My choir is singing Simple Gifts this season. I've sung it many times before but it sure does hit different after watching The Testament of Ann Lee. Feels weird to just stand there singing it like normies!
Jess
@jessicaesquire.bsky.social
Co-founder of @darkertimes.bsky.social. Queer, ex-Mormon, former lawyer. Day job in media. She/her. The Triangle, NC. https://darkertimes.com
We've talked a lot this summer about a couple big films from young talent but we absolutely cannot leave out Alexander Ullom and IT ENDS. This is a Gen-Z film with something to say. I wrote about how it channels generational anxieties at @darkertimes.bsky.social www.darkertimes.com/life-is-a-li...
Life is a Liminal Highway
Alexander Ullom's It Ends is a surprisingly relevant tale of nihilism and persistence after you find out the world you were promised isn't the one you're living in.
darkertimes.com
I haven't read any Alix E. Harrow because fantasy, romance, and historical are probably my least read genres. Does this mean I should pass? If it's worth diving in, where best to start?
This validated my current method of choosing what I read: if it hasn't grabbed me in a way that feels good and real in the first few pages then I'm out. Just because prose is fancy doesn't mean it's good, and if it's good it should give you that satisfying little ooo of recognition.
C. C. Turner (she/they)@ccturner.bsky.social · 3d ago“They exemplify a trend in literary fiction that I’ve come to hate: Describing Unimportant Things in Unnecessary Detail In Order to Sound Smart.” #booksky
Good morning from the oral surgeon waiting room, waiting for 17yo to get his wisdom teeth out. I will be so happy when I never have to take a kid to the dentist, orthodontist, etc again, really didn't think about reliving all my own dental shit over again when I decided to have kids.
Some casting choices feel deeply iconic, and Gillian Anderson's Billy Presley feels like one of those roles. @annarosereads.bsky.social writes an essay on why this casting works so well while also expressing deep love for Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. www.darkertimes.com/billy-presle...
Billy Presley Might Just Save Us All: How Casting Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma Healed an Awkward Horror Heart
Layered, nuanced, and campy, Schoenbrun's latest wins out in many ways, chiefly thanks to stellar casting
darkertimes.com
I've been saving Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie for a night when I needed a pick me up and dude it worked.
I say this as a child who wore out a tape of the Annie soundtrack in the 80s, but wow it's a bummer that Annie has to be in this movie at all. Give me ten movies about these 3 characters, please. (And a director who knows what to do with dance sequences, while I'm asking.)
a frolicking baby in summer 🌭@oldbaby.bsky.social · last wk.3 of the baddest bitches ever to do it youtu.be/0T_RKz7Qmug?...
Anna brings so much joy and enthusiasm to everything that I'm truly thrilled to see her underwhelmed! We are all complex creatures. That rabbit is scary as fuck tho, I think we can all agree there.
Emily C. Hughes@emilyhughes.bsky.social · last wk.I finally got around to seeing Hokum, so naturally @annarosereads.bsky.social and I needed to have it out for @darkertimes.bsky.social www.darkertimes.com/let-them-fig...
This is a trick question, these titles are in every fandom.
Shaenon K. Garrity@shaenon.bsky.social · last wk.Party game I just invented: match the AO3 fanfic title to the fandom.
I am so deep in book nerd that I consider books by publisher. I always keep my eye on ECW Press, a Canadian publisher that doesn't publish a lot of fixing, but when they do it's probably a banger and this is one of them.
Peter Counter, Nightmare Host@peterbcounter.com · last wk.Another Canadian horror novel everyone should read: Grey Dog by @elliottgish.bsky.social is a sappho-gothic masterpiece evoking Lucy Maud Montgomery and Robert Eggers' The Witch. ecwpress.com/products/gre...
2 kids in high school means we make a last minute "Oh yeah school supplies" run at 7pm the night before school starts.
You know how much I treasure the art of being a hater! Harmony delivers a virtuoso performance here.
Harmony Colangelo@harmonycolangelo.bsky.social · 2w agoThis article is about my relationship with YOUR relationship to film and all of the ways that obfuscates true meaning in TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASAMA.
I'm reading Nightjars by @michaelwehunt.bsky.social (out 9/29) and it's creeping me out so much I have to read it in the daytime. Absolute nightmare fuel.
Great interview. Not surprised to see the role was written around Way, Alden feels like such a well-fleshed out character. This last episode was so funny and so poignant.
Carly Lane-Perry@carlylane.bsky.social · 2w agoThe first of many #Furious interviews to come! It was a delight to speak with Steve Way about the moments he improvised that made it into the series and why he wants the Hulu crime drama — and his performance — to change the way we think about caregiving:
This is such a great post with a lot of detail on why all your shows look so dark and the faces look so smooth. Lots of reasons come together, as well as very real labor issues.
kyle 中和 turner@tylekurner.bsky.social · 2w agoback at @avclub.com asking the important questions, like, why do movies look like that now? spoke to a bunch of cinematographers, colorists, and editors to try to figure out what is going on: www.avclub.com/why-do-movie...
