Dear Sweet Filthy World

Sunny today. Our high was 79F. My office windows are still open.

I think I've not much to say tonight.

The afternoon's film was Dominic Sena's Kalifornia (1993).

I was twenty-nine.

Tonight we watched a mildly entertaining werewolf film, Paul Hyett's Howl (2015). And we're watching Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline in another Apple TV+ series, Alfonso Cuarón's Disclaimer.

That was today, barring the ever more horrifying news.

Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast




11:57 a.m.

Sunny today. We are having astoundingly low humidity for Birmingham, teens and twenties. Our high today was 73F.

Yesterday was the 21st anniversary of this journal, and I'd have forgotten had LJ not reminded me last night. But it was late, after I made my entry. Long time ago. We were living in the Kirkwood Lofts in Atlanta. I was thirty-nine years old. But I actually began blogging in November of 2001, then started mirroring at LJ about three years later, then switched over in, I think, 2006. 2006ish. I should look that up. So, yes. That's 7,542 entries over twenty-one years, a period equal to a little more than a third of my life, and the greater part of my writing career. This will all be archived at Brown University (John Hay Library), with my papers, by the way. For better or worse. I deeded it to them in 2017. Anyway...

As for writing, we're not going to talk about how that went today. We could talk about the dreams last night, the sort of thing I used to do all the time here. Lately, though, since the dreams have returned after leaving me alone for many years, I just haven't been up to doing it.

I spoke with Dr. Mike this afternoon about the "Rosetta Stone," then Adiel sent us some very cool photos this evening. That was by far the best part of the day. Of the past week, really.

The outline for the nonfiction book, and it's basic structure. It's not so much argumentative as historical, though it does push back against T.S. Kuhn just a little. All in all, I am a great admirer of Kuhn's, but no one's quite perfect. The point is, I have that book in my head all the time, and it "wants" to be written, and if I can it might even earn me a little money. But before it can be written I have to catch up on the digest and write that fourth Tinfoil Dossier novella. I'm hoping I can begin the nonfiction book by June. Today's photo is a tribute to that intent.

This afternoon's film was Neil Marshall's The Descent (2005), which holds up pretty well after twenty years. And last night and tonight we watched all of Prime Target, an Apple TV+ techno thriller that I liked a lot. It tickled my inner math nerd.

I think that's enough for tonight.

Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast




2:15 p.m.

Overcast at dawn and windy, then sunny all day. Our high was 71F.

I was up a little after 6 a.m., and after looking over everything I wrote yesterday I threw it out and started over. Same story, take two. I'm pretty sure take two is better, but annoying all the same. I did about 500 words. Yeah, whee. But at least I'm feeling a little better, though I'm still not sleeping. Oh, and no title yet.

I did get very good news yesterday from Adiel regarding the aforementioned "Rosetta Stone" specimen.

Fuck, I'm tired.

The afternoon's film was John McTiernan's The 13th Warrior (1999), based on Michael Crichton's 1976 novel, Eaters of the Dead. I'm very fond of this movie, though...well, I'll quote Wikipedia:

Production and marketing costs reportedly ranged from $100–$160 million, but it grossed $61 million at the box office worldwide, becoming the biggest box-office bomb of 1999, with losses of up to $129 million. Despite its critical and box office failure, the film has since cultivated a devoted cult following, and is credited with pioneering a Muslim hero in Hollywood blockbusters.

If you want to know more, read the rest of the Wikipedia article on the film. You can even find, on various places online, the score that Graeme Revell and Lisa Gerard did for the film, but that Crichton had tossed out and replaced by an earful of Jerry Goldsmith brand oatmeal. Anyway, yes, I'm part of that "devoted cult" following, and while it's true the film does that "pioneering a Muslim hero" thing, it's also true the Iraqi character in question is played by Spaniard Antonio Banderas.

Tiddley-pom.

Have some ugly oranges.

Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast




11:42 a.m.

Sunny today, and the high was 82F.

Though I am still not quite over what the hell ever hit me on Thursday, I did get up at 6:30 a.m. this morning and force myself to write. Hopefully it's the beginning of a story for the next Sirenia Digest. I have to stop losing time. Every time it looks as if I'm going to get even halfway caught up, there's something new to slow me down.

This afternoon's film was Paul W.S. Anderson's Death Race (2008). I needed gratuitous violence.

This morning I finished reading the Florida land racket book and began Marc Reisner's Cadillac Desert: The American West and It's Disappearing Water.

I despair of persuading people to drop the familiar and comforting tactic of dichotomy. Perhaps, instead, we might expand the framework of debates by seeking other dichotomies more appropriate than, or simply different from, the conventional divisions. All dichotomies are simplifications, but the rendition of a conflict along differing axes of several orthogonal dichotomies might provide an amplitude of proper intellectual space without forcing us to forgo our most comforting tool of thought. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

Yeah, I don't even know why I was thinking of that passage. But I was. I had to stop writing this and go find which book of essays it's from. This is my brain grinding at some problem I'm only half conscious it's grinding at.

I leave you with some really weird goose-plant things.

Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast




10:17 a.m.

Sunny today. Warmer. Our high was 74F.

Three more episodes of Mythbusters.

"We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces." ~ Carl Sagan

"There is a wide, yawning black infinity. In every direction, the extension is endless; the sensation of depth is overwhelming. And the darkness is immortal. Where light exists, it is pure, blazing, fierce; but light exists almost nowhere, and the blackness itself is also pure and blazing and fierce." ~ Carl Sagan

Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast




12:05 p.m.

Today's weather was pretty much a carbon copy of yesterday's. Sunny, high of 64F.

But, hey, it snowed (or is snowing) in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Yeah, still down. But better than yesterday. I read and watched four episodes of Mythbusters. It's dangerous having all of that show available at once. Crack for science nerds.

