Jamieson Ridenhour

October was a whirlwind–making and releasing a short film in a single month was fun and furious. You’d think I’d spend November resting. Instead, I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month, wherein thousands of folks across the globe attempt to write a 50,000 word short novel in 30 days. My kids are doing it along with me, though with reduced word count goals, and so are one of my colleagues, one of my former students, and our Texan friend Isabella, who is a talented artist and poet, and now wants to add a novel to the accomplishments of her eight years on the earth.

My novel is a pastiche of a Jeeves and Wooster novel combined with an Agatha Christie style manor house murder mystery. With werewolves. The working title at this point is Reginald Spiffington, Werewolf.

I’m drinking lots of coffee, which isn’t really new. And I’m not sleeping quite as much–I tend to stay up ’til nearly midnight and then get up around five or so to squeeze in some more writing. But I’m having a blast. I had my novel mapped out in general terms before the month started, and so far I’ve been writing smoothly and with few stops or speed bumps. I’m a little behind word count; I should be at 13,000 some odd words by now, and I’m at 12,576. I plan to catch up tonight.

Which is not to say that Cornerboys is being neglected. We continue to gain new fans on Facebook (linked to your right), and the YouTube version continues to collect hits (we will break 1000 this week, more than likely). We’re also submitting the film to various independent film festivals, and will keep you posted on that front.

Talk to you soon. I must go write…

Keep up the Cornerboys love, my friends. We have right at 800 hits on YouTube after the first week, making us now the number one search result for the word “Cornerboys.” There are as of right now 115 fans on Facebook, and surely more to come. The feedback has been uniformly positive–people are raving, actually. I’ll keep you updated as we move into the next phase, you keep doing what you’re doing: watching the film and telling your friends to check it out.

We had a lovely Halloween, trick or treating with Aaron (Blind Mice’s sax player) and his family and then hanging out at Ali LaRock’s place for an hour or so. Ali’s place is always resplendent at Halloween, and this year was no exception. I went as Charles Dickens:

Hatted and waistcoated

Eva was a spy, and Ian was the Overlord, a character from the book he’s writing:

The Overlord invades your kitchen

A very serious spy

Cornerboys is now officially released, and is available on the web at YouTube and imbedded on this site on the Cornerboys page. Watch it, comment on it if you feel so moved, and please feel free to share, copy, send, and recommend to anyone who might be interested. We are very proud of it and want it seen by as many people as possible.

Last night’s debut was a fantastic event–a packed house, great response to Cornerboys and great questions during the Q&A, lots of kind comments and well-wishes after the fact. Ali and Kevin and I felt truly appreciated and quite the stars. I recommend releasing your own short film to a full audience of kind people. It’s more fun than should be legal. Ian and Eva seemed to have a blast (Ian did the drawing for the door prize) and my wife was the most stunning woman in the room. And the experience of watching Bride of Frankenstein with a lot of people was interesting and unique (at least until I do it again tonight in Minot). Thanks to everyone who came out last night, and thanks in advance to those of you who share Cornerboys with the world.

Kevin, me, and Ali with the Cornerboys book.

Just a quick update/reminder–Cornerboys will make its public debut tonight at the Mysteria Theatre in Mandan at 7pm. I’ll be there, along with my co-conspirators Ali LaRock and Kevin A. Smith. We’ll show the film, talk about it, answer questions, and then show The Bride of Frankenstein. Appetizers will be in the offing, and a cash bar is available for those of your with the years to use it. Ali’s will also be displaying some of the original artwork from the film.

Ali, Kevin, and I had dinner last night (along with Brenna Daugherty from the Humanities Council and Gwyn, Ian, Eva, and Ali’s friend Ryan) and had a private screening of the film. It looks really good–much better than I had imagined. I’ve had such a grand time putting this together, and feel really satisfied with the results.

So if you’re in the Bismarck / Mandan area, come out tonight. At the very least you should come show Kevin some Dakotan hospitality on his first trip north.

We'll be opening this tonight...

A short piece advertising the Minot showing of Cornerboys ran in the Minot Daily News yesterday. The Minot showing is a the Aleshire Theatre, where I’ve spoken before, and is only a short block or so away from the site of the old Minot Opera House, where Boris Karloff played for 53 weeks in 1915-16. I look forward especially to showing Bride of Frankenstein there. The Minot story is here.