I have been testing the perfect beach read for years. I've finally found it, and even better there are 3 of them. It's tested and proven. These books are absorbing, eerie, and super easy to put down and pick back up. They are also kind of ridiculous, which is also a perk.
Darker Times@darkertimes.bsky.social · 2w agoLooking to squeeze in one last beach read? @jessicaesquire.bsky.social spotlights Uketsu's Japanese mystery-horror series with Bring Uketsu to the Beach This Summer: www.darkertimes.com/uketsu-beach...
New: Target staff "pranked" for social media; a comedian filmed mid-set; a Sprouts worker whose boss started wearing Meta glasses; and a cashier worried customers are filming down her shirt. Meta glasses are in the workplace, and workers feel powerless to stop it. 🎁 www.theverge.com/report/98241...
Meta glasses are a workplace menace
“Pervert” glasses are making jobs weird and putting workers on edge.
theverge.com
I have been testing the perfect beach read for years. I've finally found it, and even better there are 3 of them. It's tested and proven. These books are absorbing, eerie, and super easy to put down and pick back up. They are also kind of ridiculous, which is also a perk.
Darker Times@darkertimes.bsky.social · 2w agoLooking to squeeze in one last beach read? @jessicaesquire.bsky.social spotlights Uketsu's Japanese mystery-horror series with Bring Uketsu to the Beach This Summer: www.darkertimes.com/uketsu-beach...
Ok law folks, going fishing here -- does anyone have a photo of tortoise sculptures at the base of Supreme Court columns or other places? I'm looking for an image to use in the textbook, and Getty Images has nothing. No luck in public domain either.
My 17yo and I have been watching Last Week Tonight but I need a show for us to watch together that doesn't leave me deeply depressed. But also one that isn't full of sex which will be awkward to watch with your mom. What has worked for y'all?
Any Chapel Hill/Raleigh, NC Ologists I should know about? In case I were to be out there this week?
I'm all caught up and I just have to say, if this show doesn't end with Alice and Nora quitting and/or burning down the NYPD and the FBI, I'm gonna be really mad. I'm already having to suspend a lot of disbelief that they choose to keep doing these jobs all this time.
Jess@jessicaesquire.bsky.social · 3w agoI am watching The Furious with some healthy skepticism (I see you, copaganda) but it is trying very hard to woo me with Scoot McNairy and Rob Delaney and now Campbell Scott. All my favorite white men!
I read her memoir and I'm just gonna say I haven't read anything she's written since and this does not surprise me.
Maris Kreizman@maris.bsky.social · 2w agothis hurts variety.com/2026/tv/news...
I'm guessing a lot of people don't realize that libraries are the victims of limited access ownership just like consumers. Their purchases of digital copies are for a limited time or a limited number of checkouts. They have to keep paying more to keep giving patrons access.
Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 2w agoYay for demand. Boo for this being a problem in the wealthiest nation on earth. carolinapublicpress.org/80374/surgin...
Both the 14yo and I agree that the violence in The End of Oak Street is more bloody and intense than we would expect from a PG-13 film, not one for the littles.
When I left Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma I thought, Huh I didn't realize Jane Schoenbrun is my age, all these music references from when I was 16 or 17. Then I realized no they are 8 years younger than me and those were the songs they heard at 8 years old watching that VHS.
A good reminder that Russell is someone I really desperately need to read more of. In the meantime you've all read "The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis" right
The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis - Electric Literature
“The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis” by Karen Russell THE SCARECROW THAT WE FOUND lashed to the pin oak in Friendship Park, New Jersey, was thousands of miles away from the yellow atolls of corn where y...
electricliterature.com
Darker Times@darkertimes.bsky.social · 3w ago"...this is, to my mind, Russell’s finest work..." @emilyhughes.bsky.social makes her case for what she believes to be one of the scariest short stories, Proving Up by Karen Russell. Read it here: www.darkertimes.com/karen-russel...
How does a horror lover approach an icon like Shirley Jackson for the first time? Anna takes us through the exhilarating, humbling journey. Free for everyone today only! Locked for paid subscribers tomorrow.
Darker Times@darkertimes.bsky.social · 3w agoLast Day of the 💫 Darker Times Summer Subscriber Drive💫 @annarosereads.bsky.social pens a emotional piece examining her relationship with one of the greatest voices in fiction, Shirley Jackson. This piece is normally one for paid-subscribers only, BUT... www.darkertimes.com/shirley-jack...
Trying to Appreciate August so I'm out on my back porch with a beer listening to the cicadas. (And posting, obviously, but I'm still human.)