Happy Halloween, dear readers, and Blessed Be!
Archive for October, 2018
Halloween 2018
Posted in Holidays, tagged holidays, paganism on October 31, 2018| 5 Comments »
Diary #435
Posted in Diary, Tyranny, tagged activism, advertising, blogging, imaginative fiction, psychology, The Essential Maggie McNeill, The War on Whores on October 30, 2018| 1 Comment »
Though it took longer than usual, my brain has now downshifted into autumn mode and I’m enjoying the lovely cool, dark, rainy Seattle weather. I’ve done two duos with Lorelei in the past week and we have another set up; I published a new story, have some friends coming over for my birthday tomorrow, and in a few days Daylight Mismanagement Time will be over and I won’t have to endure the sun while I’m eating dinner. Paul Johnson is in the final stages of editing The War on Whores, and we’ll be shooting a cover image pretty soon; I think I have the energy to finally get The Essential Maggie McNeill out; and I’ll be announcing another big project pretty soon. The “authorities” want sex workers to shut up and play the part of damsels in distress for their melodramatic morality play, starring cops and politicians as the heroes; instead, I’m going to proclaim the truth even more loudly, and pretty soon I’ll be asking for the help of all my readers to do it.
Wheels
Posted in Fiction, Perception, tagged bisexuality, Hollywood, imaginative fiction, psychology on October 29, 2018| 4 Comments »
This story is an exploration of some ideas that have haunted me since the year in which the story takes place, and have occupied an important place in my consciousness for most of this year. As with “Bird of Prey”, I’m just going to tease you with a selection; if you want a copy, you can either buy it on Kindle or get a PDF copy by becoming a patron of my blog. If you’re already a patron, you should’ve received a copy over the weekend; if you didn’t, please let me know.
The windows in the mural room faced west and south, and the reddish hue of the sunlight accentuated the predominant crimson, amber and bronze hues of the painting, making it look almost as though it were on fire. He saw many more faces than he had on the first visit, and the feathers of the multiplicity of wings seemed to rustle and shimmer; he also saw hands where he hadn’t before, peeking out from the wings and juxtaposed with legs and horns and teeth. In this light the eyes – hundreds of them of every shape and size, peering or glaring or watching from every part of the mural – seemed to all be looking back at him, glinting in various colors like gemstones. But of all the odd features of the design, the most horrifying were the wheels. Every other recognizable part of the painting was part of some living creature or another, whether bird or beast or human, but except for the eyes all around their rims, the wheels were most definitely not. And while the way in which the various biological features related to each other made little anatomical sense, the way the wheels were depicted made no sense at all. They were like things from an Escher woodcut, objects which could not have existed in three-dimensional reality, with spokes and rims that turned at crazy angles to one another and sometimes seemed to project outward from the wall. Their perspective was maddening; from some angles they seemed close to the living figures, while from others they seemed far away, and when viewed obliquely they were both at the same time. And somehow, at least in this hazy light shining through dingy windowpanes across dusty air, the ones in his peripheral vision seemed to be turning on themselves, rotating out of the plane of the design entirely.
A few minutes in that room was more than enough, and though he was a sophisticated and urbane man Bert decided to head back to the motel and to stay away from this room until he had both human company and the psychological comfort of full morning sun. He locked the door and returned the key to its hiding place in the woodshed as the caretaker had instructed, then drove back to the motel at a rather higher rate of speed than was strictly prudent on a rutty backroad in a pine barrens. He then proceeded to drink most of a bottle of cheap bourbon over the next few hours while not really paying attention to the television, and fell into a fitful sleep haunted by nightmares of huge wheels covered in eyes, slowly rotating toward him…
Links #434
Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged asset seizure, cops, drugs, Georgia, imaginative fiction, language, Missouri, Never Call the Cops, New Zealand, Ohio, racism, surveillance, Twitter, video on October 28, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Do you think I want to shoot an 11-year-old?…Don’t make me. – “Officer” Peter Casuccio
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I find the psychedelic videos from Sesame Street quite entertaining when I’m high; here’s another one, which was clearly inspired by Yellow Submarine. The links above it were provided by Mike Siegel, Tim Cushing, Jesse Walker, Zuri Davis, Scott Greenfield, and Jacob Sullum, in that order.
