This Week in Sniderville: 11

This week:

Spring finally arrived! This is the sunset at 7:53 PM last Sunday. Almost eight, and still light out!
sniderwritersunsetAhh, gorgeous. I love this time of year.

My trial order of buttons came in! They look so good!
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I went for all-you-can-eat sushi today with my coworkers. SO! MUCH! FOOD! I tried salmon roe and tempura bananas and fried pudding. Yup, that’s a thing. And it’s delicious!

Apparently I like to use exclamation points! when I am excited! Somebody stop me!

I watched a ton of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The man was a genius. (!)

Also, as someone whose house is ruled by cats, I couldn’t help but share this:

How was your week?

This Week in Sniderville: 9

I’m not a virgin anymore!

Last night I went to a special screening of Rocky Horror Picture Show, hosted by…PATRICIA QUINN! It was part of Shock Stock, an annual local horror convention.

I bought my tickets online, thinking how AMAZING it would be to watch RHPS with Magenta herself, and brought a friend along for the midnight screening. What they didn’t tell me on the website was that not only was Magenta there, but so was a live shadow cast! I got rained on, I got rice in my hair, and I fulfilled my decade-long dream of seeing Rocky live! My face hurt all night from smiling so hard.

Patricia was lovely during the Q&A, genuinely funny and sweet. When someone in the audience asked for advice for aspiring actors, Ms Quinn looked her dead in the eye and said “Don’t dream it, be it.” I may have teared up a bit.

I wasn’t allowed to take pictures, and I didn’t get to keep my ticket stub. But today, when I attended the convention proper, I got something so much better:

pquinn

I’ve never had a fangirl moment like that before. She spoke to me! She knows my name! I managed to carry on an actual conversation, instead of squeaking unintelligibly like I worried I would. I carried the picture into the crowd like it was made of fine gold, because to me it might as well be.

I’ll show off the other stuff I scored at Shock Stock when the light is better. But I couldn’t wait to share this one with you.

How was your week?

Horror Comes to My Hometown!

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A section of Highbury Ave. was turned into a giant accident scene on Saturday night for the horror film Kingdom Come from London-based Matchbox Pictures.(HANK DANISZEWSKI, The London Free Press)

THEY’RE FILMING A HORROR MOVIE HERE!

Here’s the interesting part: there had been road-closure warnings on this road for a while, saying that the road would be closed from yesterday afternoon until early this morning. However, it seems that none of us outside the production knew it was for a film; most assumed it was for construction. Cue panicked Facebook updates about the 30-car pileup on the road, body bags in the street, requests for prayers for those who perished…

Nope, just a movie set. It’s called Kingdom Come.
From IMDB: “A group of strangers wake up in an abandoned hospital to find themselves stalked by a supernatural force with sinister intentions.”

I’m not sure exactly where the highway scene fits in, but according to our local paper, some of the movie will be filmed in an abandoned Victorian mental asylum located on the grounds of our current Psychiatric Hospital.

I can’t wait to see it all come together. This makes my haunted little heart very, very happy.

Read more here, here, or here.

This Week in Sniderville: 5

This week I got caught up in the wonder that is Netflix. I had some help getting comfy on the couch:

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That’s Jadie in the front and Zoey in the back.

I set up my beautiful new desk.

I watched Rubber, which was nothing short of brilliant.
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From IMDB: “When Robert, a tire, discovers his destructive telepathic powers, he soon sets his sights on a desert town; in particular, a mysterious woman becomes his obsession.” I mean, really. You’ve gotta give it a chance: It’s so much better and much more clever than you’d think. Plus, the gore effects are AWESOME.

I’m still reading The Fountainhead, and just made it past That One Scene That Everyone Talks About. Say what you want about Rand’s heavy-handed philosophy: I’m enjoying reading about architecture, which is not what I expected.

I learned about the magic of makeup: Porn Stars With and Without Makeup (everyone’s dressed, it’s not porn-y)

And my husband reminded me of this video, which is filthy, but makes me giggle uncontrollably. You have been warned.

How was your week?

Tyrannosaurus Desk

I have a new love interest.

He’s tough, and sexy, and weighs about 300 pounds.

This, folks, is Tyrannosaurus Desk:

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I started looking for a proper desk recently, when I decided that a rickety vintage table wasn’t cutting it anymore. I had a few ideas in mind when I set out: something solid, made of real trees instead of sawdust, hopefully with storage. That was it. I mentioned it in passing at work, how I’d looked for something used but decent and hadn’t found a damned thing.

