#i just finished great expectations and now onto frankenstein! tis good!

[creeperthescamp]

when you start reading (listening to audiobooks) classic books for fun without the shadow of high school and the pressure to bullshit an essay and you are free to ponder the themes and narratives and language of those books at your own pace and can finally understand that goddamn that was a pretty good book and life is good actually

[actutrends]

Our Stone-Topped Coffee Table Hack

For everyone who has been asking for the details on our new coffee table (glimpses of it have made their way into my InstaStories over the last few months – and boy did you guys notice!), I’m finally writing up all the details.

How many words can someone possibly share about the hunt for and the creation of a living room coffee table that checks every one of their oddly specific boxes, you ask? Well, settle in. I shall regale you with a tale of woe and triumph and there’s even a random not-sure-it-even-works alien joke worked in there for good measure. Plus I’ll show you exactly how to get this exact coffee table if you want to pull this same hack at your house (it is BEGINNER LEVEL EASY).

Let’s back up for a second. You know how sometimes you dream about an item that doesn’t exist and you’re like “I like this one thing but wish it had that other top or that other wood finish.” Like you want to pull a Frankenstein combo move and merge three things together? That is exactly how my search for a living room coffee table has felt.

For ages we had a huge white padded ottoman and loved it. We literally kept it for like seven glorious years until it died a very slow death by flaking and peeling everywhere (we’d find little peels of it upstairs in our bedroom – it really got around in those final days). This is a picture from two years back:

It was perfect for small kids (no hard edges to bump into) and there was storage inside for games and blankets. A big padded ottoman is still my favorite living room tip for any family with smaller kids, but over the last few years we’ve started to really enjoy coffee tables since the kids are older. We have one at the beach house and it’s great for casually doing a puzzle or playing family games. There’s just something nice about having a centralized solid surface to you can rest things on and gather around.

And let me tell you, since upgrading from ottoman to coffee table in this living room, we have played SO MANY epic family games (Sequence or Ticket To Ride are near-nightly occurrences) and it’s really nice to use a room with a TV for way more than watching TV. Highly recommend it if your kids are old enough that the change would make sense for you.

But anyway, back my over-a-year-long coffee table hunt. I know. That sounds very high maintenance. I’m learning that I am, in fact, extremely needy when it comes to coffee tables. I’m ok with this fact. I’ve been called worse 😉

You might remember that last fall we bought a cheap secondhand coffee table for $35, just because the flaking ottoman NEEDED TO GO and I had been searching for a coffee table that I really loved for a while and couldn’t find one. So I basically was like: we are being crazy by holding out for this perfect thing, when all we need is something that’s cheap and fine in the meantime – so we can get that peeling beat up ottoman that literally drops “dandruff” all over our house outta here.

You know that saying: don’t let perfect be the enemy of good? We were literally living with terrible (the flakes everywhere were as maddening as inexplicably finding glitter everywhere), and for the cost of one meal at Panera we got a secondhand table that made zero mess and worked fine. We never should have waited that long. It was a huge step up. It wasn’t the perfect size or material that I wanted – but it was such a relief. No more shavings everywhere, plus it gave me a gift: the giant release of urgency to find that oddly elusive perfect coffee table.

Well, we got that “just for now” coffee table last fall. As in, over a year ago. And ever since I’ve looked pretty much everywhere, but this room is sort of an odd layout, so a rectangular coffee table is just too narrow. Even a very large round one feels too small in the room because it doesn’t connect the accent chairs as nicely as a larger square one does – which makes it feel like a legitimate connected conversation area. So after hours and hours of searching and scrolling… and even doing some in-person exercises, like trying a few different combos just to be sure (like a round coffee table two white leather poufs, etc) I was 100% certain I wanted a large square one. Like around 3′ wide by 3′ long. Big and solid.

Easy to find right? Well, to make a short story long (my specialty! Ha!), it wasn’t. Because I also wanted it to be a similar wood tone to the side chairs and the side table that we already had in there (the darker old “placeholder” table didn’t tie into anything and I didn’t love that – and I felt like metal legs would’t be as warm looking as wood ones with our old secondhand rug).

I also wanted it to have an extremely durable, water-ring-safe top so the kids could draw with markers or play spirited board games without worrying about the finish. Which led me to the following thought… “that sounds a lot like our kitchen island – which is polished quartz.”

Polished quartz is super durable, the shiny finish always looks gleaming and lovely, and there’s no worry about juice or wine stains like you have with marble. The kids do very messy art projects on the kitchen island, and everything wipes right off. It has just been wonderful for our family. But who the heck makes a giant square quartz coffee table with a wood base in the exact size that I wanted?

Nobody, that’s who.

So I was like… what if I make one…? Not exactly make it from scratch, but I bet I can find a nice solid square wood coffee table that I love (not necessarily the right wood tone, but that can be changed) and then stain it the color I want. And then what if I just go to a stone yard and buy a cheap remnant piece of quartz (we made our living room fireplace surround with marble remnants and it was so much easier and more affordable than I expected). And you guys… this idea that felt kinda hair-brained at first. Well, it worked like a charm.

It really was as simple as ordering this unfinished wood coffee table (I loved the shape of it and the x-details on the side of it – plus the fact that it was unfinished meant I didn’t have to do any stripping or sanding to get it back to a raw wood finish because it literally came that way). I ordered it on Amazon, it came within a few days, and I took it out of the box and assembled it.

After I wiped it down with a damp cloth to make sure no dust or weird dirt was on it, I stained it Provincial by Minwax (which is also what I stained our accent chairs a while back – it’s a great wood tone). I applied two coats of that in the garage, where it could air out – followed by two clear coats of Polycrylic matte sealer – make sure you get the blue labeled one that’s water based because the oil based one tends to get really yellowed over time).

Then we took a trip to the stone yard and I basically was like “TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER! AND BY LEADER I MEAN CHEAPEST REMNANT PIECES!”

To anyone who doesn’t know about local stone yards and their remnant pieces, they’re basically the excess parts of the slabs that kitchen or bathroom clients don’t use (the stone yard cuts the counters for them, and some extra pieces of the original large slab are leftover). Since they’re smaller pieces for smaller jobs that typically wouldn’t work for a big kitchen island or a long span of cabinets, they’re traditionally marked at least half off. Our local place charges around $40 a square foot for quartz remnants, instead of the regular price which is usually around $90. For any locals wondering, we use Capitol Granite, who also made our kitchen island.

