PULPFEST 2024 Report

Those who follow me on Instagram or are friends with me on Facebook know that I spent this past weekend (actually, 5 days: July 31 to Aug 4) at Pulpfest in Cranberry, Pennsylvania. Pulpfest is a convention dedicated to the pulp magazines of the early 20th century (so called because they were printed on pulp/newsprint paper as compared to the “slick” magazines). It’s a convention I look forward to every year, probably my favorite. (Yes, I also love Readercon, held in Quincey, Massachusetts in July, but for different reasons.)

Before I talk about why I love Pulpfest so much and tell you a bit about this year’s convention, allow me to present you with a photo featuring every pulp magazine I own:

Yes, that’s it. Five pulp magazines. One issue of Startling Stories (which happens to include stories by the great Robert Bloch and also John Broome); one issue of Doc Savage (including the novel The Flaming Falcons); three issues of Planet Stories (one of which has a story by Fredric Brown, another of which has a short novel by Gardner F. Fox). And I am perfectly fine with the fact that I only own five pulp magazines, none of them in any salable condition (in fact, they were all gifts from a friend, duplicates of his own collection).

So why go to a convention dedicated primarily to pulp magazines, if I don’t collect pulp magazines?

Camaraderie.

See, Pulpfest is really three conventions in one. While the focus of Pulpfest panels is the preservation of the history of pulp magazines in all their multi-genre splendor (pulps ranged from romance/spicy to horror, adventure, mystery, western, science fiction, fantasy, and probably some genres I’m forgetting, to the “single character” pulps (both heroic, like The Shadow, The Avenger, and Doc Savage, and the villainous, like Doctor Satan.)), they also have welcomed FarmerCon (dedicated to celebrating the work of Philip Jose Farmer) and ERBFest (dedicated to celebrating the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs). And next year (2025), Pulpfest will expand to being “FOUR conventions for the price of one!” with the addition of DocCon, celebrating Doc Savage.

I started going to Pulpfest because of FarmerCon. I’d been online friends for quite a few years with a group of fans of Philip Jose Farmer and was finally convinced to meet them in person when Pulpfest relocated from Columbus, Ohio to Pittsburgh (Cranberry) Pennsylvania around 2018. I could (and will, one of these days) write an entire post, or even series of posts, about how Phil Farmer’s books (most notably, his fictional biographies of Tarzan and Doc Savage) inspired and intrigued me. Among the group of Farmer fans, I am easily the least knowledgeable about Farmer and his works. But that’s okay, they don’t hold it against me. They welcomed me with open arms, and I absorb their knowledge (and their book recommendations and writing advice) eagerly. These people have become more than friends (and far more than just online acquaintances) over these past few Pulpfest/FarmerCons.

Many of the FarmerCon folks are also big fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs – another relatively early influence on me (thanks in part to an adult neighbor who lent me some of the novels after seeing me reading some Marvel and DC Tarzan and John Carter of Mars comics), and another author about whom I am the least knowledgeable among our friend group when we gather. (See above for why I’m fine with that.) This year, it was decided to hold an ERBFest as part of Pulpfest, including the 2024 Dum Dum Banquet (if you’re fan of the Tarzan books, you know why it’s called that).

Many of the FarmerCon and ERBFest folks are also big fans of Doc Savage. You see where this is going – lather, rinse, repeat the above.

I LOVE (yes, in all caps) just hanging out and talking with all of these people in the hotel lobby until way later than is healthy for me, as well as attending panels and dinners and wandering the dealers’ room having conversations with the people I know, and people I’ve never met before. I usually don’t stop smiling and laughing the whole time I’m there unless I’m sleeping. These folks are “good medicine,” as my father used to say.

The panels I attended this year included:

·       “The Women of Edgar Rice Burroughs,” where panelists Cathy Mann Wilbanks (Vice-President of Operations at Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc.) and Bernice Jones discussed both the real women in Burroughs’ life (his mother, daughter, and two wives) and the strong, independent, progressive-for-the-time women in his fiction (Jane Porter Clayton, wife of Tarzan; Dejah Thoris, wife of John Carter of Mars; Duare, wife of Carson of Venus; Maggie Lynch, the main character of Burroughs’ novel The Girl From Farris’s; and many others). If there was one complaint from the attendees, it was that the panel wasn’t long enough to cover all of the strong, capable female characters Burroughs created (notable absences: Meriem, wife of Korak (son of Tarzan); Betty Caldwell and Llana of Gathol (from the John Carter books); and Virginia Maxon (from Burroughs’ The Monster Men).

·       “Flinch!Fest,” focused on current and recent releases from small press publisher Flinch! Books, during with Flinch co-publishers Jim Beard and John C. Bruening read passages from their stories in the western anthology Six Gun Legends, Bruening’s novel The Midnight Guardian: Gods and Sinners, and the Flinch anthology Quest for the Space Gods: The Chronicles of Conrad von Honig, which led into panel guest Brian K. Morris reading from the newest Flinch release, Quest for the Delphi Occulus, which Morris wrote for the press and which also features Conrad von Honig.

·       “The Universe According to Edgar Rice Burroughs,” during which ERB Inc Vice-President of Operations Cathy Mann Wilbanks and Vice-President of Publishing / Creative Director Christopher Paul Carey were joined by Joe Ferrante, one of the producers of the upcoming John Carter of Mars: the Audio Series (currently funding on Kickstarter), to discuss the audio project (including a video message from Sean Patrick Flannery, who will be voicing John Carter)  before launching into announcements of the next slate of ERB Universe books (including a new Land That Time Forgot novel, Fortress Primeval, by Mike Wolfer in 2025, as well as the very soon to release A Princess of Mars: Shadows of the Assassins by Ann Tonsor Zeddies (the first full length Dejah Thoris novel) and several projects featuring Victory Harben), as well as the next slate of books in the Edgar Rice Burroughs Authorized Library.

