Carnival of Light

Paul McCartney doesn’t need to worry about his legacy, but he is worried. Perhaps The Beatles Anthology (both book and three (double-disk) CD sets) was the first indication, but Wingspan, a Wings greatest hits compilation (do any of you not know that Wings was McCartney’s highly successful (and highly inconsistent) post-Beatles band?) and the attendant television special clearly announced his… anxiety.I don’t mind a little aggrandizement, especially from someone who did, undeniably, contribute (positively) to our culture. As a Beatle, he not only co-wrote and wrote excellent pop songs, both for the Beatles and for a myriad of other artists (the first no. 1 for The Rolling Stones, Peter & Gordon’s no. 1 “World Without Love,” Badfinger’s “Come and Get It,” etc.), but he was also concerned—more so than John Lennon—with the evolution of the album as a single work of art (now perhaps a quaint idea, due to the reemergence of the single as the dominant pop unit), most obviously evident on the McCartney-driven Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band and the linked b-side of Abbey Road. More important, though, than attempting to parse out who did what as a Beatle—they all contributed significantly to their collective sound, look, and spirit—McCartney’s need to work kept the band moving forward. Even as Lennon sank into sloth, suburbia, and heroin, McCartney’s drive inspired Lennon to write. McCartney showed up to the studio with five songs for Pepper; Lennon replied with five more. Post-Beatles, McCartney has given us a lot of silliness (though far less than people seem to think). This silliness is the likely reason why he may now seem slight—not, as he seems to think, because of the vast shadow his murdered best friend Lennon has cast.And now he’s being silly again. No, his efforts to release The Beatles track “Carnival of Light” isn’t silly. Maybe unnecessary—though considering the significance of The Beatles, it’s no less necessary than publishing newly uncovered Robert Frost poems. What’s silly is McCartney’s hope that “Carnival of Light” will serve as evidence that, as McCartney says through the mouth of interviewer John Wilson: “it will help reaffirm McCartney’s claim to have been the most musically adventurous of all the Beatles.”It won’t. Whether or not it will be good isn’t the issue. “Carnival of Light” will be fun to listen to—as a relic.I like “Revolution No. 9,” the Lennon-Harrison sound collage on The White Album; I imagine that “Carnival of Light” won’t be as strong, but will be more fun—this is Pepper-era noise-play, after all, and you’ll know just how much fun when you pull your copy of Pepper off the shelf and listen to all the wonderful noise on that record—the instruments tuning up, the laughter at the end of “Within You Without You” (quite possibly my favorite moment on the album), the rooster that kicks off “Good Morning Good Morning” or the animal sounds at that track’s end, the roar of the crowd, and the “Sgt. Pepper Inner Groove” (as it’s called on Rarities) that ends the record.Release “Carnival of Light”—please! And every little scrap of studio (Abbey Roadand otherwise) noise The Beatles ever made. I will bankrupt myself to buy it because it adds to the joy The Beatles have given me since I was five years old. But Paul, don’t do it to sort out your legacy. You don’t get to sort out your legacy. Rather focus your energies on making new (and worthwhile) music—as you have lately done—and let us decide who Paul McCartney was, Beatle and otherwise.____Adam Golaski is the author of Color Plates and Worse Than Myself. He co-edits for Flim Forum Press, and is the editor of New Genre. Check in on Adam at Little Stories.

