Newsletter 1: Reading After Dark

Jul 26, 2023

Good evening:

My name is Jay Rothermel. Welcome to Reading After Dark.

I deeply appreciate the readers who have subscribed since 4 May. I hope casual readers will find material of interest here, too.

I am brand new to Substack. I have not figured out all its capabilities, or how to best use many I do.

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I am 56 years old. I am married, with grown children who are out finding their way in the world. My wife and I moved back to my home town in North Central Ohio in April 2022. We now live in the semi-rural farmhouse where I grew up.

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My plan for Reading After Dark is to maintain a minimum schedule of one post per week. These posts will report on my reading: fiction and nonfiction in the horror, strange, and weird fiction modes.

I work forty hours a week, so maintaining this consistency will continue to be a challenge. I have decided not to charge for subscriptions at this time. That may change in future if I can achieve a professional level of output.

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"The creative process is a cocktail of instinct, skill, culture and a highly creative feverishness. It is not like a drug; it is a particular state when everything happens very quickly, a mixture of consciousness and unconsciousness, of fear and pleasure; it’s a little like making love, the physical act of love."

—Francis Bacon

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Movies enjoyed over the last week:

"Fury of the Demon" (2016)

"Son of Dracula" (1943)

"Witchcraft" (1964)

"The Plagues of Breslau"

"Infiesto" (2023)

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Listening

Tony Walker's performance of "Schalken the Painter" is first-rate.

I've never been a reader of Robert E. Howard. But Horrorbabble has done him proud with this performance of "The Cairn on the Headland." I had not read it; the content was surprising and interesting.

Last month I read Edward Said's engrossing book Late Style. It prompted me to try some new-to-me music:

Beethoven's Piano Bagatelles

Glenn Gould Plays Bach

Audio unrelated to the above: an odd sleep audio: