Unabashed

Something I need to read:

Cause I’m not going to be a spanking dad. I want my son to respect me, but I don’t want him to fear me like I did my step father. My wife is a counsellor and she’s made this book a recommendation for many clients in the past and always received good reviews from the ones who actually practiced the book’s suggestions. My first son is 2 1/2 now and is beginning to really test what he can get away with. Right now I’ve just been putting him into timeout (sitting him in a chair for about 90sec) when he gets really inventive: he got into the refrigerator two days ago and dumped half a gallon of tea out on the floor and sat in timeout until Suzy and I could clean it up. I just want to be a good father.

Something I want to read:

This book harkens to my interest in the supernatural and occult. I’m not a Wiccan, I just find it interesting, and I use many magical elements in my own writing. Plus, as far as fantasy and sf goes, my preference is to stories written in contemporary settings, without benefit of altered universes or sidelong dimensions (although I like the altered universe stuff too, I just prefer the modern-day stories). I like to believe that there’s still magic in this world. My own writing reflects this interest, in stories I’ve written such as “The Ghost of Tom Johns” (still unpublished and looking for a home) and, of course, (also still unpublished) Modern-Day Mythica.

Hellblazer’s been one of my favorite comics since it came around, and I’m hoping John Shirley’s done a good job with the telling of his tale in this format. The movie certainly was a disappointment, as I’m sure any other fans of the title will agree: Keenunu (misspelled intentionally) was a raging disappointment in the role, and I still can’t believe the audacity to stage the story in LA. To do it right, they should have cast Daniel Craig and based it in London (of course). Update 6-1-07: Tried to read it and found it sucks.

I’m excited about it, although I’m obligated to read Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill first (my wife bought it for me for my birthday–April 2!), and then possibly Infoquake by David Louis Edelman. I might have bought Infoquake while at B&N yesterday instead of this but they didn’t have it on the shelf.

written by Matt Mitchell