So for this huge block of quartz to top the table that is around 3′ wide by 3′ long, we paid around $370 ($40 x 9 square feet). Yes, that is NOT CHEAP. I had some second thoughts about if I was being extremely irrational and overthinking this far too much. So I did what any person who is teetering between “this is too much” and “but it’s exactly what I want” does, and I looked around for similar options to see if I really was getting the best deal, or paying through the nose. This gut check can be hugely helpful and illuminating either way it ends up going. And suddenly I felt much much better, because similarly sized stone-topped tables were upwards of $800 and in many instances they were $1,000 plus!

Even the ready-made ones that I found in those higher price points didn’t have all the features I was looking for (ex: wood legs, the right 3′ x 3′ dimension, good reviews, a quartz top that wouldn’t stain like marble, etc). Take this $1249.00 one for example. Suddenly the cost for my own quartz remnant ($370) added to the cost of the base that I bought (it was $149 thanks to the markdown they were running that day) didn’t sound that crazy. Especially for exactly what I wanted.

So yes, this coffee table was $519. Not the most expensive thing in our house, but definitely more than I thought I’d pay for a coffee table over a year ago when I started my search if I’m being honest. I don’t know what I expected, maybe under $300? But I can tell you that it completely meets all of my hopes & dreams for a coffee table, which I have since learned is surprisingly hard to do, so I can’t even be mad about that extra $219. Especially after the realization that I’d never end up with exactly what I wanted unless I made it myself. AND DANGIT THAT’S PRICELESS. Well, not priceless, but well worth the effort.

I love that it feels like something we’ll have forever and I really like how it ties into the marble on the fireplace and looks great with the kitchen counters too. Seeing the gleaming coffee table top between the shiny kitchen island and the stone fireplace surround is just lovely. In fact our son very enthusiastically proclaimed that he liked that the top of the coffee table is a giant coaster so they don’t have to use coasters on it. I laughed SO HARD (we have stone coasters in the same color/pattern – you can see one on the end table below). The table really is a giant coaster, so he’s onto something.

Oh and as for making a solid table even more solid, we added these satin brass corner brackets around the edges, because they blend in and stabilize it even more. See, when you put your feet up on a table over and over again, it can start to rock and not stay super square, and when it starts to rock back and forth, you have to worry about it loosening and continuing to rock more and more. And in an extreme situation it could eventually collapse. These hold it square. No rocking = no getting rickety or unsteady. Such an easy way to add even more strength and it only took a few minutes to screw them in (we predrilled small holes so they went in smoothly).

This thing is SOLID. As in, the kids can’t move it. Not an inch. Which is kind of nice because they used to push the ottoman all over the place – and it would do that annoying thing to us where it slipped out from under our feet sometimes when we both had our feet up on it. This stays put. We also used a few dabs of adhesive to attach the quartz to the tabletop, just because we worried that it might shift somehow over time. Although once we got it home we were like… this is so heavy it probably won’t ever move. But it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Oh and one more tip: order the coffee table first & assemble it so you can measure the exact size of the top. Sometimes every single table varies slightly, and you want to get a remnant piece of quartz that’s around 1.5″ wider and 1.5″ longer than your tabletop so it has a 3/4″ overhang on all sides, which looks really proportional and doesn’t read like an afterthought.

So that’s it! The story of Frankenstein-ing a few things together to get exactly what I had been hoping to find. Life will not end if your coffee table doesn’t do everything you want it to, or fit into the room as well as you’d like, or if it gets drink rings, or if you buy a $35 craigslist stand in and it stays there for a year or even ten years. But if you have a picture in your mind of something that you think would be amazing for your family, it’s nice to consider that you don’t only have what’s available at a store to choose from – you can always try to hack or combo-move a few things to hopefully end up with something you love that’ll last a nice long time.

Speaking of the long haul, our $35 “placeholder” coffee table that used to be in our living room ended up being the perfect shape and size for the beach house living room! So it’s happily living there now (and we have big plans to alter the top to work really nicely in that room – more on that here).

I love that our “just for now” secondhand find has worked out to be a long term solution for another space. And the coffee table that was in the beach house living room before is living it up in our son’s room as an often used play table (picture it covered in Pokemon cards & blocks to his little heart’s content). In summary: the sisterhood of the traveling coffee tables is real, and I’m gonna need Alexis Bledel and Blake Lively to take this to the big screen.

P.S. Want to read about other things we’ve built or hacked? We have a whole category of posts about furniture upgrades & building stuff.

*This post contains affiliate links*

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[moveswiftly-blog1]

...Ready For It - a not so brief meditation on reputation.

Hi! Long time listener, first time caller. 

A few things to introduce. - I’ve been a huge Taylor Swift fan for a long time. She’s great. 

I’m also really bad at brevity, and currently, I’m obsessed with the ...Ready For It video and the whole concept behind reputation. I think she’s doing some extremely interesting things and it’s got me massively excited for the album.

A warning before I get going - this might ramble and go on different tangents, but I’m trying to make somewhat of a coherent point, I promise!

Like anything else Taylor Swift does, there’s been a lot of discussion about the ‘...Ready for It’ video. While the general consensus is that it’s awesome, I’ve seen been a number of comments saying that it doesn’t fit the song, or that it’s a nice looking video that doesn’t mean much. And I completely see where they’re coming from.

That said, I absolutely and wholeheartedly disagree. Maybe it only makes sense in the wider context of reputation, but I feel like it is massively important. I think the story of the video adds huge credence to the visual album theory; it really does feel like the start of something, especially when you link to it to the LWYMMD video. This is the genesis of the Taylor Swift we see in LWYMMD. This is the moment where Taylor Swift “dies.”

But more on that later.

Imagine you're Taylor Swift. After the massively successful 1989 era, which towered over everything around it and left you on top of the world, it all comes crashing down. Not only does your personal life go through some considerable turmoil, but your name is dragged through the mud publicly. The reputation that you had worked hard to build, and were smart and diligent about, not out of spite but out of savvy, is stained. The reputation that you used to give back to your fans, to inspire people, to stand up against Apple; besmirched. 

Now, the same people who just months earlier were praising you as the Joni Mitchell and Madonna hybrid the world has always longed for, have turned on you. Everything you do is being contorted into the worst possible "O M G - LOOK WHAT SHE DID" story. You can't even speak out against it, because every time you do, some thinkpiece writer [n.b.: irony noted] has something to say about it. You're a serial dater. You’re a serial victim. Your entire life is a manufactured PR power-play. You hate women. You’re a racist. You're a Trump supporter. "Taylor Swift is over" they say, but they still won't stop talking about how terrible you are for doing...whatever it was you did. Even if you made mistakes or did people wrong (that debate has been had a million times and isn’t really relevant to this), even if most of the terrible and cruel rumours are true; does it really warrant that level of vitriol?

