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June 30, 2009: Movie Reviews - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford  Imagine You and Me Outsourced

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Friday, July 3, 2009

 

Runner-Up - 2009 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

"The wind dry-shaved the cracked earth like a dull razor--the double edge kind from the plastic bag that you shouldn't use more than twice, but you do; but Trevor Earp had to face it as he started the second morning of his hopeless search for Drover, the Irish Wolfhound he had found as a pup near death from a fight with a prairie dog and nursed back to health, stolen by a traveling circus so that the monkey would have something to ride."

Warren Blair
Ashburn, VA

Thanks to Mike Stamm

 
 
 

Varley's quote du jour

 
 

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

Gilbert K Chesterton

 

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 Today's Video

 

 

 

Dave Ross Commentary (07.01.09)

Thanks to Janice Nunamaker

 

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 Sometimes ya gotta laugh

 

 

 

Jim, an 82-year-old man, went to the doctor to get a physical. A few days later, the doctor saw Jim walking down the street with a gorgeous young woman on his arm.

"Boy," the doctor told him, "you're really doing great, aren't you?"

Jim replied, "Just doing what you said, Doc. 'Get a hot mama and be cheerful.'"

The doctor said, "I didn't say that! I said, 'You've got a heart murmur; be careful.'"

 

 

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 Francine's recipe du jour

 

 

Easy Beer Bread

 

 

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 Lee's Soapbox

 

 

The Great American Bubble Machine

The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.

Matt Taibbi

 

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June 29, 2009: Movie Reviews - Juggernaut Murder on the Orient Express

 

June 18-22, 2009: Movie Reviews - O Othello Men in Black Ronin Seven Pounds Baraka Déjà Vu Subway Stories: Tales from the Underground The Celebration (Festen) The Party Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) Titus

 

June 16-17, 2009: At the Drive In - Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and X-Men Origins: Wolverine Land of the Lost and Drag Me to Hell

 

June 9-15, 2009: Movie Reviews - North by Northwest The Man on Lincoln's Nose Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round The Dish Taking Chance Up K-19: The Widowmaker The Counterfeiters (Die Fälscher) Defiance The Mouse on the Moon It's Trad, Dad!

 

June 6, 2009: Movie Reviews Charley Varrick Robin and Marian State of Play Forbidden Games (Jeux interdits) The President's Analyst

 

June 1, 2009: Movie Reviews: Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ Ben-Hur The Birth of a Nation Hell's Angels Zack and Miri Make a Porno Last Chance Harvey

 

May 25, 2009: At the Drive-In - Terminator Salvation and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

 

May 20, 2009: Dismal Thoughts: Part 2 - The Little Helicopters That Couldn't

 

May 18, 2009: At the Drive-In: Angels & Demons Obsessed

 

May 11, 2009: Movie Reviews: At the Drive-In Star Trek (2009) Monsters vs. Aliens The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Destination Moon Nickelodeon

 

May 4, 2009: Movie Reviews: Christmas in July The More The Merrier Project Moon Base Tell No One Walk, Don’t Run Frost/Nixon Silk Stockings

 

April 30, 2009: VarleyYarn: Dismal Thoughts: Part 1. I started writing this two months ago, then I got distracted by other things … like writing my new novel! Hurray! But I’m done for the day, and have a little spare time here, so I thought I’d update it, and then post it.

 

April 20, 2009: Movie Reviews: Nude on the Moon The Palm Beach Story Priceless The Reader Grey Gardens (2009)

 

April 18, 2009: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, where I made my first sale way back in 1974, is celebrating its 60th year by reprinting some of the classic stories it has published over the years. In the June/July issue one of those stories is my novelette, "Retrograde Summer." While it sort of makes me wince to think of any of my stories as "classic" (I'm not that old, am I? Yes, you are ...), I'm honored. There is also a very complimentary introduction by Keith Kahla. Be sure to pick up a copy!

 

April 16, 2009: George Harrison Gets a Star. We figured the crowds might be rather large for this one...

 

April 15, 2009: The Miracles Get a Star. It was the 50th anniversary of Motown...

