Someone Keeps Moving My Chair

OPENING MONOLOGUE

Hello there from Poland. And a very Happy New Year to you.

Before I get started, I want to talk a little about this newsletter.

With Pop Culture Must Die, I’m interested in creating a small community of folks like yourself and doing everything I can to provide your inbox with something different every week. If you’ve been following along, you know the deal — I tend to talk a lot about books and movies with the occasional irreverent observation and story. And for 2025, I have some ideas that I think you’re going to love.

I don’t have any illusions of turning this into a paid newsletter or using Patreon. That said, yeah, I’m going to plug one of my books or projects on occasion, and the “Buy me a cup of coffee” button will always be at the bottom of this newsletter.

(On social media, I feel like I’m plugging my work all of the time, but every time I throw out a link to one of my books, there’s always one person out there who is like, “Hey, you write books? I’m going to check this out!” So maybe… I’m not doing it enough?)

Pop Culture Must Die has almost 200 readers at the moment and if you know someone in your life who’d appreciate my weekly dose of nonsense, please let them know. Or share this newsletter on social media. It all adds up. Thanks.

Now, on with the show.

Today's reading

• The Future Has Passed Us By

• 2024 Reading List

• 50 in three easy steps

• The Best Best Man

• Here we are again

The Future Has Passed Us By

If you’re a GenXer like me, 2025 feels like something out of a science-fiction movie. It feels impossible.

Here’s what we already experienced:

1997 (Escape from New York and Predator 2)

1999 (Until the End of the World and Strange Days)

2005 (The Transformers: The Movie)

2008 (Split Second)

2009 (Freejack)

2010 (2010: The Year We Make Contact)

2013 (The Postman)

2014 (Timecop)

2015 (Back to the Future II and The 6th Day)

2017 (Running Man, Fortress, and Barb Wire)

2018 (Rollerball)

2019 (Blade Runner, The Island, and Akira)

2020 (Real Steel)

2021 (Johnny Mnemonic)

2022 (Soylent Green and No Escape)

2024 (A Boy and His Dog)

But don’t worry, we still have Children of Men, Demolition Man, and Event Horizon to look forward to.

2024 Reading List

• ROSEWATER by Tade Thompson

• THE ONLY SAFE PLACE LEFT IS THE DARK by Warren Wagner

• INSURRECTION by Tade Thompson

• ZEN IN THE ART OF WRITING by Ray Bradbury

• LOVE ALL THE PEOPLE by Bill Hicks

• WHERE THE BODY WAS by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

• THE DEVIL’S LARDER by Jim Crace

• REDEMPTION by Tade Thompson

• ON MURDER CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS by Thomas De Quincey

• SEX CRIMINAL by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky

• THE ODYSSEY by Homer (translated by Emily Wilson)

• DOGGING POTUS by Erik Schmidt

• WHY HORROR SEDUCES by Mathias Clasen

• CYBERIAD by Stanislaw Lem

• LATER by Stephen King

• THE SCIENCE OF STORYTELLING by Will Storr

• LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET by Rainer Maria Rilke

• THE CHICAGO GUIDE FOR FREELANCE EDITORS by Erin Brenner

• THE WIND THROUGH THE KEYHOLE by Stephen King

• MR MERCEDES by Stephen King

• YOU LIKE IT DARKER by Stephen King

• THE PARADE by Dave Eggers

• ANNIHILATION by Jeff Vandermeer

• FALLING OUT OF TIME by David Grossman

• SLEEPING BEAUTIES by Stephen King and Owen King

• FINDERS KEEPERS by Stephen King

• FEVER HOUSE by Keith Rosson

• END OF WATCH by Stephen King

• THE OUTSIDER by Stephen King

• FULL DARK, STARS by Stephen King

• DOCTOR SLEEP by Stephen King

• MORE ARGONAUTS by Nicholas Pendleton

• ELEVATION by Stephen King

• CARRIE by Stephen King

• JUST AFTER SUNSET by Stephen King

• CATCHING THE BIG FISH: MEDITATION, CONSCIOUSNESS, AND CREATIVITY by David Lynch

• FROM A BUICK 8 by Stephen King

• CELL by Stephen King

• IF IT BLEEDS by Stephen King

• THE DARK TOWER - THE GUNSLINGER BORN by Peter David, Robin Furth, Jae Lee, and Richard Isanove

• HOLLY by Stephen King

• THE BAZAAR OF BAD DREAMS by Stephen King

• BLAZE by Stephen King

• ROSE MADDER by Stephen King

(Titles in bold are re-reads.)

The goal was to read 50 books in 2024 and, as you can see, I didn’t quite make it. Normally I’d be annoyed with myself, but this is supposed to be fun, so fuck it.

48% of the books I read were by Stephen King (that’s 21 books, though, in hindsight, I should have stopped at 19).

Thanks to his inventive and fun Rosewater trilogy, Tade Thompson was the second most-read author of 2024. Horror won out as the most-read genre, followed by nonfiction at 19% and science fiction at 12%.

