I'll say this: while I'm not favoring this track nearly as much as I did "Lux Aeterna," I can't help being fascinated by my out-of-the-blue turnaround interest in Metallica of late. Nothing will ever make me care about anything they released after the Eponymous and up to Hard Wired, but I have to say, these guys seem to have found themselves again. Maybe we're both going through some nostalgia trip together and reconnecting at the right time. I don't know. For now, I'm along for the ride again.
Watch:
I think Twin Peaks has me in the mood for late 80s/early 90s thrillers because last night K and I watched Nicholas Kazon's 1994 Dream Lover. Here's the trailer:
Another obvious Peaks connection here is Mädchen Amick as the female lead. This is the kind of specific-to-the-era, early 90s thriller that Spader excelled at, and his chemistry with Amick really propels the movie to its clever and almost hysterically dark final moments. All in all, a solid three-star if you allow for the inflation of aesthetics.
My first re-watch of the original Twin Peaks since 2016 is digging up all kinds of deep memory and psychological stuff that has 1990/1991 fresh in my head again. I will never be able to overstate my gratitude that I found this show when I did, as a 15/16-year-old stoner; it changed me for all time, for all the better. This morning, while I sat on my porch drinking coffee and reading from Lynch's Room to Dream, I played several of the soundtracks on my turntable - I still have all the CDs, and I put up the $77 back in 2011 for the digital music archive Lynch released through his website - ALL the music from the series. Everything. Then Mondo put out Twin Peaks Season One, FWWM, and the two soundtracks from the 2017 series on vinyl a few years ago, and I grabbed them all.
So I get around to The Return's score and hit "Slow 30s Room," and immediately remember that, at some time in the not-so-distant past, I found this hour-long loop of the track on youtube.
Presto - here you go.
Also, Happy Birthday David Lynch!!!
Watch:
Since moving, I have fallen a bit behind on all the podcasts I listen to; my primary podcast time was in LaLaLand traffic, and being that I work from home now and pretty much listen to music all day, there's no equivalent time. So I have to make that time. To accomplish this, I've begun making a concentrated effort to set aside time, usually on Friday afternoons, specifically for podcats. In this way, I've knocked out a few of the Bret Easton Ellis show but not much else.
One podcast I am currently behind on is the brilliant Cinematic Void. Cinematic Void is a monthly cult film screening series in Los Angeles at L.A.'s American Cinematique Theatres, as well as a pretty damn great Podcast with online Cinemadness Screenings that showcase some of the best in Horror and Exploitation Cinema. For some time now, The Void has been hosting January Giallo screenings in L.A., and now it appears they have locations in both Massachuttes and Chicago, as well.
I don't think I've been to Chicago's Music Box since I saw Don Coscarelli's Bubba Ho-Tep premiere there back in 2002. I am heading into town next week, but unfortunately, I probably won't make a screening. I wanted to put the word out there, though, for all my Chicago folks. I can vouch for The Void's programming, so next year I will be all over this!
Read:
David Lynch and Kristine McKenna's Room to Dream is currently having an indelible effect on my mornings. This book puts me in such a good mood; it's remarkable. The book has led me back to my recent inclinations to begin meditating again, and this time, I think I'm going to attempt Transcendental Meditation, something I've always been intrigued with but felt self-conscious about.
When I began serious meditation back in my former life, circa 2014, I used an hour-long tone I constructed using fundamental principles of the Binaural Approach - something I'd learned about and messed around with long before it became a hokey product called binaural beats that populated the 'new age' section of music shops. Using a tone generator, I built a multi-layered mediation track in Pro-Tools and would take periods out of every day in totally random places to use it. For one regular spot I favored, I'd walk up to Olympic Blvd, just North of Bundy in L.A. There's a CBTL there, so I'd grab an Americano, then walk down Olympic to a bench-like ledge in front of an office building there, and with my headphones in, I would sit and meditate for 9 minutes. This is directly across from a bloodbath and beyond store and a block or so down from a Trader Joe's, so it's a high-traffic area. I always got an extra charge out of creating a little bit of novelty in the middle of this area where all these L.A. People tended to be so L.A.
