[Laghail]

Wednesday October 2

• Beetlejuice yesterday and it was enjoyable enough. Captured the spirit of the 80's original, including how it dealt with antagonists. Fucking MCU has conditioned us to expect endless rounds of tedious confrontations with an antagonist, but this kept it light and also made me feel very old while the climactic scene of the movie was scored by McArthur Park and no one else in the theater remembered that era. Which, I wasn't alive for, but I had a library card instead of attending school, and I vicariously lived through the 60's and 70's.
  •   
• Speaking of MCU, I'm somewhat upset by how good Agatha is so far. They had the audacity to cast Sasheer Zamata, and then gave us a BANGER of musical number in episode 2, and they'd apparently been teasing us with refrains and remixes of that number throughout episode 1. Bastards. 
  • 
  • Episode 3 / comics lore spoilers:
    • Spoiler

      I'm calling it, teen is Wiccan/Asgardian. They're giving us a red herring that he's Harkness' lost son Nicholas Scratch, but nope, I'm locking in my vote now. In the comics Scratch is Harkness' child and himself the father of the Salem Seven, who appeared as shadowy antagonists in episode 2 of Agatha, but fuck off, I'm on the Wiccan wagon.

      

      There's a 0% chance we'll see Wiccan's bf Hulkling on-screen in Agatha, and he'd kinda break the show's sub-genre, but he's a fave of mine. Apparently there's fannon that the two of them being the Heartstopper Kids/should be played by Joe Locke & Kit Connor? Eh, we 50% there already.  

       

       

• Rejiggered my daily punchlist. Sleep aid and bedtime stuff have been fairly routine and the only sleep loss this challenge has been around early meetings or staying up late on weekends. I'm going to stop tracking the enforced bedtime but keep recording daily sleeps and see what the next 1.5 weeks looks like. Probs I'll end up rolling this sheet into the next challenge since it's been the right mix of motivating but not disruptive. 
• Little hiking excursion today after banjo lesson. Wadewitz preserve is the go-to spot for sumbels and blóts for local pagans, but they also have great hiking trails with a prairie, rolling hills, and a decent chunk of forest.
  • July photo of the prairie: 
  • 

[Whisper]

Poem: “For One Who Is Exhausted, a Blessing,” by John O’Donohue

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

[sarakingdom]

Immortal Autumn

By Archibald MacLeish

 

 

I speak this poem now with grave and level voice   

In praise of autumn, of the far-horn-winding fall.

 

I praise the flower-barren fields, the clouds, the tall   

Unanswering branches where the wind makes sullen noise.

 

I praise the fall: it is the human season.

                                                                  Now

No more the foreign sun does meddle at our earth,   

Enforce the green and bring the fallow land to birth,   

Nor winter yet weigh all with silence the pine bough,

 

But now in autumn with the black and outcast crows   

Share we the spacious world: the whispering year is gone:   

There is more room to live now: the once secret dawn   

Comes late by daylight and the dark unguarded goes.

 

Between the mutinous brave burning of the leaves   

And winter’s covering of our hearts with his deep snow   

We are alone: there are no evening birds: we know   

The naked moon: the tame stars circle at our eaves.

 

It is the human season. On this sterile air

Do words outcarry breath: the sound goes on and on.   

I hear a dead man’s cry from autumn long since gone.

 

I cry to you beyond upon this bitter air.

[Whisper]

The three of us pass now

along a high and narrow branch.

 

Though our hands cannot be joined,

I see your braid before me

I hear her steps behind me.

 

I am like a river in its bed.

The path you make for me 

Will keep me on my way.

 

Let us go now and thrust

the stones of fruit we already digested

into the nostrils of that guy over there.

[Laghail]

On 10/3/2024 at 1:00 PM, Whisper said:

The three of us pass now

along a high and narrow branch.

 

Though our hands cannot be joined,

I see your braid before me

I hear her steps behind me.

 

I am like a river in its bed.

The path you make for me 

Will keep me on my way.

 

Let us go now and thrust

the stones of fruit we already digested

into the nostrils of that guy over there.

 

You are such a brat quoting Super Supportive at me hahah! Thanks though, I re-read that chapter and it felt like a warm hug.

 

Spoiler

“Can I still come to class if I want to?” Alden asked.

 

Lute groaned. “Take the win and run, you fool!”

