Dedekind Cut
Dead Rider
Igloohost
Sit Fast
Zen Mother
Liars
Milo
Nmesh
Fog Lake
Shit and Shine
BJNilsen
Terry
Huoratron
AnD

 

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Dedekind Cut LiL Puffy Coat
‘After exploring hip-hop, techno, and jungle, among various shades of ambient experiments, Fred Warmsley rebranded as Dedekind Cut and is now engineering a novel style of electronic music all his own. While last year’s cinematic $uccessor traced vast, sweeping, sci-fi soundscapes, Dedekind’s new EP, The Expanding Domain, promises to take the producer’s interest in texture and atmosphere to new, more demanding extremes. Its lead single, “Lil Puffy Coat,” sounds at once gothic and cutting edge, a shadowy inversion of new age’s bucolic scenery and fine-spun pastels. Fashioned from gloomy piano, coarse digital patches, and droning synths, “Lil Puffy Coat” reaches for the angular crunch of industrial and the hi-tech experimentalism of Arca and Oneohtrix Point Never. Blast furnaces roar and metallic percussion clanks as a female vocal sample floats in and out of the mix, whispering “It’s fucking cold,” in the background.’ — Jonathan Patrick

 

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Dead Rider The Ideal
‘The unctuous lounge-lizard croon that marks the singing of Dead Rider’s Todd Rittman has started to fray on the group’s fantastic new album, Crew Licks (Drag City), as if to suggest that his sinister shadiness is getting tangled within his own web of deceit. As usual, it’s often difficult to know exactly what he’s going on about, and when there’s some relatively clear idea at work it’s unsavory. Few bands in recent memory have so effectively repurposed conventions of both classic rock and radio-friendly dance-rock into sounds that could induce nausea or seem refined.’ — Chicago Reader

 

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Iglooghost Bug Thief
‘When a pair of giant eyeballs crash into the strange, misty world of Mamu, the mysterious forces that govern nature itself are disrupted. A life cycle of transforming creatures is thrown off balance, and the odd looking inhabitants of Mamu are forced to adapt to this calamity. These inhabitants include Yomi—a multi-colored pom-pom monkm Lummo—a wise blind witch training a band of melon colored babies, and Uso— a sneaky bug thief hidden in a green cloak—as well as many others. As their respective stories begin to interlock, the mysteries surrounding the giant eyeballs are slowly revealed.’ — Igloohost

 

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Sit Fast Purcell Fantazias & In Nomines
‘There’s enough vibrancy in the playing of the five-strong viol consort Sit Fast to keep drawing the attention afresh, with the “voices” of the instruments ebbing and flowing, and with Karl Nyhlin’s lute providing extra articulation for their smoothly delivered harmonies.’ — The Guardian

 

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Zen Mother Mantra
‘Zen Mother is the hive mind of Monika Khot and Wolcott Smith. They formed the project after trading avant-garde secrets, and quickly decided to weave those secrets together into a heavy, electronic-rock based duo, often with the addition of a cellist and drummer. The music is dynamic in nature, lending itself to sonic focus and harnessing control of the mind. Industrial harshness is paired with ambient beauty all alongside the ever-pervasive feeling of torment. Earlier this year, they were awarded the Puget Soundtrack residency to re-score the mind-expansive cult film Holy Mountain, which was foreseen by local newspapers to be a “mindfuck-redefining mindfuck.” Any band can say they’re influenced by This Heat and Igor Wakhévitch; Zen Mother actually have the torrid chops and grave intensity to live up to the lofty expectations those names inspire.’ — The Stranger

 