Let me highlight a few books:

I’ve been a freelance editor for seven years and if there was ever a book I wish I had when I started, Erin Brenner’s The Chicago Guide for Freelance Editors would be it. Brenner covers everything from setting up the business to marketing to finding and keeping clients — she even has a section on how to take care of yourself by managing stress and establishing a self-care routine. It’s really comprehensive. And even though I’ve been editing for a while now, I discovered things I never even considered. If you’ve been thinking about becoming an editor, this is the book you’ll need.

Erik Schmidt's Dogging POTUS was not only one of my favorite reading experiences of 2024, but it was also my favorite editing job (full disclaimer). This hilarious oral history of "the time America went doggy style...and loved it" is so funny and clever that you'll be laughing even when the satire hits too close to home.

I know that Thomas De Quincey’s On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts isn’t for everyone, but if the title of this 1827 essay raised one of your eyebrows, you might enjoy this. While the dated language kept me at arm's length, the ahead-of-its-time dark humor really drew me in. Here’s my favorite bit:

Warren Wagner’s The Only Safe Place Left is the Dark and Keith Rosson’s Fever House were my favorite horror books of 2024.

Wagner’s book follows an HIV-positive gay man who must leave the safety of his secluded cabin to find the medication he needs to live during a zombie apocalypse. Despite how wicked and dark things get in the story, it’s surprisingly fun. My only complaint is that I wouldn’t have minded if the book were longer.

Rosson’s book (the first of two) is a rollercoaster ride that starts with two leg-breakers going to someone’s apartment to collect on a debt and ends with the end of the world. What happens in between is quite a ride with some fun and colorful characters and lot of inventive horror. It’s a surprisingly big story that’s kept grounded with some wonderful character work. This one pressed all my buttons. I can’t wait to read the next part.

While we’re on the subject of horror… If you've read Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Literature and King’s Danse Macabre, Mathias Clasen’s Why Horror Seduces feels like the next book in the series of thoughtful examinations of horror as a genre. A solid read.

Lastly, it’s been over a month and I keep thinking about Nicholas Pendleton’s amazing More Argonauts: Another Argonautica, which I previously described as “a love letter to all myths – even the ones we haven’t invented yet. It’s a book about stories and storytelling. It’s about everything, really — a remarkable accomplishment in 303 pages.”

What have you been reading?

50 in three easy steps

Here's what being 50 looks like in 3 easy steps:

1. You realize you've never read Walt Whitman.

2. You take your Am Lit book from college off the shelf.

3. You find out that you not only read Whitman before but you took LOTS of notes.

The Best Best Man

When I was 17 years old, I worked at a grocery store. The breakroom was located near the seafood section which Katie ran.

Katie was in her 50s, and she did not have an easy life. I knew this because she told me about her life every time I walked past the seafood counter. And because I was too polite to run away like everyone else, I’d spend my entire break listening to her problems.

One day, she's crazy happy. She met a man. His name was Ray.

She said I had to meet him. And I could, as soon as he got out of jail for his DUI.

A week later, Ray was hanging out with Katie in the seafood section. He was short, had a big mustache, and smelled of cigarettes.

I said hello. We shook hands. In the 15-minute conversation, he barely talked, but I made him laugh once.

The next time I saw Katie, she showed me her engagement ring. They were getting married next month. "Christian, you were so nice to Ray. He wouldn't stop talking about it," Katie told me. "He wants you to be his best man."

Even though alarm bells were going off, I accepted.

The wedding was on a beach in July. I arrived in a suit, because it was, you know, a wedding. I was the only one wearing a suit.

Ray was wearing shorts, an unbuttoned shirt, and a new cap he had bought for the occasion. Surprisingly, he had more clothes on than the preacher doing the ceremony.

Katie was over the moon. This was clearly the best day of her life.

As I stood next to Ray during the ceremony, I noticed that one shirtless man was sitting in the front row with his arms crossed. He was staring at me like he wanted to kill me.

I found out later that he was Ray's only son.

The wedding party was at a country dive bar. I stood up at one point to give a toast, which was basically, "I'll never forget the one time I met Ray in the seafood section. We shook hands and he laughed at one of my jokes."

Ray hugged me emotionally while his son looked on in horror.

I hope you all learn how to say NO to bad ideas sooner than I did.

Here we are again

It’s a new year, so you know the drill. Just remember that there’s no pressure to keep any of your resolutions (unless you’ve vowed to stop murdering people — feel free to hold onto that one a little longer). We should always strive to be better, but the pace is completely up to you.

When I worked in pharmacies, people would come up to the pharmacist and ask about which nicotine gum/patch was the best to quit smoking. And Rick, the pharmacist, would ask, “Do you want to quit smoking?”

If they said anything like, “No” or “I was told I have to,” Rick would put his hand on their shoulder and say, “Don’t waste your money.”

He’d add, “The patch will help, but they won’t take until you really, really want to quit. Come back when you’re ready.”

That’s how it works for resolutions or any other significant changes in life. You get to them when you legitimately want to — like it’s life or death (hell, sometimes they are). That’s when they finally take.

See you next week.