Category Archives: Now and Then We Time Travel

Jesus, King Lear, violent men and mockumentaries: movies viewed

JESUS OF MONTREAL (1989) is a Canadian film in which a priest hires a local actor/writer to freshen up the church’s old passion play only to freak out that the revamped version tries for Historical Plausibility (“You’re telling people Jesus was the bastard child of a Roman soldier!”), leading to the inevitable martyrdom of the lead. One that probably shouldn’t work but it does. “The Bible can be made to say anything — I know from experience.”

KING LEAR (1916) is a one hour silent version in which the cast appears to be dressed in vaguely Biblical guise. A good job condensing the plot down but silent-style acting and cue cards for the dialog doens’t do it for me. “O let me not be mad, not be mad sweet heaven.”

DJANGO (196 ) is a spaghetti Western in which Union veteran Francisco Nero wanders into a clash between Mexican revolutionaries and die-hard Confederates and Mexican revolutionaries. Django then proceeds to shoot up everyone who pisses him off or threatens the sex worker he’s fallen for. I’m not normally a Western fan but this one worked for me. “Start praying if you like. I don’t mind — it’s the smart thing to do when you know death is coming for you.”

An injured race-car driver cries STOP ME BEFORE I KILL (1960) when the aftermath of an accident has him thinking violent thoughts about his wife (Diane Cilento) — is there any chance a kindly psychiatrist can turn things around? Unfortunately I guessed the big twist well in advance and the movie doesn’t offer enough compensation to make up for it. “What I want to know is — who asked for twin beds?”

CASH ON DEMAND (1961) is a filmed stage play that shows Christmas crime stories go back well before Die Hard. Peter Cushing is an icy bank manager, distant from his staff and, it’s implied, from his family. Nevertheless, when it turns out bank inspector Andre Morrell is really a bank robber holding them hostage, Cushing finds himself gripped with terror. He’ll cooperate to get his wife and son out alive, but can Morrell’s seemingly perfect plan go off without a hitch? Effective, with solid performances by the two leads and the supporting cast. “I detest brutality — I want bank robberies to be smoother, more sociable.”

THEATER CAMP (2023) is a mockumentary wherein the nitwit son of stroke-smitten camp founder Amy Sedaris struggles to hold down the fort while the kids and teachers continue the usual work of Putting On Several Shows (“Then they’ll turn you away — because you’re non-union.”) — but will the mountain of debt on the mortgage bring everything crashing down? Summer camps like this are outside my theater experience but it’s a winner in its own right. “You were the first lesbian nurse couple that ever lived.”

Damn, THE HISTORY OF TIME TRAVEL (2014) is the second time I’ve discovered a film I missed when writing Now and Then We Time Travel (the other being the Christian film Mr. Scrooge to See You). This mockumentary discusses how one brilliant scientist destroyed his marriage with his obsessive struggles to perfect time travel; when his son finally succeeds, the boy’s first thought is to fix the damage to his family (I’ll Follow You Down would be a good double-bill). However neither he nor anyone else remembers the original history has changed, nor do they remember the next change, nor the next … Very nicely done, including little touches like the Talking Heads changing appearance as the timelines shift. “Driven by remorse and regret, Edward spent the next twenty years of his life trying to travel through time.”

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A fact so dread, he faintly said, extinguishes all hope

Okay, not all hope. But we’d been optimistic that Wednesday would be Wisp’s last day in her leg bandage and cone of shame (without it that bandage would be gone). Nope: another week in the bandage, though the vet’s optimistic that will be enough. But then come three weeks or so keeping her indoors for her leg to build strength while limiting excess activity.

