Blackmoor Vituperative

The second feature on tonight’s horrorfest (following “A Christmas Horror Story“, 2015) was “No One Lives” (2012). I would have linked to a trailer, but every trailer I found gave away important plot points (boo!) and was infested with that obnoxious seizure-inducing strobe-to-black that every goddamned trailer seems to have nowadays (double boo!). So do yourself a favour, and avoid any trailers before you see it.

That being said, we enjoyed this much more than we expected. Despite the impression made by the first scene, it is not humourless torture porn (which I can’t stomach). It is a slasher movie (lots of blood, a fair amount of nudity), but it also brings a new angle to the genre, and there was some humour. I enjoyed it. I might even watch it again.

Early every year, seeds are growing
Unseen, unheard, they lie beneath the ground
Would you know before the leaves are showing
That with weeds all your garden will abound?

If you close your eyes, stop your ears
Hold your mouth, how can you know?
The seeds you cannot see may not be there
The seeds you cannot hear may never grow

In January you’ve still got the choice
You can cut the weeds before they start to bud
If you leave them to grow higher, they’ll silence your voice
And in December you may pay with your blood

Close your eyes, stop your ears
Close your mouth and take it slow
Let others take the lead and you bring up the rear
And later you can say you didn’t know

Everyday another vulture takes flight
There’s another danger born every morning
In the darkness of your blindness the beast will learn to bite
How can you fight if you can’t recognize a warning?

Close your eyes, stop your ears
Close your mouth and then you know
Let others take the lead and you bring up the rear
And later you can say you didn’t know

Today you may earn a living wage
Tomorrow you may be on the dole
Though there’s millions going hungry, you needn’t disengage
For it’s them, not you, that’s fallen in the hole

It’s alright for you if you run with the pack
It’s alright if you agree with all they do
If the fascist’s party slowly climbing back
It’s not here yet, so what’s it got to do with you?

The weeds are all around us and they’re growing
It will soon be too late for the knife
If you leave them on the wind that around the world is blowing
You may pay for your silence with your life

Close your eyes, stop your ears
Close your mouth, they’re never there
And if it happens here, they’ll never come for you
Because they’ll know you really didn’t care

— Solas, “Song Of Choice” (1998)

Last night I dreamed that I had made up a RPG character who was a male Asian-American police detective in Los Angeles, who knew karate and had expertise with motorcycle stunts. Initially, he was going to speak with a TV-stereotype accent, but then I changed my dream-mind and decided that he was from Van Nuys and spoke just like everyone else in southern California. (I’m not sure what that says about me.)

The game system was an adaptation of ZeroSpace to TV action shows (which is certainly feasible, although it’s not something I’d ever considered before now), and I had a printed character sheet that I was taking to the game. The printed character sheet was the size of a bath towel. When I got to the game (which was apparently going to be played in a fast food restaurant — brightly lit, plastic chairs, little tables), everyone else was already there, including Susan: each of them had their own huge character sheets.

Lloyd was going to to be GMing the game. When I handed him my huge character sheet, he started walking to the other side of the room, but my character sheet got stuck on something and tore. The last thing I remember in the dream was being annoyed at that and saying, “Aw, come on, man.”

The image above is Daniel Henney, an actor who resembles how I imagined the character in the dream.

The first one-quarter of my life is over: I am 50. Of al the things running through my mind, the uppermost is… I will never be as cool as Vincent Price.

This is scheduled to appear on my blog a couple of months from now. It’d be pretty creepy if I died before then.

Boo!

This is my favourite scene from Willy Wonka. Because it’s not how others treat us that matters, but how we treat others… even if they are crooks, and even if we don’t win a lifetime supply of chocolate as a reward. The world is overflowing with vengeance and pettiness and bitterness: when has that made anything better? It’s better to be true and kind and forgiving, even if your only reward is that you are true and kind and forgiving.

R.I.P., Gene Wilder.

I was bored, so I made these. They aren’t as funny as I’d hoped they would be, but what’s done is done. Comedy is hard.

Julian’s Magic Glass

Once filled with rum & coke (or some other nonmagical beverage) and a piece of ice (optional), the glass will continue to be full and the ice will not melt, no matter how many sips the holder takes from it. Additionally, as long as the holder has a firm grasp on the glass, it will remain level and the liquid will not spill regardless of what befalls the holder. Julian’s Magic Glass also has the property that the holder will be allowed to carry the glass without consequences even at times and places where it is impractical, inappropriate, or would otherwise be prohibited (in combat, on horseback, in a prison, at an audience with royalty, etc.). Observers can see the glass and its contents: it just doesn’t occur to them to object to it.

Prediction: In five hundred years, our current system of “intellectual property” (copyright, trademarks, patents) will be considered an archaic affront to basic human rights, rather like “creative feudalism”. It will be mentioned alongside multi-level-marketing and trickle-down economics as one of the peculiarly unchallenged scams of our era. People of the future will wonder how we could have possibly been so stupid.

Watched the Captain America movie from 1990 last night. You know, it really wasn’t all that different from the 2011 film. Yes, the 2011 film is better, but the 1990 film hits a lot of the same beats, and it has a good cast. It’s a lower budget film, but it’s certainly not a bad film. I haven’t seen it since I first saw it at the theatre in 1990 (YES, I DID), but to my surprise, I still like it. It still tickles me that the Red Skull’s minions are all beautiful young Italians.

FUN FACT! Darren McGavin plays an American General. The World War 2 era younger version of McGavin’s character is played by Bill Mumy. Danger, Karl Kolchak! Danger!