‘Jason LaRay Keener is an American filmmaker from Alabama. He is best known for his stream-of-conscious, non-linear shorts. He is related to serial killer Nannie Doss. In 2006, he founded the Jacksonville State University Film Society. In 2012, he married frequent collaborator Diane Rose (Hallelujah! Gorilal Revival, The Unreinable Compulsion).

‘In 2006, Keener founded his production company, Reining Nails. From 2006 to 2009, he directed several Southern Gothic-inspired surrealistic short films. His film Hallelujah! Gorilla Revival featured guest voice-overs from filmmakers Cory McAbee, Damon Packard, Todd Rohal and Jamie Stewart of the bands Ten in the Swear Jar, Xiu Xiu and Former Ghosts. The film won Best Experimental Short at the 2009 Nashville Film Festival, as well as Best Alabama Short Film and the Kathryn Tucker Windham Storytelling Award at the 11th annual Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival.

‘Keener’s films liken themselves to a strange, sporadic dream with trippy music, layered images and peculiar scenes that merge comedy with horror. Some shots show wonderful cinematography while others feel as if you’ve stumbled upon a random, shakey home video. Overall, the films are definitely creative and are like nothing you will usually see.

‘In 2009, Keener released a DVD+R EP of his short films entitled Catfish with Falcon Wings. Catfish with Falcon Wings has been remixed by Brighter Death Now as projection for live shows.

‘In 2011, the short films of Catfish with Falcon Wings were curated alongside films by Woody Allen, Jean-Luc Godard, Harmony Korine, and David Lynch as part of a film series on problems in contemporary society. The series was programmed by the Pavilion Unicredit Art Gallery in Bucharest, Romania.

‘The Unreinable Compulsion, described as a psychological drama about an irrational murder, is Keener’s first feature-length film. The film stars Jarrod Cuthrell and features actor/dentist Dr. George Hardy (Troll 2, Best Worst Movie) as himself.

‘Keener cites Robert Bresson, John Carpenter, Unsolved Mysteries, Flannery O’Connor, and Edward Hopper as the primary influences for the style and tone of the film, in which a young man in a small town gives in to his irrational desire to recreationally murder a stranger.’ — collaged

 

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Stills

 

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Further

Reining Nails
Jason LaRay Keener @ Facebook
@ReiningNails @ Twitter
Jason LaRay Keener @ instagram
Jason LaRay Keener @ Soundcloud
JLK @ Letterboxd
Non Films Death Archives
Podcast: Isotopica – (A Zebra In the Mailbox: (how did it get in_ How will it get out_))
JLK @ SearchMyTrash

 

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Music

new music soon?

I Made a Song with Spice Girls VHS Tapes

Splash ’96 – Our Camcorder | a 90’s house jam

Splash ’96 – Quintard Cruisin’ | a 90’s house jam

In 1995, I was obsessed with singing “Sold (The Grundy County Auction Incident)” faster than John Michael Montgomery.

Awfulizer

 

_______
Interview

 

Ben Flanagan: Is this your first public screening? Did you choose the Bottletree as a location? What about that venue appeals to you?

Jason Laray Keener: My films have been screened at film festivals. I really like the Sidewalk film community in Birmingham. They’ve been very kind to me, very vital to me.

Bottletree was easily my first choice. They book the kind of bands and screen the kind of films that I like. I think their demographic is essentially my demographic. The noise band Black Dice plays there on June 7th, the night before my screening. I think that’s really appropriate. If you like Black Dice, you’ll probably like these films and vice versa. I love Black Dice.

BF: How has your experience with shooting locally been? Do you intend to stay in Alabama with your productions, or might you migrate out west to pursue opportunities?

JLK: I love shooting in Alabama. I never want to leave Alabama. I have absolutely no interest in New York or LA or Austin, the three big filmmaking cities. John Waters has Baltimore, I have Alabama. When I was young, like every whiny artsy kid, I couldn’t wait to escape to Seattle or somewhere. Now, there’s no way I’d move.

I’m a big Flannery O’Connor fan. Unfortunate circumstances required her to live most of her life on a large farm in a small Georgia town but I think it benefited her literature. Her best stories take place in small Southern towns with very Southern characters. I consider her one of my strongest influences. Georgia’s gift to the world.

I think it’d be a big mistake to leave here. I have no interest in big city filmmaking.

