READS: One Of My Favorite Books Is BACK Where It Belongs…

Posted on April 23, 2014 by geelw

I’ve had three copies of Yasunari Kawabata‘s wonderful Palm of the Hand Stories since 1988 and all three (one hardcover, two paperback) have vanished. Well, I gave two away and the third one vanished during a move and I never got around to replacing it. So when I saw this hardcover copy for under two dollars last week on eBay it was go time. No, not “Go” time – I’ve never learned to play that classic strategy game… oh, you know what I mean. Anyway, I’m happy it’s back in my possession and nope, you can’t borrow it. Pick up your own somewhere and dive in. Kawabata’s short stories are lovely little slices of life’s moments and at 238 pages, it’s a pretty quick read you’ll go back to time and again. And before you ask why it’s called “Palm of the Hand Stories”, get your mind out of that gutter and consider that they’re all only a few pages long, silly. Anyway, that’s my recommend for the week. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some catching up with a few old friends to do…

Reads: To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis

Posted on April 5, 2014 by geelw

When Meriwether Lewis took a couple of bullets too many in his room at the Grinder’s Stand early in the morning of October 11, 1809, I’m sure Urban Dance Squad’s “Famous When You’re Dead” wasn’t playing in his head beforehand, nor was he thinking that he’d be immortalized in countless books, films and other media well into the present day.

In her new book, To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis Charleston, SC based author Andra Watkins brings Lewis back to life in a beautiful and memorable manner, as his ghost becomes the guide for a young girl in 1977 as the pair travel from New Orleans to Nashville. Without spoiling much, the book grabs you from the first page and holds you down page after page thanks to Watkins’ solid pacing and fine writing style that blends fact, fantasy and fiction as the travelers work to overcome a few interesting obstacles of the living and dead variety… Continue reading →

READS: It’s A Mystery To Me And More, Sort of Historical Version…

Posted on March 7, 2014 by geelw

Well, whee! Barnes & Noble came through pretty quickly and that means I get to do some reading this weekend. While her husband MTM sits at home holding the fort down (and sliding around on the floor in his underwear like Tom Cruise in Risky Business because he’s got the house all to himself), his wife, author Andra Watkins is out walking the Natchez Trace, following the path of Lewis and Clark. Nope, he didn’t drive her out thataway and accidentally leave her to her own devices, folks. There’s a nifty and interesting story behind all that trekking she’ll be doing for the remainder of March plus… but you’ll have to read her blog to get all that info. Hey, I can’t tell her story better than she can and I don’t have a book to sell (yet). SO you get to get it from the horse’s mouth as it were. Anyway, you can grab To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis from a few places digitally or physically. You’re smart, so you’ve clicked on one of the links here or the book cover to the right of this post in the sidebar or have already gotten a copy and are nodding and smiling because you’re further along in the book than I am.

Back with a review soon…

Star Trek: New Visions #1: Byrne is Back On Trek!

Posted on March 1, 2014 by geelw

Last year’s Star Trek Annual 2013 was a complete sell out for IDW at retail (you can still get a digital copy here) and of course, that means legendary writer/artist/creator of new and awesome Trek content John Byrne is coming back with another photonovel this year. Even better, it seems that this Enterprise (pun intended) is now a bi-monthly series titled Star Trek: New Visions.

This time out, Byrne is expanding the popular episode “Mirror, Mirror” with a sequel, “The Mirror, Cracked” which takes place after the episode when the Enterprise crew discovers not everyone left the ship after that life-altering trip into the mirror dimension. As IDW hasn’t yet provided any pages (boo!), you’ll have to ogle that cover above and/or go download the Annual to see Byrne’s rather amazing photo manipulation and asset creation for yourself. The man’s a classic Trek fan through and through and it shows in the care he put into every panel. Hey at $7.99 per issue, it better be some awesome Trekking, right? The 48-page, full-color book, debuts in May 2014 and given the speed at which the annual disappeared from comic shops, I’d say pre-ordering is in order.

