Relieved to wake up in a city that voted for school lunches and not unlimited imported cops.* Chow is not my favourite, mainly over her handling of pro-Palestine protests, but she's the best possible outcome and will probably be more progressive with a stronger mandate than last time and a vastly more progressive council. I have quibbles with individual races, but council overall looks way better. It's a clear message that Toronto is sick of the far-right bullshit that has buried our city since the time of David Miller.
Also, it's just nice to see someone who likes the city elected to run it. That ought to be a low bar, but Brad and his bot army really wanted to paint a picture of Toronto as a dystopian crime-addled hellhole populated entirely by homeless Hamas bike-riding drug addicts on one side and a tiny group of scared rich Jews** holed up in their midtown houses in terror on the other. It's really not that; as I point out constantly in my Law & Order: Criminal Intent Toronto reviews, actual crime in Toronto is negligible. It's one of the safest places in the world to live, unless you are Indigenous or homeless, but Brad was never concerned about those folks. Olivia, for all her flaws, genuinely does love it here, and I've met her a ton of times at various events.
So this is not a victory in the "we won and get to have brunch" sense but it is a massive sigh of relief.
* Bad Badford's proposal involved hiring more cops than get trained annually in Toronto, so where were they supposed to come from? ** Bradford, as you can guess by his name, is not at all Jewish, and frankly his philosemitism borders on fetishistic. *** For the three people who read them, there is a new season with a new detective and reviews are coming, but it's coming out when both Canadian and British baking shows are out, there's new Slow Horses and Diplomat, and there's a goddamn telly show about giant squid attacking people in Newfoundland, so it's going to have to wait.
Walter passed away of natural causes at his home in North Hollywood. He was brought in on Star Trek's second season as the helm navigator to appeal to a young girl audience, and he certainly did! Originally his name was to be Davey to try to tap into the fan base of Davy Jones of the Monkees. Some of the fan base tapered off when word got out that he was already married, it didn't help that he also wore a wig on Trek.
Koenig is also quite well-known to science fiction fans for his role as Bester in the series Babylon 5, which gave him a much broader playground compared to the original Trek series. He was also best man when George Takei married his boyfriend.
Speaking of whom, Takei and Shatner are the only remaining original Trek major cast remaining. Takei will be turning 90 in April, Shatner is 95.
I attended a lot of Phoenix-area science fiction conventions in the '80s and '90s. James Doohan was supposed to be a guest at one of them, but suffered a massive heart attack the week before the event and had to cancel. Koenig stepped in so that we had a Trek alumnus at the event. I always thought that was really great of him.
Back on music/celebrity memoirs with Fahrenheit-182 by blink-182's Mark Hoppus, which was a quick read; entertaining mix of anecdotes that were very much the vibe I'd expect from That One Guy From Blink-182 (band's early days in the San Diego skate/punk scene, Warped Tour hijinks) and more serious ones (living with OCD, cancer) and, somewhere between the two, much airing of interpersonal drama (band has broken up and gotten back together twice). Written "with" music journalist/biographer Dan Ozzi, which a. I'd assumed meant "ghostwritten by" and b. was honestly more than half of the reason I picked this up,* but one chapter included excerpts from a journal Hoppus kept while going through chemotherapy, and either he wrote more of this book than I'd assumed or Ozzi was very good at matching his voice. (Presumably a mix of both?)
* I liked his book Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore 1994-2007 and have been meaning to read the memoir of Against Me!'s Laura Jane Grace, which Ozzi also ghost-/co-wrote.
Stumbled out of bed and to work this morning, with various morning rituals in between. Commute is exhausting. I don't remember it being this exhausting previously? And it was longer?
Me: I voted early. Breaking Bad: You can do that? Me: Yes. There was a line - but it only lasted five minutes - due to the printers being down. Breaking Bad: Printers? Me: Yeah, for some reason or other they print off the ballots right before folks need to use them as opposed to the day before.