·       “Farmercon XIX Panel,” moderated by Keith Howell, during which Meteor House Press publishers Paul Spiteri and Win Scott Eckert discussed the recent Meteor House releases of The Full Account (which combines, in alternating chapters, Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days with Philip Jose Farmer’s The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, which tells the same story from a different, more science fictional, angle) and the Secrets of the Nine Omnibus (which brings together under one cover Farmer’s A Feast Unknown, The Mad Goblin, and Lord of the Trees, as well as some connected short stories and essays by Eckert, Frank Schildiner, and others). They were joined by Meteor House author Sean Lee Levin, who talked about his non-fiction release Crossovers Expanded: The Secret History of the World Volume 3 as well as his fiction debut chapbook The Lazarus Cabal.

Sadly, due to my own poor scheduling, I had to miss several panels, including “Burroughs, Farmer, and Pulp,” in which author Craig McDonald interviewed one of my favorite artists, Douglas Klauba, about his work on various book covers for Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc and Meteor House. I would have loved to listen to Doug talk about his process.

I also got to see the world premiere of We Are Doc Savage, a documentary about Doc Savage fandom directed by Ron Hill, which will soon be making the film festival rounds. I readily admit I teared up several times, and finished the documentary thinking not only how wonderful Doc Savage fandom is in general and how the Doc Savage stories have influenced so many people but also thinking “Damn, I know some really incredibly cool and wonderful people,” since so many of my friends were interviewed for the film.

And of course, I bought stuff. Too much stuff. No pulps, but a lot of paperbacks, some hardcovers, two art prints (one by Doug Klauba, the other by Mark Wheatley), some comics, and a small pile of DVDs. On the vintage paperback side, I made progress filling in some series I’m re-collecting (including Dark Shadows and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) and started (and possibly completed) two more (Strange Paradise and Mathew Swain). I also found a first edition hardcover of the novelization of Miracle on 34th Street. And I bought current releases from the tables of small press publishers Flinch! Books, Becky Books, Stormgate Press, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., and Meteor House, as well as from authors Craig McDonald and Brian K. Morris. If you’d like to see pictures of everything I purchased, head on over to my Instagram page.

I could go on and on about the dinner time and late-night conversations; there were SO MANY in-jokes, and so many instances of just basking in friends talking about the things they love. But this post is already way longer than my usual.

Pulpfest 2024 is over … but Pulpfest 2025 (including Farmercon XX, ERBFest, and DocCon!) is a mere 53 weeks away: Thursday, August 7th through Sunday, August 10th, 2025, at the Doubletree by Hilton in Cranberry, PA. Join us!

READING ROUND-UP: July 2024

Here’s what I read, listened to, and watched in July 2024!

BOOKS

I read 15 books in July: 9 in print, 3 in e-book format, and 3 in audio format. They were:

1.       Represent! by Rosalie Mastaler, Hunter Mastaler and Brant Day (PRINT)

2.       Let the Games Begin by Rosalie Mastaler, Hunter Mastaler and Betty Yuku (PRINT)

3.       Hunter's Tall Tales by Rosalie Mastaler, Hunter Mastaler, and Danelle Prestwich (PRINT)

4.       A Scout Is Brave by Will Ludwigsen (E-BOOK) REVIEW HERE

5.       Caesar Now Be Still (Wilson Hargreave #1) by Frank Schildiner (E-BOOK) REVIEW HERE

6.       Changes in the Land by Matthew Cheney (PRINT)

7.       Prez: Setting a Dangerous President by Mark Russell, Benjamin Caldwell, Wilfredo Torres, Mark Morales, and others (PRINT, Graphic Novel Challenge)

8.       Reflections (Indexing #2) by Seanan McGuire (AUDIO)

9.       Star Trek Adventures: The Operations Division Supplemental Rulebook by Chris McCarver, Andy Peregrine, Jack Geiger, and others (PRINT)

10.   Dancing on the Edge by Russ Tamblyn (AUDIO, non-fiction challenge)

11.   Lovely Creatures by KT Bryski (PRINT)

12.   A Stick-Figure Macbeth by Mya L. Gosling (PRINT) REVIEW HERE

13.   Super Sons: The Complete Collection Book 1 by Peter J. Tomasi, Jorge Jiminez, Patrick Gleason, Carlo Barberi, and others (PRINT, graphic novel challenge)

14.   We by Yvgeney Zamyatin, translated by Clarence Brown (AUDIO)

15.   Victory Harben: Tales from the Void, edited by Christopher Paul Carey (E-BOOK, ARC (book to be published in September)

STORIES

Here’s what I read this month and where you can find them if you’re interested in reading them too. If no source is noted, the story is from the same magazine or book as the story(ies) that precede(s) it.

