There aren’t many apples this year, but I’m sure I can get a few pounds of them. So I gathered all the remaining (mostly green) cherry tomatoes and small tomatoes from my plants, and was just able to get two pounds of those as well. I was able to make serviceable mince meat last year, but only by fiddling and adjusting so much I couldn’t actually get a finalized recipe to write down. So this year it’s back to the drawing board, trying to reverse engineer the recipe again, because the combined fruit volume shrunk by much more than I expected last time. This time I’m going to go by weight rather than volume; I expect that won’t change as dramatically, because even though some water will boil off, I’ll also be adding sugar. Even though I did make six pints of salsa this year, it feels wrong to not have enough fruit for even two pies; here’s hoping I can get the proportions finalized this time, so next year it’ll be a breeze. Unless we don’t have any fruit again, of course, but I hope it’s unlikely that will happen two years in a row.
Posted in Diary | Tagged recipes, Sunset | Leave a Comment »
I’ve always been 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 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”, “Tricky Treats“, “A Trickle of Treats”, “Tricking and Treating“, “Tricks for the Treat“, “Tricked Out Treats“, “Tricks and Treats and Such Small Deer“, and “Trick Treatment“. Horror, death or Halloween-themed columns of the past year included Day of the Dead 2023, Diary #697, and “Why Zombies?” There are creepy or spooky-fun videos in Links #695, #698, #721, #722, #739, #745, and #746, and a collection of seasonal links appears below.
- Sounds legit.
- Nightmare of the week.
- Lovecraftian algorithms.
- Alien: The Short Version.
- Horror movie locale map.
- This is a really scary story.
- I hate it when this happens.
- At the Mountains of Madness.
- Lovecraftian romance comics.
- I’m also not very fond of this.
- The Onion, on a seasonal roll.
- Recipes from Aleister Crowley.
- I hate when this happens, too.
- Black humor is the best humor.
- The Onion has a gift for horror.
- Another nightmare of the week.
- The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil.
- The legend of the black-eyed children.
- I don’t use the word “ghoulish” lightly.
- Mummy cheese from the Leng Plateau.
- On Corman’s Masque of the Red Death.
- The US only thinks it has immigration issues.
- Cop shoots up a grade-school Halloween party.
- This happens more often than you might think.
- Strange immigrants in small New England town.
- “I am not that daemon swineherd in the twilit grotto!“
- It’s almost like scientists never watch science fiction shows.
- “Haskell tried to pass the body parts off as Halloween props.“
- “There is always this urge to use [new technology] to contact the dead“.
Posted in History, Links, Miscellaneous | Tagged adolescence, advertising, Antarctica, Arizona, artificial stupidity, California, China, comics, cops, disease, Florida, Georgia, holidays, Hollywood, illegal aliens, imaginative fiction, libraries, Missouri, Nevada, New York, psychology, recipes, robots, South Carolina, United Kingdom | Leave a Comment »
I had a stash in here somewhere. I don’t even know where it’s at. – “Officer” George Kanyuh
The Abominable Dr. Phibes and its sequel, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, are both horror comedies from the early ’70s in which Vincent Price’s character Phibes murders many people in bizarre and grotesque ways. Both movies are set in the 1920s and anachronistically feature “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in their end credits; I especially like the way it’s done in the sequel, so I’ve decided to share that with y’all today. The links above it were provided by Jason Kuznicki, Mike Siegel, IncarcerNation, Marc Randazza, Popehat, Jesse Walker, and IncarcerNation again, in that order.
- “Smart“.
- This week in artificial stupidity.
- Do as they say, not as they do.
- Crypto-moralism is a mental illness.
- It’s a good thing they’re incompetent.
- The legend of the black-eyed children.
- Cop murders man for sleeping in a car.
From the Archives
- They make these cases sound like the rapist was doing his victims a favor.
- I’m sure Jesus would approve of punishing children for their parents’ sins.
- Politicians don’t even try to make their new laws Constitutional any more.
- Florida screws all yell “Stop faking!” at victims after breaking their necks.
- You’ve heard of “burying the lede”, but this one just keeps getting worse.
- Politicians will keep abusing civil suits until it’s declared unconstitutional.
