#Kevin McCullough
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Novel Break
I had a week off in the middle of May, but in hindsight it should have been the last week instead because of my daughter's two-day commencement ceremonies. But I survived and managed to read a number of books this month and I'm going to tell you about them.
Possible spoilers for Stephen R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series, William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, Adria Laycraft's Jumpship series, and Kevin Hearne's Atticus O'Sullivan series, possibly among others.
Stephen R. Donaldson: Against All Things Ending, completed May 7
The narrative as it is generally told (which of course may be at least partially apocryphal these days) is that the success of The Lord of The Rings led to a bunch of slavish imitators, led by Terry Brooks, filling the shelves in the late 70s and 80s. (This was what Jack L. Chalker's Dancing Gods series was supposedly parodying.) Of all of the big fantasy series that came out in that period, then arguably the most divergent was Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series. It was explicitly gateway fantasy, with Covenant coming from our world, and Covenant was a divisive character, abrasive and off-putting, called "The Unbeliever" because he doesn't think this fantasy world is actually real, and notoriously committing a heinous rape early in the first book. The series from then on could be considered a redemption arc, as he eventually comes to accept the reality of the Land.
I was never a huge fan of the series, though I did like the Second Chronicles somewhat better. It seems like every time Covenant returns to the Land, things have gotten measurably worse in some respects. Because like the Narnia series, there can be decades or even centuries between his returns. In the Second Chronicles, he ends up bringing Dr. Linden Avery to the Land with him, and (spoilers) sacrificing his life at the end.
The Last Chronicles came out decades later, after Donaldson had written some arguably much better works (I like them better, anyway), such as the Gap series and the Mordant's Need duology. I wasn't particularly interested in the Last Chronicles at the time they came out, but a few years ago I went back and reread the first two trilogies and perhaps appreciated them a little better, and decided maybe I should try to go on. Hedging my bets, I ended up reading the first two from the library rather than shell out for overpriced ebooks. In those two, The Bones of The Earth and Fatal Revenant, Avery returns to the Land because of the actions of Covenant's estranged (and insane) ex-wife and his corrupted son Roger, and his abduction of the unspeaking autistic boy she had adopted. Once again, many things have changed, though there are many callbacks to the events of earlier series (which had repercussions, whoda thunkit). There's some time travel, which is kind of cool. Then Thomas Covenant apparently returns, along with her son (now with extra speaking), but the whole thing turns out to be a deception by Roger Covenant. In desperation, Linden decides she needs to bring back the real Thomas Covenant, which is possible since they broke the Law of Death way back in the first trilogy. This makes a lot of people unhappy and is widely regarded as a bad move.
I had been planning to get this book from the library like the other ones, but it never seemed to be quite the right time for it. Then, a few weeks ago, I ended up making my first trip to a second-hand bookstore in some years, and what should I spy upon the shelf? That's right, it was Against All Things Ending, right there in trade paperback. And I decided that right after a humorous science fiction novel is the perfect time to read another Thomas Covenant book.
I went through the ridiculously detailed recap section to refresh my memory, which is a good thing because I had forgotten some of the more interesting things happened in Fatal Revenant, like the second time travel segment, and the revelation that there's a group of people called Insequents, who seem to be fully human but really powerful mages or something. The book itself starts off somewhat promisingly, from the POV of the returning Thomas Covenant, who has been part of the Arch of Time for thousands of years, and basically knew everything, but in returning to a human body he's forgetting it all at high speed. And then, unfortunately, there follows chapter after chapter of arguing.
Linden is in the haven of Andelain with a ridiculous entourage consisting of four Bloodguards (one on her side, three opposed), a bunch of Giants (one of whom has been geased with killing her), an Elohim (immortal elfy-types, also mostly not on her side), an Insequent named Harrow, three of the Ramen who serve the magical-horse-folk Ranyhyn, a number of dead people who hang out in Andelain, a weird guy whose mind is severely affected by whether he's standing on earth or stone, and a random Stonedownor who seems to feel really out of his depth. All Linden wants to do is recover her son, and Harrow has offered to help her if she gives him Covenant's white-gold ring and the Staff of Law, which almost everybody thinks is a bad idea. So we spend like a hundred pages with everyone arguing about it, in which another Insequent shows up promising to keep Harrow honest, before eventually they're resolved. And this at a point when it seems that Covenant's return has triggered the end of the world in "a handful of days". Do you really want to spend your time arguing?
Things do happen in this book; there are some amazing action sequences and powerful magics and noble sacrifices and pointless sacrifices and villains brought low and ignominious failures. But you can get those in any epic fantasy series. But in the Thomas Covenant series you can get them even though our main viewpoint characters are, to psychoanalyze them in the broadest of strokes, suffering from things like clinical depression, rejection sensitive dysphoria, and executive dysfunction. Not to mention that the Bloodguard seem to be, as a society, kind of like autistic Vulcans. So sometimes it seems like a miracle they can accomplish anything at all. Like, if we go with the Writing Excuses character sliders (Proactivity, Competency, and Likeability), Linden and Covenant spend most of their time on the extremely low end of Proactivity, with highly variable Competency, and at least middling Likeability (which is a big step from the extremely low values on each that Covenant started with in the first trilogy). So it can be frustrating, but in this book we make some real progress towards our goals. Whether our heroes can actually save the world or not…well, I think it's likely, but it will probably also be costly.
So anyway, it's not perfect, and the pacing is highly uneven, and maybe the prose was dense enough that I shouldn't have tried to read it in seven days, but I finished it and I am willing to go on to The Last Dark and see how this whole thing wraps up.
2. William Gibson: Neuromancer, completed May 10
I'm not sure, but I think I read this book in high school, and like many books I read back then, I'm not sure how much I got out of it at the time. This was of course the book that was heralded as the beginning of "cyberpunk" (although it was predated by K.W. Jeter's Dr. Adder, at least), won a bunch of awards, and kickstarted Gibson's career. I'd reread it at least once, but not since my records started in 1992, so I had decided it might be a good idea to revisit it. It had taken me a while to get through his Blue Ant series, and I had bounced off the TV adaptation of "The Peripheral", so maybe it was time for back to basics.
So I had remembered Case, the former cyberjockey (or whatever they were called), and Molly the razorgirl, and vaguely their employer Armitage; Wintermute the A.I., of course, and I also recalled that Neuromancer was the name of the other A.I. If pressed I probably would have recognized the name "Tessier-Ashpool". The rest might as well have been brand new to me. I didn't remember the hologram wizard Riviera, or ex-girlfriend Linda Lee, or 3Jane, or the Rastafarians from Zion, or Armitage's true origin, or the dead hacker personality (which didn't end up seeming like it did much), or even the fact that they went to an orbital habitat for the last chunk of the book. Also, the much-touted "cyberspace" only shows up for a small portion of the book, really; we spend more time with Case using his cyberdeck to monitor what's happening through Molly's perceptions, in a neat end run around close 3rd-person POV.
