#when people sell old vintage photos it’s always weirds me out a little bit because you’re selling someone’s memories

[vervainium]

went to this vintage store with my mom and my grandma and i came across these two photos of a naked woman.

had to be from the 50’s probably, based on like the hair style and picture style.

and immediately i was like oh…

like this might be one of the few things left of this woman and it’s a naked picture of her for everyone to see AND it’s for sale

something about that made me sad and angry.

what was she like? what did she enjoy? her name wasn’t even written on the pictures. i know the shape of her boobs but not her name.

there’s something about vintage stores that make me super emotional and emotionally confused. because 85% of what’s in vintage stores, was loved by someone else 60 years ago. all those pictures of people from the 40s and 50s are dead. is but yet i hold them in my hands?

are they staring back at me? are they watching me look at them and wonder?

god fucking damn it, i wish i knew her name.

[topimagines]

CCC

Summary: never look for conflict for the thrill

A/n: it's long, poorly written, and has no plot. the ultimate writing checklist. took me an entire week to write, I annoyed my aiding teacher with the clicking during class

Wc: 4k+

She was very quiet. People always asked what was wrong with her, if she was deaf or mute, why she never talked.  

She did talk, just not to people outside of her bubble. She found it was easier to do that than to try to interact with people because people were very mean.

Tyler, her best friend, always took it upon himself to help her. It had always been that way, ever since they met. The two six-year-olds immediately clicked, and y/n’s parents always knew Tyler was special.  

He got her to talk to him, and no one else had ever done that outside of the family.  

When Tyler offered her a job as his makeup artist, she got so excited. She wouldn’t have to talk to anyone that she didn’t know, and she would be on tour with her best friend.  

“Tyler, wake up,” y/n shook her best friend by the shoulder. The bus had stopped and they were now at their next stop in the tour, “Ty, come on.”  

“Hmm,” he groaned, “five more minutes, peach, please.”  

Y/n loved that nickname. It made butterflies explode in her belly and her face heat up more than ever. He started calling her that after her 14th birthday when she received Paper Mario and forced Tyler to help her play it. She was never as good at video games as he was. He called her peach after Princess Peach (she had commented that she wished she looked like Peach, but Tyler said she never had to worry about that, Peach wasn’t as pretty as y/n.)

“Nuh-uh, Tyler, Josh said that if you sleep ‘til noon, you’ll ruin your schedule and we’ll all have to stay up with you,” she continued poking him, trying to get him up.  

Or you could climb in with me, “Fine, but I expect something out of it,” he finally rolled and looked at the girl, we could cuddle until sound check. God, she was beautiful. She had obviously been awake for a while; her makeup was done and her hair styled to perfection. Sleep all day in each other's arms, only get up for food and water, maybe ask Josh to pick up some food and we can all sit on the couch and watch that new show you like. He rarely went a day without thinking about her. (if he did, it was because she was with him.)

He only wished she was his, so he could ask her every question and said every statement that had been on his mind since they were twelve.  

“we can get Taco Bell if you want to,” she replied. He didn’t get enough time, in his opinion, to admire her because she turned away and started going toward the front of the bus. She knew exactly what that did, it forced him to get out of bed. He wouldn’t let her go out alone when he was awake, that hadn’t happened since she left for college and he started his music career.  

Even then, they spent every spare moment talking and once she got back, they were even more inseparable.  

Tyler sighed, one day he would be able to tell her. until then his fantasies would suffice.

-

Josh was the only other guy she talked to on tour. (Actually, that wasn't entirely true, she said please and thank you and excuse me when she needed to, her mother always raised her to have manners.)

Tyler would be lying if he said he wasn’t terribly jealous every time Josh made her laugh so hard she started crying, or hug him and whisper things in his ear. These would make Tyler pouty and gloomy all day, but eventually, she makes it better by giving him the attention he craves.  

It was their day off, and all Tyler wanted was to hang out with y/n and Josh.  

But she wanted to go out and have some fun. So here Tyler was, sitting in a booth with a Mountain Dew in front of him, watching as Josh and y/n joked around quietly (y/n refused to raise her voice in public).  

The waiter came to take their order and gave y/n a dirty look when Tyler ordered for her. That was no big deal, Tyler was used to that, she never ordered her own food unless they were in a drive-thru. (Even then, sometimes she would switch seats with Tyler or make him talk loudly to the speaker from the passenger seat.) It was a big deal when the waiter refused to take her order because she wasn’t talking.  

“Can’t she order herself? She’s not a child!” the waiter chided, and when Tyler repeated the order again, he didn’t write it down.  

“Are you seriously refusing because someone won’t talk to you?” Josh asked, the dirtiest look on his face.  

“Well, she ain’t a child, now tell me what you want, miss,” the waiter replied.  

Tyler saw her swallow, opening her mouth and closing it while she panicked. She didn’t like this at all, he was being so mean, and this had never happened before.  

“I think we’re just going to pay for our drinks and leave if you’re going to be rude,” Tyler snapped at the man, standing up, “I don’t know who you think you are, but you messed with the wrong person, dude.”  

Josh took out his wallet, throwing a twenty onto the table before, he too, stood up. The three walked out of the restaurant and got into the car. y/n had her head down with tears in her eyes and held onto Tyler’s hand. Tyler sat in the back seat with y/n while Josh sat in the front seat, driving.

Once they were settled, y/n burst into tears.  

“Why can’t I just be normal?” she cried. Tyler hugged her, she laid her head on his chest, tears staining the fabric of his t-shirt.  

“No, peach, don’t say that.”

“If I were normal, you guys would be able to eat without having to worry about me,” she cried. (They always asked her about her food before they dove into theirs. If they didn’t ask her if she liked her food, she wouldn’t say anything and pick at it until they were done and say she wasn’t that hungry.)  

“Peach, there’s nothing bad about that,” Tyler knew he was lying. How would she function if he or Josh wasn’t there to help?  

“I don’t want to have to rely on you forever! I’m so dysfunctional, you should just leave me! Maybe then I’ll learn to be normal.”  

Josh spoke up, “no one is leaving you, y/n.”  

“you should.”  

Days like that made her miss her dog because he didn’t mind cuddling with her until she stopped crying (he was a German Shepherd, so he was basically just a big teddy bear), and she didn’t feel bad for smothering him with her blubbering. 

-

Things weren’t really the same. Tyler saw it, Josh saw it… hell, the fans saw it. They commented on his photos with their concerns. She didn’t know what was going on with her, she felt herself withdrawing from Tyler in the same way she withdrew from her family in middle school. But even then, she still had Tyler.  

She did their makeup in silence, barely looking either of them in the eye. She didn’t participate in group activities; she just went to her bunk or hotel room.

Tyler didn’t know what to do.

-

“You’re gonna have to talk to me,” Tyler cornered her while she was cleaning her makeup brushes. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights, wide-eyed, and frozen in her spot.  

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tyler,” she whispered, finally continuing what she was doing.  

“But you do, y/n,” he mocked her use of his name, “you’ve gone and shut me out, and that’s not what we do around here.” She didn’t reply, her already clean brush suddenly getting dirtier and dirtier as she looked at it more. “Are you listening to me?”

“I would prefer not to,” she murmured. Tyler took the brush away from her, sitting it on the counter.  

“What did I tell you when we were kids?” he asked. She rolled her eyes

“We’re in this together, Peach,” Tyler whispered to her. They had just started high school, and she already hated it. Everyone picked on her and Tyler for… everything.

Over the summer, y/n had hit a growth spurt and grew two inches (it didn’t really make a difference, but somehow everyone noticed), her bra size grew slightly, and her face had blown up with acne. She was a walking target.

Tyler had also grown quite a bit, he was now the tallest boy in most of his classes and the scars on his cheeks from acne were red and bumpy (y/n found out how to help him with those, so they were going away, slowly but surely, but they were still there.) He didn't think too much about the teasing, but he knew his best friend did.

“Even if you get famous?”

“Especially then,” he intertwined their fingers and kissed her knuckles, she blushed. “Because for you, I’ll step to a dude much bigger than me.”

“You’d end up so messed up, Ty,” she giggled, squeezing his hand.  

“it’d be worth it,” he pulled her closer. The bed they were sharing was big enough for each of them to have their own space, but everyone knew that wouldn’t happen. The two constantly stayed cuddled up to one another, which did weird their parents out and they forbade it. (What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.)

“At the expense of being humiliated in public, you want to still be with me?” her eyes widened, “I-I mean, be my best friend.” Nice save, she reprimanded herself.  

If Tyler caught that, he didn’t say anything. Baby steps.  

“Of course,” Tyler scoffed, “I promised you I would always be here, and I intend to keep that promise.” She smiled up at him, only slightly, but there was pure happiness beaming from it.  

-

Y/n really enjoyed the show that night, bobbing her head and singing along. Tyler looked over and smiled at her as often as he could, asked if she was ok by shooting a thumbs-up her way, and made sure she always had a water bottle in her hand. 

-

“Tyler,” she started, “can we please go to that little market in the small town an hour away?”

“Why, peach?” 

“They sell candles and soap and some vintage posters, I just want to look around and see if there’s anything I can buy for my apartment,” she asked sweetly. Tyler smiled at her, she always did this when there was a shop she was interested nearby. 

“Tyler, they sell emu meat!” “But, they make natural perfume, it says they have vanilla on the website.” “Josh said he’d go with me to the Pommes Frites place, do you want to?”

She was so perfect, to him, in every way.

-

It had been a few weeks since their pow wow and y/n thought she and Tyler were getting closer to what she wanted without either of them prompting it.  

But then, Tyler met a girl.  

Amanda was beautiful, kind, and talkative. She was a lighting technician they had brought in after their other one went on maternity leave. She would be on tour with them for the rest of that leg. Tyler, being the nice guy, he is, introduced himself on her first day because she seemed lonely. He later invited her to dinner, and then brunch, and then a movie, and then a bar… and it continued for weeks.  

y/n felt replaced, (although she knew she wasn’t, it still felt like it.) Her best friend didn’t have the same amount of time he used to, for just them, anymore.  

Josh felt for her.  

“You can talk to him,” Josh said while she blended his eye shadow out, sloppily.  

“I know.”  

“Then why don’t you?” He gave her a look. Her parents gave her that look when she would complain about a teacher forcing her to speak up or talk in front of the entire class.  

That look that told her, she would have to suck it up and do something because no one else was going to take care of it for her.

“I’m just going to let it happen,” she sighed, “I waited too long and he met someone else, it happens.”  

“God, you’re so stupid,” Josh scoffed. Tyler went on and on about how in love he was with her, Josh had really started to get annoyed, “you both love each other but you’re too stubborn and he’s too soft.”  

She shook her head, “he doesn’t like me like that, Josh, let’s just drop it.”

Josh rolled his eyes.

-

She didn’t mean to. The bus was a communal space, everyone came and went without knocking, and she knew she was allowed in there because all of her stuff was in there.  

Why couldn’t she go get her phone charger and the makeup she forgot in there?

Because Tyler and Amanda were having a quick shag in the back of the bus, that’s why.  

She walked in, thanking Jeffrey (the driver) for opening the door because it was locked and he had a key. Josh was waiting outside, leaning against the side (he was already scrolling through his phone when she was with Jeffrey, not even concerned with why the bus was locked in the first place and whether there was a murderer hiding in there ready to spring out at her. Maybe, she watched too many Criminal Minds episodes for her own good, but she really loved Mathew Gray Gubler.) She didn’t see anything at first and didn’t hear anything, either. So, she assumed Tyler and Amanda were hanging out in the green room.

She opened the door to the storage area in the back (that’s where her stuff was) and was up-fronted by the sight of Tyler ramming his dick into Amanda with his hand covering her mouth. She squeaked and back up out of the room.  

“Oh god I’m so sorry!” she covered her eyes with her hands.  

“Don’t you know how to fucking knock?” Tyler yelled, “Get the fuck out of here!”  

She quickly ran out of the bus, spouting apologies. Once she got off the bus, Josh was already standing in front of the door, concerned by the sudden shouting, “What happened?”  

“Nothing! Let’s just go,” she spoke quickly, tears ready to fall at any second.  

-

“Sorry, I can’t come to dinner with you and Josh,” Tyler seemed to apologize a lot recently. If it wasn’t for accidentally being late to get his makeup done, it was for not being able to keep plans. He was always out with Amanda or… in with Amanda. He hadn’t mentioned the incident, and she was very glad. She was so embarrassed when she got off that bus.  

(Josh tried to tell her it wasn’t her fault, the bus is a communal area, everyone is off and on it all day, they should have known not to have a quickie in the storage area. That made her feel only a little better.)

“It’s OK,” Josh answered for her, she only smiled at him sweetly, “you can just join us next time, yeah?”  

Tyler thanked them and headed off toward the tour bus. Amanda was waiting for him.  

Instead of going to dinner, Josh dragged her to a bar he heard a lot about, and she didn’t remember much of what happened after the second beer, she later figured it was because she was already a lightweight and she hadn’t eaten since breakfast and only had two pieces of sushi off of Josh’s plate.

The next morning, she woke up in her hotel room with a killer headache and a weight holding her down by her waist. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and looked to her right. A tuft of curly hair peeking out ever so slightly from under the blankets.  

She screeched, throwing his arm off of her and jumping out of bed. That was when she realized she was nude. The sudden noise of her scream and the ruffling of the sheet woke Josh up, who looked at her just as she wrapped said sheet around herself.  

“What the fuck?” he said groggily. Then his eyes widened. “did we?”  

“I don’t fucking know!” She whined, “do you have clothes on?”

“…. yes,” he looked guilty.  

“Really?” She felt reassured for a second.