BF: Who are you primary filmmaking influences, particularly on this project? Sometimes it’s tough to make a list of this kind of thing, but I guess I’m wondering what films you might have been watching prior to and during your shooting.

JLK: I discovered the photographer Man Ray around 2004. He was instantly an influence. When I found out he had made some films, I was quick to track them down. His films and the short films of Derek Jarman were the first abstract motion pictures I’d ever seen. I’d never realized you could make a film without a story. I mean, I’d never even realized that was an option.

Werner Herzog is my favorite filmmaker. Nearly all of his films but especially Stroszek and Even Dwarfs Started Small are very inspirational to me. I love the films John Waters made in the ’70s. I made most of the films on this DVD before I’d seen any of his, but since then his influence has certainly played a major role. I love Luis Buñuel’s surrealist films. I stand in awe of Errol Morris’ first two films but his recent work is very alien and uninteresting to me.

Then, of course, everyone loves to compare my films to Harmony Korine’s and there’s a lot of truth to that. He was definitely an influence. It’d be outrageous to claim otherwise. But it’s really irritating that he’s the only influence people pick up on. It seems like everyone thinks I merely emulate him but it happens. At one time, David Lynch couldn’t escape Buñuel comparisons. And now, everyone likes to call any dream inspired film Lynchian, much like any dream inspired piece of literature is Kafkaesque. What can you do?

Outside of film, I admire the Dada and surrealist movements in spirit. Noise and ambient music also play a major part of my views on score music.

BF: What are some themes you like to explore as an artist? Having watched the DVD now, I noticed an interesting dynamic between parents and their children. Oftentimes, the parents force their kids into things they don’t want to do. Or you just have authority figures impending their will on younger folks (although the kids do not always follow orders), like the old woman yelling at the young man sweeping the garage roof. What about these situations interests you?

JLK: Annette Wolfe, an actress I’m very fond of working with, was the first to point out this reoccurring motif and since then a lot of other people have noticed the trend, as well. None of that is really conscious on my part. I think it really boils down to the fact I have adult actors and child and teen actors and that kind of pairing is inevitable. In some cases, the characters are played by real mothers and daughters or sons so that adds an interesting dynamic. I would like to go on record as saying I love my mother, a wonderful woman, so there’s nothing literally biographical going on in those scenes.

Some of these scenarios are deliberate satires of other situations that in no way involve family but I wouldn’t ever dare to reveal my motivations for a particular scene. I much prefer an audience to take away his or her own interpretation, even if that interpretation is simply “This is funny” or, more likely, “This is disturbing.”

BF: Do you think young artists often make too hasty of decisions when they opt to immediately head to places like New York City and Los Angeles when they’d have better chances of making the films they want to make at home?

JLK: I think it’s healthy to be interested in places outside of your home, but I think people who run to New York and California solely because other filmmakers have made those places established film communities is a mistake. Some people need to be in big cities to be happy, so I guess it depends on the person. I like the potential of a small town. I think that’s what makes a show like “Twin Peaks” or a film like Stroszek so fascinating.

BF: How much of the content found in the films reflects dreams or real-life situations you’ve had or encountered before? The films seem either highly personal or intentionally abstract. Does that lean one way, or is it a mixture?

JLK: In my entire life, I’ve only tried to make one film based on a dream and it was a complete disaster. I wish my dreams conformed more to a cinematic language so I could use them. I am, however, inspired by dreams – the way you can decode some latent personal metaphors after you wake up while other things remain more mysterious and therefore, occasionally, disturbing. I do try to emulate that with my filmmaking. I code some very personal real-life situations in a way that is emotionally true, even in its exaggerated form, but never merely a retelling of something that actually happened to me. I don’t think anyone is interested in the Jason LaRay Keener story, but I do believe a lot of people can relate to some of my personal situations and enjoy seeing them completely shown for their core absurdity.

Meanwhile, in keeping with the influence of dreams, I throw in a bunch of total nonsense that may mean something to someone but usually not me. I like these hollow images. In my experience, I find people are often most disturbed by the scenes or images they don’t understand. And sometimes, like with dreams, I decode personal influence after the fact. But again, I’d never share that with an audience and ruin their personal relationship with a film.