The Homeless Moon

The Homeless Moonby Andrews, Deluca, Hoffman, Howe, & RidlerCreative Commons Chapbook, 2008The Homeless Moon is a chapbook collection of five short stories, all of which could be called science fiction but might also be called new weird, which basically means fantasy, though not quite, it’s like calling horror dark fantasy, I think, somehow… the authors, on the back of the chapbook, call their collection “a cache of eclectic genre fiction,” and that’s just vague enough to work. While I’d hoped the Earth’s moon would be what would connect all the stories, what connects these stories is the Odyssey workshop, a fantasy writing workshop, which the five authors of The Homeless Moon attended. The blurb on the back of the book, begins, “Five Odyssey grads join together like a piecemeal mutant Voltron…."The reference to Voltron put me off. I am, admittedly, a stick in the mud, but the tendency to refer to a combined effort as being like Voltron signals a dorky sense of humor that I do not enjoy (and even as a young boy, Voltron bored me to tears). Hint of dorkiness aside, I was drawn to the chapbook, a freebie at Readercon (a Boston-area fantasy literature convention), because of the mysterious cover image—a spider-like silhouette shining a beam of light in a field; the moon, slightly obscured by black clouds, low in the sky—and by the title, taken from a story by Isaac Babel: “Over the town roamed the homeless moon. I went along with her, warming up in my heart impracticable dreams and discordant songs.”And there was also the fact of my ignorance regarding the authors; I’d read none of the five: Michael J. DeLuca, Jason S. Ridler, Scott H. Andrews, Erin Hoffman, and Justin Howe. Ultimately, the first story, DeLuca’s “Construction-Paper Moon,” convinced me to read all five stories—and to write this review.“Construction-Paper Moon” is rich with snug, childhood-bedroom atmosphere, and seems to take as its leaping-off point those glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to so many bedroom ceilings. The story takes place twenty-or-so years in the future, when Earth’s moon has disappeared, but is primarily about a daughter and her father. The image that stirred me the most: without the moon, the ocean is still.None of the other stories were as affecting, but only one was bad. My dislike for satire grows with every modest proposal I read, and “Colonized,” by Andrews, which turns the racial tables on a Virginia Tech-like shooting, only reaffirms my dislike. The subject matter is worthy: American’s current fears regarding China, American racism, gun-control, and big-government—but the elbow-nudging satire gets painful quick.Hoffman’s story, the other moon story, “The Recurrence of Orpheus,” comes in at second place, as its three god-like main characters journey to an underworld to reclaim the moon, because, “[Alexander] rolled it down there a week past solstice, and he won’t come out again.” A myth vivid with images.I also liked Ridler’s “Impracticable Dreams,” about a magician who must feed his magic hat, and Howe’s “Welcome to Foreign Lands,” a giant-worm wrangling story. The latter annoys a little bit at the beginning, as Howe can’t resist over-describing every minor little thing, but that clears up as the story emerges.Reviewing a chapbook only available at a weekend-long convention would be deeply frustrating to Open Letters readers, I’m sure; what’s nice about The Homeless Moon’s distribution is that the whole book is available online for free. The chapbook is copyright protected under a Creative Commons license, which means you can legally make as many copies as you please, so long as you don’t sell them or alter the text. The address given in the book—this one—leads you, with one click, to this page. If you want a print copy, you can order it for a dollar.____Adam Golaski is the author of Color Plates and Worse Than Myself. He co-edits for Flim Forum Press, and is the editor of New Genre. Check in on Adam at Little Stories.

The Mammoth Book of Best Horror Comics

The Mammoth Book of Best Horror Comicsed. Peter NormantonRunning Press, $17.95First, jealousy: oh to be the editor of such a tome, to be sent into whatever vaults (of horror) that contain the thousands of acid-eaten comic books from which these “best” stories were drawn. Then, after just the fifth unsatisfying Poe or Lovecraft rip-off, pity. I pity Mr. Normanton.For all the glory that’s been bestowed upon the golden age of horror comics, before the notorious code that all but sealed the crypts, tombs, chambers, and dens of terror (that is, the Comics Code Authority, a self-censoring measure instituted in 1954 in response to social pressure and to prevent possible government interference), most of those stories don’t age well, and by that I mean once you’re fourteen, the lack of depth and predictability begin to wear thin. Fortunately, the anthology covers post-code decades, and it’s among these decades that downright good stories are occasionally found, stories that use the form adeptly, and that don’t rely on shock tactics or twist endings, but rather leave the reader with the implication of something more—and wrong.Most disappointing is the last chapter, “A New Millennium for the Macabre.” There are excellent horror comics being written today, but none are represented here (if you’re interested, read The Walking Dead or any of Mike Mignola’s output, for starters).What is absent from this anthology is notable. The editor was not able to include any E.C. comics, nor the Warren horror titles of the 60s and 70s, nor Marvel, or D.C. An interesting restriction, that leads to the inclusion of some wonderful minor titles—Twisted Tales, from P.C., for example. However, no explanation is given for other exclusions, such as Gore Shriek, a strong horror comic from the 1980s. I suspect there are many such exclusions.Steve Niles, who gets top billing on the front cover of the book, and who is lauded by many as the best scripter of horror comics working today (he wrote 30 Days of Night), but who is, in fact, very mediocre, if not downright bad, is revealed here by the poor black and white treatment the whole anthology gets. Ben Templesmith’s striking, painted panels can’t make up for Niles’ lack here. Black and White should be fine for most of the stories included, but too often it’s faded where it should be sharp.Normanton could have made up for the failings of the comics themselves by writing more about them. His introduction to the book and his notes throughout are thin, either pointing out what can plainly be seen or tending toward nostalgia. Perhaps this is pandering to a perceived audience; if so, for shame. All together a missed opportunity, a footnote for fans of little other value.____Adam Golaski is the author of Color Plates and Worse Than Myself. He co-edits for Flim Forum Press, and is the editor of New Genre. Check in on Adam at Little Stories.