“No,” he confessed. She scoffed, pivoting on her heel and taking off to the bathroom. The bathroom was a mess, and there were two condom wrappers sitting in the sink, each of them without their original contents.  

“Oh god,” she suddenly remembered their make-out session in the bathroom. She had gone to brush her teeth, giggling about the taste of the last cocktail she had drunk (it was sex on the beach) but Josh had another plan. She could still taste the alcohol in the back of her throat with something… salty.

She didn’t want to think too far into that.

She quickly got her toothbrush and attacked her teeth with it.  

When she exited the bathroom 20 minutes later, her hair and body freshly washed, Josh was sitting on the bed, fully dressed. She went toward her suitcase across the room. She changed into fresh underwear and a bra, Josh, apparently, had seen a lot worse than her backside last night, so suddenly she wasn’t as self-conscious as she once was.

“We couldn’t have been more obvious with our little… escapade,” he sighed, “people all over Instagram and twitter keep tagging me and asking questions.”  

“I’m so sorry,” she sat next to him.

“You don’t have to be, it takes two to tango,” he locked his phone and wrapped an arm around her waist, “It’s just as much my fault as it is yours.”  

There was a knock at the door. Josh dropped his arm when she got up to answer it. Tyler was at the door, his hands tucked into his pockets, looking off into space.  

“Yes?” She asked.  

“Is Josh in there? We have sound check soon,” he didn’t look her in the eye. She couldn’t blame him. Josh walked toward the door, and nodded, saying he was just about to leave.  

He kissed her on the temple before he stepped out, “I’ll see you later, okay?”  

She nodded in agreement and said her goodbye’s, and shut the door, not even wishing Tyler a farewell. The men walked to the elevator together and as soon as they stepped in, Tyler snapped.  

“You slept with her?” he asked, although it was more of a yell.  

“Yeah, so what?” Tyler was surprised by this response, the accusatory tone, “Aren’t you fucking that girl… Amanda, is it? You and y/n are not together, she’s a big girl, she can do what she wants!”

“You told me you didn’t feel anything for her!” Tyler yelled.  

“You told me you loved her! Apparently, that’s not enough for either of us to keep our dicks in our pants,” Josh snapped, “At least I have balls enough to admit that what I did was bad, admit that it was wrong. You yelled at her for walking in on you fucking someone else, in a tour bus that everyone has free range of, and haven’t even apologized for it! You’re mad at me for taking care of her while you’re off doing god knows what with the girl you talked yourself into liking.”

“I didn't-”

“She’s just basically a fucking replacement for y/n! And when you finally admit that to yourself, this shit will get a lot easier.” The elevator opened up at the bottom floor, Josh got off before Tyler.  

“She’s not a replacement,” Tyler said under his breath. They walked to the car that was going to take them to the venue.  

Josh didn’t speak to Tyler for the rest of the day.

-

y/n didn’t talk to Tyler either. Amanda could tell Tyler was struggling and tried to reassure him.  

“Baby, they are just selfish, I mean, why else would your two best friends have sex with each other? I thought there would be some bro code thing about that.” That didn’t help.  

-

Josh knew it wasn’t a good idea, but y/n insisted she was ok with it. They were sat in her new hotel room, in a different city. She initiated the kiss, and Josh just followed along.

“You’re just using me to get back a Tyler,” Josh said in between kisses.

“Does it hurt?” she whispered.

“No.”  

“Then shut up and kiss me,” she kissed him again.

-

“We can’t do this anymore,” Josh said when y/n greeted him with a kiss. weeks had passed and she had ended up in bed with Josh more often than not, and she refused to look at anyone else. All her attention was on Josh.

“Why?”

“I’m just a rebound,” Josh intertwined their hands, “And you know it too. You’re just trying to get back at Ty.” She knew he was right, and she nodded in response. “So, talk to him. Amanda is gone, he hasn’t talked to her since she left.” (Esther, the original light tech, had come back from maternity leave earlier than expected, her husband decided to stay home with her instead.)

He left a few minutes later, leaving a sweet kiss on her temple. Almost like clockwork, ten minutes later, Tyler knocked on the door.  

“Can we talk?”  

-

Tyler sat on her bed, next to her. Neither talked. She was looking down at her feet, her socks didn’t match. She knew how much Tyler hated it when she did that, and all she wanted him to do was get onto her and make her find all of her matches and put them together.  

“So… you and Josh?” he awkwardly asked.  

“Not really,” she whispered, “you and Amanda?”  

“…not anymore.” There was another awkward moment of silence, then Tyler spoke once again, “I missed you.”  

“Then why didn’t you try to talk to me?” She asked.  

“You seemed busy with Josh.”  

“You seemed busy with Amanda.”  

“My god, we’re shit friends,” Tyler laughed. She giggled too, agreeing. “I’m so sorry, peach. For ignoring you and yelling at you… and ditching you. The day after you and Josh started to… you know,” he paused, “the day after, Josh really did me in, made me see how shit I was being.”

“Sounds like Josh. And I’m sorry for ignoring you and not trying to communicate.” Tyler reached out for her and she hugged him, tucking her face into his neck.  

“Is that all you wanted to talk about?” she whispered, not wanting to ruin the moment. He shook his head, murmuring back a 'no.’

“I wanted to tell you something I’ve been holding in for years,” he said, pulling away from the hug to look her in the eye, “I’m in love with you.”  

-

That night was a turning point for the two.  

Of course, she still couldn’t talk to anyone outside of her bubble. (No love was strong enough to cure selective mutism, even though The Big Bang Theory kind of made it seem that way.)  

The two were so, so happy after that night. They spent the rest of the tour attached by the hip way more than they used to be. Then, a few months later, the tour ended and they all went back home. Tyler had promised her at some point they would move in together, rent out a house with a big back yard so her dog, Buddy (who was with her mom until she returned), could run free, especially if Jim was to visit. She would furnish it and make it her home and Tyler would get his own room and an office.

She was laying on the couch, a TV show playing quietly in the background as she read the latest Erik Larson book.

“Tyler,” she called to him, “can you come here?”  

Tyler yelled back, “Yeah!” and went downstairs.  

“Can you go get me my drink, I don’t wanna get up,” she smiled the smile she knew he couldn’t refuse. He scoffed at her and left the living room to get the cup of water off the counter. The cup, although it was just a simple plastic one with a galaxy design (it was from the dollar store), it reminded him how much he loved her. She would leave for tomatoes that she needed for dinner that night and come home with new dog toys, cute dishes, puzzles, and no tomatoes.

“Here, you lazy bub,” he handed the cup to her. She happily took the cup and singsonged a thank you.  

“Aren’t you gonna come cuddle with me?” She asked sweetly.  

“How could I pass that up?” he said, laying a sweet kiss on her lips before sliding onto the couch next to her, pulling her as close to him as possible.

He never wanted to let go.

[parasocialpod]

Buying the Carleton Villa, a Totally Normal House - Transcript

Feel free to follow along with the episode here if you would like to!

[Halloween version of intro music plays]

Alex: Hi, I'm Alex.

Nick: And I'm Nick.

Alex: And welcome to Ice Cream Scarasocial. The podcast that talks about as many spooky topics is there are flavors of creepy ice cream. And this week, um, we're going to buy a house.

Nick: Yeah. I'm going to try to sell you a house.

Alex: Yeah.

Nick: A very specific house.

Alex: Yeah, I'm pretty excited. 'Cause you know, last week we were looking at vans, and...

you know--

Nick: Yeah, and it just didn't really work out because it was haunted and they were trying to come at us, but today we're definitely not looking at a haunted house.

Alex: Mhmm!

Nick: Absolutely not.

Alex: Yeah. Nothing creepy happening here.

Nick: No.

Alex: Nothing weird at all. You wouldn't do that to me.

Nick: No.

Alex: No, cause you've been super excited about this house--

Nick: Yeah.

Alex: the last few days.

Nick: Yeah, I've never really wanted to buy a house before, until I saw this house and that-- that's not a joke.

Alex: Yeah. Like this is what makes a house a home. And so therefore,

Nick: Yeah. Um, but before we get started, if you're watching the YouTube version of this, uh, you can already tell the difference.

Alex: Oh, yeah, that's right! We should probably acknowledge that.

Nick: We should probably acknowledge that like, we did, we're doing a face reveal for Halloween.

Alex: Oh yeah it's really scary.

Nick: Your face is.

Alex: Yeah. Scarily beautiful.

Nick: Um, all right.

Alex: We're married!

Nick: I've made my choices.

Alex: Yeah.

Nick: Um, but yeah,

Alex: Like a siren, I ruled-- I ruled? Lured you onto the rocks.  With my stunning looks to my horrible personality.

Nick: All right, shit.

Alex: Yeah, there we go.

Nick: But yeah, so, if you want to see our spooky ass faces, uh, we're on YouTube now. Um, if you want to, I'll have the pictures on the screen as we go, uh, through this virtual tour of this house, because everything should still be virtual! Like...

Alex: Yeah!

Nick: I don't want to talk about COVID every episode, but like it's life right now.

Alex: That's the real serial killer, you know?

Nick: That's the real serial killer.

Alex: It's October!

Nick: It's October! I want to focus on things that aren't real life terrifying.

Alex: Love it!

Nick: But yeah. So, we're going to go on a virtual tour of this house and feel free to stop by the YouTube video so that you can go on the tour with us.

Alex: Exactly!

Nick: We're still gonna try to make it accessible for audio only. So...

Alex: Mhmm, absolutely. Yeah, and be sure to leave us a five star review on iTunes, Stitcher, subscribe on YouTube, this way we can afford to buy this beautiful house that I'm sure I'm going to love very much.

Nick: Oh, you will.

Alex: Yeah. Yeah, I don't know why you're saying it like that. Like you would never do anything to me, ever.

Nick: No.

Alex: Like...

Nick: No, it's just like a house.

Alex: Yeah, it's just like a normal house.

Nick: It's just a normal house, there's nothing wrong with it.

Alex: Of course.

Yeah, so, uh...

Nick: As a matter of fact, it's actually on an island.

Alex: Ohhh!

Nick: Yeah! So... it is, it's prime real estate!

Alex: It's prime real estate!

Nick: Located on an island in New York, practically in Canada,

Alex: Thank God.

Nick: Is--

Alex: Let me out.

Nick: The Carlton Island Villa, also known as the Wyckoff Villa.

Alex: Distinguished.

Nick: Umm, it was built in the late 1800's. It's 15,000 square feet.

Alex: Oooh!

Nick: It's a nice beach front property.

Alex: That's so much room.

Nick: It's got 11 bedrooms.

Alex: Oh my gosh, we could have so many guests over!

Nick: So many guests! Virtually over.

Alex: Yeah... we could socially di- we could have one guest and never see them.

Nick: We could have one guest in every bedroom!

Alex: Yeah. And 15,000 square feet!

Nick: Right?

Alex: Yeah!

Nick: Like, everybody gets over a thousand square feet!

Alex: Yeah, like that is so much room. Oh my God. Way above six!

Nick: Way above six feet away, you know?

Alex: Yeah!

Nick: Why do you always dig at the carpet?

Alex: Is he pitching a fit?

Nick: Yeah, he's digging at the carpet, just like he does every time we record.

Alex: He's so funny.

Nick: I love him so much.

Alex: He's great. He's an angel.

Nick: He also wants this house!

Alex: He wants out of here real bad! He's tunneling so that he can get to the other house.

Nick: Yeah. Um, where was I? Oh, the best part! How much do you think a house like this would cost?

Alex: Um, I'd say probably like a few million, I would imagine.

Nick: It's $500,000.

Alex: Oh. That's like, a modest two bedroom in Portland.

Nick: Right? It's a modest one bedroom in New York.

Alex: That's true.

Nick: Like this is in New York dude.

Alex: Yeah. On like an Island?

Nick: On an Island that you can only get to by private boat.

Alex: Ooh. So we can also get a boat!

Nick: Yeah.

Alex: We can get a... Boston Whaler, perhaps?

Nick: Fuck.

I didn't see where you were going with it, and then just like... I saw a glint in your eye. And it was like...

Alex: A 13 or 15 foot Boston Whaler to just doggy paddle us across.

Nick: Yeah.

But yeah, so it's. I, I want to say i-it's a secluded Island. There's like 30, there's 34 houses that are built there,

Alex: Okay!

Nick: But people aren't even there all year round. They're only there over the summer.

Alex: Ooh!

Nick: So we would have the winter all to ourselves.

Alex: I catch your drift.

Nick: Right? So this is the Island that it's on. Um, and...

Alex: That's a pretty nice island.

Nick: It's a very nice Island.

Alex: It's a pretty fucking sick Island.

Nick: Like, all I want is to be socially distanced on this Island, away from everybody.

Alex: Yeah, for as long as possible.

Nick: Yeah, so... the actual house:

Alex: Ooh, gorgeous! Is that a recent photo?

Nick: Um, no. I-it, uh... this photo might be like a hundred years old.

Alex: Oh, I was thinking like 2009?

Nick: Uhh...

We'll get to, uh, we'll get to what it looks like here in a little bit.

Alex: Okay. Okay.

Nick: But like, I just wanted to show you some of the history.

Alex: Of course, yeah. Yeah, we love like a nice historical house. Like, you know, I love it when things are just beautifully maintained, like over the years and they just like, keep a lot of that, like natural, beautiful, like preservation, you know?

Oh my gosh. It's so wonderful. When you just get like a nice, a little, just a nice little piece of like the like 1800's that would be so idyllic.

Nick: Yeah, for, for, for sure. Um, I will let you know that this one's a little bit of a fixer upper. It should--

Alex: Oh that's fine!

Nick: Yeah, it shouldn't be like too, too much work.

