Cleopatra's Comet

I was unfamiliar with Nova Twins until I saw Kirill Sokolov's They Will Kill You last Thursday and then again yesterday afternoon. This song is in that movie, and just like Sokolov's film, the track makes an impression. 

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Watch:

Rewatched Night of the Comet the other night. Here's one of the original tv spots from 1984:

 

I didn't see this film until somewhere around 2009 or 2010. In fact, I didn't remember ever even hearing of it before then. It's not my favorite of these kind of flicks from the 80s, but it's nostalgic and pretty fun, so while it's not a film I will revisit often, I did add it to the collection just to have it in the library.

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Read:

It has begun! Yesterday I read the first section in the 1990 edition of Stephen King's The Gunslinger, which I've had since '91. I LOVE this series, this book and this edition. The paintings by Michael Whelon are, like most of his paintings, phenomenal.

I don't think I've read this particular King novel since before the fifth Dark Tower book, The Wolves of Calla, came out in 2003. Twenty-three years!!! Up until this point, I made it a habit to reread every book in the series as new ones came out, and after 1997's Wizard and the Glass, there was the interminable gap during which time King convalesced after being hit by a van in 1999. I remember those days - scary times, fearing for both King's life and the idea that we might never get more Dark Tower books. After his recovery and eventual return to the series, the final three came fairly quickly, with Wolves in 2003, Song of Susannah hitting shelves in June 2004, and The Dark Tower following hot on its heels in September 2004. So this reread is a big deal for me, something I've wanted to do for years.  

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Playlist:

Windhand - Epoymous

Witchfinder - Hazy Rites

MadLove - White With Foam

High on Fire - Electric Messiah

sunn O))) - Pyroclasts

Big Business - Here Come the Waterworks

Daydream Twins - Solstice For Embodiment

The Dream Syndicate - The Days of Wine and Roses

Mountain Realm - Stoneharrow

Crystal Castles - II

Jozef Can Wissem & Jim Jarmusch - An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil

Dead Man's Bones - Eponymous

sunn O))) - Metta, Benevolence BBC6 Live: On the Invitatin of Mary Anne Hobbs

Slow Crush - Thirst

Nova Twins - Supernova

Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast

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Card:

I'm tired, so I'm setting aside Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot (which you can buy HERE) and pulling a single card from the Thoth deck.

Turning the intangible into a consumable form. I guess that's pretty much what I do as a writer, and I've had four good days of writing in a row. Also though, I've been on a mission to write down my dreams for the last two weeks, so there's another example. 

A Dirge For Boba Fett's November

 

Here we are again. Remember what yer grandpappy telt ya, November brings the Opeth.

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Watch:

Finally!!!

 

When they brought Fett into the second season of The Mandalorian, I was bummed. I mean, with the creation of Mando, it seemed a misstep to overturn Fett's death, because the brilliance of following another character in the beloved armor floored me as a simple and elegant solution to the problem of how to bring back one of the most popular characters in the franchise. By the end of that season, however, when I realized Fett would not end up a regular character on the show, I warmed to his presence. The masterstroke of setting up a new, Fett-centric show with the post-credits sequence on the final episode proved a masterstroke to me, and now, here we are! With Bossk people, Ree-Eyes, Sand People, Bib Fortuna and Gamorrean Guards a'plenty, I am super excited for this one. Bring it on!

 

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Playlist:

Opeth - Blackwater Park

Mastodon - Hushed and Grim

Jerry Cantrell - Brighten

Type O Negative - Dead Again

HEALTH & Poppy - Dead Flowers

Boy Harsher - Careful

Boy Harsher - Country Girl Uncut

Slayer - Decade of Aggression

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Card:

The shortest distance between two points isn't always the fastest. Swiftness can come by way of out-thinking a dilemma. 

Dead Again

I missed posting for the anniversary of Peter Steele's death back last month, but the Drab Four have been on my mind. 

It's funny, over the last few years I've fallen into the habit of almost exclusively listening to Type O in the Autumn. Which is weird, because if I was forced to name a 'favorite band' it would probably be them (or Ozzy-era Sabbath). The reason for this weird confinement of their music is something I have been aware of, but not really analyzed.

Until yesterday.

In listening to Type O's final album, 2007's Dead Again, I realized the reason I largely reserve their music for Autumn is that out here in California, we do not have any of the recognizable features of my favorite season. October feels a lot like August, feels a lot like April, etc. After living the first thirty years of you life in the Midwest, the seasons become ingrained in you, in your thought processes and emotions and all kinds of other inner-working, hard-wired stuff. When I moved to the west coast about a year before Dead Again was released, I had to get used to the lack of burning leaves, thunderstorms, and a general sense of what I'll rather dramatically call 'the dying time.' Thus, I established early on a sort of "Internal Autumn" ideal, almost a mantra for my favorite time of year. This usually kicks in during the start of September and lasts through the first week of November. It's how I convince myself that I'm living in Autumn when I'm really not, an homage to the way I lived the years of my life that shaped me. This works, however, I think the inner autumn thing has become more difficult to sustain the longer I'm out here, that much further away from the experience of a real Autumn. Thus, I came up with this idea that if I reserved Type O - still the most Autumn band for my money - exclusively for that time of year, it would help sell this whole charade.

And as is often the case in psychoanalyzing yourself, now that I've picked this apartment, it feels freeing, because I WANT TO LISTEN TO TYPE O NEGATIVE ALL DAMN YEAR LONG.

So let's start here with Profit of Doom, the third - and possibly weirdest - track from Dead Again. 

Damn, Pete. We fucking miss you.

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Watch:

One of the movies I've been waiting for this year is Maximiliano Contenti's Red Screening, AKA The Last Matinee. I don't know a lot about this one, but check out this bee-oootiful trailer:

I've become quite a sucker for Neo-Giallo, and Horror flicks that take place in movie theatres always work good for me, so I'm jazzed for this one, which will be in theatres on August 6th and VOD August 24th.

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Playlist:

Voyag3r - Doom Fortress

Lantlôs - Lake Fantasy (pre-release single)

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Type O Negative - Dead Again

Anthrax - Among the Living

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Card:

 The 8 of Wands always feels like it's a premonition of good things to come, creatively. I need that right now; things have been slow and syrupy and I need to get myself moving again. The idea is in another week or so, since I am now fully vaxxed, I'll begin walking to my writing spot again. This should help me get back on track, so hopefully the card is a good omen.