You've got to pick up every stitch
hi hello
I am an American who was raised in America, and as a consequence of which Halloween is sort of a big deal for me. Every year, we'd watch a Disney Halloween special that my mom taped off of live tv sometime in the 80s, we'd decorate the house and yard, carve pumpkins, go to haunted houses and corn mazes. My hometown even has a Halloween parade every year, and we'd never ever miss it.
As much as I love Halloween, for most of my adult life I've worked retail. Inevitably, I would be too tired (and poor) to do much in the way of decorating. I'd hang a wreath on the door, buy a pumpkin at the grocery, and gaze in envy at the over-the-top spooky decor in my neighbors' yards as I walked my dog each morning. I decided back in August that this year would be different.
AND IT IS. I have transformed my front yard into a cemetery, complete with a huge spider and a wolf statue by the door which howls at you as you approach. My housemates and I went to a pumpkin patch with a generous all-the-pumpkins-you-can-carry price and discovered that one of us could carry a lot of pumpkins.
We picked those pumpkins. Off of vines.
Perhaps most fun at all, I have been watching a lot of spooky movies this month. Some old favourites (The Craft, for example, which middle school me based much of her personality on, and Over the Garden Wall), and some very good new ones. I'm a bit of a baby when it comes to horror movies, but there are a lot of films in my enjoyment range nonetheless. My favourite new-to-me spooks thus far have been The Black Cat (1934) and The Fog (1980). In particular I am enjoying watching films from the 30s and 40s, which may be short on effects but have some extremely good cinematography (Cat People, 1942, for example).
Dog Thing
(Glamor Shots-worthy portrait taken by my housemate Julie)
Mixed Media
good reads: I am well over my reading slump and have been galloping through books. Here’s a sampling:
Eileen Gray: Her Life and Her Work by Peter Adam: someday perhaps I will write something big about Eileen Gray. In the meantime, I continue to fill my brain with information about her. This was the first biography of her I have read in full, written by someone who knew her at the end of her life. I quite enjoyed it.
Strong Wine by A.J. Demas: The final volume in the Sword Dance trilogy, which you’ve heard about before because i super love it. I love the relationship development across these books, the fact that it really only occurs over a couple of months but it feels slow because of how deliberate both Damiskos and Varazda are being and also because they keep having to navigate around murders. I loved this book please read it.
Salt Magic by Hope Larson and Rebecca Mock: I love Mock’s art so I’ll pick up anything by her, and fortunately her ongoing collaboration with Larson is great. Their new book takes place in Oklahoma immediately post-WWI, as Vonceil’s beloved older brother returns to marry his sweetheart, which subsequently gets the family’s well cursed by the witch he romanced in France. This is an American fairy tale that feels fresh and new but also worn-in, like the best fairy tales. And of course the art is incredible.
Paladin’s Hope by T. Kingfisher: I love this Kingfisher series, and was excited to finally have a book in it in which queer characters are front and center. Lighter on the Temple of the Rat content, but made up for it with gnoles. A very fun murder mystery in this one.
good tv: I have been keeping up with the newest season of What We Do in the Shadows, which remains one of my very favourite things. Guillermo is such a great character, and I howl with laughter at least once an episode, usually because of something which I could never have predicted.
good music: Love both the new Chvrches and Sleigh Bells albums, but have mostly been listening to this very good (imho) spooky playlist I made (also on spotify, but that version is missing songs).
good fics: I’m playing catch-up here, because I forgot to write about fics in the last one:
a kind of dwell and welcome by leupagus. Ted Lasso, Ted/Trent. One of my kryptonite tropes in fic is boring middle-aged men finding each other, and this is a novel’s worth of that. It’s the sort of love story that establishes affection early on and then spends its time letting its principles figure out how to be with one another. I love it. Trent’s daughter in this is so beloved that she’s inspired a “serafinaverse” of fics.
Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered by mardia. Ted Lasso, Ted/Trent. The Richmond press pool begins to suspect that Ted is a witch.
there is a shortage in the blood supply (but there is no shortage of blood) by zatya. WWDITS, Nandor/Guillermo. A great fic that truly captures that they are both so stupid.
Lastly
If you let yourself get drawn into the discourse around the bad art friend article, you might appreciate this very measured take on it from Michael Hobbes. My favourite response, however, was from my friend Emily:
Finally, my friend Taylor, who is an experienced journalist and newsletter-maker, has resurrected her excellent climate newsletter The Planet You Save May Be Your Own. Taylor has long been the person I turn to for trustworthy information about climate change, so I’m very excited that she’ll be in my inbox weekly. I highly recommend subscribing!