Pup Pup blog |
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3/31/2026 dear easy mac zine lives! Rejoice for the DEAR EASY MAC zine is in the world! |
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the very cool gang who wanted to
hang with us in this zine:
10/22/2025
Pet Spotlight & Soundtrack: Mina
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pet spotlight!
For all of autumn, MMPP is spotlighting our favorite pets: real or imaginary, yours or a wild one. We want to know your pet's artist statement AND their favorite songs. Send us all the deets so the world can get to know your brilliant buddy!
spotlight on: mina
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Mina came with the house. She showed up soon after we moved in here. Through a hole in the concrete by the office entrance. A pet portal that follows us. Climbing the kitchen window and peering inside. Wild kitten whiskers. She likes to burrow into the living room cushions and sleep the day away, dreaming of past lives. Dreams of rabbits in the tall grass. She runs the long hallway in a peculiar gallop. Annoying her brother into playing. Her swat is vicious and she is afraid of no creature or man.
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ARTIST STATEMENT
Sleep often and for long periods of time.
Sleep more than you are awake. Let the dreams fill you out. Your bones and organs are tired. Vivid colors. You are soft like the moss and will live forever. You are the smallest prick of light in the orange curtains. Tender. Listen to the shadows. Listen to the ash tree. Your ear to the leaf. Get your paws in there. Learn to be quiet. Learn to be quiet and still. Write. As a scream. A heartbeat is an explosion outward. A thousand years is nothing. To longing. What it feels what feels what feels At home. |
I Don't Care Anymore - Phil Collins
Sun in My Mouth - Björk
Nosferatu - Air Remix by the Flower Pistols
Moody - ESG
What Have You Done For Me Lately - Janet Jackson
Birds - Electrelane
Girl Like You - Bluphoria
Endless alleyways - Zephaniah
Houdini - Kate Bush
Make 1,2 - Arthur Russell
Sleep - Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions
I Was Young When I Left Home - Bob Dylan
Sun in My Mouth - Björk
Nosferatu - Air Remix by the Flower Pistols
Moody - ESG
What Have You Done For Me Lately - Janet Jackson
Birds - Electrelane
Girl Like You - Bluphoria
Endless alleyways - Zephaniah
Houdini - Kate Bush
Make 1,2 - Arthur Russell
Sleep - Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions
I Was Young When I Left Home - Bob Dylan
by Kim Göransson
It's October again and a time for spooky things. In looking for new horror to watch I also browsed my letterboxd diary and wrote down some films I've enjoyed and decided to check which of those are streaming for free because art should be available to everyone. Ideally, of course, you should watch these without annoying ad breaks, but times are dire. Ideally we should have a free library streaming site available to everyone!
(Kanopy is a great resource if its available to you. If not directly available there are some libraries that will let you get online cards that allow you to watch a couple of titles a month.)
Until such a time, here are 31 mostly horror movies you can watch for free (as of the writing of this post) and maybe you'll spy something you haven't seen before. Happy haunty meowctober, friends!
(Kanopy is a great resource if its available to you. If not directly available there are some libraries that will let you get online cards that allow you to watch a couple of titles a month.)
Until such a time, here are 31 mostly horror movies you can watch for free (as of the writing of this post) and maybe you'll spy something you haven't seen before. Happy haunty meowctober, friends!
 | 1. The Vourdalak 2023This hazy 70s vibe vampire tale was one of my faves in 2023 and is available to stream free. It's matinee gold. Charming, creepy, fun, gothic, French. Cake make-up and an actual puppet! Would make a good companion movie to the final entry of this list. Tubi, pluto |
 | 2. The Cabin in the woods 2011A love letter to horror. That unicorn. Thor before Thor. Richard Jenkins and his grumpy actor face forever! If you want a horror movie for the party or your weirdo family night, you can never go wrong with this 2011 gem. Tubi |
 | 3. Whatever happened to baby jane? 1962Godzilla vs Kong, Freddy vs Jason, sure, but this is the ultimate horror queen showdown. Bette Davis vs Joan Crawford. Pick your fighter. Essential camp education. Put down your phone! Tubi |
 | 4. Byzantium 2012Sometimes you want a cozy vampire flick. With the always dialed-in Saoirse Ronan. Light all the candles and stay in bed. Or in the bath. This is that movie. From Neil Jordan of The Crying Game and Interview with a Vampire. Tubi, plex, pluto |
 | 5. the Night of the hunter 1955The Night of the Hunter turned 70 this year and if you haven't seen it yet you're in for a treat. Robert Mitchum is a sinister serial killer preacher with knuckle tattoos stalking kids. Lillian Gish with a shotgun is the most badass. It is as good as they say it is. It could be the best movie ever. A fever dream that feels so real. Pluto |
 | 6. Scare Me 2020Low budget comedy horror from 2020. It has like 3 people in it and one is the director and one is Aya Cash aka the evil one from The Boys. It's both creepy and a wildly entertaining, claustrophobic time. There's a musical number that is amazing unless I hallucinated all that. I gave this 5 stars and I'm not really a horror comedy person! Tubi, plex |
 | 7. Assault on precinct 13 1976Perhaps not many people's go to Carpenter but there is a quiet menace and brutality in this that is so unsettling. Creeping paranoia in broad daylight. Once it jolts you awake, and it will, you have to stay for the ride. A perfect movie to watch in the middle of a lazy day while rain taps on the windows. Tubi, plex, pluto, roku, fawesome |
 | 8. the wailing 2016Clear an evening for this movie. Order pizza from your favorite place. Accept that its going to be a long ride. Start early, even take a break halfway through. Let it creep in. I love how this movie evolves. Terrifying, devastating. I love this movie. Tubi, plex, pluto |
 | 10. repo! the genetic opera 2008"Not your parents opera". Y'all. There are two repo movies, one is Repo Man and the other is this. They're both the ones. But this one has goth Paris Hilton! Sarah Brightman is in this! I don't know what else to say. Tubi, plex, pluto |
 | 10. tigers are not afraid 2017A dark fairy tale about real horrors. Fantasy as the worlds we create to survive. This is a sad and moving film with amazing performances from all the young actors. Izza Lopez, of True Detective Night Country, directed this. Plex |