Alex: Yeah!

Nick: But it's a little, it's a little bit of a fixer upper. Um, let's go to the next...

Alex: Pretty into DIY.

Nick: This is another, um, old... old picture, but it's in color!

Alex: Yeah, so that's--

Nick: So you can really see the, um, the tower that was built into it.

Alex: God, I can't wait to go up in that tower!

Nick: Mm, Mhmm.

And you can really see how like, white the sides are, and you can see that beautiful, beautiful Victorian roof. And um...

Alex: That's gorgeous.

Nick: Yeah so let's um, I think--

Alex: I could just go, I could just imagine like climbing up on that roof at night, you know, looking out at the stars, like going up in the tower to like go draw or write, you know? Oh, it's gorgeous.

Nick: Yeah, for sure. For sure. Let's talk about the inside! For a little bit,

Alex: Okay.

Nick: Though...

Alex: Yeah, definitely.

Nick: Here's some pictures of it actually decorated, as you can see. It's--

Alex: That's great.

Nick: Right?

Alex: Beautiful. Beautiful.

Nick: It's got that nice, you know, 1800's Victorian charm...

Alex: Yeah!

Nick: And this is definitely what it still looks like.

Alex: Yeah, absolutely.

Oh my gosh.

Nick: I mean like, look at all of the-- it's got all these books, and nice chairs, and a big rug. Everything's vintage. It's beautiful.

Alex: Yeah, super like, vintage beauty.

Nick: Yeah, absolutely beautiful. Um, and I, you know, we've been, we've been looking at the inside, I haven't even told you about the history of it!

Alex: That's so true! Oh my god I want to hear all about it

Nick: Oh my god!

Alex: I love a house with a story.

Nick: So this house was built by, I can't remember his name now. Um, but there was an architect that William Wyckoff hired to build the house, but William Wyckoff is the interesting one, which is kind of mean to say, but whatever. Um, he built it to be a vacation home for his family, so...

Alex: Aww, lovely.

Nick: Yeah, it's super cool and lovely and awesome. Um, and... the way that he got all of this money was by selling typewriters. He learned how to market typewriters. And so the family just came into like, this really cool fortune. And that's definitely the end of the story. So let's go into the next room, look at that beautiful staircase!

Alex: That is gorgeous! You know, like a staircase like that. Ugh, you know?

Nick: Just this big winding staircase. That's very structurally sound.

Alex: Yeah. Yeah.

Nick: And these nice Wicker rocking chairs.

Alex: Yeah. You just don't have to worry about any of that, you know?

Nick: No, you don't have to worry about anything!

Alex: Absolutely.

Nick: Okay. So here's, um, here's a picture of what it looks like now.

Alex: Ohh.

Nick: Uh, as you can see, it comes with a sunroof.

Alex: And a moon roof.

Nick: And a moon roof, and a rain roof, and a snow roof.

Alex: Yeah. Um, I am kinda curious, uh, is this like an angle thing, or? What happened to the, to the tower?

Nick: Um... what tower?

Alex: You know, the, the really tall, nice one. It was kind of off to the side, you know, that we talked, we talked about it for sure.

Nick: I don't...

Alex: it was really big.

It had like, kind of really got cone at the top, you know, in the one photo?

Nick: I don't, I don't, I don't remember a tower, um, this is getting kind of weird. Let's move on. Oh, here's a closer picture where you can really see that sunroof.  

Alex: Mmm.

Nick: And, you know, you can really see the size of this Villa.

Alex: Yeah. It was kind of like a shabby chic uh, sunroof here.

Nick: I mean, I wouldn't go, I wouldn't go that far to call it, to call is shabby. It's classic.

Alex: You know--

Nick: It's vintage.

Alex: It is very vintage. It's extremely vintage, I can tell.

Nick: Some people just have no taste. But see, as you can see from this, uh, image where it's, you know, it's as if we're standing right next to it and you can really see all of the... all of the house...

Alex: All the windows... I mean, wi-- all the window holes?

Nick: Um.

Alex: Where'd the windows go?

Maybe?

Nick: I don't, I don't, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Alex: Yeah, and then there's like this nice little, like... uh, there's like a bunch of little like crawl space looking guys, where it's just kind of empty?

Nick: No, uh...

Alex: Uh, as though there were like some boards perhaps just kind of up against each other?

Nick: I don't... I don't understand what you're trying to say.

Alex: I mean, it's still a beautiful house.

Nick: Yeah it's a beautiful house!

Alex: Like I'm still like really into it, but like, I am kind of curious, like, is that like a, you know, like some sort of like Victorian thing that they used to do, like with the windows?

Nick: Yeah, yeah. Um, so back in the 1800's, when you moved out of your house, you took all of your windows with you.

Alex: Ahh, okay.

Nick: And so--

Alex: So they're probably in the family.

Nick: Yeah. Yeah, they're definitely, um...

Alex: That's, that's comforting.

Nick: Yeah. So that's what I meant by it's a little bit of a fixer upper. You kind of need to, um...

Alex: BYOW.

Nick: Bring your own windows. Uh, but other than that, there's really nothing, like...

Alex: Move in ready!

Nick: It's super, um... it's turn key?

Alex: Turn key!

It's beautifu! I see nothing, nothing wrong.

Um, where's the... you g-- is that like a parking garage on the bottom? Or?

Nick: Uh...

Alex: There's like a hole?

Nick: It's the entrance.

Alex: Oh, oh, okay.

Nick: It's um, the door is like open.

Alex: Oh, it's j--

Nick: Oh, n-n-no, you know, actually, no, I'm so sorry. Um, bag-- back in the 1800's, when you moved, you took your windows and doors.

Alex: And your walls.

Nick: Ah, I-- No, the walls are there.

Alex: Oh, okay... Mostly.

Nick: The fuck are you talking about, the walls are there.

Alex: Oh yeah, I guess so.

Nick: I mean, they're, um... mostly, mostly there.

Alex: Most of the way!

Nick: They're mostly there.

Alex: They're mostly there. Enough.

Nick: Yeah, so as you could see, there's another, um, image of the entrance. Um, don't mind th-the barbed wire fence.

Alex: Yeah, and the keep out sign.

Nick: And the keep out sign.

It's just, you know--

Alex: It's such a beautiful property, you have to like put up something to like ward people off.

Nick: Yeah!

Alex: You know, it's for the aesthetic.

Nick: It's yeah. It's for the aesthetic. Um...

Alex: You know, in the 1800's, I heard that they used barbed wire actually, uh, as like bird perches.

So the birds could really get a good grip on it. That's actually how it was invented.

Nick: Oh my God.

Alex: So, you know, it actually makes a lot of sense to me.

Nick: Now that we're looking at the inside of the house, I just can't keep up this facade. This house is fucked up.

Alex: Oh, was, was his name Pablo?

Nick: Oh, I think that's one of his sons, yeah.

Alex: Pablo Wyckoff?

Nick: Mhmm!

Alex: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Nick: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And he was there, which is why he, uh, wrote it on the wall.

Alex: Yeah, he just had to let everybody know. That's what they did back then.

Nick: Uh-huh!

Alex: It's a longstanding tradition.

Nick: Yeah. After his, um, after his parents both died of a heart attack before they could ever actually, um, be in the house. Um...

Alex: Pardon?

Nick: What? No, nothing. Um, Moving on from the entryway. We're going to just look at these beautiful walls.

Alex: Rustic. What did you say about the parent death?

Nick: I, I don't, I don't, I mean, it was before the family lost their fortune and sold the house to general electric. So it doesn't, it doesn't even matter like...

Alex: Ohhh...

Nick: We're just gonna, um...

Alex: Okay...

Nick: Uh, look at the stairs now that they're, um, uh... open to the sun.

Alex: Oh, it's like a nice breezeway, you know?

Nick: Mhmm!

Alex: Um, so before, uh, before they got to live in that house, um, do you mean like they had, uh, they commissioned someone to build it and like gotten in like a tragic accident, or? Something, uh...

Nick: Um...

Alex: Unrelated, I hope?

Nick: Uh, it was more like, uh, heart attacks.

Alex: Okay, cool. Cool. So like probably like cholesterol, like, you know, like in the middle of it being built or whatever, like, you know, It's weird though, that it happened to both of them like, Oh, did they see something like real, like scary and like, ah... ahh?

Nick: No...

Alex: Yeah, this would probably happen like in the middle of the building process, and then they had to sell it to the general electric. Right?

Nick: Um... I mean, it was like, I mean like the mom, it was like, a month before...

Alex: Ohhh...

Nick: And William, it was the first night that he stayed there, but like, it's got nothing to do with the house.

Alex: You know, stranger things have happened.

Nick: It's got nothing to do with the house.

Alex: It's got noth- ain't nothing bad eva happened in this house.

Nick: Uh... legally, I can't say that.

Alex: A man did die here.

Nick: A man did die here, but I mean, but then, you know, he left this beautiful house to his family.

Alex: That's lovely.

Nick: And they kept it for like 20 years.

Alex: Oh...

Nick: What?

Alex: Cool.

And then Pablo had it.

Nick: And then yeah. And then Pablo had it and, um, then the great depression happened...

Alex: Uh-huh?

Nick: And they had to sell the house like, you know, I mean, we're in a pretty bad economic time right now, ourselves.

Alex: Yeah, shit happens.

Nick: You know how it is.

Alex: Ah, that's really too bad.

Nick: So it got sold to a corporation.

Alex: Damn.

Nick: To get demolished and turned into a company retreat.

Alex: Ugh, capitalism.

Nick: But it's fine, that didn't happen. Clearly the building is still standing!

Alex: Nice. Well, maybe?

Nick: I just nervous burped.

Alex: Still standing?

Nick: Still standing.

Alex: Most...ly?

Nick: Uh...

Alex: I still am curious. I swear there was a tower there.

Nick: Oh, you know what, actually... you're right. There was a tower there, but so the thing, so the thing is... so after general electric bought it world war two happened.

Alex: Unrelated?

Nick: This house caused World War Two.

Alex: New conspiracy theory.

Nick: Unrelated.

Alex: Okay, cool.

Nick: World war two happened.

Alex: Good.

I mean, not good that it happened, but good that it wasn't related.

Nick: Unrelated, world war two happened.

And general electric had to halt the dem-- the demolition, however... They did, um, they did have to like sell out, sell off like all of the windows and doors and the marble structure of the tower.

Alex: Oh, that's what happened to the tower?

Nick: Well, that's, I mean, kind of, kind of... Couple of years after that, it was deemed that the tower was unstable because the foundation had been ripped to shreds and that's when it got taken... down.

Alex: I see.

Nick: But I mean, other than that, like the house is totally fine!

Alex: The house is super normal except for the windows and doors and the tower that, uh, was structurally unsound. And uh...

Nick: I-I mean, but they took it get out, so it's fine.

Alex: Yeah, so it's not even a part of the house anymore. So like how can you judge something on something that's not there?

Nick: Exactly.

Alex: That's so true.

Nick: Anyways, moving on before your questions get any weirder, the hell. So, this is the fireplace. It's also rustic...vintage...

Alex: It's like kind of primitive.

Nick: I wouldn't... call it that. I just feel like that's a little bit rude.

Alex: Yeah. I guess maybe like rustic.

Nick: It's, it's rustic. The brick is showing and--

Alex: Yeah, it's beautiful.

Nick: Wood and the ashes are like, just on the ground.

Alex: Overflowing from it.

Oh, goodness.

Nick: Uh, I don't, I couldn't even tell you what this picture is.

Alex: Yeah, I'm not entirely sure what this is of.

Nick: I don't know why I included it in this tour, we're just going to skip right past this.

Alex: Just a cacophony of wood.

Nick: It's fine. Um, and here we are at the top of the staircase,

Alex: Oh, upstairs! Maybe in like a little loft area, perhaps.

Nick: Sure.

Alex: Yeah. I love that there's like a little, um, there's like kind of like a window, uh...

Nick: Under, under the five windows?

Alex: Yeah, like under the banister of the staircase so that you can see while you're going upstairs.

Nick: Yeah, just in case you wanna--

Alex: That was in intentional.

Nick: Yeah, it was definitely intentional and not just, uh, the building degrading.

Alex: Yeah, 'cause it wasn't left alone for that long, right?

Nick: Uh, what is your definition of long?

Alex: Uhh, I don't know, maybe like 20 years?

Nick: So, by your definition of long, it's, it's been a long time.

Alex: Oh...

Nick: I mean,

Alex: So like, 30 years?

Nick: Um, more like, like... 70.

Alex: Ohhh...

Nick: Well, it's actually been a lot more than that. I just realized that all of the articles that I've read are a little bit old.

Alex: Oh wow.

Nick: 'Cause nobody's lived in it since 1930. It's been 90 years.

Alex: Dang. Wow.

Nick: Jesus.

Alex: That's bananas.

Nick: I just dropped the whole game for a second.

Alex: Just, holy shit!

Nick: Uh, and here we have another picture of that beautiful sunroof and it's definitely not the, uh, roof caving in.

Alex: Yeah, not at all. It was designed that way. It was a really radical architect, I can tell.

Nick: Mhmm!

Alex: Like super subversive.

Nick: Mhmm!

Alex: Oh, my goodness, a genius.

Nick: And here we have a look at the, uh, another sun roof. Um, this one is bigger and is definitely not a 100 square foot hole in the roof.

Alex: Nice, yeah...

Nick: It's a sun roof.

Alex: It's a sun roof.

Nick: So you can see the sun.

Alex: Yeah! That's where the sun is.

Nick: That's where the sun is! Um...

Alex: Oh, that's gorgeous.

Nick: And this is the pit into hell!

