Posted on October 31, 2018 by DarkwyndPT
Well, it’s Halloween! So, ghosts, goblins and other things that go bump in the night, today we’re going to take a look at the sequel of my very 1st horror-themed review, The 7th Guest. I’m talking about The 11th Hour.
The 11th Hour is an adventure game developed by Trilobyte and published by Virgin. It was originally released in 1995 for DOS. It was ported to Macintosh in 1997 and re-released by Night Dive Studios in 2013 for Macintosh and Windows.
Graeme Devine, Trilobyte’s main designer and programmer, created a new video compression program called Wavelet and updated the Groovie engine used in The 7th Guest specifically for this game (which would later be used in subsequent Trilobyte titles).
But, as always, before we take a look at the game, let’s first look at the covers:
This is the US cover and apart from the title, which looks cool, it’s a bit of a mess with several clocks, wires and remains of a baby doll. I see where Trilobyte was going with this, but I find it very confusing.
Luckily, the European version is a bit better:
Now, this one I like better. Yes, I understand if some people find it too simplistic, but the use of the baby doll’s head along with the strings and the colour red in a black background, makes it look more ominous, fitting for a horror-themed game.
And now, as always, let’s boot this child of the night:
The game starts with a long intro cutscene introducing our main characters: Carl Denning, the host of the TV show “Cases Unsolved” and its producer; Robin Morales. The intro starts with Carl watching the news about Robin’s disappearance and the series of unsolved murders she was investigating before disappearing.
Carl then receives the GameBook (a PDA-like laptop) by mail with a video from Robin asking for help and an image of Stauf’s mansion. Carl then goes to Harley-on-the-Hudson, where Robin was last seen while remembering their last interaction. Carl arrives at Stauf’s mansion and after solving a riddle via the GameBook to open the mansion’s door, the game properly starts.
The 11th Hour, just like its predecessor, uses logical puzzles to advance the plot, but with an added element to the gameplay: 1st you receive a riddle by Stauf in the GameBook referring to any object in the mansion, then you have to find and interact with said object to solve the riddle, but every time you enter a new room, you can’t interact with any object whatsoever until you solve the puzzle located in a said room to “unlock” the objects and the rest of the room. And there are also a lot of “red herring” objects you can interact with.
The beginning of the intro featuring our hero, Carl Denning, played by Douglas O’Keeffe.
And every time you solve a riddle, you’re awarded a short cutscene, usually depicting Robin’s investigation before her disappearance (later in the game, it also shows Carl’s adventure in the mansion). The game’s story is divided into acts (represented by each passing hour), in which at the end of each act, a longer cutscene plays (including the smaller cutscenes you’ve “collected” so far), advancing the story along.
To help you, you have the aforementioned GameBook, which substitutes the Ouija board from the last game as the in-game menu. In it, you can save and load and you’ll also have access to a map (and although the mansion’s layout is still the same, it’s good to know which rooms are accessible and which puzzles remain unsolved or not) and a help button that substitutes the library book from the last game. The first 2 times you use it, it gives you hints to the puzzle or riddle you’re currently solving and the 3rd time, it solves the puzzle or riddle for you (although you still have to search for and interact with the objects to solve the riddles). But this time, however, there’s no penalty whatsoever in using the help feature to solve the puzzles and riddles. But you can’t use it to solve the last puzzle (which we’ll talk about later on).
Looks familiar?
The riddles usually use anagrams and if you’re bad with anagrams (like I am) then it’s a good thing there’s the GameBook. And the new puzzles are even harder than in the previous game. Remember the dreaded microscope puzzle in The 7th Guest? Guess what. It’s back with a vengeance! AND IT’S NOT EVEN THE HARDEST PUZZLE IN THIS GAME! Maybe that’s why there’s no penalty in using the help feature to bypass the puzzles now. And, as always, Stauf taunts you throughout the game, especially if you fail a puzzle or riddle. And again as always, his taunts get old fast due to repetition.
The cutscenes are now longer (sometimes a bit too long) with better video quality than in The 7th Guest. Robert Hirschboeck (Henry Stauf), Julia Tucker (Julia Heine), Larry Roher (Ed Knox) and the late Debra Ritz Mason (Martine Burden) are back to reprise their roles and Hirschboeck again turns the ham all the up to 11 while playing Stauf, whether it’s live-action or just voiceover. The new actors, however, aren’t as memorable. Although some of them are renowned TV actors, their performance ranges from bad to acceptable, with some really good moments here and there.
The GameBook with one of the riddles displayed.
The story is now darker with some gore with 1 or 2 adult scenes here and there. And for the most part, it isn’t that bad. But halfway through, Trilobyte throws at us some poorly plot points added only for shock value.
And the production value, although better than in The 7th Guest, is equal to a 90s suspense TV movie. Honestly, I had more fun with the puzzles than I had to watch the cutscenes. And also, all the dark zany humour present in the previous game is now mostly gone, with a few moments here and there with Stauf.
The new 16-bit graphics are definitely an improvement, with much better detail. But since the game now occurs in the 90s, the mansion is rundown and debilitated, which means that although the graphical quality is better, the game isn’t prettier which ruins the atmosphere in my opinion.
If the intent was to make the game more visually scary, then it failed that purpose, even if you play it in “spooky mode” (just the game in faded black and white). And also, there’s a lot of visual references to The 7th Guest (in case we forget we’re playing a sequel to it) and even one small reference to another famous FMV adventure game of the time.
One of the several puzzles for you to solve.
This leads us to the animation. The animation, again, is better in terms of graphical quality but now with some top-quality special effects (well, top quality for the time, that is). There are no longer weird auras around the actors (which prompted The 7th Guest to become a ghost story in the 1st place), but there are still some pretty obvious green screen effects (it was kind of new at the time). I have to say that the animation is actually one of the best parts of the game.