 | 12. spiderbaby 1967"Or, The Maddest Story Ever Told" is a film Rob Zombie wish he'd made. It was actually shot back in 1964 but struggled to get out. I don't know why! Other considered titles at the time was "Cannibal Orgy" and "The Liver Eaters". An origin to outcast family genre horror like Texas Chainsaw Massacre via Whatever Happened to Baby Jane theatrics. It fun and twisted, packed into a perfect 80 minutes. Tubi, plex, fawesome etc. |
 | 13. Trollhunter 2010A Norwegian found footage horror fantasy. It's a movie about hunting trolls! Different kinds of trolls! And it's good. I think we watched this after midnight one night and yeah, it belongs in the found footage HOF. Trolls! Tubi, plex, pluto |
 | 14. near dark 1987Why Near Dark is so hard to find streaming I don't know. Kathryn Bigelow’s gritty and engrossing and hot outlaw vampire tale from the lord’s year 1987, which is also the year of The Lost Boys. Well thanks be, someone put it on YouTube and you can watch it here. |
 | 15. demons 1985While were slaying in the 80s, pop on Lamberto Bava's Demons from 1985. You might wonder whether to watch it in Italian or English. It doesn't matter! It's all dubbed anyway. It's a movie that takes place at the movies. It's a spectacle of limitless gore imagination with a badass soundtrack featuring Mötley Crüe and Billy Idol. Tubi, plex, pluto |
 | 16. Hellbender 2021I love the Adams/Poser family. They're putting out some the more interesting and exciting indie horror. They're also making you feel like you could make a movie, too. Anyone could. Both Hellbender and The Deeper you Dig are available streaming free. Hellbender is a story about a mother and a daughter. They sometimes play music together. It lives in my heart. Plex |
 | 17. The Haunting 1963Fans of Flanegan’s series and anyone should visit Hill House in 1963, 4 years after Shirley Jackson's gothic novel came out. It's a proper haunted house film. Theo is still gay. The atmosphere, the shadows, the interior vs the exterior, the everything! It isn't streaming however you can find a good cut on Internet Archive to watch or download. |
 | 18. They Look like people 2015One of the most unsettling little indie films you might not have seen. A film about mental illness that (to me) doesn't feel exploitative, maybe because it feels so heartfelt. A slow burn that will stay with you. Pluto |
 | 19. the exorcist Iii 1990A rare feat of a sequel horror film being this good. Maybe it works because it's not trying to be the original, starting as something else and arriving at the source material. Really it's more of a crime thriller, an investigation, like The Wailing, taking time to build its characters with some great scenes. And then that one scene. Tubi, plex, pluto |
 | 20. Lake mungo 2008Some people seem to really dislike Lake Mungo. It's not scary, it's boring, whatever. It's not for everyone but I adore it. Maybe it's not a group watching movie but an alone watching movie. The genre of fake documentary horror is a difficult one to pull off and maybe it isn’t all the way convincing, but there is a feeling at the end that of thins I can't think of any other movie arriving at, and if you get there it will punch you right in the gut. Tubi, plex, fawesome |
 | 21. The Hour of the wolf 1968Bergman at his most horror, experimental but also personal. Liv Ullman and Max Von Sydow are cooking. It's my favorite Swedish horror along with Let the Right One In (also streaming free). It's not on streaming but it is on the Internet archive with english subs here. |
 | 22. Gonjiam: haunted asylum 2018A family favorite! If you're a found footage fan then you already know but if you don't, this is scary as hell.. A group of paranormal investigators visits an abandoned asylum. Watch late at night. Turn off all the lights. Stick with it. Tubi, plex |
 | 23. altered states 1980Ken Russel made some wild movies. Altered States appears to finally be available for free streaming. It's a mind trip. Human hubris horror drama. If you can also watch The Devils, or Gothic, or Lair of the White Worm, make a weekend of it. Tubi, plex |
 | 24. american movie 1999Not horror but a documentary about an aspiring filmmaker, Mark Borchardt, trying to finish his low to no budget horror film. Like with Grey Gardens, we're faced with asking when does documentary become exploitation, but I think in both instances the subject counters whatever the intent might be with their sheer presence and humanity. A moving portrait of creative passion and a tribute to DIY horror. Tubi |
 | 25. the Texas chain saw massacre 1974Confession, I watched this as a kid but it never left much of an impression then other than it was scary and gory, which was never my favorite horror genre, and I didn't rewatch it until only a couple of years ago and was then completely smitten with and knocked out by it. There is such an energy and beauty and aliveness in this movie that I can't explain. Tubi, pluto |
 | 26. jennifers body 2009Jennifer's Body wasn't available but now it is, praise be! Karyn Kusama snapped with this. All my friends love Jennifer's Body. A film about friendship. Tubi |
 | 29. The Hunger 1983Does a movie need much more than Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Susan Sarandon vamping it up in detached gorgeous 80s music video aesthetic? Possibly the hardest opening to a movie ever. Another perfect matinee watch, lazying the day away, forever and undead. Tubi |
 | 29, ghostwatch 1992If you enjoyed Late Night with The Devil then you have to get in on Ghostwatch. One of the best and scariest horror movies full stop. If you don't believe me, read our very own Michael Seymour Blake's review here. It hasn't been available to stream for free but now is on something called Dark Matter TV. |
 | 30. cat people 1942“There's nothing you can say. There's only silence.” It wouldn't be meowctober without Cat People from 1942. So much packed into this fast paced noir transformation thriller: immigrant trauma, alienation and assimilation, repressed female desire and psychiatry as patriarchal control, but it's also just a damn good movie that's empathetic of its cat woman protagonist. Available on something called Classic Movies and TV |
 | 31. the wicker man 19731973 was a good year for horror. The Exorcist, Don't Look Now and The Wicker Man. For a while we were determined to make watching The Wicker Man an Easter family tradition. It was a great idea and we need to keep that up. It’s such a great fun movie to watch and rewatch and the only right way to end this horror playlist. Tubi, pluto |
Haunty Meowctober!