It’s frustrating because we don’t want both of us out of the house at the same time if we can avoid it; Wisp has occasionally gotten around the cone of shame to the bandage and we don’t want to make an emergency visit to get it replaced. Maybe after it comes off we can do something; if not, date nights will remain in-house. But she’s our cat, we’re not going to abandon her. Here she is sitting with Trixie. Not as chummy as it might look, it’s just that I got up while they were both snuggling with me.On the plus side, Wisp is sleeping a lot longer at night which means I sleep longer. Not a full night’s sleep but enough I’m not such a zombie. As a result, I had the presence of mind to get creative work done this weel/

I finished a chapter of Let No Man Put Asunder and would have gotten more done except I have no idea what happens next. I gave Oh the Places You’ll Go another going over and it’s much improved, including the end. I’m not sure the ending is enough improved, but I can make this work, I know it now. I got some work done on Savage Adventures and started developing my promotional plans for Behold the Book. I have a page for the publishing imprint almost ready but I need to check the links first. I also reserved the domain name but haven’t set up the website at all yet.

I worked on a number of stories for The Local Reporter. I’m really surprised how few businesses call back; I know we’re not as big in relation to Chapel Hill as the Destin Log was to Destin but still, it’s not like we’re calling to ask about their criminal record or the rats in their kitchen. I did get one article done, on Crazy Alan’s Emporium, a gift and pen store. Way expensive pens like the $2,100 Emperor which comes in its own wooden box.Elsewhere online, I appeared on a Con-Tinual panel on the Green Lantern Corps. Another on time travel movies, a subject I know something about.

And one announcing 19-Infinity is live.Over at Atomic Junkshop I posted my thoughts on John Romita and Spider-Man. Much as I love the Lee/Ditko era of Spider-Man, I’m acquiring fresh respect for Romita in my Silver Age reread.I also blog about Green Lantern becoming an insurance adjuster and revisit those wacky musical adventurers the Maniaks.And now the week is done. Enjoy your weekend off, everyone. I will!

#SFWApro. 19-Infinity cover by Kemp Ward, comics by Romita (top) and Mike Sekowsky. All rights remain with current holders.

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Filed under Nonfiction, Now and Then We Time Travel, Short Stories, Time management and goals, Writing

This one simple trick to sell books really works!

Last weekend I took the 90 minute drive to Winston-Salem for my second time as a Con-Gregate guest. Unlike 2022, I went to the expense of buying a sale table in “author’s alley” where I could display my books and sell directly to con-goers. A reasonable price but I was still nervous: what if I’d just wasted the money? What if I didn’t sell anything?

Still, I’ve got to admit even that had been the case, it’s really cool to see my books spread out like this:

Looking at that display, I feel like a real author. Which I am, but working day to day, getting rejections from this market or that, wondering if I’m just fooling myself, it’s easy to feel like I’m not. But I really have published quite a bit, haven’t I? In case you’re wondering, the stage-left side is my McFarland books, the rest is the product of Behold the Book, my publishing business (which is just me with a business name, but it still feels cool).

As soon as people started coming by, my old bookselling instincts (ten years at Waldenbooks) kicked in. Watch the people. Make eye contact if they turn my way. Then say “Want to buy a book?” or “I can see you have no books in your hands. I can help with that.” Get them over, answer their questions, get them to pick up a book and look at it … all the little things that make closing the sale more likely. The end result was that I cleared more than $150, paying for the table, the two books I bought from friends and my meals (if you’re in Winston-Salem, I highly recommend Washington Perk and Brothers Pizza across the street). I sold a copy of The Wizard of Oz Catalog—and The Aliens Are Here, both from McFarland. I also sold at least one copy of every one of Behold the Book’s books, with Sex for Dinner, Death for Breakfast the winner (four copies) —— and three copies of Undead Sexist Cliches (also available as an ebook)I also did several panels, got to catch up with multiple authors I know (though sitting and selling books reduced my hanging-out time) and generally had a fantastic time (not having to deal with injured Wisp didn’t hurt). But selling copies of my books was far and away the highpoint. This is the last con I have this year but I’m thinking of what I can do next year. Business cards would be good; a couple of people who didn’t buy books asked for them but I had none. I’d also like to figure out how I can balance socializing with selling.

My writing colleague Naveed Mooed was there with me and willing to cover but he had obligations and panels to attend too. Bringing someone along whose prime directive is to cover the table would be good but I don’t have anyone (it’s not TYG’s kind of event). And I am probably better at selling my wares than most people I could bring would be, and that makes a difference. Nobody as yet is going to go “Fraser Sherman has a table! Let’s go buy!” so it takes that extra effort to seal the deal.

