I'M YOUR FAN: MORSKIE

A young artist named Morskie is the lastest to contribute a drawing of the girls from Spell Checkers.

Pretty cool, huh?

Current Soundtrack: Spotify playlist of songs from Treme

WRITING DOODLE: FAIRY PARADISE

The "Daily Doodle" concept is intended to warm up my creative engines, and is essentially free writing, poetry or prose, usually accomplished in under an hour with a minimum of corrections. From time to time, I will post the results here. 

In some cases, the piece will also be a special commission, prompted by a particular buyer. Readers can still custom order their own quick short-short stories: details here.

Today's post is based on some stuff I've been thinking about in connection to some creative brainstorming with Megan Levens.

*

The smoke swirled around him like grass. He lay on his back and the green fields of never grew up all around him. The soil formed and remodeled itself to nestle him, to allow for maximum comfort. The fire burned down to his fingertips but he didn’t notice the heat. The world was his mattress.

The movement was at first perceptible only out of the corner of his eyes. He stared to the white ceiling of sky and dared not look away, lest he frighten the visitors on his periphery. To see a secret is to know it, and to know it is to make it public--a secret no more. The way candle scents and vapor disappear from a room when you open the door.

The first was green, the second blue, the third orange. The pink came last, and it came closest. They all flittered and flew, ducking behind a dandelion, vanishing behind a tree, re-emerging on the other side. The pink walked around up to him, he could feel its presence, could smell the lilac on its breath. He tried to stay perfectly still. Let it make contact.

Which it did. The pink fairy held a bumblebee’s wing the way a human child might hold a feather, and it tickled the inside of his ear with the thin point of the object. The man giggled, but he was careful not to jump, even if that was his reflex. Instead, he turned his head slowly so as not to startle his new acquaintance. The fairy remained. It was leaning forward, examining him, smelling him, hands on knees, lips curled in a smile.

“Hello,” the man said, and the pink fairy jumped at the sound of his voice. Wings flapping sounded like a deck of cards being shuffled. Flakes of its epidermis trickled from its body, sugar from a donut. Fairy dust. He inhaled it in his nostrils, and the world turned cherry in the man’s vision.

The fairy did not flee. It hovered above him, where it was joined by the others. The orange, the blue, and the green. They examined him closely, trading observations in their fairy language. Or so he assumed, for he could not understand them. Their voices reminded him of pachinko balls falling down the machine. Except that sound was of money being lost, and this sound was of something exceptional being found.

“Am I intruding?” he asked.

The orange fairy zoomed forward, stopping mere millimeters from his face. Its wings blew its shedding in his direction. His vision went from fleshy to carroty, the atmosphere bending to the will of the spectrum faerie, to the color of the dust.

He had believed this was the path. That little girl at the turn of the century had found it first, and though she had been widely discredited by those not wanting to believe in anything other than their pre-established mysticism, he had always assumed their was truth there. He sought truth however it came.

The green was first because the green is nature; pink was last because pink is man.

He held out his hand, palm up, fingers flat. An invitation. Would the orange fairy touch down on his skin? In his mind, he drew a big F in a circle over his lifeline and loveline, connecting the two. “Fairy Landing.”

The orange creature floated away from it. Much in the way a spore dislodged from its flower is carried by a breeze, it looked as if the air currents had just nudged the little creature away, it did not go by any great choice.

Perhaps it wasn’t its own choice. Perhaps it was the change in airspace, the push of wind kicked up by the blue fairy rushing over to take its spot, to settle gently on the man’s hand. Its feet were sticky with little hairs, and he could feel an odd adhesive or oil seeping from the blue fairy’s soles. It stared at him defiantly, and it exhaled heavily through its nose, nostrils flaring. The cerulean dust came now and everything became like water. The man’s vision grew blue and the air grew thick and suffocating, cool and heavy with condensation.

The blue came second because blue is water; the orange third, because orange is light. The center of life. Yet, water is most precious.

The man exhaled in response. His breath carried glitter of all four colors, of the full rainbow: pink, orange, blue, green. The air smelled of cinnamon and gasoline.

“I conjured you,” he said, speaking in a soothing whisper, the way one might explain a death of a pet or a family member to a child who had not yet experienced loss. “Or more accurately, I made you. I invented life. My dreams...my reality.”

The blue fairy opened its mouth and more metal balls tumbled down its throat, making conversation, the kling-klang of vocabulary.

“You are my key,” he said. “I have unlocked something. Just like that little girl. The one with the photographs. I will raise her from the dead, prove both of our theories at the same time.”

This bothered the blue fairy. It balled up its fists and held its breath, and the watery tint began to dissipate, the sky around them returning to its original hue. In solidarity, the green fairy was flying along the edge of the ground, gobbling up the grass and fallen leaves.

The pink fairy was already gone. It left first.

