Would you believe I have not seen one horror movie this month yet? Sacrilege! My excuse is that I finally got around to watching Mayans and that was five seasons so I didn’t have time.
But now I’m ready and I have a few on my list based on what I’ve read around the internet. In no particular order:
Late Night With the Devil: A talk-show host releases evil into the world through his viewers’ living rooms.
Oddity: A psychic tackles the mystery of her sister’s murder.
Abigail: A kid held for ransom turns out to be evil. Not sure I’ll get to this one. I’ve heard it’s good, but after the Sinister series, very few “evil kid” movies impress me.
Longlegs: An FBI agent chases a serial killer with ties to the dark arts. I’ve read some critical reviews saying that it didn’t live up to the hype, but I don’t watch much TV with commercials so I never saw the hype.
Beau Is Afraid: I am so torn on this one. I love pretty much everything Joaquin Phoenix does, but man oh man, I cannot stand Ari Aster’s penchant for idiotic climaxes. (Midsommar and Heredity, I’m looking at you.)
I did happen to catch a couple of horror flicks in September, though. First was The Black Phone. It was short and ye gods, were the kids in the film violent and foul-mouthed, but the plot was pretty interesting and I appreciated the 80s vibe. The second was Nope, about two ranch owners, a brother and sister, who try to capture video evidence of a UFO after things start falling out of the sky. Somehow Jordan Peele manages to make what looks like a mutant weather balloon unnerving, while also imparting a bit of social commentary.
And now for today’s candy, which is often found at movie theaters but also comes in small, “fun size” boxes for Halloween: Junior Mints! I loved their ooey, gooey minty freshness, except for that one time I got them at the movies and apparently the candy had been exposed to a good bit of heat because all of the pieces had melted and rehardened into one giant Junior Mint. That didn’t keep me from eating it, though.
If you have a movie recommendation, kindly do drop it in the comments. Much obliged!
Oops! Almost midnight and I realize that I haven’t posted yet, so here’s a purple pumpkin from the table in my lobby. I like its fuzziness.
And now for today’s candy, one that can be quite polarizing: Good & Plenty! I loved getting the small boxes of these as a kid. They were one of my favorites. A lot of people don’t like them for some reason. Maybe it’s the black licorice. Or maybe they’re just Communists, heh.
I’m a bit of a brainiac. Learning has always been my jam, enough so that summer began to bore me once I got into my adolescence. There was just so much stuff I didn’t know but wanted to. What were stars made of? What happened to the dinosaurs? How does this work? How does that work? What is the other thing made of? How do you use a microscope? A telescope? Paint? Who lived before me? What did people used to do, and why did they do it? Yes, I could learn through reading, but I wanted to be able to ask questions. I wanted people to show me things. I wanted to see and hear and experience. I loved school so much that back in college I would be in the library or lab the very first week of class. My roommates would come and retrieve me with a promise of pizza and beer because “it’s only the first week and we’re going out.”
Thirty-six years later, I still love learning, only now I’m into The Great Courses. I get it for about $150 a year through Roku and it’s much more entertaining than walking around a university campus reading the faculty’s minds. (It’s also much cheaper than paying anywhere from $39 to $239 per course.) Whatever you’re into, they’ve got a course on it. Last spring and summer I learned a lot about the Roman Empire, World Heritage Sites, and stolen masterpieces, and I’m currently halfway through a series about the castles of Europe. The courses in my queue range from Norse mythology to Stoic philosophy to exoplanets to ancient writing and the history of the alphabet, and of course, bird-watching. It’s all quite fascinating and wonderful.
Yet the series that drew me to The Great Courses in the first place is The Real History of Dracula. Roku ran ad about it on the home screen and I just couldn’t resist. There are two professors and they kind of play off one another with one, Brittany Warman, Ph.D., more prone to subtle and intellectual jokes and puns and the other, Sara Cleto, Ph.D., a little more serious. Throughout 10 lectures they cover a lot of ground, including the origins of vampire lore, how Dracula tapped into the xenophobia of the time (oh, those pesky foreigners from Eastern Europe with their old ways of doing things), the parallels between vampire stories and different versions of “Bluebeard” and “Snow White”—all kinds of good stuff. I was glued.
Another fabulous course is Secrets of the Occult, with Richard B. Spence, Ph.D. The next time someone comes at you with accusations of the occult being evil, remind them that occult only means “supernatural, mystical, or magical beliefs, practices, or phenomena.” To that end, the very belief in a deity and the rituals people engage in to try to connect with said deity are all occultism, including prayer, blessings, and sacraments, not least of which is the Roman Catholic sacrament of Holy Communion in which the faithful believe that bread and wine transmogrify into the very body and blood of Christ, and then they consume that body and blood. (And they call us blood-sucking fiends? At least we don’t eat the flesh.) Indeed, it’s pure occultism to believe that a spirit impregnated a virgin who then gave birth to a baby who grew into a man who walked on water and later rose from the dead and ascended into a different realm we can’t see. God is nothing if not supernatural, so there ya go. Occultism is not all astrology, Tarot, and Aleister Crowley. (Speaking of Crowley, Spence talks about him again in another terrific course, The Real History of Secret Societies. Templars and Cathars and Masons, oh my!)
Point is, I’m glad for things like The Great Courses and other ways of learning. My knowledge quest is one reason I’ve long lamented the brevity of the human lifespan. There just isn’t enough time to learn all there is to learn, which is why I decided to let someone else give me all the time I need. You know who you are.
And now for today’s candy, which could only be wax fangs.
Frankly, I find these to be grossly speciesist and inappropriate, but whatever. It’s not the children’s fault, so I direct my ire toward the grown-ups who propel this mockery forward. Unfortunately, the ignorant ones never taste good.
*Hat-tip to Good Will Hunting for the title of this entry. I absolutely agree with the premise. I do have a degree, but there is something to be said for $1.50 in late charges at the public libary and no student debt.
zenzalei 