For the next few weeks I’m going to review the novellas adapted from Roman and Anna Riva’s planned animated series, Opium Tales (which doubles as Roman’s Substack moniker and publication). I’ve followed Roman’s work for years, and it’s refreshing to see his active presence on Substack. When I found out he and his wife had a series of short novellas in print—and that they are all, save one, under $8.
Last week, I reviewed the first book in the series, Humpty Dumpty (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link—more of them below—so I receive a portion of any purchase made through that link, at no additional cost to you).
According to the introduction of each volume, Roman and Anna sought, but failed to procure, funding for an animated series called Opium Tales. They hoped to call it Dark Tales, but the name was taken, so they leaned into the opium habits of early eighteenth-century Romantics and landed on Opium Tales. Since they still had all the rights to their stories, they decided to publish them as a series of novellas.
Here is the series—or, at least the volumes I purchased; if I’m missing one, please let me know, Roman (the following are Amazon Affiliate links; I receive a portion of any purchase made through these links, at no additional cost to you):
The entire series is (as of the time of writing) $46.94 before tax, so these are easy to scoop up in one fell swoop.
According to is introduction, A Pirate’s Tale was intended to be the second installment in the animated series. Indeed, there was some debate between it or Humpty Dumpty being the pilot episode, but H. Dumps won out due to name recognition. That move seems wise, as HD strongly establishes the series’ foundation in European folklore and fairy tales, so a classic nursery rhyme turned into a dark tale of corruption and excess was the fitting choice.
That said, A Pirate’s Tale is my favorite between the two. While I loved what HD did with the source material, A Pirate’s Tale is a full-on swashbuckling adventure in the vein of (as the Rivas point out in their introduction) the Pirates of the Caribbean films.
For the next few weeks I’m going to review the novellas adapted from Roman and Anna Riva’s planned animated series, Opium Tales (which doubles as Roman’s Substack moniker and publication). I’ve followed Roman’s work for years, and it’s refreshing to see his active presence on Substack. When I found out he and his wife had a series of short novellas in print—and that they are all, save one, under $8.
According to the introduction of each volume, Roman and Anna sought, but failed to procure, funding for an animated series called Opium Tales. They hoped to call it Dark Tales, but the name was taken, so they leaned into the opium habits of early eighteenth-century Romantics and landed on Opium Tales. Since they still had all the rights to their stories, they decided to publish them as a series of novellas.
Here is the series—or, at least the volumes I purchased; if I’m missing one, please let me know, Roman (the following are Amazon Affiliate links; I receive a portion of any purchase made through these links, at no additional cost to you):
The entire series is (as of the time of writing) $46.94 before tax, so these are easy to scoop up in one fell swoop.
According to is introduction, Humpty Dumpty was the first installment in the series, and intended to be the pilot episode of the animated series. It is a dark fantasy rendering in the spirit of the Brothers Grimm, in which H. Dumpty is not a clumsy egg, but instead a brutish feudal lord with dark appetites.
My succulent paid subs—you have a belated edition of SubscribeStar Saturday coming your way imminently (coming 10 AM EST today, Monday, 24 August 2026). In the meantime, here’s a quick musing for the plebes. —TPP
I’m just old enough to remember a time when tattoos were taboo and trashy. The only people that had tattoos were the following:
Military veterans who had seen real combat
Motorcycle gang members
Tramps (remember the early 2000s “tramp stamp” lower back tattoo?)
Really rough lower-class types and/or people who were trying to emulate that style
Only the first two are acceptable. If you were at Iwo Jima, yeah, you’ve earned a tattoo of an angry fish or whatever. I remember in college (the early 2000s) the third—the “tramp stamp”—became more common among some women, but it was something that instantly marked a woman as having poor taste and impulse control. The male equivalent was that “tribal armband” thing.
Otherwise, tattoos were basically a form of self-medication for various forms of mental illness, like smoking cigarettes. Often, the overlap between the two—tattoos and tobacco consumption—were very high.
Now, everyone has them (well, not me). People reportedly get “addicted” to getting them (a common refrain I’ve heard from tattoo aficionados is that, once you get one, you want another).
