July 27, 2024

 Howdy folks, and Happy Saturday. We'll try to get the blog back on track here while I continue the launch of my book "Pearl the Wonder Girl", which - in case you missed the announcement - is now on sale exclusively at Lulu.com. Look for it in the Lulu Bookstore search engine, or you can copy and paste this link:

https://www.lulu.com/shop/pearl-rollings-and-james-landers/pearl-the-wonder-girl/hardcover/product-zmk52q7.html?q=Pearl+the+Wonder+Girl&page=1&pageSize=4

Anyway, how have things been going? Are you all-in on Kamala Harris? You are if you're a lock-step Dem, which I am not, but let's not tee off on her just yet. How about a movie instead? I don't have a Montgomery Clift, but I saw "Longlegs" last Tuesday with my sister. Without giving any spoilers, I'll say that it was more creepy than scary, and has things in common with "Silence of the Lambs". I thought the cinematography and overall design of the film was excellent and reminiscent of '70s Horror. Nicholas Cage's performance is reason enough to see it, though he is not the star. That would be Maika Monroe, who plays a psychic FBI agent working to catch a serial killer. Her performance is a little off-putting until you understand why she's acting that way. The director, Oz Perkins, has built-in genetic horror credibility by being the son of Anthony Perkins, and he does a good job maintaining the tension throughout. My main problem was that the backstory wasn't developed, i.e. how things came to be the way they were for the killer and his victims. However, just because of the overall weirdness (T. Rex, anyone?), I think it has the potential to become a Halloween night cult-classic. It's definitely worth a view in the theater, and again, even though Cage is only onscreen for less than half the movie, they just don't make characters like this very often, and when they do, only he can play them.

Back to politics, as briefly as we can manage because we can't stand politics, it's safe to say that the coronation of Kamala Harris is now complete. Barring a miracle, she is going to be our next President, and no one even voted for her. She was selected by the California power brokers who back-stabbed Joe Biden and who want to turn America into an unrecognizable Woke Nation. Harris is of marginal intelligence, is privileged, slept with a married man to get her start, and it's all just a joke at this point, because the alternative is Trump. I will be sitting this election out. And believe it or not, as distateful as it is to me, I will be rooting for Trump to win because he is a known quantity and thus an entity we can control. A Harris presidency scares me far worse, because she belongs to the cabal of self-satisfied, ultra-left commies who won't stop until their communist agenda is instituted. If you wanna talk about a threat to democracy, you just saw one. In one week, she has literally gone from a low-rated Veep to the greatest thing since sliced bread in the eyes of the team-sport Left media who control the hive mind of Dem voters. Again, Harris didn't go through a primary. If she had, she would've dropped out, just like she did in 2020, because without the media's "sugar rush" coronation, timed to go hand-in-hand with the Ides of March job on Biden (initiated by Clooney, representing Hollywood), she is a nothing candidate who doesn't inspire voters. Kamala is a quick study. All one needs to see is her everpresent grin, which - even when she tries to hide it - is visible in her eyes. It isn't a smile of serenity but a grin of surprised pride, as if to say, "look what a few dates with Willie Brown got me!", and when Harris becomes president, you can wait for 6 dollar gas, continued sky-high food prices, off-the-charts inflation, and the continued trashing of American Values that has taken place under the Diversity Agenda that places no value on merit. But don't take my word for it. Listen to Victor Davis Hanson, a classical historian. Here he is speaking about Woke at Stanford University. Make sure and watch all three clips:

"The Strange Case of Woke" with Victor Davis Hanson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX5Jv2Yldmw&t=10s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y147JTEiDg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtIlUqZFlZ8

I wish Shirley Chisholm was still with us. Now there was a woman of substance.

Well, I'll shut up because I don't like raining on parades. Enjoy your Harris presidency. 

I'm listening to King's X "Black Like Sunday" as I write. I don't know why KX fans bagged on this album when it was released in 2003. The songs are all reworked versions of early material that was written when the band was still called Sneak Preview, and in general they are more poppy than classic KX, but they're still good songs - very melodic with the usual great singing and playing. If you are a KX fan, dig out your "BLS" CD and give it a spin. I bet you'll be pleasantly surprised to re-discover this album and hear how good it sounds 21 years later.

