The Green Monster

Last night was pretty quiet. I spent quite a lot of time writing and read a story called "The Green Monster" by Haruki Murakami from the book The Elephant Vanishes. The story is about a woman who is surprised when a small green mind-reading monster comes out of the ground in her backyard and declares that it loves her. It was a good story and pretty strange.

It was another really dull and annoying day at work today. On the way home I bought the latest issues of Total Film and Empire magazines.

Two in the Wave

Last night I started reading the book The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami. it's a collection of short stories. In the first one, "The Wind-Up Bird and Tuesday's Women" an unemployed man finds his dull morning routine disrupted by a series of increasingly explicit telephone calls from an unknown woman, and later, while looking for his missing cat, meets a strange girl in the garden of a deserted house. The story is actually the first thirty or so pages of Murakami's novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. In the second story, "The Second Bakery Attack", a young couple who are suffering from late-night hunger pangs decide to hold up a McDonalds.

I was up early this morning, for the weekend, to book tickets for the Edinburgh Book Festival in August. I've got tickets booked to see the actor Simon Callow, comedian and author Will Self, and actor Andrew Sachs (all of whom my Mum wants to see so I got two tickets). I also got tickets for my parents to see Frederick Forsyth. Later on in the morning I went up to get my groceries.

This afternoon I went up to the Filmhouse cinema to see Two in the Wave, directed by Emmanuel Laurent. The film is a documentary about legendary French film directors Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut. The two both worked as film critics for the same magazines, and collaborated on each other's film projects, both becoming leading lights of the French New Wave movement. However in the seventies there was a bitter falling out between the two of them and they stopped talking. It was a pretty good documentary and very interesting. This is the final film that I'm seeing for this year's Film Festival. I also got the movie Vampyr on DVD while I was there. I've been really interested in seeing this movie for years.

Back home I saw the season finale of Doctor Who which I thought was really good.

An Electric Ant

Last night was really quiet. I finished reading Human Is?: A Philip K. Dick Reader by Philip K. Dick. The final three stories I read in it were "An Electric Ant" in which a man is shocked to discover he is in fact a robot and, when he discovers that his reality is artificially generated, decides to experiment with his own perception of reality. That was followed by "A Little Something for Us Tempunauts" in which the USA's first time travellers arrive in the future a few days after they supposedly died returning to their own time. The final story was "The Pre-persons" in which children up to the age of 12 can be legally executed.

I was also watching a few epsiodes of Blake's 7 on DVD. Blake's 7 was a British science-fiction TV show which ran for 52 episodes over four seasons from 1977 to 1980. It was kind of a blend of Star Trek and Star Wars and concerned a rag-tag group of bickering revolutionaries and criminals who travel around space in a derelict alien spacecraft fighting against the totalitarian Galactic Federation. These days the show is often made fun of due to the often really bad (by modern standards) special effects and production values. However, the show was usually well-written and clever. It was also a lot grittier and bleaker than most science-fiction shows with a strong vein of dark humour.

Today I went out and got some postcards to send to a friend and I also got a CD called Dirty House Blues by Lightnin' Hopkins and a book called The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami. on my way home I stopped off in a bar and had a couple of drinks and read my book.

It's been a good weekend mostly, but it has been marred by the fact that I've been feeling really kind of depressed recently about the fact that I really am a complete loser (mainly the facts that I am kind of stupid, I'm ugly, I've never really had a girlfriend and I have never achieved anything). It does happen fairly frequently.

Oh, To Be a Blobel!

