SubscribeStar Saturday: Hammer Films IV: Hammer Films Collection, Volume II, Part I

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This weekend I’m continuing my series of reviews of various Hammer Studios films.  Last year I had the pleasure of reviewing (preview) of the Hammer Films Collection.  While writing that review I discovered that there is a second volume, which I immediately added to my Amazon Wishlist.

My family members came through (God forbid spend $9!), and I finally made it through this six-film collection.  I’ll say the real gems were on the first volume, but there are some good flicks on this collection, too.  Like the Hammer Films Collection, these are all Hammer Studios movies distributed through Columbia Pictures.  The collection includes the following films:  The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), The Snorkel (1958), Never Take Candy from a Stranger (1960), Maniac (1963), Die! Die! My Darling! (1965), and Creatures the World Forgot (1971).  For this first part, I’ll be reviewing The Revenge of Frankenstein, The Snorkel, and Never Take Candy from a Stranger.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Hammer Films III: Universal Horror Films, Part II

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Last week I wrote some reviews of the first four films on the The Hammer Horror Series, a collection of Hammer horror flicks.

The collection includes eight films in total:  Brides of DraculaThe Curse of the WerewolfThe Phantom of the OperaParanoiacThe Kiss of the VampireNightmareNight Creatures, and The Evil of Frankenstein.  Today I’ll be reviewing the second four films:  The Kiss of the VampireNightmareNight Creatures, and The Evil of Frankenstein.

The rest of this post on SubscribeStar might be a tad delayed; I’ll have it completed as soon as possible.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Hammer Films II: Universal Horror Films, Part I

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Last April I wrote a detailed review (preview) of the Hammer Films Collection.  I’m currently making my way through Volume II of the collection, both of which feature Hammer Studios films that Columbia Pictures distributed.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to complete the second volume in time to review it today, but I will do so in a couple of weeks.  However, Christmas brought a bumper crop of films from the famous Hammer Studios, including a collection of four Dracula films distributed by Warner Brothers and an eight-film compilation of Universal Studios horror flicks.

I’ll be reviewing the first four films on the Universal Studios-distributed collection, The Hammer Horror Series, and reviewing the second four next Saturday. At the time of writing, the collection is only $17.21 on Amazon for the DVD ($34.99 for the Blu-Ray edition); at that price, I’d definitely recommend picking it up to enjoy these flicks yourself.

The collection includes eight films in total:  Brides of DraculaThe Curse of the WerewolfThe Phantom of the OperaParanoiacThe Kiss of the VampireNightmareNight Creatures, and The Evil of Frankenstein.  Today I’ll be reviewing Brides of DraculaThe Curse of the WerewolfThe Phantom of the Opera, and Paranoiac.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: The Spirit of 1776

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Disclaimer:  I do not endorse violence as a means to achieving political ends in normal circumstances.  That said, I reject the claim that “violence never solves anything.”  The vast annals of human history suggest the opposite is largely the case—violence has been the resort—sometimes final, sometimes not—to resolve any number of problems.  Our entire political system rests on the implicit use of violent force towards upholding the common good—and protecting those unable to protect themselves.  Jesus Christ died—quite violently!—for our sins, offering us ultimate salvation forever.

Further, our entire nation is founded on a last-resort to violence to secure American liberty:  the American Revolution.  Brave men pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honors to secure liberty and to defend their rights.  Over 4000 did make the ultimate sacrifice—and many, many more since then—to win and secure our freedom.  Sometimes some turbulence is necessary—as the Left has told us all of last year as BLM destroyed cities—to secure liberty.

That’s an uncomfortable concept—I don’t necessarily like it, and I am sad to see it has come to that—but it’s the foundation of our Republic.  I sincerely pray for reconciliation and healing, as did John Dickinson prior to the American Revolution, but I am not optimistic given Democratic control of the organs of power.  The storming of the Capitol will be used as a pretext—it already is—to oppress and imprison conservatives.  At such a point, the remaining options begin to vanish.

