Category: News

Join poet-violist (and ComicMix contributor) Alexandra Honigsberg, international artist composer-clarinetist Demetrius Spaneas, soprano Christina Rohm, and pianist-conductor James Siranovich at the premiere of Lilith: Mother of Dreams, a chamber opera of the iconic demon goddess. It’s debuting on Halloween Weekend (this Sunday at 7 p.m.) at a historic haunted opera house, Flushing Town Hall.

The Lilith Project is conceived as a modern American suitcase opera, a chamber monodrama: intense, human, universal, compact in form and forces, accessible.

Before there was Eve, there was Lilith: Adam’s first lover, once human, made from the same dust, sensuality’s queen, bride of the Angel of Death, mother of opposing cosmic forces – strong, willful, unstoppable. She rules the storms of the skies and the heart – night owl, holy woman of power. From ancient tales of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, to Greece’s Lamiae and Daughters of Hecate, to Native American lore and Victorian Gothic Horror, Lilith looms large in the minds of men and women when the lights go out and they enter dream time. Some call her demon, vampire, child killer – others mother, lover, elder, friend. But whatever the appellations, she persists in the realms of our imaginations, from holy books and high literature to popular feminist concert series, TV shows, and Japanese anime. Child of Light? Daughter of Darkness? Both? Neither? You decide.

Composer Spaneas is a long-time professional, curator of Cornelia St. Café’s Serial Underground award-winning new music series’ 25th year, and Fullbright Specialist of the State Department’s musical diplomats. Librettist Honigsberg is a veteran violist, award-winning songwriter, long-time published poet, and this year’s winner of the Mayor’s Poetry Prize. Both Rohm and Siranovich have established opera careers all over the US and cities abroad.  Long-time colleagues in many configurations over the years, Lilith marks this creative team’s debut.

There will be a talk by the artists before the performance and then time for questions and answers, afterwards, and a reception to which all are invited. Come as you are, but gala premiere attire, period dress, and other unique finery is encouraged!

The production is fiscally sponsored by Composers Collaborative, Inc. $10 suggested donation/FTH members free, all welcome.

TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT- Reviews of All Things Pulp by Tommy Hancock

EDGE OF DARK WATER
by Joe R. Lansdale
Published by Mulholland Books

There are several names that get bandied about today, and when I say names I don’t necessarily refer to those of us considered firmly under the New Pulp umbrella, but I mean writers that have some notoriety in other ways but clearly also have Pulp sensibilities in their work.   One that is coming up like that more and more frequently, and rightfully so, is Joe R. Lansdale.

Apparently able to tackle just about any genre and any character, from Tarzan to two of my favorites of his own creating (Hap and Leonard), Lansdale is not only an accomplished writer and master of the craft.  He is someone who clearly enjoys the process of creating, the firestorm of breathing life into figments and words.   That is clearly evident in EDGE OF DARK WATER.

EDGE OF DARK WATER, according to the back cover is ‘Mark Twain meets classic Stephen King.’ Although that is a good mash up comparison, I see some other qualities in this work.  

Set in East Texas, EDGE follows Sue Ellen, a teenage girl who has an abusive father, a mother who seems to care about nothing, and, as the book opens, a dead friend.  A dead friend who had aspirations to be a Hollywood starlet.   Disturbed by the fact that this dream is gone for the departed, Sue Ellen determines to dig up her friend, burn the body, and transport the ashes to Hollywood.  Teaming up with her only two friends, each having their own reasons for wanting to leave, Sue Ellen sets off downriver on a journey that will forever alter her as well as those closest…and farthest from her.

EDGE OF DARK WATER definitely harkens back to Twain’s Huck Finn and has that rural eeriness that permeates King’s early work.  But it has so much more.  This is a classic quest story, heroes off on a journey to take a friend to her final resting place.  It’s also a chase story as a Villain of sorts almost ripped from the pages of a Pulp it seems joins the journey, out to make sure Sue Ellen never finishes it.  But even beyond all that, this is a study of people, a varied wide expanse of humanity laid open and filleted for the reader to ingest, enjoy, and even be appropriately disturbed by.

FIVE OUT OF FIVE TIPS OF THE HAT-EDGE OF DARK WATER is most definitely a multifaceted story that touches every button a Pulp fan might have and goes far beyond that.

Prometheus

The White Rocket Podcast debuted this week. Hosted by New Pulp Author Van Allen Plexico, the White Rocket Podcast is a one-on-one conversation with the leading figures in the worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Pulp and New Pulp, Action and Adventure Literature, Movies, Comics and Television.

In episode 1, Mark Bousquet, movie reviewer and novelist, joins Van to discuss Ridley Scott’s PROMETHEUS, the sort-of ALIEN prequel– just released on Blu Ray and DVD.

You can listen now at www.whiterocketbooks.com/wrpodcast.

Well, this is a new one– a trailer for the trailer of Iron Man 3, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow, which will be released on Tuesday on the Apple trailers web site.

Let the frame-by-frame analysis commence!

Sadly, this teaser of a trailer strategy comes all too close to this news story: