October 2012

Every October, I try to watch as many horror films that I haven’t seen before as possible.

Corman’s World

Alex Stapleton (USA, 2011)

A documentary on DIY producer/director Roger Corman and his alternative approach to making movies in Hollywood.

Not of This Earth

Roger Corman (USA, 1957)

An alien agent from the distant planet Davana is sent to Earth via a high-tech matter transporter. There, he terrorizes Southern California in an attempt to acquire blood… See more →

Brown-leafed vertigo, where skeletal life is known. I remember Halloween.

Re: acoustic guitar loan, I’m hoping for someone within a 20 minute walk of BAM. Subway is out and I’m skittish about guitars on bikes.

Anyone in the vicinity of Fort Greene have an acoustic guitar I could borrow for a day or two?

Reached the moment in the Samhain discography where I have to decide if being a completist is more important than skipping “Misery Tomb.”

Not sure why everyone’s upset about the announcement of Star Wars Episode 7, as if the series wasn’t already irreparably damaged.

Fallen ivy.

We don’t need reminders that assholes are assholes. Don’t retweet them; ignore them.

Awake in Fort Greene. Things are pretty status quo here. Power’s on, internet’s on. Outside is damp and less windy. We are lucky.

Service on my phone (AT&T) dropping in and out. This is my SMSage in a bottle.

This is a pretty good time to be faking photos and spreading misinformation. I’m glad so many people are on the case.

Lights flickering here in Fort Greene, and my internet just went down.

To whom it may concern, I’m outside the evacuation zones and I have food, water, flashlight, radio, batteries, etc. Stay safe, everybody.

My Top 3 #lastfm Artists: Misfits (90), Colin Stetson (28) & Swans (11) tweekly.fm/twitter/robweycher…

Happy birthday, Dad. I miss you.

According to Reddit and its unmasked über-troll “violentacrez,” free speech includes insulation from accountability. gawker.com/5950981/unmask…

It is my great honor to have co-written @bearskinrug’s 100th @birthdaystreet comic: birthdaystreet.com/2012/10/screen…

Oh, good, thanks for pressing the elevator button. I’ve just been standing here, waiting, and pressing the button hadn’t occurred to me.

In which GYBE rejects being called a bummer band, followed by 2,500+ overwrought words of its signature bummer variety. guardian.co.uk/music/2012/oct…

Thoughts about streaming music from @elliotjaystocks (elliotjaystocks.com/blog/music-col…) and @fchimero (frankchimero.com/blog/2012/10/s…). Added my 2¢ to the former.

There is suddenly so much writing to do.

There is suddenly so much reading to do.

If you ever wondered what the worst possible rendition of “Welcome to the Jungle” would sound like, well, here it is: youtube.com/watch?v=p_Gm06…

Now that I’ve been inducted into the @usairguitar Hall of Fame and my legacy is secure, my Jazz Odyssey phase begins. usairguitar.com/hall-of-fame/

Just got an automated e-mail from the company squatting on windhammer.com. They’re willing to sell it for a mere $10,000! High five!

Just in time for Paranormal Activity 4, here’s my review of Paranormal Activity 3 (and really the series at large): robweychert.com/writing/parano…

The notion that the answer to anything could ever be more guns instead of fewer guns hurts my head and my heart.

When it appeared in 2007, Paranormal Activity was arguably the best entry in the “found footage” horror sub-genre since that category was kickstarted by the immense success of The Blair Witch Project in 1999. A sort of Blair Witch for the YouTube era, Paranormal Activity capitalized on social media’s self-surveillance culture and applied it to things that go bump in the night, telling the story of a young couple who decided to investigate their home’s… See more →

My Top 3 #lastfm Artists: Godspeed You! Black Emperor (24), Baroness (18) & Dethklok (12) tweekly.fm/twitter/robweycher…

When the Goonies order dessert, I bet they always get things like chocolate truffles and crème brûlée. They love that rich stuff.

Netflix Instant was not our friend tonight. Tomorrow is another day.

