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Post by wireman on Jul 8, 2020 18:47:26 GMT
The discussion is open for Snapshot. I've got something to do right now so I'll be back to add my thoughts a little later but the thread is officially open.
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Post by neesy on Jul 8, 2020 20:15:28 GMT
The discussion is open for Snapshot. I've got something to do right now so I'll be back to add my thoughts a little later but the thread is officially open.
Still haven't been able to get a copy of that book (yet) but I would be interested to see what you guys think. (No spoilers if it can be helped please)
or just put it behind a spoiler (that emoji up above who's saying shhhhh with a finger up to its lips)
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Post by morgan on Jul 8, 2020 20:50:58 GMT
Just finished reading about a half hour ago. Loved it. Kept thinking about SK's The Sun Dog. (It's been over seven years since I last read that one though, and I don't remember how it ends.  )
I'll have to come back later to discuss. My ONLY criticism would be that the ending was a bit too "on the nose." I think Joe could've ended the story several chapters sooner. I'm probably alone in this opinion.
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Post by wireman on Jul 8, 2020 21:02:27 GMT
Just finished reading about a half hour ago. Loved it. Kept thinking about SK's The Sun Dog. (It's been over seven years since I last read that one though, and I don't remember how it ends. )
I'll have to come back later to discuss. My ONLY criticism would be that the ending was a bit too "on the nose." I think Joe could've ended the story several chapters sooner. I'm probably alone in this opinion. What I like about this story is that it's two parallel stories, one is a horror story and the other is the story of a boy discovering how much the lady that took care of him when he was younger cared about him and he was discovering how much he cared for her.
I'm with you about the story going on a little too long. I think it could have ended when Mre Beukes died.
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Post by Wicked Esther on Jul 8, 2020 21:03:29 GMT
Same as morgan...I thought of The Sun Dog several times while reading this, but I liked the characters in Snapshot a lot more. I laughed out loud a couple of times reading the dialogue in the different accents--the neighbor & the lady in who ran the convenience store. |
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Post by wireman on Jul 8, 2020 21:04:28 GMT
The discussion is open for Snapshot. I've got something to do right now so I'll be back to add my thoughts a little later but the thread is officially open.
Still haven't been able to get a copy of that book (yet) but I would be interested to see what you guys think. (No spoilers if it can be helped please)
or just put it behind a spoiler (that emoji up above who's saying shhhhh with a finger up to its lips)
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Post by spideyman on Jul 8, 2020 21:04:36 GMT
Agree, Snapshot reminds one of The Sun Dog, which was last week's read on the SKMB.
Joe once again uses imagery to the max. Being in the "older" generation, lots of nostalgia re Polaroid cameras.
This quote struck home: “The sky was the exact filthy gray of a Polaroid just beginning to develop.”
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Post by wireman on Jul 8, 2020 21:12:16 GMT
Agree, Snapshot reminds one of The Sun Dog, which was last week's read on the SKMB.
Joe once again uses imagery to the max. Being in the "older" generation, lots of nostalgia re Polaroid cameras.
This quote struck home: “The sky was the exact filthy gray of a Polaroid just beginning to develop.”
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Post by wireman on Jul 8, 2020 21:17:24 GMT
Same as morgan ...I thought of The Sun Dog several times while reading this, but I liked the characters in Snapshot a lot more. I laughed out loud a couple of times reading the dialogue in the different accents--the neighbor & the lady in who ran the convenience store. This made me laugh out loud when the boy was describing Mr Buekes:
He had his flaws—he’d voted for Reagan, he believed that Carl Weathers was a great thespian, and he grew emotional listening to ABBA—
Hill, Joe. Strange Weather (p. 9). William Morrow. Kindle Edition.
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Post by Wicked Esther on Jul 8, 2020 21:20:17 GMT
Same as morgan ...I thought of The Sun Dog several times while reading this, but I liked the characters in Snapshot a lot more. I laughed out loud a couple of times reading the dialogue in the different accents--the neighbor & the lady in who ran the convenience store. This made me laugh out loud when the boy was describing Mr Buekes:
He had his flaws—he’d voted for Reagan, he believed that Carl Weathers was a great thespian, and he grew emotional listening to ABBA—
Hill, Joe. Strange Weather (p. 9). William Morrow. Kindle Edition.
Yeah, I loved when the woman in the convenience store yelled, "I call cop!" Also, I really want to build a Party Gun now. |
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Post by wireman on Jul 8, 2020 21:32:50 GMT
One Easter egg from the Sun Dog that I noticed was that the Phoenician wore a string tie.