Does the book itself hold up as a story? I mean, I guess… On that level it doesn't read like anything special. It's basically a heist setup, with the A.I.s as both the instigators of the heist and the target. (And a weird appearance by the Turing Police trying to stop them.) The characters don't feel like they really start to gel until close to the end of the book, and I still don't know why Molly slept with Case five minutes after meeting him. The ending did work well for me, though, so that brought things up at the end. But otherwise it seems like one of those seminal influential works whose significance is harder to see once you've lived with its changes for a while…like trying to watch "Citizen Kane" as a movie or listen to Chuck Berry. I'll be going on to the other two books in the trilogy in due course, and I don't know if I've even reread either of those (I didn't even have my own copy of Mona Lisa Overdrive) so we'll see how they compare.
3. Tasha Suri: Empire of Sand, completed May 16
Back to the female diversity slot; this time trying a new author, recommended by my wife. Judging by the map included at the beginning, this is a "fantasy India" setting, which should be interesting; the last one of those I read would have been the Ashok Banker Ramayana books.
We start out with a woman named Mehr, daughter of the governor of a province on the fringes of the empire, apparently on the edge of the desert (I don't tend to picture many deserts in India, but I guess this is on the west of the map so more Pakistan area). Mehr's mother was an Amrithi, natives to the region, and never married her father because that's not the Amrithi way, but she died and Mehr's stepmother does not approve of the Amrithi ways. She is trying to raise Mehr's sister Arwa as a good Ambha (majority culture) girl. Also, the desert seems like it's home to spirits called daivas, which occasionally blow into the city on storms, and Amrithi blood allows one to deal with them. Persecution of the Amrithi is stepping up, Mehr's not-so-secretly-Amirthi friend disappears during a magic storm, and Mehr gets in trouble trying to help her. Which means that…her father gives her an official family marriage seal and now she's expected to choose a husband, entirely of her own free will, because that's how the Ambha culture rolls. Except that some imperial mystics show up and insist that she marry one of them, which is almost unprecedented.
So at this point I don't know which way the story is going to go. I thought it was going to be "girl from persecuted culture escapes back to her ancestral homeland, and either manages to fit in or is rejected for being an outsider". Or maybe "palace intrigue with horrible stepmother". Or maybe some kind of arranged-marriage romance. Or maybe it's "Beauty & The Beast"? Or maybe it's…more complicated than that?
Because it does have an arranged marriage with a man others call a monster. And there is persecution of her based on her culture. But there's also a lot more going on, and it all works together to become fairly fresh, and satisfying. I quite enjoyed this book, as someone who enjoys fantasy a lot more than romance, and I'm curious about the sequel, which switches to Mehr's sister some years later, with the repercussions of Mehr's actions.
4. Adria Laycraft: Jumpship Dissonance, completed May 19
This is another book by someone I know personally. In fact, I've actually known her for a long time, because she was, for a year or two at least, in my high school, albeit under a different surname. Then I caught a glimpse of her years later at a reading in Calgary, and finally reconnected at the When Words Collide convention down there. She was now a writer (and sculptor), and co-edited an anthology called Urban Green Man before getting her first novel, Jumpship Hope, published. This is, of course, the sequel, which came out during Covid when the conventions were still being online, so I didn't end up picking up a copy until it started up in-person again in 2023.
This book is set in a future where the Earth climate has completely deteriorated and most people have fled the surface to either orbital habitates or bases on Mars or the moon. Our main character, after a near-disastrous visit to Earth's surface, is involved with the first test of a jump drive to another star system, which succeeds but leaves people in a bad state at the far end. They ended up making contact with some aliens, and befriending some members of one avian race. At the end of the first book they have managed to retrieve the jumpship and make the jump back to Earth.
But people are in even worse shape after the return trip, with persistent headaches potentially caused by damage to the nanobots everyone has in their bloodstream, and the avian who returned with them is completely comatose. They return to the orbital habitats but they disagree on how to proceed. Our protagonist's ex-boyfriend Stepper, brother of the woman who is in charge of Mars, flees back to his sister, who has nefarious plans involving using nanobots for mind control (even though we are told repeatedly that networking them is a good way to end up with AIs, which nobody wants). And an Earth-dweller has stowed away on board and kidnaps our protagonist at an inopportune time.
It's interesting how the Covid-19 pandemic influenced the book (possibly the first I've read that was able to literally reference Covid); I'm tempted to also point to the current AI bubble, but considering fears of AI uprisings date back to Dune (and were also referenced by the Turing Police in Neuromancer) the author could easily have been drawing on those sources as well. The plot takes some interesting twists, though it's sad to see the conflicts between characters who were friends in the last book. There is to be a third book as well, which I look forward to.
5. Kevin Hearne: Hexed, completed May 23
Next up, a book by a male author, not science fiction because the last book was (and the next book would be); I could have picked one of the many epic fantasies, but I decided to do an urban fantasy instead. Kevin Hearne is one of the rare male authors with an urban fantasy series; as such, it's inescapable to compare this series with the Dresden Files. This series centers around Atticus O'Sullivan, a centuries-old druid living in Arizona with his dog Oberon, with whom he can communicate telepathically and who is mostly there for comic relief (vaguely like Bob the Skull). He has some powerful magics, like Harry Dresden, has a sexy female apprentice (Harry acquired one several books in), and some powerful friends (including werewolves and vampires) and enemies (including gods and witches).
I read the first book some time ago and found Atticus a little off-putting. He's not a particularly sympathetic character, which I suppose may make sense if he's been around since the Iron Age. He seems frivolous and pranksterish most of the time, and turns vicious when someone attacks him. In the first book, he was mostly in the first mode until a god started attacking him at which point he went up against the god and took him down. I was kind of meh on it, so it has been several years of not going on the series. Now he's between two groups of witches, one of which wants to make peace with him after previous conflicts, and the other of which is trying to kill him. There's more drama with gods, in this case Morrigan (with whom he has a long-term pact which is the main source of his immortality) and Brigid, which makes of them seem like petulant (but immensely powerful) teenagers. Oh, and people keep telling him that if he's going to start killing gods, he should totally go after Thor. So it looks like in the next book, Hammered, it's vaguely possible that Thor will be involved.
I still don't actually like Atticus that much. At one point he debates just cutting his losses and running away, and the only thing that convinces him to stay is the fact that he's committed to repairing some of the damage done to the earth in the area in the previous book. Not concern for people or property damage or anything like that. Maybe this is supposed to be character growth, in which case he has plenty of room to grow. But he just doesn't seem to have any kind of innate desire to Do The Right Thing. It's more like Save His Own Skin and otherwise just have fun, potentially at others' expense. I am vaguely interested in Hammered but I suspect I will still wait a few years before reading it. And if I don't like that one, then maybe I'll try some of his epic fantasy and see if that's any better, if it's just this one character that bugs me.
