then the closest of the pair tackled the girl to the ground. The second danced around like a drunk as the first mounted atop her and hit her hard in the jaw. She screamed and kicked and he held her hands down. Everett watched the scene dramatize before him, his eyes like dark stones set deep.
5-Second Films
So, apparently some contest was put on to have people create 5-second films. Normally, I would think this to be a futile idea at best, but most of these ended up being seriously funny (especially “1-900-BROTALK” at the 2:41 mark).
In Which I Pimp Bands I Like: Volume 1
I’m a big fan of music, generally, and I don’t necessarily care for when people ask me what my favorite band is at any given moment (too hard to pick, people!). I tend to get a new album about every week, so, figured I’d start posting some stuff here that I like, so when people DO inevitably ask me about this inane question, I can point these posts out. Get it? Good.
Thus begins Volume 1:
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Band: jj
Song: Things Will Never Be The Same Again
Album: n° 2
Label: Sincerely Yours’
Note: They’re from Sweden!
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Band: Broken Bells
Song: The High Road
Album: Broken Bells
Label: Sony
Note: Consists of Danger Mouse and James Mercer of The Shins
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Band: Owen Pallett
Song: Lewis Takes Off His Shirt
Album: Heartland
Label: Domino Records
Note: Released all his prior albums as Final Fantasy (being a fan of the popular RPG series)
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Band: Aloe Blacc
Song: I Need A Dollar
Album: N/A
Label: Stones Throw Records
Note: This song is played over the opening credits of the HBO show How to Make it in America
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Band: Starfucker
Song: Pop Song
Album: Starfucker
Label: Badman Records
Note: Have since changed the band name to Pyramiddd
“Blood Quantum” Part 2
Part 2 of my Western short story “Blood Quantum.” Check out Part 1 here.
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The next morning Everett walked down a hillside from the mountains leading his horse by the reins. He had run a zigzag path the night before until he exhausted his equine and then took a position against a sheered cliff-face that looked out into a small valley surrounded by a grove of tlacocote that tangled thick. The small valley had only one entrance that he had guarded like some stern despot and he had only slept for thirty minutes, shivering under his thinned coat and caught beneath stray and howling gusts that wound in looping patterns.
He pressed on further from the hillside, stopping at a small creek that snaked down through the parched ground that was more mud than water and he let his horse drink while he inspected the map again. His detour had ousted him too far north and on the west side of the Organs and now he’d have to cross back through. Everett clicked his teeth for amusement as he computed his new trajectory south and east and he looked for any mention of a trail or road through the mountains. He found none but felt optimistic that he was about a day’s ride from Mesilla and he folded the map again along the worn creases and placed it back in his shirt pocket. He took out the miner’s stolen pistol and broke open the cylinder again and blew into the empty chambers and tucked it back into his belt. He ran his fingers over his own large holster and stalled on the basket-weave pattern and then onto the walnut stock of the gun as if he was anticipating the arrival of a duel.
He yawned wildly and scratched the back of his head where it met the neck and bent down to the stream. He lifted a handful of the gray water to his head and spooned it over and slicked his hair back. Then he took another cupping of water and slurped it greedily and then sat along the bank and watched his horse which had taken to grazing on a sweep of hoary feather-grass. He unwound the bandage from his leg and dipped it in the creek and rung it out. Watery red sifted from the dressing and he scraped it along his forehead which revealed a deep and festering gash that had begun to scab over. He reapplied the covering to his leg and it was cold against his torn skin and he sucked in air through his teeth as if it deterred the stinging sensation.
An ode to cowboys and serials: “Blood Quantum” Part 1
Not sure why, but I’ve always been been a big fan of Westerns (both films and literature – I’m quite fond of Elmore Leonard’s work in the genre, as well as the undisputed master himself, Louis L’Amour). I don’t exactly know what hit me a few years back, but for about a year and a half, all I could do was write Westerns. My love is still there, although I tend to write in different directions these days, but something about the alluring American West will always sit deep within me.
Thus, I’ve decided to serialize one of my favorite Western short stories, “Blood Quantum” (circa 2007). The story follows Everett Root as he makes his way through the barren countryside with a bleeding wound in his leg and a piece of silver ore the size of his head, all while out-maneuvering a mysterious assailant who seems to be on his heels the whole time. It’s simple in it’s premise (survive and cash in), and I went for a very Cormac McCarthy-esque route here, as far as the sparseness of the dialog and the setting itself goes.
At any rate, I quite enjoy this story, and, again, being a fan of old-timey serials, thought it might be fun to offer this story as one. I’m not sure how often I’ll post a new segment, perhaps every other day, perhaps once a week, but make sure you stick around til this one ends. I promise it’s good fun. (Ap0logies for any formatting issues – WordPress doesn’t play nice sometimes.)