Anyway, because I'd meditate anywhere back then, I avoided trying TM because making audible noise just seemed as though I'd be really calling attention to myself, which in turn would make me self-conscious, which would make it impossible for me to actually achieve any kind of meditative state. I no longer have any of those problems, and after things went a bit batty in 2015 (a story for another day), I have been reticent to use that old Pro Tools track. Thus, my impending return to Meditation will require something new. Reading Room to Dream, I think TM might be just the thing. First, though, I want to re-read Lynch's book on the subject, Catching The Big Fish.
Hearing the first-hand accounts of the people in Lynch's life talk about the change that TM produced in him when he first began practicing, I think this could be a very good tool to rid myself of some of the residual anger and frustration that I've fallen prey to lately, living with and helping to take care of an elderly person who just epitomizes a lot of the ignorance and blind consumer mindset I have such a hard time with in the human race.
Playlist:
The Police - Synchronicity
David Bowie - Outside
Talking Heads - Fear of Music
Talking Heads - Remain in Light
Iggy Pop - The Idiot
Iggy Pop - Every Loser
Iggy Pop - Lust for Life
Final Light - Eponymous
Godflesh - Pure Live
Low Cut Connie - Get Out the Lotion
NIN - Hesitation Marks
David Bowie - The Buddha of Suburbia
U2 - War
G Love & Special Sauce - Yeah, It's That Easy
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
I love an easy Pull! An emotional breakthrough that will provide a solid foundation for moving forward with a sustainable degree of patience and cohesion.
It's been quite some time since I listened to 90s alternative stalwarts They Might Be Giants, but I cracked out a few discs over this past weekend and put them in the car (It's also been a while since I listened to a CD in the car).
NCBD:
Here's what's on tap for NCBD this week:
Love that cover. This book is a mixed bag - I dig it, but I don't know that I feel enough momentum to continue after this arc. We'll see.
I'm reading House of Slaughter monthly for the duration of this arc. In catching up a few weeks ago, I have to say the consistency isn't great. The first arc that concentrated on Aaron and Boucher, who returns this issue, was pretty good. The second one - I just didn't get it.
Okay, Cates is gone. Let's see how this series continues on to its conclusion in April.
The final issue before Immoral X-Men starts. Great cover- can't wait to see where this goes.
This one's on the chopping block. I love Shalvey's writing and art, and maybe it's just the book seems to be so sporadic that it doesn't actually feel like a series to me.
The penultimate issue of Phantasmagoria. I've been keeping up with reading monthly, but I can't wait to read it all in one straight shot after next month's final issue.
Not gonna lie; I'm not feeling this series. That being said, being that DeMatteis penning a sequel to his original story, I'm in for the long haul, which is only another two issues anyway, so no biggie.
The final issue of Strange, before Doctor Strange relaunches in a few months. I'll miss this book; what a fun ride McKay and Company have brought us on. And to think, I picked up the first issue entirely on a lark!
Still not reading the "Event" this ties into, and definitely not feeling that I need to.
I'm waiting for Boss to take over the art again before I go back and re-read everything. Despite reading the entire series up to the hiatus in July, a lot disappeared during that break, and the fill-in artists - by no fault of their own - really made re-entry upon the book's return two months ago rough. I need to sit down and go through it all again.
After all the love I gushed on Dark Web last week for ASM 17, I ended up fairly disappointed in that issue. Hoping this doesn't fizzle out now that we're in the climactic moments. That is what Events and Crossovers tend to do, though, so we'll see.
Playlist:
They Might Be Giants - Flood
David Bowie - Black Star
David Lynch and John Neff - BLUEBOB
LABRY'S - Eponymous
Blvck Hippie - If You Feel Alone At Parties
Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun
A001 - Nyctophobia EP
Lustmord - Hobart
Thou - Rhea Sylvia
Various - Dirt Redux
Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full
Meathook Seed - Embedded
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
These four cards flew out of the deck while I shuffled this morning, so I figured it would be important for the day's Pull to log them all. I'm not in a place at the moment where I can interpret this - I'm fried from a nearly 11-hour work day yesterday and looking down the barrel of a similar situation today.
