only vincent price could say it with a straight face

Stephen Fry’s most excellent Twitter.

Today’s the day Karen‘s moving out. I adore her to pieces, she’s clever, fun and urban planner silly, but I’m terribly glad. I think she’s going to be much happier living by Main St, and I know that I’ll be much happier when my apartment isn’t stacked to the ceiling with boxes. Once her room is empty, we can move the double-stacked bookshelves in from the dining area, as well as the fourty boxes of books, move the futon in there too, and get a bit of much needed elbow room. Thankfully, today’s also the day where Ray and Nicole and David and I try to haul the rest of his things over, (except the Queen size bed, which we’ve put for emergency sale on Craigslist for as ridiculously cheap as my conscience would let me), finishing forever with the tiny purple room where he’s been keeping his stuff. He will be officially Moved In, with no more popping back to Arbutus for another change of clothes.

With that, I’ll finally be able to relax a bit, too, as David will take over a batch of the organizing and unpacking. When there’s space in the house to move, I won’t feel that every minute needs to be spent working to make it livable. (I almost cried, the other day, overwhelmed by how much needs to get done.) I can put that task aside and work on what matters more to my spirit and spend some time catching up on more virtual things, like processing my way through the vast collection of photos that I’ve been taking since Kyle generously sent me his spare. It’s been prickling under my skin that I haven’t even had enough time to make sure that I’ve got all our trip pictures off David’s laptop, let alone take a look at them. Prickling with great prickliness.

Past that, not a lot’s been going on. There hasn’t been time for anything else. We’re still sorting out what we’re doing this weekend for Hallowe’en, trying to figure out if we can even pretend to afford to go down to Seattle, while our finances are smeared like jet lag over too many bills. I have en eerie premonition that we might not even make it to local house-parties for a spooky lack of bus-fare. Vuullnaaavia! We neeeed youuuu! Oh, for a beautiful and silent clockwork assistant to help us in our time of woe. “Where can we find two better hemispheres, without sharp north, without declining west? My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, and true plain hearts do in thee faces rest. Within twenty-four hours, my work will be finished, and then, my precious jewel, I will join you in your setting. We shall be reunited forever in a secluded corner of the great elysian field of the beautiful beyond! ”

Diamanda Galas plays Vancouver Nov 29.

p.s. My spam is more refined than your spam. The latest subject line: “Lists for specialties such as: medical geneticists, neurological surgeons,psychiatrists and much more‏”.

file under: only in october

Video: Inside the LEGO factory.

One of the benefits of having David move in is better access to his obsessive movie collection. One of the downsides of this is some of what’s in his obsessive movie collection. (Which he put on the shelf in alphabetical order.) (Before you think I am ragging too much, I would like to point out that I have enough of my own OCD that I had to rearrange his DVD collection because he put it on the bookshelf wrong. I don’t care if it’s alphabetical, though I’ll smirk a bit and wave my hands around and mock him as any good girl should, but, no matter what order, They Should Be Stacked, it saves space. Argh, bargle, why oh why do I even care? Etcetera. Yes, it’s silly, but you’re not the one living with me, so whatever. Keep reading.)

Anyway. To begin our dirty exploration into his amazing collection of occasionally questionable cinema, we sat down last night and watched Neil Marshall’s Werewolf movie, Dog Soldiers with Remi, Karen’s very nice secondary, who’s been staying with us the last little while, and let me tell you now, it was Not Good. Initial Sex Scene Where Everyone Is Eaten! Gratuitous Dog Killing To Prove Bad-Assery! (Equilibrium, anyone?) Completely Obvious Betrayals Hinged Upon Even More Obvious Plot Twists!

It was, however, completely and utterly everything you might want out of a Werewolves VS. Soldier-boys movie. Neil Marshall brings a fan-boy’s love of the genre in a similar, though not quite as amazing, way his Doomsday did for Mad Max.* (I’m still not going to watch Descent anytime soon, though). The monsters were not CG, the improbable foreshadowing remained improbable, (there was no explanatory SCIENCE!!), everyone bonds through bantering which Does Not Suck, and there was satisfactory slavering, a fun death by tree-branch, lots of splattering blood, and an incredible moment of Cow From Above. There were moments where it dragged, mostly near the end where they ran out of people to slaughter, (but remember it’s spelled with laughter), and the remaining characters had to get all sensitive yet manly, but even so, it seemed pretty perfect for Hallowe’en. A solid four cheesy pumpkins out of five.

*if you haven’t seen Doomsday, you sincerely need to get right on that.

looking for an upgrade from houseparty

What’s your Hallowe’en plans this year?

A lot of people here are talking about hitting up SinCity and Sanctuary, but when it comes to those two nights, I’m just done. Isn’t there anything else going on? I want dancing and fire breathing and circus acts and acrobats and fun, you know? Not mostly naked people in scanty costumes molesting each other in a drowning sea of goth. It’s okay sometimes, but not every year.

