duskpeterson | Reading

Elsinore     HD720p 16MB
Intense emotional drama that tells the story of Ian Charleson who is known as the real-life star of Chariots of Fire. Its piano-led ubiquity in pop culture follows the Scottish actor everywhere, making him yearn less for Hollywood and more for his theatre roots. When Daniel Day-Lewis walks off stage as Hamlet at London’s National Theatre, the role of a lifetime appears for Charleson - but so does an AIDS diagnosis. Dream and nightmare collide as Charleson strives to command the stage and survive as long as possible. Olivia Colman, Billie Piper, Johnny Flynn, Luke Thompson, Monica Dolan, Juliet Stevenson and Peter Mullan are also part of the cast. Directed by Simon Stone (The Daughter, The Dig, The Woman in Cabin 10).
Festival reviews indicate that it's all but certain that we'll hear about Scott's performance during awards season.

Naza    HD1080p 54MB
Documentary from Israel. Shot at night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv, the film reveals in detail the systems behind Israel’s calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The title of the doc is derived from Nezek Agavi, the Hebrew military term for collateral damage.
So far Israel has killed more than 70,000 people in Gaza and systematically destroyed whole cities.
This unusual hi-res version of the trailer is the only downloadable file I can offer.

Godzilla Minus Zero    HD720p 15MB
Short trailer for the sequel of the Japanese reboot of the Godzilla story. War reduced Japan to zero, and Godzilla plunged it into minus. Set in 1949, two years have passed since then, and the country has faced agonizing struggles to achieve recovery and finally reclaim its daily life. Just as humanity managed to cling to a hard-won peace, a new threat strikes, crushing hope in an instant. Again written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki who won the Visual Effects Oscar for Godzilla Minus One.
Festival reviews are very favourable.

Heartland    HD1080p 22MB
Thriller drama (probably with some country music) in which former country megastar, Misty Jones (Jessica Chastain), comes out of seclusion to investigate the disappearance of her missing niece, a rising country musician, and must grapple with her own past and Nashville’s seedy underbelly. Her search uncovers a murky side of Nashville where no one is who they seem. Garrett Hedlund, Carter Faith, Ross Lynch, Jennifer Nettles and John Hawkes are also part of the cast.
Will start streaming on Netflix November 13th.

Club Kid    HD720p 19MB
Sweet and affecting comedic drama about a hard-partying New York City club promoter (Jordan Firstman) who sees his whirlwind lifestyle upended by the arrival of the 10-year-old son he never knew he had. Cara Delevingne and Diego Calva are also part of the cast. Firstman also wrote and directed the film.
The story seems familiar. But festival reviews are very favourable.

oursin

Happy birthday,

liadnan!

ysabetwordsmith

Life is full of things which are hard or tedious or otherwise unpleasant that need doing anyhow. They help make the world go 'round, they improve skills, and they boost your sense of self-respect. But doing them still kinda sucks. It's all the more difficult to do those things when nobody appreciates it. Happily, blogging allows us to share our accomplishments and pat each other on the back.

What are some of the hard things you've done recently? What are some hard things you haven't gotten to yet, but need to do? Is there anything your online friends could do to make your hard things a little easier?

Current Mood: busy

cornerofmadness

So the vascular surgeon confirmed that my stent is failing. He made the argument we need to do it before it gets to the emergency stage. I expected that. Did not expect him to say next week. I said no. Look I have to check to see if my shit insurance pays for his hospital. I need to find help because I have to be there at 530 in the morning which means staying at a hotel the night before because no way am I making anyone get up and haul me to Columbus at 330 in the morning to get there.

The problem is I will probably have to spend the night in the hospital. That means 2 days in a hotel. I can't ask a friend to do that. Even putting it on a friday when most of my friends have off, how can I ask them to hang out in columbus all day. He said I should be able to go right back to work just not allowed to pick up more than 10 pounds for 2 weeks. But I need to call his nurse and double check that because it's my right leg.

So first there has to be an angiogram which in itself is dangerous as the contrast is hard on kidneys (and I'll have to hold almost ALL my diabetic meds for a week because of it. Gonna have fun blood sugars) They need to find out which blood vessels ARE working with more detail than the ultrasound

They hope to a) balloon open the stent or if not that b) put in a new stent. IF the stent doesn't work I will need to have bypass surgery which is much more involved. For the stent they go in thru my left leg, pass the camera/tools over to the right and feed it down (which is how it was done originally) It could shower clots into my right leg. It could cause a huge hematoma in my left groin (which happened originally to the point the skin of my thigh never recovered and is saggy)

Of course Dad is acting like this is the world's biggest inconvenience and it is. They are getting old for this. I'll be damned if I ask him to come (and how the fuck I can clean this by early Nov I have no idea which is when I pushed it to) I would leave my car at a hotel and uber to the fucking hospital first and back again. I might see if my SiL can come instead of mom and she probably would if she could.