I would like to say that after I got home my week was equally productive, but not quite. It was, however, better than the rest of July. I reworked Oh the Places You’ll Go but I’m not sure whether I’ve fixed the problems or simply created new ones (I’ll blog about this sometime soon); this may reflect that thanks to Wisp I’m still way behind on sleep and my judgment’s impaired. It says a lot that last night I fell asleep petting her and whatever I was doing in my sleep annoyed her enough she gave me a play bite to remove my hand. Yesterday and today I got little creative stuff done — but still, even discounting the weekend this was the first time this month I managed to put in a full week of writing. Yay! Hopefully we’ll do better next week.

#SFWApro. All rights to images remain with current holders; Undead Sexist Cliches cover by Kemp Ward.

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Filed under Atoms for Peace, Nonfiction, Now and Then We Time Travel, Sex for Dinner, Death for Breakfast, Short Stories, Undead Sexist Cliches: The Book, Writing

Thank you Netflix!

As I mentioned last month, Netflix is ending its DVD service. Rather than ghost on us, it’s sending out lists of every DVD they’ve mailed us from the first. I was starteld to see what I watched in my first year on the service — no, that’s not a clickbait lead-in, I really was.

I remembered clearly that the reason I signed up with Netflix was to watch all of Daybreak, a TV series with Taye Diggs as a cop caught in a time loop (I rewatched it for Now and Then We Time Travel). It got yanked for low ratings by ABC and I desperately wanted to know how it all ended so when I saw Netflix had the DVD set … And it was worth it too; it’s an excellent one-season series.That was in February of 2009. After wrapping up the series, I watched a few more things through June (I was on the one-DVD-at-a-time plan) including Coupling, The Big Lebowski and the British Jekyll. Starting in June, though, everything through April of the following year was movies or TV shows I watched for Screen Enemies of the American Way, my book on subversion, infiltration and political paranoia in film and TV. That was a shit ton of stuff I’d have had to buy; streaming wasn’t an option back then and I doubt my library back in Florida had most of it. Local video rental stores could have provided some of it, but still more expensive.That included multiple series such as The Invaders, Surface, Threshold and Sleeper Cell. There were also lots and lots of movies, many of them nothing I’d want to spend money on such as John Wayne’s red-baiting Big Jim McClain.I also caught The Stepford Wives, Rosemary’s Baby, JFK, The Quiller Memorandum and a great many other good films.Other films, such as Red Nightmare, were only available on YouTube; some, such as Stepford Wives‘ dreadful sequels, I taped off the air. Netflix was still a life-saver, from the first movie I watched for the book (They Live), through the last (Left Behind and Left Behind II, because Satanist infiltration is a subgenre). Fortunately with Durham Library’s larger DVD selection and the wide range of streaming, doing my next film book without the DVD service won’t be as pricey.

I’ll blog about what I watched after the book was done, assuming there are further interesting insights to mine from the list.

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Why yes, I have a new book out

I’m hoping The Aliens Are Here will sell well, but who knows? However I’m working a little bit more to promote it than usual. I applied to John Scalzi’s Big Idea feature but no slots were open. However Hugo-winner Cora Buhlert, whom I know from Camestros Felapton‘s comments section, has interviewed me about it! That was cool (thanks Cora!).

Sales are hard to guess. McFarland targets the library and serious movie buff audience which guarantees they turn a profit and I get royalties, but more royalties is always desirable. The Wizard of Oz Catalog was easily my biggest seller — no surprise, given there’s a long-standing fandom for Oz. And I cover a lot of Oz stuff that wasn’t detailed in fan websites at the time.

I always figured Screen Enemies of the American Way would do well because the topic — political paranoia in American films — hasn’t been explored much. It’s probably thee weakest seller but it still generates small regular royalties even several years later. Cyborgs, Santa Claus and Satan still sells even though it’s been in print for 20 years I have some thoughts upon rereading the book in 2017)

Now and Then We Time Travel did way better than Screen Enemies. To my credit, it’s an excellent, thorough book on the topic. So perhaps The Aliens Are Here, dealing with another popular topic, will do well too.

