Month: October 2023

SubscribeStar Saturday: SC Bigfoot Festival 2023

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

Last Saturday I attended the South Carolina Bigfoot Festival in Westminster, South Carolina.  The festival is in its fourth year, and it was a bustling, fun event—a good model for how small town festivals should be.

There were some hiccups over the summer, with vendor packets (my own included) getting lost in the mail and the festival’s website disappearing for a couple of weeks.  The event organizers weren’t responding to e-mails, and I thought for awhile that maybe the whole thing had been shuttered.

Fortunately, that was not the case, and the festival organizers got everything working again.  I paid my vendor fee using some Discover Card cashback, and went up to Westminster after school on Friday, 13 October 2023 (spooky!).

My neighbors went up ahead of me, on Thursday, 12 October 2023, and picked up my vendor packet for me during the day Friday.  We stayed in adjacent campsites at Chau-Ram County Park, a beautiful park near waterfalls—and just $25 a night!

I made a critical error, however:  I should have taken off last Friday.  Because I was unable to attend the festival Friday, the vendor organizer put me down a little side street.  I was super close to the main strip, but just far enough away that most folks didn’t even realize my tent was there.

Needless to say, it was not a strong sale’s day.  Indeed, I only sold one painting, to a sweet little girl who loves the Loch Ness monster.  She purchased a painting I’d done of a strange aquatic animal, which she liked because it resembled Nessie.

I shared my vendor spot with the wife my neighbor’s family, and she was selling really cool crochet hats.  I figured she’d do a killing, as the hats were really well done, but she did not make a single sale.

In that regard, the festival was a disappointment.  As for the festival itself, though, it was an absolute blast.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

More Quiz Bowlin’

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

October brings with it so many things that I love—cooler weather, cozy nights, quiet mornings, Halloween—but there’s something else:  quiz bowl.

I participated in quiz bowl (we called it “Academic Team” in the public schools) back in middle and high schools, and I coached my school’s High School Quiz Bowl team for many years.  I’ve handed that responsibility off to another teacher, but I still moderate tournaments from time to time, which is fun.

I wrote about quiz bowl back in October 2021; for a full rundown on how the game is played and what it is like, read “Quiz Bowlin’” before proceeding with this post.  It will provide much more context.

Earlier this week, I moderated the South Carolina Independent School (SCISA) Middle School Quiz Bowl Tournament.  It consisted of several “regional” pools of competing schools, with winners proceeding to two semi-final pools.  Two semi-finalists and a wildcard team (based on total points scored) then competed in the finals.

Read More »

TBT^16: On Ghost Stories

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Yours portly has been in the Halloween spirit big time:  scary movies, the SC Bigfoot Festival, releasing two albums of autumnal tunes (here and here).  What I haven’t gotten to—yet!—are ghost stories.

I don’t have much additional ghost story commentary this year, but I will say that they tend to work better in books than in films.  That’s a bold, unsubstantiated claim, but I find that reading about ghosts is a lot scarier than seeing them on celluloid.  Ghosts might be—appropriately—a cold medium creature, best on the page or told about around the campfire.  Other monsters are probably hot medium/media critters, best for television or the radio.

Whatever the case, here is “TBT^4: On Ghost Stories“:

Read More »

Myersvision: Audre’s Exorcism

The Portly Politico7 Comments

Last Thursday Audre Myers e-mailed me a comment for my post “TBT^4: Things That Go Bump in the Night” (she’s having some issues logging into WordPress to comment—d’oh!).  I asked if I could post it on the blog as its own post, and she agreed.

The title I’ve given her comment-post is a bit of artistic license; I’m sure Audre would not call it an “exorcism,” but she definitely cast something out in the Name of Jesus Christ.

It’s become a trope in horror films, especially of the demonic possession variety, that messing around with fortune telling, Ouija boards, etc., opens one up to demonic influence.  I suspect that our habitual sins open us up far more frequently, but I also strongly believe we shouldn’t mess around with the occult, even in a supposedly playful manner.  I know Ouija boards are mass-produced by Milton Bradley, which somehow takes away some of the demonic mysticism of them; still, I imagine Satan loves the Industrial Revolution and mass production.

We have victory in Jesus.  Praise the Lord!

With there, here is Audre’s fascinating tale of victory in Christ:

Read More »

Open Mic Adventures LII: “Minuet for a New Moon”

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Now that school is back in session, yours portly isn’t making it out to open mic night much, so I’m doing what I do best:  mining the rich veins of my old, neglected works.

This week I’d like to share “Minuet for a New Moon,” which I composed on 9 February 2022 as part of Péch​é​s d​’​â​ge moyen, the highly unpopular collection of lo-fi solo piano pieces I released largely as part of an inside Internet joke.

Read More »

Monday Morning Movie Review: The Exorcist: Believer (2023)

The Portly Politico8 Comments

Last Monday I wrote about one of the best horror movies—indeed, one of the best movies—of all time, 1973’s The Exorcist.  My review barely dipped into the complex religious themes of the movie, as well many of the flick’s subtle shades of implication and visual storytelling.

Today I’m reviewing what is intended to be a modern sequel/reboot of the classic, arriving fifty years later:  2023’s The Exorcist: Believer.  Well, you’d better believe(r) that it doesn’t stack up to the original.

Read More »

Lazy Sunday CXXIV: Two Cryptid Tunes

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

My latest album, Spooky Season II: Rise of the Cryptids has now hit all streaming services.  That includes the following:

…and many more.  That being the case, I thought I’d look back at two recent Open Mic Adventures posts:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: The Hamster Wheel of Productivity

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

Americans are obsessed with productivity.  Our entire ethos—a witch’s brew of the Puritan/Protestant work ethic and a form of capitalism that sends the message that a person’s value is linked to their ability to produce something(s) that other people will buy—screams that if we aren’t doing something, we’re nothing.

My older brother has covered this topic much better on his Substack, The Highlight Zone, but I wanted to tackle it here.  His piece largely examines the curse of productivity from the academic’s perspective, but I suspect its specter haunts us in every facet of our lives.

Before getting to the bulk of my thoughts on this topic, I’ll share another source, from the YouTuber Horses:

Horses and my older brother are socialists of some degree or another.  I am not—strenuously not.  But if conservatives want to win hearts and minds, we should probably listen to the legitimate concerns our ideological opponents are making, because they are diagnosing and addressing a real problem.  Their solutions might not work—they may even be abhorrent—and I suspect no change in the form of government, no tweaking of government policy, will solve the problem, because it’s not a problem of government policy, or even economic policy.

Rather, it’s a problem of the heart, of the soul, of the mind, of the culture.  I doubt there is any one solution to this cult of productivity—this worship of the pagan goddess Efficiency.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

TBT^4: Things That Go Bump in the Night

The Portly Politico1 Comment

Spooky Season is upon us, and everyone is getting into the festive spirit of the season.  I know I sure am!  I’ve already carved pumpkins and had my share of pumpkin-spiced cookies (perhaps too many!), and am heading out tomorrow to a festival dedicated to Bigfoot!

I don’t have much to add that I haven’t already commented upon in prior years, so I’m going to get on with this perennial Halloween season classic.

With that, here is 13 October2022’s “TBT^2: Things That Go Bump in the Night“:

Read More »