Last night I was reading a few more short stories by Philip K. Dick. The first one was called "The Days of Perky Pat" and is set in the Los Angeles of the future after Earth has been devestated by nuclear war and the few survivors (or "flukers" as they call themselves)live in protective bunkers living off packages of food and equipment dropped off by "careboys" on Mars. The survivors spend pretty much their entire time playing an elaborate game using a Barbie-type doll called Perky Pat which serves to help the time pass and indulge in an idealised vision of their old lives.
The second story was called "Oh, To Be a Blobel!" which is set eleven years after a war between Earth and an alien race known as the Blobels (which are basically like giant amoebas) and tells the story of a one-time Earth spy who during the war was surgically disguised as a Blobel and now, although he has apparently regained his human form, he keeps reverting to the Blobel form at least once a day, and whenever he is under stress.
The third story was "We Can Remember It For You, Wholesale", which told the story of Douglas Quail a small, meek clerk whose one main ambition in life is to visit Mars. He decides to visit a company called Rekal Incorporated, which specialises in implanting false memories, and buys himself a package which will make him believe he has visited Mars as a secret agent. However when the technicians implant the fake memories they are shocked when they uncover a set of previously erased memories and learn that Quail's dreams about Mars were not just dreams. This story was loosely adapted as the 1990 film Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was originally planned to be adapted by David Cronenberg in the 1980s who wrote a script that was very closely based on the story but the producers told him: "This is wrong, you're making the Philip K. Dick version". To which Cronenberg replied: "Well, isn't that what we're supposed to be doing?" And the producers said: "Oh, no. We want to make Raiders of the Lost Ark go to Mars!" I really thought it was a pity they changed the twist ending to the story.

Today I went out and got a Father's Day card for my Dad and the book The Sigma Protocol by Robert Ludlum as a Father's Day present. For myself I got Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk and "Yipee Ki-Yay, Moviegoer!" Writings on Bruce Willis, Badass Cinema and Other Important Topics by Vern. Vern is an on-line film critic who writes for the famous Ain't It Cool News.com website and the book is a selection of reviews and essays about movies and so on. I also got season two of Blake's 7 on DVD so that should be really good.

Empire and Inception

Last night I was reading a short story by Philip K. Dick called "If There Were No Benny Cemoli" in which an interplanetary law enforcement agency arrive on Earth in order to apprehend the people responsible for a devestating nuclear war, only to find that Earth's Government has stayed in power by fighting an endless campaign against an invented enemy. According to Dick, the story came about from his idea that at least half of the famous people in history never existed.

I finished writing a science-fiction story called "Shutdown" and started writing another one called "Hell Night".

It was another very average day at work. My friend Chris in the office lent me a CD of The Very Best of John Lee Hooker. On my way home a sudden gust of wind blew my hat off my head, but I managed to get it before it went very far. I bought the latest issue of Empire magazine. The main story this month was about the movie Inception and there was also a big article about the career of Alfred Hitchcock. When I got home I saw that my Film Festival tickets had arrived, so that is really good.

I had some microwave jambalaya for my dinner, which was really nice. While I was eating I listened to a reading of "A School Story" by M.R. James on the radio, in which two men are discussing traditions of ghost stories in schools and one of them relates a story from his own school days in which a Latin teacher with a dark past is hounded by a vengeful ghost.

The Mold of Yancy

Last night I was reading a Philip K. Dick short story called "The Mold of Yancy" in which a group of cops from Earth travel to a colony on Callisto, one of the moons of Jupiter, which they believe has all the hallmarks of a totalitarian state, despite having no visible form of torture or oppression. However, every aspect of life on the colony is saturated by their biggest TV star, a man named John Yancy, who seems to have an opinion of every subject. It was a pretty good story.

It was another fairly quiet day at work, pretty much the same as usual really. When I got back I had some microwaved hoi san duck and noodles which were quite nice.

Blade Runner

Last night I was watching the 1982 movie Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott and based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. The film is set in Los Angeles in the year 2019, where most of the human race have moved away to "Off-World" colonies, where they are given their own android slave (known as "replicants"). The most advanced of these replicants is the "Nexus-6" model which are virtually identical to humans aside from their lack of emotions, however it is believed that in time they would develop their own emotional responses, and to safeguard against this each replicant is given a built-in lifespan of only four years. Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford) is a "blade runner", a cop who specialises in killing ("retiring") escaped replicants, and is given the job of tracking down a group of escaped Nexus-6 replicants, led by the charismatic but violent Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), but soon finds himself having increasing doubts about who is human and who isn't. The film is one of the most influential science-fiction films ever made, with it's spectacular sets and production design virtually transforming the look of science-fiction throughout for the past thirty years. The film exists in about seven different versions. The one that I saw was the 2007 "Final Cut".