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Liars No Help Pamphlet
‘Liars have been allotted something that’s both an obligation and a burden: perpetual reinvention — which is not quite the same as a drive to novelty as such, bearing more on the previous output of the artist in question than a more general or absolute conception of invention as it does. It’s a burden that they might have brought on themselves by so cruelly springing their second album (They Were Wrong, So We Drowned) on the hapless, baffled critics/populace, a feat whose subsequent repetition has turned into an expectation. But it’s an expectation that has been pretty well lived up to on albums since, even to the point where the risk of perpetual reinvention — that it will eventually undermine itself and become its own form of stagnation — has been allayed. TFCF fits in well enough with that part of the story. It has sufficient new features, sweepingly introduced so as to constitute a more-than-satisfying reinvention. So acoustic instrumentation, something Liars had hitherto generally eschewed, can be found here and found in diverse forms. There are times when it appears under the aspect of melancholy, with loops of sampled guitars plucked and echoing, but there are also times when stringed instruments of some sort are strummed, like on the two jaunty-sad tracks “No Help Pamphlet” and “No Tree No Branch.”’ — Michael J

 

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Milo call + form (picture)
‘here’s a lot of easy copy that could go here: “milo is an enigma;” “milo makes art, not rap;” “milo’s work rewards careful listening.” It’s all true to some degree, but there’s a tendency for critics and fans alike to delineate milo’s work vs. the rap world at large — a frame that’s especially odd in light of milo’s repeated statements that who told you to think??!!?!?!?! is an album about dissolving boundaries. To an extent, milo brings it upon himself; there’s a self-styled iconoclasm underlying his creative practice, which balances fierce loyalty to his collaborators and the endless pursuit of liberation from obligation to any other entity.’ — Tiny Mix Tapes

 

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Nmesh Weed Jesus
‘Nmesh’s Pharma is like vaporwave’s answer to Soundtracks for the Blind. A massive collection of tracks that is sonically diverse and compelling, featuring tracks that put the listener in all kinds of different places, and conjures all kinds of different feelings. The music that Nmesh presents here has a very strong sense of place, and while it doesn’t bring anything entirely new to the world of sound collage and vaporwave, this is one of the most intriguing releases of this year in both of these genres, and perhaps the most interesting vaporwave album that I’ve ever stumbled across. The kind of music that Nmesh presents here might not appeal to everyone, however, from where I’m standing, this is something that I admire and enjoy for how diverse and well-executed it is. One of this year’s most necessary albums.’ — Album of the Year

 

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Fog Lake Tolerance
‘Largely crafted by songwriter Aaron Powell, Montreal’s Fog Lake surround poetic takes on nostalgia, suffering, and lost connections with a mass of bleak rock aestheticism, the entire instrumental pallet mixed into one grim soup. Dragonchaser isn’t necessarily a concept work, but many of the songs speak about the destruction that results from being stuck in a rut of unhealthy habits. The opener pulses at a sluggish tempo with Powell repeating “I’ll just wait for Novocain,” his only solace from “such easily forgotten days.” Although frustration and darkness flow out of every crevice of the lyrics, occasional brightness comes out of the sonic offerings, framing the work as some sort of emotional journey. It’s a project to listen to in a dark room as you waste away, but the soaring atmosphere of closing acts “push” and “spectrogram” may inspire you to take that step outside.’ — Positively Underground

 

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Shit and Shine The Crocodile
‘Even among listeners whom already have demonstrably “open-minds” when it comes to experimental music, the recorded output of Texas-born, London-based noise mangler Craig Clouse can be a little…divisive. Gone are the days in which Clouse’s Shit and Shine project simply enthralled us with manic, noise-rock songs that suddenly made “Tom” your explicable favorite first name; because recently, he’s been mining a new vein of mutated dance tracks (albeit still percussion-addled ones). Listen to the 2015 release Everybody’s a Fuckin Expert, for instance, and it still sounds like “drums” are the centerpiece from which all things originate (like some ineffable Abrahamic God…or a street performer who’s, like, super good at juggling), but orbiting that cosmic centerpierce are chaotic satellites of minimalist electronics. Two years later, what new, unholy mutations can we expect from the shape-shifting likes of Shit and Shine?’ — Mike Reid

