David Bowie Ruled the 00s

I've been swimming in David Bowie's final album again; it's perfect for my headspace at the moment, which I can only describe as 'weird.'

Something kickstarted a full-blown, days-upon-days reverie for the 00s, which is the definition of the word weird because it largely feels like a decade of my life that didn't really end up belonging to me. Not that it belonged to anyone else, but... well, can ten years be a corridor? I've ruminated on the philosophical context/ramifications of Soundgarden's Room a Thousand Years Wide, now we're readjusting that concept to a more micro version. Whether a decade can be a hallway or not, I've stepped back into that - triggered, I think, by a huge Warren Ellis reading binge - and it's very interesting, this mix of my ongoing current headspace, reinforced daily by the world I've built, and these elements of my previous operating system. What will be the outcome? Not quite sure yet, but it's pleasurable to walk around in two personal eras at once (again, a micro version of Philip K. Dick's experience, but without the out of body stuff).


**

There's a couple new Horror Visions up, and one more to come this weekend. Topics of discussion range from Doctor Sleep to The Lighthouse to True Blood to Jennifer Kent's The Nightengale to, ah, turtle sex? The second oldest is a very tangental 'after dark' episode where we start out as a four-piece and become a three-piece whose conversation runs all the fuck over the place, but it's pretty cool to have captured and edited it to be, you know, coherent.

The Horror Vision on Apple

The Horror Vision on Spotify

The Horror Vision on Google Play

**

Yes, I too signed up for Disney +. I will be unsubscribing when The Mandalorian is finished for the season, but in the meantime, holy smokes do I LOVE this show. Now THIS is Star Wars; I actually consider this an apology to old school fans for that crap that's been in the theatre the last few years. And yes, I know this show was very specifically engineered to appease people like me: 40+ year olds who grew up with it and love the old, Sergio Leone approach. They've utilized so many characters that are based on my favorite action figures as a kid that there was no way this wasn't going to work for me. Contrived? Sure. Do I mind? Nope.



**

Weird Walk is a wonderful little 'zine published by some fascinating people over in Great Britain. I received my copy of issue number two after reading about it in Warren Ellis' newsletter a few weeks, and have so far had the pleasure of reading an interview with author Benjamin Myers about how the rural English landscape has influenced and inspired his writing. This seems like it fits right in with that 'Haunted', Hypnogogic aesthetic that, you guessed it, fits in with my current re-assessment of the 00s.

You can order Weird Walk and peruse their sight HERE.

**

Playlist:

David Bowie - Black Star
Clavicvla - Sepulchral Blessing
Greet Death - New Hell
Burial - Eponymous
Burial - Untrue
Federale - No Justice
Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Oh Baby - The Art of Sleeping Alone
The Cure - Carnage Visors
The Cure - Pornography
Black Pumas - Eponymous
Mayhem - Daemon

**

No card today, however, I wanted to note how exact my last two pulls were. Exact like in a creepy, "Tarot is never this on the nose" way.

Friday I pulled the Ten of Disks Wealth and received an unexpected Royalty check in the mail for my books. Three days later I pulled the Five of Cups Disappointment and received a notification that the submission I sent via FedEx to an anthology I adore failed to deliver and that I'd have to re-send it through the post office to get it there.

That's pretty accurate.

Richard Stanley's The Color Out of Space gets a trailer!

I saw this at Beyondfest back in September. It's awesome. There are a few issues I had with Richard Stanley's Adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space - for one the change in the title's spelling - but overall, I loved this film. The third act is like acid kicking in at the top of a very tall roller coaster, and it makes up for any other issues I had with the film.

**

I've found it difficult to find the time to do these pages lately, but I'm not going anywhere. Since I've last checked in, there's a lot I've been into.

I finished my re-read of Rick Remender and Matteo Scalera's Black Science, which ended last month with issue forty-three. I'd been buying this one monthly since it began, but I'd fallen off actually reading it about five issues before the series finale, knowing full well I'd be doing a series re-read once the story was complete. I can't stress enough what a different experience that was, and what an altogether affecting series this is on me. The story - which is loaded with pulp Sci-Fi awesomeness that reminds me a bit of Clark Ashton Smith, a bit of Arthur C. Clark, and a lot of all those nameless pulp paperbacks I checked out of the library or acquired at the school book fair as a kid -  is really just a mask for Remender to expound on everything from Life, Relationships, Philosophy, Science, Meaning. The man is wise; if you got a hint of that from his more widely known Deadly Class, give this a try.

Fell back hard into Bill Hader and Alec Berg's Barry. K and I had started this near the end of September, only to shelve it for 31 Days of Horror. Well, three episodes away from the second season finale, and I haven't been this blown away by a show in quite some. Hader's tone nails life - it's funny, awkward, tragic, brutal... Barry will give you 'all the feels.'

The fifth episode of the second season is very close to the best episode of serialized, half-hour television I have ever seen, and it had me laughing so hard I literally almost choked. A good thing.



**

This past Tuesday, the fourth and final volume of Warren Ellis and Jon Davis-Hunt's The Wild Storm. I picked up and plowed through the first two trades in Chicago last December, and since I acquired volume three but held out until I could read the entire series in a short burst. Following Black Science, that time is now.

The Wild Storm is, simply put, one of the greatest comics I've ever read. I'm sure when it's over I'm going to want to follow the spin-offs out into their own little orbits; that may or may not happen. This core title, however, is breathtaking.

Reading this in trade is the definitive reminder I needed to wait for the collections of Ellis and Hitch's Batman's Grave, which is on issue two right now, I believe. Seemingly contrarian to this, I've opted to tag back into Ellis and Jason Howard's Trees - which just started up again. The difference is, with Image titles, there are no internal ads disrupting the flow of the book, so the story is intact.

It's moving back into Winter (yeah, those of you in actual cold-climates can laugh at me), and I'm reading a lot of Warren Ellis, so I'm kind of being pulled into a cool re-contextualization with a lot of the music I listened to in the mid-to-late 00s, because a lot of what I did after moving to LA in 2006 was read Warren Ellis and listen to music. You'll see this begin to be reflected in the list below, near the end, as I try to assemble a playlist from the last week that shows my transition out of Halloween-mode and into Winter mode.

Playlist from the previous week or so:

The Obsessed - Lunar Womb
Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me
High on Fire - Blessed Black Wings
Brand New - God and the Devil Are Raging Inside Me...
David J, Federale, and Tim Newman - The Day That David Bowie Died
Chasms - On The Legs Of Love Purified...
Federale - Trouble (Pre-release single)
Duende and David J - Oracle of the Horizontal
Sunn O))) - Pyroclasts
Sunn O))) - Life Metal
Barry Adamson - As Above So Below
Jozef Van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch - An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil
Isis - In the Absence of Truth
Opeth - Orchid
Opeth - Blackwater Park
Flatline - Pave the Way
Tyler Childers - Purgatory
Paolo Nutini - Caustic Love
Tyler Childers - Country Squire
Hank III - Straight to Hell
Timber Timbre - Eponymous
Canadian Rifle - Peaceful Death
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III Satur
Revocation - The Outer Ones
Revocation - Teratogenesis EP
Megadeth - Rust in Peace
Oh Baby - The Art of Sleeping
TV on the Radio - Nine Types of Light
Thievery Corporation - The Mirror Conspiracy

**

No card today.

1919 - The Scream

Chalk this one up to another group I'd never even heard of from that beloved Post Punk era of the early 80s. Fantastic stuff.

**
The first issue of Batman's Grave, that Warren Ellis/Steve Hitch twelve-month series came out this week, and I'm doing everything I can to not go into The Comic Bug and buy it. My mantra? Wait for the trade. Wait for the trade. Ellis always reads better in trade. Always.

