Don Pizarro's Manual of the Seven Wudan Tiger Shaolin Monkey Kung-Fu Style o' Death
![Comic panel by artist Lynda Barry of a Lola telling her grandchildren, "If [the ghosts] are hungry, give them adobo and San Miguel Beer."](https://i0.wp.com/donfoolery.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/00barry-image-03-superJumbo.webp?resize=728%2C1024&ssl=1)
Lynda Barry describes watching THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1959) with her lola.
From “It’s Halloween, but the Monsters Are Already Here” – which is locked, sorry. I did see this via a gift link, but alas it’s not my link to re-gift.
I’ll be back in the high life again
All the doors I closed one time will open up again–Steve Winwood, “Back in the High Life Again”
In the past couple of months, I took my first intentional post-pandemic steps back into the spec-fic writing world. I’ve dipped my toe in the waters for a couple of years now, what with the occasional local event or online con like Flights of Foundry and a bit of Wiscon online.
Last month, I was graciously invited to take part in a local reading series, and managed to find things that I was actually not embarrassed to read out loud. Hell, at the beginning of the month, I even submitted a short story for the first time in god-knows-how-long. (I don’t know because I’ve purposely avoided that particular page of my Submission Grinder account.)
Yes, I’m officially back on my bullshit! Now, I just need to find a way to make it sustainable.
Like a moth to a flame, I’m drawn just about every year to the Friends of the Tompkins Co. Library Book Sales. They’re held over three weekends in May, which coincides with Ithaca’s Spring (W)rites festival, and in October. It’s one of those local rituals one falls into in this town, whether you’re here for four years of college or for twenty-to-life.
I always, always manage to find a few treasures, even when I saunter in on the last weekend of the sale when books are the cheapest and the shelves have been all but picked clean. It looks like I neglected to post last year’s haul, but I got a lot of stuff in 2023.
Anyway, here’s what I found this time around…
