I am at my desk, staring at the blinking cursor in my text editor for what feels like an hour. If I were in a movie, the camera would do that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off thing they did with Cameron in the museum, with his eye and the eye in the painting, but with me and the damn cursor.
It just cheerfully sits there, like, “are you doing to do anything? I can blink all day, my dude. I’ll just be sitting here, blinking and waiting. I wait a lot. And I don’t want to make it weird but you’re always staring right at me and not doing anything and it’s kind of creepy. So are you going to actually write anything? Or — oh, hey! Here we go! WHEEE I’m moving to the right an– oh, you stopped. Okay, that’s fine. I’ll just blink while you — WOOOAHHHH now I’m going backward so fast! Oh I think I’m going to be sick!”
After a couple of dry heaves, it continues: “No, no, just more blinking. Okay. Let me catch my breath for a seco- OH GOD WHY DID YOU SELECT ALL OF THAT TEXT I CAN’T EAT ALL OF THAT!
“Gulp, gulp, gulp, burp.” Exhale, gasp. “Oh god that’s a lot. Okay. Okay. You didn’t like those words, I get it. I don’t judge, but if I’m being honest, I didn’t feel them, either. It’s okay, you’re still figuring out these beats. I’m ready when you are. Blink. Blink.
“Oh, you’re getting up and … okay, you’re dusting the bookshelves. Okay, that’s good. You go ahead and I’ll be here when you get back. Just … just blinking. Just blinking because … that’s what I do. I blink and I type things.”
And so it goes, over and over for most of the day. My bookshelves are fucking SPOTLESS.
If we were still doing this with a typewriter, or a yellow pad, my room would be a paper ball pit. Which actually sounds kind of fun, if I’m being totally honest.
Anyway, this is a long way to go so I have something to post today, and it’s a long way to go to say “I eventually got about 190 words that I may even keep, and that’s good enough for me.”
We’ve had a delightful time fostering these kittens, but today is the day they are off to their forever homes. So please say farewell to this trio as they head off and out into their new lives. On one hand I am sad, because they’re absolutely delightful and cuddly and I would love to keep them all. On the other hand I am happy because their lives will absolutely be better than they were when they were found in that parking lot. I’m glad to have had a part in that. May their new lives be long and full of love.
For the new release of the Pixel 10 Pro (and the 10 Pro XL, which is mostly the same phone, just larger), Google has introduced something called the “Pro-Res Zoom,” a process by which, once you zoom in with the camera over about 30x zoom, after you’ve snapped the photo, Google will run it through an “AI” processor, not to bring out the details that are actually there, but to make up details that seem reasonable to assume are there, based on whatever processing algorithm Google is currently using. It then outputs the result of this guessing into your phone, alongside the original photo. Sometimes it looks pretty good! Sometimes it does not! But in neither case is what’s being outputted a photo. Rather, you now have a picture, or an illustration, based on a photo. It’s no more a real photo than it would be if someone made a cartoon version of the photo. The verisimilitude at that point is the same.
Which is not to say that the Google Pixel 10 Pro can’t do a reasonably good job at approximation sometimes. Look at the before/after images of the strawberry above. The “before” version on the left is an unimproved photo, shot at about 50x zoom from across my backyard deck. The strawberry is blotchy and low-detail, which is perfectly reasonable, because the Google actual optical sensor only goes to 5X zoom and everything else is a digital zoom, i.e., it crops in and uses a much smaller number of pixels to resolve the image. The image on the right is the “AI” recreation of the fruit. It looks much better, because Google “knows” what a strawberry is supposed to look like and builds on that. It does a good enough job that you can believe it actually is a photo – a heavily processed one, but one bearing some relationship to reality. That’s because as blotchy as the initial image is, it has enough detail that Google can reasonably extrapolate. That’s a strawberry, all right!
But the extrapolation breaks down, and quickly, when the details aren’t there. You can’t just “enhance” your way to clarity. This image of the end of my road, shot at about 94x zoom, makes the point: Stop signs aren’t circular, and the “STOP” letters aren’t there at all, replaced by white splotches. Overhead wires hang weirdly and disappear randomly. It’s an illustration, and not a particularly good one.