The orange, it seemed, was the true center. He did not see it coming until it was right there, arms extended, its hands coming close, and settling on his eyes. The lids closed, the way one’s eyes do when a foreign object approaches. The last thing he saw was its splayed fingers and the grimace on its face before all went dark.

Current Soundtrack: Frank Ocean, channel ORANGE



e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2012 Jamie S. Rich

RIDE THE WILD SURF UNTIL THE DAWN IS USHERED IN AT YOUR WORD

Since Allred leaked this on his blog, what the hell.

Here's the It Girl and the Atomics #3 cover. Coming in October!

This should be a poster in dorm rooms all over the country.

Current Soundtrack: The House of Love, The German Album

LET'S MAKE LOVE COME TRUE

As all have probably guessed, I am not doing Comic Con International in San Diego this year. It just didn't seem prudent at the time I had to make my plans. There will, however, be a big announcement happening regarding my collaboration with Natalie Nourigat, so keep an eye out for Oni Press' news. (And, of course, watch this space.)

I'll also be participating (fingers crossed) in a Tr!ckster challenge put down by Scott Morse to write a daily "noir"-type story, starting on Thursday. Wish me luck!

If you are at the show and want to meet Mike Norton and the Allreds and get an It Girl and the Atomics poster, the guys will be at the Image Comics booth from 1 to 2 pm on Saturday. This is a ticketed event, limited to 50 people, so stop by Image early to find out how to get in on it. Their full schedule is here.

In the meantime, read the latest It Girl and the Atomics-related interview with yours truly, this time over at CBR.

The relationship between The Skunk and It Girl is an interesting one -- he accidentally killed her sister, but she's back from the dead and he's out of prison now. How does that dynamic play into the story?

Having never really written superheroes before, lots of interesting questions have come up for me. Just dealing with the basic comic book tropes, I keep finding spots where I'm like, "How does this work?" In the first issue, I have It Girl wonder why any petty thief would stay in a city that has a superhero, where you can't get away with anything. I laughed when I recently saw that Mark Millar had a book that started off with that very premise. 

So, when I was reading over the original "Atomics" comics in preparation for the series, I realized Skunk is sent to jail and then forgotten, and I started to wonder what that means when, essentially, the person he is convicted of killing is no longer dead. Does he still serve the time? That event will prove to have deeper consequences throughout this arc for both the Skunk and It Girl and her family, it's not easily dismissed. I also liked how It Girl and Lava Lass were so different and that there was a little sibling rivalry there, so here the little sister might be able to do something for the big sister, maintain a sense of balance or justice on her behalf.

Current Soundtrack: Monarques, Let's Make Love Come True

WRITING DOODLE: FOOL OF FORTUNE

The "Daily Doodle" concept is intended to warm up my creative engines, and is essentially free writing, poetry or prose, usually accomplished in under an hour with a minimum of corrections. From time to time, I will post the results here. 

In some cases, the piece will also be a special commission, prompted by a particular buyer. Readers can still custom order their own quick short-short stories: details here.

*

The fortune teller sat in the window, staring out. She pressed her hands against the glass, mimicking the large palm that was painted on the pane, advertising her wares.

From where he was standing on the sidewalk, Roy imagined the lines that carved her skin turning electric blue and branching out over the glass, amplifying the map of her existence. Which directions would they go? Where was love, and where was life? As Roy saw it, they could extend past the edges of the window and come out to connect with him, to make him part of her life, too.

Was that her intention? Was she beckoning him to come inside? At first her face was happy, but maybe he misread. The woman’s expression was more serious. Mysterious, even. And she seemed to press her hands harder, like she was trying to push out, to make the signal stronger.

Something moved behind her. Someone. His figure was large and cloaked in shadow. From the shape, Roy could see that he wore a bowler hat and an overcoat. He raised a meaty hand, and Roy thought it could cover her whole head were he to place it over the fortune teller’s skull. A premonition of menace flashed across Roy’s frontal lobe. The man intended to push the woman, to smash her face into the glass, to end all those pretty blue lines that zig-zagged from her pink skin.

Roy didn’t know what he could do, he had no options. He reached out for her, and in his vision, his extended hand lines up with one of hers, as if they were touching, palm to palm. He opened his mouth but found no words of warning that she could hear.

And yet, the shadow receded, the malevolence took a step back and was gone again.

The fortune teller took one hand down, but she left the one that was aligned with Roy’s, and despite the danger having passed, Roy left his where it was, too, afraid that he’d sever the link and she’d disappear next. 

Current Soundtrack: spinning in the Common People are People room on TurntableFM - Muse, "Survival;" Doves, "N.Y."

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2012 Jamie S. Rich

A WOLF IN GEEK'S CLOTHING

MTV Geek is the latest site to cover It Girl and the Atomics. Another joint interview with myself and Mike Norton.

