TO THOSE WHO THINK I WAS EXAGGERATING...

...when, in my recent article entitled The Sand Between Glenn Beck's Ears, I wrote:

...the truth is we're living in a slaughterhouse built on the twin pillars of mass genocide and slavery, and fueled by the ongoing enslavement, impoverishment and starvation of nearly half the fucking planet.

I hereby offer up this Los Angeles Times article as "Exhibit A" for the prosecution.

DDD SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ DEC 11, 2014

1. Are you ready for FOUR-dimensional printers? Yes, that's right... you read correctly. Not those new-fangled THREE-D printers you've been reading about in The Economist and the New York Times, but printers that actually... well... maybe I should let today's first Required Reading entry, this article from DVice.com, do the 'splaining...

2D printing makes things that are flat. 3D printing makes things that have volume. Add in the fourth D, time, and you make things that move. We're not talking about things that can be be moved, but rather, objects that come printed with the capacity to move all by themselves. ... The process is actually not that complicated, and the smart materials aren't even all that smart: all it takes is a material that acts like a sponge that can be layered inside of a joint during the 3D printing process. When the joint is submerged in water, the sponge material expands and the joint bends. Put a bunch of joints together, and you can get a fairly complex self-assembling object, like this cube:

Okay, so I know what you're thinking. Not so impressive. But considering the way DARPA spends your hard-earned tax dollars, I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually find out that they're working on "Four D" micro-bio-mechanical devices that "react" in certain ways when coming into contact with people with certain blood types, or "epidermal melanin levels", if you get where I'm going with this. Get ready for blood-borne microscopic racist death-bots, is basically what I'm saying. I mean, what the Hell else did you think they were going to do with the map of the human genome? They've been working on it since the Swingin' Sixties, so you'd better believe they've made impressive strides.

2. What with hugely popular file-sharing site Pirate Bay being shuttered by Scandinavian authorities last week, you might think The Powers That Be have copyright infringement perpetrators on the run. How then, to explain China's new, massive - and massively illegal - World of Warcraft theme park, which kicked off without a hitch - and without any input from, or payment to, the game's creators -early this year in Changzhou? I mean, just look at this monstrosity! And do you think they paid anyone involved with the Kung Fu Panda series before they chose to make Jack Black their on-site noodle hut's mascot? Seeing as we're talking about a country that "recreated" an entire Swiss mountain village from scratch - copying every building, every street and even giving their copy-village the same name, all without asking first - I fuckin' doubt it.

3. And finally, if you ever wanted to read about how a tantric "sex expert" managed to yoga-fuck her way into a "Tantric Kundalini Awakening" that was so incredibly, terrifyingly intense that it managed to turn her off sex, like, forever, then today is your lucky day! Former BDSM Janet Hardy's essay about stumbling into the horror of ecstasy begins:

My frequent co-author Dossie Easton and I were working on a book called “Radical Ecstasy,” charting what is known in S/M-land as “spirituality”: the transcendent, ecstatic, deeply connected state that may occur during and after a good scene. We were enacting intense S/M scenes with one another and our other partners, and the scenes were often chosen to illuminate some aspect of the manuscript: edgy role-plays designed to tap into both personal and cultural histories of trauma and abuse, as well as intense, prolonged experiences of bondage and pain. They were risky scenes both emotionally and physically, challenging every skill we’d acquired during our combined half-century-plus of experience. In the spirit of research, we added tantra and other quasi-religious practices into the mix and took classes in those, too.

And if that doesn't capture your interest and get you to read further, then why am I even doing these silly lists?!

THE DUST BETWEEN GLENN BECK'S EARS

It may have escaped your notice, but last September, there was a bit of a folderol in some social media circles after Glenn Beck - the weepy CNN FOXNEWS "self-facilitating media node" took to the airwaves his website to wax conspiratorial about a sinister plot involving nihilists, "progressives", eugenics, NPR, Global Warmers, the Nazis, the New School, the federal government, New Yorkers, the fashion industry, obscure philosophy professors, Jay-Z and Beyonce, True Detective, and Matthew McConnaughey. You can watch the embedded video above to see for yourself that I'm not exaggerating, and this excellent essay by Critical-Theory.com’s Eugene Wolters covers all the important factual points - and catalogs most of Beck's crimes against reason - very well, indeed.

Basically, Beck has less than nothing to say about the substance of what philosopher/author Eugene Thacker tries to communicate in his book, In The Dust of This Planet... which is kind of bizarre when you consider that's the ostensible topic of this entire video segment. I would frankly be shocked if Beck had even reached out to Thacker for comment. 

Instead,  what we're presented with is yet another example of Beck's trademark "pinball logic". He literally winds himself up, then goes skimming across the surface of things, making annoying noises every time he collides with a familiar name or concept. "Nihilism!" DING! "Progressives!" DING! "Eugenics!" DING! "Jay-Z thinks he's so cool!" DING-DING-DING!!! 

Never mind that there are no conceivable connections between the facts that he's juggling, beyond their close proximity in Beck's tightly-packed frontal lobe. So long as he delivers his spiel with the kind of eerie foreboding and fake, wounded dignity we've come to expect from him, the message is going to resonate with a growing segment of the population that I'm calling New Wave Paranoids. You know, the kind of "independent thinkers" who instantly believe every major news story is either a "false flag event", or a "psy-op", or "predictive programming". They're the ones who go around telling everyone to "wake up", when the tragic fact of the matter is that they're the woolliest sheeple of them all.

Anyway, it should come as no surprise that Beck entirely misses Thacker's point. In The Dust of This Planet isn't describing some future dystopian nightmare world, but the world AS IT IS TODAY. Beck likes to sell the fantastic lie that you and I are living in some sort of comfy, cozy American Dream... when the truth is we're living in a slaughterhouse built on the twin pillars of mass genocide and slavery, and fueled by the ongoing enslavement, impoverishment and starvation of nearly half the fucking planet. 

When considered in this light, the idea that Beck could level charges of nihilistic conspiracy against the likes of Thacker is among the blackest of ironies.

TORTURE REPORT BEGS THE QUESTION...

This roundup of most of the relevant findings in summary statement of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the CIA's use of (occasionally deadly) torture during so-called "enhanced interrogations" is required reading for every American, be they liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, or whatever other false dichotomies you can point a dead cat's tail at.

However, while reading this severely redacted, extremely curtailed summary of a severely redacted, extremely curtailed report, one should also keep in mind that it covers only a tiny sliver of the vile violence inflicted on often totally innocent people, saying nothing about crimes committed by other agencies, such as the various branches of the armed forces - not to mention their own, completely separate, military intelligence apparatuses - as well as the myriad "private security" firms like Blackwater that were operating in the regions without any kind of operational oversight whatsoever... with often disgusting results.

And so, the question is begged... at what point do we accept that some behavior goes beyond mere procedural overreach, beyond even the idea of profound psycho-sexual negativity manifesting itself via individual interrogators' twisted psyches, and strays perilously close to the same diabolical territory as, let's say, for instance... some kind of massive, federally sanctioned Satanic Black Mass super-ritual?

It's a question one should keep in mind as more and more of these revelations invade our collective consciousness over the next little while.

DDD SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ DEC 10, 2014

1. This article from Dangerous Minds might be the most frustrating thing I've come across today, because it's all about a "jaw-dropping" German documentary about the preeminent Luciferian/Thelemite experimental filmmaker/artist/writer of our age, Kenneth Anger. But the video that it sets up so beautifully - Kenneth Anger: Film as Magical Ritual - has been removed from Youtube, and I can't find it anywhere else, for the life of me. All I can find is this tiny excerpt:

Considering what the article has to say about this documentary, this inability to link to the film is proving frustrating in the extreme. So if any of you reading this know where I can see it, by all means contact me and let me know. I mean, if it serves as "as direct an explanation of Anger’s cinemagical modus operandi as I have ever heard him articulate anywhere", and is "a must see for anyone interested in his work and showcases the Magus of cinema at the very height of his artistic powers", then goddamnit, I wanna see it, and share it! Keep your eyes peeled for future updates.

2. While we're waiting for someone to dig up the Anger doc, why not spend some time learning about what Flavorwire considers to be the 50 Weirdest Movies Ever Made? Personally, I've seen 20, with most of the ones I've missed being from various Asian nations (Thailand, the Philippines), and some of them don't really deserve to be listed here. For instance, Zardoz, Crimewave and Boxing Helena are odd, no doubt... but among the weirdest films ever made? With such baffling offerings as Holy Motors, Amer, and Upstream Color not making the list, perhaps it is in need of a rethink. Anyway, if the films listed in Flavorwire's article aren't obscure enough for you, here's Games Radar's list of 50 Amazing Films You've Never Seen. I found a lot more strange pickings there, including a few I'd never even heard of before, much less seen. And I try to see a LOT. The lo-fi, super-hostile French anti-American 70's satire Mr. Freedom was a particularly odd revelation. You can watch the first part, below, and pick up the rest on Youtube.

3. And what better way to finish things off than by linking to an ass-load of Totally EVIL Paintings?! Many of the usual suspects - and a great many who were influenced by these usual suspects - are represented here, as there is a great focus on Lovecraftian, apocalyptic horrors. However, any such gallery that chooses to omit even a single piece by Thomas "Painter of Light" Kinkade is kind of missing the boat, if you ask me.

DDD SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ DEC 9, 2014

1. According to this eye-popping article from the Independent UK, using "magic mushrooms" can change one's personality... for the better! The article states:

The study, at Johns Hopkins University of Medicine in Baltimore, found that a single dose of psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, was enough to cause positive effects for up to a year. "Psilocybin can facilitate experiences that change how people perceive themselves and their environment," said Roland Griffiths, a study author and professor of psychiatry and behavioural science at Johns Hopkins. "That's unprecedented."

Users who had a "mystical experience" while taking the drug showed increases in a personality trait dubbed "openness", one of the five major traits used in psychology to describe human personality. Openness is associated with imagination, artistic appreciation, feelings, abstract ideas and general broad-mindedness. None of the other four traits – extroversion, neuroticism, agreeableness and conscientiousness – was altered.

The study further shows that those who did NOT receive a beneficial boost of openness from ingesting shrooms didn't show any negative responses, either. Not a single "bad trip", and not a single negative result throughout the study. That's a damn sight better than most pharmaceutical tests, I can assure you.

2. If you're the kind of reader who enjoys a giggle or a titter to go along with your shivers, then look no further than artist Patrick Dean's ongoing blog series featuring Underwhelming Lovecraft Monsters! The example below is just a sketch pad scan. Most of the posts involved somewhat involved, multi-paneled stories that are sure to give great delight to even the most glancing of Lovecraft fans. Enjoy! And, by all means, Bookmark it as a favorite! When I put together that Daily Dirt Diaspora Ultimate Online Comics Page (coming soon), Underwhelming Lovecraft is sure to be a member strip!

3. Read this detailed overview of the Cicada 3301 online mystery that baffled the net's best code-breakers for the better part of a year. Then read this detailed overview of one group's collective attempts at solving that mystery. Then read this gripping account of Joel Eriksson, who "solved" Cicada 3301... but not really. Although I do appreciate his guesstimate about who might be behind the now annual hacker's delight puzzle game:

"It is most likely an underground organization, not related to any government or intelligence agency," he says. "Based on the references in their challenges—the Agrippa poem by William Gibson, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake, The Book of The Law by Aleister Crowley — and their constant references to prime numbers and the like, they are likely intellectual, anti-establishment, ideologically driven and they seem to be valuing logical/analytical thinking highly. They seem to share a lot of ideology with the cryptoanarchy movement, and old-school hackers."

Personally, although I find the references kind of interesting - and in hindsight, I would have easily guessed the answer to the first clue right away - "a book dictated to a beast?" Nigga please - the whole enterprise strikes me as a huge waste of time. But then again, what isn't these days? Still worth a read, that's for sure.

MEDIAVORE:CINEMA ~ RUN RUN IT'S HIM

In the first few minutes of the autobiographical documentary Run Run It’s Him, a female friend attempts to put director Matt Pollack’s early lack of luck with the opposite sex into perspective.

“I think the major problem”, she explains, “was that, whatever investment you had in the idea of yourself as being not that kind of a guy… actually blinded you to the attentions that were being paid to you.”

Nonplussed, Pollack insists that the apparently overnight blossoming of girls into women that took place during junior high – not to mention his own suddenly rampaging hormones – caught him totally off guard. Why was he suddenly sinking when swimming came so naturally to everyone around him? Why did it feel as though his friends and classmates were all reading from a rule book to which he did not have access?

“What was the move?” he asks, a desperate edge in his voice. “What move was I missing?”

Her response is blunt: “Any move, I think, is the answer.”

Too little, too late, as the saying goes. By the time Pollack worked up the courage to quiz his female friends about the facts of life on camera, he’d long since made a strategic retreat into the fantasy world of pornography. Did an early introduction to its easy pleasures play a role in his delayed sexual development? Pollack decided to make Run Run It’s Him as an attempt to understand the negative impact that this addiction has had on his life.

At this early point, the unsympathetic viewer might be tempted to grumble that Pollack’s complaints serve as relatively thin grist for his documentarian’s mill. So he didn’t get laid until his early 20’s… so what? A healthy, handsome, intelligent young man from a relatively happy, middle class family, he appears to have been dealt a rather generous hand in life. There are people starving in Africa, you know, so what right does Pollack – with his First World problems – have to gripe?

The answer, of course, is that he has every right, just so long as the end result is worth watching. And Run Run It’s Him – this hand-crafted, ultra-low-fi, painfully honest and genuinely hilarious slice of cinematic self-vivisection - is a film well worth watching.

Shot over a seven-year span by Pollack and his cinematic wingman, Jamie Popowich, Run Run It’s Him is a sprawling epic that succeeds in achieving an almost microscopic intimacy. This is, at times, squirm inducing… especially for the friends, exes, and family members that Pollack buttonholes into being interviewed onscreen.

From Pollack’s suburban school days, to his university years on the East Coast, to his ceaseless quest for pornographic novelty in the seediest corners of Toronto, vast spans of time and territory are covered – much of it on foot. Former girlfriends provide occasionally bewildering accounts about their time together. A sympathetic porn shop clerk offers surprisingly heartfelt and philosophical advice. Pollack’s parents, clueless and grim, seem like they’d rather be anywhere but on camera being interrogated by their over-sharing son.

In one of the film’s comedic high points, Pollack decides to deal with the unwieldy stacks of VHS tapes that have accumulated in every corner of his modest bachelor flat by keeping a “porn log” so that he might easily find his favorite scenes. In another, some of Pollack’s platonic female friends are made to watch a selection of these scenes, and the resulting footage is absolutely priceless.

Because Run Run It’s Him was so long in the making, it gives us a chance to observe a young filmmaker finding his voice. What starts out as a somewhat crude and lewd exercise in willfully obdurate self-denigration evolves into a moving, incisive document of self-exploration worthy of Pollack’s literary hero, Frederick Exley, author of the cult classic autobiographical novel A Fan’s Notes.

Run Run It’s Him isn't just the story of one man’s porn addiction. That’s the stuff of DVD cover blurbs and bullet reviews. This is a film about universal problems, such as the need for physical intimacy and the fear of rejection. It’s about spending so much time and mental energy worrying about not living up to your potential that it actually becomes one of the main reasons why you fail to live up to your potential.

It’s also about the inherent dangers lurking behind the deceptively benign façade of escapist procrastination, illustrating how easy it is to get lost in the labyrinths of minutia that make up our culture’s obsessions, whether it be video games, Star Trek fandom, collecting records, or comic books, or yes, even keeping detailed logs of one’s favorite masturbation fodder. In this respect, Pollack’s notebooks are like Jack Torrance’s repetitive manuscript in The Shining. “All wank and no game makes Matt a lonely boy.”

It’s all escapism, living the life of the mind at the cost of living life, itself. It’s a trap and a poor substitute, creating feedback loops of loneliness and alienation that lead you to habits that can only serve to further isolate and alienate you from your peers. Thankfully, Run Run It’s Him picks up steam, and a defiant head of optimism, as it builds towards its gloriously upbeat – and completely unexpected – climax.

You can purchase a digital copy of Run Run It’s Him from Pollack’s website for a measly ten bucks. It would be a steal at twice the price.

MONSTER MAYHEM THURSDAY ON SUNDAY!

I missed a couple weeks of Monster Mayhem Thursdays, and this week's offering is kind of sub-par, but I did want to get something monster and illustration related up here at the DDD, regardless, just to let y'all know that I haven't given up on that particular hobby/interest quite yet. Believe me, the image looked a lot better before I ruined it with my pathetic attempt at colorization. And if you think this digital version looks crap, you should see the original. Yuck City.

MEDIAVORE:MUSIC & SATIRE ~ HAM

Eric Wareheim presents us with this gorgeous vision of what America, in his satirical eyes, has become.

HAM from Eric Wareheim on Vimeo.

AND YOU THOUGHT BAND AID WAS BAD...

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you perhaps the single most embarrassing "benefit" song to sweep through our culture in the churning wake of the UK's "Do They Know It's Christmas" and the USA's "We Are The World"... the insipid "Tears Are Not Enough", by a veritable smorgasbord of Canadian recording artists going by the group name (ugh) Northern Lights. You have to hear - and see - this thing to believe how awful it is...

Proof positive that the very ripest cheese in the world is produced right here in the New World!

The amazing paradox of "Tears Are Not Enough" is, of course, the fact that the individual talents who took part in it include some of the most critically acclaimed singers and songwriters ever to dent vinyl. This is underscored by the coincidence that arguably the most talented individuals included provide the most cringe-worthy moments (I'm looking at you, Neil and Joni!).

What is it about "cause" music that makes it so fucking awful? Is it because these songs are so mired in the historical moment that they're bound to seem dated in fairly short order? I'm guessing that must at least play some part in it. Although, on the other hand, none of the performers here were producing their best work in 1985.

Yes, you won't find too many people claiming 1985 as an artistic high-water mark in any of the arts. It was a miserable year, creatively speaking, wherever you turned. The movies sucked, TV sucked, the music sucked... in the mainstream, in particular. Hell, even superhero comic books began a long slide towards mercenary mediocrity - a long, hard drop from an early-80's boom - 'round about that time.

So yes, the mid-80's sucked. But "Tears Are Not Enough" sucked so hard, those of us upon whom MuchMusic used to inflict it used to wonder whether it actually caused more harm than good. Like, maybe someone was planning on giving money to help starving Africans, but then they saw this video, and said: "Fuck it."

We can only pray to God that this is not, in fact, what took place.

MEDIAVORE:FILM ~ SPIDER LABYRINTH (1988)

SPIDER LABYRINTH (1988)

Do you like your Italian horror movies full of vertiginous angles, vivid primary colors, and improbably hot Italian actresses? You say you’re a fan of gratuitous toplessness, piss-poor English dubbing, and bizarre sub-plots that lead absolutely nowhere at a breakneck pace? Do you prefer an "American" hero is a hairy-necked, oblivious dullard that is completely ineffectual at preventing people from dropping like flies all around him? Are you a fan of cheap-shot “jump” scares accompanied by orchestral stings so incongruously loud that your ears ring for weeks, afterwards? Do you dig giant, vaguely Lovecraftian spiders and vicious, hissing, seemingly indestructible vampiric Bonobo apes? Then by all means, drop whatever it is you're doing right now and watch Spider Labyrinth with me, right fucking now?

THE ESSENCE OF WITTGENSTEIN'S TRACTATUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS

One of the most ambitious and influential philosophical works of the 20th century is Ludwig Wittgenstein's monumental (though relatively short) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which set out to do nothing less than "identify the relationship between language and reality" and "define the limits of science". 

One of the things I personally appreciate about this work is its elegant structure. Instead of tangling the reader's brain in syllogistic knots - or confounding it with epic bursts of neo-logorrhea - Wittgenstein chooses to present his seven basic propositions clearly and succinctly, elaborating upon them only sparingly, and only when absolutely necessary. He even presents his famous seventh proposition without any further clarification at all, which, considering what it states, is a perfect choice.

Back in the late 1980's, when I was a philosophy student at Mount Allison University, Professor Gordon Treash once suggested to us that any philosopher who couldn't summarize his work on the back of a napkin was not worth studying. I present to you now a very handy summary of Wittgenstein's Tractatus that was handed down to me some time ago, and it uses a non-standard translation of some of the phrases that I think help give a certain edge to his thought, particularly when perused as comparison to and in contrast with the more popular, standard translations. 

Using a fine felt tipped pen on a fully unfolded napkin, you should just about be able to pull it off.

1 ~ The world is everything that is the case.
2 ~ What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.
3 ~ The logical picture of the facts is the thought.
4 ~ The thought is the significant of the proposition.
5 ~ Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions. (An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself)
5.6 ~ The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
6 ~ The general form of truth function is: [underp, underE, N(underE)]
This is the general form of proposition.
6.1 ~ The propositions of logic are tautologies.
6.2 ~ Mathematics is a logical method. The propositions of mathematics are equations, and therefore pseudo-propositions.
6.22 ~ The logic of the world which the propositions of logic show are tautologies, mathematics shows in equations.
6.4 ~ All propositions are of equal value.
6.42 ~ Hence also there can be no ethical propositions. Propositions together cannot express anything higher.
6.421 ~ It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed. Ethics are transcendental. (Ethics and aesthetics are one).
6.5 ~ For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed. The riddle does not exist. If a question can be put at all, then it can also be answered.
7 ~ Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent.

