Oh man! Mr. Brown steered me to this one the other day, and it's fucking EPIC. Reminds me how much I love this band. I need to get Hot! on vinyl like yesterday! Also, serves as a great reminder to pull out their Christmas album.
NCBD:
This week's pull list has some pretty exciting titles in it:
One name sums up my absolute excitement for this issue: BRUTICUS!!! I am a huge fan of the Combaticons, and seeing them dart in and out of the last few issues, I knew this couldn't be far away.
Loving Jeff Lemire's new series Minor Arcana so far, but then, I've really come to appreciate these books where he writes and does the art. His style is very distinct and very mature, i.e. he's been doing it long enough that it really feels 'complete.'
This is another new, limited Batman series. Here's the solicitation from League of Comic Book Geeks:
"Set during the early years of Batman's career, Batman: Dark Patterns delves into four mysterious cases as he attempts to cement his place as Gotham City's protector while the city itself fights back against him. This is the Dark Knight Detective at his most stripped-down core, a man relying on his wits, his skills, and little else as he tackles some of the most twisted mysteries Gotham City and its protector have ever encountered.
Case 01: We Are Wounded
A series of sickeningly gruesome murders has sent shock waves through Gotham. Are these the random works of a serial killer, or is there something more sinister at play? Batman attempts to get to the bottom of the mystery before any more victims are claimed."
Sounds pretty cool, eh? Definitely worth giving a shot, at the very least.
Watch:
Danny Boyle and Alex Garland's 28 Years Later got a trailer yesterday and there was no way I wasn't going to watch it, despite the fact that between now and the summer 2025 release date, I expect to be inundated with this trailer ad nauseam.
I'm a huge fan of the first two films in this series, and despite the usual disdain I hold for late-coming sequels, I'm pretty excited about this. It feels natural, not like a cash grab.
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Five of Swords
• Page of Pentacles
• XI: Justice
Good will comes from finding a truce, and finding the truce comes from recognizing the "Lunar Pull" - Read: obscured influences - on seemingly unconnected processes. I'm not really sure how this applies to my daily life at the moment, but as always, it's good to approach the day with this in mind and see what reveals itself.
I haven't listened to Thievery Corporation or, more importantly, The Mirror Conspiracy in a long time. I read an article a couple years ago that talked about how Rob Garza and Eric Hilton shouldn't be held responsible for the "Coffeehouse Chillwave" muzak that their style created. I don't know - maybe they can, maybe they can't. Doesn't matter to me. I can tell you that after discovering The Mirror Conspiracy back in 2000/2001, I quickly became obsessed. I waited anxiously for the 2002 follow-up The Richest Man in Babylon and then again for 2005's The Cosmic Game, which is when they officially jumped the shark for me. Looking back at Babylon (which is Apple Music's only "Essential Album" on the group's discography), I can't say I really care about that one, either. For me, The Mirror Conspiracy is "the work that transcends the genre," and plugging into it last night, I was happy to find it still carried the same weight. I was in desperately in need of something to mellow me out, and this did the trick and kind of recaptured my mind with that same fascination it did going on twenty-five years ago.
No small feat.
Watch:
I bought most of the Cohen Brothers' filmography on DVD during the '00s, and one film I could never find was 1994's The Hudsucker Proxy. I previously saw this film one time circa 1997, and after that, it just kind of hung around the outskirts of my Cohen list. During my aforementioned Cohen DVD purchasing expeditions, I never once saw this film on a store's shelf and would still swear I'd read it never made it to DVD, but a quick glance at the internet tells me that was either short-lived or erroneous. Either way, eventually, I resigned it to a kind of lost-to-the-aether list, what Mr. Brown referred to in a recent text as The Secret Cohen list. As hyperbolic as that might sound to some ("How could such big names in Hollywood have a cache of lost or secret films?"), this moniker instantly struck me as exactly right. Hudsucker, The Man Who Wasn't There, The Lady Killers, Crime Wave (which, like Hudsucker, the Cohens wrote with Sam Raimi, but in Crime Wave's case, Raimi directed)... yes, there is definitely a 'Secret' Cohen Brothers list. Now that I've established that, at least for my own purposes, let's get back to The Hudsucker Proxy because I hadn't seen this in twenty-seven years before Friday night when I saw it on the Criterion Channel.