- Child porn is only the first of many excuses to bleed internet companies.
- Cops, California, Piper Laurie, Keith Giffen, Lara Parker, and much more.
- It’s great to see anti-prohibitionist views quickly becoming mainstream.
- Give aggressive thugs power over teens; what could possibly go wrong?
- Funny how often people “die suddenly” while cops are brutalizing them.
- “Authorities” actually do something about a serial rapist of sex workers.
- Psychedelic destigmatization is happening more quickly than expected.
- It’s good to see a sex worker run for office, especially when she wins.
- The cop who stood by and watched a rape has thought up an excuse.
- As a tool of social control, pseudoscience is more useful than science.
- The racism of “anti-trafficking” schemes is getting harder to disguise.
- Did you ever wonder why the government stopped harassing bitcoin?
- These tyrannies often start with sex workers, but never stop with us.
- No, this is a different Louisville cop stealing women’s nude pictures.
- The government needs to be buried in lawsuits before this will stop.
- Some still believe these sociopaths really want to “protect children”.
- UK admits “human trafficking” narrative is about migration control.
- Facebook didn’t think the face-eating leopards would eat its face.
- The rescue industry provides many opportunities to play cowboy.
- Cops cosplaying pimps vs cops cosplaying sex workers & clients.
- Cops, wolves,San Francisco, Robbie Coltrane, and much more.
- Cops are just a gang of rapist thugs waiting for opportunities.
- Pregnant women are uniquely vulnerable to state coercion.
- I’m content for the time being to keep things as they are.
- Still think this djinni can be crammed back into its bottle?
- A custom arrangement to fit your needs and preferences.
- Cops should not be allowed anywhere near legal minors.
- It’s not only Louisiana cops who prefer to rape by proxy.
- Etowah County, Alabama needs to be sued into oblivion.
- An analysis of how the Baby Boomers wrecked the US.
- If only there were a specific word for this sort of thing.
- It’s always nice when filth like this feed on each other.
- Facts have absolutely nothing to do with US sex laws.
- Moral imbeciles are almost completely out of control.
- PayPal is becoming a major threat to civil liberties.
- The stupider the belief, the harder it is to debunk.
- Tim Ballard’s house of marked cards is collapsing.
- Rapist cops of the week, 2021, and 2022.
- Yet another curated selection of tweets.
- Cops, laws, monsters, and much more.
- Learning to weld while building a roof.
- Yet another example of McNeill’s Law.
- Throwback Thursday’s Daughter.
- Plumbing my new bathroom.
- Cicero’s breakfast peanuts.
- A game of musical cars.
- Worst Phone Ever.
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny | Tagged advertising, artificial stupidity, California, cops, crypto-moralism, imaginative fiction, internet, Michigan, psychology, restaurants, video | Leave a Comment »
Any alternate channel devoted to access by one party will undoubtedly be discovered, accessed, and abused by another. – David Ruiz
This will continue until fools stop teaching children unquestioning obedience to “authority”:
…an [Oklahoma] pastor…[named] Roy Shoop was…[found guilty of molest]ing several girls during horse riding lessons at Shoop’s ranch, or while the girls stayed at the family’s home…
If a system lets “authorized” busybodies spy on you, “unauthorized” ones can do the same:
…A recent Chinese incursion into U.S. internet providers using infrastructure created to allow police easy wiretap access offers [more] evidence…that weakening security for anybody weakens it for everybody…Among the companies breached by the [Chinese government–supported] hacker group, dubbed “Salt Typhoon” by investigators, are Verizon, AT&T, and Lumen Technologies…Joe Mullin and Cindy Cohn of the…EFF…believe the wiretap-ready systems penetrated by the Chinese hackers were “likely created to facilitate smooth compliance with wrong-headed laws like CALEA”…[which] dates back to 1994 and “forced telephone companies to redesign their network architectures to make it easier for [cop shops and spook houses] to wiretap digital telephone calls”…This isn’t the first time that CALEA-mandated wiretapping backdoors have been exploited by hackers…[because] “virtually every phone switch sold worldwide contains ‘lawful intercept’ functionality”…[such as] was subverted by hackers targeting Vodafone Greece…in…2004…
Cops raping whores is so ubiquitous, others pose as cops to facilitate rape:
A [young] Delaware man…[named] Jemeire Perry…was [arrested and] charged with se[veral crimes]…after he threatened a woman with arrest unless she [submitted] to [rape]…Perry [pretend]ed to [be a client, but when she showed up]…he…identifying himself as a “Confidential Informant”…[and] threatened to have the woman arrested…The woman…fle[d] and reported the incident to police…
Why does a vacuum cleaner need either a speaker or a wifi connection?