A lot of people do tell me they don’t understand the films. It’s an understandable reaction, but the films were never intended for anyone who can walk away from one of these films and say something like that. On the other hand, most of my friends are people who saw the films, loved them and bothered to get in touch with me. This includes my girlfriend. Those people are also the ones who become my cast. Making films has become the only way I can make friends and therefore have fresh actors.

One of these friends is filmmaker Andy Sparkman. He’s never submitted a film to a festival and I have no idea why not. His movies are incredible, even if few people have seen them, and I’ve commissioned a new film for the screening at Bottletree. Of all my filmmaking friends, I relate most to Andy.

BF: By the way, my favorite of the shorts is Hail Cracking Cobra Eggs, though I did find the final moment of Hollow Porcelain Fish Chamber quite haunting and was impressed with the title cue after the last line.

JLK: I’m very glad it’s your favorite. I believe it’s my favorite as well. It’s a combination of two short films made during 48-hour film competitions, and both of those were made during the two darkest periods of my life. The first was titled All Angels Have Rat Tails and the second was Ballerina Furnace. The titles say it all, don’t they?

Hail Cracking Cobra Eggs was like some sort of exorcism of really bitter feelings and I think that’s fairly obvious when watching it. All of my films are crazy, but I think with that one you can really tell its maker was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. That film is mostly a rant, for better or worse.

 

____
Films

____________
The Man with Apple-Shaped Boxing Gloves (2006)
‘A series of bizarre, often funny and occasionally disturbing images.’ — IMDb

the entirety

 

______________
Hail Cracking Cobra Eggs (2007)
‘To tell you the truth, I have no idea what Hail Cracking Cobra Eggs is about, basically it’s a piece of Americana where everything’s a tick off, where people tell their fondest memories of dying and killing creatures, where it’s ok to chain up ballerinas and tie girls to tractors, to make one’s kids cry because of their artistic aspirations, and where you never know what meanness hides behind the next corner …’ — Mike Haberfelner

the entirety

 

_______________
Hallelujah! Gorilla Revival (2008)
‘Now I won’t for a minute claim that I know what Hallelujah! Gorilla Revival is even about, because I haven’t the foggiest, basically it looks like found footage material (found footage from before found footage became an actual genre) strund together to fill up 5 minutes of screentime. Well, that’s what it “looks” like, but not what it feels like, as the seemingly random clips are held together by a certain feel for the macabre, from the cute girl playing her saxophone next to a dead deer to the guy telling about his stepsister drowning his dogs to a mother threatening her son’s girlfriend in a rather inappropriate way to some sound bits fitting the best of the serialkillers. It’s pretty much like that, after having watched Hallelujah! Gorilla Revival (an appropriately irreverent title by the way), your first thought might just as well be “what garbage have I just seen?” followed quite immediately by “may I see it again?” Sure, the film is abstract and at least seemingly irreverent – but that doesn’t mean it’s unenjoyable … it’s great fun, actually!’ — Mike Haberfelner

the entirety

 

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Hollow Porcelain Fish Chamber (2009)
‘Now I don’t even claim to know what this one’s about, but it has a woman and her girl collecting cans on a private garbage dump, a woman in clown makeup doing housework and later bathing in bullets, a very tired dancer doing her thing in front of an even more tired audience, a murder plan being hatched, some unicycle action and plenty of other stuff that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense thrown together …’ — Mike Haberfelner

the entirety

 

_________________
Xiu Xiu “House Sparrow” (2010)
Music video for the song “House Sparrow” from the album Dear God, I Hate Myself.

 

__________________
The Unreinable Compulsion (2013)
‘After loner Dewayne Sykes (Jarrod Cuthrell) gives in to his irrational desire to recreationally murder a stranger, he begins his search for a random victim and finds one in “Miss Fit” (Jen Stedham), a young jogger he spies at a park. After briefly familiarizing himself with her neighborhood and schedule, he puts his plan into action and commits a murder that will haunt him in ways he couldn’t anticipate.’ — JLK

the entirety

 

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Collinsville Trade Day (2014)
‘In 1988, Paw Paw Charles took his video camcorder to Collinsville Trade Day to document the popular outdoor market for posterity. 26 years later, I found the tape buried in a box in his living room closet. “…as good as an early Errol Morris short. It’s really quite touching in a very subtle but powerful way.” – Adam Wingard (director, The Guest, You’re Next).’

