Joseph

I finished Alan Moore’s From Hell, a grim and sprawling tale set in the fog-choked streets of Whitechapel. A graphic novel but something more, it lays bare the sinews of the Victorian age, peeling back its skin to speculate on the identity and motives of Jack the Ripper. Afterward, I re-watched the Hughes Brothers’ film, the one with Johnny Depp. I’d seen it once, years ago, when the century was still young. It left little behind but the faint impression of Depp as some kind of junkie psychic. I lasted fifteen minutes. Turned it off.

It’s not a bad film, not exactly. But it’s a shadow of something greater. Watching it now, I remembered why it slipped so easily from my mind. The late, great Ian Holm was there, and Heather Graham, whose presence in pop culture has largely evaporated—failed to anchor it in recollection.

Do yourself a kindness. Pick up Moore’s work instead. From Hell in its truest form is not a thing you forget. It stays with you. The film? It tries, but it pails in comparison.

I’m making chocolate pecan pie for Thanksgiving. Super easy and everyone loves it.

Ingredients

• 10 tablespoons (1 stick plus 2 tablespoons) butter, softened
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 3 extra-large eggs
• 1 cup dark corn syrup
• 1 cup pecan halves
• 1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chip-sized pieces
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 9(-inch) frozen pie crust

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
2. Put the butter in a large bowl and stir in the sugar with a wooden spoon until smooth, about three minutes. Beat the eggs in one at a time, until each is incorporated. Add the remaining ingredients. Pour the filling into the crust.
3. Bake on the center rack of the oven for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350°F and bake for 30 to 35 minutes more, until the pie is set and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool before serving.

I did not wake this morning intending to acquire near forty volumes by Ursula K. Le Guin, but there it is. A humble bundle laid out by @toddgrotenhuis, tempting as sin and priced to move. One dollar for riches worth $363, though I’d urge you to pay a bit more, for it goes to the keeping of the Literary Arts. One book I wanted didn’t make the list, Le Guin ’s Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way. No matter. Amazon offered it for a mere 49¢.

I’ve never been a tea drinker. Coffee’s always been my poison. That began to change a decade ago when I had my first cup of light roast coffee. I was stunned at how bright and complex the flavor was. It was almost like drinking tea, making me rethink my tea position. But after trying a few kinds of tea, I was convinced I was mistaken. But then, a few months ago, I came across an recipe for a Lapsang Souchong old-fashioned. I love me an old fashioned, but hold up, what’s this about Lapsang Souchong? I purchased a bag and instantly became a fan of its bold, smokey flavor and now enjoy a cup every day. What other teas should I try?

I just wrote a Facebook post advocating for Mastodon, Micro.blog, and Textcasting, so I thought I’d share it here as well.

Mastodon is where your friends and family can gather, shoot the breeze, and share their moments without the ever-present shadow of yet another creepy billionaire pulling the strings. This place? It’s different. You don’t like the instance you’re on? Cool. Pack your digital bags and move. You’re not shackled to it like Facebook or X.

And here’s the beautiful part: timelines on Mastodon? They run straight, no gimmicks, no sleight of hand. Chronological, like your feed should be, without some algorithm breathing down your neck, deciding what you should see, or trying to shove political posts out of sight. No walled gardens and no invisible penalties just because you dropped a link. Unlike those other platforms where links go to die, Mastodon keeps it raw, open, and real.

Now, I’m everywhere, sure. Name a social media, I’ve got a footprint. But Mastodon? That’s the HQ. It’s home base. And because I’m a Mac and iPhone kind of man, Ivory’s my app of choice. Yeah, it’s got a price tag, but for quality? I’ll pony up. No regrets. Ice Cubes is solid, don’t get me wrong, but when Tapbots dropped Ivory, it was game over.

Then there’s Micro.blog. I’ve been there since day one, and yeah, it’s a subscription deal at five bucks a month, but listen—it keeps the bots and the trolls out. You want a space where people actually think before they post? This is the place. Plus, it plays nice with Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads—cross-posting made easy.

And here’s the kicker: this is all leading somewhere. Dave Winer—the guy who basically put podcasting on the map with RSS—has a vision. Textcasting. Imagine podcasting but for words. You get the goods no matter the device or app you subscribe to. No middlemen. With ActivityPub and tech like that on the horizon, we’re this close to breaking the chains. All of Facebook, X, will have to up their game or watch their empires crumble. Do you want people to stick around? Offer something worth their damn time.

Like most folk, I scroll through my social feeds on my phone. It’s the third place we spend most of our time, after all. But let me tell you, the last few days I’ve been using Tapbots Ivory app for Mastodon on my desktop and it’s a game changer! Same features as the phone app, but it so much easer and fun to use! I’m really digging their hashtag functionality.

It don’t surprise me none. Spent years with the Tapbots Tweetbot on my phone. When Twitter shut down third-party apps, and I was forced to use their dedicated app, I discovered what Twitter was really like, and how awful it was. Tweetbot was a joy to use and sheltered me from the shitstorm that Twitter had become. Ivory is everything that Tweetbot was and more since they are no longer constrained by Twitter. Go get it for your phone or tablet and your desktop.