David and I are thinking we might pop down to Seattle to go to Angel’s party, (which I’d really like to attend), but it’s only one night, so unless we find something else too, we’d be stranded for the rest of the weekend. (Everyone else I know down there is going to Freaknight, the Crystal Method/Moby/Paul Van Dyk all nighter). Plus, of course, with David unemployed, we’re especially, painfully broke. We’ve got fifty dollars to live on until my next pay-cheque, and since I’m covering next month’s rent solo, it’s lucky we like lentils.

always finish with dancing cats

Scott writing about Opening For Tricky, “You love a guy’s music for 14 years and a quarter of the conversation you have with him is “LOOK! MY PHONE GOES WOO-WOO!””

Today has been all sorts of determined costume panic, as eBay payment problems proliferated beyond belief. Eventually the place which relisted the one I won while I was having issues with their check-out even offered me a free costume to make up for the hassle, that’s how bad it got. (I told them it wasn’t necessary, as I never managed to actually give them any money, but they’ve insisted, so help me pick one?). The days were running by like a Bukowski novel, all wild horses and too little time, drawn out in sentences that only ended when a gun fired or the sun went down, but a very nice lady somewhere in California completely saved me, and has mailed one overnight to a mail-drop in Point Roberts, which means I’ll have my costume in time for the Parade of Lost Souls, Vancouver’s only Hallowe’en party. Which spares me murdering someone, which I appreciate.

In other news, David and I finally got to spend a nice evening with some of our new neighbors. (Nice, sane, geeky people have been replacing the cracked out addles who riddled the building when I first moved in.) We met them as I was climbing up onto the roof to take a picture of an amazing rainbow that cradled the east yesterday evening. There I was, up a ladder, obviously where I’m not supposed to be, industriously removing the trapdoor padlock, when from behind and below me, someone clears a throat – a situation that could have gone badly. Thankfully, it wasn’t the landlord, but a sweet new friend who took us in for dinner and giggles with his incredible girlfriend until almost midnight. Now I’m extra glad of where I live. We might be holding onto the edge of the Drive by the scraped edge tips of our fingernails, but it’s worth it.

Nagi Noda’s final music video: Precious, for Japanese pop singer Meg.

using a telescope to find pumpkins

The world just got smaller again, Ben just did an utterly smashing cover for one of Pia‘s Dr. Who comics.

She’s actually going through a bit of a rough time right now, a close friend recently passed away from cancer, (she was sending us updates while we were away), so this is especially nice news. Help her out by voting for Y: the last man. I’m hoping soon we can get together again for coffee and ragging on the world, as the world so deserves. Any week now, David and I are planning on hitting up her husband Ian’s “Canadian Content” Urban Improv comedy night over in Kits, (every Monday at the Chivana Restaurant & Lounge), and buying them some commiserating drinks.

Until then, we’re mostly going to be staying in and being poor. David is an unemployed house-husband right now, (he lost his job to come on the trip), and my bank account is running scary low, especially as I may end up catching the entirety of the rent myself in November. I plan on setting up a photography space as soon as there’s room in the house, though, and selling prints for Christmas. I’ve got some concepts already sketched out that I’m really looking forward to bringing into being. Shots with white and red and metal, symmetry and pop. The house is too much of a mid-move disaster to get started, but soon, I’m hoping, soon.

In other news, my Hallowe’en costume is a go. I bought a lion tamer costume off eBay, a little ditty that comes with a corset with tails, (100% of my costume choice motivation right there), which saves me having to make one. I’ve always loved Hallowe’en and making my own costumes, but this year, I just hit a wall. Being back east in cities that actually celebrate Hallowe’en was just too much for me. Now I’m here, I want quick and dirty access to the joy that is dressing up. I don’t want to have to stay up until three in the morning figuring out a pleat, pins in my fingers, chalk in my hair, in a city that just doesn’t really care. I’m done with it. Time to simply give in to consumerism – keep the car running.

Images from Bernie Wrightson’s FRANKENSTEIN

scissor spiders

Christopher Locke makes spider-sculptures out of confiscated scissors bought at TSA auctions.

_::_

And that, my lovelies, concludes my Hallowe’en Post-An-Hour, as I am now going to actually go out and try to happily flounce around in my costume at Ben‘s movie with Michael. If you liked what you saw, please feel free to throw me a few coins towards a bus-pass in leiu of trick-or-treating candy. Thanks! Happy holidays!





The Far Side, The Movie

Gary Larson wrote an animated Halloween special, Tales From The Far Side.

I had never heard of it before today, (though the animation was completely made in Vancouver), even references to it are scarce. (Gary Larson is very anti-posting-his-work-on-the-net.) It took an almost unbelievable twenty minutes, but I found an on-line copy anyway.

ENJOY!

Part 1 .::. Part 2 .::. Part 3

Please note: absolutely everything uploaded by fxguy1031 is not only Hallowe’en themed, but brain-meltingly awesome.