What I Read
It’s been a pretty productive reading month as I close in on 30 days of being furloughed from work. I hit my unofficial goal of reading 40 books for the year and knocked out a few that have been on my ‘to-read’ list for years, including Ray Bradbury’s classic dark fantasy, Something Wicked This Way Comes. I never knew Bradbury could be so lyrical. Everything about this book was aesthetic even in its ugliness and sensual even in its horror, and I think it’s going to become a yearly autumnal reread for me.
“No such place as Heck. But hell’s right here under ‘A’ for Alighieri.”
“Allegory’s beyond me,” said Jim.
I also read the first two books in Austin Kleon’s Artist trilogy, Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work. I’ve mentioned feeling creatively uninspired lately and these both helped push me to look for new creative inspirations and figure out how to come to grips with sharing my work online. I’m looking forward to keeping going next month with his final book in the series, Keep Going.
What I Watched
I’m the first to admit that I am a baby when it comes to horror. For years, Final Destination and The Shining were as spooky as I could get, and even those had me sleeping with the lights on. There’s an interesting intersection within the physical media community between VHS collecting and horror, and that relationship has encouraged me to explore the genre with a more open mind. I’m also intrigued by “pink horror” and the feminist reclamation of the Final Girl trope, which led me to the most logical entry point – Scream – possibly the most unintentionally feminist horror movie of the 90s. I am obsessed with this movie, and not just because I ship Stu Macher and Billy Loomis and think if they had addressed their own sexual repression we might’ve seen a very different outcome. (BTW I am DESPERATE for good fan-fiction for these two, if you know of any please send it my way!)
“Subconsciously, I think the Scream movies are coded in gay survival.”
– Kevin Williamson
The plot of this film centers on the impossible double standard of female sexuality. SPOILER Billy killed Sidney’s mom because she slept with his father, then he spent the next year pressuring and punishing Sidney for being too deep in her grief to want to touch him while canonically cheating on her and impregnating another girl. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Unless you’re a man… or you’re in a horror movie, in which case you’d better be a virgin if you want to survive! Sidney Prescott is the perfect final girl, turning all of that on its head by SPOILER 1) having sex on her terms when she feels ready and 2) surviving the man who hated her mother for being a slut and hated her for being a prude while refusing to examine his own sexual tensions and aggression. Perfection, 5 starts, no notes. I watched the rest of the franchise in rapid succession and am now eagerly awaiting Scream 7 in February.
What I Listened To
Never one to do things by halves, I bought Varèse Sarabande’s 6-disc set of Marco Beltrami’s score for Scream. It’s absolutely gorgeous, but listening to it while driving home in the raining dark on a backcountry road with no streetlights after hearing R.L. Stine speak about writing horror fiction was one of my poorer decisions this month.
Going to see R.L. Stine was a great decision, though! This was my first time seeing him in person and I absolutely loved his humor and sass. The event was hosted by Frederick County Public Libraries, so the discussion focused a lot on his career and routines as a writer (he aims to write from 10 AM to 1 PM, 6 days a week // he comes up with titles before stories // he is a dedicated plotter and knows exactly where his story is going before he starts writing // his favorite book is Something Wicked This Way Comes!). The interviewer asked about Goosebumps’ changing relationship to technology and his answer was great:
“The technology changes, of course. Horror never changes. Your fears never change. Afraid of the dark. Afraid something’s under the bed. Afraid of getting lost. Afraid of going into the basement. That never changes, but the technology changes every two weeks, right?”
Another good decision was cancelling my subscription to Spotify. I have a massive CD collection, too large to fit on my 6th generation iPod unless I modify it to add more storage. I don’t want to do that since it’s my original iPod from high school that I bought at Best Buy with money from my first job working at Six Flags Magic Mountain, so that means I need to get a lot more intentional about the music I listen to.
I used to hide my iPod under the costume and listen to it while walking around the park. There's a good chance it's on me in this picture.
I’m starting with my no-skip albums and making a list of the gaps in my CD collection that I need to fill. Brat and LDR currently top that list.
