Editor’s note: We published an excerpt from “Call Me Harry,” from the the prolific Mr. Cade, in May, 2014. His new novella is a Western. The trick question in the title, “At the Request of James Dougle,” may keep you wondering for a while, but wait – it’s a zinger. This is an old-fashioned Western, and I love the genre. Maybe because I grew up wearing cowboy boots, but more likely because in many ways the Western was the progenitor of the mystery and suspense genre, in which I dearly love to read and to write. The tales James Fenimore Cooper told of Matty Bumppo [aka “Leatherstocking”] were thrillers set in an untamed America, which translated forward into the wild-in-the-streets American cities where cops and private eyes fought crime. Race, it seems, has always been…
365 Docobites: “A child’s life in my hands” video
A few months ago, The Fictional Café made a pledge to an enterprising young couple of video documentary makers, Epiphany Morgan and Carl Matson. They’re from Sydney, Australia, and have been touring the world making a video documentary a day – “365 Docobites.” Our contribution has come back to the coffee shop to roost in the form of a video gift, which you can watch here. We’re very proud to have supported this creative endeavor and hope to publish a few more of the 365 Docobites here in the future. For the nonce, you can go watch a few yourself at their website. Again, congratulations to Eppie and Carl on a very big project, well done. Hey guys, please stop by the ole Fictional Café for a cuppa next time you’re in town! Jack, Mike,…
Film Review: “Ex Machina”
The box-office success of “Mad Max: Fury Road” [reviewed by Jason] and “Ex Machina” is the quintessential personification of lowbrow versus highbrow films. We Americans – indeed, most of the world, civilized or no – love both types. I have come to pick up Jason’s gauntlet and praise the latter film, but not at the expense of the former, for I, too, loved them both. And as writers and artists and students of the craft of storytelling, so should you. “Ex Machina” begins by celebrating the brilliance of the creative lions of Silicon Valley, in this case Nathan [Oscar Isaac], and the wonders of technology, like the Google-like empire he has built. Yet Nathan is now, not unlike Thoreau, retired to the woods to contemplate his next brilliant move, for nothing less than topping his earlier triumph will satisfy this…
“Diplomacy” by Jane Ward
Editor’s Note: We welcome Jane Ward back to the FictionalCafé ‘zine pages with a new short story. Her first, “Balancing Act,” appeared in the June, 2014 issue. * “It’s not like that,” she said. They were sitting on the steps of the old house where Raynor had grown up, looking out at the moss-covered rocks on the front lawn, and trying to get the bottle caps to land on top of the biggest rock the way they had done when they were children. The house still reminded Tara of the house in Forrest Gump, the way its size was somehow mediated by its straightforward shape and layout, so that the place managed to appear unassuming. “It sounds pretty much ‘like that’ to me,” he told her, keeping his hand in the air after it let…
Barry Zaltman: Ojos de Tango
Editor’s note: “Ojos de Tango” is the title of a new photographic exhibition opening Friday, June 5, 2015, at the Movimiento Gallery in Boston. It translates into Tango as seen through the eyes of a photographer. And what a feast is Tango for the eyes of the viewer as well! Barry Zaltman is one of the photographers whose work will be on display at the Movimiento Gallery through August 1st. He has graciously allowed us to present several of his stunning Tango studies here in the Fictional Cafe. Note Barry’s photographic style of using pure black and white. Please click on the images for a larger view. Barry Zaltman, a travel photographer, tanguero, bullfight aficionado and educator, recently spent four months in Buenos Aires studying Tango at the…
The New, Improved Fictional Café Has Arrived!
Here Comes the Sun: A happy, faithful fan of the Fictional Café Dear Faithful Fans: It was a long, cold lonely winter, but at last we can tell you that our hard work has brought forth the redesigned, completely revamped, Fictional Café! I want to thank Shari Ryan of Author Needs for months and months of demanding [and often frustrating] work to develop our new site. Shari and I have worked together for nearly five years now, and I greatly appreciate her creativity and perspicacity. She’s also an author and you ought to check her out. Our newest barista, Mike Mavilia, has worked about sixteen times harder on the site than I. He has learned an awful lot about the arcane world of WordPress, teaching me quite a lot in the bargain. Thanks, Mike, for keeping us…
The Reaper’s Daughter by K. M. Randall
Editor’s note: The following excerpt is from a newly published novel, The Reaper’s Daughter, by K. M. Randall. Be sure to watch her novel trailer here at Goodreads. PROLOGUE Present The rolling green of her eyes was dimming fast, losing color and life to the quick click of time that beat out her days and nights, a perpetual circle that was now fading to a close. Light brown hair that had been recently styled into looping curls was limp against the black pillowcase―a metaphor for her wilted spirit, I mused, thinking offhandedly how proud my English professor would be at my thoughtful use of language. I sighed. I didn’t want to be here. When her eyes met mine, I knew she saw me for who I really was—what I really was. She reached out…
Gramer? Speling? Who Cares?
OK, this is so unbelievable I had to include the absolute proof that it happened – on the radio. In fact, I had to go back and listen again just to make sure I understood what I heard. No mistake, I heard what I heard. The show was Ask Me Another, segment “Like A Confused Boss“, on NPR. A contestant was a college student, apparently graduating, asking her professor for help with her C.V., and annoyed with his advice. But listen for yourself. This post is definitely open for your comments! Please click on the arrow below to listen.
Coffee Cup…Butts?
My nephew Luther, who lives in Chicago, is a really creative, ingenious, and funny guy. I love him a lot and follow his interests with great interest because they’re always so interesting. Like his handmade Christmas cards. Like his recent project to build a motorized volume control for his antique Marantz receiver [for those of you who don’t know what a receiver is, click here]. But I am not here to tell you about his retrofitted volume control, but to pass along another of his interests more in keeping with our own: coffee. Specifically coffee cup butts. Yes, you read that correctly. Luther has discovered the coffee equivalent of tea leaves. It hardly makes sense for me to attempt to describe what a coffee cup butt is. You’ll have to find out for yourself my clicking…
Book Review: A Hoarse Half-Human Cheer
It was Peter Dexter who wrote, “Keep in mind that a book that entertains without enlightening can still be a guilty pleasure, but a book that enlightens without entertaining is algebra.” Joseph [X.J.] Kennedy’s delightful A Hoarse Half-Human Cheer is, admittedly, intended to entertain, yet it enlightens in being a period piece – après-guerre America, circa 1946 – foreshadowing the sprawling modern era in this country with wit, humor and irony. After you finish re-reading Heller’s “Catch-22,” this is the novel you should begin. Young Moon Gogarty is the book’s Candide, trying to deal with his stultified feelings after having lost his first love to his mortician grandmother, just as he’s about to begin his studies at the infamous College of Saint Cassian of Imola. He’s thrust into a community of 4,500 older men who’ve…