Movie Reviews: FTA I've Loved You So Long Ruthless People Sullivan's Travels

 

April 14, 2009: Ex-Spector-ated!!!! Finally, finally ...

The Descanso Gardens. Easter Sunday, and it felt like a sin to try to work. It was 70 degrees outside, the sun was shining, the sky was blue as an Easter egg.

 

April 8, 2009: Movie Reviews: In the Electric Mist The Miracle of Morgan's Creek Strictly Ballroom

 

April 2, 2009: Movie Reviews: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Religulous When Worlds Collide (1951) Like Water for Chocolate

 

March 27, 2009: Movie Reviews: Burnt by the Sun Happy-Go-Lucky Knowing Taken How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

 

March 20, 2009: Movie Reviews: Body Heat Extras (2005) Flash of Genius Four Weddings and a Funeral Rachel Getting Married Synecdoche, New York

 

March 10, 2009: Movie Reviews: Australia Extras The Hunting Party No Way Out West Side Story White Sands

 

February 25, 2009: The Alex. I seldom buy Los Angeles magazine. If you’re seeking a place where you can pay $100 for a plate of sushi, this slick mag rag is where to start looking.

Movie Reviews: The Philadelphia Story Changeling Frozen River

 

February 20, 2009: Shorts! Every year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has a one-night-only showing of all the Oscar-nominated short subjects, animated and live action, a few days before the ceremony.

 

February 19, 2009: I have just sold the German rights to Red Thunder to Verlagsgruppe Random House GMBH, in München. If any of you out there like the book and sprechen sie Deutsch, I’d be happy to send you a copy if you’ll read it and tell me if it’s a good translation! I don’t know when that will be, but they are obligated to publish the book within two years.

7 Movie Reviews: Doubt The Duchess Milk Vicky Christina Barcelona The Visitor The Wrestler Ghost Town

 

February 18, 2009: 2 Movie Reviews: The Bank Job Sleuth (2007)

 

February 6, 2009: 6 Movie Reviews: Becoming Jane Long Way Round Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman The Uninvited Valkyrie

 

January 28, 2009: 5 Movie Reviews: Encounters at the End of the World The High Sign One Week The Saphead Slumdog Millionaire

 

January 25, 2009: 5 Movie Reviews: The Caine Mutiny Cassandra's Dream Eagle Eye Revolutionary Road Quick Change

 

January 19, 2009: Movie Reviews: Go West The Happening The Paleface The Scarecrow Talk To Me Traitor

 

January 13, 2009: Movie Reviews: The Diamond Arm Gran Torino Speed Racer Steelyard Blues Yes Man

 

December 30, 2008: Movie Reviews: Burn After Reading Monty Python and the Holy Grail Run, Fatboy, Run Scrooged

 

December 23, 2008: John and Lee’s Guide to Disneyland - Last Disneyland

We decided to make one more visit to Disneyland before our passes expired. It will probably be our last one until some of the changes are made at California Adventure.

3 Movie Reviews: BURN-E Vanishing Point Without a Clue

 

December 14, 2008: Movie Reviews: Trafic The Closet The Driver Hancock L.A. Story The Shop on Main Street

 

December 8, 2008: Movie Reviews: CSNY Déjà Vu Expo: The Magic of the White City: The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 Twilight Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa Clockwise

 

December 4, 2008: Movie Reviews: Bolt Beverly Hills Chihuahua Cops and Robbers

 

December 3, 2008: Headline at Boing Boing: Spider Robinson reads Varley's "Persistence of Vision"

Cory Doctorow: "Spider Robinson's latest podcast installment is a reading of John Varley's towering and brilliant 1979 novella, 'The Persistence of Vision,' winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. I'm a gigantic John Varley fan (especially of his short fiction) and this story may be the best of the lot."

 

November 21, 2008: Movie Reviews: Advise and Consent The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing Get Smart Quantum of Solace Passengers Our Town The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

 

November 13, 2008: A Hallowood Hollyween

We had a lot of fun last Halloween at the West Hollywood street party, which happens on about mile of Santa Monica Boulevard and features some of the wildest costumes you’ll ever see, some by make-up professionals, many by WH’s vast gay community.

