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A reunion of some kind, I find myself at a high-school friend's parents' house. I'm hanging out in the foyer; he's not there, we weren't ever close, just two boys--a bit awkward with parents pushing us to socialize. The house is massive, opulent and cold; very "west coast." There's some awkward conversation with one of his brothers--I don't think he really has any brothers but dream logic morphs the man's face to something approximating the old friend, just now with a receding hairline.

There's a scene in David Fincher's adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo where Martin Vanger (Stellan Skarsgård) politely invites Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) into his house, after finding him snooping around. The fact that Martin is the killer well known by Mikael and Martin knows he knows, but because of the human, the social animal need to follow, to be near, to group up, Mikael follows Martin, nearly meeting his end in doing so.

A 44 page, black & white, American comic-sized, square-bound, self-contained, folk horror graphic novel by J.A. Short & David Hitchcock

As AI overtakes the web, five writers reflect on how far it’s fallen and what comes next.

The most recent take on Ripley is simultaneously the most faithful and the most radical departure from the Tom of the book, thanks to some delicious suspenseful pacing and Adam Scott's terrifying performance. Not that the book offered much in terms of an internal-monologue, but here, in a visual medium, we're only privy to Tom's exterior. His hair, his outfits, his calculating gaze and his seemingly perpetual inability to understand all of the messy humans he finds himself surrounded by is the main course of this dish.

This was the iteration of the Tom Ripley that I grew up with. To be clear, I've only watched it recently, but Matt Damon's version swam in the cultural zeitgeist I was party to at the turn of the century. Prior to my watching the limited series and reading the book, this was the version that lived rent free in my head; a poindextered Damon willing to kill for riches.

The first film adaptation is the one that takes the most liberties with the source material. Even the title "Plein Soleil" (aka "full sun") or as it was released to the English speaking world "Purple Noon" take a more poetic tact than any of the other versions. This is a French film and my French is good enough to get most of the dialogue, except anytime there's an Italian speaking, …

I really fucking hate AI right now. I really fucking hated AI yesterday and the day before, too, though I think the hate is growing faster and hotter, like a sun about to explode and consume the ga…

I like to compare media that have been done and redone, reimagined, pieces cut, characters changed or added, themes twisted and contorted and subverted. It's interesting to read into the pieces, to see what technology or cultural hangups may have influenced the creators, to get a glimpse at the primordial slime, the antecedent seed crystal that each version must spring from.

It's not recent and it's my excuse but it's the best I got: The pitter-patter of little feet escaping, punctuated by the exclamation point of a cat's ass, tail held high. I'm awake. Something is wrong but I'm not sure what. I turn to check on my girlfriend, and I feel it. There's something that slid and splashed from one side of my mouth to the other.

In recent memory, I fell into the Expanse series really hard. Pulpy, genre-smashing and very much feeling of the political moment, without be an obvious 1-to-1 proxy, the books and the TV series became a salve against the insanity of the world--the subtext being, sure we're still as dumb and shortsighted in the future, but there's a future. House of Leaves…

Talking Scared · Episode

A cramped bathroom, knees and elbows hitting the walls. Tired tiles, once white, yellowed with years, smudged with stains. I finish my business and begin to wipe; my finger tears through the paper. Fuck. Standing, pants around my ankles, I twist to use the micro-sink installed above the toilet. I flub it, smudging shit on the spout. I run the water, to clean the spout.

It's the morning. I'm groggy, stumbling. Wiping the sleep off my face I see my eye swollen in the bathroom mirror. The lids are glued shut, puss crusted and dripping. Poking at it, I peel my lids open. It's the eye itself that's swollen, not the lids. Where there should be an eye, a normal eye, brown and a bit tired, rests a rheumy orb, cataracted, slick with puss.

Daily writing prompt What’s a moment that made you question reality? View all responses I was playing on the jungle-gym behind my gradeschool. It was new, rounded corners, smooth metal columns and bubble plastic mouldings all bright primary colors over a carpet of brown mulch. The geography of the schoolyard is burned into my brain, games of tag, my first crush and her big eyes--sorry Randal, I'm sure you were cute but you'll forever be "Randall bug-eyes" to me--me and my buds rolling down the hills where small pines stood like guards.

Hiking a New England trail, wet stones and brown leaves underboot; flannel type weather. I'm limping but the pain is dull, in the background, and easily ignored. It's not my first hike, pain is part of the process, a catharsis bled and sweat upon the passing stones. I stumble and I look down at my lame leg and I'm unsurprised to find an eight inch framing screw sitting in the middle of my ankle.

Daily writing prompt What’s a moment you wish you could freeze and live in forever? View all responses Stillness is stagnation. It's also an illusion. The world rotates, the breeze blows, your cells hum and divide and die, your bladder fills. That's not to say there aren't moments I'd like to savor a bit longer; sex, drug-induced stupor, my face buried in my cat's fur, laying in an autumn field listening to the insects trill.

There's an odd futilism to labeling oneself a writer. The image, in my head at least, is of one that can make a living off it, even if its only a meager wage. Through journals or books, articles or as a copy-editor they are "in" the industry and working the craft. The sad truth, that's only a fraction of us. Most write in the corners of their lives, stealing moments from friends or family or work to dive into our obsessions and delusions.

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