the entirety

 

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Huntsville Space Center, 1986 (2016)
‘In 1986, Paw Paw Charles took his camcorder to the Huntsville Space Center in Alabama and documented a lot of strange-lookin’ stuff. Yideography & commentary by Charles Keener. Editing by Jason LaRay Keener.’

the entirety

 

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The Best of Nanny Pat (2016)
‘In loving memory of my grandmother and favorite actress, Patsy Smith (1946-2016).’ — JLK

the entirety

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Ah, well, I hope they’re out there thriving, coupled up or not. ** Bill, Hi. Have you been to the Market? I haven’t. I’ve never even been to Mexico City, which is ridiculous. Good, I’m looking forward to that doc then. ** Dominik, Hi!!! I shared the SCAB news on Facebook, and it seemed to generate a bunch of excitement. Yay! Today’s my ultra-busy day, and then tomorrow will get at least partly devoted to bettering myself the SCAB way. Don’t worry, I don’t think sailormoonn will believe you. Well, if love finds it helpful to squeeze the hand of someone who’s also very creeped out, I’ll do my very best. Love giving the workers who were at my apartment all day fixing my working but messy water heater only to discover they brought the wrong replacement heater and broke the old one that worked when removing it and can’t come back to replace it until the end of next week thereby leaving me with no hot water until then very bad dreams tonight, G. ** Misanthrope, That’s very true. I’m making my busyness work for me so far, thanks. You too, I pray. Doc Martens, wow. Stylin’. Assuming they’re still stylish. I guess Doc Martens are eternally stylish. Happy strutting. ** R R R R RYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN (explosion), Hey. Cooler name than ever. My projects are mostly being well behaved. Oh, cool, those glasses suit you, I think. Good choice. Mine are too blah to even bother showing anyone who isn’t forced to see them by looking at me. I miss toast. The French don’t really do toast so much. I know those Ordeal By Roses photos, yeah. Romantic to say the least. I’ll try to download those because it would be nice to have them in storage. Thanks! I too don’t get gunge so much, especially the kind where the gunge looks like a cartoon. All power to him, though. I looked younger than I was until about, uh, my late 30s, I think. Maybe slightly longer. I didn’t moisturise or anything. They say that does help, so … If I could stay youthful and sexy, believe me, I would, ha ha. Oh, yeah, Zoom. Not this weekend because I’ll be out all the time working on stuff and seeing stuff. But soon, maybe next week? Happy … christ, what day is it … Thursday! ** The Bic, Hi, The Bic. Good to meet you, Thanks a lot, or, I guess thanks to JFuentes wherever he may be. Wow, that video you made is great! It’s hilarious and spooky. Props, great job. I’ll go look at the other ones too. Yeah, thanks, that was a treat. Everyone, Go check out this video that The Bic made for a song by a band of a friend of his. It’s kind of brain damaging in a good sense and hilarious. Take care, sir, and come back any old time. ** Geoffrey Cruickshank-Hagenbuckle, Hey, Geoffrey. Ha, thanks a lot. Always a thrill to disorient. ** cap’m, Whoa, cap’m, I haven’t seen you in ages! How are you? Warmest greetings from over here. ** Brandon, Hi, Brandon. Nice to hear, and score on the two week break. I feel pretty sure you’ll find some treasures out there. I’m good, busy, a bunch of good stuff is happening in quick order at the moment. If there are any knock out great things happening in these parts that I stumble upon, I’ll let you know. Hope your Thursday has a big pay off. ** Right. Today the blog either introduces you to or reminds of you of the very curious and generally wonderful films of the young American filmmaker (and musician) Jason Laray Keener. I hope you find inspiration therein. See you tomorrow.

* (restored)
—-

* text collaged from various sources

The Mercado de Sonora (The Sonora Market), inaugurated on September 23, 1957, is located within the commercial center of Mexico City. The market, a labyrinth of stalls that cover a few city blocks, has arguably the highest concentration of shamans, santeros, voodoo and stalls offering the implements of witchcraft and black and white magic in the world.

Stalls are flooded with a seemingly infinite variety of powders, sprays, soaps and incense that claim, through bright colors and illustrations, to help one find a job, money or love, to ward off evil spells, cast hexes, or help children do well in school. The dozens of brujas and brujos (female and male witches), chamanes (shamans) and santeros (priests of the African-based santería) attend clients within the market.