We ended up watching Hudsucker Friday night and again on Saturday, this time with K's Mom and my folks after a family dinner. This film is just fantastic; seriously wondering if this might rank higher than Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing or The Big Lebowski. I mean, this film is dynamite.
Tim Robbins and Jennifer Jason Leigh smolder when they're not running rings around each other in dialogue, and Paul Newman chews the scenery in the best way possible. That voice! Never mind John Mahoney and Bruce Campbell pitching in to make this one of the the fastest dialogue sharks since Double Indemnity. And they even manage to throw in a literal Deus Ex Machina and a catwalk fight and not ruin the film.
Playlist:
Horrendous - Ontological Mysterium
Drug Church - Prude
Zeal and Ardor - GREIF
Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere
Turnstile - GLOW ON
Antibalas - Where the Gods Are In Peace
Black Pyramid - The Paths of Time Are Vast
Thievery Corporation - The Mirror Conspiracy
Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She
2019's Hidden History of the Human Race put Blood Incantation on a lot of people's radar, mine included. I dug the record, but probably not as much as the legions that ranked it as or near their album of the year. Since then, they'd fallen off, as I'm not even certain I knew they had a 2022 record (Timewave Zero; named after Terence and Dennis McKenna's theories of novelty and emergence, which I was once obsessed with). Recently, Mr. Brown mentioned these guys had a new one, so I sought out this year's Absolute Everywhere on Apple Music earlier today and gave it a listen. Then I went looking for a track to post and saw I had no actual idea how ambitious this band is. Holy shit. Tangerine Dream? Michael Ragen, DP for Panos Cosmatos' The Viewing? Knights? Space Ships? Cosmic Horror???
What the absolute fuck? There are moments on this album that are among the heaviest things I've heard, and moments that remind me of 90s electro-psychedlic group The Orb. Mind thoroughly blown.
Watch:
Holy smokes! Steven C. Miller's Werewolves hits theatres this weekend, and after seeing it Thursday night, K and I are both chomping at the bit to see it again! A LOT OF FUN!!
This movie 100% knows what it is, shortcomings and all, and just leans into it. There's a lot of macho shit in the opening few moments, which rubbed me a bit wrong at first. Then there's a scene where Grillo's character is introduced as a Micro Biologist, and I suddenly understood the M.O. here - Werewolves is essentially a Stallone flick from the mid-80s, and realizing that freed me to embrace it for the insane ride that it is. Once we move past the handful of transformations we see - remember the set up here is that a Super Moon is going to cause BILLIONS of people to become werewolves for one night - most of the FX are gloriously practical.
Playlist:
Final Light - Eponymous
Dance with the Dead - Dark Matter E.P.
Dance with the Dead - B Sides: Vol. 1
Drug Church - Prude
Sort Sol -w/ Chelsea Wolfe - Life Took You For A Freq. (single)
Sylvaine - Nova
Fen - Epoch
Ulver - Liminal Animals
Antibalas - Where the Gods Are in Peace
Moon Wizard - Sirens
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja
Windhand - Eponymous
Shellac - To All Trains
Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun
Sumerlands - Dream Killer
Card:
Today's card:
Here are two little bits from the Grimoire:
"Intense passion to create, but its children are monsters."
And the equally intriguing, if far more vague:
"The Darkness of the Raging Sea."
The second bit is an obvious observation from The Book of Thoth, truncated from Crowley's meaningful (less?) meanderings about the background of the card's image. To me, the "Seven-ness" of this card hits the lights first; completion. But this is a warning, and that's to "Understand the solutions" you employ to achieve that solution, as you may solve one issue and create something worse, hence the choppy waters.
I have no idea how to process the new Ulver record, Liminal Animals. The haunting atmospherics and Black Metal asides are gone in favor of... 80s keyboard lounge? What the absolute fuck? I played the entire record through with my jaw firmly agape, and then I hit track #6, "Hollywood Babylon," and thought, "this has to be a piss-take." But looking around online, I don't think it is.
