Circa its release in 2002, Mr. Brown gifted me a copy of Julee Cruise's The Art of Being a Girl. This is Cruise's third album and her first since 1993's second collaboration with Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch, The Voice of Love. The sound of this one is all over the place in the best possible way, and I would argue slots in perfectly with that early 00s 'electronica' sound that eventually became ubiquitous. The light, almost mystical sound of this particular track always takes me places, in keeping with all of Cruise's previous work. What we see here and in the subsequent album My Secret Life, her 2011 collaboration with former Dee-Lite DJ Dimitry is an artist who is never content having one sound. Cruise knew her strengths, and she knew how to suss out the best partners to help that sound evolve.
Play:
I'm still playing The Game Kitchen's Blasphemy, and I've made a vow not to buy any new games until I finish it. I don't have a hell of a lot of time for games, but Blasphemy is addictive enough that, considering it's the first video game I've played in probably close to 30 years, I do find myself enmeshed when I pick it up. Because of this, I'm close. Close enough to figure that by the time Rose-Engine's Signals hits Switch on October 27th, I should be ready to embark on its gorgeously horrific journey, made evident with this trailer:
Thanks to Bloody Disgusting for introducing me to this one, as I'd not heard of it before. You can read their article HERE.
Watch:
I re-watched Summer of 84 last night for the third time, and I have to say, especially with this viewing following Stranger Things' amazing fourth season (part 1), I love this film even more. HERE is a link to the brief Letterbxd review I did last night that kind of sums up my feeling about the film, and in case you're unfamiliar, here's the trailer:
Afterward, K and I threw on Shudder TV and stumbled into Peter Carter's Rituals, a film I've been wanting to watch since just before it hit Shudder. Again, you can read my brief review HERE.
Very solid film, and as I say in the review, I'll need another viewing to fully 'get' it.
Playlist:
King Dude and Julee Cruise - Sing Each Other's Songs For You
M83 - Saturdays = Youth
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Various - Twin Peaks (Music from the Limited Event Series)
Brand New - Science Fiction
Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery
Darkness Brings the Cold - Devil Swank, Vol. 1
Metallica - Ride the Lightning
Blut Aus Nord - Dismarmonium: Undreamable Abysses
Card:
Page of Cups again, eh? Interesting that, in only three recorded readings so far with this deck, two of them are the same. I take this to mean that I really didn't pay close enough attention the first time I drew this card, two days ago. I'll also admit at this point that, since I am solely used to using the Crowley/Harris Thoth deck, I am not used to having Pages as part of the Court Cards.
Crowley famously reinterpreted quite a few aspects of the traditional Tarot for his deck. We can sum up his Court Cards as such:
Being that Grimm's Bound Tarot utilizes the traditional paradigm, I have not yet developed that ease with which my mind should read the Page as Princess, but in today's reading, I may have received such a solid example of interpretation factoring immediately into real life, that hopefully, the lesson will persevere.
From the grimoire:
The Earthy aspect of Water; Dreams can become Reality.
I literally woke up this morning after dreaming about officiating my Sister's wedding in less than a week and found my brain immediately transcribing the dream into what has now, several hours later, become the foundation for my speech. So I literally turned my dream into Reality. I'm assuming my first pull of this card the other day was the first indication - amidst my mounting anxiety at not having started the speech - that I needed to listen to the dreams of the event I've been having. I did not heed the first instruction, so the cards gave me the same recommendation a second time.
You can buy a set of these amazing cards on Grimm's site HERE.
From the Split Single Sing Each Other's Songs for You, on which King Dude does a very sedate but ultimately charming version Rockin' Back Inside My Heart.
Watch:
Continuing on that Netflix Trailer dump from a few days ago:
"From the creators of Dark." That's all I needed to know to get excited about 1899, which I feel like I've been waiting on for a really long time.
Read:
One of the things I've been meaning to do for a couple years now is to begin re-reading Wrapped in Plastic magazine. This was a Twin Peaks/David Lynch-focused magazine published from roughly 1992 to 2005 by Craig Miller and John Thorne. In the wake of Julee Cruise's death, I decided to pull out issue 61, which has Cruise on the cover and chronicles the 2002 Twin Peaks Fest, which she attended as a guest.
In doing this, I realized that the first issue Cruise appeared in, October 1993's issue 7, was one of the early issues that came out before I knew about the magazine. My collection runs issue 16 through the final issue, June 2005's issue 75, with a reprint of issue #1. I never made it around to filling in those gaps, and obviously, with Cruise's death, the going eBay price is, for the moment, astronomical. That said, issue 7 has a gorgeous cover, and I wanted to post it here:
Wrapped in Plastic was a HUGE part of my life for about ten or eleven years, and I flip through the issues often, however, I haven't really read one in ages.
