Under a Black Rainbow

  Wild year to come back to this series, but I'm glad it's back to allow a little escapism for those of us with darker hearts in need of filling.  And the latest season mostly delivers. Certainly more so than season 6 did, but here's how I ranked those episodes:  S6E1: "Joan is Dead" - This one was fine, if a bit over the top in moments (necessarily so). I give this one a solid 4/5.  S6E2: "Loch Henry" - Loved this one for the tension. It's dark, no one wins, and the use of tech is present in a fun way. My second favorite episode of the season: 5/5. S6E3: "Beyond the Sea" - My absolute favorite episode of this season. Great storyline, great worldbuilding, absolutely brutal ending that's so earned. A super enthusiastic 5/5 for sure.  S6E4: "Mazey Day" - Absolute nonsense. This felt less like a Black Mirror episode and more like a creature of the week thing. The only episode worse than this one was the final one. Barely a 1/5, b...

  MAY  (7 books | 1,232 pgs) 07.) Francis Bacon, by Martin Hammer (Phaidon Focus) (Art, 144 pgs) | 4/5 08.) We Live Inside Your Eyes by Kealan Patrick Burke (Stories, 277 pgs)| 2/5 09.) Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica (Novel, 209 pgs) | 4/5 10.) At Dark, I Become Loathsome by Eric LaRocca (Novel, 227 pgs) | 3/5 11.) Inscrutable Cities by Julian K. Jarboe (Game Manual, 82 pgs) | 5/5 12.) We Were Called Specimens: An Oral Archive of Deity Marjorie (Stories, 139 pgs) | 3/5 13.) Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird by Agustina Bazeterrica (Stories, 154 pgs) | 2/5 * I made mention in my last post about putting a pause on the work for An Atlas of Bone & Sorrow , my hybrid collection of fiction and nonfiction pieces addressing my own personal grief and how it affected my creative life (and my life in general). I did so because I felt a very serious creative momentum building up within me that had nothing to do with the project; my focus had shifted, as had the energy requir...

  Small Portrait (1950) Kay Sage * Probably gonna start calling these posts something else since I'm definitely reading a lot less this year than I did last year. I'm also not updating nearly as often.  April was significantly better than March, but no less eye-opening in some respects.  * I read one book for all of April and it was a novella by Netflix and movie screen horror wunderkind Mike Flanagan. "Rare, Fine & Limited" was an immediate purchase for me when I saw that it would be a Mike Flanagan novella attached to a bottle of tequila. That bottle then became a spectacularly delicious sotal spirit, which was a delicious smokiness that I'd never had before, but which was enjoyed alongside this reading.  Flanagan's movies and shows have been exceptionally done, so I expected nothing less in a novella. And the first 72 pages were magnificent. SO GOOD. The pacing was stunning, the story evolved into something I really, really became enamored by once it h...

  Another trip to Ypsilanti, MI; another week of debauchery and horror gaming with some of the best to do it.  My first two years, I volunteered so that I could meet new people. Now I've met a ton of the regulars and show up a few days early so we can find ourselves congregated in the hotel bar, regaling each other with stories of prior gaming sessions or other Chaosium Con shenanigans from prior years.  The hotel bar provides a perfect nexus of a meeting point: you can see people enter the hotel from the front entrance, you can see them exiting the hotel side of things while heading out the entrance or to the convention center, or you can see people leaving the convention center to head back to the hotel. It's a perfect place to catch literally anyone at the con if you haven't seen them yet.  The first few days before gaming, vending, or panels begin is a good time to stock up on supplies from the HoD or Kroger's, and snag some grub from other local restaurants that...

  MARCH  (1 book | 266 pgs) 05.) The Genocide House by Robert Kloss (Novel, 266 pgs) | 2/5 * March remains an incredibly tough month for me; mom's birthday comes at the beginning of the month, mine in the middle, then the anniversary of her passing near the end. There is no part of the month where her absence is not felt despite my trying to simply get through it all.  But this month has been especially tough, both personally and professionally. I won't expand on the personal stuff, though it weighs relatively heavy. But professionally, I'm getting my ass handed to me on a daily basis. The education I'm getting is good; the realization that I'm still not at the level I want to be...is frustrating. And that's all on me, I'm finding.  There is a mountain of things I need to learn in order to be half as good as I want to be at my job. And though I still love the work, it has been a really, really hard month. Some of that is work related, a fair amount remains e...

JANUARY  (0 books | 0 pgs) N/A FEBRUARY  (4 books | 1,023 pgs) 01.) The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Novel, 487 pgs) | 5/5 02.) At the Mountains of Madness (for Beginning Readers) by RJ Ivankovic (Novel, 142 pgs) | 5/5 03.) Mothmeister: Sinister and Spiritual Post-Mortem Fairy Tales by Mothmeister (Art, 272 pgs) | 5/5 04.) House of Rot by Danger Slater (Novel, 122 pgs) | 2/5 * The start of this year has made it hard for me to focus on reading. Rather, the state of the world on a daily basis has made it difficult for me to focus on anything other than prepping for worst case scenarios in a number of situations (fiscal, physical, occupational, etc). But getting to finally finish Zafon's first entry in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series was really nice as I truly love his prose.  March is a wide open month with not a lot happening across its weeks, so hopefully I'll find more time to read through the new books I bought while in Portland, along with several ot...

  "Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning;  I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning. Poor chap, he always loved larking And now he's dead It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way, They said.  Oh, no no no, it was too cold always (Still the dead one lay moaning) I was much too far out all my life And not waving but drowning." *     *     * I've always loved this phrase from British poet Stevie Smith. The first time I heard it was my freshman year of college, but not in one of my class lectures or from any of my books. There was a band that came and played on campus by this name. They were loud and screamy and they were just my vibe at a time when I was listening to a lot more punk and emo. You can find their stuff here on their Spotify page .  I've been trying to put together a coherent something about the absolute lunacy that has been this year, but I think the phrase says it nicely, and c...