Admittedly, there's a whole slew of Ulver's career I have no experience with, and reading around online a bit, Liminal Animals appears to be part of a long evolution. I made it all the way through the record, and while I still have trouble reconciling this being the same band that did
NCBD:
Small pull this week:
Once again, I seriously forgot about this book until seeing it pop up again. There have been a number of recent series that have kind of etched it into my brain that long-form is dead; the best books are those that get in and get out. Not to say the opposite isn't true, but when you take a book like The Walking Dead - possibly the last long-form series not Big Two I read and loved, it did not suffer from all the hiatus breaks. I really feel like that is killing some series for me. That said, I've hung in this long and enjoyed WTFPFH?, and I'm not going anywhere now.
Apparently I got in on this one right at the end; Issue Five is the last solicited for the time being. I never did find issues 1-3, so I can only judge by last month's issue 4. I dig Cruel Universe, but maybe not as much as I do Epitaphs From the Abyss.
Watch:
Noirvember may be over, but K and I have been so impressed with the selection on the Criterion Channel that I renewed the subscription, and we continued our Noir playlist with Otto Preminger's 1944 masterpiece Laura.
One of the main characters here is named Waldo Lydecker. If you're a Twin Peaks fan, you know my ears instantly perked up at this. Obviously, David Lynch and/or Mark Frost dig this film. Totally see why. What a fantastic Whodunit. There's a stubbornness to Dana Andrew's Detective Lt. Mark McPherson is extremely gratifying to witness as you go down the rabbit hole on this, ahem, "Who killed Laura" case. And for her own part, Gene Tierney's Laura is fantastic as the victim. Also, Vincent Price is almost unrecognizable as a kind of high-society infiltrating rube - his voice is the giveaway.
Playlist:
Black Pyramid - The Paths of Time are Vast
Melvins - Tarantula Heart
Shellac - To All Trains
Various - Learn to Relax! A Tribute to Jehu
The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
Venamoris & Dave Lombardo - Winter's Whisper (single)
Venamoris - Drown in Emotion
Ulver - Liminal Animals
Dreamkid - Eponymous
Card:
Today's card for study is the Prince of Disks.
I don't have much in the ol' Grimoire for this one, and what I do have doesn't exactly add up. Let's look at what Crowley has to say... okay, that's a bit of astrological gobbledegook, too. Let me see if I can parse some of this down.
To start, both my own notes and A.C.'s start with "The Airy aspect of Earth." Okay, now my notes are becoming a little clearer; as I'd written, "Swords (Air) for pragmatism can be a bit of a cunt for matters pertaining to money and stability."
I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that I asked an intercontinental moving company for a Clarksville to Melbourne, Australia quote yesterday...
Consulting another text I sometimes use to interpret Thoth, Hajo Banzhaf and Brigitte Theler's Keywords for the Crowley Tarot, I see references to cycles, and that immediately makes sense; this card reminds us that we go through our micro versions of the planet's macro Seasons. The Bull is fertility and power. Cycles don't imply stability, and that gels with my comment above. The important thing here is to realize this card is a pinion card; it works best read in a chronology with other cards.
I have to preface the following piece by saying up front, there is no way to properly quantify how much I revile The Smashing Pumpkins and, specifically, the man at the heart of the group. I don't want to be unnecessarily mean to anyone, not even some "rock star" I don't personally know, but if I'm going to discuss them in any kind of positive light, my "hate disclaimer" needs to come first. My feelings are strong enough that I would never want to be mistaken for a fan. Why? Because everything the band has done since Siamese Dream is literal anathema to me. So much so that I stopped paying any kind of attention to them over a decade ago but their continued existence still pisses me right the fuck off!
Over the weekend, K and I drove to Dayton, Ohio to visit her Grandmother. As has become our habit on road trips, we fired up Yacy Salek's Podcast Bandsplain. Scrolling the list of episodes, we eventually chose the two-part Smashing Pumpkins deep-dive.