If I was Taylor Swift, I would be tired. I would have little desire to deal with it anymore. In fairness, even if you disagree with her on everything she has said or done, could you blame her? I mean, this is exhausting. Why bother with the endless interviews, the endless promo, the endless fake award shows, when they are all just opportunities to subject yourself to people who want to hate you. So she goes away for a bit. She writes. She meets someone gorgeous. And while she won't let mean people get in the way of her passion, she knows she can't come back as "the old Taylor Swift" - her reputation precedes her. They want the old Taylor Swift back, so they can continue to throw rocks at her. It makes sense for the old Taylor Swift to play that role in the bible of celebrity. But that's not a fun role. She's a person too, and it's fair to ask whether this is a crossroads for Taylor Swift. Whether Taylor Swift can even be Taylor Swift anymore, or if it's unfair of us as an audience to expect that.

So that’s the background.

That brings us to '...Ready For It', and lady-in-white-android Taylor. We’ll start here, as potentially-exciting-album-hints-that-everybody-has-already-analysed aside, this is where it really gets interesting to me.

She's a shapeshifting, master-of-all-trades pop assassin, the likes of which you've never seen before. There are no rules for her. She can be savage and sexy, but guess what: the curls are back too, bitch. She's every type of Taylor, turned up to 11. 

Meanwhile, Hooded Taylor plays the role of Dr. Frankenstein, inspecting her creation, putting it through the motions, each of which is a someone's version of Swift pushed to the extreme. 

Taylor Swift was a snake? No, that's robot Medusa now.

Remember the Bad Blood video? Yeah, she's got a giant lightning sword now too. 

Did she ever say something about a White Horse? Well that’s HER horse now.

And it's ready for WAR.

I’ll give you a moment to think of another time where we saw a bunch of different Taylors from over the years featured in the same video. More on that later.

Just as her creation is showing its creative, naive, whimsical side, Dr. Swift - while obviously fascinated - prods her creation instead of encouraging it, asking that all important question: “Are you ready for it?”. 

If this is going to work, then she needs to be able to deal with this. Any good Taylor Swift needs to be able to deal with being prodded at, especially when they’re in a moment of happiness. 

This sets off the extravagant, indulgent display of power we see next. 

We get some really interesting moments with the lyrics here, with the video shedding a different light on the song. As Swift-via-Motoko becomes Thor-incarnate, the "let the games begin" part of the bridge starts, as Dr. Swift realises that her work is complete. She’s alive.

As the two Taylors approach each other, we get the rest of the bridge (which, as a sidenote, I think has one of Swift's most amazing harmonies, I absolutely adore this moment musically). It's here that the "touch me and you'll never be alone" line gains a new significance; it sounds a lot like Dr. Swift is warning Swift-Prime of the consequences.

The next thing that happens is where everything starts to become clearer. Dr. Swift (aka "the old Taylor") is replaced with this new, omnipotent ultra-Swift. There's no stopping her. She will obliterate everything in her path. If 1989 was Swift's skyscraper, this is a nuclear weapon. Not even Taylor Swift herself can stand in her way, and Dr. Swift knows this; she built it, after all. She willingly sacrifices herself for the cause of reputation. Taylor Swift is dead, long live Taylor Swift.

As an aside, there are more interesting lyrical bits here too, as you can read the chorus as a conversation between the two Taylors. In this context, "In the middle of the night, in my dreams/you should see the things we do, baby" reads less as a plea to a lover and more as a promise to herself, that they're going to be free from all of this one day. This works especially well if you read the subject of the song, the killer and the jailer, to be the pressures of fame rather than a particular individual (which is it's own kettle of fish, and not to say that the song isn't about a person - just an interesting perspective when tied in with the video!).

But this is also the moment when the proverbial ish hits the fan, and we get hit with the twist, as it's revealed to us that Dr. Swift IS A ROBOT TOO. WHAT IS GOING ON?! 

But before our minds even have time blow, as Dr. Swift's skin melts away from the sheer fierceness radiating from Swift-Prime, we can see that the other robots are being destroyed too and SOME OF THEM ARE HALF-FINISHED TAYLORS.

Swift-Prime stands triumphant at the end as the last Taylor standing, asking us if we're ready for her. A single tear trickles down her face; happy to be free or sad in understanding her purpose? 

I’m not sure, but, while we haven't heard the rest of the album or seen any more videos, I think it's a fair assumption (read: at best a solid theory, at worst a really, really fun thought) that this is the same Taylor Swift who goes onto slay the entire universe in the LWYMMD video. So, spoiler alert: WE WEREN'T READY.

Alright, wrapping up on the gist of what happens in this video: in this world, *someone* has been building robot Taylor Swifts to take the place of the real Taylor Swift, and it took many, many iterations to get here - even to the point that the robot Taylors took over the role of creator.

That leads us to the question of "who on earth is behind all of this?" Logically, I'd say there are a couple of options presented to us. The first is "the real Taylor Swift" - who has been conspicuously absent from all of this. The idea here is that Taylor needed someone who can take it to a level of shadiness, savagery, and literally-dying-ness that people could never have imagined. Why? There could be any of number of motivations behind it, which I'm sure will become clear after the album drops. Maybe she has sacrificed her previous reputation and taken ownership of her new one in order to continue doing what she loves. Maybe she just wanted to give everyone the most powerful response possible, and badass Terminator Swift is one big middle finger to the rest of the world. Maybe she just wants to get away from it all, but wants to continue to give us music, so creates this caricature version of herself to take the heat - a Ziggy Stardust popstar messiah that gives her a hard psychological split between public and private life. There are a million different ways you can read this (and it's getting kind of too deep), but I'm not sure I quite agree with any of them.

The other possible perpetrator, and the one I lean towards, is the outside world. With Swift having shied away from the public eye, there was nobody to give her take on things. This has a number of consequences; first of which is that she didn't defend herself from the endless accusations that were thrown her way. Another is that other people will speak up and give the other side of the story - but while they may have an understanding of who Taylor Swift is, there's no replacement for actually *being Taylor Swift*. The result of that is that all of these different opinions pile on top of each other, and snowball into creating an image of Swift she had no say in. Whether photos came out of her doing charity work, or it was another article about the Kardashian-West incident, what went ignored is that "the real Taylor Swift" was just living her life and didn't engage in any of this - and she seems to be okay with that; "There will be no further explanation. There will just be reputation."

To me, that sounds a lot like her letting go of any control she might have over these mirror universe versions of herself. She removed herself from every narrative, and just kinda did the stuff that she wanted to do. All the while, Taylor Swift as a concept continued to exist and evolve in gossip columns, tweets, candids, tumblr praise essays [n.b.: again, irony, I know], internet speculation and gif collections. It makes "Look what you made me do" look less like an "Oops! I Did It Again" moment, and more of a "no, literally, you did this. LOOK."

