#mulholland distilling

[molinaesque]

"You know what inspires me? When there's no one in the house… and I'm all alone to do whatever I want." - Walton Goggins, Mulholland Distilling (2023) (x)

[scary-pixie]

I showed my mom a few clips of Walton Goggins last night and she is now fully onboard with my obsession. 🤣 How it started:

My mom: "I saw some photos of you with that noseless guy." (referring to the print I bought).

Me: "Oh, he actually has a nose in real life, and is a really cool actor."

*shows her the Mulholland Distilling clip where he's trying to play guitar to the forest animals*

My mom: "Ohhhh...I like him!!" 🤣

[watchmorecinema]

David Lynch died 2 weeks ago. I've been revisiting his catalogue as a result, and most recently I watched The Straight Story.

I first found Lynch as a young teenager. In one weekend I had seen Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, plus a handful of his shorts like Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times). Over the next couple of weeks I watched all of Twin Peaks. By coincidence I had already seen The Elephant Man at school around the same time (I cannot for the life of me remember which class or why it was relevant).

But The Straight Story eluded me. It didn't seem weird in the way I was expecting from Lynch, so I assumed it was boring. In a sense I'm glad I did, because I would not have appreciated it without being an adult.

Lynch is known for being weird, but he's even more focused on being humanistic and relatable. All his works are about people with little quirks and backstories that make them completely unique, but then they have the same passion, emotions and experiences that you or I would have. Eraserhead is truly surreal, with a man in the moon, a woman in a radiator and a bunch of psychosexual imagery, but at its core it's about a man worried about fatherhood.

The Straight Story is about Alvin Straight. His brother is over 300 miles away and just had a stroke, but Alvin can't drive due to his poor vision. Instead he does what he can: drives a lawnmower the entire way, taking 6 weeks to do so. Everywhere he goes he meets people and muses about life, aging, hope and humanity. Nothing much happens over the course of the plot, instead choosing to focus on these human stories. It's a really sweet, hopeful film and probably the purest distillation of Lynch's essence. Strip away all the weirdness and surreal imagery from any of his films and you're left with a true love of humanity.

I'm excited to rewatch his other films. I haven't seen any of them (other than Mulholland Drive) since being a teenager and I'm excited to see them with fresh eyes and more life experience.

If you've never seen a Lynch film do yourself a favor and seek him out. You'll be glad you did.*

*Your mileage may vary if watching Dune.

[fordcrownvictoria]

David Lynch’s Television Commercials | Seeds of His Cinematic and Television Worlds

David Lynch is known for crafting worlds that oscillate between the familiar and the surreal. Most people know Lynch through his celebrated works like Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, and Mulholland Drive, but fewer realize the significance of his early and ongoing work in the realm of television commercials. Lynch’s commercials, rather than being mere side projects or financial necessities, served as essential laboratories—spaces where he explored the relationship between image, sound, and subconscious emotion. Reflecting on his television commercial work reveals that many of the stylistic techniques, emotional undercurrents, and thematic fascinations that define his films and shows were first explored, sharpened, and even liberated in the tight constraints of commercial advertising.

When Lynch created commercials—for brands as varied as Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani, and the PlayStation 2—he approached them not with cynicism, but with fascination. These short works often hover in the space between seduction and dread, displaying a compression of atmosphere that would later be expanded in his longer works. A thirty-second advertisement forced Lynch to crystalize mood immediately, often through uncanny imagery and disjointed sound design. In his 1993 commercial for Opium perfume by Yves Saint Laurent, a mysterious woman appears adrift in a haze of smoke and shadow, her presence ghostly yet magnetic. This precise blend of beauty, darkness, and dream logic would later define the psychic landscapes of Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire.

Working within the commercial format also seems to have deepened Lynch’s ability to wield ambiguity as an emotional tool. Commercials require immediate impact, and Lynch honed a vocabulary of powerful symbols—heavy curtains, whispering voices, flickering lights—that needed no exposition. It is no coincidence that Twin Peaks, with its red rooms, cryptic messages, and unexplainable doubles, feels like a dream stretched over many episodes, built from the distilled language Lynch had refined while selling products in a matter of seconds. His commercials taught him how to implant lingering unease in the viewer’s mind without fully revealing its source—a technique that makes the emotional core of his films and TV shows so disorienting and unforgettable.

Moreover, Lynch’s commercials provided him with the freedom to experiment visually and sonically without the narrative obligations of longer formats. In his ad for the PlayStation 2, “Welcome to the Third Place” (2000), we witness grotesque and absurd images—an arm sliding through a tiny door, a laughing fetus-like figure—presented without any rational grounding. This surreal approach to world-building would echo a year later in Mulholland Drive, particularly in scenes like the infamous "Club Silencio" sequence. Both the commercial and the film tap into the uncanny: the sense that we are looking at something almost understandable but fundamentally alien.

Importantly, Lynch's work in commercials demonstrates his intuitive grasp of time. In the world of advertising, time is precious and brutal; seconds must carry the weight of minutes. Lynch’s sensitivity to the emotional stretch and compression of time—how a moment can be held unbearably long, or pass in a flash of horror—was undoubtedly sharpened through these commercial projects. Watching a Lynch ad is to realize that even the smallest fragment of time can contain vast emotional geographies, a lesson that would later define the pacing of Eraserhead and the slow-burn terror of Lost Highway.

Reflecting on Lynch's commercials, it becomes clear that they were not detours from his larger artistic ambitions but accelerators of them. They allowed him to pursue pure sensation, to sculpt atmosphere with brutal efficiency, and to dance with the subconscious without apology. His commercials are miniature dreams, seeds that, when given the time and space of a full film or series, grew into entire dark forests of imagination. In the end, David Lynch’s commercials reveal a vital truth about his art: that even within the most commercialized, seemingly impersonal forms of media, he found portals into deeper mysteries. It reminds us that creativity is not a matter of format or length, but of vision—and that vision, even compressed into thirty seconds, can be enough to transform our sense of reality.

[litdump]

