I went to Atlanta on Friday (the 13th, no less) to attend King’s signing at the Barnes & Noble in Buckhead. We were supposed to meet up for lunch or something beforehand, but the scheduling gremlins got in the way. I had a VIP wristband awaiting me at the store and decided to just hang out at one of the tables outside the Publix grocery store next door and people watch. I met up with a virtual friend from the SK message board, and a number of other people, including Anya Martin and her father, RJ Sevin from Creeping Hemlock Press, and Dave and LeeAnn Hinchberger from Overlook Connection. We hung around until about 45 minutes before the signing was to begin, then went to the end of the line.
It went amazingly fast. Once the line started moving, it barely stalled. Once inside the store, we saw a huge sign over a table. It read “The Dan Brown Experience” but all the books on the table were Twilight novels. Dave took a photo of that for failblog. On the way through the bargain books section, I saw one that was about how to curse effectively in Spanish, complete with a playback machine so you could perfect your pronunciation.
King was on a dais at the back, curtained off on three sides. When we reached him, I introduced the people in our group who’d never met him before. After we went outside again, I signed a bunch of copies of The Stephen King Illustrated Companion for Dave and for others. Every single copy in the store was sold that night except for one that looked like it had been through the wars. A Charlie Brown’s Christmas kind of book. We met up with Jim Argendeli from CNN and his brother. Jim had escorted King through the network headquarters earlier in the day for his interview session with Robin Meade. A bunch of us went to an Irish pub afterwards and talked until midnight.
One of my favorite groups to listen to while writing has a new album coming out at the end of the month. Ineffable Mysteries From Shpongleland. I can feel a trance coming on. I became aware of the group after Simon Posford contributed to Alan Parsons’ most recent album. The music is mesmerizing. Absolutely ideal to accompany a writing trance.
I read Six Bad Things by Charlie Huston while traveling this weekend. It’s the second book in his trilogy, and a brutal novel. The main character escaped with a ton of mob cash at the end of the first book and now people are after it so he has to figure out how to keep his parents from getting tangled up in the whole mess. It’s a violent book, and the brunt of the violence is directed at the protagonist, who takes one beating after another. It’s not limited to him, though, as most of the people who come into his orbit also fare poorly. Good stuff. I think I’ll go straight into the final installment, A Dangerous Man.
I received a rejection letter from On Spec with brief but encouraging comments, and an acceptance note for a Southern Gothic anthology that I had been invited to contribute to. The anthology won’t be out until late next year, or perhaps until 2011. I also received my contract for “The Fingernail Test,” the story that won the Apex contest, and payment for an interview I contributed to an upcoming catalog, so it was a busy weekend for business.
We watched the remake of Taking of Pelham 123 this weekend. Though the gist of the story is the same, they deviate significantly. I read the John Godey novel back in the 1980s, but I can’t remember it that well. The original film for me is the story that everything else gets compared to. One of the biggest differences is that the other three criminals (besides Travolta) have very little presence in the story. In the original, they were known by colors and had individual personalities and stories. Of course there are lots of high tech updates, including the guy who is broadcasting the whole thing via his webcam. The Japanese visitor comedic subplot in the original is turned into backstory involving Denzel Washington’s character, and the mayor of New York isn’t the lazy slug from the original. Not a bad movie, overall, though Travolta is a touch over the top.
The Prisoner remake is on AMC this week. I think I’m going to record all three parts and watch it straight through. I thought The Mentalist was better than average this week. I didn’t fall to the lure of the CSI trilogy because I refuse to watch the Miami version and have little interest in the New York spinoff. So I went straight into the Las Vegas story and let them catch me up on any important details required to understand what was going on. Fast Forward is starting to do some interesting things with perception. At the end of last week, we decided that the future could be changed but this week it seems that despite some deviations, things are still falling into place for the envisioned future.
