#Elizabeth Engstrom

[ahaura]

Elizabeth Engstrom Beauty Is …

[bht-of-tardis]

[sassmill]

There are few things I love more than some deeply fucked up cosmic horror

[malrie]

insanity inside elizabeth engstrom you eated with thisss oneeee

[leanstooneside]

Distance makes the heart grow fonder

• PRESIDENT

• YES

• SONNY

• ANGEL

• SHE

• VETE

• NOT

• VAMOS:...TE

• FRANCISCO

• THORNTON

• LOVELY

• FREDDY

• ELIZABETH

• EDGES

• SUITE

• ANNA

• MAPACHE

• VILLAGE

• ABOUT

• LYLE

• PIKE

• HEY

• CARMEN

• HE

• NO

• TO

• STAY

• FIJATE

• BISHOP

• THEY

• HOW

• CLARENCE

• TOO

• AS

• AND

• QUE

• SQUAT

• SYKES

• ENGSTROM

• DON'T

• GOAT

• AH

• IKE

• MIHA

• THAT

• JUST

• ALENMAN

• WHY

• GOING

• LYLE'S

[bimboarsonist]

You have to wonder what the discourse would be if tumblr started getting into 70′s and 80′s paperback horror novels. Cheap, schlocky horror that aimed to titillate and shock and had little care for good taste or acceptable boundaries. Would it be revered as problematic art? Would Poppy Z. Brite be reviled or adored? How about Elizabeth Engstrom?

I’ll never see that, but I can already see the discourse for V.C. Andrews novels hitting an eleven in my mind.

[leer-reading-lire]

“Because in this world there is always a monster. And often, the monster is you.”

― Elizabeth Engstrom, When Darkness Loves Us

[chlfl]

For Horror Connoisseurs: Paperbacks from Hell

For Horror Connoisseurs: Paperbacks from Hell

If you’re a Generation X’er (or older), you may remember that golden age of horror during the 1970s and 1980s, when cheesy paperbacks with titles in red metallic fonts and lurid cover art were all over supermarket and drugstore racks. Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks from Hell(2017) is a nostalgia-inducing collection of these covers, as well as an instructive and often humorous stroll through the…

[ahaura]

Elizabeth Engstrom Lizard Wine

[bht-of-tardis]

[glassprism]

Do you think that the standards for Christine has changed since the 90s, early 2000s I recently listened to a lot of actresses from that time and I just feel like none of them would be cast today.

Certainly, and especially from how it began in the late 1980s, with the caveat that I think it reflects not just changes in the production, but also in musical theater over the last twenty years. Though I might reverse your statement: I think a lot of the actresses today would not be cast back in that time.

Interestingly, this was something I was thinking about yesterday, during a stream where we were watching some videos of Rebecca Luker singing, with the comment that there seems to be less and less places for legit soprano roles. And I kind of agree; if you look at many of the new musicals coming out, female roles all tend to be, I dunno, belt roles. The roles that are looking for more classical or even operatic voices are becoming rarer and rarer.

And I kind of want to say that this is being reflected in the way they are being trained, with a focus on learning to belt and to sing soprano, but which results in many Christines having this generic or pop musical theatre voice that does not have the uniqueness of the Christines of the 80s and early 90s. Rebecca Caine herself actually talked a bit about this, in an interview which has unfortunately gone down, but the relevant quotes are still available:

“It’s partly due to something called the Estill technique, which has its uses, but it’s making everybody sound a bit the same. Everybody is now taught to belt and to use a legitimate soprano voice, so consequently you don’t get what has always been featured in musical theatre (…). You don’t get the two different colours. It’s important to keep that soprano sound because it says something, whether it’s a certain refinement, or a different kind of purity, or a virginity. Whatever you read into that sound, it’s important that we don’t lose it and that it all doesn’t become a little bit too chesty, a little bit too belty, a little bit too twangy, and sound like everybody else.” 

Which I agree with; there is no way I would mistake Sarah Brightman for Claire Moore, Claire Moore for Rebecca Luker, Rebecca Luker for Rebecca Caine, and on and on and on. Whereas by the 2000s, I’m sometimes hard-pressed to tell Robyn North from Lisa-Anne Wood from Celia Graham, or Rachel Zatcoff from Sara Jean Ford from Mary Michael Patterson. I mean, I can, but I’ll have to work pretty hard at it. That “color”, as Caine puts it, is being lost in favor of a generic sound.

With that being said, exceptions are always being cast, particularly in international productions; see Amy Manford in London and Greece, Elizabeth Welch on Broadway and Oberhausen, Sibylle Glosted in Copenhagen, Frida Engstrom in Gothenburg and Iida Antola in Helsinki, and so on.

Finally, I will say that the way Christines act has changed, though whether that’s a consequence of changes in direction, in attitudes, in the actresses themselves, or all of the above, is up for debate. I think the Christines of the 80s and 90s tended to be more doe-eyed and head in the clouds, while Christines now have more of a fighting spirit. Not saying either is better or worse, just different, and I won’t go into too much detail, partially because this post is long enough already and partially because my sister is reading this over my shoulder and it’s embarrassing me, ha.