I am not calling for or advocating violence in any form—but I’m afraid it’s coming nevertheless.  Please pray with me for reconciliation—true reconciliation, not the dictator’s peace of bending the knee to Leftist insanity—and prepare for troubled times ahead.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: 2021 Goals and Predictions

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A new year has sprung, which means it’s time for every blogger, commentator, talking head, professional wag, and tin-foil hat prognosticator to make wild predictions for the coming year.

If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that we are very bad at predicting future events.  I scoffed at the idea that The Virus would ever become anything more than a minor nuisance in our daily lives.  Now we live in a regime dominated by public health tyrants and their shrieking, useful-idiot toadies.

Nevertheless, you’re paying good money for conjecture, innuendo, and false hope, so here are my predictions (and some personal and blog goals) for 2021:

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The Worst of 2020

In the spirit of last year’s “The Worst of 2019,” I’m dedicating today’s post to looking back at the posts with the least views in 2020 (and maybe you could do me a solid and turn off your ad-blocker while reading through these neglected posts).

However, there’s a bit of a wrinkle—in 2019, I just featured posts that had only one view.  The problem:  I didn’t have any posts with a single view this year!  That’s a good problem to have, but it presents a bit of a conundrum.

I do, however, have a TON of posts with four views, which is my new minimum threshold.  So, for your enjoyment, here are the worst posts (in terms of pageviews) for 2020 (as of 23 December 2020):

1.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Independence Day 2020” – Apparently, patriotism is on the ropes.  Or maybe people just don’t want to pay a dollar to read quality content.

2.) “Lazy Sunday III: Historical Moments” – This one is one of the early Lazy Sundays, so I’m not surprised it’s not fallen from the heights of glory.  Or maybe people hate history.

3.) “Lazy Sunday LXVIII: Phone it in Fridays, Part II” – Talk about the ultimate in lazy in-phoning—a Lazy Sunday dedicated to various Phone it in Fridays, and this one is a lame sequel at that!

4.) “TBT: Election Day 2018” – Not any people in 2020 were interested in reading about an election from 2018.

5.) “TBT: Remembering 1519” – The Aztecs were horrible, so much so that no one cares to think about it too much.

6.) “TBT: High-Tech Agrarianism” – This essay was legitimately good, which is why I did a TBT to it within the same calendar year.  Apparently, readers disagreed.

7.) “Catching Up” – It’s little wonder this post did poorly:  it’s basically me making excuses for why I wasn’t writing something good that day.

8.) “A Very Dokken Christmas, Part II: Tooth and Nail” – This post goes back to December 2018, so it makes sense it’s fallen down the memory hole in 2020.  Still, it’s a good album!

9.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Festival Circuit: Ridge Spring Harvest Festival and Clinton Scots & Brats” – Again, the cheapskates are missing out on some quality content here.  Who doesn’t want to read about western South Carolina harvest festivals?

10.) “Lazy Sunday XCVI: Questions, Part V” – Another lazy premise:  the fifth part in a tired series of Lazy Sundays looking at posts that ask question in their titles.

11.) “Memorable Monday IV: Happy Labor Day [2020]!” – It seems this Labor Day wasn’t all that memorable after all.

12.) “Halloween Week!” – Considering I wrote this post in 2019, I’m only mildly disappointed that it didn’t do better in 2020, but Halloween deserves the best!

13.) “SubscribeStar Saturday Delayed: Family Birthday” – Another post giving a lame excuse for why I wouldn’t be posting that day’s SubscribeStar Saturday on time.

14.) “Americans Oppose Illegal Immigration” – I guess not as much as I thought—that, or the observation is so obvious, no one needed to read the post.

15.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: 9-11” – May we never forget.  And yet, for readers of this blog, it seems we have (that was actually the thesis of the post!).

16.) “America’s Roman Roots” – Perhaps the parallels between the United States and Rome are too unsettling to contemplate.

17.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: River and Stone” – A post about Roger Stones’s pardon—and floating down the Saluda River in a tube.

18.) “Breaking: Biden Picks Harris as Running Mate” – The beginning of Kamala’s thousand-year reign.

19.) “TBT: Lazy Sunday XXIV: Education” – Looking back at posts about education on a Thursday afternoon is not going to fill the seats.

20.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Returning to School in The Age of The Virus” – My reflections on going back to school after a summer of fun.