 

[You don’t like me as a convo partner?] This was the class where he’d been socializing with Lute and learning his wordchains.

Of course it will probably be different with a teacher who actually seems to care about student progress on an individual level.

 

Kelly’s eyes scanned him. “I guess the vibes you’re giving off are accurate.”

 

“I don’t need you!” shouted Lute from inside his blanket fort. “Run! Be free!”

 

On 10/3/2024 at 12:53 PM, sarakingdom said:

Immortal Autumn

By Archibald MacLeish

 

Gosh Sara, that was lovely. I was expecting something more up its ass with a name like Archibald MacLeish, but that had a fun punch.

 

On 10/3/2024 at 12:32 PM, Whisper said:

 “For One Who Is Exhausted, a Blessing,” by John O’Donohue

 

That was beautiful. 

 

And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.

 

Spoiler

Looooove this poem. [anti-american screed] And also I always kinda have an urge to punch the assumptions that can get are loaded behind this poems, as if a busy mom who is racing to keep up with kids and work and marriage and church, could just decide to make life go slower. Even though there always are some personal choices to be made, and the poem is written with a lot of thoughtfulness. Maybe I'm just still mad about the crabs in the bucket being counseled by the American self-care industry to be mindful and take meditation breaks, and no one asks who put the crabs in the fucking bucket.  [/anti-american screed]

 

But John O'Donohue was an Irish poet with his own quiet resistances against corporate war machines, and this is a great example of why I want my reflections spoiler'd - my rage over American exploitation via "self-care" is a meaning that I'm importing to this poem. Maybe a valid reflection but not something that another reader needs to read onto the poem themselves.  

 

[Whisper]

On 10/4/2024 at 2:00 PM, Laghail said:

You are such a brat quoting Super Supportive at me hahah! Thanks though, I re-read that chapter and it felt like a warm hug.

When I read a mostly truly excellent poem, while someone is hosting a poetry thread, I would be remiss not to share it, even if said host introduced me to the source of the poem.

Spoiler

Really, really loving the story, so thank you again for linking to it.

 

I know Alden is not so subtle expressed as ace, but my black romance loving heart can't seem to stop yearning for a throuple  with him, Boe and Stu.  I'm at the point in the story where Alden is making is 2nd visit to the Rapport and Stu isn't helping with that at all right now; more than once I've found myself thinking "kiss the boy!"

 

 

 

 

 

The part is bolded particularly spoke to me on this reading. I've decided to paint a painting to put it on. I'll start it today, but it might take a few sitting to do.

And agreed with the spoiler. 

[Laghail]

Monday October 7

The Kennet Trio by AugustBorne

• I repent in dust and ashes for enjoying beetlejuice 2 (please enjoy any art you like, this is me being silly). I watched Beetlejuice 1 for what turns out to have been the first time and it had so much heart. I somehow thought the sequel movie was a sequel to the cartoon series and it did pass muster as a live-action adaptation to a cartoon. Not that Beetlejuice 1 was such a cerebral masterpiece that 2 failed it, 2 actually nailed the vibes perfectly. But the heart of 1 and the weird poly-family ending was so delightful, and 2 couldn't touch that.  
  • Spoiler

    Retelling Winona Ryder as a codependent addict, and her ghost parents as "they found a loophole and left their daughter behind" felt very drowning Ophelia. Can't tell a story about odd and self-confident women grown to adulthood in a stable but non-traditional parenting arrangement, nope. Gotta have the parents bail on the kid and give her a pill problem, and then inexplicably refuse to look at the most important parts of the first film, even in a dysfunctional retelling. Granted, Alec Baldwin went and shot someone and probs is a third rail right now in Hollywood (even though fucking Jeffery Jones from Beetlejuice 1 is now a registered sex offender but we still got his character's headless corpse bumbling around the movie), but if we omitted Baldwin, Geena Davis is still right there and it coulda been an faaascinating take having Catherine O'Hara opposite Geena Davis as the two mothers of Winona Ryder, and exploring what all three women meant to Jenna Ortega's character: poly-families, what do they look like after 40 years together?!

