Nico Vega

 

My girlfriend's obsession with Nico Vega is really rubbing off on me. I don't know much about them other than they have since broken up, but both the albums K has introduced me to are outstanding! This track is from their self-titled 2009 album, the entirety of which is fantastic.

 

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Watch:

This looks difficult to watch in the best possible way:

 

I have to say, I've been pretty impressed with Lachlan Watson's acting since being introduced to them via The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and this looks like an even more committed performance than we've seen previously. Also, Director Jeffery A. Brown impressed the hell out of me in 2019 with The Beach House, so I'm definitely game to follow him on a new journey.

 

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Read:

I finished Iron Angel yesterday, the second book in Alan Campbell's Deepgate Codex. Since I'm going to be in LaLaLand for two weeks and don't feel the need to carry a hardcover book with me, I'm going to hold off on Book Three: God of Clocks until I return, opting instead to deep-dive a bunch of books on Elizabethian England for Shadow Play Book Two research. Waiting to read this one is going to be tough, as is waiting to crack into Jeremy Haun's Haunthology, which I received via my Kickstarter pledge a few days ago and did an unboxing video for over the weekend:

 

Seriously, this book is gorgeous; can't wait to read!

 

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Playlist:

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

The Veils - ... And Out of the Void Came Love

The Jeff Healey Band - Full Circle: The Live Anthology

The Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro

Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun

Metallica - Hardwired

Nico Vega - Eponymous

Nothing - Guilty of Everything

Dr. John - Ske Dat De Dat

Leviathan the Feeling Serpent - Corpse Eater: Satanic Misery Live for the Dead

Jammes Luckett - May OST

Dexys Midnight Runners - It Was Like This
 

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Card:

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

Traveling today. Clarity and Will lead to the completion of an "Earthly" matter, i.e. something to do with our house, I'm pretty sure. A tornado nearly missed us this past Friday, and I've discovered some things that need fixing - not sure if these issues existed before the winds felt like they were going to pull my office from off the top of the garage, but they have to be taken care of. This is not my strong suit, but I'm trying to become someone who can handle issues without hiring out simple 'handyman' work. The skill is definitely in my blood - my Father can fix anything. I just have to double-down when I return from LaLaLand and focus.

Faetooth - Remnants of the Vessel

Not entirely sure how I came to have Faetooth's 2022 album Remnants of the Vessel in my Apple Music, but I stumbled across it there the other day, and it provided a pretty big leap in my mood. Really cool, doomy, deathy album that doesn't sacrifice the downtrodden mood when it goes full-on death-growl heavy. The band hail from "The depths of Los Angeles" (love that) and the album was voted Spin Magazine's #1 album of the year? I'm shocked Spin has such good taste.

 

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Read:

I blew through Alan Campbell's Scar Night over the last week and started book 2 of his Deepgate Codex series on Sunday. I'd read Iron Angel sometime around 2010, so there's not too much I remember. 

Fifty pages in and it's a perfect follow-up to book one, which really fleshes out the world and adds a host of new characters who really up the stakes. We're outside Deepgate and moving into a bigger world, and I'm just as enraptured by Mr. Campbell's prose here as I was in Scar Night. This really is one of the best Fantasy series I've ever read, with just the right amount of Steam Punk influence, without trying to tick all those "Write a Steam Punk Novel" boxes that, while I admit I sometimes have a soft spot for, began to feel endlessly tiring around 2012. 

Also, I think the last time I read these, I had not yet read Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy and reading the Deepgate books now, I can very much appreciate the influence Peake's seminal series had on Campbell. That said, the influence is in no way overzealous, but rather hard-coded into the prose, which makes the experience of re-reading these ever more pleasant than before. 

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Watch:

Speaking of Steam Punk Fantasy, check out this trailer Bloody Disgusting posted about a few days ago:

 

Moon Garden looks like a film that will harken back to the Fantasy epics of my 80s youth - The Neverending Story, Legend, Etc. Totally blown away by the first half of this trailer, and then I turned it off so as not to see too much. Ryan Stevens Harris' new film can't come soon enough.

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Playlist:

Trombone Shorty - For True

Odonis Odonis - Spectrums

Wolfpack - Lycanthro Punk

Metallica - ... And Justice For All

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Deftones - White Pony

Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit Vol. 1

Fvnerals - Let The Earth Be Silent

Faetooth - Remnants of the Vessel

Feuerbahn - The Fire Dance EP

Television - Marquee Moon

Brainiac - The Predator Nominate

Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot

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Card:

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

Some big ideas/influences here that all seem to shore up ideas about Emotional Conflict being the result of too much unfocused Will. Sounds about right; I'm in a really good routine working on the new book, and it has occurred to me previously that when I'm at a creative spike, I become overly sensitive.