I always enjoy talking with my agent. We don’t talk all that often, but when we do, I come away feeling energized. I feel like he knows the lay of the land and the best way to approach a new project. That’s cool.
I would be remiss if I didn’t remind you that the second (revised and updated) edition of The Stephen King Illustrated Companion will be released by Barnes & Noble on November 5, just a couple of weeks from now. The first edition (two printings) has been out of print for a while, so I’m glad it will be available again, with new material at the end. Makes a great holiday gift!
It isn’t up on Horror World yet because of some hosting issues, but Pod of Horror #70 is available to subscribers and directly at this link. I talked with Mark Justice about The Dark Tower Companion.
It’s funny how things work out. The day before yesterday, I went out to do some errands mid-morning. I bought something at Target then went across the street to buy something else. My credit card was declared “void” at the second store. It’s a strange feeling, to have a card declined. “But it worked just a few minutes ago,” I said. I could see the sales clerk nodding and I bet he heard that a hundred times before. I figured there was something wrong with his terminal. However, when I checked the account online, I saw charges from two CVS pharmacies in Houston, both for about $250. The charges straddled my Target purchase. I was pretty sure it wasn’t my wife (though I texted her, just to be sure), so I called the credit card company, and by then there was a third charge pending from a Kroger, also for around $250. Mild panic set in—I have an international trip planned for the very near future, and I need a credit card. However, the company was able to get replacements to us in 24 hours, which I deemed excellent service.
If I hadn’t gone on that unscheduled shopping trip, though, I’m not sure that I would have discovered the unauthorized charges for a few days. It would have been most inconvenient to have the card canceled because of fraud while I was out of town. The amounts of the charges intrigued us, too. Not exactly the same, but all hovering around $250, and at unexpected places. Not big screen TVs or computers or furniture: something at a pharmacy or a grocery store. It occurred to me later that maybe these were Breaking Bad-style “Smurfs” buying precursors for meth! (I’ve been thinking too much about that show lately, as you can tell).
I’m about 1/5 of the way through Sycamore Row by John Grisham. It’s billed as the sequel to A Time to Kill, which I guess it is in that it features the same main character and his family. It’s three years later, and he still has the police cruising by the house because people are upset at the trial’s outcome. This book focuses (so far, at least), on a holographic will from a wealthy recluse sent to Jake Brigance a couple of days before the man killed himself. The main beneficiary is his black maid. The rest of his family is specifically disinherited. Jake is getting ready for legal challenges to the will’s validity and to its terms.
Covert Affairs has been quite exciting lately, with Annie presumed dead by 99.999% of the planet but continuing to go after Henry Wilcox while in Germany. Does she have to become Henry to take him down? The 300th episode of CSI was fun, too, with a manufactured flashback to Catherine Willows, and a guy (Jason Priestley) who looked as guilty as sin (twice) who proved to be a patsy all along. The dream sequences on Criminal Minds were interesting, too. Hotch’s late wife and her killer, eating popcorn and sharing laughs.
I found it amusing that Kat chiding Monica for strategizing too much on Survivor, but it was exactly that sort of behavior that sent her to the chopping block. The tribe swap led to a strange imbalance: 5 guys and a girl on one tribe and 5 girls and a guy on the other. Make that 4 girls and a guy, now that Kat talked herself out.
One of the funniest bits of casting and writing on television was the decision to cast Walton Goggins as a transvestite on Sons of Anarchy and then have Tig be fascinated by her. Funniest thing ever. I liked the way Tara’s plan came together so neatly, but that can only mean it will go badly wrong at some point in the near future. Adrienne Barbeau played one of the creepiest moms ever, and she talked herself over to Redemption Island, too. I still think they could do without all the musical montages.
Speaking of creepy moms: American Horror Story. Mare Winningham. Whoa. This is the second show she’s appeared on in the past few months (also Under the Dome) where her character’s life expectancy could be measured in fractions of episodes. The Kyle subplot reminds me of a cross between Frankenstein, Pet Sematary and Rocky Horror Picture Show’s “I Can Make You a Man.” The show has a record of testing taboos, but they seem to be going for broke this season.
