#111! Unbelievable. It seems like only last Friday that The Phantom and the VS crew hit historic #100! VS is so much more to me than a cool mag I used to write for; it is nothing less than a staple of my life, eternal as the tide. Sure, I miss the days of visiting The Phantom and Managing Editor Ms Nag in fog-cloaked Ocean Grove on the Jersey shore, where multiple cats ruled the sidewalks, a sleepy town right down the street from Asbury Park and its formidable ghosts: the music, the Stone Pony; the broken boardwalk often seen on The Sopranos; a place where I made multiple pitches to The Phantom which included my short-lived column 21st Century Goth! and reviews of shit not easily available in North America. The Phantom let it roll, man—most of it, anyway. He hooked me up with interviewing Dario Argento, for fucks sake; he facilitated my sit-downs with the entire PHANTASM brigade (Don Coscarelli, Angus Scrimm, Reggie Bannister, Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury); and so much more, all of which I am forever grateful.
So here’s to VideoScope #111! We’re looking forward to #150.
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Libby Cudmore’s THE BIG REWIND
My Amazon review of this excellent novel:
Yearning, desire, heartache… and regret. These are the elements that drive every successful love song, and they are the forces that make THE BIG REWIND a wonderful novel. It’s a murder mystery, yes, as well as a carpet-bombing of pop-culture references—too many per paragraph, in this reviewer’s opinion—but the excellent Libby Cudmore gets a pass. This girl can write. Insightful, funny, and often poignant, THE BIG REWIND is a bulletproof concept album of a novel that will play smooth and seamless in every music lover’s literary jukebox.
Libby holds a music party every Saturday night on twitter! Tune in @LibbyCudmore!
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