Seven Years Blogging Anniversary!

It’s difficult for me to believe this, but I began this blog seven years ago today, on April 23, 2005.  That’s 2,464 posts, 9 books and one web-series ago.  If I were keeping count, of course…

I want to sincerely thank all the readers who have joined Reflections since that April day in 2005, stuck around, and continue to frequent this joint.  

I feel especially fortunate to be joined here by such a curious, civil, intelligent and educated readership.  This is more true than ever.  I read the great, thorough, incisive comments here and invariably think, “I wish I had thought of that!”

But I suppose that’s the best aspect of blogging: the back-and-forth that occurs in the on-going conversation.  It’s always nice to meet folks who love film and television with such devotion, attention-to-detail, and passion.

As I like to say, stick around.  The best is yet to come.

Don’t Forget the Mad Monster Party

One more heads-up before the show: If you’re in Charlotte N.C. (or thereabouts), come see me at The Mad Monster Party this weekend.  I’ll be selling books, meeting fans, and making trouble.

Well, not the last part…

Hopefully, I’ll get the chance to take some pictures and upload them to the blog.

Con info here!

Horror Films of the 1990s at the PC Principle: Pop Culture on Demand

My friend and interviewer extraordinaire, Troy Foreman, is now featuring a podcast interview with me regarding my book, Horror Films of the 1990s at his great site, The PC Principle (Pop Culture on Demand).  

Troy loves horror films with a passion, and we had a terrific, rollicking hour-long talk about the nineties, that decade of interlopers, serial killers, Internet fears, the ”talking” slashers (Scream [1996]) and genetic horrors.  

In our wide-ranging conversation, we looked at historical trends in the decade, and specific films, from The Blair Witch Project (1999) to The Sixth Sense (1999) to Bordello of Blood (1997).

I want to thank Troy for a great chat, and for featuring me on his podcast.  I also want to see if I can wrangle an invite back when my book, Music on Film: Purple Rain premieres this April, as Troy is a huge Prince aficionado.

It was an honor and pleasure to be on The PC Principle, and I hope everyone will give the interview a listen…

In case you missed it…

…here’s the audio interview I did with Keith Hansen at Untamed Dimensions on Saturday night at 9:00.  We went a bit over an hour, but had a blast.

You can listen to the audio here, and our subject is my book Horror Films of the 1990s, but we also get into classic 1970s horror films, the difference between terror and horror, the efficacy of CGI special effects in horror vs. fantasy and other nifty subjects. 

It was a heck of a lot of fun…

I’m on Untamed Dimensions, Tonight at 9:00 PM

I’ll be the guest tonight on the second hour of Keith “Vyz” Hansen’s Untamed Dimensions at 9:00 pm (EST) to discuss my new book, Horror Films of the 1990s, and other subjects related to the genre. 

You can tune in to the stream right here.

Long-time readers of the blog may also remember that Keith and I, a couple of years back, also did a four-part series on Chris Carter’s Millennium — a series which will be celebrating its 15th anniversary this coming Tuesday — and you can listen to those episodes as well. 

Here are the links: episode 1, episode 2, episode 3, and episode 4.

Hope you’ll tune to Untamed Dimensions tonight!

Mahalo Author Series Video Posted

If you feel like listening to me talk about film and television for forty minutes or so (!), Mahalo has now uploaded the long-distance video interview they did with me a week ago, wherein I answered twenty reader questions.  I really appreciated being included in this Author’s Series, and hope you enjoy the video.

The audio is somewhat variable at points, but check it out: http://www.mahalo.com/john-kenneth-muir/

20 Questions for Me

Web directory, search engine and “knowledge exchange” site Mahalo.com is currently sponsoring a new series for prominent authors called “20 questions for ….“ and — yay! – I’m next up in the programming queue.

So, if you have any questions you’d like to ask me about writing reference books,  or specifically about Horror Films of the 1970s, Horror Films of the 1980s and Horror Films of the 1990s, this is the opportunity to pose them! 