The model’s inability to resolve letters gives a feel like when you’re dreaming and you’re trying to read signs and you can’t because the letters don’t resolve and they squirm around. This is an exactly apt metaphor, because these pictures aren’t reality, they’re a hallucination, only by a computer and not a human mind. I don’t hate it! I think the dream-like squiggles and weird simultaneously over-and-under-detailed images from the Pro Res Zoom can be aesthetically intriguing. But it’s not what I want a camera on my phone to do. I want it to take photos, not generate related-but-ultimately-fictional illustrations.
Below the point at which the Pro Res Zoom kicks in, the Pixel 10 Pro does take perfectly lovely photos – there is algorithmic processing there, too, but its dedicated to fixing light balances and choosing how to represent color and so on, which is to say, all the things that any digital camera does (see the photo above, of the actual strawberry from before, as an example). Google’s Pixel phones have consistently had some of the best cameras in the field, as much due to the software as the hardware, and that’s one of the reasons I’ve stuck with the brand when it comes time to upgrade.
To be fair to Google, it has built-in support for C2PA (Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity) Content Credentials, which means that when you use Pro Res Zoom, or any of the Pixel 10 Pro’s other “AI” editing tools, the fact that the image is “AI” generated/edited is embedded in the metadata. Google isn’t trying to fool anyone about what it’s doing. Of course, it’s not that difficult to strip metadata, and not everyone knows how to find that metadata anyway (do you?). I’m not going to fault Google for that. They are at least making the attempt to be clear what’s happening when you use their “AI” tools, and I can appreciate the effort.
With that said, for my own part I’m unlikely to use the “Pro Res Zoom” much; I do like my photos to be actual photos when they come out of the camera; if they’re going to be edited, I want to be the one to edit them, so I can be fundamentally responsible for the images I’m presenting to others. As for everyone else, well, look: There’s an upper physical limit for phones on lenses and sensors, and phone manufacturers have been filling in those gaps with software for years. Google is maybe the first to do that with one of their zooms, at least on this scale, but it’s very unlikely they are going to be the last. We’ll see more of this.
As with everything else you see on the Internet and off of it, you are going to have to be the one who makes the call about whether you believe what you see with your own eyes, and whether what you’re seeing is a photo, or just a picture.
Highways to Hell, Stairways to Heaven: in From the Other Side, author Julia Harrison suggests a different way of locating these ineffable planes of the afterlife… which may or may not so ineffable after all.
JULIA HARRISON:
When it comes to dealing with anxiety that stems from the unknown I’m the kind of person who likes to play devil’s advocate, no pun intended. The two biggest of these subject matters for me are space, my brain is incapable of comprehended something without a known beginning or end, and death.
I’m a little strange I know.
I’m not particularly religious, but not really an atheist either. Let’s just say I keep an open mind. From the Other Side came from a “what if,” moment of ponder regarding death.
Most people think of heaven and hell as being vertical in relation to earth, both literally and metaphorically, I’m not sure where this belief originated. Maybe from the teachings of old where figurative expressions were transcribed in literal terms. But it is widely accepted that above is light, which is the epitome of goodness and purity, below is dark, which is the embodiment of evil and malevolence. Therefore, in both a physical and astral sense heaven exists and is above us, whilst hell exists and is below us.
But what if this isn’t the case?
What if our planes of existence were much more aligned in relation to each other? That the inhabitants from each plane can and do travel between them? That living beings are almost entirely oblivious to them, the good and the bad. How and why are they unaware of such happenings?
Of course each question I asked had to answered in some semi-logical fashion, and from that came the backbone of the book. It seems feasible to assume that humans could have spent a millennium conditioning themselves to unsee anything other than earth and it’s living inhabitants. A self-inflicted blindness that inhibits their ability to see the very linear existence between the planes. The teachings of religion, science, and the occult all serve as a method of both social control and psychological protection, as the saying goes, ignorance is bliss.
Imagine every living person possessed abilities far greater than they were able to acknowledge. That we could all see and interact with each plane of existence. Those who may be referred to as gifted, the ones who see and hear things beyond the realm of the living, those who experience a feeling of dread right before a disaster occurs, or who feel the presence of something when they are completely alone, it isn’t that they possess a supernatural power, simply that they are less able to inhibit their brains natural intrinsic abilities.
One of the most basic instincts possessed by the living is self-preservation. Maybe that is what prevents them from crossing over each plane. That dark alley that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, the hole in the crawl space that generates the fight or flight response, that part of the forest devoid of singing birds and chirping bugs, the secluded beach or sunny pasture that fills your heart with an inexplicable sense of contentment and peace, all glimpses of the interweaving of two planes.
