Syllabus #265

Life is relentless.

 

I haven't read this article about a school librarian turned activist yet.  Just dropping it here as a reminder.

I beg to differ about hackberries.  They're the worst.  One almost took out my car, and we had to spend thousands to have it removed because it was a crumbling abomination of nature.

Analog Reading:

I finished reading Carrie and started reading It on Friday the 13th.  That seems fitting.  The ending of Carrie was a lot more drawn out than I remember from the movie version.  If I recall correctly, the movie ends when she goes home and has a knock-down, drag-out, telekinetic stabbing fight with momma, and the house burns down, the end.  In the book, Carrie goes home from the prom and kills her mother, but goes back out afterwards.  Then, the whole town just about blows up and burns down, and Carrie dies in the parking lot of a roadhouse.  

Now I'm reading It, and I would pay money to have been a fly on the wall the first time an agent or editor read this book, and they're like, ok, little boy chasing a paper boat into a storm drain...sees some scary yellow eyes in the sewer...and it's a...the fuck?  A clown?  I dunno, man, seems weird.

Syllabus #264

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Where are all the pennies?  Well, I can promise you 96% of them are going to show up at my next frigging book fair. 

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Finished reading Full Dark, No Stars.  The last story was so very unsettling.  I mean, they all were, but the last one really made you question how you ever truly know someone, and where the line is between madness and the supernatural.

Now I'm reading Carrie, which is so fascinating on the level of craft, since it's King's first published novel.  Just like with many of his books that have been adapted to film, the movie version (or what I recall of it) was faithful to the letter in terms of dialogue.  The Carrie in the book, however, is continuously described as pudgy and ugly, which really doesn't track with Sissy Spacek's movie portrayal.

I promise I'll eventually read a non-Stephen King book again, but I have It cued up on my Kindle, so it won't be in the immediate future!

Syllabus #263

 Short missive today.  It's Labor Day, and sometimes this feels like labor, alright?

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This article is old, but it continues to haunt me.  I think this bar should be cited for selling Malort, regardless of what hideous insects they're adding to it.

Young men leading the charge of weird, self-flagellating asceticism?  I dunno, raw-dogging sounds like a good way to restore your attention span.  Just be in a space.  Look around.  Think your thoughts!

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Analog Reading:

Finished Stephen King's The Institute.  It was like if the X-Men and Stranger Things had a very violent baby.  It had all the things Stephen King loves to slip into his books:  child sodomy, the n-word, gratuitous violence!  All of it!

Now I'm reading his novella collection, Full Dark, No Stars.  The first one, 1922, was, as promised, fully dark.