Let The Right One In
Twilight, meh. I enjoyed the books but the movie is a stretch for me. Now this movie, this is a vampire movie I can get behind. It’s enjoying a limited run right now that is expanding early in 2009. Take note folks in the Love Glove, it’s at the UICA in GR and opens at the DFT in late January.
The Creeps
Northampton State Hospital, originally uploaded by Kirkbride.
With Halloween only weeks away, I’ve been putting up decorations on the house and planning some of the festivities to come. In keeping with the spooky atmosphere, I ask you, what could be spookier than an abandoned insane asylum?
Awhile back I’d seen a movie called Session 9 which was actually pretty crappy (you can’t expect much from a movie with David Caruso in it) except for the fact that it was filmed in the decaying ruins of Danvers State Insane Asylum in Massachusetts. Just the idea of being there gave me the chills and led me to the eerie and beautiful photography of John Gray. His talent is clearly capturing abandoned buildings and spaces that seem to take on a life of their own in his images.
And if you haven’t given yourself enough of the spooks, head over to Ethan McElroy’s Flickr stream for more fantastic shots of asylums and other architecture including a beautiful set documenting The Great Western Staircase in the New York State Capital Building. Who knew?
Get your spook on 
The Flip Is Back
Way back in May, my lovely family bought me two fantastic Mother’s Day presents: a Flip video camera and a necklace from one of my favorite Etsy shops. The Flip never worked properly and the necklace needed a little adjustment. Fast forward three months and I just received a replacement camera. The original camera was never recognized on either of our Macs and though it could be seen on my PC, the software didn’t work properly there. And despite the fact that email correspondence with the support team at Flip was a little frustrating, they were very quick in replacing my camera. I just tested the new one and it works just fine.
And now I just need my necklace back and all will be well
Simply Beautiful Light
You should really spend some time at the Lightmark with a cup of coffee. The ‘Making Of’ section doesn’t seem to work properly (or I’m not as smart as I look with my glasses on) which is unfortunate because I’m intrigued by the light shapes and how they’re generated.
The Good and The Bad
The good news, the Hebe is blooming.
The bad news, despite their sunny yellow flowers they are trying to choke the life out of my lawn.
Random Worldwide Dancing
Sometimes it’s good to just enjoy something for what it is. People who don’t know each other laughing and dancing all over the world.
Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.
Blik Love
I love, love, love Blik decals. The Dooz’s nursery is adorned with the adorable sheep from the Wee Gallery. The best thing about these decals are that they are completely removable, so as your tastes change so can your walls. It’s especially nice since many are pretty high impact and something you may not love forever. In updating the nursery to a newly minted toddler room (well, almost toddler) I’m definitely looking towards one of the Threadless collection. I’ve often thought about different designs I might hand paint on the walls, but this is much more doable!
Wish You Were Here
There are moments when it’s quiet, save for the sound of the furnace and I’m surveying the scattered bits that form our life that I have this strange feeling. Looking at toys peppering the house, tiny socks waiting to be washed, stacks of diapers and half completed projects, I sometimes feel a loss. And I realize that I’m missing people. The people that once kept me grounded and enveloped with their assurances and constance. I’m sorry those people aren’t a phone call away to share in the experience that the boy is; my grandparents, my best friend, my father. It’s a shame that I never had the chance to let them in on our world.
Craftacular, Craftilicious … Now You
I’ve recently been hanging around at Etsy perusing the wonderful things people all over the world make by hand. It’s inspiring me to carve out some time to be creative again (the last burst of creativity is currently still tiring me out!). I was perusing the featured artist when I came upon a photograph of her in her studio and was totally in awe. This is what I need. A space where you can move about and be creative with whatever catches your fancy. Now, I’d picture my space a little more organized, but the idea of having a nice big space to collect things in my own personal creative playground is a dream of mine. Currently, we don’t have the space … but one day.
Insomnia
Why is it an unwritten law that when you lose a post, the rewritten version will never be as good as the first? And what happens if you’ve actually lost the post twice (having realized one of the links you were adding crashed the browser)? Does that mean the rewritten post will be twice as crappy? Methinks so. I can tell … already!