On Lynchian Perversity

Eraserhead is a perfect exposition of Lynchian pornography. What "mystery" is there other than where, in the proletarian nightmare of the film, is the bourgeoisie hidden and how? The answer being precisely that the bourgeoisie has secured its throne on—and from—the other side of the screen. The sublime irony that Marxists are barred even from dignified analysis, never mind from actuality, by their rejection of Idealism serves as a perfect blueprint here. Those who mock Plato's claim that light is emitted from the eyes would be perfectly justified were it not for a single omitted detail: unlike Lynch cultists, Plato is not an imbecile. Just as the body of "labor" is proactively traversed from the top-down by the bourgeoisie as it unilaterally labors the proletariat into being, the filmic proletariat in Eraserhead is cut open by Lynch's directorial—paternal—authority. Both cases do away with whatever metaphors one might make between them; perhaps the relation between form (Platonic or otherwise) and content is nothing but narcissism. It is Idealism which has rejected, or dejected, Marxists into a being whose actuality is identical with the filmic garbage dump that is Eraserhead. The monstrous baby is the fundamental Lynchian anti-metaphor: creation as excretion. The monstrosity of the baby, film, and proletariat allows the cast, director, and bourgeoisie to appear as dignified—or, more properly speaking, to disappear as the supreme authority into a Royal distance. Lynch is the pornographer of the bourgeoisie itself, of the very ambiguity of the "of": the veritably subhuman spectacle of Eraserhead is its unnerving display of "form penetrating content", the total passivity of the father is exactly the total "passivity", the total security in and of immutable authority, of the director, just as it is that of the bourgeoisie. Can the filmic rabble prying at Henry's virginal Royalty, his puffy cheeks, his wet eyes, his eccentric hair, be distinguished from the actual rabble prying at Lynch's directorial authority, emanating from behind almost identical features—ironically, getting further and further away from what is under their noses? Formally, Eraserhead and the rest of his filmography are nothing but an obscene disclosure that this is exactly how the bourgeois Subject exiles the proletarian Object. Suffice to say that, other than Mulholland Drive, any one of his films lends itself to much more analysis than all of them combined deserve. I will only provide the bare minimum, and derisively at that. Eraserhead is also a perfect exposition of the primal—and only—fear of the Father/director/bourgeois, henceforth referred to as "the bourgeois Subject": FEAR OF LOSING PRIVILEGE. Lynch's whole body of work is haunted by the dysgenic vista, by the constant infiltration of and/or collapse into undesirability—including, and especially, of a formal collapse into legibility, of losing his status of genius; the genius of status itself. Apropos of the insufferably pompous psycho-drama accompanying this film, indeed, the director's distress is very much integral to the film: binding and murdering the monstrous baby is a ritual against dysgenic abjection, against the collapse into baby/film/proletariat, it is the expulsion of "the proletarian Object". Does the opening shot itself not subsume the Lynchian filmography and pornography? Americans who worship Lynch and claim that his films are distilled "Americana" are wrongly correct, so to speak. Contrary to all appearances, this very shot is the genesis of America itself: the hero of the bourgeois Subject and the villain of the proletarian Object floating in a void. America, in the grossly Phenomenal sense, is nothing but the subsequent unfolding of Eraserhead, nothing but the separation of hero from villain by an erection of a "spatiotemporal" body between them. That actual American globalism can be best described as directorial, and the world in turn described as a studio, is as unsurprising as the fact that Lynch has an explicitly paternal relation to his cultists. That the barely concealed pornography he leaves for them to find is a mirror, conversely, is as surprising as the fact that it is the Royals, not the rebels, that have constituted America. The film's peculiar architecture is precisely the frontier of the industry or the industry of the frontier. Whereto the industry? To the frontier, of course. Whereto the frontier? To the industry, of course. Hollywood is in California for good reason: the occult event of traversing the frontier by industrial means grants Americans the power to industrially project the frontier back at the whole world—England's throne is no match for the director's chair. The filmic operation is a Royally industrial maneuver enforcing a frontier, the camera lens, in front of which abject beings are directed—illuminated by an eye. Even the title is nothing but mockery: the deliberate mixture of social realism with Lynchian parlor tricks is a "hermeneutic" confession that all the functions supposedly liberated by America, in this case production and sex, have been liberated—from—America, dumped back into the Old World. Are the disgusting golems of Eraserhead trapped in the veritably European claustration of nothing but production and sex—which are scandalously purported as primeval, both in the film and in general—not as one "anamorphic" end which grants an other end precisely "anti-anamorphic" powers, the power to disappear...and to designate? That the title resonates with a filmic instance of the most banal labor which nevertheless appears, narratively (formally), as a parlor trick indicates that the whole "division of labor" is an occult Royal ritual of the division—from—labor: the golems are doubly labored and doubly sexed by Lynch, who thereby grants himself unlabored and unsexed occult paternal power whereby he can designate this very filmic operation. Apropos of paternal, is The Elephant Man not the spiritual successor of Eraserhead? Making abstraction of the biographical aspect, what does the film itself show? It is masterfully obscene, or obscenely masterful, to explicitly place the film in Europe but totally conceal the fact that it is a film about Europe. Who or what is John if not the monstrous baby that was supposed to die? The relation between the baby, Henry, and the rest of the cast is all but identical with that between John, Frederick, and the rest of the cast. Biography is as much of a red herring here as "surrealism" is in the previous film. The Elephant Man is as the attempted exorcism of the failed murder of the monstrous baby: Eraserhead collapses into "surrealism"—or spectacle—proper right after the failed murder, is The Elephant Man not a sanitized retelling of this second part of the film? The film deploys a Dialectical freak show of observer-observed, however, it is the Dialectic itself which constitutes the prominent Lynchian parlor trick. The claim that the applause of the theatrical climax "symbolizes" the Old World applauding the monstrous American that is John is not exactly wrong (at least not when considering the many other previous allusions to this), or is wrongly wrong, so to speak. It is only wrong insofar as it still invokes a pre-American, pre-Lynchian, topology. Rather, the impossibility of expelling the proletarian Object forces the bourgeois Subject to stretch itself into a Klein bottle whereby IT, rather than the Object, disappears. Do the excrescent mass of the baby and the excrescent mass of John not constitute "one surface", exactly in the Kleinean sense? That is to say, this topological "suture", of making two surfaces into one surface, not unlike America "revealing the world to itself", is actually the ultimate topological "lesion": the directorial intent of the bourgeois Subject is thereby freed to ever-circulate in and of the one surface, culminating in it thus being able to "truthfully" deny its presence therein. Apropos of Lynch's constant reference to magic, filmic or otherwise, is the vessel not the alchemical object par excellence? The Kleinean binding and loosing surpasses whatever substantial operations would have occurred therein, not unlike the Lynchian "style" occulting the filmic substance. Of course, Lynch—most likely—did not "mean" any of this. Do pornographic actors "mean" their genitals? Do the fathers of the monstrous baby and of John "mean" their corporeality? What exactly is the substance of status, and its genius, if not this very Kleinean body? It is not so much that the Subject was on one surface and the Object on the other (perhaps the Subject has secluded itself in one imaginary end of Kleinean circulation while dumping the Object in "the other"...the only "symbolic" act?) but that the Subjective seclusion is orthogonal: the Eraserhead-The Elephant Man filmic body itself constitutes the dysgenic vista, one that is no longer between Subject and Object, but between Object and the abjection of its indefinite sickness or unreality—the Subject being precisely "behind" this plane, behind, or beyond, the screen. Eraserhead shows the failure of the pre-American, pre-Lynchian, Subjectivity of a European eugenic-dysgenic bodily operation, of the distinction of surfaces. The Elephant Man shows the "trans-genic" filmic operation of the bourgeois Subject going beyond the proletarian Object, leaving it reeling in a literally "dys-genic" state, a Kleinean impasse "between" the "bad" itself and the "offspring" itself, between sickness and unreality. Moreover, the Subjective directorial maneuver returns with a proactive vengeance to the Object, the "trans-genic" abjection is ran through by a "trans-Kleinean"...projection. Even in the Historical sense, "class consciousness" only appeared in the—demonically ironic—Material sense, once it became possible for a single American to watch the spectacle from across the Atlantic screen. Strictly speaking, there has never been such a thing as an American bourgeoisie, an American proletariat, an American Capitalism, an American Marxism—there has never even been an American Economy! Rather, there has only ever been an American cinema, one that runs the whole world through and forces it "back" onto the American projection screen, and one that was always already inscribed into any and all Political and Technological endeavors—subtract their common denominator of visual venality and nothing remains. There is little to no Philosophy here. Can the projection screen be said to have a second surface? Who is "behind" the American film reel through which the whole world sees itself forever collapsing into the same perverse bilaterality? Lynch is the only director whose work is "about" nothing else than his unimpeachable authority to make his work as such—the only American director. At the slightest criticism, does Lynch not invoke the primordial accusation made against the indigenous and the slaves: "you don't get it"? Indeed, could the American production have appeared as anything but a Lynchian cacophony to any of them, one through which the bourgeois Subject alludes to its disappearance? No more than industry could have fathomed that Hollywood is its final destination. Or, indeed, no more than anyone could have fathomed that the final theater performance in The Elephant Man is a perfect microcosm of Lynchain visual antics, or that the final freak show likewise prefigures the "black lodge". Apropos of impossible foreboding, is Dune not the first Twin Peaks episode? Despite the film's volume erupting in bloated self-satisfaction, there is very little to say about it. A pastiche of Old World architecture, as if the whole world was visible from the Californian coast, foreshortened such that all empty spaces in all architectural forms were filled by other forms; as if contempt was a building material. A formal density that is only matched by the equally formal (Kleinean) inanity of space: the "Newtonian" class relations which animate the film are so alien to America that they might as well be in literal—and fictional—space. Perhaps this is why the novel, written by an American, is considered as arcane as it is "unfilmable" by other Americans? Suffice to say that "Paul is Lynch" is too primitive a claim even for this film. Rather, what is remarkable is who and what is not Lynch—and how. Although the film is already haunted by the, now archetypically Lynchian, dysgenic villains and strangers, this is only a red herring. It is not so much that there is a dysgenic exception threatening Paul's Royal journey, but that Paul's journey constitutes the only exception to a dysgenic totality. Recall that every character but Paul is explicitly Other, either by being undignified or suffering an indignity: his father loses a tooth, his mother is pregnant, his sister is preternatural, a balding man, a tattooed man, an old man, etc. Paul's indignities, however, are explicitly not real. That, indeed, the box is the film itself—excruciating unreality—is always already accounted for by the water of life being the screen itself—the bar past which only Paul can see and, moreover, from beyond which he now Royally directs Arrakis...and the film itself. That Lynch disowned THIS film is not even ironic, rather, it turns the actual world, the Old World, into the (proletarian) Object of irony. There is no metaphor here. Film supersedes reality exactly as meritocracy does: whoever has directed the Objectivity of labor has simultaneously directed the "labor of the Objective", has relegated labor to, and as, the vacuous and cretinous form of the Object, and has rightfully (rightfully! there is no irony HERE) secured the Royal throne from beyond which he can relish the treasure of remarking this demonic irony. Paul's dreams are a much better triangulation of Lynch's position. Indeed, the treasury of bourgeois Subjectivity is precisely the oneiric—the terminus of the Lynchian filmography, in and of Twin Peaks. Would all eyes turn to California should filmic production cease? Quite the contrary...DON'T YOU LOOK AT ME! That the closing shot of Blue Velvet likens Dorothy's robe to the sky, the nightmare of the barring tapestry to the waking liberation, is most troublesome. The Kleinean body of dreaming lets the nightmare itself wake up, it is the sky that becomes the robe—in dreams you're mine all the time! Incidentally, apropos of absent fathers, there is a vulgar footnote regarding Jeffrey's identity: the many similarities (even diegetic ones) between him and Frank come to a head in the final murder—does the camera going into Donald's ear and out of Jeffrey's not allude to Jeffrey being grafted onto the object of paternal filmic impetus, that the film happens in his head, so to speak, that he is now the closet wherein Frank lurks, inverting, or Kleining, Subject-Object, phallus-yoni, reality-film, etc.? It is no coincidence that this sounds extremely pagan (amputation-reintegration, etc.), Christianity proper (Christocentric Gnosticism) alone resists filmic delirium, so much so that "all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them" would have to be fabricated had they not been real—moreover, perhaps it is the fabrication itself that constitutes the