Trawling Through The Thrift Stores with Joseph Finn

  Happy Thursday, everyone!  It's sunny outside but the flurries are definitely coming in a couple of days.  Christmas is still a'coming and by god, I am behind in my gift shopping.  But hey, I did find this week's bundle of weird and good finds.

Look, I haven't read this.  I haven't read much McIntyre, despite her damn good reputation.  But I'm highlighting the finding of this paperback because I want everyone to look at the trailer for an adaptation of McIntyre's excellent and award-winning novel The Moon and the Sun.  This has been stuck in release hell since 2014 (partially because of Paramount's financial difficulties), this trailer came out a year ago and this still doesn't have a release date (why someone hasn't just sold this to Prime or Netflix and at least finish the damn thing is beyond me).  This trailer is both hilariously overwrought and kind of pretty and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't gonna watch it. (And now it's called The King's Daughter for some reason.)

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So, I haven't seen Memento since the theater.  I'm not one of those Christopher Nolan fanboys who think everything he's done has been a masterpiece.  (And really, he completely showed his ass this week in his insistence that the theatrical model is the end-all be-all for movie releases, especially in the middle of a global pandemic, but that's a bit besides the point.)  But really, how could I resist a 2-disc set that's made to look like a medical clipboard and chart?  This thing is lovely and also feel slovely, with a nice tactile weight to it (I think my one main problem with blu-ray cases is that they feel flimsy and like they were meant to spin across the room like a clunky Frisbee).

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Literally all I know about Vassilis Vassilikos (who I assumed was deceased but is still with us at 88) is that he was in exile from the Greek coup of the late '60s and that he wrote the novel that was the basis fo the great movie Z (which is absolutely worth your time; you're going to spend 10 minutes wondering why you're watching legislators argue in Athens and then you're going to get absorbed in a hurricane of conspiracy and corruption).  So hey, maybe I won't like his actual writing but I'm willing to take a chance.  But lordy, look at that cover.  How could I not take a chance on this cover art from 1973 (published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich)?  Jacket design by one Loretta Trezzo, who appears to have had a good book design career in the '70s, particularly for the works of Robert Silverberg.  I rather like this one!

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Dear Mr. President: if a DVD is not presented in the proper format, then it musts be emblazoned on the front cover, preferably in huge neon letters stating some form of "HACK-AND-SLASH" or "PAN-AND-SCAN" or even the soft-shoeing of that nonsense, "FULL SCREEN."  This DVD I found for thankfully only a buck is hack-and-slash and says it NOWHERE on the front, back or side except in the tiniest font that I had to literally use a magnifying glass to see.  What a ripoff.

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It's entirely possible I will never read all of this, but I've heard that it's pretty good and hey, it's worth having what is widely considered the first novel on the shelf in case I ever want to read it.  Besides, I like Modern Library editions of things.