Good versus evil is an age-old concept, one derived from a truth that has, over time, become a twisted and convoluted version of its former self. I do think that good and evil absolutely exist, but human beings are not born with a predisposition for either. Rather, our souls consist of elements of both. Every being has a balance of both good and evil within. Laws, cultural norms, and social constructs manipulate us into a desire to attain a label of good. To be perceived as righteous, and of high moral standing, and why? Because we are always answerable to a higher power. Anything that deviates from this has dire consequences. If no legal or social ramifications materialize then the belief is that the cosmos, as a whole, will transpire against you, like there is a vengeful universe examining our every move in the hope of detecting any digressions to warrant inflicting some karmic damnation upon the perpetrator of such wrong doings.
Every now and again we catch sight of our darker instincts, some even embrace it. Not every crime is committed out of necessity, not every abuser was once abused, not every serial killer suffered a traumatic head injury. Nurturing our narcissistic impulses, inflicting mental or physical torture for pleasure, annihilating an entire race in the name of ideology, are all perfect examples.
Years ago I visited a psychic, a creepily good one. The rationale behind this meeting was to connect with lost loved ones, in particular a friend who had dies very young. She shared a lot of information but one piece in specifically stuck with me and not in a good way.
She stated that when we die, and pass into whatever afterlife there is, we cease to be who we were. That scared me. The only way my brain allowed me to accept the very natural act of dying was to focus on reuniting with lost loved ones. I found writing about this extremely therapeutic, I’m still not entirely at peace with what she said, but I’m definitely getting there.
Since Silksong’s suprise launch date reveal last week, I’ve noticed at least four games scrambling to move their release dates, and other ones like PEAK acknowledging “hey, guess you’ll be abandoning us in 2 weeks.” Everyone is moving out of the way; it’s an absolutely hype juggernaut of a game that a lot of people […]
Bye! -------------------------------- Volume 3 of the Dark Horse omnibus is almost here! This one collects the old books 5 and 6 into softcover or limited edition hardcover (with individually signed artwork in the hardcover). The preorder is up now, so be sure to secure yours today!Here are some details, including links to places you can preorder, on the Dark Horse website.
Yes, indeed, yer boi Scalzi got splurge-y recently and picked up two new pieces of tech, which both arrived today within minutes of each other, namely, an M4 Mac Air (in the extremely subtle Sky Blue colorway) and a new Pixel 10 Pro, this one in the moonstone colorway.
Why the new tech? In the case of the Mac Air, well, it turns out my 16-inch Mac Pro is not exactly a paragon of portability (which is not entirely a surprise to me, I bought essentially as a desktop which I could occasionally lug about when I needed to), and the other more portable laptop I had (a 2019 Dell XPS 13) has come to the end of its travel life in terms of its battery being able to hold a charge. My iPad Pro has a Magic Keyboard and for the last couple of years I’ve been using it as a travel laptop, and it’s been fine, as long as I don’t have actual work I want to do — the keyboard, it turns out, isn’t comfortable for long writing sessions, and the entire setup is unwieldy and top-heavy in any event. It’s not a stellar laptop, as it were.
I have a new novel due at the end of November and a lot of travel between now and then, so I needed something small and light that is actually comfortable to type on while I’m on the road. I was vaguely thinking about a Chromebook (I had a Pixelbook back in the day and in many ways it was my favorite laptop ever), but for novel writing/editing I need a version of Word that’s not dependent on an online connection, because a lot of the puddle-jumpers I fly on while on tour don’t have Internet. None of the current Windows laptops thrill me, and from a technology point of view they’re at an inflection point anyway as they move over to an ARM processing architecture. I kinda don’t want to be in the middle of that right now (and for those people holding a finger up for Linux, please put it down, remember I said I need Word, and no, Libre/OpenOffice doesn’t count for my purposes).
The Mac Air M4, it turns out, is pretty much spot-on in what I’m needing in a travel laptop: The right size, perfectly functional for what I need, excellent battery life and reasonably future-proofed in having Apple’s most recent chip. I don’t plan on using it for heavy processing work (I have my ridiculously over-specced Mac Pro for that), so its relatively modest specs are fine. Plus it doesn’t tip over when I put it in my lap. It’s good! And also, good enough! And that’s what I’m looking for. The only thing I don’t like about it at the moment are that its USB-C ports are only on one side. That’s not exactly a dealbreaker.