Robot vacuums made by Ecovacs have been reported roving around people’s homes, yelling profanities at them through the onboard speakers after the company’s software was found to be vulnerable to intrusion…The most common issue people have with so-called “smart” home devices is that they often require a software subscription…and if the manufacturer goes under or stops supporting the device, it simply becomes a paperweight…Remote access is [pointless and unnecessary, and]…every couple of years we hear about something egregious, like intruders accessing a baby monitor and whispering through it at night…
This is only going to get worse:
A Massachusetts woman used an online platform to schedule an appointment seeking abortion medication from a local clinic in May. Two minutes after she uploaded her insurance information to finalize the appointment, a representative from a nearby “pregnancy crisis center”…called the woman and, purporting to be the clinic, told her she needed to come in for an ultrasound prior to obtaining the medication. The crisis center…[called] AWHC…had intercepted the electronic communications between the abortion clinic and the woman, according to a lawsuit filed by the clinic, Four Women Health Services…the federal judge presiding over the case [has] ordered AWHC to stop [eavesdropping] and refrain from contacting [Four Women’s] patients…AWHC has long sought to confuse Four Women patients and has…deceived them when they have inadvertently come into its offices…[after it] moved directly next door to Four Women years ago…AWHC workers [regular]ly patrol a shared parking lot, giving Four Women patients anti-abortion literature…
Anyone with a functional brain could’ve predicted this outcome:
[Under] new [censorship] rules enacted by the Alabama Public Library Service in July…libraries can lose their state funding if [a politician points at any book]…in the children or teens section of the library [and belches the magic word “obscene”, “sexually explicit”, or “inappropriate”. So the] Cullman County Public Library…[has] gotten rid of their entire young adult section…[and] moved everything [in it] to the adult fiction section…over 2,000 books [in all. The library director]…said they d[id this] because the new rules from the state are [intentionally vague and] confusing…Minors who want to check something out from the library must get…their parents…[to] sign a waiver, saying that they understand exactly what their child is checking out…
Three weeks ago, I told y’all that I’m facing a projected $3000 shortfall for my annual operating budget, and asked for help making up that difference. Well, several of my loyal readers have already stepped up, generously helping me to the tune of $1100. So now I’m only facing a $1900 shortfall; if you aren’t yet a subscriber, won’t you please consider becoming one? A $1/day subscription would take $90 off of that total, and other levels would help in proportion. Or if you’re already a subscriber but can spare some extra right now, I’d really appreciate it; it would be great if I can catch up by my birthday!
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, The Dark Side, Tyranny | Tagged abortion, activism, adolescence, advertising, agency denial, Alabama, blogging, censorship, China, cops, Delaware, Eavesdropping, fascism, I Spy, If Men Were Angels, libraries, License To Rape, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, rape, robots, scams, surveillance, violence vs. sex workers | Leave a Comment »
Attention, all "progressive" types: are you angry and disgusted by what Republicans are doing to Haitians right now?YOU were doing the same to sex workers all through the Teens, until "Pizzagate" and QAnon forced y'all to let Trumpists have that narrative.And I will never let y'all forget it.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2024-09-15T17:07:40.233Z
Honestly, I thought I was later than that; I dawdled for a couple of months after getting my first invite.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2024-09-17T05:02:25.648Z
Whatever an individual chooses to do with their time, body, money, and brain is nobody's business but their own, and CERTAINLY not the government's, as long as it hurts nobody else.Everyone understands this deep down, which is why control freaks keep trying to expand the definition of "harm".
