This was a weird one with hardly any plot. There are probably deep messages about faith, but I enjoyed it mostly as a character study of some of not-so-smart southerners with just enough strange humor and seriousness mixed together. It felt very indie and home-made despite being directed by John Houston.
It’s been quite a while since I have engraved in proper end-grain wood blocks. Up until now I have been very happy using resingrave but, alas, that material is not being manufactured anymore. I’ve spent the past year or so trying to find a suitable alternative. Corian countertop material allows for very fine lines but is chalky and gross to cut into. Boxwood or lemonwood would be great, but they are not available here in the good old U.S.A. and can get very expensive to have them imported from England. I even started to consider making my own maple blocks but I fear table saws and really wouldn’t know what I was doing. Then, a few months ago, I found out that there has been a block maker right here in the Midwest for years. So, here we are, with a fresh stack of large end-grain maple blocks ready to go. I have a couple of ideas and will hopefully have something to show in a month or so. Stay tuned.
My first post The Exapnse the T.V. show novel and it’s a good one. What makes it good? The stakes are high and the characters are all working together to solve a problem. There are no deep philosophical sci-fi ideas. This is just pure story telling and it works very well.
Incarcerat continues much along the same lines as Terrortome. Things start to lose steam in the last part of the book, “The Randyman,” which is a parody-mix of Candyman and Freddy Krueger. Even so, some of the biggest laughs were in that section.
El Perro Del Mar is the alter ego of Swedish singer/songwriter Sarah Assbring. Her style has covered a wide range within the genre of “pop” music, but these last few releases have evolved into some interesting territory. The songs are dark and atmospheric, relying on a blend of electronics and orchestral instrumentation as the base for her soft, reverberating vocals. If you were a fan of Julee Cruise you will be right at home here. The songs will gently wash over you and then occasionally drift into the sort of abstract, electronic experimentation that Sarah and her collaborator Jacob Haage had explored in their release Riptide. It’s these unexpected twists combined with the somber lyrical themes, focusing on death and loss, which make this an incredible record to experience.
This was Sparks riding fast and furious on the hype train. The Edgar Wright documentary was out, Annette was premiering on Amazon, all the normies were suddenly lifetime Sparks fans. This has sort of colored my appreciation of this album. I mean, I liked them when they sucked! Nevertheless, this record is pretty great and it was on this tour that I finally got to see Sparks live (they played like four blocks from house, insane!). But seriously, I was totally into these guys before anyone else, and I’ll fight you if you say otherwise. Good record. Buy it, twice.
It’s big, loud, and brown. Like the number in the name.
This Will Ferrell comedy is exactly what you’d expect it to be. Add to the list of movies whose comedic premise is based on grown men acting like children. This is the type of film that probably has rabid fans who were in high school when it was released and can probably quote every snippet of dialogue.
This is a weird, hybrid art book. Not exactly coffee table ready, and not exactly an art history paperback. The main point of the book is the reproductions of the entire series of Holbein’s Dance of Death woodcuts and his Alphabet of Death. The images are clear and are reproduced at about twice the actual size of the miniature prints. I would prefer a much more finely crafted, museum-quality book of images, but this is good nonetheless. The second half of the book is an long essay on the life of Holbein leading up to the creation of this series and the historical context of the Protestant reformation.
Matchless is a late 60s euro-spy spoof about a reporter who finds a magic Chinese ring of invisibility and then gets recruited by the U.S. government. I think this is supposed to be a comedy but the direction is so clunky that none of the jokes really land. Henry Silva gives it his all playing the bond-style henchman but that’s about the best part of this dud.
