From the criminally under-referenced The Buddha of Suburbia album Bowie released as, in his words, "a quasi soundtrack" to Roger Michell's series adaptation of Hanif Kureishi's novel, neither of which I am familiar with. I LOVE the Saxophone on this album, especially this track. Little considered fact: Bowie plays all the Sax on this record. Granted, there are some Bell Biv Devoe-style beats on this one (South Horizon, I'm looking at you!) but they work! Overall, it's a marvelous record.
Watch:
Many thanks to Heavenisanincubator for reminding me Nicolas Winding Refn's Copenhagen Cowboy recently dropped.
I blew through the entire six episodes this past Tuesday. If Refn's previous foray into sequential streaming Too Old To Die Young left you a bit cold, fear not, I found Copenhagen Cowboy a considerably easier ride (that said, applying the adjective "easy" to Refn's work is a bit misleading. You still have to work for it here, too, only this time, the contents don't make your skin crawl so much).
Tin Machine - Live at La Cigale, Paris, 25th June 1989
Bigg Doggett and His Combo - All His Hits
Lorn - Rarities
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Completion of Will requires a partnership or collaboration that will ultimately balance my somewhat topsy-turvy confidence. Could be good news, I have a couple of possible collaborations in the near future.
Seven Days of David Bowie continues, celebrating the life and music of the Alien, called away seven years ago yesterday. The world is a markedly less interesting place in his absence.
"Slip Away," taken from the 2002 album Heathen.
NCBD:
Here are my picks for the second Pull of the year!
We're inching closer to the close-out of Dark Web, and overall, this is probably my favorite "Event" I've read since, well, the other two Infernos. I guess I just really dig events titled Inferno, or in this case, Dark Web, which I'm pretty sure is just Inferno spelled sideways. Interesting, that while the 80s Inferno is the template for this current Spider-title/X-Books crossover - a pretty good combination to begin with, if for only having afforded us a brief reunion of Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, hahaha - that the other Inferno I allude to there was Hickman's and had nothing to do with Limbo, demons, or Maddie/Ilyana. I guess there's just something in a name.
This book really skirts on the edge of being a full-out Horror book, with definite 90s, Clive Barker/David J. Schow vibes at times. Yet it flexes that wonderfully visceral Horror muscle but doesn't quite commit to it. I can still feel where the book pulls back. I'm assuming that's editorial guidance, but let's say it out loud: Embrace the blood shed already. You can only dance up to and around it for so long.
So, the Vampires are all taken care of? What's next?
We come to the end of the first arc of this new Marvel Predator franchise. Looking forward to seeing Theta bag the Predator of her nightmares.
This one is heating right the f*ck up! Glad I jumped on when I did. Cutter is nasty.
Consistently the headscratcher each month, and I love Ten Thousand Black Feathers for it.
Not really sure where we're heading now that the previous arc settled, but I'm in regardless.
Watch:
Kang! 'Nuff said:
It's probably been a while since I posted a Marvel Movie trailer here. My interest wanes, at best. I'll always be keeping up on the Big Picture of the MCU, but the individual films can feel like work.
Not here though. Because here, we have Kang and Jonathan Majors playing him, no less. I'm all in, with one little caveat - I still have yet to see Ant-Man one or two. I'll be remedying that soon, I guess.
Playlist:
David Bowie - Earthling
David Bowie - Heathen
David Bowie - The Buddha of Suburbia
Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium; Undreamable Abysses
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Death - ... For the Whole World to See
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Exacting global systems change (i.e., me, overall) by the transformative experience of actually listening to my own and others' emotions. I think this is just an overall "good practice" for life, really. Funny, the new year incites change and repositing/strategizing regardless of whether we do the resolution gambit or not. There's a feeling of renewal built into us as a society, I think, and so it's similar to how I wake up at 8:00 AM now whether I set my alarm or not. My body has learned the pattern. Maybe that's why this particular pull on this day; reminding me to embrace the small changes I've made in the last week-and-a-half purely because I felt like changing, not because I was aware or coerced into thinking I needed to make them.
The Alien has been gone from this world for seven years. Damn. I still remember that day. Thus begins my annual Seven Days of David Bowie, and I thought I'd start with "Seven Years in Tibet," from Bowie's 1997 album Earthling.
Watch:
The first trailer for Ari Aster's third film Beau is Afraid dropped:
Wow. I'm not even sure what to make of this one other than A) I won't be watching any more trailers, and B) I'll be there opening day.
Playlist:
Talking Heads - Fear of Music
Talking Heads - Remain in Light
Iggy Pop - The Idiot
Deafheaven - Infinite Granite
The Jesus Lizard - Liar
Ministry - Moral Hygiene
Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears
Skid Row - Eponymous
Talking Heads - Big Country (single)
The Flamingos - I Only Have Eyes For You (single)
The Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose
Kaiser Cheifs - I Predict A Riot
Sylvaine - Nova
Sylvaine - Atoms Aligned, Coming Undone
The High Confessions - Turning Lead Into Gold with the High Confessions
Lustmord - Dark Matter
Metallica - ... And Justice For All
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Transformations of both Emotional and Proprietary merit can be achieved by applying the appropriate degree of Will to the correct avenue. I'm not entirely certain how to actually apply this, yet, because on one level this drawing seems to hold the same vagueries most do, while something here is picking at me that perhaps if I sit and contemplate this one, a more specific epiphany may arrive.
How about a little Talking Heads to start the day before we get into my picks for NCBD and the trailer? One of my favorites from Fear of Music!
NCBD:
A very quiet NCBD this week.
Two more issues left after this one, and things are due to start heating up! Hoping for some INSANE monster action, and this cover certainly suggests that's just what we'll get in issue #3 of Jeremy Haun, Jason A. Hurley and Jesus Hervas's The Approach!