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2024-09-17T17:18:13.072Z
This is very, very good; it's rare I see an article which portrays the problems with US politics so clearly and recognizes partisanism for what it is. http://www.bostonreview.net/forum/the-ca…
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2024-09-18T16:51:36.658Z
They were teeny, tiny mistresses.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2024-09-20T03:55:37.871Z
The advantage of this for cops is that their videos go from being reviewed by entities with only rudimentary consciences, to being reviewed by entities with absolutely no conscience whatsoever. http://www.npr.org/2024/09/23/n…
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2024-09-25T17:01:17.251Z
I *wish* this were only a GOP thing, but it isn't. "See Something, Say Something" dogma has been promoted by both parties in the duopoly for a generation, largely in the service of campaigns to inflict police violence on women and drug users, but also to promote single-side hobby-horses.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2024-10-03T17:24:33.518Z
When a person's brain is so small and weak it can only conceive of two possible positions on any issue, it's no surprise to see such a mind switch from one extreme belief to another.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2024-10-08T17:33:31.681Z
No lies detected.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2024-10-09T18:26:03.866Z
“There is a cult of ignorance in the US, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge'.” ― I. Asimov
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2024-10-11T18:20:42.620Z
It can babysit your kids, walk your dog.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2024-10-12T17:12:14.673Z
"Some people…embrace [politicians] and…idealize them…in the way that fans treat celebrities, or that medieval peasants treated kings. Not only is this unhealthy for the fabric of…society; it is unrealistic. You cannot be a fully moral person and be elected president of the US".
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2024-10-12T23:49:53.760Z
Prohibitionist "dopamine" propaganda (against drugs, porn, video games, etc) is just puritans straight-out declaring that they are against pleasure, and most Americans being much too stupid to understand what they're being directly told.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2024-10-14T17:45:54.245Z
REAL protest targets the people the protesters disagree with, rather than fine art or people trying to drive somewhere.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2024-10-15T19:42:32.683Z
"The Supreme Court’s devotion to finality in case outcomes is built upon the fiction that justice is not only possible but almost certain during the trial process. Nothing could be further from the truth. " http://www.teenvogue.com/story/robert…
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2024-10-17T16:40:28.675Z
Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words | Tagged animals, artificial stupidity, asset seizure, blogging, Bluesky, California, censorship, consensual crime, ethics, Georgia, Haiti, Hollywood, hysteria, illegal aliens, internet, language, law, left-right myth, libraries, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, politicians, propaganda, psychology, racism, robots, Russia, Send In the Clowns, surveillance, The Implosion Begins, TikTok, Twitter, yin and yang, You Were Warned | Leave a Comment »
It’s time for the rational people of the world to recognize th[e prohibitionist] mentality for the ridiculous superstition it is, and to assign to those who espouse it the same credibility we allow to witch doctors, flat-earthers and those who claim the Egyptian pyramids were built by space aliens. – “Juxtaposition”
Female sexual psychology is generally much more complicated than male, so it’s a lot easier for a woman to learn to understand men than it is for a man to understand women, or even for a woman to understand other women! – “Ice Cream in the Hand”
What a surprise; help people to deal with their problems, to respect others and do something constructive, and they tend to become peaceful, productive citizens after release. Cage them like animals and torture them into sociopathy, and they become more bestial and sociopathic. – “Torture Chamber”
Sending armed thugs to attack peaceful individuals because the “leaders” dislike their peaceful acts is, by definition, “violence as a way to achieve political goals”. And when “leaders” have done something for over a century, why is it a shock when their “followers” follow? – “Might Makes Right“
Posted in Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny | Tagged agency denial, blogging, consensual crime, cops, dirty, Juxtaposition, law, left-right myth, porn, prisons, psychology, sex work is work, social purity, Torture Chamber, yin and yang | Leave a Comment »
If you want to kick the door in…you’re more than welcome to.