I'm proud that I voted early, but my co-workers could care less. That said cubicle aisle mate is planning on voting soon - he was just surprised it started already, like Breaking Bad was. I didn't tell them that voting in other states started two weeks prior.
Other than that? Work was work. I was frustrated per usual. Cubicle aisle mate at least explained that the screwed up train schedules on weekends are due to multiple issues: track repair, track replacement (the tracks get old fast), and CBTB system - I think that's what it is called. It's like positive train control, and helps the system run more efficiently.
Commute home wasn't quite as smooth as commute to work. The F was delayed by about 17 minutes due to something or other. So I leapt on the C, and got off at Hoyt, went up the steps, then down the steps, was really only one to two flights, so not that bad. Caught the G immediately and took that to Church.
Off to bed - falling asleep as I type this. I'm watching Iron Man in snatches as a kind of comfort show. It's rather watchable. Also, even though I've seen it five times already, I can't quite remember the story, and see new things.
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Monday, October 26, to midnight on Tuesday, October 27. (8pm Eastern Time).
Halloween Countdown did not start this weekend because I was deep in the word mines, but IT IS ON NOW and I plan to take advantage of any remotely applicable Halloween, October, and/or autumn-cozy-season post topic.
... such as this one!
Cosy Cuisine ("a cozy seasonal food and drink exchange") revealed today, with a delicious buffet of seasonal offerings!
I was pleased, delighted, and thoroughly entertained by my gift, which involves Londo and G'Kar in a Babylon 5 spoo-baking contest (including having to put my phone down because I was laughing so hard at Londo cheating with tentadick, which he totally would).
Onwards into what's left of the autumn/spooky/cozy season! Even if it has been snowing hard all day here, we remain undaunted.
Years ago, Back to the Future co-writer Bob Gale shared an “alternate” draft for Back to the Future Part II that was essentially his first draft for the sequel. It was only briefly available through official channels, but Gale has given the script a seemingly permanent new online home as part of the promotion for his new book, Back to the Future: The Complete Screenplay. And if you’ve never had the chance to read that script, then let me tell you that you’re in for a treat.
The biggest difference in this version of the script is that Marty eventually travels back to 1967 rather than 1955 in order to stop Biff Tannen from changing the future by getting his hands on the Sports Almanac. While trying to recover the book, Marty attracts the attention of a police officer who demands identification he doesn’t have. This leads to Marty getting arrested as a suspected draft dodger, eventually being rescued by his mom (a Vietnam War protester), and accidentally becoming a symbol for the resistance. It’s honestly weirdly close to the accidental historical figure moments that Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis would utilize in his adaptation of Forrest Gump.
Speaking of Lorraine, Marty accidentally prevents himself from being born again as a result of his mom coming to bail him out of jail. It seems that money was supposed to go to a romantic getaway weekend that would have resulted in Marty being conceived. Marty is again forced to spark a little romance between his parents, which is kind of funny when you consider that the final Back to the Future script also retread that ground but in a much more meta way. The big difference there is that Marty is trying to avoid interfering with his previous work in 1955 rather than directly interfering with the past once again as he does in this version.
Oh, and instead of solely relying on help from the present (future?) version of Doc Brown, Marty recruits the ’60s version of Doc Brown in this script, who we learn is working as a professor in Hill Valley. It seems that the Mr. Fusion device was damaged when Marty arrived in the 1960s, and ’60s Doc Brown has to come up with a way to generate the energy required to activate the time machine. His solution involves using a series of power lines above a canyon to trigger an electrical surge. Doc Brown says he came up with the idea after taking some LSD, which is admittedly pretty funny.
However, that plan goes wrong when Marty and 1985 Doc discover that the ’60s Doc Brown didn’t account for there being two people in the DeLorean. The pair work to shed the necessary weight, which involves throwing out parts of the car and Marty’s satchel that contains the Sports Almanac. The car door and Almanac actually land on the property of the Peabody farmers from the first movie. The Almanac is soon tossed into a fire, but the door eventually becomes part of an exhibit at a museum that is built near the canyon. Mr. Peabody actually sees Marty and Doc return to the ’60s as he’s preparing to give a speech at that museum in 1985. It seems he’s become a pretty big deal in the extraterrestrial community.