Alex: Every house needs a pit into hell. You know, call me old fashioned, call me old fashioned. But I ni-- I like a nice like, breakfast nook, I like a nice pit into hell, and I need at least two bathrooms.

So if you have all those things, then I'm sold.

Nick: Cool. Um, so...

Alex: I see a breakfast nook.

Nick: Yeah, it's right next to the pit into hell!

Alex: Convenient. You can just step right on over when you're done.

Nick: And that's the end of our tour! Look at this beautiful picture of the house from the outside at sunset!

Alex: Gorgeous. Oh, I love it. It's beautiful.

It's truly beautiful. You know, I think I'm ready to make this leap.

Nick: Fantastic. Let's do it.

Alex: Let's do it, I'm so ready.

Nick: Okay. Now that the tour's over, let's have some real talk.

Alex: Yes!

Nick: That was funny. Um, but yeah, like I genuinely, I love this house and I'm going to buy it.

Alex: Oh, yeah. Like... no bullshit. Um, This episode started off initially as the concept of like us trying to sell each other multiple haunted houses.

Nick: Mhmm.

Alex: But, uh, then it turned into Nick becoming really obsessed with this one house as though he were in The Shining, perhaps.

Nick: I haven't seen The Shining.

Alex: Oh no! I awoke your computer.

Nick: Yeah. You woke up, the, uh, the assistant.

Alex: Oh.

Nick: That's funny. I haven't seen The Shining.

Alex: I haven't seen it in a really long time, but I feel like it's the same energy.

Nick: Oh, okay.

Alex: Um, not exactly. 'Cause yours was like cuter. You didn't kill me.

Nick: Yet.

Alex: Yet. Um, the power of yet.

Nick: The power of yet.

Alex: But like, you got like super into this one house and you did not what to tell me anything about this house. So you'd like try and figure out stuff that like wouldn't spoil it for the episode. And so you'd just be like, "Here's a picture of the Island. Can I tell you how much it costs? Okay. Oh my God."

And you'd just like pace around the apartment and be like, "I just want this house so bad," then just be like, "All right. I texted one of my friends and he'll live in the house with us."

Nick: Yeah. And this whole episode was supposed to be like, genuinely like showing Alex the house for the first time. But before we started, I was so like, jittery because I was so excited that I had to just info dump about the house, but I feel like it still ended up pretty good.

Alex: I think it was still a fun time!

Nick: Um, but yeah. Yeah. I think that it really is just such a genuinely like... cool story. Because it comes up if you search haunted houses, but there haven't actually been any reports of it being haunted, that it's just kind of this like, Oh, well, like this dude died in here. And so like it, it is said that he still roams the grounds, but like--

Alex: Does he though?

Nick: I haven't seen anybody actually talking about seeing him.

Alex: Right. Like, that's the funny thing to me. Like, Nick sat me down and when he was like, all right, I'm going to info dump. The first thing he said was like, I don't think this is haunted so much as just cursed, so.

Nick: Yeah, I definitely think that it's cursed, because... I mean, I went through the story a little bit, but like William Wyckoff, um, got I always-- whatever. William Wyckoff ordered this house to be built and... it took years.

It's a huge house and it is in, it is on an Island that you can only get to by private boat. So, in order to build it, everything, all of the, you know, tools and materials and everything has to get floated on by barge. So it took six years to build, and then one month before they actually got to move into it, his wife died of a heart attack. And then on his first night in the house, he passed away in his sleep via heart attack.

Alex: God.

Nick: And then passed it on to his children, or he passed it on to his youngest son. Um, and then the great depression hit, the family lost all of their fortune, and sold it. And, uh, they sold it to general electric and then they were about to demolish it, to build some stupid company retreat.

And then right before they started demolition, World War Two happened.

Alex: Which is like, so... funny to me, because like the way that that story is told, so makes it sound like the house was like, "No! I don't want to be a company retreat!"

Nick: Right! And I'm just like, as deteriorated as this house is, for the fact that nobody's been there for so long and it, and all of the windows and doors were stolen from it.

Like, it's still standing pretty well.

Alex: Right? Like I was telling Nick just before this, like it's one of the most beautiful abandoned structures that I've seen,

Nick: Right!

Alex: Which is a really weird compliment, but like, I've... when I was like a late teen, I guess, I used to do some light urban exploration stuff. And most abandoned places that have been abandoned for more than like a month look like absolute garbage, but like this house looks really wonderful.

Nick: Yeah!

Alex: Like, it's gorgeous, and I've just like, alright, when are we moving?

Nick: Right!

Alex: I'm ready--

Nick: I literally--

Alex: I'll go there right now.

Nick: We're going to travel around in a van for a couple of years and save up money. So that we can buy this house and get it fixed up and go and live in it. And I'm, I fully understand the issue of like going from living in a van to living in a mansion, but I do not give a shit. That's the life that I want. That's the life that I need now.

Alex: Exactly. Like either I want to live in the smallest space possible, or I want to live in a cursed mansion on an Island.

Nick: Yeah.

Alex: Like those two options.

Nick: Yeah, and so, and apparently people contact the, um, real estate agent, like two or three times a week asking about this house. Um, but nobody actually goes through with it because even though it's $500,000, it would cost at least $10 million. To actually fix it because you would have to get everything floated in on a barge.

Alex: Exactly.

Nick: And so like all of the prices are, y'know, even higher and I'm just like, I don't care. I want this house. I want this creepy ass house. I love it so much.

Alex: Right! Like, tell them about the, um, the thing with like the family members or whatever. Or like, or not family members, like the people like sweeping it.

Nick: Oh yeah!

Alex: That was the thing that made me love it. I don't know why, but that was like the main thing that I was just like, oh!

Nick: Yeah, I found a, um, a comment. So somebody, if there's a video out there and it's done in very poor taste, um, because it...

Alex: It's trying to get a fucking tablespoon of clout from the like whole "hunted house" thing. It's so whack, like, it like edits in, like, stock video ghosts.

Nick: Yeah.

Alex: It's so weird. 'Cause it's like a normal like realtor tour, and then it'll just like have like a stock photo of just like the most standard white man you can imagine.

Nick: Yeah.

Alex: And it's just like, "Oh, did you see that?!" And it's like, yes.

Nick: Yeah, and there's like spooky music playing the whole time, and it's just like,

Alex: It's ridiculous.

Nick: "shut up." But it's a video of the inside of the house, and so I had to watch it.

Um, Winston. Please don't. Thank you. I love you.

Okay. Um, but it was a video of the inside of the house, so I had to watch it. And the comments on the video, there was this one lady who commented and was talking about how her family used to go to the Island for summer vacations and her and her sister would go into the house and sweep the floors and like just kinda like do very, very, little caretaking things for it. And I'm just like, this house means so, so much to so many people and it's just like, it's so creepy and I want it so bad.

Alex: I love it so much.

Nick: And I'm just so happy that we decided to do like a whole Halloween month and like talk about--

Alex: Right!

Nick: different haunted houses, so that we could find it. And I'm so happy that it's what's kicking off Halloween month.

Alex: Right? Oh my God, I have so many feelings. 'Cause I was telling you that it activates like the same, like caretaking, I guess like affection part of my brain that like the death positivity movement does.

Nick: Yeah!

Alex: That's just this sort of, unexplained like, Oh my God, like life cycle, like misunderstanding kind of thing where it's just like, Oh man, I just want to like take this house and give it new life and just like, go live in this sweet misunderstood house that's so--

Nick: Yeah!

Alex: weird and haunted-- or not hunted, but like haunted by the ghosts of its past, the way that we all are.

Nick: Yeah. Like, I, I love this house so much. And like, I know that this wasn't a super creepy episode, but it's fine.

Alex: Right? I know, like we tried.

Nick: It's Halloween enough.

Alex: It's Halloween enough. It started from that point.

Nick: It started from that point.

Alex: There are a few different, the one video that's super like cheesy, uh, incorrectly, I might add, calls it the most haunted house in America, which 1. No, at maximum, it might have one ghost, which--

Nick: Right! Well, actually, so that's not super true, because...

Alex: Hold up. This is actually new information.

Nick: I know, um, it was-- the Island was a burial ground. I can't remember, but I-- It's one of those things where like, there's so many facts about the house that this one just kinda like. Whooshed right over my head, but it, there, there was a burial ground on the Island, so.

Alex: Mmm. Okay.

Nick: There might be...

Alex: There might be more ghosts.

Nick: There might be more ghosts,

Alex: If there were ghosts.

Nick: but I'm sure that they're fine. Yeah.

Alex: Yeah. Which there might be.

Nick: Which there might be, and--

Alex: It's Halloween.

Nick: I'm gonna meet them. That is a fact of life.

Alex: We're gonna be friends. We're gonna sit in the breakfast nook next to the hell pit.

Nick: Mhmm, yeah.

Alex: It's gonna be really nice. I'll give them French toast. I grew up Jewish saving a seat for the fucking dude.

I'm...

Nick: Yeah?

Alex: Yeah.

Nick: Alright.

Alex: I am so bad at being Jewish, 'cause I like, always... 'cause I like grew up like celebrating Jewish holidays, but then when I was like 12, we just kind of stopped.

Nick: Yeah.

Alex: So now every time I like try and make references, my brain is just like, are you sure you remembered that name right? I'm like, I don't know.

So I'm just like, all right, so now if I get it wrong, we'll just overdub it. Just play...

Nick: I'm not overdubing shit.

Alex: Grew up saving a seat for... Elijah? I think... If not, I can save a seat for him now. Elijah Wood. Come hang out with us. I love your films.

Nick: I guess.

Ummm...

Alex: I loved you in over the garden wall. That's a great hall-- halloween thing.

Nick: Yeah, it is. Alright, well...

Alex: Anyway, this has been Ice Cream Parasocial.

Nick: And we will see you next week with another uh, spooky? Halloween episode.

Alex: Spooky? Maybe not just sad, hopefully.

Nick: Yeah.

Alex: Ahh?

Nick: Ahh!

Alex: We're going to find out.

Nick: We'll find out.

Alex: Alright.

Nick: Bye.

Alex: Bye.  

Nick: Okay, you need to go away now.

[Halloween outro music plays]

[kerishaharris]

Reddit: The so-called “front page of the internet” that’s equal parts fun and frightening

Although it describes itself as the “front page of the internet,” Reddit has always been a bit of a mystery to me, and that’s saying a lot for an alleged millennial who came of age with the world wide web. Sure, it pops up alongside Quora every single time I conduct a random Google search, but aside from being co-founded by Serena Williams’ husband (sorry but I’d never heard of Alexis Ohanian until they wed, so this is who he’ll always be to me), there’s little to nothing I know about the site, who uses it, or why. As it turns out, I am totally in the minority, as Reddit is one of the most popular sites on the internet. I think I owe it to myself, and to Queen Serena, to take a deep dive.

(Serena Williams, literal royalty, and guest... who apparently co-founded Reddit) Prior to this week, the extent of my knowledge of Reddit was that it was some sort of online message board where people shared weird memes, commented on obscure stories, and in some extreme cases, gathered in secret to plan acts of violence or harm. Needless to say, I thought Reddit was a pretty weird place that I should probably avoid. To a degree, some of these things are true. But in its purest form, Reddit is simply a user-focused way to read the news you care about. 

Reddit, then and now Launched in 2005 by recent college graduates Steve Huffman and the aforementioned Alexis Ohanian, Reddit has surged in popularity with more than 430 million active monthly users. According to Tech Junkie, Reddit “works like a newspaper, but with users who are entitled to their own opinion.” At its core, Reddit is a news and topic message board. At first glance, what I find incredibly interesting is just how no frills the site is. No fancy graphics or complicated code, Reddit looks like something I could’ve created on my old school Macintosh desktop from middle school. And from what I can gather, that vintage appeal is part of what Reddit users seem to love. It doesn’t feel especially polished, rather, it’s a site that really feels like theirs. The content you see (or, don’t see) is populated based on the interests of its many many millions of users. Rather than a homepage editor determining which stories and topics to feature prominently, Reddit users submit posts which other users then either “upvote” if they like it, or “downvote” if they’re not impressed. Posts and content with the most upvotes naturally move up the rankings and therefore show up in more feeds and are shown to more users, while less popular downvoted content gets pushed down and eventually out. Content is categorized into different categories, or “subreddits,” with each subreddit filtering onto the main Reddit page. This gives any single piece of content, depending on the number of upvotes it receives, the power to potentially reach the front page of the site. Ok so, the whole “front page of the internet” thing is making a lot more sense now.

Mixed feelings on Reddit users Admittedly, I have my own assumptions about the type of person who is probably active on Reddit, and it’s not the most favorable assumption. I’m certain that this is due to some of Reddit’s more controversial aspects. Because the site requires little more than a username and valid email address to join, it fosters an element of anonymity, which can be both good and bad. For years, there have been Reddit communities bound by extremist views and hate speech, as well as the vile and intrusive leaks of private photos of celebrities (most of these victims, of course, have been women). Based on my own internal moral compass, it can be hard to overlook these controversies and see Reddit as a valuable media source, and to think very highly of anyone who uses the site regularly. Speaking of, it’s incredibly difficult to determine exactly who is using Reddit because of that aspect of anonymity, but it’s fairly easy to guess. By citing third-party polls on general internet usage, TechCrunch was able to make an educated (and likely valid) guess that Reddit’s users skew overwhelmingly young, white, and male. Data from the Pew Research Center suggests this group may account for as much as 71 percent of Reddit users. There’s still some good (and some brands!) Still, I wouldn’t want to say that Reddit is all bad. Nor would I want to assume that every single user on the site is there for nefarious reasons. Reddit is also known for extremely positive communities, or subreddits, that share uplifting news and offer a breath of fresh air among the 24/7 news cycle where most headlines revolve around death and despair (or have all seemed to, as of late). For example, the Made Me Smile subreddit has 2.4 million members and shares nothing but heart-warming content intended to brighten up your day. Subreddits like these are a reminder that the world can (and should) be a kinder, more wonderful place.

