One Year Later

Wow, remember that?  Hard to believe, but it’s been nearly one year since Fort Saint Davids closed shop at our cozy Philadelphia offices and headed west for the Last Exit to Portland.  Suffice it to say you will be celebrating our One Year Mark with us on March 12th, 2008, because we’re obsessed with dates and  there’s always more room for Making a New National Holiday.  Updates, of course, to follow.

Cannibal Corpse Frontman Corpsegrinder To the Alliance: “Die!”

We couldn’t make this stuff up if we tried.

Cause For Celebration

Now that the Writer’s Strike has ended, life for your average writer returns back to normal.  The Daily Miltonian is back.  The Fort Saint Davids Quarterly is now a distant possibility once again.  And Lost is getting five more episodes.  Good news for us because after waiting nearly a year, the prospect of a measly eight episode season was giving us night terrors.  So phew, phew.  This is good.  Already three episodes in, all of us present in the Entertainment/Screening Room here in the comfy FSD PNW/NW Offices agree that at this point the show is completely Right On.  Intricate, well-paced, rich with detail and more cohesive than ever, we’re fairly confident that this season is going to be nothing short than a triumph.

James Turrell will be at PNCA today.  I mean you either know about this and got a ticket or else you didn’t and oh well it’s sold out.  But that’s where we’ll be.  Yep yep.

But oh man have you been outside today?  Dude it’s like the sun just wants to give ya a bit bear hug, then tousle your hair, then kiss ya all over.  I can’t think of a more cuddly sun, anywhere, at any time.  The minute you step outside it’s like the sun became a big, tail-wagging, slobbery dog just waiting for you to open that door and P-P-POUNCE!  Lick lick lick, all over your face.  It’s a sun so strong, you can high five it.  So go out there and get some.  This video is for you, sun-lover.  Accept no substitutes, this is Today’s Vibe.

Freak Out, 1979

If you told us next year would be Philadelphia, 1979, we’d have moved back there last month.  The above clips are essential.

Whatever Happened to the Daily Miltonian?

Good question. For starters, it seems as if all of our trusted contributers have flown the coop. Bones got married, Brady Dale quit reading comics, Matthew K. entered a Black Hole, and Father Gibbs went off to sea. Renee the Secretary got a boyfriend and on this brightcool/sunny Valentine’s day we find the FSD PNW/NW offices are silent, save for the drip of the coffee maker, the burble of the watercooler, and the hum of the fax machine which only sends us blank pieces of paper.

We’ve tried to save the sinking ship, but to no avail. We send out assignments on the fax machine like dropping pennies into a bottomless well; you see it fall but you never hear it drop. We began to pen a new manifesto: the Daily Miltonian would be the anti-blog Blog. There would be no more images. There would be no more links. There would be no more bold items. All text. Links send you away — text keeps you here. At least, that’s what we thought, one boozy night at the Empire Lounge, the lights dim, the air so soft. Who was sitting at the stool next to us? Who is the third who walks beside you? There was no one there. We were the only ones left. Whatever happened to the Daily Miltonian?

A wise man told us about the difference between growing up on 120 Minutes and growing up on Youtube. The one was the now, the other was two seconds ago. We say: the immediate might be outdated, but at least it was on time. “I’m gonna make a tape for you / yeah ninety minutes time / all it takes to make you mine.” – NOU.

It all comes down to a matter of effort. There’s no real returns for us here at FSD. We send these e-paper ships out to e-sea and off they go — the rescue boat never finds us, we’re all still standing here. We want to talk to you more, which is probably why it’s been less Miltonian and more of us just calling you on your telephone, meeting you somewhere, coming over for coffee, sitting in a park with newspapers and cream cheese bagels, under trees, beneath sun. The Miltonian will always be trapped beneath your screen. Everything else is on the other side, that is, your side, our side. We’re tired of going under. We want to be free.

The Daily Miltonian is dead, long live the Miltonian!

Daily Miltonian Returns with Items

Aaaaand we’re back. Thanks again for bearing with our moment of silence. Here’s your items for the second week of February, 2008.

ITEM: DC Comics have announced their third weekly series after 52 and Countdown: Trinity. Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley will do the 12 page main story of all 52 issues, with the second half featuring backups by rotating creative teams. This might actually be good.

ITEM: There Will Be Blood — movie of the year, easily.  If they make one better than this in 2008 we’ll f-f-f-freak out.  Cloverfield — watch the trailer, skip the film.

ITEM: Black Mountain, live. Who knew? Other people, just not us. Now we do.  Sexy.

ITEM: Mexican Coca-Cola, in a glass bottle. Drink it in winter, pretend it’s summer.

ITEM: The all-text Miltonian….huh. We can’t tell: do the pictures make us seem like we think you’re dumb? Or do you just love those pictures because they’re smart and so are you. Blog: it’s not a book. Anyhow, it’s an experiment, for now. We’ll see.
ITEM: Lost, Season 4. First episode we were like, okay, cool. Second episode we were like OMG this is TOO COOL. We’re way into it. Thursday can’t get here soon enough.

ITEM: Back to comics, are you reading Omega the Unknown? This is the wildest thing Marvel has done in years. Also, this whole ‘Mark Millar Is Back’ thing has lots of promising projects. We want: Old Man Logan, FF, and Kick-Ass. These all seem great and it gives us things to look forward to (which is the best way to get from yesterday to tomorrow).  Finally: who’s a Skrull?

ITEM: Winter beach. It’s what everyone wants, the most, in the winter. Have you been to the beach, or a beach, or ‘the shore’ (if you prefer, or the coast)  this winter? Rocks, sand, mist, fog, waves — come on, winter beach! Get into it.

ITEM: Fort Saint Davids is considering doing a kinda zine-y chapbook series. You know, low print runs, cheap production, probably at Kinkos, stapled, that kinda thing. Blogs save the environment, but stuff on dead trees still feels nice. Would you be interested in this? I mean hey we’re always dreaming of new stuff.

ITEM: Fort Saint Davids is also going to make Myspace pages for some music that we have our hands on, that we might sell via CD-R at some point down the road. But for now we’ll just make the pages and you can listen to the music for free any time you want. This is why you still like us.

ITEM: Part 2 and 3 of the ‘Back to the Old House’ trilogy of December 2007 Philadelphia Mini-Movies will be forthcoming. There will also be a short featuring Thurston Moore on Portland’s own Jonathan Raymond. We have two more clips from the James Mercer PNCA performance, if you want those, just ask us. A Portland Winter 2008 Mini-Movie will follow.

More ITEMS to come. Have you been outside today? The sun is so yellow and the light is everywhere.

James Mercer @ PNCA 1-31-08

Performing ‘Strange Powers’ by the Magnetic Fields.

Live In Love