I thought I'd end with something older since, this time, I focused so singularly on the later period of Bowie's work for most of the entries. That was, of course, intentional: I personally have always been drawn to the latter years more than the early ones, and it was through my appreciation of some of those later albums that I worked backward. Not to say I didn't dig Ziggy Stardust or Diamond Dogs when I was initially exposed, but I didn't get them as complete albums until later. The singles always wowed me, but I often didn't understand how they 'fit' into the context of the larger album they arrived on.
Watch:
The trailer for Season Three of The Mandalorian dropped last night:
Mando season three doesn't look like much based on the trailer, but it goes without saying that, as someone who grew up with but has disowned Star Wars but created a complicated caveat for my love of this show (and the Boba Fett show), I'm all-in until proven otherwise, which I doubt will ever happen.
Playlist:
They Might Be Giants - Miscellaneous T
K's 70s Playlist
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Taping into the power of something bigger than myself will lead to a solid foundation from which to proceed. I can't help but read this as alluding to my current writing projects, but... oh, wait. I think I just got it. Now let me put this out of my mind so as not to taint the result. I'll confirm here later on if this means what I think it means.
I had not even heard of this track's extended version or the accompanying 'film' before Saturday night. I love that I'm still discovering things about Bowie now, seven years after his death.
Watch:
Continuing my own personal seven days of Bowie, I watched Francis Whately's documentary David Bowie: The Last Five Years on HBO this past Saturday night. Really great film; I've never made any bones about saying that Bowie's last few albums are among my favorites of his (2003's Reality is my favorite, to be exact), so this one was sure to strike a chord with me.
The film begins by setting the stage with the RealityTour, where Bowie first fell ill, and then moves backward and forward through his career to give the proper context to Reality, 2013's The Next Day and finally, his final album, Black Star.
Read:
I finally started David Lynch's autobiography Room to Dream this past weekend. About 85 pages in, it's every bit the balm I knew it would be.
Actually a hybridization of bio/autobio, the book is a collaboration with writer Kristine McKenna. McKenna interviews an enormous cross-section of people from Lynch's life - she's talking to childhood friends in the first few chapters! So one chapter is her speaking to these folks, the next is Lynch reading and reacting, filling out what others have said about him. The technique is genius, in my opinion, and makes for marvelously joyous reading. But then, it's David Lynch - no artist I know of makes me happier.
Playlist:
Deafheaven - New Bermuda
M83 - Oceans Niagara (single)
Ministry - Animositisomina
G Love & Special Sauce - Yeah, It's That Easy
Frank Black - Live at the Utah Hotel Saloon
David Bowie - A Reality Tour
David Bowie - Nothing Has Changed
Lustmord - Hobart
Metallica - Kim 'Em All
Card:
Just a quick one from my trusty Thoth deck:
Off-the-cuff reading - "Applying Will to Wonder in order to learn and grow."
This gels. I'm poised at a position where I've done some deep reflection on my own ins and outs, motivations and hangups, and I find that I have a short attention span - I want to start and finish projects within a very brief time, or they give me anxiety, and I avoid them. The only place this is not true is in writing, although my mileage varies there, as well. Hence, I need to address this, and the one big elephant in my room that I am 100% aware of but avoid like the fucking plague is returning to Meditation. I really think applying my Will to restarting that practice will reap huge benefits, I just have to do it.
I love this song, and I love this version of this song.
Psyched:
Yellowjackets Season Two releases on my Birthday? Wow, thank You, Universe.
I won't be watching anything else leading up to this. I'm overjoyed to see Elijah Wood join the cast, especially spending time opposite Ricci's Misty.
Watch:
Well, I tried.
K and I went to our local theatre to see Kyle Edward Ball's Skinamarink last night. We made it about twenty minutes in and bailed; if I'd been by myself, I probably would have stayed just to see if what I interpreted as the gimmick of the film - constant static shots of the ceiling, childhood detritus on the floor, the upper right corner of an antiquated television, the upper right molding on a door, ever evolved. I'm pretty damn open-minded, and I tend to like and accept art on its own terms, but as I watched Skinamarink, I couldn't help dismissing the film as 'art school nonsense.' I'm not saying I'm correct; when we left, we didn't ask for our money back - I wouldn't take money out of the pocket of an indie creator, and I'm all for doing something different with Horror. I just don't think this concept can sustain a runtime of 100 minutes.