(brb, heart melting)

Much to my surprise, there are some brands that have successfully tapped into Reddit’s unique functionality as a marketing tool. Luxury car manufacturer Audi, for example, took advantage of the platform’s popular Ask Me Anything series (where celebrities answer pretty much any user-submitted question) by having celebrities host their own AMA’s while speeding around in the latest Audi model. Kind of weird, and I really couldn’t tell you if it helped Audi sell any more cars, but at least they tried? Marriott also tried their hand at a Reddit campaign, challenging users to “get teleported.” The hotel chain partnered with Oculus to create virtual travel experiences, then challenged Reddit community members to respond to the thread explaining why they deserved to be teleported, allowing users to be as creative as they wanted with their entries. When it was all said and done, Marriott Hotels achieved almost 200,000 clicks on its contest page and Reddit's (then) highest ever user-generated content for sponsored posts. Not to mention, Marriott won a Webby Award for their efforts.

(Olivia Munn. In an Audi. Doing an AMA. Unimpressed.)

Main takeaways Based on what little knowledge I was able to glean on Reddit from my research this week, I see a whole lot of potential good, but at the same time, way too much bad to ever be truly comfortable as a user of this site. While I do enjoy the user-focused nature of Reddit, I worry about just who those users are, why they’re there, and whether that makes Reddit a safe space for me to be. Yet and still, I commend brands that are creative enough to try their hand at adding Reddit to their digital communications strategy. In all honesty, were I challenged to use Reddit in this way, I might find it fun and creative. As for my personal media consumption, however, I’ll continue to stay far away.

Until my next random Google search lands me on somebody’s subreddit. Again.

[lrfya]

Little Rock River Market MysterYAy Hike!

Hi, I’m Macy from The Truth about Forever. Today, I’ll be your guide on a Mystery Hike in downtown Little Rock, in what we call The River Market! I’m not a paid tour guide – I am doing this for extra credit – so tips will be greatly appreciated! We have started here at the Main Library for the Central Arkansas Library System because I work here at the information desk, so please feel free to stop by and see me any time. I also work a second job in the River Market, so I’m sort of an expert.

I’ve positioned a bunch of my YA friends in locations around the River Market. You’ll recognize them from some of your favorite books. Find a YA character you know, and they’ll tell you about the location they’re in! Let’s go!

(Psst - throughout this hike, my commentary will be in bold.)

SIMON SPIER and BEX PORTER

Hey! I’m Simon from Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda, and this is Bex from The Royal We. We’re hanging out at the Ron Robinson Theater for Terror Tuesdays, when they show vintage horror movies for $2 admission. This week’s showing is Rocky Horror Picture Show!

CELAENA SARDOTHIEN

Hi friends, I’m Celaena from the Throne of Glass books. Next door to the Ron Robinson Theater is one of my favorite clothing boutiques, Fringe.

Now that you’ve met a couple of my friends, you’re off to a great start! Let’s take a lunch break at one of my favorite music venues – Sticky’z Rock’n’Roll Chicken Shack. Come back tomorrow to catch Brilliant or Catastrophic’s show - you probably heard about them in Saint Anything. Let’s head across the street - I see a couple of familiar faces.

CRICKET BELL AND NATASHA KINGSLEY

You made it! This building is the Museum of Discovery, and it’s filled with lots of really cool science exhibits. We’re always tinkering around in here. Cricket from Lola and the Boy Next Door loves to see Kevin Delaney do experiments (you might’ve seen him on Jimmy Fallon!) while I, Natasha from The Sun is Also a Star, loves the human body exhibits.

Let’s grab a cup of coffee before we go to the next spot. I love Zeteo Coffee next door – looks like Gansey & Co. from The Raven Cycle are here. They hang out here a lot, but it’s odd that they always order five drinks even though there’s only four of them. On to the next stop!

JAM from BELZHAR and PRISCILLA from BONE GAP

Welcome to the Heifer International World Headquarters! Heifer International is a charity organization working to end hunger and poverty around the world by providing livestock and training to struggling communities in third world countries. I’m Jam, and I help out with the goats here, and Priscilla takes care of the bees.

Here we are at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum. This is where I work my second part-time job, helping cater events for Wish Catering. The current exhibit at the library is “Xtreme Bugs.”

WAVERLY CAMDENMAR

Hey guys! I’m Waverly, and I’m currently getting my prom photos taken on the Clinton Pedestrian Bridge, where lots of people come to take photos. This bridge connects the trails known as the Arkansas River Trail. I run this all the time with my friend Jessica Darling, and sometimes Macy joins us. It’s 17 miles and connects Little Rock and North Little Rock (which are two different cities separated by the Arkansas River, rather than two parts of the same city).

WILLOW from COUNTING BY 7S

If you follow the Arkansas River Trail along the river, it leads you to the Arkansas Nature Center. It focuses on all of the outdoor recreational things that Arkansas’s fish and wildlife resources provide. I’m Willow, and I’m obsessed with nature, so I intern here part time.

ARIEL from ROSES AND ROT

This is the First Security Amphitheater. It’s the main stage of Riverfest, a music festival held here, and is used for various other events and performances, like my vocal performance tonight!

Here’s La Petite Roche Plaza. This rock outcropping is one of the most important landmarks in Arkansas. Early travelers on their way up the river noticed that this rock marked the transition from the alluvial lands of the East to the rugged hills of the Ozarks and Ouachitas. The rock afforded a natural landing for boats. This is how Little Rock got it’s name!

ANNA OLIPHANT

Right behind La Petite Roche is the Junction Bridge. This is for pedestrian and bicycle use and it links both sides of the Arkansas River Trail. It is an integral part of our skyline. Me and my boyfriend Etienne put a padlock on this bridge to remember our days in Paris. 

JACK from THE ANATOMICAL SHAPE OF A HEART

Nearby is the Medical Mile – an artistic expression of health. It includes a 1,300 foot three-dimensional mural wall, a wellness promenade with artful displays, as well as a Body-Mind-Spirit entry plaza. I helped paint the mural.

Next up is my favorite part – the Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden. This is home to dozens of sculptures in the River Market district. New sculptures are voted on annually to add to the collection, and my boyfriend Wes makes amazing angels out of scrap metal and has a sculpture entered into the competition. Let’s head down to the Old State House Museum next.

BEATRIX from THE ANATOMICAL SHAPE OF A HEART

Right now, the Old House State Museum is hosting a “Cabinet of Curiosities” exhibit – kind of a greatest hits collection of weird Arkansas artifacts. It is very diverse – there’s everything from dinosaur toes to Ming Dynasty pottery. I’ve been coming every day to sketch some oddball anatomy pieces.

FAIR FINLEY from WILFAIR

Howdy! I’m Fair, and I grew up managing my parents’ hotels. They have hotels all over the world so I’m a bit of an expert, and The Capital Hotel in Little Rock is one of my favorites. It’s really old and grand - the balcony that overlooks the road here is called the “Front Porch of Little Rock.” Rumor has it, the elevators are humongous because they were built to accommodate Robert E. Lee...and his horse.

CATH from FANGIRL and JOSH WASSERSTEIN from ISLA AND THE HAPPILY EVER AFTER

The Statehouse Convention Center hosts all of our biggest events, including the Little Rock Comic Con – as you can guess, we are always in attendance. I love to dress up in Simon Snow cosplay. Josh is a little too cool for that and mostly just comes to get his comics autographed.

Let’s head back towards the library, there’s many things on President Clinton Avenue to point out.

LARA JEAN SONG

Here’s the H.U. Lee International Gate and Garden, a tribute to the founder of the American Taewondo Association which also educates people about Korean culture and salutes the martial arts.

WYLAN from SIX OF CROWS

Across from the farmer’s market are many bars, restaurants, and shops. You’ll find many people you know working or shopping here. There’s the piano bar Ernie Biggs – it has dueling pianos, and the best night to go is when I duel against Seraphina. Here’s Revolution Room, a club music venue – next week The Mortal Instruments from City of Heavenly Fire plays, you should definitely try to make that show.

DILL from THE SERPENT KING

Here’s a downtown Little Rock favorite bar – the Flying Saucer. They have all kinds of beer on tap and have acoustic shows on the weekend. Lately I’ve been bringing my guitar and playing to get used to a crowd. Also, Lia from The Kiss of Deception picks up shifts here from time to time, to stay grounded.

BLUE SARGENT

This is a tiny little spot on President Clinton Avenue where my mom and various aunts and cousins do palm and tarot card readings. Come in if you feel like learning some things about yourself!

Here’s the Little Rock Farmer’s Market. This is where my boyfriend Wes was discovered selling his angel sculptures, so it will always have a magical quality to me. It has two outdoor open-air pavilions overlooking Riverfront Park and the Arkansas River. It has Arkansas crops as well as vendors selling their homemade arts and crafts.

And now we’re back at the library and your mystery hike is complete! Hope you had fun exploring downtown Little Rock and meeting all my YA friends!

[speckeh]

2017 Book List

BACK AT IT AGAIN. JUMP IN THE CAR!!! I’M STILL READING A SHIT TON OF BOOKS!!!!

1. How It Works: The Cat. 2.5/5 stars. I read this at a book store in Bergen because my brother laughed while he read it. I picked it up and it was ok?? I don’t understand why people who write about cats always, ALWAYS talk about how much of an asshole they are and how they don’t truly love you. And I just sit there like, have you ever owned a fucking cat??? Some parts of the book was super cute but I hate the trope that cats are “assholes.” yeah they’re dicks sometimes. But they’re not assholes 24/7 unless you’re an asshole to your cat.

2. The Greenest Island. 3.5/5 stars. This is another small book that I’ve been meaning to read for a couple of months now. It was pretty interesting and like Mrs. Dalloway I read last year, I’m not sure if I want to sell it or keep it. It’s beautifully written, the story is strong, but some of the characterization is just sort of annoying. Like I get that it’s a very real sensation and issue a young couple who get pregnant WAY TOO SOON without knowing each other. But only a man would think of something so drastic as the end in reference to raising a child. 

3. Letters for Lucardo: 5/5 stars. I saw this comic advertised early in 2016 and I’ve been watching the project closely. I help funding the gofundme and I bought a download and a signed copy of the physical book. The story about a 60 year old man falling in love with a Vampire stuck at the age of 36 was SO INTRIGUING plus the artist had a webcomic which I absolutely adored so I knew not only would the art be excellent but the storyline would be solid. This is one of four volumes and I WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED. The story line was so cute, the art was beautiful, the smut was *mwah* beautiful. But the best part was that it left me wanting for me and I can’t WAIT until the next three volumes are here. Support your local tumblr artist and enjoy some gay vampire storylines with well drawn wrinkly aging men. 10/10, 100/100 please read and enjoy.

4. A Special Study Set of Fine Art Reproductions. 4/5 stars. A little black spiral bound book of black and white copies of famous art works. It’s cute, it’s a good bite sized art book to get the gist of Western Art history. I knocked it down because the art pieces are in black and grey when I know for a FACT some art pieces are in color. So that was a bummer. But overall a nice rendition of some of the classics.

5. Alphonse Mucha: Masterworks. 5/5 stars. I bought this book probably 2 years ago? I’m in a reading funk right now and flipping through art books seems pretty doable. This book is chalked full of history of Mucha while I will read later. But the art quality is excellent, the sizes are big enough to view with pleasure. This is a excellent excellent book full of his art work. I love it. It makes me feel better for the fact I’ve only been drawing girls for the last year because I love drawing delicate features and strong women. If Mucha can just draws women for most of his career, I don’t have to feel guilty in only drawing women for a year.

6. Assassin’s Creed: A Visual History. 5/5 stars. Ok I’m going to repeat this over and over again. But I’m such a fan of the AC series, even if the latest editions have been a u t t e r let down. But I have to admit flipping through this book I got emotional. AC was such a fun series for me when I started and it helped me through a manic depression I had after a very serious illness almost 3 years ago. I don’t pretend the history is accurate or the plot lines are all there, but they means so much to me. As a history lover to the point I’m getting a Minor in college in history. I’ll always enjoy my AC games, no matter how cringe worthy and disappointing some of them end up becoming. Shout out to my boys (and girls) of the assassin creed order. <3 

7. The Art of Howl’s Moving Castle: 5/5 stars. I’ve had this book for a long time, when my childhood best friend and I would hang out nearly every day and sleep overs every weekend. She gave me this book a few months after I watched Howl’s Moving Castle because I was so enchanted by the movie. Howl’s Moving Castle is a favorite movie, book, and soundtrack. This art concept book is beautiful, it’s like a novelization of the movie without any dialogue. The back is the FULL script, there’s concept art, and fully fledged art story boards. If you’re a big fan of Howl’s Moving Castle, this is a great book to have in your library.

8. Tango! The Dance, The Song, The Story. 5/5 stars. My father lived in Argentina for awhile so he would make dishes growing up of delicious food. I love the tango, it’s so beautiful and down right seductive. So of course finding this book for 4 dollars I had to have it. It has photography, drawings, posters, female tango singers, the history of the tango. It’s chalked full of excellent information and it’s really enjoyable to flip through. 

9. Why Cats Paint: A Theory of Feline Aesthetics. 5/5 stars. I bought this book for my birthday last year because it was absolutely silly. It features “Cat Artists” and their aesthetics and their art pieces. Warning there are mummified cats in the beginning of the book which can be upsetting. This book is really goofy and the people who write it are serious but in a fun way? It’s a great book to read like today when I’m stuck in the house because of bad weather and having my own two cats it makes me curious to see if I could make my kiddos paint like those kitties in the book.

