Pet Sematary in Spanish

If you want to maintain your abilities in a foreign language, you have to use the language regularly. And one of the best ways to practice a foreign language is by reading.

Forget the “apps”—read an old-fashioned book.

(Note: Yes, certain apps can be helpful when you are first learning a language. I’m not anti-app. But once you’re proficient, real-world materials will help you make the most progress. If you’ve been studying a language for years, you should be well beyond the Duolingo stage.)

I first read Pet Sematary—in English—in 1984. Back then, the book was new to all readers, and widely billed as, “the novel that scared Stephen King while he was writing it.”

Like The Dead Zone, which I recently discussed, I remembered the basic plot line and main characters of Pet Sematary. But I have forgotten enough to make the book entertaining the second time around. Also, when I first read this novel, I was a teenager. I’m now in my mid-50s. That makes a big difference.

What about the Spanish?

I sometimes get tongue-tied when chatting in Spanish, but my reading and aural comprehension abilities are quite high. I can read just about any modern text in Spanish, with only an occasional reference to a dictionary.

Lest this strike you as braggadocio, I will also point out that I had my first exposure to Spanish as a high school student more than 40 years ago. I took one year of intermediate Spanish in college. I used Spanish on the job during frequent trips to Mexico in the 1990s and 2000s.

My Spanish is good, by the standard gringo yardstick, and it should be, after all this time. I’m not a language-learning virtuoso, by any means. But I am a dedicated language learner, and one who has been at it for a number of years now.

-ET

P.S.: If you would like to try reading Pet Sematary in Spanish, you can get the book on Amazon. Pet Sematary is also available in English, of course.

Rush 2026 and the case for the new drummer

Yesterday I learned that Rush, the Canadian rock band that I’ve loved for more than 40 years, will resume touring in 2026.

The band officially retired in 2015. And after the death of drummer/songwriter Neil Peart in 2020, most of us believed that a Rush revival would be out of the question.

But it turns out we were wrong about that.

Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee will be joined onstage by German drummer Anika Nilles. Since the announcement, I’ve seen lots of armchair quarterbacking online, about Nilles filling in as Neil Peart’s replacement.

Most of the feedback has been positive, but I have also seen plenty of negative comments. A few wags have remarked, tongue-in-cheek, that Nilles’ debut concert will mark the first time a woman has been present at a Rush show. (While female Rush fans are not unknown, the typical Rush fan is a Gen X male, often one with nerdy tendencies. And yes—I’m one of them.)

Some old guard Rush fans are understandably overcome by cognitive dissonance. I wouldn’t chalk up their reactions to simple sexism. Reverse ageism would be more likely. Anika Nilles wasn’t even born when Signals came out in 1982—the year I discovered Rush at the age of 14.

Plenty of the bands we Gen Xers grew up with have changed their lineups multiple times over the years: Journey, AC/DC, Kansas, Def Leppard, etc. Fleetwood Mac has had eighteen different members at various times. Chicago’s “past members” list on Wikipedia reads like the roster of a baseball team.

But since the mid-1970s, there were only three members of Rush: Alex Lifeson, Geddy Lee, and Neil Peart. Three and only three. There was never a large enough lineup for any member of Rush to fade to the background or get lost in the crowd. Continue reading “Rush 2026 and the case for the new drummer”

Gym shorts and sweat pants in the 1980s?

From my personal Facebook feed this morning, someone has a question about athletic fashion during the 1980s:

“What exactly was the point of wearing athletic shorts on top of sweatpants [in the 1980s]?”

From my personal Facebook feed, a question about 1980s athletic attire…

I was a teenager in the 1980s, and an avid runner. I don’t really remember seeing this all that much. I do remember seeing it on occasion, and thinking that it was a little odd, or pointless.

I can say with 100 percent certainty that I never went running with gym shorts worn over my sweat pants.

I did, however, often run with gym shorts over my tights. Athletic tights, then as now, were much more form fitting and much less modest. (Athletic tights are also far better suited to running.)

If you didn’t actually experience the 1980s (or any historic period, for that matter), there is a danger in conflating the anecdotal with the common. 

And even some common things weren’t all that common. For example, I never wore my hair in the style that is now called a “mullet”. (We didn’t call those hairstyles “mullets” back then, either.)

-ET

Halloween and Devil’s Night

I recently received an email from a reader of 12 Hours of Halloween, asking me about “Devil’s Night” and the 1980s. The reader wanted to know if I participated in any Devil’s Night mayhem as a youth.

For those of you who don’t know the term: Devil’s Night, aka Damage Night, or Mischief Night, is traditionally the night before Halloween, October 30.

The observance apparently dates back to  the 1790s. In the 1800s, this was a night when children engaged in innocent pranks, like soaping neighbors’ windows.