1.       “The Last Lucid Day” by Dominique Dickey in Lightspeed Magazine #170, edited by John Joseph Adams

2.       “The Only Writing Advice You'll Ever Need to Survive Eldritch Horrors” by Aimee Picchi

3.       “The Heist for the Soul of Humanity” by Filip Hajdar Drnovšek

4.       “The Aliens Said They Want to Party” by Joel W.D. Buxton

5.       “Songs of the Sorrow of Thorns” by Amayah Perveen

6.       “The Red Queen's Heart” by Vanessa Fogg

7.       “A Guide on How to Meet the Deity of Many Faces” by Oyedotun Damilola Muess

8.       “Between Above and Below” by Carrie Vaughn

9.       “The Girl Who Loved Peacocks” by Seanan McGuire, from the Author’s Patreon

10.   “The Terms and Conditions of Kindness” by James Bennett, from The Dark #110, edited by Clara Madrigano and Sean Wallace

11.   “That Maddening Heat” by Ray Cluley

12.   “Every Hopeless Thing” by Tia Tashiro, from Clarkesworld #214, edited by Neil Clarke

13.   “Pellucidar: Dark of the Sun” by Christopher Paul Carey, from Victory Harben: Tales from the Void, edited by Christopher Paul Carey

14.   “Victory Harben: Clash on Caspak” by Mike Wolfer

15.   “Victory Harben: Stormwinds of Va-Nah” by Ann Tonsor Zeddies

16.   “Victory Harben and the Lord of the Veiled Eye” by Christopher Paul Carey

17.   “Jason Gridley of Earth: Across the Moons of Mars” by Geary Gravel

18.   “Beyond the Farthest Star: Rescue on Zandar” by Mike Wolfer

19.   “Grottmata” by Thomas Ha, from Nightmare Magazine #142, edited by Wendy N. Wagner

20.   “Automaton Boy” by Sara S. Messenger

21.   “The Museum of Cosmic Retribution” by Megan Chee

22.   “Tamaza's Future and Mine” by Kenneth Schneyer, from Asimov's Science Fiction 582/583, edited by Sheila Williams

23.   “The Phantasmagoria of Castle Specfel” by Greta Hayer, from Kaleidotrope Summer 2024, edited by Fred Coppersmith

So that’s 23 short stories in July. Less than “1 per day” again, which puts me slightly behind again for the year! (July 31st was the 213th day of 2024.)

MOVIES

I watched one movie in July:

1.       The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)

The week ending July 28th was the 31st week of the year, so I’m still way behind on the “1 movie per week” challenge.

TELEVISION

·       Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2, Episodes 1 – 20 (20 episodes)

That’s 20 episodes of television, which is well below the “1 per day” I was shooting for and keeps me behind the pace for this challenge.

LIVE THEATER

I didn’t get to any live theatrical performances in July!

Summary of Challenges:

“To Be Read” Challenge: This month: 0 read; YTD: 6 of 15 read.

366 Short Stories Challenge: This month:  23 read; YTD: 202 of 366 read.

Goodreads Challenge: This month: 15 read; YTD: 75 of 120 read.

Graphic Novels Challenge:  This month: 2 read; YTD: 15 of 52 read.

Non-Fiction Challenge: This month: 3 read; YTD: 12 of 12 read.

Read the Book / Watch the Movie Challenge: This month: 1 read/watched; YTD: 2 read/watched. (I read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie earlier in the year and finally watched the movie this month.)

Movie Challenge: This month: 1 watched; YTD: 17 of 52 watched.

TV Shows Challenge: This month: 20 episodes watched; YTD: 149 of 366 watched.

Live Theater Challenge: This month: 0 shows attended; YTD: 9 of 12 attended.

Theater Thursday: OR, WHAT SHE WILL

I think my first encounter with the writing of Liz Duffy Adams was as part of the writing staff for Serial Box’s (now Realm’s) four seasons of Ellen Kushner’s Tremontaine (the prequel audiobook series to Kushner’s “Riverside” fantasy series). I really enjoyed her episodes (but that’s a whole different blog post at some point). She’s been a playwright for far longer than I’ve been aware of her, and I began seeking out her published scripts, many of which are neo-Restoration or touch on that period.

I finally got to see a live performance of one of her works when Red Bull Theater produced a reading of OR (retitled Or, What She Will) at the Sheen Center Shiner Theatre in New York City on May 6, 2024 (yes, I’m behind on my theater reviews. Forgive me.) The reading was directed by Gayle Taylor Upchurch, and featured Kelly Curran as Aphra Behn, b as Nell Gwynne and others, and Santino Fontana as King Charles II and others.

This was an incredibly fun, high-energy evening. All three actors were wonderful; I was extra impressed when I found out they’d only had one rehearsal, that afternoon. They made effective use of a handful of props, including masquerade masks, and b and Fontana were a master class in transforming from one character to another, sometimes mid-sentence, through body language and vocal inflections. Fontana’s King Charles II and William (a former lover and fellow spy of Aphra’s) were equally earnest and slimy; b’s Nell Gwynne was sexual and sensual, her Maria the epitome of hapless and long-suffering. At the center of it all, Kelly Curran’s performance as Aphra Behn was captivating.

For those who may not know, Aphra Behn was a poet and former spy for King Charles II during his exile. She was one the first English women to make a living by writing, moving into playwriting after her time as a spy. Some of her early life is shrouded in mystery, as is whether she actually went to debtor’s prison and who paid off her debts to free her. She did eventually go to work for the King’s Company and the Duke’s Company, theatrical troupes that would have brought her into contact with famed actor Nell Gwynne.

OR attempts to answer some of the questions of Behn’s adult life in the form of a neo-Restoration comedy, postulating romantic/sexual liaisons between Behn and King Charles II, Behn and Nell Gwynne, and giving a possible origin point for the affair between Nell Gwynne and King Charles II. There’s lots of bedroom farce type comedy, characters being shuffled from room to room or being forced to hide in wardrobes to keep them from seeing each other, as Aphra Behn tries to juggle not just visits from three different present and former lovers but also from Aphra’s elderly servant woman Maria and from Lady Davenant, patroness of the Duke’s Company, from whom Aphra hopes to secure work after being released from debtor’s prison.