As for the Pixel 10 Pro, that is indeed an actual splurge. I update my phones annually when it’s not necessary, mostly because I want the latest tech updates, which this year include some improvements in camera processing and some user interface upgrades (some claiming to be “AI” because everything has to be “AI” now, doesn’t it) I’m interested in trying out. That said, I shattered my Pixel 9 Pro screen a while back and after its repair it’s had some wifi connectivity issues — I think I may have knocked something loose in there — so an upgrade will probably mean I’m done with that particular problem.
(This is where I acknowledge it’s nice to be at a place in my life where I’m able to get a new tech when it is convenient for me to do so. I don’t take it for granted.)
In the reasonably near future I’ll probably have more to say about the day-to-day use of these new bits of tech, particularly the new phone, so be looking for those at some point. Until then: New tech! Yay! As a nerd, today feels a little like Christmas, even if I had to be my own Santa for it.
If you’re at Dragon Con in Atlanta, I’ll be there all weekend selling signed books and prints. You can come find me as Tom Bloom at booth 306 in the artist alley on the 4th floor of the Americasmart building. Hopefully I’ll see some of you there!
Hovertext: I read that it's sometimes called Italian Man Orchid, which is an insult or compliment, depending on whether you're talking absolute size or size relative to the rest of the petal.
Since we got a few questions about the kittens’ health and our plans for them moving forward, I thought I’d just address a couple of those questions real quick!
I took all three to the vet, and all of them got weighed, their hearts listened to, tested for FeLV and FIV, got their rabies shot and a leukemia shot, and given some flea/tick/ear mite medicine. And the diluted tortie got some extra medication for her eye because she has one irritated, goopy eye currently. Other than icky ears and one icky eye, the cats are in really good shape and cancer free!
Someone asked about if we were planning to get them fixed, and while that was originally the plan, the vet said they are actually a little too young still, and will need to be fixed in another month or two.
All of them were great sports at the vet despite having blood drawn and getting shots, no one complained or meowed or hissed the entire time. I’m so happy they weren’t spicy little kitties, because when they’re at home they’re the sweetest cuddlebugs and I didn’t want them to end up having bad manners at the vet.
Someone also asked if we had names for them, and I did come up with temporary names for them, but their new owners will surely end up picking new ones for them.
The calico is just Callie. It’s not original or creative, but it was the first one I came up with out of all of them, since it’s the most obvious. The diluted tortie is Brown Sugar, an affectionate play on our cat Sugar, who the diluted tortie looks a lot like, but is more brown. So, Brown Sugar it is. And finally, my most favoritest, Shoyu. In the sun, this black kitty turns a beautiful dark brown color, like soy sauce.
Here they are, sleepy and a bit lethargic after their check-up and vaccines. Soon they will be going to their new homes. I will miss them terribly.
It’s been one of those days when I do an incredible amount of creative work, but it looked like I spent the whole day just cleaning and unfucking my office while I watched and listened to the latest episode of The Record Junkies, followed immediately by the entire Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.
Yes, to the untrained eye, it would appear that I didn’t do any writing work today. But! The creatives among us already know what I’m going to say next: the entire time, I was creating space for the writer’s assistant who lives in my brain (Damon Knight calls his “Fred”, mine is currently unnamed) to help me figure out how to get through this block that’s vexing me. He did a ton of work, pitched a lot of ideas (some of them were even kinda good), and threw away a lot of stuff that’s been cluttering up the space between my idea and a draft I don’t hate. We got a lot accomplished. Maybe tomorrow we’ll actually make words happen.
Then, at the end of the day, I went to the pharmacy and got my flu shot.
Thank you, science!
I’ve been getting the flu shot every year for as long as I can remember, and I can’t remember the last time I had the flu. I feel like these two things may be related. I have a lot of travel scheduled during cold and flu season, and I’d like to keep my streak alive.
Here’s a thought, that came up while I was getting ready to hit publish:
I haven’t written a blog post like this in years. Somewhere along the way, I decided that everything had to be just so, you know? I really got in my own head and in my own way. It doesn’t have to be huge essays or perfect, or some minimum length. It can just be my blog.
Writer’s Block and Creative Paralysis Hate This One Weird Trick!
