Category Archives: Sample Essays

Some examples of essays written for APA zines. Yes, I’m that old.

“Lovecraft, Howard, and the Rest of Us, or: Is It Wong To Be Pulpy?”

  Bailed out of DAUGHTER OF THE DRAGON, 1931, with Anna May Wong and Werner Toland, which kicked off a TCM tribute to Wong, and this led to some thoughts about racism, pulp, and quality. Toland played Charlie Chan, most … Continue reading

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Our Future Will Be An Avalanche

Brick and mortar stores are closing everywhere.  Even big retailers can’t sustain their physical stores.  Cost-effectiveness and newer consumer habits drive this change.  Soon, a store will be obsolete.  They’ll go to centrally-located warehouses from which they will make deliveries … Continue reading

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Or Else

Melodrama in Pulp stories focuses on conspiracy, unspeakable cults, and nefarious plots to control the world.  What strikes me is how accurate such excess can be. Look at trumpers; Putin’s oligarchs; gangsters; the Tongs; the GOP; white supremacists; survivalists; ISIL/Daeth; … Continue reading

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REH, HPL, ERB, & Me

  Started reading a collection of Robert E. Howard stories and must say, he was better than I’d recalled.  I’ve always liked his work, from Conan, Solomon Kane, and Bran Mak Morn and beyond.  The variety, depth, and the bravura … Continue reading

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Is Hollywood Losing Itself?

Kate Winkler Dawson’s Death in the Air is one of the books I spotted today at Half Price Books.  It recount the 1952 killer pea-soup fog in London, England, and the serial killer who stalked it.  It’s a case nearly … Continue reading

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A Call For Enhanced Optimism

We all read Flowers For Algernon in school.  Daniel Keyes’s story of a man and his beloved mouse enhanced to genius, then reduced by the same drug to a descent into imbecility, is pathetic, horrific, and emotional.  It makes an … Continue reading

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Writers Write

Graham Greene wrote 1500 words a day, each morning, then played the rest of the day. Wrote them in a leather journal using a fountain pen.   Hemingway squeezed out words by the tens and hundreds, using a pencil in … Continue reading

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Cixin Liu, (The Three-Body Problem and other novels), caused racist controversy among the alt-right sick puppies — they refer to themselves as sad but the are sick fucks — who proceeded to ruin the Hugo Awards by gaming the voting … Continue reading

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RUN: Rise Up Now – Fight the Fascists

Watched NBC News inadvertently on Sunday and discovered it is rife with right wing attitude and ‘lesson’ stories. Reminded me strongly of how brainwashed we were when I was growing up. Obviously the 1% is afraid of us now and … Continue reading

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Now or Never

Recently bought unabridged copies of The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After by Alexander Dumas, per, the first two of the four Musketeer books.  It struck me that we need fiction of that sort today.  Instead of the now-standard dystopias, … Continue reading

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