Weekly Briefing from the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker, 11/15/24
13 Days of Thanksgiving edition
The crisp air, coupled with the annual falling back of the chronometer, can only mean one thing: we are close to Thanksgiving and Christmas, the “big show” for all holiday bakers and amateur home cooks who fantasize about their own show on HGTV called “Casual Casseroles” or something pithy like that. We here at the bunker are making plans for our staff Christmas party and a brief excursion to the wilds of Ohio to round out the holidays. This will, of course, be documented for review at a later date.
Meanwhile, Bunker Ops is cooking up something very different, and while it won’t be comfort food or the like, it will be something that sustains us for the next four years (and beyond, if necessary).
Nothing But Blue Skies
I cut ties with the tire fire formerly known as Twitter, but I want the record to show that I stuck it out for far longer than anyone thought I would. One of the biggest challenges as a writer (or any creative these days, really) is this need to have a “platform” whereby you can post “content” to grow your “base.” How poetical. How creatively inspiring, this notion of making art through a lens of corporate productivity jargon. That’s why I grudgingly joined every new platform that came down the pike from 1997 to now. I don’t want this, you understand, but I used to feel guilty if I don’t do it, like I’m not trying hard enough.
Now I just want something I can use to connect with people, like how all of those tech bros’ press releases used to say. Preferably without an algorithm in place to tell me what I really need. So far, that’s Blue Sky. This appears to be the first social platform that heard and responded to the growing complaints about how the public spaces in social media have been polluted and distorted for the end user. There’s no algorithm, bots are gleefully pruned, and content is monitored for things like hate speech.
With everyone flooding over from X, I remain optimistic. We have a chance, all of us, to make some procedural and contextual changes with this new space. It doesn’t have to be Twitter Mark III. It can and should aim higher than that. If you want to follow me, I’m here: @markfinn.bsky.social and I’m trying to post something every day.
Field Report: North Texas Writer’s Conference
Over the last decade, the public library in Roanoke, Texas (a part of the D/FW metroplex and home of the original Babe’s family-style restaurant) has put together an incredible little literary conference for beginning and journeyman writers. This free, one day conference is packed with seminars and workshops for people who are looking to improve their wordsmithery, utilizing a bevvy of regional authors and teachers to put presentations together, field questions, give advice and encouragement, and did I mention, it’s free to the public? I know, right?! That’s what I thought, too.
This was my first year as a presenter. I knew what to expect because I attended the year before, just to see what was going on and get a sense of how it all worked. My presentation was all about writing a heist into your story, regardless of genre. About 25 people were there, watching me learn Powerpoint with reckless abandon, in real time, no less. They were all engaged, taking notes, etc. They only asked a few questions, but they were good questions that pertained to the topic at hand.
The rest of the day was a pleasant hang out, seeing old friends, talking over old times, and finishing off my very late birthday plans that got held up back in October. This involved eating at a Cajun restaurant in Roanoke that I really like.
This kind of one-day event is something I’ve become overtaken with. Texas is lousy with regional writers who all lament the lack of places to promote their books. For genre writers, the de-emphasis on reading and physical literature has hit them doubly hard, because conventions are turning to the next generation of fans to stay relevant, which means more anime and more cosplay and less readings.
I think my answer is to find new places where we can read, talk to other authors and readers, and give talks about the things we write about. The Roanoke Library has done it, and it can be done elsewhere, too—especially in larger urban areas, but don’t count out the middle of nowhere, either.
Marfa, Texas, has become an artists’ enclave, and it’s in the middle of nowhere. And this just happened: Archer City will become home to the Larry McMurtry Literary Center, and Archer City isn’t really a place you just “happen across.” Likewise, Cross Plains, Texas, where My Favorite Author, Robert E. Howard, has a museum in his home, which is now on the National Registry of Historic Places. Their library has won multiple awards, and they host an annual get-together that is Mecca for all REH fans who want to make the pilgrimage.
It can be done. This is one of the things I’m actively trying to figure out. There’s a structure that needs to be built to make it a viable option. More on this later. For now, let me just thank everyone involved with the North Texas Writers’ Conference and welcome my new folks from the conference and from Blue Sky with a little bit of fiction. This story is called “The Beer Run” and it’s a caper involving my fantasy troupe of thieves as they attempt to hit back someone who double crossed them. You can download the pdf from this Google Drive link. And click on the link above to read more about the Larry McMurtry Center; it’s an interesting story, to say the least, involving Chip and Joanna Gaines (of Magnolia TV fame). I was terrified and a bit outraged when I read that Chip had bought Booked Up, Inc. but now I have to take it all back.
