Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Unholy Toledo

"I know Ohio like the back of my hand." - Over the Rhine. From the song Ohio, from the album Ohio - the band named after the section of town they're from in Cincinnati Ohio.

Everything is coming up Ohio for me these days. Just a weird pile up of things related to the... uh... Buckeye state is Iowa, Potatoes is Idaho... whatever Ohio's state thing is - that state. I've recently begun author interviews for this site and three of the first authors aboard for them, Kyle Minor, Craig McDonald and Donald Ray Pollock are living there and I just watched this kick ass movie The Fourteenth Victim, (directed by Mark Wade Stone), a documentary about Eliot Ness and the Cleveland Torso Murders...
betwixt the writers, the music and the film - seems to me some serious dark clouds hovering over the heartland. BTW - there was an X-Files episode that named two characters after the husband/wife duo that is the back bone of the band Over the Rhine - Linford Detweiler and Karin Begquist - I think she got to be a scientist and he had a dog named after him. Cool tip of the hat, but took me out of the episode for sure. Another time that happened was the final season of The Shield when Shane and Mara and Jackson are on the run and take aliases - Shawn, Katy and Ryan, (the show's creator Shawn Ryan and his wife Cathy Cahlin Ryan who played Corin on the show) and speaking of Alias, (the tv show) - there was an episode featuring a sci-fi weapon called Ice Ten and it did exactly the same thing as Ice Nine from Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle... wait - it was Cat's Cradle right? To sum up: Ohio must be cool, look for more interviews coming to HBW and not just from Ohioans...OhioEns? Ohi-ans?, in-jokes are cool, but distracting sometimes and Kurt Vonnegut books kinda run together in my memory.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow, that's a cool line up of interviews, Jed! I can't wait for the Pollack interview! Knockemstiff rocked my face off! And it should be neat (Yeah, I just said neat.)to read Craig answering the questions as opposed to asking.

Unknown said...

Donald Ray? Cannot wait for that. The man can write. I've listened to one of his interviews over on itunes. Pretty laid back SOB. I like that. This is a good thing you got going!!

jedidiah ayres said...

OK want another Ohio bit that slipped my mind? Today my buddy Christopher Jones whom I used to play in bands with back in Arkansas stopped through St. Louis and grabbed a quick bite before heading off to his new home in OHIO - Cincinatti where he's got a new band whose name escapes me, but if you've seen MOSQUITO KINGDOM, Chris gave a bunch of music for the soundtrack including the split-screen-welcome-to-the-shitty-island-montage called BLOODY CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP. Chris is the man.

jedidiah ayres said...

Okay - the Cincinatti band is called 20TH CENTURY TOKYO PRINCESS