10. Life: The Classic Collection. 5/5 stars. A decent sized photography book of the most recognizable Life photographs. Not to forget there are 25 extra prints available for you in the book you can take out and frame. I love editorial photography and seeing the most iconic photos throughout the century. Idk man if you like photography and Life Magazine this is a great book to have.

11. Fashion: A History from the 18th to the 20th century. 5/5 stars. Beautiful book. Beautiful clothes. 

12. The Pharos Gate. 4.5/5 stars. I saw this book at Barnes and Noble early in 2016 and the intrigue had me thinking about it for awhile. I bought it for christmas, waiting to read it in right time. Early on this week I went to my favorite second hand book store and found out it had 3 books before this one. The Pharos Gate is the final book in a series but it can be read by itself. To be honest I think if I had to read the three books before this I would have become bored. That’s three books worth of people trying to find each other but keep missing connections, that’s infuriating. But this book was lovely and the letter writing kind of reminds me of the letters my best friend and I send to one another. She just went back to school and I think she would really enjoy this book so I’m going to send it to her with my own letter attached. I think she’ll like that. 

13. Pirateology. 4/5 stars. These series were my SHIT as a kid. Dragonolgy, Greek Myths, Pirateology. While Hastings went under and into ruins, I found this book for super super cheap. I have certain niches I love to learn/read/aesthetic. Regency, 1950s murder mystery (Looking at you 007), Westerns, weird vintage novels, and pirates. I love the history the book gives you, but as an adult the information is sort of lacking. This is a book definitely for kids, the plot line throughout the guide book is meh it’s ok but it doesn’t capture you, and the interactive bits are the best. I just wish there was more about specific pirates but other than those complaints this is a great book.

14. Viking Poetry: Of Love and War. 5/5 stars. I went to Norway for New Years and I didn’t buy a lot of souvenirs. I mostly bought key chains. I think I only bought two books, maybe even just the one. I bought this viking poetry at THE famous viking ship in Oslo. It was very very cool. I read this book today because I don’t feel well, I want to go to bed but I know I shouldn’t. I have too much homework to do but I’m not motivated to read. The viking poems are unique as they are pretty. I was sometimes disappointed they didn’t have great rhyming schemes but you have to remember these were written in various old languages and then translated into modern day English. If you want to read what the vikings considered poetry, this is a great introduction without reading the giant lores.

15. The Elements of Style: 5/5 stars. Oh my god it’s been so long I completely forgot what my book tag was. February has been crazy for me. I got a internship, I dropped a class because of stress, I’ve been stressed out like crazy, I’ve been doing a lot of school work. I felt like I’ve had no time to read for pleasure. I actually didn’t read this book for please (half pleasure) but for work. It was actually a lot of fun. We studied this book in AP Literature when I was a senior in highschool and I wanted to have it for myself as a writer, but also it’s excellent for my ambitions to become an editor. The writing is a little hard, sometimes I’d read a whole page without really absorbing what was on it. But it was interesting and you can read White’s frustration with writers with certain rules they ignored. I actually loved the add on V chapter by Strunk which said that English rules are extremely important but take in mind the language of your time and how you write. Your voice is important. Which I found very important and also felt like an eye opener with Editing for my job. I’ve been wary of making sure not to change anyone’s voice but also trying to keep with proper English rules. It’s been a lot of fun.

16. The Last Wish: Introducing the Witcher: 5/5 stars. This book took me me almost 2 full months to read. I’ve been so busy. I first started reading this book before my trip to Norway, took it all the way across Europe, back and I finally finally finished it today. I don’t know why it took me so long? I absolutely loved it. I played Witcher 3 last semester and really really loved the story line and characters. My sister-in-law loves the books so I gave it a try! I would definitely recommend this book if you like spins on fairytales and medieval magical worlds. I had a lot of fun but I’m glad I can finally pick a new book.

17. Shackleton: Antartic Odyssey: 4/5 stars. Today has been a recovery day and I’m, emotionally dead/it comes in waves. So I spent like 5 hours in a bath today and read this comic. The art is really good, the story is super intriguing! I was in Norway this last December and we went to a arctic ship museum because Norway was the first to reach the South Pole. But the author even said himself the comic needs to be at least 300 pages but his hand would fall off. And I wish he did do 300 pages. The story was short and choppy. I know it’s selfish, but as a reader I wish he did do his main goal because he had the perfect art style for this comic. Either way, I did enjoy.

18. Creole Folktales: 5/5 stars. If you love mythology, this book is pretty great. If you love Louisiana, black folklore, this book is pretty great. It doesn’t have 5 stars on amazon or goodreads because I think people take issue with the writing or they’ve heard these stories before. This was my first introduction to Creole folktales and I have to say i loved it. The nostalgia of reading different myths is pretty great plus the storylines can be hilarious to kind of terrifying. The author says to read this story by night and I have to agree. I read it all in one sitting this evening and I wouldn’t change that experience. 

19. I Shall Not Be Moved: 5/5 Stars. It’s been awhile since I’ve read a poetry book. Since February I think. Sundays are usually my comic or poetry days and I was in the mood for some poetry. I was going to read this book for Black History Month for my book club (if you wanna join hit me UPP) but February was so crazy and stressful that I couldn’t read anything. So this time I did read a Black Poetress but just for National Poetry month. I loved this book, super powerful and moving. I’ll probably be thinking about this poetry book for a long long time. 

20. Artists and their cats: 3/5 stars. Being stressed out in my finals week means I want to do a lot of book things just so I can procrastinate. I bought this book as a Christmas present for myself. I'm slightly disappointed in it because the book is called Artists and their Cats, but it's really more like, A mini biography of artists and oh, some cat photos. I was expecting heart warming stories about their cats. But no. I loved the photos though which make this book conflicting for me.

21. The Monkees comic book: 5/5 stars. Super cute. I feel bad because Mickey was drawn pretty horrible. But I loved the art. The choppy scenes were kind of hard to get into and that 1960s humor can be kind of cringey but I really really enjoyed it.

22. The Art of Drowning: 5/5 stars. So I was thinking this would have completed my Billy Collin’s reading, but apparently I read this book in 2014! How crazy! Well I read it and enjoyed it. That’s all. 

23. A Queen’s Journey: 4/5 stars. I’ve been having a lot of heart ache for my birth state as of late. I visited Hawaii this time last year since moving when I was 2 and not remembering a single thing about it. Everything fit and I felt like I was home (when I was in the ocean) and it was such a strange feeling. I’ve been missing it hardcore this last month and so I decided if I can’t go to the Island I’d read a book about Hawaii or a Hawaiian. I’m also a book traveler, I bring books on trips and my favorite souvenirs are books. I’m a person who can remember times and feelings by looking at books. This is one of the books I bought while on the big island and haven’t read until now. For the story itself, I definitely give it a solid 4 stars like most people have. The book is unfinished as the author died while writing it. But I actually love how the book ended, the last chapter is perfect for a finale. But everything leading up is meh. Don’t get me wrong, I flew through this book and found it so much fun but it’s written from the perspective of a white entitled reporter who doesn’t really understand Hawaiians but “loves” them because of the Queen. I would have preferred to have a story told from Queen Lili’uokalani’s perspective but it was a nice read.  

24. Lights Out and Away We Go by @naum-e : 5/5 stars. I’ve been following Naume-e for at least a year now and they draw the absolutely cutest/breathtaking spirk doodles on tumblr. When I saw they put up their formula one au book up for sale, I had to get it. They even sent me a sheet of adorable spirk stickers. I love it. The art is so professional, the cover is beautiful! The storyline is short and I wish there was more background and developlement but that’s just me being greedy. Only criticism I would have is that one page would be crisp and saturated black and the next would have a grey tone to it so it wasn’t as sharp. I don’t know if that was due to printing costs or stylistic choice but sometimes it worked, other times it was kind of distracting. Either way I really enjoyed it and loved the art!

(I’ve actually read 44 books but 20 of those are yaoi mangas/I don’t have the energy to type up individual reviews) 

25. And Three Makes Tango. 5/5 stars. I’m doing a summer class and this is a book I picked for a 5-7 page project about censored books. And Three Makes Tango is the true story of two male penguins who fell in love at the New York Zoo. They made headlines when the zoo keepers gave them a fertilized egg which made them the first male couple to raise a baby penguin. It’s super cute and the art is adorable and I can’t wait to write this 5-7 page essay on it.

26. Goldfinger. 4.5/5 stars. I really enjoyed this book! Dr. No was kind of a hot mess with a huge octopus, guano, and the girl not being entirely likable. This book was definitely a treat! It may be kind of boring because the first 150 pages is a slow burn of James finding a guy cheating at cards and like 3 chapters dedicated to just him playing golf. But I really really loved this? The only reason why I don’t give this book 5 stars is because of Bond’s very sexist and homophobic views he suddenly stated out of no where. There were a TON of lesbians in this book, Pussy Galore, Tally, and he seemed ok with them except he was disappointed he couldn’t fuck them. And then said lesbians and gays were all sissies who he had no time for (even though Bond is like super, mega gay for James Bond. SUPER MEGA GAY.) and the ending they made the strictly lesbian badass gangster woman say, “Well I’ve never met a real man before.” and UGH. WHY. I would have given it 5 stars if they had just left Pussy Galore’s lesbian nature alone and not justify it with a “She just needs a strong man.” Also I apparently bought this book for me for Christmas 2015 ahah. 

27. The Mad Kings & Queens, History’s Most Famous Raving Royals: 4/5 stars. I enjoyed this book. It’s marketed as a reference book and it discussed the insane breeding of The Kings and Queens of Europe. This book should really be called, “Inbreeding fucked me up.” because most of the insane issues came from inbreeding lines and madness from parents and grandparents being passed down to their kiddos. But there were several monarchs where I didn’t believe they fit underneath the “mad” title. Like King Henry VIII was just a pissbaby. And there a handful of monarchs included who just had severe depression and anxiety which affected the way they ruled, it doesn’t mean they’re mad. Other than that, it’s a great little book for a quick overview of Europe’s fucked up royalty. 

28. Strike Through The Mask! 2/5 stars. It’s not my favorite poetry book, it had some poems I enjoyed! I bought this from the annual library book sale because it was signed by the author and was super cheap. Though after learning about Peter Viereck, I’m not really sure what I think about him? He’s super conservative and is VERY loud about people being extremist but is sort of seen as an extremist himself. Nothing wrong with that inherently but I’m still not super sure about these poems. A lot of them were about trees talking to humans or other trees. Debating on giving them poetry book to donations because it’s really not my favorite. 

29. For the King: 2/5 stars. The premise of the book is quite interesting! It follows the assassin attack on Napoleon in 1800 on Christmas at Midnight. It cause da wave of destruction, death, horror, and a huge police investigation which resulted in more death and conspiracy. The book did not live up the potential. It kept my interest and it had some great writing, but the characters were flat, the main character was whinny, and the plot was a little jumbled. It was also strange because it’s a historical fiction but also murder mystery but you know who did it by chapter 1 and you follow the policeman’s thoughts and instincts to capture the assassins. It’s weird, there were a lot of strangely written sentences, and it was over all a just ok read.

30. The Old Man and the Sea: 2.5/5 stars. There is a lot to enjoy about The Old Man and The Sea. The story is compelling, the relationship between the old man and the boy is pleasant, and Hemingway has a way of using metaphors and descriptions which are breathtakingly beautiful. But there is also a lot to be disappointed in. It’s a lot of rambling, several sentences could have been edited, and the old man was pretty much senile in the way that he fishes. I read it in one day and still processing it. I’m pretty sure there are a few pages that I didn’t really read, I fell asleep the first 60 pages, and the story doesn’t truly touch me in the way classics usually do. But there is also something oddly charming which makes rating this book more difficult than I thought.

31. The Lost Estate: 5/5 stars. This book has been on my shelf for awhile. I bought it because you can design your own cover once you finish the book, so I bought it not expecting the story to be great but at least I can art a book. This is one of the best reads I’ve read in several months! I loved the story! I loved the characters! It felt like a fantastical children’s story with romance, magic, and French school boys. The chapters were short and the main character has such a charm. The only downside is that the story has a weird time lapse where you’re not really sure how old the kids are or how many years have passed. All in all, I’m really thrilled with this book and it’s easily going on my favorite shelf after I draw the cover!

32. Lunch Poems: 4/5 stars. Frank O’Hara’s poetry isn’t like your classical poetry. He’s irreverant which makes reading his stanzas refreshing and different. There were some poems where they were too strange and convoluted for my taste, ones I wished I could be heard out loud, and there wasn’t anything that punched me in the chest with wowing words, but it did inspire me to write my own poem. And for me, that’s the highest compliment of a poetry book, to make you write poems. I really enjoyed 14 of the poems which is a pretty decent amount to like for me. Billy Collins has the highest likes of poetry for me, and Lang Leav having the least amount of poetry I liked in her book Love & Misadventure. Frank O’Hara was a decent medium for me and a nice introduction for anyone who doesn’t particularly care for “flowery” poetry. My favorites were: Cambridge, Poem (1959), How To Get There, Pistachio Tree At Chateau Noir, and Yesterday Down At The Canal. 

