Ecstatic Agendas

Welcome, dear ones.

The days grow ever shorter, and the branches bare their souls as the earth is littered with ruby leaves all along my street. Nylon webs sprout from the eaves of houses and purple lights twinkle as we approach the first station of the so-called Holiday Season. Although I haven’t crafted a horror film TOP TEN as I did last year around this time, rest assured: the past few weeks here at Thornbutter Manor, the cold light of ones and zeros has been calibrated almost nonstop to creepy movies both old and new. My favorite flick of ANY genre this year (one that I saw in the theater last month and then again on my laptop a week ago) is, without a doubt, the TOXIC AVENGER reboot featuring Peter Dinklage, Kevin Bacon, Elijah Wood, Taylour Page, and David Yow (?!?). Honorable mentions include reconstruction-era vampire story Sinners (2025), wonderfully terrible Amityville Dollhouse (1996), witchy Gen X angst-fest The Craft (also 1996), and most recently Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (2025) on the big screen – which my best ghoul treated me to!

All come recommended from this ol’ scream queen.

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If you haven’t yet availed yourself of Barbarous Tongues: A Journal of Arts and Esoterica, please do so HERE (elegant print edition) or HERE (low cost PDF). The latter is intended for folks living outside this tariff’d up rat trap of a country that Jello Biafra called the “United Snakes of Captivity” – but really anyone is welcome to the PDF if you prefer your words on a screen rather than inked onto flippable pulp. I also have a few copies stocked at Moonshadow Magic on SE Belmont. Portland locals please support her longstanding but always financially precarious labor of pagan love! Similarly, folks in Southern California can find copies available at Amoura Love Store, a holistic adult boutique and event space in Pomona CA owned by my friend Leticia!

Stay tuned as well for announcements of more upcoming live events in support of the journal, in Portland and beyond!

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In other news, I’ve been busy crafting what they used to call A LIVE TELEVISION APPEARANCE – this one will be cast out from the ECSTATIC AGENDAS YOUTUBE CHANNEL on Friday Oct 31 at 5pm Pacific / 7 Central / 8 Eastern. I hope you’ll tune in for my vaudevillian lecture on historical burial practices and beliefs, interspersed with a little song and dance featuring some wonderful tunes from thee Americana and beyond! I’m planning to wrap up in time for the trick ‘r treaters and whatever hijinks will follow.

That’s all the news for now folks. Gods bless us, everyone – and remember: the boss makes a dollar, you make a dime, so take your shits on company time!