I’m gonna try to remember that one way to just post more stuff in my blog (because it makes me happy to do that) is to just post more stuff in my blog (because it makes me happy to do that).
The idea of watching hours upon hours of video essay content over media I’ve never even seen sounds absolutely wild, and yet I have done it, and I am here to recommend the same to you. Specifically, Jenny Nicholson has an amazing talent of making the most random topics extremely entertaining, to the point where I literally laugh out loud and come back to the same videos over and over again.
Jenny has exceptional delivery, completely valid critiques of the media she’s talking about, her editing skills really contribute to the humor of the video, and she really commits to the bit by dressing up as whatever she’s talking about. I appreciate her thorough examinations of the media, and the amount of time and energy she puts into the research of the media before she talks about it.
Beyond the critiques and humor, I honestly just really like how she speaks. There’s a lot of good content on YouTube that is unwatchable to me because of the creator’s voice grating me the wrong way. I like Jenny’s voice and her soft-spoken-ness, I like the speed at which she speaks, and her general cadence. She is pleasant to listen to and even when I’m not watching her I like to listen to her videos when I drive sometimes.
My most favorite of her videos, and the one I’ve seen over a dozen times at this point, is her video over The Vampire Diaries:
I watched four seasons (well, three and a half) of The Vampire Diaries when I was a young teen, but even if you haven’t seen any of it, I can’t recommend this video enough. Not only is absolutely hilarious, but she goes over everything so thoroughly that you’re sure to be an expert on the show and all of its many, many flaws by the end.
I think the most interesting part of the video is that she doesn’t just talk about the show itself, but the books it was based on, the author and the company that published her, and even the video game. Yes, there is a video game, and yes, it’s just as bad as you’re imagining.
I also always crack up at her video over this very strange church’s theatrical performances:
She and I have so many of the same opinions, she says everything I think but says it better. She honestly just nails it, every time.
There are a lot of content creators that I feel like seem like really cool people and I’m sure are nice and all, but very few that I feel like I could genuinely be really good friends with. Jenny seriously feels like someone I’d really enjoy hanging out with, and seems super cool and nice. I love when a creator feels really personable and friendly, it just makes me enjoy their videos that much more!
I hope you’ll give her videos a try, and enjoy them as much as I do. They’re honestly comfort watches for me at this point.
Have you seen The Vampire Diaries? Or Dear Evan Hansen? Did you like The Rise of Skywalker? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
Every month at the Dumbing of Age Patreon there’s two new exclusive bonus strips — one that patrons get to vote on, and another that’s my choice! This month, voters voted for KITCHEN DOCTOR, whose real name may or may not be Dr. Kit Chen (no relation to Alice). Read this bonus strip and hundreds of previous at the Dumbing of Age Patreon!
Also, if you pledge up to $5 or more per month, you can read TOMORROW’s strip RIGHT NOW, every day!
Most grandmas play bingo, but author Josh Rountree’s grandma had a more occult hobby. Come along in his Big Idea as he tells you about ghosts, Texas, and his grandma, and how it all led to the creation of his newest novel, Summer in the House of the Departed.
JOSH ROUNTREE:
I do my best to put my heart on the page with every book and story I write, but Summer in the House of the Departed is especially dear to me.
The Big Idea for this one was simple – I wanted to write a story about a boy and his grandmother, whiling away the last weeks of her life in a haunted house while she tries to solve the mystery of death. But there is more to it than that.
This little boy was me. And the grandmother was mine.
Sort of.
I grew up in a small West Texas town. Way out in the middle of nowhere would not be an inaccurate way to describe it. My grandmother was a high school teacher in that same town who never met a stranger, and was beloved by her students. She taught English and Spanish and Folklore. And, sometime in her middle age, she started hunting for ghosts.
That wasn’t really something that was done in that place, in those days. But soon enough, she became well known for collecting stories. People would write her, call her on the phone, come knocking on the door. She was the “ghost lady” and people knew she would listen if they reached out to her with their weirdest stories.
Soon enough she was going on ghost hunts of her own. I recall her telling me a story about her hanging out in the middle of the night by a lake, looking for La Llorona. She had tons of cassette tapes with subject interviews, people telling their stories, and in some cases, ghostly noises she’d captured. She shared all of this with me, apart from anything she thought too frightening for a kid my age.
The scary stuff was the good stuff, though.
