THE BOOK:

THE SHORT STORY:

“The Faery Handbag” by Kelly Link.
This is Kelly Link’s warmest and funniest story yet... and also her most moving. Although I have great faith in the short form, I’m still somehow always surprised when a short story gets me the way this one got me. It doesn’t seem possible that 25 pages could pack so much emotional wallop.

THE MOVIE:

Slither
Unbelievably putrid. Which maybe doesn’t sound like much of a recommendation, so let me put it another way... like in the song, this picture is stupid and contagious.

THE VIDEO:

Walk The Line
I think most biopics are snoozeville, but there isn’t a dull moment here. Hard to believe the actors did their own singing, too – the music is phenomenal.

THE SHOW:

The Sopranos
Five episodes in, and this is the best season of The Sopranos since the first. You get more character, incident, imagination, thought, and suspense in one hour of Sopranos then you’ll find in whole seasons of network cop shows. And if that’s not enough, the show also features a parade of poor saps getting kneecapped and shot in the ass.

THE GAME:

Lego Star Wars
A hysterical reimagining of the new movies, and the ultimate game for the little guys. The frustration quotient is low – when your character gets killed, he just breaks into his component pieces, and then after a few moments you get put back together again to play on. Also, the game encourages cooperative play; my boys have never got along so well.

THE COMIC:

Bone: The Eyes of the Storm by Jeff Smith.
Bone is easily the most fun my tribe and I have ever had reading anything together. It’s got gripping action, and a real story to tell, but most of all, it’s frequently laugh-till-you-feel-sick funny. Like if John Irving and George R.R. Martin teamed up to write a funny animal story. Yeah, just like that.

THE SONG:

“Chicken Payback” – Band of Bees.
A forgotten rhythm & soul classic from 1965 – er, I mean 2005 – and an essential track for anyone’s iTunes library. Put it in a playlist titled GARAGE ESSENTIALS and turn it waaaaay up.

THE CD:

Straight to Hell – Hank Williams III.
This is to modern country exactly what Appetite for Destruction was to hair metal... an album so merciless and authentic, it makes everyone else working in the same field look like lameass pretenders. Revolutionary.

THE FISH:

Apple.
Two years after taking apart my old SE/30 Mac and rebuilding it as a fish tank (instructions here), I finally filled it with water and my four-year-old picked out a beta to go into it. Apple has already established a grim, skulky, and hostile personality, kind of like Rorschach in Watchmen. He will be loved (or at least thought of fondly) in spite of himself.

ANTICIPATED PLEASURE:

The Dead Fish Museum: Stories by Charles D’Ambrosio.
I haven’t been this excited by a short story writer since I came across Kelly Link’s “The Specialist’s Hat” in Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror about five years ago.