Swift-Prime is the culmination of that. She's the critical mass of every clap and clapback. She's the ultimate, and logical, conclusion to all of this. She is reputation - the armageddon of celebrity culture. Whether she's a false prophet or the second coming probably depends on who you follow. The key thing is that she isn't real, because the real Taylor Swift can't come to the phone right now. Why? Well, we don't know. Yet, at least. Some Taylor Swifts are dead - we know that much from the RFI video - but all of the above creates another very interesting parallel to the LWYMMD video (which is genius in its own right). If we know that someone has been building all of these different Taylor Swifts, then what does that mean for this scene?

Are any of these Taylor Swifts real? Are they all man-made (or Taylor-made) robot Swifts? Is Swift-Prime in this picture somewhere? AND WHO IS ON THE WING OF THE PLANE?! 

I’m sure we’ll find out, but there's a theme here, and through everything else in this era, of only being shown what someone wants to show us. The story of reputation so far is that it's a narrative about the narrative of Taylor Swift. It picks up where Blank Space left off, in that it's not actually about Taylor Swift. Put simply, LWYMMD parodies and comments on all of these different versions of Swift that are portrayed in a certain way for whatever reason, only focusing in on one singular aspect of her personality or identity, and RFI gives us an origin story of sorts for how we got there. Whoever is behind these robot-Swifts is literally building a reputation.

Now, Taylor Swift is the author of the work, so at some point she's the person pulling the strings behind all of it. But whether she's the one narrating of reputation is a completely different story. There could be a LOT going on here. Could Swift channeling Cervantes, while simultaneously casting herself as Don Quioxte. I don't wanna be the "look at me I'm referring to a classic 17th century novel" guy, but if you're familiar with Don Quioxte then you're aware that that is completely insane and awesome!

But enough of that, there's an elephant in the room.

All of this begs the question: where exactly is the real Taylor Swift? Because if any of this is anything to go by, she might not just absent from this video; we might not even have seen her this whole era. It's a question that remains unanswered no matter what stance you take - because there's certainly no real, human Taylor Swift in the RFI video. Maybe she's somewhere with an island breeze and the lights down low. Maybe she finally picked a rose garden over Madison Square. However -  to bring it back to RFI as a song - maybe, just maybe, the bigger question here is, "is it really any of our business?"  

While '...Ready for It' as a music video sets the scene perfectly for the world of reputation (and I hope I'm right on that and hopefully more will become clear), I've skipped over the fact that, at it's core, '...Ready For It' is a song about wanting to be left alone. It's a song about the constant pressure that fame brings along with it, and the risk of subjecting someone you love to that. Swift has always had a gift for hiding sadness in happy packages. There's no doubting that RFI is a bona fide banger, and it certainly has its fair share of funny, snarling, exciting moments. But there's a longing underscoring it, from the sheer lust in the second verse to the genuinely melancholy bridge.

At some point it just hit me that it's actually quite strikingly sad. It made me feel that, after all that, I can't really blame her for wanting to be somewhere else for a bit. To be someone else for a bit. I would too. It makes sense that, for all intents and purposes, she isn’t here.

Maybe that is where reputation comes in. I'm in no position to magically guarantee that this is going to be some high-concept album, and that this idea resonates throughout the whole thing. I could be way, way off the mark. But if I was Taylor Swift, I'd sure want to show people exactly what they made me do: kill Taylor Swift, and turn out to be pretty damn proud of it.

So on November 10, we are getting a Taylor Swift album, with Taylor Swift songs that are written and performed by Taylor Swift. Some of which might be about Taylor Swift's life. It's going to have Taylor Swift on the cover, and Taylor Swift will tour in support of it. But is this really an album about Taylor Swift? Is this an album about what we think about Taylor Swift? Or is this an album that Taylor Swift wants us to think is about Taylor Swift?

Maybe it isn't about Taylor Swift at all.

Maybe it's just reputation.

Are you ready for it?

[anythingstephenking]

Sometimes… dead is bettah.

The soil of a man’s heart is... stonier. 

True story.

If there was one novel I was most anticipating revisiting, it is Pet Sematary. It was my favorite from childhood. Which makes me worry just slightly about my mental health, as this is a tragic, dark and heartbreaking tale.

This is far and away the darkest of King I’ve read to date (not counting any Bachman). For me, it most closely paralleled The Shining in level of tragedy and study of what humans are capable of. The Shining showed us what isolation can do; Pet Sematary shows us what death can do.

Stories in which King draws inspiration from his own personal experiences make for his strongest storytelling. The Shining after his time in Colorado; Cujo after crossing a junkyard dog; and Pet Sematary while living on Route 15 in Orrington, Maine.

In the late 70’s King chose to settle in Maine and teach a course at his alma mater, The University of Maine at Orono. His curriculum was focused on British horror (of course) and included Dracula, Dr. Jekel and Mr. Hyde, and Frankenstein. I know I wasn’t even born yet, but man, I wish I was in this classroom.

Steve and Tabs, along with their young children Naomi, Joseph and Owen, rented a farmhouse on Route 15. A papermill lay at the end of the busy road, and the trucks took the lives of many pets, including Naomi’s cat Smucky. 

RIP Smucky. 

There was a close call when King snapped Owen up right before he ran into the road. And lastly, behind the farmhouse  was a cemetery for the dead animals killed in the road, with a sign spray painted by the kids calling it “Pets Sematary”. So that was that.

The house the King family lived in.

The real life Pet Sematary in Orrington has been picked clean by King fans over the years, which is a bummer. This is why we can’t have nice things.

King kept this book shelved for a while. King’s friends and even Tabs said it was too much. And here’s the thing - it is too much. Recalling the movie, you remember the terror of Zelda and Gage creepily calling “come an’ play with me daddy”. The novel spends less than 30 pages on the third act, but it is decidedly more horrifying than anything they could translate to the screen.

The novel was finally published in 1983, when King was severing ties with his publisher Doubleday, and moving onto a new contract with Viking. Tabs suggested he send along Pet Sematary (good ol’ Tabs to the rescue again!) to finish out his last contracted novel with them. And it seemed for the first time, their original hunches were wrong, because folks just loved this book.

And I love it too, but I am honestly scratching my head wondering why. Like most other King novels, the characters are wonderfully developed and flawed. But unlike most other King novels, there is no happiness or escape. The story is one of death and grief and the limits human beings will push when confronted head on with these things.

I have to start with the books preface.

