I don't keep current on all manner of pop culture, but here I'm assuming that Punxsutawney Phil proclaimed his oracle that, indeed, spring has sprung. For here in San Antonio, it certainly seems that those pesky, depressing cold sunless days are behind us. I'm back to enjoying afternoon bike rides along the Mission Trail.
Out near Mission Espada, I was walking the bike along the banks of the San Antonio River. There was a good amount of flotsam on the grass from when the recent heavy rains caused the river to flood the banks and deposit on the ground an assortment of styrofoam cups and plastic grocery bags. At one point I saw the signs of juvenile delinquency. A spent tube of airplane glue. Ah, sweet youth. I leaned down and idly picked it up. But this was not the sort of tube for sniffing. It was for another form of entertainment. I was holding an empty tube of Anal Eaze. Perhaps it washed down from Warren Industrial Lubricants, which is upriver a few miles at Southcross. A quick Google search proved enlightening. Warren makes lube, but not for heavy-duty (industrial) fornication. No, it provides lubrication for large machines … you know, like tractors. And let me tell you, when you've plowing up the back forty with a Foton dual clutch FT354 tractor, a 1.5 oz tube of Anal Eaze ain't gonna get you past the first furrow.
Or so I've heard.
Warren Industrial Lubricants, it's for the big jobs.
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I got out early tonight from the Company, and was able to make the Short Ends directors meeting at the Jim's restaurant at 281 and Thousand Oaks. The location was only a couple of miles from the Company.
There was just four of us. Matthew, and three directors for this up-coming screening.
Joey, me, and Veronica.
Imagine my surprise to learn that the Veronica I had not yet met, was indeed a Veronica I had already met. I just hadn't put all the info together. It was Veronica Hernandez, who I'd met through several NALIP events.
She talked about some projects she's currently working on.
The Short Ends film she is directing is from, I believe, Jerod's script. And, off hand, I'm not sure what genera they're working with.
She's also working on a project that's hiring Austinite Michael Morelan as DP. I've been on set with Michael before. He's professional, focused, oozing with talent, and has loads of great equipment. I tried my best to convey to Veronica that Michael will guarantee the project to look beautiful. Plus, he's fun to work with.
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For some reason, I never got into Michael Moorcock. He's a science fiction writer with literary pretensions. He's often mentioned in the same sentence with people like Phil Dick, Ballard, and Alan Moore. Politically, he's an anarchist. He dismisses Tolkien, and praises Mervyn Peake. He sounds like the perfect author for me. Why have I put off reading him for so long?
I decided to get something by him the other week while I was poking around the library. I saw this book titled “Tales from the Texas Woods.” It was published by Mojo Press in Austin. 1997. Why don't I know about this stuff? It gets worse. Moorcock (a famous Brit author) lives (or lived) in Lost Pines, Texas. Shit! That's like discovering that Colin Wilson has been living for the past decade in Sanderson, Texas. I'm not supposed to be out of the loop on these sorts of things.
Even Mojo Press has basically kept beneath my radar. A Landsdale title or two I'd seen. And my friend Matthew A. Guest provided the illustrations to one of the Mojo's graphic novel anthologies. But, for the most part, I've been clueless about their stuff.
I'm halfway through this Moorcock book. It's not a good introduction to his work. It's filled with a couple of short stories, and loads of ephemeral writing — forewords, introductions, half-assed essays. I will now have to read a real novel to see if he can truly write. He does a nice Sherlock Holmes pastiche in here, but it came off too polished. August Derleth (in his Solar Pons stories) did a better job of capturing the feel of Doyle. And Derleth brought to writing the same artistry with which a robot would bring to dance. But that was fine, because here I think that Conan Doyle's purple prose had more in common with Derleth's pompous over-writing than it did with Moorcock's clean, clear prose.
But I'll have to give Moorcock an honest read. The guy who created Jerry Cornelius demands some serious attention.