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Can I trade in the dark for a new state of mind?
The plumbers came this morning at the crack of legality and after spending several hours filling the apartment with metallic whining sounds which left us wondering if they were cutting through pipe, determined that whatever the nature of the problem with the plumbing, it cannot be fixed through our ceiling and will in fact need to be fixed from the second-floor bathroom of the upstairs apartment. They have replaced the insulation and sheetrock of the bathroom ceiling and we are waiting to hear if the plasterer can come this afternoon. We are no longer sure why our ceiling was torn out in the first place, causing such disruption that it effectively ate all of last week.
I have had two doctor's appointments so far this week and have three to go, including another this afternoon. So far one has been neutral to reassuring and the other has been demoralizing to rage-making. I guess the rest of the week is flip a coin.
Have some links.
1. On the refugees of Pompeii and Herculaneum and the lives they built after the eruption of 79. I had not realized the regional names were distinctive enough that families could be accurately tracked by them. The fostering by one refugee family of a child who was likely the sole survivor of his own family is the kind of thing that folds up two thousand years.
2. Julia Rios has posted in further detail about All in Among the Briars: An Anthology of Mythic Wonder (2024), including the table of contents and the introduction. The fundraiser for Jessica and Jeremy Wick is still ongoing. Grief shouldn't cost more than it already does.
3. Boston-area people in need of more queer space screwball in your lives, tomorrow evening Brookline Booksmith is hosting the launch party for Rebecca Fraimow's Lady Eve's Last Con (2024) with the author in person. The long weekend of Noir City Boston at the Brattle does not overlap the event, but kind of metaphysically should.
I have had two doctor's appointments so far this week and have three to go, including another this afternoon. So far one has been neutral to reassuring and the other has been demoralizing to rage-making. I guess the rest of the week is flip a coin.
Have some links.
1. On the refugees of Pompeii and Herculaneum and the lives they built after the eruption of 79. I had not realized the regional names were distinctive enough that families could be accurately tracked by them. The fostering by one refugee family of a child who was likely the sole survivor of his own family is the kind of thing that folds up two thousand years.
2. Julia Rios has posted in further detail about All in Among the Briars: An Anthology of Mythic Wonder (2024), including the table of contents and the introduction. The fundraiser for Jessica and Jeremy Wick is still ongoing. Grief shouldn't cost more than it already does.
3. Boston-area people in need of more queer space screwball in your lives, tomorrow evening Brookline Booksmith is hosting the launch party for Rebecca Fraimow's Lady Eve's Last Con (2024) with the author in person. The long weekend of Noir City Boston at the Brattle does not overlap the event, but kind of metaphysically should.
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And Noir City sounds great, what an excellent choice of movies! I especially liked seeing both Christensen and Fregonese there.
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Thank you! The plumbing situation has been a lot more complicated and a lot stupider than we were expecting.
And Noir City sounds great, what an excellent choice of movies! I especially liked seeing both Christensen and Fregonese there.
I thought of you!
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Why are they always like that?! X( Best of luck!
<3 I hope you can go, I'd love to know what you think about them!
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Thank you! It is a terrible weekend for me to try to see movies because my niece is in town and I will be oriented toward her for the duration, but the good news is that TCM just ran No abras nunca esa puerta for their latest Noir Alley if I don't get the chance at it at Noir City Boston. (The Fregonese I just feel taunted by.)
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TCM has that one, too! They ran as a double feature! My problem this month is sleeping enough to (a) write about (b) all the movies I want to watch.
I might also mentioned that "Black Tuesday" is, in my opinion, Fregonese at his best.
You have! It's how the movie got on my radar beyond the general sense of Edward G. Robinson.
"Apenas un delincuente" is also great, I always like movies where the city is a main character!
Agreed. Thanks to movies, I have ended up with knowledge of cities from decades before I was born, even that I've never been to. It's good.
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P.
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I could have slept last week! Worked like a normal person! Written about a movie closer to the schedule I intended! Slept again!
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1. That's really interesting!
2. I meant to say the other day, but I have been a bit useless myself, and I know it's not the point but that is an extremely pretty cover.