- Justice.
- How seasonal!
- Six! Six! Six books in one!
- Just protecting and serving.
- Don’t try to be a fucking cop, either.
- STOP CALLING THE FUCKING COPS!
From the Archives
- What “law enforcement” means in claiming it wants to “help” sex workers.
- It’s illegal to pay for sex in Sweden, unless you film it for everyone to see.
- Cops, fascism, surveillance, nightmares, spooky cartoons and much more.
- Moral panics only end after they start harming middle-class white women.
- Yet another pogrom in the pocket police-state that is Polk County, Florida.
- Just in case you think it’s only sex workers who will be harmed by SESTA.
- Watching “sex trafficking” hysteria spin out of control is deeply gratifying.
- Uber now wants its drivers to spy on sex workers & rat us out to the pigs.
- New sleazy government trick: use civil suits rather than criminal charges.
- Claiming this constitutes “slavery” is almost as stupid as calling the cops.
- I always feel dirty when prohibitionists share wanking fantasies in public.
- “Authorities” claiming North Dakota is a “sex trafficking hub” is hilarious.
- Self-deception, pearl-clutching & offensive ignorance, all under one roof!
- When a non-sexworker uses the term “decriminalization”, read carefully.
- This ridiculous fantasy is nauseating even by “sex trafficking” standards.
- Nothing they can do to this monster would approach what I’d do to him.
- When a law intended as political theater is defeated, politicians still win.
- Outcry against the grotesque “Operation Northern Spotlight” is growing.
- Spending as much time as possible in less-haunted parts of the house.
- “Operation Cross-Country” appears to be spreading to other countries.
- And some of you thought the clown thing was kind of off-topic for me.
- Fascist scum like this will be first against the wall after the politicians.
- Why do so many losers want porn movies to be condom commercials?
- Pearl-clutching is both funnier and sadder when a young man does it.
- “…but that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
- Politicians everywhere are obsessed with regulating women’s bodies.
- This was only necessary due to idiotic laws against sex businesses.
- “They lied, of course. That’s what police officers are trained to do.”
- I wonder what fraction of his rhetoric is directed toward “perverts”?
- Naturally, because it’s politicians’ job to cause harm, not reduce it.
- How can a client who was busted by cops help sex worker rights?
- A sex therapist debunks prohibitionist propaganda about clients.
- Really not much more repressive than the so-called “free world”.
- Despite this popular UK cop fantasy, none has ever been found.
- “Sex addiction” is now a defense even for violent sex offenders.
- Just in case you think being a “legal” sex worker protects you.
- Will you settle a dispute between me and another sex worker?
- “Futurists” should put their “predictions” further in the future.
- Indonesia is trying to criminalize all sex outside of marriage.
- Cops, Fats Domino, language, talking fish and much more.
- Cops call children abducted from sex workers “recovered”.
- Another sleazy scam artist raping aspiring sex workers.
- The beginning of the end for the “sex addiction” scam.
- That’s how extraordinarily dumb this sounds to me.
- The shorter phrase for this is “prudish busybodies”.
- It was inevitable they’d get around to transwomen.
- “Safe house” in this context means “jail”.
- “Sex trafficking” as the new “blood libel”.
- Rapist cops of the week, 2016 and 2017.
- Mississippi cops go ape shit over clowns.
- Developments in the Celeste Guap case.
- October 2013 and 2014 in retrospect.
- Liz Brown did this so I didn’t have to.
- Links for Halloween, 2016 and 2017.
- The real reason people get addicted.
- Another massive pogrom in Soho.
