Long Snake Moan

 

PJ Harvey is one of my favorite artists. Has been since the 90s. Weirdly enough, I don't listen to her that often. In thinking about this, I realize that I hold her music in a sort of sacred regard that feels as though it might become deluded if I overdo it. Probably not the case, in reality, however, it is what it is. Here's one of my favorite songs from her seminal 1995 album To Bring You My Love.

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Read:

I dug out my copy of Weird Walk issue #2 recently and began re-reading it as research for the new podcast off-shoot my Horror Vision co-host Ray Larragoitiy and I are doing. Stick & Stones is a sidebar deep-dive into Folk Horror, which is a sub-genre I've been enchanted with (pun intended) for the last few years, although until recently, I always referred to most of these flicks as "UK Occult Films." 

Weird Walk is an indie zine in every sense of the word, but it's a class act and chock full of fascinating ruminations on the haunted underpinnings of the British landscape and society. Highly recommended - you can order it HERE and follow their podcast HERE or wherever you get your podcasts! 

Oh yeah, and as of yesterday, there are two episodes of The Horror Vision Presents... Sticks & Stones: A Folk Horror Discussion up. The newest one deals with Stephen King's Children of the Corn - story and movie - and Chad Crawford Kinkle's Jug Face. The first episode sets up the series with a discussion of Kier-La Janisse's Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched, then compares and contrasts Avery Crounse's Eyes of Fire and Robert Eggers' The Witch. Also available wherever you get your podcasts.

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Playlist:

The Yellow House - Live at Southgate House

Darkness Brings the Cold (The Forest Children) - Human Me

Ween - Live In Chicago

PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love

Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit

Brand New - Daisy

Ministry - Filth Pig

Soul Coughing - El Oso

Cypress Hill - Black Sunday

Cypress Hill - Back in Black (pre-release singles)

Steve Morse - Mind's Eyes OST

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Card:

Reaping the rewards of good decisions.

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).


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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

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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.



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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.

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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

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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.