– Paige Mitchell
A [North Carolina politician named]…Richard Braswell…[has been] sentenced to…prison…[for] 20 to 33 months and [condemned] to [the]…sex offender [registry] for 30 years…[because] in April 2022…[he molest]ed a 13-year-old girl…Divorce records filed by Braswell’s wife said…he…“took the victim and her brother with him to work under the pretense of having them do some work for him, then sent the victim’s brother on an errand”…
Sleeping with cops isn’t safe for men, either:
…three Elyria [Ohio cops] stormed a man’s home, tased and arrested him without [cause or] warrant on May 11, 2023…Raul Ortiz…[was attacked by his cop] ex-girlfriend, Brittany Warner, [with two other thugs and permission from senior sow Paige Mitchell. The gang] kick[ed] down Ortiz’s front door[, supposedly] to retrieve [Warner’s] belongings…though she no longer lived [there]…then tased, arrested and charged Ortiz with five felonies, all of which were later dropped…[politicians] wrote that [Mitchell’s okaying this]…“defied common sense”…but [she was only given a slap on the wrist. Henchthug]…Colty Hersh [was given an even milder love tap, and]…the third [thug] involved, Chris Lewis, was [not even given a stern lecture. Boss Hog]…William Pelko didn’t [even deign to notice his pigs’] actions until…a year after the [crime was committ]ed, just eight days after [local news] first reported it…Ortiz has filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Elyria, [the cop shop] and each [offending cop]…
When Ambulance-Chasers Run the Hospitals (#1444)
The claims in these nuisance lawsuits are increasingly absurd:
More than a dozen states are filing lawsuits…accusing TikTok of harming the well-being of children by using [magically-]addictive product features that keep them [spellbound] on the platform, in a [moronic] salvo that amplifies the company’s legal perils as it tries to stave off a federal ban. Attorneys general from 13 states and the District of Columbia are a[bus]ing…local consumer protection laws by [ascrib]ing [supernatural powers] to [a program], exposing young users to mental and physical risk…The complaints represent the second multistate attempt to [loot] a major social media company…[using spurious] claims they are contributing to a youth mental health crisis in the United States [which is actually caused by government-encouraged intrusive surveillance and infantilization of young adults], following a flurry of similar lawsuits against Facebook…last year…California AG Rob Bonta…is co-leading the [witch hunt] alongside…New York AG Letitia James, [claiming]…that TikTok [vampirical]ly designed the app to “feed on young users”…[the rest of the nitwit parade consists of] Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont and Washington…
Modern attorneys general are vile even by the low standards of politicians:
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and 13 other [fascist] attorneys general [have] filed a petition…asking a federal court to block new rules that reduce the cost of phone and video calls with people in prisons and jails…The [politicians object to] new rules…prohibit[ing] telecommunications companies from paying commissions or kick-backs to jails and prisons…and [to] long-term benefits that include lower risks of reoffending and an increased likelihood of successful re-entry…[which would reduce the] prison…[popula]tion…[they also object to] prisons and jails [being less able to bleed needy families to increase their profits]…
Unsafe for Human Consumption (#1467)
Politicians and bureaucrats are empowered to force stupidity on others:
Every morning, before opening the mail, Tulsa County Election Board employees Kerry Martin and Taylor Gutierrez put on N95 masks, face shields, medical smocks and surgical gloves…[because] Election Board Secretary Gwen Freeman [is a yokel who believes copaganda about]…election boards across the country receiving mail containing fentanyl…“one piece of mail that was sent to the state Election Board in Oklahoma City…included a multi-page document and…flour…[causing] Freeman [to absurdly belch out “]dangerous substances[“] …“It’s unfortunate that we live in a society [where idiots] have [the power to force us] to do this kind of stuff,” Martin said…
If he’d been wearing his magical clown costume, this would’ve gone very differently for his victim:
A homeowner shot and killed an…Atlanta [cop] who…broke into his home…around 5 a.m. [without a magic scroll of permission]…Aubree Horton…was…recently [named] “Investigator of the Year” at the [cop shop]’s annual [self-aggrandization] breakfast…[fellow cops excuse]ed Horton [as] “experiencing a mental health episode or under the influence of narcotics”…[when he was] shot [by his intended victim] in self-defense…
Your “leaders” call this “correction”, but “journalists” shouldn’t parrot them:
[Screw]s routinely lock severely mentally ill men in [cages] on Rikers Island for weeks and even months in [flagrant] violation of city law, [according to] a jail social worker who [finally developed enough backbone to quit] three weeks ago…