I haven’t yet seen Where the Wild Things Are, but I’m looking forward to it. I’m usually wary of children’s books being turned into feature length films (and after the complete horrorshow crapfest of Jim Carrey’s Grinch, I feel justified in that wariness), but I have been heartened by the fact that Spike Jonze and David Eggers had to answer  not only to the studio but to Maurice Sendak himself.

Now, there are apparently complaints that the movie is too scary for kids. And Maurice Sendak has responded. This makes me love him even more.

Cornerboys has made the front page of the Bismarck Tribune (with a photo above the fold!), You can read the story online here. There’s also a related video of me talking about the project, along with some staged footage of me editing the film. That’s here. It’s a good article, except for an oddly placed quote about horror right at the end. Karen Herzog, the writer, was really interested in the project, and she and I had a great conversation about horror and fairy tales and Bruno Bettelheim. Here’s the funky picture that accompanied the article:

The author stares moodily into the distance

The All Hallows Evening film bash, where we’ll debut Cornerboys and watch Bride of Frankenstein (because any time’s a good time for Bride of Frankenstein) is one week from tonight. Cornerboys is nearly done–Ali’s got a few more paintings and I’ve got about four minutes of film left to edit together. No reason to rush, right? I mean, we’ve got a whole week.

It is looking even better than I’d hoped. You can’t wait to see this, ya’ll. Links to the film, which will be available online, will be forthcoming. Stay tuned…

Apparently, since my posting the links to the vampire articles, they have become “archived” at the Fargo Forum web site, and require $2.95 to view. Each. Even though one article was simply a side-bar to the first one. They’re not worth $2.95–I’ll talk to you about vampires for free if you want.

Also not sure why there are two search engines in the new layout for this web site, over on the right there. Until I figure out how to get rid of one of them, I suppose you can search for two things at once. That’s just the kind of serrvice we offer here at jamiesonridenhour.com. Go crazy.

Whilst I slept, I became the de facto vampire expert for North Dakota. This is the second time the Fargo Forum has contacted me to be the authority in a story on vampire literature. I guess I’ll only worry when they start asking me about real vampires. The story, on whether or not vampires have lost their “bite” in popular culture (I didn’t write that gag) is here. A companion piece listing some of my favorite pieces of vampire lore (though 30 Days of Night isn’t one of those, necessarily) is here.  You may have to sign up for a free Fargo Forum account to read them–it is actually free and no emails are forthcoming. It’s not a bad article, even if he spelled Carmilla wrong.

It’s sort of fun every October, suddenly becoming the Vampire Guy. It’s only slightly annoying that I have to spend so much time as Vampire Guy pointing out how abysmally bad the Twilight books are. But part of being Vampire Guy is having the knowledge of much great vampire literature, and with that knowledge comes, you guessed it, that ability to recognize crap when you see it. But, there is True Blood and the novels it’s based on. There is the sublime Let the Right One In. There is Buffy on DVD. And there will always be Carmilla, and Robert Neville, and that dude from The Preacher. All’s not light and kisses. We have some darkness left.

The time is nearing to unleash Cornerboys. The music is nearly done, and the art is coming along quickly (there’s an example on the Cornerboys page on this site). We’ll be putting the film together starting this weekend. It just keeps getting better as Ali and Kevin contribute their talent.

The world debut of Cornerboys will happen in Bismarck and Minot in late October. Both events will feature a screening of the film and a discussion and Q&A with me, Ali, and Kevin on the creative process. Then I’ll talk a little bit about Boris Karloff and the year he spent in North Dakota (1915-16), and then we’ll show The Bride of Frankenstein.

The Bismarck event, on Monday the 26th, will be at the Mysteria Theatre (which is actually in Mandan), and there will be a cash bar and appetizers for sale.

The Minot event, on Tuesday the 27th, will be at the Aleshire Theatre at Minot State University (where I gave a vampire talk three years ago).

Both events start at 7pm and are free and open to the public.

Kevin and I will be on Prairie Public Radio’s “Hear It Now” program at 3pm on Monday the 26th to talk about Cornerboys and the screening events. I’ll link to the streaming audio when it’s up.

I hope you’ll join us for these events–Halloween, goblin-style!