Dec. 29th, 2014

darchildre: a crow being held in one hand.  text:  "bird in hand" (bird in the hand)
Things:

- So that "posting every day in December" thing didn't work out. Ah well. Holidays screw things up a little.

- Tangentially - so, hey, holidays! My Christmas went quite well. We had fun family times and good food, I received many pairs of socks and bars of soap*, some beautiful stationery paper and fountain pen ink, and a new book on monster movies. Plus, a PEZ dispenser shaped like the Flash! We played a lot of Uno and ate a lot of cookies and Megan played the Marty Robbins pandora station a lot. Good times. I hope that you all had a nice time as well, whatever you may or may not be celebrating at this time of year.

- Also, we went to see Into the Woods. Which I have some quibbles with, Expandwhich are under here, ) but generally enjoyed. Also, the staging of Agony alone is worth the price of admission, so there's that.

- Yesterday, I bought three tiny colorful cactuses for my windowsill because I decided that I needed more plant life around. And then I remembered that I had bought flower seeds this summer for indoor planting and never used them, so now they are in pots on my windowsill. They may not grow, as it is midwinter, but the possibility pleases me.

- I did some Christmas knitting this year - a pair of socks for Dad - and it came down to the wire a little in that I didn't finished them till Christmas Eve. (We open presents on Christmas Eve, to give you some perspective.) Pressured knitting is no fun, but it did remind me that I love making socks and haven't done so in a which. And I have a lot of sock yarn that I haven't knit up yet. So now I am knitting some socks with this yarn, which was given to me three years ago. They are mildly hideous and I love them. And I am not allowed to buy anymore sock yarn until I knit the yarn I have.

- I am pretty sanguine about going back to work today, but there is still a part of me that want to stay home, get out all my dvds of monster movies, and have a day-long marathon. I feel like I need some black and white vampires and beautiful staircases.




*I suppose it is a sign of adulthood that I asked for those things. Most of the socks have monsters or dinosaurs on them, though.
darchildre: dr rotwang and robot maria.  text:  "I love my robot girlfriend" (robot girlfriend)
This morning, I started reading the book on horror movies I got for Christmas, which is Caligari's Children. So far, I am very much enjoying it, as I always enjoy horror scholarship, even the wacky stuff. This one is not terribly wacky thus far, just enjoyable. Of course, at this point, we're still doing the "here is a potted history of the horror genre in film."

Three things:

- So the book was published in 1980 and written in 1978. This isn't terribly important to its content, as its main subjects are films from the 20's and 30's. However, during the history bit, the author talks about the waves of horror films in the 20th century (silent movies, the Universal era in the 30's, the 40's and 50's films with the giant bugs and the space men, etc) and mentions that, as he's writing in 1978, he feels that the genre has just ended a wave of what he calls "meat movies" - Texas Chainsaw Massacre, et al. And I read that and thought, "1978 - that's when Halloween came out. Oh buddy, get ready to catch that next wave!" I wonder if he enjoyed watching that happen.

- The author mentioned Fritz Lang's Dr Mabuse series (which I keep meaning to watch but have not yet). Sometimes I think about the existence of that series and am just amazed. I mean, Dr Mabuse the Gambler came out in 1922 and The Thousand Eyes of Dr Mabuse came out in 1960. I mean, just think about that - here's a guy who was making movies in an era where we still had title cards and pantomime and just kept making them till 1960. That is a vast and astounding amount of history and technological innovation for one person's career to cover, let alone one single film trilogy.

- Books about horror movies always end up making me want to watch movies from the 60's and 70's. Which is a problem because I really dislike vast swathes of American film from the 60's and 70's. I mean, I can do it if I have to but you would have to pay me money to make me sit through Rosemary's Baby again. Reading about 60's and 70's film works out much better because I can thoroughly enjoy the movie I make up in my head.

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darchildre: a candle in the dark.  text:  "a light in dark places". (Default)
Renfield

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