I suspect their ubiquity now is indicative of our society’s general inability to think beyond immediate here and now. That used only be the purview of the fourth type on that list—those poor souls who are so diminished intellectually or developmentally or socially that they never learned—or were incapable of learning—impulse control. Now, it seems as those a vanishingly small number of people can think long-term.
Surely social media plays a role—as it always does—in both popularizing tattoos (“everyone” has one, so I should, too!) and in reducing our overall long-term planning abilities. Do I really want a tattoo of a flower that represents my deceased grandmother on my boob when I’m seventy? I don’t think people think it through.
I also suspect tattoos are a reflection of society’s increased nihilism. If everything is meaningless, then why bother with Beauty? Let’s just make ourselves and everything else ugly (ironically, I think some people get tattoos in an attempt to overcome their physical deficiencies; it’s rare—or used to be rare—for a gorgeous person to be covered in tattoos, but I’ve seen plenty of amorphous land whales with the physique of the Pokémon Ditto covered in tats and sporting bright blue hair). As always, nihilism is a blight on all things Pure and Good and True—and Beautiful.
To be clear, get your tattoo; it’s no skin (no pun intended) off my lower back. But I’ll judge you. You shouldn’t care about that, but if you do, it proves to me that you’re only getting the tattoo because you’re seeking external validation, so much so that some chubby raconteur on the Internet is getting a rise out of you.
God Gave you beautiful skin (ladies, listen up in particular). Don’t sully it with a spinning wheel that’s a metaphor for time or how your Mimi used to sew you a sweater. Mimi would rather her little apple dumpling have smooth, beautiful, unadorned skin, not a sick-green outline of a dove that starts to look like an amorphous blob after ten years.
Think ahead. Don’t be a putz. Tattoos are for military veterans and bikers, not corporate drones sending e-mails for a living.
Last summer I filled in for the pianist of the First United Methodist Church here in our new little town. Their regular pianist was, until this past Sunday, teen phenom John Patrick Hutchinson, who is already a world-class classical pianist at the age of seventeen (actually, I think he turns eighteen today, based on my foggy recollection of the pre-concert notes; happy birthday, JPH!). Hutchinson gave a farewell concert called A Final Measure: Notes Before Departure this past Sunday evening at the church; it’s his farewell because he’ll be heading to conservatory in a couple of weeks.
Instead of being held in the sanctuary, where the piano is unfortunately hidden by the organ, it was held in a small chamber just off of the sanctuary—and it was packed. The old men of the church started grabbing additional chairs from various Sunday School classrooms and other church hidey-holes as attendees poured in—as they continued to do well after the advertised start of the program. It was really amazing seeing, in this small city in an obscure corner of South Carolina, several dozen people—I estimated about 80 people in attendance—turning out to hear this young man play.
The size of the crowd matched the size of the talent. Hutchinson played with a beautiful, perceptive touch, drawing out the colors of each piece. His dynamics were varied and intense, and he played the technical passages of each piece with a light deftness that made the notes almost float.
The program was very balanced between Romantic, Impressionistic, Baroque, and modern classical. He opened with Franz Schubert‘s Sonata in A Major, D. 664, a piece from the first half of the eighteenth century that foreshadows some of the developments of the latter half of that century. There were harmonies and colorings of chords that sounded almost twentieth-century in nature; imagine how daring this piece would have been in Schubert’s time!
I did not record any of his performance—refreshing, there were no cell phones whipped out during the recital—but I’ll share performances of his pieces from other people. Here’s Alexander Gavrylyuk playing the Schubert:
After this three-part sonata, we had a brief intermission. Hutchinson resumed the second half with the Andante from Alexander Scriabin‘s Sonata No. 2 in G# Minor, Op. 19 (Sonata-Fantasy). The piece hinted at the developments in tonal experimentation of the early twentieth century (apparently, Scriabin developed his own system of atonality independent of Arnold Schoenberg‘s [in?]famous twelve-tone composing system). This piece balanced late-stage Romanticism (and even Impressionism) with some of those more—shall we say—daring innovations of the early twentieth century; overall, though, I’d say it evoked Chopin.