I know, I know. We've seen this shot a million times by a million artists. What's special about this one? The artist is working with Warren Ellis, that's what.

**

31 Days of Horror:

10/01: House of 1000 Corpses/31
10/02: Lords of Chaos
10/03: Creepshow Ep 2/Tales from the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 1
10/04: IT Chapter 2, AHS 1984 Ep. 3
10/05: Bliss/VFW
10/06: Halloween III: Season of the Witch/Night of the Creeps/The Fog
10/07: Halloween 2018
10/08: Hell House, LLC
10/09: Dance of the Dead (Tobe Hooper; Masters of Horror Ssn 1 Ep 3)
10/10: Creepshow Episode 3

I didn't have it in me yesterday to watch more than the new episode of Creepshow before I passed out for the night.

**

Playlist for 10/10:

Sam Hain - November Coming Fire
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - In Summer EP
The Smiths - Meat is Murder
Mark Morrison - Return of the Mack (single)
Deftones - White Pony
Doomriders - Black Thunder
Pigface - A New High in Low (Low Disc)
Opeth - Deliverance
Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh
Deth Crux - Pears of Anguish EP
1919 - The Complete Collection
Ain Soph - Rituals
Bauhaus - Burning From the Inside

**

Card of the day:

Very good to see the Four of Wands today, which I'm taking as a direct nod to the fact that if I keep at it, I'll finish the first pass on the outline of Book Two this weekend. There's bound to still be some tweaking needed afterward, but as long as I have all the points on the grid, I'll be able to use it as a map to start actually writing the prose. This is the first time I've ever outlined anything this heavily, but what a difference it has already made.

2019: July 31st El Gigante now on Shudder!!!

Super psyched for Luchagore Productions' short film El Gigante to hit Shudder! This one needs to be seen by more people. If you dig it, check out Luchagore's website, youtube channel, as well as Culture Shock, their entry into the Blumhouse/Hulu anthology series Into the Dark. And if you have Shudder, El Gigante is live now, so brace yourself.

**
NCBD this week sees the release of the final issue of Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang's mind-bending, hellofagoodtime Paper Girls. I can't wait to see how this one resolves...

And if you haven't already heard, we're apparently getting a pretty big surprise in the fourth part of TMNT: City at War. I don't want to spoil anything, but it's kind of a big thing for long-time fans of the four:

NCBD has been light for me of late, as like Paper Girls, quite a few series I've read for years have ended (some rather unexpectedly), and I've eliminated others that had, for whatever reason, grown stale for me. It's weird, not having a bunch of books to look forward to every month, but I'm trying like hell to resist adding new ones after that existential crisis a month or so back. In most cases, comic chastity has become easy. In others, however, restraint takes work. Case in point; two weeks ago in his weekly newsletter, Warren Ellis announced that he and Bryan Hitch are doing a year-long, monthly Batman series, Batman's Grave.

I know, right?

Batman's Grave #1 drops October 9th, and it will be oh so difficult not to buy it monthly. I may end up doing just that, except, Ellis reads much better as a trade. Not to say the issues are bad, however if trying to read his Wildstorm monthly and eventually switching to trade (one left that's out November 9th) reminded me just how awesome Ellis reads in collected volumes. Night and day. Plus, no fucking ads. I will try to keep this in mind come October 9th, "Wait for trade Wait for trade Wait for trade..." my mantra...

Here's the only real image DC has released so far, aside from what look like some unfinished B&W stuff floating around out there on the comic news sites.