 

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BJNilsen La Descente
‘BJNilsen is a composer and sound artist based in Amsterdam. In 2015 he set off on a month long hiking trip in Gran Paradiso to explore the acoustic environments in the alpine landscape. Drawn to the monotonous and physical effort that mountains and high altitudes contributes, this became one of the main inspirations for the album, reflecting upon the perception of the landscape during several hours of physical difficulty, let alone rapid weather changes, horizontal thunderstorms and rock avalanches. It is also about the scope of details and perception of the path and the myth of the mountain as the accursed or sacred place.’ — Editions Mego

 

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Terry Glory
‘A lot of the best Australian underground music of the last decade has been pretty incestuous. It could be just a surfeit of ideas and energy, looking for outlets. It could be a wider sense of restlessness in that society, or the geographical isolation that means gene pools flow into each other. It could be a feeling that – like a shark – if you stop, you die. In Terry’s case, it is also about four affable and talented musicians who happen to be coupled up. The four in question are Amy Hill (of Constant Mongrel, School Of Radiant Living), Al Montfort (UV Race, Dick Diver, Total Control), Zephyr Pavey (Eastlink, Russell St Bombings, Total Control) and Xanthe White (Primo). Their offerings, in small releases and last year’s debut LP Terry HQ, showcase a band that is sardonic, shambolic and unadorned.’ — Brendan Telford

 

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Huoratron XXVI Crimes of Love
‘In any sane universe the advent of a new Huoratron record would herald the sort of palm leaf waving that greeted Jesus when he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. As it is, XXVI Crimes Of Love seems to have slipped out unnoticed. There’s not even yet a mention of it on Wikipedia. When I listen to the Dark Lord of Finnish Techno, my mind is drawn to David Warner’s Evil Genius in Time Bandits who, from his dastardly underground lair, rebukes the Supreme Being for creating slugs, 43 species of parrot and nipples for men. “I would have started with lasers, eight o’clock, day one!” he cries. As ever with Huoratron, the devil is in the detail, and the attention to detail in the music is simply staggering. But all that other stuff you have to do to promote a record these days: the social media presence, the constant touring in other regions, the blogging, the microblogging… clearly Aku Raski couldn’t care less.’ — Jeremy Allen

 

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AnD Dusty Artefacts
‘After the bleeding-techno ‘Kundalini’ EP on Speedy J’s Electric Deluxe, and the new electronic structures presented in the FVS EP for Samurai Horo, the Manchester duo are back to REPITCH Recordings with a heterogeneous four-track EP. Speaking of power and quality going hand in hand, Esoteric Systems traces an unrivaled electronic music excursion. First track Dusty Artefacts is a classic example of Techno’s ability to overwhelm dance floors – raw-driven, hypnotic, with AnD’s classic gritty-hard-feel to its beat all the way through.’ — Repitch