33. Howl And Other Poems: 6/5 stars. Very rarely do I hold a book to my chest after I finish reading it. The books I remember doing this were The Secret Garden, Shadow of the Wind, Pride and Prejudice, and Howl’s Moving Castle. I can add Howl to my list. I first heard of this revolutionary poetry book in one of my university classes about censorship and banned films and literature. We watched the James Franco movie about the whole trial over Howl, and I thought it was pretty, but I didn’t feel a great pull to the way he read the poems. I decided to pick it up for myself and I read it today all the way through. And reading it for myself was something magical and far more touching than the movie could ever produce. All of the poems were a punch to the gut, made me feel something, made me want to create art, and that’s what poetry is supposed to do for you. I may have found my second favorite poet in Allen Ginsberg. This is definitely on my favorite 2017 reads and also in my top 10 favorite books of all time. 

34. Monstress Vol 2: 4.5/5 stars. I agree with the main consensus that the second volume is way better than the first. I actually contemplated getting rid of and stop reading the series because the first volume was very bizarre. But now I’m super invested in it. The story line unfolded in an interesting and made more sense way. The art was gorgeous and dark. THERE WERE SO MANY BADASS WOMEN CHARACTERS. Plus I finally caught on that the cats are called Nekomancer and I’m in love. If you like dark, blood, gore, and creepy storylines, Monstress is a great comic to read. 

35. Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century. 5/5 stars. I picked this book up back in 2011. I was browsing Barnes and Noble, looking at their new arrival table. I was in 10th grade, newly in high school, and I had watched the movie Cleopatra in my western civilization class. I loved the writing, bought the book, I remember my mom saying “If I had known who the book was about, I wouldn’t have let you bought it.” and I was enjoying myself. Things happened shortly after that had me pausing from reading the book for 6 years. I decided to try to read it over the summer, had summer school, then my beginning of the semester was too crazy to read this book, and after I dropped from one of my classes, I found I had time to read it. I really loved this book. It’s heart wrenching, you feel the love they had for each other, but you also saw the abuse and tragedy that became their relationship. There are only two notes of importance I would say that is this book’s downfall: 1. The book has minor editorial flaws (commas outside of quotes, periods in parenthesis, Earth wasn’t capitalized). 2. The writers are very much infatuated with Richard and Elizabeth, coming to their defense about the scathing reviews. They did a great job, but it also brings into question just how accurate they can be when they’re so emotionally charged about Richard and Elizabeth. If you want to know more about Richard and Elizabeth, how they came to be, their marriage, and how the marriage fell, this is a great book. 

36 + 37: Maus I & II. 5/5 stars. I’ve been wanting to read this collection for years. It has everything I love, history, contrasting colors, and comics. But whenever I found the books, they were full priced and too much for my wallet. Well, a few weeks ago I found the boxset at my local second hand store for 22 bucks. I snatched it. I read the first book on the 29th and the second on the 30th. This, is a heavy story. It’s gut wrenching, it hurts, I nearly cried in book 2, and it’s a poignant story about surviving, the effects of surviving horrible situations, and how it affects your children. The art is beautiful, very symbolic, and doesn't hold back from showing the ugly of WWII. If you want a heavy read to make you think about history and humanity, 100% recommend this comic series.

38. Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit: 4/5 stars. A classic fairy tale book that I read because one of my friends had it on her shelf and I wanted to read it. It’s very cute, very Peter Rabbit esq. but with more danger and violence to it. It’s not my favorite collection, I didn’t get the warm fuzzies from it, but I did fly through the stories. Though my book is so old that it doesn’t have a publication date and I’m slightly terrified that if it’s from the victorian era that it’s laced with arsenic to make the blue color ahah! But it was cute. A very short fairytale that is chalked full of mythologies of forest creatures and how their distinctive features came to be. 

39. Sword of Destiny (Witcher 1, but technically 2) 5/5 stars.  I’ve been reading this book since the end of October. I don’t know why, but short story compilation books always take me months to read while James Bond takes me 3 days. I think it’s to do with the pacing and the fact the stories tend to be more condensed and I need to think about a book for at least a day before starting a new one. I really enjoyed this book! Having played the games and adored them, I love the character building and foundations in this book! Baby Ciri warms my heart and I fucking called who her parents were in the prologue which I just realized I actually read this year. Much better than “The Last Wish,” and the angsty Yennefer romance just makes the book with its angst and Geralt just hating everything about his life except for Ciri and Yen. 

40. Bing Love: 3/5 stars. I saw a GoFundMe post for this comic book earlier this year and the art is adorable, the plot line got me, and I was so excited to get my copy of this book! I’m torn because on one hand, I love representation and the love story between Hazel and Mari, and the fact the writer took an approach that people had to settle for a fake happiness and how families can be torn apart when you realize they were built on a facade. But there’s a huge pacing problem with this story. It jumps, it skips details, I know this story would have been so much more vibrant with even 20 more pages added to it. Limiting it to 97 pages really killed the vibe of the story. The character development was lackluster, their reactions became unbelievable, and the ending felt so rushed. I would honestly probably give this story 2 stars if it weren’t for the art work making up for where the story lacks. 

41. Call Me By Your Name: 5/5 stars. @haremshame for those who don’t know, was my very first, serious love. They’ve been loving Call Me By Your Name and essentially has become the spokesperson on tumblr for the book. They told me to give this book a listen to (which is something I do not do on the regular), gave me a link, and but I was in the middle of the semester. I think maybe more than a week ago I finally started listening to it, how could I not when your first love tells you the story reminds them of us??? And I have to whole heartedly agree. Call Me By Your Name reminds me very much of the excitement of a first love and the everlasting long heart ache that comes when that first love inevitably ends. I loved this story. I wish I picked up the book and read along with Armie Hammer so I could mark all the passages I loved because there were quotations that made me shiver and hum and felt a literal twist in the gut. I’m not entirely sure how this book will go as an experience for other people since I went in to this reading with heavy expectations and knowing it would remind me of Percy and the specialness of our fumbly, young and naive teenage relationship, makes me heavily biased. But the writing is breathtaking, Armie Hammer does a fantastic job, and the story will have you aching in some form or another. 

[aion-rsa]

Skyman: Don Miggs Discusses Universal Sonics

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The mock-documentary Skyman doesn’t tell the usual UFO encounter story. Director Daniel Myrick, who broke on the scene with the groundbreaking horror thriller The Blair Witch Project, does not put this together using found footage. The film examines the aftermath of an alien visitation, and the story is told by a witness and survivor.

Carl Merryweather (Michael Selle) was seven years old when he saw the “skyman” in Barstow, a small town in California. The event changed him. He’s spent years obsessively collecting UFO magazines, as well as first-person accounts of other contactees. It made him the neighborhood “character.” Skyman takes place 33 years after the visitation, he is living with his sister, Gina (Nicolette Sweeney), and waiting on a promise the alien made to return on his 40th birthday.

The film was shot in Barstow, where there have been multiple real life reports of UFO sightings. Merryweather also takes the crew to a real UFO festival in McMinnville, Oregon, where the character is met with amused scorn by amateur enthusiasts armed with cellphone cameras.

The soundtrack for Skyman was written by Billy Corgan and Don Miggs. The Smashing Pumpkins frontman is a household name, and occasional appliance. Miggs is a studio veteran. He’s written with Creedence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty, and worked with such diverse artists as Boyz II Men, Paul Anka, Tyga, and the Plain White T’s. Miggs spoke with Den of Geek about the film, the universal language of music, and the OZ Paradigm.

DEN OF GEEK: Were you drawn to Skyman because of the subject matter?

DON MIGGS: You know, first and foremost, [I was] told I could do a film with the guy who wrote Blair Witch. Now I’m already interested, right? So you’ve already got me right there. Then a really strange chain of events happened when Dan Myrick approached me to do it. I had just had a crazy incident happen at my L.A. house that involves sort of like the supernatural. Right now, I can’t even believe I just said that because I’m going to tell the story. The person who built our home was Mickey Rooney, who was famous in the ’40s, but ’50s and ’60s, for sure. He was a child star and a long time he was with Judy Garland from The Wizard of Oz.

We bought that house. In between us, there was another artist, Rick James, from, “She’s a very kinky girl.” It’s the house that Rick did all that crazy stuff. He’d been arrested at one point because he and his girlfriend locked another girlfriend in a room and tortured her. They were doing things like meth or heroin or something. He was sort of crazy. We bought this house and maybe it was haunted. I don’t know. But when Dan called me about doing the movie, we had just had an incident where a book was off of a bookshelf that couldn’t have fallen where it fell. Someone would’ve had to take it down.

I walked by for a few days. Finally I said to my wife, “Is it down here for a reason.” She’s like, “I was going to ask you the same question.” I pick up the book, this is before I knew about Judy Garland, and it’s The Wizard of Oz. I’m like, “That’s kind of weird.” Someone told me the book was on the ground because Mickey Rooney was with Judy Garland in this house. This is where they stayed.” I’m like, “Wow,” and so I flipped through. I’m looking through Google and I go into a deep search and I see this photo of them in our house where the piano is and it kind of freaks me out.

So as that’s happening, I’m telling this to my friend and my friend says, “I didn’t want to tell you this. I was in the movie room and I heard clinking of glasses in the kitchen. Then they put them down on the counter, and I was like, “Hello? Hello? Hello?” and nobody was there. Then his girlfriend was in the kitchen and turned and looked to the right, and said, “What do you want?” Because she thought that my friend was standing there. The friend, by the way, is the third writer that wrote the music on this, Greg Hanson. Greg wasn’t there, he was in my studio.

So all this stuff happened, and Greg and I are having this conversation about the supernatural and what do we believe in, life on other planets, all this stuff and we’re coming to all these conclusions then Dan calls me and tells me about a movie about a UFO, about an alien. I’m like, “That’s the craziest thing.” A week later, Billy Corgan comes to stay at my house. We know that he’s had some history with UFOs and believes, and I tell him about it, and he’s like, “That’s crazy.” I said, “Does it make you nervous to stay in the house?” He goes, “No, not at all.”

So all that stuff is a long way to say it felt like it was supposed to happen when Dan called and said “Do I want to do the film?” Because it felt like I was sort of on the brink of changing my whole belief system.

You own vintage guitars. I was wondering if the guitars can be haunted, and if you ever caught someone else’s riffs?

Of course, the way I look at everything is energy is out there. We’re all the same age in the end. Right? Because we’re all just energy and it’s all floating. I own Hendrix’s guitar from when he played with the Isley Brothers. One day, his brother Leon came to the house, and wanted me to record him, but it’s not something I wanted to record. But as he was holding the guitar, he said something like, “This guitar is the guitar that Jimi dreamed in before he became … This is when he was James Hendrix, and he was basically playing guitar for the white man and dancing in the back and doing all this stuff, and then it’s the guitar that he emerged as Jimi Hendrix, which is the guy with the Afro and larger than life.”

Whenever I play the guitar, and I play it all the time, I feel that life in there, and I think it’s sort of in everything. People tend to be scared by it, but there’s this root beauty and the whole thing that we’re all connected. That’s kind of what the movie, ultimately, is about for me. When Dan explained it, I didn’t see one piece of it when I started writing music to it. The first thing I wrote was “Are you real Skyman?”

When he was describing to me what it was about, I said to him, “This is not really a story. This to me isn’t even a UFO story. It’s the story of a person trying to connect with his father and his father is no longer around. This is his connection. It’s really a story about how we’re all connected and it’s about family.” If you look at your main character, he’s on this journey and he’s very much alone, but he has his sister and his best friend still show up, they might think he’s a little crazy, but they show up because it’s important to show up. I think it makes the story a little bit more beautiful than “there’s a UFO, let’s go chase it.”

You’re one of the authors of Dad’s Know Best. What do you tell your kids about UFOs?

I tell them that I’ve never seen anything, but the likelihood that we are the only thing out there seems pretty slim to me. Maybe it’s not happening at the same time, maybe it’s because of time and space. The thing I always say to my kids, they’re 11 and nine, is I just say that anything and everything is possible. Your job is to be open enough for it to happen. I don’t believe in God, I feel like there’s something bigger than me out there, but I don’t know if it’s God. I’ve never said that really out loud like that. I don’t know if I can even say I don’t believe in God, but I’m open to the possibility that I’m wrong, and I’m looking forward to being wrong. I tell my kids that the fact that we’re here sort of almost demands that there must be someone somewhere else.

What key best captures the abductee experience. Is it A minor? Is it mixolydian?

I love that you would ask that question. It certainly has to be a minor. This is so geeky of me. For me, it would probably be like a minor seven. I literally just wrote a song before I got on. I had a client and we’re doing a record and I just did a Skype with her, and I made sure the whole thing is sort of about, in the end is that it’s going to be alright. It all really stems off of this one minor. It’s a B flat minor seven that comes at the end and just playing that chord leads everything up to a question like, “Is it going to be alright?” But I would say, if you have to say what the best minor chord is, it’s probably E minor and that’s the key of tension for sure. E minor, I’ll say.

Close Encounters taught us music is the universal language. So are different modes more effective at communicating if we were to communicate with another species?

I would think that. I would think that we see things very much in, [hums major scale], right? If I play Indian music, there’s going to be more chromatic notes than there would be in Western music. So yes, for sure, everybody’s going to have a little bit of a dialect when it comes to what’s going to work for them.

I find it interesting actually, when I’m thinking of Close Encounters, “[sings theme], nu, nu, nu.” That resolve, which makes very much sense, it’s very nice for our American ears, but I don’t know that the  [sings last two notes of theme],” which is four/five, “Duh, nah, nah, nah, nah,” would be soothing to someone from another planet because I don’t think that “Duh, nah” would be soothing to someone from necessarily another country.

What do you think extraterrestrials would pick up from what’s going on in music right now?

The best thing about music today for me is sonically, it’s amazing. The sounds are really exciting. It’s thinner. It’s more shrill. It would be heard better, probably. If I were an alien, I’m going to say that I think they would pick up that it’s a little more vapid. If we’re talking about popular music and I just dated myself, that’s a dumb thing to say because the ’50s music was as vapid as vapid could be, same chords, same melodies.

