I woke up with Massive Attack's Protection in my head. A pretty place to be but also an isolated and slightly forlorn one. Tracey Thorn's vocals play as the perfect accompaniment to the haunted music. Hearing this track always evokes the memory of listening to it on a bus in Bath, England, while we waited to find out what happened to another member of our tour that day. The woman never reappeared, and to this day, Protection carries with it the reminder of a now nearly two-decade mystery I will never have the answer to.
Isn't that a perfect association for this album?
Watch:
I was in Dayton, Ohio, again over the weekend. We left Friday morning and upon returning yesterday evening, I had several packages waiting for me. One of those was my copy of Severin Film's newly restored and released edition of Gianfranco Giagni's 1988 little-known film The Spider Labyrinth.
There's a lot of talk of this being a "Lost Horror Classic," and I guess I can concede that. I liked the film, but classic? Well, not for me. This is kind of Argento-lite; I honestly thought it would be considerably weirder, or perhaps better said, utilize its truly weird portions more. Instead, there's a lot of "investigation runaround" that slows the flick down a bit. But again, still really dug this one, just not sure I'd recommend folks pay the sticker price for it unless you are an absolute Italian completist.
Read:
I finished Richard Kadrey's The Pale House Devil over the weekend and can 100% recommend it for anyone who digs the "Occult Detective" genre, even if the two main characters, Neuland and Ford are hitmen instead of detectives. Hitmen who specialize in killing supernatural beings.
This one is creepy and fun as hell, which is kind of Mr. Kadrey's specialty from what I've read of his work. Looking forward to seeing these characters pop up again, as this novella very much sets up the scaffolding for them to return.
Playlist:
Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium Nabib
Amigo the Devil - Everything is Fine
Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
Cocteau Twins - Garlands
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity
The Knife - Silent Shout
Fever Ray - Radical Romantics
Tuneyards - WHOKILL
Baroness - Stone
Mars Red Sky - Dawn of the Dusk
Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist
Brand New - The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me
War Curse - Confession
Calexico - Seasonal Shift
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Four cards today because they literally slid out of the deck together almost in this exact positioning. In the case of four, I'm going to do something different and, since there's no clear middle card, I'll be reading left to right.
• Eight of Wands
• Nine of Wands
• Two of Cups
• Three of Cups
It doesn't look like I shuffled this deck very well - it is a brand new one I received for backing Jonathan Grimm's most recent Kickstarter (decks are still available at the link I posted at the top of this section). As far as interpretation goes, we see Transformation and Climax of the Will, followed by Collaboration and Growth of Emotions. I'm not entirely certain how to read that at the moment, but these are good ideas to keep an eye out for as the day passes.