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, and, yes. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. I hear really not good things about the new Claire Denis. It was co-written by this French author Christine Angot who I find really tiresome, so I’m not surprised if it’s the disappointment I hear. Curious what you think. ‘Alone’, yes, I know it. I tried to do it once but the line was too long. The immersive theater style is kind of ‘the thing’ in haunted houses in the last several years, and there are a bunch of them. Well, that type and ‘escape rooms’, which are viral right now. I’ve been through one immersive type, and it was interesting although a bit heavy handed. I think there’s an ‘Alone’-type haunted house in NYC, or there was last year, if you want to see what that’s like. But, yes, with the higher aims and production values comes the higher prices. You can usually go through Home Haunts for free or by donating a can of food or something. I’m fascinated by the ‘McKamey’ type of haunted house, but I can’t imagine actually doing one because being abused is not appealing to me, but they’re impressive things, and their huge popularity is pretty interesting too. Huh, I haven’t listened to Big Country since back in the day. I had their first two LPs, and, at least at the time, I thought they were a very one trick pony. I can’t bear U2 anymore than anybody, but it’s hard for me to believe that if you put ‘In a Big Country’ up against ‘Boy’ that ‘Boy’ wouldn’t wipe the floor with it. Nice about the cruise/meet. Long distance relationships have their advantages and charms. I thought Laibach was fun back in the ’80s. Never much more than fun. I saw them a couple of times when they were still doing their big theatrical mock-fascist show with reindeer costumes, etc. I saw a recent clip of them live on youtube a while back and I was kind of shocked because they seemed kind of like a Eurovision Song Contest contestant. ** _Black_Acrylic. Hi. Vollmann is really singular and a very valuable figure/writer, especially amidst US fiction which had been very spotty until the wave of all the great newer, younger writers arrived. The Richardson show looks pretty in your shot. ** Ferdinand, Hi. I did. Good about the lessening blog issues, although I don’t think the overall problem is solved. Hm. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Oh, cool, yeah, it’s an awesome book. I think you’ll really like it. My laptop is still alive this morning, apparently, so here’s hoping it keeps breathing in its semi-vegetative state for another several days. I didn’t end up seeing art or anything yesterday. Plans fell through. So I just did … not much, or nothing to write home about, as they say, which was okay. Back to film work today. I’m glad that moody cloud lost interest in you. Did today give you an added lift? ** Chris dankland, Hi, Chris. Cool. ‘The Royal family’ is probably my second favorite Vollmann. I do want to read ‘The Dying Grass’. I have a copy of the original ‘RUaRD’ back in LA, and I read a bunch of it, and it’s really great, but I don’t think I’ve yet gotten through the entirety. Kudos! Thanks for his reading list. He’s awesome. I’ve read with him twice and interviewed him a couple of times, and he’s a total sweetheart. Awesome guy, great writer. Have a splendiferous day. ** Cool. I made you another gig of recent music that has been keeping me happily occupied if you’re interested and/or in need of new music to try out. See you tomorrow.

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Gothic Hills Cemetery 16419 Marilla St, Los Angeles, California, CA 91343
This Halloween yard haunt and walk-through ranks among the best in Los Angeles, with amazing decorations and effects. The yard display is beautiful, and the maze is fun – a search through a tomb for lost treasure. Jump-scares are relatively minimal; this is more like a guided tour with your host leading you on his treasure hunt and stopping from here and there to show off effects, including a digitally projected witch who delivers an incantation and a mechanical monster guarding the treasure.

 

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Haunted Maze on Ambrose 4302 Ambrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027
Timur Bootzin was 13 years old when he experienced real fear for the first time. As he was falling asleep, his TV suddenly flickered on and started playing a ghost documentary. He ran into his parent’s room, petrified out of his mind. Growing up, Bootzin was easily shaken, and even refused to go into his elementary school’s haunted house. But now, at 16, he’s built a business based solely on scaring others. Bootzin built his first haunted house when he was just 12 years old—having worked in one before, he was fascinated by the behind-the-scenes production. He’s now grown his donation-based haunted maze to become the go-to spot for a good scare in Los Angeles, choosing new themes each year. “I like what goes into the haunted houses. The art direction, the way we do the lighting,” he said. You won’t see people in “Scream” masks or Freddie Krueger costumes waltzing around Bootzin’s maze, because he loves to be completely original, using his own fears—like the TV scare—to build the maze. When you walk into this year’s Apocalyptic Wasteland-themed maze, you’re enveloped in fog. Suddenly you’re trapped in a small space as people in biohazard suits and gas masks surround you. When you’re least expecting it, zombie-like creatures emerge from the mist, as if the world really is ending.

 

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The Backwoods Maze 1912 North Pepper Street, Burbank, CA 91505
The Backwoods Maze may be the scariest Halloween home haunt in Los Angeles. As the name suggests, this is not exactly a haunted house; though there are some convincing interior sets, the experience is more akin to a race through some godforsaken hellhole in the middle of nowhere. The amazingly lengthy terror tour of terror, filled with frights around every corner, is as effective as any professional Halloween maze.