Playlist from 7/30:

Frank Black - Teenager of the Year
Soundgarden - Superunknown
The Jesus Lizard - Liar
The Jesus Lizard - Lash EP
Revolting Cocks - Big Sexy Land
Cibo Mato - Stereotype A
Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Tinderbox

Card of the day:

This looks like good news to me. After a five or six day streak last week working on Ciazarn, building momentum that seemed to really help me crack into the tone of the story, I had to take Sunday off to attend a benefit for a friend. That break in the inertia that had begun to bring things on the project together was a set-back. This is how it is, especially when writing in the early stages of something not yet fully developed. Monday was another wash, and then yesterday I started over. And of course, that first day back on is anything but productive; it's really just breaking fresh ground to begin building momentum again. So seeing the "Breakthrough" card, well, it makes me feel good about what's coming.

2019: March 6th: New Music from Dylan Carlson's Earth

This was the state of my head earlier today:

It's 12:00 AM, and for the second time this week, I can't sleep. There's bravado in the clouds tonight, distant thunder echoing across the sky, holding the population of LA's South Bay hostage. Those of us still awake, anyway. I'm on the couch, watching Lucio Fulci's City of the Living Dead as I type this. I've had horror on the brain this evening - I feel both that I want to consume an unheard amount of it, and that there's some new story bubbling just beneath the surface of this rabid spike in fandom I'm experiencing. Maybe it's an escalating love for Shudder's historically minded programming, or a love for all the peripheral content the open-market of the internet has made possible. Or maybe it's just that the world we live in is a horror story, a very sad yet wonderful story whose outcome remains unproven. I watched Horror Noire a few days ago, and the first episode of Eli Roth's History of Horror earlier tonight. One quote from Edgar Wright rings out in my head; while discussing George A. Romero's Day of the Dead, Wright says something to the effect of, "It's an apocalypse you wouldn't mind living in. Or at least, I wouldn't." Very true, but the question is, does ours measure up? Would you rather have a never-ending parade of narcissistic cunts running things and two hyperbolically ludicrous political parties totally devoid of common sense, or a hell-on-Earth, zombie apocalypse?

I'd wager you can guess my answer.

**

I ended up unable to drop off until around 2:00 AM, so I called out from work. Will use the time to make major progress in finishing the book.

But first, let's look at what's happening this morning, now that I have slept.

Sargent House just dropped new music from Seminal Crawl band Earth. New album Full Upon Her Burning Lips drops on May 24th; you can pre-order physical HERE and digital HERE.



**

NCBD:

This is the MVP pick of the day for me. Hell, maybe of the year. I acquired the first two volumes of Warren Ellis and Jon Davis-Hunt's The Wildstorm at Amazing Fantasy in Chicago back in December. I read them in a day, and seriously think it might be Ellis' best comic work since Transmet. The relationship between Jon Davis-Hunt's art and Ellis' script make this the best example of 'wide screen comics' I've seen in years, maybe ever. It's so clean. A complex, fascinating story that just feels effortless in how it's told. And if you're worried about the superhero source material, don't: I had next to no experience with the Wildstorm Universe before this, aside from the occasional mini series by Ennis (not even sure if those are Wildstorm, now that I think of it; all those early Image "team" books run together for me because I never read any of them back in the day), and I think my read on this new reimagining from Ellis is better for it. And it's not a superhero book. At all.

I Can't recommend The Wildstorm enough:

Finally! Walk Through Hell returns! I think I was referring to this in previous posts as "A Walk Through Hell," and now that I see my mistake, I feel like the title is even creepier, because, in keeping with the story, it's a command.

More Warren Ellis! Cemetery Beach, with artist Jason Howard, comes to an end. I'm assuming this is the end of a first volume, and now that Ellis and Howard's Trees is set to rotate back in with a five-issue third volume, we'll have to wait until after that completes before we have more Cemetery Beach. Whatever the case, this book has been fantastic. If you read Ellis' newsletter, with its fascinating glimpses into the man's work methodology, you can see a window into how he has evolved into such an efficient storyteller. This is the end goal for me folks; it gives me something to shoot for. Not to write like Warren Ellis, but to have as crisp and clean a process.