Tonight, we started two new Apple TV+ shows, Your Friends and Neighbors and Dope Thief. Both are superb. Apple TV+ figured out how to make the best television.

And Trump is going to murder NASA, so...you know. That's not helping.

Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast




4:41 p.m.

Sunny today. A high of 64F.

Still down with whatever is ailing me. So, another entirely lost day. At this point I'm just hoping I'm functional again by Monday.

Tonight we watched the Season finally of Yellowjackets and finished Season Seven of Black Mirror. That last episode of Yellowjackets, which takes up back to events in episode one, just...wow. As for Black Mirror, all in all, this is one of its weakest season. The first three episodes feel like so-so Twilight Zone, but then things do pick up in the final three. The two best of the season are definitely that final two episodes, "Eulogy" and “USS Callister: Into Infinity.” At least, that's my take. There's less out and out dystopia, but the way the actually world is at the moment, maybe that's not so bad.

The afterboon's film was Tony Scott's True Romance (1993). I adore this film, and I still think it's high point is the battle between Patricia Arquette and James Gandolfini in that LA motel room.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I finished reading Thomas Halliday's Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds, which is so good I recommend it to anyone with an interest in paleontology. Now I'm reading Jason Vuic's The Swamp Peddlers: How Lot Sellers, Land Scammers, and Retirees Built Modern Florida and Transformed the American Dream.

Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast




7:42 p.m.

Sunny of most of the day, and the high went to 78F. Now it's 57F and we are having a terrific thunderstorm. So this will be short.

I actually considered not even bothering with an entry today. I was sick all day and hardly did anything. But the afternoon's film was Rob Bowman's very underrated Reign of Fire (2002). I love this film, but hadn't seen it in a few years. And seeing it stirred a bunch of emotions, partly because a friend who died a while back, the magnificent Bernie Wrightson was the a creature designer and storyboard artist on the film. It also made me decide to post a list of the best film/TV dragons of all time. It's a short list. There are only four. I list them in chronological orders, earliest to latest:

1. Sleeping Beauty (1959): Maleficent's dragon form
2. Dragonslayer (1981): Vermithrax Pejorative
3. Reign of Fire (2002): Every single damn dragon we saw.
4. Game of Thrones (2011-2019): Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal

Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast




4:34 p.m. (yesterday)

Sunny and a bit chilly today Our high was 69F.

A halfway decent day. It began with a long conversation with Dr. Mike that I truly was not yet awake enough to be having. But it looks like what I'm calling MP 1.5 will focus mostly on the braincase of Ectenosaurus tlemonectes, which we left undescribed in the 2023 paper, and, hopefully, we'll be able to scan the specimen to create a three-dimensional digital reconstruction of the skull. That's on the wishlist, but I'll be happy just to do a decent job describing the braincase. Meanwhile, MP2 sits on the back burner, and that's because I have to return YPM VP-4673 (the holotype) to Yale in July. To be fair, I've had in on loan since early 2022. Anyway, that was only part of the day. Via email, I talked with Sonya, S.T. Joshi, Jun Ebersole, and Alex Johnson. Usually I don't communicate with that many people in a week, much less a morning, and certainly not after an hour-long phone call.

I read three papers in JVP that had nothing to do with mosasaurs: "A remarkable Palaeoloxodon (Mammalia, Proboscidea) skull from the intermontane Kashmir Valley, India," "A platypterygiid ichthyosaur from the Cenomanian of central New Zealand," and "Diminutive temnospondyls from the lower and middle Fremouw Formation (Lower Triassic) of Antarctica." I did a little with the Bashi.

The afternoon's film was Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992). I forget what a brilliant film it is.

I think that's enough. For tonight. I know I'm spending a lot of time talking about paleontology, and maybe you're reading this for news of my fiction - assuming anyone still reads this - and I'll get back to that very soon.

Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast




4:32 p.m.

Bright and sunny again today. But the high was only 62F. And we have a freeze warning for tonight, but after that, things will begin getting back to normal.

A lot of trying to decide exactly what direction to take with the fourth Tinfoil Dossier novella. When I read the first three over again a few weeks ago I was struck by not only the similarities between the three, but by their differences. Black Helicopters is an almost psychedelic, quasi-cyberpunk thing, tinged with Lovecraft. Agents of Dreamland is Lovecraftian cowboy-noir body horror. And The Tindalos Asset is a squalid, rapid-fire, cat-and-mouse action sort of thing, which mostly lets HPL off the hook and goes for Frank Belknap Long, instead. They're three very different stories. What none of them have done, really, is traditional Gothic horror. And that's the direction that I'm thinking now. But I'm not going to say anything more, not until I'm sure.

Tonight we finished watch The Cure, which I have to say is one of the strangest things I have ever seen, filled with some of the most spectacularly realistic and unlikable people I have ever seen on the small screen. You should give it a try. Gentrification as the dystopia it is.

I've accepted an invitation to take part in a Liberty Fund conference entitled "A Chilling Effect: Liberty’s Nightmares and American Horror," to be held July 10th-13th in Providence. This is not a public event. I was told, "Liberty Fund conferences are small, discussion-based conferences focused on a shared set of readings, moderated by a discussion leader. The purpose of our conferences is neither to convey doctrine nor to reach consensus, but to engage intelligently with the texts, the ideas, and each other. Our conversations are open ended and private we do not record or broadcast them. We pride ourselves on intellectual rigor combined with collegiality." The discussions employ the Socratic method, and, from what I can tell, this reminds me of my undergrad honors seminars, more than anything. I'm very much looking forward to it. This will be the first time I've gone farther north and east since early 2019.

Okay. Enough about today.

Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast




6:08 a.m.