This is really big for me. I found Floor through Nightwish (Anna on this site gets the credit/blame for me finding them) and she has become my favourite singer bar none. Powerful voice, well-trained, and a terrific lyricist to boot (she's written lyrics for three bands and her solo albums). I've listened to pretty much everything she has ever put down on record. Sadly, when the band hit Toronto on their 2022-2023 world tour, I had to take a miss due to a medical appointment. Regret that decision but I had just had eye surgery so it wasn't a priority. At the time, I assumed there would be another chance. Hoping she hits Canada with her solo tour someday.

When I first wrote The Healer's Secret, I mentally cast Floor as Tana and had Nightwish on my mental soundtrack for the stories. In the end, I kind of backed off on Floor as Tana, but the music remained and my mental "end title music" for The Healer's Spirit, the final story in the set, is "How's the Heart?" by Nightwish. This performance is from a two-night virtual show the band did during the pandemic.

Why that one? The story ends with Tana pregnant, a new hope after a difficult journey, and the song has the wonderful lines, "And now there's one who came from me; a child of light, another tale."

Another stellar Floor performance from Yesterwynde. Since the band didn't tour the album, Floor got the okay to perform the live debut of this one in her solo shows.

Welp, Floor Jansen delivered the metal bombshell of the year a little over a week ago when she and the band Nightwish announced that they were parting ways after 14 years. Floor joined as a last minute tour vocalist in 2012, becoming a member in 2013. She's done three albums and four tours with the band (counting the tour she finished in 2012-13) and has for many become the voice of Nightwish. We fans are wishing both all the best but mourning the end of this era in the band's, and Floor's, career. This year marks 30 years of Nightwish and also 30 years since a teenaged Floor joined the Dutch band After Forever, launching her career.

Nightwish had announced plans to record a new album in 2027 for probably 2028 release. Now we are waiting to see who will actually front the band on that album. There are few vocalists in metal who can match Floor for sheer skill and power (and some of the ones who could are already members of bands) so finding a successor who can keep the band moving forward will be an interesting challenge.

Floor's path forward is much clearer. Her second solo album Hytress is ready and will drop on January 15, 2027. With it comes her first world tour as a solo artist, with dates in Europe through January and February, then Latin America in April.

Last Friday saw the release of the powerful metal anthem "Everything is Moving On", the third single from Hytress. The video is filled with clips and images from throughout Floor's life, from her infancy to her recent performances (some from as recently as this past summer). Yes, Nightwish appears a lot. In fact, the first image to appear is the 2015-2021 edition of the band, prior to longtime bassist and male vocalist Marko Hietala leaving (which was another big blow to the band).

Floor's final performances with Nightwish were the recording sessions for the album Yesterwynde, released in 2024. She was actually giving birth to her second daughter when the band recorded the instrumental tracks and added her vocals later in her home studio. They never toured the album, which is what left the door open for Floor to push further with her solo career, probably a factor in the breakup. This is one of my favourite tracks from that album, featuring some stellar vocal work from Floor.

(The) Poet and the Pendulum - Nightwish

Poll - Pole (homonyms, you know I love them)

Never Gonna Give You Up - Rick Astley (Does this mean I rickrolled the thread?)

Accidents are sometimes not accidental.

A new trailer for Godzilla Minus Zero. And it's quite clear from several shots of lightning-like attacks that the enemy in this one is none other than classic Godzilla foe King Ghidorah. No reveal of how he will look in this version but the classic look for Ghidorah is a three headed dragon.

Quote by gillianleeza
We were staying on Hatteras Island, and a nor'easter washed out the only road on and off the island. Most realtors let people stay in their rentals because no one could get on or off the island. On the third day, they started emergency ferries off the island, but people were stuck in lines for over 24 hours.

Ouch. Glad the real estate people were cooperative. That sounds like a real mess in the making absent their good will.

And hope all goes well for the wedding. Rainy day here, too, though its settled a bit from earlier this morning. Still cloudy with a chance of showers, though.

Nice to see you, Gil.