You can visit Cora’s blog for details on why it’s worth reading and how I came to write it. Or, you know, buy it!

Here’s a set of movie posters representing all four books. First, for Gene Roddenberry’s 1977 TV pilot SpectreThen for the underrated 1985 Return to Oz.Warren Beatty’s 1974 masterpiece of paranoia, The Parallax ViewAnd the 1961 time travel fantasy The Flight That Disappeared

1971’s Andromeda Strain, one of my favorite posters.

And for my self-published Sex for Dinner, Death for Breakfast, here’s the poster for the second Bond film.#SFWApro. Rights to all images remain with current holders.

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Two strange weekends in a row. But good strange

Labor Day weekend, as I mentioned before, I took off to chill after finishing Aliens are Here. But I don’t think I mentioned how strange it felt to not be doing anything for five days (Sept. 1-5). A little blogging, yes, but no other writing. I rarely take vacations that long and it’s always when I’m going somewhere, which means I don’t just lie around and read or take walks.

Of course, I did do things — shop for food, cook — but still, it was unbelievably relaxing to let myself off the hook for anything more than that. As TYG was out part of Saturday, I couldn’t do much because I had to keep an eye on the dogs. That helped me give myself permission, I think.

Then, last weekend, I attended my first Mensa event since 2019. It was the Atlanta Mensa gathering; I’d been invited because they had a time travel theme and the organizers wanted me to speak on time travel on film. How could I resist? Though work kept TYG away (we could probably have managed it, but by the time we knew that, I’d already had to book the flight).My talk went great, even though I managed to erase the outline I’d saved on my phone. Fortunately I’d practiced enough and know the material enough that I could do it even without notes. Beyond that I got to hang out with my fellow Mensans, eat some good food — the vegan meal Saturday night was so good, apparently even the meat-eaters in the Atlanta group wanted that restaurant to cater — and participated in a quiz or two. Didn’t win but one question asked for a Batman villain with a time-themed name. I gave them four (Clock, Clock King, Time Commander, Calendar Man).

I must admit, though, the socializing was a little overwhelming after so long without. Sure, I was at ConGregate and ConCarolinas this summer but cons are primarily about activities — selling books, sitting on panels — with socializing squeezed in wherever possible. In gatherings, the socializing’s the priority. I spent a lot of time re-energizing alone in my room.

Oh, I also got my first case of acid reflux in years, due to eating chocolate cheesecake late at night. With no other food in my stomach to cushion the shock. But it was very good cheesecake.

I had no problems with my flights though the airport was packed both times. I used to laugh at myself a little for always following the “get there two hours before the flight” standard. I don’t laugh so much any more.

Below, a closer look at that chocolate cheesecake (with a brownie on the side).

#SFWApro. Comics cover by Gil Kane, rights to images all remain with current holders.

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Indexing is the death of the soul. Well, not really, but it certainly isn’t fun

Not much to blog about for this week. I completed another of those articles I work on for Accounting Seed and I got through editing and indexinng the first four chapters of Aliens Are Here. I’m on track to get it done but lord, it’s tedious. There are just soooo many names to index in a movie book.

Part of the problem is that in the past I’ve always gotten the edited text to proof, then the index later. Now I’m doing both at once which sharply increases the workload, and I think the time constraints are tighter too. Needless to say, I’m also finding lots of errors in my work, which is both annoying and irritating. And means more corrections, which slows me down (McFarland didn’t catch as many of my mistakes as usual)

It’s enough that rather than simply listing them I’ll try using Adobe Acrobat to edit directly in the PDF. I can download it for a week as a free trial, then cancel; that’ll be long enough.

On the fun side, I have an Atomic Junkshop post about comics in 1965 and romance tropes I hate. And I got my royalty statement from McFarland; people are still buying my books! The royalties aren’t much but it’s cool I get them at all; if you’re reading this, thank you for spending money on my work.I’d have gone into more detail about the editing and indexing but the dogs are needy.