Here’s Yunchan Lim playing the piece:
Next came J.S. Bach‘s Prelude and Fugue in D Minor (not to be confused with his famous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, the one always heard in scary movies). I love a good fugue, and this piece really highlighted Hutchinson’s precision, as well as Bach’s beautifully mathematical mind. It was a shorter piece, which made for a nice little refreshment after the longer Sonata-Fantasy.
Here’s a performance by Marta Czech:
Hutchinson closed with the most modern classical piece of the program, Emma Lou Diemer‘s Serenade/Toccata. It’s a piece that experiments with lively polyrhythms and often harsh dissonances, but does so without descending into pure noise territory—the dissonances serve a dynamic and musical purpose. There are also some flowing and painterly sections, which give the piece something of a contemplative yin to the more experimental yang.
Here’s a performance from my alma mater, the University of South Carolina, performed here by Paige Broadworth on 4 February 2024:
After a standing ovation, Hutchinson returned to the piano to play a jaunty ragtime tune. I’m not sure of the title of the piece, but it was quite fun. The little old lady sitting next to me started telling me her whole life story during the encore, so I couldn’t quite appreciate the piece in full, but it was fun and bouncy.
If I had to choose one word to sum up this recital, I’d pick “color.” Hutchinson pulled the unique tonal colors out of each piece; indeed, the program, other than perhaps the Bach selection from The Well-Tempered Clavier, seemed to focus on pieces with rich, complex tone colors. And like a master painter, Hutchinson interpreted the colors of each piece with a skill beyond his years.
Also: what a gift! This church has been blessed with a phenomenal young talent; so has the town. It is proof that even—perhaps often—it is in out-of-the-way places where talents are bursting forth. Yes, perhaps those provincial talents inevitably are drawn to the cultural centers—New York City, LA, Nashville, Des Moines—but they come from all across our vast, great nation.
All I can say is, bravo, Mr. Hutchinson! We hope you come back home for another performance soon.
Back in late 2022 and early 2023, Ponty and I did a series of posts about our favorite films. I ranked 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back as my number one pick. If we redid the lists, I doubt it would rank that high, but it would certainly be in the top five.
At the time, I noted that Empire was the first film I ever reviewed for what would become Monday Morning Movie Reviews. At the time, I just called it Monday Movie Review, perhaps knowing there’d be days I’d miss the “morning” deadline. Regardless, the review of that film marked something of a turning point for The Portly Politico, moving away from primarily political topics and moving more decisively towards cultural ones.
One of the flicks on my mental “to view” list for some time now was today’s feature, The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971; that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through that link, at no additional cost to you). It’s been wickedly hard to track down online, although I’ve seen its sequel, Dr. Phibes Rises Again (same affiliate link as above) available on a number of platforms. For whatever reason, I never cared enough to find the DVD (ibid.)—or to even consider looking for it!
So when the sequel popped up on YouTube a couple of weeks ago, I decided to hunt down the original. Surely YouTube would have it as one of their free (with ads) flicks, yes?
Well, no. But someone—or two someones—had uploaded it to YouTube. I can’t vouch for how legit it is that they’ve done so, but they’ve head the film uploaded for seven years, so I imagine American International Pictures or the copyright holders of the various Great American Songbook tunes in the film don’t care or don’t know about the upload (hopefully I’m not outing them with this review). Regardless, two gentlemen in New Castle, Pennsylvania, have a little horror show called New Castle After Dark (website) in which they dress in the kind of tuxedos nerds wear to the prom. They also smoke lots of cigarettes and drink dark beer while they make some general comments about the flick.
It’s a charming setup, and I appreciated that they didn’t cut into the film too frequently. From what I recall, they do an intro, then host a segment midway through the film, and finally close with some concluding remarks. It’s just the right about of interstitial commentary, and I think it’s super cool that they’re trying to capture the spirit (no pun intended) of late-night horror hosts.
Here’s the flick with their commentary if you want to check it out yourself:
The premise for Dr. Phibes is insanely fun and campy: the titular doctor, who holds dual doctorates in music and theology, seeks revenge on the surgeons who he believes botched his wife’s surgery some years earlier. He methodically murders each doctor according to the Ten Plagues of Egypt from Exodus.