supreme temptation? The deafening silence of the absence of Christianity in general in Lynch's filmography cannot be overstated. Of course, it might be case that its absence lends itself to the loftiest "structural analysis" but suffice to say that there is a veritably Lynchian counter-Reformation whereby the celluloid itself is projected as sacramental—terminal occultism. Many Protestant Americans rightly despair and remark that "America is a Christian Nation" only insofar as it is always attempting a Lynchian exorcism of Jesus Christ himself. Regardless, the extremely vulgar analysis about the film's supposed "surface" and "depth" can nevertheless be of some use. Instead of asking what the "depth" reveals about the "surface", one should ask what the "surface" reveals about the "depth". Is the film's title not a strange euphemism? Apropos of dreams sanitizing reality, is the "depth" not sanitized by the "surface"? Who or what are Frank and the gang? Hypersexuality at the cost of unpardonable deviance, hysteria, toxicomania, street smarts, tireless bodily animation, most of all a penchant for "antics", for being "uppity"—the answer is as obvious as the genre of music accompanying their arrival at Ben's apartment. The film's "deep" title is Black Skin. Does the pretense of "pre-Oedipal" Freudian nonsense about "absent fathers" not therefore collapse into bitter actuality? A masterstroke of bigotry! So distasteful that it is almost imperceptible, a "pornogony" which turns the viewer into the (proletarian) Object of pornography. As perverse as Frank's tears. Apropos of bitter actuality, many Lynch cultists are confused about the final triumphant return of the idyllic suburbia. What was the pornographic display of the "depth" for? Or rather, where is the pornography? What "surface"? What "depth"? Even Lynch deserves better. Having swallowed the "pornography", the final suburbia "returns" as the true depth: the film's end can now be connected to its beginning, however, this is not the tiresome cut-seam, rather, the surface of the initial suburbia is no more. Indeed, looking awry at the bar itself, the "inter-Continental" fetish object between end and beginning, makes something very curious show through: nothing at all. That is to say, the bar is the "spatiotemporal" body of the film itself, orthogonally, one end of the bar being the end of the film and the other its beginning. It is tremendously ironic that the Continental bar was proudly stripped of all topological dignity—not unlike Dorothy—only to reveal itself as Hollywood property. Moreover, property itself is the ultimate, and ultimately pornographic, thesis of the film: the whole world wrapped in the blue robe of a "maternal" property which "precedes what it owns", this being disclosed from a privacy the likes of which rightly makes Marx a Lynchian village idiot. Is the shot of Jeffrey and Sandy kissing in a crime scene while surrounded by police not the true depth and destination of the joy ride? Power and desire unduly touch each other just as the end and the beginning of the film do—the only contradiction worthy of being called Material and one that "paradoxically" goes nowhere. Value is not extracted and withheld from anyone (this is absurd), rather, everyone is proactively withheld AS value, indefinitely withheld as nothing but themselves. Perhaps this is why all Continentals are so hysterical about America? Even Historically speaking, nowhere else is the occult formula of LIFE = VALUE (which upends the whole Continental edifice) as pornographically disclosed. Moreover, does Lynch not present insufferably particular interiors of private residences, insufferably self-satisfied Subjects and their insufferably venal conspiracies, insufferably eccentric filmic form—DESIRE—as the very throne of his own filmic genius—of POWER? Blue Velvet is also the primal scene and completion of Lynchian vulgarity, the dysgenic parade finds its "triadic" counterparts of misogyny and class horror. However, this is not as bad as it seems. It is worse. Of course, there is an obvious "Material" reading of his filmography as Marxist class horror, which culminates in Bob being nothing but "bare proletariat" invading a bourgeois space, but things are not so simple. Apropos of Power and desire, perhaps Wild at Heart, an ostensibly pedestrian, "regressive", film, discloses the mechanisms of class horror and misogyny in a most unexpected—strangely Lynchian—way. The motif of identity and its ambiguity, as obsessive as it is boring (and as literally narcissistic in film as it is in reality, film and reality likewise looking at "each other" like Narcissus), which defines his subsequent films is, most surprisingly, already present here. Sailor and Bobby...are they the one and the same? Perhaps it is impossible to notice that everything between Marietta, Marcellus, Johnnie, Mr. Reindeer, and Bobby is said and done by wistful gazes, half-smiles, swooning, caressing, whispering, etc., as impossible as it is to realize the grave relevance of the witching theme, which rightly makes Freud a Lynchian village idiot. What is Bobby but the final destination of Sailor's criminal journey? Recall that the latter was a driver for the Fortune crime family and the former is one of their hitmen. Does Sailor driving to California not therefore lend the Lynchian highway shot its most perverse surrealism, that of being a literally real? Lynch's critics are, sadly, as hopeless as his cultists—to accuse him of inane surrealism (i.e. the triviality of "it was all a dream") absolutely misses the point, rather, what makes his films abominable is what they unduly introduce to, and as, reality itself; secretly designating Sailor as Bobby, for example. When Bobby assault Lula, the mirror in the room reflects him just as it reflects Sailor later that day. The two also appear together in Marietta's crystal womb, the occult Power leading her back to Lula—what distinguishes the abhorrent magnetism of desire from the abhorrent magnetism of Power? Precisely what distinguishes Sailor from Bobby. Does the film show Sailor "waking up" to his criminality and realizing that he is Bobby? Or, watching it in reverse, does it show Bobby slipping into a "dream" which sanitizes his criminality? Yes. That everything after the final bank robbery could be regarded as Bobby's "death dream" (does the America it shows, categorically different from the previous one, not resemble his teeth?) is as uncanny as the fact that everything prior to Sailor's arrival in Big Tuna could be regarded as his "repressed birth trauma memories". Recall that Lula initiates conversation with Bobby before Sailor does, and tells Sailor that she is pregnant later that night—"pregnant with Bobby". Does this curious and unique instance of initiative, of an otherwise not even infantile but deliberately subhuman character (unsurprisingly, also a woman), not allude to birth? Moreover, does it not allude to the vertiginous—Kleainean—structure of Power-desire, momentarily laid bare in birth? Quite the "primal scene". That Sailor's encounter with the "good witch" and his final realization of love are facilitated by a veritable gang initiation is as unsurprising as the orgy of Johnnie's murder. The film also betrays another Lynchian motif: is his neurotic fear of the police not akin to Marietta's neurotic fear of Sailor? The police is a strange clinamen of Power, a straying from desire, just as Sailor is a strange clinamen of desire, a straying from Power. It is no coincidence that a policeman's yielding to desire is what ultimately brings Sailor back into the fold—or the "unfold": the final musical performance completing his journey to the Californian screen, the fourth wall breaking the viewers. In this sense, Lula can even be said to be Marietta's top agent. It is very difficult to identity what exactly distinguishes Lynch's misogyny from normal misogyny. Even in the most vulgar films (Horror or Lars von Trier's), the misogyny, no matter how exuberant, always allows for a minuscule condemnation of the misogynists through a similarly minuscule remainder of the women's dignity. Not so with Lynch. His women are furniture, they disappear into the scenery, in fact, can one not finally call the iconic Lynchian color palette what it actually is—feminine? However, this is not a world shimmering with the "Yin" of a dispersed femininity, the romantic "Nature", quite the contrary, "Nature" itself is nothing but an identical—and continuous—filmic designation. Even Historically speaking, "Nature" only became infantile, cretinous, virginal—only became Lula—on the television screen, and for a Lynchian production, no less. Sailor-Bobby traverse Marietta's prosthesis of Lula's body just as humans are said, no doubt derisively, to traverse "human nature" in and of female topology, wherein and whereby Power and desire always find and complete each other. Moreover, Lynch knows exactly how misogynistic his films are. Recall the striking contrast between Sailor telling Lula about one of his instances of casual sex and Lula telling Sailor about her cousin Dell. The former flashback is bright, vital, clean, a Royal portrait of sex, while the latter flashback is dark, moribund, filthy, the sexless Dell threatening the very Lynchian tone of the film. Incidentally, does Lynch imagine Dell's pathology to be the cause of, or punishment for, asexuality? Marietta sends Lula to catch Sailor just as much as she sends Sailor to catch Lula—is Lula's flashback not her only instance of humanity, as if a single memory, a single possibility, a single allusion to asexuality makes the dual relation (there is even a woman accompanying Dell in the flashback itself) rotten, threatening the candy-colored sexed Lula just as much as it threatens the very body of the film—is there even a distinction? Lula is gripped by Marietta precisely for her sexuality, not for her virginity, which "paradoxically" momentarily showed through when she was alone with Sailor. They are both equally necessary for the crime (of) family. Apropos of gripping one's own prosthesis, Lynch turns his empty pockets inside-out in Lost Highway. Even though the film has been rightly deemed inqualifiable, is this enough? A man and a woman (who else?) living in Lynch's house (where else?) receive tapes (what else?) of the house. They watch the tapes of the house in the house. The man, who looks like a bootlegged Lynch, has a dream (what else?) about himself and his wife in the house. A man dressed in black. A woman dressed in black. Man walks into darkness. Woman gazes in the mirror. Man gazes in the mirror. Woman gazes into darkness and calls man. Man walks out of darkness and obscures the camera lens, the darkness then cuts to the darkness of a television screen...onto which the latest tape appears, showing murder (what else?), to complement the previous sex (what else?). Perhaps this is the only thing edified by Marilyn Manson's existence? This straight-to-video garbage must have exasperated Lynch just as much as it exasperates the viewer. Ironically, abstaining from analysis and simply "experiencing" the film, as Lynch cultists mandate, yields abysmal results: the Fred-Pete pivot is purported as a masterstroke of filmic irreverence, however, is it not simultaneously bog-standard "Materialism", Lynch almost explicitly conceding that the Fred act is junk and having to resort to the most primitive maneuver of switching to the Pete act for no reason other than it being non-Fred? Does this excuse the film in any way? Quite the contrary, the "meaning" of the film is precisely the mockery of a much-needed mea culpa (even in 1997): instead of plunging the dignified and dignifying object of legibility into his heart, he plunges a colonoscopic camera into his "lost highway". Apropos of the MTV soundtrack, does Lynch's straining self-reference not resemble something, indeed, characteristically American? The whole film is one punchy Dr. Dre beat away from an Eminem music video. Forced rhymes about toxicosexscapades so surreal that they warp reality and kill the haters—and the women—resemble filmic depictions thereof so much so that it becomes hard to tell whose nasal yapping it is. One cannot, unfortunately, cut critique of this disgrace short (as one should, lest one commits an identically Lynchian crime) without mentioning the painfully transparent identity of the Mystery Man. He is the only one who knows that Fred, the bootlegged Lynch, is hiding as Pete...an embodiment of legibility as mysterious as Dick's name. Apropos of hiding, The Straight Story is just as Lynchian as the aforementioned films. The absence of any Power-desire, any Kleinean antics, any American bigotry marks not so much the absence of Lynch's authorship and his surrender to biographical rigor, but what is paradoxically his most surreal film—a display of an America without Lynch. The lack of a sexual couple, naturally, dooms the filmic world to senescence, mental disability, poverty, etc., as if everything was imbibed with Lynchian contempt and reproach of the highest order. Just as the world cannot exist without America, America cannot exist without Lynch. This hypothetical existence without his consent condemns it to the worst depths of the Lynchian repertoire: a torpor worse than anything in the "black lodge", a high noon worse than any overexposure, an alogia worse than any of his extremely primitive dialogue; a body as compromised as the one in the other "biographical" film. Of course, this is where one must avoid the trap of conceding that Lynch is therefore the sublime doctor of the American soul—quite the contrary: America is itself always already Lynchian in the almost literal sense, there is absolutely nothing for Lynch to reveal or critique, just as there is nothing about Lynch that America can rebuke, his filmography is only a narcissistic vista whereby both parties can pretend to be someone else. Apropos of the double and all of its occult implications, after the miracle of Mulholland Drive, a film as gallant as the others are abominable—one that definitely owes its existence to a series of events nothing short of Lynchian—does Inland Empire consist of anything but Lynchian antics coming back with a vengeance? Acting out for two, so to speak. Shaking the camera like a rattle (perhaps the tambourine song was not so random?), animal costumes, screeching strings, jump scares, special effects as subtle and as necessary as excrement smeared on the screen from the other side; this is a pre-verbal temper tantrum. Perhaps defense of this film is in short supply since the utmost secret thesis woven into this labyrinthine fugue is "I am a bad director"? Although it does lend itself to some legibility, the janitorial endeavor of "connecting the dots" is precisely what one must never do. Rather, one should take the film at face value and plumb what is above the surface, traversing the same distance that one would have traversed down the latrines and landfills of "depth", for an insight not dissimilar to their usual contents, and instead strike at what is hidden in plain sight. The woman crying in front of the television screen, the Lynchian ideal, filmic or otherwise, later