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Biweekly News Roundup 2023-07-30

Personal / Website News

Dark Dead Things #2

The weird fiction/poetry literary magazine Dark Dead Things is publishing their second issue. I’m incredibly honored to be included in this issue with my essay on a Rene Girard reading of Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu.”

The issue can be ordered from the Dark Dead Things webshop as a bundle with a rad T-shirt of Meowlister Crowley. Issue 1 is still available, so check that out too and supporting this indie endeavor.

Sincere gratitude to Mike Salinas for including me in this issue.

Stranger Things Essay Citation

My essay, “Lost Nights and Dangerous Days: Unraveling the Relationship Between Stranger Things and Synthwave” that was published in Kevin Wetmore’s book, Uncovering Stranger Things, has been cited in Jutta Steiner’s book Nostalgie Im Upside Down: Das progressive Potenzial von Nostalgie in Der Retro-Serie Stranger Things.

My Stranger Things/synthwave essay continues to be my most cited piece of writing. Very flattered!

Bibliography Updates

I’m increasing seeing other texts aside from The New Peplum becoming cited and reviewed. Because of that I am creating subpages for some of these works with more detail. If you click the dropdown on the Bibliography menu you’ll start seeing them. These updates are a work in process, but I look forward to sharing more detail about these pieces I’ve composed or edited over the years.

Atlantis, the Lost Continent

A new episode of Scholars from the Edge of time is now online! In this episode Michele and I discuss the 1961 American sword and sandal film, Atlantis, the Lost Continent. Check it out on YouTube.

Publishing Recap

Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2023.

Published in February, this collection contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling.”

Vernon Press Product Page

Published in May, this issue of Weird Tales contains my essay “When the Stars are Right.”

Weird Tales Product Page

Published in late March, the first issue of the zine Footage Fiends, contains my essay “Analisi Della Cosa: Found Footage in Caltiki and Italian Theater Going Practices.”

Limited to 50 physical copies.

Order via Patreon.

Published in early August, the second issue of Dark Dead Things contains my essay “Correlating the Contents: Mimetic Desire in H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’.”

Order at Dark Dead Things.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

CFP: Ancient World, Modern Music II at CAMWS 2024

Dr. Jeremy Swist has a new CFP that’s live:

An organized panel to be proposed for the 120th annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West & South, April 3rd – 6th, 2024 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA at the invitation of Washington University, St. Louis.

After a successful 1st edition of the panel in 2022 at Winston Salem, we are seeking abstracts for another panel on the reception of antiquity in modern music. 15-minute papers on the topic may discuss any genre of modern & popular music, including folk & country, rock & metal, hip-hop & pop, and theater & soundtracks, and may focus on lyrics, album artwork, music videos, live performances, or the music itself. We are particularly interested in questions of how musicians integrate ancient culture, myth, and art into a modern medium, and how they read antiquity in response to the personal, the aesthetic, & the political.

Send 300-word abstracts and questions to Jeremy Swist (swistjj@miamioh.edu) by 15th August 2023. Potential panelists must commit to present in person if accepted.

Recent Peplum Acquisitions

I’ve plucked up two peplum films recently to add to the library.

First is Land of the Pharaohs which just got the Blu-ray treatment this past June. Michele and I recently talked about this movie on Scholars from the Edge of Time (YouTube video link here) and I really dug it! When I saw Warner Archive was going to do a new version of it I had to pre-order it.

Next is an old release of a movie called G2: Mortal Conquest. Apparently this movie is a re-worked version of the 1995 movie Gladiator Cop. A name like Gladiator Cop, I gotta watch it! However it’s OOP and kinda pricy, so I’ll pluck up a copy later. In the meantime, this alternate version in the form of G2 will have to do. I remember Daniel Bernhardt from Future War which was on MST3K, which was baaaaad. So, I am hoping this movie will be just as campy fun.

Secret Agent Barbie GBA Game

Last weekend was Barbenheimer – when two blockbuster films, Barbie and Oppenheimer, got released the same weekend. It looked like a pretty fun pop culture event, two movies at the polar opposites of tone and subject matter, but linked none-the-less.

I didn’t get a chance to partake, but I’ll definitely watch both movies when they are released on Blu-ray. In the meantime, just for fun, I’ll share the odd Barbie artifact in my collection: a complete, in box (CIB) copy of Secret Agent Barbie: Royal Jewels Mission.

I bought this game long ago, I believe at the SoCal Retro Gaming Expo in Ontario, CA. I don’t have many CIB retro games in my collection (then and now), and I recall this game being extremely cheap. It was also a time, I believe, I was knee deep in spy-fi studies when Michele was working on her James Bond book. So because of all of that, I plucked up this game when I happened upon it. I recall playing it for a bit on my Retron-5 and enjoying it. Perhaps I’ll have to give it a proper play through.

Anyways, a rare opportunity to see a CIB Barbie game: box, cartridge, poster, manual, and Nintendo booklet. Not pictured is my plastic case I keep the game in to keep it in the best condition I can (the outer box is a bit bent in though).

Categories
News

Biweekly News Roundup 2023-06-04

Personal / Website News

H. P. Lovecast Podcast

May’s Transmissions episode is online!

In this episode we interview Tom Starita about his new horror novel, Delta, and Beth Cato about her new chef/swashbuckling novel, A Thousand Recipes for Revenge. The episode can be streamed at the H. P. Lovecast Buzzsprout website, the embedded player below, or through all major podcast apps.

HPLCP Transmissions – Ep 22 – Tom Starita and Beth Cato H. P. Lovecast Podcast

Scholars from the Edge of Time

For May’s Scholars from the Edge of Time episode Michele and I discuss the 1955 Howard Hawks film Land of the Pharaohs. It can be viewed on YouTube.

We also did another episode a week later, with Michele talking about the white cat in Mummy (1999) and me talking about cats in strongman sword and sandal films of the late 50s/early 60s. Also on YouTube.

Publishing Recap

Below is a recap of my publishing endeavors so far in 2023.

Published in February, this collection contains my essay “Dance or Dēcēdere: Gladiator and Industrial Music Sampling.”

Vernon Press Product Page

Scheduled to be published in May, this issue of Weird Talescontains my essay “When the Stars are Right.”

Weird Tales Product Page

Published in late March, the first issue of the zine Footage Fiends, contains my essay “Analisi Della Cosa: Found Footage in Caltiki and Italian Theater Going Practices.”

Limited to 50 physical copies.

Order via Patreon.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

History of the World Pt 1 and Jeana Keough

I shared this on Twitter the other day and since it is peplum related I thought I would share it here.

Here is my DVD copy of Mel Brooks’ History of the World Part 1 signed by November 1980 Playboy Playmate Jeana Keough (Tomasino).

Aside from her Playboy spread, Keough is probably best known for her appearances in various ZZ Top music videos of the 80s and in The Real Housewives of Orange County series. She only had a cameo part in History of the World Part 1 during the Roman Empire segment. I had the honor to meet Keough at a Glamourcon convention way back in 2010:

Jeana Keough (Tomasino) – Glamourcon 2010

Aside from autograph my copy of History of the World, she also autographed an 8×10 of one of her Playboy pictures for Michele and I:

Jeana Keough Playboy picture with super stockings.