I was also reading a few of the Philip K. Dick short stories. The ones I read were "The Father-Thing" (about a boy who discovers that his father has been replaced by a vicious alien duplicate), "Foster, You're Dead!" (in which a boy worries about his family's refusal to buy a nuclear fallout shelter - which was a really big issue in the 1950s when the story was written) and "Human Is" (in which a cruel and selfish husband returns home from a trip to space as an alien duplicate, and his wife decides she prefers the alien).

It was the start of another week at work and it went fairly quietly as usual. The Film Festival starts next week so that should be a pretty busy time.

I've been listening to a radio show recently called My Teenage Diary in which comedians select entries from their teenage diaries. It is pretty interesting. As I wrote a few days ago, I read my old diaries a lot and sometimes they are really interesting. Although I was really boring as a teenager when the most exciting thing that happened was watching episodes of The Twilight Zone and Quantum Leap. I'm not any more interesting today, of course. I never really went wild and did crazy things when I was young, and I always regret that. I always think I missed out.

Adjustment Team

Last night was pretty uneventful. I read a Philip K. Dick short story called "Paycheck" about a man who has just finished a two year contract with a company. However the contract has a strange clause in which the man has to agree to having the previous two years wiped from his memory. Also, instead of a paycheck, he discovers that he has sent himself a bizarre collection of random objects such as ticket stubs, a length of wire, a bit of cloth and half a poker chip. All of which turn out to be unexpectedly useful when he finds himself hounded by the police who are investigating the company. It was a good story, which was turned into a film in 2003 directed by John Woo and starring Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman. Dick stated that the story was about how there are times when small and seemingly unimportant objects can sometimes be worth far more than might be apparent.

This morning I read another short story from Philip K. Dick called "Adjustment Team" which was about a normal man who, due to a mistake, finds himself arriving at his office at the same time that it is being operated on by a sinister organisation who re-write reality itself. It's being made into an upcoming film called The Adjustment Bureau starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt.

One thing you could never accuse Philip K. Dick of was laziness, in his 53 years he wrote approximately 121 short stories and published 44 novels. Nine of his works have already been adapted as films and there are about five more on the way.

Today has been fairly quiet. I've not been out at all. I was getting a DVD down from the top of my shelves and about twenty of them fell down on the floor, so that was kind of an emergency, but despite some minor damage to the packaging of one or two, they seemed to be okay. I had an "American platter" for lunch which I got yesterday, it consists of potato skins filled with cheese and bacon, sticky barbecue chicken pieces, pork ribs, mushrooms in breadcrumbs and a pot of garlic and mayonnaise sauce, so that was really nice.

The Variable Man

Last night was fairly quiet. I watched a couple of episodes of The Ricky Gervais Show which were really funny, and saw a show called Top of the Pops 2: Country Jukebox which was an hour of country music which I really liked.

I went along to my parent's house today, instead of the usual Sunday, because they are both busy tomorrow. It was good, we managed to get some groceries for the week. We had some sushi for lunch and in the afternoon sat in the garden, because the weather was so good. I read a Philip K. Dick story from 1953 called "The Variable Man" which was set in the future where Earth is at war with aliens but, due to the fact that humans are using computers to predict the statistical likelihood of victory before they attack, there have been no shots fired. However, when the scientists develop a new type of advanced bomb which tips the statistics in favour of humanity. However a new element is added when a time travel experiment accidentally brings forward a man from the early 20th century which adds an unforeseen variable into the equation and rendering the machines unable to calculate the statistics.

This evening I saw a really good episode of Doctor Who in which the Doctor (Matt Smith) and Amy (Karen Gillan) encounter an invisible alien stalking Vincent Van Gogh (Tony Curran). I really like Van Gogh and I went to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and saw the "Starry Night" exhibition while it was there.

I was re-reading some of my old diaries and journals last night, including one from 1993 which kind of felt strange to read. I was 14 in 1993 and, to be honest, despite the fact that I got to work instead of school, not much has really changed.

The Long Way

Last night I read a couple of stories in Best New Horror 20. The first one was called "The Old Traditions are Best" by Paul Finch, in which a teenage burglar is sent on holiday to a small village in Cornwall with a couple of social workers, where he quickly decides to wreck havoc on the village during it's traditional May Day celebrations, only to find that the quaint local customs of the Hobby Horse has very dark origins, that have not gone away. The second one was "The Long Way" by Ramsey Campbell, about a teenager living in a tough estate who visits his disabled uncle every weekend, and slowly becomes convinced that there is something very sinister in a boarded up house which he passes on the way. They were both pretty good stories.

