Yesterday was getting the computer set up. Not the computer itself - that took me 20 minutes to get running. Then it was 10 minutes trying to fix what I screwed up by moving the computer from the floor to the table.
I did not go Liturgy or Vespers yesterday. My yes still hurt from visiting the eye doctor on Tuesday. Plus I had had stayed up too late on Tuesday. (Which I did again last night).
I wrote nothing yesterday - I was too busy trying to get what I had left behind in moving from computers. Also, I was a little enraptured at being to see what I was actually writing. So far, the only thing I cannot seem to get working again is the grammar checker extension for LibreOffice.
Today, I was lazy this morning. I did not rise until 7:30 AM. Then I spent the time from 9 AM to around 4 PM working on a research job. I got that knocked in shape well ahead of schedule.
I did catch the bus last night to Payless. Tonight, the 5:15 did not show up, so I walked down to the convenience store. The sidewalks have enough ice on them I needed to be careful. Otherwise, I have stayed in place.
I finished watching Soldier of Orange last night. It is on Tubi. Rutger Hauer cut through the movie like a sharp knife. It is an interesting movie - the heroes do not exactly triumph. I have been trying to think of Hauer in an American movie where he was quite so much the hero.
Some reading material from the past few days:
The year’s best literary podcasts. Literary Hub
The 29 Best (Old) Books We Read in 2025 Literary Hub
Saints of the Middlebrow (Los Angeles Review of Books)
What I Learned Discussing Israel with Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon and Marjorie Taylor Greene (POLITICO); not good news, even for me who has gotten more jaundiced towards Israel as Netanyahu holds onto power.
Let's Not Bring Back The Gatekeepers - by Dan Williams - I think I agree with the general idea, even if I am not sure it can be accomplished.
Here we go with the bad news last night from Indiana:
Indiana Republicans threaten to thwart Trump's redistricting onslaught (POLITICO)
And now for the good news from Indiana:
Indiana Senate rejects Trump's redistricting effort (Axios). 21 Republicans voted against redistricting. Out of 39 Republicans! Wow. Guess those Republican Senators remembered they worked for their constituents and not Donald J. Trump.
The email calls. It has been grossly neglected these past 24 hours. If I read anything interesting, I will add it below.
sch
I cannot quibble with the top four of An Infallible Ranking of Crime-Solving Clergy (Reactor).
I apologize for not recognizing any of the names mentioned in Five Freshly Reprinted SFF Books and Series (Reactor).
As for Krull Deserves a Bigger Cult Following — Who’s With Me? (Reactor). I am. This is the kind of movie that ought to be remade. Special effects are better now. Audiences might be more willing to blend fantasy and science fiction nowadays. And maybe they could find a writer and director to make better sense of the original idea. Last and not least: better male and female leads.
Tyler Dean manages to sum up the movie better than anyone I know, better than I could have when I first saw it and even after re-watching it this past year. He nails its strange blend of annoyance and beguilement.
If I had to point to a single quality that makes Krull so delightful, it would be a fearlessness with regards to its worldbuilding. Released the same year as Return of the Jedi, Krull clearly takes the Star Wars approach of confidently launching its original story in the kind of lived-in world whose history feels much deeper than what is actually explained on screen. Unlike Star Wars, however, it basically eschews all exposition, to both its credit and its detriment.
Take, for example, a third act plot point where Ynyr must visit a character who has rated only the briefest mention up to this point in the film: The Widow of the Web, an ancient sorceress (Francesca Annis) who lives in a crystal at the center of a huge web guarded by the aforementioned crystalline spider. We learn, in very short order, that the Widow has some sort of control over the flow of time, that Ynyr and the Widow once had a son which the Widow killed shortly after his birth, that the Widow is also named Lyssa, and that she is willing to sacrifice herself to save the other Lyssa by providing Ynar with just enough time to deliver vital information to Colwyn. That’s a lot of plot, and there is almost no other context for any of it. In most movies, that sort of dense plotting would require an entire act of a film to set up and explore and Krull burns through it in a scene that lasts, at most, five minutes. Imagine if Obi-Wan just shouted out a laundry list of all his past entanglements with Darth Vader in the two minutes before their duel and none of it was ever mentioned anywhere else in the film.
That’s definitely not to Krull’s credit (and there is a reason taking the same approach as Star Wars doesn’t necessarily lead to Star Wars-esque success) but at the same time, there is something so matter-of-fact and unforced about the whole of Ynar and the Widow’s backstory that one finds oneself intrigued rather than impatient. Krull, despite being an original property (producer Ron Silverman claims the original prompt for the film was inspired by Dungeons & Dragons), feels like it is using remarkable economy of storytelling to cram in details from much more complex and capacious source material. It’s a movie that feels designed to make viewers question if there wasn’t a trilogy of forgotten fantasy novels on which it was based. Everything about the story—from its magical wedding rites and its ancient rivalries between noble houses to the Glaive itself—somehow manages to feel deeper and more engaging than it is.
I forgot to mention a few things earlier. First, I had two rejections come in the email.
Thank you for sending us "Agnes." While we are grateful to have had the opportunity to read your work, we're sorry to say it isn't a good fit for us at this time. Our submissions queue continues to grow, and we often have to decline many excellent pieces.
Thanks again for trusting us with your work. Best of luck with this piece and all of your writing.
Sincerely,
The Editors
***
Thank you again for sending us "The Revenger's Table." We enjoyed reading it and appreciated the tone and sense of place you created, but it is not the right fit for our Spring 2026 issue.
There is a lot to admire in the piece. Your setup has a strong noir atmosphere, and the conversation in the bar between Owen and the stranger is compelling. You also do an excellent job weaving background details into the scene without losing momentum.
One thing we think could make the story even stronger is tightening the pacing in the middle section. The long anecdote told by the stranger has weight, but the delivery slows the tension that has been building around Owen’s situation.
We hope you will keep us in mind for future work. You clearly have talent, and we would be glad to consider more of your stories down the road.
Best regards,
Thriller Magazine Editors
***
Thank you for sending us "Agnes." We know you've worked hard on it and appreciate that you've sent it to The Rumpus for consideration. While this isn't a fit for us, we wish you the best of luck in finding a home for it elsewhere.
Sincerely,
Roxane Gay
The other thing was the PO came up around 4 pm to get the old laptop. He came in as I was sending my research to MW. A man of regulated habits, like an old watch, he had to ask me if there was anything new since his last visit (last week). He had to be told twice I had signed off the same release when I broke the first laptop. I doubt he remembers that; which might explain why he thinks I have the same lack of memory. I had removed everything I could off the hard drive. No way I was going to take a chance of someone taking my work. I spent 11 years observing federal law enforcement up close.
Trump predicts Indiana Senate GOP leader will lose next primary over redistricting vote (The Hill) demonstrates how finely tuned Trump is to politics.
President Trump predicted that Indiana state Senate Republican Leader Rodric Bray will lose his next primary following a failed vote in the chamber to pass a GOP-favored House map on Thursday.
“I heard he was against it. He’ll probably lose his next primary whenever that is. I hope he does because he’s done a tremendous disservice,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday when asked about the chamber’s rejection of the map.
Bray is not up for reelection until 2028.
2028 might as well in a different century as far as politics go.
And there I end for the day.
sch.
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