And talking of Boston, I saw this on tumblr and thought of you: https://www.tumblr.com/earlgreytea68/752786509380403200/omg-i-wrote-an-entire-book-series-about-the-truth
(For myself, I am reaching some of the "things we do for the fave" portion of Mr Northam's CV and I wouldn't mind, I knew what I was doing when I watched The Singing Detective over the past few days, but them catching him in 1950s costume ("cowardly scumbag" edition) for a brief interview was somehow deeply, deeply unfair and now I need compensation, but in lieu of that I made a gif: https://www.tumblr.com/thisbluespirit/753111177053274112?source=share )
Otherwise have some Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee: https://www.tumblr.com/thatdoodlebug/743413762133032961/horror-express-gifs-of-the-exes
(tumblr is having a hottest vintage sff man bracket fight with the polls, so I'm getting a lot of extra Peter Cushing at the moment. Sadly I think he's about to get beaten by Peter Capaldi and that will be that, but you can't complain! XD)
*more hugs*
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Thank you! The plasterer is almost certainly not going to come today, but, like, tomorrow would be fine. Any time sooner than next week. There are still gypsum tracks all over the brown paper the plumbers put down on our floors.
I meant to say the other day, but I have been a bit useless myself, and I know it's not the point but that is an extremely pretty cover.
I still appreciate you telling me! I had a couple of days where I wasn't sure if anyone was seeing my posts. The art is by Ollie Hunter, who was the staff artist for Goblin Fruit for years. It really is a beautiful book and I am glad to be part of it, even if I hate the occasion.
And talking of Boston, I saw this on tumblr and thought of you
Oh, my God, now I wonder if I know the person who wrote that series.
For myself, I am reaching some of the "things we do for the fave" portion of Mr Northam's CV and I wouldn't mind, I knew what I was doing when I watched The Singing Detective over the past few days, but them catching him in 1950s costume ("cowardly scumbag" edition) for a brief interview was somehow deeply, deeply unfair and now I need compensation, but in lieu of that I made a gif
I didn't know he was in that/I keep forgetting there's a movie! I see why you felt attacked.
(tumblr is having a hottest vintage sff man bracket fight with the polls, so I'm getting a lot of extra Peter Cushing at the moment. Sadly I think he's about to get beaten by Peter Capaldi and that will be that, but you can't complain! XD)
Peter Capaldi can't be vintage! He's still around!
*hugs*
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It does go eerily quiet round here in the summer sometimes!
Oh, my God, now I wonder if I know the person who wrote that series.
LOL, I knew it was a post with your name on it. :-D
Peter Capaldi can't be vintage! He's still around!
It was open to every guy who's been in a horror/SF/Fantasy film or TV thing in the 20th C, and Peter Capaldi was indeed in a thing in the 1990s. It is very unfair though, because all his 21st C DW fans are voting for him. tumblr be like that ;-p (I mean, I KNOW 90% of tumblr watched The Princess Bride at a formative age, but I refuse to accept that makes Cary Elwes hotter than Bill Pullman. I am taking vicarious pleasure in watching him now get wiped out by Wesley Snipes, because one has to be petty every now and then in the right places.) Round 3 is comparatively sedate though; Round 2 had cruel and painful match-ups, the mod was evilly inspired and I take my hat off to them.
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Heroic dork reporters for one million, Alex.
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ETA: I meant to say, obv these fandom brackets are like this; I was incensed because the results were like 70/30 against him and that was unforgivable, lol.
I didn't know he was in that/I keep forgetting there's a movie! I see why you felt attacked.
Also: thank you. ♥ (I was fine with all the (intentionally) grim sex scenes until then!)
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Apparently!
*hugs*
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Ayup.
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Thank you! We're just hoping we don't have to wait another weekend for the plasterer.
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I've been taking my mind off things with Gideon the Ninth and its sequels. Not sure if it would be your thing - it is dark and death-oriented, but not noir.
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It started in their bathroom and affected ours. It's nuts. It's been going for more than a month, too.
I've been taking my mind off things with Gideon the Ninth and its sequels. Not sure if it would be your thing - it is dark and death-oriented, but not noir.
I read the first one when
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The second book changes viewpoint character and seems like an AU, like we jumped timelines. The situation-as-is disagrees in important ways with Book 1, and we don't find out why until 3/5ths of the way through. Then there is dramatic action with revelations.
Book 3 has a new viewpoint character again, and a time-skip, so it is bewilderingly different in a new way. And once you're 3/5ths of the way in, it starts having revelations.
I have read book 2 twice so far, and book 3 twice, and am now going back through book 1, just astonished at the blatant flags the author put right there on the page that look innocuous and unimportant the first time through.
They are also all full of trauma and grief and "They did WHAT?!" and I had to set my mental thresholds to ignore so much bones and grue.
And it is in no way wrapped up, and the fourth-and-promised-final book won't be out until 2025.
So I don't know if it would work for you - your movie and book reviews are a lot more thoughtfully sociological and artistic - but that's what I can say without major spoilers.