And that's all for today. We'll get back to longer and more in-depth blogs shortly. Be sure to watch the Victor Davis Hanson clips.   

"Pearl the Wonder Girl" is Now Available! (wow...)

 Ok folks, drum roll please......."Pearl the Wonder Girl" is now available exclusively at Lulu.com. Here is the link:

https://www.lulu.com/shop/pearl-rollings-and-james-landers/pearl-the-wonder-girl/hardcover/product-zmk52q7.html?q=Pearl+the+Wonder+Girl&page=1&pageSize=4

In case you've missed the last several blogs, this is my new book, co-authored by my friend Pearl, on whose childhood stories it is based. She provided the book's foundation and I put it all together and added the weirdness, of which there is plenty. It's a heck of a good story.

For now, the book is only available at the Lulu bookstore. You can either go to Lulu.com and search "Pearl the Wonder Girl" or copy and paste the above link. In due time, I will make it available for global distribution, through Lulu's publishing services. At that point, it will be available on Amazon and other sites, and after that, at some point (probably at least six months from now) the paperback version will be made available with a different but equally beautiful cover. But this is the "soft launch", for my blog readers. Feel free to mention it to friends, family members, or your dog, cat or kangaroo. I will also post an announcement soon on Facebook.

Happy reading.  :)

(back soon with the regular blog)

July 19, 2024

 Howdy folks. I don't have much to say about the circus of the past week except to comment that, as usual, there is a lot to be suspicious about. If anyone should know that, it's me, the subject of the biggest and most successful cover-up in American history. Besides the Trump Photo-Op, however, what's really upsetting is the continued call for Biden to step down. I will never support Adam Schiff again, whose commitee was completely ineffective in convicting Trump of anything. If Pelosi was my representative, I wouldn't vote for her either, and if they do succeed in ousting Joe, I will be sitting out this election and I am sure many other Democrats will, too. In fact, if they get rid of Joe Biden I will probably un-register from the Democratic Party.

Again, I would ask all these clowns...who do you suggest as a replacement? Kamala Harris? Really?

Now, I don't dislike Harris. I don't think she's as dumb as she initially came off, but she is not Presidential material. Not even close. If you want Trump to win, pick her. Who else ya got, Mr. Schiff? Nobody? Yeah, that's what I thought. So sit down and shut up. You couldn't stop Trump with all your impeachments and commitees, and now you want to replace the only guy who's ever stopped him with an unpopular VP who has zero gravitas. Good Lord, I can't stand these people. Them and their corporate media accomplices.

May God Bless America. I don't have a Monty movie for you but I do have "Johnny Tremain"(1957). Have you ever seen it? If not, you've no doubt heard the name, if not from the movie then from the famous book. The movie was one of Walt Disney's historical classics, and I think I may have seen it in grade school as a "study film" for American history. This time around, I was alerted to it after seeing Richard Beymer in our last film, "Terminal Station". In looking up his IMDB stats, I saw he was in "Johnny Tremain" just four years later, as a very tall 19 year old playing a Boston revolutionary. I remembered the title of the film and thought, "what better time for a movie about American history, especially one made by Disney and co-starring Richard Beymer," and I was right on all counts. Man, I would love for people to see this instead of the BS on the news and the Repub convention. How about something of value for a change? Hal Stalmaster (the brother of legendary casting director Lynn) stars as the fifteen year old Johnny, who in 1773 works as an apprentice silversmith for his grandfather. When his hand is injured in a smelting accident, he has to find another means of support and is encouraged by "Rab Silsbee" (Beymer), the assistant to silversmith Paul Revere, to join the cause of The Boston Observers, a secret resistance group intent on defying the Redcoats. They speak in code and print up surreptitious flyers annoucing meetings in the upstairs loft of Sam Adams' house. (On a side note, I wonder where he brews the beer?) Johnny, an eager patriot, is given the job of blowing the whistle annoucing Paul Revere's legendary midnight ride, and you get goosebumps watching because it's as if you are there, a witness to the founding of our country, and you are also there for the Boston Tea Party. Before that, Johnny - non-political at first - tries to align himself with the wealthy Mr. Lyte, a British-loyal landlord who owns the building Johnny's grandfather lives and works in. He tells Lyte he's a blood relative, showing him a silver chalice given to him by his late mother that proves it. Lyte, a scoundrel, has Johnny arrested and prosecuted for this, claiming theft and fraud, and asks for the death penalty. Basically, Johnny is saying he's an illegitimate son of Lyte (played by a beardless Sebastian Cabot who resembles Jon Lovitz). Lyte persecutes him until he is rescued by Rab and the Observers who start planning their resistance. It all comes to a head at Lexington Concord when a shot is fired by an unseen gunman. The dialogue ("who cares who fired it?") could be applied to this week's false flag Trump photo-op, and did you see his ultra-creepy posing next to the firefighter's uniform representing the man who was killed in the "assassination attempt"?  If you can find a clip of it (from the RNC), look at the expression on his face.