 

Jay P. Francis sent us a photograph he took from Casa Lidia, the Bed and Breakfast in Oaxaca where he spent 8 days for Dias de los Muertos. Note the top three books on the left stack – Red Lightning, Rolling Thunder, and Red Thunder. Mammoth is on the bottom, right under The South Beach Diet. Wow!

 

Movie Reviews: Full Circle with Michael Palin Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure My Sister Maria (Meine Schwester Maria) The Savages Quarantine Lakeview Terrace

 

November 3, 2008: John and Lee’s Guide to Disneyland - Part 9

I guess I’m a wimp. It wasn’t actually that hot, mid to upper 80s. I used to be able to shrug that off. Heck, when I was in the 1st and 2nd grade in Fort Worth, I’d go out and play, and hunt for horned toads, when the thermometer was well over 100.

 

October 31, 2008:

Happy Halloween from John and Lee

 

October 20, 2008: Movie Reviews: Body of Lies Righteous Kill Smart People Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day Shine a Light Twilight

Miss P. is a governess down on her luck, and through comic misadventure and a bit of guile, she becomes the social secretary for an air-headed American actress-wannabe, Delysia Lafosse (real name, Sarah Grubb).... More reviews...

 

October 6, 2008: Movie Reviews: Confessions of a Superhero Hallelujah! Three Ages

One of the pleasures of living maybe a mile and a half from Grauman’s Chinese Theater is that we get to drive by that two-block tourist stretch quite often. There’s always something going on; in fact, that street is closed off about as much as it’s open, for one thing or another, for as much as 10 days at Oscar time. One of the things that is always happening is the costumed characters that haunt the place, to the despair of the Grauman’s owners. More reviews...

 

September 29, 2008: Paul and Me

A few days ago we lost a great American. Entrepreneur—seller of salad dressing, pasta sauce, lemonade, popcorn, salsa, and wine among many other things—philanthropist, devoted husband, father, and grandfather, race car driver, owner, and sponsor, founder of a dozen camps for severely ill children … and, oh yes, he acted a bit.

 

September 25, 2008: The Gaean Trilogy is now available at Audible.com

Just got an email from Allyson Johnson that she'd finished recording DEMON. Also available at Audible.com: The Persistence of Vision and Press Enter, narrated by Peter Ganim; and The Ophiuchi Hotline, narrated by Gabra Zackman.

 

September 17, 2008: SF Signal asked Varley (and others) two questions:

What makes a successful sf/f book adaptation? Why do adaptations sometimes fail? Varley's answer follows Jennifer Pelland's.

 

September 15, 2008: Movie Reviews In Bruges Mad Hot Ballroom El Padrecito

Try to remember what you were like in the 5th grade. You’d passed through that brief period when it didn’t much matter which sex you were; boys and girls played together, sometimes, though the boys were rougher. Then the segregation began, some regimented, and some self-enforced. All through elementary school girls stuck with girls and boys stuck with boys.

 

September 10, 2008: Kiss Your Ass Goodbye

The first time I went to see the end of the world was June 14, 1968. The asteroid Icarus was going to come within four million miles of the Earth … or so they would have us believe. Four million miles is a gnat’s whisker in cosmic terms. There were those who said it was actually going to collide with our planet, and “they” were keeping that information from us to avoid panic.

 

September 6, 2008: St. Francis Dam

William Mulholland was a colorful character. He was responsible for the Los Angeles Aqueduct, opened in 1913, which stole water from the Owens Valley, 233 miles to the north. It flows downhill all the way so it takes no power to operate.

Movie Review - Woodstock

I was there. I didn’t get to hear much live music, other than that made by the people around me. In fact I made it to the stage only once, and didn’t stay long. I had other responsibilities, to my wife, who was on crutches and couldn’t make it through the mud, and my 18-month-old son.

 

September 2, 2008: Hollyweird - Rudolph Valentino

August 23 was the 81st anniversary of the death of Rudolfo Alfonzo Raffaelo Piero Filibert Guglielmi De Valentina D’Antonguolla, in New York City, of peritonitis following a perforated ulcer.