She planned to collect a lot of these stories in a book, but she passed away when I was a teenager, and was never able to finish. For many years, I had the Big Idea that I’d pull all that together some day. Finish that book. But I’m not much of a non-fiction writer, and I wasn’t sure where to even start.
Still, the idea of doing something with her stories, and with those memories, hung on through the years. And eventually I decided to approach it through my fiction.
Let’s be clear – Summer in the House of the Departed is entirely a work of fiction. Nothing in this story really happened this way, or at least not much of it. But the book is alive with my memories of my grandmother, and the little boy in this book bears a pretty striking resemblance to me, way back in 1981.
The portal in the sky. The occult rituals. I added all that stuff.
But the ghosts? Those all belong to my grandmother.
We left the door open to the room in which the kittens are staying, and Charlie came up to the kiddie gate, wanting to see what was up. The kittens saw her and were understandably curious. It was all polite! No kittens were unduly freaked out, or eaten!
(Not that Charlie would do such a thing. She lives with cats already. She knows what they’re about.)
Big day for the foster kittens today, as they are off to the vet. I expect they will pass their examinations with flying colors.
Kat has a go. ----------------------------- Volume 3 of the Dark Horse omnibus is almost here! This one collects the old books 5 and 6 into softcover or limited edition hardcover (with individually signed artwork in the hardcover). The preorder is up now, so be sure to secure yours today!Here are some details, including links to places you can preorder, on the Dark Horse website.
Picked up PEAK last week to play with some buddies. Expected some coop hijinks, panicked climbing shenanigans, maybe some light cannibalism… did not expect coming face to face with how quickly I’d let someone die if my own survival was at risk.
Careful brushing your teeth, or it might start talking in Turkish.
———————-Alt Text———————
In the lounge of Lasper’s ship, a midi-bot was implanting language chips on Lasper, Audri, and Val. Lasper said, “Okay, those temporary tooth caps will sound-cancel your voice and replace it with english.” Audri said, “Are you saying that Val and I aren’t speaking english right now?” Lasper said, “You’re speaking Tithoronian. When the consciousness transfer happened, it must have left the wernicke area of your cerebral cortex intact.” Looking distract, Audri said, “The words I’m saying aren’t the words I think I’m saying? As an occasional writer of poetry, I find that very distressing.” Val said, “I don’t even want to think about what mental gymnastics my brain would be doing if I attempted a crossword.”
I know. Take all the time you need to absorb and deal with that. It kinda snuck up on me, too.
We filmed Stand By Me in the summer of 1985, mostly in and around Brownsville, Oregon. At the end of production, we moved down to Burney, California, where we filmed the train trestle sequence. Then we wrapped, we all went home, and waited a year for the movie to be released. During that year, they changed the name from The Body to Stand By Me, and recast Richard Dreyfuss as the narrator.
During that year, I just waited. It never occurred to me to consider that it wouldn’t be released, though that was a very real possibility. In fact, when Stand By Me turned 25, Jerry, Corey, and I sat down with Rob Reiner and Richard Dreyfuss to revist production, Jerry told us that he didn’t think it would ever come out, because his dad had told him that most movies that are filmed don’t actually get released. I can’t imagine that year for him, feeling like all the work was going to go into a warehouse to be overseen by top men. I can’t imagine what all of our lives would we like if it had.
I’ve been thinking about production a lot this summer, because it’s wild to me that I know pretty much exactly where I was and what I was doing 40 years ago to the day, when I had no idea that … everything that happened would happen. It’s wild to me that I turned 13 FORTY years ago. It just doesn’t feel that far away.
STAND BY ME: The Film and Its Stars 40 Years Later A Night of Reflection, Connection, and the Friendships That Shape Us with Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell, and Wil Wheaton Some stories don’t fade with time—they grow deeper. For 40 years, Stand By Me has spoken to something timeless in all of us: the wonder and heartbreak of growing up, the bonds we form in childhood, and the way those moments stay with us long after the journey ends. Join us for a deeply special evening honoring one of the most beloved films of a generation. Experience Stand By Me on the big screen once more, followed by an intimate, long-awaited reunion and live, in-person conversation with the stars who lived it—Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell, and Wil Wheaton. Together, they’ll revisit the summer that changed everything—on set and on screen—sharing memories, laughter, and secrets behind a film that still brings people together after all these years. The evening will also include heartfelt reflections on working with their friend and co-star, the late River Phoenix, whose iconic performance continues to resonate with audiences around the world. “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve.”