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny | Tagged Above the Law, agency denial, Alabama, California, cell phones, censorship, cops, domestic violence, drugs, fascism, Georgia, hysteria, Illinois, internet, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, politicians, prisons, propaganda, psychology, sex offender registry, South Carolina, The Cop Myth, The Punitive Mindset, Torture Chamber, Unsafe for Human Consumption, Vermont, Washington (state), Washington DC, When Ambulance-Chasers Run the Hospitals, You Were Warned | Leave a Comment »
Most of y’all have seen photos of my DVD collection, and long-time readers already know a large fraction of it consists of horror movies. But October has only 31 nights, so every year I need to pick which of many scores of titles we’re going to watch (you can follow along below, with trailers). Of course, I’m largely guided by impulse; I look down the shelves and pick every one that speaks to me, making sure I get at least one from all the big categories: at least one each from Universal, Hammer, and Amicus; at least one each with Vincent Price, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee, and Peter Cushing; at least one anthology; at least one each from my ten scariest and my ten favorites; any ones I’ve bought but not yet watched; at least one Roger Corman and one William Castle; and so on. Of course there’s a lot of overlap (Karloff/Lugosi, Price/Corman/Poe; Lee & Cushing; etc), but this isn’t an exact process. The most important thing is to cover as much of the range of horror as I can get, from Gothic to sci-fi, from silent to modern, from funny to truly horrific, from schlock to true art, and from familiar to novel. That, and of course to have a month of good, spooky fun!
Every night in October, we watch a horror or monster movie; the first few are usually horror-adjacent, then we move into straight horror. We're starting tonight with one of Grace's favorites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8TV…
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2024-10-02T02:28:06.461Z
Posted in Diary, Miscellaneous | Tagged holidays, imaginative fiction | Leave a Comment »
It’s one of the ironclad rules of media journalism that all “100 best” lists are bad. Certainly, some are worse than others; some are merely skewed, while others cause the knowledgeable reader to wish they could reach through the screen or page to repeatedly slap the compilers while shouting “WHAT! THE! HELL! WERE! YOU! THINKING?!?!!” Nearly all of them are biased toward the last 40 years prior to their compilation (for obvious reasons) and most of them seem to be compiled by committees which include at least one, and sometimes as many as a majority, of individuals who absolutely should not have been included due to such factors as A) conformism; B) contrarianism; C) inexperience; D) ignorance; E) lack of taste; F) stupidity; G) crippling bias; or H) any 2-6 of the preceding. Today’s example of the genre is Variety‘s new list of the “100 Best Horror Movies of All Time“, whose chief flaw is summed up by the title of this column: it seems to have been composed by a group composed of 1 serious horror fan, 1 casual fan, 2 fans of adjacent genres, 3 non-fans, and 1 person who does not actually like horror movies, for the consumption of Variety readers who are not actually horror fans per se. Now, before any of y’all accuse me of bias, let me get this out of the way: de gustibus non est disputandum. There can be considerable disagreement between aficionados of any genre about which examples are best, much less the specific order they should be arranged in. I’ve already written about my own favorites, and about my philosophy of the genre, the most important principle of which is that slashers are not horror:
Slashers are actually more closely related to porn than horror; both genres grew out of the exploitation films of the 1950s, which featured both gratuitous sex and gratuitous violence. Those in turn were essentially cinematic Grand Guignol, whereas true horror began as filmed “ghost stories”; the former are theatrical, while the latter are literary. Expressed another way, slasher films are designed to shock the body via intense imagery, whereas horror intends to shock the mind via terrifying ideas.
So right off the bat, the Variety list fails by putting a slasher in the top slot; the top ten are further puffed out with a satirical black comedy, a couple of suspense thrillers, and a literary exploitation flick. And the rest of the 100 are similarly heterogeneous; there are lots of horror and slasher movies in the list, but also lots of suspense, psychological drama, tense sci-fi, monster movies, dark satire, black comedy, and other types of flicks which may indeed be entertaining and exciting and even thrilling, but are not horror. 34% are from the past 40 years (not bad as “top 100” lists go), but 14% are from the 21st century (not exactly a notable period in genre history). So, go take a look at it if you feel so inclined; you may find a few things there you’ll want to see, even if they aren’t “the 100 best horror movies” as advertised. And try not to get too annoyed if they ranked your favorites much too low.