I can only imagine what a fully staged production of OR would look like, with all the slamming of doors, hiding in wardrobes, and quick costume changes with two actors playing the majority of the roles. During the reading, the cast did a wonderful job of implying all of this physical comedy without much in the way of actual movement.

The script allows for the possibility of Lady Davenant, who enters in a breathless rush and delivers a two-and-a-half-page monologue without pause before sweeping out again, to be played by either of the performers who are not playing Aphra. In the reading, Santino Fontana delivered the energy and the comedy perfectly – although as is the nature of readings, he lost his place mid-monologue and turned finding it again into a bit that had the audience laughing along with him.

OR, set in the 1660s, is particularly topical right now, dealing as it does with, as the program notes state, “a cyclical view of history: against a background of drawn-out wars and a fervent counter-culture of free love, gender fluidity, political optimism and pastoral lyricism…” that we’ve seen in the 1960s and are seeing currently. Written during the early years of the Obama administration, it feels even more contemporary in the political climate of Fall 2024.

If you can find a performance of OR in your area, I highly recommend seeking it out. I may as well also mention here that Liz Duffy Adams’ Born with Teeth, about the professional and personal relationships between William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, is playing at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival through the fall. I have yet to read the script or see a production, but it sounds as interesting as OR.

A full list of the works of Liz Duffy Adams can be found on her website.

I’ve always loved live theater, and in the past couple of years I’ve been making a stronger effort to see more of it. Theater Thursday is a new occasionally series where I talk about live theater, both shows I’ve seen recently and shows I’ve loved in the past.

Book Review: A SCOUT IS BRAVE

TITLE: A Scout is Brave

AUTHOR: Will Ludwigsen

155 pages, Lethe Press, ISBN 9781590216606 (softcover, e-book)

MY RATING: 5 stars out of 5

Will Ludwigsen’s new novella A Scout is Brave is almost too many things at once: young adult coming of age story (the narrator and main character is thirteen-year-old Bud Castillo), nostalgic historical (the time is 1963), a paean to the glory days of Scouting … and Lovecraftian eldritch horror. It almost shouldn’t work. In Ludwigsen’s deft hands, all the elements mesh for a story I couldn’t put down. I wasn’t surprised, of course. Ludwigsen’s Acres of Perhaps: Stories and Episodes is one of my favorite genre short story collections, and I will take any chance to tout it, including at the top of a review about a completely different book by the same author.

But let’s speak of A Scout Is Brave.

In the summer of 1963, Bud Castillo’s father loses his construction job in Queens NY. Just as the family is starting to worry about whether he’ll find work again, Bud’s father is offered an incredibly lucrative job: to help install and make operational an oil rig … off the coast of Massachusetts, near the small town of Innsmouth. Of course, weirdness is going to ensue. Bud finds he is the only kid in a town full of mostly elderly folks descended from the town’s original inhabitants … except for one other boy, Aubrey Marsh.

Readers of cosmic horror are well familiar with the history of Innsmouth, and with the Marsh family, as detailed in H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.” There have been countless pastiches, prequels, and sequels over the years, and yes, this is a sequel. One of the better ones, since Ludwigsen doesn’t try to imitate Lovecraft’s style, as so many of the writers who have visited Innsmouth in Lovecraft’s wake have. He tells the story in the simpler, less purple-prose, style of a man reminiscing about a year that changed his life. There’s no doubt, from the very first pages, that Bud and his family are walking into something they can’t imagine. The reader knows it, and the narrator, from his decades-later vantage point, knows it. Ludwigsen expertly portrays the language of someone whose fondest memories (of a friendship he’ll never experience again, of the time he came to understand his parents, and himself, better) are tinged with unimaginable horror.

The cosmic horror builds slowly: the little hints at the start, with descriptions of the odd behavior of the few returning residents of Innsmouth, slowly grow into scenes that are both rife with jump-scares (a visit to an abandoned hospital on the outskirts of town) and eerie cultish religious ceremony (when Bud’s family finally agrees to attend a service led by Reverand Pritchett at the Evangelical Progress Temple, the only church in town), which eventually lead to the story’s action-packed, frightening dénouement on ice-packed seas. The slow ratcheting up of the eeriness and the tension is perfectly paced. And what I find particularly brilliant is that the story feels Lovecraftian without ever actually teetering over into full on cosmic/eldritch horror.

These moments that teeter on, but never full embrace, the cosmic horror are interspersed with what I can only call a “skewed Rockwellian normalcy.” Bud meets Aubrey, introduces him to the concept of the Boy Scouts, they form a troop. They roam the town looking for good works to do, and through Bud’s eyes we get to meet the town’s denizens, most of whom have endearing, if odd, personalities, and who become the boys’ de facto teachers in whatever subjects they are expert it, since Innsmouth doesn’t have a school. I was a Cub Scout, a Webelo, and made it through a couple of years of Boy Scouts before the unexpected passing of a favorite Scoutmaster. I recognize Bud’s idealized attitude of “what Scouts should be,” and his joy at finding someone who embraced it in the same way. I also recognized the tint of nostalgia in older Bud’s narration – a tint that doesn’t quite cover up the things he’s learned since leaving Innsmouth, the scars that belie some of the nostalgia.

There’s also some insightful commentary about the negative aspects of nostalgia (through the citizens of Innsmouth who cannot move on even though they were left behind) and charismatic leaders who will say anything and do to get their way.