Speaking of Lana Del Rey, earlier this month I saw Priscilla Presley speak about her new book and her relationship with Elvis. So much of their story is focused on its ending and the aftermath, and she was adamant about setting the record straight on the love and joy that they shared even after their marriage was over. Throughout the event there were videos and slideshows of their life together. Watching her watch him while “Young and Beautiful” played over a montage of their shared moments was honestly beyond words. For additional listening, I highly recommend Lisa Marie’s memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, on audiobook. I listened to it on my way to Graceland at the beginning of the year and it’s currently one of my top books for the year. Narrated by Julia Roberts as the voice of Lisa Marie, and Riley Keough, who finished the book after her mother’s passing, it perfectly captures the ethos of the Presleys as a normal family who found themselves in extraordinary circumstances.
I shot this on Kodak Portra 400 using my Minolta X-700.
What I Thought About
I’ve been thinking about what it means to be creative and why it feels so difficult to put your work into the world. Why it’s uncomfortable to be seen trying. It’s one thing to make and share art for fun, but it’s another thing entirely to do it when the stakes feel high. I don’t have an answer for that yet and I’ll probably write a dedicated piece about it, but for now I’m starting to think about creative exposure therapy and what that might look like for me. In the words of my favorite fictional teacher, I hope to “take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!”
I’m also thinking a lot about the American Dream and what it means in 2025. I watched a phenomenal documentary on Kanopy about journalist Hunter S. Thompson (also streaming for free on Tubi), his search for the American Dream, and his belief that it died in the 1960s somewhere on the road between Barstow and Las Vegas. Nothing exists in a vacuum and the concerns we see in a documentary that’s almost 20 years old echo so many of the things on our minds today. I can't help but wonder what Thompson would have to say about the world right now if he were still here.
What I Did
I started developing my own color negatives at home! I’ve been developing my own black and white film for a couple years because it’s forgiving and pretty straightforward. Color film is another beast requiring precise temperatures and timing, but Cinestill’s system made it foolproof. I’ve been so inspired by the work of Nat Segebre who captures the glimpses of receding and resilient Americana that I’ve so desperately been looking for, and I am eternally grateful to them for being so open about their process. Now that I can develop all my film at home, it’s inspiring me to be a bit bolder and more experimental with my shots, and to make sure I take my camera with me everywhere.
I shot this at the end of a long hot day in Las Vegas on my Minolta X-700 using Kodak Portra 160 and developed it all by myself!
I also shared my first work of creative middle grade fiction, a short story about a 15 year old boy who wanders into an AOL chatroom on Halloween night and connects with his sister… who died 5 years before he was born. You can read that here! Returning to the idea of the discomfort of being perceived, I challenged myself this month to put one creative thing into the world that scares me. What if it’s awful? What if people hate it? What if no one cares? I also put some bounds on the challenge; I wanted to write something under 3,000 words and I wanted a hard deadline of Halloween. Being home from work has made me realize how helpful it is to have the structure of routines, and writing for school has made me realize how important it is for me to have deadlines.
What I’m Looking Forward To in November
I’m heading to DC Zinefest tomorrow, which is sure to spark some inspiration, and I’m really looking forward to Thanksgiving with family and friends. I have no clue when the government shutdown will end and I’ll go back to work, so I’m trying to make the most of this time while I've got it.
Phew, that was a long one! If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading and feel free to drop a comment if you have any thoughts or recommendations. I hope you all have a safe and happy Halloween!
“Allegory’s beyond me,” said Jim.
I’m the first to admit that I am a baby when it comes to horror. For years, Final Destination and The Shining were as spooky as I could get, and even those had me sleeping with the lights on. There’s an interesting intersection within the physical media community between VHS collecting and horror, and that relationship has encouraged me to explore the genre with a more open mind. I’m also intrigued by “pink horror” and the feminist reclamation of the Final Girl trope, which led me to the most logical entry point – Scream – possibly the most unintentionally feminist horror movie of the 90s. I am obsessed with this movie, and not just because I ship Stu Macher and Billy Loomis and think if they had addressed their own sexual repression we might’ve seen a very different outcome. (BTW I am DESPERATE for good fan-fiction for these two, if you know of any please send it my way!)
