Essay in New Plains Review

My contributor's copy of the New Plains Review's "Service" issue (Spring 2009) has arrived.

I'm in the "Short Takes" section. The essay is a modified version of this blog entry's closing (May 6, 1990) portion.

A church in the neighborhood has a lovely cactus garden, and its prickly pears have been busy...


Large view


Large view


Large view


Large view

The "century plants" are at it again. Last year, this agave bloomed in the cactus garden. Two more are budding this year, plus this one in a neighbor's yard:


Large view

"Century plant" is a misnomer. According to the San Diego Zoo, "The Agave americana is often called the century plant because [it] was reputed to bloom only once in 100 years, but that's an exaggeration. It does only bloom once in its lifetime, but usually between 7 and 20 years. The main plant then dies, but most species produce shoots that will take over and grow to maturity."

Covenant, the first volume in the Deviations Series, is now available as a free download from the Deviations website. Click on the downloads link to access a variety of formats (second edition, ISBN 978-0-9819764-0-2).

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

[end of entry]

The Road First Taken

Inspired by Sunday Scribblings prompt #160: Follow -- and based on Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken.

The Road First Taken
(following Frost)

The yellow wood has turned to green,
The road less traveled overgrown.
My journey's end remains unseen.
And here I stand, lost and serene
Beyond the space where reason's flown.

The path well-trodden boasts its wear:
See! Greater souls have walked this way.
Place your mark here! There's nothing there
But ticks and vipers. Do you dare
Disturb the universe they lay?

Well-rutted roads fall prey to flood
In runoff from the summer rain.
Beyond the path, I sink in mud,
Must blaze ahead with sweat and blood.
I'll never come this way again.

My risk could make a choice appear.
One brash misstep and I could die.
I walk alone. Yet, standing here,
The earth and heavens are always near,
And that's all I've got to go by.

Covenant, the first volume in the Deviations Series, is now available as a free download from the Deviations website. Click on the downloads link to access a variety of formats (second edition, ISBN 978-0-9819764-0-2).

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.
[end of entry]

Kaledon - Discography 2008

Genre: Power Metal, Melodic Metal, Speed Metal
About: This is a really great and surprisingly unique power metal band from Italy. The albums are one ongoing epic story about the land called "Kaledon". So if you like even one song you should really listen to them all. And here they are all in one rar file! :) And I must say, it's an impressive pace they are putting out these albums, especially since they all sound coherent to each other, all telling different parts of the same story.

Note: They're all in one folder, but they are tagged right so if you add them to a music organizer such as itunes, winamp, etc, they should be sorted properly by album.

Included:
Kaledon - Legend of the Forgotten Reign - Chapter 1: The Destruction (2002)
Kaledon - Legend of the Forgotten Reign - Chapter 2: The King's Rescue (2003)
Kaledon - Legend of the Forgotten Reign - Chapter 3: The Way of the Light (2005)
Kaledon - Legend of the Forgotten Reign - Chapter 4: Twilight of the Gods (2006)
Kaledon - Legend of the Forgotten Reign - Chapter 5: A New Era Begins (2008)

Download pt 1 (Hosted on Mediafire, as always)
Download pt 2
Download pt 3
Download pt 4


Or, if you prefer, the band is now offering all 5 of their albums for free, with optional donation to their paypal account. Please support the band if you feel their work is worth your hard-earned money. It's fairly slow download, but at least one of the files i have uploaded on mediafire (track 14 of chapter 2) is staticy. Seriously, why can't people check their files? Anyway, here's the link:
id3 tags are royally messed up, but you may want to get part 2 because as i said my track 14 was staticy.

Download all albums from Kaledon's Official Website

Svarti Loghin - Empty World (2008)

Genre: Black Metal, Melodic Black Metal, Atmospheric Black Metal, Depressive Black Metal
About: A surprisingly melodic, depressive black metal band. This is really unique stuff because usually dsbm is pretty monotone.

The title track is actually a quite upbeat song. Something most people probably won't notice... There is a riff at about 7:00 in the title track that is taken from "Here Comes the Sun" by The Beatles... Took me by surprise just now. The whole song I think is based loosely on that track.

Full reviews.

Download

Der Weg einer Freiheit - Der Weg einer Freiheit (2009)

Genre: Black Metal, Melodic Black Metal, Speed Metal
About: Very nice speedy agressive, somewhat melodic black metal band. They are a new band (and by the looks of it, quite young) but I am looking forward to future releases because they show a great amount of talent.