MUST-READS: Beautiful Lego Will Make You Want To Become A Plastic Architect…

Posted on November 8, 2013 by geelw

The cover alone of Mike Doyle’s Beautiful Lego is a showstopper, but inside this 280-page $29.99 paperback are some of the most incredible examples of LEGO art you’ll ever seen in such a wide range of categories and styles that it’s impossible to NOT be rendered utterly speechless every few pages. Doyle’s own work is spectacular and rages from that stunning cover image to gorgeously ruined half-destroyed homes constructed in black, white and gray LEGO pieces.

Many other supremely talented artists contribute work as well ranging from realistic looking buildings and vehicles, cute animal builds, plenty of surprising characters from comics and movies, sci-fi spaceships, robots and mecha and other creations ranging from mosaics to surreal “Meta” works. And if you happen to be a Monty Python fan, there are a few very humorous recreations of skits that will have you grinning before you read the captions. The question “Why LEGO?” is answered by some of the artists here and it seems the answers all go back to the core element of guys and gals wanting to make those hard plastic shapes do things they’re not made to do and some more in-depth answers that are pretty deep if you’re one of those who thinks LEGOs aren’t made for artistic purposes.

And yes, don’t be surprised if about halfway through this book you find yourself wanting to check that hall closet to see if there’s that dusty old box of LEGO bricks still hanging out on that top shelf. Of course, you’ll probably be a bit rusty compared to Doyle and the other outstanding artists here, but thankfully, there’s a book for that as well from the fine folks at no starch press. Hmmmm.. I do happen to have space to build stuff, but I need the time and LEGOs. A whole LOT of LEGOs. And a whole LOT of money to buy those LEGOs. And a willing assistant. Wait, do I have time for a new hobby these days? Hmmmm… OK, and a WORKING time machine (most probably made from LEGOs)…

Return of the Fumetti! IDW’s Star Trek Annual 2013 Does Some Major Time Traveling…

Posted on September 6, 2013 by geelw

Wow. I’m ancient enough to remember owning a couple of Star Trek fumetti, so seeing this all-new page created by comics legend John Byrne for his upcoming Trek tale “Strange New Worlds” made me smile a wee bit too much. I hope the younger fan of the series embrace this photo-novel style, as it’s a real art form. Even crazier (in the best possible manner), Byrne created the panels for the series by carefully cobbling together “multiple pieces of film stills and manipulating them to tell the exact story he wanted”, according to the press release. That alone makes this worth checking out if you’re one of those folks who knows the original series inside and out. You’ll be picking out shots and testing your memory, that’s for sure…

IDW’s Star Trek Annual 2013 will run 48 pages and should be in your favorite comic shop the third week of December. I just may need to pick this up and take a time trip down memory lane…

Now Reading: The Greatest BAD Movies of All Time

Posted on July 10, 2013 by geelw

Other than a mistake about what happened to the airliner in the first Airport (see below for a plot spoiler if you’ve not yet seen that 1970 potboiler), Phil Hall’s book is a fun chunk of opinions on one hundred classic and not so classic flicks he’s seen and is worth checking out for his thoughts on 100 movies including some consider better than the “bad” label he slaps them with. Let’s just say if you REALLY liked Mystic River, Hall’s dissection of it will make your eyebrows crisp up but good from the lasers shooting from your eye sockets.

The author carefully notes early on that not everyone will like his picks and that yes, there are a ton of films that I wish would have made the cut in this volume. Amazing junk such as R.O.T.O.R. (in my mind, the “best” worst rip-off of The Terminator ever made) or the epically stupid A*P*E would have been superior to Gamera in terms of classic badness and hell, I’d have dropped the student film version of A Streetcar Named Desire in favor of a Moontrap, The Hidden II or even the Walter Matthau-directed Gangster Story, a film so awful I thought I was dreaming when I finally saw it very early one morning on TCM…

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