There is a popular myth in geek circles which claims that the QWERTY layout standard for Latin keyboards was actually designed to slow down typing, since early typewriters were prone to jam. While this is a misunderstanding (jams were caused by the mechanical proximity of common letter pairs, not the speed of typing), it has occasionally made me wonder: could technological shortcomings that ostensibly get in the way of the user experience actually, ultimately, be… See more →

“I feel funny saying this, but this is not holding my interest the way Hostel III did.” —@MerrittJMerritt on Screamtime

“I feel funny saying this, but this just feels too contrived for the Hostel series.” —@MerrittJMerritt on Hostel III

My contribution to @thepastrybox this month is about inefficiency by design: the-pastry-box-project.net/rob-weychert/2…

Hmm. Do I like Chan-wook Park more than I dislike Nicole Kidman? Hmm. trailers.apple.com/trailers/fox_s…

My review of The Innkeepers, the third Ti West film I’ve seen and the first I’ve enjoyed. And I enjoyed it very much. robweychert.com/writing/the-in…

Great thoughts from @stephenanderson on subverting conversational mechanics for true personal growth: the-pastry-box-project.net/stephe…

Horror director Ti West is known for employing a persistent, slow-burning tension in his films, which I admire in principle, but in practice it hasn’t always worked out. His last feature, House of the Devil, was defined by tension built around what we knew and the protagonist didn’t: her babysitting clients were extremely unsavory characters. How it would end was unclear, but there was no question that she would be subjected to a harrowing ordeal… See more →

The term “bike lane” is superfluous. We don’t really need more than one way to say “parking lot.”

Now, I’m not a parent, but it seems to me that if your kid is not confused, you’re doing something wrong.

The new Godspeed You Black Emperor album will be on repeat for the foreseeable future.

Loving @evalottchen’s sketch notes from @brooklynbeta: flic.kr/p/djpyuq

My contribution to the 2012 edition of @notcoming’s 31 Days of Horror covers three generations of Not of This Earth: notcoming.com/reviews/notoft…

There is little I enjoy quite as much as spending an entire afternoon in a movie theater, so I often lament the fact that I missed out on the heyday of the double feature. Of course, in this day and age, I’m able to curate my own double (or triple, or quadruple) features in the privacy of my own home, which I do often. I might watch a string of sequels, a pair of films… See more →

Honored to be a part of @songadaymann’s @brooklynbeta theme song video! youtu.be/zx1dJT8YhUU

My Top 3 #lastfm Artists: Jacques Brel (37), Scott Walker (20) & Wussy (14) tweekly.fm/twitter/robweycher…

Breakfast

Great brunch with some of my favorite internet people. A fittingly fond farewell to another outstanding @brooklynbeta.

I recently saw the band Swans live for the second time. They were promoting a stellar new album (The Seer) which essentially encompasses all of the varied and challenging music that bandleader Michael Gira has made under a few different monikers over the last thirty years. In the two years since I saw them last, I had gotten to know their oeuvre better, and coming to this show with a more educated ear paid off.… See more →

30–60 years for Sandusky. He says it’s a big conspiracy. Add insulting everyone’s intelligence to his crimes. Buh-bye. nyti.ms/TqNLv5

Chris Wares Building Stories has arrived. I’ll need to schedule a weekend for this.

My Top 3 #lastfm Artists: Wussy (30), Baroness (18) & Bad Religion (14) tweekly.fm/twitter/robweycher…

We need something like Godwin’s Law for the term “hipster.”

Okay, I made an @Rdio playlist for standard school dance finales. Add yours, or let me know and I can add it: rd.io/x/QFyuL1c-YQfi…

Poll: When you were a teen, was there a standard song that always closed out your school dances? If so, what was it?

It should really be called an “I am getting in my car” alarm.

Ad block software is cool, but what I need is comment block software.

“There’s someone outside praying for me, but she won’t bring me pizza.” —@ChamberMonster

Somebody made a ska version of “Karma Police.” Because, why not? Aside from all the good reasons, that is.

After many years of city living, the loud, personal, public arguments without a hint of self-consciousness are still what fascinate me most.

Seven years with my @ChamberMonster. I am a lucky duck.

If one could make a career out of getting distracted, I would be a goddamned millionaire.

Plenty of obnoxious post-concert Barclays Center foot traffic on the block tonight. This does not bode well.

John Baizley of @YourBaroness tells the incredible story of surviving a near-fatal bus crash. Stirring stuff. baronessmusic.com/update-from-ba…

To begin with, I have no small amount of reverence for Roger Corman. Untold hours of my youth were spent in front of a 13″ television that screened the most outrageous low-budget horror movies my local video store had to offer. Aside from the cheap thrills provided, there was something inspiring about their scrappy production values: a sense that limited resources and skills need not obstruct one’s dreams, and that a creative endeavor’s ostensible shortcomings… See more →