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Blood Quantum
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Bob Antrim felt a cold steeled barrel matt his thick hair down and wedge into the back of his skull. He heard the hammer click back metallically and in that moment recalled his wife dying of consumption, spittles of blood curtained along the contours of her sunken face and chest, and then he mulled on his boy who had died in infancy. His hands gripped the splintered haft of the pick and for a minute further he dreamt of spinning in place and lodging the wedged spade into his attacker but amid the hallucinated escapades a shot thundered out like drums. The bullet churned down the barrel of the spunked and dusty revolver and it crushed through Bob’s skull and out his right eye socket as fluids sprayed like some geyser and his body fell to the ground sharp like stone.
Everett Root rolled the dented .44 caliber Dance revolver around his index finger and holstered it as if he were some dashing and wily roughrider that had been wrangled into a Wild West Show. He coughed a bit and waved the smoke away from his face with his hands and then set his eyes on the heaped body, smiling crookedly and scratching his chin. The ache in his leg gathered up again like a fist and he snorted out a dollop of snot from his nostrils and lowered himself carefully to the floor of the gritty mine. He set his feet up on the twin timber planks that bridged across mud and wet recessed puddles in the rock. The air smelled like sulfur.
Continue reading An ode to cowboys and serials: “Blood Quantum” Part 1
The pomposity of tenure
It’s that time again, friends! What time? Time to post another chapter from my novel, Impossible Monsters, of course! Por que? Por que no!?
Okay, all silliness aside, this chapter again focuses on one of the central characters, Richard, as he goes to meet with one of his professors, Bernard Nesbitt, to talk about his future (or lack thereof) in academia. I quite like Bernard, and almost wish he showed up in the book more than once, but I think this chapter does a fine job in showcasing his rather strong personality, and I think if he were to show up again, it might be too much.
And, if you like what you read, check out my book of short stories available for purchase on Lulu right here.
Enjoy.
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RICHARD
Wednesday, about eleven-thirty in the morning, gray sky peppered with grayer clouds, drips of rain that came in hurried storms always at points when I had just dried off, the bus running five minutes late, and I’m wearing a white oxford shirt with a blue veeneck sweater over it and my black wool coat—even though it’s not that cold out—and some skinny jeans and these new loafer-type shoes I bought from a clothing store called Hartevelt’s, some Dutch superchain that caters to the casually chic—they cost me about £40, not too bad—and I’m sitting in Bernard Nesbitt’s office, watching his bulbous frame fumble a small electric water boiler on top of a small mosaic table decorated with long-leafed ivies that twirl down to the floor. The room is lined with bookshelves, like actually lined, and where there is no longer room on the actual shelves he’s managed to place more books atop the old ones, lying them flat and stacking them tall, also placing the largest of his tomes on the very top of the oak-looking bookcases looking like they could teeter and fall off and kill a man at any moment, and I’m seated right below such a book and can just make out the scraped lettering on the scraped binding that reads Mind-Mapping for Creativity. I realize at this moment, even though I’ve only been in this country for less than three months, that everything here is done over tea or coffee, usually tea, and it’s funny but sad, kinda. The moment I walked in the office, even though it’s November and still not that cold, Bernard complained about the freeze as he called it, and like clockwork asked me if I’d like some tea because he was going to put some on. I replied yes then wondered if Englishmen only drink tea when someone else is around, it doesn’t seem like a solitary drink because you’re always being told “I was just about to put some tea on” when you walk into a room but you never actually see cups of half-finished tea in their hands…weird. He’s humming a tune now and the organized list of bullet points I had memorized and was going to race through with him is leaving me quickly all because of this…stupid tea. He turns, finally, placing a small cup of steaming gray water in front of me at the edge of his overworked and paper-soaked desk, retreating back to his comfy chair across from me, the weight of his swollen body causing the thing to groan. He takes a sip without even testing its hotness. The porcelain cup is decorated with red lines that make a nonsense pattern and it’s hot in my hand as I try to sip. The large window behind Bernard’s desk has no blinds and overlooks a courtyard between two of the buildings, I think the library and Fenn Hall, where I don’t have any classes. He sips again. He’s wearing a blazer the color of peanut butter, some gray slacks and a white oxford like me. He’s notably bald.
A font to make you blush
Yes, I like fonts. I can appreciate the artistry of them, of their (sometimes) subtle variations and how these differences can, in all honesty, make us feel things on subconscious levels. Typography in general is a fascinating art form/science, so much so that someone went out and documented the birth of the Helvetica font in true documentary fashion (which is, truth be told, one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen). A trailer:
Anyway, artist Alex Merto has created a font called Effing Typeface that…well…is an ode to all things sex. My favorite from the series has to be the letter P:
Definitely worth a looksy. Check out the whole string of sex-infused letters here.
Unicorns and glitter
Uh-mazing.
Was just pointed to a parody video of Reading Rainbow over on Funny or Die that has a child giving her recommendation for the book American Pyscho…which happens to be one of my favorite books of all time.
Greatest book review ever:
Reading Rainbow Banned Book Review #1 – watch more funny videos