Weekly Briefing from the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker, 06/15/24
Dateline: Cross Plains Edition
This briefing comes at the end of a week-long convalescence from our field excursion to Cross Plains, Texas to participate in the annual Robert E. Howard days gathering. This is a particularly galling state of affairs considering that my recovery from a three-day bacchanalia used to be a breakfast burrito with jalapenos and a lemon-lime Jarritos. These days, I require so many salves, poultices and unguents slathered onto my battered carcass that I’m considering buying one of those dip tanks they use to de-louse cattle. Just squirt all of the SPF 112 and the Icy Hot and the beard and face moisturizer and the exfoliants into the vat with a dash of bay rum cologne “for texture” and just hand crank me down into it. You can even dunk me multiple times, like a day-old cruller in a cup of truck stop coffee
Everyone here in the front office has decided to stop the aging process and throw all of our research into reversing the onset of adult, just-because arthritis and random, not-stroke-related memory loss, and all of the other tiny little things that amount to a death of a thousand cuts.
On an unrelated note, we are currently hiring research scientists and genetics experts for a long-term project. I can’t say anything more until we get the N.D.A. in place, but if you’re interested, just email your resume to the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker’s employment application portal. We’ll be in touch soon!
Field Report: Cross Plains, 2024
You would think that after more than 25 years, I’d be sick of it. The exact opposite is true. My first full-on official Howard Days was in 1997 and I’ve only missed three gatherings in the intervening years.
Friend of the Bunker (and most excellent pulp scholar and essayist) Bobby Derie posted a succinct and prescient rumination about the event. Among other things, he said:
Other folks might feel different. Ghosts and spirits aren't my line. But I love the space that has been created and curated, the sense of place. This is where Robert E. Howard was. This is his room, his desk. Everything he wrote, just about, came from right here.
And there are people around you that get it. They've read some of the same stories. Can talk about him, his life, or not. There's that shared moment, when folks gather together. Not to seek some transcendental moment, but just...to be there. To mark the year gone by. Meet the new people. Miss the old ones.
Bobby nailed it, right there. I don’t go every year to see the House anymore (even though it’s the first place I always visit). I go for the people. And as someone who actively participates in Howard Days, I have taken ownership of the event and I’m not shy about telling others to come check it out. I estimate that I have browbeaten, cajoled, pleaded, and persuaded over 75 people to drive out to Cross Plains, Texas in JUNE, just to see the house and talk about a Texas author.
You might think it’s repetitive, but the truth is, there’s always something different happening. Why, in the last ten years, we’ve seen another copy of the rarest Robert E. Howard book find its way to the museum, along with many of the actual books that were in the house that belonged to Isaac Howard and Robert, and just this year, Howard’s original writing desk came home. The writing desk upon which he set his elbows as he typed and thought and dreamed. You can see the divots in the top.
How much closer can you get to the creation of Conan than right there? There are other literary shrines across the country (Kipling’s Naulakha house in Brattleboro, Vermont, comes to mind), and there are other annual authorial gatherings, as well (Tom Sawyer Days, in Hannibal, Missouri, for instance). But there’s a combination of both place and time, mixed with a lot of folksy charm that’s just par for the course in small town Texas, and a real esprit de corps amongst everyone in attendance that really elevates the weekend and the experience.
I love going every year, and I wouldn’t dream of missing it unless circumstances were dire. Y’all know what I’ve been struggling with these last 9 months. Right up to us getting in the car to make the drive, I was dragging ass. As soon as we got to Cross Plains, it was like a weight had rolled off of my chest. I felt lighter, more even-tempered. It felt like home. At this point in my life, it is, of a sort.
Weekly Report from the N.T.A.B. Division of Media Review
Note: there has been the usual amount of online verbal defecation aimed at the newest Star Wars offering, The Acolyte. Given that everyone in the DMR has expressed admiration for the Star Wars franchise, even when we collectively don’t like something related to Star Wars, we didn’t feel the need to tell you to watch the first two episodes and judge for yourself as to its merit. We do think that the first two episodes seem to be an accurate depiction of what the series will entail, but we realize our criteria may not be your criteria.
You are to keep your own council as to whether or not this is the usual Star Wars fare (familiar trappings, a light and engaging story, expanding on venerable concepts in new ways) or if this is yet another ham-fisted attempt by Kathleen Kennedy to murder your childhood, steal your joy, and destroy the franchise and sow the ground with salt so that it cannot return in any form. Instead, we offer you a glimpse at a documentary that may be of some interest to you, especially if you are the kind of person who looks at a blank wall and says, “What that space needs is a sword hanging in it.”