But nothing remains innocent for long, does it? By the time I was a kid, in the late 1970s, Devil’s Night had acquired a bad reputation. This was largely owing to the destructive arson sprees that took place in cities like Detroit on October 30, starting in the 1960s.

Strait-laced suburban youth that I was, I wanted no part of any of that. Nor did I hear much about such pranks during my trick-or-treating years. I think a few kids may have toilet-papered trees. But that’s about the extent of it.

My maternal grandfather, mid-1930s

In my personal circle, I have been acquainted with exactly one person who admitted to serious Devil’s Night misconduct: my maternal grandfather.

My maternal grandfather (who loved Halloween) was one of my favorite people. He was also a World War II veteran.

But before all of that, he was a youth in rural Southern Ohio, on the westernmost fringes of Appalachia. He grew up in the 1930s. And if you think those were innocent times, then you’ve been watching too many episodes of The Waltons.

On Devil’s Night, my grandfather and his friends used to engage in some marginally malicious hijinks. Much of this consisted of tipping over outhouses

My grandfather told me about one Devil’s Night on which a crotchety old man (who was the bane of local children) fired a shotgun at him and his friends in the dark.

No one was harmed. According to my grandfather, though, the man had fired his shotgun with the intent of doing serious bodily injury to the trespassers. (And they had just tipped over his outhouse.)

Do I approve of what my grandfather and his friends did that night? No, of course not. But I’m quite grateful that that old man’s aim was off. Otherwise, I might not be here to write this post.

-ET

**12 HOURS OF HALLOWEEN**

Halloween night 1980 will be unlike any other!

On Halloween night 1980, three young friends face the perils of a supernatural curse.

Their familiar suburban environment is transformed into a nightmare hellscape of witches, evil spirits, and unimaginable creatures.

A terrifying coming-of-age tale for Generation X, or anyone nostalgic for the 1980s!

View 12 HOURS OF HALLOWEEN ON AMAZON!

Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s first female prime minister

Japan has a new prime minister: Sanae Takaichi.

She’s a former biker chick, and was once a drummer in a heavy metal band. From 1987 to 1989, she lived in the USA, where she was a congressional fellow for Democrat Pat Schroeder. (My guess is that this was an apolitical cross-cultural exchange program, rather than anything partisan.)

Japan’s first female PM is a staunch conservative. That will delight some readers, and horrify others. Continue reading “Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s first female prime minister”

‘The Lawrence Welk Show’ bored me to tears, but I miss it

The Lawrence Welk Show was a musical variety program that ran from 1951 to 1982. It was a show made for the World War II generation, a generation that is no longer with us.

This was one of my maternal grandparents’ favorite shows. Throughout my early years, my grandparents were my parents’ caretakers of choice when they went out for the evening—usually on a Saturday night.

My grandparents loved their television shows. (Note: the addicting power of screens did not start with Gen Z; it started with the World War II/GI Generation.) Continue reading “‘The Lawrence Welk Show’ bored me to tears, but I miss it”

October 31, 1980: ’12 Hours of Halloween’

A new piece of artwork for 12 Hours of Halloween. (This was made for the “A + content” section of the Amazon listing, so the book cover is deliberately excluded from the graphic.)

As suggested in the graphic, most of the action in 12 Hours of Halloween takes place on October 31, 1980.

This is a coming-of-age supernatural horror story, about three young friends who endure a 12-hour, supernatural curse on the first Halloween night of the 1980s.

View 12 HOURS OF HALLOWEEN on Amazon

What kind of horror?

I don’t do graphic violence, for the most part. (There is no explicit sex in my books, either.) Think: a spooky version of a Ray Bradbury story, with a few nods to some of the classic horror films from the 1980s.

12 Hours of Halloween is available in Amazon Kindle Unlimited, too.

-ET

Puerto Rican independence and the “Bad Bunny” “controversy

First things first: I don’t care who sings at the Super Bowl: Bad Bunny, Bugs Bunny, whoever. 

I don’t object to a Puerto Rican singer performing at the Super Bowl.

And it’s fine with me if BB wants to sing in Spanish, or Swahili, or Lithuanian.

Foreign language study is one of my passions. And I’ve been studying Spanish for more than 40 years.  I’ve spent weeks at a time in Mexico, speaking only Spanish.

So unless you’ve read Cien Años de Soledad in the original Spanish text (I have) please don’t play that card with me. 

But this controversy raises another issue: Continue reading “Puerto Rican independence and the “Bad Bunny” “controversy”

Book descriptions, and the perils of not reading them

A few years ago, a reader reviewer of The Rockland Horror complained, “I’m not sure I would have read this if I knew [sic] it started in the late 1800s…”

That’s fair enough. Some readers like period novels, some don’t.

But the reader put himself (and me, I suppose—as I aim to please) through an unnecessary ordeal. The opening line of The Rockland Horror’s book description begins, “One night in March 1882..”