A new issue of Deadly Class will pair nicely with my continued love of the Remender-run SYFY adaptation, and serves as a reminder that now that K has read the entire run of the comic to date, I need to initiate my own re-read. Look at that cover!

Jesus, this is looking like an expensive week! No complaints though, not when Paper Girls is returning. And again, look at that cover! I'm going to have to revisit the final issue of the previous arc, because I can't quite remember where we are in this totally batshit crazy book.

And I may have listed it here last, but this will be the first book I read today! The Walking Dead 189. This book has, as always, been a riveting descent into the chaos at the heart of humanity's designs on civilization. Why doesn't structure work? Because we are the walking dead, and all order is transient when compared to the chaotic nature of the Universe. Or is it just order on a scale we can't see?

Who knows? Part of the fun is wondering. But I digress...

Part of the beauty of TWD, is it maps out an allegorical timeline to our own history inside the world of the book. The seeming perfection of this new society our long-haul characters have found in this newest arc is turning out to be not so civilized, and as we inch toward the landmark 200th issue, I think things are going to get hairy. As usual though, Kirkman has no limit in his writing and imagination, and he never does what I think he's going to do; that's why I love this book.


Playlist from 3/05:

Various Artists - Trainspotting OST
Cold Showers - Matter of Choice
Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years
Prince - Sign O' The Times
Blut Aus Nord - Cosmosophy
Boy Harsher - Careful

Card of the day:

Perfectly grounded. Water of Earth; cares for her house. Perfect for the day for two reasons: A) The Earth track that dropped, and B) I'm home and going to attempt to finish this house I've built in Shadow Play, Book One. I finished the Grammarly editing last night, now I have to record myself reading the last half of act two and all of act three, and I can listen to it and suss out any final story edits that need to be made. Excited!

2019: February 4th - New Chasms

New music from Chasms, whose new album The Mirage comes out February 22nd on the always amazing Felte Records. Pre-order it HERE, and see them live if you can, as they are wonderful.

Subterranean Press has a very limited number of copies of Warren Ellis' novella Dead Pig Collector, something I have been wanting to read for years but forgot about some time back while waiting for a physical copy to emerge. Said copy has emerged, but the door is closing quickly. Order it HERE.

February is Women in Horror month, and to kick things off, K and I hosted 3/4ths of The Horror Vision crew this past Saturday for a viewing of Jen and Sylvia Soska's American Mary. Damn, I love this film. The empowerment that comes through the story and performances is intoxicating, and seeing it again has me even more excited for the Soska's upcoming remake of David Cronenberg's Rabid, about which there is a pair of marvelous articles in the latest issue of Fangoria Vol. 2.

You can listen to the newest episode of The Horror Vision on Apple, (although I think there's a lag in the episode uploading to Apple at the moment) Spotify, Google Play, or our website.

Playlist from 2/03:

Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch - Concerning the White Horse (on repeat for like an hour while I finished the new story)
Boy Harsher - Careful

Card of the day (despite the fact that the day's almost over; I'm curious):

Perfect and funny for so very many reasons at the moment.

2019: January 5th

Belong's October Language is one of the most beautiful albums I've heard in some time. Close your eyes and drift into a nothing space of faintly glowing radiance and soft, fuzzy waves...

I've been sick for a few days now, spending a lot of time watching movies and reading Nick Cave's And the Ass Saw the Angel, a book I started twelve years ago and never finished. I won't lie; I'm a huge Cave fan, but this is not easy reading. The book is written in a mostly first-person perspective, in the rather baroque hill-speak of protagonist Euchrid Eucrow, the son of an inbred father and a drunk-on-still-mash mother, so the language is biblical and flowery in a terse, over-reaching way. Which is exactly how it should be written, given the author's choice for narrators. I'm always up for a literary challenge, and I wonder if at some point my brain will just "click" to the style and have an easier time with it. That's what happened when I first began reading Irvine Welsh; the phonetic Scottish Brogue threw me at first, but after a while I acclimatized to it and began to read Welsh as easily as anything else. Incidentally, that also helped me when I met him and later, when I traveled to Scotland; I had no problem understanding most people I spoke with. So, I'm sticking with the Cave until it's finished.

