I saw an A&E biography special on Stephen King where he talked about the bad old days of coke-fueled writing jags. The goriest detail was when he talked about stuffing tissue up his nose to stop the blood from dripping on the pages he was working on.

I think PET SEMATARY is an example of how a movie can be scary without being particularly, you know, good.

You know, I don't know that I have a great explanation. It always seemed a bit mechanical to me. And a bit devoid of subtext. An evil demon takes over a nice girl. All hell breaks loose. Jesus saves. The end. (Though I guess the broken family situation gives it some subtext.)

If it helps, I plan to visit Albuquerque in a couple of weeks. I won't be reading or making any appearances or anything, though.

That's a great shot. As for Dante, he does have THE HOLE completed. I have no idea when it's getting a release, however.

Goodman's always great. And I'm glad to see him acting more regularly these days. Wish he'd work with the Coens again, though. That's a teaming that always worked.

Hey, nobody here is holding Tasha back. Keep demanding it.

Coming at noon.

I considered most of these. The idea is to be selective, not all-inclusive, but maybe I should include a "for further viewing" section in future columns. Oh, and I'm doing killer dog movies next.

James Cromwell plays Ogden Phipps, a man from one of the richest families in America. And, alas, no relation to me.

You are welcome.

I like Gish Jen
And look forward to reading this book.

Well put.

Right. Probably should have mentioned that, but I was worried about it turning into a flood of, "Also awesome in this movie…" But he's a real talent. Great in RED RIDING TRILOGY and NEVER LET ME GO, which I just caught up with last weekend.

I thought this was going to be the first thread (I've seen) to take up an entire page.

LIFE AS WE KNOW IT is out soon.

I'll allow it.

Just because there's probably no better place to share this
I saw Ginsberg do a reading once. It was in Boulder in 1993 at a small bookstore. He read a new poem about not being able to get it up for a young lover then played the squeezebox and led a singalong of a couple (I think) William Blake poems. It was pretty…

Pretty close.

I'm just trying to streamline my tendency to go off topic. Footnotes seemed like one way to do that. Or maybe I should just stop being digressive.