Metal Monday

It’s officially spooky season, rejoice and be glad in it.

YouTube Obsession

Dr. Jordan Breeding single-handedly revived the YouTube channel of Cracked.com with his irreverent movie series breakdowns. Cracked did what any good company does when an employee shows gumption and renews a brand; They fired him.

His Every Freaking series is not analysis of these series because he doesn’t actually explain anything. It is, however, chock full of jokes and quick edits. Not for the faint of heart.

So he has his own channel now, go support him on Patreon.

Watching

Sunset Boulevard from 1950 is really good. It’s a trope that Hollywood loves movies about Hollywood but none do what this movie does. The only modern “Hollywood” movie that comes close to capturing the weirdness and humor of Sunset is Cronenberg’s Map to the Stars.

While watching I have to remind myself that this is a movie from 1950, its so funny, surreal and dark.

Reading

Since moving to LA -a city with far better public services than any I’ve ever experienced in the Midwest- I have been a frequent patron of the LA Public Libraries. One of the benefits of an LA Public Library card is a free registration to the Libby App.

Libby is phenomenal for audiobooks. They have almost everything I’ve thought to search out. There might be a wait for some of the more popular titles but who cares, you don’t have to buy into a shitty subscription service. And before y’all wanna get pedantic, audiobooks is reading.

Recently, Libby really upped their game by adding one-click magazine reading to the app. This has immensely increased my interest and readership in magazines. The app makes it incredibly easy to find and subscribe to magazines -free of charge- directly to your smart device. I’m not one who often chooses to read off of my phone or iPad but being able to switch from a traditional eBook reading format to seeing the actual magazine layout is perfect for the medium. I’m sure this is nothing new in eReader apps but in a free app I could not be more impressed.

Going through the selections had me remembering the trips to the super market, sifting through the various periodicals, the bold designs, the headlines and the big format pictures. The walls of my childhood bedroom were plastered with cut-outs from magazines. I love the medium and I am sad that I have no motivation to buy physical magazines anymore other than to cling to some nostalgic compunction.

Other Items

These Google reviews of San Pietro in Vincoli, the church in Rome that houses Michelagelo’s Moses.

I find “No place to sit down.” intensely amusing.