2019: January 26th

I'm a pretty big fan of Jim Jarmusch the filmmaker, and Only Lovers Left Alive is probably my favorite of his films. But Jarmusch also makes music: sparse, eerie, haunted music. Lately, as I've gone deeper into his musical collaborations with Jozef Van Wissem, I've found my favorite of their work is the OST for the same film. The Only Lovers Left Alive OST is a deep dive record; despite the epic rock-dirge of the opening track, embedded above, this album pulls me down into what feels like a sacred, cavernous place in my psyche. A place daily life makes it hard to get to often. It's a great feeling, to connect with myself through music like this, especially when it's not dependent on the application of mind-altering substances to get there. It's literally just 'Press Play and Go.'

This past week, K and I went through the first season of David Fincher's Mindhunter series on Netflix. It is fantastic. I've heard some folks say this is 'boring,' but I don't get that at all. Fascinating is the word I'd use. And I often avoid sequence, *ahem*, serial killer stories because they disturb me too much. Something about the way this one unfolds is very balanced though, so that even though you go a lot of dark places, it's not all there is. Can't wait for the second season.



Oh! And Hannah Gross - who I got to know as the lead in Dead Wax late last year on Shudder - is a co-star, and she is terrific!

Playlist from 01/25:

Tool - Aenima
Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity
Explode into Colors - Quilts
The Effigies - Remains Nonviewable
Boy Harsher - Careful
Gary Numan - Replicas
Boy Harsher - Country Girl EP
Curtis Harding - Where We Are (Single)
Specimen - Azoic
David Bowie - Low

Card of the day:

Loud and clear. See, what's happening is, when I finished the book and began reading it to K, I expected to find some problems areas that needed edits. I made it through a near-pristine first act, only to get four chapters into the second act (of three) and get caught up in a chapter that I have now been re-writing for five days. It's all there, I just can't seem to get it fluid. There's a social obligation we have today, and I'd been wondering if I should skip it to write. This tells me my hunch is correct.

2019: January 14th

There's a new Jozef Van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch album set to drop on February 8th via Sacred Bones Records, and so far it has my favorite album title in quite some time. You can pre-order An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil HERE.

Rounding the final lap on Nick Cave's And the Ass Saw the Angel, which I absolutely love. And interestingly enough, Cave's take on a gorgeous baroque, inbred Southern Gothic aesthetic hit a nice harmonic node with my impromptu re-watch of True Detective Season 1, as well as last night's True Detective Season 3, which takes place in Arkansas in 1980, 1990, and 2015 and has a similar tone.

Thus far, Season 3 follows Detectives Wayne Hays as played by Mahershala Ali, as he tries to solve an unsolvable case over the course of three decades. Two episodes in and I'm digging it; I find it a little bit of a lack of confidence that the show went back to the 'deposition and interview' mechanism that worked so well in Season 1, but hey, to climb out of the swamp of Season 2, do what works. With Jeremy Saulnier's episodes now under the belt and his leave approaching, next week's episode is helmed by Daniel Sackheim and then I guess HBO will announce directors as the episodes come up? I'm struggling not to take that as a bad sign, but for right now, doubts or not, the cinematography, acting, and atmosphere are so fucking tight and thick, I'm sticking.

I had actually planned at the last minute to do a new weekly wrap up show, a la my Evolution of the Arm series I did for Twin Peaks: The Return, however there really isn't a lot of 'mystery' to discuss yet. The one thing I'm wondering is, if this season drifts at all into Weird Fiction territory like the first season did, maybe the book we see in missing boy Will Purcell's bedroom while Hays is searching it for clues might come into play. The book is The Forests of Long, and anyone who knows Lovecraft mythos knows Leng as location of the infamous Plateau of Leng. I did a perfunctory search for the book online and couldn't find anything, making me think it was a prop deliberately constructed for the show, which means it is potentially important in some way. I doubt this is where the show is going, but you never know. If David Milch convinced Nick Pizzalato to stick with what made Season One iconic, we may brush up against some Weird after all.

Playlist from yesterday was non-existent.

Card of the day:

Sturdy. Is today that day? Maybe...