Other strange odds and ends include:
A scene in 2015 that shows McDonald’s restaurants are still thriving and even employ waiters
The implication that the penny has been discontinued in the future
Marty sees an ad for Godzilla 2015 instead of Jaws 19 in this version of the script
Alternate 1985 Biff gets Mr. Strickland elected as a senator under his control
Future mayor Goldie Wilson appears as Marty’s public defender in the 1960s
Marty sees holographic versions of Huey Lewis and the News perform in 2015, which is extra strange given that Huey Lewis plays a different character in the original Back to the Future
Overall, it’s a charming reminder that every writer has first drafts that are…rough around the edges. The decision to have Marty go to the ’60s rather than back to the ’50s makes sense on paper, but it weirdly results in more scenes that essentially try to recreate moments from the first movie despite the fact that the theatrical version of Back to the Future Part II is quite literally recreating the first movie in parts. Thankfully, Gale and Zemeckis eventually decided to not try and recapture the magic of the the first film’s dramatic ending and instead gave us that mind-bending (for the time, especially) sequel finale we eventually got. That said, I’d still love to see ’60s Doc Brown and his cool painted van.[end-mark]
I started reading a Heated Rivalry story yesterday; the opening grabbed me, it was nice and long, and I was intrigued to see where it went.
But it began dragging, and the narration got choppy, and I started seeing some disturbing patterns of phrasing, and, well, congratulations to me on my first time recognizing an AI slop story in the wild. Page closed, author prompter muted with extreme prejudice. Ugh.
And an editing job I was offered last week was pulled because it was ringing AI bells at the press. Ugh.
ETA: and the new recipe I made for dinner tonight is disappointing. But not to the level of ugh, so I'm grateful for that, anyway.
My followup appointment today went fine! Surgeon was happy with how everything looks. He greeted me with "your nipples, they are alive" which I said was good to hear -- it just means the grafts haven't fallen at the first hurdle. I complimented him on his shirt, which was various vivid pastel colors, and made a joke about how I'm just as colorful, with various wounds and bruises on my chest: purple, red, yellowish, even some blue lines remaining from the markings.
Most excitingly of all, I am free of itchy adhesives and the compression belt that was chafing my armpits and making me really miserable. D found a zit or similar skin blemish on a part of my skin that had a big bruise on it and also had really sticky adhesive on it; no wonder that part had been so uncomfortable!
Getting put into my special zip-up binder was such a relief by comparison! I felt amazing. D took a photo that I put on fedi and everyone said I look so happy and I do but it's because nothing was sticking or chafing or hurting, and I'd just been told I could have a shower when I got home.
After a couple errands (post office, grocery store), we had a drink in a rock bar D had spotted in all his trips between the clinic and our Airbnb.
At a nearby table are five old guys sitting around playing some kind of dice game. The rattle of the dice in the cup was shockingly evocative for me, a the way they hammered it down when there was only one or two dice remaining. I have no idea what game they were playing and I couldn't understand a word they said (except, a couple times, "Ein noch mal?" when they were asking each other if they should start a new game), but I knew so much of what was going on. These five older guys were chatting away, with frequent chuckles and various reactions to whatever the dice were doing. The sounds reminded me so precisely of my grandpa and his friends in the coffee shop. And my other grandpa and his family: my mom and brother and me would always be invited to play cards or dice when we visited. We used to play this dice game that didn't even have a name; it had been around as long as I can remember.
Two of the guys were even wearing hats; one had a straw hat and one had a beanie.
This is a kind of old guy I'd love to get to be one day. I transitioned not because being a girl or a young woman was particularly unbearable to me, but because when I imagined my future I could only imagine an old man. I needed to do this to be able to see myself getting old.