says something so simple that it is almost impossible to notice: "SINFUL DREAM"! Obviously, dreams are the Lynchian-American Holy of Holies and, almost as obviously, an Eastern European, the frontier of the Lynchian dysgenic vista, is Ontologically condemning the great dream. Again, whether any of this is "intentional" or not is irrelevant. Just as there is a Laura Dern beyond the question of whether it is Nikki or Sue in this shot or that shot, there is a film beyond, or above, the question of whether any of it is "conscious" or "unconscious". For example, one could say that finally depicting Europe itself as the final object of horror and hatred makes this the necessary end of Lynchian filmography, or that, indeed, even the Polish side being absolutely devoid of Christanity guarantees—far more than any explicit statements—that Lynch has a psychotic fear thereof. Who intrudes on the set during Nikki and Devon's initial rehearsal? Of course, it is later shown to be one of Laura Dern's characters. The "deep" question would be which one it is, while the lofty question is of a different order. Making abstraction of Mulholland Drive, all of Lynch's women could be said to be finally rebuking him through Dern during the "confession" scene (the deliberate ambiguity of her character therein suggests as much), however, recall that Lynch himself has shot most of Inland Empire with his own hand, so she is "in reality" saying it all to Lynch, who is probably across the table: a nauseating form-content confusion whereby the very looking away from the screen constitutes the foundation of that which one looks away from. The rehearsal scene contains a shot from the vantage point of the intruder, without revealing his identity, only for the scene to later repeat, this time beginning with an intruding vantage point, only for the intruder to be shown as a Dern character—it is not so much that "the Phantom is Lynch" but that Dern herself is a hypnotic device, so to speak, the Nikki-Sue revolving door by which Lynch exits the film. An observer-observed freak show reflecting The Elephant Man and, indeed, a final monstrosity looping back to Eraserhead. This would qualify as a brilliant directorial maneuver of formal return were it not for the simple fact that, just as there is no movement from Eraserhead to The Elephant Man, Lynch's subsequent filmography is frozen inside the very Kleinean body circumscribed by the two films; there is nowhere to return from. Apropos of infertility, filmic or otherwise, Lynchian misogyny is, conversely, brilliant for the same reason: Inland Empire can be described as being "about" nothing else than Lynch's abuse of Laura Dern's appearance, a seamless continuation of womanhood itself being "about" nothing but being designated—abused—a woman by the very "reality" which thereby disappears into serial (reproductive) "objectivity". Of course, the psycho-drama can be said to vacuously circulate between Nikki and Sue, just as "real" reproduction can be said to circulate between man and woman, however, the many formal—filmic—interstices, which belong to Lynch alone, are themselves what circumscribe the desecration of Dern's image, said interstices, much like the fracture lines which mark the feminine body, constituting the film itself, exactly as said fracture lines constitute womanhood. Is the Historical practice of passing women from their fathers to their husbands anything but the two males using the woman's body as a prosthesis to have "Metaphysical" homosexual intercourse and, moreover, the woman's appearance as an uncannily filmic object to disappear the intercourse? For example, it is all but impossible to notice that the Dern character in the "confession" scene speaks of a removed eye and a castration, terminal paganism, as impossible as it is to notice that the scene is a "confession" in the first place; the viewer is instead relegated to the fool's errand of identity (is it Nikki or Sue?), just as he is otherwise relegated to the question of "his own" identity in "reality". This is all laid bare in the most vulgar way by Lynch himself: in the scene wherein a Dern character kisses the crying woman before vanishing, the latter is then shown from the former's vantage point—recall that it is most likely Lynch himself who is standing there in Dern's place to film the shot. A form-content incest as abysmal as the fourth wall being ostensibly broken by a Dern character's "soul" floating above her body and seeing the hitherto invisible camera from behind, only for it to be revealed that it is the camera of Kingsley Stewart, the diegetic director of the diegetic film. That the crying woman finally escapes from her television cell into a house previously shown as part of a diegetic set should not beguile one into believing any Continental nonsense about the strife of actuality, changing the past, the big screen defeating the small screen, etc. It is simply that salvation is depicted as a Lynch film...inside a Lynch film. Of course, this coincidence of dreaming and salvific—bourgeois—Subjectivity is far more explicitly made in Twin Peaks, Lynchian ground zero. Let us briefly recall the Lynchian triad of dysgenic parade-misogyny-class horror. As many have noted, it is very difficult to have anything to say about Twin Peaks, however, this is neither due to its volume nor to its eccentricity (both of which are overrated, and coincide in a kind of implosive narcissistic repetition, regardless). Rather, said triad is simply stripped of all ostensibly redeeming elements, approaching a "bare bigotry" which is, unsurprisingly, indistinguishable from a "bare America". Class horror, for example, is depicted at least "poetically" in all the other films. The Lynchian motif of depicting poor spaces as "aboriginal" nightmares of total confusion and rich spaces as trumpets of final revelation reaches its abhorrent climax in Twin Peaks. In Eraserhead, his first film, rightly deemed his most surreal (at least in the classic sense), the poor space is the whole film, naturally. In The Elephant Man, there is an analogous formal trick, the rich space is simply a literal rich space in the classic, pre-American, sense, which strangely enough seems to erase the initial dungeons and cages from long-term memory, to say nothing of the final theater—indeed, the Kleinean body has little to do with analysis and is nothing but filmic. In Dune, the poor space belongs to the Fremen troglodytes, the rich space being more or less the rest of the film floating above them; poverty is deemed secondary, pathological, bug-like. In Blue Velvet, the poor space is Ben's apartment, a cauldron of too many transgressions to list, down to gender-bending (Ben is more than a little feminine), while the rich space is the final rejuvenation of 1950s suburbia. In Wild at Heart, Marietta and Mr. Reindeer constantly provide grounding from their temples to prevent the film itself from settling in Big Tuna, which is as Ontologically offensive as it is poor. In Lost Highway, the rich space of Dick fills up any narrative holes—poverty itself!—between Fred and Pete. In The Straight Story, there might be an oblique instantiation of the spaces but, nevertheless, does the film not begin with an aerial shot of a combine harvester, a formal wealth consisting of the (now veritably prehistoric) Old World industrialism being transfigured into "imaginary"—American—wealth? Theoretically, money is made every time this shot is played, moreover, piracy does not end the profit, quite the contrary: undue images—not unlike dreams—must have been the very primeval "Material conditions necessary" for the "discovery of America". In fact, the "real" people who sow and reap the very filmic field are most likely doing it on account of an image not dissimilar from The Straight Story itself, just as their "real" ancestors most likely came to America on account of an occult image not dissimilar from this very shot. The film even closes with a shot of a literal poor space—perhaps a warning that the (forced) referents of occult images are, likewise, hidden in plain sight. Even Mulholland Drive, which deserves no criticism proper, confirms the rule. The final party dispels what is canonically considered the dream act, which, although not poor, is emanated by or attempts to redeem the events arranged in the poor diner by two poor people. In Twin Peaks, however, this kind of analysis falls flat. It is simply that the rich space is Cooper himself, the bourgeois Subject, and the poor space is everything not Cooper, the cretinous "thermodynamics" of the proletarian Object(s). Suffice to say that even attempting to analyze the countless threads of Twin Peaks is the very labor that would guarantee one's residence therein, and one's abject reliance on Lynch's Divine Epistemological mandate, exactly as the filmic population relies on Cooper's identical mandate. In the most formal sense, what, where, or when exactly is Twin Peaks? A hideous auto-Orientalism wherein the sitcom itself is depicted as not only always already indigenous, but imbued with all the exoticism of the pre-American "Metaphysical" wilderness—and a hypothetical pre-American "reality" proper—a veritably Edenic space, Paleolithic preterritorialization, Disney cartoons made flesh, the best advertisement to date of America as such, moreover, the closest thing to proof of the hypothesis that, indeed, the category of Truth itself cannot be separated from an American originalism. Whether Bob is Leland or vice versa makes little to no difference, the Adamic bourgeoisie of Cooper binds and/or looses him just the same. Recall that Mike and Bob initially "explain themselves" in Cooper's dream (it would be Bob's first appearance were it not for the previous shot of him in the Palmer household in the same episode), already upending the end of the second season, and, moreover, Bob is shown in a literal industrial nightmare—a perfect anti-metaphor, a disclosure of the labor-murder coincidence, and, simultaneously, no doubt an illustration of the Lynchian fear of legibility: that the work of understanding promises death mandates the cretinism of Twin Peaks. It could even be said that Bob himself is the main, and possibly the only, citizen saved by Cooper's Subjectivity. It is as if all other Lynchian villains do not know that they are dead, not unlike the Historical European proletariat, hence the characteristic atmosphere of the filmography, dripping with a nameless agitation. Fortunately, America gives the proletariat its first and last job of Object, the show impossibly mirroring this by inverting the usual Lynchian hierarchy of dreams, making Twin Peaks the perennial dream and the nightmare of Bob a mere relegation to (or of) an obsolete reality. Indeed, there is no Philosophizing here: "You may think I've gone insane. But I promise I will kill again.", does this line not perfectly subsume all the actual tragicomical Leftist figures peddling the prophecy of revolution today, from an equally filmic industrial background, no less? Is the sublime maneuver of the show not this very merciful act of letting Bob know that he is a dumb Object (he even disposes of Cooper's only enemy) and putting him to rest, thus letting the "pre-Oedipal" utopia of Twin Peaks bloom? What can Bob be said to leer at if not Twin Peaks exactly as the viewer himself sees it? He appears as a kind of visual laugh track, a ghostly token of grounding from a position as derisive as that of the Object in the most vulgar sense, allowing the show's rosy cheeks and adolescent vigor to indefinitely play so as long as the "necessary Material", or necessarily Material, conditions of expulsion of Objects is met. Of course, watching the show in reverse rather distastefully "confirms" all of this, per the usual form-content incest...but this is not remarkable. Conversely, the Sphinx of Laura does guard something quite surprising. Apropos of the show's vulgar food fixation and, indeed, Lynch's strange fixation with base actions having magical resonances, it is almost impossible to notice that the women of Twin Peaks are the most exceptional women of the Lynchian filmography—they are unsullied by his insane misogyny and are simply allowed to be normal; this is very much integral to the surreal normality of the show. Even Shelly only suffers normal domestic violence, rather than loss of personhood in the usual cauldron of Lynchian filth. Formally speaking, Laura's murder has no "meaning" other than the very base act of a dead woman mostly satisfying the occult Lynchian appetite for feminine misery and allowing the Twin Peaks women a strange respite, as if they are radiating with his own afterglow. That this seems and, indeed, is for all intents and purposes magical makes Lynch more, not less, misogynistic. Just as the ultimate space of bourgeois Subjectivity, the oneiric, being revealed as empty, at the expense of the proletarian Object being excreted as full, does not make the former any less rich or the latter any less poor, quite the contrary—there is an anti-Hegelian inversion of the interdependence itself, such that their modes of appearance to each other cannot be anything but...Lynchian. Reality looks back at itself whenever Twin Peaks is playing just as Cooper's veritably Eucharistic enculturation eventually humanizes the town by dispersing his Subjectivity such that he can only be said to be investigating himself (perhaps the cogency of the actual FBI is cogent even for the FBI in exactly the same manner?). Apropos of Lynchian humor, the irony that Cooper thus possesses the rest of the cast, and that this unearths the "meaning" of the final shot of the second season, is tragically lost on Lynch cultists. As is the admittedly masterful perversity of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. Of course, there is a dubious analysis that a dead woman is the entry point to the onanistic hero's journey of the "Metaphysical" male that is Cooper, who is so good at nothing but being himself that he even resurrects her in the apotheosis of Subjectivity that is his oneiric treasury—being for two, so to speak, thus making the woman Ontologically obsolete. Needless to say, this falls short of Lynchian abjection. The bourgeois Subject only "finishes" misogyny in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me: the "enigma" of the dead Laura is only matched by the "enigma" of the living Laura in that her filmic resurrection is the punchline to what is perhaps the ultimate Lynchian joke. Formally, the cut from the first act, which already resembles the show "too much", to the second act, which—is—the show, is a supremely narcissistic maneuver. The usual Lynchian "surreal" cut, one between two seemingly unrelated scenes, is now over-Lynchian, the film free falls into malignant self-resemblance. The second act is, formally, a punchline, one coextensive with its purportedly somber content, not unlike Laura's life therein being coextensive with the worst Lynchian misogyny. The show concluding with two Coopers and the film having no Coopers is, no doubt, a bone for the Continentals. I, too, shall perform one charitable act and omit the third season from this critique.