 

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The Haunt at Hellizondo 2134 Elizondo Avenue, Simi Valley, CA 93065
In the late 17th century, in the small Massachusetts town of ScabTree Hollow, Judge Hearthorne has made a deal with the devil to to sentence innocent townspeople to death for so-called “witchcraft.” For every soul he sends to the devil, the devil pays him a silver piece in turn. But in the depths of the forest lurks a coven of real witches, and they are on the side of the innocents. If you’ve accused and judged your innocent brothers and sisters wrongly, the Witches of ScabTree Hollow will ensnare you in their underground lair and entangle you in the thorny vines of their sinister pumpkin patch, where you will rot away until October 31. On Old Hallows Eve, the witches will release their army of rotting pumpkin souls to exact revenge in the name of those falsely accused. You have one chance to escape: Reveal your guilt inside the Confession House, and they might show you mercy….

 

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Into the Black 1101 W. McKinley Ave., Pomona, CA 91768
The experience of Into The Black starts with a short horror film which gives you the backstory of the new attraction. The short flick follows a team of paranormal investigators into the legendary Black house built in 1886. Not surprisingly, the Black family did some heavy dabbling into the occult and devil worship. Next, you’re on your own (that’s right, completely alone) as you venture in the footsteps of those paranormal researchers into the darkness to try and uncover just what the Black family was up to and why the people of the town kept disappearing. Finally you’ll be sent back to 1886 via a virtual reality experience where you’ll come face-to-face with the Black family to see for yourself the horrific rituals they were performing first hand. Probably most interesting to me, the creative team behind Into The Black will be filming a behind-the-scenes documentary about the creation of this one of a kind haunted attraction.

 

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The Nightmare in Whiting Woods 413 Whiting Woods, Glendale, 91028
This amateur effort has been haunting since 2002, sometimes at different locations. They launched a Kickstarted campaign to upgrade their props and effects for 2016 but fell short of their goal. Fortunately, the haunt took place anyway.

 

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Perdition Home 5181 Manor View Drive, Yorba Linda, CA 92886
With its ghastly and gory walk-through, Perdition Home appeals to fans of hard-core Halloween horror. Its tone and intensity are somewhat along the lines of the Backwoods Maze in Burbank – it’s filled with eviscerated bodies and electric firecrackers for a jolting effect. However, Perdition Home has much more going for it than gore; it is an elaborate home haunt, featuring impressive sets and more than a few surprises along its walk-through: such as the crashed spaceship for 2015’s theme, Necro Space. Perdition Home is free but accepts donations to defray costs. If you pay to visit The Flesh Yard on Halloween Night, you might as well swing by to see what’s left of the original haunt.

 

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The Opechee Haunt 1307 Opechee Way, Glendale, CA 91208
If you want to feel like you’ve accomplished nothing in life, compare yourself to high schooler Sam Kellman, a life-long Halloween addict who started his own haunt (with his family’s help, of course) at the tender age of eleven. But Sam has crafted worlds that haunters twice his age haven’t been able to do, incorporating technology and savvy production to grow a legend that is impressive regardless of whether you consider his age into question.

 

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Fear Station Haunt 10660 Western Ave, Stanton, CA 90680
This Halloween Season, Fear Station presents two terrifying mazes: Freak Show of Fears: Freak Show of Fears will be sure to take your happy dreams and transform them into terrifying nightmares! Our ringmaster is excited to introduce you to all his creepy crawlers, playful clowns, and doll collection… Shadow Walk Manor: The Windigo’s Curse: Face the Windigo as you try to escape from Shadow Walk Manor. Cannibals look for their next meal as victims try to find their way out. Can you escape the Windigo’s Curse?

