Oh no. Professor Snape is gone. Alan Rickman was a great actor and a very private person. As with David Bowie, few even knew he was suffering from cancer. Bowie’s death made me feel old. Ziggy Stardust dead? How can it be? Rickman’s death feels only as if the world’s supply of great acting talent is that much lower, so suddenly. UPDATE: His best roles according to People. I’ve been trying to get my hands on Truly, Madly, Deeply with no luck. And I’ve never seen Die Hard though I will now that I know he was in it. Galaxy…
Category: Books and Movies
I was debating whether to write more about Obama’s recent (though ancient in Internet Time) fiats against gun “dealers” and gun owners. Can’t bring myself to. Our Glorious Leader is all about “gun control theater,” signifying very darned little. Bans and confiscations clearly dance through Obama’s dreams, but he hasn’t got the guts to face strong people. He strikes at the weak and vulnerable. Then this morning I was reminded of the bottom line truth: (Source) —– Well, I finished watching The Man in the High Castle. Yep, as you who got there before me said, that was certainly a…
Moons ago, I watched the pilot episode of Amazon’s series The Man In The High Castle. It was terrific. Dark, exciting, complex, suspenseful, brave. It’s based on Philip K. Dick’s novel, in which the Japanese and Germans prevailed in WWII. Now (that is, the early 1960s) Germany controls the eastern U.S. and the Japanese control the Pacific States, with only a narrow and perilous neutral zone between them. Though most Americans seem to have accepted their overlords (and many have become dedicated Nazis), a desperate resistance emerges from the shadows. One focus of the resistance is a film, produced by…
Father gets into a stand-off with police to prevent a hospital from taking his “brain dead” son off life support. Happened earlier this year but the follow-up is what’s making this a Christmas-season story. Pot for the homeless. (H/T jed) Also from jed: all the SF books to binge read over the holidays. (Can’t vouch for them myself ’cause I haven’t read any of them. If you’re buying, you know where to purchase them.) Dave Barry’s year in review. (I’ve lost track of the people who’ve sent this one to me; it’s definitely been making the rounds.) Jim Bovard’s Raging…
The other day I heard somebody refer to the “golden age of television.”
I immediately leaped to the conclusion that he meant that fuzzy black and white age in which all of America watched Leave It to Beaver, Gunsmoke, and Ed Sullivan’s variety hour and gathered the next day to share their mutual cultural three-channel (if you didn’t count PBS, which was at that point some guy standing at a blackboard writing equations), pre-programmed experience.
Just as I was about to remind the speaker that his “golden age” was mere seconds in geological time from when Newton Minow created waves — and a meme — by damning all of television as “a vast wasteland,” I realized that’s not what he meant.
He meant now. This very minute.
Of the new Omni-bust budget deal Jim Bovard sez: “Republican congressional leaders are like a football coach who believes the secret to winning is to punt early and often.” Rand Paul sez stop the bill — and he has some fairly decent ideas for alternatives. OTOH, Marijuana.com sez there are a couple of decent provisions in the 2,000 page monster sellout. On the other other hand, the USPS announces a completely unsurprising but curiously retro policy on carrying publications that contain — gasp! — ads for the dreaded Demon Weed. One wonders why they couldn’t have just kept their mouths…
With Christmas cheer warming up and possibly even some chestnuts roasting over open fires, it seems like time for a little lite stuff. (Cheerfully stolen from furrydoc) A song for politicians and v*ters everywhere (Source; per Laird in comments) And a modern freedomista Christmas classic from Neema Vedadi and FreedomFeens (with Ben Stone aka Bad Quaker as Santa). (Source) And finally … Decorating with Canine from Brigid at Home on the Range.
The Miskatonic Manuscript
By Vin Suprynowicz
323 pages, Mountain Media, December 11, 2015
Available from AbeBooks.com $28.50 autographed, limited edition hardcover
or
Amazon.com $5.99 Kindle ebook
—–
When last we saw rare-book dealer Matthew Hunter and the beautiful, dauntless Chantal Stevens they were searching for the lost testament of James, a much-rumored scripture by the brother of Jesus, a document powerful forces would kill to suppress.
That was in Vin’s first Hunter-Stevens novel.
Now they’re back. Back at their shop, Books on Benefit in Providence, Rhode Island. Back with their distinctly motley crew of friends and associates (including a writer of vampire tales who may take his role just a little too seriously and a small person named Skeezix whose uncanny affinity with cats makes me wonder about his genetic heritage).
And of course they’re back to searching for another rare manuscript. This time there’s nothing biblical about it — unless you worship at the altar of H.P. Lovecraft, whose work the lost document is. Some of the characters in The Miskatonic Manuscript literally do worship at that altar, being members of the Church of Cthulu.
BHM has a buy-one-get-one-free offer on any Backwoods Home anthology. Offer is good through Sunday at midnight. NFI on my part, except the usual undying gratitude to the Duffys and the wonderful staff of BHM for keeping me writing and keeping the pups in kibble.
Per MamaLiberty in comments, the Future of Freedom Foundation is offering two gun-rights ebooks FREE today and tomorrow. The books are: The Tyranny of Gun Control (various authors including Sheldon Richman and Jim Bovard) and Freedom and Security: The Second Amendment and The Right to Keep and Bear Arms by Scott McPherson. Get ’em while you can. The timing of this is perfect.