Showing posts with label 9 of Cups Happiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 9 of Cups Happiness. Show all posts

Monday, November 16, 2020

The Filth and the Fury

 

Last night, I showed K Julien Temple's Sex Pistols documentary The Filth and the Fury for the first time. This was my third time seeing it, first in probably ten years. It reminded me just how much I love the Pistols, a love that wasn't always there, but came on strong after readng Tour Manager Noel Monk's tour bio Twelve Days on the Road, which I have now slotted up for a re-read sometime in the new year. Love them or hate them, Never Mind the Bollocks still stands as possibly the most pivotal 12 songs ever recorded.




Watch:

 

Along with The Filth and the Fury, this weekend we also watched Floria Sigismondi's film The Runaways, the 2010 biopic about the all-female rock band of the same name. I'd seen this one before, back when it first hit video. The Runaways was my first inclination that Kristen Stewart could act, and although the film still looks to me as though large chunks were edited out before release, it's a great story about an awesome band I don't listen to nearly enough. One of K's favorite groups, I've definitely picked them up more since we started dating, but I really need to dig in on my own.





Playlist:

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Damn the Torpedoes
Dance with the Dead - B-Sides: Vol. 1
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife
Death Valley Girls - Under the Spell of Joy
The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicenter
Horseback  The Invisible Mountain
Curtis Harding - Face Your Fear
Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years




Card:

The cups runneth over. Let's hope so. 

Saturday, January 4, 2020

January 4th, 2020 - New Video from The Thirsty Crows!



Fantastic! This, this is only part of the reason these guys made my "Favorite Albums of 2019" list last week. I love this with all my heart, and the time and detail spent on crafting a video for one of the best songs on an album with pretty much only best songs is appreciated and enjoyed!

**

I finally watched Adam Egypt Mortimer's latest film Daniel Isn't Real yesterday, and after viewing it once in the afternoon by myself, the moving left me feeling... vulnerable. A harrowing tale of mental illness that goes to places I absolutely did not see coming, this one rattled around in my head for hours after (still is). Later, K and I watched Enemy with Jake Gyllenhaal, a flick I loved when I saw it several years ago. The similarities between the two struck me as anything but a coincidence, and I followed Enemy up with another viewing of Daniel. I can't recommend this one - and Enemy, while I'm at it - enough. I will forever kick myself that I had to bail on it as the second half of the Spectrevision Double Feature at Beyondfest last year, where it played with Color Out of Space.



**

Oh. One day last week I re-watched Apocalypse Now for the first time in over twenty years. My suspicion is confirmed - might be the best film ever made. Hyperbolic statement? Sure, but that doesn't necessarily make it wrong.

I picked up the BR edition that has all three cuts - Theatrical, Redux, and Final. Having only ever seen the Theatrical, I listened to the director's recommendation in the introduction and chose the Final Cut, his favorite. I'd have to say, the French Plantation scenes didn't do much for me, and that makes me think the ideal version of this film for me is the Theatrical. That said, I intend on watching all versions in the coming weeks.




Playlist:

Talking Heads - Remain in Light
Boy Harsher - Careful
Boy Harsher - Lesser Man (Extended)
Plague Bringer - Life Songs in a Land of Death
Budos Band - V
Arab Strap - The Red Thread
Arab Strap - Elephant Shoe

**

Card:

Seems about right.

Friday, August 9, 2019

2019: New Tool Track!



I definitely dig it - reminds me a lot of Lateralus. That said, listening to this removed from the context of an entire album that will eventually surround it makes me think listening to this would be like never hearing Lateralus and listening to Disposition. What this has done is make me anticipate the full album on a considerably more rabid note.

August 30th is soon.

**
Ticked off episodes 6 and 7 of The Boys last night. I was warned about the 'fingering' episode. Wow. This show is, as Butcher might say, top gear.