Bonus watch: dragula!
You can watch season 3 of The Boiler Brothers' Dragula for free on something called Xumo Play.
Pet Spotlight!
For all of autumn, MMPP is spotlighting our favorite pets: real or imaginary, yours or a wild one. We want to know your pet's artist statement AND their favorite songs. Send us all the deets so the world can get to know your brilliant buddy!
Spotlight on: Saint Aloysius
Saint Aloysius is a three-year-old tabby cat from Vineland, New Jersey, who likes to write hard-boiled detective mysteries. Sometimes, while he's writing, his estranged girlfriend visits him at his window. His process for writing entails using his Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter between late-night zoomies up and down the hallway. When he gets writer's block, he knocks things off tables until something clicks.
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Sean Lynch is a writer and editor who lives in Philadelphia. His debut novel, The Beast in the Pines is now available where books are sold. Publishers Weekly calls it "...over-the-top folk horror... that will shock even seasoned horror readers."
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12 SONGS FOR SAINT ALOYSIUS
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by Kim Göransson
My favorite scene in Wanda, Barbara Loden's low budget feel-bad 1970 drama and only feature film, is after she meets Mr. Dennis and they're having spaghetti in a restaurant. Spaghetti with a red sauce. They're the only guests in the restaurant. The staff or owner is looking on, impatient for them to leave. Wanda is eating with an appetite while Mr. Dennis smokes his cigar. He tells her to wipe her mouth. Her beer glass is empty. She asks if he wants some bread, talking to herself because he doesn't respond:
"That's the best part I like.
Don't you like that - that part?
Sop it up.
Don't you like it? I do."
For a moment she is joyful, teasing. Sopping up the sauce, her favorite part. Don't you like it? I do.
"That's the best part I like.
Don't you like that - that part?
Sop it up.
Don't you like it? I do."
For a moment she is joyful, teasing. Sopping up the sauce, her favorite part. Don't you like it? I do.
***
In Splendor in the Grass (1961), directed by her husband-to-be Elia Kazan, Barbara Loden plays Ginny, Warren Beatty's character Bud's wild, doomed and ukulele playing sister, who has returned from Chicago after an annulled marriage and rumored abortion. She has flunked out of art college. She has rebelled, mainly against her father, while Bud can't stand up to him. She's a disappointment, returned home.
She is doomed because she has crossed the line of what is acceptable for a woman. She sees too many men. One of them is married. She wants to drink and party. Her character functions as a cautionary warning for the main character, Deanie, played by Natalie Wood, of what going too far looks like, but also as inspiration, to refuse and to want something else, something more. Or to just want.
Ginny disappears less than halfway through the film, after causing a scene at a party, having been scolded by her father. She is sexually assaulted in a car outside, Bud coming to the rescue. Men fighting. Her character has served its purpose. We are later told by Deanie’s mother that she was killed in a car accident some other night:
“We all knew something like that would happen. The way she carried on.”
We are left to fill in the gap. What happens to Ginny. The way she carried on.
She is doomed because she has crossed the line of what is acceptable for a woman. She sees too many men. One of them is married. She wants to drink and party. Her character functions as a cautionary warning for the main character, Deanie, played by Natalie Wood, of what going too far looks like, but also as inspiration, to refuse and to want something else, something more. Or to just want.
Ginny disappears less than halfway through the film, after causing a scene at a party, having been scolded by her father. She is sexually assaulted in a car outside, Bud coming to the rescue. Men fighting. Her character has served its purpose. We are later told by Deanie’s mother that she was killed in a car accident some other night:
“We all knew something like that would happen. The way she carried on.”
We are left to fill in the gap. What happens to Ginny. The way she carried on.
***
Before the spaghetti scene but after she has told the judge that she has no objections, that the kids are "better off with him", her husband, and after she has inquired about work and been told that she's just too slow, Wanda walks into a bar.
