Still, there are horror movies aplenty. A screening of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which I had probably not seen since my teen years and that what stood out this time was the masterful set decoration, whose attention to detailing was not at all what you would expect from early 70s horror. An eager second viewing of The Substance, a brilliant takedown of the beauty and youth industry that unravels into gore soaked madness at the end. Phantasm, which I hadn't seen since I was a kid, a late 70s bit of weirdness. The week before my favorite slasher film, Sleepaway Camp and the first time I've ever seen it on a screen and not a scratchy dubbed VHS. We have more planned for the month, including a Halloween trip out to McHenry for drive-in horror, and a Wednesday night viewing of the original Candyman at the Logan late nights series.
Where there haven't been movies, there have been plays. Noises Off at Steppenwolf last week and tonight, Into the Woods. This, after all, is my favorite musical of all time, cemented when I was 17 and saw it at a theater conference downstate and it surpassed Les Miz I had seen a couple months before. While that was a very traditional proscenium theater, tonight's happened in the black box lower theater at The Chopin. It had the feel of a cabaret performance, piano only, in an old attic filed with chandeliers and gilt mirrors and charming old chairs and sofas for seating. I loved the play even more for that. Kokandy, a small company, is strictly musicals, and every production I've seen has been amazingness. (in the summer, Alice by Heart, and last winter, American Psycho. ) The benefit of having some nights free from work, J's nights being more open, and just having more discretionary income as a freelancer than I ever did as a full-timer, is that we get to see all the plays we like, up next Pericles at Chicago Shakespeare and Little Shop of Horrors out in Skokie in a couple weeks. And of course, Les Miz in December, which I am extra stoked about.
Work continues on the vampire poems, as well as a few flash fiction pieces I am wobbly and uncertain on. Today I had a moment convinced of my own brilliance when writing a poem that was, mere minutes, later, a spiral of self-doubt die to a rejection from a fun little horror journal I had found of Instagram. It was actually for one of the flash pieces, and had less to do with poems, but it only bumped the funny bone of my tiny poet ego. Fiction is still sticky and new and doesn't quite have its wings just yet. I will write something I love and come back later and hate it. Poe is on my mind a lot every fall, especially when I'm doubting my abilities, and I always remind myself he spent his whole life churning in alcoholism and self-doubt and look at the endurance of his work even now. We are also coming up on Plath's birthday, which always reminds me that she barely lived into her real adult productive period. At 30, she had created so much already, but was still a young poet forever and eternally.
There have also been long marathon writing days and pot roast and blueberry cake. Production days for the chapbook series that leave my arm sore from using the paper cutter. The kind of fall nights where its colder, but the window stays open and you add more blankets. The last few times we've gone out, its required a real jacket after months of a cardigan at most. Tonight the kind of damp cold that had me climbing into bed early after we got back from the theater, sleeping a few hours, and then of course, because I went to bed too early, awake in the middle of the night writing this post and listening to the radiators clank their way to warmth for the fist time this year.
