dubious opinions expressed with unwarranted confidence
[I’m participating in Monstrous May, a daily art-prompt challenge started by Johannes T. Evans. I’m mostly use the prompts to develop a story about a small Indiana town in 1987 where evangelical overreach leads to myriad personal tragedies...
Listened while waiting in Nampo for a friend who’s leaving the country. They have no fear about being admitted to the US, but the flights out of Korea and Japan keep getting canceled. “This is a death dream...
A reaction to and reflection of the present overpowering mood Tracklist: Dan Deacon – “Build Voice” from BromstDear Rouge – “Gimme Spirit” from SpiritBig Black Delta – “Monedy Rain Down” from Big Black DeltaHop Along – “How Simple”...
A man embarks on a late-in-life career change and makes it everybody’s problem. 안녕하세요 and welcome to Awful Advent: a countdown of 13 Holiday Horror movies for the 13 days before Christmas. This year’s theme is Scary Santas...
Welcome to Fearful Franchise: a series of essays about franchise horror films running daily throughout October. This year we’re focusing on the Universal Monster Movies. We kick off this year’s Fearful Franchise with Tod Browning’s Dracula, a film...
I decided to participate in this year’s #Kaijune–an art challenge where you draw a picture of a kaiju based on a daily prompt throughout June. I am not an artist, though, so I instead used the prompt list...
“I’ll hold out a light/Let it shine for you/If nobody sees it/I still do what I do/I tried to be happy/What a foolish thing.” My Canadian friend says they’ve been having strange, vivid dreams, bordering on nightmares since...
The summer was rough on Judith, anyone would say so. She and Frank had sent little Arthur to that de-punk boot camp the year before. She hadn’t wanted to. Arthur was such a sweet boy even if he...
“We paid/We surely did pay/I’m gonna get out of it/By going into it more/I’m gonna get out of it.” One week after reopening, Georgia had 1,000 new coronavirus cases in one day. Photos circulated of people gathering in...
“It crept and I saw it all along the way/It came on bit by bit/And I knew it all along/The only difference is now/It’s gone too far.” When did we stop talking about the virus, about ventilators and...
“I got this dream of my house/The one you gave me in my mind/I’m ready for the house/Let me build my house.” The first of 3 a capella albums from Jandek and the first album of the 21st...
“The journey is over, I’m falling down deep/I have no more promises to keep/This the feeling that won’t go away/This is the last time of the day.” I’d like to think that this is over, that we can...
“The last time I saw you/Was I don’t know when/That’s when I knew you/In all places I’d been.” I don’t have an emotional geography of Busan yet; I haven’t met people in the city to form those kinds...
“Doom/Pending doom/Pending doom/Pending doom/Pending doom/Pending doom/Pending doom.” The Attorney General has said the Justice Department may join with protesters paid by the administration in lawsuits to lift states’ stay-at-home orders. Is May Day still the target? Are they...
“But it’s so hard to tell you/I quit describing things/That’s what I did.” Talked to family last night, caught up with how they’re doing. Healthy and safe, keeping calm. Where they’d seemed frazzled a few weeks ago, they...
“Gotta go quick ending absurd/Who says the vision is nearly blurred/Fingers fingers fingers fingers/It’s the end this time I know.” I avoided mentioning “bleach” yesterday on purpose. Dwelling on each new absurdity and outrage is both pointless and...
An instrumental song played on the accordion, an instrument that always has an air of a traveling carnival. Doubly so here as the song puts me in mind of the demented dance sequence in Carnival of Souls, another...
“I guess it’s time/Kept away for a while/Hide behind a smile/Travel many miles/I guess it’s time.” Yesterday marked one month of doing this journal. At the time, the US had 408 deaths. Today, they have 42,209. Korea currently...
“You go write on the wall, I will not talk in class/Fifty times, go write on the wall/When they sent you back here/Did they make a mistake.” Someone on Twitter pointed out that GA’s plan to reopen on...
“Beast got me walking straight/Straight to the stockyard gate/I ain’t about to die/But you can have your way.” How much is compliance bred into the white American psyche? I’ve been struck for a long time that despite its...
“You give what you give me/I got to tell you/I take what I want/I don’t take nothin’/You can take what you want.” I’m almost a month into the process of doing this journal, just about a quarter of...
“bet you don’t know/What you been working for/Maybe I got a clue/I been working for you.” In an interview with The New Yorker, Jason Stanley says the administration “seems to be basing his reelection campaign on a nationalist...
“Sometimes I sit and think alone/I have daydreams and memories/Right here with me at home/I sit alone and think a lot about you.” Not much else to do in the midst of these pandemic days. Then again, I...
“When your shoes got holes/And the sidewalk’s not the same/And you’re falling down/Then you can think about your mother/Yes, and you can think about your friends/But you can’t blame me for not being around.” In the midst of...
“That’s right, settle back in your chair/Listen to the music/Close your eyes and watch the pretty colors dancing around in your hair/Follow the music.” There are protests now in the US against the stay-at-home orders and public shutdowns...