Here are some people who have written books, telling what they did and why they did those things:

John Dean. Henry Kissinger. Adolf Hitler. Caryl Chessman. Jeb Magruder. Napoleon. Talleyrand. Disraeli. Robert Zimmerman, also known as Bob Dylan. Locke. Charlton Heston. Errol Flynn. The Ayatollah Khomeini. Gandhi. Charles Olson. Charles Colson. A Victorian Gentleman. Dr X.

Most people also believe that God has written a Book, or Books, telling us what He did and why - at least to a degree - He did those things, and since most of these people also believe that humans were made in the image of God, then He also may be regarded as a person… or more properly, as a Person.

Here are some people that have not written books, telling what they did… and what they saw:

The man who buried Hitler. The man who performed the autopsy on John Wilkes Booth. The man who embalmed Elvis Presley. The man who embalmed - badly most undertakers say - Pope John Paul XXIII. The twoscore undertakers who cleaned up Jonestown, carrying body bags, spearing paper cups with those spikes custodians carry in city parks, waving off the flies. The man who cremated William Holden. The man who encased the body of Alexander the Great in gold so it would not rot. The men who mummified the Pharaohs.

Death is a mystery, and burial is a secret.

And that my friends is how this book begins. Chills before we even start.

Back to Doubleday for a second. Knowing this was the last of the King bucks they were going to see, they pushed this book… hard (that’s what she said). And they pushed it under the guise of “The only book to even scare Stephen King.” People were rightfully curious about what could possibly scare the man himself. Me, I hope the person that came up with that tagline got a big raise. I’m not sure King actually said it scared him. I think he thought it was too dark, which is decidedly different that “too scary” but I guess the Doubleday marketing department did not give a shit.

But, yes, I guess this book is scary. but not in a jump out and bite ya kinda way. Gage taking the scalpel and running amuck is just a blip on the radar of this story. No, it’s scary because it gets inside your mind and stays there. What would you do if you were Louis Creed? What would anyone do in that situation? Could you resist the urge to turn back time if you knew that power was out there?

Death radiates from every pore of this story. First from tales Jud Crandall tells while he and Louis sip beers on the porch. Judd and his wife Norma live across the busy road from the Creed family, and they become close friends in some weird May-December friendship way that I guess happened back when there was no Netflix.

When the Creed family cat dies, Jud takes Louis out past the pet cemetery to the indian burial ground. Remember when I said that Gage’s spree blipped through the story on the last 30 pages? King spends almost the same number of words recounting Louis and Judd’s first trek to the Micmac burial grounds.

“The sound seemed at first distant, then very close; moving away then moving ominously toward them. Louis felt the sweat on his forehead begin to trickle down his chapped cheeks. He shifted the Hefty Bag with Church’s body in it from one hand to the other. His palm had dampened, and the green plastic seemed greasy, wanting to slide through his fist. Now the thing out there seemed to be so close that Louis expected to see its shape at any moment, rising up on two legs perhaps, blotting out the stars with some unthought-of, immense and shaggy body. “

Well everyone knows things that are buried in that ground come back to life. Which is pretty a-ok. Church comes back and he seems different, but not enough for anyone to really notice. He just is a bit dumber and slower - and I mean, he’s a cat, so what do you expect? They’re dumb and slow. 

The real tragedy begins when Gage, the two year old son of the Creed family, is run over by a tanker truck outside their home. The description of the scene is graphic and terrifying. 

And even if you don’t know the story, you know what’s coming next. Overcome by the death, Louis buries Gage’s body in the burial grounds. And it ruins everything.

Leading up to Gage’s second burial, the grief of the Creed family is long and painful. It’s drawn out in a way where, when Louis gets the shovel and heads for the graveyard, you understand why he’s doing it.

Like the Overlook before it, the burial grounds have a pull on anyone that has set foot there. It pulls Jud (who buried his own dog there as a kid) to bring Church there. It pulls Louis to bring Gage, then Rachel. It convinces him he’s making the right decision. The burial grounds offer a reprieve from pain and heartache, no matter for how brief a time. 

And even after the Creed family is gone, others will continue to be pulled towards the power the Micmac spirits still hold, hundreds of years after they last graced the earth.

A study of good and evil, right here on my couch.

10/10 - Sad it’s over.

First line: Louis Creed, who had lost his father at three and who had never known a grandfather, never expected to find a father as he entered middle age, but that was exactly what happened.

Last line: “Darling,” it said.

Adaptations:

Story Time! So. Growing up we lived in an old farmhouse that was built in the late 1800’s. I loved this house. I still drive by it when I go home because I’m a weirdo. But it is surprisingly reminiscent of the victorian from Pet Sematary.

The Google Street view of my old house, because I’m too lazy to go look for an actual picture in a box somewhere.

In this old, creaky, beautiful and wonderful house, the upstairs was split into two sections. The area above the back of the house was closed off, with stairs going down into the kitchen. We referred to this as the “back bedrooms” and in its early years, these were the servants quarters, with a separate stairwell and kitchen access. There also was an outhouse over the barn that we thought was hysterical (two holes cut in a long board) because poop is funny.

I must have been 12 or 13, and had my girlfriends over for a sleepover. These were the years where you lined all your sleeping bags up on the living room floor, painted each other nails, talked about boys (that you could only talk about and not to) and of course, watch scary movies.

Now, this movie is rated R, for good reason, but we wanted to watch it anyways and my mom let us. Bad call moms. Rightfully terrified afterwards, we went to the kitchen for more soda and popcorn. And while we all stood there pretending we weren’t scared of sleeping, my mom had snuck up the front stairs and down the back. She started scratching her fingernails on the closed door and whispering, “Zelda’s going to get you girls.”

Well… six 13 year old girls started screaming at the top of their lungs, so loud that my dad who was sleeping in the den was startled awake and rolled off the couch. I sat down on the floor of the kitchen and cried. (If you know me in real life, this is not surprising you.) My friend Caitlin ran straight out the front door and refused to come back inside.  It was a long time before her mom let her come to my house again.

So that was my first experience with Pet Sematary and as much as I can remember, it was the first movie that scared the shit out of me.

King wrote the screenplay himself, and so it is not surprising that the movie plot follows the book pretty closely. This movie only got made because of a WGA strike in the late 80s - two major studios had turned it down, saying “The time for Stephen King movies has come and gone.” LOL. Dummies. But because there were no writers providing new scripts, they had to pick from what they had. 

Some people say this film doesn’t hold up... but those people are wrong. Maybe it’s because it touched me so deeply as a kid that the terror lingers, but I do still think it’s good. Everyone that saw this movie did the running jump into their beds for weeks afterwards - even on my latest viewing I had to cover my eyes for the scene of Jud Crandall getting his heel cut. The worst.