[separatismlite]

Whiskeys made by Craftswomen

American and Canadian Whiskeys

Uncle Nearest- by Victoria Eady Butler. She is credited as the first black female master blender. An exceedingly popular tennesee whiskey with a story. Supposedly the recipe was that of an emancipated slaved named Nearest who taught Jack Daniel to filter whiskey through charcoal. https://www.foodandwine.com/cocktails-spirits/whisky/uncle-nearest-victoria-butler. (Uncle Nearest also has a femlale founder and CEO: Fawn Weaver)

George Dickel- by Nicole Austin. Although George Dickel is generally a Tennessee whiskey brand, Nicole is responsible for the creation of the brand's bourbon-styled gold label. Its got a smooth and funky taste with just a hint of charcoal finish from the characteristic filtration.

Old Forester- by Jackie Zykan. Old Forester boasts being the first bottled bourbon on the market. If you want to get really into bourbons I recommend this one just because they have a huge product line. You could be sipping her bourbons for months.

Bulleit - by Eboni Major. I included Bulleit because it is in fact made by a woman's hands and moreover a black woman which I (and Im sure others) think is important HOWEVER be forewarned: Hollis Bulleit, lesbian daughter of the Bulleit family and brand ambassador alleges that her whiskey family fired her for being gay. As such, I never recommend that people buy this bourbon. I only think Eboni is making a major and commendable contribution to bourbon history.

Maker's Mark- by Jane Bowie. Maker's Mark is what's known as a "wheater" bourbon. Meaning that after the "at least 51% corn" is reached the next highest ingredient is wheat lending what some say is a sweeter taste. As director of innovation Jane is largely responsible for Makers Mark offshoots like the private barrel select and wood finishing series.

Widow Jane - by Lisa Roper Wicker who acts as President, head distiller, and head blender. This one is based out of New York but still has the limestone water traditional of bourbons.

Michters - by Andrea Wilson. Andrea is a chemical engineer involved in all aspects of the Michter's process. Her line is also some of the best Ive had. The bourbon is smooth and full-bodied, the rye is the most approachable rye Ive tasted with strong tobacco notes, and the sour mash is funky with subtle banana notes.

Blue Run- by Shaylyn Gammon. She previously worked with Wild Turkey and created Russell's Reserve 13 year old bourbon. Its a new move to Blue Run but Im eagerly awaiting what she puts out.

Crown Royal- by Joanna Scandella. Crown Royal is probably the most recognized Canadian whiskey brand. The brand's Northern Harvest Rye in particular is Joanna's baby. It is a throwback to Canadian whiskey's history as a predominantly rye mashbill.

Scotch and Irish Whiskey

Bushmills - by Helen Mulholland. Shes been with the company for more than 20 years! In fact she is the first female master blender in all of Irish whiskey history. Bushmills is apparently the oldest whiskey distiller in the world and the only one to be using all malted barley.

Glendronach, BenRiach, and Glenglassaugh - by Dr. Rachel Barrie. Originally a chemist, Rachel has worked in scotch whiskey for nearly 30 years previously at Ardbeg, Glenmorangie, and Bowmore. In particular she worked on the total relaunch of BenRiach's line. Fair warning being single malts these scotches are an investment.

Buchanan's - by Maureen Robinson. Being a blended scotch Buchananan's is more affordable.

Johnnie Walker- by Emma Walker. This is another blended scotch likely best known in the category. Red Rye Finish is Emma's baby so called because the scotch is finished in rye barrels. Jane Walker I believe was also released to commemerate Emma's addition to the team and is supposedly made by her.

Please let me know if I left anyone out. I'm not from Ireland or Scotland where likely there are more products available. Also there may be local (to you) female-made whiskeys that are not available im my area that I am happy to add!

[annoyingthemesong]

SUBLIME CINEMA #115 - MULHOLLAND DRIVE

Mulholland Drive is the distillation of everything David Lynch had worked toward his entire career - it is as though he had been stepping towards it gradually with each project, until he finally decided enough was enough, and pulled the wool over his own eyes to make this one. It was a film that finally made his detractors warm up to him - Roger Ebert adored this film, and ‘forgave’ Lynch for an earlier career he wasn’t such a fan of.

Mulholland Drive is an uninhibited, disjointed dream, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. It slips itself around you like a snake and tugs at you until you lose consciousness and go along with it. Not sure how else to describe it. It apparently wasn’t an entirely deliberate work - Lynch made it largely out of a recycled pilot which had been rejected by network television, so it had been an idea in gestation long before he finished it up. But it somehow gets into your brain and works wonderfully, and brings to the surface deep, unsettled emotions.