I am furious that the scheduling staff fucked me around several times because if I had been able to get there when I was supposed to be in April I could have done this in the summer. Now I have to worry about work, worry about canceling my Christmas vacation, stress over cleaning this house.

And then to top this day off, I fill my car up (it's 30 cents cheaper up in Chillicothe) and when I turn the car on, the screen for the radio and other electronic functions is black. It doesn't come on. I restart it. Nothing. Well fuck. I haven't even had this thing 3 months. I pull into a parking spot, read the book to see if I'm doing something wrong (the back up camera works but not the radio or any of that start up warnings about not playing on the screen while driving). I try to reboot it. Nothing. I try again. Nothing. I give up, very upset because this is going to be a problem and then a mile into coming home the fucking radio comes on and scares the hell out of me.

I stop at CVS (and the car starts up fine after) because they did NOT put my meds back like I asked them to (I was even in there in person) but turns out that was good because I was wrong. I did need them. Dad of course is yelling at me to take the car to Honda (No shit) and I say next week. WHY?!? For one, Honda is an hour away. Two I work. Three I'm presenting at a con this weekend. A work con? No. Then don't go. I'm like Dad, they are NOT going to give me an instant appointment. I will try to get it next Thursday. If the car dies between now and then, then it dies. It's under warranty. It's my worry. You're just making shit worse.
Sigh.

So yeah

I'm still not done with my one presentation for the con. Almost there.

The fandom meme I'm using Buffy for

Day 23: Favourite cliffhanger - there is no such thing. I loathe cliffhangers and to be fair Buffy's seasons wrapped up fully each and every time which I appreciated.

( all the questions under here )

Current Mood: stressed
Current Music: Toxic

ysabetwordsmith

This poem came out of the October 6, 2026 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from LJ user My_partner_doug. It also fills the "forest" square in my 10-1-26 card for the Gothic Bingo Fest. This poem has been sponsored by

fuzzyred. It belongs to the Rutledge thread of the Polychrome Heroics series. It follows "People of Every Ethnic Persuasion."

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

billroper

I now have a concert at Windycon on Saturday afternoon with the lovely and talented Amy McNally.

I am looking forward to this, because I am expecting to have a lot of fun!

calimac

I had tickets to all of these:

Friday, San Francisco Symphony, A Concert for MTT. The eagerly-awaited memorial concert for the beloved former music director, Michel Tilson Thomas. Critic Joshua Kosman called it "part concert and part Jewish wake."

Saturday, South Bay Musical Theatre, Once Upon a Mattress. Musical by Mary Rodgers based on "The Princess and the Pea," the show that originally made Carol Burnett famous.

Sunday, Symphony San Jose, Copland Billy the Kid, Dvořák Symphony from the New World, and a new piece by Jonathan Leshnoff, Rhapsody on America.

I didn't get to any of these because I was in the hospital, again. Frustrating to sit there waitng to learn what they're going to do next. (MRI - that's an interesting experience.) In fact they only let me out so that they may spend a few days cogitating on the next step, and in a couple weeks I'll be going back in again, more concerts to skip I'm sure.

My tablet has accompanied me on this, so I could theoretically have written posts. But one feature of being ill is that I don't feel I have much to say, or the ab8lity to say it cogently if I do.

petra

Limericks for Riding Crops (Jeeves and Wooster) & Feeding/Stuffing and Held Down (IWTV) (116 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse, Interview with the Vampire (TV 2022)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Reginald Jeeves/Bertram "Bertie" Wooster, Armand/Daniel Molloy
Characters: Reginald Jeeves, Bertram "Bertie" Wooster, Daniel Molloy, Armand (Vampire Chronicles)
Additional Tags: Limericks, Poetry, Riding Crops, Spanking, Master/Servant, Feeding Kink, Force-Feeding, Stuffing, Blood Drinking, Held Down, Kinktober 2026
Series: Part 7 of Kinktober 2026
Summary:

Limericks for Riding Crops (Jeeves and Wooster) & Feeding/Stuffing and Held Down (IWTV).

