16 Facts About Cleanliness’s Everyone Thinks are True

September is World Candle Month. Established in 2013, World Candle Month joins candle devotees around the planet. I think this year it is helping to remember September 11, as today is Patriot Day in the USA.

Well, let’s get out from under that debris.

In other parts of America, Nashville Tennessee author Jeff Goins retired at the end of the summer this year, having for ten years presented courses online, to get writers blogging. Books by Jeff Goins include his 2015 bestseller, The Art of Work. That book explains many expressions of work, by which to inspire readers.

While I didn’t officially join up with his courses, it is almost ten years now since I partook in the some of the free advice he proffered, like how to brainstorm ideas for your blog. Some of Goins’ blogging strategies I, in fact, applied. I have never made blogging anything other than a hobby, but when I read on Facebook Jeff’s retirement announcement, I was again interested to read what he had to say.

The agreeableness Mr. Goins has fits a way of composing books that is both unique and open. His books include The In-Between and his first book, in 2014, You are a Writer. The title of his first book reminds me of adventure books where the reader assumes the identity of someone else (here it would be… a writer).

Goins was a musician who worked in marketing, before he realized that he wanted to be a writer.

Photo by Matt Bango on StockSnap

Jeff Goins’ retirement helps make this post a fresh start for me. https://www.amazon.com/Jeff-Goins/e/B005BH1OB6%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

Since 2012, the work I have done has been assisting with the upkeep on the grounds of a cemetery.  For years, my father, whose business it is to operate this cemetery, would bring around breakfast, a Cinnabon and coffee.  https://www.facebook.com/LouthUnited/

Photo by Richard Revel on StockSnap

Why Cleanliness’s are More Tempting than a Cinnabon

With autumn here I have opted to reflect on different kinds of cleanliness.  Seeing the world for its contrasts is a twisted conviction.  There are shades of dark in pretty much every circumstance.

Why would I think about cleanliness in the autumn time this year?  While usually it is spring when people turn their attention to cleaning, like the contrast of light and dark, autumn needs some cleaning off, too.

Likewise, many people choose cleanliness in some areas and not others.  Some people have a knack for cleanliness in most areas; some people have cleanliness in only a few (or even none).  I found, on insider.com, an article by a Zoë Ettinger, whom I suspect is very clean.

16 cleaning myths that are only making your home dirtier–Zoë Ettinger Mar 7, 2021
https://www.insider.com/cleaning-myths-making-your-home-dirtier

In case she were to at any point know about me, I am simply attempting to communicate her recommendations.

1

“Fade cleans, without question, everything.” Don’t let the dirt settle. That resembles life settled to pieces, just space-separated. If you sit in the dust, you become it.

2

“Quill dusters eliminate dust.” Let the quill remain, but don’t make it your only tool. My, you could add a candle.

3

“Paper gives the glass without a streak sparkle.” You can’t wipe an unstreaked sparkle on glass. Therefore, why not let the sparkle streak?

4

“Vinegar is a generally useful cleaner.” Vinegar is best for fish and chips, and not for cleaning the table.

5

“Hairspray can be utilized to eliminate ink stains.” Hairspray can make or break a good time! Ink will set unless you take measures to remove it.

6

A candle will melt if you leave it lit. Let the ink stain, perhaps, become found art.

Photo by Burst on StockSnap

7

“You should wash everything on cold.” To remove a stain, start with cold water.

Boiling water can set stains, like milk, egg, or blood. It cooks the protein. Boiling water works best on slick stains, like mayonnaise.

8

“Deodorizer helps clean the air,” an aroma. Lighting a candle would achieve the same end.

9

“String mops are the best approach.” If it is not too evident to say here, a string mop requires a bucket.

10

“You should finish wood regularly.” Finishes shield wooden surfaces and show up more.

Wood finish is not the same as painting, for painting subtly conceals a wooden surface while a finish completes it. Philosophical point.

11

“Vacuum, then, at that point, dust.” The vacuum will contaminate considerably more than you.

12

“You can wash your sheets like clockwork.” A more natural routine can deliver better results.

13

“Your dishwasher cleans itself.” Plain and simple, it doesn’t.