A coworker mentioned that her mom was looking to get rid of a desk, twenty-five bucks if I picked it up. She mentioned some scuffs and dings, but hey, for $25 I was willing to give it a shot.

I fell in love instantly.

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Storage!

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Storage!

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Hanging files!

It’s beautifully crafted – that’s a red leather blotter on top! Plus, as soon as my mom saw it, she said it looks like a “real writer’s desk”. What more could I want?

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(notes: 1. The blind is busted because my cats are assholes, 2. The lighters are for the candle; I don’t smoke. Why two? Why not? and 3. Because the desk is so big-slash-heavy, we can’t get it upstairs to the office, meaning there’s no real purpose for the office anymore, meaning the office is no more. HOWEVER, my genius husband suggested we make that room into a dressing room. Have I mentioned that I love this man?)

This Week in Sniderville: 3

I spent the week with that nasty, chesty cough that’s going around. The one that makes you feel like your own lungs are trying to drown you, and your head isn’t far behind. I stayed home from work for two days, thinking I’d take it easy, maybe get a little writing done from the comfort of the sickbed. Instead I laid on the couch whining like a four year old while C patiently brought me food and drink. (In retrospect, I tended to sleep right after that: he may have been slipping me cold meds to make me shut the hell up. Frankly, I wouldn’t have blamed him.)

I read quite a bit, curled in a bitchy little ball in my bed, including Bentley Little’s His Father’s Son, the ending of which I predicted but loved just the same. It gave me fevered clown dreams, though, which were more terrifying than the book itself.

I decided to get a desk. A real, proper, writerly desk that weighs a ton and is beat to hell and back. I want something wooden, something substantial, something I can use as I pen stories and novels for years to come. Pen being the operative, here: my current setup isn’t cutting it. Writing longhand at a rickety chrome-and-formica table makes the whole works shake until I worry that it’ll all fall apart, severing my legs on the way to the floor. I went thrifting with my friend Leslie in hopes of finding a big wooden behemoth to call my own.
Somehow I came home with this instead:
mary

That white horizontal line is the light catching her grooves. She’s lenticular and turns her head when you walk past her. Have you ever seen such splendor? Not for a dollar, you haven’t. I have the feeling she’ll be coming to live in my office.

Also, have this:

How was your week?

Dark Masks and More: Evan Campbell’s Creepy Carvings

I was perusing the forums at ConceptArt again; a favourite trick when I’m lacking motivation. Something about seeing people accomplishing amazing art drives me to make more of my own.

I hit the mother lode today.

His name is Evan Campbell, and his work will blow your mind.

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“Gelatin head I sculpted and painted.”

GFXARTIST CELEBRATION
“Celebration”

luminous 2 - NIGHT CRAWLERS
“Night Crawlers”

Bound
“Bound Into”

God of Witches
“God of Witches”

Here’s his Gallery of Work, which includes many more morbidly fantastic pieces, as well as an intricate step-by-step guide to casting your own macabre latex masks. More of his work can be found on Deviant Art.

I’m wowed. I’m amazed. I’m gonna go write something awesome now.

(photos all copyright Evan Campbell, sourced from ConceptArt)

…And Then I Bought Something.

A friend of mine linked me to this article on Cracked:5 People on Etsy Who Are Clearly Serial Killers. It features some…questionable objects: dead animal faces. Teeth from an asylum. A jar covered in what the seller insists is human flesh.

I read the article. I cringed. I laughed. And then I bought something.

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She’s photographed, according to Pamela Klaffke, the photographer, “with a holga cfn 120mm toy camera, using expired film”.

She’s a little eerie, but I love her. (Or maybe that’s WHY I love her?) There’s a certain dreamy quality to the print, an almost-Instagram-except-way-better distortion. She struck me when I saw her, and I had to have her.

I have a feeling, though, that she might be coming to live in my office with me. The office is where C makes me house all the weird shit he doesn’t like looking at (though why he doesn’t want anatomical drawings and stuffed elk heads* wearing tiaras in the rest of the house is beyond me).

Go check out the other critters in Klaffke’s collection (because, seriously, who doesn’t need a scary Hanukkah fox child in their lives? Or click here for the rest of the Cracked article.

(screen grab via Cracked, photo featured copyright Pamela Klaffke)

*(Relax, vegans: this is the head in question.)