So yeah, I'll take Walt Disney and Johnny Tremain over the BS that is America these days. If the Democratic traitors are successful in kicking Biden out, I will quit the Democratic Party and won't vote for whoever they choose to replace him.

I'm done, folks. If you want to continue to believe in Adam Schiff and Anderson Cooper and George Clooney and all of these effing a-holes, and especially Nancy Pelosi, then good for you. Me? I'm all done, and I was really done a long time ago, after Obama shafted Hillary in the 2008 primary. Now it seems he's leading the charge, from behind the scenes, to oust his former VP.

When you pick on an elderly person, you are on my shitlist. Fuck you, Adam Schiff. And again, Kamala Harris is your choice as a replacement? And they say this with a straight face. She, of all people - not Newsom, not Hillary (well, the Dems don't have many possibilities) - she is the one to beat Trump? Hey folks, news flash: nobody even voted for her! It was Biden who picked her. The Democratic voters voted for Joe Biden. Name me one person who voted blue because she was on the ticket. 1500 Black women just signed a petition for Joe to stay on. Kamala Harris is a lightweight to put it mildly. She got her start because of a liason with Willie Brown. For a long time I didn't think she had two brain cells to rub together and I'm still not far from that assessment. And suddenly, according to Schiff and his shot-caller Pelosi, she's not only a popular VP (haha) but the person to replace Biden and beat Trump.

That's why I'm gonna quit the party. I have effing had it, and if you are in Schiff's district I urge you to vote him out. He was 100% unsuccessful against Trump. So was Pelosi. Only Joe Biden ever beat him, and that's the guy they want to get rid of. I say we get rid of all the traitors instead. Vote every one of them out, and boycott Hollywood movies.

Current ones, of course, not the classics. 

Thank God for Walt Disney. Wednesday (July 17th) was the 69th birthday of Disneyland, making it one of the most important days in American history. 

Well anyhow, I am currently on a Big Big Train binge, probably nudged in that direction by Pat (thanks, buddy). In the last few days, I've listened to almost everything they've put out in their 30 year career. I had no idea they'd been around so long, since 1994. They have fifteen studio albums, and right now, my favorites are the middle ones, starting with "The Difference Machine" in 2007. I also like "The Underfall Yard"(2009, mentioned in the last blog), and the epic "English Electric Part One"(2012). It's successor, "English Electric Part Two"(2013) has one major opus, the fifteen-minute "East Coast Racer", but it is at this point that the band start to descend - just a tad - into what I will call Coldplay-ism, where everything starts to sound a little samey in a big wash of over-vocalised emoting. The melodies become less daring, more predictable. This is not a knock on Coldplay (oh hell, maybe it is), and I've seen Marillion accused of this, too. But anyhow, starting with English Electric Part Two, I like about 60% of that album, and then about half of the two that followed: "Grimspound" and "Folklore". After that, it's hit-and-miss. Oh, and their second album "English Boy Wonders"(1995) is a gem, also, but with shorter songs, a different singer and a harder edged, guitar-based sound. All told, if you take the middle albums and cherry-pick the good stuff on the later ones, they have hours of great material, and the more I listen to them, the more I hear an original sound. They even use a brass section on occasion and have a top-shelf drummer in Nick D'Virgilio.

