Talking about a film essay in The Smart Set, a basebal op-ed in USA Today, the prose of James John Audubon, hallway intrigue, a radio adaptation of an H.G. Wells ghost story, and the five best New England Patriots of all-time. 

On two short works of horror: Jean Painlevé's The Vampire (1945) and the 1973 Public Information Film, Lonely Water. "Broaden horror, and horror loses part of its sting; it becomes less of a seeming lethal injection in a life, and more an unfortunate status quo. The latter may have greater terror, but it’s also a terror that blends  in, ceases to stand out."

On the essentiality and appeal of October baseball. "There are steals, batters hit behind the runner, hit-and-runs are put in motion. There is the nobility of sacrifice. Every last inch of base paths matters. Everything is contested. We can feel the teams trying to outthink each other as we also watch guys you might not have known were amazing athletes, dazzle your eyes with what they can do, here in these contests were baseball is truly itself. And there’s nothing better, sports-wise."

On the deep state evil of publishing, Game 7 of the 1986 World Series, the beyond-depressing Suspense episode, "Destruction," the underrated The Hall of Fantasy program in which the forces of evil tend to win, a recreation of a legendary Lights Out episode, and the scariest hockey players. 

Rich and Colin discuss a lot! The Red Sox and the ALCS, one of the tightest musical performances you'll ever hear from the Grateful Dead in Europe in 1972, a Saki story about a naughty ferret, a TV adaptation of an M.R. James ghost story from fifty years ago, a Cape Cod radio drama, and Christopher Lee's sublime recorded reading of Bram Stoker's Dracula. 

From Sam Cooke: Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963. A section of the book talking about the significance of Cooke's "Chain Gang." 

Expatiating on the advancing Red Sox, the 1986 ALCS, a new short story in Post Road called "The Last Field," the nocturnes of John Field, Andrew Hill's "Dedication" off of his 1964 album, Point of Departure, and the 1935 Karloff/Lugosi horror pairing, The Raven. 

Book comes out January 18!

A few insights into how the Sam Cooke book was written, different forms of research, different paces, and finding your own way as a writer. 

Disccusion about a Saki story, episodes of The Mysterious Traveler and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, plus a hilariously weird Halloween safety instructional film from 1985, as well some fall baseball, stairs, and the sun. 

A few thoughts on Sam Cooke and what it really means to sing. "Singing and writing have the same objective. To connect, impel. Move. Make us think, feel. When feeling bolsters the thinking, that is the  stuff. And vice versa."

Steering clear of the oldiest trap! "The best artists change often, but you always know it’s them. The best  artists, at that time, changed faster. They worked harder. They created  at a different rate. It wasn’t six years between albums and sitting on a beach and bragging on Twitter about having written a song for the first time in a decade. That sucks. And that work won’t last. Because it’s a  form of bullshit and hype and empty ceremony. In other words, it’s the opposite of Sam Cooke."

On the subject of being a VL (voracious listener). "What I’m referencing is that transcendent power of a place, a person, a song, an album, a gig, a book, that contains both the personal and the universal, and situates us in both realms. Simultaneously. But completely, so as though it’s not like we sense that we’re part in one  and part in the other. Magic, right?"

Half hour conversation about the new Sam Cooke book, Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963, in Bloomsbury's 33 1/3 series. 

First of five guest posts over at the 33 1/3 blog, on the new Sam Cooke book. "I want to share something with you that’s not heavy at all, in that my aim isn’t to rive the fabric of the universe and let the answers to the mysteries of life pour forth. It’s something frothy, perhaps, but foundational. But I think it gets to the spirit of Sam Cooke and what the purpose of true art really is."

Lively Q&A about the Sam Cooke 33 1/3 book. "I think if you’re going to write about something with a record that’s personal you have to do so in such a way that you’re tapping into truth that other people can recognize emotionally, critically, and intellectually. You can’t just be like, ‘This is a thing that happened to me, so you should care about it.’ I wanted the book to have some first person but to have it always be about this journey, these ideas, this album, and ultimately more than the album."

A conversation about about passive aggressive approaches to interaction, Miles Davis, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, bed and breakfasts, what it means to have someone gunning for you, The Young  Riders, Sherlock Holmes, dowagers, the history of errors in baseball,  Picasso, the Civil War, a future book project on residencis that changed the history of American music, It’s a Wonderful Life, Jackson Pollock, hockey, cornerbacks, David Ortiz, Sam Cooke, the usefulness of the phrase, “Great, good luck,” objectives in writing if you’re any good.

A history of bad dreams, and their role in a writing life. "I was walking 20 miles a day myself, trying to drive the nightmares out of my head, desperate to countervail what had become my new reality: the terror dreams of the night had turned into what each and every day was like. There is a small mercy in some of our worst dreams when we realize that it’s a dream. Or, if we are not totally sure that it’s a dream, we think there’s a reasonable chance. Our dream selves apperceive this. It’s that line of thinking that progresses along a construct of “Maybe? Maybe? Yes? Probably?”

A look at the ten best Miles Davis live albums. "Miles would have happily told you he was the king of many  things—influence and innovation foremost among them—but I wonder if his  shifting styles, documented so capably on studio dates, have caused us  to overlook his reign as the man with the finest clutch of live LPs in  jazz history. Who else could it be?"

A piece about the NFL, "Lift Every Voice," and Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" as the anthem beyond anthems. 

A discussion of Muddy Waters at Stovall's Planatation in 1941, the Beatles' "And Your Bird Can Sing" and the codification of joy in song, cool players who weren't stars, the appeal of low-scoring games, what makes college football so great, with a shout out to Keats and William Sloane's novel To Walk the Night, and Hall of Fame NFL coach Bud Grant. 

Issue #38 features the short story, "The Last Field." "I sat by the bed. I felt like I couldn’t move, like I was bound in that moment, by the stillness. And I just sat there. My mother was not her normal color. More like the color of the bark of a beech tree. I was going to sit there until I could hear that my dad had stopped crying. Because I knew my dad well enough to know that he’d want that. And after about, I don’t know, twenty minutes, that’s when I heard it. The smallest, faintest, little breathing sound."

Sam Cooke: Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963, an entry in Bloomsbury's popular 33 1/3 series, is now officially available. The book considers how one of America's most important songs--the Civil Rights anthem "A Change Is Gonna Come"--was in-part birthed on stage in Miami's "colored" neighborhood of Overtown at the ultmate rock and soul gig, and explores the unique artistry and compositional brilliance of Cooke. Amazon. Barnes and Noble. 

New Fleming fiction, radio adaptations of "The Tell-Tale Heart" and The Devil and Daniel Webster, 1934's The Phantom of the Monastary, and 1961's The Innocents. 

A ghost story that is much more than a ghost story, called "The Captain's Walk." Scroll to the end of the issue.