Download

Birds of Prey - Weight of the Wound (2006)

Genre: Death Metal, Thrash Metal, Heavy Metal, Sludge
About: Debut album. Pretty straightforward, if you like the genres above you will love this. Full review.

Download

Nile - Nile (Demo) (1994)

Genre: Thrash Metal, (Later: Brutal Death Metal, Technical Death Metal)
About: For those that don't know, Nile actually originated as a Thrash Metal band named "Morriah." Therefore this demo is primarily a straightforward Old-School Thrash metal album, but with some Black Elements such as blast beats. It has clean Thrash vocals instead of Death Vocals. Some of the Egyptian themes and influences can be heard though not nearly as much as in their later albums.

Worth Checking out for fans of the genre or for fans of the band to see what they sounded like at their start.

Download

Desire - Crowcifix (EP) (2009) (Desire (Prt) - Crowcifix)

Genre: Doom Metal, Melodic Death Metal, Heavy Metal, Funeral Doom Metal
About: Desire makes a rather unexpected return with an EP with two new tracks and a live song. I don't even know how to describe this band in words. The music is so powerful yet beautiful. For all fans of Doom metal.

Download

Uaral - Lamentos A Poema Muerto (2007)

Genre: doom metal, acoustic, folk, influences of depressive/suicidal black metal
About: This is music to lose yourself into. The feeling of hopelessness and loneliness present here is simply amazing. But what makes them so unique is this is achieved using almost entirely acoustic guitars. Beautiful flowing spanish folk melodies. But then seemingly out of nowhere, the vocals come in. They vary from low melodic vocals to growls, and sometimes almost grindcore/frog vocals and also suicidal black vocals. And there is actually crying in some songs

The only "happy" sounding part is track 5, but that is somewhat muffled as if it is a memory of a past time, in which things were different.

The only "metal" parts of this album are usually at the climax of the song, in which the acoustic guitar is still present but overlapped with electric guitar melodies. This band must be heard to be believed.

Download

Summoning - Let mortal heroes sing Your Fame (2001) (320 kbps mp3)

Genre: Epic Black Metal, atmospheric black metal, Black Metal, Pagan Metal, Melodic Black Metal
About: This is the second most epic album of all time. It still has the same elements and epic feel of the previous album, stronghold, but they experiment a bit by adding things such as suicidal vocals in the chorus of track 2 and samples. It also has somewhat of a more melodic, folk feel.

Track 3 has this repeating spoken part "In the darkness... bind them!" and it fits so perfectly into the music

But my favorite song on the album is probably track 4. It explodes into this epic melodic powerful black riff that almost brings me to tears because it is so perfect.

DOWNLOAD IT NAOW!!!!!1111111

Download pt 1
Download pt 2

Story Acceptance & Publicity

My story "Judgment at Naioth" has been accepted to the Dybbuk Press anthology She Nailed a Stake Through His Head: Tales of Biblical Terror. (The anthology title refers to the incident in Judges 4:21.) My story does some Midrash on much of 2 Samuel.

Editor Tim Lieder's call for submissions inspired me to write the piece. And I learned a new word from his specs: Chiastic (Kiastic), the varieties of which are defined here.

Thanks to Julianne Draper, who profiled me here. Julianne blogs for the Miami Examiner's online Tampa edition.

A second publication in which my work has appeared is up for an award. In addition to Unspeakable Horror being on the final Bram Stoker Award ballot, the magazine Electric Velocipede (which published my story "Hermit Crabs" last year in #14) is on the ballot for a Hugo Award.

The interview that hosts Glenda and Tony Finkelstein did with me last October at Necronomicon is now airing on the Internet radio show The Andromeda Library, which broadcasts daily from 4-6 a.m. and p.m. Eastern Time on Ad Astra Radio. Here's the line-up for the show.

Monday's walk revealed some cute prickly pear bubbelas.





These grow along a use trail to the side of our county road.

Covenant, the first volume in the Deviations Series, is now available as a free download from the Deviations website. Click on the downloads link to access a variety of formats (second edition, ISBN 978-0-9819764-0-2).

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

[end of entry]

Mägo de Oz - La Ciudad De Los Árboles (2007)

Genre: Folk Rock, Power Metal, Folk Metal
About: Best folk/power metal band. But this is somewhat of a departure for them because it's primarily a Folk Rock album. But it still carries the same happy spirit as their others. I think i read this album was born out of songs that didn't make it onto Gaia II.

Download