It Came in The Mail
Here at the Weekly, we're used to getting all sorts of swag from people trying to curry our favor. After all, that's what comes of being the sole purveyor of all that's good, right and cool in the Valley (unless you're a disgruntled college student reading City Life or ... well, we still haven't figured out who reads the Mercury). But amongst all the gold ingots and stolen Nazi art this week was something really special: a press package from "surrealistic rock 'n' roll band" the Slow Poisoners, who are playing the Double Down November 7. Just feast your eyes on this package of goodies and then try to swallow down your envy and get back to your workaday lives.
5 full-color cards promoting the duo's gigs at all sorts of seedy San Francisco dives
1 full-color card promoting Andrew "Poisoner" Goldfarb's book, Ogner Stump's One Thousand Sorrows
1 copy of said book, a collection of tales in the style of Zap Comix
1 bookmark promoting said book, presumably in case it proves too much for one sitting
1 small, plastic bottle with a White Cliffs Fine Irish Whisky label
3 black-and-white glossies of Andrew Poisoner and Foxx Trott
1 pamphlet titled Who Are The Slow Poisoners?, with room in the back for notes
1 deck of Slow Poisoner trading cards (we're keeping it in its plastic envelope to preserve its eBay value)
1 copy of their CD, Melodrama (we're keeping it in its plastic envelope just 'cause)
1 personally signed letter of introduction from Andrew Poisoner (we'll put it in a plastic envelope later)
1 piece of cardboard, cut from a box that used to hold paper belonging to a "Sanchez" (extra points for following the 3 R's!)
We implore you to check out the band's show, drink heavily and buy stuff because assembling a collection of merchandise like this and mailing it across state lines ain't cheap.
Judging Books by Their Covers
The Dark Tower VI
By Stephen King
$35
Nights of Rain and Stars
By Maeve Binchy
$25.95
A peaceful Mediterranean coastal town. Nightfall. Rain comes. Clouds part and stars emerge. This goes on for more pages than we can count.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
By Susanna Clarke
$27.95
The story of Hermann Rorschach as seen by a psychiatrist and his patient. Is that a silhouette of a crow in flight or of a crushed and flattened crow that used to be in flight?
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
By Aron Ralston
$26
A man's last plea for help as his body is slowly taken over by an evil robot bent on enslaving humanity and using us as fuel for their insidious machines. Oh yeah, and it made him change his first name to something more pleasing in binary language.
DVDs
Aladdin (G) (4 stars)
$49.99 boxed set
As delightful as Aladdin is, it's impossible not to return to its lushly animated world a decade later without flashing on images of war and other heavy baggage. ("Mommy, why isn't Jasmine wearing a chador?") Maybe Disney should have held on to it until the smoke cleared—or do they know something we don't?
Friday the 13th (R)
From Crystal Lake to Manhattan (2 stars)
$79.99
Anyone responsible for entertainment at this year's Halloween party can just rent a big-screen TV and pick up these first eight chapters of the Friday the 13th saga. Besides commentaries, it includes deleted scenes, amusing anecdotes from Jason's many victims, trailers and the featurette, Secrets Galore Behind The Gore.
The Untouchables (R)
Special Collector's Edition (3 stars)
$19.99
By 1989, traditional rat-a-tat-tat gangster films had pretty much worn out their welcome. The Untouchables tried to revitalize the genre, embellishing a gritty, gang-busting TV series with contemporary production values and big stars. Too bad no one's got the guts to release the original Robert Stack series.