     

  • 
• Interesting weekend with me sorta burnt out from an insane workweek and still trying to keep an aggressive pace with hobbies and coming up with not enough brain cells to function. Side-effect of having medical support around executive-function and me still learning skills around executive-function fatigue management. Sunday I took rest seriously and laid low, but still managed to get a light workout before attending a "book club" get together.
  • Did I have an alarm set for a goodwill auction I was watching that went off in the middle of things? Yes. Was it surreal extracting myself for a quick Goodwill shopping moment, in the middle of a spirited "book discussion"? Possibly. Was there a shy late-comer hanging out by the discarded clothes and phones that i had to step around to place my bid on goodwill, and meanwhile realize that this fellow was a "straight" gent that i distantly knew through my former in-laws? Maybe. Life can be very strange, but I got a New World Celt Tartan with tags on for $17!
    • 
• Last Mayo Clinic trip of the week coming up on Thursday/Friday, and I'll be running a panel discussion on Friday while working from the hotel. Pray for me, now and in the hour of my teams presentation.

[Whisper]

6 hours ago, Laghail said:

Was it surreal extracting myself for a quick Goodwill shopping moment, in the middle of a spirited "book discussion"? Possibly.

No one should fault you for having your priorities in order. 

 

6 hours ago, Laghail said:

Life can be very strange, but I got a New World Celt Tartan with tags on for $17!

Congratulations! Looks sharp.

 

6 hours ago, Laghail said:

Pray for me, now and in the hour of my teams presentation.

St. John Chrysostom is apparently the patron saint of preachers, orators, and lecturers, so possibly your best bet. If it goes poorly, switch to St. Jude  the patron saint of lost causes and desperate situations...

[Sea-to-sky]

Excellent kilt. Sure it will look super on. Important question, have you scourced the knee socks yet?

 

have to admit, I've never actually watched beetlejuice. Just never appealed. 
i hear the original is on a very different level to the new one though. 
sounds like they really missed an opportunity with it

 

very envious about the book club. Still trying to find one near me thats a good fit. 

[Mad Hatter]

20 hours ago, Laghail said:

Did I have an alarm set for a goodwill auction I was watching that went off in the middle of things? Yes. Was it surreal extracting myself for a quick Goodwill shopping moment, in the middle of a spirited "book discussion"? Possibly. Was there a shy late-comer hanging out by the discarded clothes and phones that i had to step around to place my bid on goodwill, and meanwhile realize that this fellow was a "straight" gent that i distantly knew through my former in-laws? Maybe. Life can be very strange, but I got a New World Celt Tartan with tags on for $17!

At first glance I thought it was the Ferrari logo and got very confused. ?

[Whisper]

48 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

At first glance I thought it was the Ferrari logo and got very confused. ?

For those times when you need a fast tartan.

[Laghail]

16 hours ago, Whisper said:

No one should fault you for having your priorities in order. 

 

Congratulations! Looks sharp.

 

Give me like, 5 years to come around and I'll be wearing more of a pagne-style wrapper. Your corner of the rainbow world is broadening my horizons with all these GNC badies playing with silhouette and color. Meanwhile I'm still in the cis dude ghetto, lamely asking if the clothing is "functional", as if a beige Carhartt coverall are the only wrapping my body wants this side of the tomb. 

[insert longer discussion here on the construction of the 19st century male gender and the aesthetics of utility for WFH desk jockies]

 

16 hours ago, Whisper said:

St. John Chrysostom is apparently the patron saint of preachers, orators, and lecturers, so possibly your best bet. If it goes poorly, switch to St. Jude  the patron saint of lost causes and desperate situations...

 

Swoon, please always suggest potential patron saints?? Low church boy here and the revelation that you high churchies were hording the polytheism has been a delight this last decade. St Jude I love in theory as one of the darlings of the labor movement, but I was seduced by Flobots' and Grace Morbitzer's Saint Rita and she's been "my" saint ever since.

 

 

6 hours ago, Sea-to-sky said:

Excellent kilt. Sure it will look super on. Important question, have you scourced the knee socks yet?

 

Powerlifting socks are always easy but given recent weight loss, this should be a colder winter for me than normal and any chance to wear wool knee socks is a plus. Any go-to sources?

 

6 hours ago, Sea-to-sky said:

have to admit, I've never actually watched beetlejuice. Just never appealed. 
i hear the original is on a very different level to the new one though. 
sounds like they really missed an opportunity with it

 

I mean, it's "wet" horror-comedy. No matter what perspective you use to engage the franchise, mild body-horror is the punchline every time. Zero shade if that's a miss for you. Mostly its a miss for me too, but Liam has been broadening my horror horizons. 