It all made me feel so emotional (and I miss my dad, and one of those grandpas) before I even had a sip of beer!
We got home, via Greek takeout from the place near us because poor D was crashing hard by this point. After he'd had a nap and we'd eaten, he helped me take that exciting shower I'd been looking forward to since last Tuesday. He said it'd been a while since he's seen me as happy as I was after that!
The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting and A Thief in the Night, KJ Charles, historical romance. Linked in the classic romance novel way of two of the main characters being siblings but you could read in any order. Delicious and satisfying.
It’s the spooky season, the time for tricks and treats, and today I bring you whimsy that has a little of both. Some of you might be a little dubious when it comes to the combination of horror and whimsy, but my friends, these are two great tastes that go together. Horror is the salty to whimsy’s sweet, each one bringing out hidden nuances and subtle flavors you might not catch otherwise.
They also make a pretty good team. Studies show that horror can act as a safe space to process trauma in multiple ways. Horror can be exposure therapy, catharsis, and a reclaiming narrative for the reader. It can act as a shared experience, proof that you are not alone in your story. While horror helps you process, humor is there to help you cope. They combine to make a powerful psychological tool, a one-two punch in the gut of trauma!
Today I’m offering you a candy bowl of treats, a sampler of spooky delights, so you have many to choose from. You might know some of them, you might not. Hopefully others will offer their own treats in the comments, so you all can trade for the things you want the most, much like when you were a kid and bartered with friends and siblings with your Halloween haul…
This isn’t the first time Grady Hendrix’s books have made it into the whimsy column, and I doubt it will be the last—he has a way with blending horror and comedy. Horrorstör is unique in that the format is a blend of Ikea-style catalogue and traditional narrative which gives it a certain whimsical vibe right from the start. Plus, the humor will appeal heavily to anyone who has ever experienced the soul-deadening job of working retail in a box store (or retail in general). The story mostly follows Amy, who is stuck on the escalator down into poverty, and feels like she has no options left to her. While it’s a funny book, it has moments of truly disturbing body horror, which had me regretting my choice to eat lunch while reading a very specific scene involving a séance. While this book features some serious creepy-crawlies, it’s also a satire that makes it very clear that the real villains are corporations, bureaucracy, and late-stage capitalism.
Much like Horrorstör, this book also mixes the supernatural with the evils of bureaucracy, though in a totally different way. Alexys works in the HR department of Entity, a company that researches and manages paranormal entities. She likes her job working with Wardens, the people who go out into the field and handle every Bigfoot sighting, jackalope infestation, and haunting in her area of Appalachia. Alexys loves her job and her coworkers… except for Nic, the director of Researching & Cataloguing. Alexys thinks Nic is a smug know-it-all and tries to avoid him, but she can’t, especially now that one of her Wardens has gone missing. While there is romance in this one, in a rivals-to-lovers kind of way, it’s slow burn (I assume) over the course of the trilogy. Most of this book is fairly cozy horror, but there’s about five to ten percent that delves delightfully straight into traditional horror territory.
This YA novel catapulted McNeil onto my son’s favorite author list (and me into almost-cool territory when I told him I know Gretchen). After a reality TV star becomes president, executions become televised via the Postman app, streaming live footage from the prison island called Alcatraz 2.0. In order to keep viewership up, younger, more attractive people are getting railroaded through the system, which is how Dee Guerrera finds herself on the island, sentenced for the murder of her sister.
Dee’s innocent, but it doesn’t matter—she’s stuck on an island full of serial killers (who each have their own social media-friendly branding and fandoms), all hell-bent on hunting her down. She can’t even barricade herself inside her house—she has to go to a job every day, otherwise she won’t get credits for things like food. Besides the humor in the dialogue, the whimsy here is in the thematic killers themselves, with their punny names and over-the-top approaches to murder: Cecil B. DeViolent recreates iconic movie scenes. Prince Slycer goes for a grisly Disney princess vibe, and the Gucci Hangman kills with fashion. A thrilling dark comedy with a body count, this book has enough biting commentary to keep adult audiences just as entertained as the teens.
