Changing Plans and Augmenting Experiences
(Remember how, in the days of standard episodic television before streaming and binging, many dramas and some comedies would give a thumbnail update starting with “Previously on…”, flashing scenes so fast that people starting midway through a season or story were more confused than before? Well, that’s what this newsletter is like. Look at these as regular updates of how the sausage is made, with what, and whether or not the staff washed their hands after they used the toilet. Or, worse, if they only washed their hands before using the toilet.)
START TRANSMISSION
It’s rough out there for creators right now. Artists and writers both relate how book sales are down, hit counts are down, newsletter reading is down, and everything else is down as well. We’re worrying about jobs, about unrelated finances and bills, and whether or not we’re still going to be around by the end of the decade. Friends who used to do well with their arts are in shock over how rough things are getting, and friends who had backup gigs to pay for their artistic endeavors are trying to figure out how to turn the art sidehustle into a paying gig with the loss of their day jobs. It’s especially bad for writers right now, and without even starting on the amount of AI-generated slop in every possible venue.
And let’s have some sympathy for the readers, too. Even excluding the AI slop, there is SO MUCH to read right now that it’s rough to keep up with it. Loads of new books, loads of new Patreons and Substacks, loads of original sites and news sites and commentary sites, and every writer out there having to remind everyone to Buy My Book! every couple of minutes or else. Most of the time, when writers relate how few paid subscribers they get for their newsletters, they also emphasize that they understand that so many are worrying about where they’re going to get rent and grocery money, and paying for newsletter and streaming channel subscriptions have to go way, way back on the list of priorities. Some are offering alternatives to annual subscriptions, and others just give up and let everyone read everything for free in the hope that maybe something breaks through and they get readers in the thousands instead of the usual tens. Even if they only go for free content because that’s all they can afford, there are only so many hours in the day to get caught up, and the guilt kicks in when looking at a few hundred or thousand unread emails in any given email box, saved in the hope of having time to read them “one of these days.” Honest to Some Guy, I understand.
The reality is that we’re all overloaded. It’s hard to sit down with a book when the news feeds call with the latest nightmares. Those of us who gave up on most social media (I shut down all things Meta on New Year’s Day 2025, and never have I regretted the decision less than in reading about Meta planning to charge for links leading off Facebook and Threads) are still as overwhelmed as those still checking in on their LiveJournal accounts from 20 years ago. The news keeps piling on, and so does commentary, and editorial, and essays, and reviews. Don’t even get me started about music. 30 years ago, you could ransack a magazine stand and still stand a pretty good chance of reading your entire pile over a pepperoni pizza. Now, not only can you not keep up, but now you can get AI agents to consolidate your preferred intake into handy extruded writing-like product: literature run through a pinky pump, and you still can’t keep up.
And while we’re at it, look at all of the other creative fields affected. Sculpture and jewelry and collages and keyboards and collections and paleoart and action figure design and comics. We’re all wanting to create because we desperately have to get these things out of our heads so we can work on the next one. Every possible form of promotion to reach new people is now flooded, not just with AI slop, but with innumerable others who just want a break. Even if you get that break, it doesn’t necessarily translate into actual sales or downloads, said by someone who was on television news multiple times without the words “convicted axe murderer and cannibal” anywhere near the report. You get on a podcast to hype your work? Great: the podcasts are overwhelmed, too, with once-dedicated listeners with no time to listen any more. It’s not the creators or the absorbers any more: it’s everybody.
As an old fart who survived multiple artistic booms and busts over the decades, the closest vibe to right now was in the early 1990s, just before that Interwebs cam along and sucked up even more free time. True, you had a system back then of dedicated gatekeepers determined that nothing could pass without their written approval, as witnessed by anyone seeking anything slightly outre in a standard music shop circa 1993, but there were escape valves. If you searched hard enough, you could find that weirdness your soul craved, but with the understanding that you snagged it right then or you might never see it again. We perused catalogs and and back issues and the latest Factsheet Five, where the biggest fear was missing out on an important album or book only because we didn’t have the money. The work was out there, and thanks to changes in production and distribution, there were ways to get it.
Today, we don’t have the distribution problem. We’re no longer drinking from a fire hose. We’re all drinking from Angel Falls, with no chance to catch our breath. One venue or outlet shuts down, and three more replace it. No matter how hard you work and how hard you schedule, it’s just not possible to keep up.
And you shouldn’t worry about doing so.
Yeah, here’s a writer, himself dependent upon readers for validation and recognition, telling you not to keep up. I’m not telling you not to read. I’m just emphasizing that if you can’t keep up with your preferred form of expression, you shouldn’t feel guilty about it. If you can’t afford to pay for 30 different newsletters, don’t sweat it. If you don’t have the opportunity to scroll through newsfeeds until you feel caught-up on world events, don’t sweat it, because there’s always more news on the way. Right now, we’re the electronic equivalent of the hoarders who stacked newspapers in the Twentieth Century with plans of reading and clipping out stories when time permitted, and time never does.
What’s the solution? I don’t think there is one. I’m just one of thousands of creators, millions even, who has to create no matter what. 35 years ago, I would have been publishing a zine full of these same St. Remedius sillinesses. 150 years ago, I would have been trying to break into the penny dreadful market. Go back far enough, and you’d find St. Remedius anecdotes on available cave walls, with my skeleton still marking the place and time where the available oxygen in the area finally ran out. I’m just glad that you’re here, but I won’t be offended and I won’t be upset if you decide you’re overwhelmed yourself and dedicate yourself to creators more in line with your tastes. I’ll be here if you change your mind.