- In which I get a new smartphone.
- “This is not about sex trafficking“.
In the News (#883)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged activism, agency denial, BDSM, brothels, Cooties, cops, dirty, Disaster, disease, end demand, fantasy, First They Came for the Hookers, Indonesia, Ireland, It Looks Good On Paper, language, Madonna/whore, Pennsylvania, prohibitionist myths, psychology, racism, rape, red-light districts, Rooted in Racism, Standard Operating Procedure, statistics, streetwalkers, To Molest and Rape, Uncommon Sense, underage, United Kingdom, Washington (state), Wyoming on October 27, 2018| 1 Comment »
The paramilitary, bureaucratic structure [of police] produces a dysfunctional culture. – Norm Stamper
Another story touting bullshit “safe harbor” laws:
After first being introduced in 2015, the Pennsylvania General Assembly unanimously passed Safe Harbor legislation that protects minors from being prosecuted for sexual exploitation…The bill…provides immunity to all minors for the crimes of prostitution and obstruction of the highway [and] provides alternatives to delinquency for sexually exploited children who could otherwise be charged with prostitution-related offenses…
Unless this bill is very different from all the others, what it actually does is to give cops the power to indefinitely detain a minor they label as a “victim” while giving “immunity” only to lily-white “perfect victims” with no criminal record who go through a lengthy and complex expungement process.
Sex workers in Indonesia form an association to fight together:
…the Yogyakarta Women’s Sex Workers Association (Perhimpunan Perempuan Pekerja Seks Yogyakarta, or P3SY)…was formed in 2010, facilitated by the Indonesian Family Planning Association…in Yogyakarta. It has other branches in places with small communities of sex workers, which are run by the women themselves…the…union was established to deal with the threat of HIV/Aids and other sexually transmitted diseases…the community is working with local public health centres (puskesmas) to provide voluntary blood tests and counselling for the sex workers on a quarterly basis…women who test positive [for HIV] can gain access to free antiretroviral drugs provided by the regional government…P3SY…has persuaded almost all of its members to require their clients to wear protection…P3SY gives the women a platform to engage with and lobby the authorities. Such advocacy proved useful when, in 2012, the authorities threatened to close down Bong Suwung. P3SY and the PKBI managed to prevent it from happening by holding discussions with the local government…
…US [cops] were charged with forcible rape 405 times between 2005 and 2013. That’s an average of 45 a year. Forcible fondling was more common, with 636 instances. Yet experts say those statistics are, by no means, comprehensive. Data on sexual assaults by police are almost nonexistent…”It’s just not available at all,” said Jonathan Blanks, a research associate with the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice. “You can only crowdsource this info”…No one…[can] give an estimate, even ballpark, on how underreported these types of crimes might be…Unions…work hard to protect [cops from the consequences of their crimes]…[as do] some states’ laws…some jurisdictions include nondisclosure agreements in victim settlements. “The system is rigged to protect [cops] from outside accountability,” Blanks said…for every sexual assault that makes the news, there are almost always more victims — on average, five more. About half of the victims are [legal minors]…
Standard Operating Procedure (#814)
Time is up for sexual predators in the aid sector, Britain’s development minister said…as she announced new measures to clamp down on sexual abuse and exploitation after a series of scandals…the British government will announce details of a joint initiative with Interpol to stop sexual predators from getting jobs…Revelations earlier this year that Oxfam staff [hired sex workers] in Haiti snowballed into widespread reports of misconduct in the aid sector…
This popular UK cop masturbatory fantasy has crossed the Irish Sea:
Vulnerable women are being exploited and abused in “pop-up brothels” around Dublin…Labour senator…Kevin Humphreys [panted while publicly masturbating]…He ad[mitt]ed that one [so-called “gang” was actually]…two young women [working together for safety as sex workers have explained many times]…
A new report by Europol shows that international criminal groups, particularly from Nigeria, are using established trafficking networks and the cover afforded by the migrant crisis to smuggle minors into northern European countries like Ireland for sale into the sex trade and other criminal enterprises…crime networks of “large family clans”…traffic children for the purposes of begging, criminality and sexual exploitation, with those clans operating in multiple countries at any one time and rotating their victims on a regular basis…people engag[e] in the trafficking and exploitation of their own children…