 

6 hours ago, Sea-to-sky said:

very envious about the book club. Still trying to find one near me thats a good fit. 

 

Yeah, safety and privacy concerns are very very real. Honestly I was nervous about this one, and fairly grateful that it went well / I was able to engage it from a healthy perspective.

Spoiler

It was hosted by a distant acquaintance and organized by an infrequent FB who isn't a good fit for my social needs, and I'm still developing social scripts for friends that I only connect with on a single dimension. Something about a background in an apocalypse-focused cult, the stakes for friendships in that milieu are absolute; in a death cult, your friends are eternally your spiritual siblings in the coming revelation of judgment and paradise, and any unsuccessful friendships were actually trials sent by god/the devil to reveal if you're destined for eternal conscious torment. No big, right?

Meanwhile in reality-land, it's perfectly acceptable to have friends you only engage with in lightweight friendships, or weak ties, centered around a single shared hobby. But when the hobby is "book club", my own mythologies/social software around sex can generate some errors. If another member (heh) of a "book club" have a body that doesn't hit my libido, my brain can go into a fat kid's tail spin of anxiety if I'm replicating fat-phobic control structures or racist ideals of Aryan purity in sexual selection. Being able to execute the "book club" version of a few moments of polite chatter and a warm hug at a party before moving on, and then later introspecting on the shape of my attractions, instead of enjoying an on-the-spot anxiety attack - that's been a growth moment this last year-ish.

 

1 hour ago, Mad Hatter said:

At first glance I thought it was the Ferrari logo and got very confused. ?

 

You're brilliant, can you imagine a Ferrari brand kilt?? It would probs be a sleek steel-gray leather but in a pencil skirt silhouette, and the posh kinksters would go wild with glee. But like, very demure, very glee. 

[Sea-to-sky]

23 minutes ago, Laghail said:

that's been a growth moment this last year-ish

Man, that all sounds super complicated but i hope its going well for you. Doing new crud that involves other people is always that edge of cliff moment (i always think it must be a tad like learning to hang-glide). Hopefully it gets easier with practice. 

 

 

25 minutes ago, Laghail said:

colder winter for me than normal and any chance to wear wool knee socks is a plus. Any go-to sources?

Sadly no. Id say scotland, but that seems like a long way to go for socks. 
 

26 minutes ago, Laghail said:

mean, it's "wet" horror-comedy. No matter what perspective you use to engage the franchise, mild body-horror is the punchline every time. Zero shade if that's a miss for you. Mostly its a miss for me too, but Liam has been broadening my horror horizons

Horror and i are not the best of friends. I like a good alien movie, but most horror movies are a no for me. Have low tollerance i think.

 

 

[Laghail]

2 hours ago, Sea-to-sky said:

Man, that all sounds super complicated but i hope its going well for you. Doing new crud that involves other people is always that edge of cliff moment (i always think it must be a tad like learning to hang-glide). Hopefully it gets easier with practice. 

 

Appreciate you! 

 

2 hours ago, Sea-to-sky said:

Horror and i are not the best of friends. I like a good alien movie, but most horror movies are a no for me. Have low tollerance i think.

 

Similar. "The Haunting of Hill House" and "His House" were the two works that convinced me the genre can be more than pointless torture porn.

• "Haunting of Hill House" you will sob by the ending and I love the work too much to spoil it. Also Hill House is the rare American haunted house story that has the balls to set the piece in the states, with a house flipper trying to manage a massive and cursed mansion. So many American haunted house stories lamely export their story to the UK to trade on American anxieties around class and Catholicism, because obviously all of the British Isles are rich and catholic, right? (Americans aren't good at history)
  • 
• "His House" further deconstructs the idea of spooky catholic rich people with a haunted house story starring Sudanese refugees in the "dispersed accommodation" of London asylum housing. It's is a horror movie with a happy ending, and it elegantly plays with ghosts-as-trauma.
  • 

Still zero shade if the whole genre is a miss. 

[Mad Hatter]

12 hours ago, Laghail said:

Similar. "The Haunting of Hill House" and "His House" were the two works that convinced me the genre can be more than pointless torture porn.