Movie Reviews Fosse Judgement at Nuremberg The Crusades

 

August 4, 2008: At the Drive In Hellboy II: The Golden Army Wanted

 

July 18, 2008: VarleyYarn - Hillside Cemetery

It’s been a while since we went on a celebrity body hunt, so when other business called us down to the lower reaches of Culver City, we decided to visit this graveyard, which is rich in famous bones. It’s also a Jewish cemetery, like Mount Sinai, which always affords a few surprises.

 

June 6, 2008: John and Lee’s Guide to Disneyland - Part 8: Walt Disney Treasures

In 2001 the Disney company released four sets of DVDs in metal boxes, called Walt Disney Treasures, and has been bringing them out yearly ever since, in what they refer to as “waves.” There are now seven waves.

 

June 2-3, 2008: VarleyYarn: Land of 10,000 Plates - Part 1 & Part 2

A few days ago we were driving around and I stopped at a red light behind a car with a South Carolina plate. In case you haven’t seen one, it is mostly light blue with a palmetto tree in the center (South Carolina is the Palmetto State). Across the top is this legend: “Smiling Faces. Beautiful Places.”

 

July 2, 2008 - RECORDING HAS BEGUN - Last week Audible.com began the recording of the books they bought from me. Titan, Wizard, and Demon will be read by Allyson Johnson. Read more

June 27, 2008 - Just got a copy of THE REEL STUFF (Expanded Edition) edited by Brian Thomsen and Martin H Greenberg. "You've seen the movies, now read the stories on which they're based - award-winning science fiction by such masters as: ... PHILIP K. DICK (MINORITY REPORT) WILLIAM GIBSON (JOHNNY MNEMONIC) CLIVE BARKER (CANDYMAN) GEORGE R.R. MARTIN (THE OUTER LIMITS: SANDKINGS) JOHN VARLEY (MILLENNIUM) BARRY LONGYEAR (ENEMY MINE)" Buy it

 

May 26, 2008 - I'm a Martian Citizen!

About an hour ago as I write this, NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander successfully delivered my novella, "In the Hall of the Martian King," to a soft landing near the Martian north pole.

 

May 16, 2008 - Diary of a Male Fashion Model

Friday, May 2nd, 2008, 6 AM: Up early for the Americana shoot. Spend a hour in the shower. Does the beard need a trim? Nah.

 

April 28, 2008 - The BCAM at the LACMA

If the above acronym soup is confusing to you, let me translate: BCAM is the Broad Contemporary Art Museum, and LACMA is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. (We Angelenos say it as “The Bee-cam at the Lackma.”) BCAM is a new building at LACMA, the first part of a three-phase expansion plan. It opened in February.

 

April 14, 2008 - The Shrub That Ate a House

The sleepy little town of Sierra Madre is off the beaten trail, wedged as it is between Arcadia, Monrovia, and Pasadena, at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. But not so very long ago it was at the center of a struggle for the very survival of humanity.

 

March 30, 2008 - ROLLING THUNDER now available at Diesel eBooks!

 

March 19, 2008: Hollyweird - St. Pat's Day at the Egyptian with the Rutles

They had the 30th reunion of the Rutles at the Egyptian Theater on St. Patrick's Day. All four of the lads from Liverpool, together again for the first time. You remember the Rutles, don’t you? The Pre-Fab Four? Dirk McQuickly, Barry Wom, Stig O’Hara, and Ron Nasty? Ring any bells?

 

March 11, 2008 - io9 Talks to John Varley about Climate Disaster and Space Opera

 

March 4, 2008 - ROLLING THUNDER in books stores!

 

... before that

 

What's Varley reading?

FLEET OF WORLDS

by Larry Niven and Edward M Lerner

... before that

 

One of Lee's favorite movie reviews

"I was almost hoping this movie would really, really suck, so I could just leave it at that: my shortest review! Sadly, it's more complex than that, and I'm far too verbose and opinionated to leave this one without a few remarks."