14

“Your clothes washer cleans itself.” It doesn’t.

15

“All green cleaning items are protected to utilize.” You need green cleaning as much as on all the other things you ensure.

From the standpoint of being a professional, in being green for your buyers and representatives, and also when creating your business’ impression, green cleaning is held to decrease contaminations. It doesn’t always cause the same medical issues brought about by non-green cleaning.

16

“Using more laundry detergent is always better.” An excess of cleanser will leave buildup.

You’re welcome to like the post, to follow, or to comment.

I am ending with the band Deerhunter’s video for their 2018 LP Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? That’s Bradford Cox singing, with very few close-ups in the presentation. Reputable indie rock. Enjoy World Candle Month.

16 Reasons the Attention Economy is the Bee’s Knees

“Most of us really aren’t horribly unique. There are 6 billion of us.

“Put ’em all in one room and very few would stand out as individuals. So maybe we ought to think of worth in terms of our ability to get along as a part of nature, rather than being the lords over nature.”

–Herbert Simon, 1916–2001, market analyst

Simon was an American financial expert who won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1978 for his commitments to financial matters. Simon set the “bottleneck,” which limits both what we can see, and what we can do. Current financial matters are generally founded on Simon’s thoughts.

Simon was granted the prize in financial matters for his examination into the interaction inside monetary associations. Fast forward to 2021, and the Internet is sometimes summed up as a whole with the phrase attention economy, and the expression arguably was begotten by therapist, market analyst, and Nobel Laureate, Herbert Simon. In a compelling book, Administrative Behavior (1947), Simon tried to supplant tradition, demonstrating—in an idea—a methodology that perceived different components.

Photo by Olu Eletu on StockSnap

As I understand the industry of Big Tech, in 2021, web designers often work on websites that advertise banners for revenue.

A phone call this week, the two of us in a small Canadian town, surprised me with the news that a downtown building, closed since 2018, had burned to street-level. An active Internet user, who has a blog that shows ads to readers, recounted what happened in his blog.

https://niagaraatlarge.com/2021/07/13/niagara-regional-police-investigating-fire-that-destroyed-historic-building-in-st-catharines/

I am sorry that the building burned down, but that I was quickly clued up by social media, I am happy to indulge in feeling is the bee’s knees.

If you don’t know a lot about data privacy, and you wonder how your web searches seem to translate into similar ads on websites you use, it is because you have been observed searching, and advertisers wish to help you spend your money. There are steps you can take to reclaim data privacy, but you should be aware of where and what you do on the Internet, so that you can own your progress, if you liken browsing the Internet to, say, an adventure game.

I’ve thought about data privacy before. Facebook has had a scandalous history of data privacy betrayals, as when they employed Cambridge Analytica to help them unfairly sway the result of the 2016 run for the White House. The effort to cheat didn’t succeed, but the vote was a very narrow divide.

The deceit delivered by Cambridge Analytica led a giant blow to Facebook’s reputation, and was very hard on Facebook users. Cambridge Analytica had been trying to manipulate voters into thinking as the manipulative computer firm was paid to lead people to think.

Photo by Vadim Sherbakov on StockSnap

Many computer users, you probably know, use VPN technology to disguise their location, by relaying their decisions on the Internet through a route that presents a fake location that an uninformed spy might take as your actual physical location (and not the location that you have).

Another retrofitting solution is to use a software scan, like Superantispyware, to detect tracking cookies, which show you ads that have targetted your behaviour on the Internet. Superantispyware deletes those cookies and shakes that control the advertisers have on you.

⦁ Getting personal

Something as simple as resolving to speak honestly can have profound and upbeat results. Herbert Simon was a therapist–I spoke with more than one caseworker when I was living out my twenties, and what guidance they provided, I still remember things they said to me, to this day, years later.

Inspired by those, like Rick and Tony and Pam, I am for this post listing what might help “counsel” individuals who are perhaps new to the attention economy, so they are not shorted by their own expectations.