21.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Reflections on Distance Learning: First Month Review” – My reflections on teaching online during the Quarantine Spring.

22.) “Saturday Reading: Communist Infiltration is Real” – An older post, one that was a shocking revelation at the time I wrote it, but now is just an assumed fact.

23.) “Lazy Sunday LV: Animals” – I like animals.  My readers, it seems, do not.

24.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Social Peace Requires Social Capital” – This might be a 2019 post (I’m too lazy to check again—I have to write a lot of these little summaries), but it’s a really good essay.  Please read it.

25.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Distance Learning Reflections, Week One Review” – These posts about distance learning didn’t really catch on, did they?

26.) “TBT: Nehemiah and National Renewal” – A throwback to a really excellent post—one of the more popular ones on the site.

27.) “The Joy of Hymnals” – One of my favorite posts, which I believe I wrote in 2019, or earlier this year.  It deserves to be read!

28.) “Lazy Sunday XXXI: Trump, Part II” – Some posts about GEOTUS.

29.) “TBT: Transformers 2: Conservatives in Disguise?” – A throwback to a very old post I wrote in 2009.

30.) “Another Monday Morning Appeal” – A sales pitch.  It didn’t work.

31.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Hammer Films” – I love the old horror movies of Hammer Films.  You’d like them, too, if you read this post!

32.) “Reblog: Quintus Curtius, ‘On Living Near the Ocean’” – This essay from Quintus Curtius was really good.  I think my commentary on his essay is solid, too.

33.) “Portly Movie Review: Teacher (2019)” – One of my earliest movie reviews.  I dropped the “Portly” from the title of future film reviews, but it has a nice ring to it.

34.) “TBT: Conservatives and Country Music” – Another throwback from the old 2009 site.

35.) “TBT: End the Income Tax” – From my keyboard to God’s web browser.

36.) “Happy Labor Day 2019!” – Labor Day is not a good day for pageviews.

37.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Coronavirus Prepping” – Most of this advice could be adapted for The Boogaloo.

38.) “Lazy Sunday LI: Just for Fun” – Sounds fun to me.

39.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Liberty and Safety” – Why do we trade liberty for the illusion of safety?

40.) “Lazy Sunday XXII: Reading” – I love to read.  Read my thoughts about reading.

41.) “Lazy Sunday XX: The Laziest Sunday” – I thought reaching twenty Lazy Sundays was a big deal.

42.) “Teachers Quitting in Record Numbers – Reflections on Education” – Teachers are quitting in record numbers, and no one seems to care.

43.) “Deluge” – My old apartment flooded.  Thank goodness I don’t live there anymore!

44.) “North Korea Reflections” – It looks like Kim Jong Un never made it over here for a visit, but notice how no one talks about North Korea these days?  Thank you, Trump!

45.) “TBT: Rustics Have Opinions, Too” – Yet another post from the old Blogspot page.

46.) “#MAGAWeek2019: Alexander Hamilton” – Perhaps Hamilton fever has broken.

47.) “The Impermanence of Knowledge and Culture: The Great Library and Notre Dame” – Just like the Great Library and Notre Dame, this post is a prime example of impermanence.

48.) “First They Came for Crowder” – Now everyone is getting cancelled, and Crowder seems annoying and compromised.

49.) “The Left’s Cluelessness on Gun Control” – Again, another post with a premise so obvious, no one needed to read it.

50.) “Deportemal” – Still a good prescription for America.

51.) “The State of the Right, Part II: Dissident Right and Civic Nationalists” – Another one y’all need to read!

52.) “TBT: Family Matters” – A throwback from the Blogspot site during its revival in 2016.  One of my best essays.

53.) “Bland and Gay” – Remember Pete Buttigieg?  Neither do I.

54.) “They Live Analysis and Review” – You really should see They Live.  John Carpenter is a legend!

55.) “Lazy Sunday XLI: Food” – C’mon, people.  Who doesn’t want to read about food?

Shew!  That took a long time to compile that list.  Make my effort worth it and give these forgotten posts some love.