Last month, I took to reading one H. P. Lovecraft tale each day. Took to writing afterward too, capturing his voice and style in ways I’d come to appreciate like a ritual—a communion with the page. The pattern of it, predictable, dependable. But now it’s gone, and something’s been taken with it. I still write, sure. VIKINGS vs SAMURAI is about the comic book and everything related to it. My journal is where I capture moments and process my thoughts and feelings. But what will bring that same purpose to the blank screen now? What will drive the words?

This is what I’m left to reckon with in the weeks, or months, ahead.

On this final day of October, this day of Halloween, I find myself compelled to reflect upon the curious rite I have revived—a practice of honoring the master of cosmic horror, H. P. Lovecraft, by immersing myself in one tale each night. Thus did I delve into that vast tome, The Complete Works of H. P. Lovecraft, a volume of heavy presence and arcane import, which, to my astonishment, revealed new realms unknown even to one such as I, who thought himself well-versed in every terror the man had penned.

For many years, I believed I had plumbed every dark depth of Lovecraft’s works. Yet I was gravely mistaken. The tome unveiled secrets undreamed of—strange stories hidden from more familiar collections. Admittedly, there are tales within whose artistry leaves much to be desired, and I suspect it was their very rawness that saw them omitted from more curated assemblages. And yet, there is a strange satisfaction in having read them, as though I have peered into the very soul of the creator himself, unvarnished and unrefined.

In truth, I am far from exhausting this trove of eldritch nightmares. Indeed, I have only begun to explore its dread expanse. Thus, I anticipate, in future Octobers, returning to this rite, delving deeper each year into Lovecraft’s labyrinthine mind.

For this year, I concluded my reading with the elusive fragment, “Azathoth,” a tale weaving the threads of dreams and the dreadful reality beyond mortal comprehension. Permit me, however, to linger upon why this slender story resonates so deeply within me. You see, I am a meticulous keeper of dreams. Each vision that disturbs my slumber I capture upon the page, seeking—as the venerable Jung himself advised—to uncover the recurrent symbols and themes that may shed light upon the buried dimensions of the psyche. Only yesterday, a chance encounter with a stranger stirred memories of a dream from the previous week, though upon closer scrutiny, the connection was but an illusion. And yet, for those few brief minutes, the veil between waking and dreaming thinned, casting the ordinary world in hues strange and wondrous.

But now, to the tale itself!

And one night a mighty gulf was bridged, and the dream-haunted skies swelled down to the lonely watcher’s window to merge with the close air of his room and make him a part of their fabulous wonder.

Lovecraft’s “Azathoth,” intended as an Eastern fable in the antique style inspired by William Thomas Beckford’s Varhek, opens with a lament upon the dreariness of modernity—a world stripped of the old magic, bereft of any glimpse of the numinous. The tale’s nameless protagonist inhabits a dreary, ignoble city, yet each night, he casts his gaze skyward, seeking solace in the stars. Over time, those distant lights reveal unto him vistas hidden from the common eye. One fateful night, the chasm between his soul and those cosmic spheres dissolves, and his mind is loosed from mortal bounds, ascending into a boundless and terrifying infinity.

Today marks the penultimate day of my resurrected ritual—an immersion in the macabre, wherein I partake daily of a tale from that towering harbinger of cosmic horror, H. P. Lovecraft. This humble blogger ensnared within the many toils of earthly existence, found a rare mercy in today’s selection, “What the Moon Brings,” for this potent prose-poem of eldritch insight proved mercifully brief. Yet, despite its brevity, it reverberates with that peculiar chill, leaving an indelible mark upon the soul—a whisper of ancient fears that lingers, unseen and yet unshakable.

I hate the moon—I am afraid of it—for when it shines on certain scenes familiar and loved it sometimes makes them unfamiliar and hideous.

In that twilight realm of dreams beyond mortal understanding, an unnamed soul, trembling yet drawn forth, wanders through a garden of spectral beauty, veiled in pallid moonlight and the haze of unreal visions. Like specters frozen in eternal dread, eerie stone idols loom from the shadows, silent custodians of a forgotten age. From a meandering stream he ventures forth, compelled toward an endless, unnatural river whose ghastly shores beckon with a horror veiled in darkness.

As he nears the river’s dismal banks, the outline of a city—ruins borne of unutterable antiquity—emerges from the mist. Here lies a city of the dead, its crumbling towers and skeletal archways faintly visible beneath the oppressive cloak of the heavens. A sensation of something titanic and grotesque stirs within the abyssal depths, an abominable watcher whose presence seeps into the marrow with chilling certainty. The murky waters heave with slow ripples, the vile and eldritch writhing of creatures unseen—sea worms, he suspects, though they bear a loathsome implication beyond mortal comprehension.

Terror mounts, yet his mind, on the precipice of madness, perceives this monstrous sight as a portal to a fate more dreadful than death itself. In a final, fevered surge of defiance, he chooses oblivion, preferring the cold embrace of the depths to the inexorable dread that looms above. Casting himself toward the submerged ruins, his fate hangs in shadow, uncertain and terrible—a whispered legend lost to the blackened tide.