A Scout Is Brave is a perfect mix of nostalgia, horror, coming-of-age, and social commentary. It is going to be on my list of favorite reads of 2024.

Macbeth Monday: STICK-FIGURE MACBETH

Shakespeare’s Macbeth is not a comedy. (Despite what one might think of some productions’ choices.) It is a dark tragedy, full of blood and murder and the supernatural. Which, of course, makes it ripe for comedic parody. Earlier this year, I saw the New York City company of Drunk Shakespeare perform their rendition of Macbeth, and it was one of the funniest theatrical experiences I have had (right up there with the various Mischief Theatre productions I’ve seen).

I can confidently report that Mya L. Golding’s A Stick-Figure Macbeth (published by GoodTickleBrain.com) made me laugh just as hard. I picked it up during a visit to the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival last month and finally read it a few days ago. It is a fast, funny read.

Presenting chapbook style in black-and-white, the art is not truly stick-figure (the way the webcomic xkcd is), because how would you tell the characters apart? But there’s just enough detail to distinguish between Macbeth and Macduff, etc. The slightly more than stick-figure art allows for facial expressions that enhance the dialogue jokes. I particularly loved the long, straight lines representing Macbeth’s beard versus the goatee of Banquo and the full-bodied fluff of Macduff. Dueling facial hair for the win!

The introduction explains that this version of the story contains and the action and blood but omits most of the “richness and vibrancy of Shakespeare’s language.” There are plenty of direct quotes from the play, but most of the dialogue is paraphrased and played on, which is where the humor and charm of the book really click. There’s a running joke of everyone mangling “Thane of Cawdor,” for instance (calling him everything from Thane of Candor to Hodor. I half-expected a Superman reference (to the Kryptonian “Bottle City” of Kandor), and one about Macbeth trying to hard not to think of murdering Duncan that he says “casket” instead of “castle” and “knife” instead of “wife.” (The Introduction is extremely funny for other reasons. Don’t skip it.)

Golding even riffs on the famous “Hecate” scenes (including song-and-dance numbers) that don’t fit tonally with the rest of the play and are usually cut (belief is that they were added by another playwright, Thomas Middleton, after Shakespeare’s death), and on the awkward scene between Macduff and Prince Malcolm (where somehow Malcolm thinks that convincing Macduff he would be a worse king than Macbeth is the way to win Macduff’s support).

Some pages have the action interrupted by a note explaining historical context or some controversy related to the show (is it cursed? What was Lady Macbeth’s first name? and one of my favorites: a panel explaining how the Murderers are just called “First Murderer” and “Second Murderer,” and that Murderers traditionally come in pairs, and positing that these are the same murderers who appear in Richard III and Henry the Sixth Part II.)

I really don’t want to spoil every joke, so I won’t quote any more of them. I considered including a short excerpt of a few panels (with copyright info, of course), but I’m unsure if that would violate proper use laws. So just take my word for it: go find the book!

Perhaps I should note here: I know a lot of people get offended when their “favorite thing” (whatever it is) is parodied or turned comedic. I’m not one of those folks, as long as the parody is actually funny (which this is). If you are, and Macbeth is that “favorite thing” for you --- maybe this isn’t the book for you.

Macbeth is not the only “Stick-Figure” print adaptation Mya Golding has produced. Golding, and Good Tickle Brain, can be found at their website (linked to near the top of this review) and on Facebook (fb.com/goodticklebrain) and Instagram (Instagram.com/goodticklebrain).

It is no secret that my favorite Shakespeare play is Macbeth. I’ve lost count of how many live productions of it I’ve seen, plus movie and TV versions I own in various formats, not to mention all the novels, graphic novels, and non-fiction books. Macbeth Monday is intended to be an occasional feature on the blog where I discuss whatever version or aspect of the story catches my attention at a particular moment.

Book Review: CAESAR NOW BE STILL

TITLE: Caesar Now Be Still

AUTHOR: Frank Schildiner

253 pages, Belanger Books, ISBN 9798326602428 (hardcover, paperback, e-book)

MY RATING: 5 stars out of 5

Frank Schildiner’s Caesar Now Be Still is the first book of what I hope will be many novels and stories featuring New York City Detective Wilson Hargreave. If the character’s name sounds familiar, you are probably an avid Sherlock Holmes reader. Hargreave is mentioned in the Holmes canon just once, referenced by the Great Detective in “The Adventure of the Dancing Men” as a friend of Holmes among the police in New York City. No details of Hargreave’s career or life, no hint of how he became friends with the world’s most famous consulting detective, just a mention that Hargreave had often made use of Holmes’ knowledge of London crime and had now returned the favor. From this small mention, Schildiner crafts a character with a background that spans the US, the UK, and France, with time spent on both sides of the law, who has a moral code that invites mockery mixed with grudging respect from his peers and enemies alike. And while he doesn’t seem to have many friends, he does have obnoxious coworkers and dangerous enemies to spare. Hargreave’s history is revealed slowly throughout the course of the book – it’s not always pleasant but it explains a lot about the man he is when this book takes place. I found him an intriguing and personable main character (the first-person narration may have helped with that), flawed and scarred and tragic in some ways, but also noble and hopeful.

