#pers com

One of my favorite vintage Halloween music collections!

00:00 Bogey Wail, Jack Hylton

03:26 Haunted Nights, Duke Ellington

6:48 Mysterious Mose, Rube Bloom & Bayou Boys

10:08 Dancing The Devil Away, Arden & Ohman

13:13 Haunted House, Al Bowly

16:11 T'aint No Sin, Fred Hall

19:40 Nightmare, Cab Calloway

22:27 With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm, Brit Cyril Smith

25:40 The Skeleton In The Cupboard, Nat Gonella

28:28 Midnight, The Stars And You, Al Bowly

31:56 Got The Jitters, Don Redman & His Orchestra

34:57 Nightmare, Artie Shaw

37:49 The Devil With The Devil, Larry Clinton Orchestra

40:25 The Jitterbug (Outtake) Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Buddy Ebsen & Bert Lahr

42:58 You've Got Me Voodoo'd, Charlie Barnet

45:42 The Boogie Woogie Man, Casa Loma Orchestra

48:13 The Skeleton In The Closet, Louis Armstrong

52:58 Headless Horseman, Kay Starr

56:00 He's A Demon-He's A Devil-He's A Doll, Betty Hutton

59:19 The House Is Haunted By The Echo Of Your Last Goodbye, Mel Tormé

1:02:13 Witchcraft, Frank Sinatra

1:05:10 That Old Black Magic, Sarah Vaughan

1:08:11 I'd Rather Be Burned As A Witch, Eartha Kitt

1:10:34 I Want To Be Evil, Eartha Kitt

1:14:11 Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead, Ella Fitzgerald

1:17:33 I Put A Spell On You, Nina Simone

1:20:11 Day-O (Banana Boat Song), Harry Belafonte

1:23:19 Zombie Jamboree, Harry Belafonte

1:26:44 Spooky Movies, Gary Paxton

1:29:07 Batman, Wolfman, Frankenstein Or Dracula, The Diamonds

1:31:21 The Mummy, The Naturals

1:33:44 Monster Mash, Bobby "Boris" Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers

"Has U.S. domestic steel production actually increased because of the Trump administration’s tariffs on imports? Barely. In 2025, American steel production rose by just 3%. Worse still, the Tax Foundation estimates that 104,000 U.S. jobs have been lost in relation to Section 232 tariffs on steel, aluminum, and copper.

The Peterson Institute for International Economics has found that every steel job “saved” by the Trump administration’s policies has cost U.S. taxpayers $650,000. It’s unlikely that voters who backed tariffs envisioned subsidized jobs as costly as the salaries of Wall Street executives or big-city lawyers.

The math is brutal — tariffs protect one steelworker for every 80 jobs that depend on affordable steel inputs — such as the automotive, rail, and housing sectors. On the consumer side, Canadian jet ski manufacturer BRP Inc. has cut $353 million from its 2027 balance sheet projections due to the tariffs. Summer adventurers looking to buy or rent a Sea-Doo for the lake will inevitably pay more. The same goes for food that requires a tin can, squeezing domestic suppliers and, perversely, benefiting foreign producers of canned food.

All of this makes Washington’s focus on production rather illogical. Slivers of good news for domestic producers of steel, aluminum, and copper can be devastating for other sectors and consumers.

Affordability is a tricky issue and continues to dominate voters’ concerns heading into the midterm season. The administration seems stuck between its populist promises to revive certain jobs and the reality that this means higher prices on everything from homes to a new tractor. MAGA influencer Benny Johnson put it this way: “Losing money means nothing. Digital ones and zeroes. In the end, you won’t miss any of it. Losing your country costs you everything.”

(from this post) Thanks for always sending me asks for games :)

Your favorite fairy tale retelling

Beauty! Robin McKinley is a wonderful reteller of fairy tales. She's actually got another version of Beauty and the Beast too, called Rose Daughter, but I've not been able to read that yet. Beauty does a great job of establishing Beauty's character and how it relates to her family (rather than just making her sisters into the evil stepsisters from Cinderella like so many adaptations). It is very slow and gradual in how it breaks the curse, both in the development of the romance and in how the castle changes the longer Beauty is there.

A traditional fairy tale retelling (traditional setting, follows the plot of the original tale, etc.)

The Tale of Snow White and the Widow Queen (2023). This is a beautifully illustrated retelling by Jonathan Pageau (illustrations by Heather Pollington). I got it a few months ago when I was particularly piqued over the Disney remake of Snow White. I don't pay much attention to Pageau's work in general, despite being a fan of Dr. Peterson. But this book made me want to explore his videos more.

The book is very beautiful to look at, and completely without anachronistic additions. It's faithful to the story, though it's not just a word-for-word retelling of the Grimm version. The ending may be the only change to the traditional tale, but it exemplifies the kindness of Snow White, much like how Cinderella's last speech to her stepmother in the 2015 movie was a change that most people accepted due to how in-character it felt.

A retelling that twists the plot of the fairy tale

Definitely Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarves. While I'm not the biggest fan of it, it was completely screwed by the marketing team, and I think it's a pretty good kids' film for this decade.

