I'd been interested in film & video production from a young age, having gotten to participate in a special interest group sometime between grades 3&5, but w/o a camera didn't do anything of the sort until college TV. Impressed by some of these I've seen - better than a number of adults have done!

"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech." ~ Benjamin Franklin

Completed my own side goal for #100HorrorMoviesIn92Days of watching a movie from every decade 1910s-2020s last night. Will have watched films for every letter of the alphabet today with Ugly Stepsister which will be 83/100. Still must watch 13 more directed by women to reach 50 of those.

Republican Christmas Card For @rawstory.com Follow my work on Substack: nickanderson.substack.com

Stop and really imagine this. It's June 1740 in the Bordman house in Cambridge, MA. Seven-year-old Ruth and five-year-old Andrew are in bed, struggling to breathe as diphtheria slowly closes their throats, choking them to death. Ruth dies first; her little brother dies the next day. Fuck RFK Jr.

Approaching 64/100 for #100HorrorMoviesIn92Days Challenge w/32 directed by women. Making good time, I think, for my first time doing it. Starting to make more of a conscious effort at geographic diversity too. Might try Screams Around the World Challenge sometime.

Reminder that the deadline for SSAG proposals for our American Nightmares II Conference in Salem, MA, is due October 1st! More info: americangothicsociety.com/symposium/ #SSAG #GothicLiterature #Conference #Horror

At 33/100 for #100HorrorMoviesIn92Days w/19 directed by women. The Open House unexpected Christmas movie: two songs - Silent Night set playing after break-in; town decorations; ending maybe inspired by Black Christmas. OK tension, cinematography &c fine but disappointing in important respects.

Trump's EPA is trying to give free rein to polluters to destroy our planet for profit

An 1820s plate for a proposed book to be called 'Death In London' that was never in fact published. Superbly #gothic in itself, I bet the book would have been wonderfully gruesome. Pre-Victorian but may still be of interest to @chriswoodyard.bsky.social #BookologyThursday #booksky #death #horror

Need to start a proper thread for #100HorrorMoviesIn92Days and catch up with writing some comments at least if not full reviews over at letterboxd.com/xmasghosts/l... Screenshot is not an outtake from The Sixth Sense, but from my #7 view Slice (2018). Somewhat amusing movie, not great.

Curious to see Destry Allyn Spielberg's Please Don't Feed the Children (2025) for #100HorrorMoviesIn92Days . Mixed reviews, but it's free on Tubi.

Not sure why fingernails, hair, and bad makeup would make the "Old Ones" think a plastic baby doll is a living descendant of the lord that once served them hundreds of years ago. #TVMParty

Here's the thing about claims that "history will remember." History doesn't remember. *People* remember. Reconstruction ended ~150 years ago. For most of that time, Americans have misunderstood, misremembered, & willfully misrepresented it - despite a vast historical record to the contrary.

Excellent Christmas Ghost Story choice; CGS b/c of Dec 1909 publication in Nash's Magazine. Much reprinted, yet somehow's never been in a CGS anthology! (www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/titl...) Has frequent CGS device of room of last resort; a sort of dark echo of the Biblical "no room at the inn."

What's this!? An online conference!? Dedicated to the ghostly and weird tales! Celebrating 100 years of M R James 'A Warning to the Curious'? With fantastic authors! Incredible panels! Writing workshops! Fantastic keynote speakers! Check it out!! buytickets.at/romancingthe...

Looking forward to watching on Shudder and hope there will be physical media too!

CFP: Call For Proposals: Gothic Blackness: Exploring Ethnogothic, New Black Gothic, and Afro-Gothic Themes in Literature, Film, and Culture Special Issue of American Gothic Studies Guest Editor: Dr. DeAnna Daniels, University of Arizona Proposals due 8/15/25, with essays due 2/1/26

The right-wing backlash against #Superman this week got me thinking: Has this happened before? That led to the discovery of these headline — from April 1940, when the official newspaper of the SS took umbrage at the comic book hero and ridiculed its creators. My how times change ...

More Christmas in July, just by chance, latest episode of Brokenwood Mysteries that became available on Acorn. A (naturally summery) New Zealand Christmas involving a scrotal electrocution of a Santa Claus. Even that aside, it was a weird one!

"A Christmas Song [Written in July in order to be in time for the Christmas magazines]" from 1907.

Despite being fully funded by Congress, appropriated dollars for the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) in fiscal year 2025 still hasn't been released. Urge your federal elected officials to release 2025 HPF funding and fund the HPF in 2026 at tinyurl.com/yeayzwsy.

#smallpoemsunday J.S. Westhafer in '27 claimed he wrote the shortest poem ever (excludes later 1 letter ones). Article starts by describing haiku rules, then newspaper poems "Hen, When?" & "Cow! Now." & "Oh, ho." & "Y, I." before going back to efforts in a 1914 DC paper. @tomsnarsky.bsky.social

Reclaim The Records, advocates for making public genealogy records free for everyone online, has announced that they have won in court the first-ever public release of the full New York State Death Index, from 1880 through the end of 2017.

