Doctor Sleep

Stephen King famously wasn't that impressed with Stanley Kubrick's iconic adaptation of The Shining, to the extent that he wrote and produced a so-so TV series version in 1997 that would be closer to his original vision. The original book is one of King's keystone works, tying into the Dark Tower series and being referenced multiple times in various places, so it was kind of inevitable that he would pick up the story to answer the question "Whatever happened to Danny Torrence?"

The answer is simple - he became an alcoholic drifter, using booze to suppress his psychic powers, until winding up in a small New Hampshire town and getting a job as a hospice orderly, where he finds that his shine  can comfort dying patients in their final hours earning him the nickname of Doctor Sleep. Meanwhile we are introduced to a gang of psychic vampires who prey on children with the shine, kidnapping them and brutally murdering them to feed off their pain. Lovely. 

Danny is telepathically contacted by a young black girl who has sensed one of the murders and knows where the body of the unfortunate victim has been buried, and together they resolve to fight the vampires, who go by the name of the True Knot, travelling around in caravans and RVs like a bunch of psychopathic van lifers. Inevitably, the final showdown leads to the ruins of the Overlook hotel which is still haunted by the ghosts of Danny's past, however much he has tried to keep them boxed up in his mind.

Director Mike Flanagan's script and direction plays off both King's book and Kubrick's film, recreating several iconic scenes and locations quite effectively, although the overall effect feels a little bit like a cross between a tribute and fan-fic. This makes for a middle ranking adaptation of a middle ranking Stephen King story, which still puts it above most things. A fun Saturday night watch, but a touch overlong so we ended up watching it in two instalments.

Snapshot

Shooting from the hip
Sacrificing aim for speed
DM minus two

Aha Shake Heartbreak by Kings of Leon

Six hundred and twenty two albums down, and I was genuinely struggling to remember if I’d heard Kings of Leon before. Turns out that I’ve already listened to two of them and this is the third. I wasn’t overly impressed before, but would this be three times a charm?

Sadly, no. It’s almost aggressively bland, middle of the road early 2000’s indie rock, with a couple of jarring c-bombs dropped into the lyrics as if to say “Hey, look at us - we’re *edgy*!”. Sorry guys, it’s not working. It might impress someone DJing on Six Music in the coveted Tuesday 2am slot but it doesn’t do it for me.

I checked my 2011 edition of the 1001 Albums and at least the editor Robert Dimery has relegated all three of the Kings of Leon albums from the book, showing that their earlier inclusion was probably a bit optimistic as to their long term staying power.

Oh dear, how sad, never mind-tastic!

Melody

The old fiddler played
His final refrain but the
Melody remains

The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares

This is a remarkable short science fiction novel written in 1940 by Argentinian author Adolfo Bioy Casares, originally published in Spanish and translated into English by Ruth L. C. Sims. 

The story opens with an unnamed fugitive from Venezuela who has escaped political oppression to live on a remote and supposedly uninhabited island that is avoided by ships as being the source of a strange and deadly disease. He lives as a castaway for a while until he is woken by the sound of a phonograph record playing and sees a group of oddly dressed French tourists staying in the previously empty museum building where he had been sheltering from the elements.

He spies on the visitors from a distance and becomes infatuated with one woman in particular who visits the same spot every day to watch the sun set. His clumsy attempts to talk to her are ignored and he becomes jealous of another man called Morel who he sees talking to her and calling her Faustine.

Many odd and inexplicable things occur as he follows the tourists, seeing them jump into an uninviting algae clogged swimming pool and shivering with cold when the sun is blazing hot. One morning there is no sign of the tourists, but by the evening they have returned continuing with their odd vacation. Strangest of all, he notices two suns and two moons in the sky.

I won’t spoil the explanation of the mystery, other than to say it’s a classic sci-fi trope of taking an existing piece of technology and extrapolating it into a new form and showing the effects of it. It’s a great and thought provoking piece that still has relevance today.

Green reeds

Deep in the green reeds
The mallard guards her ducklings
Beware the heron!

John Peel played a tape
Labeled as Orbital/Chime
Then played it again