Friday Roundup: Duran Duran's Paper Gods, Glitter Princes, Fun With Keywords

Friday roundup! I’ve got very little to report this week, other than to note that, as promised (threatened?), my mystery novel Bias Cut has a new cover. The new cover is now live on the ebook version; the paperback version will follow suit within the next couple of weeks. Self-promotion makes me wither and die inside, but I’ll give this a shot: Maybe you should consider reading Bias Cut? Maybe? It’s the briskest-selling and most critically-acclaimed of my books (it won an IPPY silver medal, it was an ABNA semi-finalist, Publishers Weekly called it “fresh and dark” and singled out my “snappy dialogue and accomplished descriptions”). I reread it yesterday for the first time in a couple of years to double-check the typesetting of the new paperback version, and it’s just rock-solid across the board. I’m proud of it.


Glitter Princes: I was hoping to have actual test panels done this week, but ‘twas not to be. Here are a couple more pages from my sketchbook: We’ve got Marcel and Etienne, followed by Etienne and Sebastian. Etienne is proving the easiest to draw consistently: I just give him the sexy too-much-shadow raccoon eyes and make sure his hair has that little Carol Brady flip at the bottom, and boom, he’s there.

Duran Duran’s been leaking songs off their upcoming album Paper Gods in advance of the official September 11th release (oof. That’s an emotionally fraught release date, guys). All four tracks leaked thus far are strong and solid, though I haven’t lost my heart to any of them. My favorite of the bunch is the title track, which is, er, over seven minutes long. Seven minutes! That’s the same length as The Doors’ “Light My Fire”! That’s a minute longer than Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”! No song needs to be seven minutes long. It’s padded out to hell and back, but there’s a kick-ass three-minute track buried inside the bloat. The two verses, which are short and insanely catchy (I’ve had them on permanent repeat in my brain all week: “…and walking through the rain, oblivious to pain, to shelter from the blame without a reason to complain about it…”), are much stronger and sharper and nastier than the endlessly-repeating chorus.

Seven minutes. Yeesh. Here’s my personal edit of “Paper Gods”: Start it at 1:20, then gracefully fade out at 4:20. There! You’ve got a short, smart, lethal, catchy pop hit on your hands.


Speaking of padding, I’m going to pad this post out to a decent length with some more keywords. These are some of the search terms people have entered into Google in the past month that have led them to this website:

duran duran wild boys video is weird
Yeah, absolutely, but it’s weird in the best possible way. That animatronic head! Simon strapped to a windmill! Nick in a cage! John tied down across the hood of a car! Roger zipping around in his little personal hot-air balloon! All of this is pretty amazing stuff.

prayer of the rollerboys was awesome
Yep. It was. Against all possible odds, the low-budget 1990 Corey Haim/Christopher Collett film Prayer of the Rollerboys was awesome. Glad to find someone who agrees on that, because I find people tend to stare at me in horror when I proclaim my love of this film.

review of horatio hornblower ioan gruffudd the welsh cupcake
Wait. Full stop. Did I really call Ioan Gruffudd a Welsh cupcake when I reviewed Hornblower back in 2005? I did, didn’t I? Yikes. Sorry about that, Ioan. I can only assure you it was meant with love.

the flame arcadia video
Wildly entertaining! All the Arcadia videos were good, but “The Flame” is probably the best of the bunch. Power Station, eat your heart out.

zoisite sailor moon
I love Zoisite. He’s my favorite of Queen Beryl’s sexy, evil henchmen by a hefty margin. In my epic Sailor Moon piece, I referred to Zoisite as a “gorgeous little stinker”; I’m going to stand by that.

what did andy taylor write about julie anne rhodes
Well, nothing good. Nothing terrible, either: As Andy wrote in his memoir, he found Nick’s former wife, in his words, “very pushy” and “used to being at the top.” Which, actually, are pretty much the same complaints he had about Nick. Julie Anne Rhodes, for her part, has taken the high road in this matter. In her blog (which is wonderful, and which every Duran Duran fan should visit), she recently wrote:
I read Andy Taylor’s book, and while some things said about me did sting…that was HIS experience of how things happened and he is entitled to his opinion. We shared an extremely intense part of music history few outsiders will ever completely comprehend. I also nearly wet myself laughing over much of the book. I just told his wife Tracy last week how I was ROTFLMAO when I read “…Nick was too angry to speak, but Julie Anne came out with a tirade that would make a Geordie coal miner blush!”. I wish them each all the success and happiness in the world.
Oh, nicely done. You spiked Andy’s guns. Well played, Julie Anne. Well played.

peter petrelli too powerful.
Probably, yeah. Both Peter and Sylar had the same problem on Heroes—their characters kept getting more and more ridiculously powerful as the show went on, which dissipated a lot of the tension, but let’s face it: Heroes had much bigger and more fundamental problems than that. I am very cautiously optimistic about Heroes Reborn, because the trailers thus far make it look like they’re capturing much of what was so cool about the original in its early days… but it won’t surprise me if it turns out to be unwatchable.

gay porn star ewan waddle
There’s a gay porn star with the last name of “Waddle”? How unfortunate. Ewan, how about going with “Swagger” instead? Ewan Swagger. Now there’s a porn name with some panache.

Comments