Sword-and-sorcery and heavy metal are among a small handful of my great passions. I write about these and other related topics on my blog, The Silver Key (https://thesilverkey.blogspot.com/). Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery (2020, Pulp Hero Press) is my first book. I'm working on a second book, a heavy metal memoir.
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Arcane Arts: Dispatches From The Silver Key. Sing with me...
Published 7 days ago • 3 min read
Dispatches from the silver key
Arcane Arts
You know what would make my life easier? If I had an AI write this newsletter for me.
It’s issue no. 2 of Arcane Arts. I’ve only gotten started, and I’m already thinking about turning it over to the machine. Hear me out.
Think of how much time I could save! I could play more video games, binge more Netflix, spend more time bidding on back issues of SSOC on Ebay.
Except, I don’t do those things (no shade on you if you do. And I probably will place a few bids on SSOC). What I do enjoy, and prefer to spend my time on, is writing.
Why would I give that up? And, why would I care what a machine aggregator thinks? An AI is just a stochastic parrot. I’d rather communicate with people.
• I will not support writers who use AI in their work.
• I will support writers, illustrators, editors and others in related fields whose work is entirely human-made.
Take me on my word that these words you’re reading are my words. They always have, and always will be. It’s my promise, which you must accept on faith.
What I'm watching
As a longtime King Arthur fan somehow I had managed never to watch the 1967 musical Camelot. That changed this past weekend. I enjoyed it far more than I anticipated. It didn’t rise to the heights nor mythic depths of my favorite film treatment, John Boorman’s Excalibur (1981). But that was not its focus. I found Camelot a moving portrayal of the love triangle. Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero chew the scenery as Guinevere and Launcelot; did you know that they had a brief, intense romance on the set, separated in the early 1970s, and reunited decades later before marrying in 2006? They’re still with us today. Richard Harris (RIP) is fantastic in the lead role. I was moved by his struggle to reconcile the heavy responsibilities of kingship with being a husband and a normal man who just wants to experience the world. There is a little of Arthur in every man.
What I'm reading
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Return of the King. I’m almost done with my latest re-read of the mightiest work ever of fantasy, unlikely to ever be surpassed. “The Field of Cormallen” moves me on a level I can’t readily explain. An exquisite eucatastrophe. I was struck too by the deep wisdom of Gandalf’s advice to Aragorn when the newly crowned king discovers a seedling of the Eldest of Trees, high in the cold mountains above Minas Tirith:
“Remember this. For if ever a fruit ripens, it should be planted, lest the line die out of the world.”
Plant the seed of the gift you’ve been given. It may not bloom today, but it may yet bear fruit and bring an unexpected boon to the world in some distant future.
***
Before we depart these two works… let’s talk about singing.
Camelot and LOTR characters spontaneously break into song. Which can be odd, jarring even, to the modern reader/viewer.
I’ve read and watched enough old stuff to recognize the use of song when greater emotional heights need to be accessed. Today Lance and Guinevere’s affair would be depicted with explicit sex, in Camelot, “If Ever I Would Leave You” conveys a passion beyond the display of mere flesh.
In LOTR we have songs for the lament of Gandalf. At the height of his despair, at a dark dead-end high in the Tower of Cirith Ungol, Sam breaks out into song. First thin and quavering, then building in strength as he thinks of home.
Frodo answers.
Song once played an important role in our now vanished oral culture. The King Arthur myths were part of this culture, and Tolkien of course tapped the same deep sources in his work.
We need this phenomenon to return.
What I’m working on
If you grew up in the 70s/early 80s I’m sure you saw one drive past: A van with a kick-ass mural on the side. An airbrushed scene from Star Wars, or maybe something by Frank Frazetta.
How did that phenomenon start, and what does this odd corner of pop culture have to do with sword-and-sorcery?
I’m working on an essay on van art for an upcoming issue of New Edge Sword-and-Sorcery. It’s coming along pretty well. I’m learning as I go, which is the magic of writing.
Sword-and-sorcery and heavy metal are among a small handful of my great passions. I write about these and other related topics on my blog, The Silver Key (https://thesilverkey.blogspot.com/). Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery (2020, Pulp Hero Press) is my first book. I'm working on a second book, a heavy metal memoir.
Dispatches from the silver key Arcane Arts From the ephemeral to the mythic, another issue of Arcane Arts. I see S&S… I’m a bit like Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense, but instead of dead people I see S&S everywhere. Here’s three recent sightings. Gorgar, GameCraft Arcade. I’m terrible at pinball … but I love pinball machines. And when they’re sword-and-sorcery pinball I geek out. Which describes my reaction to finding Gorgar at GameCraft Arcade in Southington, CT this past weekend. I was...
Dispatches from the silver key Arcane Arts Welcome to the first issue of Arcane Arts: Dispatches From The Silver Key. AKA, I have an email newsletter and figured I’d best get down to using it. Why this newsletter? I harbor a minor but omnipresent fear that one day Google will delete the Blogger platform without warning or fanfare, and the little castle of sand I call The Silver Key will be swept out to sea. I like my archaic blog and don’t want to migrate over to something like Substack....