– Kevin Williamson
The plot of this film centers on the impossible double standard of female sexuality. SPOILER Billy killed Sidney’s mom because she slept with his father, then he spent the next year pressuring and punishing Sidney for being too deep in her grief to want to touch him while canonically cheating on her and impregnating another girl. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Unless you’re a man… or you’re in a horror movie, in which case you’d better be a virgin if you want to survive! Sidney Prescott is the perfect final girl, turning all of that on its head by SPOILER 1) having sex on her terms when she feels ready and 2) surviving the man who hated her mother for being a slut and hated her for being a prude while refusing to examine his own sexual tensions and aggression. Perfection, 5 starts, no notes. I watched the rest of the franchise in rapid succession and am now eagerly awaiting Scream 7 in February.
What I Listened To
Never one to do things by halves, I bought Varèse Sarabande’s 6-disc set of Marco Beltrami’s score for Scream. It’s absolutely gorgeous, but listening to it while driving home in the raining dark on a backcountry road with no streetlights after hearing R.L. Stine speak about writing horror fiction was one of my poorer decisions this month.
Going to see R.L. Stine was a great decision, though! This was my first time seeing him in person and I absolutely loved his humor and sass. The event was hosted by Frederick County Public Libraries, so the discussion focused a lot on his career and routines as a writer (he aims to write from 10 AM to 1 PM, 6 days a week // he comes up with titles before stories // he is a dedicated plotter and knows exactly where his story is going before he starts writing // his favorite book is Something Wicked This Way Comes!). The interviewer asked about Goosebumps’ changing relationship to technology and his answer was great:
“The technology changes, of course. Horror never changes. Your fears never change. Afraid of the dark. Afraid something’s under the bed. Afraid of getting lost. Afraid of going into the basement. That never changes, but the technology changes every two weeks, right?”
Another good decision was cancelling my subscription to Spotify. I have a massive CD collection, too large to fit on my 6th generation iPod unless I modify it to add more storage. I don’t want to do that since it’s my original iPod from high school that I bought at Best Buy with money from my first job working at Six Flags Magic Mountain, so that means I need to get a lot more intentional about the music I listen to.
I used to hide my iPod under the costume and listen to it while walking around the park. There's a good chance it's on me in this picture.
I’m starting with my no-skip albums and making a list of the gaps in my CD collection that I need to fill. Brat and LDR currently top that list.
Speaking of Lana Del Rey, earlier this month I saw Priscilla Presley speak about her new book and her relationship with Elvis. So much of their story is focused on its ending and the aftermath, and she was adamant about setting the record straight on the love and joy that they shared even after their marriage was over. Throughout the event there were videos and slideshows of their life together. Watching her watch him while “Young and Beautiful” played over a montage of their shared moments was honestly beyond words. For additional listening, I highly recommend Lisa Marie’s memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, on audiobook. I listened to it on my way to Graceland at the beginning of the year and it’s currently one of my top books for the year. Narrated by Julia Roberts as the voice of Lisa Marie, and Riley Keough, who finished the book after her mother’s passing, it perfectly captures the ethos of the Presleys as a normal family who found themselves in extraordinary circumstances.
I shot this on Kodak Portra 400 using my Minolta X-700.
What I Thought About
I’ve been thinking about what it means to be creative and why it feels so difficult to put your work into the world. Why it’s uncomfortable to be seen trying. It’s one thing to make and share art for fun, but it’s another thing entirely to do it when the stakes feel high. I don’t have an answer for that yet and I’ll probably write a dedicated piece about it, but for now I’m starting to think about creative exposure therapy and what that might look like for me. In the words of my favorite fictional teacher, I hope to “take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!”
I’m also thinking a lot about the American Dream and what it means in 2025. I watched a phenomenal documentary on Kanopy about journalist Hunter S. Thompson (also streaming for free on Tubi), his search for the American Dream, and his belief that it died in the 1960s somewhere on the road between Barstow and Las Vegas. Nothing exists in a vacuum and the concerns we see in a documentary that’s almost 20 years old echo so many of the things on our minds today. I can't help but wonder what Thompson would have to say about the world right now if he were still here.