I know very little about the Pumpkins post-Meloncollie (sorry billy, not spelling it your way), and what little I gleaned about that magnum stain upon release has long since been recorded over in my memory banks. Because of this, I figured the episode would be equally enlightening, justifying and, of course, hysterical. Salek has already demonstrated her own penchant for taking corgan with a grain of salt on the Soundgarden deep-dive we listened to last month, so I figured, let's hear what someone who likes the music but not necessarily the artist thinks.
Upon finishing the first installment, K and I drove around Dayton listening to Siamese Dream, and something clicked. I realized that, for all intents and purposes, the corgan who wrote Siamese Dream (and Gish) left this existence in 1994 and was replaced by some kind of doppelgänger cooked up in a corporate lab. This idea felt like a new approach to settle the cognitive dissonance I've had about embracing this record again after all this time.
When Siamese Dream hit record stores in 1993, it immediately became one of my favorite albums of all time. I cannot stress how much this album colored my final year in High School. The music was perfect for a burgeoning stoner and his high school stoner sweetheart; my black-clad girlfriend and I listened to it obsessively, interwoven betwixt all the Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer we thrived on at the time. It's big, fuzzy sonic boom and soft, lilting aquatic passages marked our days and nights and quickly became interwoven in my memories. The song "Disarm," in particular, hit at a time when a friend was arrested and eventually convicted of murdering a younger girl in our group. While "Disarm" has since become emotionally ubiquitous for the general population, its effect will likely always remain strong for me. I have such a strong emotional association between it and the horror and frustration I felt at that time. Hearing it now conjures a balm from thirty years ago. At a time when my life and understanding of the world was crumbling around me, this band seemed to have some kind of parallel. That felt like everything.
That said, I'm choosing to post the track "Hummer" today because, as Salek points out during her episode, this track is often overlooked. In fact, listening to this masterpiece again with fresh ears, I'd say it might just be the best - or at least my favorite - song on the record.
Playing this record several times over the weekend - and in fact, even now while I type this - I'm shocked at how much I love it. A lot of my life as a music fan has involved figuring out ways to continue relationships with music made by artists who eventually reveal themselves to be cunts. There is no better example than The Smashing Pumpkins. There is zero chance I'll ever connect with anything after this album (see what I did there?), but I'm taking this one back (However, I have said that before).
Watch:
Let's lighten the mood. You know, there was a lot of talk about the Netflix Menendez Brothers movie this year. Tabloid true crime isn't my jam, but for my money, there's only one movie about that particular case:
I laughed so hard I cried. This Letterman YouTube channel is one of my favorite finds of the year. I'm not very YouTube savvy, so every time I see a video like this, I try to remind myself that, at this point the streaming giant is essentially our social memory of the last forty or fifty years. Everything is on it.
Read:
Over the extended weekend, I had my first chance to really sit down and read in a while, so I was finally able to finish IvyTholen's Mother Dear. The fact that this is the second novel Ivy has published this year makes me think she's something of a superhero, as Mother Dear is just as tightly paced and joyously readable as her other novels. The characters were extremely well designed, but by their nature, anathema to me; however, that didn't keep me from rocketing through this one once I got a few hours to actually focus on it again.
Next up is Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger:
This is not the edition I'm reading. However, this is one of the illustrations from inside the book, and I LOVE it so much that I couldn't pass up using it to represent this nefarious novella. The Mysterious Stranger begins in Austria during the winter of 1590 and is narrated by one of three boys who begin a casual friendship with an Angel named Satan. Now, never mind that the Angel tells them he is not THE Satan, the boys find themselves swooning for this charming being who hands out money and favors like it's nothing at all. Satan also talks down about the Human Race every chance he gets (can't really blame him, even all these years later). At the heart of the boys' education and the Stranger's criticisms is The Moral Sense, Humanity's inbourne conceit that they can determine what is right and what is wrong (not between what is right and what is wrong). The way Twain writes the characters and scenarios is subtle enough to completely belie the fact that there are some absolutely horrifying ideas here. At one point, the narrator touches on the recent spate of Witch burnings, including an incident where eleven children were burned. It's bafflingly scary and definitely deserves way more recognition as a work of Literate Horror Fiction than it gets.
