Story Notes
Like Kohoutek — Story notes and Soundtrack
Another trip with Vin and Danno.
Last week I published a new short story “Like Kohoutek” in Lit Up.
It takes place five years after the events of “The Plunge Pool,” a story I published last year in Lit Up.
In “Like Kohoutek” Dan and Vin take another weird trip, though this time not so far from home.
I won’t say too much more, you can read it, if you want. I will say that Dan and Vin have a complicated relationship, as maybe all lifelong friends do. I think I may have one more story about them in me. It’s still germinating in my subconscious, but I think I might be able to put it together in the next year.
Soundtrack
Notes about this story wouldn’t be complete without a mention of the soundtrack. I don’t think I’m too different from most american gen-xers in feeling that a soundtrack runs continuously through all my memories of the 80’s and 90’s. Any story I write set in that time period has a soundtrack running below the surface, even if I don’t mention it explicitly.
Here are the albums and songs that run under, and on the surface of, this story:
R.E.M. — Fables of the Reconstruction
The namesake song:
Red Hot Chili Peppers — Blood Sugar Sex Magik
One of the greatest rock albums of the 90s.
The title track still gives me goosebumps sometimes.
Rush — A Farewell To Kings
This is the album that the guys expected to be trippy, but that turned out to be “thin and mechanical”. That’s the thing about acid. It doesn’t do what you expect. Things can be flat where you expect them to be deep, clear where you expect mystical. It’s still a good album, if mostly forgotten today. Here’s the track that Danno expected to trip to:
Tag!
Tagging some folks who liked “The Plunge Pool” who might be interested in this one: johnronand, edh lamport, Cyra Wilde, Brian Kerg, Jo Ann Harris, Don Feazelle, Gene Rosen, Inge Moore, Jennifer Jean Dominguez, Kathy Lee Tolleth, Patricia Naomi, Terijo, Adam, Diabetic Cyborg, J Gonzalez Blitz, Jennifer Ponig. And the folks who liked “Like Kohoutek” who might be interested in “The Plunge Pool”: lhburges, Daphne K Moore, daryl joy, Nirmal Chamara, Ameet Shah, Sandra Meyer, Neil Anderson, John Tinney, Jef Littlejohn, Stephen M. Tomic, Petra Ivanigova, Perry Dubow.