⦁ Observations about the world (propelled by Herbert Simon)

1. Nature is flourishing
2. We have enhancements in medication
3. Significant development is happening all the time
4. Expanded digitalization is happening just as fast
5. Distant, working, is a clear reality
6. Enhancements in instruction abound
7. Another gander, at the powerless and oppressed individuals from our general public, needn’t give us pause
8. Promising circumstances favour us
9. Co-operation and social support enable us
10. Co-activity and social help assist us
11. Picking who is imperative to us is a potential reality
12. Working on psychological wellness through helping other people is good for your wellbeing
13. Collaborations between regular citizens (not government nor police) is becoming a mainstay
14. Feeling of appreciation might be a new unique norm
15. Discovering delight has never been more possible
16. Having an effect is, straight up, a reality

The world is a strange and wonderful place. When you consider, for example, co-activity, you might reflect that every person is truly an individual, and many people have talents that really help highlight other people’s strengths. While there are of course powerless and oppressed individuals, if you can get a smartphone and learn how to effectively use it, you are as powerful an individual as ever walked the Earth, in some regards.

Even with only a few social accounts, your potential is rather excellent. A philosophy of industry isn’t always discussed with words you could charactertize as “holistic,” but someone with an adequate command of many many realities about life, and how to do right, for both themselves and others, can be completely excellent.

Photo by Amar Saleem on StockSnap

Check out Canadian musician and recording artist Rick White’s new album Where it’s fine

⦁ Contrarily bound by confusion (to contrast)

My pinned tweet describes how AI has become an excellent tool, in many applications, for providing useful content recommendations. AI can look at what you’ve done before, on a specific service, and can guide you to more good content, to be enjoyed, and that you want to share.

My aim in circling data is to be helpful, to arrive at information relevant to what you might be searching for now, and I am additionally marginally important for my dad’s business, the Maple Lawn burial ground he focuses on all year, with some assistance from family and friends.

https://www.maplelawncemetery.org/24701.html

Good hobbies should be cultivated. I feel the attention economy is awesome. In particular, video, both big-budget presentations and little user videos, is widely available. A little music can help, too.

When AI is employed for reasons that include helping to provide good content recommendations, as, for example, when you are on YouTube, quality YouTube videos, though controlled with measures that can feel extreme, are recommended to viewers, by an AI algorithm.

YouTube launched in February 2005.

…”In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

–‘Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World’ in Martin Greenberger (ed.) Computers, Communications, and the Public Interest (1971), 315 pages, index, sources

In addition

Photo by Lenharth Systems on StockSnap

TiVo expands IP licence with Google https://advanced-television.com/2021/07/08/tivo-expands-ip-licence-with-google/

I’m not a guy asking you to spend on cryptocurrency 🙂 That can lose you enormous cash.

You’re welcome to like my post, and to follow, and comment.

I hope you don’t think I’m playing games. (It’s against policy.)

https://www.facebook.com/findingenvirons
https://twitter.com/findingenvirons
https://www.facebook.com/LouthUnited/

MCMLXXVI Rock and Roll Heart

It feels like spring is here, this day in May. It’s been a cultural revolution.

Microsoft teases a ‘next generation of Windows’ announcement ‘very soon’

https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/25/22453222/microsoft-windows-next-generation-announcement-sun-valley-build-2021-keynote

One evening, the other day, I’d got to feeling, oddly, like how I did when I was an unfulfilled young person, feeling regret at letting time go, without, you could say, stopping to smell the roses.

Two weeks ago, the YouTube channel for IGN posted the Indiana Jones trailer commemorating forty years since Raiders of the Lost Ark made its premiere in 1981.

#IndianaJones

Darth Vader and the Death Star

It was kind of weird to think about a related film, The Rise of Skywalker, being in theatres an entire year in the past. Things have certainly changed.

Song Lyric Sunday is is a blog hop organized by Jim Adams. For Sunday, December 20, Jim’s prompts include: “circle.”

https://jimadamsauthordotcom.wordpress.com/2020/12/19/the-shape-im-in-2/

A blog hop is a social experience, a little fun if you blog.

About music, to be a famous musician is a powerful fantasy. I regard exciting music or any sort of expert musicianship.

