33 Short Films About Shelbyville

Scenes from my visit to Shelbyville, Indiana, on Sept. 25, 2025, spiced up with a few Simpsons quotes about the fictional Shelbyville, Springfield's rival city.  

Highlight: Capone's Downtown Speakeasy in the town square.

~Sandy Allen's Wikipedia page~

Newspaper Comics from 100 Years Ago

This "Freckles" comic strip appeared on September 21, 1925.

These political cartoons from 100 years ago portray flappers, Rudolph Valentino, tariffs, and egg prices. But more than anything else, cartoonists were portraying the so-called "Scopes Monkey Trial."

This one-panel comic strip from September 22, 1925 is basically an extended pun on the phrase "Chinese Boxer Rebellion." Since that event had happened right around the turn of the century, the readers of the paper would have at least been familiar with the term, even if they didn't know the exact historical reference.

Here's a "Mutt and Jeff" strip from Sept. 23, 1925. 

A look at a Wisconsin newspaper from Sept. 24, 1925 shows a man getting in trouble for surreptitiously selling moonshine out of his ice cream parlor during Prohibition. Political cartoons lampoon the senator from Wisconsin and, for some reason, the General Andrews that Andrews Air Force Base is named after. My local cartoon, Kin Hubbard, who lived in Irvington, Indianapolis, did that last one. It also makes passing reference to the flapper fad of knee painting, mentioned in "All That Jazz" in Chicago.

Finally, this newspaper from Winslow, Arizona features hundred-year-old ads from Levi jeans and J.C. Penney. 

Hands Off Our Free Speech

There is some shit up with which free Americans cannot and shall not put, and a crackdown on free speech is a stinking, leaking, overflowing silo of such. 

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https://www.redbubble.com/i/holographic-sticker/I-Criticize-Dear-Leader-by-ErinORiordan/174105068.A3LW6

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https://www.redbubble.com/i/t-shirt/I-Criticize-Dear-Leader-by-ErinORiordan/174105068.NE00P

Don't let them tell you what you can and can't say. Resist. Make them keep their damn hands off your natural human rights and intellectual freedoms. The Enlightenment genie is out of the bottle and no, we will not be putting it back in. 

Find the 'Oakley Falls' Audiobook on Apple Books Now

The steamy Sapphic vampire fantasy Oakley Falls in not only available in print once again, but also in audiobook format.

Find it on Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/oakley-falls/id1837713875

This 43-minute book is only $1.99.

New Audiobook Releases: The Deep Space Scrolls, Guide to Fortune-Telling By Dreams

 New in audiobook:

What does it mean for your future if you dream of cats, beans, knives, or an earthquake? This anonymous author knew back in 1894 and now all of their dramatic A to Z secrets can be revealed. Learn the meanings of dozens of dream-objects and how they can foretell the future, at least according to this old-timey "science."

Find it from these retailers:

NOOK Audiobooks: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/guide-to-fortune-telling-by-dreams-anonymous/1148152682?ean=2940203505866

Everand (Scribd): https://www.everand.com/audiobook/909357316/Guide-to-Fortune-Telling-by-Dreams

Kobo, Walmart: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/guide-to-fortune-telling-by-dreams?sId=0b847828-3c59-4a1f-8464-1732293b7eff&ssId=c-St_smNKF9hhofApQ3UH&cPos=1

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2hDTgKfwCHjBULUsUsGUwZ

Hear a short sample of the introduction on YouTube: 

The other new book I published in audio format is The Deep Space Scrolls:

Robert Franklin Young (1915-1986) was a science fiction short story writer and novelist from New York State whose career spanned 50 years. In The Deep Space Scrolls, he imagined the voyage of the starship Camaraderie 17 as it encountered the mysterious Spaceship X. The circumstances of that mysterious craft cause pilot Colonel Greaves and the senator committee who interview him to question the nature of human history. It provides proof of the most unlikely story in the most unexpected place possible.

You can find it at these retailers:

NOOK Audiobooks: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-deep-space-scrolls-robert-f-young/1137360723?ean=2940203726186

Kobo, Walmart: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/deep-space-scrolls-the?sId=d631ebe0-8111-42d9-827b-39eb2df35d2b&ssId=sOxVsinVmkZuHUrvel1Cv&cPos=1

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4GDgVIrk7K9vKSc5WWFwE3

Don't forget, you can always check aeess.com for the latest audiobook releases. You can download the mp3 file, yours to own, directly from me. I get to keep all the royalties except the cut that the payment processor takes. 