Ren Faire (Max)
A three-part documentary about the Texas Renaissance Festival and the owner, “King” George’s attempts to sell his legacy attraction and retire so he can live out his few remaining years in the manner to which he has become accustomed.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this documentary preceded the premiere of Season 2 of House of the Dragon. The behind-the-scenes machinations and maneuverings of various factions to buy the festival, seize control, and oust the king are certainly presented as a series of real-life Game of Thrones courtly intrigues, were it all not so mundane and petty.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been involved in putting on a theater production, or a show, or a convention or festival, but I’ve done a lot of them over the years; everything from producing stage theater to working on programing for high-profile conventions. I have, and it’s no picnic. As such, I was not unsympathetic to the frustrations that many of the people in the documentary expressed—namely, “If they’d just listen to me and do exactly what I want, everything would be instantly better for everyone.”
A common refrain, to be sure, and one that is not limited to live events; I’ve felt that way in office jobs, too. But the other side of Ren Faire’s coin (ducat? Farthing?) is that the guy who created the Texas Renaissance Festival, this “King” George? He started it in the 1970s, and he gathered unto him a bunch of hippies, medievalists, buskers, performers, and actors and out of a tremendous force of will created this monster thing that was in his brain, and everyone has been calling him a genius, a visionary, and a king for over forty years now, so, guess what? That’s exactly how he acts, towards everyone. And he says several times during the documentary some variation of “if you’d just do it exactly my way, then you’d be right and I wouldn’t have to fire you.”
It’s hard to watch, because even though everyone has good intentions and makes it clear that they only want what’s best for the TRF, George can’t let go, because he can’t find someone who acts, speaks, and thinks exactly the same way that he does. Ren Faire is less a journey and more of a circle, but it’s full of colorful characters (who you may have seen in person if you ever visited the Texas Renaissance Festival) and while the portrayals aren’t necessarily sympathetic, my cap is doffed at all of them and anyone else who has to deal with the LARP version of The Madness of King George on a daily basis. I idly wondered, more than once, if any of these principles would go full Tyrian and walk into the Rococo bathroom with a loaded crossbow.
Hit Man (Netflix)
Glen Powell is a college professor who finds himself aiding the police by posing as a fake hit man to trap criminals. He meets a special someone and suddenly, the lie threatens to become real.
Okay, that’s a terrible synopsis. So, too, is the trailer for the film. It doesn’t quite prepare you for the very abrupt tone shift in the third act. It’s not what I expected, and I grappled with the ending for a while afterwards. See, before the turn, the first two thirds of the movie is great. Glen Powell has officially won me over as someone to watch for the future. Right now he’s in big dumb comedies but when he decides to do something serious, I’m all in.
My former director Richard Linklater is great at making solid, character driven stories that are loosely based on someone real. I was surprised to see both his name and Powell’s on the screenwriting credits. Then again, this wasn’t their first rodeo together, either, so that’s cool that they were collaborating.
As for the movie itself, it’s mostly one note, but that one note is a clown horn, and it’s pretty funny to listen to, even when it’s repeatedly beeped. You can see the plot points coming from orbit, they are so obvious. That third act, though...it goes to an interesting place, and it’s been made all the more curious by how much work they do to get you to like Powell’s “nerdy” professor, especially since they had the omnipresent problem of making someone like Powell, a winner of the genetic lottery, into a “normal-looking guy.” Um, okay. My suspension of disbelief only stretches so far, you know?
You know what? Go watch it. It’s on Netflix, so you’ve already paid for it. Then come back here and tell me what you thought of it. I’m curious to know if Hit Man worked for you as a black comedy or if it came off as neither fish nor fowl.
Mark Finn is one of the most opinionated and influential experts on Robert E. Howard in the state of Texas. He’s an author out of largesse rather than as a vocation and writes stories because he can’t play the guitar. He loves gorillas, values a well-placed conversational movie quote, and treasures the picaresque in literature. Annoyed with people’s misunderstanding of popular culture, he took it upon himself to buy a movie theater so he could lord it over every film student on the Internet. He likes to say, “If three people tell you you’re drunk, go lie down.”
Thanks !! For all that update :)
I watched the series on King George. My main take is that despite how badly he came off, they did a major whitewash on his character. I've attended TRF since 1979, worked many years in the SCA compound and games, and have had friends who were long-time vendors there. There are numerous stories of the abuse of power George has done. And nowhere was there any mention of brother (think his name was David). He's the one who started the Minnesota fair with him, and also helped him start TRF where for several years he was the "Pretender to the Crown." Hit me up the next Armadillocon if you want stories of a real medieval robber baron.