 

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TERRORll Ave Haunted House 417 Terrill Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90042
My name is Zion Fenwick im a 15 year old filmmaker from the Los Angeles area. I have always had a love for Halloween and everything scary, this year I finally get to express myself by building East Los Angeles scariest haunted house. My name is David Coleman I’m also a 15 year old from the Lis Angeles area. I have worked as a scareactor at top notch haunts like Knotts Scary Farm and more. This year I get to help zion bring all of the secrets I learned into the home haunt community. This year the TERRORll Ave haunt brings you to a hospital for clowns!

 

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The Haunt With No Name 19351 Hatteras Street, Tarzana, CA 91356
In operation since 1996, this yard haunt is one of the more delightful amateur Halloween attractions in Los Angeles. The Haunt with No Name is pitched at just the right level for a yard haunt – effective and memorable but not too scary for trick-or-treaters (except perhaps the very youngest). There is an overall sinister feel, with the layout of the corner house’s front yard nicely utilized to create the sense that you are approaching a dark and dreadful place (even though the proprietors turn out to be quite nice).

 

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Beware The Dark Realm 8621 Sugar Pine Way, Santa Clarita, CA 91390
This amateur attraction from the original managers of the Heritage Haunt returns for its third year of Halloween horror. Beware the Dark Realm is a home haunt featuring a Medieval theme, with a two-story castle facade leading to a 10-15 minute maze of winding corridors, filled with creatures around every corner. This is a free event, but please bring a can of food to be donated to the local food pantry.

 

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Coffinwood Cemetery Home Haunt 27159 Waterford Drive, Valencia, CA 91354
Coffinwood Cemetery is a combination of yard display and walk-through. Not exactly a maze, it offers a path through the front yard so that you can peruse the tombstones, skeletons, and ghouls (all home made except for the animatronics) before heading into a “mausoleum” – a convincing facade built over the garage, which leads to a single black-lit room with decorations and an electric chair.

 

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Higgins Manor 23761 Singapore Street, Mission Viejo, CA 92691
Higgins Manor is Mission Viejo’s premier home haunt. With 11 themed rooms, a walk-through cemetery and amazing monster talent, it’s not to be missed. Higgins Manor is back for an epic 10th season! With an expanded maze, new rooms, and bigger scares, this season will be meaner than ever before! Master Higgins is set to get his revenge on the remaining souls who dare enter his manor. His henchmen are waiting. Are you prepared?

 

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N’ever Rest Cemetery & Haunted House 43848 Elm Avenue, Lancaster, CA 93534
N’everest Cemetery and Haunted House is a Halloween yard display and walk-through that includes a wide variety of spooky sets and costumes. The decorations in front are more than many home haunts offer – enough to keep you entertained during your wait in the short line. There is also a monitor for guests waiting in line to behold the fate of current victims inside the haunted house. The twists and turns of the walk-through’s sets provide monsters with plenty of hiding place to scare you from unexpected angles, starting in a cemetery and moving into hallways dripping with foreboding.

 

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The Haunted Shack 5112 Maricopa St, Torrance, California, CA 90503
Welcome! I’m that guy. That one guy on the block that always goes over the top for Halloween. I grew up loving Halloween and hope your kids will too. Our haunt is always FREE because that’s the way Halloween should be! We’re a small home haunt in Torrance, CA since 1997. We build a maze in our driveway every year that differs greatly depending on our theme. The last few years have been about 1500 sq ft and a 3-4 minute walk through. Screaming and trepidation seems to slow people down, so it might take a little longer. We employ various and sundry fx each year and hand build props to ensure you’re surprised around every corner. We’re low on gore, high on startle and tricks of the eye. If you don’t like dark, loud, or ominous situations, you probably wouldn’t want to come through, so I recommend kids be at least 6 years old, but it’s up to the parents to decide. Just remember, I can’t afford your Psychiatrist bills. Since we’re only a home haunt, we cannot accommodate any special parties or other evenings. It’s Halloween night only! Come check it out if you’re in the neighborhood, and tell a friend!