Happy Birthday, Siobhan Fahey

Happy 67th birthday to the Irish singer Siobhan Maire Deirdre Fahey of Bananarama and Shakespears Sister fame. 

Bonus '80s music fun fact: Siobhan's sister Maire played Eileen in the "Come On, Eileen" music video.

"Bring Back Bananarama" post at Dorothy Surrenders

Back in Print (eBook): Oakley Falls, a Sapphic Vampire Fantasy

Back as a stand-alone ebook: Oakley is a lesbian, a vampire, and a stripper. She and her mortal lover Hollie have their issues, but Oakley's unlife is going well...so why does she find herself waking up chained to a chair in the basement of The Third Eye Gentleman's Club? Could it have something to do with her favorite pro basketball player, flamboyant, New Orleans-bred Johnny Lee Bayliss?

(Yes, I named a character after Timothy James Bayliss from Homicide: Life on the Street.)

"Oakley Falls" was originally published in the Vamps anthology from Torquere Press. Get the ebook for 99 cents now from these retailers:

Apple Books
Barnes and Noble
Kobo/Rakuten/Walmart
Smashwords
Tolino
Vivlio

Oliver's Famous Clam Chowder

Herbert: A Romantasy

New Audiobook Releases: Aesop for Children, Northern Drinking

Are you looking for an audiobook you can listen to with the whole family? Do you want to introduce your children to classic literature, help them gain an appreciation for books, and improve their vocabulary?

Aesop, according to tradition, was a storyteller who lived in Ancient Greece. This volume collects ten of Aesop's fables: 

• The Young Crab and His Mother
• Belling the Cat
• The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse
• The Fox and the Grapes
• The Bundle of Sticks
• The Lion and the Mouse
• The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf
• The Frogs Who Wished for a King
• The Rat and the Elephant
• The Crow and the Pitcher

These are all good lessons to learn at a young age, but not too challenging for kids to understand. Find this audiobook for 99 cents on the following platforms:

Everand (Scribd): https://www.everand.com/audiobook/712089234/Aesop-s-Fables-for-Children

Kobo, Walmart: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/aesop-for-children-3?sId=fa7f94cb-4f8e-4cb8-82c3-d4bd43951de6

If you're in the market for something a little more adult to listen to and you enjoy nonfiction, maybe you'll prefer Northern Drinking.

Where did Anglo-Saxon drinking customs come from? To answer this question, John Ashton looked back at artifacts from Beowulf to drinking horns. The resulting drinking history is anything but dry.

"Northern Drinking" is a chapter excerpted by Ashton and James Mew's 1892 book Drinks of the World. You can find this audiobook for 99 cents from the following retailers:

NOOK Audiobooks (Barnes and Noble): https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/northern-drinking-john-ashton/1148106371?ean=2940194978496

Everand (Scribd): https://www.everand.com/audiobook/906020096/Northern-Drinking

Kobo, Walmart: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/northern-drinking?sId=49df5acf-3519-4fa5-9ddb-d45dd8dcf39f

O. Henry at Overdue Podcast

In this episode of Overdue Podcast, hosts Andrew and Craig discuss O. Henry's short story collection The Four Million.

If you like listening to O. Henry short stories, you might enjoy Art and the Bronco.

Apparently, I've never mentioned Overdue Podcast on this blog before. I'm surprised, because I've been listening to this books podcast for years. A brief list of some of the many, many books they've covered since February 2013:

The Amityville Horror

Animal Farm

Bad Feminist

Bunnicula

Charlotte's Web

The Color Purple

The Da Vinci Code

Fifty Shades of Grey

Frankenstein

Gone Girl

Gone With the Wind

The Haunting of Hill House
The History of Love

How to Win Friends and Influence People

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Little Women

Ready Player One

Rosemary's Baby

Till We Have Faces

To Kill a Mockingbird

Wuthering Heights

...You get it: A combination of classics and popular literature. 

Jokingly, I say that I theorize that Andrew and Craig of Overdue are secretly Ghost Beach, the dj duo named after a Goosebumps book.