The prompt circle reminded me of the late, great Lou Reed’s song Vicious Circle, on the album Rock and Roll Heart. In 1976, Reed’s first album with Arista Records followed the records he did for RCA after The Velvet Underground ended, and was kind of immediately enjoyable for a casual listener, though Reed seems to flirt again on Rock and Roll Heart with self-destruction, not unlike what a depressed but notable musician can be like. Rock and Roll Heart is the seventh solo studio album by Lou Reed, released in 1976. Heart is the seventh collection by Lou Reed. It was his first for Arista Records after record magnate Clive Davis safeguarded him. There’s a TV interview with Reed in Australia recorded around 1975, just before he made Rock and Roll Heart, where Reed seems unhappy.

Reed tries a joke about the tyrant Adolf Hitler, calling him a great organizer. The interviewer admonishes him. I think Reed was obliquely referring to Andy Warhol, who once managed him as a musician.

Reed is a championed rock guitarist and singer who is seldom rivalled, given the influence of his personality. He is gone, but when I was in college, one long-haired, heavyset history teacher taught us a little about him, calling Reed “the godfather of punk.” In the library, I found a little book about subculture, music subculture in the nineteen seventies, and I put energy into understanding it.

Lou Reed’s New York

Because of the acclaim of The Velvet Underground, that was after they ceased making music together, as a group, songs of theirs began to be popular.

When in the year 1999 I went into the HMV store in New York City, the international chain of CD shops where you went if you wanted music, in the days when you bought music on physical media, the Velvets were well-advertised, as in giant letters in the store announcing, “The Velvet Underground.” You knew it was their town.

Years before I was born, Lou Reed had a Top 20 hit, contributing to the new popularity of both Reed, and, consequently, the Velvets. The most popular song by Reed is a song I first heard on FM radio, cruising the streets of my town, probably for no particular reason, or for no good reason.

Lou Reed a Life by Anthony DeCurtis

I didn’t know who that singer was, on the radio, until I heard the song again, as though it were still 1972, in some kind of Doctor Who-type parallel universe. I still didn’t know whom it was singing like that, but eventually, a friend of a friend listened to me describe the song, and he knew who it was, given a moment (between thought and reflection).

I was in a circle, then, being a kid in high school, dealing with pressures that are specific to what I think is most kids’ experience. It wasn’t vicious, by the way, just sayin’.

The song Vicious Circle could be about having social pressures, like specific patterns ingrained in you to run up against a wall. The song is less up-tempo than most of the songs on Rock and Roll Heart. I am not sure the better part of Reed’s listeners would embrace music like his, if they didn’t feel, at least from time to time, that the intrigue about the music was coming from a place touched by despair.

There are stories about Lou Reed, when he was the frontman of the Velvets, like that he played Woodstock in ’69, but nobody could hear the sound. I don’t think the Velvets did play Woodstock. They broke up amid tension.

The third and fourth of the Velvets’ records were more straightforward as rock albums than the first and second albums. I believe in 1968 they performed in Hamilton, Ontario, but if so, that was likely the Velvet Underground’s only show in Canada.

Lou Reed’s hit in 1972 includes the B-side Vicious (not Vicious Circle). Four years after that, after Reed was back to being a struggling songwriter, Reed with Vicious Circle was possibly pointing to his choice of making a livelihood as a rock singer, because Vicious Circle points to the song Vicious, and the 45 format itself is circular in shape, music being on vinyl discs, records. There is a hint of weariness in Vicious Circle.

There is a Bowie song, too, with the word circle in its title, and I know there’s a reference to him in the title of Vicious Circle in all likelihood.

Reed had a great sense of humour, I read in college, the Velvets’ drummer Moe Tucker remarking on that about Lou Reed.

Reed expounded on experience in his music, including thoughts about sex and culture. Reed did much of his very best music with the Velvets, who were John Cale, Sterling Morrison, Moe Tucker, and Doug Yule.

Everything Lou Reed did music-wise is very acceptable, I think. The Velvet Underground is a legendary band. Many an amateur rocker knows whom the Velvet Underground are, and get songs like What Goes On, and Sweet Jane, west coast surf type stuff.

