Category: journal

2020.03.05 Tale as Old as Time…

If you ever want to see real magic on film you need to watch Jean Cocteau’s 1946 “La Belle et La Bete”

For those of you who don’t speak portuguese, that means “Beauty and the Beast”.

As near a perfect fantasy romance film as has ever been made. The whole film feels like it’s floating. Every shot is something you’d hang on the wall. The designs are haunting, surreal and utterly gorgeous. The actual makeup and costume for the Beast looks amazing (and they didn’t even have to have theater owners download a patch so that James Corden would stop giving people nightmares… more than usual, I mean) and if there’s ever been a more radiant vision on celluloid than Josette Day as Belle then I’d sure like to see. 



You know the plot, but you’re here for the atmosphere and just the VIBE.

I think it’s available to stream on The Criterion Collections streaming service, but I also highly recommend the Criterion bluray. It’s got an optional secondary audio track that is the Philip Glass Opera which is a pretty gorgeous way to watch it a second or third time.


Currently Playing: Temple Ov Saturn – “Meditations”

Currently Reading: MEDDLING KIDS, Edgar Cantero

2020.03.04 Insert Content Here

Brain not spinning up today. No energy drinks left in office fridge. Diet Dew can only do so much. In lieu of the insightful commentary you’ve come to expect here at the joezone here is the first comic I ever did. The art is by a terrific artist named Matthew McGuigan whose stuff you can find HERE.

It was for a horror anthology called “Midnight Feature” in the style of an old Tales From the Crypt or CREEPY. The horror host who introduces the story was named the Projectionist and the premise behind the book was that each comic was a horror short the Projectionist was showing to a theatre full of monsters and ghouls etc.

Years later a horror anthology film came out called “Nightmare Cinema” wherein a horror host named The Projectionist showed horror shorts in a decrepit, spooky theatre. Did Mick Garris steal this idea from a tiny comics anthology with upwards of 150 copies in circulation? No, no he did not… but it still bummed me out when I saw the DVD of “Nightmare Cinema” at walmart. I’ve never watched the movie, but I bet there’s no homicidal walruses in it. ADVANTAGE: MIDNIGHT FEATURE

Currently Playing: Atrium Carceri & Cities Last Broadcast – “Black Stage of Night”

Currently Reading: THE GRAND BANKS CAFE, Georges Simenon

2020.03.03 Further Yog-Sothothery

Looking at my reading habits of the last 2 months I notice that even when making a conscious effort to change up what I’m reading for a bit and dip into some SF, or Non-Fiction or Horror or something I still end up also reading more crime/detective novels every single week. It’s like 4:1 at this point. I am thinking of some possible explanations for why that might be beyond “well… I like crime/detective novels”.

I suspect there is a correlation between how insane, stressful and chaotic the world around me seems and the amount of these books I read. Even though the plots and themes of these novels (particularly the scandanavian ones I’ve been into of late) are bleak and dark they are relaxing and reassuring. The worlds in these novels are upsetting but at least they are about characters trying to put them in some kind of order. To beat back the darkness. To solve a dang mystery. 

Horrible Crime -> Investigation -> Eventual Resolution to Mystery. 

They don’t exactly have happy endings, but the specific element of chaos is dealt with. Yeah, the detectives are usually scarred forever and you just know that eventually staring into the abyss is going to end up destroying them, but hey at least that rapist-murderer is not raping and murdering anyone anymore.

It’s escapism, sure but maybe a more realist-escapism? Instead of a power-fantasy of some uber-mensch swooping in and saving the day we have the fantasy of having confusing, disordered and scary problems solved by some kind of flawed person just trying their best. Without even having any special powers or abilities, unless you count substance-abuse and obsession that destroys whatever personal life they have a super power.

These books make a nice companion to cosmic horror. Cosmic horror is incredibly imaginative and creative, but I also find is philosophically comforting. Yeah, the universe is amoral, indifferent and beyond the understanding of puny human minds. Yeah, the ancient, eldritch creatures that lurk in the shadows will probably devour you if you’re lucky and drive you mad just from gazing on them if you’re not. Yeah, there is no meaning to the pain and misery you encounter and there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, but hey! You’re not being punished by some kind of petty, spiteful-but-apparently-loving God! At least all the children dying miserable, cold, hungry and alone aren’t part of some grand PLAN! 

So focus on the parts of existence you CAN understand. Just try and enjoy yourself, be nice to and take care of each other, maybe get in some exercise, eat a vegetable or two and solve a dang murder mystery! But, hurry up before Azathoth wakes up and you blink out of existence.

I’m thinking of becoming a motivational speaker.