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: My Friend's Id Is My Id Too (Whenever we go out / The people always shout)

shadowkat

Almost forgot to share what I found via my work browser. It throws dumb articles at me? Some are worth a look, some really aren't? (Most of them are actually lists of horror films, novels, and scary places - which is disturbing. I suppose if I stopped clicking on them, it would stop throwing lists of horror movies at me? Want recs on horror movies, I can probably give them based on seeing all of these lists.)

This below article which I decided I had to share with folks (for reasons that currently escape me), finally provided information on the settlement between Skydance Media and the 12 State Attorney Generals who sued them over the Paramount/Warner Merger, along with the UK who also protested the merger, and the WGA.(They had to make settlements with a lot of people for this to go through.)

"After months of twists and turns that included a bidding war with Netflix and a legal fight with 12 state attorneys general and the Writers' Guild of America, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery officially closed their $110 billion merger on Tuesday.

The move creates an entertainment behemoth that will oversee multiple streaming services, including Paramount+, Pluto TV, HBO Max and Discovery+, and TV networks like CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, HBO and CNN. It will also oversee a vast library of IP, such as Harry Potter, the DC Universe, Game of Thrones, SpongeBob SquarePants and more." (Paramount is behind Star Trek, Yellowstone franchise, NCIS.) I guess it was only a matter of time, considering UPN (Paramount) and WB. (Warner) became CW in the early 00s.

Paramount/Warner Bros/Discovery 110 Billion Merger Closes (If they hadn't closed this week, it would have cost Skydance millions.)

"Paramount received clearance from Warner Bros. shareholders and regulators and governments representing 68 jurisdictions globally, including the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission, the European Commission and the United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority."

Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin also approved a settlement between Paramount and a dozen state attorneys general that includes commitments to invest $1.5 billion in domestic film and TV production over five years, release at least 30 films a year in theaters and negotiate the distribution agreements for each company's suite of cable networks separately.

The combined company also must set up an independent editorial board to oversee CNN and CBS News' operations and continue to operate Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery's studio lots for five years, among other things.

Failure to comply with the various commitments in the settlement range from a $30 million penalty per film that misses the theatrical goal to forced divestitures of the company's 49% Miramax stake within a 12-month period as well as BET, Comedy Central, VH1, Smithsonian, Destination America and Science Channel within a 120-day period.

Additionally, Paramount reached a separate resolution with the WGA, including a five-year layoff pause at CBS and a $17.5 million health fund contribution.

It also agreed to concessions in the U.K. and Europe, including terminating its stake in United International Pictures and commitments to not to combine linear channels with its streaming services, maintain the editorial independence of its news services and children's networks and provide more funding to Channel 5 to support high-quality news, original children's programming and drama. "

***

Alrighty then.

Now I'm trying to decide if it still makes sense to boycott Paramount + and Warner Brothers (HBO). Is this good news or bad news or neither? Inevitable at any rate.

I don't know if the Ellisons are actually using funds from Paramount (and soon Warner Brothers (HBO)) properties to fund nefarious political donations to folks like the Israeli government's war in Gaza, and the Republican Party. Truth is - I can't get away from the bastards? They invented Peoplesoft and Oracle, both of which are embedded in my work place and I use daily. Actually I want to decimate them for creating Peoplesoft, alone.

OTOH - I could save the money. I have too many streaming subscriptions, and some are bundled with other things (such as Apple and Amazon). Well it makes boycotting Harry Potter easier. But I'd miss The Pitt. It's my favorite live action television drama.

***

I despise mergers. I wish they'd stop. I've been a merger victim and am now a merger refugee. They only make life good for the rich idiots who benefited from the stock options.

The health insurance merger - resulted in the upper management and share holders making enough money that they could do whatever they wanted. While various employees who got laid off - had to scramble to find new jobs, ended up struggling to pay COBRA, and the customers health insurance costs went up.

Although...I did hear that some of them were not smart with their financial earnings and had to struggle to find work to support themselves, with a lot of difficulty.

hannah

One of my clients does her work on a Mac. She's got it set up that I can do some work on another Mac in another room in her apartment, which is useful, but at the same time, it reinforces my bias against the system. I'm sure if I spent more than a few hours a couple times a week every few months - not a whole lot of time - working on one, I'd be able to arrange the display and interface to know where everything is and how to find what I'm looking for when I need it. As it stands, I'm constantly shuffling around to make sure I haven't lost track of anything. There's a lot of wondering, "Wait, where did I put that?"

The awareness there's a maximum amount of modifications I can do to what's essentially the boss' computer helps somewhat. It's not my computer; I'm there for work.