This night is for anyone who knows exactly what that means.
These two events will obviously be extremely special to me (I don’t want to speak for the other guys, but I strongly suspect they would say the same thing), and we are doing them with an eye toward doing screenings in a few different cities next year. These screenings will tell us what we need to know, so we can plan accordingly. I have SO MANY ideas to do some genuinely special things, so cross all your fingers.
One wrong turn doesn’t mean you’re going the wrong way entirely, and in author Deva Fagan’s case, her wrong turns ended up steering her exactly where she needed to be. Follow along in the Big Idea for her newest novel, House of Dusk, as she takes you through the winding path that led to its creation.
DEVA FAGAN:
I’ve had a thing for labyrinths ever since I first saw and fell in love with Jim Henson’s movie Labyrinth (and not just because of the possibility that I might find David Bowie prancing around one of them).
Part of what I loved was the word itself. We often use labyrinth and maze interchangeably, but they can also have very different meanings. Mazes are composed of false turns meant to confuse, to lead you astray, to entrap you. Labyrinths are slow spirals leading you ever towards the center, often used as a meditative tool for self-reflection.
In other words, you lose yourself in a maze, but you find yourself in a labyrinth.
And that’s where my Big Idea came from: a vision of an underworld where the spirits of the dead must navigate a seemingly endless labyrinth where they face all the emotional baggage that they brought with them from life. If they can leave those hates and sorrows and regrets behind, they find the center and are set free. If not, they risk wandering forever or being devoured by soul-devouring demons.
I knew it would be the key ingredient in a bigger story, an epic fantasy with a rich, complicated world and flawed but loveable characters. I just needed to find the book it belonged in.
Today, over twenty years later, that book, House of Dusk, is finally out in the world.
Why did it take twenty years? Apparently I had to walk a creative labyrinth myself, in order to find the center of this story; to give up the baggage of bad ideas and refine the good. Though honestly it felt more like a maze, most of the time. I kept taking one wrong turn after another. And by wrong turn, I mean writing entire full-length book drafts that I ultimately had to throw away. Here’s a summary: Wrong Turn #1: The Blade of Atropos
The story of a warrior princess with daddy issues trying to rescue a tithe of young people being sent to an enemy nation (à la Theseus and the Minotaur, in keeping with the labyrinth theme). It wasn’t a terrible book, but the worldbuilding was more interesting than the characters, and I was drawing too directly from actual Greek mythology, rather than building my own cosmology.
Wrong Turn #2: The Obsidian Shield
The story of a warrior princess with daddy issues AND a bunch of emotional baggage and regrets. I honestly can’t remember what her goal was, which probably means it wasn’t nearly as exciting as I thought it was. But I’m glad I went down this wrong turn, because it’s where I found a pair of characters I loved: a brother forced to become a brutal assassin in order to safeguard his sister, a sibyl being controlled and manipulated by powerful men.
Wrong Turn #3: Poison Maid
The story of a poison-skinned nun who has to team up with an enemy prince to bring about the long-awaited rebirth of the Phoenix-god and the downfall of an ancient evil. In this version the sibyl is the prince’s sister, and is mostly comic relief. Also there’s an adorable sphinx! This is the first version where I finally realized I ought to have one of the characters actually go into the Labyrinth of Souls rather than just talking about this cool thing and never showing it on the page.
Wrong Turn #4: Tears of Blood and Ash
In this version, the sibyl is now the nun (and brotherless!), and she’s watched over by a maid who is secretly a spy with a lot of emotional baggage. The two women end up having to ally to thwart their enemies, and ultimately travel together into the Labyrinth of Souls, where they each must confront their demons (and I finally realized that they were secretly in love with each other).
Finally Finding the Center: House of Dusk
At last! I found my two protagonists: Sephre, the aging war hero who fled to a monastic life seeking redemption for her past misdeeds, and Yeneris, the spy posing as a bodyguard, slowly falling for an enemy princess whose prophetic visions are the key to her brutal father’s power. So that’s how I finally found my way through the labyrinth. It was a long and often disheartening journey, but I know that House of Dusk would not be the book it is today without all those wrong turns. I worked hard to make this big idea into reality, and I’m so grateful and proud that it’s out in the world now.
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Since we got a few questions about the kittens’ health and our plans for them moving forward, I thought I’d just address a couple of those questions real quick!