"Do you want something, Blondie?"
She's caught off guard. She orders a beer. Rolling Rock. She has her hair curlers and a shirt with little blue flowers. She has her white purse and blue wallet. A man offers to pay for her beer as she's searching for change. There is no time for Wanda to exist here before becoming the transaction between two men, the bartender and the man.
She wakes up to the man trying to sneak out of the motel room, hurries to get dressed and chases after him. She catches him but he drops her off at an ice cream parlor. Speeds off as soon as she's out of the car. She starts to run after the car but stops. The woman behind the counter hands her an ice cream cone. Plain. She’s holding the ice cream cone, looking at it and looking around. We don't see her eat it.
"Do you want something, Blondie?"
She's caught off guard. She orders a beer. Rolling Rock. She has her hair curlers and a shirt with little blue flowers. She has her white purse and blue wallet. A man offers to pay for her beer as she's searching for change. There is no time for Wanda to exist here before becoming the transaction between two men, the bartender and the man.
She wakes up to the man trying to sneak out of the motel room, hurries to get dressed and chases after him. She catches him but he drops her off at an ice cream parlor. Speeds off as soon as she's out of the car. She starts to run after the car but stops. The woman behind the counter hands her an ice cream cone. Plain. She’s holding the ice cream cone, looking at it and looking around. We don't see her eat it.
***
The first cut of Wanda was 3 and a half hours long. How many other food scenes were cut? Is there a scene where Wanda is getting ready, rolling her hair? Does she walk along the road, eating the ice cream cone? Wander the shopping mall for hours? Do she and Dennis stop for pizza on the way, another diner, another bar. Does she tell him what her favorite part is?
***
Watching Wanda after Splendor in the Grass, it feels like a continuation of the character. Both Ginny and Wanda refuse the life they’re supposed to live.
On The Mike Douglas Show, Barbara says of Wanda: “She doesn't know what she wants, but she knows what she doesn't want.”
The last time we see Ginny she is driving off, crying, out of the scene and out of the film. We first meet Wanda crashing on a girlfriend's couch, presumably after a night of drinking, hiding under sheets, an annoyed husband rushing past her, a baby crying.
In a long faraway shot, we watch her walk through a mining quarry. A clear tiny white figure against the grey, depressed landscape.
Ginny in her white dress, falling in a sea of black-suited men.
On The Mike Douglas Show, Barbara says of Wanda: “She doesn't know what she wants, but she knows what she doesn't want.”
The last time we see Ginny she is driving off, crying, out of the scene and out of the film. We first meet Wanda crashing on a girlfriend's couch, presumably after a night of drinking, hiding under sheets, an annoyed husband rushing past her, a baby crying.
In a long faraway shot, we watch her walk through a mining quarry. A clear tiny white figure against the grey, depressed landscape.
Ginny in her white dress, falling in a sea of black-suited men.
***
Wanda is eating chips in the bar where she first meets Mr. Dennis. She has surprised him mid-robbery, pushed past him for the restroom before he can stop her. Afterward she sits at the bar and eats chips. They look like plain potato chips. Mr. Dennis has tied the barman on the floor behind the bar and he is now acting in his place. She asks for a beer and Mr. Dennis gets her one from the tap while trying to get the cash register open. He slaps it down, flustered, spilling. Wanda is unfazed. She eats the chips that were already on the bar and drinks her beer. Holds up one large potato chip and bites into it. She tells him about how she lost all her money. She asks if he has a comb so that she can comb her hair.
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"The hair curlers, the handbag. The bag, that strange, oversized handbag with its mysterious contents, is an event in itself. Everything in Wanda’s life has gone, but this immaculate still life of a handbag is there to bear witness, a proof of reality, proof that there is something that remains even if there is nothing inside." - Nathalie Léger, Suite for Barbara Loden
***
Mr. Dennis robs a convenience store, walks out with beer and whiskey, and they stop off the main road somewhere. A gravel road in a field, buildings and a chimney in the background. There is always some piece of civilization interrupting the landscape. Gravel heaps, reminders of where Wanda and the film started. Two dogs follow Mr. Dennis. He has beer, Piels Real Draft, in one hand and whiskey, Jack Daniels, in the other.
Wanda sits on the car and eats something that looks like bread, a pickle, and later something that breaks rather than tears, a cookie? Some kind of snack. Drinking beer. It is as close to peaceful as we will get. Mr. Dennis has a tender moment, placing his suit jacket on her shoulders. Then he tells her she should do something about her hair, that it looks terrible.
She says she lost all her rollers.
He suggests she should cover it up. “Get a hat.”
“A hat?”
Wanda sits on the car and eats something that looks like bread, a pickle, and later something that breaks rather than tears, a cookie? Some kind of snack. Drinking beer. It is as close to peaceful as we will get. Mr. Dennis has a tender moment, placing his suit jacket on her shoulders. Then he tells her she should do something about her hair, that it looks terrible.
She says she lost all her rollers.
He suggests she should cover it up. “Get a hat.”
“A hat?”
***
(I send blurry photos to R. asking if she knows the whiskey label. It looks like Jack Daniels but not conclusively. Freezing on Mr. Dennis standing on the car, swinging the bottle to the sky, fighting the annoying toy airplane buzzing overhead that has ruined the moment, broken the illusion. Too grainy to make out. Ezra Brooks? Rewinding. One frame, as Mr. Dennis gets into the car holding the bottles, offers irrefutable evidence.)