Well, might as well get on with it then. Sigh. My new favorite past time when unable to sleep and/or I’m trying my best to avoid doing something I should be (like cleaning … or work) is to organize and weed through my del.icio.us tags. It’s like cleaning your closet or going through old photographs. You end up finding sites you may have forgotten about and find yourself rediscovering things at a much faster rate than you’re actually organizing. I spent time reading through La Coquette and then even more time loving the Colette site and dreaming about sipping un caf?ɬ© while perusing floors of design goodness. I poked around aoineko to check for their latest music offerings for download (good for working to!) and admired the combination of innovation and awareness in the delivery of the USHMM’s site on the genocide in the Congo. This lead me to a lighter break over at the very stylish blog for Handmade Detroit before admiring the lovely little work-y type items at See Jane Work where they share my belief that a lovely workspace is important!
So I did just a teensy bit of reorganizing. There’s always next time.
Ubiquitous Sunday Post
Some days, it’s really good to be a dog. It’s not too shabby being a dog owner either … especially when you have Marymoor Park a quick drive away to enjoy a little Sunday morning sunshine while the dogs enjoy some free range frolicking.
The Good And The Bad
I’m here to tell you that The Oblong Box and Scream And Scream Again were horrible. I mean bad, past bad-good and into embarrassing territory. Between cheesy props and blood that looks like house paint, it was very disappointing. You know how things seem cool when you’re a kid watching the thriller double feature (see My Bloody Valentine) but don’t hold up later?
On to two movies with potential that were released on DVD today. Thanks to my local horror guys at the video store, I was ready to get my paws on at least one of them. Undead by French director Alexandre Aja is about two college student, best friends who escape to a parent’s secluded cabin to study and relax a bit. Sound like a good setup? Secluded cabin? Sheesh. Before you dismiss, the DVD menu was creepy enough to give me some nailbiting in expectation of what might come.
The other movie (Australian) released in 2003 is Undead. It sounds like a serious gorefest loaded with zombies and zombie battling. Hmm.
And lest you think I have a one track mind in Shocktober, there’s been a post brewing in my head for quite some time to give you a brief reprieve from l’horreur.
Creeptastic
Watched Session 9 last night, a disappointment with the exception of a single scene. Although it’s easy to see what they were going for with the prolonged buildup and false sense of normalcy, it didn’t quite make it.
The movie was filmed at the ultimate creepy location, Danvers State Insane Asylun. You would literally have to be an idiot not to be able to glean some spookiness onto film. And yet, the only thing scary about this movie is the structure itself. Abandoned since 1982 this place, is massive and at one time house thousands of patients. Brrr. If you’re into abandoned asylums (and who isn’t?) be sure to check out John Gray’s site and his photos of Essex Sanatorium and Metropolitan State Hospital. Some of these photos give me the shivers just looking at them!
And on the spooky topic, I haven’t seen The Exorcism of Emily Rose yet, but the real story of Anneliese Michel is quite sad.
Lastly, an unrated version of Land of the Dead to be released just in time for Halloween? Or is it just a rumor?
Shocktober Is Coming
Since, Shocktober is almost here …
What? It is! Weren’t you just saying “I can’t believe it’s already September”. And it’s already September 8th!
But, I digress. On a whim (and against my better judgement) I picked up Fatal Frame II for Xbox. As if there aren’t already enough ways I find to terrify myself, there’s a video game that can do it for me. I tried it out last night thinking “Okay, probably creepy, but cool creepy.” Let me be the one to tell you, there’s nothing cool about it. In fact, the game is so dang frightening that I honestly don’t see myself playing it alone … at night … in the dark. I’ve always said that I could never be a horror movie because it would last about 15 minutes. I’m not curious about what’s in the basement, I don’t wonder what is making that squeaky, grinding noise in the attic (when I already checked earlier and there was nothing up there). Hell, I don’t even care to know what’s in the closet or under the bed!
For those of you who aren’t familiar, the game opens with your twin sister disappearing in to a long abandoned Japanese house. My first instinct (even though it’s a game) was to turn right around and try to leave. At this point in the game, I turned to Mark and said “You know I love you right? I have to tell you, if we’re ever in a horror-type situation and you disappear … I’m not going to be able to come looking for you.” His response “I see”. Needless to say, I highly recommend it.