So yeah, if you are a progressive rock fan and you've not yet heard BBT, check them out, and start with the compilation album "Ingenious Devices", which is comprised of four or five of their classic, long-range epics.

That's all for today. I'm still waiting on my latest proof copy of "Pearl the Wonder Girl". It should be here any day, and I practically guarantee I'll have it by the next blog, after which I can provide the purchase link if everything looks good. Sorry for the delay and thanks for hanging in there. God Bless America. Stay tuned.

July 12, 2024

 Hi folks. Before we get started, I want to re-post the link for my "Pearl the Wonder Girl" Facebook page, which I added to the last blog a bit late, after it was already published. So, just in case you missed it, here it is:

 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561883829130

You'll have to copy and paste it. The page is a work in progress, it doesn't have much content yet but you can see a few of the various book covers I created for the final product. I will develop the page further when the book is released for sale, which will happen as soon as I get my latest proof copy in the mail (the one with the reconfigured cover). Anyway, check out the FB page and you will see the various cover designs. The book should be out very soon, and I forgot to mention that it's 442 pages long. You'll definitely get your money's worth.

Well, did you see Biden's press conference? I thought he did great, but the media aren't going to let up because they want Trump to win, just like they wanted him to win in 2016, when he got 99% of the coverage (especially on CNN) and Hillary got nothing. And you know something else? F**k George Clooney. Who the hell is he? An actor, and (as Trump said) a TV actor who never did well in movies. So eff him. What an entitled blowhard. And to hell with all these traitorous Democrat Senators, but especially the media pundits who are stirring the pot because they want another Trump circus so they'll have plenty to talk about for four years. Trump equals big ratings for them. Good Lord are they scum (except Lawrence O'Donnell). Here's what's gonna happen, folks. Biden is gonna win again. Trump is going down the tubes, and this time he'll never come back. He's gonna end up in prison, despite the best efforts of his bimbo "judge" Aileen Cannon (check out her bimbo pictures with her crooked hubby Josh Lorence). As if Trump would know any woman who wasn't a bimbo. Good grief.

I have a new Montgomery Clift film for you: "Terminal Station"(1953), an Italian/American co-production directed by Vittorio De Sica and co-starring Jennifer Jones, who was married to the film's American producer David O. Selznick. The alternate U.S. title was "Indiscretion of an American Wife" and there are two different cuts, one running just 64 minutes (Selznick's), the other 88. Watch the 88 minute one, available in an excellent Kino Lorber print on Youtube. Shot on location in Rome's Stazioni Termini, the story plays in real time, as Jones, a married American woman ostensibly visiting her expatriate sister, hesitates before knocking on an apartment door, then hurredly walks away to the train station (very modern looking, all glass and curved steel). She's nervous and seems torn, as she enquires about the next train to Paris, between leaving and staying in Rome. In a room off the lobby, she tries writing a telegram to a lover, but she can't get the right words on paper and keeps crossing out her message. Finally, she makes a pay phone call to her sister, who isn't home. But her nephew is on the line, and Jones has him pack her a suitcase. "Take a taxi to the station," she implores him, "and hurry. My train leaves at 7:15."

But Monty gets there first. He plays "Giovanni", the man she's been having an affair with. He was expecting her at his apartment, but she bailed out before knocking, as we saw in the opening scene. Firguring correctly that she was going to leave the country without saying goodbye, he confronts her and she melts. And for the next 80 minutes, the movie is a back-and-forth conversation, in various milieus around the train station, about whether she is going to stay in Italy with Monty or return to Philadelphia to her steady-but-boring husband, (translation: doting, too nice, unsexy), with whom she has one child. 