Playlist:
Spoon - They Want My Soul
Marilyn Manson - One Assassination Under God, Chapter 1
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Page of Wands
• Six of Wands
• Seven of Wands
That's a lot of Wands. So what is this trying to tell me as I come off a long weekend and a small road trip? Wands are all about WILL, so I instantly read this as an instruction to knuckle back down, apply the will and finish the book. I am SO close now; on the final Grammarly edit, but only about 40% of the way through reading it out loud to K. After that, I'll send it to my trusted Beta Reader, wait to hear back and make any changes she suggests that will help the overall book. But I am extremely happy so far, and have considered shopping this around to publishers. We'll see.
If you've seen Jeremy Gardner's film The Battery - which I've watched twice in the last four days - you know this song.
Check out Rock Plaza Central's Bandcamp HERE. Watch The Battery wherever you fucking can. Instantly in my top six zombie flicks of all time.
NCBD:
Way behind on posting these - I started writing this Wednesday, but finishing it became arduous at best with the Holiday and our travels.
This week's Pull list is from Rick's Comic City, which I won't actually be picking up until next week due to choosing writing over a trip to the shop last night and heading out to Dayton on Friday.
Four in and so far, I'm super happy I didn't jump ship on the new series. Jason Aaron found an elegant solution to hitting 'reset' for new readers without jettisoning the 12 years of continuity and world-building that prefaces this new era. Really digging how all four brothers are scattered to the wind - reminds me a bit of the old Claremont, "Dissolution and Rebirth" era of Uncanny X-Men.
The final issue. I can't wait to sit down and re-read this start to finish. Fucking love Michael Walsh.
Hot Rod! What more do you need to get pumped for this 14th issue of Robert Kirkman's Void Rivals?
Watch:
Really hoping this pops up in my local theatre next week. I've only watched the first minute or so of the trailer, and although I love a good werewolf movie, they seem to be few and far between. This, though, the idea of a werewolf plague brought on by a super moon... that sounds fucking awesome!
Plus, Frank Grillo doesn't get nearly enough screen time, so I am in on Werewolves.
Playlist:
Sumerland - Dreamkiller
Marilyn Manson - One Assassination Under God Chapter 1
Deafheaven - Sunbather
Horrendous - Ontological Mysterium
Antibalas - Where The Gods Are In Peace
Spoon - They Want My Soul
Drab Majesty - Careless
The Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen
Boris & Merzbow - 2R0I2P0
Opeth - Deliverance
Sunn O))) - Life Metal
Deafheaven - Ten Years Gone
Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon
Black Pyramid - The Paths of Time are Vast
Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous
Crystal Castles - II
Ministry - Animositisomina
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Ace of Pentacles
• IV: The Lovers
• Four of Cups
This pull reflects Stability and union, and I've got to say, it's timely. Starting a week or so ago, I've had the best sleep I've had in years. No kidding; I'm waking up in the morning feeling like I used to wake up when I was younger - all groggy and sleep-infused like I'm actually getting deep, regenerative sleep. That hasn't happened in a long time. I've become a light sleeper, and even on days when my Fitbit tells me my sleep qualifies as "Good," I usually still don't feel like this. Lately, however, things feel more even. I don't know how in the hell that's possible with the world where it is - this country specifically - but I'm not going to argue.
Continuing the Noir theme for November, I can't think of a more Noir track than Barry Adamson's The Big Bamboozle, from 1993's Oedipus Schmoedipus.
Watch:
I continued Noirvember this past weekend with a handful of first-time watches. First up, Fritz Lang's 1953 The Big Heat.
This one knocked my socks off. Glen Ford is absolutely fantastic in the role of Sgt. Dave Bannion and a young Lee Marvin chew up the scenery and spit it out on your shoes, man! Everyone here is a hard case, and it works because they all really inhabit that space and energy. Some of the violence shocked me a bit for '53, and overall, there's just such a nihilistic tone that the black-and-white cinematography feels etched into the screen as it moves. I'll definitely be adding this to the collection at some point, although, having watched this on the Criterion Channel, I would have assumed they put out a BR. That does not seem to be the case.
