Steveawiggins

LATEST ARTICLES ( 4560 )

• More Water Monsters

  

  Monster from the Ocean Floor, one gets the sense, wouldn’t have merited a Wikipedia article were it not for the fact that it was the first film Roger Corman... Read more

  Posted on 24 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Young Reading

  

  It was more the lede line than the story.  Melissa Kirsch’s “The books we read when we’re young help shape the adults we become in ways we don’t always grasp”... Read more

  Posted on 23 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Many Days

  

  Science fiction. I used to consume it by the bookful, and even now I occasionally turn back to it. Having read Doris Piserchia’s A Billion Days of Earth, I do... Read more

  Posted on 22 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Wicker Proofing

  

  I’m currently reading the first proofs of The Wicker Man (due out in August). While necessary, proofreading is a pain (and I work in publishing!). Read more

  Posted on 21 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Entitled Titles

  

  Movies have a tremendous impact.  Nowhere is this more obvious than in movie titles moving into standard vocabulary.  “McGuffin” (which autocorrect thinks is... Read more

  Posted on 20 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Drifting

  

  What really goes on in somebody else’s mind? At best we can guess, and when that person’s been dead for a long time that guessing involves some reasoned... Read more

  Posted on 19 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Wrong Entity

  

  In one of those weird synchronicities the universe likes to play, the very next day after I watched The Entity (2015) and wrote a blog post on it, this happened. Read more

  Posted on 18 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Entities

  

  When you’re a regular scholar, you take notes. I’m not a regular anything, I guess, and I’ve fallen out of the habit of noting who makes movie recommendations t... Read more

  Posted on 17 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Reading Early America

  

  Reading about Washington Irving is reading about early America.  And reading about early America is to read about what’s happening in politics today. Read more

  Posted on 16 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Lost at Sea

  

  Where do books come from?  It still comes as a surprise to many authors, but books tend to be shipped by, well, ship.  When publishers use overseas facilities,... Read more

  Posted on 15 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Learning from Mother’s Day

  

  Looking back over the past year, I see that we’ve still got a lot of progress to make.  It’s only been about five millennia of “civilization,” but we still... Read more

  Posted on 14 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Mutant Madness

  

  I’ve never seen Freaks, nor have I ever wanted to. It’s an exploitation film of carnival actors that Tod Browning, for some reason, thought might make a good... Read more

  Posted on 13 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Iron Man?

  

  As a vegan, I sometimes end up thinking more about nutrition than I used to.  Back when I first became a vegetarian colleagues wondered how I got my iron. Read more

  Posted on 12 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Final (not) Thoughts

  

  One thing I’ve noticed as I’ve aged is that I pay attention to necrologies a lot more.  Few people from my college and seminary days stay in touch, and the... Read more

  Posted on 11 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Connecting Many Leagues

  

  Much of movie viewing life is about making connections. Many, many films have been made and I’m not the first to suggest that cinema is a form of modern... Read more

  Posted on 10 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Know Your Books

  

  Used books have many virtues.  They’re good for the environment, being the ultimate primary duo of the triad “reduce, reuse, recycle. Read more

  Posted on 09 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• People of Slime

  

  An old saying advises not to speak ill of the dead. And I suspect this also applies to the living dead. Night of the Living Dead (1968) is a classic horror... Read more

  Posted on 08 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Wicker Wondering

  

  Why The Wicker Man? It’s a fair question. My book is now starting to appear on Amazon and other venues (it’s on Goodreads!), so it’s time to try to get the... Read more

  Posted on 07 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Coronation Bible

  

  The scene from The King’s Speech doesn’t show it at all, but there was even more drama around the coronation of George VI than the movie reveals. Read more

  Posted on 06 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Insane Illusionist

  

  The Dark Shadows novels supplemented my early watching of the television series. It’s funny, but when I remember watching the show, in my mind I watched it... Read more

  Posted on 05 May 2023 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY