As always, thanks for considering joining my Patreon, where you can get early access to comics and exclusive commentaries; and for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada). As…

James Bond wears his obligatory dinner suit in Die Another Day for a reception at Gustav Graves' Ice Palace. Though this is Bond's chilliest black tie occasion of the series, his outfit lacks any…

Freeze_Frame

This week’s “Dark Wave” featured music by Flesh For Lulu, Kate Bush, Alien Sex Fiend, Nitzer Ebb, Concrete Blonde, James Chance and the Contortions and more. The post Playlist: Sirius XM’s “Dark…

An interior hermetically sealed, a tilted head, a clock just edging beyond a quarter past one, a whole afternoon to be got through... The National Portrait Gallery in London houses five photographs…

Michael: “As a popcorn musical, ‘Michael’ is an undeniable Thriller. As a work of biography, however, it’s Bad — and quite possibly Dangerous.” — Oscar Goff, Cambridge…

This past week, as the mythical May 4th approached us, I was chatting about Star Wars with one of those lifelong friends you talk to from time to time but the bond feels as if we were still living…

Review of Full Speed to a Crash Landing by Beth Revis.

★★★½☆ - Ursula K. Le Guin: More of an in-between place, a portal fantasy of people caught in liminal spaces and a quest that never quite makes sense to the two young adults pushed into it.

The dark side of office culture.

Note: This review contains spoilers What Worked Brandon Sanderson is known for his inventive world building and this makes it clear why. It’s an imaginative, fascinating world. The thing that…

Au­thor: Scott Pratt Rat­ing: ★ ★ See in goodreads Review: Moral­ly re­pug­nantOne defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic of Scott Pratt char­ac­ters is that they are whin­er­s. This se­ries is no ex­cep­tion,…

A love letter to films that still trust the viewer to think.

Why do some people love sausages and other people hate sausages? No fucking reason.  –Rubber, by Quentin Dupieux Absurdism is the sausage made by feeding European flesh into the machinery…

Artist: Scalding Album: Nuclear Winter Spell Year: 2025 Genre: Black Metal Web: https://youtu.be/mzkLQ59wQ9Y / https://scalding.bandcamp.com Country: Canada Quality: 320 Kbps Tracklist: 1. Empires of…

There’s a song from a little-known musical that I think about every time I see someone learning to finally say: enough. Alice by Heart is one of my all-time favorite musicals, and “I…

Release Date: February 2026 RRP: 9350 yen Super Sentai may be on hiatus as far as the show is concerned, but that doesn't mean Bandai still don't have 50 years' worth of shows to make further…

In my early days of collecting records, I picked up a copy of Sick Of It All's Blood Sweat And No Tears back in 2005, before I started this blog. It was a red vinyl reissue out of Germany, and I was…

I just finished reading The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong, and until the movie is written, filmed, and released for it, I will be the most annoying person on Earth. "You never know how big a…

Hauteur Theory #1: Unfamiliarity breeds Contempt I thought I had heard everything - but the munificence of all the vintage Top of the Pops episodes on YouTube supplied surprise Here, in 1977,…

Announcing a beautiful new edition of my The Oppenheimer Alternative I honestly think The Oppenheimer Alternative is the best of my 26 novels, and, back in 2020, we were all set to launch…

Everyone knows you can't change time. But what my novel presupposes is, what if you can? Unpacking the TV show LOST — Season 5: Episode 1

I’m a big fan of the horror genre. I love being scared. I can watch B-list horror flicks all day, but I especially love it when a rare horror film/series is thoughtfully made with truly scary…

Last week, I was the guest on the nationally syndicated public television series “Story in the Public Square,” which is produced by the Pell Center and Rhode Island’s Ocean State... Read more…

On May 3, 1903, in the quiet city of Tacoma, Washington, a baby boy was born who would one day become the most influential voice in American popular music. His name was Harry Lillis Crosby—though the…

I loved reading this book. It doesn’t have much of a plot, as it’s mostly about Summer’s (main character) search for the ideal ballroom dancing partner and the people she meets in her dancing…

"My Husband's Got No Courage In Him" by Shovel Dance Collective Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Thank you John Mitchinson for recommending Shovel Dance…

A Play, A Pie and A Pint have announced the cast of Members Only, a laugh-out-loud...

Our week of Bizarro cartoons and some amusing thoughts on piñatas, the French, Scandinavia, Spain, Mexico, and China.

I finished Accelerated Growth Environment a couple of days ago. I enjoyed it. It is a good length–sometimes a too-long story can result in a DNF for me–but the first ~third is pretty slow paced and…

My Mastodon chum Chris recently laid down a challenge to list some bands that we love based on where we live. Now, coming from rainy South Wales, there are slim pickings to be had in the metal…

Jeanette C. - Leviathan

On a night when flowers didn’t suit my shoes… I do not take notes. NEVER TAKE NOTES! I do not dance. NEVER DANCE! I no longer accept I have no community. NO COMMUNITY! My community exists…

Last year, I published one of my favourite things I've ever written -- a history of Cliff Hanger , the part-gamebook part-comic strip that ran in Fleetway Publications' Buster from 1983-87, and was…

Two weeks at number one from 13th June 1987 Pop Will Eat Itself are one of the few groups I can vividly remember entering and exiting my life. The first memory involves me joyfully taking my meagre…

I Who Have Never Known Men is a short novel originally published in French in 1995 by Belgian author by Jacqueline Harpman ; it is the first of her books translated to English, originally published…

Fourth book I finished this weekend. Frankly started it a while back, so picked it up again somewhere 40% in. I haven’t read Jenny Jackson’s first book, but I have definitely read a lot of the books…

weather: ☁️➡️☀️ may gray has arrived on schedule critters: the finch gang i am a high school dropout, i've never been published but i have several rejection letters, i have the attention span of a…

Sounds again, of course - what was it with their compulsion to show hard rockers with their kit off? True, they went equally for salacious innuendos and cheesecake pictures of New Wave babes like…

In my research into the source texts (novels, plays, magazine stories) of Hollywood’s earliest sound films — the Pre-Code era, as it’s usually referred to — I have amassed…

Add the winner of the 2025 Sunburst Award (Blackheart Man, by Nalo Hopkinson).

Artist: Corrosive Agent Album: Vastator Mundi Year: 2026 Genre: Melodic Death Metal / Groove Metal Web: https://youtu.be/Myu-snpGMMU / https://www.facebook.com/CorrosiveAgentBand Country: Germany…

Beloved illustrator Tomie dePaola retells and embellishes this northern Italian tale. Per the author's note the story stems from a real Italian mountain village (which dePaola depicts on the title…

I have added more references and better pictures to Jörg's article with Observations in TNG: "In Theory".

Finding wisdom in the absurdity of modern life.

# _Bookshops & Bonedust_ by Travis Baldree {#bookshops-bonedust}

Books and some pages I read in April 2026 Non-fiction Vintage Didion by Joan Didion (2004) 200 pages 3 stars A collection of previously published essays focussed on US politics. The essays date from…

More like Sometimes Groove Club, amirite?!I came across this album by pure chance considering how bad Spotify's algorithms have been for a while now, but I'm happy it was recommended.…