It's a pretty unique take on Snow White, completely embracing the idea that the most beautiful version of yourself is your real self, not an idealized illusion of you. She's very fat in real life, much like her father (who actually IS a good parent and tries to foil the evil queen before being enchanted by her). They never talk about the health consequences of that, but it's clear that no one who makes fun of her is doing so for the sake of her health. One of the things she loses with her idealized new body is the strength that came from living in that heavier body. This message was the big reason I avoided the movie for many years. When I did watch it, while I can't say I totally agree with it, I can see what they were going for. If beauty is truly meant to be an internal thing, she didn't need to look perfect to be beautiful. And if she chose to lose weight later, I don't think she'd look like the illusory version of herself. Due to her strength, she'd probably still have a bulkier figure. The movie isn't anti-weight loss or pushing the idea that everyone should be fat. For that reason, I think it's not a harmful message for children overall.

The dwarves are also not really dwarves, but cursed to appear as dwarves whenever someone looks at them. One of the dwarves is the love-interest/prince, and his insecurity about his own appearance is something he has to grow past. His character was pretty compelling, having his problem be almost the opposite of Snow's.

The Evil Queen's magic is intertwined very closely with her magic apple tree, which grows the red shoes of the title. The Magic Mirror (voiced by Patrick Warburton in English) is complicit in her evil and another source of magic that she draws upon. They did a good job of making her creepy and having consistent visual language around her magic and her cruelty to others.

Kinda down lately purely for pattern-recognition reasons. My only two relationships both started in autumn (October and early November) the previous two years. So the pattern recognition is like, “Aw, you aren’t even talking to anyone now. You should be sad and feel like a failure.”

It’s so stupid!! I CHOSE not to date for the rest of this calendar year so I could get my head back on straight after the negging, manipulation, and intensity of my last relationship. We broke up 6 months ago and I’m only now able to say I’m over him. That is a choice I made, and it was a wise one that is helping me. It’s been very helpful to have time alone to reflect, work on my house and my work training, and focus on my family and friends again. The pattern recognition is just an automatic thing the mind does; it doesn’t mean a damn thing emotionally, it just appears to.

My ex’s dating some girl from Tinder, and because we haven’t spoken in months, but still work at the same place in different departments, he keeps bringing this girlfriend to work events (which is not encouraged or a normal practice at all) hoping to introduce me to her. My coworkers keep telling me that he’s doing this (since I have accidentally not been at these events, having no knowledge of his behavior) and asking me if I’ve met her and if he’s doing it because of me. A few have asked me to talk to him and ask him to stop doing it. But again, we’re not speaking to each other. And then, my birthday was Sunday before last, but I had covid and didn’t attend the service. He showed up to my church (we attend at different locations) with the girlfriend, looking for me specifically, because he wanted to rub this in my face at church on my birthday. (I dodged such a huge bullet, praise God!)

When my friend told me all that, I just laughed. This guy is nuts! How petty can you get? I know it was intended to hurt my feelings, but the fact that he keeps failing to make this happen really is hilarious. I’m not thinking about him at all and purely by accident we keep missing each other. I don’t know his girlfriend, and honestly I don’t think well of people who meet on Tinder, but I wish they’d be happy enough together that he wouldn’t keep doing petty things like this. 

He SHOULD bring her to church of course, but he should know better than to bring a date to work events. We work at what is essentially a religious nursing home. Family and dates of employees are only welcome at specific events and times, because WE don’t live there like the residents do. If I talked to him about it, it would only make him keep doing it. It’s just his personality unfortunately. Nothing I can do but hope he gets past it on his own.

If you've been reading my read-more posts, you already know that I had a huge crush on my coworker since March. I've had to fix some termite-related stuff in my kitchen, so he got a key and fob made for me so I can go use HIS kitchen whenever. And so we've been having dinner together for a week or two.

On the 5th, we had just finished dinner, and I was getting ready to leave. He said he had to tell me something, and then said he would tell me later, but when I said, "I'm already in enough suspense today!" he relented. He carefully went through any potential obstacles to us dating. English is not his first language, though he is nearly fluent. So he sometimes paused to make sure the words were right in his head before he said them. <3

He had an online class, so we had to cut the conversation short and continue the next day. But it wasn't a cliffhanger, because we both were clear that we liked each other when I left. I saw him the next evening to have dinner and finish our conversation. With the basic facts out of the way, it was much more romantic <3

Unfortunately, he works 9-5 weekdays while I work both morning and evening shifts on any day of the week. So unless my evening shift is on a weekend, we don't see each other at all those days. We make food independently and together. We're going to an art gallery tonight <3

We're in the same church and vote/think very similarly. We're both family-oriented and serious people, but we find each other funny. He IS younger than me (and I've never dated someone younger), but I don't think it will be an issue. I thought he was older than me until we talked about it, actually. We disagree on only one issue, but we are talking about it consistently, and we are both respecting each other's views and working on a compromise.