Dispatches from the silver key

Arcane Arts

I have a day job that has nothing to do with weird fiction, sword-and-sorcery, or heavy metal. I work for a healthcare consulting company creating all their marketing and branding. I can’t complain: It pays the bills. I am a “somebody” in that space. I have a large following on LinkedIn, host a healthcare podcast, and started an association almost 20 years ago that people still flock to today—all of which puts me in the limelight. I might even call myself a “celebrity” … in an incredibly niche profession almost no one in the real world has ever heard of.

That almost certainly includes you, reader, unless you happen to work in medical coding.

But despite my professional successes that space is not where my heart lies. That’s here, in the weird.

On The Silver Key I write for dozens, maybe a hundred, like-minded folks. And also, for myself. I am much less of a “somebody” and I make pennies, but creative work and commentary on the imaginative world is my lifeline.

I miss its absence acutely.

Last week I had to attend a five-day business conference in Chicago. After the tedium and cattle-call of travel I was so busy with long days in our booth and client-facing nights I had no time for blogging nor Arcane Arts.

But the trip did come with one benefit. Five hours of total flight time, free of texts and email interruptions. Uninterrupted reading opportunity! I needed to choose wisely, a book that would take my mind off my work concerns and anxieties. And settled on Stephen King’s The Stand.

My last read of The Stand, King’s epic story of a highly contagious and deadly plague and the survivors of a postapocalyptic America, was 20 years ago. I was due for a return journey.

Early King is hard to beat and as I read I was swept up quickly, oblivious to my fellow passengers. Lloyd Henreid, starving and trapped in his prison cell, had just managed to snag the leg of a dead inmate in an adjacent cell and drag him closer, just in case his food should run out—when a man in a row behind me let out a chest-rattling cough.

And for just a split second, I thought, oh shit--Captain Trips?

Thankfully just a nasty cold. I got home tired but healthy and wrote down some initial thoughts about the book here on the blog, including why I find stories of horror and death, a comfort.​

Since that post I’ve read an additional 250+ pages of this epic tale and have a few more thoughts to share.

• This book is deeply inspired by The Lord of the Rings. Randall Flagg is a demonic figure, second in command to Satan, the exact equivalent of Sauron to Melkor, and sees all with a menacing, glittering Eye (capital E). Tom Cullen is Samwise Gamgee, simple and loyal. We get a scene in which he and deaf-mute Nick Andros stop at a sign announcing they are crossing into a new Oklahoma county. Cullen observes: “You know what mister? I’ve never been out of Harper County in my life, laws, no, not Tom Cullen.” His next step is the furthest from home he’s ever been.

• Humanity gets mixed grades. We probably all think we’d join Mother Abigail’s band of good people determined to rebuild, but there is a reason why half the survivors flock to Las Vegas. Humanity is inherently flawed, and King, through the words of college professor Glen Bateman, posits that groups of people inevitably lead to conflict (I can’t say he’s wrong here). And that being bad is just plain fun.

• But people can change, and have free will. An incredibly important aspect of this story and what it says about us, more broadly. Many are called to the dark, and after active struggle choose the light—and vice-versa. This line hit home for me, as I’ve experienced something similar, and maybe you have as well: “No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just… come out the other side.”

• It references Dokken and is thus immediately 5x better. A crazy chick named Julie Lawry claims to have slept with their bassist pre-plague at the Monsters of Rock festival. Unnamed in the book but certainly Jeff Pilson, who played on/co-wrote all their best albums including Tooth and Nail, Under Lock and Key, and Back for the Attack. I love these guys, a very underrated 80s hard rock/metal/hair band with a fantastic lead guitarist in George Lynch. Here’s something from them you might enjoy, “Unchain the Night”:

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Are you a fan of The Stand? Are you team Colorado and pro-goodness, or do you admit you’d be likely to rally under Flagg’s flag? I welcome your thoughts.

Sick of genre

​As noted in this recent “Metal Friday” post on another fine 80s hard rock/hair metal band, I can’t read anymore “what’s your definition of sword-and-sorcery” takes. Every one is some combination of needless pedantry, gate-keeping, and/or active ignorance (too many simply make up their own definition whole cloth and on the spot, without even a cursory look at extant criticism—cough Flame and Crimson cough). I’m starting to get to the point where I think the “definition” obsession might be harmful. It’s certainly a detriment for writers who pore over genre checklists rather than focus on writing good stories. That is true of the 60-70s and the “Clonan” phenomenon as much as today.

But … if you simply can’t get enough and want my best guided ramble on S&S—which I still love talking about from a historical, let’s celebrate its best authors and works perspective—I recommend this YouTube video in which a cool dude interviewed me for his channel Emporium of the Weird.

It also contains a look at my S&S man cave. Of which I’ve just added a cool, old-school Pabst Blue Ribbon pendant light over the bar.

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