Today was very quiet, but at least it's the end of another week. This weekend I was going to try and write a short prelude to my NaNoWriMo story for this year.

Anthologies

Last night was pretty quiet. I watched the latest episodes of True Blood, and Generation Kill. Which were both really good.

It was another really quiet day at work today, but I did get a really bad shock as I was leaving work and realised that I had left my phone on the office, so I had to rush back and get it. Luckily I managed to get it okay and it was fine.

Back home, after I had eaten, I read another story from Best New Horror 20 called "Falling Off the World" by Tim Lebbon, about a girl who is carried off into the sky when she gets entangled with balloons and encounters some ghostly figures in the sky. It was pretty strange, but good. The Best New Horror books are published every year, and it's been going for twenty years now. Basically each book opens with an eighty page overview of that year in the world of horror covering books, movies, TV, comics, video games and conventions. Then it follows with twenty to thirty of the best short horror stories published that year from well-established and famous writers as well as newcomers, and concludes with obituaries and useful or interesting addresses and websites. It is pretty good value.

Song of Kali

Last night I finished reading Song of Kali by Dan Simmons. Published in 1985, the book tells the story of American poet and intellectual Robert Luczack who is hired by Harper's magazine to travel to Calcutta and investigate the case of a reknowned Indian poet who has reappeared under mysterious circumstances after having been thought dead for eight years. Travelling to Calcutta with his wife and baby daughter, Luczack is horrified and fascinated by the poverty and casual violence that he witnesses on the streets. Beginning his investigation he discovers that the poet was in some way linked to a powerful and bloodthristy cult dedicated to the worship of Kali, Goddess of Death. It's a pretty gruesome book, and it does benefit from having a really strong creepy atmosphere throughout. It won the 1986 World Fantasy Award.

I was also reading a couple of stories from Best New Horror 20. The first one, "Front-Page McGuffin and the Greatest Story Never Told" by Peter Crowther was a kind of sweet and funny Twilight Zone-style story in which an elderly one-time newspaper reporter goes to visit his favourite bar for a drink with his friends, despite the fact that he is dead. In "It Runs Beneath the Surface" by Simon Strantzas, a tired commuter in the inner-city finds himself pursued by a malevolent force hiding in the shadows in the Underground system. In "These Things We Have Always Known" by Lynda E. Rucker, a sculptor in a strange small American town discovers the source of the town's strangeness, and in "Through the Cracks" a young woman from London, visiting her sister in Newcastle, pays a call on her ex-boyfriend who is obsessed by the idea that some powerful malevolent entity is trying to get into our world through cracks.

Today was yet another quiet day at work, and it was really dull as usual.

Human Statues

It was another really quiet evening last night. I was kind of half-watching The Blair Witch Project, but I had seen it just a couple of weeks ago. I did read a story in the Best New Horror book I got on Sunday called "Feminine Ending" by Neil Gaiman, which was about a human statue (one of those kind of mimes that you see around on the streets pretending to be statues) who turns out to be a stalker. The story itself is written as a love letter from the human statue. I had a really strange night's sleep where I kept waking up.

It was an incredibly dull day at work. The time just seemed to drag on forever. I spent most of the afternoon listening to my iPod. Which I must remember to recharge this evening, actually.

Brave New Town

Last night I listened to a Doctor Who radio story called "Brave New Town". In the story, the Doctor (played by Paul McGann) and Lucie (Sheridan Smith) arrive in a seemingly normal English town, only to find that the town is forever repeating the same day (September 1st 1991). The town is also located in Russia, and surrounded by the military, also the townspeople, who are strangely unconcerned by the strange events, are all hearing the smae strange voice in their heads. It was a pretty good story. Later on I was listening to a couple of crime stories which were pretty good.

I did some more writing last night. It wasn't as much as I did last night but still some is better than nothing.

I did walk to and from work again today. It was another very slow and quiet day at work as usual. It was really dull.