6. William Gibson: Count Zero, completed May 26
Continuing with the Sprawl trilogy reread… I suspect that I've only read this one once before. The memory I have attached to it is one time, I was visiting my brother at his downtown apartment, while I was still living in Millwoods. The last bus for Millwoods left downtown sometime before 1:00, and I missed it. I tried going back to the apartment but although they had an outside doorbell at that point, nobody answered it. The front door wasn't locked, so I ended up going up to the third floor landing and trying to sleep there until buses started running in the morning, with limited success. (I suppose I could have called a cab but those were expensive.) And for some reason I remember that I was reading Count Zero at the time.
My vague memories is that there were two viewpoint characters, the titular "Count Zero", a wannabe cyberjockey named Bobby who flatlines on his first time out but is saved by some mysterious force, and a woman (apparently named Marly) who ends up in one of those orbital space habitats at the end of the book. There is also, apparently, a third protagonist, a guy named Turner who specializes in extracting people, who gets a job helping out a defecting scientist from biotech corporation Maas, except things go pear-shaped and it turns out the guy sent out his daughter instead. I also remember that all three characters never meet by the end of the book. Well, maybe Turner and Bobby do, but Marly definitely doesn't meet either of them. Marly is an art gallery worker who is hired to try to find the source of some mysterious art "boxes" that have been mysteriously appearing for a few years; Bobby ends up involved with a group of voudoun-believers who think that it was a loa that saved Bobby. Me, I suspect that all this is related to the AIs that we saw in the first book, but there's been only the briefest mention of those events yet, so it feels like a very loose sequel. But then, most Gibson series that I've read are like that.
I didn't like this book as well as Neuromancer, possibly because I still never really got interested in Turner's plotline. Also, for a science fiction book, it doesn't do a good job of explaining what the hell these loas actually are. Are they AIs loose in the matrix? But somehow it seems that they affect people who aren't jacked in at the time. Are the loas real? That doesn't seem like a very science-fictiony premise. Maybe Mona Lisa Overdrive will explain all of this. But also it is spending so much time limiting what each character knows that it makes it hard for the reader to put it all together. In the end there are a few mentions of the events from the end of Neuromancer, but so vague that it's hard to tell how they tie in to anything. It's more work than I'm willing to put in, apparently.
7. Kelly McCullough: Broken Blade, completed May 30
And then it was time for trying a new male author, but not one of the book on the pool table for authors that I know nothing about. I mean, it's not like I do know much about Kelly McCullough, but I believe we have the whole series and my wife has read them. This book has just been sitting on my shelf for a long time (I believe it was #3 on my To-Read shelf sorted oldest to newest) and I'd never gotten around to it. I kept forgetting whether or not "Kelly" was male or female (still stuck in the gender binary), since it's one of those androgynous-to-feminine names.
Starts off in first person POV, which is a trifle unusual; I tend to associate that with somewhat hard-boiled protagonists like Vlad Taltos or Glen Cook's Garrett or something. I was definitely picturing a "broken blade" as a former warrior/soldier who had been broken by the horrors they'd suffered. And I was close. Our main character, Aral (no relation), is a former Blade of the goddess of justice Namara, and slayer of a corrupt king; but after that killing, the temple of Namara was sacked, almost all of the Blades were killed, and any survivors were outlawed. So Aral has been living on the fringes as a "jack", an odd-jobs man for hire.
The magic system is kind of interesting. It seems that all mages have some sort of familiar, and that bond is required to do their magic. The Blades seem to all have Shades, some sort of living shadows who bond with their own shadows; Aral's Shade, Triss, is the shadow of a dragon. But we see other mages with familiar with serpents, or miniature gryphons.
Aral gets entangled with Maylien, the disgraced daughter of a baron, her nasty younger sister who stole her title, and finds out that not all of the Blades are as dead as he thought. There's swordfights and magic fights, torture, escape, revenge, kissing, lots of rooftop climbing, and an extended flashback to the king-slaying scene itself (which is oddly unsatisfying to watch play out because we know that he succeeded). There's hints of a lot more to the world, and I believe half a dozen total books in the series, so I'll be happy to read further.
Mostly avoiding The Internet Is A Playground this month, though I did drag it with me when I went out to karaoke (first time since before lockdown) when I ended up sitting by myself in the bar and reading a few more entries. I also tried one of the remaindered hardcover nonfiction books I'd picked up a while ago, The Science of Can And Can't by Chiara Marletto, but I'm not impressed with it so far and stalled out in it to read another month of Marvel comics (October 1994) instead. I finished those last night so maybe I'll give it another chance, but I'm not far from giving up on it. I had bookmarked a number of books at the library, and I never get around to requesting them, so maybe I'll do one of those sometime.
#books#reading#Stephen R. Donaldson#Thomas Covenant#William Gibson#Sprawl#Tasha Suri#Adria Laycraft#Kevin Hearne#Atticus O'Sullivan#Kelly McCullough#Fallen Blade
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More that I forgot to add (btw these are characters I view as autistic idk if they are but I see them as autistic);
• Adora (she-ra)
• Wylan Van Eck (six of crows)
• Kaz Brekker (six of crows)
• Newt Scamander (Fantastic beasts)
• Spencer Reid (criminal minds)
• Penelope Garcia (criminal minds)
• Cash Piggott (heartbreak high)
• Wayne McCullough (Wayne)
• Abed Nadir (community)
• Chase Davenport (lab rats)
• Douglas Davenport (lab rats)
• Kevin Ball (shameless)
• Carl Gallagher (shameless)
• spoon spindell (Harlan cobens shelter)
• Peter Parker (marvel)
Yk what’s actually amazing autistic representation?
Character that aren’t canonically autistic. Here are my favourite autistic characters that are not actually autistic;
• Keith Kogane (Voltron)
• Pidge Holt (Voltron)
• Gus Porter (The owl house)
• Hunter Wittibane-Noceda (The owl house)
• Amity Blight (The owl house)
• Prince Zuko (Avatar)
• Scorpia (She-ra)
• Bow (She-ra)
• Donatello (mutant ninja turtles)
• Huey Duck (Ducktales)
• Webby Duck (Ducktales)
• Diper Pines (Gravity falls)
• Maple Pines (Gravity falls)
• Tim Drake (DC)
• Damian Wayne (DC)
• Bart Allen (DC)
• Bruce Wayne (DC)
#wylan van eck#kaz brekker#newt scamander#spencer reid#penelope garcia#cash piggott#wayne mccullough#abed nadir#chase davenport#douglas davenport#kevin ball#carl gallagher#spoon spindell#peter parker#voltron#ducktales#the owl house#gravity falls#she ra#dcu#avatar#wylan hendriks
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One of my best friends just got hit by a car. If anyone is able to help, it would mean the world to me
If you've got a couple bucks, wonderful. If you only reblog, still wonderful. Thank you
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So the park down the road from my old elementary school is in the news this morning…

[link]
…and the Defence Department says it’s totally fine, and that no one is ever going to go near where the bombs are, and to calm tf down.
But I think they’re sleeping on the fact that this bog has, historically, been a very popular site for murderers needing to divest themselves of the remains of their victims.