Now in terms of music, George “The Fatman” Sanger is back as the main composer and not only does he brings remixes of the previous game’s musical score but also some new themes, which in their majority aren’t as good. Except for Mr Death, the main menu theme, which is quite catchy. Also, instead of taking advantage of the new technologies to improve the music quality to CD audio, Trilobyte released the music in MIDI format, which was kind of outdated by 1995’s CD-ROM standards.
This brings us, finally, to the end of the game and before discussing it, here’s your spoiler alert:
Without revealing too much, the game now has 3 endings to choose from, ranging from good to not-so-good, to bad. However, there’s a small detail: you can only save the game right before solving the final riddle and the final puzzle.
And after choosing one of the endings, if you reload your save file to see the other endings, you obviously need to solve them again. But here’s the catch: the final puzzle gets harder the more endings you unlock and the previous solution no longer works. So you might want to see the best ending first.
Ok, spoilers over!
So, in conclusion, The 11th Hour is technically bigger and better in comparison with its predecessor, but it fails to provide a proper scary atmosphere and therefore, it lacks the previous game’s charm. And also due to the order of the riddles and fact that the game is divided into acts, it’s a bit more linear this time.
If you’re a The 7th Guest fan or simply enjoy logic puzzles and riddles, then you might want to give it a shot. But for traditional adventure games fans, I can’t really recommend it. If you want to play it though, you can buy it here on GOG.com or here on Steam.
The library in spooky mode.
Before wrapping up the review, here are a few curious tidbits: The 11th Hour is definitely a mature game, but did you know it was supposed to be rated even more adult? R-rated sex scenes were planned, which prompt the rumour of an uncut and uncensored version of the game, but said scenes were never filmed. However, the script for the R-rated version can be found on the official strategy guide (and in the digital versions).
And like its predecessor, The 11th Hour had great commercial success, selling around 300,000 copies in the US alone, despite the mixed reviews it received. Trilobyte would later make a compilation of some of the puzzles found in both games (along with some from another title, Clandestiny) in Uncle Henry’s Playhouse.
Ufff! I thought that would never end! So, ghosts, goblins and other things that go bump in the night, I hope you’ve all enjoyed the review. And wish you all a happy and scary Halloween, WHATEVER YOU ARE! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
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December 1978: The Doobie Brothers Release "Minute by Minute"
(Warner Bros)
By 1978, The Doobie Brothers were in a quandary. The band's previous LP, Livin' on a Fault Line, was one of their very few that failed to produce even a single Top 40 hit. The group's longtime leader, Tom Johnston, had to bow out of making the follow-up record, due to increasing health issues. That put one of The Doobie Brothers' newest members, Michael McDonald, square in the hot seat.
RELATED: September 1980: The Doobie Brothers Release "One Step Closer"
Getting together with songwriting partner, Kenny Loggins, McDonald cranked out a new song for the band's next record. That tune turned out to be the title track, "Minute by Minute." From there, the rest was history. The Doobie Brothers released the Minute by Minute album on December 1, 1978. The album flew up the Billboard charts, peaking at #1 for two weeks in April 1979. When the dust settled at the end of the year, the record hit the top spot five times in non-consecutive weeks.
One bonus from the band's broadening fan base: according to bass player Tiran Porter, a marked increase of black people at their concerts. “They were going, ‘Hey, who’s this white guy who sounds black?’” he told Rolling Stone. “A lot more of my people started showing up. I was like, ‘Yeah!””
The lead single from the LP, "What a Fool Believes," also charged up the charts, peaking at #1 on the Hot 100 for the week of April 14, 1979.
The album's title track served as the second single from the set, climbing as high as #14 over the week of June 23, 1979.
"Dependin' on You," featuring guitarist Patrick Simmons on lead vocals, crashed the top 30 to hit #25 in October 1979. The track also boasted Nicolette Larson on background vocals.
The Doobie Brothers and Minute by Minute were the toast of the 22nd annual Grammys in 1980. The album took the prize for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group, and was even nominated for Album of the Year. "What a Fool Believes" walked away with Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
Minute by Minute
Michael McDonald


Kristin Iversen
Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Watch A Republican Lecture Americans About Buying Health Care, Not iPhones
This is a false equivalency
Yesterday, House Republicans released their heavily anticipated plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, finally answering the question that so many of us had been asking over the last several weeks: Do these guys actually know what they're doing?
Short answer? No. The long answer is a bit more complicated, but, suffice it to say, there's a ton of problems with this health care plan, which has even conservative commentators acknowledging its flaws and saying they have "yet to read a single positive analysis of it." But one of the biggest problems with this new plan is that, rather than prioritize people's access to health care, what it actually does is serve as "a tax cut for wealthy people's investment income" and as "a tax deduction for CEOs making more than $500K a year."
But what about all those people who are not incredibly wealthy and who still need to find health insurance, lest they incur the year-long 30 percent surcharge that the plan promises for those who go without health care for two months? Well, as per Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz, those people can just give up on their iPhone.
Speaking on CNN this morning, Chaffetz said, "You know what, Americans have choices, and they've gotta make a choice. So maybe rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and want to spend hundreds of dollars on, maybe they should invest in their own health care. They've gotta make these decisions themselves."
First, I've got to say, congratulations to Chaffetz for clearly never having had to pay a medical bill without the help of employer-subsidized insurance (specifically the excellent health insurance provided to all government employees). Must be nice! But if Chaffetz thinks that the several hundreds of dollars that someone pays for an iPhone once every couple of years compares in any way to the hundreds of dollars per month that most health insurance plans cost—to say nothing of the thousands upon thousands of dollars that even a minor injury or illness can incur for those who are uninsured—then, much like the leader of his party, he must also be getting all his news from Fox & Friends, because this is the craziest false equivalency I've heard in some time.