Hm. You're the second person that's recommended Hill House for a non-horror person. Maybe I should give it a try. I've been enjoying horror elements in games lately, maybe my sensibilities are changing anyway...

[Sea-to-sky]

2 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Maybe I should give it a try. I've been enjoying horror elements in games lately, maybe my sensibilities are changing anyway...

Looks interesting definitely. 
 

14 hours ago, Laghail said:

Similar. "The Haunting of Hill House" and "His House" were the two works that convinced me the genre can be more than pointless torture porn.

I can do comedy horror movies and older ones. But most of the new stuff (that isn't based on victorian gothic novels) is a bit chainsaw murder house for me. I could probably watch the shining (I've seen enough chunks of it at this point to say that) and i like vampire and werewolf films (preferably good quality) or monster from the black lagoon type stuff. 
mostly i oscillate between it being too gory and yelling “why the hades would you go out there!” At the characters who do the stupid thing. 

[Mad Hatter]

54 minutes ago, Sea-to-sky said:

mostly i oscillate between it being too gory and yelling “why the hades would you go out there!” At the characters who do the stupid thing. 

I don't mind gore, but stupidity and cheap jump scares annoy me.

[Whisper]

Haikus by Richard Wright

 

O finicky cat,

Forgive me this spring rain

That disgust you so!

 

I grant to sparrows

The telegraph wires that brought

Me such good tidings!

 

In a misty rain

A butterfly is riding

The tail of a cow.

 

Across the river

Huge dark sheets of cool spring rain

Falling on a town

 

In the falling snow

A laughing boy holds out his palms

Until they are white.

 

Just enough of show

For a boy's finger to write

His name on the porch

[Laghail]

Spoiler

Holy god, this vampire/werewolf relationship poem feels appropriate for the Villain era of NF but it kinda shook me. 

Tumblr link is here 

 

 

I think sometimes lady heterosexuality feels like a stupid fucking supernatural romance novel where you’re wandering antisocially at the rave, feeling a little asexual, following these glowing orange arrows the organizers placed on the floor like quest markers.

 

There’s some cute humans at the rave, but you just got baptized in blood, or whatever. It was gross, you didn't like it and you don't know if you wanted it. You're different now in ways you don't understand yet. You're a little scared that if you fuck one of these guys you might accidentially kill them. They look squishy. You're afraid of them and you're afraid of hurting them.

 

Then you see some guy running around on all fours like an animal, the glowing orange rave arrows are pointing directly at him, and the really weird thing about it is that he’s fast as fuck. You say what the fuck? and he says oh, yeah, I was a super weird kid. I’ve been doing this for a long time. Nothing to see here, lol. Just a perfectly default human male. You say puppy? and he says my vampire queen? and you look at each other startled. Like a heart attack.

 

Instant recognition. Compatible anatomy. Sexually dimorphic equivalents. You can fuck this thing without killing it. It may be possible to reproduce with this creature. Same, or similar, species. Pheremones. Hormone profile. You can literally smell it, everything he is, and you understand it. You know exactly what he is and everything that will happpen when you look at him and it's all terrible. It breaks your heart. You want to fuck him so hard.

 

He starts salivating and pacing around you in circles, saying I love you. I belong to you. I'm your property. I want to fuck you so hard. I've never been so turned on in my life. You’re the entire universe. I'm going to move into your house, right now. You need to shrink me and make me into a keychain so I can live in your pocket and go with you everywhere. Give me meaning. Paint my universe. Harness my energy. Be my woman.

 

He says you’re stuck in some sort of vampire/werewolf romance novel with me, I know the tropes and can see the fourth wall, and there’s momentum. You see those orange arrows? That's the plot-vector. We're on a predestined collision course. I'm a character in your questline and I can bend the narrative. You’re going to have to kill me to get me to leave you alone.

 

He's working himself up into a frenzy, his eyes are bulging and he’s foaming at the mouth. Twitching. It’s ugly. It’s Cronenbergian. You can hear his bones shifting and cracking. You’re thinking this is creepy as fuck and insane. It's beautiful. I am so fucking wet right now. I want to get railed by this guy so bad. And I do need someone to go to the bodega for me during the day.

 

Something's shifted in your body such that you have low confidence that your genitalia is compatible with that of the rest of humanity and you already know, somehow, that this man will let you chain him by the neck to the wall of your closet and love it. But you're not convinced romance is the novel you're stuck in.