Fans of Sexton Blake, Sherlock Holmes, and Solar Pons, as well as fans of historical crime novels are sure to enjoy this book as much as I did. Grittier than the standard Holmes or Pons fare but with the same sense of justice the Great Detective’s adventures usually possess. The author seamlessly melds several mystery/crime sub-genres in this book: there’s the Holmesian mystery aspect (while Hargreave may work for the NYC police department, he is clearly treated as more of a consultant by peers and higher-ups who disdain the methods Hargreave learned from Holmes), the brutal crime aspect (so much blood and viscera at the crime scenes), the noir aspect (complete with instigating rich female client and various femme fatales), and the historical aspect (1890s New York City on full display, including all of the gang fighting and corruption). Other hands attempting such a mash-up of tones might have been less successful, but Schildiner knows his genres and knows this period of NYC history very well. It all comes together smoothly and to a highly satisfactory conclusion that leaves the way open for future adventures.

Long-time Schildiner readers will not be surprised there are also tons of easter eggs involving a plethora of literary and historical figures of the time. Schildiner weaves these references throughout the book effortlessly, never marring the pace or tone of the book. With as many as I recognized, I’m sure I still missed some that more astute readers will have picked on.

I am an enthusiastic fan of Frank Schildiner’s work across genres, and I do think this might be the best book he’s written yet. Belanger Books should be commended for bringing it out, and are encouraged to continue the series. Highly recommended.

Theater Thursday: N/A

I got to check another name off my “actors I’d love to finally see live on stage” list at the end of June: Holland Taylor. I was trying to fit one more show in in June, knowing that July would be hectic with work travel, and N/A was in previews at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center.

In N/A, Holland Taylor plays “N” and Ana Villafañe plays “A.” “N” is a life-long member of the House of Representatives, a former Speaker of the House and now Minority Leader. “A” is a newly elected Representative (“of the Bronx and Queens!”), the youngest woman ever elected to the House. While they are part of the same political party, and share many goals and ideals, their philosophical and strategic disagreements place them at odds even on common ground. The characters are clearly based on Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, although neither woman’s name is spoken during the roughly 90-minute performance (nor is any other politician’s name, although when they discuss “that man” it is equally clear who they are referring to). Taylor and Villafañe both delivered powerhouse performances during the preview I saw. There were a few small gaffes, but hey – that’s what previews are for. Reviews I’ve seen online since the show officially opened have all been positive, regardless of the age of the reviewer (I’ve seen reviews from a 13-year-old actor to a 70-year-old frequent theatregoer).

Taylor’s “N” is all quiet control, occasionally condescending (and quite aware of when she’s doing it, and to who) but also willing to acknowledge when that condescension is misplaced, leveraging decades of compromise and slow progress to institute positive change. She moves carefully across the stage at all times, regardless of her emotions. Villafañe’s “A” is boundless energy, also occasionally condescending (in that “youth knows better than age” way), striving to do the Right Thing even when it’s not the most politically expedient thing, swinging for the substantial changes over the incremental. At times, she veritably ricochets from one end of the small set to the other, and in one highly effective moment she conveys movement without moving or speaking, trembling in place. They balance each other very well – or perhaps I should say, in the playwright’s words, they orbit one another well, literally and figuratively dancing around each other and the issues that concern them. Most of their scenes are together, although each gets at least a few moments on stage alone. Those moments are as telling, as informative about the characters, as when they are verbally sparring.

Mario Correa’s script mixes actual conversations and sound bites from the real “N” and “A” with conjecture about what they may have said to each other in private in various meetings between 2018 and 2022. The playwright gives each woman equal weight, neither idolizing nor vilifying either one. The audience the night I saw the show seemed evenly distributed age-wise, obvious in the response to N’s lines about disaffected youth who spend all their time trying to raise their social media cachet and A’s lines about older people who think “close enough” is “good enough.” (I’m paraphrasing here, but you get the point.) I personally came out of the show with a greater appreciation of what it takes to accomplish anything in Washington, playing what Otto Von Bismark called “the art of the possible” (a quote I have to admit I mostly know because Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice based a song around it in Evita), a greater appreciation for how even people who broadly want the same thing can have very specifically different ways of attaining it.

N/A is a classic two-person show, perfect for the more intimate Newhouse space where the audience surrounds three-quarters of the stage. The set is minimalistic, the few pieces of furniture see-through plexiglass, allowing the focus to stay on the actors. The passage of time and change of locations is indicated through photos and words projected on the rear wall, including some well-known photos from our recent history. Fair warning: there are some fast-flashing lights and loud sound cues, especially in the scene that takes place on January 6th.

N/A runs at the Mitzi Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center through September 1st (the run was recently extended). I highly recommend seeing it.

I’ve always loved live theater, and in the past couple of years I’ve been making a stronger effort to see more of it. Theater Thursday is an occasional series where I talk about live theater, both shows I’ve seen recently and shows I’ve loved in the past.

READING ROUND-UP: June 2024

A little late in the month, here’s what I read, listened to, and watched in June 2024!

BOOKS

I read 9 books in June: 4 in print, 4 in e-book format, and 1 in audio format. They were:

1.       Next of Kin (Stardust and Ashes Book 1) by Melinda Mitchell (PRINT, Sparta Books Book Club pick)

2.       Losing Hit Points by Kristopher Mielke (E-BOOK)

3.       The Unwanted by Jeffrey Ricker (E-BOOK, To Be Read Challenge)

4.       Fever by Jordan L. Hawk (E-BOOK)

5.       The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag (PRINT, Graphic Novel Challenge)

6.       You Like It Darker: Stories by Stephen King (PRINT)

7.       Captain Kid Volume 1 by Mark Waid, Tom Peyer, Wilfredo Torres, Kelly Fitzpatrick, and A Larger World (PRINT, Graphic Novel Challenge)

8.       Pangs by Jerry Wheeler (E-BOOK, To Be Read Challenge)

9.       Indexing (Indexing #1) by Seanan McGuire (AUDIO)

STORIES

Here’s what I read this month and where you can find them if you’re interested in reading them too. If no source is noted, the story is from the same magazine or book as the story(ies) that precede(s) it.

