Epeolatrix 📚🦇 🫖

I'm sorry you have to deal with this.

jonathan demme's THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE is a modern american masterpiece, a prescient slice of paranoia and disinformation that understood how much of our political landscape was, & will, be based on lies. honored to write about it for @bwdr.bsky.social.

www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2025/08/06/w...

[Book] "The Worlds of Dune: The Places and Cultures that Inspired Frank Herbert" by Tom Huddleston. This is a *deep* dive into language, philosophy, environmentalism, and more. I've only just started but it's really interesting so far.

black taffeta petticoat with garlands of ruched black taffeta

#TheVictorianBookoftheDead #NationalUnderwearDay 1895 "If [the bereaved] lift her skirts from the mud, she must show by her frilled black silk petticoat and plain black stocking that her grief has penetrated to her innermost sanctuaries."
www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

On this day in 1969, The Stooges released their self-titled debut album featuring “I Wanna Be Your Dog” “1969” and “No Fun”

The record is widely considered integral in the development of punk rock.

FULL RED (lipstick) ALERT: VELVET GOLDMINE IS ON THE CRITERION CHANNEL - let us all say that silent prayer that they release it on disc with a million features! (hidden track with Superstar the Karen Carpenter Story, please).

A grey squirrel says “With social media now aggressively pushing visuals over longer texts, reading books has become an act of resistance.”

In the war to fracture our attention spans into monetizable video clips that short circuit critical thinking, reading books has again become an act of resistance.
📖🐿️📚
#SquirrelWisdom #SquirrelMeme

Where to Look: The Silence of the Lambs (1991) Consider how The Silence of the Lambs revolves around vision. Not only perception, but empathy and hindsight, and the non-empirical prick of intuition.

New today on the site!

“Consider how THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS revolves around vision. Not only perception, but empathy and hindsight, and the non-empirical prick of intuition, where vision exceeds the reach of training.”

- Veronica Fitzpatrick

(art by @bturnerinfo.bsky.social)

[Book] Today I start "The Keeper of the Bees: Bees and Beekeeping in Irish Folklore" by Eimear Chaomhánach. I love the tradition of telling the bees when important life events happen and that got me looking for more bee folklore. It's a good book so far and I'm glad I bought it.

My affection for tiny things has gone too far. I saw a pic of a snake and thought, “Aww, who’s a precious widdle danger noodle‽” I don’t even like snakes, really, and yet… In my defense, it was really cute.

The lost art of the death mask The Western world was once obsessed with these macabre memorials.

The history of death masks stretches back millennia, deep into antiquity. Often created for elite members of society as protective armour that could help the deceased to navigate the afterlife or ward off evil spirits. www.bbc.com/future/artic...

I realize that pub crawls are all the rage, but I truly feel as though there could be an immense market for library crawls, bakery crawls, museum crawls, bookstore crawls, and greenhouse crawls.

Ice cream truck funerals apparently produce the most horror movie ass sound you can hear in real life

A row of 4 pencils. They are all matt silver, with a silver ferrule, eraser holder and pale grey eraser.

The new Blackwing pencil is here, Volume 140. Inspired by cooking, kitchens, stainless steel pans. It is entirely silver & very pretty.
www.presentandcorrect.com/products/bla...

On this day in 1980, Joy Division released their second and final studio album "Closer.”

Christmas in July sales graphic, featuring FAR WEST, STAR SYSTEM and THRILLING TALES tabletop RPG covers. Link in body of post.

CHRISTMAS IN JULY!

Adamant Entertainment is proud to be a part of @drivethrurpg.com 's huge Christmas in July Sale -- you can save 30% or more off thousands of titles, including the entire Adamant Entertainment library!

Link: www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher...

A lot of people come into the games industry and pretty soon develop a cynical attitude that the industry is largely run by business guys who don't know a thing about video games. It's only after a few years and some seniority that you realize that those guys don't know shit about business either.

Just read "Dinner with King Tut: How Rogue Archaeologists Are Re-creating the Sights, Sounds, Smells, and Tastes of Lost Civilizations" by Sam Kean. This is one of my favorite subjects (experimental anthropology / living history) written about by an engaging author. It was over too soon.

Reading: "Death Discs : An Account of Fatality in the Popular Song" by Alan Clayson. It covers a wide range of music including murder ballads, country/western, teen tragedy songs from the 60s like 'Leader of the Pack", hard rock, reggae, and rap (up til 1997). It's a cheerful book and a lot of fun.

On this day in 1978, "The Cure" played their first gig.

Star Wars Intro Scroll Episode IV It Was All So Stupid Seriously, you would not believe how stupid it was. Every day, unrelentingly, just the dumbest stuff by the absolute worst people. And what made it worse was knowing that we’d brought this on ourselves.

Look for the ones with Juno, Olly's toddler daughter. There is a wonderful one of her testing Oreos with them.

Cover for the book Murder Ballads. Illustrated woman in tears holding wildflowers, two of which have been stabbed. Blood drops and banners on either side, swans at her feet. Art is sort of papercraft style?

Murder Ballads. That's my current thing, sparked by the 33 1/3 book on Nick Cave's Murder Ballads album and "Murder Ballads: Illustrated Lyrics & Lore" by Katy Horan. Both books are really interesting! Next up is "Death Discs : An Account of Fatality in the Popular Song" by Alan Clayson.

Marcel Ophuls, Director of ‘The Sorrow and the Pity,’ Dies at 97 Marcel Ophuls, the renowned, Oscar-winning documentarian whose controversial and epic 'The Sorrow and the Pity' was a worldwide success, has died.

[Andor Viewing] Today I had planned on watching "The Sorrow & the Pity" for the theme of resistance vs collaboration, but now also in memory of Marcel Orphuls.
variety.com/2025/film/ne...

Today's accomplishment: Beef & Apple Stew. I thought it was an odd idea at first, but it's delicious. Also, started my post-Andor political history viewing with "Army of Shadows". Such a good movie! Next up is"Army of Crime". Saving "Le chagrin et la pitié" for Monday with "Battle of Algiers".

Grey, brown, and white squirrel posed on a rock in front of a brick wall, brown face turned toward the camera.

Here is a photogenic squirrel that has just started visiting my house. #sqrlpix

Cool

A Witch Hunt and a Nuclear Party

Episode 6 is up! Something to occupy you during the Bank Holiday. UB40, The Specials, The Beat, XTC and the wonderful Lesley Woods of the Au Pairs to keep you entertained. Do spread the word... #80smusic #podcast

open.spotify.com/episode/0JPP...

On this day in 1983, Violent Femmes released their self-titled debut studio album featuring "Blister in the Sun" "Kiss Off" "Please Do Not Go" "Add It Up" "Prove My Love" and "Gone Daddy Gone"