As written by Truman Capote, there is no real reason for this affair except lust and mutual attraction between two very good looking people. Cheapness, in other words. De Sica jumps on this moral lapse by populating the movie with an almost constant parade of quirky male characters, who peer and rubberneck at the couple in the very public setting of the train station. These spectators seem to know the tense twosome are having an affair, and they want to be in on the spectacle, peering through the keyhole as it were, while simultaneously approving or disapproving via gestures and facial expressions. De Sica's point, which Monty reitereates, is that men run Italy. Just ask that crazy broad who killed her roommate.

Jones' nephew is played by the great Richard Beymer of "West Side Story" and "Twin Peaks" fame. He has had a seven decade career but is fifteen here - tall and handsome, but still a kid - and he very clearly has a crush on his stunningly beautiful Aunt, whose rescue he comes to when he sees Monty slap her. He doesn't trust Monty from the moment he sees him, and Monty wears an unfriendly scowl throughout their introduction. All he wants is Jennifer Jones, no kids please, no excess baggage. He even tells her, "I don't want to hear anymore about your family." If they hadn't cast Mongomery Clift as "Giovanni", the character would be entirely unsympathetic, wanting this foolish woman to leave her family after a weeks-long fling in a foreign country on a whim. She even says, "I just thought I'd have a little adventure." But Monty doesn't see it that way and lets her know it. He's in love, Italian style, where what a man says, goes. But nephew Beymer keeps turning up: around corners, near the gift shop gift, in front of the police station, because he knows Monty is up to no good. Again, this is a real-time "conversation" movie like the "Sunset/Sunrise" pictures of Richard Linklater. The difference is that this movie is more romantically tragic. 

The acting is tremendous. Jones uses a lot of facial tics and eye movements, but those only add to her considerable allure. She is my favorite actress (tied with Gene Tierney) ever since I saw her in "Portrait of Jennie". Both ladies, in their roles, get to the bottom of the human heart, and both suffered from mental illness in real life. As great as Monty is, he's second banana to Jones here, playing a hard-guy macho male, a chauvinist who cares for nothing except what he wants. He even says to her, early on, "You think I don't know what it is to want?" This is in response to her agonising over whether to leave her husband and daughter for a man she hardly knows but who has apparently lit her fire, big time. She has broached the subject by suggesting that Monty, being single, can't possibly know what it's like to be trapped in an unfulfilling marriage. "You don't know what it is to want," she tells him, meaning romance, and Monty shuts her down by overriding her, because he wants lust: "Oh yeah? I don't know what it is to want, eh?" 

The couple end up attracting the attention of the police (I won't tell you why), and the plot turns at this point. Make sure you watch the 88 minute version so you'll see everything that leads up to this. I have the movie on DVD, which has both versions and I've seen both several times. Selznick's version is the short one, with the extraneous stuff cut out. But De Sica added it for a reason. You'll see what it is, a segment providing perspective for Jones that acts as a moral compass.

Anyhow, it's a 10/10 classic. You can't do better than Montgomery Clift and Jennifer Jones. This brings us up to ten Monty movies now, with seven more to go. Which one should we watch next? Maybe "Suddenly, Last Summer"...

My music this week has included Steve Hackett's, "The Circus and the Nightwhale", an old-fashioned "concept" album from the Genesis guitar master, whose playing is prominent and outstanding throughout. I have had a recent re-immersion in Hackett's music, or perhaps a first-time immersion, as I never got past "Spectral Mornings" the first time around. It turns out he's more of a hard rocker than I ever realized. He got shut out of Genesis as a composer, and has an ideosyncratic playing style that includes shred techniques and all kinds of electronics. If you like progressive music, it's alive and well in records like this one. I am also listening to "The Underfall Yard" by England's Big Big Train, yet another band introduced to me by Pat. BBT have elements of Genesis and Marillion in their sound, but make it their own with a more symphonic approach than those bands. Give 'em a listen.

