My calendar is telling me it is now September. Really? Damn, the days are going by fast.
We got back from our month abroad on August 15, which seems like yesterday on the odd numbered days and last year on the evens.. I returned to find more than a thousand emails waiting for me, which proved even more daunting than usual since I brought covid home with me as well, acquired at the worldcon in Glasgow. Two of my assistants tested positive as well; Parris and the other two were spared. We’re all negative now, I am pleased to say.
Joe Lansdale and kin were here in Santa Fe with us for a few days. Joe departed this morning, heading for LA and the red carpet premiere of THE THICKET, the new feature film based on his novel, starring Peter Dinklage and Juliette Lewis. We didn’t have a red carpet here, alas, and we didn’t have Peter or Juliette, but we did have our own premiere on Saturday at the Jean Cocteau Cinema, along with Joe His Own Self. A good crowd turned out for the movie, and for the signing at Beastly Books before hand. Joe signed a good number of copies of the latest edition of the novel, as well as his new new Hap & Leonard novel, and a collection of horror stories inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. For the collectors among you, signed copies of all three are available at Beastly… while the supply lasts.
The Santa Fe audience seemed to like the film, as did I. It’s a western, but the sort of western only Joe could write, dark and twisty and filled with a cast of colorful characters. Dinklage and Lewis were both excellent. If you’re a fan of the Old West, be sure and catch THE THICKET when it turns up at a cinema near you.
And speaking of movies, we are moving along with the short films we made based on some of the short stories by the late, great, great great great, Howard Waldrop. Steven Paul Judd’s adaptation of MARY-MARGARET ROAD GRADER has been accepted into WASTELAND, depp in the heart of the Mohave Desert.
Mary-Margaret will also be showing down in New Zealand, at the Wairoa Maori Film Festival in New Zealand
There will be more, I am sure; festival season is just beginning, and we’ve entered MARY-MARGARET ROAD GRADER and THE UGLY CHICKENS in other festivals all around the country and the world. Watch this space; I’ll announce other show dates and locations as soon as we know.
Two other shorts are still in post production here in New Mexico; another Waldrop, with the working title FRIENDS FOREVER (that is likely to be changed), and an original called THE SUMMER MACHINE, based on a story I pitched THE TWILIGHT ZONE back in the 80s, just before it was cancelled. SUMMER MACHINE stars Lina Esco, Charles Martin Smith, and Matt Frewer. Michael Cassutt wrote the short, based on my treatment, and directed as well.
We have several other movies under option or in development, but whether any of them will ever get filmed, well, I really couldn’t tell you. It’s Hollywood, boys and girls. As the late great William Goldman once wrote, “Nobody Knows Anything.”
Current Mood: 
stressed