The fact is, there might be extravagances that some people can cut from their lives in order to do something like pay for an iPhone, but pretending that abstaining from buying what is not, at this point, even a luxury item anymore (seriously, though, smartphones are an integral part of living in contemporary society) is offensive to all the people who have accrued major medical bills when they were un- or even under-insured. That Republicans are lecturing millions of Americans on saving a few hundred dollars while they give massive tax breaks to the wealthiest among us demonstrate just how little they care for the plight of the very people who help to keep them in office. It would be darkly humorous if it weren't for the fact that millions of lives are put in danger by such a flawed plan, whose costs are expected to be borne by those who can least afford it; as it is, there's nothing funny about it. Well, maybe this one perfect tweet.
But perhaps what's most infuriating is that it is, in fact, products like iPhones and really nice cars and huge TVs, which are now accessible to the majority of American households, even those that have some level of financially insecurity, that serve as placebos for the poor; the ubiquity of these things that were once thought luxuries allows people like Chaffetz to act as if economic suffering isn't real in this country and that the poor don't actually suffer from vastly lower quality of life than do he and his wealthy cronies. But financial problems can coexist with iPhone ownership, and proposing a healthcare system which will destabilize millions of economically threatened Americans will only throw those problems into starker relief.
So when it comes down to owning an iPhone or paying for exorbitantly priced insurance premiums, perhaps it's actually a better decision to get the smartphone, because, hey, at least you can use it to look for the kind of job that gives you healthcare benefits that won't bankrupt you. Maybe one like representative for Utah's 3rd congressional district? That might be opening up sooner than you'd think.


Kanye West, Billie Eilish, And Harry Styles Were Announced As The Official Headliners For Coachella’s 2022 Festival
by: Wongo OkonInstagramTwitter January 12, 2022
After months of speculation and two aborted attempts to bring it back, Coachella will make its return this year. The showcase has officially announced its headliners and it’s different than originally intended. Travis Scott, Frank Ocean, and Rage Against The Machine were set to headline, but Frank moved his set to the 2023 show while Travis Scott and Rage Against The Machine were dropped from the bill. Now, Coachella has revealed that Kanye West, Billie Eilish, and Harry Styles will take over as headliners.
A post shared by Coachella (@coachella)
West and Eilish were very busy last year. West released his tenth album, Donda, which became his tenth to top the charts. Meanwhile, Eilish’s second album, Happier Than Ever, spent three consecutive weeks at No. 1. As for Styles, he’s been fairly quiet lately, his most recent being Fine Line in 2019. That album topped the charts and gave him a No. 1 single with “Watermelon Sugar,” which also received a 2021 Grammy Award in the Best Pop Solo Performance category.
Other performers at the festival will include Lil Baby, Big Sean, Baby Keem, Phoebe Bridgers, Daniel Caesar, Megan Thee Stallion, 21 Savage, Giveon, Doja Cat, Ari Lennox, City Girls, Brockhampton, Isaiah Rashad, JID, Denzel Curry, Vince Staples, and more.
Topics: #Coachella, #Kanye WestTags: Billie Eilish, coachella, Coachella 2022, HARRY STYLES, Kanye West


Archive for May 11, 2016
Leaping Under the Covers of the Peritoneum
Extreme, often intimate stories–horrific, bizarre, scary, offensive, funny, absurd, disturbing, or just plain WTF–in turns or all at the same time–when am I going to produce a by-the-rules book that will lure in readers by targeting their comfort zones with words that don’t explode? Not any time soon…
As I write this post, the first goal of which is to show off amazing cover art by Aaron Drown Design, I am getting ready to travel to Las Vegas for StokerCon, the Horror Writers’ Association’s major convention, where I will see print copies of my new short story collection Peritoneum as well as new editions of Leaping at Thorns and Reel Dark for the first time. (For more about the new Reel Dark, see “REEL DARK in the Spotlight,” and for even more about Peritoneum, see “Inside the Peritoneum.”)
As I’ve already posted, Reel Dark has new stories by Michael West and Alexander S. Brown, and since the book’s first edition had very limited exposure, all of it is new to almost everyone, so I’m excited about it. The collection of award-winning authors as well as newer voices spinning tales of movie mayhem is destined to please lovers of dark fiction. Yes, I’ve got a story in it, but unlike the other two books I’m talking about here, this one ain’t about me. I’m showing off a collection of other people’s work, stories and poems I really like, and I’m darned proud of it.
Like the new edition of Reel Dark, the second edition of Leaping at Thorns is bigger than the first, with one tale added in each of the three sections. (Unlike Reel Dark, these stories are all me.) To the “Complicity” section I’ve added “Silence,” about a woman who keeps losing people, literally, after she has a surreal experience in an abandoned house. To “Entrapment,” I’ve added “House of Butterflies,” in which flesh does more than crawl–it flies. To “Conspiracy,” I’ve added “Kindertotenlieder,” about a twentieth-century Pied Piper whose storybook vengeance is even more horrific than the worst version you’ve read. With these additions, the book provides an even better view of the self-obliterating drive toward darkness that binds all the stories together. With the stunning new cover and support from Seventh Star Press–and with the first edition’s enthusiastic reviews–I’m looking forward to Leaping at Thorns freaking out a larger audience.
