Saturday, April 2, 2016

The Cure Albums Ranked - All 13 of Them to Date



Check out this link where PopMatters ranks every album by The Cure.

http://www.popmatters.com/feature/the-cure-ranking-their-albums-from-13-to-1/

This is how I rank them. In my view The Top is completely underrated. Agree?

1. Disintegration
2. Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
3. Pornography
4. Head on the Door
5. Seventeen Seconds
6. The Top
7. Wish
8. Bloodflowers
9. Faith
10. Three Imaginary Boys
11. The Cure
12. 4:13 Dream
13. Wild Mood Swings

#CureAlbumsRanked #TheCureBand

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Songs Based on The Divine Comedy



Last week I announced that the final installment in my Divine Dantes trilogy was published. It follows the characters of The Divine Comedy in a mess-up modern world. There's adventure and a rock-n-roll love story. Will Eddie ever settle on a name for the band?

The effects of Dante's The Divine Comedy on modern pop culture are immeasurable. Check out the songs about the poem:

“Angel (Lust)” Joe Jackson             Heaven and Hell         1997
“The Bridge (Envy)” Joe Jackson             Heaven and Hell         1997
"Dante's Inferno" Iced Earth
“Dante’s Prayer” Loreena McKennitt     The Book of Secrets 1997
"Highway to Hell" ACDC             Highway to Hell         1979
“Tangled Up in Blue” Bob Dylan     Blood on the Tracks 1975
“Tuzla (Avarice)” Joe Jackson             Heaven and Hell         1997

#DivineDantesTrilogy #DivineComedy

Sunday, March 13, 2016

The Divine Dantes Trilogy is Published!

$.99 Ebook


“[A] lively and good-natured work with a great deal of humor . . ..”
Publisher’s Weekly Reviewer

“[R]eminds me a little of the fun I find in Carl Hiaasen or Christopher Moore, but he definitely has his own vibe . . ..”
Breakthrough Novel Award Expert Reviewer

A Best Second Novel award finalist in the Indie Book Awards, "The Divine Dantes: Squirt Guns in Hades" is the first in a trilogy of laugh-out-loud books paralleling Dante Alighieri's classic poem, "The Divine Comedy," where the characters of The Inferno are encountered in modern times with surprising results. At the center is Eddie, a young rocker who is heartbroken after his girlfriend, Beatrice, leaves for Venice. This not only ends their relationship, but also the world's greatest two-person rock band. At Beatrice's request, Virgil-their erstwhile manager-cum-travel-agent guides Eddie to Europe to meet her without Eddie being in on the secret. Will Eddie want to see Beatrice? Will the band get back together? And if it does, can Eddie settle on a name for it? Read the first novel in this literary, rock, love story today!


$0.99 Ebook

Book 2 of The Divine Dantes's Infernal Trilogy finds Eddie and Virgil in Barcelona, Spain. Eddie, the young rocker with an active mind, thinks they are there to get on a cruise. Virgil, however, has tricked Eddie and arranged for Bea to secretly meet them. Meantime, Virg and Eddie visit famous Barcelona landmarks (La Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, La Rambla Street, etc) as Eddie adds his trademark commentary. Will Eddie speak to Bea when she arrives? And if he will, does their two-person band get back together?

$1.99 Ebook

In this final volume of The Divine Dantes trilogy series, Eddie finds himself on a cruise with his beloved Beatrice. There will be mayhem, love and of course rock-n-roll.

Buy the trilogy today and get ready to rock on in a Divine Comedy way.

#DivineDantes #DivineComedy #RockNovels


Saturday, February 20, 2016

War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy - BBC Film Adaptation


The start of 2016 has blessed us with a fantastic film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's War & Peace. This BBC series is running now so there is still time to catch up on first couple episodes before the climatic ending.

And while many have read War & Peace and Anna Karenina, his classic novels, few have read Tolstoy's short stories or his excellent novellas that weave similar tales of love, war, peace and give a picture of Russia at the height of its powers.

Check out the BBC version of War & Peace this weekend.