[dearorpheus]

hello, hello. i'm fascinated by horror but can never watch as much as i want bc of fear! this is so silly, but how do you watch so much horror? do you stifle fear, face it, or let yourself feel it thru & thru?

hello, lovely! this isn’t silly at all! it’s v relevant, of course. 

i definitely, definitely don’t stifle it. i’ve always accommodated fear. for me, it’s one of those essential feelings that i chase after. fear cracks open the shell; it props open the door, lets in the draught, the night air. i enjoy the sensation and have come to crave the involuntary shiver that follows when i allow myself to overstep the confines of normalcy and enter into the horrific, the tenebrous, the other. similarly, and, like tragedy, horror—that fear—acts as a vehicle for knowing myself; as anne carson said, “you sacrifice [the actors] to action. and this sacrifice is a mode of deepest intimacy of you with your own life.” these characters, our proxies, explore our innermost perversities, our most obscure and isolating thoughts. horror, to me, has always been a revelation. 

that said! i grew up with a somewhat superstitious mother, and with many stories about the occult, so you would be correct in supposing that paranormal horror can sometimes trigger a less savoury experience of fear for me—restless nights, paranoia. in this, i think i relate to your situation. i am slowly working through it, confronting it, but not with the mind of “besting”/“overcoming” the fear, or working myself into a position where i might swallow it without issue—it seems a shame to me to take a strong, pure, genuine emotion like that and muzzle it. if life, at its baseline, is like the furred, numb spot on your tongue after you’ve burnt it on too-hot tea, the potency of that emotion is a long-awaited burst of flavour; a stab at monotony, at sterilised, generic, formulaic cinema. this has… maybe digressed into a polemic. but what i’m saying is i revel in being scared! our fairy tales, our oral traditions, spooky stories around a campfire—there’s a thrill, there’s flushed skin—we have always gravitated towards it. 

if you experience a debilitating amount of fear when watching horror movies, i would recommend starting with a weaker distillation—perhaps some classics? the creature from the black lagoon (1954), frankenstein (1931), night of the living dead (1968), psycho (1960). or any older films in the genre, really: i recently watched the pit and the pendulum (1961) and the company of wolves (1984) and thought them quite tame!you could try some films that aren’t horror at all but are still “scary”. i’m thinking of films like lost highway (1997) and mulholland drive (2001), or the pale man scene from pan’s labyrinth (2006).or perhaps some less-scary but still contemporary “horror” films? crimson peak (2015), only lovers left alive (2013), let the right one in (2008), mandy (2018), the neon demon (2016). i think most of 80s horror is too dated to be truly fear-inducing now. the scene in nightmare on elm street (1984) where they (for the most part) introduce freddy made me laugh so much when i first saw it bc he has extend-o arms and he runs after his victim like a drunk uncle chasing after his niece at a family barbecue. 

that said, i still hesitate with recommendations bc i recognise that everybody’s fear thresholds differ radically. it also bears mentioning that the more you watch, the higher your tolerance will become. stalwart horror fans “have a hard time finding a really nerve-rattling movie” bc experience tends to be the enemy of true terror.i didn’t find it (2018) scary in the slightest but i know it would terrify my sister. texas chainsaw massacre (1974), scream (1996), get out (2017), us (2019), raw (2016), the vvitch (2015), alien (1979), hush (2016), jennifer’s body (2009), a girl walks home alone at night (2014), jurassic park (1993), jaws (1975), you’re next (2011)—I wouldn’t say any of those are “scary” per-say; perhaps at turns disturbing or gory, but not scary. but halloween (1978) definitely unnerved me, and i’ve spoken to people who think it’s the least scary of the 70s/80s horrors. it follows (2014), annihilation (2018), apostle (2018), under the skin (2013), hereditary (2018), the autopsy of jane doe (2016)… those are some films off the top of my head that have freaked me out in a way. 

most of all, give it a go if it intrigues you. try and enjoy the feeling of being truly scared in a completely safe environment—there aren’t many other ways to access that. if that won’t do, there’s a youtube channel called dead meat that does “kill counts” of films—the host, james, runs through the entire film, tallying the numbers. that’s a way for you to consume some of the more mainstream horror without the mounting tension. james’ girlfriend, chelsea, orchestrates the channel’s podcast, which i adore. 

i’m v excited by the prospect of you being fascinated by horror though… i really hope it all works out for you, however that may manifest

post note—here are some links orbiting the subject bc i love throwing resources around:“horror is not defined by what scares you”, angelica jade bastiénhow to make an effective horror moviemy childlike wonder every time guillermo del toro discusses the subject (x, x, x)

[dannyfox]

Danny Fox paintings at Mulholland Distilling Lounge / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZXfrxnkTXI

[greatdrams]

Bushmills Single Malt Irish Whiskey Rum Cask Reserve

A definite add to your Whiskey collection, this release from Bushmills brings together the brilliance of Irish Whiskey, with the heat of Caribbean Rum.

The Collection

This expression is part of the Steamship Collection, a celebration of the SS Bushmills.

This ship set sail in 1890 to deliver its precious cargo of Bushmills malt all across the world.

When it returned, it brought with it casks from producers around the globe, symbols of the relationships they had created along the way.

One stop brought the SS Bushmills to St. Vincent, an island in the Caribbean, well known for its Rum production.

This stop is the inspiration for the Rum Cask Reserve bottling, which is the next part of the collection, following a Sherry Cask Reserve, Port Cask Reserve and Bourbon #3 Char Cask Reserve.

Helen Mulholland, who is Master Blender at Bushmills, says: “We are always innovating and, like the crew aboard the SS Bushmills, we love exploring new flavours that complement the smooth taste of our Bushmills Irish Whiskey. We are really excited to launch this rum cask reserve.

“For me, nothing brings out beautiful tropical flavours in our whiskey like maturation in a rum cask, so a Caribbean-centric edition for THE STEAMSHIP COLLECTION was a natural next step for us.”

The Malt

This is an incredible single malt, with lots of rich flavours.

Helen explores it further: “To create this rare expression, we matured our fine Single Malt in first fill Caribbean rum casks to create a rich and perfectly balanced whiskey with notes of tropical fruit, subtle spice and vanilla pod with a smooth and creamy toffee finish.”

The nose begins with sweet pineapple and mangos. The fruits are excellent, with big bold flavours and a lovely subtle spice.

The flavours blend together quite well, with the sweetness of the fruit and the warmth of the spice melting together.

The palate is rich and creamy, with vanilla, white sugar and cotton candy appearing.

Again, the sweetness really takes over here, but it is wonderfully complex and rich.

The triple distillation, which is characteristic of mos Irish distilleries, gives it a really mellow and creamy mouth feel. This goes perfectly with the caramel and toffee notes.

Oak wood and the rich, warming hints of rum are really elegant and full of flavour.

The finish is strong, with more oak and vanilla.

This is a really well matured malt, with lots of hints of Rum and spice, perfect for the incoming Christmas season, and a wonderful addition to any Whiskey Collection.

The post Bushmills Single Malt Irish Whiskey Rum Cask Reserve appeared first on GreatDrams.

from GreatDrams https://ift.tt/2BxznN4 Greg

[dramstreet]

Bushmills® Irish Whiskey, from the world's oldest licensed whiskey distillery, proudly introduces Bushmills 28 Year Old Single Malt Cognac Cask Whiskey, a rare innovation for connoisseurs across the United States. The limited-time offering and debut release in Bushmills' new annual series, "The Rare Casks," Bushmills 28 Year Old Single Malt Cognac Cask is meticulously blended to achieve one of the most exquisite Irish single malts of all time. As long-standing leaders in Irish whiskey, with the most awarded Irish single malt portfolio, Bushmills' reputation for both its quality and aged stock is unparalleled. A product of over 400 years of proud whiskey-making expertise and commitment to tradition, Bushmills 28 Year Old Single Malt Cognac Cask is expertly crafted by Helen Mulholland, one of the most qualified and experienced Master Blenders in history. She has kept a watchful eye over this exceptional single malt since its distillation in 1992. Made at the Old Bushmills Distillery along the rugged County Antrim coast of Ireland, the whiskey is handcrafted with ingredients unmatched in quality and from a distinct recipe that has been passed down for centuries. Using the same foundation of all Bushmills' award-winning single malt whiskeys – 100% unpeated malted barley and the freshest spring water from the nearby River Bush – Bushmills 28 Year Old Single Malt Cognac Cask is then triple distilled in small batches in traditional copper pot stills, achieving the smoothness and richness for which Bushmills is famous. "At Bushmills, the foundation of our whiskey is the quality of ingredients and the experience and skill we have passed down through generations. Throughout my almost 30-year career at Bushmills, I have nurtured this special whiskey from its distillate, experimenting with different taste profiles and finally resting it in some of the world's rarest and highest quality casks," says Helen Mulholland, Irish whiskey's first female Master Blender. "Maturing this precious malt in former Cognac casks has brought out unique notes and characteristics specific to Cognac, developing the whiskey into something new and distinct for Bushmills, with bold intensity and subtle sweetness. Bushmills 28 Year Old Single Malt Cognac Cask is a time capsule of my career at the distillery, and one of the most complex and layered whiskeys ever released by us." Matured in former bourbon and Oloroso sherry barrels for 11 years, the single malt is then finished in ultra-rare Cognac casks for 17 years, each cask having been carefully sourced under the expert direction of Mulholland. On the nose, rounded sweet spicy wood aromas develop the deep dried fruit character, offering a hint of pear and almond followed by warm sweet vanilla and cinnamon undertones. The exceptionally long finish continues to develop as complex wood flavors linger on the palate. "We are in the midst of an exciting Irish whiskey revival, where last year the category was the single fastest-growing segment overall for the U.S. spirits market," says Lander Otegui, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Proximo Spirits. "The new annual series, 'The Rare Casks,' is a must for any collector looking to expand their whiskey repertoire, and discover the unique, smooth taste that sets Bushmills Irish Whiskey single malts apart from any Scotch single malt." "Bushmills 28 Year Old Single Malt Cognac Cask and 'The Rare Casks' series is a fitting tribute to the world's oldest licensed whiskey distillery, and we are excited to share this extremely rare piece of liquid history with whiskey fans across the United States." With less than 500 bottles available, Bushmills 28 Year Old Single Malt Cognac Cask will be exclusively available in the United States at retailers and online

[svartalfhild]

5, 9, 10, and 23 for the music asks! i hope you have a nice day :)

5: A song that needs to be played LOUD

Time Bomb by Hollowick

I may or may not have danced around an empty study room with this on full blast in my earbuds a couple of times.