On a completely different note, isn’t anyone willing to go see The Exorcism of Emily Rose with me? It seems everyone I’ve asked has declined with a polite, but unyielding ‘No thanks’.
Since the Halloween festivities have been cancelled, it seems as though the new plan may be to fly down to Orlando to hook up with our displaced friends and go to Halloween Horror Night. 13 different haunted houses! While I have never been a huge fan of Florida … this sounds like a whole lot of fun.
{Halloween Horror Nights | Universal Studios Orlando}
{Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly - The Director’s Cut}
{Casket Furniture Coffin-table any one?}
Fresh Tech
It’s been awhile since I dorked out on you about new technology. There’s nothing like a marriage of good design and good development. Mint promises to be a fine example of both. Designed by Shaun Inman, Mint is his new extensible, customizable, design-savvy site stats program promising to help you look at your website in a whole new way. There are a handful of beta testers giving it a go. It’s scheduled for release on Tuesday, so keep your eyes peeled.
And speaking of good shtuff, have you tried Nvu? It’s a complete open source web-authoring system for Windows, Mac and Linux. Though I’m usually a Dreamweaver user, I’ve been a bit restless lately with the pig that DW is. I spend most of the time now in code view, so a simpler program seems more and more attractive. Things are located pretty intuitively and the interface is clean, simple and easy on the eyes. More to come as I give it more of a day-to-day test drive.
How cute is this logo? I’m a hard sell on the whole idea of storing information on the Internet. Sounds ridiculous eh? More specifically, the idea of storing personal information on the internet to be accessed from wherever you are. This idea behind it being that you can be at work, or anywhere other than at your machine and access favorites, projects, share information, etc. How is this different than a website you ask? I don’t know. It’s the methodology I suppose. Anyway, Backpack promises to change my mind (and yours). As a frequent visitor of Todd Dominey’s site, I trust his web judgement and it seems he’s been turned around by a simple, little widget! A widget for Backpack to instantly add notes, lists and any other thing you might want to store in your backpack.
Do you want to be a Style Master? While I’m having loads of fun hand coding style sheets (you’re talking to a girl who prefers Apollo over any of the crappy UI covered engines out there … Heather got it right?). But, get this, Style Master claims to be a CSS editor for beginners (complete with wizards) all the way to experts (with tools to make adhering to strict web standards a breeze). While I don’t think I need this, I keep trying to convince myself I do!
Russell + Hazel. Organization doesn’t have to be boring and/or ugly. Sure they cost a bit more, but I don’t mind for something that will be a pleasure to use. Check out their fresh colored composition books, Chicklet adhesive notes and a Stash Sack to keep your goodies in.
Oh shtuff. I do love you.
Random Bits
} After a week of much working, Mark completed the fence and two gates. The yard is looking quite nice.
} In my hot little hands: The New Pornographers Twin Cinema, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Howl, Sufjan Stevens Illinois and Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah (even though I’m breaking up with Puss Rocktm, I’m not certain they fall into that category).
} Try the The Zoomquilt for a different kind of web experience.
} Wasted a solid 1/2 hour (and would have wasted more if there hadn’t been urgent tasks to take care of) testing to see if I am MI-5 material. Spooks has a whole set of games simulating an application to the covert organization. Have fun!
} Off to see 9 Songs.
Post #343 or Working the Categories
Just call me Jack of all trades (we’ll just skip the second part of that phrase).
Sonica: Last weeks KCRW Music Exchange played a bit from a band called Test Icicles, described by their engineer as “the Arcade Fire meets Slayer”. S’right, that’s what I said. Due to release a neon green 7″ titled Boa vs Python on August 1st on Domino Records, the song Boa vs Python is well … give it a listen yourself. The full song is available for play from their site. Although the comparison seems a strange one, I can see why the Arcade Fire came up as a description. The pitch of the music has a vehement fervor that seems genuine and is paired with a sort of controlled insanity.
Visual Delights: In movie news, there are about a million alternates to the ’summer blockbuster’ out there. 9 Songs tops the list of movies I will definitely be seeing. Garnering controversy because of a real sex scene (bravo!), the film opens here in Seattle on August 19th and in major cities elsewhere throughout the summer. Check out their site for more information. Or, if you’re one of those must-read-the-review first types, Salon has a formidable one. It’s got to be better than The Island. Word is that movie is bad, even for Michael Bay.
