Swords, Specters, & Stuff
Welcome to My World
I started this blog in January 2012 for one simple reason: I love to write. I named it “Swords, Specters, & Stuff” because I especially love to write about writing, about books and movies in my favorite genres, about authors that mean a great deal to me. But there’s more to it than that, which is why I included “Stuff” in the title. It is “Stuff” that gives me carte blanche to write about anything, which is why you’ll see stories about special trips to Cooperstown, Sedona, and other places; about getting older; about baseball; about the otherworldly way in which I met my soul mate; about the loss of good friends, and so much more. Enjoy! And feel free to leave a comment.
Dirt Dragons
When I saw that Michael Gross, who played whacko right-wing survivalist Burt Gummer in the first three Tremors films, also starred in Tremors 4: The Legend Begins, I assumed this was yet another sequel. But no, this one takes place in 1889, about a century before the...
Tremors: Aftershocks Create A Few Ripples
A while back I wrote about one of my favorite dumb movies, the 1990 goofy comedy-horror flick, Tremors (see my post, “Guilty Pleasures: Tremors”). I’ve watched it many times, and while I knew that there had been three sequels made, I had always avoided them—until...
Guilty Pleasures: Mimic
The 1997 sci-fi/horror flick, Mimic, is one of my favorites, though to date I had not written about it. That changes today. Mimic, directed by Oscar-nominated Guillermo del Toro, features Oscar winners Mira Sorvino and F. Murray Abraham, Oscar-nominated actors Josh...
Opening Lines: Part Quatre
I just can’t get enough of those great bad opening lines that have been submitted to the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest over the decades. Here are some more gems from recent years. Hermann lay with Esmerelda, entwined with one another among love-tangled sheets and he...
“We All Go A Little Mad Sometimes”
I love memorable lines from the silver screen, especially if they’re from movie favorites that I watch numerous times. A couple years ago I wrote a post titled, “She Wouldn’t Even Harm a Fly”—the great last line from the classic 1960 Hitchcock film, Psycho....
Myths And Legends: Robert The Doll
Few folks know that Chucky had a real-life role model called Robert the Doll. Chucky, of course, is the murdering Good Guy doll—possessed via voodoo by the spirit of serial killer Charles Lee Ray—who “stars” in the Child’s Play franchise, at last count six...
Dusty Is Gone
A STAR STOPS SHINING I’m sure everyone knows by now that Philip Seymour Hoffman passed away last weekend at the heartbreakingly young age of forty-six. Still, I had to acknowledge his passing, as he has long been one of my favorites. He gave life and emotion to every...
Wolf Spirits In The Old ’Hood
I grew up in The Bronx, New York City’s northernmost borough, before leaving it for good in 1967 after graduating college. For the first fourteen years I lived in the South Bronx, until urban decay began to set in, sending my family to a nicer part of town. Through...
Myths And Legends: The Iowa Murder House
In June of 1912, barely two months after the sinking of the Titanic, an unspeakable tragedy in the most unlikely of places took over the headlines for a time. The heinous crime that occurred in Villisca, Iowa was neither myth nor legend; that came afterward—and it...
Fair Or Fowl: A Chicken Tale
This story is about the best day ever for a first-time published author: me. Naturally it took place a long, long time ago: 1978, to be exact. My sword & planet novel, The Prisoner of Reglathium (first in the five-book Dannus series), had just come out. I had an...
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