I overheard her talking to a tech support person today, and one thing she said was how by using chat clients, she didn't need to know how to program anymore. She has a long-running blog, and I stood there so she'd have someone to hold her accountable to uploading a new photo to her email account. It's less the accountability and more that she needed the time and effort to figure out how to do something so simple with a system she's used for over a decade.

I'll take the occasional effort, frustration, and irritation, and I'll be glad for it.

Current Mood: pessimistic
Current Music: nothing now

conuly

I'd gone up the other set of stairs and didn't need to worry about it, but I sat on a bench and watched people carefully, gingerly pick their way past. One of them lightly hiked up her skirt to do so, which wouldn't be so funny except that it was already knee-length.

*****************************

( Read more... )

psocoptera

The Mystery of the Bitten Peach, Cecilia Tan, 2026 fantasy novella. This was sweet and fun; I couldn't quite follow some of the logistics (( Read more... )) but it was neat the way the different story elements fit together and I liked the character voice a lot. Gorgeous cover by Jenn So.

ysabetwordsmith

A four-winged dinosaur found by a farmer suggests flight evolved more than once

“The study provides important new evidence that further supports the hypothesis that flight evolved multiple times among feathered dinosaurs, including at least once among microraptorines and at least once among birds,” Michael Pittman, a paleobiologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told Nature.

Current Mood: busy

caffeinatedotter

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

ysabetwordsmith

This is today's freebie. It was inspired by an advance prompt from

gs_silva. It also fills the "forest" square in my 10-1-26 card for the Gothic Bingo Fest. This poem belongs to the series Schrodinger's Heroes.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

swan_tower

A poem + a Little Book = I quote Catullus, apparently.

I have a new poem out today! It's the result of reading articles on astronomy and historical demonology in quick succession -- y'know, like you do. You can read "expand/contract" for free online at Just Keep Up.

And on a semi-related topic (but only semi because "expand/contract" is a syllable-counted poem, not a metrical one), The Writer's Little Book of Meter is out today! That will be followed next month by The Writer's Little Book of Rhyme and in December by The Writer's Little Book of Forms, completing a trifecta of the Little Books on poetical topics. You can pre-order those latter now!

(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://www.swantower.com/2026/10/06/cui-dono-lepidum-novum-libellum-2/)

swan_tower

caffeinatedotter

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

valoise posting in

booknook

I’ve studied food history and social history for years so when I saw this book at a local book fair I grabbed it. Divided into several chapters, it explores the way of life in the pre-industrial Britain during the 17th through early 20th centuries.

Almost half the book explores the kitchen and dairy. Sections include preparing food, cook over hearth and range, food preservation, and so forth. There are chapters on laundry, household maintenance (cleaning, furnishing, lighting, waste disposal, etc.). textile crafts, and decorative crafts.

The entire book is extensively illustrated with the tools and equipment needed for every aspect of life. I really appreciate the pictures of various cooking ranges and stoves that developed in the 18th and 19th centuries. The few photographs that appear are drawn from museums and research libraries in the UK and US.

Although the title page says the book will “recapture the self-sufficient life of a bygone age” it’s clear from Seymour’s commentary that this way of life was only sustainable when people worked together. Large households depended on servants, small households relied on the community. Increasingly in the 19th century everyone depended on manufacturing for the tools and equipment to keep the households running.

You won’t become an expert on any of the topics by reading this book, but anyone writing historical fiction might find it useful to understand just how their characters live.

ysabetwordsmith

The Poetry Fishbowl is now CLOSED. Thank you for your time and attention. Please keep an eye on this space as I am still writing.

Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! Today's theme is "Oh HELL No!" I will be checking this page periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems.

I'll be soliciting ideas for rebels, activists, wild young things, Women Who Run with the Saberteeth, explorers, exes, people who escape domestic violence, refugees, runaway youth, escaped slaves or other captives, housemates, siblings, parents, teachers, clergy, leaders, superheroes, supervillains, teammates, alien or fantasy species, failure analysts, ethicists, stray or feral animals, other people who refuse to go along, balking, protesting, arguing, blocking, planning, throwing in the towel, escaping, running like someone left the gate open, adventuring, hitchhiking, quitting school, divorcing, disowning, betraying, teaching, leaving your comfort zone, discovering things, conducting experiments, observation changing experiments, troubleshooting, improvising, adapting, cleaning up messes, cooperating, bartering, taking over in an emergency, saving the day, discovering yourself, studying others, testing boundaries, coming of age, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, preparing for the worst, expecting the unexpected, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, returning home, battlefields, castles, trails, sailing ships, campervans or RVs, distant lands, the forest primeval, prehistory, liminal zones, schools, homeless shelters, hotels, churches, campfires, laboratories, supervillain lairs, makerspaces, nonhuman accommodations and adaptations, stores, starships, alien planets, magical lands, foreign dimensions, other places where the intolerable happens, unhappy relationships, protest rallies, outrages, slavery or captivity, locks or chains, travel mishaps, sudden surprises, the buck stops here, trial and error, weird food, secret ingredients, supplements that turn out to be metagenic, intercultural entanglements, asking for help and getting it, enemies to friends/lovers, interdimensional travel, lab conditions are not field conditions, superpower manifestation, the end of where your framework actually applies, ethics, innovation, problems that can't be solved by hitting, teamwork, found family, complementary strengths and weaknesses, personal growth, and poetic forms in particular.

