Dennis Hopper 1936 - 2010

This is a couple of days late, but I didn't want to let the holiday weekend to end without taking a moment to recognize the passing of one of the great talents of American cinema, actor, director, and writer Dennis Hopper. Though he'll probably be remembered best for his higher-profile work in films like Apocalypse Now, Cool Hand Luke, and Rebel Without A Cause, I personally will always recall him first in his magnificent (Tarantino-scripted) scene with Christopher Walken in Tony Scott's True Romance (which you can watch here), which just might be the greatest moment in the history of American movies, full stop.

My sympathies go out to Dennis' family and friends. He will be missed.

Current Reading: "The Monster Of The Prophecy" by Clark Ashton Smith

(Note: This is the first post in an occasional series where I'll write about books or stories that I'm currently reading, rather than books that I've finished reading like I do at Amazon.)

Right now I'm reading "The Monster Of The Prophecy" by the great weird fiction author Clark Ashton Smith. The reasons I'm posting this are: (1) I'm a huge CAS fan and will use any excuse whatsoever to drop his name; and (2) I think the cover of the original Weird Tales magazine in which it first appeared (pictured below) is pretty freakin' cool.



Cover of the January 1932 issue of Weird Tales. Art by C.C. Senf


I'm about halfway through it right now. So far it's pretty interesting - sort of like one of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom stories as written by Charles Baudelaire. I'll let you know what I think of it when I'm done.

UPDATE (5/23/10): Well, I finished it tonight. An odd mixture of decadent and twee, but the language and imagery are beautiful, as always. 4 stars out of 5.

In Memoriam: Steve Tompkins

I just came across a great tribute to the late Robert E. Howard scholar Steve Tompkins over at the REH: Two-Gun Raconteur website and thought I'd post a link. Why? Simply put, it's because I believe that Tompkins was a great writer and amazing critical thinker whose work deserves to be more widely read than it is, which, outside of the Howard fandom community, it largely is not. Tompkins was an intellectual whirlwind whose essays slalomed breathlessly from topic to topic - he could veer from Quentin Tarantino to Stephen King to Herodotus and then back to his original subject (usually Howard, less often (but just as ably) J. R. R. Tolkien or Charles R. Saunders or Ian Fleming), leaving the reading's head spinning trying to keep up with him. If you care about great writing (and particularly if you are as dismayed about the ghettoization of genre fiction as I often am), you should check him out. Click on the link above, or, better yet, take a look at his archived posts at The Cimmerian, which remains some of the finest work of his I've seen on the net.

H.L. Mencken Was Right

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people... or, it would seem, the book-purchasing public.

Alphascript Publishing sells free articles as expensive books

I'd get mad if I could stop laughing.

Notes On Cornell (Grateful Dead - 5/8/77)

Well, it's happened again.

About every 4 - 5 years I get on a kick where I am intensely into the Grateful Dead for about 6 months, to the point where I want to listen to little or nothing else. I don't know why this always happens to me with the Dead; I go through similar phases with the Stones and AC/DC, but I also listen to them during "down times". With the Dead it's strictly feast or famine - I'm either listening to them all the time or not at all.

These "Deadhead periods" (if you will) are usually triggered by seeing a show or a film that features the band - this time, it was actually through discovering the live music section of the Internet Archive. Holy shit! If you are remotely interested in the Dead (hell, if you're remotely interested in live music period), you needed to check this out. I got to listen to the famous Cornell University show from 5/8/77 (embedded below) & thought it might be interesting
to post some notes on where the different songs performed come from. So... here 'tis.



(Note: if the player isn't working, you can access the page for the Cornell show at the Internet Archive directly by clicking here.)


- "New Minglewood Blues", originally by Noah Lewis, is from Shakedown Street (1978)

-"Loser" is from Jerry Garcia's album Garcia (1972)

-"El Paso", originally by Marty Robbins, first appeared on the live album Steal Your Face (1976)

- "They Love Each Other" originally appeared on the Jerry Garcia album Reflections (1976)

- "Jack Straw" originally appeared on Europe '72 (1972)

- "Deal" also appeared originally on Garcia (1972)

- "Lazy Lightning" appeared originally on the Kingfish album Kingfish (1976). "Supplication" originally appeared on this album also.

- "Brown-Eyed Women" is also originally from Europe '72

- "Mama Tried" is a Merle Haggard song. Its 1st appearance on a Dead album was on Grateful Dead (aka Skull And Roses) (1971)

-"Row Jimmy" is from the album Wake of the Flood (1973)

- "Dancing in the Street" was, of course, originally recorded by the great Martha and the Vandellas in 1964. The Dead actually started performing it way back in 1966, but it did not make an appearance on one of their records until Terrapin Station (1977). It has also been covered by the Everly Brothers, the Kinks, the Mamas and the Papas, Van Halen, and about half of the other artists in the fuckin' universe.

-"Scarlet Begonias" is from the album From The Mars Hotel (1974)

- "Fire On the Mountain" is from Shakedown Street (1978)

- "Estimated Prophet" is from Terrapin Station (1977)

- "Saint Stephen" is from Aoxomoxoa (1969)

- "Not Fade Away" was originally recorded by Buddy Holly and the Crickets in 1957. Its 1st appearance on a Dead album was on Grateful Dead aka Skull & Roses in 1971. Much like "DITS", its been covered by about a bazillion other artists, including the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen. It was also issued as the 1st single by Rush.

-"Morning Dew" was originally recorded by Bonnie Dobson. It made its Dead vinyl debut on The Grateful Dead (1967). It was also covered by Fred Neil, Tim Rose, The Jeff Beck Group, and Devo(!), amongst others.

-"One More Saturday Night" is from Bob Weir's album Ace (1972)

Many thanks to the fine folks at Grateful Dead Family Discography and Grateful Dead Lyric And Song Finder for making the researching of this post a whole hell of a lot easier.

Miniature Movie Review: ALICE IN WONDERLAND (2010)

If you wanna do The Heroine with a Thosand Faces as a film, that's a fine, perhaps even an admirable, thing to do. Just don't call it Alice in Wonderland. Rating: 6/10

Will The RNC Still Respect You In The Morning? Suprise! They Never Did!

Exclusive: RNC document mocks donors, plays on 'fear' - Ben Smith - POLITICO.com

What's the saying? "A fool and his money are soon parted"?

Seriously - even if you are conservative, respect yourself enough not to support these sleazeballs.