Last night I watched a classic episode of "Way Out". Remember that show? I told you about it a couple months ago, it's a suspense anthology of the type that was popular in the early 60s, hosted by Roald Dahl, and anyway, this episode is called "The Croaker", starring John McGiver as a mad scientist who turns people into frogs. When you see him, you'll remember McGiver as "Lord Beasley" from Gilligan's Island. The episode also features Richard "John Boy" Thomas as McGiver's bratty, blackmailing 12-year-old neighbor. This one is an absolute must see, lol. Check it out on Youtube.

And that's about all for today. Work continues on My Other Book, which was essentially finished until I underwent the Truth Revolution that changed my life earlier this year. I learned so much during that experience, including the fact that The 1989 Event lasted all Summer and not a mere 12 days as I had previously thought. But I also learned of incidents that happened in 2009 and possibly 2010, mindboggling truths that I must now incorporate into the book. The trick is to insert these additions seamlessly, so as not to disturb the flow of the already finished product. And in addition to that, I have already compiled a massive 270,000 words for the new, all-encompassing version of 1989, which I predict will become a five book series, each one 500 pages long. Stay tuned, and don't take any wooden nickels in the meantime.

July 6, 2024 (Book News)

 Howdy, folks. I'm sure you all saw last night's Biden interview with George Stephanopoulos. I thought he did fine, and yet the pundits and some Democratic politicians are still yapping. If he loses the election, it won't be his fault but the Dems who won't stop calling for his head. Listen: do you ever see the Repubs break ranks? Even with Trump being a rapist and a convicted felon who tried to overthrow America, and also the biggest a-hole in American history? No, you don't. Republicans stick together, even nice guy Mike Johnson toes the line. But Dems? Nope. They whine like the namby-pamby wimps they are, which is one reason I can't stand most of them. And the whiners are the ones who wanted Bernie Sanders last time, they're all a bunch of commies who see this as their chance to get rid of Joe. I saw one op-ed on CNN or MSNBC that proposed a ticket of Harris and Whitmer and said it could beat Trump. To even write that with a straight face shows you where these people are at. Biden had a good rally yesterday in Wisconsin, and as he said in the interview, he knows how to do the job, so stop focusing on his communication skills (which are very good for a man with a stutter in the early stages of dementia) and start focusing on the fact that if you kick Joe off the ticket, Trump wins. End of story. I mean, seriously...Kamala Harris is going to defeat Donald Trump? What planet are you living on? Time to get real, Democrats.

Well, anyhow...

Happy July. Did you have a nice Fourth? I spent the afternoon listening to Soundgarden's "Superunknown" and "Jar of Flies" by Alice in Chains, two of the greatest albums ever made, both released in the watershed year of 1994. I found a PDF of an amazing, rare book called "The Ringmakers of Saturn" by Norman Bergrun, which has photos of enormous spaceships lurking within the Saturnian Rings. Bergrun was a highly regarded aerospace engineer, so - as always - don't laugh, just read the book (and look at the pictures). However, you'll probably have to use the online PDF (Google the title) because a hard copy of the book is difficult to find. 

I also had a nice CSUN walk, down to the Turtle Pond, then back up to Maple Hall to visit my feline friend Einstein, who was chillin' in the shade on a very hot afternoon. That night, I drove to my parking spot at Nashville Avenue and Key West Street in Porter Ranch, then walked almost a mile and a half to Shepherd of the Hills Church for their awesome fireworks show, the best you will ever see (tied with Disneyland). Pastor Dudley hosted the proceedings. It was my first 4th of July at the church since 2019, pre-pandemic.  

And, it's been quite a week...(drum roll please)...On Monday, the proof copy of my book arrived in the mail, and while it had a design flaw (a white border around the cover due to incorrect image sizing on my part), it looks fantastic nonetheless. I have already re-sized the cover and ordered another proof copy, which I should receive soon, but it already looks like a "bookstore book" and I am over the moon with the result. It is so great to read the words in print, on paper, between covers in an actual book. I began work on it around Valentine's Day 2022, so it has taken almost 2 1/2 years, but boy has it been a joyous experience! I can't wait for people to read it. Who will be the first? 

