From the Grimoire: "Indicates you are in charge of the way your life is unfolding. Striking the harmonic resonance that sees events occur as we would like them to. Planning - Thoughtfullness - Mojo." - Spot on, as I've been giddy all morning thinking about the fact that I just finished writing a 75k novel (it's expanding a bit as I edit each chapter once more in Grammarly) in 7 months (6 when you figure I had about 1 month off for our move). I feel like everything is going exactly according to the plan I have set up. And that's a damn good feeling.
Heard this in-between songs on my headphones yesterday while writing in my CBTL. How often do you find music you want to immediately download and listen to in a public place? Not very fucking often, that's for sure. But there are exceptions to every rule:
Playlist from 6/23/18:
NIN - Bad Witch
Beach House - 7
Preoccupations - New Material
Barrie - Canyons (Single)
Ice Age - Beyondless
Underworld - Beacoup Fish
New NIN dropped yesterday. I haven't listened to anything on it other than that God Break Down The Door song, which I quite liked for all its Bowie-ness. Figured I'd post it hear - I'll probably get to it later today, but I'd be curious to see comments about what anyone reading this who listens to it thinks. Trent remains an interest of mine, even if his lyrical persona and the subsequent 'Reznorisms" sometimes - sometimes - leads me to sigh.
BIG week at the Comic shop this week. NCBD is always a joy, but this week I had new Deadly Class, new TMNT, second issue of Garth Ennis's A Walk Through Hell (which was freakin' awesome!), the new Black Science, finally got the second issue of sold out Tinsel Town by David Lucarelli, Calexit #3, and new Gideon Falls and Days of Hate, probably my two favorite books right now (besides TWD, Deadly Class and Stray Bullets, which rule without me having to say so). Both Gideon Falls and Days of Hate are really starting to ratchet up, so it kills me a bit to see Days is on hiatus until August, but what's two months in the grand scheme? Also, a little love should be extended for IDW's TMNT - it is such a fantastic on-going redesign of a property I've loved since it helped kick off the 80s B&W Explosion. Issue 83 was a fantastic tale, juggling multiple storylines and character arcs in as deft a fashion as ever (this book has just gotten better and better at doing that). The Pantheon is a great addition to the cast, especially as it's super clear they are VERY influenced by Neil Gaiman's The Endless, from the Sandman books.
As I believe I mentioned earlier this month, I went in on a monthly Shudder sub and, although I haven't explored it fully yet, it's really a great subscription. Last time I brought this up I believe I mentioned Interior. I'll add Follow Me to the list now, another superb thriller that I thought unfolded beautifully from one of the best 'inciting incidents' I've seen in a while. Girlfriend gives her boyfriend a handgun for Christmas, asks him to put it in his mouth and pull the trigger if he trusts her.
And I'll just leave you with that... and yeah, it's a Christmas movie. In a sense.
Note: I used the Spanish Movie Poster here, because I like this one the best, but the film is not a Spanish-language film. Just in case anyone reading has an aversion to subs. I do not, but I know some people do.
Playlist from 6/22:
Radiohead - Kid A
Servotron - Meet Your Mechanical Masters
Slim day on the music. Crazy work day and a humungous nap afterward.
Card for today:
From the Grimoire (which I suspect by its tone was cribbed from Crowley): "The first step from the perfection of one divides it into two.
Jesus. Friday, just in the nick O' time, eh? Here's a little Tom Vek to wake us up:
I've been having trouble sleeping, and when I wake up I feel - as I do now - as though my spirit was too far away from my body. Discombobulation. Whatever the case, it's making everything in my AM a chore. Also, waking up stupid has made me repeatedly unable to get my shit together long enough to do a pull with my beloved Thoth deck. That means I've been relying on my pocket-sized back-up deck, The Hanson-Roberts, more heavily than I would like. Nothing inherently wrong with the H-R deck, I just very much prefer the esoteric elegance of Lady Freida Harris' art over the H-R's, which is so 'classic tarot' that it's hard to hate but also a bit trite, if you ask me.
Playlist from 6/21:
David Bowie - Reality
Van Halen - Eponymous (Not the singles)
Tom Vek - Luck
Savages - Silence Yourself
The Rolling Stones - Let it Bleed
Revocation - Teratogenesis EP
Wrong - Feel Great
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Card of the day:
Wealth, as in a comfortable surplus of Earthly attributes. Also, the implication that we have directed our energies positively in order to get here. Sounds like a good omen to me as I crest into writing the final chapter of the T12 book.