Posted in Favorites, Fiction, Miscellaneous, Philosophy | Tagged Hollywood, imaginative fiction, psychology | Leave a Comment »
What you’re seeing now is a real Jezebel. – Lance Wallnau
It’s rare that I actually find seasonal videos any more, so please enjoy this number from the early ’60s featuring Carol Burnett, Chita Rivera, Caterina Valente, and Boris Karloff. The links above it were provided by Dan Savage, Jacob Sullum, Ronald Bailey, Lenore Skenazy, Radley Balko, IncarcerNation, and Emma Camp, in that order.
- R.I.P. John Amos.
- Much more of this, please.
- What could possibly go wrong?
- More previously-undiscovered Nazca lines!
- I keep telling y’all we’re entering a dark age.
- Crime: public smoking. Penalty: summary execution of bystander.
- Government is just a word for the things we choose to do together.
From the Archives
- This elaborate concern kabuki is the result of “sex trafficking” propaganda.
- Modern people are in deep denial about the ubiquity of historical sex work.
- Nobody is going to give expensive cannabis edibles to your spawn for free.
- Cops’ typical Halloween nonsense, now with fentanyl instead of marijuana.
- How long will airlines accept liability for government-brand racial profiling?
- Sexworkers ask the Canadian Supreme Court to uphold its own judgment.
- European politicians consider discussing a baby step in the right direction.
- If you didn’t see where this was going, you haven’t been paying attention.
- So much for SF’s pious BS about not sending cops to assault sex workers.
- Sleeping with a cop is one of the most dangerous things a woman can do.
- Nobody is safe until this odious practice is recognized as unconstitutional.
- As practical limits on surveillance vanish, legal limits are more important.
- Over 90% of all whores work illegally rather than submit to “registration”.
- Ordinary business arrangements get spun into “exploitation” and “crime”.
- Cops believe “a woman wanted to be raped by a random cop” is credible.
- A whole gang of sexual predators specifically target traumatized women.
- Courts finally curtail the worst of Louisiana’s nasty “sex offender” game.
- Cops, Sergio Aragonés, Loretta Lynn, Angela Lansbury, and much more.
- I find it sweet that so many people are so enchanted by our pig, Cicero.
- Why can’t politicians to do more than “urge” cops not to violate people?
- When it comes to surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down.
- Authoritarians are working toward worldwide criminalization of speech.
- Something advertised as spyware is spyware, and people are shocked?
- Another ex-whore thinks it’s her job to cheat her sisters out of money.
- Profiteers will continue to harass businesses thus while FOSTA stands.
- Censors are now pretending ideas they don’t like constitute a “crime”.
- Many overseas pharmacies don’t care about politicians’ permission.
- Funny how many cops who are willing to pay prefer underage girls.
- These abuses are finally getting the attention they’ve long needed.
- A reminder that I depend on your support to keep this blog going.
- Every Friday the 13th, I ask non-sexworkers to stand up for us.
- The people the government empowers to police your sexuality.
- Respite from UK porn censorship lasted less than three years.
- About a twelfth of the time his long string of crimes deserves.
- I can’t feel sorry for cops hoist with their own twisted petard.
- Cops, Russell Batiste, Jr, gay furry hackers, and much more.
- Conditioning kids to accept constant, intrusive surveillance.
- In case you’ve ever wondered where the good cops are.
- We might be about to see the end of the open internet.
- Because this kind of prohibition will surely be different!
- A rare rollback of state control of pregnant women.
- The anti-sex mob are those most obsessed by sex.
- PayPal is becoming a major threat to civil liberties.
- I’ve been wanting one of these for quite a while.
- Dr. David Ley on the consequences of hysteria.
- Consider the massive waste on display here.
- Rapist cops of the week for 2021 and 2022.
- Throwback Thursday Meets the Wolf Man.
- Connecting my new bathroom plumbing.
- Curiosity offends the state, comrade.
- Cops, Tubular Bells, and much more.
- Using my hot tub for the first time.
- The first five rafters are in place.
- R.I.P. Shane Petzer.
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Tyranny | Tagged acting, cops, Peru, prisons, Texas, Things We Choose To Do Together, Under Duress, Utah, video, witchcraft | Leave a Comment »
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