Max Warp

Last night I listened to another Doctor Who radio play. This episode was called "Max Warp", and was set in the far future where one of the most popular TV shows is a spaceship show called "Max Warp", however when one of the presenters is killed when the spaceship he is testing crashes into a planet, the Doctor(Paul McGann) believes that it is more than just an accident, and that someone is trying to reignite an old interplanetary war. It was a really fun episode, even if much of it is a parody of the British motoring TV show Top Gear. Later on I listened to the fifth and final part of the radio adaptation of Murder at the Vicarage, based on the Agatha Christie novel.

Later on I watched the second episode of the new series of Peep Show, which was very funny. I was also reading a few more of the Just After Sunset stories by Stephen King. In "Mute" a man picks up a hitch-hiker and proceeds to rant about his unfaithful wife, and soon has cause to regret it. In "Ayana", a terminally ill man is miraculously healed by a mysterious stranger, however there is a price to be paid.

This morning I went out an walked to a shopping centre where I bought a new shower curtain, and on my way home I stopped off to get my groceries. While I was there I got the latest issue of Empire magazine. It had an interesting article about an aborted attempt to make a film of Frank Herbert's science-fiction novel Dune in 1974. It would have been directed by deeply eccentric Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky, art design by HR Giger among others, music by Pink Floyd and a cast including Orson Welles, Mick Jagger and Salvador Dali. It fell apart, but the book was filmed by David Lynch in 1984. Interestingly enough Jodorowsky is collaborating with David Lynch on his next film, a Western called King Shot, which will probably be more than a little weird.

This afternoon I have spent most of my time trying to clean my kitchen and bathroom. I think it went quite well.

Just After Sunset

Last night I listened to a Doctor Who radio play called "Dead London", in which the Doctor (Paul McGann) and Lucie (Sheridan Smith) finally make it to London, however it appears that several time zones are colliding in the city and the Doctor soon realises that an evil alien force is at work. Later on I listened to the fourth part of the Agatha Christie adaptation of Murder at the Vicarage. My Mum telephoned today and in the course of the conversation she told me that my brother had given out my telephone number to one of his girlfriend's relatives. I know who it was that he gave my number to, but I do wish that he had let me know.

I read a few stories from the Just After Sunset collection by Stephen King. In one of the stories "N." a psychiatrist's notes tell the story of a patient who believes that he has discovered a powerful evil force in a stone circle standing in an abandoned field. Another of the stories, "The Cat From Hell", told the story of a hitman who is hired by a dying millionaire to kill a cat, but he soon discovers that it is no ordinary cat. That was a story that King originally wrote in the 1970s and had been filmed in 1990 as part of Tales From the Dark Side: The Movie. A third story "The New York Times at Special Discount Rates" told of a bereaved woman who receives a telephone call from her dead husband. Some of the stories are really great and are Stephen King at his best. Although I always keep trying to guess which ones will eventually become films.

It was another very slow day at work and quiet. I left after six hours though, so it was a nice short day. Back home I switched on the 1947 movie Black Narcissus, from the legendary film-making team of Michael Powell and Emric Pressburger. The story involves a group of nuns (lead by Deborah Kerr) setting up a hospital and school in the Hymalayan mountains, only for emotional tensions to run riot. The movie is brilliantly made, creating quite a surreal atmosphere at times. It even manages to be quite shocking at times, more to do with what is hidden and hinted at rather than what you actually see on screen.

Human Resources

Last night I was listening to the first of a two part Doctor Who radio story called "Human Resources", In which Lucie (Sheridan Smith), the Doctor's companion who was kidnapped at the end of the last episode, wakes up to discover that she is in an office at her first day of work. However the office is very strange, in that no-one seems to know in which town they are, and no-one is actually able to leave. When the Doctor (Paul McGann) comes to investigate he discovers that the office is hiding a shocking secret and he encounters some of his oldest enemies. It was a good story. I also listened to the second part of a radio adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel called The Murder at the Vicarage, in which Ms Marple has to investigate, surprisingly enough, a murder at the local village vicarage.

I was reading some of the stories from the Just After Sunset collection by Stephen King. They kind of range from the more famous Stephen King supernatural horror stories to crime thrillers. One thing I like about short story collections is that you know that even if you don't like one story then there's another one coming along soon after.