Working out of stalls, many of them the size of a large closet, these healers perform limpias (spiritual cleansings), healing rituals, initiations and predictions. All the materials needed for these and other ritual practices are sold in the hundreds of small botánicas within the Sonora Market, while the birds used in the ritual sacrifices can be bought live and squawking a few yards away.

To kill a man, explains Alejandro Rozos, a warlock who practices his craft in one dark corner of the market, all you need is a black cloth doll, some thread, a human bone and a toad. Oh, and you must ask the devil permission, in person, at a cave in the hills outside Mexico City where he is said to appear. Assuming you have these things, plus the green light from the prince of darkness, you simply lash the doll to the bone, shove it down the unfortunate toad’s throat, sew up its lips and take the whole mess to a graveyard, reciting the proper words.

“The person will die within 30 days,” Mr. Gallegos said matter of factly, as if he were talking of fixing a broken carburetor. (The toad dies too, by the by.) “There exists good and bad in the world, there exists the devil and God,” he went on, turning a serpent’s fang in his rough fingers. “I work in white magic and in black magic. But there are people who dedicate themselves only to evil.”

“There are many charlatans here, people who walk through the market and say ‘I’m the chief wizard,’ but they don’t deliver,” said veteran shaman Jose Luis Martinez. Martinez and a handful of other shamans who say they can barter souls to the Devil for wealth or power as well as intervene with God for good health or love say most practitioners are just putting the tourists on.

Martinez has two stalls. In one, a bleeding Jesus swoons on a cross over a white altar lighted by white candles. In the other, where Martinez keeps ancient tomes of dark magic like “The Supreme Book” (El Libro Supremo) and “The Anti-Christ” (El Anti-Cristo), a furious red devil rages above a black altar. “I could not take you to the dark stall for a cleansing because you would be terrified by such a gloomy place,” Martinez said.

The dark side of wizardry, known in the trade as the esoteric arts, is full of danger. Politicians seeking political revenge, the avaricious who desire unlimited wealth and the hate-filled who want an enemy to die in a car crash have to sell their souls to Lucifer.

As a shaman, Martinez said, he acted as an interlocutor, taking clients to a cave in the mountains filled with vipers where they could strike a personal deal with the demon. But it requires a lot of strength. “The evil spirit is so ugly, with long hairs on his face and fingernails as long as this (about three inches), that you cannot look him in the eye because you would be paralyzed with fright … and then he would take you away,” Martinez said.

In a conversation full of legend and lore, he sighed at the sacrifices a shaman has to make to serve the dreams, both evil and good, of his clients. Sitting in the waiting room of his stall, the walls decorated with tinsel Valentine’s hearts, a photograph of the sacred mountain and a small notebook with a bosomy girl on its cover, he said he had had to offer the souls of seven of his family to gain the powers he possessed.

“It’s a hard life, so full of sacrifice,” he said. But he insisted there was more good than evil in his trade, saying God created the Devil and therefore God was dominant.

 

 

 

Multimedia

EL MERCADO DE LA MAGIA: “MERCADO DE SONORA”

A walk through Mercado de Sonora

Supermana at El Mercado de Sonora

El Mercado de Sonora burns

 

Stalking Light and Life: Interview with a Mercado de Sonora Healer

‘Here, in the Sonora Market, there are many elements of the occultism.

‘Many spiritist, santeros, witches, magicians and chamanes are found here.

To do any witchcraft work, there are four main elements that rule the planet: Fire, Water, Air, Earth. Everything is energy. Witchcraft does not exist, it’s only energies.

‘But how are energies created? Chamanes dance around a bonfire until they reach ecstasy to create energy; there are people who mourn/pray; there are those who work with herbs and manipulate herbal substances to whatever end… good or bad.

‘But there is a greater power that people do not recognize: the energy of the human being. There are those of us who have a great mental power, there are some who are not aware of their own power.

‘The human body is a receiver and an emitter of energies, that is while after some time there is a need to cleanse the body. For this end, there are many many methods… like temazcales, baths in rivers or cascades, cleansings, quartz stones, etc.

‘The easiest and most traditional way to heal oneself is an egg, or some herbs from nature. Most of the time, no-one knows how to do it properly, nor how to use the 4 elements.