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Two that didn’t work for me (and why)

Can we learn from failure? With the obvious caveat that one viewer’s failure is another viewer’s work of genius, yes. Caution: spoilers ahead.

UNDERMIND (1965) is a British series I started watching for The Aliens Are Here, then dropped when it didn’t appear to have an ET element (I was wrong, but I’m focused primarily on US TV so no big). Anne Herriot (Rosemary Nicols) and her brother-in-law Drew (Jeremy Wilkin) discover Drew’s brother Frank has been brainwashed into committing acts of sabotage. Frank is unusually sensitive to high frequency sound, which is the method fo control; Drew and Anne stop the sabotage plot (Frank dies) but realize there are others out there. The enemy, whoever they are, will stop at nothing to see Britian … undermined.

What follows is a variety of plotlines dealing with ripped-from-the-headlines stuff (prostitution, corrupt politicians and juvenile delinquency) mixed in with more tongue in cheek stories: using children’s books to make them accepting of human sacrifice, arranging for incompetent students to cheat on their tests so that Britain’s best will be incompetent, unimaginative failures. A plot about Irish opposition to British rule treats the Irish as comic-relief seniors when (according to this review) the “Troubles” were already ramping up. The comedy could have worked on The Avengers but we’re supposed to take Undermind more seriously.

Doctor Who writer Robert Holmes comes on for the last two episodes and does as good a job as possible wrapping things up. It turns out “Undermind” is extraterrestrial-based (they’d hedged on the possibility before) but the sonic brainwashing is wearing off; an agent in British intelligence tries to reboot their puppets but fails. In the process we learn their agenda is to build a stargate that will bring their invasion forces to Earth. Of course that raises the question of why they bother with tricks involving children’s literature or discrediting politicians; we don’t get an answer. On the whole it’s watchable, but not satisfying. And the ending for Anne — she’s dating one of the security men they met in the course of the adventure — comes as out of the blue as Leila pairing off at the end of Doctor Who: Invasion of Time. “You can’t legislate against an alien radio signal!”

IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON (2019) is a lot less watchable. In 1988, several people’s heads mysteriously explode; Lockhart (Boyd Holbrook), a cop, becomes convinced there’s a serial killer behind it.When he meets her, Rya (Cleopatra Coleman) knows a lot about him and also that she’s going to die, accidentally, in a matter of minutes. She does — but several years later there’s another wave of exploding heads and Rya shows up again.

Having literally written the book on movie time travel. it wasn’t hard to guess that Rya was a time traveler, and that she was also Lockhart’s granddaughter. In a more entertaining movie that would be forgivable but this one’s too much a plodding obsessed cop vs. relentless killer yarn.

What makes it a failure, though, is the backstory. It turns out Rya isn’t killing at random: she’s changing the future to prevent a 2024 terrorist incident (implied to be 9/11 level) followed by civil war. Rya is using time-travel tech developed by Dr. Rao (Rudi Dharmalingam), who explains her mission to Lockhart midway through the film. Rather than just kill the people who led the country into Civil War, she’s out to kill the people who inspired them with their ideas. His comparison is that to stop the 1860 Civil War it wouldn’t be enough to kill Lincoln, Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee — you’d have to kill the people who influenced and inspired them to see Civil War as the answer.

Dude, WTF? Are writers Gregory Weidman and Geoff Tock seriously equating Jefferson Davis, who led a secessionist nation founded on race-based slavery, with Abraham Lincoln, an opponent of slavery? And the script makes it sound as if civil war was the idea in 1860, rather than stemming from two conflicting underlying ideas, that humans can become property or that they can’t. Spoiler, these ideas are not comparable; it’s not “there’s some good and bad on both sides.” Slavery is bad. Treating human beings as property is bad.

