Mike, Nate, and I got up to Calvary Cemetery, right on the border between Evanston and the city, and visited the graves of supremely corrupt aldermen Michael "Hinky-Dink" Kenna and "Bathhouse John" Coughlin and local writer James T. Farrell, writer of the Studs Lonigan trilogy and other works. Lousy day for visiting the graveyard. I was hoping the ( Read more... )

What in the Sam Hill is going on with the Criterion Collection edition DVD cover for Paul Schrader's Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters? I expect to hear Jimi Hendrix playing "Purple Haze" at any moment.


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I have no idea what she's like as a person, and I haven't read her books or seen her on TV or such like. Regardless, I somehow just know that a few of you literary highbrows are going to say something about how her work is (enter series of negative adjectives here) or that she's an obnoxious interviewee or whatever opinions you've formed about her ( Read more... )

Famous asshole/sometime journalist/sunglasses wearer Hunter S. Thompson would have been 70 today! If, you know, he hadn't been such a cowardly shit and shot himself.Everybody becomes what they hate at some time. Those afraid of duty usually run right to it ( Read more... )

Over at Progressive Ruin, I was reminded of a common advertising blurb that appeared on all of Clive Barker's books back in the early-80s:

"I have seen the future of horror, and his name is Clive Barker." Stephen KingNow, I enjoy (or rather enjoyed, since it's been years since I picked up one of his books) Clive Barker, and he's done great things ( Read more... )