A little nonfiction whimsy for you! Doughty is a mortician, writer, and an expert when it comes to death. This books tackles some of the questions kids have asked her over the years. What happens if an astronaut dies in space? What if you eat popcorn kernels and then get cremated? Can we give grandma a Viking funeral? Doughty’s style is informative and funny, tackling a difficult topic with wry humor. I listened to this on audio while I was making dinner, and I ended up with various members of my family hanging out in the kitchen just so they could listen along.
This is not the first time I’ve mentioned Bunnicula on here, either. But first of all, it’s a classic, and secondly, I wanted to put the graphic novel adaptation onto your radar. You want kids to read? Cool. Give them something fun. Both of my kids loved Bunnicula, and it’s the kind of book that gives all the spooky season vibes without being scary. Suspected vampire rabbits! Good dogs who just want treats! Obsessive, paranoid cats! This book has it all. I also really love Stephen Gilpin’s art; I think it adds a wonderful layer to an already great story. The sequel, Howliday Inn, is also available in graphic novel format.
This picture book was a favorite for my youngest. The art is adorable and full of the kind of fun details that kids (and adults) love. Gustavo loves being a ghost: Walking through walls, hanging out in cemeteries, playing haunting melodies on his violin. What Gustavo is not good at is social situations. (Same, Gustavo. Same.) Gustavo may be shy, but he’s also brave, and so he decides to throw a party and invite all the other monsters. This book is adorable, sweet, and perfect for the kid who loves Halloween, but might not be ready for scary stuff yet.
While this isn’t the first Jasper Rabbit book, this was always the favorite in my house. Underwear is inherently funny. Glowing monster-face underwear is even funnier. Jasper is a big rabbit now, old enough to want cool, new, creepy underwear. His mom thinks they will be too spooky, but they compromise and get one pair. Jasper experiences a brief moment of euphoria over the new underwear…which quickly turns to regret. His mom was right. They are too creepy. They glow a ghoulish glow. He tries to get rid of them, but they just keep showing up. While this one has a slightly darker vibe than Gustavo, it’s a fun, but compassionate read about growing up, acceptance…and realizing you might not be ready for certain grown-up things quite yet.
Turning the well-worn “murder hillbilly” trope on its head, Tucker & Dale is about two best friends who just want to clean up their newly acquired cabin in the woods. Through a series of mistaken impressions, a bunch of college kids try to take out Tucker and Dale, who they believe to be psychotic killers who’ve kidnapped their friend. Funny and kind of sweet, this film also has a lot of violent and bloody deaths, so just FYI.
Grieving for her Scream Queen mom, Max is talked into attending a film festival in her honor… and ends up getting sucked into the film along with several of her friends. A comedic take on the final girl trope and the teen camp horror films of the ’70s and ’80s, this movie had a scene so funny I had to pause it because I was laughing so hard.
Groundhog Day, but make it teen slasher. Tree is a hot mess of a sorority girl, drunkenly partying, callously blowing people off, and sleeping with one of her professors. Then someone murders her on the night of her birthday… and she wakes up at the beginning of the day. Again. And again. The movie plays on the time loop aspect to hilarious effect, as well as cleverly tackling a ton of teen slasher tropes.
No, not the Chris Farley/David Spade movie. I’m talking about the 2006 film out of New Zealand. Henry, who, due to past trauma, is afraid of sheep, must return to the family farm after his father’s death. What Henry doesn’t know is that there’s something seriously wrong happening on the family farm. The sheep are…not okay. With special effects done by Wētā, this movie combines horror, gore, and humor into one of my favorite horror comedies. If you liked the first film, you’re in luck—Black Sheeps, the sequel, releases in November.[end-mark]
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♠ Mainstream Media