 

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Rotten Apple 907: The Portal 907 N California St, Burbank
Rotten Apple 907, our home haunted attraction, started off as child’s birthday party and has grown to become an experience that people look forward to attending each year. Now it is designed and built by all the members of the Meyer family, as well as a terrific group of people who volunteer their time and building and acting skills. Over the years, the group has dedicated a lot time and effort to learning how to make our haunt even better! As a result, each year’s house is more detailed and exciting, and the number of people attending our Haunted House increases. In 2016, we welcomed over 3000 people through the doors of our Haunted House, and we look forward to welcoming many more.

 

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The Haunted Rose 12116 Groveland Avenue, Whittier, California, CA 90604
Returning for a second years is this free home haunt from PROliFX, which has worked with major movie studios and brand name theme parks on producing molds and fabrications for props and set pieces. This is haunt is light on gore but heavy on detail and story. Last year’s received major acclaim.

 

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Haunted by Memories Manor 9914 Alesia St, South El Monte, California, CA 91733
This yard display with walk-through maze is another home haunt that has gotten a bit of buzz recently. Last year was a bit of a break-through year for them, and they’ll be back for another round of spooks this Halloween as well. Plus, their attraction carries a charitable side by integrating a canned food drive.

 

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Spooky Hollows 16418 Gilmore St., Van Nuys, CA 91406
Spooky Hollows is a great home haunt with some fantastic props, special effects, and fun scares built in. This year, Legends of the Swamp returns with a taste of marshland macabre!