First They Came for the Hookers… (#866) 
Y’all didn’t stand up for professional whores, and now they’re coming for you dabblers:
A Wyoming woman running for city council is defending her panty-selling alter ego, confirming…that she will remain in the race. Deborah Reno…has sold used panties and “dirty gym shorts” online for the past year. She’s also seen stripteasing in videos…A handful of [busybodies complained] to other [politicians] following the discovery of what Reno thought was her secret identity. The candidate said she no longer sells used underwear and has since deleted all her accounts, saying “Mystee is dead.” Councilwoman Wendy Schuler said…that Reno is probably no longer electable as result…
Morons cheer when a highway is destroyed, then get upset when the traffic goes into side streets:
If you’re wondering why you see so many prostitutes openly working Seattle streets, cops contend you should blame it on City Attorney Pete Holmes [rather than the government’s destruction of their advertising venues]. Cops complain that his office generally refuses to pursue charges against prostitutes. Consequently, prostitutes are flocking to Seattle from out of town and [poor little piggies] feel powerless to attack the[m]…Some are there willingly, others are forced to by abusive pimps, who also ravage the neighborhoods with drug dealing and petty theft…But cops want to arrest pimps, as they’re often nearby in [an invisible] car waiting for their prostitutes to drop off cash from a client. Without being able to use jail time as leverage over the prostitutes to turn on their pimps, it’s a futile effort…It could also explain why some sex workers refuse [fingerpainting classes] offered to them by the city [which take up time they could be earning money]…Even if they decided to [rape a few women] they’ll face scrutiny so unrealistically high, it’s not worth it…their complaints return to the Office of Police Accountability, an independent office within the SPD that cops [whine] is over-zealous…
The saddest thing is that Holmes, and probably most Seattle detectives, know this “pimps and hos” and “cleaning up the streets” malarkey is total bullshit, but they’re locked into it due to years of taking Swanee Hunt’s blood money. “It’s a futile effort,” all right, but not because they can’t arrest sex workers; it’s because these invisible “pimps” don’t actually exist. Also note the vile and sinister “we could make these whores go away if we didn’t have to follow all these rules.” You know, the rules that were imposed by the feds because of all the police brutality.
…Elliott said that his behavior both in and outside the bedroom can be both atypical and unprofessional…A longtime friend of his told me that Elliot (who, as a child, was a ward of the state and lived in group homes) was “raised by wolves” and has “zero boundaries”. He’s the kind of guy who will talk about sex in front of your grandma. It’s easy to see how his behavior could be construed as—or could be—sexual harassment…
Back Issue #64
Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged blogging on October 26, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Sexuality is a thing of the mind, not of the genitalia. – “Rope of Sand”
As more and more of my daily columns fell into categories, there was less need to specifically mention them in these “Back Issue” features; right now each week has on average two news columns, a links column and a diary, and many of the other three days are taken up by monthly features like this one. In October 2015, we had a Halloween column and a special feature called “Tricks and Treats“; a guest column featuring a client survey; a fictional interlude (“Athena“); and five Q&A columns (“Methods of Payment“, “Of Horses and Water“, “Buying Time“, “Confidentiality“, and “Out of Bounds“). That leaves only four columns: “Threat Level“, on the ubiquity of threats of violence in American public life; “Rope of Sand“, on the impossibility of drawing a bright, clear line between the sexual and the non-sexual; “Against the Tide“, on the shift of public opinion about sex work; and “Between the Lines“, on that year’s “Operation Cross-Country”. But describing that took only 157 words, which hardly even qualifies as a column; I’ve therefore decided to change the format of this feature slightly, as signified by the change in the title format. Starting next month, I’ll add another look back at columns from 2010, one week per month; eventually I’ll convert the feature into looking at blogging from ten years past rather than only three. And after that…I’ll cross that bridge when and if I come to it. 