Now granted, there are some cheesy parts. I described Louis’s fear in his path to the burial grounds in the novel. In the movie we get this:

But the movie also gives us this painting, soooo….

Really Zelda is the star of the nightmares. Fun fact: Zelda was played by a teenage boy.

Zelda, while really only a supporting character of Rachel’s aversion to death in the novel, is given prime time for creep in the movie with her twisted spine and spindly fingers. I still gag a little when I think of the scene of young Rachel feeding her what appears to be pea soup, and it just dribbling down Zelda’s chin. :::shudder:::

Fred Gwynne as Jud is the true star of this movie, with his amazing and over the top Maine accent, saying things like “that path down yonder there” and “you gotta bury your own” with a Winston hanging out of his mouth.

There’s a fascinating documentary on Amazon Prime called Unearthed & Untold: The Path to Pet Sematary that is worth a watch. They interview most everyone in the cast and crew. Someday I will go to Maine and see all the things with my own two eyes. But not the original Pet Sematary, because everyone ruined it. Jerks.

Side notes: Gage also played Michelle Tanner’s uber-annoying friend Aaron on Full House. Also, he grew up to be kinda a babe in case you were wondering, which you weren’t but now you’re going to go google it. 

There’s a remake of this in the works and I truly hope it gets made.

To top us off and just for shits and giggles, Jud Crandall’s parody on South Park. Sometimes dead is better.

https://www.hulu.com/watch/254511

(I can’t embed this link, so just click on it.)

[avva-rm]

Jean Seberg Talks Breathless–Back in 1968

Harry Clein May 28, 2010 8:30 am

Back in 1968, veteran Hollywood publicist Harry Clein recalls, he visited the set of big-budget musical Paint Your Wagon to interview young actress Jean Seberg (star of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, which is being reissued). A transcript follows, including a visit from her co-stars, Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood (with whom Seberg denied having an affair).

As the Summer of Protest rocked the Chicago Democratic Convention and feminists stormed the Miss America Pageant, I was in Baker, Oregon reporting on the big-budget musical Paint Your Wagon as a leg man for Los Angeles Times columnist Joyce Haber. Like Jane Fonda, Seberg was on J. Edgar Hoover’s subversives list, due to her involvement with the Black Panthers. After I left Haber in the spring of 1969, Haber ran a destructive blind item that ruined Seberg’s life: The blond and beautiful “Miss A,” she wrote, was pregnant by “a prominent Black Panther.” At the funeral for her stillborn daughter, Seberg displayed the white baby in a glass coffin; her husband Romain Gary claimed the baby as his. After that, the fragile actress repeatedly tried to commit suicide, often on the anniversary of the baby’s birth. In 1979, at age 40, she was found dead of a prescription overdose in the back seat of her car in Paris, holding a suicide note.

But that dusty August day back in 1968, I was just a callow young man infatuated with the beautiful, sexy and worldly star of Breathless, who although she was my age, had already played opposite Belmondo, Beatty and Connery. Munching two green apples for lunch, Jean, in blue jeans and a red shirt, sat on the stairs to her trailer and harmonized on “My Funny Valentine” with a couple of hippie extras strumming a guitar and rubbing a washboard.

Jean Seberg: They come over for an occasional shower.  I’d never deny that to any hippie.  I do see a healthy movement among the scruffy young in the sense it is the first generation whose values aren’t material. But the whole drug scene is a drag.  It’s a cop out.  I’d rather see a friend run down by a car than on drugs like heroin or speed.”

Harry Clein: Breathless put you at the center of the French New Wave.  Were you surprised?

JS: I was out of work and needed the money.  The producer asked Columbia, which then owned my old Preminger contract, if I was available.  He gave Columbia a choice of $12,000 or 50% of the world profits.  With great foresight, Columbia took the $12,000. It was shot for $76,000 in five weeks.  Most of the time we worked half days.  We’d break and sit around in cafes.  One day the producer saw us, it was his last card, and he got into a fistfight with Godard because we weren’t working.

HC: Why did the French fall in love with you?  

JS: I know they loved the short hair.  It was very daring then because of the concentration camp memories.  Maybe they were happy because I married a French man [Romain Gary]. I’m just happy people think of me at all.  I’m just happy to get jobs.

HC: What was it like making Saint Joan after winning the big talent contest?

JS: I didn’t do it.  Some pimply-faced kid from Iowa did it.

HC: Are you still in touch with Otto Preminger, who discovered you?

JS: We nod across crowded commissaries.

HC: You also made Bonjour Tristesse with him. Was that a better experience?

JS: I was in it, but I was all tied up with that dashing young playboy [Francois Moreuil] who dashed away. I would have broken your heart. I was a pathetic soul.  Everyone disapproved.  Which naturally pushed me on. He was a good friend when I didn’t have good friends.  He’s a very nice man, and when we were married, he was a very nice boy.  I was a crazy girl. It was really a baby marriage, not even a childhood marriage. He did a foolish thing.  He wanted to meet Romain Gary, the French Consul General in Los Angeles.  We made a call on him with the beautiful eyes, who became the father of my son (Diego).

Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood came over as junket reporters from Oakland and Charlotte trailed after them. Eastwood’s vocabulary to the press in those days consisted of pleasant hellos, yeahs and nos, and there was absolutely no indication he would become a two-time Oscar-winning director. Marvin and Eastwood had flown down the night before to Los Angeles for a party honoring Toshiro Mifune who had made Hell in the Pacific with Marvin.

Lee Marvin: You and Claudia Cardinale are Mifune’s favorite actresses!

JS: Toshiro Mifune likes me!  If he comes up, I’ll bake him a Japanese pie. What was I doing here in Baker?  I wish I had gone with you.

LM (playfully):  “No.  You couldn’t have.  I paid for the plane.

JS (haughtily):  That proves you’re not a star.

LM: I don’t have to take that from a runway starlet.

My Baker interview ended when the six actresses who played French whores made a sensational helicopter landing on the set.  The hormone-stoked male crew and cast cheered as the voluptuous women stepped out onto the Oregon dust in their high boots and their lavender, orange and yellow micro-dresses.  

JS: It looks like Raquel Welch hitting Viet Nam!

My interview continued on Election Day, November 5, 1968 at Jean’s rented pink California colonial house on Coldwater Canyon. By the backyard pool, Jean was barefoot, wearing a floppy gray hat, jeans and a red gingham shirt tied at the waist. But she was not as fancy-free as she had been on set.  A darker more reflective mood had set in.

JS: Bobby Kennedy is the guy I’ll be thinking about most today. I found him very candid and, surprisingly, he didn’t think he had a hope in hell of getting the nomination in Chicago because of the Johnson-Humphrey machine. Politically, as they say on television, there’s a breakdown in communications between the electorate and the candidates. But this is still the country where people live the best, despite the gaping flaws.  I’ve friends who live all over.  But after they leave America, they realize it.  They come back.