Phibes himself is a gruesome character. While his wife was going into surgery, he attempted to rush back to England from Switzerland. In the process he crashed his car, sustaining injuries that made it impossible for him to talk. To do so, he used his knowledge of music and acoustics to create a voice box (through which he comically drinks some champagne at one point). He also has a full, automaton band that plays jazz and pop standards from the 1920s (the setting of the film) and, anachronistically, the 1930s and 1940s.
Vincent Price portrays the devilishly ingenious doctor, so imagine Price’s stentorian voice filtered through an old landline telephone wire. It’s so goofy and awesome.
I started writing this review Sunday evening and decided to spend time with Dr. Wife, who is now done with residency and living here in our South Carolina house permanently! This morning was full of errands, including taking Nugget to the vet for her annual visit and taking care of things around the house. Ergo, I’m finally getting around to finishing up this review. —TPP
Also, this post includes some Amazon Affiliate links (the book and movie titles). I receive a portion of any purchases made through these links at no additional cost to you. —TPP
On Saturday I wrote about Richard Matheson’s novellaI Am Legend, which I enjoyed reading over the past week. What prompted me to purchase the book was re-watching its 1964 film adaptation, The Last Man on Earth. The film stars Vincent Price is the role of Robert Neville, the titular last man on Earth not to succumb to a terrible plague that turns people into vampires.
Once again it’s tax season in the United States. I won’t bore you—again—with the details of our bizarre, nightmarish tax situation, but to suffice it to say that, at the time of writing, yours portly and his dear Dr. Wife are about $5500 poorer and Uncle Sam is probably paying for a federal inmates gender reassignment surgery. Next year will be much easier, but it’s always a pain.
I think what I resent most is that the federal government is now party to every economic exchange I make outside of purchasing a brownie from a sidewalk bake sale. Any money I earn gets reported. Indeed, I probably report more than I really need to, because I do take seriously Jesus’ instruction to “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.” I just wish Caesar was spending my money in the national interest, not in the niche interests of some special interest group or immigrant group that got here fifteen seconds ago.
But it is—for another year, at least—done. Now I’m free to enjoy Spring Break and to wait, watchful and eel-like, for next year.
Dr. Wife and I went to see Emerald Fennell’s adaptation/reinterpretation of Wuthering Heights (2026) the other weekend after a long day of lugging our stuff to our new home. The director’s name—which sounds like a extremely colorful spice—should give some insight into what the film was like. I’ve never read Emily Brontë novel—yes, literature girls, you can sacrifice me to Emily Dickinson—but Dr. Wife had, so she filled me in some of the details.
The original novel is the bleak tale of a doomed romance denied by the strictures of propriety, social class, and cash. The movie is an excessively plodding first act that culminates in twenty minutes of sexual depravity followed by a tragic death.
The film is gaining notoriety because it’s smut. My wife kept calling it “Wuthering Glutes,” and we had fun making jokes involving the word “wuthering” and other anatomical features. The popular consensus is correct: it is basically an excuse for a swarthy heartthrob to assert his will over Margot Robbie while women swoon lustily.
Dr. Wife and I went to see the smutty literary adaptation of Wuthering Heights (2026) this weekend, not because Dr. Wife is into that kind of thing, but because there’s been so much buzz around the film, she wanted to be part of the cultural moment. I was going to review that film today, but that’ll have to go on the backburner due to time constraints.
The quick version: like all modern movies, it’s thirty minutes too long; the script is flabby and ponderous; and the middle act is basically just chick lit p-word smut. It setup several ideas that never had payoffs. It did have amazing sets and costumes, and the sense of bleak tragedy from the novel (which, to be clear, I haven’t read) was, according to my wife, there, even if the film took great liberties with the source material.
But I digress. A piano student of mine brought in a little Mario doll he’s had since he was a baby. He asked me at the end of his lesson to film a quick movie review of the 2023 hit The Super Mario Bros. Movie; I obliged:
That being the case, I figured I’d reblog this review of the film from 2023.
