Quick, somebody make me contact reviewers and publications. What a drag that part of the writing cycle is. I have like 50 copies of Reality Testing sitting here from the publisher waiting to be sent out around Europe. Haven’t done it. It’s funny how with By The Feet Of Men I jumped into doing it 12 months in advance, and now there are just three months until release and I’m putting it off like Procrastinor, King of Mañana. Writing and editing are just so much more rewarding.
Quick, somebody get me an agent.
Book of the month: Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese. A study of masculinity released through the small publisher Milkweed that could easily sit alongside Cormac McCarthy at Penguin. The writing is similar in its cadences and stripped-back elegance, but it lacks the harsh nihilism of McCarthy. There’s a real love to the writing and in the characters, and Wagamese celebrates nature from the first page to the last. Parts of it remind me of Walden in that sense. I can also see shades of Faulkner and Steinbeck. It’s just brilliant from start to finish. I wish I could write to Wagamese and say so, but he sadly passed away in 2017. In the next life, I suppose.
Album of the month: I’ll go ahead and say MY ONE. The Old Colossus by Redscale. 10,000 plays on Apple Music and 10,000 plays on Spotify can’t be wrong…except for the artists and their ability to make a buck from their art, obviously. Anyway, it rocks.
Movie of the month: The Man Who Would Be King. Sean Connery! Michael Caine! Christopher Plummer! John Huston in the director’s chair! A critical look at the pomp and circumstance of British colonialism! This seems like a film I would have watched on a rainy afternoon as a kid with my Dad making a comment on the accuracy of the drills and rifles and uniforms every thirty seconds, but no. It slipped through my radar. What a hidden gem. I love the Kipling short story, but I think the movie manages to outdo it.
Metal militia music:
1 Testament - Return to Serenity
the man in the high castle