***
Barbara Loden wanted to adapt The Awakening but couldn’t find the funding. I am reading Kate Chopin’s 1899 novel, imagining the scenes in grainy long intimate shots, Barbara playing lead because she would be best for the part, directing herself, eating bonbons in the New Orleans heat.
***
On the night they meet, in another hotel room, in the middle of the night, Mr. Dennis tells Wanda to get dressed and get him something to eat. He takes her pillow in a ridiculous show of authority and places it behind him, making her get up. There's a place open all night. He wants her to get 3 hamburgers. She can’t find her wallet, gives up looking for it:
“Oh well, nothing in it anyhow.”
Mr. Dennis gives her money. He is particular about his burgers: "No garbage. No onions. No butter on the bun. I want the bun toasted."
When she returns he slaps her because he saw her talking to someone on the street. The order is wrong. There's onions on the burger, and “garbage”. Lettuce. He makes her take it off. She scrapes it off in the trash bin, where she finds her wallet he'd stolen and looked through while she was gone. Pictures of her family, kids.
Wanda likes onions.
"I don't know why you don't like onions? I do."
“Oh well, nothing in it anyhow.”
Mr. Dennis gives her money. He is particular about his burgers: "No garbage. No onions. No butter on the bun. I want the bun toasted."
When she returns he slaps her because he saw her talking to someone on the street. The order is wrong. There's onions on the burger, and “garbage”. Lettuce. He makes her take it off. She scrapes it off in the trash bin, where she finds her wallet he'd stolen and looked through while she was gone. Pictures of her family, kids.
Wanda likes onions.
"I don't know why you don't like onions? I do."
***
In I Am Wanda, Barbara Loden talks about reconnecting with her mother in the last years of her life, while she was sick and dying. They talked and got close. Her mother told her she tried to abort her but was glad she didn't. It was the depression era. Her mother told her she wouldn't know what to do without her now. Barbara tells the camera she didn't feel bad, that she understood.
***
Wanda is sitting in another bar with another man. Uniform, eagle patch. What went down with Mr. Dennis is on the TV but she is not watching. The bomb was fake, nothing inside. She holds a cigarette. The man tries to talk to her but she ignores him. “You just sit there.” Bottles of beer on the table, white label with red and gold. He orders fresh ones.
Red convertible, another off-road quarry. He pushes her down, tries to rape her. Wanda is frozen but then fights back, screams. Manages to get away, out of the car.
Red convertible, another off-road quarry. He pushes her down, tries to rape her. Wanda is frozen but then fights back, screams. Manages to get away, out of the car.
***
Nathalie Léger: “Her bag, she doesn’t forget her bag. She escapes, running, she stumbles and falls, gets up, runs into the nearby bushes, keeps going, loses her way. It might only be a little patch of municipal woodland but it might as well be a mythical forest; she has entered the circle of forgotten antiquities and of fairy-tale coincidences, the site of indecipherable truths, all preserved there between two parking lots. Running, frantic, she vanishes, as into sleep.”
***
In interviews on both The Dick Cavett Show and The Mike Douglas Show the men insinuate that Barbara Loden must have had help from her “great director” husband, “since the film’s now won a prize, you know” (Dick). She ignores the implication, responding earnestly that yes he was very helpful.
On The Mike Douglas Show, appearing alongside Yoko Ono and John Lennon, she says: “Yoko and I have sort of a feeling for each other.”
Finding a longer clip of the interview is nearly impossible, where at the end she takes the stage with Plastic Ono Band, performing The Elephant’s Memory. Barbara stands to the side, next to John, playing a drum, while Yoko sings.
On The Mike Douglas Show, appearing alongside Yoko Ono and John Lennon, she says: “Yoko and I have sort of a feeling for each other.”
Finding a longer clip of the interview is nearly impossible, where at the end she takes the stage with Plastic Ono Band, performing The Elephant’s Memory. Barbara stands to the side, next to John, playing a drum, while Yoko sings.
***
America loves a roadtrip movie and a heist movie, both fantasies of new beginnings, of leaving behind and starting new, from scratch, temporarily released from reality and history, if you only dream. Who doesn’t want to dream? Who doesn’t want an adventure? Don’t look back, don’t note the graves. Here, see this open road and horizon full of possibilities. They replicate an alluring image of American freedom, even if at the end you go up in a hail of bullets.
Wanda, the movie, refuses to be in service of this dream. There is no dream and no escape. She is traveling but not really going anywhere, from one man to another, one quarry to another. Wanda is in survival mode. There is no space for her. She is just trying to make it from one moment to the next.
Food feels like one part of this refusal. Food is material. Eating is basic survival. Repetitive. Wanda is bleak and doesn’t offer hope but these are moments of pause, of some brief enjoyment, of existing undisturbed.
Wanda, the movie, refuses to be in service of this dream. There is no dream and no escape. She is traveling but not really going anywhere, from one man to another, one quarry to another. Wanda is in survival mode. There is no space for her. She is just trying to make it from one moment to the next.
Food feels like one part of this refusal. Food is material. Eating is basic survival. Repetitive. Wanda is bleak and doesn’t offer hope but these are moments of pause, of some brief enjoyment, of existing undisturbed.
***
It's night and Wanda arrives at another building. The muted sound of people inside. A woman checks on her: “Are you waiting for someone?”
