Rise of the Flying Guillotine

Saturday, June 26, 2021

Back to this

After returning to this this before, I never took the time to explore, see what this is.

Anyway, I was listening to The Steal Like an Artist Audio Trilogy by Austin Kleon and pondering what he says about blogging, I think in one of the Show Your Work segments, and I thought, "I got a lot out of blogging for a lot of the time I was doing it. Some external, but certainly a significant amount was just for myself."

It was in my head, so it was weirder and ramblier than that, but that's what it boiled down to.

I'm going to make a point of writing here more, so I can find out what it is. If I don't come all of the time, it'll never develop into anything. It'll just be a space, where I occasionally dump stuff.

I might, in that process, dig out old Facebook posts or tweetstorms, edit them into something for posterity or for a medium I'm perhaps better at.

Twitter, @rotfg_neil, I'm particularly ill-suited to somehow. Now, I could complain that nothing I do gets any traction at all and you could think "Maybe it's you, asshole." And I'm mostly not inclined to fully disagree, but I also know that I get way more traction other places. Sometimes the exact same people that respond well to me on Facebook, miss it on Twitter. It might be how my voice plays on the medium or how my words affect it's algorithm. Fuck if I know.

I don't really care either, although I don't know a way to write it that doesn't sound potentially petulant and insincere.

I do find it... interesting.

As I'm sure I've said, the one thing I don't want this to be is a place that I'm trying to prove I can write. Every time I found myself doing that at the old blog, I'd write things I didn't like as much and my writing got worse. I'm sure there are lots of people who could overcome that particular irony, but I'm not one of them, nor am, at this point in my life, that interested in any suggestions for how I might, but thanks for thinking of them on my behalf... and then thanks for not bothering to pass them on.

UPDATE: Facebook has decided that this page here is "spam". It has, of course, provided no evidence of this claim and it seems sketchy on the face of it, but I have no real love for this site at this point either. For now, it's allowing my Tumblr, so I might post there for now.

The Tumblr version of this post here can be found at this link.

Sunday, October 4, 2020

Dracula, Lakeside, the public domain and me

Many a moon ago, I wrote a proposal for a new take on Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula. Or I started one.

This isn’t an unfinished project in the never got around to completing sense.

At least not at this stage.

No, I rethought much of the details and turned it all into a feature screenplay called “The Hunt”, which I completed.

Somewhere in this process, the version of Dracula I’d originally conceived for the comic version was turned into a more generic character.

Also there was an older Cuban professor I wrote for Tomás Milian and sadly now definitely never will be.

At some point, I managed to try shooting a rewritten version of a small part of the beginning of the story under the title “Lakeside”, but it was never finished for a whole series of reasons that aren’t relevant to this.

Except that my shame and self-reproach have largely kept this work as far in the back of my mind as I can push it.

But recently I was feeling like exploring my horror self creatively, thought of something I might consider doing, and put it behind the thing I’m working on in line for things to work on.

Then I saw this tweet.

Now, this was not news to me.

Indeed, I’m aware that because the copyright was never filed correctly, it has actually always been in the public domain in the U.S.

But in the moment with my mind softened from self-protection against the project, I found myself trying to remember why I wrote Dracula out of the screenplay. I even left a scene in the short version that makes very little sense without Dracula, but no one ever suggested should be cut.

Hardly any of this is relevant to anything right now, but it’s something I’ll be thinking about if I ever do go back to it.

If you're looking for it, you'll recognize it by the fact that, if I have anything to say about it, it won't be called "The Hunt" or "Lakeside".

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

ROTFG - Selling out

Back again.

I ask the ultimate American question.

Then I ponder what selling out is and how it applies to me and the things I care about.

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/3HvIpnyPJ3jKbpdEKFyuqc
iTunes - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rise-of-the-flying-guillotine
Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/rise-of-the-flying-guillotine
PocketCasts - https://pca.st/fzdlpev2

Instagram is continuing to ban my use of links with the name "Rise of the Flying Guillotine", so my Linktree is currently banned and my whole experience there is troubled while I wait - I suspect forever - for them to respond, assuming they will, to my "report" of the issue.

Skyhawk Beach by Blue Wave Theory clip used as theme music under attribution Creative Commons license.

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

ROTFG - Social media is Soylent Green

And yet another episode.

Nothing too much new. I continue my thoughts on Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber as well as talking more about Indie Media, mostly movies and pay a brief tribute to The West Wing Thing with Josh Olson and Dave Anthony, in noting why I've not seen The Social Network.

Skyhawk Beach by Blue Wave Theory clip used as theme music under attribution Creative Commons license. All other clips are Fair Use.

Tuesday, September 8, 2020

ROTFG - For those about to rock

I start this episode discussing Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber, who recently passed away. Here's a tribute, Remembering My Friend, David Graeber by Michael Hardt, and here's the article, On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs, that the book is an expansion and exploration of.

After that, I take a longer stab at the question of finding new music in genres that are no longer as active. I realized in editing that I talked to much about finding less popular older artists than I did about newer songs, which I somewhat regret, but the principle is there.

Skyhawk Beach by Blue Wave Theory clip used as theme music under attribution Creative Commons license. All other clips are Fair Use.

Here are some of the songs clipped and discussed.

Shaft by Isaac Hayes