You mix some pretty etheric sonics into the theme music. I was wondering what tells you how to capture that? There’s one part that sounds like you caught feedback off of a stick across a snare drum.

You’re right. I hit a drum and then I literally grabbed the feedback from it, and I might’ve supported that with some other instrument in there. Then yeah, and that wound up being a part of the sonic scape for a lot of different parts.

I equate music writing with you’re in a field and some days you’re pulling weeds, and other days you’re picking flowers and the job is to stay in the field and keep picking. That’s what I do all day, every day. With this soundtrack, we had a crazy thing happen where Dan Myrick came into the studio and was like, “Well, what are you going to do?” And this idea just hit me on the piano. I went and hit the three notes, came back to the patrol room, and I just said to my engineer, “I need everything on. I need the drums on. I need guitars, I need everything on.” And literally, I just kept going from thing to thing and adding, and it was like I had nothing to do with it.

No joke. I mean that for most of this record, what was so cool about doing Skyman, I didn’t do it to film, I did it to my idea of who these characters were, and what their stories were, and that’s a difference than with Billy. So Billy stays with me sometimes when I’m in LA, in my house there. So he was there and I said, “Hey, if you want to come out to the studio, I’m working on this thing for the film and I think it might be of interest to you.” He comes into the studio, probably at 10:00 a.m. and my studio is on the property, and I could see him walking up, I said, “Hey,” and I had started a thing. For the next three hours and I might be generous, it may have only been two and a half. We wrote five things. Like we were vomiting. Literally it was coming out of us and no discussion about it. I said, “Here’s one idea.” He goes, “Oh, it might be cool on piano.” So he goes down and starts playing the piano to it, and I’m playing the guitar.

Then there was another one where I’m like, “I have this idea [sings]. You could have that very cinematic. And he goes, “Oh, I think we’d do this.” That two and a half hours became four of the tracks, two of which made the record, then which made the movie, and two others that we have for something else. It all fell out, which is what the whole movie did. Every time I thought I was going to tell it what to do. So I had to listen back through it because I had to put the songs in an order. I could remember being there for all of it, but I couldn’t remember how I came up with some of those sounds because all the drums are real, all the guitars and all the instrumentation is me playing it. Unless it was Billy, he plays an acoustic on two, and piano on another, and I think Greg Hanson plays a guitar in one part of something, the rest is just me.

But I have no idea how it all came out and how the sounds came out like they do. But I’m so damn proud of it. I think it’s a freaking cool record and it takes all these twists and turns, which is why I kind of feel like someone else’s driving.

But you never jammed to visuals?

I think at one point I got a scene that was on my phone, and I think I showed Billy the scene. We were already playing. The visuals were in our head, man. I’m telling you like it was really crazy. First of all, Billy is one of the most gifted, incredible artists of our generation. There’s no doubt. I’m cocky enough to feel like I belong in any room, and I’ve written with some big people. But I knew that the most talented guy I was ever in a room with was Billy Corgan. He’s humble. But also, he’s an encyclopedia, knows exactly what he wants to do, and we had the visuals in our head. When I told him the story that it was really to me about a guy wanting to reconnect with his father, and then we talked about the abduction thing. I don’t think we needed to see anything to know where we were going with it. I don’t know that seeing the movie would have helped, but maybe would have hurt. It’s a weird thing to say.

You said everything was done with instruments. What about that bagpipe, was that sampled?

It’s not a bagpipe. That was me playing  a combination of a guitar and a keyboard, and then me altering the sound to turn it into what it sounds like. There’s a couple things like that on there that are really cool. I wrote to the feeling and the nice thing about that is I could stretch these things out. As you listen to some of these tracks, some of them take so many turns and twists that I don’t know that I could have done if the movie was playing in front of me. I might’ve been almost too sympathetic to the character as opposed to sympathetic to what he couldn’t see. I wanted to play it from the point of view sometimes of the alien looking in on the story. So it’s not always the story. It’s sometimes the music is supporting what you don’t see.

I couldn’t have done that if I was just using the visual because that’s not part of the visual. You don’t ever see the alien. So my job was to sort of make the alien come to light. Dan didn’t tell me to do that. It was something instinctually. I felt it had to be done because you don’t ever really get the payoff. This is one of those movies. It’s the last two minutes of it where you go, “Oh. There’s the Blair Witch thing happening.” So I needed to sort of create that for the rest of the movie and didn’t know that I needed to, and then there it is.

There seems to be a lot more piano on Skyman than guitar. What can you say on the piano that you can’t say with those strings?

I had a theme that started when I did, “Are you real?” There’s that little piano thing. I considered the piano a character. I wanted that character to make sure he resonated throughout the piece, meaning throughout the movie. So I couldn’t abandon him almost at any point. He was more vulnerable. So the piano became the real vulnerable side, I guess, of all the characters really, including the alien. Then the guitar was then allowed to be more of the Goliath to Davey, which was the piano.

If you were asked to play a concert for extraterrestrials, would you change up your set list?

I tell you what, I’d be damn proud. Billy actually said to me, “We should play live.” There are two songs that I really wish would have made the movie and kudos to Dan for not putting them in because one of them has Billy singing a little bit, he’s humming, and it’s eerie and beautiful and so great, but it wouldn’t have fit the movie. It would just serve the purpose of being sensational because there’s Billy Corgan singing. But the only change up I would do, is I would do “Time Will Melt Us,” which is the one where he was humming on, and then this other one that we didn’t put in that he and I did for the movie. But I’d play that soundtrack. I love it.

Would you host an alien on the “Miggs and Swig Show?”

Damn. He could live in my house for a while. I’ve had some alien-like people living in that house at different points. So yes.

What would you ask them?

Are they laughing at us? Do we seem comical to them? Do we seem intelligent? I mean, I wonder so many things about what we do as a human race. If there is a God, he’s laughing at us too. And then I’m always a sucker for what’s the secret of life. Are they happy? Does that even come in to it? If you are more enlightened than we are, is happiness even a factor? Do questions like we’re asking right now matter?

MIGGS recorded their first album in 50 hours. Would that be easier now because you’re a studio veteran or harder because you’ve learned so many tricks?

There’s such beauty in being naive. There’s this not knowing. I’m working with three different 16 year old artists and I was working with one today, a girl. Every single option is possible in her mind, and I’ve learned the rules. There’s a song called “Girl” by The Beatles. John Lennon goes from a C to an F to a D major. But you’d think the song is in C, and if it’s in C, it would have to be a D minor. There’s something that’s so beautiful about it because he was so early in his career. But once you know them, it becomes more difficult. So I could certainly make the record.

I said to Dan, doing this movie, “Could I get one more chance to remix it?” And he’s like, “It sounds perfect to me.” I had to let that be. It does, it sounds great. There’s always something you want to tweak, but that’s the beauty of stopping, of moving on, is that if you can let it go, then you can also have a real time stamp for where you were at that as opposed to making everything perfect so it all sounds the same, no matter where you’re at.

You were the last artist to work with Phil Ramone. I just want to know what that was like and what you learned from him?

You want to talk about someone who haunts me in the best way? Phil Ramone worked with Ray Charles. Phil Ramone recorded Marilyn Monroe singing happy birthday to JFK. Phil Ramone did Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney’s Ram record. He did Blood on the Tracks with Bob Dylan. He did Paul Simon. I grew up on Long Island. He was such an icon, and he stayed with me for three weeks to do the record. I didn’t know it was going to be the last thing he did. He sings on the last song. I did like a little tribute to him by saying it was a tribute to Billy Joel. I mean, I respected him, but on Long Island Billy Joel was a God.

Phil had 15 Grammy awards, and the hope was that maybe he gets 16. Then after we did the record, he died and then no one was interested in my record until he died. Then everybody wanted to interview me and I declined all of it. I didn’t want to make that sensation, it was a really personal thing. But he was such a wonderful man, and so incredibly otherworldly. He could be falling asleep, he would make his record wait, and he could be falling asleep and look like he’s out, and you would hit a wrong note. He’d go, “It’s a B flat,” under his breath, like he was still listening the whole time. The last five years have worked out incredibly well. I feel like I’m on a really good path, and things just keep getting bigger and better. I feel like Phil really started on that for me.

The post Skyman: Don Miggs Discusses Universal Sonics appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[moisfrenchadventure]

In the same vein as my earlier post in the week, nature and the sky has had a huge influence on my decorating styles over the past months. You cannot be influenced by such a beautiful place.

My spare bedroom (which some of you may remember I started some time ago) is now nearly complete – apart from the floor and the shabby chic’ing of the grandfather clock that seems to have made it’s way in there!!

To just update people this was the room with the mad clowns on the wall (tasteful) which had suffered terrible damp last winter. It needed to house our daybed,  a double bed for when people came to stay, and act as my office. A reminder of what it looked like when it was clearly inspired by the film IT!!! (The French do like a clown or two!)

As you can see it had become a dumping ground, the lights were hanging out of the wall and it was in desperate need of some ‘Moisy’ style renovation.

Now some of you may have noticed that grey tends to be my favourite colour!! And you would be right! But blue is also a favourite of mine, and I tend to lean towards a little bit of pink; however with this renovation life showed me the way. I had lots of pretty things that I wanted to incorporate into this room, and it needed to be multi-functional as it is also my inspirational writing room; so I started by deciding where the double bed, and the day bed would go,  that took nearly day in itself as we moved furniture around again and again like a weird waltz that you do with furniture instead of another person!

Once I had decided where the double bed would go I painted the wall behind the headboard grey – nothing new there then!! But then a strange thing happened……

I painted the other walls with  what was meant to be a colour paint from the grey spectrum, but it was blue!! So I went with it, because it really was a beautiful sky blue and after painting the walls I stood at the doorway to the room and   I saw this…

It  looked as if the bedroom just went on out into the garden and I realised why I had randomly bought a tin of green chalk paint (I have never used green in my decorating before!) It was a revelation, go with what nature does best!! So I did. I painted my tatty old bureau pink and shabby chic’ed it up…. (handles to be added soon!!)

Painted by 1940’s metal desk mint green, with a blue top……..

I call this inspiration corner because it has all the things that inspire me around me, like the beautiful butterfly card from my mother in law, settled on the corner of the mirror that I hand painted…..

And many moons ago I posted about the chest of drawers that I had painted cream, and then I painted them pink,,,,,,

Well now they are green and back upstairs!!!!

Rich does say that you have to be careful in our house because if you stand still long enough then you will get painted!!

There are no longer lights just ‘hanging’ out of the wall because my  clever hubby fitted some beautiful 1940’s French lights that I purchased from a vide grenier, and look how stunning they are when lit (for those interested I am selling similar in my Etsy shop petiteFrenchfancies, go take a look) with the flower shape cascaded up the wall, so eclectic, so original.

The daybed in it’s place by the window is perfect, you can sit on it, as I did last night. and just see the views down the valley. It is my oldest cats sleeping place during the day as I write. (The Teddy Bear is vintage in itself, my mum bought it for my son when he was born and he took it everywhere for the first four years of his life, he used to call it Mummy Ted, and she is twenty seven years old.)

On the wall above the bed I have re-used the old kitchen shelf that I shabby chic’ed two years ago.  The bliss letters I have had for over fifteen years, so I painted them pink and they now sit on the shelf, because our surroundings are bliss.

I have also taken an old drawer and with the help of hubby turned it into a fantastic, eclectic shelf, with the a pretty crystal handle still attached.  I love it so much, with the decoupage at the back that I am going to do some more and sell these also on my Etsy shop, each one will be unique and a pretty addition to any room in the house.

Our home is finally turning into our home as we use more and more of the pretty things that we have accumulated over the years, not least the moon on the shelf, or the Noddy plate, a christening gift for my son, I am just keeping it safe for him.

There is the rusty sky hook on the bureau, with recent additions of the old French photo, that I could not bear to sell, or the India Star petrol lamp on sale in my Etsy shop. You may also notice the set of pretty pictures that my sister cross stitched for me as part of my fiftieth birthday present. Their colours fit perfectly in this room

The curtains have been lost in a bag for many a time, when in fact they were crying to come out and be seen, with their bright red roses, and green leaves they were destined for this room when I bought them all those years ago……

Still never ceases to amaze me how life comes together when you need it to!

I just love this room, with all of the little things that we have acquired over the years, from my hand painted pen jar, on my desk, to my shaker angels that Rich bought me many years ago…

To my stars and hearts bought for me by friends over the years, and a new addition a tiny metal French children’s money box, in the shape of a van. Sadly it does not have the key and the roof is not attached just comes off  or I would have sold it in my shop; it is so quirky, but now I get to keep it and it goes perfectly in this room.

So many little interesting things, with the addition of the blue sparkling lights that I spent over an hour fiddling with as I twisted them around the bed headboard.

Just got to do the floor now!!!

I love putting things together, and my house is a house of vignettes; when people come to visit they always love it and say that there is so much to see, but that it all goes towards making it feel homely. Last weekend as I was tidying and rearranging things Rich looked at me with tears in his eyes and said I just love it how you make our houses home.  But that has not stopped him banning me from keeping anything else, although I am sure that I will get around him!) so I have turned my attention to finding pretty things for others homes. I have been told that I have an eye for things so have a look at the new things coming to my shop soon. Some are currently living in my home, but it is now a one in one out policy!!!

I hope you enjoyed the show, and please comment and rate the posts I love the feedback.

  Moisy

                  The renovation continues:My eclectic, bedroom inspired by nature and all things vintage In the same vein as my earlier post in the week, nature and the sky has had a huge influence on my decorating styles over the past months.