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. I only spent time with Maddin once when he, Zac, and I shared a cab from the airport when our films were at the Montreal Film Festival, but he was really funny and nice and joked around a lot. That thing about him and Cronenberg is so obviously a whopper. Good news about the potential interest from your actor. Is a trip from Long Island really that tough? I know zip about NYSCA grants. Everyone, Is anyone reading this knowledgeable at all about NYSCA arts grants? If so, Steve Erickson is looking for any advice you can pass long. Thanks! The passage of time is interesting. The slight differences that make most punk/post-punk bands seem like also-rans now sounded like interesting and promising divergences in the heat of that moment. Strange stuff. Right now Zac and I, having agreed on what our new film will be about and how we want it to work, are trading ideas while I take notes. Beginning this week, I’ll start drafting up the beginnings of a script. The way we work is that I do the first drafts based on our discussions, and then he’ll go over it and decide what he likes or doesn’t, and then we meet and revise it together whereupon I’ll go back and do another draft, after which the process repeats. So we’re still early on, but the script should start taking form in the next several days, or that’s the plan. Thank you a lot for asking. ** David Ehrenstein, Me too. He’s wunderbar and a great role model and idol as a filmmaker. There are hardly any true, pure auteurs left in North America who forge ahead and are able to make really uncompromized work consistently anymore. A real hero. It is, or was, Bresson’s birthday! Happy birthday to the greatest artist who ever lived in my humble opinion. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. If you ever want to hear a very ambitious and pretty much totally failed but fun 60s psych concept album, The Vanilla Fudge’s ‘The Beat Goes On’ is your baby. ‘The Forbidden Room’ is incredibly great. Probably my favorite of his films and really one of the best films I’ve seen in recent years. And, yes, the Sparks moment/song is wonderful, of course. ** Jamie, Hi, J! The shoulder thing is a little worse today, so I think I was fantasizing it was better. I’m still going to hold out a little longer before I seek professional help though. Oh, no, Maddin’s films are dreamy amazing, I think. I’ve had numerous friends with CBD, and I know how tough that can be. Ugh, man. Obviously I extremely hope he figures out the perfect med for that lickity-split. I do really, really like your novella’s description. I love books, movies, even songs and things where the ‘action’ is really simple and all this stuff is happening around it imaginatively. Our film ‘PGL’ has a bit of that, and the film we want to do next is very like that, but I shouldn’t talk about that until it’s more developed. So I personally think saying the novella is exactly that is a great idea, but there are these traditionalists out there who think fiction without a strong action-oriented narrative is problematic. But fuck them? Yum on your Monday meal. My Monday was hampered a bit because my dying laptop is starting to act like a dying laptop, and my new laptop doesn’t arrive for about a week, so yesterday was partly spent trying to keep it alive, and it still is as of this morning. My friend Michael ‘Kiddiepunk’ Salerno, who was the DP on ‘PGL’, just finished shooting his new film in Switzerland, and I got a full report from him, and it sounds like it went great. One of his two stars is this totally amazing 15 year-old guy Milo who is also one of the stars of ‘PGL’, and it sounds like Milo’s weird genius totally came through. That was Monday pretty much. How was Tuesday? May it haunt you like the ultimate and sweetest homemade haunted house. Ocean Blue love, Dennis. ** Bernard, B-ster! Hey, man! Gooder than good to see you! ‘My Winnipeg’ is a lovely one. Oh, no, you don’t think you’ll get to Paris?! Surely some wad of dough will arrive from some as yet undetermined benefactor, surely. You’ll be in Berkeley for the thing? I forgot that. Well, that’s fine, fine news. Awesome! That Black Mountain performance sounds pretty guaranteed to be pretty great? One would think. Slowly is legit. Anything with the word amazingly attached is always better than anything when it’s not attached. Big love, me. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Me too, about the short version. I’m going to tell our producer that if anyone other than the obligated grant committee ever sees it, I will kill him. Not really, but maybe. Obviously you made the right choice with your tattooist friend, and I was ready to encourage you to go for it if you hadn’t. Nice! Fantastic day indeed! My Monday, as I told Jamie, was okay, but my laptop is having death throes, and I’m stuck with it for another week, and that was/is maddening. No, we start work on the short version on Thursday. I think today Zac and I are going to look at some art and see a film. Should be nice, if so. How did Tuesday pan out for you? Hugs and congrats! ** _Black_Acrylic, Maddin is one of a kind. People either tend to fall in love with his work or not be able to stand it, but I think it’s a marvel. Good, good, I hope the big meeting this weekend goes great. I’m loving your spirit and belief in the future project, man. ** Misanthrope, Hi. Dude, you’re beyond due for a spooky house. I’ll find some for you to consider. Unfortunately the ones today are a wee bit too far off. People pooh-pooh Whole Foods, perhaps deservedly, but, man, they have a great ‘salad bar’. ** Sypha, Hi. Nope, really can’t stand them. Find them rather unbearable. Not sure if I’ve heard that first album, though. Hm, okay, I’m going to have a listen. I’m not a giant Goth music fan in general, strangely, since I think Goth itself and Goths themselves are cool. ** Armando, Hi. Oh, so sorry to hear about the mysterious physical ailment. Yeah, maybe it’s from stress re: what’s going on in your wounded, recovering surroundings? I love Bela Tarr. And Sade, obviously. I don’t think either one of them are fatalists. I think they’re both quite romantic if anything, just about bleak things. I mean my work has been called ‘fatalist’ a bunch of times, but those people are just completely missing the point. If nothing else, the sheer act of making art and putting it out there precludes real fatalism for me. I don’t greatly dislike Von Trier’s films for those reasons. I dislike his films because they’re ham-fistedly manipulative and make the easiest choices possible and act arrogantly intelligent and mysterious when they’re painfully dumb and obvious, and for other reasons as well. Hugs back to you. ** Okay. On the surface, today’s post would seem to be a niche thing directed only towards blog readers based on So. Cal. who are looking for Halloween to-dos. And that’s partly the case, but it’s equally a post dedicated to the great art form of the homemade haunted house, and I encourage those of you who aren’t out west and looking for seasonal tricks to delve in and allow yourselves the chance to appreciate the particulars of a wonderful form. See you tomorrow.