Chicago Film Festival Announcement, 20 of My Favorite Songs, High School Horror, etc.
In which I try and get a little more personal this week. Also shared stuff about tiny, extinct whales and
📽 The Dinner Parting will have its Chicago premiere Saturday night, September 23 at The Den Theatre, as part of Festival Au Cinema. Tickets are for the entire day (for less than $15!), or you can get a weekend pass, both available here. If you are coming, let me know.
🔪 Apparently Hitchcock was a bit of a psycho with how people should watch a certain film of his in theatres.
😱 The Criterion Channel has announced a new “High School Horror” section, which drops on the streaming app September first. Among the movies that will be on the service include Donnie Darko, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Slumber Party Massacre and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. I admittedly don’t subscribe but it’s a great way to lean into the spooky season. My recommendations, aside from the few I intentionally cherry-picked from their list: Carrie, Jennifer’s Body, A Nightmare on Elm Street and my personal favorite, Scream.
😢 Sad to hear about the passing of Bob Barker, and (as others have said) amazed he lived as close as one possibly can to 100 without going over.
📺 I can’t imagine The Office being casted any other way, but quite a few interesting people that I personally admire auditioned for the show, including Bob Odenkirk for Michael, Seth Rogen for Dwight and Adam Scott for Jim. Things worked out for the best, but those are some heavy hitters that didn’t make the cut.
💬 It’s time for the monthly text to confirm our friendship. “By confirming this friendship, you are agreeing to participate in one friendship confirmation text per month on a variety of subjects. Any subject is acceptable as long as it does not attempt conversations longer than two texts.”
📖 An overdue library book has returned to its library in Massachusetts… 119 years later.
📚 Speaking of books, saw that this weekend they started selling Tom Verlaine’s book collection in New York: “In hopefully the same collegial spirit, it is our distinct pleasure to announce the first of many waves of his massive (50,000) book collection being redispersed to the readers and dealers of his city at our monthly garage sale this weekend — and to accommodate the sheer volume, we have doubled our hours, staffing, and space for the occasion.” 50,000? Every time I read something new about Verlaine, I love him even more than I already did.
🐳 Egyptian paleontologists have discovered the fossil of one of the world’s smallest, extinct whales. Estimated to have been around eight feet long and weighing approximately 400 pounds, it is thought to have lived around 400 million years ago.
🧛♀️ So… in the 1600s, Poland would bury corpses in a way that would prevent vampires from getting to them. “In post-medieval Poland, undead evil was far more banal and less elegant; it was believed to possess the souls of those who had the misfortune to die early in epidemics, by suicide, or simply before being baptized. So when it came time to bury these poor souls, care was taken to ensure they would not provide an easy vessel for a malicious, supernatural force.”
⚽️ A video on what might be the weirdest, wildest soccer match of all time. “In the 1994 Caribbean Cup qualifying group stage match between Barbados and Grenada, the 90 minutes of normal time ended with an intentional own goal by Barbados and then with Grenada trying to score either a goal or an own goal and Barbados defending both nets.”
✉️ Something I did not know: the term “blackmail” pre-dates the term “mail.”
✏️ If you’re not interested in how pencils are made, I’m not sure we understand one another.
🎧 Saw this prompt on Twitter: “Make a 20-track comp of your all-time fav tracks, each artist can only feature once. Not the 'best' songs, the ones that bring instant joy the second you hear the first note, the ones that give other people the best insight into what stirs your soul. Share when ready.” I didn’t think too hard on this, but here are the first twenty songs I could think of, available as a Spotify playlist. Basically picked No punk, jazz, hip-hop, oldies or Prince, Sonic Youth or the Dead, but a pretty clear indication of who I am, nonetheless.
👩💻 Speaking of Twitter, I’m still there. I am on Blue.Sky and Threads now, too, though haven’t really used either. I don’t have as strong of opinions about Musk or Twitter that you probably do, and the site doesn’t have a lot of features I’d love, but for now it still has the people. Honestly, this stupid little newsletter is probably where I feel most comfortable sharing things.
✌️Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, have a good week and don’t forget to keep the Hoping Machine running.
Love,
Luke