#BBCWar&Peace #TolstoyNovellas


Sunday, February 14, 2016

Edgar Allan Poe's Valentine Poem to Francis Osgood



A Valentine

Edgar Allan Poe
to
Francis Osgood

In late January of 1846 the death of Virginia Poe was but a year away (January 30, 1847) and Frances Osgood was four months pregnant with Fanny Fay. As Virginia’s health continued its downward spiral, one can imagine the rumors “A Valentine” brought when recited at the home of Anne Lynch on Feb 14, 1846. The poem was written by Edgar Allan Poe to Francis Osgood. Virtually undetectable at its reading, the poem is an acrostic that spells the full name of Frances Sargent Osgood. At its recitation, all in attendance wondered to whom it was addressed. In this original, Poe misspelled her middle name as “Sergent.”

A Valentine
(Sartain’s Union Magazine, February 15, 1846)

For her these lines are penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the stars of Leda,
Shall find her own sweet name that, nestling, lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly these words, which hold a treasure
Divine—a talisman, an amulet
That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure—
The words—the letters themselves. Do not forget
The smallest point, or you may lose your labor.
And yet there is in this no gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Upon the open page on which are peering
Such sweet eyes now, there lies, I say, perdus,
A musical name oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets, by poets—for the name is a poet’s too.
In common sequence set, the letters lying,
Compose a sound delighting all to hear—
Ah, this you’d have no trouble in descrying
Were you not something, of a dunce, my dear—
And now I leave these riddles to their Seer.

#edgarallanpoe #PoeValentine

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Cover Reveal - The Divine Dantes: Cruising in Paradise (Book 3 of the Divine Dantes Trilogy)

Divine Dantes Book III


There are better things to do today than think about the Superbowl. Okay. Well. Maybe not. I still wanted to publish the cover to book #3 of The Divine Dantes Trilogy that finds young rocker Edward T. Nad on a cruise with his beloved Beatrice. By the end of the month I'll let you know where Cruising in Paradise is available. And if you have a moment or two, now that football ends tonight, you can catch up on the first two books in the award-winning trilogy that follows the characters of Dante's The Divine Comedy in a modern world.



Free Ebook

“[A] lively and good-natured work with a great deal of humor . . ..”
Publisher’s Weekly Reviewer

“[R]eminds me a little of the fun I find in Carl Hiaasen or Christopher Moore, but he definitely has his own vibe . . ..”
Breakthrough Novel Award Expert Reviewer

A Best Second Novel award finalist in the Indie Book Awards, "The Divine Dantes: Squirt Guns in Hades" is the first in a trilogy of laugh-out-loud books paralleling Dante Alighieri's classic poem, "The Divine Comedy," where the characters of The Inferno are encountered in modern times with surprising results. At the center is Eddie, a young rocker who is heartbroken after his girlfriend, Beatrice, leaves for Venice. This not only ends their relationship, but also the world's greatest two-person rock band. At Beatrice's request, Virgil-their erstwhile manager-cum-travel-agent guides Eddie to Europe to meet her without Eddie being in on the secret. Will Eddie want to see Beatrice? Will the band get back together? And if it does, can Eddie settle on a name for it? Read this literary, rock, love story today!

$0.99 Ebook

Book 2 of The Divine Dantes's Infernal Trilogy finds Eddie and Virgil in Barcelona, Spain. Eddie, the young rocker with an active mind, thinks they are there to get on a cruise. Virgil, however, has tricked Eddie and arranged for Bea to secretly meet them. Meantime, Virg and Eddie visit famous Barcelona landmarks (La Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, La Rambla Street, etc) as Eddie adds his trademark commentary. Will Eddie speak to Bea when she arrives? And if he will, does their two-person band get back together?

#NewBargerNovel #DivineDantesTrilogy


Saturday, January 23, 2016

Robert Smith's Favorite Songs from the 1980s



Below is a solid list from Robert Smith of the songs that he most admires from the 1980s (excluding his own, of course). New Order's “Everything’s Gone Green” is my favorite along with “Persephone” and “Gigantic.” All three are unrelenting driving forces of the New Wave genre and not to be missed.