Geek: A lot of the Madman work, and other titles almost seem like anti-superhero comics. Here, I do think you veer slightly more into superhero world; so why is that necessary for It Girl, and (I’m guessing) how will you continue to subvert those expectations? 

JSR: Hmmmm, I don't know about anti-superhero. To me Mike Allred's work has always touched on the fundamental spark of how the genre began. That's what I'm actually enjoying about working on the book, that we're very much wearing our superhero influences on our sleeves. Mike Norton and I have a similar background in terms of what we cut our teeth on as young readers, and I'm having a blast dreaming up new villains. Like, we plucked the Skunk out of an older Atomics comic, but we're giving him new pals: the Hedgehog, the Otter, and the Ferrett. When Norton sent me the character designs, it cracked me up. It was so cool to see some old school whackjob bad guys.  

More than anything, we're embracing the escapist element of this kind of entertainment. Superhero comics should be fun and colorful and starring characters you generally like. It Girl is someone you'd actually want to take out for coffee after she saves you from muggers. She's just a good egg. 

MN: Yeah, I've always seen the Madmanverse as a love letter to superhero comics through a fringe sort of lens. Not necessarily a deconstruction.

Read it!

The first issue goes to press this week. Don't forget, if you're in San Diego and going to Comic Con, Mike Norton and the Allreds will be signing It Girl posters at the Image Comics book on Saturday!

Current Soundtrack: The Bird and the Bee, "F-cking Boyfriend (Peaches Remix)"

MURDER TO EXCELLENCE, Part III

The "Daily Doodle" concept is intended to warm up my creative engines, and is essentially free writing, poetry or prose, usually accomplished in under an hour with a minimum of corrections. From time to time, I will post the results here. 

In some cases, the piece will also be a special commission, prompted by a particular buyer. Readers can still custom order their own quick short-short stories: details here.

Today's piece continues two previous doodles. I did not really plan for this story to go in this direction, but I guess that's the mood I am in, and part of the free-flow process. Just follow the impulse. Read part 1 here, and part II here.

*

The subject seemed unavoidable. They talked about other things, the usual things: where they went to school, what music they liked, an odd conversation about allergies. Jeff had to watch out for basil. It was this that led them back to the idea of killing. If someone wanted to get rid of Jeff, they need only sprinkle some basil in his food when he wasn’t looking. “I’ll taste it immediately,” he said, “but my throat will swell up so fast, it’s lights out.”

“I know something about that,” Alicia replied. “My ex was allergic to peanuts.”

“That’s a bad one.”

“Yeah, his was severe. Even the smell of it in the air...flying with him was horrible. He’d keep the whole plane from being able to get their requisite snack.”

“What a bastard! The honey roasted peanuts are the best part.”

“I bet you if I just slipped one into his Pepsi....”

Alicia trailed off.

“So he’s the one you’d want to kill? This ex?”

“Say what?”

“If I were the murdering, Double Indemnity type.”

“Noooo. I mean, I’ve never thought about it seriously....”

Except she had. If she was being honest. Truth was, a lot of her savings was tied up in an investment the ex had talked her into. He said it would give them the future together they wanted. Ignoring the money she had for her sabbatical--well, let’s say her break could have been more like an indefinite vacation if she had all the cash he had gotten her to sink into this solar panel start-up he swore would be the bleeding edge of clean energy. They were supposed to be putting in equal shares, but she found out after he ditched her that she had covered the whole nut. And that nut was rotting in its shell.

It really was her future that was in there, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever get it out. Yeah, sure, she’d survive, but how much easier it would be to have that money, and how much easier it would be to get at least some of it back if the ex were out of the way and not a co-signature on all transactions. He refused to sign off on any sale until the stock went up, which he was sure it would.

“Well, I suppose that’s good,” Jeff said, and he took the rest of his drink, including a whole ice cube, into his mouth. "A morbid nature is unbecoming of one so pleasantly disposed."

*

Jeff and Alicia left the bar. The night street was smartly lit, not too bright and not too dark. The city, at that moment, had ambiance. There were dark corners, alleys that went to anyone’s guess, but here on the sidewalk, the lamps gave them safety. Spotlit and secure.

Jeff pulled out a packet of cigarettes. “Do you mind?” he asked, motioning them toward his date.

“No,” she said. “My father smoked. I’m immune.”

“Wishful thinking.”

“I mean to the smell.”

“Oh.” He lit his match, and the sulfur filled the air between them, replaced quickly by burning tobacco. “Sorry. It’s the job, I go right for the gruesome.”

“It’s all right. You wouldn’t happen to have any policies for childhood second-hand smoke, would you?”

“Just a personal policy not to blow my smoke into any kid’s face.”

Alicia laughed.

He swept his hand in the direction ahead of them. “Shall we walk?” he asked.

She consented.