Passage from late OuLiPo writer Harry Mathews' The Conversions still frustrates me. Convinced it's a coherent passage disassembled in some orderly way; exclamations possibly indicating rhymes. Pages proceeding describe images speaker was meant to talk about, thus might be useful decoding clues.

Spoke briefly at Troy, NY's "old" Mount Ida Cemetery yesterday, along with Mayor Mantello, Joe Ferrannini, Don Rittner, Cameron Smith, following completion of gravestone conservation work for the year.

#Cemetery #Headstone #Weird

"authority granted to the President by this section does not include the authority to regulate or prohibit, directly or indirectly [...] importation from any country [...] films" As others have noted, media really letting the public down by not being on top of this stuff, reporting the facts.

A headstone in Troy NY that had become completely buried since the Daughters of the American Revolution included it in the survey they published in 1923. The DAR misread or mistyped the year of death as 1832 rather than 1852. They hadn't noted if it was upright or flat at that time.

Probably the only mention in a comic book of the former village and town of Lansingburgh, from "Herman Melville." Vidas Illustres 12(162) May 15, 1967.

if you'd like to see a wide re-release of Hundreds of Beavers in theaters this year, one night only, in thousands of cities — repost this. we've got some doubters.

Gravestone conservation volunteer work in Troy NY's "old" Mount Ida Cemetery on Pawling Ave beginning May 2nd. Hoping to get this unusual deep relief headstone cleaned, repaired, & back upright among others.

Running from 1912-1932 or so, carried by a number of newspapers, "The Daily Novelette" was quite strange. One of the common elements was featuring introductions far longer than the story itself.

"The Girls" by H. C. Dodge, an abecedarian rebusian(?) mesostic from March 1886. Is there a better word than rebus to describe writing e.g. "achieve" as "Hieve" ([letter] aitch-ieve)? Also textspeak-like, though of course predating texting! #Poemsky

CFP: Cemeteries as Part of the Landscape Through the Centuries conference, Prague, 5-6 November 2025. Deadline 31 May. www.udu.cas.cz/en/akce/hrbi...

The Miyawaki mini forest method (also known as pocket forests) was developed by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki and has been successfully applied, typically on degraded land, in thousands of places across the globe.

After early typeface emoticons in Polish newspaper Kurjer warszawski & NY humor magazine Puck, both in March 1881, at the moment thought the earliest such, others made use of them too like this 1885 poem in the Boston Globe. Frustrating one can't search for typographical symbols! #Poemsky

"Poor Richard's Sayings in Rhyme" by H. C. Dodge (not Hodge!) from the Detroit Free Press, Sept 15, 1889. #Poemsky #Poem

"Old Saws in Rhyme" by H. C. Dodge from the Detroit Free Press, Oct 30, 1887. He did about twenty of these poems composed of #idioms, #proverbs, #adages. Image is a bit faint but full transcription is in alt text. #Poetrysky #Poem

"An Easter Greeting" - H. C. Dodge's bird-shaped poem from 1894. #Poemsky #Poetry #Easter

I don't write much poetry myself; this bit of 2020 doggerel of mine might demonstrate why. Inspired by the news item cited below, and by George Herbert's shape poem "Easter Wings" (for which see www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44361/... ) #Poemsky #Poetry

"A Warning," kite-shaped poem in a December 1893 UK newspaper. The ranks of life's battles are open to all, The lowly as well as the great, And though in the conflict full many may fall, You may reach to an honoured estate. [full transcription in alt text] #Poemsky #Poetry

"An Easter Greeting" - H. C. Dodge's bird-shaped poem from 1894. #Poemsky #Poetry #Easter

More puns in an Easter egg poem than most might tolerate well? H. C. Dodge's "An Easter Egg" from April 1882. #Poemsky #Poetry #Easter

📢 The Internet Archive needs your help. At a time when information is being rewritten or erased online, a $700 million lawsuit from major record labels threatens to destroy the Wayback Machine. Tell the labels to drop the 78s lawsuit. 👉 Sign our open letter: www.change.org/p/defend-the... 🧵⬇️

It’s International Haiku Poetry Day today apparently so here are a few haiku with which to start the day.

A March 1889 poem from H. C. Dodge proving he would have been very comfortable in our age of texting and character limits. He wrote at least 23 of this nature between 1883 and 1895.

Delicatessen (1991), though I could just as easily name Ravenous (1999) or - if tea counts - Kwaidan (1964).

"The Flower of the League" by “Jef. Joslyn” [John Edward Parker Doyle (1837-1888)] in 1885, one of his handwritten shape poems - here a mustachioed baseball player. I'm not completely confident about my reading of one of the words in the last line. #Poetry #Poemsky