MEDIAVORE:FILM ~ ETHEREAL CHRYSALIS

In May of this year, I was fortunate to be present on opening night at Toronto's Art for Peace exhibit, a ground-breaking showcase for the works of many fine Canadian and international artists, all working in a loosely defined genre often referred to as "Fantastic Art". My somewhat lengthy overview of that event can be read here.

One of the people I had the pleasure of meeting that night was Montreal video artist Syl Disjonk, who was there to help his friend, associate, and fellow artist Jean Pronovost set up some large pieces, including a sculpture of a vengeful Sphinx murdering a bloated businessman by shoving fistfuls of gold coins into his fat, gaping gob - a piece that was widely recognized by all present as one of the exhibition's high points.

Late in the evening, when the crowds began to thin, I got a chance to spend some quality time with the remarkably personable Syl and Jean, chatting about their work as well as our shared interests, which included Quebecois pop culture, progressive metal pioneers Voivod, and, of course, our love of all things Lovecraft.

Syl, I learned, had recently completed a short film called Ethereal Chrysalis, which he described to me as "a surrealist Lovecraftian mind-fuck", or words to that effect. After visiting the short's website, I was intrigued. Then I saw the film, and to say that it did not disappoint would be a massive understatement.

This movie is just pure, balls-out bonkers from start to finish. It begins with Syl ripping his own face off and inviting you to step inside his head, where a labyrinthine series of paranoid tableaux unfold. These evocative hellscapes are bursting with subliminal elements and psycho-mystical symbolism. Carrying an armload of unidentifiable carrion, Syl discovers a ladder leading up to the head of a giant version of himself. He climbs the ladder and is almost instantly trapped by a sinister “psychic alchemist” who draws out some of Syl’s life essence, using it to transform into a slimy penis/eel/tentacle that flies into a black hole only to be reborn as a half-turtle, half-crustacean war-beast, forcing Syl to retaliate by tearing off his own head, hurling it at the monster, and trapping it in a bloody cocoon of crusty scabs.

And that's when things really get weird.

Until recently, Ethereal Chrysalis was making the festival rounds, which means that it wasn't available to watch online. Festivals frown on giving screen time to work that people can watch on their iPhones while taking a dump in the office shitter, you see. But now, after earning plaudits and awards all around the world, Syl has decided that the time is right to unleash his movie on an unsuspecting world via that most democratic of all video sharing sites, Youtube. 

And so, without further ado, I proudly present my friend Syl Disjonk's film, Ethereal Chrysalis, to the Daily Dirt Diaspora readership. I urge you to watch it and, if you like it, to share it with your friends. It's a twisted little masterpiece - an obvious labor of love - and attention must be paid.

MEDIAVORE:TV ~ OVER THE GARDEN WALL

Reading the Wikipedia page for Patrick McHale's latest animated series, Over the Garden Wall, I am struck near dumb by the almost universal lack of critical acknowledgment that this magnificent accomplishment in animated narrative is receiving. 

I will be brief. This series deserves every single award given to animation, fantasy, storytelling, music and what have you that there are out there to win. This is a singular achievement, certainly bound to become a timeless classic, forever cherished as long as there are human beings with beating hearts in their chests, more than a handful of brain cells to rub together, and some kind of medium via which it may be experienced. 

If you have yet to watch it, kindly do so NOW. Also, be sure to share it with everyone you love. If this show's creators were to ask me to provide a blurb for the DVD packaging, it would be this: "Legit and bona fide!"

The Powers That Be seem to have something against it for some utterly mysterious reason. Perhaps, in time, that will become part of what makes it so incredibly special.

MONSTER MAYHEM THURSDAYS - PRINCE STOLAS OF HELL

This is my depiction of Prince Stolas, described by Wikipedia as "a Great Prince of Hell", who "commands twenty-six legions of demons, and teaches astronomy and the knowledge of poisonous plants, herbs and precious stones. He is also known as Stolos and Solas. He is depicted as either being a crowned owl with long legs, a raven, or a man.