Because It Is
Posted in Perception, Q & A, tagged ethics, harm reduction, marriage, psychology on October 25, 2018| 3 Comments »
Why, in discussions about monogamy, do you use the words “harm reduction” or “pressure valve” to characterize the act of seeing a sex worker within an outwardly-monogamous marriage or partnership?
Every person has the right to control their own sexuality and no one else’s. What this means in a monogamous marriage is that if a partner (nearly always the wife) loses sexual interest, she has the right to refuse sex; she does not, however, have the right to stop her husband from procuring what he needs elsewhere. But while this is ethically true, most marriage laws take a dim view of so-called “infidelity” even if the only alternative is celibacy. And even in jurisdictions where the court isn’t supposed to consider “fault”, in fact many judges do, and a husband who is caught “stepping out” is likely to get an even shorter end of the stick than he otherwise would. Furthermore, marriage is primarily an economic and social arrangement, despite the popular lie that it’s about love and romance; even a sexless marriage may have many benefits, and the husband may wish to remain with his family rather than weather the pain and upheaval of divorce. So if he’s going to get his sex elsewhere, it’s better for all parties if he does so discreetly, from a qualified professional practicing safe sex who has no interest in him romantically and is highly motivated to keep his secrets, rather than from an unpredictable amateur with questionable hygiene who may get pregnant, become emotionally entangled with him, start making extracontractual demands and otherwise making a mess out of what should’ve been a simple business transaction. In simpler terms, I call sex work a harm reduction method for monogamy because it is.
(Have a question of your own? Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)
In the News (#882)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged advertising, Backpage, California, Censor Chic, censorship, Cooties, cops, Disaster, Facebook, fascism, hysteria, language, Madonna/whore, Maryland, One Born Every Minute, politicians, porn, Pyrrhic Victory, rape, rescue industry, scams, streetwalkers, surveillance, Swedish model, Texas, The Pygmalion Fallacy, The Widening Gyre, To Molest and Rape, Twitter, United Kingdom on October 24, 2018| 2 Comments »
Facebook censorship is just what government censorship looks like in a corporatist system. – Caitlin Johnstone
Threatening landlords to get them to evict sex workers is a popular Bay Area pig trick:
More than a hundred massage parlors in San Jose…were…shut…down…by…Vice [pigs]…[after pigs got happy ending massages at] 54 of [them. Cops then threatened]…landlords [with pimping charges]…which prompted the shutdown of 62 of the parlors…neighboring cities, which [are also run by gangs of simians]…are now asking SJPD for information [so they can “monkey see, monkey do”] its approach…
One jurisdiction in the Washington DC area has done this as well.