Reprogramming system to eliminate bugs.

Quote by JustAnotherSapphic
As to Tommy, it's part of the 50th anniversary of the Heartbreakers...the new stuff is from 1971 thru 1978 I think.

Dang, I was just a kid in grade school back then. I remember seeing Damn The Torpedoes being advertised by local record stores which was the first time I heard of Tom (which came out in 1979, the year I started high school). I think his duet with Stevie Nicks on "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" (from her 1981 album Belladonna) was the first time he clicked with me. I was already a fan of her from Fleetwood Mac and this song is just so so good with the two of them. Of course, despite being on Stevie's album, it was actually a Heartbreakers song, originally written by Tom and Mike Campbell with the band playing backup.

Quote by JustAnotherSapphic
The next day, new, never before heard Tom Petty music from his early years.

Oo. Ape interested. Had not heard this.

Quote by JustAnotherSapphic
And on the twentieth, the third season of the Percy Jackson series is out.

My son started reading the books many years ago when Riordan started writing them. I took him and a friend to the movie version of the first book. However, he kind of soured on fantasy as a whole not much after that. And I never really got into the Jackson books myself.

Last Ride of the Day - Nightwish

Vampire music/videos:

Good weekend morning!

I keep coming back to this danged writing project. It's going to be either my magnum opus or my downfall. Not sure which. I now have a timeline in an Obsidian note just to make sure things like ages all line up with the backstory I have in mind. It goes back to the births of the protagonists' parents (I wanted to make sure their ages made sense in light of some other events.

The story as a whole is kind of a soap opera. A young woman recovering from injuries and losing her mother juggles two possible relationships, both of them old friends. She's also questioning her sexuality (one of the possible partners is a woman). Her widowed father has a new relationship of his own developing. A discovery about their mother/wife's past throws a wrinkle into things. And other ideas that keep popping up. I almost want to just start publishing it in short segments with an "Until the next episode of ..." at the end of each.

Some favourite vampire stories from various media:

Carmilla - J. Sheridan Le Fanu

One of the most important antecedents to Dracula, Carmilla features a female vampire preying on a girl. The lesbian overtones are strong to start with and most film versions play them up even more. Filmed a few times with varying degrees of success and fidelity. Great, well-written story of its time and definitely an influence on ...

Dracula - Bram Stoker

Yep, the 500 pound undead gorilla of vampire stories. Also, possibly my favourite novel of all time (if I was asked to pick just one). Told in epistolary style, the novel tells the tale of a group of young English folk who come under threat from a mysterious, powerful nobleman from Transylvania. Aided by the wise Dutch doctor Van Helsing, however, they eventually prevail.

Nosferatu (1922) - F. W. Murnau

The first film version of Dracula was almost lost to history. Florence Stoker, Bram's widow, was still alive and sued since the adaptation was unauthorized. The result was that most prints were destroyed as part of the judgement in the suit. But enough survived that it is now readily available on streaming today. It is a dark, moody silent film that packs more atmosphere and dread in some scenes than you get in some whole movies with other Dracula adaptations. Moves the action to Bremen, Germany and renames most of the characters, too. It has been remade twice (1980 by Werner Herzog and 2024 by Robert Eggers) and those are both worthwhile watches, too. All versions play up Dracula (called Orlock in the 1922 and 2024 versions) as a monstrous beast rather than the sexier portrayals often found in other adaptations.

Salem's Lot - Stephen King

Great modern take on the vampire coming to haunt a small town. Riffs on Dracula in some ways but also a quintessential Stephen King story. Almost apocalyptic in scope and featuring some really creepy scenes. Filmed twice.

Necroscope series (first five books) - Brian Lumley

A very different take on vampirism. Very dark and even gory in places, but also quite action-packed at times. The vampires are alien parasites hosted in human bodies rather than traditional undead. Psychic "Necroscope" (meaning he can communicate with the dead vs. Necromancers who basically torture them) Harry Keogh gets mixed up with spies, vampires, and extradimensional travel before perishing in the final book. Except, because flogging dead horses was Lumley's specialty, there's another 8 or 10 books after the end of the first series.