I used to wonder what Reed intended for the fate of his music.

I think with Rock and Roll Heart Reed was trying his hand at again being a straightforward rock musician. I would venture to guess that he was a pretty hot musician, trying to move into AM Radio with the record Coney Island Baby, but had simultaneously conveyed the ability to fail with his 1975 noise opus Metal Machine Music.

Metal Machine Music sort of seems easier to take as an experimental ambient noise album, but I take it fans of the artist would have wanted more rock songs, not something altogether weird like Metal Machine Music. Wikipedia says, “In 1979 Reed said ‘Saying ‘I’m a Coney Island baby’ at the end of that song is like saying I haven’t backed off an inch. And don’t you forget it.'”

Photo by Emanuele Bresciani from StockSnap

Reed lived a long life, until October 27, 2013, passing away at the age of 71. When I was In college, I didn’t believe Reed’s image as a street-weary rock musician, compared to who he was. I don’t have any acquaintance with it all, however.

Thanks to Jim Adams for the December 20 word prompt circle.

https://www.facebook.com/findingenvirons

https://about.me/patrickcoholan

Vicious Circle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfceMTlEq7s

You’re caught in a vicious circle
Surrounded by your so called friends
You’re caught in a vicious circle
And it looks like it will never end
‘Cause some people think that they like problems
And some people think that they don’t
And for everybody who says yes
There’s somebody who’s staring, saying don’t

You’re caught in a vicious circle
Surrounded by your so called friends
You’re caught in a vicious circle
And it looks like it will never end
‘Cause some people think that it’s nerves
And some people think that it’s not
And some people think that it’s things that you do
And others think that you were cold, when you were hot
They think that that is what it was about

You’re caught in a vicious circle …

Surrounded by all of your friends

FOWC–Collaborate

I follow a blog called Fandango, which keeps the custom of single-word prompts bursting at the seams, with the single word prompts WordPress once presented, having reached a conclusion around the time I began composing these.  Tonight I looked in thinking I might benefit from such a suggestion, and I saw that Fandango’s word tonight is the word “collaborate.”

    The word means work jointly, or, alternatively, cooperate traitorously.

    I was taught both connotations to cooperate when I was in college.  In the sense of collaboration with a distinguished painter, I learned that in Film 101, and in the sense of collaboration with the colonizers, I studied that in business law.

    Film 101 identified for me a few ideas which had interested me since I was a child, like why did names of people run up the screen at the end of a movie.

    That film professor was a young, tall, handsome man, who explained that those end credits identified that the film was the collaboration of those people’s work.  He told us in the school auditorium that the film wouldn’t have been finished without the help of all of those people.  I’d once inaccurately assumed that the most renowned people with their names on a film were the ones who chiefly ran the show.

    Until college, I don’t think I’d considered that all of those people were important, not just the ones with star power.  It was an advantageous exercise.

Photographer:
One Idea LLC

    It is too bad that schools everywhere have closed their doors at present.  Although I personally was only an average student, I think of the problems in the future created simply by making school unavailable at the present time.  I have heard of school debunked, of course–Gary Vee, for one, I’ve heard on video overlooking school in favour of an entrepreneur getting started making a living.  I’ve heard him say on camera, as he says so many things, that if a young person’s parents do pay for that individual to go to post-secondary, that person had certainly better make the most of it if it is at the expense of the parents.

    In fact, I wouldn’t mind hearing what Gary is saying about the present catastrophe.  I have seen GaryVee video titles on YouTube recommending that business enterprise on the Internet is as yet a practical road for what’s to come.  Good luck to the young people of today, then–they need it.

    My college business law class took some of the wind out of my sails at the time.  There were a lot of definitions run past us that seemed important yet awfully complicated for beginning young people.

    In a day in the classroom, the gentleman who taught us gave us a TV recommendation, of all things.  “Watch Law & Order,” he said to us.  For a long time I did, not having had such a title dropped on me in a setting like that previous to the day he did.

Photographer:
Leeroy

    He was joking about the difficulty he was imposing on us.  Thanks for that, I think now.  Although for a while I was a fan of the show, you know you don’t get the time back.