Remember in The Sun Dog, the kid always got a string tie from his Aunt and the dog was wearing a string tie in the photos. |
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Post by Wicked Esther on Jul 8, 2020 21:44:34 GMT
One Easter egg from the Sun Dog that I noticed was that the Phoenician wore a string tie.
Remember in The Sun Dog, the kid always got a string tie from his Aunt and the dog was wearing a string tie in the photos. Yes! And at one point, in the nursing home, Shelly is listening to the soundtrack to Stand By Me, which was another nice little nod to Joe's Pops. |
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Post by spideyman on Jul 8, 2020 21:52:18 GMT
While doing a little research I came across this:
Whispering Iron
Whispering Iron
Whispering Iron is the black, metal-like remnant of a demon who has passed through the Black Door but who is unable to possess a human host. It is the material that the magical Keys are made of.
Description
Whispering Iron was first discovered by Benjamin Locke in 1775, during the Revolutionary War. A small contingent of Minutemen hiding in the Drowning Cave had an encounter with the Black Door, which they accidentally opened, resulting in Harm Timmerman becoming possessed by a demon who came through the portal. Other demons, unable to find hosts, fell dead and turned into Whispering Iron.
When Benjamin realized that regular steel would not hold the door shut, he used the first piece of Whispering Iron to forge a padlock and its corresponding Omega Key to seal the gateway. He later modified the padlock and made it a permanent part of the Black Door.
The Lockes used the Omega Key many times to obtain Whispering Iron for crafting magical keys. They gathered the Whispering Iron when the demons were unable to find a host. They did this successfully - with no record of demon possession - until the Tamers of the Tempest failed and Lucas Caravaggio was possessed.
"Snapshot"\
The Whispering Iron plays a role in the Joe Hill story published in Cemetery Dance magazine #74/75.
In Silicon Valley in the year 1988, a boy named Micheal finds himself being terrorized by a tattooed thug known as "The Phoenican" who possesses a Polaroid camera that has the power to erase memories one snapshot at a time.
In the end, the Camera breaks and from inside its shattered remains emerges a Child of Leng, alive briefly before turning into Whispering Iron. Micheal picks up the Whispering Iron and it immediately begins to whisper and tempt him, in "a voice that was ancient when Cyrus the Great crushed the Phoenician people under his heel".
“ Michael, O Michael, melt me down and build. Build one of your thinking machines. Build a com-puh-ter, Michael, and I will teach you everything you want to know. I will answer every question, Michael, I will solve every riddle I will make you rich I will make women want to f**k you I will— ”
–The Whispering Iron to Micheal
He stashes the Whispering Iron in a garbage bag in the back of his bedroom closet for several years. Micheal stated that that was the only time the Whispering Iron spoke to him directly, but it continued to whisper to him in his dreams. One of Micheal's nightmares was his father being possessed by a Demon.
Years later when he is studying at Caltech he melts down the Whispering Iron into an "integrated circuit board the size of a credit card" for his studies into computer memory systems. He later sells the technology to Apple Computers and becomes a millionaire. Micheal later states that:
“ If you have three thousand songs and a thousand photos on your phone, you’re probably carrying some of my work in your pocket. I’m the reason your computer remembers everything you don’t. No one has to forget anything anymore. I made sure of it. ”
–Micheal
This implies that the Whispering Iron is the secret behind the massive memory storage of modern computers, especially the memory capacity of mobile devices.
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Post by Wicked Esther on Jul 8, 2020 22:05:14 GMT
Agree, Snapshot reminds one of The Sun Dog, which was last week's read on the SKMB.
Joe once again uses imagery to the max. Being in the "older" generation, lots of nostalgia re Polaroid cameras.
This quote struck home: “The sky was the exact filthy gray of a Polaroid just beginning to develop.”
My mom has Alzheimer's, so that character-Shelly- really hit home for me. I appreciate the little bits of humor sprinkled throughout the story because one thing my family has taught me is that no matter how bad things get, you can usually find something, somewhere that's at least a teeny-tiny bit funny. It could have been written as a seriously sad account of an old lady losing her memory, but by telling it from the perspective of an insecure teenager, Joe was able to keep it from getting too heavy or depressing. That subtle humor goes a long way with me. It not only makes the story more entertaining, it also makes it more emotionally engaging. |
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Post by neesy on Jul 8, 2020 22:44:07 GMT
Still haven't been able to get a copy of that book (yet) but I would be interested to see what you guys think. (No spoilers if it can be helped please)
or just put it behind a spoiler (that emoji up above who's saying shhhhh with a finger up to its lips)
Okay! Thanks wireman
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Post by cat on Jul 8, 2020 23:43:36 GMT
This was an enjoyable reread. It did have some great nods to The Sun Dog.