So what, then, of the newest addition to the bunch–the one with the guts on the cover and the hard-to-pronounce title, Peritoneum? It’s a different kind of animal. In a very small circle of friends I’ve been calling it a Winesburg, Ohio on acid, not because it’s about small-town life (although a significant number of stories focuses on a suburban house… especially its basement) but because the stories share characters and inform one another. In fact, although I published a few stories separately, and a few stories only relate to the whole tangentially, I wrote the vast majority of these tales to stand alongside the other tales. That design makes this book very different from Leaping at Thorns, which has some interrelated stories that nevertheless stand alone. In Peritoneum, I hope you’ll enjoy reading stories individually, but you’ll get a lot more out of them if you read them together. The volume starts with “The Family Pet” and “Blood and Feathers” because they introduce elements that run throughout the book, and it ends with “The Birds of St. Francis” and “The Broom Closet Where Everything Dies” because they tie a lot of those elements together.
Don’t let me mislead you. I don’t promise that the stories make sense when you read them all together. Sure, they make more sense. Some of the WTFs in “The Eternal Recurrence of Suburban Abortion” get answered in the next tale, “TR4B,” and even the comical scenario of “DNA” gets backstory work in “The Broom Closet Where Everything Dies.” HOWEVER–my goal is to offer little eddies of revelation in a greater sea of insanity, where sense and reason fail more often than they succeed. Lots of horror stories have endings that explain the horrors and box them away. Many of them are good. Few of them scare me.
What scares me is the breakdown of sense, the failure of perception. As a result, my stories and the perceptions inside of them tend to break down. Sometimes, I couch the breakdown overtly in terms of the supernatural and/or mental illness and/or drugs (especially in “Patrick’s Luck,” “The Road Thief,” “The Long Flight of Charlotte Radcliffe,” and “Door Poison”), and sometimes I just let them unwind by their own devices. My hope is that the stories, while not always conventionally satisfying, will disturb you on some level–move you to feel afraid, amused, bewildered, and so on–and result in entertainment, albeit of a brooding and uncomfortable sort.
Oh, I worry about things. “Blood and Feathers” has two endings, neither of which is a resolution… “Year of the Wolf” pivots around quotes from an obscure World War Two documentary as well as a scientific curiosity… “Juicy the Liar” opens with a line about eating pussy… I thought of “Bubble Girl” as YA until readers started seeing all kinds of crazy sex stuff in it that I thought was buried well under the surface… “The Broom Closet” goes beyond nasty… much could go wrong in the reading of Peritoneum. But without that possibility, I’m not sure it could really go right, either.
Category: Book Thoughts |
landrew42 | May 6, 2016
Southern Haunts 3: Fantastic Flights, Historic Hurlyburly
Southern Haunts 3: Magick Beneath the Moonlight is a short-fiction anthology that delivers a delectable range of witch-tastic events and images, successfully indulging fantasies of magical power and a fetish for the history of things weird. [For the rest of my review, keep reading, or for an interview with the book’s co-editor Alexander S. Brown, go here.]
Leaving the most familiar questions about whether so-and-so is or isn’t a witch in the background, and saving the typical witch-hunts for Yankee territory, the stories in Southern Haunts 3 presume the existence of magic and focus on the power’s whats and whens. From these whats and whens readers get a sense of a where, the American South, which is both horrific and mystical. As a result, this collection of stories stands apart from typical witch-horror while affirming, in the Southern Gothic tradition, that regular old “realistic” storytelling doesn’t quite get one of the U.S.’s most culturally diverse and historically troubled regions.
While I’m conflating all the mystic goings-on in Southern Haunts 3 as witchery, the collection’s editors and authors are careful to distinguish among types of magic and related spiritual traditions, naming the book’s primary whats distinctly as voodoo, hoodoo, and witchcraft. “The Apartment House,” for instance, provides a series of bizarre and violent tableaux—death by books is my favorite, but a detailed flaying deserves mention—and ties them together with a lesson on the laws for practicing voodoo the right way. In “La Voyante,” a knowing character explains to a writer looking for a new creative outlet that voodoo isn’t the only game in town:
“No, we talkin’ ’bout Hoodoo. Between the ‘hoo’ an’ the ‘voo,’ there’s a worl’ of difference… though we do tend t’ use a bit of both in these parts.”
Often gesturing toward the diasporic and creolized origins of so-called “pagan” spiritualities tied to hoodoo and voodoo, the stories in Southern Haunts 3 provide a nuanced enough view to add an S to the K in the subtitle, making it a less elegant MagickS Beneath the Moonlight (not a suggestion—the actual title is much better!). Indeed, as the main character of “In the Dark” learns, some magic needs to be practiced only in the day, so “moonlight” isn’t even a consistent feature of proper witchery. Magic refuses easy limits, and while it can be as elegant as the kindly title character of “Granny Wise,” it can also be as ugly as characters’ habits in “Dances with Witches.” The collection tells us that all these magics might fit in a book, and they all show up in the South, but they won’t all fit in a proverbial box. The box mentioned in the title “The Priestess’s Trunk,” then, provides an apt metaphor: you might try to contain and understand mystical forces, but magic will always find a way to push beyond easy categories and simple expectations.