Later on I watched the 1985 movie Brazil, directed by Terry Gilliam, on TV. The movie tells the story of a timid clerk (played by Jonathan Pryce) who lives in a nightmarish future world, but escapes into his own elaborate fantasy world where he imagines himself as a winged superhero. It's a very good movie, at times very funny and at times being genuinely horrific.

I was back at work today and it was another really dull day. Not much has changed there. One of the strange things about coming back to work after even just a very short time away, is that it very quickly feels as if you've never actually been away.

The Ruins

Last night I was watching a double-bill of episodes from the latest season of Peep Show again. Later on I watched a 2008 movie called The Ruins, directed by Carter Smith and based on the novel by Scott Smith. The story revolves around four American tourists: Amy (played by Jena Malone), Jeff (Jonathan Tucker), Stacey (Laura Ramsey) and Eric (Shawn Ashmore). They are enjoying a holiday in a Mexican resort when they learn about an archeological dig at a recently discovered Mayan temple. Teaming up with another couple of tourists: Mathias (Joe Anderson) and Dimitri (Dimitri Baveas), they decide to take a day trip into the rain forest to explore the temple. Once there they discover that the archeologists have vanished, and discover that it might be connected to the rapidly growing vines that cover the outside and inside of the temple. It's a pretty effective and pretty gruesome horror movie. It's one of those films that (like the Hostel films and Turistas) seems to be set on discouraging people from ever going on holiday again.

I was also reading some stories in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Volume Nineteen. One of the stories I read was called "Still Water" by Joel Lane, in which the police tracing a gang of jewel thieves to an old house discover the gang have vanished except for one who seems to be obsessed with a pool in the back yard. The other story was called "Thumbprint" by Joe Hill in which an American soldier, recently returned from Iraq, is haunted by her past. The third story was called "Lancashire" by Nicholas Royle in which a young family discover that their new best friends seem to have far too much in common with them. I always like horror short stories, because usually the scare comes at the end, and the horror often isn't destroyed at the end, it's still there.

It was a very quiet and dull day at work as usual. I listened to some of my iPod songs (including some Sarah McLachlan tracks) and I'm still researching the move to Canada, but I certainly have come up with a reasonably solid plan of action.

Fawlty Towers

Last night was pretty quiet. I was watching a documentary charting the history of Fawlty Towers, which was a really funny sitcom from the 1970s. It's interesting that they only made twelve episodes of it, so it never really got the chance to outstay it's welcome. I sometimes think it's far better for shows to do fewer episodes and retain the quality rather than for them to run forever until they're just run into the ground.

It was the start of another week at work of course, and it was pretty busy. I was listening to more stories from the Neil Gaiman Fragile Things collection on my iPod, so that certainly made the afternoon a bit more bearable. I got home at about ten to six this evening. The weather was really warm and sunny. Hopefully it will stay like this for awhile.

From Around Here

Last night I managed to get to 92 pages on the Script Frenzy screenplay challenge. It means that I have completed the challenge in eight days, which means it should be completed tomorrow. Aside from that I spent most of the evening reading stories in the Best New Horror book that I bought a few weeks ago. One of the stories ("From Around Here" by Tim Pratt) is about a displaced island god who searches for a new home in the USA while fighting evil supernatural creatures. Another one ("Pumpkin Night" by Gary McMahon) told of a man who brings his serial killer girlfriend back to life by replacing her head with a cursed jack o'lantern. The third story I read ("The Other Village" by Simon Strantzas) told of two Canadian women falling out while on holiday in the Mediterranean and one of the two finds a solution to her anoying friend in a strange deserted village. They were all pretty fun stories. "From Around Here" was fun and pretty exciting, "Pumpkin Night" was gruesome and genuinely creepy and "The Other Village" was a pretty fun Twilight Zone style one.

This morning I went out to get a birthday present and card for my brother (his birthday is on Thursday). I got a card and a £10 HMV voucher. Since he lives in London and I very rarely see him, I never know what he wants or what he's already got. At least with a voucher he can pretty much get what he wants with it. On the way back I stopped off to get my week's groceries. I also got the latest issue of Empire magazine. It was a twentieth anniversary issue this month with Steven Spielberg acting as guest editor.