The final scene is a food scene. She's sitting with a group, crammed between two men, smoking and coughing and holding a beer. The woman is there also. They’ve taken her in. It’s chaotic but also a temporary respite. She gets a hotdog from a tray and eats it. Plain. The group is rowdy, talking, getting on. She's existing among them but no one is particularly focused on her yet. They're clapping along with the music. A fiddle and guitar player playing with fervor. We see them playing. It is loud.
Wanda's eyes are closed. She's holding a cigarette.
The final scene is a food scene. She's sitting with a group, crammed between two men, smoking and coughing and holding a beer. The woman is there also. They’ve taken her in. It’s chaotic but also a temporary respite. She gets a hotdog from a tray and eats it. Plain. The group is rowdy, talking, getting on. She's existing among them but no one is particularly focused on her yet. They're clapping along with the music. A fiddle and guitar player playing with fervor. We see them playing. It is loud.
Wanda's eyes are closed. She's holding a cigarette.
 | Kim Göransson (they) is from Sweden but live in Virgina with their family. They like to bake, make playlists and get lost in nature. They like tinned fish, brie, sad movies and pro wrestling. Shinsuke Nakamura fan. Editing for Superfan Zine and Meow Meow Pow Pow lit. They're trying to learn classical guitar and make a garden. You can find them @sonofgore on instagram. |
A local poet has been begging people to buy their book of poems and to also like them. The poet is Barracuda Guarisco (bærəˈkuːdə Guarisco) and the book they are begging people to read is called LIKE MY POETRY, PLEASE.
The poet is known locally to publish poetry, host readings and shoot pool. According to a post on social media there were originally 25 copies but now only 3 copies of the book remain and there will never exist any more copies.
The poet is known locally to publish poetry, host readings and shoot pool. According to a post on social media there were originally 25 copies but now only 3 copies of the book remain and there will never exist any more copies.
Local poet begs you to buy their book and like their poetry
Local poet:
 | J.C. Rodriguez is from Long Island, currently making comix & poems at Syracuse. You can find him online @ his website brownmoon.rip |
2/3/2025
Featured: Our Will Power
Our Will Power is a project by mother and son team Janice and Brandon Will, both disabled in different ways, writing from both sides of the caregiving relationship, and participating in advocacy to address ableism, ageism, and our country’s inadequate care infrastructure. Using writing and other creative media, our mission is to create space for ourselves and those facing similar circumstances to remember the fullness of who we are and have been, beyond our roles giving and receiving care: Our many forms of grief and inspiration. Our griping, thriving, and coping. Our jubilance and joy. To create the future that’s yet to be written.
Janice: I was really doing this. Sixty-three, and for the first time in my life stepping forward to read my poems to friends and neighbors gathered in this library and eagerly looking to me. But I was embarrassed to call attention to my lack of expression!
Parkinson’s was the reason. Facial masking. My family doctor had diagnosed. Then the neurologist he’d sent me to wasn’t so sure.
I wasn’t certain of anything.
Wasn’t myself.
Didn’t talk much. Voice, weaker.
I’d become dull of emotion. Aside from concern and self-consciousness. Like a painter’s palette stained from past bright colors, but with only splotches of grays and browns to work with now.
When my youngest, Darren, had moved to New York, taking no books, I’d donated his childhood Paddington collection to our local library. Knowing they’d be loved. I’d wanted to go and grab his books from the stacks, I missed him so much. How to release that longing?
Adult enrichment classes. At the community college. Enlivening! I made a whole new set of friends. We went to readings in Ann Arbor and downtown Detroit.
But I never read my work like friends did.
Always pictured I would. Once I found my voice. My professional life had been spent writing human interest stories and marketing copy.
Semester by semester, I took whatever was offered. Fiction hadn’t been a fit. Sounded stilted. I was proud of some essays. One published in a local paper. But I’d always been called to poetry.
The three piece band that had accompanied the readers before me began.
I hoped that I’d brought the emotions to my words that I couldn’t to my face or voice while reading them. Just weeks before I’d watched my middle son, Brandon, at his MFA graduation reception, read his work with confidence and finesse, wowing the whole full room. I knew how long he’d been rehearsing. Remembered the crowd of stuffed animals lined around the Franklin Stove, getting the best seats in the house, when he was a child.
If he could’ve been in my audience, I knew he would’ve understood how much I missed him, too.
Parkinson’s was the reason. Facial masking. My family doctor had diagnosed. Then the neurologist he’d sent me to wasn’t so sure.
I wasn’t certain of anything.
Wasn’t myself.
Didn’t talk much. Voice, weaker.
I’d become dull of emotion. Aside from concern and self-consciousness. Like a painter’s palette stained from past bright colors, but with only splotches of grays and browns to work with now.
When my youngest, Darren, had moved to New York, taking no books, I’d donated his childhood Paddington collection to our local library. Knowing they’d be loved. I’d wanted to go and grab his books from the stacks, I missed him so much. How to release that longing?
Adult enrichment classes. At the community college. Enlivening! I made a whole new set of friends. We went to readings in Ann Arbor and downtown Detroit.
But I never read my work like friends did.
Always pictured I would. Once I found my voice. My professional life had been spent writing human interest stories and marketing copy.
Semester by semester, I took whatever was offered. Fiction hadn’t been a fit. Sounded stilted. I was proud of some essays. One published in a local paper. But I’d always been called to poetry.
