Today included two doctor's appointments and a visit to the accountant. All were less terrible than I had been fearing, which was kind of a nice change. I am wiped.
1. Behold the cover for The Humanity of Monsters, due out from ChiZine in September—I'm part of the "And More." Other contributors under this banner include Leah Bobet, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Yoon Ha Lee, Sunny Moraine, Polenth Blake, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Livia Llewellyn, and Rose Lemberg. It's really going to be a good anthology.
2. Genius Loci: Tales of the Spirit of Place is nearing the final countdown of its Kickstarter. We're less than $600 from the really elegant print edition with foil stamping, deckle-edged pages, and a ribbon bookmark built in. I am indifferent to bookmarks, but I really like deckle edges.
3. The other day I learned from a punk song that there was a scandal about the dishware of the Reagan administration. I've done two historical mixes (links dead, ask in comments if you're interested in anything) and I'm not sure I have quite enough for a full third, but here's an assortment anyway.
( He talked like Pete Shelley. )
Last night's obscure film: Five Days (released in the U.S. as Paid to Kill, 1954), a pre-horror Hammer noir starring Dane Clark. The premise is pure pulp formula—faced with financial ruin, a businessman takes out a contract on his life which soon becomes a real murder threat when his luck turns, he tries to call off the hit, but can't find the guy he hired and doesn't know who's after him anymore—but Clark is very good as a man discovering to his horror that the good life he thought he was on the inside of has been viewing him as an outsider all the while. He's a slight, dark, wiry-haired man with a look of John Garfield and Rod Serling if you kept both of them awake for a few days; he has a tough set to his jaw that can melt suddenly into vulnerable exhaustion, strangely quizzical under brows that were narrowed just a moment ago. He looks like a thug in his tightly belted black trenchcoat; he wears a good suit like he's still not certain it fits. We never get any idea what "Amalgamated Industries" trades in, but we know it's an old British firm rescued by the hard-and-fast wheeling-dealing of an American some members of the board still regard as little better than a gangster—gutter-bred, Johnny-come-lately. (There are overtones of anti-Semitism in it, too: "Jim Nevill" isn't an especially Jewish name, but there's enough talk of money and Jim's "methods" and the unvarnished hatred with which the oldest and the most privileged board member tears into him to let the audience wonder. Dane Clark was born Bernard Zanville.) He has an elegant British wife whom he treats like fine china, desperately afraid one day she'll turn on him with the same disdain; his secretary pines for him in the best noir tradition, but he only relies on her efficiency, not her affection. His oldest friend in England is a sponge whom he judges the perfect accomplice for an insurance fraud, providing for his beloved Andrea with his own sudden obvious non-suicide. Then the merger goes through at the last minute, but someone still takes a shot at Jim and tries to run him over when the bullet doesn't finish the job . . . It's the kind of movie where the setup takes forever and sometimes you can hear the gears grind and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
derspatchel and I figured out the double-cross long before the protagonist did, but once the story hits the point where Jim no longer knows who's trying to kill him and who's not and why, the film takes on the thick quality of a nightmare where nothing is stable and people appear as if out of your fear of seeing them; all he wants is refuge and he isn't granted it, not knowing how to fight something he can't get hold of. The secretary stays awesome. We'd really been hoping she would. It's very rare for me to watch a movie where I recognize none of the actors, but this was one. I'd watch more of Dane Clark now.
1. Behold the cover for The Humanity of Monsters, due out from ChiZine in September—I'm part of the "And More." Other contributors under this banner include Leah Bobet, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Yoon Ha Lee, Sunny Moraine, Polenth Blake, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Livia Llewellyn, and Rose Lemberg. It's really going to be a good anthology.
2. Genius Loci: Tales of the Spirit of Place is nearing the final countdown of its Kickstarter. We're less than $600 from the really elegant print edition with foil stamping, deckle-edged pages, and a ribbon bookmark built in. I am indifferent to bookmarks, but I really like deckle edges.
3. The other day I learned from a punk song that there was a scandal about the dishware of the Reagan administration. I've done two historical mixes (links dead, ask in comments if you're interested in anything) and I'm not sure I have quite enough for a full third, but here's an assortment anyway.
( He talked like Pete Shelley. )
Last night's obscure film: Five Days (released in the U.S. as Paid to Kill, 1954), a pre-horror Hammer noir starring Dane Clark. The premise is pure pulp formula—faced with financial ruin, a businessman takes out a contract on his life which soon becomes a real murder threat when his luck turns, he tries to call off the hit, but can't find the guy he hired and doesn't know who's after him anymore—but Clark is very good as a man discovering to his horror that the good life he thought he was on the inside of has been viewing him as an outsider all the while. He's a slight, dark, wiry-haired man with a look of John Garfield and Rod Serling if you kept both of them awake for a few days; he has a tough set to his jaw that can melt suddenly into vulnerable exhaustion, strangely quizzical under brows that were narrowed just a moment ago. He looks like a thug in his tightly belted black trenchcoat; he wears a good suit like he's still not certain it fits. We never get any idea what "Amalgamated Industries" trades in, but we know it's an old British firm rescued by the hard-and-fast wheeling-dealing of an American some members of the board still regard as little better than a gangster—gutter-bred, Johnny-come-lately. (There are overtones of anti-Semitism in it, too: "Jim Nevill" isn't an especially Jewish name, but there's enough talk of money and Jim's "methods" and the unvarnished hatred with which the oldest and the most privileged board member tears into him to let the audience wonder. Dane Clark was born Bernard Zanville.) He has an elegant British wife whom he treats like fine china, desperately afraid one day she'll turn on him with the same disdain; his secretary pines for him in the best noir tradition, but he only relies on her efficiency, not her affection. His oldest friend in England is a sponge whom he judges the perfect accomplice for an insurance fraud, providing for his beloved Andrea with his own sudden obvious non-suicide. Then the merger goes through at the last minute, but someone still takes a shot at Jim and tries to run him over when the bullet doesn't finish the job . . . It's the kind of movie where the setup takes forever and sometimes you can hear the gears grind and
derspatchel and I figured out the double-cross long before the protagonist did, but once the story hits the point where Jim no longer knows who's trying to kill him and who's not and why, the film takes on the thick quality of a nightmare where nothing is stable and people appear as if out of your fear of seeing them; all he wants is refuge and he isn't granted it, not knowing how to fight something he can't get hold of. The secretary stays awesome. We'd really been hoping she would. It's very rare for me to watch a movie where I recognize none of the actors, but this was one. I'd watch more of Dane Clark now.
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