If not for the witness & video, they’d be defending this rapist right now:
…Ryan Macklin…of the Prince George’s County Police Department, was [arrested for raping a woman after he forced her to pull]…over at about 1 a.m. on [October 11th. He]…order[ed] her to move her car behind a store…[where he] oral[ly raped] her [and attempted to rape her vaginally until] interrupted by a witness whom the woman had called earlier, the [rapist then fled and] the witness later corroborated some of the woman’s account of the assault, which was also backed up by video evidence…Police [claim] they do not know why Macklin…[raped] the [woman]…
Shuker is a well-known prohibitionist fond of publicly masturbating to “sex slave” fantasies:
…MP Gavin Shuker has started a…[gang] to [at]tack…sex [workers]…called Luton Against Sexual Exploitation (LASE)…He [claims] a police initiative, begun in 2013, [to not persecute sex workers] was viewed as a failure by [prohibitionists who want sex workers persecuted]…Shuker is chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Prostitution which [fantasizes that] sexual exploitation of women in pop-up brothels was widespread across the country. The committee [was organized specifically to] recommend…the government…make paying for sex a crime…
Corporations are becoming the favored tool of censors around the world:
After a massive purge of hundreds of politically oriented pages and personal accounts for “inauthentic behavior”, Facebook rightly received a fair amount of criticism for the nebulous and hotly disputed basis for that action. What received relatively little attention was the far more ominous step which was taken next: within hours of being purged from Facebook, multiple anti-establishment alternative media sites had their accounts completely removed from Twitter as well…Anti-Media, the Free Thought Project, and Police the Police, all of whom had millions of followers [were banned from both] Facebook…and…Twitter [almost simultaneously]…It is now clear that there is either (A) some degree of communication/coordination between Twitter and Facebook about their respective censorship practices, or (B) information being given to both Twitter and Facebook by another party regarding targets for censorship. Either way, it means that there is now some some mechanism in place linking the censorship of dissident voices across multiple platforms. We are beginning to see smaller anti-establishment alternative media outlets cut off from their audiences by the same sort of coordinated cross-platform silencing we first witnessed with Alex Jones in August…
You do realize TSA is part of DHS, right? The agency building a giant biometric database?
Customs and Border Protection has been using facial recognition to screen non-US residents on international flights since 2015, a project that was expedited by the Trump administration. Last year, the US government laid out its plans to start expanding the [surveillance] tools to US citizens, which would require them to undergo facial scans when they leave the country through a system called the Biometric Pathway…TSA will adopt the same technology, partnering with CBP on biometrics for international travelers, expanding security operations to TSA Precheck members, and eventually, using facial recognition to verify domestic travelers…
Activists, civil rights groups and Amazon’s own shareholders are now joined by its employees:
…Amazon, where I work, is currently allowing police departments around the country to purchase its facial recognition product, Rekognition, and I and other employees demand that we stop immediately. A couple weeks ago, my co-workers delivered a letter to this effect, signed by over 450 employees, to Jeff Bezos and other executives. The letter also contained demands to kick Palantir…off Amazon Web Services and to institute employee oversight for ethical decisions…Amazon’s website brags of the system’s ability to store and search tens of millions of faces at a time. Law enforcement has already started using facial recognition with virtually no public oversight or debate or restrictions on use from Amazon. Orlando, Florida, is testing Rekognition with live video feeds from surveillance cameras around the city. A sheriff’s department in Oregon [uses] Rekognition to let officers in the field compare photos to a database of mugshots. This is not a hypothetical situation…
Another sleazy scam artist raping aspiring sex workers:
…Deana Embry got a Facebook message from a man who said he was an agent for Evil Angel Videos…and urged her to audition…she signed several [fake] contracts, discussed her boundaries, and did everything asked of her in the extensive audition process—including a sex scene…[later] she learned the man was not an agent…but a local business owner and engineering student by the name of Francisco Reveriano…[who] sent similar messages to at least two other women …but…a sting operation…by Embry and a top executive of Evil Angel [with the help of a PI]…succeeded in driving Reveriano underground, even securing a videotaped admission from him. But despite [raping at least one woman and scheming to rape others] Reveriano currently faces nothing more than a fine [because Texas]…
I’ll bet you thought I was kidding when I put that necrophilia item under this heading:
…one of the UK’s first sex doll rental services…offers to make bespoke dolls for those seeking comfort after losing a partner by matching their likeness. Jade Stanley…says…“We have a lot of people approach us who have dolls made that resemble a partner they have lost”…Bespoke dolls can cost up to $5,200 and can be made to any specification…“I’m hoping to open an office in Atlanta…We are currently in the process of working with some well-known porn stars to get dolls made that look just like them”…
Morons cheer when a highway is destroyed, then get upset when the traffic goes into side streets:
The government shutdown of Backpage.com this year…has [predictably] prompted an increase in [the number of] sex [workers] on San Francisco streets. [Arrests]…related to [sex work]…have more than tripled in 2018 — with 67 through August, up from 21 during the same period last year…as much of the activity had been [peacefully and privately conducted] online…Antonio Flores [oinked]…“A few sex workers are [resisting when cops try]…to prey on [them]”…Pike Long…of St. James Infirmary [explained]…“Without being able to advertise online…a huge number of sex workers were forced to go outside, and many have reported that former pimps came out of the woodwork offering to ‘manage’ their business again since they were now rendered unable to find and screen clients online”…
Remember, when cops & reporters say “sex trafficking” they actually mean sex work; in San Francisco, it’s an important way of getting around the “policies” they established to quiet squeaky wheels.