The three piece band that had accompanied the readers before me began.
I hoped that I’d brought the emotions to my words that I couldn’t to my face or voice while reading them. Just weeks before I’d watched my middle son, Brandon, at his MFA graduation reception, read his work with confidence and finesse, wowing the whole full room. I knew how long he’d been rehearsing. Remembered the crowd of stuffed animals lined around the Franklin Stove, getting the best seats in the house, when he was a child.
If he could’ve been in my audience, I knew he would’ve understood how much I missed him, too.
Brandon: Not being at Mom’s first reading—it didn’t feel right. She’d been there for mine. At the mall. When I was seven. She was proofreader for my first published work, too. Cricket Magazine.
She always encouraged me. All the way to moving to Chicago for college in my twenties, where I became part of the city’s vibrant writing community, and began performing my work frequently.
But aside from my MFA reading, during my two years in New York, I’d only been able to bring myself to read one other time. I hadn’t been this shy since Junior High, inexplicably overwhelmed (undiagnosed “severe” ADHD).
After I returned to Michigan to intervene in her health spiral, we talked about how we’d each like to start reading again soon. To be a part of more communities, see our writing through, and to perform our work, both separately and collaboratively. But “soon” evaporated into a series of crises, a decade’s worth of traumas: The heedless progression of Parkinson’s, a betrayal by a family member that pushed us toward a new beginning in Chicagoland, the isolation of the pandemic, three major hospitalizations in six years, learning to live with disability as she lost her mobility. Despite this, these two hearts generated a quarter million words: journals, a screenplay, our joint memoir written from both sides of the caregiving relationship, and a nonfiction book for Brandon that had broken off of our collaboration.
But it seemed less and less possible we’d ever perform again.
She always encouraged me. All the way to moving to Chicago for college in my twenties, where I became part of the city’s vibrant writing community, and began performing my work frequently.
But aside from my MFA reading, during my two years in New York, I’d only been able to bring myself to read one other time. I hadn’t been this shy since Junior High, inexplicably overwhelmed (undiagnosed “severe” ADHD).
After I returned to Michigan to intervene in her health spiral, we talked about how we’d each like to start reading again soon. To be a part of more communities, see our writing through, and to perform our work, both separately and collaboratively. But “soon” evaporated into a series of crises, a decade’s worth of traumas: The heedless progression of Parkinson’s, a betrayal by a family member that pushed us toward a new beginning in Chicagoland, the isolation of the pandemic, three major hospitalizations in six years, learning to live with disability as she lost her mobility. Despite this, these two hearts generated a quarter million words: journals, a screenplay, our joint memoir written from both sides of the caregiving relationship, and a nonfiction book for Brandon that had broken off of our collaboration.
But it seemed less and less possible we’d ever perform again.
read the full post here
 | Brandon Will‘s writing has appeared in Next Avenue, along with other publications. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School, was a two-time Care Fellow with Caring Across Generations, former puppeteer with PuppetArt: the Detroit Puppet Theater, and writer/director of the indie feature Dadbot: The Movie (2004). He’s currently completing a memoir, See If I Care, that covers his hesitancy, in his mid-thirties, to become his mother’s caregiver, and then his incomprehension of what that asked of and offered him. With Janice, he’s co-authoring another non-fiction book. |
 | Janice Will received her journalism degree from Michigan State University in 1973, then was a field reporter and editor, serving in the role of Associate Editor for Transmission Lines, the monthly magazine for personnel of the Michigan Wisconsin Pipeline Company, before turning to freelancing while mothering three boys. Over decades, she wrote and edited countless newsletters and blogs for small businesses in Metro Detroit. Her second career owning and running a bulk mail house found her receiving the National Association of Women Business Owner’s Warrior Award in 2010. |
1/1/2025
The 2024 Mix by Bex
Happy new year & happy half-birthday to two humans and one cat in my home! As usual, I'm sharing a mix of my favorite songs that were released in the last year as my January 1st party favor.
Lately I've been sharing a second sprawling playlist of other songs I loved, too, since I stick to an 80-minute limit on my favorites list as a callback to its origins as a burned CD.
I hope there are some wide open spaces in your day today that might be filled with music for a while.
-Becca Klaver
Lately I've been sharing a second sprawling playlist of other songs I loved, too, since I stick to an 80-minute limit on my favorites list as a callback to its origins as a burned CD.
I hope there are some wide open spaces in your day today that might be filled with music for a while.
-Becca Klaver
Runners up playlist here
|
Becca Klaver is the author of the poetry collections LA Liminal (Kore Press, 2010), Empire Wasted (Bloof Books, 2016), and Ready for the World (Black Lawrence Press, 2020), as well as several chapbooks. Her latest publications are Midwinter Constellation (Black Lawrence, 2022), a collaborative homage to Bernadette Mayer’s Midwinter Day, and Greetings from Bowling Green (The Magnificent Field, 2022), a chapbook of postcard poems. As an editor, she co-founded Switchback Books, is co-editor of the anthology Electric Gurlesque (Saturnalia Books, 2024), and has created pop-up projects such as Women Poets Wearing Sweatpants. She lives in Iowa City, where she works as Program Manager of the Iowa Summer Writing Festival.
|
12/6/2024
Chorus Blog: Happy Phantom
Chorus Blog is our opportunity as the team behind Meow Meow Pow Pow to share our interpretation of the themes we ask writers to submit work for. Here is our Chorus Blog on... "Happy Phantom."
 |  |
Acrylic Apparition, The Return - Krystle Griffin
art by the author
On a day just like this, painted gray overcasted skies that rained off and on, several canvases arrived and filled my apartment. Varying degrees of completion , styles, medium and life. The pieces of her soul left behind; her art.