Playlist:
Julee Cruise - Falling
Julee Cruise - The Voice of Love
Julee Cruise - The Art of Being a Girl
Kate Bush - The Dreaming
Ghost - Impera
Battle Tapes - Sweatshop Boys EP
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Mike Doughty - Live At Ken's House
Card:
Dipping once again in Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot for today's reading:
My general definition of the Four of Swords is based on Crowley and Freida Harris' Thoth, which subtitles the card as Truce. That said, I've decided I am not going to look at the Bound Tarot in the 'learned tradition of tarot, but in a more personal interpretation.
Decisions that hang heavy over your head: this card evokes a tough decision that will open the door for indecision to immobilize you. I'm not sure if this has to do with something coming up at work, or our impending trip to Tennessee in about a week's time, when we will begin looking for our new home. Our pre-approval came back as a win yesterday, so with that out of the way, we really just have to get there and try and find something. By the looks of what we're seeing online, our new focus in Clarksville may mean we have to decide between several places, all of which seem fantastic. I can see how that would be a crippling decision.
(Obviously, most if not all of the homes we're seeing now as available on our Real Estate Agent's portal are going to be under contract before we get there, however, what we are seeing is an indication that there are a lot of places that will tug at our heart strings.)
You can buy a set of these amazing cards on Grimm's site HERE.
Talk about bad news to wake up to. Julee Cruise's voice and visage has been a part of my inner world ever since the night Twin Peaks Season Two Episode 14 aired; losing her to suicide at 65 feels a bit like a seismic shifting of my personal history's plates. The old world is definitely slipping away. In keeping with my recent M.O., thus beginneth Julee Cruise week.
Watch:
Amidst a lot of discussion about the "Whole Season at Once" business model beginning to fail (see the cancellation of Archive 81), Netflix dropped a handful of great trailers the other day, as if to remind us of their potency.
We'll see. However, any reservations I have about their adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Sandman - arguably one of the greatest comics of ALL TIME, this trailer has me salivating for August:
Wow. I mean... I am almost speechless. Here's to hoping it's as good as it looks; Locke and Key looked pretty good when the first trailer dropped, as well, but I quickly forgot everything about Season One due to a lot of the changes and found myself thinking I should just re-read the series the next time I want to visit Lovecraft (not bloody Matheson!).
Read:
This past Wednesday, Zeb Wells and John Romita, Jr.'s Amazing Spider-Man #3 hit the stands. This is Legacy issue #897. I've Liked this series so far, but this issue... Jesus. This is the best Spider-Man comic I've read in... well, a long time.
There's a visceral pulse to this one that I definitely did not expect; watching Tombstone - a character I've loved since his introduction back in the 80s, circa Peter Parker The Spectacular Spider-Man issue #139 - beat the living daylights out of a defenseless Spider-Man really affected me, as did his childhood origin. I was really only planning to read this book until #900, but if Wells keeps this up, I'm not going anywhere.
Playlist:
Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust
Mike Doughty - Live at Ken's House
Kate Bush - The Dreaming
Windhand - Split EP
Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror
Orville Peck - Pony
Pixies - There's a Moon On (pre-release single)
Kensonlovers - Keep Rolling (single)
Grand Duchy - Petite Fours
Card:
A nice warning about the gathering slothfulness I've been so afraid of for a while now. I'm not writing enough. I need to remedy that.
Pistols wise, I loved Danny Boyle's Pistol. I've watched every doc I know of, read and re-read Noel Monk's tour biography 12 Days on the Road (can't recommend that one enough), but none of that prevents me from adoring Boyle's spin. K and I even teared up at the end, and not for the reasons you'd think.
Watch:
I had not even heard of this film, but it looks fantastic.
Charlotte Colbert's first full-length film comes to us as a "Dario Argento Presents," and from the visuals, I can see why he would be involved. A lush, Gothic aesthetic with a British sentiment.
NCBD:
A decidedly light NCBD. Thankfully.
I've decided I'm continuing with this new iteration of ASM at least until the legacy issue #900 hits in a month or two. After that, we'll see. So far though, this has been a pretty great title.
That Texas Blood returns with the start of it's third story arc. If it's even half as good as the previous one, well, look at that cover. How could it not be?
The cover says it all - a Hulkified God of Thunder! Banner of War has proven a super fun, big-swings story and I'm hoping that as it comes in for a landing, it just gets crazier.
Playlist:
Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks...
Bauhaus - In the Flat Field
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife
Tin Machine - Live at La Cigale, Paris, June 25th, 1989
This past Friday on The Last Drive-In, Joe Bob Briggs and Darcy the Mailgirl hosted Hellbender, the sixth movie by the prolific and endlessly fascinating indie filmmaking Adams/Poser family.
