Implicasphere is an occasional mini-publication that seeks to unearth and revive compelling, illuminating and curious ideas in the form of image and text fragments taken unadulterated from fields as diverse as folk craft, nuclear physics, metaphysical poetry, pulp novels, linguistics, criminology, film noir and astrology. Each issue takes the form of a single printed broadsheet and has as its theme an everyday word that seems direct and concrete: mice, string, the nose.
Since Implicasphere aims to resurrect overlooked and curious things that have evolved in the bell jar of their own peculiar history, on principle, we never commission or use content created specially for us.
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In one segment of the film a small frightened senorita walks beyond the edge of the border town and then back again, while her feelings and imagination keep shifting with the camera into the sagebrush, the darkness of an arroyo, crackling pebbles underfoot, and so on until you see her thick dark blood oozing under the front door of her house. All the psychological effects– fear and so on –were transferred to within the non-human components of the picture as the girl waited for some non-corporeal manifestation of nature, culture, or history to gobble her up.
(↝via The House Next Door)
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More than other Thompson narrators, Marty is not out to deceive. His reflections are stunningly coherent: “You may be wrong, and exist comfortably in a world of righteousness. But you may not live right in a world of error…. The growing weight of injustice becomes impossible to bear.” He expresses what most Thompson protagonists cannot: their insight into the dark heart of society—themselves included—is their cross. Their delusions only postpone, or advance, their own demise.
I just saw Coup de Torchon the other week, and there are some mentioned in the article I haven’t been able to track down.
Also it appears like Black Lizard/Vintage now has a woefully incomplete adaptation list. (No redesign of the website either.)
Donald Westlake, who adapted The Grifters for film in 1990, satirized Thompson later that year in his own novel Drowned Hopes. This book features a character named “Tom Jimson” who is hard-boiled to the point of absurdity.
the movie versions of the getaway and the grifters are both pretty great and do a good job of translating thompson to a contemporary setting (although neither is completely faithful to the source material). I also thought no country for old men was very thompson-esque—more in the broad plot outlines and chase narrative than in the characters—but I don’t think I’ve seen that comparison made elsewhere.
This trailer would have been ten times cooler if a) it was in black and white and b) “Good Vibrations” was used as the soundtrack.
and here I was expecting the beach boys.
maybe there will be an easter egg in this film that allows you unlock a special Good Vibrations version of the trailer. (Backup vox from Jonathan Coulton)
btw, this track came on during “cosmic” bowling the other week and people went wild. spares were dropping left and right.
is “spares were dropping left and right” some euphemism I don’t understand?
Lovecraft Meets Bladerunner
Gene Wolfe’s newest novel, An Evil Guest is now available for preorder, and set to be released on September 16th.
I linked Neil Gaiman’s review of a draft a while back, but the Amazon page has some more information.
It seems Wolfe indulges himself in a bit of a genre stew– mixing noir’s private detectives, Broadway glitter, sorcerers, iPods, cold war intrigue, and Cthulhu, itself.
From Caitlín R. Kiernan’s blurb:
The distinctions we draw between past, present, and future are discriminations among illusions. This paraphrase of Einstein stands as a sort of thesis statement for this deliriously anachronistic novel, which, though seemingly set near or at the end of the 21st century, feels more like a wild confabulation of the ’20s, ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, with a bit of the ’80s sprinkled here and there, and just a dash of the first decade of our new millennium.
Even as Wolfe warps time and space, he also warps and dismisses the too often indulged expectations of genre readers. There is no slavish devotion to dull futurism, but a swaggering, romantic, unabashedly unlikely tomorrowland.
Really, really poor cover choice though. Luckily, the UK edition appears to have a more tasteful design, thankfully avoiding the goth-vampire-meets-fairy-romance cover of the US version.
Trailer for Pineapple Express, directed by David Gordon Green and starring Seth Rogen and James Frano.
The Way Some People Read
Speaking of book covers, I had somehow missed that Vintage/Black Lizard is in the process of putting more of Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer novels back in print with some nice new covers that mesh with the style of their other classics. Picked up The Way Some People Die today. Instant Enemy and The Blue Hammer won’t be released until April.