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St. Remedius News
Besides the obvious causes over this 10-kilo kidney stone of a summer, there’s another reason for a shortage of St. Remedius installments. Now that Daylight Saving Time is over and the sun is going down about the time I get home from the new job, there’s considerably more incentive to stay in and write, and write I am. Specifically, not only can you expect more installments, but the plan is to finish the first serious draft of the first St. Remedius novel, Seven Generations of Overworked Tropes, by the end of the year. If you’ve been keeping up with the backstory on St. Remedius Medical College, you’ll finally get a lot more about St. Remedius and its various faculty in an all-new set of adventures. Time travel paradoxes! More hints on the Quantum War and the Harkun invasion! Cats! Lizards! Strange hats! A bright assemblage of heroes arguing over who is Kyuzo, who is Chris Adams, and who is Cayman of the Lambda Zone! Oh, and seven days to prevent the destruction of an entire solar system and every living thing in it! You’ll boogie ’til you puke.
Other than that, the return of blessed evening darkness means a lot more cooking and baking, which means a lot more Baking Through The Apocalypse installments over the winter. One of the new recipes is currently in the crockpot now, and expect some real fun when when blood orange season starts next month. The one and only Billy Martin gave me a great recipe for orange-lemon cake several years back that only improves with the addition of Buddha’s Hand citron zest and candied pineapple, and we’re rapidly coming up on the one time of the year when we can get all of the ingredients together at the same time. My beloved Sarah, Pretty Alice to my Everett C. Marm, and her love of all things orange makes baking one of these even more of a joy than when I started baking them in the first place, and I have Plans for a specialty cake for New Year’s Eve. Details will follow.
Oh, and I’d be remiss in not bringing up that not only is Austin’s annual Blood Over Texas Horror For the Holidays shopping extravaganza starting up in a few weeks, but the 2027 schedule for the Oddities & Curiosities Expo just came out on Halloween, with the big Dallas show at the end of September like this year. This gives a year to start back into the show and event scene, and the idea is to put out a whole load of St. Remedius weirdness and related weirdness because I’ve missed both of these shows. Anyway, get your tickets now, and get ready for next year’s Texas Frightmare Weekend while you’re at it.
Other Reading
If you haven’t taken a look in a while, the Bookshop.org storefront for St. Remedius is freshly reloaded with new reading options. In addition, the site’s Research page contains links to this and publishers and booksellers in need of inclusion: I don’t get a thing by recommending the publishers and booksellers, other than relief that they’re doing what they’re doing. Either way, feel free to browse, peruse, and purchase, and know that every purchase makes Andy Jassy at Amazon cry.
Events
It may behoove you to visit the Campus and Off-Campus Activities section, considering that things are going to get weird the closer we get to the holiday crunch. I’m already dreading Black Friday, to the point where I’m planning a special Friday night St. Remedius Watch Party just for everyone surviving that mess (and that’s in addition to the regular Watch Parties set around reruns of Max Headroom every Thursday), and I survive the nightmare of Christmas music only with headphones blasting out Santa Hates You and One Eyed Doll every time I have to enter a store.
Anyway, besides the various Silent Read events (the Silent Read Garland runs on November 7 and the Silent Reading Event at the flagship Half Price Books is on November 11), November is a great time to raid the world-famous Texas Theatre, and they’re set for fun this month. The festivities start on November 3 at 6:50 pm with the original Godzilla, and then the St. Remedius Bromley Contingent returns on November 5 at 6:00 pm for the premiere of Godzilla Minus Zero. Godzilla films on Election Day and Guy Fawkes Day: who says Dallas doesn’t know how to have fun? Now if I can just request the Texas to run the original Dawn of the Dead for Thanksgiving Weekend, we’ll be cooking with gas.
(And about now is where I have to add the friendly reminder to well-meaning American friends that there is no such thing as “Happy Guy Fawkes Day,” either for those recognizing the day of Gunpowder Treason or those Catholics who took 400-odd years of grief by association. I recognize it as a big reason why I’m where I am now — if not for the particularly enthusiastic remembrance of Guido Fawkes and his co-conspirators at the 300th anniversary, my father’s side of the family might have stayed in England — but I just remind people that my paternal grandfather probably would have responded to a cheer of a jubilant Guy Fawkes Day by kicking the celebrants’ teeth so far down their throats that they’d have to sit on their meals to eat them for the next ten years. Just a friendly reminder.)
And now that the financial situation isn’t quite as dire as at the end of last year, it’s time for selected Kylo Boomhauer events. Halloween Day was a perfect time for spotting the Roamer at both the Half Price Books flagship store and at the Texas Theatre (as witnessed by longtime St. Remedius Bromley Contingent cohort Steven Burt), and it’s time to talk to a couple of clubs about a Time Traveler Ball around JFK Day. Details to follow.
Final Words
Look at the bright side: we’ve only got 60 days until 2026 is a memory. The not-so-bright side is that who knows what fresh hell we have waiting for us in 2027.
Want to get caught up on the St. Remedius story so far? Check out the main archive. Want more hints as to the history of St. Remedius Medical College? Check out Backstories and Fragments. Want to forget all of that and look at cat pictures from a beast who dreams of his own OnlyFans for his birthday? Check out Mandatory Parker. And feel free to visit the St. Remedius Medical College Redbubble shop for all of your Mandatory Parker needs.
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