Black Friday at the Bunker
As we’ve recently reported, Christmas comes early thanks to a late Thanksgiving, and with all of the other off-kilter nonsense this year, the retailers of the world have decided that Black Friday, instead of being the day after Thanksgiving, will be a month-long gentle slide into the last Friday of November. It’s important to remember that everyone involved will use the three week long one-day-only event to make it seem like the “best Black Friday ever,” when in fact, it wasn’t, and we didn’t, and probably never should have in the first place.
Regardless, let it never be said that we at the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker can’t read the writing on the wall. We are therefore offering a 25% discount on anyone who becomes a paid subscriber for one year. Remember, this is optional—the weekly newsletter is free, and always will be. Some of you, though, have elected to support my efforts in a more direct way, for which I am most grateful, and to show my appreciation, here’s a link to the discount, if you wanna: https://ntab.substack.com/5fe3c81c This link is only good until November 30th.
Weekly Report from the N.T.A.B. Division of Media Review
Note: we are hard at work compiling our annual NTAB Holiday Gift-Giving Guide for the forward-thinking survivors of the apocalypse. Stay tuned for that. In the meantime, we recommend you start re-watching Christmas movies, beginning with the most outlandish and sacrilegious and working your way inward to the heart of the season. We are starting this weekend, and this movie below is an excellent warmup.
Red One (in theaters)
Kris (Kringle, aka Red One) is abducted from the North Pole and his security detail must engage the services of a tracker on the naughty list to get him back.
This all-star cast of actors, for those of you who haven’t watched the trailer yet, includes The Rock, Chris Evans, J.K. Simmons, Bonnie Hunt, Nick Kroll, Lucy Liu, Don Draper’s oldest daughter and Jimmy Kimmel’s nephew. The plot is not hat, but what makes this movie work is the MCU-ification of the Christmas story, which lives, tonally speaking, way south of Violent Night and just north of Kurt Russell’s The Christmas Chronicles, which is next door to Spirited.
I think one of my favorite things about 21st century Christmas movies (real Christmas movies, not the Hallmark made-for-TV crap), starting with Elf in 2002, is that they all take a run at the pedantry and incredulity around the idea of Santa Clause and explain it away out of hand. It’s magic. Or it’s high-tech stuff. Or in this case, it’s quantum physics and magic and whatever else we want to slap in there. It would be egregious with any other movie ever made, but when you’re dealing with our most enduring childhood myth—that we all really want to be true—it turns out that hand-waving is perfectly all right, so long as we get back to the story and the presents and the quips. Magic is magic. No one really wants to know HOW it works, only that it does.
No one in this movie is breaking any new ground here: there’s not a single surprising break out performance in sight. Everyone is on cruise control and comfortably in their lane, including Chris Evans, who has made, what, five movies now, where he’s playing a character so far removed from Captain America that he seems to be a different person altogether. That’s not to say that the performances aren’t enjoyable. The Rock glowers, Evans spits snark, Lucy Liu kicks someone in the face, Nick Kroll is playing a sleazeball, J.K. Simmons has practically trademarked gruff and irascible, you get the idea. Actually, Simmons’ St. Nick is more avuncular and folksier this time around, but come on, he’s always gonna be J. Jonah Jameson, now and forevermore. Jonah Clause?
That being said, Red One is a kidnapping plot with crazy Christmas decorations draped over it, guest-starring Wakanda as The North Pole and S.H.I.E.L.D. as the E.L.F. Can you dig it? I knew that you could. The movie delivers exactly what the trailer promises, but with the added bonus of a couple of fun twists and turns that you may not see coming.
Red One joins the growing list of Christmas movies that is short on schmaltz, long on action and mayhem, and still manages to deliver a sufficiently on-brand message about being a nicer person for one holiday out of the year. It’s going in my annual rotation, replacing Bad Santa, for those of you keeping score at home.
It was great briefly seeing you. While it was a free conference, registration was a thing I did not do, so they only let me in to say "Hiya" before it got hopping. Next year, though...I should probably pitch a workshop about podcasting fiction. (Ya know, since I've been doing that more than a decade and live about a mile and a half from the library!)
I still maintain Red One was inspired by "The Night the Reindeer Died" with Lee Majors as the 6 Million Dollar Man, from the movie "Scrooged." I'm STILL waiting for that one (I'll pass on "Robert Goulet's Christmas in the Bayou").