What the fuck is going on in San Angelo, Texas?
San Angelo Police issued a news release after recieving several calls Monday, Oct. 15…“Police received several inquiring about black-colored zip ties being used to target potential victims of human trafficking…One post was concerning a zip tie that was placed on a…vehicle side mirror. In another…sex traffickers were placing black zip ties on the lamp posts, houses, apartments, and fences of their intended female targets.” The department said it’s received no reports of…attempted kidnappings relating to human trafficking…police learned the person who created the original post was not the owner of the pictured vehicle and had copied the claim as a means to [get attention]…
This is the same small city which saw the “Bible study sex traffickers” a few weeks ago. Naturally, USA Today helpfully responded by posting more “signs of sex trafficking” propaganda so as to help quench the fire with gasoline.
Diary #434
Posted in Diary, tagged blogging, psychology on October 23, 2018| 9 Comments »
I have come to the unpleasant conclusion that the autumnal downshift from the hyperstimulation of summer is neither as quick nor smooth as it once was, which means weeks of weird moods where I mostly feel fine (and not depressed or anxious), but I don’t have a lot of energy and I’m prone to short bursts of sorrow. Part of this is probably due to the accumulated psychic grunge of decades fouling my cerebral gears, and part of it is certainly stress-related, but the rest is probably just age. Thanks to good genes, a mostly-nocturnal lifestyle which protects my skin from ultraviolet damage, and a lot of money spent on various beauty treatments, I still look a lot younger than my age (52 a week from tomorrow); however, my nervous system has still been redlining all day, every day since I was at least 9 (and maybe for years before that), which means my brain is probably the equivalent of about 104 or more. I reckon that’s as good an excuse as any for being moody and cantankerous, but if it isn’t that’s just too bad; I’ve reached the point where I no longer feel the need to apologize for terrifying people who try to waste my time or make unwelcome demands without offering compensation.
A Trickle of Treats
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, tagged animals, Australia, disease, Egypt, Europe, Florida, holidays, Hollywood, imaginative fiction, India, Japan, Korea on October 22, 2018| 1 Comment »
I used to get as many Halloween-themed columns into October as possible, and though I no longer have the energy for that I’m still dedicated to the idea of this as the time of year for spooky fun. So every year I collect all the spooky, creepy or scary links and other content from the previous year into one place just before Halloween. If you’ve come to my blog in the past year, or don’t remember previous editions, they are “Trick or Treat”, “More Trick or Treat“, “Tricks and Treats“, “This Trick’s a Treat”, and “Tricky Treats“. Horror or death-themed columns of the past year include “Thanatopsis“, “Whistling Past the Graveyard“, “Eternity“, and “Approaching Infinity“; there are creepy or spooky-fun videos in Links #383, #385, #387, #388, #394, #398, #402, and #404; and here’s a small collection of spooky or Halloweeny links:
- Nyarlathotep?
- Lovecraft in porcelain.
- Lovecraft’s secret archive.
- Like tribbles, except not cuddly.
- A horror movie for every day of the year.
- Talk about operating with a skeleton crew…
- Pleasant dreams, kiddies. Love, Snake Mama.
- Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.
- Nightmare of the week. And another. And another. And another.
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