1.       “The Waking Sleep of a Seething Wound” by dave ring in Lightspeed Magazine #169, edited by John Joseph Adams

2.       “Udo Gehler and the Virgin Bitch of the Resistance” by Andrea Kriz

3.       “The Help Hotline” by Dominica Phettleplace

4.       “Warning Notes from an Annihilator Machine” by Oyedotun Damilola Muess

5.       “Sparrow and the Parasol” by Varsha Dinesh

6.       “An Otherworldly Cat Tells You the Secrets of the Universe” by Megan Chee

7.       “In the Hands of the Mountain God” by Deborah L. Davitt

8.       “The Weight of Salt” by Shanna Germain

9.       “No One Leaves for Good” by Seanan McGuire, from the Author’s Patreon

10.   “Two Talented Bastids” by Stephen King, from You Like It Darker: Stories

11.   “The Fifth Step” by Stephen King

12.   “Willie the Weirdo” by Stephen King

13.   “Danny Coughlin's Bad Dream” by Stephen King

14.   “Finn” by Stephen King

15.   “On Slide Inn Road” by Stephen King

16.   “Red Screen” by Stephen King

17.   “The Turbulence Expert” by Stephen King

18.   “Laurie” by Stephen King

19.   “Rattlesnakes” by Stephen King

20.   “The Dreamers” by Stephen King

21.   “The Answer Man” by Stephen King

So that’s 21 short stories in June. Less than “1 per day” again, which puts me slightly behind again for the year! (June 30th was the 182nd day of 2024.)

MOVIES

I watched five movies in June:

1.       Beautiful Thing (1996)

2.       Gamera vs. Jiger (1970)

3.       Gamera vs. Zigra (1971)

4.       Gamera: Super Monster (1980)

5.       Jim Henson Idea Man (2024)

The week ending June 30th was the 26th week of the year, so I’m still way behind on the “1 movie per week” challenge.

TELEVISION

·       Shoresy Season 3, Episodes 1 – 6 (6 episodes)

·       Doctor Who (2024) Season 1, Episodes 6-8 (3 episodes)

·       Dead Boy Detectives Season 1, Episodes 1 – 8 (8 episodes)

·       The 77th Annual Tony Awards (1 episode)

That’s 18 episodes of television, which is well below the “1 per day” I was shooting for and keeps me behind the pace for this challenge.

LIVE THEATER

·       The Play That Goes Wrong Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Central Valley PA

·       N/A, Mitzi Newhouse Theatre, Lincoln Center, NYC

Summary of Challenges:

“To Be Read” Challenge: This month: 2 read; YTD: 6 of 15 read.

366 Short Stories Challenge: This month:  21 read; YTD: 179 of 366 read.

Goodreads Challenge: This month: 9 read; YTD: 60 of 120 read.

Graphic Novels Challenge:  This month: 2 read; YTD: 13 of 52 read.

Non-Fiction Challenge: This month: 0 read; YTD: 9 of 12 read.

Read the Book / Watch the Movie Challenge: This month: 0 read/watched; YTD: 1 read/watched.

Movie Challenge: This month: 5 watched; YTD: 16 of 52 watched.

TV Shows Challenge: This month: 18 episodes watched; YTD: 129 of 366 watched.

Live Theater Challenge: This month: 2 shows attended; YTD: 9 of 12 attended.

SUNDAY SHORTS: Mercedes General

TITLE: Mercedes General

AUTHOR: Jerry L. Wheeler

196 pages, Queer Mojo/Rebel Satori, ISBN 9781608642991 (Paperback, e-book)

MY RATING: 5 stars out of 5

MY THOUGHTS: Nominally a short story collection, Jerry L. Wheeler’s Mercedes General might better be described as a “mosaic novel” – the stories are all linked, presenting in chronological order the events of the lives of two extraordinarily ordinary gay men from 1966 to 2006. But whatever you call it, this is a book everyone needs to read. It is a history of the gay rights movement, the advances and the setbacks, the acceptances and the discrimination, the love and the hate. It is also an intimate story of lifelong love, the kind of love that roots early and permanently and never looks back.

Kent Mortensen meets Spencer Michalek when they are ten years old. Kent is firmly under the control of his bully of a big sister, who sees the “new kid” in town at the bus stop and absolutely must try to torment him. It doesn’t work, and a bond forms between Kent and Spencer that will stand the test of time. Per the back cover copy, “Defying anyone who steps between them, they take on the challenges of growing up a couple – including battles with their families, pedophiles, protestors at their senior prom, and unwanted attention for starting an AIDS hospice during the early part of the epidemic.” And through almost all of it, they have the love and support of Kent’s grandmother, Miss Lee, who owns the big house at the top of the mountain and who is a force to be reckoned with in her own right.

While Kent is the first-person narrator of each story (for reasons that become clear at the end of the book and which I will not spoil), we get to know Spencer, Miss Lee, and the found family they build around themselves as well as we get to know Kent. And what I love about all three is – they are none of them “perfect.” They make mistakes. They make bad decisions that affect their loved ones in ways they don’t anticipate. But they also more often than not make good choices, often tough choices, that echo just as much, if not more, into the lives of those around them. They are all three secure in who they are, even when the world wants them to be different.