Despite the diversity of magical types in Southern Haunts 3, magical power almost always serves one end: payback. While the book draws its power from many veins, it directs that power primarily toward fulfilling fantasies of justice and vengeance (for comments on this focus from one of the book’s editors, see the interview). The first tale, “Granny Wise,” based on a historical figure, sets the mold: a witch serves locals as a healer, but the price of her services includes righting wrongs. In most tales that follow, witchcraft, as a means for payback, either doles out a kind of cosmic justice against evildoers (as, for example, in “Live Big”) or serves as means for a witch to get some vengeance on (as in “Vengeance,” “The Jar,” “Tell Me Where He Lies,” and “Without Xango there is No Oxalla”). The most salient motive for mystical vengeance in Southern Haunts 3 relates to the South’s legacies of racism, slavery, and lynching. In “The Untold Tale of Wiccademous,” searching for the story behind cursed woods leads the would-be storyteller into a cosmic trap forged from these legacies. “Cursed,” set in the 1920s, takes a more direct look at magic providing justice for a lynching that earthly courts would ignore, and “The Shadows” answers a nineteenth-century slave-master’s murder of an innocent man with a curse that takes “life for a life.” While magical means of achieving racial justice help to advance the book’s Southern identity, magic also serves as an equalizer for women who suffer under the arbitrary rule of despicable men. The mystic in “Secrets of the Heart” learns that her husband’s religious hypocrisy too easily stands in the way of his devotion to her, a betrayal she does not suffer lightly; likewise, when a violent husband crosses “The Bone Picker Witch,” he opens the door for some of the book’s nastiest moments. In most cases, mystical vengeance is overwhelming and horrific, but the justification that goes with it makes rooting for magical victory a source of grim pleasure.
While the fantasy of supernatural justice is fun to indulge, it recurs a little too often within the selection of tales, and the stories that rely on it less end up being my favorites in the book. “The Witch of Honey, Kudzu, and Coyotes” shrouds its title figure in mystery, making her more like a force of nature than a person practicing a secret art. Going further with an interest in storytelling that runs through “The Untold Tale of Wiccademous” and several other tales in Southern Haunts 3, “The Witch of Honey, Kudzu, and Coyotes” opens with an interrupted story that persists in the narrator’s imagination “like a hollow, unformed thing” alongside
“a boy missing from everyone’s memory”
Broken stories and memory gaps make magic powerful enough to reshape thought and perception, reweaving reality’s fabric; as a result, this tale can explore fresh and compelling territory. Likewise, “In the Dark” focuses on the perils of exploring the unknown. A bit rambling in structure, this tale brings its unwise protagonist in contact with strange verse, talking birds, and a host of disturbing images—my favorite is a buck with centipedes pouring from its mouth—that again signal a link between magic and distorted perception that can change the rules for what a story can do. Fans of more transgressive and gruesome horror fiction will likely count “In the Dark” and “The Bone Picker Witch” as favorites along with “Docta Bones,” in which the title character inverts Granny Wise’s benevolence by requiring much harsher payment for the gods’ services, and “Dances with Witches,” which places a human appetite for evil in parallel with a bewitched landscape’s. Chilling acts and images become the main products of witchery: questions of justice and the natural order become secondary to experiencing the full horror of the weird.
A volume about magic and the South invites thinking about cultural and regional history, and with stories set in (or focused on rediscovering) the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, Southern Haunts 3 does a great job of putting together views of the past (and thus it meets its goals–see the interview). As a Southerner, I wonder about the present. Where is witchcraft in the contemporary South? How do hoodoo and voodoo continue to inform life not just in old New Orleans, but also present-day Atlanta, Richmond, and cities in between with “modern” feels that contrast with the antiquarian interests that dominate this book? The book covers solid ground, but by sticking mainly to historical subjects, it might miss some opportunities for innovation.
The opportunities included, however, add up to a satisfying read. Moody, atmospheric, and drenched in regional detail, Southern Haunts 3 gives readers an entryway to the South’s mystic history, places and times to explore with equal amounts of dread and delight.
Southern Haunts 3: Magick Beneath the Moonlight,
“Granny Wise,” by H. David Blalock
“Live Big,” by Tom Lucas
“The Priestess’s Trunk,” by C.G. Bush
“The Witch of Honey, Kudzu, and Coyotes,” by Diane Ward
“The Untold Tale of Wiccademous,” by J.L. Mulvihill
“Vengeance,” by Linda DeLeon
“The Jar,” by Robert McGough
“La Voyante,” by Elizabeth Allen
“Cursed,” by Melodie Romeo
“Secrets of the Heart,” by Louise Myers
“Tell Me Where He Lies,” by Greg McWhorter
“Shadows,” by Kalila Smith
“Docta Bones,” by Melissa Robinson
“In the Dark,” by Jonnie Sorrow
“The Apartment House,” by Della West
“Without Xango There is No Oxalla,” by John E. Hesselberg
“The Bone Picker Witch,” by Angela Lucius
“Dances with Witches,” by Alexander S. Brown


Posted by: Matt Compton | December 1, 2010
With about a month left in the year, I’ve read 73 books in 2010, and my goal before the end of December is 80. This year has been fiction-heavy — almost 60 percent of the books I’ve read so far have been novels — and a lot of them have been incredible.
The fact that I’m ready to put out a list of my favorites with four weeks left in the year is pretty solid indication that my list isn’t comprehensive.
But these are my favorites, and I have a hard time seeing them get overtaken.
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman: A clever set of interlocking story about a group of journalists working for an English-language newspaper in Italy. Each chapter takes the perspective of a different staffer. Some of them are funny; others are almost heart-breaking. This is the kind of book that rewards lingering over passages, flipping back to reread earlier sections, and laughing about how well everything fits together.
Savages by Don Winslow: Winslow’s thriller about a pair of drug dealers who come under pressure to sell their business to a Mexican cartel is the kind of book you read too quickly, then spend days thinking about. The story doesn’t begin, unfold, or end the way you expect. And the writing is better than good, it’s stylish — because it takes risks and pulls them off.
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shtenyngart: This is a fantastic novel. It’s funny and depressing — and in some ways, even haunting. It takes place a few decades in the future, in an America on the brink of economic and political collapse. Shtenyngart’s best gift as a writer is the set of voices he creates for his characters, and this book particularly showcases that talent to particularly hilarious effect.
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen: It seems silly to add more praise to this book, except for the fact that Freedom is the best novel that Franzen has written. While the themes and ambitions are as big as ever, the characters are drawn with more sympathy and life — from start to finish. People will be reading this book for years to discuss what it means to have lived through the start of the 21st Century.