**

Playlist from 8/08:

Catherine Wheel - Ferment
Tool - Fear Inoculum (Pre-release single)
Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me OST
Twin Peaks Playlist
Revolting Cocks - Big Sexy Land
Revolting Cocks Trance Playlist*
Tool - Undertow

* Comprised of No Devotion, Attack Ships on Fire, Something Wonderful, and Can't Sit Still. Great writing playlist, even though I ended up getting f*ckall accomplished yesterday. Still, I showed up and put my ass in the seat.

**

Spread of the day:


Lots of strong, Feminine energy, lots of "Big Ideas" or Influences, and all Earth/Kingdom/Malkuth. Technically, 9s are Yesod, or Foundation, but that very much informs ten. Very good signs that, despite a frustrating day yesterday, I am on the right track.

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

2019: January 22nd - New Apparat!



Apparat just released a new track from his forthcoming album Lp5, which drops via MUTE on 3/22. And get a gander at this gorgeous album cover:


One year ago I began treating this page as a more-or-less everyday ritual. It's been a very helpful tool this past year, so I intend to continue. In order to create a nice little harmonic loop, I thought I'd post the same Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' track that I did last year, because, from Her(e) to Eternity:




Playlist from 1/21:

Morphine - The Night
Gary Numan - Savage (Songs from a Broken World)
Windhand - Split
Pastor T.L. Barret and the Youth For Christ Choir - Like a Ship (Without a Sail)
Pastor T.L. Barret and the Youth For Christ Choir - Do Not Pass Me Pass Me By Vol. II
Bad Luck - Four
Cold Cave - Cherish The Light Years
Cold Cave - You & Me & Infinity
Soviet Soviet - Endless

Card of the day:


Happy at the fact that the book is done - minus what is looking like a pass of light editing - and I have finally begun to think about the next project. Also happy to have made these chronicles a successful ritual over the previous year. Here's to an infinite number of years continuing with it!

Sunday, October 28, 2018

2018: October 28th



A little Siouxsie and the Banshees in honor of Susie Bannion and the fact that we have now entered the final stretch toward Halloween. I still have quite a few movies I want to watch, so I'm going to start working some into the daylight, in the background. This is something I purposely never do, as a way to maintain the sacred reverence I try to hold for movies. That said, I'll look at it as a recreation of discovering horror on television as a kid. I have the original Suspiria on while I'm writing this, just as a counter point to Luca Guadagnino's version we saw last night. How was the new Suspiria?

Not an easy question, as there's a lot to unpack.

Guadagnino's iteration of Dario Argento's classic is not so much a horror movie, as it is a Film that happens to center around horrific events and characters; it's a horror movie in the same way Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is a horror movie, that is to say not  beholden to genre tropes and mores. I know some folks who would say my evening saying that is pretentious, but here's why I disagree.

Before Jaws, Star Wars, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Hollywood didn't manufacture blockbusters. With the European influence that came in to take the place of the drift that set in after the studio paradigm died, Directors became revered as Auteurs. Films were made with artistic intentions, and this was not considered a bad or pretentious thing. It goes to show how corporatized we are as a society now, with the number of people who roll their eyes to my oft-preached delineation between what constitutes a Movie and what constitutes a Film.

During this Auteur period, the box office was topped by films that got people talking. Think Chinatown, a movie that would most likely never be made by a major studio today. This championing of the Director as Auteur ended after Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate disaster bankrupted United Artists. From that point on, studios began to take control back from Directors, and simultaneously began looking for 'sure-things'.

Jaws, Star Wars, and Raiders provided the template for this.

I liken Guadagnino's Suspiria to the Auteur era; it's artistic yes, but not without purpose. One interesting note, without going into spoiler territory, is that Dario Argento's Suspiria takes place in 1977 Germany, and that makes the setting Divided Germany. This never factors into Argento's film, though. That's not a criticism, just an observation, and one that only ever occurred to me now because the new film hinges on this fact. As Susie Bannion's story plays out in the foreground, the background of the film is set against the climax of the Baader-Meinhoff kidnapping, and this too factors in, as does WWII, for Lutz Ebersdorf's character.