This is presumably because they didn’t grow up with my dad, who consistently referred to it as “The Mer Bleue Body Dump”.
Anyway, I think I’ve found the premise and setting for what will certainly be the absolute funniest episode of Hannibal s4.
(The name of the show is ironic, at this point, because Will and Hannibal are both dead, but it’s okay - I think Jimmy Price can carry it. Maybe get Bruce McCullough and Kevin McDonald up in there. It’ll be great.)
#jokes that are only funny to me#hannibal shitpost#mer bleue bog#unexploded ordinances#kids in the hall#jimmy price#scott thompson#hannibal s4#canada eh#they did film it up here#hannibal#nbc hannibal#hannibal nbc#hannibal season 4
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Kevin Maurice Garnett (May 19, 1976) is a former basketball player who played for 21 seasons in the NBA. Nicknamed KG by his initials, and the “Big Ticket” for his emphatic dunking and athleticism, is considered one of the greatest power forwards of all time. He is one of five NBA players to have won both the NBA MVP Award and the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award.
He was a 1995 McDonald’s All-American at Farragut Career Academy and won a national Player of the Year award. He entered the 1995 NBA draft, where he was selected with the fifth overall pick by the Minnesota Timberwolves and became the first NBA player drafted directly out of high school in 20 years. He made an immediate impact with the Minnesota Timberwolves, leading them to eight consecutive playoff appearances. He led the Timberwolves to the Western Conference Finals and won the NBA MVP Award. He was named the NBA Defensive Player of the Year (2007–08).
In 2007, after 12 seasons with the Timberwolves, he joined the Boston Celtics. He helped lead them to the 2008 NBA Finals while finishing in third place for the MVP award. In 2013, he was included in a second headline trade that sent him to the Brooklyn Nets. In 2015, he was traded back to Minnesota. He announced his retirement from professional basketball in September 2016. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020 and named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team in 2021.
He was named to 15 All-Star Games, winning the All-Star MVP award in 2003. He was named to the All-NBA Team nine times and to the NBA All-Defensive Team 12 times. He holds several Timberwolves franchise records.
He made his feature film debut, playing a fictionalized version of himself, in the 2019 film Uncut Gems.
He was born in Greenville, South Carolina to Shirley Garnett and O’Lewis McCullough.
He married his longtime girlfriend Brandi Padilla (2004-2018) and the couple has two daughters. He is the brother of former basketball player Louis McCullough. Another basketball player, former Los Angeles Laker Shammond Williams, is his cousin. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence
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The Antonian Reading List
Mark Antony: A Life by Patricia Southern (Highly recommended!)
Mark Antony: A Biography by Eleanor Goltz Huzar (Highly recommended!)
The Life and Times of Marc Antony by Arthur Weigall (Recommended)
Marc Antony: His Life and Times by Allan Roberts (Recommended)
Marc Antony by Mary Kittredge
Antony & Cleopatra by Patricia Southern
Antony & Cleopatra by Adrian Goldsworthy (By far the most negative book on Antony by a modern historian, the Cleopatra portion is better)
Mark Antony: A Plain Blunt Man by Paolo de Ruggiero (Recommended)
Mark Antony and Popular Culture: Masculinity and the Construction of an Icon by Rachael Kelly
Mark Antony's Heroes: How the Third Gallica Legion Saved an Apostle and Created an Emperor by Stephen Dando-Collins
A Noble Ruin: Mark Antony, Civil War and the Collapse of the Roman Republic by W. Jeffrey Tatum (Highly recommend!)
Mark Antony & Cleopatra: Cleopatra's Proxy War to Conquer Rome & Restore the Empire of the Greeks by Martin Armstrong
Actium and Augustus: The Politics and Emotions of Civil War by Robert Alan Gurval
The Roman Revolution by Ronald Syme (Recommended)
Octavian, Antony and Cleopatra by W. W. Tarn
Fulvia: Playing for Power at the End of the Roman Republic by Celia E. Schultz
Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt by Joyce Tyldesley (Highly Recommended!)
Cleopatra by Michael Grant (Highly Recommanded!)
Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff (Highly Recommended!)
Cleopatra - A Biography by D. Roller
Cleopatra and Antony by Diana Preston
Cleopatra by Alberto Angela (Recommended)
Cleopatra by Jacob Abbott
Cleopatra the Great by Joann Fletcher
Cleopatra and Egypt by Sally-Ann Ashton
Cleopatra and Rome by Diana E. E. Kleiner
Cleopatra Her History Her Myth by Francine Prose
Cleopatra Histories, Dreams, and Distortions by Lucy Hughes Hallett (Recommended)
Cleopatra’s Daughter Egyptian Princess by Jane Draycott
The Storm Before the Storm by Mike Duncan
SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard (Good for beginners)
The Last Assassin: The Hunt for the Killers of Julius Caesar by Peter Stothard
Robicon by Tom Holland
Alesia 52 BC: The final struggle for Gaul (Campaign) by Nic Fields
Actium 31 BC: Downfall of Antony and Cleopatra (Campaign) by Si Sheppard
Pharsalus 48 BC: Caesar and Pompey – Clash of the Titans (Campaign) by Si Sheppard
Philippi 42 BC: The death of the Roman Republic (Campaign) by Si Sheppard
Mutina 43 BC: Mark Antony's struggle for survival (Campaign) by Nic Fields
The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium by Barry Strauss
The Battle of Actium 31 BC: War for the World by Lee Fratantuono
Rome and Parthia: Empires at War: Ventidius, Antony and the Second Romano-Parthian War, 40–20 BC by Gareth C Sampson
Rivalling Rome: Parthian Coins and Culture by Vesta Curtis
Classical sources:
Plutarch’s Lives
Cicero: Philippics, Ad Brutum, Ad Familiares
Appian, The Civil Wars
Dio Cassius, The Roman History
Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars
Flavius Josephus, The Jewish War
Livy, The Early History of Rome
Tacitus, Annals and Histories
Friction:
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra by Willian Shakespeare
All For Love or The World Well Lost by John Dryden
The Siren and the Roman – A Tragedy by Lucyl
Caesar and Cleopatra by George Berbard Shaw
Cleopatra (play) by Sardou
Antony by Allan Massie
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
I, Cleopatra by William Bostock
Cleopatra by H. Rider Haggard
Cleopatra by Georg Ebers
Kleopatra (Vol I & II) by Karen Essex
Last Days with Cleopatra by Jack Lindsay
The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George
When We Were Gods by Colin Falconer
The Masters of Rome series by Colleen McCullough
Caesar's Soldier: Mark Antony Book I by Alex Gough (Ongoing series)
The Antonius Trilogy by Brook Allen
The Last Pharaoh series by Jay Penner
Throne of Isis by Juith Tarr
Hand of Isis by Jo Graham
Woman of Egypt by Kevin Methews
The Ides of Blood 01-06 (Comics)
Terror - Antonius En Cleopatra (Erotic yet pure love, Dutch comics)
Cleopatra - Geschiedenisstrip (Dutch comics)
Les Grands Personnages de l Histoire en Bandes Dessinees – Marc Antonie (French comics)
Les Grands Personnages de l Histoire en Bandes Dessinees – Cleopatre (French comics)
Les Grands Personnages de l Histoire en Bandes Dessinees – Julius Caesar (French comics)
Cléopâtre (French Manga)
Ils Ont Fait L'histoire - Cléopâtre (French Graphic Novel)
#mark antony#marc antony#marcus antonius#cleopatra#cleopatra vii#antony and cleopatra#rome#ancient rome#roman history#roman republic#roman empire#books#book recommendations#reading list#to read list#history
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From the Golden Age of Television
Series Premiere
Wagon Train - The Willy Moran Story - NBC - September 18, 1957
Western
Running Time: 60 minutes
Written by William Fay and William R. Cox
Produced by Richard Lewis