[fallout-lou-begas]

Thank you @theartofblossoming for tagging me in this fun little diversion while I sip my morning coffee, now you all get to reap the rewards of perceiving me

1. Favourite Color: Purple! A lot of people think Agnes’ signature neon pink is my favorite color, but I prefer either really deep violets or pastel purples.

2. Currently Reading: Black Ambrosia by Elizabeth Engstrom, a horror novel about a teenage girl who thinks that she’s a vampire and travels the country alone. I was reading A Canticle for Leibowitz but switched to Ambrosia because I only have Canticle on PDF and my phone battery was low on a particular commute, lol.

3. Last Song: This morning, it’s been “Material Girl” by Madonna. I keep trying to sing it as “Surgery Girl” because I’m the surgery girl but you gotta stretch a syllable kind of weird.

4. Last Film: Me, my husband, and our friends all cried watching Jon Bois’ sports documentary The Bob Emergency.

5. Last Series: Me and my husband will finish watching Naruto Shippuden sometime around the heat death of the universe.

6. Sweet, Savoury, or Spicy? Savory usually, but oh my god I’ve had a big sweet tooth lately.

7. Craving? A friend of mine baked me incredible blueberry muffins for my surgery recovery and I’m desperately wishing that I had more.

8: Tea or Coffee: A love of black coffee is a trait I share with Agnes.

9: Currently Working on: Recovering from my surgery, of course, and getting my apartment cleaned up and organized, mostly. Creatively, I’m juggling a half-dozen different comic book projects, the most pertinent to mention here being oversight on my lovely upcoming guest artists’ work on @ikroah #17 and #18 (coming soon!) and a short comic of my own that’s unrelated to IKROAH. And also don’t forget that I’ll be on-stream with @solesurvivorpaigeargot and the @artistsoftheapocalypse for the one-year anniversary of Sketchy Saturday on Sunday, July 11th! My timeslot is 1:00 to 3:00 PM CST.

And I’ll tag my husband @hidakaku as well as @yesjejunus, @socksual-innuendos, and @comrade-shrimp in case they’d also like to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known, xoxo peace out <3

[weirdletter]

The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories, Volume Four, edited by James D. Jenkins and Ryan Cagle, Valancourt Books, 2020. Cover art by M.S. Corley, info: valancourtbooks.com.

Since 2005, Valancourt Books has unearthed and republished almost 500 lost and neglected works from the 1760s through the 2000s, and now for this long-awaited fourth volume of the acclaimed Valancourt Book of Horror Stories series, the editors of Valancourt Books are proud to present 15 more great horror tales — all by Valancourt authors — from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. This volume features five brand new stories that have never appeared elsewhere, two rare foreign stories translated to English for the first time, and eight more scarce and seldom-seen tales. The stories in this volume will take you inside the vivid dreams of a woman who can kill in her sleep; to the set of a reality show where contestants may be transformed into specimens of beauty—or into freak show monsters; to a hotel where guests are besieged by a powerful hurricane—and by something even more terrible and deadly. You will read of the bizarre and macabre adventures of a man seeking a skeleton in 1960s London as a gift for his medical student cousin—and his quest's shocking outcome. You will learn how a simple grammar mistake can lead to a terrible and untimely end for a traveler in Venice. These are strange, sinister, and scary stories, by turns suspenseful, horrific, and darkly humorous.  Featuring a lineup of rarely reprinted classic tales together with new stories destined to become future classics, this collection is a horror anthology like no other.

Contents: The Family at Fenhouse (1860) by Eliza Lynn Linton The Gentleman from America (1924) by Michael Arlen The Coffin Procession (1925; trans. 2020) by Felix Timmermans Time-Fuse (1931) by John Metcalfe The Fury (1936) by Robert M. Coates Rain and Gaslight (1945; trans. 2020) by Hubert Lampo Remember Your Grammar (1974) by Simon Raven A Scent of Mimosa (1975) by Francis King The Other Room (1982) by Lisa Tuttle 'Happy Birthday, Dear Alex' (1965) by John Keir Cross Vivid Dreams (2020) by Elizabeth Engstrom Let's Make a Face (2020) by John Peyton Cooke Conversations with the Departed (2020) by Steve Rasnic Tem Rain (2020) by Garrett Boatman The Poet Lewis Bowden Has Died (2020) by Stephen Gregory

[sassmill]

So Brandy Purdy definitely read Lizzie Borden by Elizabeth Engstrom before she decided to write The Secrets of Lizzie Borden and I’d almost go so far as to call it outright plagiarism but I also love it

[explosionshark]

Okay finished 2 out of the 4 books in my initial goal for this month. Despite all odds (protagonist is a straight male artist and it's written in the first person perspective) I really, really loved The Cipher by Kathe Koja. My second book was a collection of two novellas by Elizabeth Engstrom that didn't really work for me. They both left me feeling distinctly icky, and not in a satisfying way. Engstrom's writing was often very beautiful though so I'd be interested in checking out work from later in her career.

Next up: The Tribe by Bari Wood and my Hill House reread.

[ahaura]

Elizabeth Engstrom Beauty Is . . .