In the end? I thought Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria was an excellent film. Will it garner the fun, cult following the original has? No. Will it incite the same kind of celebratory, rewatch fervor Argento's film does? No. That doesn't mean you shouldn't see it, you definitely should. In a theatre if you can. But it does mean a lot of horror fans who hold the original Suspiria dear need to step around their expectations and keep an open mind.

31 Days of Horror

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise
10/16) Candyman
10/17) Ghoulies
10/18) John Carpenter's Halloween
10/19) Halloween
10/20) Mandy
10/21) Satan's Playground
10/22) Flatliners
10/23) Jacob's Ladder
10/24) Halloween III: Season of the Witch
10/25) Ghost Stories
10/26) John Carpenter's The Fog
10/27) Suspiria (2018)

After the movie, K and I drove around Hollywood a bit, windows down, marine layer in the air. Closest thing I can remember to Autumn in Los Angeles in some time. The cool, moist air added a certain electricity to the evening that was only amplified when we arrived at the Horror Writer's Assoc. party. Robert Payne Cabeen and his wonderful wife Cecile put on a hell of a shindig - the entire front of the house was lavished with decorations that fit the season, music blared from the inside, and people in costumes strolled around the grounds. It was marvelous.

Incidentally, I finally procured a copy of Robert Cabeen's Stoker-aware winning novel Cold Cuts, so I'll be starting that shortly. I had been picking at short stories for the last week or so because despite beginning Neil Gaiman's much-lauded novel The Graveyard Book, I just cannot get into it at the moment. The plan is to move to Cold Cuts next and then go back to Gaiman.

Completely forgot to post here that the newest episode of The Horror Vision went up last Wednesday. Su nioj for Anthony, Chris, Ray, and my own picks for must-watch Halloween season movies. On Apple Podcasts and The Horror Vision.com now.

Playlist from yesterday was literally only my Halloween Playlist, which you can find on Apple Music if you follow me there. Cities of Dust is on it, as are a lot of other awesome tracks hand-picked to accentuate the Autumn mood I have to manufacture most days here in LaLaLand.

Halloween Playlist:

1) Black No. 1 - Type O Negative
2) Bela Lugosi's Dead - Bauhaus
3) Cities in Dust - Siouxsie & The Banshees
4) Park Around the Corner - Ritual Howls
5) The Monk Song - Miranda Sex Garden
6) The Days of Swine & Roses - My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult
7) Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo
8) Graveyard Girl - M83
9) A Dance for the Saints - The Final Cut
10) Mask - Bauhaus
11) Tear You Apart - She Wants Revenge
12) Skin of the Night - M83
13) Zemmoa - Ritual Howls
14) Everyday is Halloween - Ministry

Card of the day:


From the Grimoire, "Balance. Nine = Collected; stable. Cups = Emotion"

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

2018: September 5th



This Yonatan Gat record is completely blowing my damn mind! Thanks to Mr. Wellman for the hesitant recommendation. I Love it!

Watched Excision on Shudder last night. Jesus, the description Shudder uses is perfect, "...blackly comic high school horror film that feels like Welcome to the Dollhouse if it were directed by David Cronenberg. Even the trailer is insane:



Richard Bates, Jr. has three movies and I love all of them.





Playlist from 9/03:

Etta James - Eponymous
Them Are Us Too - Remain
David Bowie - Black Star
Radiohead - O.K. Computer
Yonatan Gat - Universalists
Airiel - Molten Young Lovers
King Woman - Doubt EP
Them Are Us Too - Amends


Playlist from 9/04
Alice in Chains Rainier Fog
The Atlas Moth - The Old Believer
Danzig 666 - Satan's Child

Card of the day:



I can take this one at face value today. Feel really good. The best in a while.