Directed by Herschel Daugherty
Stars:
Ward Bond as Major Seth Adams
Robert Horton as Flint McCullough
Frank McGrath as Charlie Wooster
Ernest Borgnine as Willy Moran
Marjorie Lord as Mary Palmer
Andrew Duggan as Dan Brady
Beverly Washburn as Susan Palmer
Donald Randolph as Robinson
Richard Hale as Andrew Palmer
John Harmon as Fabor
Michael Winkelman as Ben Palmer
Kevin Hagen as Lansing
Joe McGuinn as Bartender
Richard Devon as Saloon Hoodlum
#The Willy Moran Story#TV#Wagon Train#NBC#Western#1950's#1957#Ward Bond#Robert Horton#Frank McGrath#Ernest Borgnine#Marjorie Lord#Andrew Duggan#Beverly Washburn#Richard Hale#Kevin Hagen#Series Premiere
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MY THOUGHTS ON PLANET OF THE APES' VILLIANS (REBOOT VERSION) PT 2
PROXIMUS CAESAR - In my opinion, Proximus is so, so very human. He can talk, apparently he can read, wears clothes, and even sets up a dining table like humans would. It just comes to show how much apes have evolved after 300 years, and how badly humans have evolved. In one of the interviews between Kevin Durand (on a website), he explains about this (I will put it in my own words. He says how Proximus Caesar thinks the humans...Are fascinating...And, ridiculous at the same time. How they were before, in a world where apes were below mankind. They could travel oceans, speak across them too, and do lots of things. But, also kill eachother again and again, and destroy the planet they all lived in (thinking it belonged to themselves only). He describes us as a race as "selfish and greedy" (just only THOSE type of people who feel they have authority over this planet, even though it is everyone's world). And, so he captured apes from across all over, and enslaved them so they could open the vault. This was so that he could then gain information, more information about the humans. And, he wants to do it before the humans. Why? In case, the humans gain information in that vault so they could possibly uprise against the apes, and eventually become more significant than them again. And, he twisted Caesar's words from 300 years ago, so the he had captured could fulfill his ambitions, and open that vault. I just feel he seems quite...Human. I don't know, it is just the way he acts! :)
I feel like he almost...Wants to be human, kind of. I mean for example, the way he organised that dining table, and the way he made people (like Mae and Trevathan) sit down at it, to feast...is actually quite human. And, being able to read and talk like that...Is also quite human. And, he dosen't want that to change at all. Therefore, he is preventing any humans from opening that vault and gaining information to potentially uprise once again, because he wants to know more about the humans. I feel he finds them ridiculous, but how they were before, quite fascinating. It's almost like...He kind of wants to...be a human, like their ways...But, not like THOSE type of humans...Or does he? Who knows!

THE COLONEL MCCULLOUGH -
"Colonel: You’re much stronger than we are. You’re smart as hell. No matter what you say you’d eventually replace us. That’s the law of nature. The irony is we created you. We tried to defy nature, bend it to our will. Nature has been punishing us for our arrogance ever since. 10 months ago, i sent out recon units to look for your base. My own son was a soldier with one of the units, 1 day, he suddenly stopped speaking. He became primitive like an animal. They contacted me and said that they thought he’d lost his mind, that the war was too much for him, then the man who cared for him stopped speaking too, their medic had a theory, before he stopped speaking that the virus that almost wiped us out, the virus that every human survivor still carries had suddenly changed. Mutated. And that if it spread it would destroy humanity for good this time. Not by killing us, but by robbing us of those things that make us human. Our speech and our higher thinking, it would turn us into beasts. You talk about mercy? What would you have done? It was a moment of clarity for me, I realized that I would have to sacrifice my only son so that humanity could be saved. I held that gun in my hand… for a long time. I pointed it at my only child… he looked at me trust in his eyes, even in his primitive gaze, i felt his love. I pulled the trigger and it purified me, it made my purpose clear, i gave the orders to kill the other infected, burn their belongings and anything that might spread contamination, some of the men questioned my judgment, i was asking them to do what i had done, sacrificing their friends, their families, and of course, they refused, so i had them killed too, others with children deserted into the woods, one of those cowards fled to my superiors up North, they tried to convince me this plague could be dealt with medically, that’s when I realized that they had learned nothing from our past.Caesar: You killed them too?Colonel: What did I do, Preacher?Preacher: You severed their heads sir.Colonel: Except for the one I spared so that he could return and deliver a message. If they wanted to relieve me of my command, they would have to meet me here and do it themselves. This used to be a weapons depot. They turned it into a relocation camp when the crisis was just beginning, but the weapons are still here… inside the mountain.Caesar: How many men will be coming?Colonel: Probably all of them, but don’t get any ideas, the only thing they fear more than me is you apes, this is a holy war, and all of human history has led to this moment, if we lose, we'll be the last of our kind, it will be the Planet of Apes, and we'll become your cattle. Look at you. You think I am sick don't you? I didn't mean to kill your son, but if his destiny was to inherit your unholy kingdom, I'm glad I did it. I can see how conflicted you are, you’re confused in your purpose, you are angry at me for something I did that was an act of war, but you’re taking this all much too personally. What do you think my men would have done to your apes if you had killed me? Or is killing me more important?"
The long infamous speech the Colonel yaps on about with Caesar and all. ANYWAYS - The Colonel McCullough is so very desperate for humanity to go back to how it once was. And, he despises the apes so badly, and his hatred for them is just...He knows the humans "created" these apes, ironically, as mentioned. He knows they played with nature, and now it is haunting them back. The Simian-Flu then occurred, and then the Colonel soon realised it had mutated (as he saw the example of it with his son spreading it down to others). But, he wanted the remaining humans, still, with that intelligence, that intellect, to still be there. And, you could tell by how he sounded and his facial expressions while explaining it at first, he really didn't want to kill his son. But, when he says it purified him, it meant he realised something. He realised that if anybody had been kept alive with the Simian-Flu, it would spread...It would spread and decrease human intelligence. And, he wants to continue that legacy of humans, intelligent ones, to stay alive. To then change their lives right now, and put apes under their command. Therefore, because he was killing those with the Simian-Flu and all (his own men), the Northern-Army were afraid of him. They turned against him, and were beginning to plan a war with him. And to prepare, the Colonel McCullough used the apes he had captured to build a wall for him, to block out the Northern-Army, and to defend himself from their attacks. And, I kind of feel like he wanted to "re-live" the way it used to be. Apes used to be captured (like in zoos) and they were dominated by the human race. Therefore, he was treating them like this, to assert dominance. To show that humans were always dominant over apes, and always empowered them. He just really wanted things to go back to how it used to be.