Nor is it easy to see how this maps to a near-future civil war, but perhaps that’s the point. By implying both sides in whatever conflict lies ahead are equally objectionable the movie doesn’t have to take sides; by not saying what the conflict is about, it avoids offending anyone. But when you’re going back and killing people who, according to Rao, are not directly responsible for what happened, it requires a clear case to convince me that right is on Rya’s side (Lockhart eventually sides with her). If the movie were a lot better otherwise, that would still sink it for me. “If it begins with you warning me here on this beach then it always ends with me dying.”

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The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and stuff like that

Which is to say I can see real progress on Alien Visitors though nowhere as much as I’d like to see. The biggest challenge is trying to explain my insights into the various subgenres coherently and not having too much of a listicle feel. When I’ve read chapters to my writing group, the recurring complaint has been that there are too many points where I just list movies without any context or identifying information. And because several shows and films are referenced in multiple chapters I’ll eventually have to prune information that I repeat in too many places.

Still I have everything but the comedy chapter in a reasonably good shape (the superhero chapter is a little rough). I’m not sure why comedy is proving so elusive, but it is. But I’ll work on comedy and superheroes this weekend, as well as figuring out how to manage my time for November between now and the Nov. 20 deadline. Then all I have to do is deliver on it.

That includes time for watching various TV shows (Roswell Conspiracies, X-Files) and movies. Because I keep discovering new insights or examples when I watch new movies, so it’s worth making the time. This week, for example, I got good ideas from both Lilo and Stitch and Absolutely Anything (details when I get to the review post in about a week or so). So I keep pushing myself, even though it’s sometimes hard to find the time.

Other than that, I got some Leafs done — I should have most of next week Leaf free, which will be great for the book — and a friend showed me his cover designs for Undead Sexist Cliches. I think we have a winner; cover reveal will come soon. Oh, and I’ve finished all nine chapters so I just have the afterword to proof.

And showing why proofreading is necessary, I discovered I’d screwed up the footnotes to chapter nine, which I am fixing as part of the final revisions. It’s quite obvious I won’t get the book done by the end of this month but I can still finish it simultaneously with wrapping up Alien Visitors. I hope so, anyway.

I did finish and resubmit my edited golem article so that’s out the way. And I’m pleased with my work too. Much like the way I break down Alien Visitor films and TV into various patterns and themes (I did the same thing for time travel films in my last book), I look at golems as defenders, destroyers, artificial life forms, their relationships with other people and golems vs. the Holocaust. My editor was pleased with it too — the rewrites were minor.

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Today I stopped work and ate the frog

You may be familiar with the time-management term eat the frog. The idea is that if there’s something you’ve been putting off, you force yourself to do it first thing in the morning. That way you get it done, you have a feeling of accomplishment and everything else looks easy.

Between lack of sleep and the added demands of Wisp on top of the dogs, I’ve been letting a lot of frogs slide. Today I decided to skip most of my work (practically speaking, that only left me a couple of hours short) and get them done. Cleaning the kitchen. Cleaning the fridge. Cleaning my disgusting bathroom. Sorting through paperwork. Sorting out my browser bookmarks and deleting useless items from my desktop. A couple of paperwork things TYG delegated to me.

Done! Now I can kick back this weekend without being haunted by the feeling I should get up and clean stuff.

Of course that meant the week was underwhelming for productivity. The lack of sleep didn’t help, and having Wisp around when I wake up early apparently leads to me not starting work as early as I would otherwise. I got some research reading done, and a bunch of Leaf articles. I published an article on the Bronze Age Shade, the Changing Man over at Atomic Junkshop, plus a Valentine’s Day post about the film Quest for Love.

I also began proofing the hard copy of Undead Sexist Cliches. This is not the cover that will be on the book, but it will do for now. Think of it as a cover non-reveal.

The bad news: I did find some errors and places where I had to tighten up my writing. The good: not that many. It’s a pretty clean manuscript.

Another good: Got my royalty statement for my books from McFarland. Not a lot of money, but the fact it’s still coming in, even on books more than a decade old, is pretty damn cool.

I got some movies watched for Alien Visitors but no writing done. Despite which, I consider this a satisfactory week. Particularly getting to those damn frogs.

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