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Varley's Latest Novel

... this Podkayne's story is not a Shavian-Voltairean satire but a nicely traditional combination of bildungsroman, alien contact, planetary adventure, and disaster scenario featuring a smart, mouthy young person as narrator and stirrer-up-of-plotpoints. Russell Letson, Locus

Buy It

Please Buy These Books!

THE gaean trilogy

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Quotes from some of Lee's favorite Varley movie reviews...

 

"His own youth was moderately well-off until he was 12, when his father was thrown into debtors prison and he had to go to work in awful conditions. I can imagine him slaving away, thinking "I'm better than all this." I'm not putting him down; who wouldn't think like that, in that situation? But it's a major flaw in the story for me."

 

"There are only three people in the entire film: A middle-aged macho man, his younger wife, and a young man. They are all in a small space, both men have something to prove, and the sexual tensions escalate in small, precise stages. You expect an explosion, you expect a thriller, but it's a lot more than that."

 

"She moved into her own brand of rock, then into jazz, and what I love about her is that she never much cared if her audience followed her or not. If the music didn’t work out she could always go back to painting, which was her first love anyway."

 

"You don’t so much watch this movie as you drop it, like a tab of Owsley’s Finest Acid back in the ‘60s."

 

"The most heartbreaking moments are hearing this girl tell her sad story, of how she thought she was being taken to London for a better life, singing in hotels. Right, honey, now spread your legs …"

 

"Jake is a self-loathing (though he'd never admit it, even to himself), self-described "son of a long line of slaves." Beth is his punching bag of 18 years, from a good traditional Maori family, who blames herself for getting the crap beaten out of her."

 

"The dialogue here is so sharp you can cut yourself listening to it, particularly between Nick and his only two friends: a lobbyist for guns and another for alcohol who call themselves the MOD (Merchants Of Death) Squad."

 

"Looting his dead body, they find some money, a gun with one bullet it in, and a video camera. Sipho takes the gun and Madiba takes the camera. They return to the squalid shantytown where they live, basically nothing but sheet metal and scrap wood and cardboard."

 

"So let me start off by saying it was well-made, visually interesting, the costumes were fabulously ugly, as if the designer had actually taken a field trip to the most degenerate corners of Hell to do research."

 

"I do accept their controversial (at the time) notion that non-European, Hollywood directors (gasp!) like Hitchcock and Ford were great artists."

 

"Two Mexican teens, one very rich and one middle class, get involved with a woman 10 years older and set out in an old car for the beach."

"The huge majority of posters who blasted the movie with a 0, a 1, or a 2, were male. Fans were of both sexes, but there seems to be a certain kind of male who is threatened by this girl..."

 

"There’s no getting around it, somebody tries to describe this film to you and it sounds … creepy. You try to describe it to somebody else and it sounds creepy."

 

"They walk. They walk and walk and walk. They walk some more. They manage, idiotically, to get lost. They walk some more. They talk about nothing."

 

"The dialogue here is so sharp you can cut yourself listening to it, particularly between Nick and his only two friends: a lobbyist for guns and another for alcohol who call themselves the MOD (Merchants Of Death) Squad."

 

"If the '60s was the big part of your youth, see this immediately. And if it wasn't, you need to see it even more, as it goes farther toward explaining what that crazy time was about than any number of '60s documentaries I've seen."

 

"It has a heroine/victim who keeps doing the right, smart thing (until one little mistake at the end, which I warned her about, but did she listen?)..."

 

"I saw a marriage dissolve in about 90 seconds over a series of breakfasts."

 

"She is a breath of fresh air to one, like me, who cringes at liberal circumlocutions like 'differently abled,' or 'senior citizens,' or 'people of color.' Or how about 'the N-word'?"

 

"Very soon I was making a lot of mental notes, various nasty things to say, really vicious cuts and overhand chops and knees in the nuts. But I soon lost my enthusiasm. It would be like kicking a big, steaming, fresh mammoth turd."

  

 

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"Bagatelle"

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Cirocco

September 7, 1999. Today at 2:45 PM we took our beloved dog, Cirocco, to the vet, where she was given a lethal injection. She died in our arms and seemed to feel no pain. I wish it was the same for myself.

 

 

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