New Music from Queens of the Stone Age featuring Nikki Lane!

Holy cow! New QOTSA and it features Nikki Lane! No idea if this heralds a new album on the horizon, but it's been a few years since In Times New Roman, so I'm guessing we'll see something sooner than later.

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NCBD:

Great pull this week, with a couple of last-minute surprises!

Still walking that road to SIKTC 50. Digging this series - LOVE this cover - but as I've mentioned before, I'm in need of a reread all around to really cement some of the finer points of the rather intricate continuity that runs between all these books.

I cannot believe that, after re-reading the entire series last week, it ended up timed to coincide with the release of a new Rachel Rising one-shot!

The climax to our introduction to the energon-fueled Dire Technology of Crystal Ball. Smart money says this issue ends with Destro making a deal with the lord of illusions, but we'll see. 

Tracking to be in my top five of the year. I LOVE If Destruction Be Our Lot. So much!

Crap! A reminder that I completely forgot issue 2 of Chris Condon, Charlie Adlard and Andrew Enrich's Of the Earth! I mean, I walked into Rick's last month expecting it, but apparently their copies were damaged, and I guess they never got more. 

As has become my inadvertent habit, I just read the previous issue of Savage Sword a few days ago, so it was no surprise to find this slated for today. I don't know exactly how that happened, but I have kind of marveled at my unconscious mind's accuracy with this pattern. 

Here's another one I didn't see coming! New Last Ronin one-shot! Interesting, as just before seeing this, I decided to cancel my TMNT pull for this month's number 20, which is actually the 300th "Legacy" issue. I hate all this Legacy counting, but whatever, at this point I'm used to it. I will, however, still be picking up one-offs like this.

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Watch:

I so want this to be good. I was a weekly BEE Podcast listener for years before Ellis surprised everyone during the pandemic by reading his work-in-progress The Shards every week, and I've listened to those broadcasts at least twice since. This is the perfect Ellis novel to adapt, in my opinion. There's just one thing giving me pause.

Ryan Murphy.

I was never a die hard AHS fan; I love the Hotel, Roanoke and 1984. I jumped off Coven after three episodes, was mostly happy with the first two seasons, and had mixed feelings about Double Feature. Whatever the Cruisin' knock-off season was proved the last straw for me, and watching all the low-brow, tabloid series he's pumped out since (with the exception of The Beauty), I just can't help but feel hesitant about this.

We'll see on August 5th, I guess. I'm really hoping it works, though. Ellis is one of my favorite Authors, he's written some of my favorite novels - The Shards is one - and there's not an adaptation out there that I favor. 

Help me Ryan Murphy, you're my only hope.

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Playlist:

Steve Moore - Jimmy & Stiggs OST

Yerusalem - The Sublime

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun

Spotlights - Alchemy for the Dead

Ennio Morricone - Black Belly of the Tarantula OST

Boards of Canada - Inferno

Ghost - Skeleta

Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja

Mastodon - Emperor of Sand

Mastodon - Marrow Deep (pre-release singles)

QOTSA - Easy Street (single)

Spotlights - Seance EP

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Eldritch Lace Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Five of Cups

• Knight of Swords

• Four of Swords

Grief. Drive. Rest.

I haven't talked about this yet, but last Friday I was diagnosed with Fatty Liver Disease. It's actually not as severe as it sounds, but I have to stop drinking beer and really change my diet for the next several months to allow my liver to heal. After that, I'm planning to scale the drinking back. I've been doing 2-6 beers a night for over 20 years, so this really isn't a surprise. And it's a lot better of a diagonsis than the scare that led up to this suggested. I can stop when I need to - K and I just did a three-week hiastus in March - but the thing is beer is my nightly ritual. I don't chase intoxication, I just LOVE beer. Good beer, of course. But part of that love now means I have to let it go for a while, so we can be reunited when I'm healthy again.

All my jokes about Keith Richards' liver have come home to roost.

Also of note, found this card face up in the deck after I laid out the cards above, figured that was worth interpreting. 

In light of the reading above, I'm reading this as growing pains, as I have many.

November Walks at Dusk

Monday night was the first night I came home from work since the clocks went back. I'd gotten out late, and by the time I arrived home, the sky was already beginning to darken. K was still at work, so I threw on my headphones and took a nice long walk into the Dusk and listened to Yob for the first time. I mean, I'd given a song or two a whirl before, but the music hadn't really made an impact on me then, for whatever reason. This time though, I began with a song a friend recommended - Marrow, the final track on 2014's Clearing the Path to Ascend - and the timing couldn't have been better. Perfect.

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NCBD

A lot of good stuff this week!

And yes, even the final issue of Batman/The Maxx: Arkham Dreams! 

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Playlist:

The Velvet Underground and Nico - Eponymous

Meg Myers - Sorry

Naked Raygun - Basement Screams

Yob - Clearing the Path to Ascend

Kevin Ayers - The Confessions of Dr. Dream and Other Stories

Pink Floyd - Piper at the Gates of Dawn

New chapter in the Bret Easton Ellis serialized novel landed this week, and things are really beginning to get creepy. I'm really loving this as an addition to an already great podcast! Ellis' Podcast Patreon is HERE. In looking for an image to post, I found THIS insane little tidbit from a few months back. Ellis and Irvine Welsh writing a series together? YES PLEASE!

Also found out a friend of mine has been doing a BRILLIANT Quarantine Podcast called Cabin Fever. It began back in April, when all this was still fresh, and it's interesting to go back and hear other people's experiences as "essential" or "non-essential," and how either distinction affects their lives and the lives of the people around them. The cast covers everything: how they spend their days, how their roles have suddenly changed, what they're watching, insights into COVID, work, life, etc. It's all good stuff, and I've grown quite fond very quickly. Cabin Fever is up on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, here's widget:

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Card:

Full disclosure: This post is scheduled to auto-post at 12:01 AM on Wednesday, October 4th. I'm writing this section, and thus drawing the card below, at 6:21 PM Tuesday, October 3rd. I have not checked in on the election all day other than one small peek at about 9:00 AM. What was the card I was hoping for when I did my draw this morning, saw it was addressing the election and thus, prompted me to draw two clarifying cards? This one, which I just drew from the Raven deck after a rigorous shuffle:

By the time you read this, maybe the results will be in. Maybe this will be erroneous, a moot point. Or maybe, the old guard will have, as indicated by the guard, imploded. One can hope.