The next two blocks were a parking lot, fenced off on three sides, flanked by a warehouse building on the fourth. Across from it, another warehouse of some kind. The facades were flat, unmarked. The kind of places that people who needed to know about knew about. If you had no idea what was inside any of the nearly identical structures, they weren’t for you.

Actually, more of them were empty than people probably thought. Alicia’s firm had shot a commercial in a disused space nearby. The outside of these places was like an optical illusion; when you peeked inside, it turned out the interior was much larger than it appeared. She thought it boiled down to the fact that she had never really seen an entire city block closed off like that, and empty to boot. But then, so many of life’s problems seemed so surmountable at first, only to reveal hidden complications the more you delved into the situation.

How often did people go in and out of those spaces? Realtors showing it to prospective tenants, maybe. But who was in the market for a warehouse?

What if it was already owned and vacant was how the owner wanted it? Like a mobster. Because where her brain was going was someplace dark. Could she and Jeff drag her ex here, tie him up, leave him for dead? She could exit and let Jeff do the dirty work while she wasn’t there. As cathartic as the end result might be, her stomach was weak. How long could the ex be left in that cavern without anyone stumbling across him?

When Alicia emerged from her fantasy, Jeff was eyeing her. “You keep drifting,” he said. “You get the same look in your eyes. Your pupils slant. Like a reptile.”

“Or a cat,” she offered, trying to soften the image.

“You ever see what a cat can do to a dead body?”

“Uh...no.”

“You know how the little bastards will wake you up just to tell you they’re hungry, they can’t wait for you to get up at your normal time or whatever? Well, guess what happens when you don’t ever get out of bed.”

“Nuh-uh!”

“They have to eat something. It’s a survival instinct.” Jeff stopped. “Speaking of, where are we going?”

There was an office building ahead, but then a dead end, as the freeway split the area. The windows in the building were all dark. Everyone had gone home.

“I wasn’t sure,” Alicia said. “I thought you were leading.”

He laughed out loud, his head thrown back, a smile making all of his teeth visible. “I thought we were following your direction. Isn’t your car down here?”

“No. And you’re the one who pointed the way!” She wasn’t mad. She thought it was funny, too.

“I know, but I thought...I don’t know what I thought. You sure you didn’t say you were parked here?”

“Nope. I don’t have a car. I took a cab.”

Jeff nodded. “Then this is awkward.”

Alicia pointed back in the direction of the bar. “It’s not too late to turn around,” she said.

“They say it’s never too late,” Jeff said. His face grew serious. “But that cliché is wrong. Because sometimes it is.”

Alicia was about too ask “What?” but she was cut off.

The knife was in her belly. It caused her to choke on her words. Blood clogged in her throat like congealed alphabet soup stuck in the can.

“You should have taken the questions of killing your ex seriously,” Jeff said. “Because he did.”

“I don’t...I don’t understand...” She managed to wheeze out these syllables, but she didn’t think she’d get much more.

“Something about solar energy, a breakthrough, all he needs is a bail-out. I guess without you, the penny is prettier, he doesn’t have to share. And, well, that bail-out is your company’s insurance policy on you. They have one on all the employees. Your fella and I have it all arranged. We play both sides, I divert the funds, and there’s enough for these solar panels and an extra pretty penny for me.” Jeff took her purse from her. “How dumb of you to wander off and get mugged like this, Alicia.”

He scattered the contents all around the ground. Her phone fell in the blood pooling beneath her.  The screen lit up, triggered by the impact. Her greeting photo was the same picture as on her dating profile, just not cropped. There she was, laughing. There was her ex, cracking the joke.

“It was one hell of a punchline,” Alicia thought, and the screen went dim.

*

Current Soundtrack: Wreckx-n-Effect, Montell Jordan, that kind of thing. You know how we do.

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2012 Jamie S. Rich

EIGHT LEGS TO HOLD YOU

NEW TO THEATRES...

* The Amazing Spider-Man, the improbable relaunch that could.

* Savages, Oliver Stone's proof that the only losing proposition bigger than the War on Drugs is his movie about the War on Drugs. Contender for worst of the year.

* To Rome With Love, Woody Allen's tribute to Italy is a pleasant comedic quartet.

UPDATED TO CRITERION CONFESSIONS...

* Grand Illusion, Renoir's wartime prison-break masterpiece. Read the long version here, or the short version at the Portland Mercury. They also have a sidebar article on movies showing the Renoir touch.

* This Happy Breed rounds out my reviews of the David Lean Directs Noël Coward boxed set. I cobble them all together for DVDTalk here.

Current Soundtrack: TLC, "Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg;" Guy, "Groove Me;" Michael Kiwanuka, "Worry Walks Beside Me/Lasan"




e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2012 Jamie S. Rich

DIAMOND IS AN IT GIRL'S BEST FRIEND

Spotted on the Diamond Comics page this morning...

Current Soundtrack: Joey Ramone, "...ya know?"