Currently Playing: Fordell Research Unit – “Borderland”

Currently Reading: LOVECRAFT’S MONTERS, Edited by Ellen Datlow

2020.03.02 Who Knows?

This is a photograph I got from the socialistmodernism tumblr page.



It’s of the Physics Department Lecture Hall in the New Training and Laboratory Buildings of the Natural Sciences Department at the State University named for T.G. Shevchenko in Kyiv, Ukraine. According to the tumblr page it was built between 1973-84 and the architects are V. Ladny, M. Budilovsky and L. Kolomiets.

I think it looks like a big nose.

Currently Playing: Kemper Norton – oxland cylinder

Currently Reading: THE MAN ON THE BALCONY, Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö

Son of All Your Favourites Are Back!

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2020.02.28 Read Icculus

3 books this week:

THE MOVIEGOER, Walker Percy
BLACKOUT (DARK ICELAND #3), Ragnar Jonasson
GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY, M.R. James

I came close to finishing a fourth, but I lost time forcing myself to finish THE MOVIEGOER, a book which is routinely lauded as one of the greatest American novels of all time, but which I found to be just a complete piece of shit. Never have I been so disinterested in the banal activities of characters I loathed so entirely. Maybe it’s something I’ll return to later in life and find it’s actually brilliant, but since I’m currently brilliant (and REALLY strong) I have my doubts that the problem was me.

Really enjoyed BLACKOUT, as I have all of the Dark Iceland mysteries. They take place in the furthest north town in Iceland called  Siglufjörður (which is fun to say). The weird thing is that for reasons that I’m sure are in no way stupid the english language publishers opted not to release the novels in their original publication order. While this doesn’t impact the individual mysteries in each novel it DOES mean that the characters relationships and current living arrangements are ALL OVER THE PLACE. Characters who break up at the end of the first book are married with a child in book two. Characters who are dead in book 2 are alive again in book 3 and so on. Despite this, they are very engaging mysteries.

I also read the first 4 issues of N.K. Jemisin and Aaron Campbell’s new DC comics series FAR SECTOR. I was VERY skeptical going in despite thinking Jemisin is a brilliant writer (she won 3 consecutive Hugos) and that the art appeared to be the best of Campbell’s career. My skepticism was based mostly on my own revulsion towards modern superhero comics and especially the publishers who release them, however this series has blown me away.

Right off the bat one of the best things about it is that it is barely a DC comic. Sure, it is technically a Green Lantern comic, but it’s all new characters and there have been only the briefest passing references to DC comics properties. It just takes the established premise of the Green Lantern corps (space cops) and uses that to fill in some background before launching into a really good sci-fi police procedural. This is not to say that it’s a by-the-numbers police story at all, it’s using the tropes and standard story-telling beats of the police procedural (and to a lesser extent, the superhero) to tell a much more interesting and unique story about power, corruption, society, peace-keeping and reckoning with messy, complicated history between races.

Plus, the main character appears to be visually based on Janelle Monae. BIG RECOMMEND.

Currently Playing: Phish – “Baker’s Dozen Mega Mix”
Currently Reading: THE WIDE CARNIVOROUS SKY & OTHER MONSTROUS GEOGRAPHIES, John Langan

2020.02.27 Monkey Percussion

Taking a bit of a break from the stready stream of novels I’ve been reading this year for some of the collections of short fiction I’ve been meaning to get to for ages now.

Specifically, collections of horror short fiction. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed more than my fair share of Stephen King doorstop horror novels, but there’s something about the format of the short story that seems to me to be the ideal form of horror fiction.

There’s just enough space to establish a creepy premise, spend some time exploring it, get eaten by a monster or completely unravel the fabric of reality and get out before you get a chance to become accustomed to the strange reality of the story and have it lose some of its unsettling power.

The two scariest stories I’ve ever read are Stephen King’s “THE MONKEY and H.P. Lovecraft’s “THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE”.

I’ve since reread Colour many times, and while I still think it’s brilliant it doesn’t scare me as bad as the first time I read it. (I had to watch Futurama for an hour in bed before I’d turn off the light and go to sleep that first time).

I read THE MONKEY when I still lived with my parents. I was in high school and had recently moved into the basement of our house and out of my former bedroom upstairs on the same level as everyone else in my family. I liked the shape of the room in the basement better, it was closer to where all the video games were and also provided a much safer location for covert “making out” with my former-girlfriend-whom-I-married.

The story is in the collection SKELETON CREW and it’s about one of those monkey toys with clanging cymbols, every time the toy was made to clang its cymbals somebody would die suddenly. For some reason this scared the proverbial balls off of me and I promptly moved back upstairs for a few months. 