9: A song that makes you happy

These Are Days by 10,000 Maniacs

This song is distilled hope.

10: A song that makes you sad

Understanding by Evanescence

I have a playlist in iTunes titled “Low” that’s basically my major depressive episode mix.  This is the first song on it.

23: A song that you think everybody should listen to

Mulholland by Blue Judy

I mean. What an absolute banger.

[lynchgirl90]

Ep. 8 Of #TwinPeaks Is David Lynch's Purest Marriage Of Television And Video Art

Adam Lehrer ,  CONTRIBUTOR

It’s hard to describe how inestimable an impact David Lynch had over me when I first saw Mulholland Drive as a 14-year-old. Something I’ve been discussing with fellow artist friends of mine is the fact that the art that changed our lives the most and still carries the most weight over our own sensibilities is the art that we were exposed to very young, maybe even too young to fully understand what it is exactly that you’re viewing. I developed a taste for disturbing aesthetics at a very young age; when I was about five or six-years-old, my cinephile father would have “movie nights with dad” when my mom would go out with her girlfriends, and he would let my brother and I watch watch Ridley Scott’s Alien, James Cameron’s Terminator, and/or Paul Verhoeven’s Robocop when I still should have been reading children’s books (and boy am I thankful for that).

That early exposure to art, whether it be John Carpenter films, or Brian DePalma films, or Bret Easton Ellis novels, or my favorite music (Wu Tang, Lou Reed, or Marilyn Manson), is still the art that I think about and gravitate back towards even after decades of being exposed to just about everything contemporary art, cinema, literature, poetry, and popular music has to offer. But watching Lynch’s Mulholland Drive for the first time feels like a monumental point of epiphany in my life. A point where I thought to myself, “Maybe I want to create stuff when I grow up.” I had no idea what Mulholland Drive’s fractured plot meant, but its images left me confounded, and fascinated. I loved the dreamy, hallucinatory Los Angeles Neo-noir stylizations of its setting. I had never felt more terrified than when I first glimpsed that monster lurking behind the Winkie’s diner.

That film made me blissfully aware that cinema and art could be a simultaneously erotic, horrific, and thrilling experience. I knew how powerful art could be,  but Mulholland Drive gave me my first taste of the sublime. Since then, I’ve been a David Lynch fanatic. I’ve watched all of his earlier films, binge watched Twin Peaks over and over (finding myself asking new questions each time), wrote college essays on Eraserhead and David Foster Wallace’s article that documented Lynch’s process on the set of Lost Highway, have searched out all his early forays into video art, have found merits in his more oft-overlooked output in advertising (his 2009 commercial for Dior is Lynch at his funniest), and have read countless analyses on the man himself and his cinematic language.

So, when you read what I’m about to say, know that I do so with much hesitance, consideration, and ponderousness: the eighth episode of Twin Peaks: The Return is the piece of filmmaking that Lynch has been building towards for his entire career. It is a singular cinematic and artistic achievement, and the purest distillation of the multitude of ideas and concepts that live and breathe in the Lynchian universe. I believe that years from now we will be looking upon this single episode as one of, if not the single most, defining artistic achievements of Lynch’s unimpeachable career. Bare with me.

Aesthetically, episode 8 would leave a powerful impression on even the most half-hazard of David Lynch converts. A hallucinatory, nightmarishly kaleidoscopic consortium of images of blood, flames, fluids, and demonic figures spews towards the viewer while Krystof Pendrecki’s tortuously atmospheric soundscapes underline the episode’s inescapable atmosphere of existential dread. Episode 8 is an hour long work of experimental video art, no doubt. But if you have been paying attention to this season of Twin Peaks and you know enough about the mythology of the show and know even more about Lynch’s artistic interests and visual touchstones, then you know that this episode was no mere act of meaningless artistic overindulgence. In fact, this was Lynch telling the origin story that set the entire series of Twin Peaks into place.

This was the origin story of BOB, the demonic force that forced Leland Palmer to rape his daughter for years and eventually murder her in Twin Peaks’ initial 1990s run. BOB, we learn in episode 8, was forged from the the United States' earliest forays into nuclear bomb testing.  BOB was already the perfect metaphor for mankind’s capacity for cruelty, depravity and evil, and becomes an even more powerful metaphor now that we know his nuclear genesis. Any Lynchian fanatic will rave to you how delicious this notion is. What David Lynch has done, and in many ways has always been trying to do, is to create a piece of pure atmospheric video art that also works as a classic piece of narrative storytelling. In this episode, Lynch has perfectly located a zone in which vague and aesthetically menacing imagery also serve as clear and precise storytelling and, like the best cinema and storytelling, illustrates a metaphor for modern human existence. While Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire, Lost Highway and Blue Velvet utilize video art aesthetics, they are also pieces of storytelling with easily identifiable stories if you look for them (well, maybe not Inland Empire). Episode 8 of the return of Twin Peaks is a mostly dialog-less piece of distorted, haunting images. It is art. But it also still tells a story. The story of a television series no less! This is all the more impressive in that television as a storytelling medium is the most reliant on expository dialog and over-crammed storyboarding.

David Lynch pays heed to the form while mainly utilizing the language of pure image. Who needs a script, and who needs dialog, when you can see that delectably menacing, fascinating and torturous world of Twin Peaks from inside the actual head of David Lynch? Episode 8 was the truest portal to the imagination of Lynch that has yet been put to screen.

I’m sure there are more casual David Lynch fans that are growing impatient with the restrained, at times glacial pace of this new season of Twin Peaks. I however have understood what he’s been doing this whole time. He hasn’t just been making a television season, he has been commenting on the current importance of television in our culture. Television has replaced cinema at the heart of cultural conversation for many reasons. Partly, this has been a result of the groundbreaking work that has been done in television over the last two decades: Twin Peaks, The Sopranos, Mad Men, The Wire, and more recently, The Leftovers have all expanded the possibilities of what people believe can be done with the form. There are also financial concerns: as major film studios continue to spend their whole wads on sure thing blockbuster action and superhero films, auteur filmmakers have had harder times getting their films properly funded. Cable and streaming television services like HBO or Amazon however have the means to give filmmakers the funds they need to realize a vision, and indie filmmakers have resultantly flocked towards the small screen.

Television’s prevalence has had connotations both positive and negative on culture. The negative, in my opinion, stems from its causing people to no longer be able to get lost in a pure, imagistic cinematic experience. Even the best shows are still mainly concerned with story and dialog, whereas cinema is about mood, atmosphere, and aesthetics. When Twin Peaks premiered in 1990, Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost (a television veteran) were very much interested in marrying the Lynchian world with the conventional tropes of television: serial drama, mystery, and even soap opera. Throughout its first season, it worked beautifully. Both Lynch aficionado cinephiles and mainstream television viewers alike were captivated, and the series was one of the year’s top-rated. But after the second season revealed Laura Palmer’s killer to be her demonic entity-inhabited father Leland far too early during its run, Lynch’s boredom with the constraints of television grew apparent. The show starts to feel like a standard nineties television show, albeit one with a quirky plot and wildly eccentric characters. Lynch mostly dropped primary showrunner duties to focus on his film Wild at Heart only to come back for Twin Peaks’ stunner of a series finale, when the show’s protagonist FBI Agent Dale Cooper travels to the mystical red velvet draped alternate universe of the Black Lodge, and eventually becomes trapped inside that Lynchian hellscape while his body is replaced with a doppelgänger inhabited by the demonic entity Killer BOB and set out into the world.

In the Black Lodge, Laura Palmer tells Cooper that she’ll see him in 25 years, and that's exactly where Twin Peaks: the Return starts off. It was apparent from the premiere episode of this new season of Twin Peaks that Lynch is benefitting from a new TV landscape in which Showtimes has awarded him full creative control over his product, and he’s directing all 16 episodes of this new season. Also, it’s quite obvious that the technological advancements over the last two decades have enabled Lynch to fulfill the fullest extent of his vision. Twin Peaks: The Return is a much purer marriage between narrative driven television melodrama and Lynch’s hallucinatory experimental video cinematic language. That first episode barely spends any time in Twin Peaks, but spends plenty of time with Cooper in The Lodge. There are some truly unforgettable images in that first episode: a demonic entity appears out of thin air in a cylindrical orb and viciously attacks a young couple having sex, a woman’s corpse is found on a hotel bed with most of her head missing, and who can forget Matthew Lilard, perhaps the newest victim to be inhabited by Killer BOB, in a jail cell accused of murder while Lynch moves the camera from cell to cell until we see the horrifying silhouette of BOB himself in high contrast red and black ghoulishly smiling? But at the same time, Lynch is able to move the plot forward in ways that should be familiar to all television viewers; through procedure, dialog, and plot device. Lynch is still working within the confines of television, but has peppered the narrative scenes with unforgettable imagery. It’s been almost as if he’s been subtly preparing us, the viewers, to not just respond to what we normally respond to in television: story, story, and story and dialog, dialog, and dialog. And to slowly reacquaint us with the thrilling experience that can be derived from watching a set of shocking, beautiful, erotic and terrifying images move along in a sequence on a screen.