TALKSPLODE WITH MIKE NORTON & JAMIE S. RICH

Mike Norton and I were on iFaboy's Talksplode podcast to discss the August release of It Girl and the Atomics #1.

Listen to it/download the file here.

I think I put my foot in my mouth at least once. Which isn't that bad for me.

So excited for this book to come out. Only a few weeks left!

Current Soundtrack: Saint Etienne, "Tonight" EP

UH-OH, IT'S MAGIC!

NEW TO THEATRES...

* Magic Mike is coming from you. Watch out for his wand! Steven Soderbergh's latest is ridiculous fun.

I never did figure out what Channing Tatum was supposed to be wearing in that scene the photo is from. I think he was a shirtless SWAT team member.

UPDATED TO CRITERION CONFESSIONS...

* In Which We Serve, the first collaboration between David Lean and Noël Coward is a war movie and also wartime propaganda.

* Vanya on 42nd Street, Louis Malle's cinematic tribute to the live theatrical experience.

Also, I wrote a little bit about my turnaround regarding Lena Dunham's Girls. Come find out how that crow tastes.

Current Soundtrack: The Cars, Heartbeat City

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2012 Jamie S. Rich

I'M YOUR FAN: Kimmie by Yllya

Lots of great French artists keep drawing the girls from Spell Checkers. Today, it's Yllya drawing Kimmie.

Check out Yllya's daily blog for more of her wonderful drawings.

Current Soundtrack: El-P, Cancer for Cure

WRITING DOODLE: DEJA VIEW

The "Daily Doodle" concept is intended to warm up my creative engines, and is essentially free writing, poetry or prose, usually accomplished in under an hour with a minimum of corrections. From time to time, I will post the results here. 

In some cases, the piece will also be a special commission, prompted by a particular buyer. Readers can still custom order their own quick short-short stories: details here.

This particular assignment was to write a story based on a great quote from Woody Allen's wonderful film Manhattan, which I rewatched tonight before embarking on this quest. Also partially inspired, by more own accord, from looking at pictures of actress Jane Greer on Tumblr.

*

“My analyst warned me, but you were so beautiful I got another analyst.” ­- Woody Allen, Manhattan

When Derek realized where he had seen her before, he didn’t quite believe it. It was the smile that tipped him off. Maybe it was the only thing that worked at this proportion. He saw all of her other features as gargantuan, he expected they should be the same size as when he spotted her on that billboard, wearing the red-and-white, polka-dotted bikini, seven stories off the ground and at least two high.

For all the things that a man would notice in that advertisement--the curves of her body, the ample breasts, the curled hair--it was the smile that was dangerous. The other pieces, they could have belonged to any swimsuit model. The smile, on the other hand, was uniquely hers. It was the smile you would see across a crowded room, begging you to approach, daring you not to.

And when he realized that, yes, the brunette he was waiting at the bar with was the same brunette that dangled a lazy finger over Times Square, pretending that the city was a giant sandy beach in which she could carve her name, he immediately regretted that he had opted for the cheesy pick-up line. “Don’t I know you from some where?” Might as well have said, “Don’t you know I’m a dope?”

Not for nothing, the girl didn’t even blink. She just said, “You think you do, but my gut reaction is that you don’t.”

“That’s a fair guess, since when it comes down to it, I don’t know much.”

She laughed. Maybe the self-deprecation had worked.

“Okay, then,” she said. “Of the little you do know, tell me one thing.”

It was a challenge. This would take some quick calculating. Derek took a sip from his drink. It burned his throat the way only the cheap stuff could.

“That tomorrow morning I will be the same as I was this morning, but despite that cold fact, I can do whatever I want right now.”

The girl said nothing. Not until the bartender came and she ordered another round for both of them, and she made sure to tell the bartender to make sure Derek’s was considerably more expensive than what he was drinking right now.

*

Current Soundtrack: Paul Banks, Julian Plenty Lives... - $4 download EP from the Interpol singer, available from Matador directly

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2012 Jamie S. Rich

ABOUT A GIRL

The press blitz continues!

Mike Norton and I discuss It Girl and the Atomics with Chris Arrant over at Newsarama.

Read the interview in full right here.

And don't forget to order the comic from your local comic book store. It's coming August 8! Diamond order code JUN120428.

Rich: It Girl is Luna Romy, the youngest member of the Atomics, who used to be street beatniks but then were mutated by some alien goo and once upon a time had an adversarial relationship with Madman. The goo had deformed them originally, but they learned to harness the mutation and discovered they had super powers. For Luna, it's the ability to adopt the properties of anything she touches. If she touches metal, she can turn to metal; if she touches a bird, she can grow feathers and fly. This is a very handy power, and I am having fun coming up with new things for her to turn into for specific scenarios. "What can get her out of this situation?" 