#planet of the apes#war for the planet of the apes#dawn of the planet of the apes#Rise of the planet of the apes#Colonel McCullough pota#Proximus Caesar pota#Colonel McCullough#Proximus Caesar
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Man, the early 90s was a weird time.
I'm watching "Kids in the Hall"
SUPER problematic by today's standards, but it is definitely progressive for the time. It's a sketch comedy show from Canada with 5 main troupe members - Dave Foley, Bruce McCullough, Kevin Mcdonald, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson who was already out as gay.
David Foley - Fargo, Dan Vs., Fallout: New Vegas
Bruce McCullough- Children Ruin Everything, Super Troopers 2
Kevin McDonald - Amphibia, Lilo and Stitch
Mark McKinney - Superstore
Scott Thompson - Hannibal, the Pacifier
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So the story goes that Charlie chose his sweetheart. He left that very minute and drove from Michigan to Florida to reunite with Natty.
And Ingrid was left to deal with her disappointment.
What happened next?
Well, it was December of 2014 and TS4 had just come out and I heartlessly ditched all my TS3 sims, lol!
On a serious note, though, before I jumped ship, it looks like I played Ingrid just a little bit longer. My screenshots folder harbors a depth of forgotten memories.




I’m certain nobody remembers who Kevin is (dated Ruby McCullough), but I totally forgot that he and Ingrid had a little thing.
This would be the fall after Charlie ran off to be with Natty. And Ruby had just broken up with Kevin. Pink hearts? I can’t remember what that meant in TS3, but they looked sweet. I imagine they had a mutually beneficial rebound thing together.
I don’t have any more pictures than this. I have to wonder what happened to them, how long it lasted, and why they ended it. I imagine they mutually lost interest once their rebounding was satisfied.
But Kevin was gorgeous. Tell me not to remake him in TS4, because I kind of want to remake him!!! 😵💫😵🤣
Now, it’s three years later. Ingrid is weeks away from turning 25 years old. She’s been living and working in Wisconsin with her family, focusing on her art and photography.
And now she’s conned convinced Jordan to drive her out to California to seek adventure and new experiences to fuel her art.
Is she up to her same old games, or will it be different this time?
Next ->
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Stuff I'm Looking Forward To in March
Wow, somehow it's already month 3 of 2024. In addition to Daylight Savings Time (March 10 - Spring ahead), Ramadan (March 10-April 9), St. Patrick's Day (March 17), first day of Spring (March 19), Palm Sunday (March 24), Holi (March 25), Good Friday (March 29), and Easter (March 31) here is what's on my radar this month:
Movies:
Dune: Part Two
Denis Villeneuve has become one of the great visual stylists of recent years thanks to films like Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. I named his film Dune Part One, one of my Best Movies of 2021. How good Part One really was depends on Part Two, which drops 3/1.
Knox Goes Away
Michael Keaton has always been a tremendous actor and now he's back in the director's chair for the second time with a starring role about a contract killer who has a form of dementia and he attempts to connect with his estranged son. Oh and Al Pacino co-stars! Opens 3/15.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
A Ghostbusters sequel is a tall order. Jason Reitman's 2021 sequel Ghostbusters Afterlife actually had its moments and it had a lot to say about living up to a legacy, in the film it's the grandchildren of Egon, but it could also be Jason Reitman about the fear and honor of continuing a film series that his dad Ivan began. The new sequel is directed by Gil Kenan, who co-wrote this with Jason. The fact that original Ghostbuster cast members are back gives me hope. Sequel drops 3/22.
Music:
Sheer Mag Playing Favorites
I was lucky enough to see Philly rockers Sheer Mag at House of Blues in May 2022. After two solid albums, they are finally back with their third, dropping on 3/1. (Review to come)
Liam Gallagher & John Squire Liam Gallagher John Squire
Former Oasis singer Liam Gallagher's solo career has been a mixed back, but his album As You Were was one of my Best Albums of the 2010s. As shown in the 2019 documentary Liam Gallagher: As It Was, he doesn't need to play music for money or fame, he has plenty. He plays because he loves music. Now he's doing a new album with John Squire, former guitarist for The Stone Roses. Sounds like a serious meeting of musical minds! Album drops 3/1.
The Black Crowes Happiness Bastards
The first new studio album from The Black Crowes since 2009 is cause for celebration. After a bitter break-up in 2015, the brothers Chris and Rich Robinson announced they were reuniting in 2019. In early 2020, I caught an acoustic live show from Brothers of a Feather (my last concert before the pandemic lockdowns) and since that show, The Black Crowes have had some reunion tours (NOTE: by reunion - I mean Chris and Rich, not the original lineup). They've released some anniversary albums, but this marks the group's first studio album in 15 years. Looking forward to it when it drops on 3/15.
The Dandy Warhols Rockmaker
I've always loved Portlandia's The Dandy Warhols. Through this blog, I've had the pleasure of interviewing lead Dandy Courtney Taylor-Taylor and keyboardist / bassist Zia McCabe, the band's 2019 Boston concert, and their excellent 2019 album Why You So Crazy. Now the band is back with a new album dropping on 3/15! (Review to come)
Film Festivals:
Boston Underground Film Festival
Boston's fun genre film festival for horror, fantasy and bizarre is back. I've had the pleasure of covering this fest from 2016 to 2019 and returning last year. The fest returns to The Brattle Theatre (Cambridge, MA) from 3/20 to 3/24!
Conventions:
Northeast Comic Con
I've had a blast covering the Northeast Comic Con for years now (read my coverage here) and the Spring 2024 edition returns with guests like Kevin Chapman (who I worked with on Monument Ave), a Growing Pains reunion of Tracey Gold, Jeremy Miller and Julie McCullough, The Go-Go's drummer Gina Schock and more! Convention is at the Boxborough Regency (Boxborough, MA) from 3/8-3/10. (Coverage to come).
Awards Season:
The awards season for the best of 2023 continues on with the Razzie Awards, actually the Worst of 2023 (3/9) and the Academy Awards (3/10).
In a Category all its own...
Shamrock shakes!!!
#stuff i'm looking forward to#dune part two#denis villeneuve#knox goes away#michael keaton#ghostbusters: frozen empire#gil kenan#sheer mag#liam gallagher and john squire#liam gallagher#john squire#the black crowes#the dandy warhols#boston underground film festival#northeast comic con#shamrock shakes#film geek#music nerd#film festivals#conventions
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The Flippen Rd repaving construction bid issued and Flippen Rd is currently being extended to Jonesboro Rd to improve traffic! 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
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*$2 Billion in total traffic improvements are coming to Henry County over the next 5-7 years plus 2 more I-75 lanes were just approved recently.