    There was just so much of it–when did I ever find time to work?

    The synonyms for collaborating, both join forces and fraternize, were thus equally handled by the well-meaning but slightly eccentric business law teacher.  Some business education is important.

    I appreciate Fandango’s prompt tonight.  Good luck with staying safe.

You’re welcome to follow or to comment.  Remember to respect the space of everybody in it.  A lot is counting on it!

https://fivedotoh.com/2020/03/20/fowc-with-fandango-collaborate/ #FOWC

How Not Knowing Where to See the 2021 Ball Drop Makes You a Rookie

Sometimes, to write a blog post, I turn to a random generator to help develop an idea. I am steadfast of the belief that “everything is a remix” and go from there.

    Several years ago, when my godmother was visiting, she observed that “it’s all been done.”

    Her mom, my grandma, a long time back, each year, on New Year’s Eve, would keep an eye on us while my folks were celebrating the New Year.  As I am the oldest, I enjoyed the privilege of staying up with my grandmother and watching the ball drop at Times Square.

    We would have a cup of tea together.  It’s been over twenty years since she passed on.

    I was reading a blog Monday night, by an NYC blogger, Beauty Beyond Bones, who reflects on everything Jesus does for her.

    The Beauty Beyond Bones blog goes live three times a week, I believe, both Monday and Thursday evenings, which are her regular event, and Wednesdays, her recipe-sharing.  Good eating is one serving of Beauty Beyond Bones’ expertise.  I doubt she would have it any other way.

    Monday, the Beauty Beyond Bones blog pointed out that while, characteristically, astrology and the Law of Attraction tend to pull in people who are searching for answers, that may not be The Way, to put a Taoist label on that kind of struggle.

    Beauty Beyond Bones put up a link Monday to an awesome webcast where she typifies her biography.  You may see her blog for yourself:

https://beautybeyondbones.com/

Photographer:
Burst

    It did occur to me that, if anybody noticed how I was handling myself, there was a good chance that I would not know that person much longer.  I presume, regardless of how much development I appreciate, I will consistently have that sense to want to be a crypt keeper.

    When I was a boy and had a different sense of the theatrical, I liked to be the Dungeon Master.  There is no shortage of folk interested in games like D & D.  The game’s monsters, the undead, and Medusa.

    Whether I can accommodate various aspects of my mental self-portrait with what is most critical, presently, is something I think about. I am trying to put this in more simple terms than is easy, in pursuit of something intangible.  It’s not an idea that comes easy.

    If you blog and you’re on WordPress, that’s wonderful!

    Get your spot for the ball drop.

Photographer:
Tommy Jepsen

You’re free to like, follow, or potentially remark.  See you soon!

Why You Shouldn’t Watch Halloween Horror in Bed (Notwithstanding @DarkCorners3)

Today is the day that Canadians go to the ballot box. The results will become clear this evening, but the CBC cable news channel is having a great day as the sun stretches over the land.

I am not as interested in that as I am in enjoying these days before Halloween.

About last week, The Stupendous Wave said that Lucasfilm would air a trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker during Monday Night Football, but there was no such trailer. It was a rumor.

Geeks + Gamers discussed what happened with the spurious announcement, pointing out that Esquire picked up the story. Geeks + Gamers in truth remain skeptics of the possibility that the Skywalker Saga will get a satisfying resolution. They were none too happy with Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

CNET reported yesterday that the final trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer is airing tonight on ESPN. There have been three official trailers.

The first shows Kylo Ren descending upon Rey, from the sky. It is certainly a bit of fun.

More recently, we got the eerie D23 trailer to enjoy. Many of the moments in that one are edited together from earlier Star Wars movies.

Photographer: Alex Wong

As this month is October, certain film fans need to enjoy a horror film every night of the month, not an uncommon practice. Horror film devotees often have a custom of announcing a choice of horror film for each night of October.

It impresses me that these fans don`t begin dreaming of awful matters. I think I would begin to have nightmares, visually ingesting that much horror. All the same, I have been able to glean insights into what major horror film fans consider worthy.

