Day 31 (2025 A.D.)
Overcast, maybe a little rainy today. The temperature went yup and down a bit, but our high was 57.9F. The next few days are looking sunny and much warmer.
Up at 4, a.m., which is better than up at 3 a.m., and after coffee I got back to work on "Darkness, On the Face of the Deep" and did another 1,114 words. With luck, I will finish the story tomorrow. I'm liking it. Also, I printed the Belfast interview, meaning to read it, but never got around to that. However, I did begin typing up all my corrections to Zoetrope Bizarre, when I was done writing, and made it though all but about seven of the 85 corrections, not counting the three pages the copy editor had, which I'd seen too already. And I did all that before sunrise. As I have said, it's good to be working again. The rest of the day was not quite so productive. Mostly, I think I'm getting tired and I'm gonna need a night of actual sleep to recharge, once the story is done. Also, I've reached the point where mornings will be going to paleo', MP2 with a dash of Bashi Marl tossed in. Oh, and I talked with Thomas Tessier again, ad I wrote something for a very dear friend who is still very much with us, but it's part of a surprise and I can say no more at the moment.
Good day.
I also finished reading Tappan Adney's The Klondike Stampede.
Tonight we watched Robert Eggers' Nosferatu (2024) again. I erred last night in not listing Lily-Rose Depp as one of the standout performances. She is astounding. I know that I promised I would say more about the film, but, as I have pointed out so many times, I am not a reviewer, and I loathe simply heaping praise and observations that are obvious to anyone who knows a good film from a bad film. The composition of every frame of film is so perfectly composed. Willem Dafoe's stand-in for Van Helsing has never been equaled, and his ramshackle apartment is a beauty to behold. The makeup affects are astounding, and that eerie way that Orlok has to draw breath in order to be able to speak, the sort of thing a writer does that impresses me with their ability to think of supernatural creatures as living systems. The costumes. The whisper of a soundtrack. The constant juxtaposition of beauty and the grotesque, often to a degree one cannot be distinguished from the other. I am told there are people who did not appreciate this film. I don't get it. Maybe they expected an action film. Maybe they have no idea what actually constitutes Gothic horror. This is, above all, a smart film But having seen it twice, twice nights in a row, I'd likely not complain about a third viewing tomorrow night. The last time a film affected me this strongly was probably Jordan Peele's Nope (2022). Frankly, if I have any complaint about Nosferatu it's that I'm trying to wrap my brain around Germany in 1838, when everyone talks as if it's England in 1897. I call it Bram Stoker's revenge. But even that doesn't begin to ruin it for me.
----
Science is an international, self-correcting cooperative effort among colleagues who, for the most part, openly share data, experimental methods, etc. Trump's attack on American science will hurt America, and, to a lesser degree, science as a whole. But it falls to American scientists to push back, save everything we can, persevere. Nothing less than the future of our civilization is at stake. The barbarians truly are at the gates. It's not a metaphor. It's ignorance weaponized and misinformation refined as a means of controlling the masses. We are seeing the rise of pseudoscience funded by the Trump Administration. Think of Lysenkoism, the Soviet response to "corrupt Western Darwinism." Think of the famines and death that followed Lysenkoism. It falls to all of us, scientists and educated laypeople, to fight the political push back into darkness. There are no "alternative facts" and equally valid "ways of knowing." These are world-killing fallacies.
----
Please visit the Dreaming Squid Sundries site. Rent must be paid. Thank you.
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
8:52 a.m.
Up at 4, a.m., which is better than up at 3 a.m., and after coffee I got back to work on "Darkness, On the Face of the Deep" and did another 1,114 words. With luck, I will finish the story tomorrow. I'm liking it. Also, I printed the Belfast interview, meaning to read it, but never got around to that. However, I did begin typing up all my corrections to Zoetrope Bizarre, when I was done writing, and made it though all but about seven of the 85 corrections, not counting the three pages the copy editor had, which I'd seen too already. And I did all that before sunrise. As I have said, it's good to be working again. The rest of the day was not quite so productive. Mostly, I think I'm getting tired and I'm gonna need a night of actual sleep to recharge, once the story is done. Also, I've reached the point where mornings will be going to paleo', MP2 with a dash of Bashi Marl tossed in. Oh, and I talked with Thomas Tessier again, ad I wrote something for a very dear friend who is still very much with us, but it's part of a surprise and I can say no more at the moment.
Good day.
I also finished reading Tappan Adney's The Klondike Stampede.
Tonight we watched Robert Eggers' Nosferatu (2024) again. I erred last night in not listing Lily-Rose Depp as one of the standout performances. She is astounding. I know that I promised I would say more about the film, but, as I have pointed out so many times, I am not a reviewer, and I loathe simply heaping praise and observations that are obvious to anyone who knows a good film from a bad film. The composition of every frame of film is so perfectly composed. Willem Dafoe's stand-in for Van Helsing has never been equaled, and his ramshackle apartment is a beauty to behold. The makeup affects are astounding, and that eerie way that Orlok has to draw breath in order to be able to speak, the sort of thing a writer does that impresses me with their ability to think of supernatural creatures as living systems. The costumes. The whisper of a soundtrack. The constant juxtaposition of beauty and the grotesque, often to a degree one cannot be distinguished from the other. I am told there are people who did not appreciate this film. I don't get it. Maybe they expected an action film. Maybe they have no idea what actually constitutes Gothic horror. This is, above all, a smart film But having seen it twice, twice nights in a row, I'd likely not complain about a third viewing tomorrow night. The last time a film affected me this strongly was probably Jordan Peele's Nope (2022). Frankly, if I have any complaint about Nosferatu it's that I'm trying to wrap my brain around Germany in 1838, when everyone talks as if it's England in 1897. I call it Bram Stoker's revenge. But even that doesn't begin to ruin it for me.
----
Science is an international, self-correcting cooperative effort among colleagues who, for the most part, openly share data, experimental methods, etc. Trump's attack on American science will hurt America, and, to a lesser degree, science as a whole. But it falls to American scientists to push back, save everything we can, persevere. Nothing less than the future of our civilization is at stake. The barbarians truly are at the gates. It's not a metaphor. It's ignorance weaponized and misinformation refined as a means of controlling the masses. We are seeing the rise of pseudoscience funded by the Trump Administration. Think of Lysenkoism, the Soviet response to "corrupt Western Darwinism." Think of the famines and death that followed Lysenkoism. It falls to all of us, scientists and educated laypeople, to fight the political push back into darkness. There are no "alternative facts" and equally valid "ways of knowing." These are world-killing fallacies.
----
Please visit the Dreaming Squid Sundries site. Rent must be paid. Thank you.
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
8:52 a.m.