 

You walk around the city late at night with this guy and he says, he murmurs like a purr, earlier, when the sun was up, there was a parade. Humans partied, made love, formed relationships and broke up. They got a little too drunk, lost their phones, and cried. These are all classic problems. Heartbreak and intrigue, and life, life, life. I've seen most of it before. You haven't, because you've been asleep, but you'll be able to walk in the sun soon.

 

Having this weird fucking guy around is good for you and the plot momentum makes it easy to love him. You just follow the glowing orange rave arrows back to each other, over and over. You meditate together as the sun rises, even though it hurts, and he says it's okay. It'll get easier. Bite my arm. Drink my blood. Leech off my energy.

 

But sometimes while you're trying to sleep you hear him thrashing back and forth in the closet, snarling. I can smell other men out there, and I hate other men. I hate other men and I want them to die. Let me at those men so I can growl at them and bite them. I can see the fourth wall, I see the glowing orange rave arrows, and I have plot armor, because the werewolf in a supernatural romance novel never dies. I can do whatever I want and it will be awesome, like a videogame. I want to go crazy.

 

When he says this you feel all the iron in your blood start to congeal, like a magnet, clustering together to pack into bullets, and you know like an instinct that if this process is allowed to continue it will end with shrapnel ripping your skin and exploding out of you like a bomb. Three-hundred and sixty degrees. You can do it in the woods, away from people, but it'll hurt. So you yell no! Bad! Go to the gym!

 

Go hit guys who aren’t allowed to hit back. Chew on your toy. Do my evil bidding. Roam the night and bring me meat that belongs to Jeff Bezos, a King of this realm. He does so and says thanks, princess! Thanks for regulating me and making me a better, more terrible, creature. I love to hit guys who aren't allowed to hit back, and I love you. You say good man! and scratch him behind the ears. You do the dance of heterosexuality around the glowing orange rave arrows no one else can see. You meditate while the sun rises.

 

But over time these techniques stop working, sometimes in the shower you see his shoulderblades start to crack and deform, and he’s starting to growl at other men on the street. Ridges are forming on your knuckles, beads along your spine. It hurts to sleep. He massages your fucked up bones while the sun rises. He murmurs and purrs, and it hurts less, and it's beautiful, but you say come on, buddy. Pull it back. Reign it in. You're contributing to this. He says it's fine. I'm responding to your energy. Stop resisting. Stop resisting.

The contemporary-classic playstyle of heterosexuality follows a sort of actor-critic dynamic. The man presents something that he has built, or proposes to build, and the woman judges it. She says I like the idea, but we should tweak a few variables, or she says no, I hate it, try again, and zaps him with the taser. He spasms on the ground and says that actually hurts. Holy shit. When I get up I'm going to fuck your face so hard, and then I'm going to build you the fucking Taj Mahal.

 

You start arguing about the definitions of man and woman. He's thrashing around in the closet, you're rubbing the ridges of metal on your knuckles, and he growls a man handles the crisis. A man is expendable, the first to dive into the dirty work. You zap him with the taser and say a man does not need to justify his own existence. A man does not create a crisis so that the man can manage the crisis. A woman is a creature that works.

 

He says a woman does not need to work. The purpose of a man is to provide for a woman. A woman will always be able to find a man to provide. There is no reason for a woman to work. You say fuck you, a woman is a creature that works, and hit him with the taser again, but it doesn't work. He loves it, and he's just happy that he's the center of your attention. He doesn't care if it's positive or negative attention.

 

You think oh man, I’m starting to feel the looming risk of some sort of civil lawsuit or citation. Do I have some moral responsibility to get this guy euthanized? I don't want to do that, because I love him, but he's getting increasingly Cronenbergian. Am I fueling this somehow?

 

You say get your shit under control. How can I help you get your shit under control? and he says I don’t know. I don’t know. I hate other men and I want them to die, but I love you so much, I love you so much. Don't abandon me at the shelter. You say buddy, you’re a part of me now, I can feel you like a limb, and you feel so alive. It feels like the songs people sing about being alive. I can't lose that. You’re hurting us. Please get your shit under control. I think you should read some feminist literature.