The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosely: Mosley’s new book is hard to classify. It’s not a crime novel like those that made him famous — not exactly. It’s not science fiction or fantasy, though there are elements of each. The only real way to describe Ptolemy Grey accurately is to say that it’s a work of honest-to-God literature and then smile at the story Mosely has written.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot: When doctors were able to harvest cells from Henrietta Lacks and replicate them in a laboratory, she changed the course of human history. That one discovery led to a staggering range of medical breakthroughs. But Lacks died after her cells were harvested, and her family still struggles to deal with the ramifications of her contributions to science. Skloot’s book isn’t just fascinating, it’s important to read.
War by Sebastian Junger: This is the best account of combat in Afghanistan I’ve read. Junger doesn’t write a wide-view portrait of the war. This is a close examination of one group of soldiers in a remote outpost in the Korengal Valley. Junger lives with these guys, goes on patrol with them, comes under fire with them, and I don’t know if his writing has ever been better.
Play Their Hearts Out by George Dohrmann: Dohrmann — the last sports writer to win a Pulitzer — follows a group of amateur basketball players through middle school and high school and writes a story that reads like a goddamn Greek tragedy. He has a lot to say about the state of AAU basketball, what it does to kids, what it asks of parents, what it means to be a successful coach in the system. He writes about the recruiting services, the scouts, and basketball fans. None of it is inspiring, but all of it is interesting.
The Tiger by John Vaillant: In 1997, an Amur tiger starts hunting poachers in the back country of Siberia. That becomes the lens through which Valliant explores post-Communist Russia, the nature of environmental conservation, and the relationship between mankind and the predators who occasionally prey upon us. The narrative that Valliant has written about the tiger and the men called in to deal with the threat is a heart-pounding adventure story, but there are economic, societal, and political implications at every turn.
Unbroken by Lauran Hillenbrand: Before the end of World War II, Louis Zamperini had competed for Olympic medals, spent nearly a month adrift at sea when his bomber came down in the Pacific Ocean, and suffered as a prisoner of war at the hands of the Japanese. Any one of these episodes would make for a compelling story — all three narratives, at the hands of Hillenbrand, make for something closer to unforgettable.
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Heisman winner Winston has efficient baseball week
By The Associated Press | Posted - March 3, 2014 at 2:52 p.m.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida State's Jameis Winston had a much more efficient weekend series against rival Miami than the Heisman Trophy winner did against the New York Yankees earlier in the week. He had quiet day in the much anticipated exhibition against the Yankees, outside of posing for pictures with Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada.
Coach Mike Martin says Winston's banged-up left hand is feeling much better and he expects to give Winston more at-bats in the near future. Winston injured ligaments in his hand against Duke in the ACC football championship game.
A look at how the 20-year-old sophomore fared last week:
IN RELIEF: The 6-foot-4, 225-pounder took the mound just once. The appearance came Sunday in the ninth inning of a 13-6 win against Miami. He retired the three Hurricanes he faced — on three groundballs. Winston's pitching line for the week: 1 inning, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 K, 0 BB, 3 batters faced.
AT THE PLATE: Winston made a plate appearance in 2 of 4 games last week. He pinch-hit and went 0 for 2 against the Yankees — grounding out to second in the 6th inning and striking out in the 8th — including a broken-bat foul ball. Winston was 1 for 1 in the second game against Miami with a single to right field during a 5-run 7th inning. His official line this week: 1 appearance, 1 H, 0 BB, 0 R.
IN THE FIELD: Winston entered the game in the bottom of the fifth inning against the Yankees and played left field. He entered the game against Miami in the eighth inning and played right field. He did not record a putout or an assist in either game.
HIGHLIGHT: The broken-bat foul ball against the Yankees garnered loud cheers from a large crowd eager to see the Heisman winner face the storied franchise.
ON THE SEASON: He has two hits in three at-bats; on the mound, he has pitched five innings, struck out three of the 16 batters he's faced, has given up one hit, no walks and has three strikeouts.
ON DECK: Florida State plays a two-game midweek series at South Florida starting Tuesday.
QUOTABLE: "It's surreal," Winston said after playing the Yankees. "It's probably better than winning the national championship ... psych."
Associated Press Writer Kareem Copeland in Tallahassee, Fla., compiled this report.
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Sep 13, 2011 3 min read Editor's Blog
Editor's blog Monday 12 September 2011: Chase Farm maternity & A&E - the first closure of many
As predicted by the Daily Telegraph among others, Secretary Of State For Health Andrew Lansley (saviour, liberator) has backed the recommendation of the Independent Reconfiguration Panel that the A&E and maternity services of Chase Farm should relocate to the North Middlesex Hospital and to Barnet.
The vision is now to 'divorce' Chase Farm from Barnet hospital, and investigate the possibility of a management union (i.e. merger) with the North Middlesex.
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Chase Farm hospital will no longer provide maternity and A&E services. It will get a new Urgent Care Centre, by way of compensation.
This has been a long time coming, and is widely viewed among clinicians as the right decisions. And the voters of the immediate area to Chase Farm will probably hate it.
Here comes a phrase which doesn't get much use around these parts: well done, Mr Lansley. Our Saviour And Liberator is now going to take the lumps that are inevitable when your leader (That Nice Mr Cameron) promised to oppose a hospital closure in opposition.
As the Telegraph's Martin Beckford shrewdly notes, "When Mr Cameron, then Opposition leader, visited Chase Farm in October 2007 he declared, 'What I would say to Gordon Brown is if you call an election on November 1 we'll stop the closure of services at this hospital on November 2. What we've heard today from the Government is more plans for cuts and closures in our NHS. They cannot be trusted with our health service'.”