Photographer: Alexandr Baranets

There is a weekly horror film tweet by @DarkCorners3 who is known for the web-series Dark Corners Reviews. The gentleman has made many videos highlighting horror films. His channel is a library of both obscurities and classics.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7789792.Robin_Bailes

Earlier this month I made a reply to one of those weekly review tweets, that was not only brilliantly retweeted by @DarkCorners3 himself, but also by Hammer Horror Films (@FilmsHammer). So I looked again at Dark Corners Reviews.

I listened to his discussions of Peter Cushing, in the role of Dr. Frankenstein, in the 1960s and 70s, and F. W. Murnau, who directed the vampire film Nosferatu, in the 1920s. @DarkCorners3 has clear intelligence for such matters, elaborating on many details of those films that I wasn’t aware of.

I tried to again think of something to match the tone of the reviews of @DarkCorners3. The movie Thor occurred to me, the dark fantasy. Actress Natalie Portman is in the cast as scientist Jane Foster, as is actor Chris Hemsworth as Thor the Avenger.

“So is this how you normally look?“ Jane asks.

“More or less,“ counters Thor.

“It’s a good look!“ exclaims Jane.

Naturally, there was a sequel to Thor two years later, Thor: The Dark World.

Thor is a film that may spare you nightmares, so it could be perfect viewing this month, getting comfy under the sheets, for not feeling like you are dodging the custom of watching something too, too scary.

Thor isn’t a Hammer film, of course, but don`t be deterred, if you are fond of stories of defenders of Earth. Actress Natalie Portman fascinates. The film is also popular enough that there is a good chance you`ve seen it, but by going back to again enjoy the 2011 Marvel adaptation, you could do worse.

You`re welcome to like this, to follow, and/or to comment.

Why A Winter’s Night Will Change Your Life

The theatrical release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is two months away and today is Force Friday, a retail shopping day for Star Wars fans.

Photographer: Matt Moloney

The Rise of Skywalker is one of the biggest film releases of 2019, as you probably know. Movie director J. J. Abrams has returned, who in 2015 helmed Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The Force Awakens resumes after the original trilogy in 1977, 1980, and 1983, and the Star Wars prequel trilogy, in 1999, 2002, and 2005.

While this is familiar film history, what’s striking is that the Disney company, which now owns the brand, is launching Disney+ in November, when Star Wars will again be newly available. Disney+ is an offering of classic animated features, as well as reboots and the Avengers franchise. Both Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Wars: The Last Jedi were tremendous hits, but the box office failure of the expensive one-off Solo: A Star Wars Story diminished the profitability of the franchise for Disney, and the success of Disney+ would surely benefit from the continued success of Star Wars.

Disney+ will have much better chances of lasting if Star Wars is reinvigorated by another blockbuster film. There isn’t much question that Star Wars: The Last Jedi divided the fan base. Last Jedi director Rian Johnson dispelled some of the magic of Star Wars by reinventing Mark Hamill’s character of Luke as an old cynical hermit, rather than staying true to the bold Jedi warrior hero who defeats the Empire in Return of the Jedi.

Star Wars fans turned out for Mark Hamill’s reprise of Luke Skywalker after what happened in the original Star Wars trilogy, and instead, Luke in The Last Jedi nearly couldn’t be roused to continue the fight against the Dark Side of the Force.

YouTube’s Looper has tapped into a mega-spoiler: by their account, actor Harrison Ford has returned as Han Solo for a scene in The Rise of Skywalker. It’s understood that Ford had been reluctant to return to Star Wars without a movie script handling his character adequately, as the actor was absent from the cast of The Last Jedi.

There have been announcements about Star Wars that fans ate up. Prequels actor Ewan McGregor will be in the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi, not for The Rise of Skywalker, but a Disney+ series picking up after the events of the prequels.

Disney has also announced that Kevin Feige will do a Star Wars film. Feige’s involvement is good news for people who believe in Star Wars, as the Avengers films largely speak for themselves in terms of popularity and quality. With the promise of a bang-on Star Wars film after the Skywalker Saga, there is more reason to believe that Star Wars will again succeed, and if it does, a future with Disney+ is all the more likely.