‘At the beginnings of time, there were two parts that controlled the stability of the planet: the good and the bad. Since these are two extremes, a fusion becomes a saint… the balance.

‘Saints desired more power so they discovered red magic and green magic.

‘Red magic is a very powerful energy, and uses blood from sacrifices or donations.

‘Green magic is based on nature; herbs. It does good or bad to the humans. There are very powerful herbs that may kill humans, so everything depends on what is used.

‘Most of the people doing this, are not aware of the foundations of how to handle magic. A lot of them have read literature from undocumented sources that worked for a particular case, and most likely won’t work for other cases.

‘Black magic by itself does no harm… you need to have a combination: a duality.

‘There are four main types of magic: Black magic, green magic, red magic, white magic: four elements: Water Earth Wind and Fire.

‘Many recipes or preparations just use a couple of types of magic, without considering the others… for the product to work, you need the presence of four… it’s like a two-feet table.

‘I’m 53, and I’ve been doing this since I was 12. There’s nothing I haven’t read… but many don’t know a thing. I was taught by ascended teachers whose names I can’t mention.’

(the entirety)

 

Etc.

—-

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Yay yay!!!! Everyone, There’s a new issue of Dominik’s seminal and already legendary zine SCAB newly online and ready to be devoured! Tons of cool writers writing at their utmost in there, and please incorporate yourself into the ever growing SCAB fanbase if you haven’t done so yet. Click here, and then glory be to you. Awesome! I haven’t had the chance to start reading the issue yet, but I’ll dig in today. Congrats! I think I completely forget that my belly button exists for months at a time. Maybe I’m crazy, but I think I’d prefer Brad “Spit” if I had to choose. Well, then, love in the form of sailormoonn rubbing his very, very soft feet together while you somehow manage to convincingly tell him he’s a bit ugly, G. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. I’ve known quite a number of guys who worked as escorts. The vast majority of them didn’t mind and didn’t seem to have any resulting problems and went on to live lives as eventful or non- as you or me. The exceptions were guys who did it because of psychological or drug problems. Some of them didn’t fare so well. Cuckolding a la the couple you describe is quite a popular thing in the escorting and slave scenes, more and more all the time, from what I see. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. Yes, I too hope his guests convinced to stick with water and/or Pepsi. Ah, I see, about the living advice. Yeah, nothing is ever definitely forever, and, maybe this is just me, but most of life happens inside you, and any surroundings can be a feeder if you let it. ** Misanthrope, If Mike18 had worked for Helix or whatever, they would have ditched him after one video. He was a real sexual spoil sport. They say the Sahara is going to be almost as hot as the sun in a few years, so think twice. Normal week, par for the course. I have a strangely busy upcoming week, good busy mind you. ** Bill, I’m with you. Although Beckettian sex sounds a little daunting. The PGL screening went really well, thank you! Great response, etc. ‘Chess of the Wind’: I’ll hunt it. Today I’m going to watch ‘WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED: A History of Folk Horror’. Have you seen it, I forget? ** T, Hey hey, T! Thanks, man, it was great seeing you too. More soon, yes? Sometimes I have to really hunt through the profile texts to find a good pull quote, and sometimes, like yesterday, it smashes me in the face. No, I don’t think we got the orange rain here in the  8th, or … I was looking in other direction or something?  Weird. Spooky. My Wednesday and I thank your hopes for us vociferously. I hope your Wednesday snaps its fingers and instantly soundproofs your apartment. xo. ** Steve Erickson, If you mean trends in the manner in which they present themselves, no, not really. If you mean the content of their offers, yeah. Like guys renting their feet to be sniffed and licked has been huge lately. I just rarely include them in the posts because their profile texts are usually rote. There’s a new trend of the odd escort and slave trying to exploit the Ukrainian-Russia thing a la that one boy in the post yesterday. Stuff like that. Hm, I guess I would say ask them if they would like you to go up there? ** Brian, Hey, Brian. Yes, you can easily imagine the sparkle in my eyes when I found the Beckett boy. Congrats on escaping your hell week in one piece. You sound like your old self. Get some very solid and dream-packed sleep, buddy. And I’ll see you on the other side of that. ** Okay. A blog reader from some time ago offers you a special tour of Mexico City’s legendary Mercado de Sonora if you dare. See you tomorrow.