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A construction bid for repaving Flippen Rd has been issued, marking the beginning of a major project that will improve the critical north-south Henry County corridor. This joint effort between Henry County Government and the City of Stockbridge will bring much-needed updates to the area. As Stockbridge Mayor & Stockbridge Council Members, this is amazing news having advocated for this critical project over several years
Also a second Flippen project, currently under construction, extends beyond just repaving, as it will connect Flippen Rd to Jonesboro Rd eliminating the need for so much cut through traffic on Chambers
Rd., Mt. Olive Rd., and McCullough Rd.
Here are the key details about the projects:
Repaving Flippen Road, from North Henry Blvd to Stratford Circle the current terminus. However, the Flippen Rd Extension will take the roadway to Jonesboro Rd at North Mount Caramel Rd.
- *Funding:* Henry County will cover the majority of the cost, while the City of Stockbridge and Henry County will utilize SPLOST funding approved by voters to fund the project.
This is another successful collaboration between Henry County Government and the City of Stockbridge made possible by the efforts of Henry County Chairwoman Carlotta Harrell, Commissioner Michael Price, Commissioner Neat Robinson, and Commissioner Kevin Lewis, as well as the Stockbridge Mayor and City Council. In addition to Eagles Landing Pkwy, Hudson Bridge Rd, and East Lake Pkwy repaving we previously reported. If all goes well we should see paving start by late summer or early fall with the bid awards in April.
Elton Alexander,
Stockbridge City Councilman
District 5
#Henrycountytraffic
#flippenrd #EaglesLandingPkwyrepaving #HenryCountyga #stockbridgeatlanta #Stockbridgega #henrycounty #henrycountyga #henrycountysplost #henrycountytsplost





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46) Imprimis - miesięczne streszczenie przemówień Hillsdale College, wydawane przez Center for Constructive Alternatives. Salon.com opisał go jako „najbardziej wpływową konserwatywną publikację, o której nigdy nie słyszałeś”. Jego nazwa jest łacińska, oznaczająca zarówno „na pierwszym miejscu”, jak i drugą osobę liczby pojedynczej czasownika drukować.
Imprimis zostało założone w 1972 roku przez Clarka Duranta i George'a Roche'a III jako bezpłatna usługa dla absolwentów. Jednym z pierwszych redaktorów był Lew Rockwell. Ówczesny prezydent Hillsdale, George Roche III, początkowo wysłał 1000 wydań do „przyjaciół College'u”. Publikacja poprawiła rozpoznawalność nazwy Hillsdale i zdziałała „cuda dla zapisów spoza stanu”, ponieważ jej nakład „wzrósł”. W latach 80. Imprimis i Hillsdale były „ściśle związane z intelektualnym fermentem na prawicy”. Nakład Imprimis wzrósł do 5,5 miliona egzemplarzy w 2021 roku. Jest to bezpłatna publikacja, ale zachęca do darowizn. Dystrybucja nie jest już ograniczona do absolwentów. Treść Imprimis składa się niemal wyłącznie z edytowanych transkrypcji przemówień wygłaszanych przez liderów ruchu konserwatywnego na wydarzeniach sponsorowanych przez Hillsdale.
W 1991 roku dziekan Uniwersytetu Bostońskiego, H. Joachim Maitre, został oskarżony o plagiat artykułu Imprimis autorstwa Michaela Medveda w przemówieniu inauguracyjnym, co doprowadziło do rezygnacji Maitre’a. Do grona współpracowników Imprimis należeli:
Jeb Bush
Ward Connerly
Dinesh D'Souza
Milton Friedman
Victor Davis Hanson
Jack Kemp
Irving Kristol
Rush Limbaugh
Bjorn Lomborg
David McCullough
Richard John Neuhaus
Sarah Palin
Ronald Reagan
Jason L. Riley
Margaret Thatcher
Clarence Thomas
Tom Wolfe.
Imprimis jest chwalony przez konserwatystów. Na przykład Walter E. Williams napisał, że Imprimis to „sposób Hillsdale’a na dzielenie się pomysłami wielu wybitnych mówców zaproszonych na ich kampus. I, mógłbym dodać, Hillsdale College jest jednym z niewielu college’ów, gdzie studenci otrzymują prawdziwe wykształcenie w zakresie sztuk wyzwolonych, bez nonsensów widzianych na wielu kampusach”. Z kolei Mark W. Powell, pisząc w Toledo Blade, skrytykował Imprimis za unikanie sprawdzania faktów i niepublikowanie poprawek redakcyjnych, co opisał jako część wzorca „lekceważenia faktów w celu uzasadnienia poglądów politycznych”. Jordan Smith z Salon przedstawił podobną krytykę, cytując artykuł republikańskiego przedstawiciela Paula Ryana, który, jak powiedział, powtórzył „szeroko zdyskredytowane twierdzenie” dotyczące racjonowania opieki zdrowotnej w ramach reformy ubezpieczenia zdrowotnego Obamy. Kevin D. Williamson z National Review argumentował, że transkrypcje przemówień zazwyczaj nie są sprawdzane pod kątem faktów ani weryfikowane pod kątem prawdziwości ich twierdzeń.
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Kevin Maurice Garnett (born May 19, 1976) is a former basketball player who played for 21 seasons in the NBA. Nicknamed KG by his initials, and the “Big Ticket” for his emphatic dunking and athleticism, is considered one of the greatest power forwards of all time. He is one of five NBA players to have won both the NBA MVP Award and the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award.
He was a 1995 McDonald’s All-American at Farragut Career Academy and won a national Player of the Year award. He entered the 1995 NBA draft, where he was selected with the fifth overall pick by the Minnesota Timberwolves and became the first NBA player drafted directly out of high school in 20 years. He made an immediate impact with the Minnesota Timberwolves, leading them to eight consecutive playoff appearances. He led the Timberwolves to the Western Conference Finals and won the NBA MVP Award. He was named the NBA Defensive Player of the Year (2007–08).
In 2007, after 12 seasons with the Timberwolves, he joined the Boston Celtics. He helped lead them to the 2008 NBA Finals while finishing in third place for the MVP award. In 2013, he was included in a second headline trade that sent him to the Brooklyn Nets. In 2015, he was traded back to Minnesota. He announced his retirement from professional basketball in September 2016. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020 and named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team in 2021.
He was named to 15 All-Star Games, winning the All-Star MVP award in 2003. He was named to the All-NBA Team nine times and to the NBA All-Defensive Team 12 times. He holds several Timberwolves franchise records.
He made his feature film debut, playing a fictionalized version of himself, in the 2019 film Uncut Gems.
He was born in Greenville, South Carolina to Shirley Garnett and O’Lewis McCullough.