The Rockland Horror is very much billed as a historical horror series. All the reader had to do was to read the book description.

But who am I to judge? I, too, have been guilty of failing to read a book description. I recently ordered a copy of The Scary States of America: 50 Weird and Terrifying Stories Based on True Events by Michael Teitelbaum.

I assumed that I would be getting a nonfiction book about paranormal phenomena throughout the USA. That is, after all, what the title suggests. Continue reading “Book descriptions, and the perils of not reading them”

KUWA 6226: a tale of an online urban legend!

I released a new book over the weekend: KUWA 6226!

This is the story of a deadly online urban legend. (See description below!)

View it on Amazon!

Kuwa6226 is a deadly online urban legend!

Throughout the world, people who make Internet inquiries about Kuwa6226 meet violent deaths.

In online forums and chatrooms, people are warned not to mention the mysterious entity.

But who, or what, is Kuwa6226? A supernatural force? A cult? A global conspiracy?

Most people say that it’s better not to ask…and Kuwa6226’s reign of terror goes unchallenged.



***

 

Then two unlikely sleuths, from opposite sides of the world, unite.

Minoru Watase is a corporate IT employee in Japan. Julie Lawrence is a college student in the American Pacific Northwest.

Julie and Minoru have each lost a friend to Kuwa6226. Together, they are determined to discover Kuwa6226’s true identity and eliminate the menace.

Their search will take them from the streets of Tokyo to an American college town in Washington State. When they finally come face-to-face with Kuwa6226, Julie and Minoru will be unprepared for the revelation…and the ruthlessness of their adversary!

Kuwa 6226 is a horror-mystery with endless twists and turns!

A story that scared me in 1977

I can recall the first time that I was actually scared by something that I read.

It was the summer of 1977. Somehow a book of short horror stories had come into my possession: Stories of Ghosts, Witches, and Demons. This slender 80-page volume, edited by Freya Littledale, was published by Scholastic in 1971.

Although I read the book cover-to-cover, I have forgotten all of the stories—except one: an especially creepy tale called, “The Demon of Detroit”.

This is the story of a married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Adams, who move into a house in the Motor City. They soon discover that they aren’t alone. Something horrible inhabits their back bedroom.

After a series of disturbing events, the couple decides to move out of the house. The last lines of the story are particularly haunting: They indicate that the Adamses “admit defeat”. Whatever lurks in the back bedroom will now have the rest of the home to itself, too.

The full text of the story (along with a clip of the artwork appearing in the original Scholastic publication) is available online. I do recognize the artwork. I can’t say for certain if the transcription of the 1971 text is one hundred percent faithful. (I was nine years old in 1977, after all.)

“The Demon of Detroit” seems to be based on an urban legend from the 1960s, which has enjoyed a modest contemporary revival. Urban legends, I’ve found, often make good source material for horror films and short stories, because urban legends are instantly relatable and easy to grasp. They aren’t overly complex. That’s important in horror film and fiction.

“The Demon of Detroit” also demonstrates the effectiveness of the short form in horror. This short story is perhaps a thousand words long. Obviously, they won’t all be that short. But as a rule of thumb with horror: the longer the story, the harder it is to maintain the suspension of disbelief. (Notice that Poe, Lovecraft, and even Stephen King are at their best when writing in the short form.)

“The Demon of Detroit” is a story that begins with a subtle atmosphere of darkness, and builds, over about a thousand words, to something truly malevolent.

“The Demon of Detroit” scared the bejesus out of me in 1977. I reread it today (the online version). It still brings a chill to my spine, forty-eight years later.

Stephen King: the most banned author in the USA?

Writing on X, Democratic Party activist and occasional horror writer Stephen King describes himself as “the most banned author in the United States”.

“I am now the most banned author in the United States–87 books. May I suggest you pick up one of them and see what all the pissing & moaning is about? Self-righteous book banners  don’t always get to have their way. This is still America, dammit.”

I discovered Stephen King as a high school student in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the mid-1980s. His books were in my school library. If he wasn’t banned in that time and place, then he isn’t banned much of anywhere.

If you are near any population center in the United States, then you are almost certainly within a mile of a Stephen King novel or two.

King also has an estimated net worth of $500 million. He has pleased many readers over the years, and his success is well-deserved. But his attempt to portray himself as the victim of a mass rightwing censorship campaign is a tad pathetic.

-ET

Please don’t call my WWII vet grandfather “Antifa”

Never a boring moment in 2025. President Trump has ordered federal troops to Portland, Oregon. Their mission is to protect immigration enforcement officers (ICE) from Antifa-provoked violence. The troops will also be charged with protecting federal buildings and facilities from those who throw rocks, bricks, and flaming objects in the name of Antifa.

