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

Fire on the Water - Chris de Burgh

pounces on a cupcake

Now that's a good use of pumpkin spice. Forget the lattes and chais, pumpkin spice belongs in desserts.

Good afternoon. Cool but otherwise nice here today. I'm nursing a bit of a headache but might try to go out soon and do some yardwork. We'll see.

Later, alligators.

Simplicity often masks real complexity.

Hm. I can do both but probably prefer horror since I'm an old horror fan.

Read: Drama or Horror?

From the same show, "Heavy is the Crown" was second new LP song with Emily. Her long, powerful scream midway through sold me and a lot of fans on her as a vocalist given that screaming was one of the hallmarks of her late predecessor Chester Bennington.

Yeah, Eminem has actually done some stuff that got me listening. I have a mixed relationship with rap.

Which brings me to ... Linkin Park, one of the best of the nu metal bands mixing rap and rock. The band launched a new concert film and live album last week, their first live project since the band returned from hiatus with new vocalist Emily Armstrong. And wow, what a show. This song got a huge response from the audience. It was really their first big hit, dating to the turn of the century (i.e. 2000). Great performance by the band and the audience here.

It's always Halloween when you're a metal fan. Japanese band Sigh by way of example.

Don't Stop - Fleetwood Mac

Quote by JustAnotherSapphic

I don't think California knows what fall is, honestly. We seem to be stuck in perpetual summer. Yech.

Why do you think everyone else idealizes the place? Especially those of us in Canada and northern parts of the US.

Team - Emit

Overrated teams rarely win championships.