I'm having a hard time ascertaining whether this is just the final issue of X-Men: Red before the X-Books get a three-month remake in the Sins of Sinister storyline (aka Age of Apocalypse), or this is the final issue of that book altogether. I'm hoping it's the former.
Watch:
EVIL DEAD RISE TRAILER!!! 'Nuff said!
Can't freaking wait! I am a BIG fan of Fede Alvarez's Evil Dead 2013 (it's not a remake!), and I expect with Raimi, Campbell and Tapert all Producing again, this will be no different!
So many DISGUSTING images! The Scalp! The cheesegrater!
Playlist:
Bedridden - Soft Soap
Catherine Wheel - Ferment
Metallica - Hardwired... To Self-Destruct
Fvnerals - Let the Earth Be Silent (pre-release singles)
Ministry - Moral Hygiene
Various - Snow Day: Upcoming Every Day (Is Halloween) playlist
Zonal - Eponymous (single)
Zonal - Wrecked (instrumental side)
Lorn - Rarities
Ozzy Osbourne - Patient No. 9
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Emotional Breakthrough via applying learned knowledge but being careful not to be too dogmatic about the approach.
I'm really falling hard into my first rewatch of the original Twin Peaks since before The Return aired, and as usual, it feels good to have everything Peaks seep out of the screen and into every aspect of my life. First and foremost is always the music, which tends to never stray far from my mind. This time, Angelo Badalamenti's passing really hit home, and I'm getting even deeper into the sonic space of the show than usual. This, of course, sent me digging.
I vaguely remember Xiu Xiu touring and then releasing their music of Twin Peaks project, but I'm not sure I'd heard any of it before. Full disclosure: I've never really gotten into this band. That said, I came across this recently and thought it was pretty cool.
Watch:
I finally sat down and watched Noah Baumbach's adaptation of Don Delillo's White Noise the other night. Turns out? It's my favorite non-genre film of 2022!
All the performances are fantastic, especially Adam Driver. Man, when I first saw this guy as Emo-Vadar, I never would have suspected what a great actor he has become. But between this and Jarmusch's Patterson from a few years ago, Driver just blows me away.
As far as adapting, it's been about a decade since I read White Noise, but a lot of it has stayed in my mind through the intervening years. Overall I loved it, especially how the cast delivers such obvious literary dialogue, which in lesser hands could have been obsequious and irritating. Robert Pattinson does a similar but not-quite-as-affective job with his Delillo dialogue in David Cronenberg's adaptation of Cosmopolis, and while that performance was instrumental in my accepting Patterson - at the time widely known as the 'sparkling vampire' - as a serious actor, it left the cinematic version of that book something I have yet to revisit.
I will revisit Baumbach's film often, and soon.
Read:
After succumbing to the Something is Killing the Children wave - worth it! - I've now caught up on the sister title, House of Slaughter.
Ostensibly an anthology series, the first five issues cover Erica Slaughter-adjacent Black Mask Aaron's past, while the subsequent six issues delve into one of the Scarlet masks, the young and precocious Edwin and his trials while afloat on a lake that he comes to suspect may house a Dragon.
This book is weird. I enjoyed the arc laid out in 1-5, but I'm going to have to reread 6-10. This story didn't come together for me. Whatever I was supposed to glean out of Edwin's insights and memories just didn't unravel into a satisfying conclusion, and I was left wondering if I'd missed something. Still, I enjoyed all ten so far, as well as last week's Book of Slaughter, which is kind of a clever way to get a lot of info text to us, cementing into factual lore a lot of what we've already pieced together about the politics of The Order of St. George. The new arc starts this month, and I'm looking forward to it despite any hangups I had on this most recent story.
Playlist:
Lustmord - Dark Matter
LCD Soundsystem - New Body Rhumba (single)
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings and Food
Black Sabbath - Vol. 4
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Emotional stability disrupted by a seemingly unending conflict will work itself out if I extend a hand. Hmm.
I had the peculiar experience of seeing Damien Chazelle's new film Babylon in the cinema yesterday. I can say, I'm glad I saw it on the big screen. I had some serious issues though. Here's my short, spoiler-free Letterbxd review. One thing I can say I LOVED about this film, though, was Greg Hurwitz's soundtrack. Fabulous.
Watch:
Speaking of insane budgets, we also watched Rian Johnson's new film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, which is a bit overly concerned with showing off its budget and its preeminent accolades; however, ultimately, I dug this and appreciate not only the thought that went into its story but also the refusal to repeat the first.
Personally, I think not only was this one more interesting than the first - not that the first was uninteresting, but Johnson knew he had to crank it up another notch and did - but now that the elation of success has (hopefully) worn off, I'm hoping the next entry in the Knives Out canon will be a far superior film just by way of not having to devote so much time to figuring out cute little ways to name-drop so many major stars.
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I'm beginning my reading for the year with a book I completely forgot Mr. Brown lent to me some time ago:
Not only is this a book about Talking Heads, but it's also written by Jonathan Lethem. I've read quite a few of Lethem's novels and one of his comic series (Omega the Unknown from the 00s), but it has been some time. I reread Motherless Brooklyn around the time the movie came out a few years ago, but Amnesia Moon and Gun, With Occasional Music, are both long overdue for engagement, not to mention all the books he's penned that I never got around to.
Playlist:
Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me OST
Lustmord - Heresy
Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God
Bill Doggett and His Combo - All His Hits
Miles Davis - Bitches Brew
Justin Hurwitz - Babylon OST
Lustmord - Dark Matter
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
My final New Year's Pull from my final and now favored deck:
Carefully considering ideas will lead to the next big thing.
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