In terms of where she's at in the new series, It Girl and the Atomics, Madman and Luna's boyfriend, Metal Man, are touring the galaxy performing with their band. It Girl is stuck back home, and she's bored, so she takes over Madman's role in that she becomes both the leading crimefighter in Snap City, but also the guinea pig for the experiments run by her benefactor, Dr. Flem. In the first issue, he has a new machine that is supposed to turn a person into an electronic signal and beam them through the air to faraway locations. This, of course, will end up having terrible results.

Current Soundtrack: Paul Weller, "When Your Garden's Overgrown/Lay Down Your Weary Burden"

THE ACTOR (LOVES HIMSELF)

Hey, check it out. I'm quoted in a movie trailer for the first time ever. And it's an actual quote for a movie I loved, not some doctored pull that doesn't quite jibe with the truth.

So, give a look to the new trailer for Jobriath A.D.




Current Soundtrack: A Place to Bury Strangers, Worship

PUNCHING IN A DREAM

Joëlle Jones and myself, alongside our friends Terry Blas and Oni Press marketing man Tom Shimmin, were guests on the sixth Nerd Fight over at Chronicle of the Nerds. We argue stuff like Buffy vs. Angel, Star Wars fans vs. Star Trek fans, and if Pringles are better than Cheetos.

You can stream the whole thing or download it from here.

I may have gotten a little inebriated during the broadcast. I mean, it's possible.

Current Soundtrack: Francoise Hardy, Comment te dire adieu

WRITING DOODLE: DIG DIG DIG (TO NOWHERE)

The "Daily Doodle" concept is intended to warm up my creative engines, and is essentially free writing, poetry or prose, usually accomplished in under an hour with a minimum of corrections. From time to time, I will post the results here. 

In some cases, the piece will also be a special commission, prompted by a particular buyer. Readers can still custom order their own quick short-short stories: details here.

*

They remembered each other as they were, and so to see the updated versions was, to say the least, disconcerting. For Milo and Ross, it was like someone had cut out their faces from when they were kids and sewed them onto these older men, their heads bigger, like a grotesque mask stretched across a pumpkin. Or pinheads. Circus freak pinheads. Their skulls had grown disproportionate to their visage.

Ellison looked at photos of himself from when they knew each other, and he didn’t recognize that kid in the pictures. That skinny teen with the patchy skin and the big grin. Life and adulthood had played different tricks on him, it seemed. He was more squat now, his features drawn more harshly. His cheeks sank, pushed down by the bags under his eyes. In just about every image, he was laughing. Did he laugh anymore? What was the last thing he found funny?

“Do you remember that first semester of junior year,” Ross asked, “when we all dated the same girl?”

“Cindy DeBrowski,” Milo affirmed.

“Yeah, Cindy. We all got so mad at each other. What was it? Every time one of us got his driver’s license, she’d move to that guy. Like she owed you something for being able to legally drive.”

“I wish girls were like that now,” Milo added. “You know, grown women. I wish they were that aggressive.”

Ellison spoke softly. “If you recall, she was my girlfriend first. I got my license just before Labor Day. I hooked up with her at that barbeque.”

“Really aggressive,” Milo said. “It’s not like she gave us a choice. I mean, we were 16.  When a girl gets in your car and climbs on top of you...Hoo, boy. I wish that happened now, like I said. I’d kill to have that one gal from the office lay it on me like that.”

“You always have a choice, Milo,” Ellison said. His tone said was annoyed. Both guys probably remembered the sound from school. “For instance, you could say ‘no,’ or you could say ‘yes.’ Like, you could say ‘yes’ to yourself and go talk to that woman, and then she could say ‘no’ or ‘yes’ to you.”

Milo snorted. “Right. It’s that easy.”

“It ain’t that hard,” Ellison replied.

“Yeah! That’s his problem!” Ross’ own joke made him howl with laughter. Ellison supposed that noise was what was meant by the term “guffaw.”

This was starting to seem like a mistake. Ellison felt he had been tossed down amongst the junkyard hyenas, back into a pit he’d spent the last two decades climbing out of. “You can’t go home again” was a lie. The truth was, home was the place you could never escape.

“Listen, guys, can we focus? As much as I love walking down memory lane--”

Ross interrupted. “No, you don’t.”

“What?”

“Don’t treat us like we’re stupid, Ellison. You always treat us like we’re stupid. We know you don’t want to reminisce with us.”

“Not about you guys passing around my girlfriend, no.”

“Like we handed her off,” Milo said.

“What?”

“That’s my point! She walked from one to the other. No one had to hand her.”

Ellison groaned. “It doesn’t matter. We’re here for other things.”

He stuck his shovel into the ground. The hole was only a foot or so deep at that point. It wasn’t going to dig itself.

“He’s right,” Ross said, himself starting to work his spade. “Put your back into it, Milo. Show us that office job ain’t made you soft.”

Milo whistled through his nose. It was a nervous tic he’d had all his life. He did as told.