What I Did
I started developing my own color negatives at home! I’ve been developing my own black and white film for a couple years because it’s forgiving and pretty straightforward. Color film is another beast requiring precise temperatures and timing, but Cinestill’s system made it foolproof. I’ve been so inspired by the work of Nat Segebre who captures the glimpses of receding and resilient Americana that I’ve so desperately been looking for, and I am eternally grateful to them for being so open about their process. Now that I can develop all my film at home, it’s inspiring me to be a bit bolder and more experimental with my shots, and to make sure I take my camera with me everywhere.
I shot this at the end of a long hot day in Las Vegas on my Minolta X-700 using Kodak Portra 160 and developed it all by myself!
I also shared my first work of creative middle grade fiction, a short story about a 15 year old boy who wanders into an AOL chatroom on Halloween night and connects with his sister… who died 5 years before he was born. You can read that here! Returning to the idea of the discomfort of being perceived, I challenged myself this month to put one creative thing into the world that scares me. What if it’s awful? What if people hate it? What if no one cares? I also put some bounds on the challenge; I wanted to write something under 3,000 words and I wanted a hard deadline of Halloween. Being home from work has made me realize how helpful it is to have the structure of routines, and writing for school has made me realize how important it is for me to have deadlines.
What I’m Looking Forward To in November
I’m heading to DC Zinefest tomorrow, which is sure to spark some inspiration, and I’m really looking forward to Thanksgiving with family and friends. I have no clue when the government shutdown will end and I’ll go back to work, so I’m trying to make the most of this time while I've got it.
Phew, that was a long one! If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading and feel free to drop a comment if you have any thoughts or recommendations. I hope you all have a safe and happy Halloween!
I used to hide my iPod under the costume and listen to it while walking around the park. There's a good chance it's on me in this picture.
I’m also thinking a lot about the American Dream and what it means in 2025. I watched a phenomenal documentary on Kanopy about journalist Hunter S. Thompson (also streaming for free on Tubi), his search for the American Dream, and his belief that it died in the 1960s somewhere on the road between Barstow and Las Vegas. Nothing exists in a vacuum and the concerns we see in a documentary that’s almost 20 years old echo so many of the things on our minds today. I can't help but wonder what Thompson would have to say about the world right now if he were still here.
What I Did
I started developing my own color negatives at home! I’ve been developing my own black and white film for a couple years because it’s forgiving and pretty straightforward. Color film is another beast requiring precise temperatures and timing, but Cinestill’s system made it foolproof. I’ve been so inspired by the work of Nat Segebre who captures the glimpses of receding and resilient Americana that I’ve so desperately been looking for, and I am eternally grateful to them for being so open about their process. Now that I can develop all my film at home, it’s inspiring me to be a bit bolder and more experimental with my shots, and to make sure I take my camera with me everywhere.
I shot this at the end of a long hot day in Las Vegas on my Minolta X-700 using Kodak Portra 160 and developed it all by myself!
I also shared my first work of creative middle grade fiction, a short story about a 15 year old boy who wanders into an AOL chatroom on Halloween night and connects with his sister… who died 5 years before he was born. You can read that here! Returning to the idea of the discomfort of being perceived, I challenged myself this month to put one creative thing into the world that scares me. What if it’s awful? What if people hate it? What if no one cares? I also put some bounds on the challenge; I wanted to write something under 3,000 words and I wanted a hard deadline of Halloween. Being home from work has made me realize how helpful it is to have the structure of routines, and writing for school has made me realize how important it is for me to have deadlines.
What I’m Looking Forward To in November
I’m heading to DC Zinefest tomorrow, which is sure to spark some inspiration, and I’m really looking forward to Thanksgiving with family and friends. I have no clue when the government shutdown will end and I’ll go back to work, so I’m trying to make the most of this time while I've got it.
Phew, that was a long one! If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading and feel free to drop a comment if you have any thoughts or recommendations. I hope you all have a safe and happy Halloween!
Phew, that was a long one! If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading and feel free to drop a comment if you have any thoughts or recommendations. I hope you all have a safe and happy Halloween!
Current Music: "Sympathy is a knife" by Charli xcx
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