HC: Didn’t you go to a White House dinner when John Kennedy was president?

JS: Kennedy was a pragmatist.  We can only speculate, but I think he would have seen earlier that there would be no military conclusion to the war.  That would have saved the maimed and killed on both sides.  My God, on television each night the body counts are like racking up scores for either side.

HC: Despite the problems on Paint Your Wagon, how do you feel about it?

JS: I’ve finished all my work.  Lee and Clint took me out to lunch the other day. I was sobbing.  It was kind of like leaving summer camp. I was a basket case.  I had freedom by the end of the picture.  Lee is hard to work with.  He plays broad, but it doesn’t look that way on the screen.  Working with Lee is like being in the Army for four years.  He enriches your vocabulary so much. It’s turned into such a big picture.  When the weather was bad in Oregon, there was the rumor Paramount was negotiating to buy God.

HC: Any other films on the horizon?

JS: I’ve a second commitment to Paramount.  Jim Brown has asked me to do Lions Three, Christians Nothing (a love story about a black NFL quarterback and a white actress).   But I’ve got to have a big powwow with him about it.  It could say good things, but it’s a firecracker. There are strong truths in it that I’d hate to see sensationalized. I had a talk with Sammy Davis.  We agreed it would be ten years before the right story of an interracial romance could be told as it is.  The point being that when people are in love they are color-blind.  But we’re so hung up on the black-white sexual obsession.

HC: Is Romain coming to Los Angeles while you’re here?

JS: Romain’s film Birds in Peru opens soon in New York.  It’s breaking records in Paris.  I hope it does well here. It’s about non-compassionate love. It’s a ritualistic dance of fate of a frigid woman who seeks a man who will be the key to awakening her.  She has periodic crises of nymphomania.  She has a pact with her husband that if her nymphomania happens again, to kill her.  It may be shocking to some people. Romain’s work is very impressive. I was terrified working with him. I wanted him to do it with someone else. But he turned out to be more visual than I expected. He is a very sensitive director. I hope to work with him again.  

HC: What is the state of your marriage?

JS: We reached an ideal with what marriage should be.  But the pressures of our careers kept us from it.  We remain the closest of friends.  Loving friends. The three month period he was in Majorca and I was in Baker was a trial separation. He’s basically a loner. We can accept our relationship on every level but the marriage level. The marriage was over when I spoke to you in Baker…The French have a nice way of putting things.  Whenever a man presents his woman, he refers to her as ma femme.  It’s the same word for both mistress and wife. The French also say ‘never apologize, never explain.’ The French say an awful lot of dumb things…The superb thing about Romain was that he created this Frankenstein.  He pushed me to develop my own tastes. This inevitably created conflict. I have this character flaw.  I’m a ship without a rudder if there’s not a man there.  It’s my nature to mold myself around a man.  

HC: Have you ever thought of moving to Los Angeles?

JS: Only when I am very tired like right now, I say ‘why go, why not stay?’  This town… Los Angeles, Hollywood… I find beautiful.  I’m overawed by the variety of plants and flowers.  But I find the total preoccupation with the industry to be a drag. Since my son is raised as a European, I’ll spend time there.  I made a oath to Romain that Diego would be raised in Europe. I feel as if I’m a cork in the middle of the Atlantic.  When I come back here, I realize I’m so American.  To the French, I am a French actress.  But my roots are here in America.  Even if I wanted to think they aren’t, they are very much so. Do you know the old story about the chameleon?  Put the chameleon on green, he turns green; put him on black, he turns black; put him on red and he turns red.  Place the chameleon on plaid, and he explodes.

HC: What’s next?

JS: This is a paid advertisement.  Any man who sends me flowers every day can have me.  No diamonds, no jets, no Bentleys.  Also I am hooked on good manners.  I don’t mean opening car door good manners, I mean opening of hearts good manners. But I’ve learned a little on the way. I’m a lot less selfish, more giving. And if he’s someone who wants children, I’m now prepared to have piles of them. Maybe it’s a biological thing.  Maybe the career just means less at a time when it should mean more. That, too, is a paid advertisement.

The next time – and unfortunately last time – I saw Jean Seberg I took her a single white rose.

[placetobenation]

July 20th, 18:30 from Korakuen Hall, Tokyo

After Monday’s barnstormer of an opener in Hokkaido, New Japan returns to home base at Korakuen Hall for the next three shows. Topping this first B Block show are SANADA vs. EVIL and Kenny Omega vs. Minoru Suzuki. Let’s get to it.

The story so far…

Primer

Day 1

Here we go…

Zack Sabre Jr. & El Desperado defeated Hirai Kawato & Kota Ibushi ***

Yuji Nagata, Togi Makabe & Tiger Mask IV defeated Gedo, Tomohiro Ishii & Hirooki Goto **3/4

Chase Owens & Bad Luck Fale defeated David Finlay & Hiroshi Tanahashi **3/4

Tetsuya Naito & BUSHI defeated Jado & YOSHI-HASHI **1/2

B Block – Round One

Satoshi Kojima (w/ Hiroyoshi Tenzan) vs. Juice Robinson

After exchanging tight headlocks, both men unsuccessfully went for their finishers early, before Kojima took control with a DDT and some Mongolian Chops, sending Juice to the floor. An apron DDT dumped Juice, but he fought back and back in the ring connected with a back suplex and senton for two. He peppered Kojima with chops and punches, but got a rolling elbow in reply, followed by machine gun chops. Kojima’s comeback was cut off, but Juice missed the cannonball, allowing his opponent to land a diving elbow for two. After a strike battle, Juice scored a spinebuster and this time the cannonball connected to set up the diving crossbody. Two-count only. Kojima avoided a powerbomb and hit the Cutter to turn the tide. They fought up top, and eventually Juice was crotched and Kojima hit a Cutter off the ropes before removing his elbow pad. The lariat was initially blocked, but Kojima reversed Pulp Friction and nailed one to back of Juice’s head! Brainbuster – two-count only! Juice fired up only to run straight into a lariat! One, two, no! Juice ducked another attempt, planted a big left hand and hit Pulp Friction for the win! A straightforward match, but they squeezed out every drop of emotion and the crowd loved it. I now watch Juice’s matches anticipating they will be good and Kojima demonstrated there’s still as much fire as bread in his belly. Great stuff. ****