This "read what's on the shelf" is a continuation of an initiative I began last year, to finally read a lot of the books I have on my shelf; working at Borders for five years in the 00s, I accumulated a lot I still haven't read. Now that I'm trying to start saving for a house, it makes sense to condition myself to actually read that stuff, to not just jump on Amazon at the mention of everything that sounds cool and order it. I'm not saying I have a moratorium on new books, because there's a ton I want to read, but a healthy, three-old-ones-to-every-new-one mix should help.

Speaking of Welsh, he's an author that, for years, I bought everything he published the day it came out. That changed when I began shifting my reading to a more genre-specific diet, worried that the more literary stuff my tastes were entrenched in was influencing the way I was writing. Not that that's bad; the first two novels I wrote, one of which I'm hoping to finish editing this year and publish, have a more literary bent than Shadow Play, which is straight genre. But to finish Shadow Play, I had to curate my reading more carefully. With Welsh, he influences me so much that I had to swear him off altogether, knowing one day I'd dive right back in. That was 2012, because the last book I read by him was Skagboys. Since then, I've watched as he's published no less than four novels, and I've had to force myself to abstain from each one. But, with Shadow Play finally winding down - I started it in earnest in 2012 - another one of my ideas for 2019 is to flip back out of genre a bit - hence the Cave - and pick up with Welsh where I left off. Can't wait; I really miss the man's writing.

Speaking of Welsh again, I mentioned I've been watching a lot of movies while I've been sick, and the one I just watched this morning definitely makes me yearn for Irvine Welsh's novels; Outcast - not to be confused with the Nick Cage movie of the same name or the Robert Kirkman series on Cinemax - is a 2010 film by Colm McCarthy, a director that has come up in the world since by directing 2016's much lauded The Girl with All the Gifts and Black Mirror season four episode six: Black Museum. In elevator pitch shorthand, imagine Welsh and Warren Ellis writing a story about ancient magick adrift in the shadows of modern Edinburgh. That's this Outcast, and I LOVED this film; it's take on Magick was both enigmatic and practical, a lot like Ellis's Gravel series from some years back.



Also, yesterday I watched:



This I hadn't seen since its initial VHS release in 1992 or '93. I've been fairly afraid to revisit it; Hellraiser: Hell on Earth was actually my introduction to the Hellraiser movies, and you can probably understand then when I tell you I didn't actually rent the first two until three or four years later. Re-watching it now, as a massive fan of those original movies and of the concepts and characters in general, I can say that there are quite a few things about Hell on Earth that I like, most specifically the body horror effects. That said, this is the perfect example of the how Hollywood used to just throw money and special effects at ideas and think that made them better. The culminating sequence in this film, of Pinhead chasing our protagonist through New York, is rife with explosions, car crashes, water mains bursting, glass shattering, and none of it has any point at all in what's happening or even fits the story. It's both sloppy and lazy.



You know, I don't normally go in for home invasion movies. People doing terrible things to people is not really the kind of horror I like. Still, the original Strangers was well made and creepy as all hell, at a time when most studio horror had forgotten how to be subtle with their scares. That trailer, with the knock on the door at two A.M., this is a concept that has occurred to and haunted me since I was a kid. I liked that first film and so knew I'd eventually see the sequel. After watching Prey at Night yesterday, I can say it was good, but really left me with a violence hangover. I don't know that I'd say I enjoyed it, but it wasn't overly disturbing and bookended the first film in a satisfying way, so nice to check it off my list.