Marginal costs and benefits
Chase Farm is a Tory-Labour marginal, held by health Bill committee member Nick De Bois. It can be confidently predicted that he will not be happy (indeed, he has just issued a statement to that effect, calling OSAL's decision "wrong").
Enfield Council will be very annoyed indeed, having pushed an alternative plan that the IRP and Mr Lansley deem not to be viable. (Viva localism.) UPDATE - my thanks to a colleague, who rightly emails to note that "Barnet Council won't be pleased either - detaching CFH renders Barnet less viable, although it should be saved because it has the famous PFI force-field".
The DH press release indicates that part of the thinking behind this service change is also financial, citing the IRP's words: “serious concerns have been raised about the implications of not completing the implementation of the strategy for services at the North Middlesex Hospital following its refurbishment under a PFI scheme ... In 2007, the North Middlesex Hospital received £144 million to refurbish its facilities on the basis that those facilities would see a greater proportion of patients from the Enfield area – but those patients have continued to be seen at Chase Farm Hospital".
Money talks, loudly and clearly. Especially where PFI viability is concerned.
A challenge for Labour
Labour face numerous challenges in developing their health policy offering. One of the big ones is going to be how they deal with reconfiguration decisions that involve service closures.
The easy politics for Labour would be to oppose every change and closure.
It's almost certainly the wrong move.
London has been known to be over-hospitalled for a very long time, and governments of different political complexions have found ways of ignoring the problem. In an NHS facing the Nicholson Challenge of £4 billion efficiency gains a year for each of the next four financial years, this is no longer really an option.
If Labour were playing smart, they would offer a cross-party commission on reconfigurations. The scale of The Nicholson Challenge means that the pain will hit marginals and safe seats from north to south and from left to centre.
It looks worryingly as if the EU is heading towards a disorderly resolution to its own north-south fiscal and economic divide. This is likely to mean that there will be more for the main Westminster parties to argue about over economic policy in the coming months and years that is likely to be comfortable.
There will be sufficient points of differentiation to be had between Labour and the Coalition Government without making 'save every NHS facility everywhere' a desirable battle cry.
If we accept that services should be delivered as locally as possible in primary care, and on the clinically and economically appropriate scale in secondary care, then some political courage and cojones are going to be needed.
Lansley has shown some, in this instance. Will Labour?


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Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, today announced that the Board of Directors has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.69 per share of the company's common stock for the first quarter of 2022. Payment will be made on Jan. 7, 2022 to shareholders of record at the close of business on Dec. 15, 2021.
Vector Group today announced that its Board of Directors has declared a regular quarterly cash dividend on its common stock of $0.20 per share. The quarterly cash dividend will be payable on December 20, 2021 to holders of record as of December 10, 2021.
Royal Bank of Canada announced today that its board of directors has declared an increase to its quarterly common share dividend of twelve cents or eleven per cent, to $1.20 per share, payable on and after February 24, 2022, to common shareholders of record at the close of business on January 26, 2022.
The Board of Directors of McCormick today declared an increase in the quarterly dividend from $0.34 to $0.37 per share on its common stocks, payable January 10, 2022 to shareholders of record December 31, 2021. This marks the 36th consecutive year that the Company has increased its quarterly dividend. At $0.37, the quarterly dividend is double the amount paid in 2014.
Mastercard today announced that its Board of Directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of 49 cents per share, an 11 percent increase over the previous dividend of 44 cents per share. The cash dividend will be paid on February 9, 2022 to holders of record of its Class A common stock and Class B common stock as of January 7, 2022. The Board of Directors also approved a new share repurchase program, authorizing the company to repurchase up to $8 billion of its Class A common stock. The new share repurchase program will become effective at the completion of the company's previously announced $6 billion program. The company has approximately $4.4 billion remaining under the current program authorization.
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TRWD Trailers Educate the Community
By Samantha Drumm June 15, 2019
Michelle Wood-Ramirez recently asked some high school students how much water they use as part of their daily bathroom routine – How long are your showers? How many times do you flush? How often do you wash your hands? They were almost too embarrassed to answer.
But their self-conscious giggles flow into groans and expressions of shock after they are told the average shower uses 20 gallons of water a day, that most people send 18 gallons swirling down the toilet and use another 6 gallons washing their hands. That’s over 300 gallons a week.
The students got this mind-blowing information while standing in the new Watershed Experience Trailer owned by the Tarrant Regional Water District. With its colorful, interactive displays the mobile classroom helps anyone who walks through it see where they fit into the water cycle and what they can do to conserve and protect water resources in the areas where they live.
“They don’t know where their water comes from. They don’t know how much they are using. To them it is on and off,” said Wood-Ramirez, watershed coordinator for the Tarrant Regional Water District to the ninth-grade students from Fort Worth Country Day.
“They don’t have the landscape level concept of how they are part of the water cycle,” Wood-Ramirez said. “Hopefully we can get people to understand they are part of the cycle and their stewardship for the whole water cycle. Everyone lives in a watershed.”
The 24-foot-long trailer hit the road about a year ago and has already been dispatched to 16 schools and community events where an estimated 7,700 people walked through. The Watershed Experience Trailer cost about $75,000 and was developed by various departments at the District.
It shows what happens to water from the stream miles away to the stream coming out of the faucet, from lakes onto lawns.
“This trailer gives them a visual of how they, as an individual, can impact the big system and how collectively can take responsibility,” said Robin Hallford, a Texas Wildlife Association education program specialist.
“I think you can see the whole picture instead of one tiny piece of it and how it all adds up. It has a much bigger impact. Hopefully, it makes them more conscientious,” she said.
The trailer has four primary lesson dioramas or exhibits: What is a Watershed; a Rainfall Simulator; What’s in Your Watershed; and Where Does the Water Go?