Later, on the night I moved back up my father burst into the room banging two cooking pot lids together and making monkey noises. I suspect someday I shall forgive him.
Pretty much everyone I’ve met who has read THE MONKEY and heard my story usually stares at me,puzzled. “That story?…. really?” 

I’ve purposely never reread that story, mostly because I’m sure it would not scare me like it did and I’d be puzzled by my own reaction to it all those years ago as well and I’d prefer to keep the memory of that pure horror intact. There is also a little part of me that won’t reread it because what if it terrifies me that bad again?! 

Currently Playing: Phish – “Sand -> Ghost -> 2001. 2016-01-15, Riviera Maya, MX“
Currently Reading: THE WIDE, CARNIVOROUS SKY AND OTHER  MONSTROUS GEOGRAPHIES, John Langan

2020.02.26 Blogger REACTS

I found this youtube channel of a guitar teacher REACTING to music. He watches the video, talks about what he’s hearing and fiddles around figuring it out on his guitar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seub7S3xmX8

This is considerably better than most of the REACTS videos I’ve seen which are usually the phoniest of all possible balonies. I only understand maybe a third of the musical theory he’s talking about, but it’s so fun to listen to someone who is super knowledgeable on any subject talk about it in incredible detail.

So far this guy has done two tracks from my favorite band of all time Phish (shut up, they’re great) and for once I’m actually really enjoying watching the REACTION part of a REACTS video. I know these songs incredibly well, so I know when crazy parts are about to happen and seeing his face when he first hears something is really fun. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDmz8u02qd0&t=1157s

The only reaction videos I’ve enjoyed as much as these are when I spent an afternoon watching this super christian duo react to GHOST and FRANK ZAPPA videos. That got old because it became apparent they were seeking out stuff to be offended by for the clicks. (also, anyone who doesn’t like GHOST and FRANK ZAPPA is not to be trusted)

Currently Playing: Phish – “New Year’s Eve 1995”
Currently Reading: GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY, M.R. James

2020.02.25 YOLOBOLO

There is a board game based on the Wolfenstein video games coming to kickstarter soon. 

They make board games based on video game properties all the time, I used to own a copy of the Starcraft board game that came in a box that conveniently could double as a casket for you after you were crushed by the game falling off a shelf.

The Wolfenstein news only caught my eye because of one of the photographs that accompanied the news article

Mecha-Hitler | Image: Archon Studio

Yeah, there’s a miniature of the final boss from Wolfenstein: MECHA-HITLER. This is tremendous.

One of my fondest early gaming memories is of fighting Mecha-Hitler at the end of Wolfenstein, which was also the first first person shooter I ever played. DOOM is probably objectively a better game in every way, but I played a lot more Wolfenstein at the time of their initial releases. 

This ‘Mecha-Hitler-Induced-Nostalgia” (which is a phrase I never expected to type) brought on memories of other early gaming experiences:

A friend of mine’s family had several Mackintosh II computers in different rooms of their house. I don’t remember what specific models they were, nerd. What I do remember is that they were all networked together in the house and myself, my friend and his two brothers would all take a machine and we’d play gigantic LAN games of BOLO (1987). 

BOLO was a tank battlefield game and wikipedia informs me it was one of the earliest simultaneous multiplayer networked games. Looking at screenshots now it seems incredibly primitive compared to the memory I have of it in my head, but such is memory I suppose. We spent hours upon hours attempting to capture each other’s “pillboxes” and blowing each other up with “hidden mines”. 

I’ve played thousands of hours of multiplayer games since then, on many games that are objectively better than BOLO by every conceivable metric, but none has ever matched the sheer sense of exhilaration and awe that those early networked rounds of BOLO provided. 

Currently Playing: The Soulless Party – “The Black Meadow Archive, Volume 1”

Currently Reading: GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY, M.R. James

2020.02.24 Boring Book

It took me WAY too long to finish THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy over the weekend. It’s a short book, but I found it unbelievably boring and by the time I reached the end I was just so relieved it was over and I could move on to something I gave anything resembling a shit about.

I was about halfway through before I decided the “slow start” was in fact a “boring book”. I wish I had reached this conclusion sooner because by the time I get to halfway (depending on the length of the book) I figure I might as well finish the stupid thing. I’ve gotten better about not continuing things I am not into, but it’s a bit harder if the book (or in this case, audio book) is under 300 pages (6 hours). 

Anyway, at least I’m one book closer to reaching my Goodreads reading goal for 2020 and can read something I like now.

Currently Playing: Ozzy Osbourne – “Ordinary Man” 
Currently Reading: BLACKOUT, Ragnar Jónasson