During the interview segments of the broadcast, the family revealed that not only is H6llb6nd6r an actual band they play in, but Ship to Shore media are releasing their debut record on vinyl.
I immediately pre-ordered the vinyl, despite an estimated ship date of Q4 2022 and the fact that, hopefully, by that time I will no longer live at my current address or even in California. Because of this, I used my parents' address in Illinois. However, there is the very real possibility they may also end up near us in Tennessee, so I'm hoping that, when all this finally happens, I will have enough time to go into the order and change the shipping address.
You can pre-order H6llb6nd6r's Side A from Ship to Shore Media HERE. The entire record is currently streaming on all platforms, and it's fantastic.
Cast:
A new episode of Southside 90s dropped concurrently with the newest installment of my Newsletter, which appropriately enough features a "Giant-sized" 90s playlist that chronicles all of the bands and albums I associate with those long-ago days spent playing in bands and smoking pot, getting crazy and watching friends build flamethrowers out of fire extinguishers. Sound insane? Yeah, it kinda was.
The stories are only going to get weirder from here out, so if you're listening, buckle up.
Watch:
My good friend and Horror Vision cohost Ray kicked off his summer outdoor movie series Cineray this past Saturday with one of the coolest double features I've seen in a while. First up, my first-ever viewing of Tango and Cash:
Next, and I had no idea this movie existed, was John Stamos and Vanity in an all-out 80s action movie called Never Too Young To Die. Feat your eyes on this glory:
Yeah, it's ridiculous, and maybe it was the tall cans of Stone's Hazy IPA I was sucking down, but it really hit the spot.
Playlist:
H6LLB6ND6R - Side A
Various - Lost Highway OST
David Bowie - A Reality Tour
Duende and David J - Oracle of the Horizontal
Deftones - Gore
Deftones - Diamond Eyes
Card:
I was SUPER excited to receive my copy of The Bound Tarot, which my friend and occasional co-conspirator Jonathan Grimm recently released. I'm extremely proud of Grimm - I watched him work on this deck over the last year and his skill never ceases to amaze me.
You can buy a set of these amazing cards on Grimm's site HERE.
Page of Cups indicates a predilection for following your Creativity, which, as of yesterday, is where I'm at again after weeks of spinning my wheels.
I'd be willing to wager there's another post on this page from about four years ago with the same title. I remember discovering David J's stunning tribute to David Bowie about as vividly as I remember receiving the text that told me of the Alien's passing. This is the perfect ode - sorrow at a passing lined the bittersweet memories of what that person meant.
Watch:
With only one-and-a-half episodes of the six-episode run, I can honestly say that despite the conundrum of seeing thumbnail advertisements for Danny Boyle's Pistol with a Disney+ watermark - because I'm assuming since Disney owns HULU and Pistol is a HULU original their network will distribute it in some foreign territories - I'm having A LOT of fun with this one.
This is very much Steve Jones' story, so I thought it only prudent to juxtapose my endorsement with John Lydon's rebuttal to the show. Because, you know, there is always creative license.
I'm always going to believe John over everyone else involved, however, the story is one that mesmerizes and recharges me enough that I'll listen to everyone's version of it.
I surprised myself in the weeks since Ghost Rider #2 - I would say this may be my most anticipated book now, below of course Immortal X-Men. I definitely detected some Clive Barker influence in the second issue of old flame head's new series, and that was enough to make me want more. Think about it - why not apply a Barker-esque Horror vibe to this title/character?
See, you couldn't come up with anything there, could you? So here's to hoping the book delivers (that monster truck cover isn't doing the series any favors, but hopefully that's all it is - a cover).
I was on the fence with Little Monsters simply because I'm trying - totally unsuccessfully, I might add - to limit what I buy until I move. But the first two issues got me to come back for three, and the first page of three dropped my jaw, so I'm in.
After my recent re-read of issues 1-8 of James Tynion IV's The Nice House on the Lake, I've been waiting for issue 9 with a lot more anticipation. Such a great character study of people at the end of the world. If, that's what this actually is, which is in question at the moment.
Maybe it was just momentum from Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, but I loved issues 1 and 2, and this is a mini-series, so I'm sticking with Strange while Clea is running the show.
I know nothing about this one, but a Horror book called The Closet that shows a little kid playing in front of a closet that no doubt scares him seems like a great set-up. When you add in the fact that James Tynion IV is the author, well, count me in.
Just began re-reading What's the Furthest Place From Here last week, so issue 6's release is well-timed to say the least. I love this one.
Issue one wasn't really my thing, but I enjoyed it enough. I'm mainly buying this one because K is into it.
Playlist:
Ghost - Infestissumam
Alice in Chains - Eponymous
Various Artists - Lost Highway OST
The Mysterines - Reeling
Card:
Hopefully, this card bodes well for renewed creative energy. Because mine needs some renewal.