Techcentric: The official name (or re-name, if you prefer) of Longhorn is now Vista. Excuse me while I’m slightly nauseated. Do you think these people are happy? Or what about these people? Is it true? Well, Engadget says so. But just so you know, if they jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge … I wouldn’t. Well, not right away. Baa.
Sushi for the Mind: If you haven’t yet read The Historian from Elizabeth Kostova, please do. The historical novel was 10 years in the making and crafted from a single memory of her father reading stories of Dracula to her as a child. How do I know? She told me so at a reading she gave on Monday at my favorite bookstore, Elliott Bay Book Co.. It’s hard to conceive of a work of fiction based on Vlad Tsepesh and the mythos surrounding him without falling into the horror see also: vampires category. But, believe me when I say, this book is about the relationship between a father and a daughter, rich landscapes and a love of researching history.
On the heels of this book, I burned through the latest Harry Potter. All I can say is, wow. And now, on to Legends from Robert Littell. I don’t normally go for spy/espionage type novels, but it was picked through a book club and I’m always willing to give new books a try. The opening chapter was a bit horrifying, but that has certainly never stopped me before (see: Exquisite Corpse from Poppy Z. Brite).
And that’s that.
Visual Delights
It’s that time again and and the Seattle International Film Festival is in full swing. I’ve got my short list of must-see movies. Unfortunately that is not going to include Marebito the latest movie from The Grudge director Takashi Shimizu due to time conflicts. But I do plan on seeing a handful this time around:
McDull, Prince de la Bun out of Hong Kong about a young piglet who starts kindergarten and at the same time develops a mysterious and embarassing twitchy leg.
Saving Face with Joan Chen.
North Korea: A Day in the Life double featured with Seoul Train
Amazing Grace: Jeff Buckley
Mysterious Skin from director Gregg Araki, whos 90s saturated ultra acid trip movies still stand out in my mind (partially because of their fantastic soundtracks).
Howl’s Moving Castle …. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!
The March of the Penguins: Just take a look at the image on the festival site and tell me you can resist that?
In other movie news, there is a trailer available for A History of Violence at the Festival de Cannes website. Don’t forget to view the Photo Call/Interview starring Viggo Mortensen’s magnificent moustache. I also saw the trailer for The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe and I have to admit it looks fantastic. Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers took the Grand Prix. I had a good feeling just from the synopsis of the film and now Cannes has confirmed it, even as they’ve dismissed Lars Von Trier’s Manderlay. No trailer to be found for the Palm D’Or winner L’Enfant but I’ll keep an eye out. Or two, as often as I can spare them.
Oh crap, I’m such a dork.
p.s. I’m not one for the Batman movies, but I have to admit that Batman Begins looks amazing! Michael Keaton as a superhero? Val Kilmer? George Clooney? Come on now. Now, Christian Bale … this might just work.
Cinematique
Movies, movies, movies.
} Gus Van Sant’s latest Last Days
} Lars Von Trier’s Manderlay (a note: this link was not working at the time I posted, but it’s worth checking back for)
} Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers: starring Bill Murray as Don Johnston who sets out on a cross country trek to track down four former lovers (Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Tilda Swinton and Jessica Lange) after being dumped by his girlfriend (played by Julie Delpy)
} David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence: starring Viggo Mortensen in a movie adapted from the graphic novel of the same name.
} Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven or I Smell Man Flesh: rotten rating, but who am I kidding? I’m definitely seeing this movie.
} Alice Wu’s Saving Face: I love Joan Chen, even though I am still traumatized by her 1997 movie Xiu Xiu, The Sent Down Girl (in fact, I can’t even listen to the band Xiu Xiu without thinking about it!
} George Romero’s Land of the Dead: I cannot wait!
} Then there’s the remake of Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, which seems impossible considering the good parts about that movie are the bad parts circa 1972
So many movies, so little time!
I Heart Tim Burton
who doesn’t love a Tim Burton movie? i can’t wait for Halloween and the release of his latest movie The Corpse Bride with Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp as the lead voices!