I’ll actually get to answer all twenty questions on video, which should be extremely cool… assuming I don’t make a complete fool of myself in the process.

Anyway, follow this link to Reddit, and ask away! 

I’ll be recording the video Friday afternoon, and responding to all your questions then.  I’ll let you know when the video page is posted.

>Since April 23, 2005…

>

…that’s how long I’ve been blogging here about film, television, toys, and nostalgia.

I’m at just approaching the 2,000th post now, which is hard to believe.  It’s funny to think about, but this blog has taken me through the birth and ending of my own independent web-series (The House Between [2007-2009]) and other career and personal milestones as well.  In fact, the blog is older even than my four-year old son, Joel. 

The template here has changed a couple of times over the years, but even with small cosmetic alterations, the blog has been a constant part of my daily life for a long time.  I like it that way.  My blog gets me up in the morning and gets me writing. 

Most of all, I’m thankful for all the professional and personal friendships I’ve made through this writing venue…something that doesn’t necessarily happen through solitary book writing, or occasional media appearances. 

And I remain committed to writing here. You’ll probably have to drag me away from the keyboard when I’m 103, I wager.

Anyway, a day of “reflection” here on Reflections on Film/TV.  Every year at this time, I like to go back and re-post my very first “blog” entry, from April 23, 2005, just for posterity.  Kind of a tradition:

Hello everybody, welcome to my blog. And to start us off, I quote the illustrious Admiral James Stockdale: “Who am I? Why am I here?”

Good questions…

My name is John Muir. and I’m a published author who writes under the name John Kenneth Muir, not because I’m pretentious or anything (though I am…) but because – for some reason – there are a lot of writers out there named John Muir.

Specifically, there’s the great American naturalist from the last century, and also a fellow who writes about fixing Volkswagens. Others too, I think. In the age of the Internet, I realized I had to distinguish myself a little for Google, Yahoo, Lycos, Ask Jeeves and other search engines, so for the record, I’m the John Muir (the John Kenneth Muir…) who writes about film and television for a living.

And I know nothing about Volkswagens, so don’t ask…

To let you know a little bit about my work, I’m the author of fifteen published books and several articles and short stories. I live in Monroe, North Carolina and work out of my home office penning books on film and television.

You may (or may not…) know some of my titles. From Applause Theatre and Cinema Books I’ve written: An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith (2002), The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi (2004), and Best in Show: the Films of Christopher Guest and Company (2004).

McFarland, a publisher here in North Carolina, has published eleven of my books, including award winners Terror Television (A Booklist Editor’s Choice, 2001), Horror Films of the 1970s (A Booklist Editor’s Choice, 2002 and ALA “Best of the Best” Reference Book ’03), and 2004′s The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film and Television.

I’ve written about prominent horror directors (Wes Craven: The Art of Horror [1998], The Films of John Carpenter [2000], Eaten Alive at a Chainsaw Massacre: The Films of Tobe Hooper [2003]) and several TV series studies, including Exploring Space:1999 (1997), An Analytical Guide to TV’s Battlestar Galactica (1998), A Critical History of Doctor Who on Television (1999), A History an Analysis of Blake’s 7 (2000), and An Analytical Guide to TV’s One Step Beyond (2001).

I’ve also written an original (licensed novel) based on the TV series Space:1999 called The Forsaken, from Powys Media, and freelanced for magazines including Cinescape, Filmfax, Rerun, Collectors News, and The Official Farscape Magazine. On the web, my home page is here, and I’m the regular media columnist for the web-zine Far Sector, which features original fiction and great editorials and opinion columns. My column this month “It Boldly Went,” discusses the need in our society for a show like Star Trek, and the cancellation of Enterprise. So that’s my cv, and that’s the experience I bring to the table.

