2018: October 21st

31 Days of Horror continued last night with yet another viewing of Panos Cosmatos's Mandy. Also, finished Mike Flanagan's The Haunting of Hill House. Pretty damn tight. Being that this is a series, and they do kind of set it up for another season, I'll be curious to see where it goes.


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

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds tonight. Can't wait! I've seen Cave solo and with Grinderman, never with the Bad Seeds. Not happy it's at The Forum, but we do what we must.

Saw the trailer for The Invitation director Karyn Kusama's new film, Destroyer. Looks fantastic, and Nicole Kidman looks as though she puts in the performance of her life.



Playlist from 10/20:

Windhand - Eternal Return
Black Sabbath - Volume 4
Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Wasteland
Second Still - Eponymous
Bauhaus - In the Flat Field
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest

Card of the day:

Still one of my favorite cards. From the Grimoire, "Create within yourself a Universe."

2018: October 15th

Alien Sex Fiend - Not your father's Death Rock band. Well, then again, I suppose this very much could have been your father's Death Rock band. Never mind. Among the weirdest things I've ever heard.

31 Day of Horror continued yesterday, but I've already told you about The Apostle. Afterward, K and I plowed through the first five episodes of the Netflix/Mike Flanagan epic The Haunting of Hill House. I was a bit uncertain at first, but quickly came around. It has Flanagan's time weaving technique, the one that makes Occulus so unique. I dig it, probably not as much as I'd hoped I would, but for watching five episodes in a binge -something I haven't had the time to do in forever - it was good.

We wanted to make it through the first five because an article popped up last week HERE on Bloody Disgusting where Flanagan suggests people watch the first five, then go back and watch them again before continuing on to episodes 6-10. This is based on a revelation in ep. 5 that changes the way you will see things in the first half if you watch them again with that in mind. I don't feel this is necessary at all. Maybe some people will; I'm not usually the guy who figures out the twist ahead of time - I don't ever want to be - but I had this one in mind from about episode 3 or 4, so a re-watch wouldn't do anything for me. Now we just have to find the time to do the rest and a movie a day until the end of the month. It literally required me taking a mental health day from my weekend to do this much of the show - no grocery shopping, I skipped the HWA meeting, didn't even write. I needed it though, and so did K. 'Adulting' feels extra hard of late. Boo-hoo, right? Well, it's all relative.

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

Playlist from yesterday? There wasn't one. All visual content.

Card of the day:

Do I have some rationalizing to do? I do; skipping life for a day to watch TV makes me feel a bit weird, especially the HWA meeting and writing, so I've been rationalizing it since. As my good friend Missi said in a text yesterday, "Sometimes u need a break. It's not a crime."

Words of wisdom Lloyd. Words. Of. Wisdom.

Thanks Missi!

2018: September 21st

I first came to know this track as Canon, on 2009's Domkirk record. That was my first Sunn O))) album; I saw it advertised in an issue of Wire and immediately knew it was something I had to own. Yesterday I went searching through the band's catalogue on Apple Music to dive into some of the albums I don't know. 2015's Kanon was one of them. I was stoked to rediscover the track in studio form. There's something about it that, to continue the purple prose metaphor from yesterday, sounds like you're staring into the abyss. A lot of Sunn O))) stuff is like that, but this one especially. Listening to it during the second of a surprise, 3-day FDA inspection at work, I realized the band's music relaxes me, almost feels like a form of meditation. It was a valuable epiphany.

Talk about an effective trailer. Watch this in the dark, with headphones on and tell me you don't get chills.



It's difficult for most filmmakers to create and sustain a truly scary tone for 80 minutes, imagine if this show does it for multiple episodes? Getting my hopes up? Maybe. But you never know.

Playlist from yesterday:

Lake Trout - Another One Lost
Avenged Sevenfold - Eponymous
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Sunn O))) - The Grimm Robe Demos
Sunn O))) - Kanon
Earth - Primitive and Deadly

Card of the day:

From the Grimoire: "Rapid, clear communication. Ending of confusion. Divine or otherworldly communication.  A swift action toward goal; decisiveness." Not sure what this concerns yet, but I'll keep my head up.