He married his longtime girlfriend Brandi Padilla (2004-2018) and the couple has two daughters. He is the brother of former basketball player Louis McCullough. Another basketball player, former Los Angeles Laker Shammond Williams, is his cousin. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence
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IN A MINUTE:

A New Music RoundUp…

“ANEMIC” is the lead single/title-track from @anemic.ca’s forthcoming self-titled LP (TBA: @alacarterecords_) & it finds the Oakland-based outfit, featuring members of Clique, Luster, No Right & Extinguish capturing some “themes of grief & inner struggle” across 3 alt_rawking & post_gazing minutes.

@bambaraband are here w/ “FACE OF LOVE,” the final single in the run-up to their forthcoming LP titled ‘Birthmarks’ (3/14 @wharfcatrecords @bella_union) & it finds the Brooklyn-based trio of multi-instrumentalists Reid/Blaze Bateh & William Brookshire linking up w/ @mercury_tracer while channeling their inner Cocteau Twin across 4+ dreamily noir’d minutes.

“GLUE” is a choice cut from @demoraband’s freshly dropped EP titled ‘torpor’ (@cherub.dream.records) & it finds the San Franciso-based quartet of Johnny Banuelos, Ben McCullough, Ashley Reber & Dilly Dailey grunge_gazing across 3 mins of crunchily faded AltRawk.

@wearethemenbk are here w/ “CHARM,” a choice cut from their freshly released LP titled ‘Buyer Beware’ (@fuzzclubrecords) & it finds the NY-based quartet of Nick Chiericozzi (guitar/vocals), Kevin Faulkner (bass), Mark Perro (guitar/vocals) & Rich Samis (drums) linking up w/ vocalist Jessica Poplawksi to bring a rangy 2:13 clip of tenderly blown-out IndiePunk.

“DEAR AIR” is a brand-new standalone single from @smut.online & it finds the Chicago-based quintet of vocalist/lyricist Tay Roebuck, guitarist Andie Min, bassist John Steiner, guitarist/keyboardist Sam Ruschman & drummer Aidan O’Connor waxing upon the one that could never stay across a tenderly melancholic 3:45 clip of radio-ready & EMOtionally earnest AltPopRock.
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THE BLOB (1988) – Episode 270 – Decades of Horror 1980s
“All I saw was an old man with a funky hand, … that’s all I saw.” Well, there’s a lot more to see than a funky hand! Join your faithful Grue Crew – Crystal Cleveland, Bill Mulligan, and Jeff Mohr, along with special guests Jeff Farley and Ralph Miller – as they get down and dirty and gloppy with The Blob (1988) and its special effects. [NOTE: Technical issues forced Jeff Farley to drop out early in the recording. Bill and Jeff rescheduled a later discussion with Jeff, which was spliced near the end of the original recording.]
Decades of Horror 1980s Episode 270 – The Blob (1988)
Join the Crew on the Gruesome Magazine YouTube channel! Subscribe today! Click the alert to get notified of new content! https://youtube.com/gruesomemagazine
Gruesome Magazine is partnering with the WICKED HORROR TV CHANNEL (https://wickedhorrortv.com/) which now includes video episodes of Decades of Horror 1980s and is available on Roku, AppleTV, Amazon FireTV, AndroidTV, and its online website across all OTT platforms, as well as mobile, tablet, and desktop.
Synopsis: A deadly entity from space crash-lands near a small town and begins consuming everyone in its path. Panic ensues as shady government scientists try to contain the horrific creature.
Directed by: Chuck Russell
Writing Credits:Chuck Russell & Frank Darabont (screenplay)
1958 Version: Theodore Simonson and Kay Linaker (as Kate Phillips) (screenplay); Irvine H. Millgate (story)
Produced by: Jack H. Harris & Elliott Kastner
Cinematography by: Mark Irwin
Make up effects designed and created by: Tony Gardner
Creature effects designed and created by:Lyle Conway
Selected crew members:
Jeffrey S. Farley (creature effects crew)
Ralph Miller III (blob mechanic: blob effects crew)
Special visual effects by: Dream Quest Images
Visual effects supervisor: Hoyt Yeatman
Selected Cast:
Kevin Dillon as Brian Flagg
Shawnee Smith as Meg Penny
Donovan Leitch Jr. as Paul Taylor (as Donovan Leitch)
Jeffrey DeMunn as Sheriff Herb Geller
Candy Clark as Fran Hewitt
Joe Seneca as Dr. Meddows
Del Close as Reverend Meeker
Paul McCrane as Deputy Bill Briggs
Sharon Spelman as Mrs. Penny
Beau Billingslea as Moss Woodley
Art LaFleur as Pharmacist / Mr. Penny
Ricky Paull Goldin as Scott Jeske
Robert Axelrod as Jennings
Bill Moseley as Soldier #2 (in sewer)
Frank Collison as Hobbe
Michael Kenworthy as Kevin Penny
Jack Rader as Col. Hargis
Billy Beck as Can Man
Jack Nance as Doctor
Erika Eleniak as Vicki De Soto
Jacquelyn Masche as White Suit #2
Julie McCullough as Susie
Daryl Sandy Marsh as Lance (as Daryl Marsh)
Richard Anthony Crenna as Soldier Outside Town Hall (as Richard Crenna Jr.)
Pons Maar as Theatre Manager
Portia Griffin as Gospel Singer
First, there was the original The Blob (1958), covered by Decades of Horror: The Classic Era #123. After that, there was the sequel, Beware! The Blob (1972), braved by the Grue Crew in Decades of Horror 1970s #63. Then came The Blob (1988), an updated retelling of the original as imagined by Frank Darabont and Chuck Russell and discussed by a previous 80s Grue Crew in Decades of Horror 1980s #126.
Finally, the current 80s Grue Crew, having some contacts in the effects community, decided to do a deeper dive into The Blob (1988) with a focus on the film’s effects work and enlisted the aid of effects artists Jeffrey S. Farley and Ralph Miller III who worked on Lyle Conway’s blob crew. Ralph shares several mechanical devices used for blob manipulation and stories of the hard work put into the film. Jeff focuses on his work on The Blob, occasionally wandering to other aspects of his career, including Abruptio, his current release.
At the time of this writing, The Blob (1988) is available to stream from Peacock, Paramount+, PlutoTV, and multiple PPV sources. It is also available on physical media as a Limited Edition Steelbook 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray and as a Collector’s Edition [4K UHD] from Scream Factory.
Every two weeks, Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror 1980s podcast will cover another horror film from the 1980s. The next episode’s film, chosen by Bill, will be Cannibal Ferox (1981), directed by Umberto Lenzi with special effects by Gino De Rossi. Yup. It must be time for a film initially banned in 31 countries.
Please let them know how they’re doing! They want to hear from you – the coolest, grooviest fans – so leave them a message or comment on the Gruesome Magazine Youtube channel, on the Gruesome Magazine website, or email the Decades of Horror 1980s podcast hosts at [email protected].
Check out this episode!
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