I also feel like, had I done some of the research on the film and on Ball in particular, I might have 'gotten' it more. I still wouldn't budge on the runtime being excessive, and the proof is, after reading this interview with Ball and then poking around on his youtube channel Bitesized Nightmares, I found the short film that served as a sort of Proof of Concept for Skinamarink. It works A LOT better as a thirty-minute short.
This is the goal of creators uploading content like Ball does to his channel, and I don't blame Ball for rolling with the opportunity. Watching a succession of these Bitesized Nightmare films, I'm definitely going to attempt to watch Skinamarink again when it hits Shudder. I'm also interested in seeing what he does from here on.
Playlist:
G. Love & Special Sauce - Yeah, It's That Easy
David Bowie - Outside
David Byrne & St. Vincent - Love This Giant
Marnie Stern - This Is It and I Am It and You Are it and So Is...
From the relatively recently released Tin Machine: Live at La Cigale, Paris, 25th June 1989. I never felt like Tin Machine's studio album captured their sound. Not that I ever saw them live, but I distinctly remember their 1991 appearance on SNL, where they performed Bowie's "Baby Universal" and what a little research now shows me was Roxy Music's "If There Is Something" (neither of which I was familiar with at the time, and there's no youtube clip of that second performance online).
It was that performance, to a 15-year-old stoner who had only the most fledgling radio understanding of David Bowie, that imprinted something on me that would be called upon later in life when I became a full-fledged fan. In fact, Tin Machine was all over Chicago's Loop 97.9 FM rock radio at the time (not sure what song), and I have a tiny memory of the disconnect between the kind of lackluster energy the track had compared to what I'd seen on SNL.
Years later, I picked up the group's 1989 eponymous record, and again, felt like something was missing. It's a serviceable record but just does not present the band the way I remembered them from that performance. Then, in 2019, this live album surfaced, and it's perfect.
Perfect.
Watch:
Here's a trailer for the new film from Christopher Smith:
Reminds me - I still need to watch TheBanishing, and Black Death has been on my unrequited radar forever; I love Triangle.
Playlist:
Talking Heads - Fear of Music
Brian Eno & David Byrne - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
David Byrne & Brian Eno - Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
David Bowie - Black Tie White Noise
David Bowie - The Next Day
Sunn O))) - Pyroclasts
Godflesh - PURE Live
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
My recent forays into emotional stability (via re-engagement with yogic discipline) will bolster a partnership and push me further away from the dogmatic thinking that can set in when a routine develops.
Routines are good and bad. I have definitely established one since moving across the country; however, recently I've become aware that the routine is too entrenched and would benefit greatly from a pattern interrupt. Based on this, earlier in the week I began practicing yoga again. This is something I've flit in and out of over the last twenty years. I use it until I don't need it anymore, move on and eventually come back. However long I stick this time, in just four days, the practice has worked wonders for my body and mind. I can feel things clearing up and my everyday life, absolutely a partnership with K, has become a lot lighter.
One of the things I initially told K concerned me about our plan to buy a house out in the country (relatively we're not on green acres or anything) was not letting it inadvertently become a prison. We left a lot of friends in L.A. The good news is my Chicago people are only 6.5 hours away, but that still leaves the day-to-day spent primarily in the house, where we both also work from home. So you see how quickly our retreat could become an agoraphobic processing center.
Maybe this is paranoid, but I'm always on the look out for what I call "Life Traps." People maneuver themselves into situations that look good when juxtaposed with their current circumstance, the good in which they've probably grown blind to due to repetition and routine, and they take steps without considering the long run. In our veritable frenzy to get out of LaLaLand, I became hyper aware of the possibility we might be jumping into just such a trap. The good news is, just being aware of this stuff usually helps to mitigate it.
But diligence is required.
Thus, I'm looking at shaking up the small routines in favor of creating a bigger picture. To quote Special Agent Dale Cooper:
"I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. And I've started to focus out beyond the edge of the board. On a bigger game."
Today's Pull definitely makes me feel as though I am moving in the right direction.