Found family is a core tenet of LGBTQIA+ culture, and especially so for men of Kent and Spencer’s generation, dismissed, ignored or downright disowned by their biological families (this is not to say such things don’t happen to today’s LGBTQIA+ youth – of course it does, I’ve seen it; but I’ve also seen a lot more supportive parents than Kent and Spencer’s generation would have, or even my own generation). While we get to watch Kent and Spencer’s romance bloom and deepen, we also get to watch them build a family that fills the voids left by biological parents and siblings who are unwilling or unable to understand and love them, a family that adds new generations to the mix. And these supporting characters are as well-drawn and interesting as the three lead characters.

One of the things I struggle with when it comes to reading historical fiction is the tendency for authors to place their fictional characters at the center of every single major cultural event that happens in that character’s lifetime. Wheeler neatly sidesteps this, and the book is all the better for it. Spencer and Kent have the kinds of experiences that made the news in the decades the book covers (waging a public fight  to go to prom as a couple in the 1970s; taking into their New York brownstone men whose families have disowned them, and whom the hospitals won’t treat, during the early days of the AIDS epidemic), but they are never at any of the cultural hot-spots of those periods (attending drug-filled nights at Studio 54 or encountering Bette Midler performing at the Continental Baths, or somehow making it to NYC at age 13 to be present during the Stonewall Riots). This adds a level of realism to the book, a level of “lived experience,” that a lot of historical novels lack in my opinion.

The book is as much a meditation on grief and loss as it is on love. Another place Wheeler excels is in teasing through the complicated web of emotions that accompany the passing of family members who were at best cold and distant and usually hateful/dismissive. These scenes spoke to me in a way I didn’t know I needed to see laid out on a page and invoked tears I didn’t know I needed to shed (some from sadness, some from anger).

Love, loss, family, friendship, grief, laughter – Mercedes General is a tour through a pair of very real lives, with recognizable moments regardless of your sexual orientation. It’s a book I will be thinking about for a long time. It’s a book I will certainly be rereading in the future and one I suspect will speak to me differently each time I do.

Series Saturday: Three by Rosalie and Hunter Mastaler

July is Disability Pride Month (celebrating the anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in July 1990) so I thought I’d use the first Series Saturday post of the month to feature three books that, while not a “series” in the truest sense of the word, all focus on disability awareness and pride written by the same mother-son pair: Rosalie and Hunter Mastaler.

A little background is probably appropriate here. I created an Instagram account back in 2017. I didn’t do much with it for the first few years, but once I started posting more regularly, of course the platform started making recommendations about accounts to follow and started popping Reels and posts into my feed. Somewhere along the way, it started showing me posts by @mastalerpartyof5, many of which focused on the Mastalers’ son Hunter (then 11 or maybe early 12 years old) and his recommendations on how to approach a child who has a visible disability. Hunter is an amputee (missing one leg below the knee) and is also partially deaf. These posts were informative and also light-hearted, and I found myself paying more attention to how I reacted to seeing disabled people out in public and taking much of the Mastalers’ advice to heart. Following the Mastaler account led me to follow quite a few other accounts focused on disability awareness and inclusion.

In the past couple of years, mom Rosalie and son Hunter (now 14 years old) have written and published three books that take the message from their Instagram presence and expand upon it in print form. I highly recommend all three books.

HUNTER’S TALL TALES

Illustrated by Danelle Prestwich, Hunter’s Tall Tales is a children’s picture book based on Hunter’s real-live encounters with other children who would ask what happened to his leg and focus on that more than just wanting to play. The tall tales the fictional Hunter tells range from being half-robot to not eating enough veggies as a baby and having pet piranhas he forgot to feed. The stories, and the other kids’ reactions to them, are humorous and set the stage for Hunter encountering a boy whose first question is not “what happened to your leg,” but rather “what’s your name” followed by “can you play soccer?” The focus on who he is rather than “what’s wrong with him” changes Hunter’s mood and his entire day. The book makes a crucial point about inclusion and respect, in language young kids can understand and follow. Danelle Prestwich’s art is beautifully simple and expressive, especially in the characters’ eyes and body language.

REPRESENT! 30 True Stories of trailblazers, artists, athletes, and adventurers with disabilities, Volume 1

With artwork by Brant Day, Represent! provides exactly what the title advertises: short biographies of 30 individuals who have been successful in their chosen endeavors despite, and often because of, their disabilities. In the introduction, Hunter and Rosalie both express their admiration for the people they profile, and how many have become Hunter’s heroes and inspirations. The folks profiled range from blind adventurer Erik Weihenmayer, who has climbed all of the world’s seven highest mountains, to Iron Man triathlon athlete Chris Nikic, who has Down Syndrome, to deaf singer/songwriter Mandy Harvey, paraplegic Tony Award winner Ali Stoker, and more. What shines through each entry is the perseverance and commitment of each person to test, and surpass, the boundaries society would place on those who are blind, deaf, paralyzed or otherwise disabled. The authors say they had a challenging time whittling the book down to just 30 entries, and a second volume is planned. I was happy to see profiles of people I was already familiar with (like Ali Stoker, whose Tony Award win had me cheering and crying) alongside profiles of people I’m eager to learn more about.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN

The Mastalers’ most recent publication is Let the Games Begin, another children's picture book focused on the plethora of adaptive sports available to the disability community. The book gives a full-page spread to each sport, ranging from alpine skiing to beep baseball to sled hockey, wheelchair basketball and swimming (the latter two of which Hunter participates in; his wheelchair basketball team won a National Championship in June, and he made the all-tournament team). The art by Betty Yuku is bubbly and adorable. Each sport has fun text easy for younger kids to sound out and read, accompanied by more detailed text appropriate for older readers that explains the history of the sport and how it works.