And no, Black Lizard still hasn’t redesigned their website.
I’d like to see some chester himes reissues.
Actually there are two new trade paperback editions of All Shot Up and The Big Gold Dream published by Pegasus Books. Unfortunately I can’t actually find the correct Pegasus website for these. The cover for All Shot Up happened to catch my eye in the bookstore today.
On the Theme of Noir Gift Guides
Seeing lots of Holiday Gift Guides going around, and figured I’d throw together a list of smaller publishers for your crime/noir/cult lit obsessed loved one.
- Millipede Press: Specializing in horror and crime fiction in paperback as well as expensive artist editions. Recommended: The Deadly Percheron, Nightfall.
- Serpent’s Tail: Pelicanos, Goodis, Mosley as well as some lesser known (on this side of the ocean) British authors.
- Europa Editions: Domestic printings of contemporary European authors. Fairly new, but the catalog looks promising.
- Soho Crime: Foreign settings and unique investigators. Always interesting to get a feel for various cultures via each culture’s pop newstand authors. Recommended: The Reaper, Inspector Imanishi Investigates.
- Hard Case: Neo-retro pulp, right down to the covers. Split pretty evenly between out of print noir and contemporary authors (some veering a bit too far into pastiche). Recommended: 361, Dead Street.
- New York Review of Books: I highly recommend the Georges Simenon romans durs novels they’ve made available again: Strangers in the House, The Man Who Watched Trains Go By.
- Black Lizard: The best source for in print paperbacks of the classics (Chandler, Jim Thompson, MacDonald, Ambler) and some great contemporaries (Mandell, Vachss, Dibdin).
hard boiled.
Another one I’m not too familiar with: Bitter Lemon Press.
Nicest Spree Killer of All Time
Interesting interview with Joe Carnahan about the upcoming White Jazz adaptation. Efforts to make it have died out at least twice, but this one is supposed to start filming in a couple of months.
Okay, here’s one thing that’s been kind of stuck in my head. Clooney played a spree-killer in From Dusk Till Dawn, and he was the nicest spree-killer of all time. In Out of Sight, he was the nicest bank robber ever. How is this guy going to hurl Sanderline Johnson out of a window?
Yeah, listen. Clooney wants… So there are scenes that are kind of unbelievably grotesque and unfathomable and despicable and I think George’s willingness to go there… you make a very good point, a very salient point. I don’t think there’s anything nice about Klein. You’re right, the spree-killer in From Dusk Till Dawn, George never has a moment like with Sanderline Johnson where he just kills an innocent guy. I think that, in and of itself, will set the pace and the tempo for what’s to follow, and listen, George wants that. He’s made that very clear to me: “I have no other desire than to play what’s in that script.” And what’s in that script is a pretty despicable guy at times, and pretty nefarious and nasty and selfish.
I’m curious how this movie is going to work, as the novel is brutal and slips in and out of stream of consciousness. In addition it sounds like certain characters have been changed, according to Carnahan:
Also, since Regency has prevented us from using the Exley character, my brother and I were forced to basically construct a doppelganger, giving him all of Exley’s traits and speech patterns. We’re hoping it works. On paper. It’s fantastic.
Yeah, I’m wondering how this is going to work out as well. So much of the appeal of the book was the style in which it was written.
wish i had a cool gerund in front of my name.
Did you guys see Smokin’ Aces?
No, but I watched Narc a couple of months ago.
Check out these (mostly) awesome covers for the books from Millipede Press, which “is “dedicated to bringing the finest in horror and crime fiction back into print.”
I’m wrapping up David Goodis’ Nightfall right now, but intend to read the pictured book shortly. Huggable Maine native Stephen King says: “Trying to imagine what might have happened if Raymond Chandler had written The Exorcist is as close as I can come.”
Most of the books have worthwhile extras (short stories, introductions, etc.) too.
The sister company, Centipede, seems to do limited run fancy books and has a $1500 edition of Modcult-approved BoTNS on the way.