And episode 8 of this new series is the pinnacle of this new body of work, and very possibly of Lynch’s career at large. The episode begins similarly enough, with evil Cooper escaping from jail only for his escape driver to attempt to murder him out in the woods. And that is when Lynch kicks it into overdrive. As evil Cooper’s body is bleeding out, a group of dirtied and horrific men called 'The Woodsmen' start picking over his body and smearing themselves in his blood, with Killer BOB himself appearing and apparently resuscitating Cooper’s lifeless body. And then, Lynch proceeds to tell BOB’s, and quite possibly Laura’s, origin stories through a 45-minute nightmarish experimental video art piece. The NY Times has called this episode “David Lynch emptying out his subconscious unabated.” That is totally accurate, and there has never been and most likely never will be an episode of television like this ever again. This episode was video art, but it was also still television, and it also served as a piece of and critique of cinematic and television languages. Allow me to explain.

Episode 8 functions in a way similar to that of the video art of Janie Geiser. Without any knowledge of the world of Twin Peaks or the themes of the Lynchian universe, one could admire this piece similarly to how they would admire the experimental video art of Janie Geiser, and in particular Episode 8 recalls Geiser’s film The Fourth Watch in which the artist superimposed horror film stills within the setting of an antique doll house. Episode 8 uses that same nightmare logic, but empowers it with the budget of a major Cable series. There are also similarities to scenes in Jonathan Glazer’s brilliant Under the Skin when the alien portrayed by Scarlet Johannson devours her male prey in a grotesque nether realm. And perhaps its greatest antecedent is Kubrick’s Big Bang sequence in 2001: A Spade Oydyssey, and in many ways Episode 8 is the hellish inverse of that epic sequence. Like the Big Bang, episode 8 tells an origin story of a world created by an explosion, but instead of a galactic explosion, Killer BOB and his world of evil were born of a nuclear explosion. Brilliantly, Lynch believes that Killer BOB was birthed by man made horrors, going back to something FBA Agent Albert Rosenfield said in the original series about BOB being a “manifestation of the evil men do.” Indeed, in Episode 8 Lynch brings us inside an atomic mushroom cloud set off during the first nuclear bomb test explosion in White Sands, New Mexico in 1945. As the camera enters the chaos and giving view to one horrid abstraction of flames and matter after another, we eventually see a humanoid creature floating in the distance. The humanoid eventually shoots tiny particles of matter out of a phallic attachment. One of those particles carries the face of none other than Killer BOB. The imagery is clear in its meaning: once humans created technology that could kill of its own planet, a new kind of evil had emerged into the world. Killer BOB is that evil imagined as a singular demonic entity.

But enough about the content, or the plot of the episode. There have already been plenty of recaps documenting its various thrilling enigmas: The Giant seemingly manifesting Laura’s spirit as a mutant bug that crawled into a young girl’s mouth via her bedroom window, or the horrific drifter walking around asking people for a light before he crushed their skulls with his bare hands and delivered a terrifying and poetic sermon over a radio airwave, or the impromptu Nine Inch Nails performance that preceded the madness. What is more important to note is the fact that there is a strong case to be made arguing that this episode was the pinnacle of all that David Lynch has ever tried to achieve. Lynch has always been a kind of pop artist. He comes from a background in abstract painting and sculpture, but he also has a deep and profound love for cinema that eventually influenced him to sit in a director’s chair. All kinds of cinema, from the kind of abstract cinematic geniuses you’d expect like Werner Herzog and Federico Fellini, to rigorously formalist filmmakers like Billy Wilder. From Eraserhead on, Lynch has tried to marry the formal conventions of cinema (plot, narrative, tension, juxtaposition, conclusion, etc..) with abstract and surrealist contemporary art. Twin Peaks was initially birthed of his interest in marrying conventional TV tropes, like soap opera and mystery, with that sense of terror art that he got famous for. But nevertheless, the constrictions of TV in the early nineties exhausted, and eventually bored, Lynch and he moved on. But now, he has been able to bend the conventions of television at will in this new season of Twin Peaks, and episode 8 was when he blew them up entirely. This hour of TV finds him drawing on all of his cinematic language and themes, from the surrealist ethos of his subconscious dream logic to origins of evil to the concept of dual identity (as this episode alludes too, Bob and Laura might be each other’s opposites, two side of one coin, if you will), while still working as a plot building episode within a contained, albeit sprawling, television narrative. There is no doubt that this episode will make the broad and at times confusing plot of the new season of Twin Peaks come into focus as it continues.

It was also the most mind-blowing cinematic experience I’ve had in years. And I watch everything. By successfully pulling off this episode, Lynch has also reminded viewers of the overwhelming potency that cinema and moving images can have that other mediums just don’t come close to. There is a lot of great stuff on TV right now, and one could even argue that something like Damon Lindelof’s The Leftovers had some jaw-dropping moments of pure cinema. But after watching Episode 8 of Twin Peaks: The Return, even the best shows feel like hour long scenes of conversation between people without much cinematic impact (on his podcast, American Psycho author and famed cinephile Bret Easton Ellis argues that television can’t do what cinema does visually because the writer is the one in charge, not the director, but that’s for another think-piece). Episode 8 is a reminder of the power of cinema, art and images. But it also still works as plot device for the over-arching narrative of the show. More than ever before, Lynch has pulled off a piece of work that indulges his wildest artistic dreams while still paying heed to the kind of formalism that television production necessitates. I don’t know about you, but when Twin Peaks: The Return returns for its second round of its 18 episode run this Saturday, I can’t wait to see what Lynch does next. We are witnessing something that will be written about by art historians as much as it will be by academics of pop culture. This is thrilling.

Link (TP)

[dawnspiration-blog]

Acme House Company and I throw a Poolside Brunch with Coolest Goodie Bags

Before we announce where I’ll be going for my next #DawnsDestinations (2 in the next few weeks!!), I want to give a BIG THANK YOU to our sponsors and partners who made our “Palm Springs Weekend” #DawnMcCoyxAcme influencer Trip with Acme House Company Vacation Rentals the magical, memorable, bonding & content-creating spectacular it was. It was truly of our most memorable trips yet - all of our 16 guests agreed!! Here’s a little sneak peek slideshow of our “Poolside Gifting Brunch” at the @HiddenHavenPS estate so you can get to know each brand - and, love them as much as we all do: (for detailed shots, head over to our sister post over on @iamdawnmccoy on Instagram) @AcmeHouseCo - Luxury home rentals in @VisitGreaterPS @ArcanumWines - one of the most robust red wines I’ve ever had 🍷 Avon - the gold peel-off mask is a lifesaver and don’t EVEN get me started on the lip glosses!💋 Destination PSP - for our gorgeous, cinematic gift totes Landmark Vineyards - for a buttery Chardonnay I cant get enough of Mulholland Distilling - the purest Gin, whiskey and vodka put our guests in one HAPPY desert state of mind. Niyama Sol-@jlo’s legging Company makes workouts a sexy experience! Over the Rainbow Cupcakes - the best cakes & cupcakes in the desert! Bib&Sola - the only colorful carafes you need tarte cosmetics - the colorful palette of eyeshadows I’ll be wearing in Palm Springs on the regular. *If you’re interested in partnering on a future #DawnsDestinations (we have 10 already currently being curated for 2019!), then shoot us an email at Assistant@DawnMcCoy.net for all the delicious details. This is just the beginning... 📷: #DawnMcCoyMedia Host House: @HiddenHavenPS c/o @AcmeHouseCo (book with code DAWNLOVE for a lovable discount from me to you💗) #DineAndDishWithDawn #DawnsDestinations #AcmeHouseCompany #DawnMcCoyxAcme #VisitPalmSprings #FindYourOasis #VisitPalmDesert #ModernismWeek 📷: #DawnMcCoyMedia

[101fiction]

Glass

by Scott Beggs He crouched on the hill a behemoth. Mud hugged his boots though it hadn’t rained in weeks, and an empty smile anchored his face. With the sun behind him, he was a dark mass on the horizon. An empty, breathing universe. The glass in his hand caught the light for a moment, creating a star in the abyssal black of his body. Then, he descended on us. The angry thing. The sullen deity. His attack was fire distilled through glass, burning bright holes in my friends and family, wishing us into oblivion, until his mother called him home for dinner. Author bio: Scott Beggs writes about movies and culture for Nerdist, Slashfilm, and other fine sites, and his short stories have previously appeared in Mulholland Books' Popcorn Fiction. He lives in California with his wife and two dogs named after enigmatic Tom Robbins characters, and he wants to be Buster Keaton's best friend. Follow him on twitter @scottmbeggs and visit http://www.scottbeggs.com for more.

Glass is part of 101 Fiction issue 17.

via 101 Fiction http://www.101fiction.com/2017/12/glass.html (comments welcome!)

[bernardmag135357-blog]

Backpacker Cottage Australia

Did you recognize that the variety of international migrants got to 244 million in 2015, a 40% increase from the year 2000? It appears from the wide range of insightful as well as top quality posts published on that this is the First location for writers and authors to post their works to get greater direct exposure as well as to place on their own as pros in their respective fields, in addition to for authors to study and also reprint high quality articles on their sites, weblogs, magazines and also ezines.

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