Currently eligible bingo card(s) for donors wishing to sponsor a square:

Gothic Bingo Fest Card 10-1-26

Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

An Army of One is developing its own neurovariant culture after rebelling against the Galactic Arms.

The Bear Tunnels introduces modern principles to people in the past.

A Conflagration of Dragons has the Six Races (plus the dragons) who all have different cultures and climates. This often poses challenges for the refugees.

Coracle Shores is about people fleeing from climate change and other calamities into fey realms.

Daughters of the Apocalypse has people trying to find enough resources to survive, when former cities are unsafe.

The Moon Door explores a women's chronic pain group and lycanthropy.

Not Quite Kansas involves demons, angels, and interdimensional mayhem.

The Ocracies has a wide variety of countries crammed together, each with a totally different government. Sometimes people leave their homeland to find something they like better.

One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis follows Shaeth as he works on becoming the God of Drunks after quitting as the God of Evili.

Path of the Paladins includes a few characters who have walked away from unbearable situations, like Johan.

Polychrome Heroics has ordinary humans, supernaries, blue-plate specials, superheroes, supervillains, primal and animal soups all trying to get along and figure out how to make a functional society. The supervillains are the most likely to balk at an outrage regardless of what the rules say.

Schrodinger's Heroes has a lot of situations that people want to get away from including Chris avoiding some of his relatives, Morgan moving to a new dimension, and dimensions that just suck for everyone.

The Wandering is a series about fantasy time travel where people loop back within their own lifespan.

Or you can ask for something new.

Linkbacks reveal a verse of any open linkback poem.

( New to the fishbowl? Read all about it! )

Current Mood: creative

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duskpeterson

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Page Summary

trailer_spot - Elsinore, Naza, Godzilla Minus Zero, Heartland, Club Kid
oursin - (no subject)
ysabetwordsmith - Hard Things
cornerofmadness - The appointment went worse than I thought
ysabetwordsmith - Poem: "Life Is Too Short for Fake Maple Syrup"
billroper - Concerting!
calimac - concerts not attended
petra - Kinktober 2026 - Limericks for Riding Crops (1) and Feeding/Stuffing & Held Down (paired)
shadowkat - The latest entertainment merger ....
hannah - Digital workday.
conuly - The other day there was something dubious at the top of the stairs to the SIR
psocoptera - The Mystery of the Bitten Peach
ysabetwordsmith - Fossils
caffeinatedotter - Buddy
ysabetwordsmith - Poem: "Hunting Mouseholes"
swan_tower - cui dono lepidum novum libellum . . .
swan_tower - cui dono lepidum novum libellum . . .
caffeinatedotter - Antijanissary (I)
valoise in booknook - Book Review: Forgotten Household Crafts by John Seymour
ysabetwordsmith - Poetry Fishbowl Open!

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Style: Early Edition for Five AM by winterfish

Page generated Oct. 7th, 2026 01:24 pm

Noblebright novels on hope in dark times

Reading

Elsinore, Naza, Godzilla Minus Zero, Heartland, Club Kid

(no subject)

Hard Things

The appointment went worse than I thought

Poem: "Life Is Too Short for Fake Maple Syrup"

Concerting!

concerts not attended

Kinktober 2026 - Limericks for Riding Crops (1) and Feeding/Stuffing & Held Down (paired)

The latest entertainment merger ....

Digital workday.

The other day there was something dubious at the top of the stairs to the SIR

The Mystery of the Bitten Peach

Fossils

Buddy

Poem: "Hunting Mouseholes"

cui dono lepidum novum libellum . . .

cui dono lepidum novum libellum . . .

Antijanissary (I)

Book Review: Forgotten Household Crafts by John Seymour

Poetry Fishbowl Open!

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