I guess I can now tell you the title. It's called "Pearl the Wonder Girl", and it's the story of a 13-year-old girl named Pearl who believes in magic, so magic happens to her. The book is based on the stories and anecdotes my friend and godmother Pearl told me during the years I was her caregiver. She loved to tell me about her childhood, and one day in February 2022, when I had finished the first draft of the other book I am working on, I was sitting around musing and a phrase came into my head: "Pearl the Wonder Girl". That was Pearl's pet nickname for herself, or at least it may have been in adolescence, because she would say it on rare occasions to no one in particular, when I was the only one around. We'd be out walking or just sitting in her house, and she'd say, "Pearl, Pearl the Wonder Girl", in a rhythm that suggested a jump-rope rhyme. I never asked her about it, but I figured it was her nickname, maybe in junior high or high school. And as I continued to muse, that day in February 2022, I thought, "Y'know...that'd be a great title for a book," and I began writing it shortly thereafter. Actually, I should say that we began writing it, because it was based on Pearl's stories, (which I had memorised), and it felt like she was with me every step of the way. In fact, I have given her a co-writing credit on the front cover. We are co-authors, and in a sense, it feels like the book was channeled. I can remember taking my CSUN walks at night that Winter and trying to think of as many Pearl Stories as I could. I came up with about ten, plus five or six memorable anecdotes. Then I said, "Okay, Pearl. From these we will build our book." I didn't have any idea how we'd link the stories (most of which were brief), or how the book would fill out, but imagination was the name of the game and we gave it a whirl, and now here we are. 

For a time, I had a question about the title. I wondered if I should I use two "Pearl"s, as she used in her own recitation of the rhyme ("Pearl, Pearl the Wonder Girl") or if I should just use one. In the end, I went with one, figuring it would look better on a book cover, so "Pearl the Wonder Girl" it was. We began with a single sentence of just four words, "Pearl the Wonder Girl paused". That sentence went through some modification and became longer...

...and, as noted, the rest of the book just kind of channeled itself. It's fun, it's weird, it's heartfelt, and it's magical.

Here's the tagline: "She believes in magic, so magic happens to her."

The story begins in the Summer of 1938, in Pearl's hometown of Mankato, Minnesota, when she is 13 going on 14. One day, while reading (her favorite pastime, besides riding her bike), she has a daydream in which she is visited by a special Fairie. Her Summer (and her life) changes after that, and that is all I will reveal, except to say that the story also features her family members (five siblings, her parents and grandmother), as well as several very interesting characters who seem to have either supernatural powers or strange backstories. She also has a very special best friend. And, if you like Halloween, the book has an epic Halloween tale that could be considered the book's centerpiece. I love this book, and I feel it is a blessing, gifted to me by Pearl. I loved being her caregiver. As I've said previously, it's an unusual book, featuring sections of what you might call "streams-of-consciousness." It's non-linear in places, and sometimes seems to go off-the-rails, but there's always a cohesive storyline that holds the whole thing together, and it's a lot of fun. So there you have it: "Pearl the Wonder Girl". She believes in magic, so magic happens to her. I know I said I would have a purchase link for you, but there will be a slight delay of a couple more weeks until I receive my latest proof copy with the revised cover. Then we'll be good to go. I'll keep you updated, and in the meantime I'm working on a Facebook page...

July 7 edit: here is a link to see the FB page in progress, including book covers -

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=122102897570396127&set=a.122101862642396127

My music for the last few days has included: "The Harmony Codex" by Steven Wilson, "Blue Angel" by The Strawbs, George Harrison's final album "Brainwashed", and "Past, Present and Future" by Al Stewart. I don't have a Montgomery Clift movie for you this time, but I did see "A Quiet Place: Day One" last Tuesday and thought it was very good, though more like an apocalyptic Zombie movie ala "28 Days" than the previous two "Quiet Place" films, which were much more suspenseful and story-driven. This one is a pure action flick, a straightforward sci-fi monster movie with good acting by the leads and a very cool cat. I give it two thumbs up.

And that's all for now. A shorter blog than usual, but we'll have more movies next time, more news about "Pearl the Wonder Girl", and hopefully some good news for Joe Biden (and bad news for Trump). Stay tuned.