Bologna

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SubscribeStar Saturday: End-of-Year Reflections 2020

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It’s hard to believe that another year is in the books—and what a wild year it was.  In keeping with last year’s “End-of-Decade Reflections” (subscriber link), I decided to reflect again on the swiftly expiring year.

Indeed, technically 2020 is the last year of the long Teens decade, with 2021 marking the beginning of the 2020s, just as 2001, not the year 2000, is the first year of our current century and millennium.  But no one thinks about it that way, so I did end-of-decade reflections last year.  My post this year will take a more humble scope and just focus on the year 2020 itself, not the ten preceding it.

Besides, 2020 has contained a decade’s worth of events inside its twelve months, as every Internet wag and memester has already noted.  There’s enough to consider in this year to fill up a SubscribeStar Saturday post:  distance learning, Universal Studio trips, teaching music, the challenges to indie musicians, running for Town Council, etc.  The world—already a rapidly changing place—has changed substantially in just a few short months.

What to make of those changes is the real challenge going forward.  What happens next?

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SubscribeStar Saturday: The Lost Art of Letter Writing

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This past week I’ve had the unexpected pleasure of some free time around the house.  Other than waiting on a few errant midterm exam submissions to roll in, my slate was clean—virtually unheard of in my life.

Rather than vegging out and wasting time—other than sleeping in a bit later than normal—I turned the time towards writing.  In an effort to ease a bit of my load heading into Christmas, I spent most of Wednesday writing blog posts to get ahead a few days.

But it wasn’t just self-indulgent blog posts:  I turned my hand to writing some letters.  I have long enjoyed writing letters, but it’s been even longer since I’ve done so.  On my recent trip I picked up a ten-pack of Universal Studios postcards, which I sent out to various friends and family members.  After exhausting that supply, I sent a couple of cards—literally, the only two I had available.

I then began writing letters, going so far as to ask friends if they would like to receive one.  The book of stamps I purchased at the Lamar Post Office quickly dwindled as I churned out short, one-page missives after another.

If you would like to receive a one-page, handwritten letter from me—even if you’re not a subscriber!—please visit the Contact page and submit your name and mailing address.  For subscribers, I’ll write you a longer letter—and maybe throw in some doodles!

Consider leaving a $0.55 tip to cover postage, but that’s not required.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: The Mainstreaming of Secession

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The American experiment in self-government is at perhaps its lowest ebb since the 1850s, a decade whose division and partisan rancor rival our own.  That decade’s statesmen’s failures to address sectional tensions—and, ultimately, to reconcile two fundamentally incompatible views of the world—resulted in the secession of eleven States that no longer believed the national government was acting in accordance with the Constitution.

It brings me no joy to make such a grim assessment, nor to contemplate what comes next as a result, but it is a necessary task.  My sincerest wish is that our great Union remain intact, and that we see some restoration of constitutionalism.  An increase in States’ rights and federalism—greater sovereignty at the State level and less power at the federal level—would go a very long way in resolving at least some of our national issues.

Unfortunately, I and others are increasingly drawing the conclusion that such a restoration is, at best, extremely unlikely and, at worst, impossible in an age of totalizing progressivism.  When even Rush Limbaugh is musing about secession (H/T to photog at Orion’s Cold Fire) and a George Mason law professor is writing seriously on the subject, we can no longer laugh off the notion.  Secession may be the future.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: The Campaign Trail: Lamar Christmas Parade

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As I noted a few weeks back, I’m back in the arena, making my second run for Lamar Town Council. With the election five weeks away, I’m trying to get out there to meet more folks.  I’m not sure if anyone else filed, but last time I lost to a write-in candidate, so even if I’m running unopposed, I’m not taking any chances.

Because it’s a special election—the date is 12 January 2020—part of the campaign is simply letting people know there is an election.  Like the last special election (which was rescheduled from May to July due to The Virus), I expect turnout will be low, simply because it’s at such an unusual time of year, and because most people won’t realize there’s even an election in the first place.  Of course, this election won’t be a week after the July Fourth, so I anticipate slightly higher turnout.

So I hit the campaign trail by heading down to Lamar’s “Christmas on Main” event, and sticking around for the Christmas Parade.  Here’s a brief update of what it was like.

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