ABC, “Look of Love”
The Associates, “Tell Me It’s Easter on Friday”
David Bowie, “Let’s Dance”
Kate Bush, “Cloudbursting”
Cocteau Twins, “Persephone”
Christina, “Things Fall Apart”
D.A.F., “Sex Unter Wasser”
Depeche Mode, “Personal Jesus”
Dinosaur Jr, “Freak Scene”
Echo and the Bunnymen, “Killing Moon”
The Fun Boy Three with Bananarama, “It Ain’t What You Do…”
Peter Gabriel, “Red Rain”
Human League, “Human”
The Jesus and Mary Chain, “Some Candy Talking”
Joy Division, “The Eternal”
Chaka Khan, “I Feel For You”
Madness, “Return of the Lost Palmas Seven”
My Bloody Valentine, “Lose My Breath”
Mel & Kim, “Respectable”
New Order, “Everything’s Gone Green”
Yoko Ono, “Walking On Thin Ice”
Pixies, “Gigantic”
The Pretenders, “Don’t Get Me Wrong”
Prince, “Starfish & Coffee”
Psychedelic Furs, “Heaven”
Siouxsie and the Banshees, “Dear Prudence”
Soft Cell, “Tainted Love”
The Sugarcubes, “Birthday”
Suzanne Vega, “Small Blue Thing”
Tom Waits, “In the Neighborhood”

What, no Smiths or Morrissey on the list? :-)

#RobertSmithFavoriteSongs #Best80sNewWave

Review of The Postman Only Rings Twice by James Cain



Review of The Postman Only Rings Twice by James Cain

Frank Chambers is a thug and a criminal who has been through a string of Southern California jail cells. In between prison visits he tries to get a little cash by working odd jobs such as picking crops or busing tables. When he jumps off the back of a truck and comes across the diner/gas station run by Nick Papadakis and his beautiful young wife Cora, he finagles a low-paying job without many questions asked. Frank and Cora plot and sulk and use terms like “flimflam” and other great words from the 1930s to form the seduction/want, crime, payback trifecta of crime noir novels.

That kicks off James Cain’s stripped-down, gritty, sexy crime romp he titled The Postman Only Rings Twice and published in 1934. The kicker is that no postman makes an appearance in the novel. One can only surmise that the postman is a metaphor for the grim reaper. Cain admitted as much in his preface to Double Indemnity where his fellow screenwriter Vincent Lawrence told him the postman would also ring his doorbell twice. Cain adapted the phrase as being applicable to the end of his novel and went with the title.

The Postman Only Rings Twice didn’t invent the crime genre, but rather a sub-genre of it much like Edgar Allan Poe did with the first locked room murder crime story—“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” almost 100 years earlier in 1841.

And what was Cain’s sub-genre exactly? It’s now termed Roman Noir or hardboiled crime and is defined, more than anything else, by the writing style employed. Cain uses a basic--almost sanitized--style of writing that is devoid of exposition and rarely provides the name of the character speaking. It makes one wonder if his editor gave him a strict word limit that forced him to go back and cut every superfluous word in the final edit. It is reminiscent of the way Ernest Hemingway wrote The Sun Also Rises in 1926 (his first novel and in the roman à clef style of real life story having a fictional façade), which Cain must have certainly read given its popularity. Cain’s stripped down writing, just like Hemingway’s, gives readers the feeling there is an iceberg of information floating under the surface of his criminal sea.

The Postman Only Rings Twice is an interesting tale and well worth your reading efforts. I give it an 8 out of 10.

#PostmanRingsTwice #JamesCainReview

Sunday, January 10, 2016

"Tales from the Smith" Illustrated Books Series Launched by Butcher Billy


In a play on the popular TV horror show "Tales from the Crypt" that aired in the 1990s, Butcher Billy has combined his love for The Cure and Robert Smith with his talents as an illustrator to launch an illustrated books series. It employs creative use of Cure lyrics into the title. Check it out!

The cover above is The Cure's most claustrophobic song and could very well be the cover song for The Iron Shroud by William Mudford, the tightest science fiction story you will ever read.

#ButcherBilly #TalesfromtheSmith

Sunday, January 3, 2016

First Trip to the Moon in a Science Fiction Short Story


With all the hubbub about Star Wars: The Force Awakens swirling in our cosmic movie atmosphere, I am reminded of the ever-present space alien that populate the screen. Before there were movies of this nature there were science fiction short stories.

Which one was the first to feature a lunar alien? What about a trip to the moon from earth?

That huge literary honor belongs to "A Visit to the Lunar Sphere" published in 1820, nearly 200 years ago today. The trip was by balloon, not rocket. By watching the The Force Awakens one can see just how far the genre has progressed in 200 years thanks in no small part to modern technology.

Did the first Lunarian in a sci-fi short story have a name? You bet--Zuloc. But who was the author? Well, the story was published anonymously, but in Mesaerion: The Best Science Fiction Short Stories 1800-1849 I ascribed the author to be none other than Captain Frederick Marryat (1792-1848).

#ScienceFictionShortStories #FirstLunarAlien