There is a melancholic air to this song that absolutely floors me. I love it SO much. Corniglia is a band that I happened across on LA's music treasure, KXLU, one morning on the drive to work, and in the two or three weeks since I just cannot stop listening to them. The album, self-titled, is easily in my top of the year. One of the things I like so much about this is, in some strange way, it reminds me of the vibe I had in my head in the early 2000s - a kind of delicious airiness that translated to a gray hopelessness as I graduated College: the future loomed before me, I buried a friend, and I felt more alone than ever. The new Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up HEREand while it would seem to glorify a somewhat frightening moment in my life, it actually very much illustrates the loneliness I felt at that time. 2001-2002 was dark, and although I had an awesome band (The Yellow House) and awesome friends (particularly at that time Brown, Tim, Sonny, Grez, Dennis and Dave), I was somewhat adrift on a mindset so bleak that it spurred me into frequent drug use and several bouts of totally vapid sex, both very much unlike me. And some how, I hear elements of that hear.
I'm digressing, or maybe I'm not.
My point is that music is the same as all art in that, to modify a famous saying, the beholder gets out of it what they put in. That is to say, there is often baggage you bring with you when hearing a new band, new song, new album, and that baggage - snippets of color or image associations, emotions, whatever form it takes - shapes how you hear that music and, ultimately, what it will mean to you. What's even more interesting is your interpretation could be light years away from what was happening in the artist's head at the time - it doesn't matter. Having also made music and talked to people who got something out of it that I had never anticipated or intended, I can tell you that just the idea that something you made could have such a multi-textural effect on another soul is rewarding beyond description. So, while Corniglia may not have intended the melancholy associations I ascribe to their sound, I'm sure they won't mind if there music drives me to stay awake long past when I should have my head down, trying to capture in words something they have made me feel with their song.
Playlist from Odin's Day, 6/20/18:
Danzig 6: Satan's Child
David Bowie - Hunky Dory
David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Freaks)
David Bowie - Reality
Nothing - Downward Years to Come
Various Artists - Reservoir Dogs OST
Corniglia - Eponymous
Card O' the day:
The Lovers again, and how it currently applies to my life is still escaping me. I need to make time to look further into this. Perhaps I will ask Missi.
I've been listening to the Lost Highway OST a lot again lately - it's never far from my ears - and I realized I don't think I've ever posted this track here blog before. Apple of Sodom, as well as Manson's cover of I Put A Spell On You, were the tracks that made me a fan of his. Previous to that, I actually disliked him quite a bit. The problem was, in the mid-90s when he first got huge, depending on what interview you caught with Manson, he might come off like a complete tool. Those were the interviews I saw initially, including one at Woodstock '94, which was right around the time Jeffrey Dahmer was killed in prison. During an interview with Empty-V, Riki Rachtman asked Manson if he felt sadness at Dahmer's passing and Manson went on some asinine diatribe about how a he felt a little piece of him had indeed died with the imprisoned serial killer. Now of course, I realize that Manson was probably fucking with the moronic VJ, while at the same time playing up the stupid image much of his fanbase at the time ascribed to him (the guy singing about worshipping no one but yourself liked to fuck with those who worshipped him). Whatever the motivation, as an early encounter with his persona, I rejected it. It wasn't until the Lost Highway OST that Manson's music music begin to seduce me, and dovetailing with that, a friend lent me his Autobiography, which fully revealed just how smart this guy was. Finally, a rebuttal Manson penned in Rolling Stone magazine post-Columbine, after being blamed as a catalyst for the event, was so well written and thought provoking, I plunged headfirst into his music. I really can only lay the 'genius' tag on two MM records - Antichrist Superstar and Mechanical Animals, but the man is an icon and a really good motivator for self empowerment if you listen to the lyrics. A couple of years ago I recall finding a lot of strength in Superstar while my life was imploding around me and the person I had trusted the most repeatedly stabbed me in the back. I remember her commenting on me listening to Superstar a lot at the time, as if she felt threatened by it. She was right to feel threatened - it helped me stay afloat in one of the most tumultuous times of my life.
Playlist from 6/19:
Danzig 1
Belong - Common Era
Nothing - Zero Day (single)
Nothing - Downward Years to Come
Christopher Young - Hellraiser OST
Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar
Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
Various Artists - Lost Highway OST
Watched Evil Dead (2013) for about the fifth time last night, as K had never seen it. SO fucking good. Please Mr. Alvarez, make that sequel!!!
Playlist from 6/18:
Chasms - On the Legs of Love Purified
Wrong - Fee Great
Cocksure - TVMALSV
Beach House - 7
Nothing - Zero Day (single)
Them are Us Too -
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
Card today:
The Emotional Aspect of Air. Wielding the Will with emotional maturity. Knowing when to back off and when to be assertive.