The other spoiler from Looper is that, contrary to expectations, at least expectations I had, the Force will redeem the character of Kylo Ren when he gives up his allegiance to the Dark Side. Based on the love-hate intensity of their relationship, I held the impression that in The Rise of Skywalker Rey will defeat Kylo Ren and destroy him. The trailer for The Rise of Skywalker seems clear that the final battle will be highly personal.

If instead Kylo Ren changes his allegiance, it will make for a different future in Star Wars. Although audiences believe that the Light Side of the Force triumphs in Return of the Jedi, this time, in 2019, it is possible to think, the Light Side will, at last, have victory.

Photographer: Leeroy

If you have the opportunity to enjoy The Rise of Skywalker, I hope you have one of the best nights you have ever had in the company of Star Wars’ villains and heroes. It should be a wonderful occasion. I appreciate you very much thinking about it with me. Maybe I’ll see you again come wintertime as momentum for The Rise of Skywalker continues to build.

Passionate Ice; A Boy Desiring What Others Did Not So Much

Bruce Wayne decided as a boy that he would honour the memory of his mother and father by inventing himself as Batman and challenging many criminals in Gotham City.

I watched Justice League when it went to Netflix this month and I enjoyed it. The camaraderie between the members of the Justice League comes off as solid and the plot of the film is enjoyable. It is curious to see Superman return to life.

Some of the cool moments from my life were opportunities to see films, in movie theaters.  In 1989, cinema fans filled movie houses to see the DC superhero Batman on the silver screen.

Photographer: Bruce Mars

I had a good time.  Actor Michael Keaton’s role as Bruce Wayne, with its heroism, detachment from wealth, and indifference to romance makes the character of Batman a reinvention.  I suppose Keaton was a surprise star turn, and the subplot of Gotham City TV news anchors unable to appear beautiful on television, owing to poison in beauty products deliverered by The Joker, is clever.

Jack Napier’s transition to The Joker is memorable.  In other scenes from Batman, Billy Dee Williams of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and subsequently in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, appears as Harvey Dent.

The climactic confrontation of the film, at the Gotham City parade beneath a cathedral with the height of a skyscraper, is wonderful.

Photographer: Yi Ling Tan

When the creepy little video store in the shopping plaza near my home began renting to customers Batman, the store displayed tapes of the film like a phenomenon.  Shelf after shelf were full of the Batman video.  The format was VHS, the cassette for running a film with a VHS player.

I’d been to see it, but I wanted that VHS.  Christmas came, and family placed hand-wrapped videotape-shaped objects under the holiday tree.

They were VHS tapes, but what titles were they?  Us kids wouldn’t know until Christmas morning.  At the appointed time, I opened mine, and to my delight, the tape inside was Batman.

As the family opened our presents, a second tape of Batman under the Christmas tree emerged.  My mother’s brother and his wife had arranged for the gift of the movie Batman as well.  Two VHS tapes of the same film–a double.

What did my dear mother decide, you might ask?  This was a bummer.  She would quietly return a copy of the film to its retail store.

As a twelve-year-old, the price of a brand-new edition of a blockbuster film must be extravagant, I reasoned.  The VHS copy of Batman we had would belong to us all.

I suppose that taught me a lesson, like not to count your chickens before they hatch.  It was as if my uncle and aunt had felt I deserved my own copy of Batman, and Santa Claus did not.  The VHS tape of Batman was a gift, what I wanted and what I was losing.

In 1989, fate unfolded for Batman mobster Jack Napier.  The criminal mastermind falls into a vat of burning acid.  He loses the pigment of his skin and becomes molded with a permanent smile on his face.

I hadn’t earned my own copy of Batman, and I suppose the real lesson was that I should share.  It is a state of becoming tantalized by the promise of something gold and being humbled by the requirement to give it up.  Maybe we didn’t know that doubles of the Batman film were under the tree, but no contingency plan was in place.

I was cheesed.

Batman fans typically embrace the trilogy of Batman movies years later directed by Christopher Nolan, but I didn’t get interested in them.

You’re welcome to like, comment, or follow if my recollection of dealing with a hot trendy thing like the above resonates with you.