Playlist from 01/04:

Tears for Fears - Songs from the Big Chair
Henry Mancini - Charade OST
Paramore - All We Know is Falling

Card of the day:

From the Grimoire, "The Will (Fire) to Materialism (Disks)." This is what I was just talking about above, so nice to come to the end of this post and have this pop up. Literally, the Will to save Money.

2018: December 11th

After a conversation with a friend, I'm really re-assessing this year's return of the band Daughters. Here's some live footage I watched in the middle of the night last night (that's now! I'm all messed up on time this trip).

The weather in Chicago is COLD, and I've taken a bit of a hit. Or, my day of feeling like shit was reaction to another fairly heavy drinking late night, the after-show for the Drinking with Comics On the Road Special: Chicago, which just went up on Apple, Spotify, and Google Play.

Read the first two trades of Warren Ellis and Jon Davis-Hunt's Wildstorm reboot last night in between editing the audio for the new episode. THEY ARE INCREDIBLE, and have surely set me off an an Ellis-jag as soon as I return home and get to my bookshelves. First up? Planetary, the last issue or trade or whatever was delayed for years back in the day, I have still never read.

Playlist from 12/10 was non-existent.

Playlist from 12/09:

Black Sabbath - Children of the Grave (Vol. 4 import)
Arab Strap - The Red Thread
Tom Waits - Rain Dogs

Card of the day:

"Analytical approach to problems of the mind."

Nail on the head.

2018: November 6th

I'd never heard of Ghost Cop until the most recent newsletter from comic's scribe Warren Ellis, which you can subscribe to HERE and which will make your life better. The Eponymous EP is excellent, really atmospheric electronic music that reminds me of a lot of the more electronically inclined groups and artists I submerged myself in during the 00s. Look for some of that stuff to float back up to the surface of my listening habits.

If you visit Ghost Cop's bandcamp, their new album is up for pre-order.

Lots of Deadwood news yesterday, and as it so happens, the moment K and I finished 31 Days of Horror, we jumped directly back into season 2, so this is perfect timing. This is K's first go-through with Swearengen and the crew, my second or third. I figured out I'd previously watched roughly the first season and a quarter multiple times, but I don't think I've ever gone through the entire cycle more than the first time, which was after it aired. This might be my favorite non-Twin Peaks show folks. Swearengen is easily one of my favorite characters, but the idea of revisiting these folks ten years down the line show continuity wise with a movie is bittersweet; still not sure why HBO/Milch didn't just keep going in the first place. It's always difficult to go home again. Twin Peaks did it well, by becoming something the original show was not. In my head, I consider Season Three of that show more a new 18-hour DavidLynch movie than a revival of Twin Peaks, which it certainly is in some respects but... I digress

Looks like almost the entire cast is coming back for this Deadwood movie, and I don't want to sound like I'm not elated to have a chance to see these folks again, it's just timing, you know? Still, excited.

Playlist from 10/05:

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
Preoccupations - Eponymous
Preoccupations - New Material
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Ghost Cop - Eponymous EP
Tom Waits - Mule Variations
Tom Waits - Swordfish Trombones

Card of the day:

Fire of Fire - Pure, communicative leadership. Ideas. Can represent highest idea - again, exactly what I'm aiming at with Shadow Play, and book one is where it starts. It doesn't matter that this is 8 years since I started it (with a year off in the middle, which made me a much better writer), it has to be perfect so it sets up the bigger picture, which is kind of so big - to me - it feels unwieldy.

2018: August 29th

How about a little ditty by The Flying Luttenbachers to kick things off today, eh?

A raging sinus infection woke me up in the middle of the night Monday. Ugh. Consequently, I took the day off yesterday, wrote, urgent cared and watched two unbelievably good films, both with the common theme of endurance. The first was a loan from Mr. Brown, a Sydney Pollack flick from '69 entitled They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

Bleak and Brilliant. This one is going to stay with me always. Loved it. And I finally get why Jane Fonda was such a name back in the day. She is excellent in this film. And this is based on a phenomenon that actually used to happen in this country during the Great Depression. Mind blowing.