This has once again stirred up the debate about what Antifa is, exactly, and what it is not.

Is Antifa truly “anti-fascist”? Are Antifa like the Weather Underground? Or are they the French Resistance? Is Antifa an organization, or a mere set of ideas?

Does Antifa even exist at all? Continue reading “Please don’t call my WWII vet grandfather “Antifa””

What kind of horror do I write?

This is a question I received the other day on Twitter.  It isn’t a frivolous question, I suppose. About a third of my titles are classified as horror, after all.

Perhaps I should begin by clarifying what kind of horror I don’t write.

I don’t do excessive gore/violence.

I have never been interested in horror fiction that fetishizes violence and cruelty for the mere sake of wallowing in such things. (If that’s your goal, then why not just watch one of those ISIS beheading videos?)

This means that graphic depictions of torture (for example) don’t appear in my books. Cannibalism is pretty much out, too. (Gross.)

I’m old enough to remember the capture of Jeffrey Dahmer in 1991. Suffice it to say that I am not interested in exploring the most extreme possibilities of human depravity in fiction. Again, what’s the point?

Are you into “splatterpunk”? You probably won’t like my books. Do us both a favor, and read something else.

I don’t like horror tales with unlikable characters.

Likewise, I don’t care for horror stories that simply involve horrible things happening to horrible people.

You’ve certainly seen horror movies that involve the following scenario (or something like it): A group of obnoxious, unlikable people enter a house, and they’re killed off one by one.

But the thing is…you don’t care! The protagonists were all awful people, anyway. (Maybe you were even rooting for the monster.)

I don’t do comedy-horror.

Do you like the Zombieland movies? My horror fiction probably isn’t for you.

I love comedy films—Airplane, Blazing Saddles, etc. Cheers from the 1980s can still make me laugh.

But horror is serious business. There can be moments of levity amid the darkness. There are many of these in some of Stephen King’s novels. (Cujo and The Stand stand out in this regard.) But when the monsters come out, it’s all business. Monsters are serious.

***

So what kind of horror do I write, then?

My influences are Stephen King, Peter Straub, and the campfire ghost stories of my youth.

I have always been fascinated by urban legends. I am endlessly interested in the dark house at the end of the lane, the one that all the kids say is haunted.

A good horror story should involve characters that you care about. If you don’t care about the characters, then you won’t care if the monster gets them. 

A good horror story should involve redemption. The evil is defeated in the end. Or some crucial lesson is learned. Or the human condition is in some way illuminated.

Redemption is a key element of most of the horror stories that we love best. The salvation of Mina Harker at the end of Dracula. The closing scene of The Stand, in which Frannie Goldsmith and Stu Redman wonder aloud if people ever really learn from their mistakes. The last scene in The Dead Zone, in which the shade of Johnny Smith assures Sarah that nothing is ever really lost, nothing that can’t be found.

Note that redemption doesn’t necessarily mean a happy ending. But there has to have been a point to it all.

***

I like ghosts, monsters, things that go bump in the dark. My sainted grandmother was a direct descendant of immigrants from County Cork, Ireland. And every Irishman (even a diluted, generations-removed Irishman like me) loves a good ghost tale.

Let me give you some examples. Here are a few of my horror novels, to date:

Eleven Miles of Night

A college filmmaker takes a walk down a notoriously haunted road, in order earn a $2,000 fee for documenting the phenomena he sees.

This novel contains ghosts, demonic beings, and a long-dead witch who inhabits a covered bridge. Oh, yeah—and hellhounds!

View Eleven Miles of Night on Amazon

12 Hours of Halloween

On Halloween night, 1980, three adolescent friends go out for “one last Halloween”. But they have been cursed by an entity known as “the ghost boy”. As a result, their familiar neighborhood is transformed into a supernatural landscape filled with vampires, wayward spirits, and trees with minds of their own.

View 12 Hours of Halloween on Amazon.

Revolutionary Ghosts

In the summer of 1976, an Ohio teenager named Steve Wagner discovers that the Headless Horseman has returned to terrorize twentieth-century America. The Horseman has brought other ghosts back with him, including the once beautiful (but now hideous) Marie Trumbull, an executed Loyalist.

View Revolutionary Ghosts on Amazon

I have others; but these are the three you might check out first. They are usually enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, which means you can read them for free if you subscribe to that service.

Joan Baez and Nicolle Wallace

No one really expected that Joan Baez, an octogenarian symbol of the 1960s counterculture, would be a fan of Donald Trump. In a recent interview with MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, Baez expounded on her Trump loathing for about 40 minutes. 

Baez, to her credit, seems remarkably alert for 84 years of age. Baez makes me feel my own 57 years less, when I consider that she released her ninth studio album the year I was born. Continue reading “Joan Baez and Nicolle Wallace”