Traveling later this week so my mind is a little unfocused.
I started John Tottenham’s Service. Made me laugh out loud a few times within the first ten pages. Definitely up my alley.
The other night on Tubi, I watched a pretty lousy 1989 horror flick called I, Madman, noteworthy for two things: its star, Jenny Wright—once an up-and-coming actress—long disappeared, something about a bad accident referenced online that I didn’t wanna dig into; and, my friend, Bruce Wagner, in the end credits. Had to rewind to spot the back of his head, as a piano player about to be offed by the titular madman. Full head of hair. That’s why I didn’t recognize him.
A couple days later at the Siskel, I watched a mismatched double-feature of Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest and Kurosawa’s Stray Dog. The former is a loose remake of a different Kurosawa but that’s where the synergies stop. What Lee offers is a flabby gourmet TV movie-of-the-week while Stray Dog is a nearly note-perfect treatise on desperation and bad choices.
I sold an expensive art book on eBay I’ve had for thirty-five years. It will cover the car rental for my trip. A couple more pieces from the Rainbo show sold as well. Then I got a pet-portrait commission.
Sometimes the universe looks out for me. Can’t explain why but I’m grateful.
The guy who runs Newcity sent out a call-for-entries about the Printers Row Lit Fest. I wrote back that I could put something together about the time I was a featured writer along with Gillian Flynn and some others. He bit. Then I tried to write the thing and it was so bitter and shitty that it wasn’t even worth printing in his rag.
Good thing I have a newsletter…
In 2012, the Union League Club held a kick-off event ahead of that year’s book fair. The Trib was still running the show and selected a few promising young-ish and/or debut authors to showcase their forthcoming or recently published books. The University of Chicago Press had published Hack: Stories from a Chicago Cab the previous fall, and this was an opportunity to get the book in front of a few more eyeballs.
I’d never been inside the Union League Club before. Hell, I doubt I’d ever been inside any private club before and few since. A large room held about a dozen hightop tables, each featuring a single book, its author nervously or enthusiastically hovering nearby to answer guest questions and plug their product. I don’t remember what I said or to whom I said it; I do remember drinking a bunch of free wine, waiting for the thing to be over.
Gillian Flynn, who would publish Gone Girl that year, was at one of the other hightops. I didn’t talk to her or any of the other featured writers. Their career fates likely mirrored mine. Though Hack was optioned shortly before publication, fourteen years later no movie or show has been greenlit. I’ve published eight or nine more books, most of which were enjoyed by the few who read them, but not a one has caused the smallest ripple.
Flynn hasn’t published any novels since Gone Girl but she hasn’t needed to. Movies, TV shows, comic books, and untold other media have kept her off the street.
Do schmooze-fests do writers any good? Did Flynn say something or meet someone at the Union League Club that helped launch her career? I couldn’t tell you. In the years since, I’ve participated in the lit fest several times to sell my books. I’ve never been part of any talks, readings, or get-togethers organized by the fest.
This year I’m part of two off-site readings. Might not be Sharp Objects or Dark Places but it’s not nothing. I’ll take what I can get.
This Sunday, like a dress-rehearsal for Printers Row, I’ll be at Paper Plains Zine Fest in Lawrence, Kansas. Pop by if you’re spending the dregs of summer in the vicinity.
I wrote about the bookstore again. I’d pitched a compilation of my zines but that was deemed “too artistic”. Don’t know what that meant. I waited a couple months and pitched this new thing having seen they like to profile bookstores.
I think the zines are a lot closer to what I want to be doing than this new thing but writing in a mode that splits the difference between journalism and personal essay is muscle memory by now. Low stakes. It’s the thing I’ve been trying to quit but sometimes still dip back into. A lot of the reason is Zona Motel, which has an audience I otherwise don’t have access to because of my social-media policies.
Contributing to Zona is a compromise. It gives me a nominal presence on a platform I quit a couple years ago and doesn’t require me to do any of the things I can no longer stomach, like performing some kind of online identity. They’re nice and even pay a little.
Another thing I thought I quit was the horror movie podcast. But I’ve been dipping my toe back in. A lot of the reason is that Mallory is more or less becoming my publisher—having put out Moby Dick and promising to put out others.
Monday morning we recorded a talk about Daughters of Darkness (1971), starring incomparable ice queen Delphine Seyrig and a guy who would go on to play the angry, frustrated husband of one of the cops on Cagney & Lacey on 80s TV. It’s a cold, stylish riff on vampire lore with allusions to Nazism and general European post-WWII malaise, but what’s most refreshing about it is that it doesn’t spoonfeed or over-explain much of anything. It’s a mood, as the kids used to say.
My show continues at the bar. People seem to dig it. A few pieces sold. Here’s what’s left.
My brother asked for a print of my Marvel Universe painting. You can get one too.
Krystle now sells her amazing zines direct, cutting out Etsy or any other middlemen, so go get yourself some already!