Three shovels worked in tandem. Milo dipped in and emptied as Ross dipped in and emptied as Ellison dipped in and so on.

Only the three of them would know to dig there. Only the three of them would know what to find. Ellison had tried to forget since he’d moved away, but he never could. Between the groping trees--three gnarled oaks just like them, all growing toward one another, like they were leaning in and clasping hands and forming a cover over this secret. Ellison had always had a fantasy about coming back on his own, undercover, and exhuming what lay there and moving it, hiding it, making it disappear. He never did. It occurred to him now that the other two could have had that fantasy, too. If one of them had, if the space under where the branches met was empty, Ellison would know it wasn’t him that did it...but how easy would it be for the guy who did do it to deflect suspicion. Only one of the three would really know what had happened.

Or two of the three. Perhaps they had moved it together. Both Ross and Milo were eyeing him. Was it because they were waiting for him to find out, or because they just found him as distasteful as he now found them?

Suspicion passed when his was the first shovel to hit it. It was a loud clank, both metallic and more solid. Tool meeting treasure.

*

And so here we found a downside of this kind of writing. I hadn't planned for these guys to be digging for anything. I only started writing from listening to the Monkees song "Shades of Gray," which is where the opening quote is from. I thought of several things they could be digging for, but I didn't like any of them (the most gruesome one was a baby's corpse)...and so that's where the story stopped. Maybe I can pick it up again. Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments. 

Current Soundtrack: Jack White, Blunderbuss

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2012 Jamie S. Rich

POWERMAN AND THE MONEYGOROUND

NEW TO THEATRES...

* Brave, the latest Pixar hits the bullseye. Their first with a girl hero does not disappoint, even if the 3D does.

* Lola Versus herself, as played by Greta Gerwig.

* Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, a surprisingly emotional comedy about the apocalypse. Starring Steve Carrel, Keira Knightley, and a ton of funny cameos.

UPDATD TO CRITERION CONFESSIONS...

* Blithe Spirit, the third collaboration between David Lean and Noël Coward is a ghostly comedy.

* Contempt, my favorite film from Jean-Luc Godard.

Current Soundtrack: Jerry Butler, Soul Legend; Bobby Womack, The Bravest Man in the Universe


e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2012 Jamie S. Rich

WRITING DOODLE: SMOKE AND MIRRORS

The "Daily Doodle" concept is intended to warm up my creative engines, and is essentially free writing, poetry or prose, usually accomplished in under an hour with a minimum of corrections. From time to time, I will post the results here. 

In some cases, the piece will also be a special commission, prompted by a particular buyer. Readers can still custom order their own quick short-short stories: details here.

This particular assignment was to write a story based on a particular photograph, a film still from the 1933 movie, Female (which I have never seen, but based on this photo, would love to). 

*

She was pretending to search for an ashtray, but in truth, she was using the mirrored table as convenient cover to check herself. Her hair hadn’t had enough time to set properly, and there was a legitimate fear that her curls could tumble down and make the night before look like the morning after instead. A quick fluff confirmed they were holding up fine, nothing to worry about, and there would be none of the gossiping about her vanity like there might have been had she been seen giving herself the once-over in the hall mirror. And don’t even mention the powder room. If she disappeared from this party of jackals for even a second....

His shadow appeared from behind moments before he spoke. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Looking for an ashtray,” she said, sticking to the lie. She had felt him creeping up, and she wasn’t surprised that he was the one who had followed her.

He indicated the cigarette balanced between her painted lips. “It looks like you need a light, as well.”

“Naturally,” she replied. “It’s just, I’m thinking ahead. Everyone has a light, but then where does that leave me? Running around looking for a place to discard the remains. Speaking of a light....”

She motioned with two fingers toward her mouth. A gentlemen should not have left her hanging. 

The man fumbled in his coat pocket. He produced a gold lighter, flipped its top, sparked the wheel. “Sorry,” he said.

The woman took a deep drag. Newly formed ash glowed at the end of the cigarette. “And you see?” she asked, indicating the powder as it turned from orange to gray. “Whatever shall I do with all this rot and decay?”

No words were spoken, but the man lifted a hand, palm raised, and held it under the tip of her burnt tobacco. He reached with the other hand and gently tapped the cylinder, letting the hot embers land on his skin. He smiled as if to say, “And do you see? Was that so hard?”

She smiled in return. “Now if I could only get you to roll them for me, you might actually be as useful as you think.”

Then she moved on, leaving him holding the evidence. Let the wags report these facts: there had been a woman here, she had smoked a cigarette, and then she vanished. Surely that would keep the rest of the pack talking for days.

*

Current Soundtrack: Laetitia Sadier, "Find Me the Pulse of the Universe/There is a Price to Pay fo Freedom (And It Isn't Security)"

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2012 Jamie S. Rich

WRITING DOODLE 6-18-2012: JARED

The "Daily Doodle" concept is intended to warm up my creative engines, and is essentially free writing, poetry or prose, usually accomplished in under an hour with a minimum of corrections. From time to time, I will post the results here. 

