Dispatches from the silver key

Arcane Arts

Interesting fact: Ronnie James Dio was raised in New York, but born in Portsmouth, NH. Less than 30 miles/30 minutes from my home, practically my backyard.

I’m tickled to live so close to the birthplace of arguably the greatest voice in heavy metal history. A man of whom Bruce Dickinson once said, “He was the world’s shortest singer apart from me, but he sang his ass off, and sang rings around me, and always will.”

Pretty high praise coming from Bruce, a man known as the human air raid siren.

This past weekend I watched the posthumous documentary “Dreamers Never Die” (2022) Did you know you can watch it for free on YouTube? I wish I did before I spent $3.99 on Prime Video. Oh well.

It was $4 well-spent.

Dio lived his life with authenticity, a trait I deeply admire. He refused to conform to Ritchie Blackmore’s demand to go in the direction of “Since You’ve Been Gone” and short-term commercial success. Ronnie stuck to his guns, left Rainbow, and went on to write songs about rainbows and magic and monsters, and the importance of drawing your sword and standing your ground.

Some think this type of material is less serious than songs about teen angst and jilted lovers.

They couldn’t be more wrong. Real life is full of monsters (and rainbows, too).

Ronnie and his wife Wendy called their war against his cancer Killing the Dragon. He ultimately lost that fight, but he never gave up.

That’s what we’re called to do. To fight, whatever your dragons may be.

I keep fighting my own battles with the memoir and the insistent voice in my head that tells me it sucks and shouldn’t see the light of day. That’s it’s ego-stroking, personal therapy best kept on a hard drive.

It’s a bitter enemy. The torch flickers, sunlight beckons from behind, telling me to exit the dungeon where danger lurks. I press ahead anyway.

What’s your dragon?

​Here’s an old post I wrote for the 10^th anniversary of Dio’s passing. ​

Tom Shippey talking H. Rider Haggard

I take pride in the fact I’m zero degrees removed from the greatest Tolkien scholar ever, Tom Shippey. A man who once met JRRT himself. Back in 2010 I spent the better part of 30 minutes talking to Shippey at Boskone in Boston where he was invited to speak (he also signed my books, including The Road to Middle-Earth).

Anyway, while doing a bit of research on H. Rider Haggard for an upcoming book review I stumbled across a 2024 video of Shippey talking about my favorite Haggard to date (though I’ve only read a fraction of his output): the 1891 Viking novel Eric Brighteyes.

This is a great little video. Shippey lays out what was happening in the late 1880s, a brief and creatively fecund window of time that saw the publication of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine (1895), and Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet (1897). Which gave birth to the vampire, science-fiction, and detective fiction genres, Shippey claims.

Shippey also gives a passionate defense of fantasy fiction in general. He discusses the Victorian age revival of Viking novels/Saga literature, of which I wrote about a bit on this DMR Books post. Eric Brighteyes was one of (if not the) best such novel to come out of that interesting little period.

I’m going to have to get this Uppsala Books edition now that I know Shippey penned a meaty foreword.

Taking a ride with Ride the Lightning

One of the great tragedies of the 21^st century is the death of physical media. The first MP3 players debuted in the late 90s, but the death-knell was the launch of the first iPod, unveiled by Steve Jobs on October 23, 2001 (boo! Hiss! Even though I owned one at the time and loved the little damned thing).

I’ve rectified that loss in some measure by acquiring an old-school stereo (receiver, CD player, hard-wired speakers), but cars present a more vexing problem. CD players are no longer factory installed in automobiles, and I’m not about to lug around a portable CD player. My phone and Spotify are far too convenient.

But, my youngest daughter is studying abroad in Italy and left her wheels here … which happens to be my old 2016 Honda Accord.

Which happens to have a CD player.

I took it out for a spin and brought with me my copy of Ride the Lightning. I lost track of how many times we listened to this back in the late 80s/early 90s, driving around aimlessly with “Fade to Black,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “Creeping Death” on repeat. Glorious times.

I present to you, “Fight Fire With Fire” on a spinning polycarbonate plastic disc.

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Mad Max double feature in NH

Loyal readers of Arcane Arts (I know you’re out there, talk to me goose) might recall when I plugged a double-bill of Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer playing at a small venue in Portsmouth NH (there’s Portsmouth again… must be something S&S in the sea-water).

Well, The Music Hall is back at it again, this time a double-bill of Mad Max followed by The Road Warrior playing Saturday, June 6, at 7 p.m. Tickets just $5!

I don’t know if I can make it but if I can, I’ll be there.

Like (I suspect) most of my readers I love these films. They are among my favorites of all-time, possibly my favorite film franchise (eh, that might be Bond, but no single bond film reaches the heights of Mad Max).

Here a pair of old reviews of Mad Max and The Road Warrior taken from the deeps of the Silver Key archive.

“Step right up, chum, and watch the kid lay down a rubber road, right to FREEDOM!"

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