Showing posts with label Fixation on a Coworker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fixation on a Coworker. Show all posts

Friday, July 17, 2020

Isolation: Day 126 - Brandon Cronenberg's Possessor Gets a Trailer!



I feel as though I've been waiting for this trailer forever. Now that it's here, I really just want the movie. The real shame is, if not for COVID, Brandon Cronenberg's sophomore flick would most likely be premiering at Beyondfest. As it stands, I guess I'll be doing a big VOD event for it when the release is finally announced (please announce soon!)

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Late last week I caught wind of William Lustig's company Blue Underground having released a 3-Disc, 4K Blu Ray edition of Lucio Fulci's House By the Cemetery. I love this flick - while it took me a while to come around on The Beyond and City of the Living Dead (I love both now), House has always been a film that fascinates me. So as soon as I saw this, I ordered it. Pricey, but worth it.


The restoration is, as with all Blue Underground's restorations - gorgeous. If you go to this edition's page on Blu-Ray.com (HERE), you can read about the transfer and see some screen shot comparisons. The second disc is filled with extras, including a lot of interviews with the actors and crew, and the third disc is a CD edition of Walter Rizzati's brilliant score for the film.

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Playlist:

Walter Rizzati - House By the Cemetery OST
Primus - Antipop
M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
Moderat - II
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
Elephant Tree - Habits
Cypress Hill - IV
Flying Lotus - You're Dead!
Nine Inch Nails - The Slip
Agnes Obel - Citizen of Glass
Brainiac - Hissing Prigs in Static Couture
David Lynch and Marek Zebrowski - Polish Night Music

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Power struggles, internal or external. I'm taking this as a warning that discipline will be needed to fully reintegrate my writing time back into The Secret Life of Murder, now that my belabored short story Fixation on a Coworker is finally finished.

Coworker proved extremely difficult to write; I worked on the thing off and on for a year and three months. I finally brought it in at ~7700 words, then decided I wanted to try submitting it to a publication I recently discovered called Infernal Ink. Some of my stories skew into what I'd call Erotic Horror, and this story especially plays in that arena. There's an overarching theme - or character actually - that runs through these stories, so even though they are stand alone, they're part of a bigger story slowly forming in my head. Anyway, Infernal Ink's submissions cut off at 5K, so I knuckled down and decided to practice one of my favorite parts of writing - editing. I cut the story down to 6K, then down another thousand to 5K.

It felt good! The story as it was is probably perfect at 6K. Chopping it down more wasn't easy, but I eliminated a supporting character arc that originally dovetailed with the protagonist's, eased the throttle back on some of my more descriptive passages, and landed it clean. It was at that point I realized Infernal Ink's submissions are closed, as their upcoming October issue will be the magazine's final issue as they switch gears to focus on book publishing.

Waste of time? Not. At. All. The editing process really bolstered my confidence in a story that otherwise had me running in prosaic circles, and that's never a bad thing. Plus, I found an awesome publisher/magazine in the process (all the issues are on Kindle for under $3).


Monday, January 27, 2020

Cynic - Textures: RIP Sean Reinert



Man, this was a blow. I don't know Sean Reinert's catalogue like some of my friends do, but from the moment I first heard this track on Cynic's 1993's debut Focus, I was floored. This was one of the first 'death metal' bands whose vocals didn't put me off, and also, whereas I normally didn't 'listen' to the drums on records like this, with Reinhert, at times that was all I could listen to.

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Holy smokes! Over at Brooklyn Vegan, Andrew Sacher made my day by posting the news that 90s MetalCore group Deadguy appear to be reuniting. This is one show I will not miss live if they come through LaLa Land! Waaaay back in 1995, when Deadguy's first and only album Fixation On a Coworker came out on Victory Records, I happened to be a writer for southside Chicago music mag Subculture, and this album was sent to me for review. I loved it, and have loved it ever since, and now can't wait to see what more Deadly might have in store for us.

Read Sacher's full article HERE, and below is my favorite song off the album:




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Playlist:

M83 - Knight + Heart OST
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - In Summer EP
Me and That Man - Songs of
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars

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Motion, movement. Flow. Getting back into a stable, regular writing routine has worked wonders. Sometimes things stop your momentum cold, that's life. You just have to start back up again. It's all a Wheel.