 

The feminist literature doesn't help and he starts to lose language, it’s just whimpers and snarls except for moments where language surfaces in short bursts. Punctuated by I love you. I love you. I love you. He says it so fiercely that it feels like being touched by the sun and you love it, the heat of it illuminates everything, but then he snaps at the neighbor's child in the elevator because he thought it was a man and he hates those guys, he wants them to die.

 

The neighbor says what the fuck is wrong with your fully grown, adult human male? You need to get that shit under control. You say I know, I'm so sorry, I don't know how it got to this point. I've been irresponsible somehow in a way I don't understand yet. You tell your fully grown, adult human male hey baby, we're going to a party in the woods, and there'll be a lot of people there with rumors about art, the economy, and the natural world. There'll be lots of men you can bite in the woods and it'll be totally fine, they all have plot armor there. On the way, we need to stop at Wal-Mart. I love you so much.

 

He foams at the mouth, he's not stupid, he understands what is happening, and says I love you, I love you. I hate other men and I want them to die but I love you, I love you. Do what you want with me, but don't abandon me. I need you to provide meaning, and purpose, and direction. I need to be governed, and regulated, and controlled. I trust you, you make me a better person, I love you. Do what you want with me, but don't abandon me. I want to be by your side, all the time, I love you.

You say I know, baby. I'm going to take care of you, puppy. All that shit you just said is way too much responsibility to put on one woman, even a weird vampire woman trapped in some sort of horror story, and my priority will always be my evil tasks. But I will never abandon you. We're going into the woods where you can bite other men and then you're going to sleep. I'm going to carve out a little corner of the narrative where you can rest, dream, chill the fuck out and get it out of your system, and then you can rise from your grave and try again.

 

So you shove this guy by the back of the neck into some sort of cage, he doesn't fight back because he loves you, and you cover it with a blanket so he won't see other men, who he hates and wants to kill, but he can still smell them. He's making these weird noises from under his blanket in the elevator and it's embarassing. You think this sucks. I wish I was off doing my evil tasks, instead of dealing with the problems of this fully grown, adult human male that I love for some reason. But everyone has bad days.

He calms down once you drive out of the city, away from the men he hates and wants to kill, and you reach behind the seat to stroke his hair as best as you can and say I see how this was my fault. I saw what story this was going to be, but I enabled you because I thought it was cool and creepy. We got too weird, too fast. Next time, if it happens, you need to manage your own aggression. He purrs because he doesn't give a shit about what he's done wrong as long as you're touching him, because he loves you.

You lead him into the woods and he's wagging his tail, he can't smell any other men so he's just happy to be by your side. He's all fucked up looking by now, the skin is straining to accomodate the new geometry of his bones and it's weird, it's gross, but it's not scary because you understand what is happening and will happen. It's just sad, because you know his new shape is incompatible with life.

 

So you put this guy down in the woods, as best as you understand how, and he doesn't fight back because he's just happy that you're paying attention to him. He's staring at you with these loving, loving eyes the entire time, wagging his tail, and says it's gonna take me three to five years to crawl out of this grave, because that's the timescale I operate on.

But I'm gonna do it, and I'm coming back, and you're going to have to kill me to get me to leave you alone. You say please do, buddy, please come crawling back, and shoot him in the head or whatever and it's gross and sad because these things always are. It makes you cry. The sun comes up while you're walking back to the car alone and it stings but it doesn't burn.

[Laghail]

12 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Hm. You're the second person that's recommended Hill House for a non-horror person. Maybe I should give it a try. I've been enjoying horror elements in games lately, maybe my sensibilities are changing anyway...

9 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

I don't mind gore, but stupidity and cheap jump scares annoy me.

 

Spoilers for Hill House if you watch it:

Spoiler

It helped me getting through Hill House to know the ghosts never kill anyone. You're supposed to only gradually realize it, but this isn't a piece about murder ghosts that carve you up. 

 

Also, for animal lovers, the kittens do die, but not of supernatural causes.

 

10 hours ago, Sea-to-sky said:

I can do comedy horror movies and older ones. But most of the new stuff (that isn't based on victorian gothic novels) is a bit chainsaw murder house for me. I could probably watch the shining (I've seen enough chunks of it at this point to say that) and i like vampire and werewolf films (preferably good quality) or monster from the black lagoon type stuff. 