Forever Knight TV Series - three seasons

The original film Nick Knight that spawned this starred Rick Springfield. However, when they went to actually make a series, it was a budget job made in Toronto so Canadian stage and screen actor Geraint Wyn Davies took over the role. Nicholas Knight is a 700 year-old knight turned into a vampire who has come to repent of his bloodthirsty ways by becoming a homicide detective in the late twentieth century. Most episodes parallel him and his partner investigating a crime with shenanigans among Toronto's vampire society. Supporting characters included a couple other vampires, Nick's partner, and a forensic doctor in the coroner's office who is the only mortal aware of Nick's true nature. Would probably be much better written and produced if made today but was quite good for its time, mostly due to the work of the excellent actor Davies who has also appeared at the two biggest Canadian drama festivals, the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario and the Stratford Shakespearean Festival in Stratford, Ontario (he did Prospero in The Tempest at Stratford this year).

Back when I wrote my story Heavy Cello Love, I did a post on the use of cellos in metal. And a wonderful new example came out this week. The Path I Walk by Orbit Culture is a lovely, moving power ballad by a band best known for heavy, grinding death metal (they are also a recent new favourite of mine). Joining them is American cellist Tina Guo, who I talked about back in that post, and she gives a gorgeous performance here.

Pie bombs sound like some kind of weird trap. Though I suspect the only casualty will be my waist line. scarfs one

Good evening. Another week over and up here in the Great White North, we are celebrating Thanksgiving. What am I thankful for? Being alive, mostly. Having a good family. Music, which is a bit part of what gives me joy these days.

Jump - Van Halen

Imperfect is natural human state.

Sketch. Never really tried painting seriously.

Sketch real things and scenes around you or sketch imaginary things?

I just made a major shift in how I write my stories. For a while now, I have been using Obsidian for note taking. It stores notes as files in a folder structure using a markup language called Markdown (the editor on this site uses a simplified form of it, in fact). And somewhere along the line, I realized that I could actually just write my drafts in the Markdown editor in Obsidian so that my drafts and notes were all in the same place. If I need to do more sophisticated formatting, I can still switch over to LibreOffice Writer, and the latest release of LibreOffice actually supports importing Markdown files. Even better, the "vault" (as Obsidian calls it's folder) is just a folder on my hard drive with sub-folders beneath, so that I can copy files into and out of it just using Linux Mint's File Manager (or Windows Explorer if I'm on a Windows box). The maker of Obsidian offers relatively cheap synchronization using their own private cloud, too, so I can easily have access to my vault on multiple devices including my phone.

Right now, I have a folder in my vault for notes, with sub-folders for each idea or story, then another where I actually keep drafts. However, for a rather long, involved work I have been playing with (possibly a first novel), I created a folder in the vault just for it, with one subfolder for drafts and another for notes and planning (things like a timeline of the backstory and the various themes and questions I want to address). Makes for much better organization than having drafts and notes in different programs and also allows me to link between notes or between drafts and notes.

Main downside? No formatting beyond what Markdown supports. But for a draft that will go on here, that doesn't really matter. The text gets pasted into the StoriesSpace editor anyhow. For day to day writing, I don't really need much formatting. And, as I said, I can always import the Markdown files into LibreOffice for formatting.

So how are you writing these days? Word processor? A writing tool like Scrivener? Long hand (hey, Clive Barker and Neil Gaiman were still doing first drafts longhand last I heard)?

Sadly, Canadian blues, rock and pop singer Sass Jordan. "Sadly" because we lost her the other day at only 63. She packed a powerful, husky blues-rock voice. Four Juno (Canadian music awards) nominations with one win.

Melt - Molt

Extraordinary musicians make beautiful music.

I like both but I think guitar is my favourite. Amazing what a skilled musician can do with only six strings and some tuning.

Listen: Rock or Jazz?

How's the Heart? - Nightwish

Tile - Tell

Meh