One stood out. One she had barely begun to bring it to life, yet the fainted started lines stretched out and took hold. An outlined woman, reverenced in a hallway. Hands clasped.
The beginning of my brushstroke was fury. Ignited inspiration that shook from my root. I dove head first right in. I felt the canvas move me. Bewitching my fingertips in rhythmic creation.
It was delicious kismet.
.
Held frozen in the midst of this painting, a ghost of a woman who once was started on canvas then halted. A painting over top of the ghost of an unfinished painting before, this canvas living in the corner of my kitchen, haunting me. This old piece of someone else’s history. A piece from a collection of a woman now passed. Her leftovers, now housed in my apartment. A gift from her son, a stranger to me, who just a couple months ago, stood in the middle of my living room with grief soaked air around us. Complete silence. He wished them goodbye and good luck on their future lives. They were his mother’s. An artist no longer in this realm, left behind a house full of her work. Abstract to portrait, from landscape to still life, and all throughout the seasons of her existence. Married name back to maiden, from fresh student to a skilled artist. Fifty canvases filled my apartment, brimming it to its limit. I shuffled through them one by one. Connecting and dreaming up her story. With each painting, each manipulated speck of color, I witnessed a woman whose art was embedded into her fiber. It ebbed, flowed and grew as she went through life.
A passed torched torture of artist block, now in this moment, has its grips on me. I was able to carry on her painting a little further. However, it stands frozen yet again. This painting on top of painting of a woman stilled. Alone. Perhaps she too is held in time where an unfinished piece stands in a corner. Matryoshka dolls of the past, present and future. I hold this painting close, intertwined with me as I try to carry her forward.
For now, I wait. Wait for the spark to return. For the story to come back and carry on with me. I wait for the block to be lifted so that I can set this phantom free.
.
On a day just like this, I began again. As if no time had passed, like an old friend.
I picked up a single paint and brush and started with the tiny thought of what if I placed a single stroke here. With a twist of my wrist, a swish and a flick, the spell was broken and intuition took me by surprise. Once again knowing exactly what to do. When truthfully, I simply allowed myself to get lost.
On a Thursday night, there she and I were again, in the middle of my kitchen. As the euphoria crashed over me, I found myself deeply entrenched in gratitude for the return of inspiration. I began to type out the words to a friend when a second wave knocked me breathless; the realization that the weekend to come is Mother’s Day. The air turned dense, lungs exhumed, I burst. Her presence made known. I was to finish this today.
And I did.
To all mothers in every form.
With love.
One stood out. One she had barely begun to bring it to life, yet the fainted started lines stretched out and took hold. An outlined woman, reverenced in a hallway. Hands clasped.
The beginning of my brushstroke was fury. Ignited inspiration that shook from my root. I dove head first right in. I felt the canvas move me. Bewitching my fingertips in rhythmic creation.
It was delicious kismet.
.
Held frozen in the midst of this painting, a ghost of a woman who once was started on canvas then halted. A painting over top of the ghost of an unfinished painting before, this canvas living in the corner of my kitchen, haunting me. This old piece of someone else’s history. A piece from a collection of a woman now passed. Her leftovers, now housed in my apartment. A gift from her son, a stranger to me, who just a couple months ago, stood in the middle of my living room with grief soaked air around us. Complete silence. He wished them goodbye and good luck on their future lives. They were his mother’s. An artist no longer in this realm, left behind a house full of her work. Abstract to portrait, from landscape to still life, and all throughout the seasons of her existence. Married name back to maiden, from fresh student to a skilled artist. Fifty canvases filled my apartment, brimming it to its limit. I shuffled through them one by one. Connecting and dreaming up her story. With each painting, each manipulated speck of color, I witnessed a woman whose art was embedded into her fiber. It ebbed, flowed and grew as she went through life.
A passed torched torture of artist block, now in this moment, has its grips on me. I was able to carry on her painting a little further. However, it stands frozen yet again. This painting on top of painting of a woman stilled. Alone. Perhaps she too is held in time where an unfinished piece stands in a corner. Matryoshka dolls of the past, present and future. I hold this painting close, intertwined with me as I try to carry her forward.
For now, I wait. Wait for the spark to return. For the story to come back and carry on with me. I wait for the block to be lifted so that I can set this phantom free.
.
On a day just like this, I began again. As if no time had passed, like an old friend.
I picked up a single paint and brush and started with the tiny thought of what if I placed a single stroke here. With a twist of my wrist, a swish and a flick, the spell was broken and intuition took me by surprise. Once again knowing exactly what to do. When truthfully, I simply allowed myself to get lost.
On a Thursday night, there she and I were again, in the middle of my kitchen. As the euphoria crashed over me, I found myself deeply entrenched in gratitude for the return of inspiration. I began to type out the words to a friend when a second wave knocked me breathless; the realization that the weekend to come is Mother’s Day. The air turned dense, lungs exhumed, I burst. Her presence made known. I was to finish this today.
And I did.
To all mothers in every form.
With love.
Author
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