(I cannot figure out how to italicize my phone keyboard 😄 so quotes are not going to be typed correctly. I will designate with a *)
*He wore a string tie--those were popular in the eighties--secured with a Lucite clasp. A yellowing scorpion was curled within.*
Joe mentioned the ties already. 🙂
*"Sometimes I thingg in her dreams she gets it all back. The path to her old self is overgrown, lost in the briars. But her sleeping mind...you thingg, Michael, the sleeping mind has paths of its own? Trails the waking self has never walked?"
I just liked this. The comparison of the Phoenician and Alzheimer's is a great one. This quote, just made me stop and think about that, how maybe, just maybe, none of our memories are ever truly lost, we just cannot walk the right paths to remember. But they are there, and will always be ours.
Some neighbors were named Amberson and that made me think of Jake and 11/22/63.
*I never did anything with it. I didn't take it apart. I couldn't see how to. There were no seams, no places where the plastic parts joined together. It was, impossibly, all of one piece.*
Didn't Pop say almost this exact thing in The Sun Dog about that camera?
*Resentment is a form of starvation. Resentment is the hunger strike of the soul.*
Again, just a little quote I liked. One that makes a person think about what you are doing to yourself, if holding on to grudges of any kind.
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Post by morgan on Jul 8, 2020 23:57:22 GMT
One Easter egg from the Sun Dog that I noticed was that the Phoenician wore a string tie.
Remember in The Sun Dog, the kid always got a string tie from his Aunt and the dog was wearing a string tie in the photos. Yes! And at one point, in the nursing home, Shelly is listening to the soundtrack to Stand By Me, which was another nice little nod to Joe's Pops. I loved that too. 
Didn't remember that about The Sun Dog. Good job wireman! I think I'm going to look for my copy of Four Past Midnight and re-read this one soon.
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Post by morgan on Jul 9, 2020 0:21:06 GMT
I recall SK mentioning somewhere about his fear of dementia. Joe did such an amazing job with his fictitious analogy, yet all of the details are spot on - heartbreaking. Papa must've been incredibly impressed by this story.
I remember thinking several times how relieved I felt that Michael realized, before it was too late, how much Shelly meant to him.
The research you did on The Whispering Iron is fascinating spideyman. Does it tie into Locke & Key at all? (I haven't read any of Joe's graphic novels or watched the series.)
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Post by neesy on Jul 9, 2020 1:10:03 GMT
This was an enjoyable reread. It did have some great nods to The Sun Dog. (I cannot figure out how to italicize my phone keyboard 😄 so quotes are not going to be typed correctly. I will designate with a *) *He wore a string tie--those were popular in the eighties--secured with a Lucite clasp. A yellowing scorpion was curled within.* Joe mentioned the ties already. 🙂 *"Sometimes I thingg in her dreams she gets it all back. The path to her old self is overgrown, lost in the briars. But her sleeping mind...you thingg, Michael, the sleeping mind has paths of its own? Trails the waking self has never walked?" I just liked this. The comparison of the Phoenician and Alzheimer's is a great one. This quote, just made me stop and think about that, how maybe, just maybe, none of our memories are ever truly lost, we just cannot walk the right paths to remember. But they are there, and will always be ours. Some neighbors were named Amberson and that made me think of Jake and 11/22/63. *I never did anything with it. I didn't take it apart. I couldn't see how to. There were no seams, no places where the plastic parts joined together. It was, impossibly, all of one piece.* Didn't Pop say almost this exact thing in The Sun Dog about that camera? *Resentment is a form of starvation. Resentment is the hunger strike of the soul.* Again, just a little quote I liked. One that makes a person think about what you are doing to yourself, if holding on to grudges of any kind.
I am not reading what you read (as warned by wireman) but I look forward to reading your thoughts  |
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Post by wireman on Jul 9, 2020 11:54:16 GMT
Next Wednesday (7-15) we will be discussing Loaded by Joe Hill from the book Strange Weather. Be there, aloha.
Feel free to add more brain droppings about Snapshot to this thread any time.
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