That answers the first question, who am I?. The second question, why am I here? involves pop culture, film and TV. I hope I can utilize this space to discuss, debate and ponder trends in movies and TV programs. I’m open to all subjects – fantasy, horror, science fiction, Bollywood, musicals, you name it. Basically, I just hope to create an ongoing journal about contemporary and classic entertainment…

>Remember when I said "less is more?"…

>

…I lied.

So anyway, I didn’t blog yesterday because I spent the whole bloomin’ day re-organizing my home office and finally organizing my display-able toy collection.  It was a colossal task that took me about fifteen hours, but now I’ve finally got this home office in good shape…for the moment. 

And yes, I retract my former statement that less is more.

In terms of home office toy collections, more is clearly more.

>Back from Space:2011 at Hampden-Sydney College

>

Well, we just pulled up to the old Muir homestead here in North Carolina, after a long weekend in Virginia and a morning on the highway.

But yesterday, I spent a delightful day at the gorgeous Hampden-Sydney College campus, meeting with faculty and students, guest-teaching a few classes, and then presenting my afternoon lecture, Space: 2011 – American Culture and the Final Frontier.

I started the day by sitting in on an Honors Seminar about Star Trek, and discussing my status as a kind of “lapsed Trekker.” 

We spoke about Star Trek as a possible “faith,” and I described the context in which I discovered Star Trek as a kid, back in the 1970s.     The teachers in this seminar were absolutely amazing, and I only wish I had been able to attend a seminar like this as an undergraduate twenty years ago. 

And yes, I’m that old.

Following the Trek seminar, I attended a film studies course, and was thrilled to discuss with the students the four Alien films, and the various decades in which they first appeared.  This was another really terrific class, headed by an extraordinary teacher with deep knowledge about film and film history.  I’m only sorry I couldn’t be present to listen in on the upcoming lecture on No Country for Old Men.

Then, I headed into a general Astronomy class in the Gilmer Building and discussed with the students the scientific errors featured in some famous science fiction movies and television programs, and debated the line between scientific accuracy and imagination/artistic license. 

In this talk, I opened with the Han Solo “parsec” line from Star Wars, and then introduced Isaac Asimov’s three criteria for errors in science fiction productions (from his editorial, “Is Space:1999 More Fi Than Sci?”): errors of dramatic necessity, errors out of commercial consideration, and errors out of ignorance.  We talked about Space: 1999, Star Trek, Battle LA, and much more.  Again, I enjoyed getting to spend time with this particular professor, who is a brilliant guy and a great gentleman to boot.

At about noon, I sat in on a two-hour lunch with another dedicated and stimulating group of students and professors.  We talked everything from philosophy in science fiction and Robert Heinlein to Land of the Lost, to the role of women in Star Trek: The Next Generation. 

Then, come the end of the day, at 4:30 pm, I presented my public lecture about American culture and outer space TV series.  I opened with a quote from Solaris (1972) about humans not really wishing to see something alien in space, but instead  hoping to countenance “mirrors.” 

In other words, films and television shows are mirrors on our times, our fears, our hopes and our potential. 

Then we went decade-by-decade, discussing the historical and cultural contexts of Star Trek, Space:1999, Battlestar Galactica, V, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Farscape, Battlestar Galactica (remake) and V (remake). 

There was some great back and forth in the discussion, with audience members asking terrific questions about the artistry of video games, the different nature of American versus British sci-fi TV, and even a query about how “on the nose” recent productions like BSG and V seemed in comparison to the more allegorical, subtler shows of yesteryear.

To cap off the day, Kathryn, Joel and I were treated to a wonderful dinner with two amazing professors who I am very proud to call friends, where the discussion ranged from Star Trek and Space:1999 to Red Dwarf, The Starlost and even Buck Rogers.

So I enjoyed my day at Hampden-Sydney College tremendously, and was highly impressed by the caliber and intensity of the students (some of whom were tackling a philosophy paper related to identity and the Farscape episode “Eat Me”), as well as the kindness, generosity and expertise of the teaching faculty.

All in all, it was a pretty spectacular day, and one I won’t soon forget.