Kicking Off Scream Week...

...With a new Poll.  What are your expectations for Scream 4? How good or bad do you think it will be?  You can offer your prediction by making a quick click over in the right sidebar (and if you'd like to expand upon your choice, you can share your thoughts in the Comments section of this post).  In case you haven't caught any of the recent commercials for Scream 4, here's the film's trailer:





Be sure to come back to Macabre Republic each day this week for another Scream-related post.

Macabre in the Blogosphere: The Zombie Feed

Just wanted to call attention to a series of blog posts over at The Zombie Feed.  To help promote the imminent release of The Zombie Feed Vol. 1, contributors to the anthology have been guest-posting for the past few weeks (talking about their own stories and all things undead).  My piece is scheduled to appear this coming Monday, April 11th.  In it, I discuss the origins and nature of my short story "The Last Generation," a post-apocalyptic riff on Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. 

I encourage everyone to head over to the blog right now to check out some of the cool musings that have been posted.

On the Road with The Sopranos: Shiver in the "Pine Barrens"

Playing off of yesterday's post...some clips from the classic Sopranos episode (directed by Fargo's Steve Buscemi), in which Paulie and Christopher get lost in the snowy South Jersey woods.

On the Road with Silver John: "Shiver in the Pines"

(For previous ballads about the balladeer, click the "On the Road with Silver John" label under Features in the right sidebar.)


"Shiver in the Pines"

A pleasant evening's interrupted when a wanderer
Gets John and his rustic friends to come follow
On a nocturnal quest for legendary riches
Buried in a cave deep within Black Pine Hollow.

Yet surprise is in store, because the stranger
And the local witch-doctor are curiously connected.
Worse, the discovery that the eldritch Ancients
Have not left their hidden treasure unprotected.


Manley Wade Wellman's short story "Shiver in the Pines" can be found in Owls Hoot in the Daytime & Other Omens.

C.G.I.: Chalk-Generated Illusions

We've come a long way from rudimentary hopscotch grids.  These sublime examples of street art are at once amazing and unnerving: