A Week

Wow. Well, so, this week. It’s been a week. Tempting as it is to blame the slush picking up, or my recent illness putting me behind at everything, I think it’s been a week for pretty much everyone I know, so maybe there’s just something in the air.

Anyway, I have been exhaustingly busy and, predictably enough, whenever I wasn’t I was too exhausted to do anything, including post, hence why you haven’t heard about, say, The Innkeepers or The Woman in Black yet, and why, now that you are going to hear about them, it’ll necessarily be pithier shorter than I would have liked. So: I saw both of them last weekend, along with catching House of the Devil a second time. They were both quite good. Both were sort of quiet, simple ghost stories, unambitious in scale, but very effective in their own ways. The Woman in Black, I think, lost out a little bit by being in such close proximity with The Innkeepers, which I liked the best of the two, but it also wasn’t helped by the theatre full of fourteen-year-old girls who had come to see Harry Potter square off against a ghost.

I found The Innkeepers to be a big improvement (for me, at least) over House of the Devil, though it had maybe fewer bravura scenes. It was still just as quiet and slow-burning, but instead of just feeling slow, it was charming and funny up until the last few minutes, which were, frankly, harrowing.

Anyway, both were good, though I don’t think that either would be harmed by waiting for DVD. (And, assuming your audience was anything like ours, The Woman in Black might be improved.)

What else? After coming very late to the game with “Chelsea Dagger,” I’ve been listening to a lot of stuff by The Fratellis, especially their second album Here We Stand, which I pretty much love from top to bottom. Call this my second big musical discovery of the year, after The Bird and the Bee.

Finally, thanks to Eric Orchard, I started up an account over on Pinterest. I can’t vouch for how much I’ll be using it or not, but so far I’m mostly sticking up Mike Mignola and Richard Sala drawings. So, y’know, if that sounds like your cup of tea, feel free to give it a look.

This weekend, my lovely wife and I are getting dolled up and going out to see Amelie at the Screenland and then going out to a fancy dinner. I bought a new hat for the occasion, and she bought some very nice shoes. With any luck, there will be pictures.