With World Horror less than a week today, there’s lots of business to do to keep me busy (and away from writing as much as I’d like). I’ll be leaving for Austin on Wednesday to get there in time for the preamble. It’s going to be a busy four-to-five days that I’m sure will zip by so fast that they’ll be a memory even before they start. Really looking forward to it, though.
The five-day weather forecast shows the same thing between now and Sunday. High of 90, low of 70. It looks like a copy and paste. No chance of rain, which we so badly need.
The Level Best crime anthology Thin Ice is now available for the Kindle. This is the collection of writings by New England authors that contains my Al Blanchard Award-winning story “The Bank Job.” The Kindle version costs $9.95 compared to the $15 trade paperback version, which is still available. Don’t have a Kindle? There’s a free application for Windows PCs and an app for iPads and iPod Touch devices that allows you to read Kindle files. Several of the other stories in Thin Ice have either been nominated for or won prestigious awards, including the Agatha, the Derringer and the Edgar Award.
Yesterday I received my contributor copy of A Sea of Alone: Poems for Alfred Hitchcock to be published shortly by Dark Scribe Press. It contains my first ever published poem, 24 Hour Psycho.
What a wild episode of Survivor this week. We only thought Philip was unpredictable before this. He sits there chanting to himself, which is mildly weird, and then goes ballistic when the smaller tribe won’t let him store his (bug infested but manually cleaned) rice in their container. It turned into a shouting match between him and Steve that suddenly became a race issue because of the way Philip responded to being called crazy (actually, I think Steve called him a lunatic, but that’s neither here nor there). When he started handling the machete later on, I thought that the elimination that day might be of a very different variety. No redemption island for you! Thwak! I wonder how many of the camera men and producers would have leapt between Philip (and his machete) and Steve.
The immunity challenge had Rob’s name written all over it, and he did indeed prevail, so he’s safe for two more weeks because of the hidden idol that he has (and still no one else knows about). Tribal Council turned into a rap session on the subtleties of prejudice. I thought Probst turned what could have been an inflammatory encounter into something fascinating to watch. I had to laugh at Julie, though, when she muttered “I guess you’ll never find your shorts now” to Philip as she was leaving. She was very pleased with herself for that little bit of mischief. Russell would have approved. Maybe Ralph will accidentally stumble upon them like he did the idol.
I totally called it last week regarding Justified. When everyone was wondering who had sent the two well-dressed guys after Raylan (and, by proxy, Winona), I knew who it was and this week the proof came out. And a lot of other stuff happened, too. The ending was a shocker. I really didn’t expect Dickie to live through the episode, but he seems determined to match Raylan’s body count. The final one was the worst, of course. Helen had been counselling Ava on the benefits of not knowing anything that could be forced out of her under duress, but it didn’t even come to that. She just ended up on the wrong end of crazy. Dickie had already crossed the line by dispatching the two muscle heads who decided to abandon ship after Boyd pulled his little sting operation. And wasn’t it fun seeing Boyd with a gun in each hand ripping off Dickie’s grow-op and letting the buyer go with all the weed he had just purchased.
Ava decides she doesn’t want to follow Helen’s advice. Despite the possible risk, she wants to know everything. She also has a few words to say on the subject of economic stimulus by getting Boyd to promise not to get involved with prostitution in Harlan County. Looks like he’ll have plenty else to keep him occupied. She’s a little like the cat among the pigeons when she’s hanging out in a cabin with Crowders, given her particular history with that family.
Art puts Tim on Raylan’s tail to make sure he doesn’t a) get killed or b) try to find out who is intent upon killing him. As good as Tim is, Raylan is better and he puts the sniper on notice that at some point he’s going to ditch his nanny. Which he does. A couple of times. He looks up the likely suspects and has a nice conversation with Mags who admits that she was the one who let Coover become a nitwit. She has problems of her own because some people haven’t taken kindly to the deal she made with the coal lady. Doyle arrives on the scene with a bunch of other local cops, stating that if he wanted someone dead he could arrange to have the fellow killed while resisting arrest. “You have one guy to back you up?” Raylan responds, “I thought you’d bring more guys.”
Later, the gang is all together under one roof. Gary, Winona, Raylan and their two minders, Rachel and Tim. “I feel like I’m in The Big Chill,” Tim says. “Except no one’s dead,” Raylan responds. “Yet,” Tim says, almost stepping on his line. “And the music sucks,” Rachel adds for good measure. I really liked the idea that Gary was “drafting off” Winona’s protection, hanging around the marshals so the guy he hired won’t kill him, too. I wonder if we’ll ever see old Gary again. Bad luck for him if Raylan sees him first. As he tells Duffy, “The next time we have this conversation, there won’t be a conversation.”
Dickie’s actions will, no doubt, push the old family feud into overdrive. I expect a number of people won’t make it out of the next two episodes alive.
We watched The Switch last night, a romantic comedy starring Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston and Jeff Goldblum (who looks a lot younger in that picture up top). Cute film made especially bearable by the little kid, who owned the film. He had so many good moments. My favorite was when he handed Wally the bag of peas after he got slapped. Loved the scenes between Jason Bateman and Goldblum, who was sort of a surrogate father figure. And Bateman was a most convincing drunk. I was impressed with him in general. He was very naturalistic in a film that could have been totally over the top. I think I’ve seen quite enough of Juliette Lewis, though.
