“Days decrease, and autumn grows, autumn in everything.”
This Week
And here we meet again. The past couple of months have proved difficult for consistent newsletter sending, obviously. But it’s a fresh month and life is settling down. Another round of updates:
- I started my first university class in close to eighteen years. I had a few spotty years of college under my belt in my early twenties but never finished my degree. So, at age forty, I transferred to a new university, switched my field of study to Film & Television and started taking classes. It’s pretty neat.
- I went apple picking and wandered around a corn maze. As you do.
- I’ve been so busy that I haven’t even got past episode one of Squid Game. Can you imagine.
Now that it’s October, I’m in full autumn swing. I picked out some favorite books and films and stuff so that you can burrow into the season and never come back out.
Books
- The House Next Door, Anne Rivers Siddons
- Elizabeth, Ken Greenhall
- Come Closer, Sara Gran
- Dark Tales, Shirley Jackson
- The October Country, Ray Bradbury
Films
Stuff
- I started getting candles from the Magic Candle Company to relive Disney World, but it also turns out they have a great list of fall scents. I recommend Haunted, Poison Apple, Terror and Pumpkin King.
- Even if you’re as hopeless of a cook as I am, it’s hard to screw up apple crisp. So get some apples and make some crisp.
- The Muppets Haunted Mansion special is available today why aren’t we all watching it right now.
Links
Facebook knows Instagram is toxic for teen girls.
Kids who grew up with search engines could change STEM education forever.
150 years later: the Great Chicago Fire, as told by those who lived through it.
An anxious age demands more “restorative cities.”
How Disney almost built a cinematic universe from the (excellent) show Gargoyles.
How 50 female characters were described in their screenplays.
“We’ve lost the dial-up sound to a trove of bygone minutia too roundabout to explain while we were busy hurtling toward a frictionless future. But isn’t that something, listening in to the scrambled murmurs of a computer game hopping over copper wires running through the walls?” I miss the dial-up modem sound.
Reading/Watching/Listening
- I finally caught up with Laura Lippman’s latest, Dream Girl, and of course you want to read it.
- Brand New Cherry Flavor is an inconsistent but unique slice of surrealist horror, recommended for the patient.
- Brandi Carlile's In These Silent Days is a great listen. I particularly like "Mama Werewolf," which also seems seasonally appropriate.
Around
- Quiet Little Horrors has been quiet for a couple of months, but it returns this Sunday, October 10, with a mini about Midsommar. In the next full episode, coming out on October 24, we’ll discuss The Invitation. And! We’ll have a special Halloween episode on October 31, but we’ll keep that film secret for now.
- I was way over-ambitious with my horror film newsletter Scarlet Adventuress. After regrouping, I’m moving to a once-a-month cadence and I’ll have a new essay over there at the close of October. Also, if anyone has tried to subscribe to that and run into issues, please let me know! I got a couple reports of that and I’m trying to troubleshoot.
- My teenage daughter has expressed interest in watching more horror movies, so I made a Shocktober 2021 list for us to dip into over October. Feel free to use for your own burgeoning horror film fans (YMMV!).
Believe.
Love,
Jen
This week’s quote is from Robert Browning.