 

I think those get called "Creature Features" named after the tv show of the same name that focus on the singular monster driving the plot. Technically both Jurassic Park (fun for the whole family) and IT (Christ no, not my cup of tea - I think I mostly hate Steven King) both fit in that genre, demonstrating the fuzziness of the sets here. Interestingly we see the vampire/werewolf sub-genres of creature feature growing well outside the bounds of horror to occupy romance and superhero fantasy genres. Cultural evolution is weird for sure. 

 

The chainsaw murder stories are "hillbilly horror", with Deliverance as the Ur example, and Tucker & Dale Vs Evil as the modern horror/comedy subversion. An important post-modern subversion to hillbilly horror that's worth watching is Cabin in the Woods. That one is Joss Whedon, and he's somewhat getting up his own ass in the piece, but arguably he's deconstructing Joseph Cambell's Monomyth shit and he gets points for the attempts (insert acknowledgement that Whedon is abusive towards women, and an ongoing discussion around decentering the producer from collaborative art pieces like a movie). 

 

10 hours ago, Sea-to-sky said:

mostly i oscillate between it being too gory and yelling “why the hades would you go out there!” At the characters who do the stupid thing. 

 

Sounds like you need to watch "Totally Killer". It plays with those stupid decisions from horror movies in this comedy/thriller that straps a psycho killer onto the chassis of Back to The Future. It's hardly an immortal classic, but Halloween fun and big 80's nostalgia without too much horror intensity. Spoiler-y review here.

 

 

[Laghail]

5 hours ago, Whisper said:

Haikus by Richard Wright

 

Gorgeous! 

Spoiler

Quote

 

I grant to sparrows

The telegraph wires that brought

Me such good tidings!

 

 

So damn gentle. Feels like Miyazaki could have written that.  

 

[Whisper]

An aged man is a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick

Unless Soul clap its hands

And sing, and louder sing,

for every tatter in its mortal dress.

 

From  Sailing to Byzantium By William Butler Yeats

[Sea-to-sky]

14 hours ago, Laghail said:

Interestingly we see the vampire/werewolf sub-genres of creature feature growing well outside the bounds of horror to occupy romance and superhero fantasy genres. Cultural evolution is weird for sure

We need better modern werewolf movies, just saying. Id hoped the whole “we can do it with computers” thing would have solved that issue, but at least there are some nice vampire movies and series being produced. The swamp thing tv series was excellent, this is my consolation. 
Someone recommended “the strain” as a must watch vamp tv series and i have yet to get to it. It looks very well done though. 
 

14 hours ago, Laghail said:

Tucker & Dale Vs Evil as the modern horror/comedy subversion

Have actually watched that one (i know, i was surprised too) and it was pretty good. Not shawn of the dead good, but pretty watchable. 
 

jarrasic park is a classic and will remain awesome despite slightly janky dino robotics in places. 

[TimovieMan]

On 10/8/2024 at 7:02 PM, Laghail said:

• "Haunting of Hill House" you will sob by the ending and I love the work too much to spoil it. Also Hill House is the rare American haunted house story that has the balls to set the piece in the states, with a house flipper trying to manage a massive and cursed mansion. So many American haunted house stories lamely export their story to the UK to trade on American anxieties around class and Catholicism, because obviously all of the British Isles are rich and catholic, right? (Americans aren't good at history)
  • 

^ I second a recommendation for the 2018 mini-series. A lot of the horror depends on creating an eerie vibe rather than jump-scares (for instance: Hill House has a large number of statues, and while you never see them move, they regularly change positions while offscreen - it's unsettling as fuck!). The series also contains one of the better mid-season plot twists, imo.

 

  

3 hours ago, Sea-to-sky said:

We need better modern werewolf movies, just saying. Id hoped the whole “we can do it with computers” thing would have solved that issue, but at least there are some nice vampire movies and series being produced. The swamp thing tv series was excellent, this is my consolation.

I still think the practical effects of "An American Werewolf in London" make for the best werewolf-transition of all time!

[Sea-to-sky]

16 minutes ago, TimovieMan said:

still think the practical effects of "An American Werewolf in London" make for the best werewolf-transition of all time!

Agreed, they did a really nice job on that one. I was just hoping removing the technical challenge and 6hrs in makeup and a full skin suit would mean we would get more movies produced. 
mind you Doug Jones would make a fabulous old school full suit werewolf act. He js fabulous in all his parts