Michael Elgin vs. Tama Tonga

Elgin brushed off Tama’s mind games, flooring him with a shoulder block and powerslam, and a delayed vertical suplex earned two. The slingshot splash missed, however, and Tama dragged him unceremoniously to the outside, sending him over the guardrail with a clothesline. Back in, a scoop slam landed, but Elgin fired back with elbow strikes and a running crossbody, and this time hit the slingshot splash. Falcon Arrow for two. A duo of Germans led to a Death Valley Driver for another two-count, but an attempted lariat was met with a reverse swinging neckbreaker. Tama  skittered about the ring, running into a lariat, but he recovered to hit an Alabama Slam. Tama caught Elgin with a nice dropkick and as Big Mike tried to slingshot back in he was caught with the Gun Stun. He rolled out to the floor, though, and Tama wasn’t able to get the three-count. Up top, Elgin landed a big elbow, but the attempted super Death Valley Driver was countered mid-air to a Gun Stun! One, two, three. The majority of the match was a fairly pedestrian affair with little heat, but it did eventually pick up and from Tama’s comeback onwards it was decent. ***

SANADA vs. EVIL

A disingenuous handshake led to Evil blindsiding his stablemate, taking the fight to the floor, where he hung one chair around Sanada’s neck and batted it off with another! A face-first stomp into the apron and sidewalk slam earned two, as did a spinning backchop and senton. Sanada was able to stop the rot with the double-leapfrog dropkick, then he trapped Evil in the Paradise Lock. Evil replied by using the referee to aid a side kick and a fisherman buster earned him another two-count. Sanada was sent outside, and it looked like Evil was gonna fly from the turnbuckle, but Sanada ran up and dragged him to the floor with a cutter!

After crawling back in, the two men exchanged elbows and uppercuts, but Evil connected with lariat! One-count only. Backdrop from Sanada, then he flipped out of a German and out of the corner looking for the Dragon Sleeper, but Evil countered to a fisherman suplex into the buckle. Darkness Falls – two-count only. Sanada blocked the submission and scored a springboard dropkick and TKO for a two-count, but the attempted moonsault missed the mark and Evil applied the Banshee Muzzle (arm-trapped facelock). Sanada was just able to stretch for the ropes. Evil nailed a huge lariat for a near-fall, but the STO was blocked and Sanada dumped him with a Tiger Suplex! Two-count only. Spinning back kick from Sanada, rolling elbow from Evil, Dragon Sleeper from Sanada! Evil just made the ropes, but Sanada slammed him down and this time the moonsault connected! One, two, three. They respectfully bumped fists before Sanada left the ring.

Great match between two very promising talents. Nothing outrageous outside of the cutter to the floor, just two guys having a rock solid back-and-forth match in which the winner was always in doubt. As good as I’ve seen from Sanada and the best I’ve seen from Evil. I really enjoyed this. ****1/4

Kazuchika Okada (w/ Gedo) vs. Toru Yano (w/ Jado)

Chants for Yano, who immediately looked to get out of the ring, only for Gedo to sent him back in. He offered a handshake, slapped the champion on the head, then demanded a rope break (“Break!”). Outside, Okada made sure a turnbuckle pad was properly tied, before sending Yano into a guardrail, then a neckbreaker back in got a two-count. Slam, tope atomico, and Okada drew boos for posing. Yano fought out of a chinlock and ensured referee Red Shoes was downed before removing a turnbuckle pad. He sent Okada into the exposed buckle, then avoided The Dropkick and landed an atomic drop, and a roll-up got two. Okada recovered with a reverse neckbreaker and, outside, he looked to hit a running crossbody, but Jado blocked it. Yano then low-blowed Okada and Jado(!) and Gedo low-blowed him! Okada and Yano made it back in at 19. Yano came close to winning with a trio of roll-ups, but Okada slickly applied Red Ink and Yano tapped! We got duelling poses before both men left the ring. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This was quite a bit more of a contest than expected. It was mostly the Yano brand of silliness, admittedly, but I’m one of those who thinks there’s a place for it in the G1. Nice to see Okada win with something other than the Rainmaker too. A mark of respect for his opponent! **3/4

Minoru Suzuki vs. Kenny Omega

Omega nailed chops, but Suzuki retaliated with a gut punch and stomps, then they went at it with chops. A ‘rana sent Suzuki outside, but he ran back in with a big boot and applied the armbar over the ropes. The running apron kick followed, and Suzuki blocked Omega’s attempted barrier-springboard and went after his legs with a chair. Omega struck back with chairshots of his own before the returned to the ring. His Finlay Roll/moonsault combo was delayed by the damaged leg, but he connected anyhow, and followed with chops. Suzuki ran the ropes and attempted the Sleeper, but Omega reversed and hit the cross-legged Ushigoroshi before signalling the V-Trigger. Suzuki pulled Red Shoes in the way, however, and the referee got smashed in the face! El Desperado, TAKA Michinoku and Taichi rushed the ring, looking to use a chair on Kenny, but Chase Owens, then Bad Luck Fale turned the tide for their Bullet Club leader. Omega got rid of the pests by nailing a springboard crossbody over the guardrail and right onto them!

Back in, Suzuki caught Omega coming down from the top-rope and locked in the heel hold. He dragged Omega away from the ropes and transitioned to a modified figure-four, almost applying a cloverleaf before Omega reached the ropes. Suzuki brushed off Omega’s weak strikes and floored him with an elbow, then Omega backdropped out of a Sleeper, only for Suzuki to return to his leg. Omega launched a spitwad and invited a flurry of slaps, but a jumping knee and Snapdragon Suplex earned two. Suzuki countered the One-Winged Angel back into the heel hold, then into the Sleeper, but Omega dropped onto him back to put both men down. Suzuki reapplied the hold, and Omega faded, but piledriver was blocked. Omega with a knee strike, Suzuki with a dropkick! Enzuigiri from Omega, jumping knee, two-count only. The reverse frankensteiner was botched, but Omega persisted with two more knee strikes and the One-Winged Angel connected for the win.

A good match, but below my expectations. The Suzuki-gun/Bullet Club involvement was fine (YMMV), but Kenny and Minoru never quite clicked and it felt to me like a case of both men wanting to wrestle their style of match rather than meeting in the middle. Still, a decent main event. ***1/2

B Block standings after Round One

Okada – 2

Omega – 2

Robinson – 2

SANADA – 2

Tonga – 2

Elgin – 0

EVIL – 0

Kojima – 0

Yano – 0

Suzuki – 0

Final thoughts: Not quite up to the opening night, but everything here was at least decent, with Juice vs. Kojima delivering big and EVIL vs. SANADA my personal highlight.

I’m back tomorrow for A Block’s second show, which features Kota Ibushi vs. Zack Sabre Jr. and YOSHI-HASHI vs. Tetsuya Naito. See you then. 

Two down, seventeen to go.