Next up, one I've heard about forever. Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour, from 1945.
Once nearly lost, Detour is considered an important film by the historical archives. Tom Neal plays Al Roberts, a frustrated nightclub piano man whose girlfriend leaves him in NYC for dreams of stardom in Hollywood. Eventually, Al decides to follow by hitchhiking across the states. He makes it as far as Arizona, then ends up embroiled in a pretty dicey situation he can't help but make worse with every decision he makes. Constantly giving him more slack for the noose is Ann Savage as the enigmatic Vera. Damn folks, this dame is merciless!
The chemistry here is fantastic, and at one hour and six minutes, Detour is a short film and thus made a great second film in a Friday night double feature.
Read:
Now that I have acquired all three issues of DC's Black Label The Bat-Man: First Knight, I finally read the entire storyline in a single sitting over the weekend. Perfect for Norvember!
Writer Dan Jurgens really thought out and researched what a Batman story set in 1939 would look like. The overall story centers around a mysterious ring leader known only as The Voice. From the shadowy comfort of closed quarters, The Voice is conducting a series of hits on city officials - Councilmen, the Mayor, even the Police Commissioner. The perpetrators seem more than human, and people are scared.
In the background, helping to ramp up the tension is the world of 1939. The world is still reeling from the first "Great War." Uncertainty is everywhere, and to make matters worse, the cunt with the funny mustache is threatening the Jewish people of Europe. America sits on her hands, wishing against the inevitable. Hate spreads quickly, though, and travels on the wind. Hate crimes are on the rise in Gotham, and people are scared and frustrated. Sounds like a proper powder keg, eh?
Jurgens does some really interesting things with The Bat-Man's supporting cast - Bruce is new to this and none of the confidants we're used to are anywhere to be found. Well, except Gordon. Tried and true, that man.
As you can see, I ended up with a cross-section of the different covers available, but that's fine by me. Each gives a different aspect of the tone series artist Mike Perkins has created here - with no small contribution from colorist Mike Spicer. This book really conveys the era - from the shop signs that line the streets of Gothamn, to the filth that clings to the buildings, shanty towns and alleys, First Knight really puts you there.
Playlist:
Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire
Godflesh - Us and Them
Godflesh - Songs of Love and Hate
Raffertie - The Substance OST
Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon
Genghis Tron - Board Up the House
Sumerlands - Dreamkiller
Justin Hamline - The House with Dead Leaves
Godflesh - Post Self
Marilyn Manson - One Assassination Under God Chapter 1
Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar
Fvnerals - Let the Earth Be Silent
The Soft Moon - Criminal
Crystal Castles - II
Drug Church - Prude
Fugazi - Steady Diet of Nothing
Fela Kuti - Sorrow Tears and Blood
Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery
Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja
Card:
Today's card is the Five of Cups, or as Crowley dubbed it, "Disappointment."
An important note from my notes on this card: "Examine your expectations." I believe this is the root of the card for me. I can and will go into a little bit of whatever A.C. has in The Book of Thoth, but the older I get, a lot of the "in-depth" elements of association with Tarot feels... cunty. Or to quote Mr. David Byrne, "When I've got nothing (else) to say, my lips are sealed." I increasingly get the feeling that Crowley would have talked for days about any card in the deck if allowed, which means a lot of what he'd have to say would be, ahem, bullshit double talk. But then, the man sold his own semen as a "Health Elixir," so of course that's what he'd do.
The root of this card isn't the disappointment; it's understanding disappointment as at least partially the disappointed one. Five's are Geburah, severity. These are demanding cards (which makes me wonder if the card is the one that's disappointed; is drawing it a scolding?).
Surprisingly, Crowley must, at least in part, agree that this is a simple card. Severity indicates simplicity, in a manner, so that tracks.
Like in Trump 12, The Hanged Man, we once again see the inverted Pentagram, the triumph of Matter over Spirit. That's a disappointment.
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