Readers can still custom order their own quick short-short stories: details here.

*

Jared had spent the last five days housesitting for a friend, and when he got home, he discovered that his own apartment had been robbed.

It was a textbook definition of irony. While he had stayed over at someone else’s place to make sure no one broke in, there was no one to do the same for him, and his home had gotten ransacked. Everything had been upended. His kitchen table, such as it was, had been flipped upside down and the contents spilled on the tile floor. Cups had been pulled out of the cabinets, books had been knocked off the shelves. For a minute Jared hoped it had just been some kind of joyriding prank and some teenagers had gotten in here and tossed the place with the intent of freaking him out.

Because the cruelest cut of all was that there was really nothing in Jared’s apartment that was worth taking. To be crooks at this level, you had to be sinking pretty low. Yet, as he started taking stock, it was clear they had taken anything that could maybe earn them a buck.

This meant the out-of-date widescreen TV with the warped top corner that gave every movie and show a rainbow edge was gone. With it went the $60 DVD player and the hand-me-down stereo system that, though it possessed four speakers, was only capable of two sound channels. Correction, actually: of simulating two-channel surround. Wires hung over the entertainment center like chaff after a harvest. The only solid object that remained was the clunky old VCR that Jared hung onto because he had convinced himself he’d watch those couple of movies he still had on tape. The layer of dust on the battered previously rented copies of Last of the Mohican and Moulin Rouge begged to differ.

In his bedroom, the robbers took a similar selective approach. They had taken the bed frame, but they had left his ratty old mattress. It had a hole in the center where a spring had poked through, and Jared had sliced his leg on it three times before he finally took wire cutters and removed most of the coil. This was Jared’s lot in life: he had to lose three times before any defeat really took hold. He’d been mugged outside this apartment building, and now he’d been ripped off inside it. One more theft and he would probably move.

But tonight he was thankful that the thieves had left that ratty old mattress, because even without the frame, he could lay it on the floor and go to sleep. He also had his laptop with him when he was away, and though a four-year-old Macbook was maybe not state of the art, it was his and he had something that glowed and showed him entertaining things while he drifted off to sleep.

 *

Jared didn’t call the cops. He didn’t see the point. He didn’t have renter’s insurance and noting was really valuable and while he was sure they’d be polite about it and no one would confirm it out loud, they weren’t going to put any effort into finding the guys who did this. Nor did Jared think they should.  

On the scales of Justice, Jared’s predicament was merely a speck of fool’s good, tipping the bowls neither this way nor that. If something heavy landed on the other side, his would probably be the first thing catapulted off in the resulting jerk.

When he woke up in the morning, Jared put some of the place back together. He fixed up the kitchen enough so he could eat a bagel and have some juice, though the discovery that they had taken his toaster oven meant that he ate the bagel cold. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed that was gone when he had seen they had taken his microwave. The bathroom was the only room in the house that the thugs left untouched. Jared showered, shaved, and went to work, and for his time in that little room, at least, life seemed normal and without disruption.

Work passed without incident. Jared returned home. He cleaned up the rest of the flat. He went to bed on his mattress on the floor.

By the next morning, except for not being able to once again heat his bagel or watch the news while he ate it cold, things were basically right back in the same place as they had been, as if nothing of great shocking import had ever really happened.

Or so it seemed.

When Jared went to leave that day, he found an eleven-year-old boy outside his door. The boy wore a stocking cap, and his jacket and pants were too big. He had Jared’s DVD player in his hand.

“This isn’t Blu-Ray,” the kid said, by way of “hello.”

“No, it isn’t.” Jared answered out of some politeness reflex, he hadn’t really considered the depth of this question.

“I was supposed to get Blu-Ray,” the kid said.

“I don’t have Blu-Ray.”

“Why not?”

“You saw my apartment. I don’t have anything. Literally, now that you’ve been here.”

“But I was supposed to get Blu-Ray.”

“Then you robbed the wrong house.” Jared was starting to really consider the situation now. “In fact, can you tell me why you picked this apartment? Why me?”

“There were no lights on.”

“That’s it? That’s the science behind your criminal enterprise?”

The kid got irritated. He shoved the DVD player into Jared’s stomach. Hard. It knocked the wind out of Jared, and when the kid let go of the machine, Jared was unable to scramble fast enough to catch the silver metal box. He fumbled for it, and it tipped back and forth in the air, one hand to the other, but ultimately hit the floor and cracked.

“Get me a Blu-Ray,” the kid said. “I’ll be back.”

He walked away, but he never took his eyes off Jared. His head was turned in the older man’s direction even when he rounded the corner. 

Current Soundtrack: The Daily Show

e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon

All text (c) 2012 Jamie S. Rich