Next up, one on Netflix I've been meaning to get around to for a couple years: A Dark Song. Wow. The best and most accurate account of Ritual High Magick I've seen in a film, even if writer/director Liam Gavin was very non-specific. Not a critique, mind you. Also, this felt so much like a filmed version of a Warren Ellis story that I immediately posit Mr. Gavin is a fan. Mr. Solomon's approach to Magick reminds me a lot of how Ellis wrote William Gravel and John Constantine in their approaches to the Occult.

A Dark Song will also be with me for a long time, and will totally go on the shell soon, even if it does appear to be perpetually on Netflix. Highly Recommended. Please do another film soon, Mr. Gavin.



NCBD this week is light, however A Walk Through Hell #4 is finally out! I feels as though it has been months since #3. Also, Bendis and Maleev's Scarlet has moved to DC with Bendis?

Playlist from 8/27:

Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog
Chris Connelly - Artificial Madness
Alice in Chains - Dirt
Godflesh - Flowers*
Nothing - Dance on Rooftops
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Vol. 1
Drab Majesty - The Demonstration

8/28:
Algiers - Eponymous


*Droney remix from In All Languages. Fantastic to write to.

Nurture your personality. Seems to describe yesterday, with A Dark Song really sating a long ignored aspect of my personal ego-system, i.e. the one interested in Magick. This is rearing its head a bit in my writing of late, too. After a disastrous attempt at a first novel based on Magick - this is going back to the early 00s and while it has some great scenes, it's a mess of a 'novel' - I've largely stayed away from Magick in writing. Now, I'm finding it's helping act as glue in my current project.

Ride A White Swan

Nice way to start my day, even if it is the beginning of what will be my third day/fourth night in the hospital. Thank you Warren Ellis for the inspiration. If you would like some Warren Ellis inspiration -  which is among the strongest I have ever encountered, subscribe to his weekly Sunday newsletter Orbital Operations. You won't regret it.

The Empty Man... and Trees... and The Superannuated Man

image courtesy of ComicBookResources.com

... is the topic of today's Thee Comic Column over on Joup.

Come to think of it, I've been so busy I've not posted the last two links for my column here. Let's remedy that now because last week's was Warren Ellis and Jason Howard's awesome Trees:

image courtesy of BrokenFrontier.com

And the week before that was Ted McKeever's new book - which I am in love with - The Superannuated Man!

image courtesy of ImageComics.com

Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - The Proposition

Since KCRW moved Henry Rollins' show to Sunday it is no longer a weekly event for me. I'm hoping I can change that soon (or they could just put him back on Saturday where he fucking belongs... just saying). I was able to listen this week and man did he blow my mind - as usual. One of the things Mr. Rollins threw down on was the Nick Cave and Warren Ellis White Lunar, which I believe is a comp of some of their film score work. GORGEOUS.

Regis - Blood Witness

I've not yet read Warren Ellis' novella Dead Pig Collector (available here), but it's on the list (and what an enormous list that is). Stumbled upon a great interview with the author today via twitter where he talks about the 'playlist' for the writing of the book. This is on it. Mr. Ellis has written some of my favorite comics and the one novel of his to-date three (I think - someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that I've read was fantastic. Crooked Little Vein. Mmm good.

Anyway, here's the link to the full article on Large-Hearted Boy's wonderful music blog. And you can purchase this wonderful music here.

image courtesy of comicbook.com

Cross My Heart Hope To Die - Rollercoasting

Totally reminds me of old Tricky. Props to Warren Ellis for Tweeting this.

Stag Hare - Sandpaintings

Found this via Warren Ellis' Twitter. I like - definitely fits the floating, hung-over mood I have this morning. You can of course click on the widget and follow it back to the group's bandcamp where the album is digitally offered at the "Name Your Price" cost. Or you can go to Inner Island Records and buy the C30 cassette!