The watershed exhibit, complete with a city and farmland below, shows how rainfall hits the ground and collects on the lowest level for future distribution. The rainfall simulator depicts how much rain is absorbed when it hits bare soil, native prairie, concrete, and a mowed lawn.
“The soil is like a sponge. One pound of healthy soil can hold almost 20 pounds of water,” Wood-Ramirez said.
The What’s in Your Watershed display explains how pollutants can enter into the water cycle, either from a pipe, ditch or channel or from stormwater erosion or runoff. It continues the global perspective on how rainfall and runoff interact with our environment.
The Where Does the Water Go section (subtitle: How Much Water Do You Use) brings home how much H2o people use. A cutaway of a house shows a kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room. Dials on bright blue pipes show usage by a toilet, faucet, washing machine and shower.
In front of the Country Day students, Wood-Ramirez quizzes the students about how long – and how many – showers they take. Do they leave the faucet running when they brush their teeth? How many loads of laundry do they imagine their family does a week?
Then, to stress how much water that is, Wood-Ramirez asks them how many gallon milk jugs they can carry and wonders what it would be like to bring the water to the home from a stream or community well. Imagine doing that for yourself or a family of four.
The average household uses 225 gallons a day, or 1,575 gallons a week.
“You’re going to have such a workout by the end of the week,” Wood-Ramirez joked. “This is real life, right?”
And this doesn’t include water for keeping the lawn green or the car clean, she said.
“Once they realize they are part of the watershed, they are going to act differently and change. They can see that they are part of the system and they are invested. It’s their water that is going to come out of the faucet,” Wood-Ramirez said.
Her lessons about water did not just roll off the back of Joaquin Castro-Balbi at Country Day. He said what he learned would lead to changes in his behavior. He said he has relatives overseas and knows how different – and complicated – their situations in access to water can be.
“I can see people wasting a lot of water,” Castro-Balbi said. “I personally don’t waste a lot. I’ve been aware of how much I use. But I have relatives and sometimes they have different situations so that I can learn from them as well.”


3 Black men launch app for health and mental wellness
by Deon Osborne, Associate Editor March 26, 2020
written by Deon Osborne, Associate Editor Published: March 26, 2020 Last Updated on January 19, 2021
Published 03/26/2020 | Reading Time 4 min 9 sec
By Deon Osborne, Senior Writer
Designed to be an inspirational living and self-care mobile application that serves as a personal guide to mental, physical, and emotional success, Elevate was recently launched in Android and IOS app stores.
Three African-American Co-founders, two of them former roommates from Pennsylvania’s Lincoln University, launched the health and wellness app after realizing similar apps don’t address the specific issues that marginalized communities face. Users of Elevate experience daily inspirational quotes and readings, self- improving challenges, interactive videos and podcasts from black brown and white speakers, and access to external mental wellness hotlines.
Aaron Warrick is a Philadelphia native and the CEO and Co-founder of Elevate with a background in computer engineering and software development.
“Elevate does serve a universal audience; however, a lot of research and development was done based upon the African American community,” Warrick said.
Warrick said he and his team went out to work with people of color as a foundation because, while there are other similar apps out there, “the way they produce content and the content available may not be the best solutions for us because they don’t go through the same or similar problems,” Warrick said.
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With mental health treatment vastly underfunded in the U.S., nearly one in five Americans have some form of a mental illness. Suicide has risen to become a top 10 causes of death among adults and the number two cause of death among 10 to 34-year-olds, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
Co-founder Greg Wilson has a background in community service and biology from the D.C. area. He said Elevate has no limit on the age, race or gender of its users. “Everyone needs to be cared for. Everyone goes through struggles and problems,” Wilson said.
After downloading the app, it first prompts users to choose words on the screen that best link to the emotions or mental state the user is currently feeling. Whether positive or negative, the app tailors the unique experience of the app to the user’s initial choices.
The app also hosts a community forum where users can become content generators, sparking discussions with other users. For users who don’t feel comfortable sharing their mental wellness journey with others, Elevate offers the ability for users to gain wisdom, guidance and inspiration on an anonymous platform.
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Dante Wade is a community advocate and public speaker from the South Ward of Newark, NJ who roomed with Aaron Warrick at Lincoln University. Wade said he wants the Elevate app to become a household name for millions of people and a daily contrast to depression-inducing social media apps.
“For people who already feel positive, we want them to sustain it. So we have content geared towards that as well,” Wade said.
Above all, the team hopes users will erase the stigma around addressing mental health needs by creating a vast community of self-caring individuals producing tangible results. “Our goal is to grow not just as a company but as a lifestyle to be able to support all of these individuals,” CEO Aaron Warrick said.
The app, “Elevate–Mental Health Inspirational Self-Care,” can be downloaded on both Android and IOS devices in the app store.
Deon Osborne was born in Minneapolis, MN and raised in Lawton, OK before moving to Norman where he attended the University of Oklahoma. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Strategic Media and has written for OU’s student newspaper the OU Daily as well as OKC-based Red Dirt Report. He now lives in Tulsa, where he works at a local youth shelter. He is also a former intern at Oklahoma Policy Institute.
Aaron WarrickAfrican AmericanBlackDante WadeDeon OsborneElevateGreg WilsonLincoln Universitymental health
Deon Osborne, Associate Editor
Deon Osborne was born in Minneapolis, MN and raised in Lawton, OK before moving to Norman where he attended the University of Oklahoma. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Strategic Media and has written for OU’s student newspaper the OU Daily as well as OKC-based Red Dirt Report. He now lives in Tulsa and serves as the Associate Editor for The Black Wall Street Times. He is also a former intern at Oklahoma Policy Institute.
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