Dylan Charles's Blog, page 4

Beer Review: Wormtown Brewery’s Sweet Tats

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Hello Again,

So I have a weird relationship with porters and stouts.

A lot of the time, I’ll try, say, one of the many variations of Guinness and it’s…empty. There’s some flavor at the front and some bitterness at the back and there’s just nothing holding up in the middle.

But! With Imperial Stouts, there is something in the middle. There’s a little more oomph. Now, a lot of that is probably the higher alcohol content, but usually they’re richer, fuller and more flavorful and you’re drunker...

An Update

Hello Again,

Whenever I do one of these insane writing challenges, I feel the need to beat myself up about not meeting the self imposed rules that are, often, brutally unfair.

That being said, I am going to say that as a result of this challenge (one blog entry, one five hundred word story per day) I do feel that I’m finally rebuilding writing muscles I used to have, but I’ve now let atrophy.

Atrophy.

That word seems pretty goddamn pretentious.

I think it’s important to challenge yourself as...

Be Superman

Hello Again,

One of the most important lessons that we can learn from superhero comics is the idea that we should be like Superman.

Superman is the purest distillation of what a superhero is: someone with abilities decides to use those abilities to help others.

Its not just about fighting crime, because Superman does a lot more than that. He saves towns from floods. He puts out fires. He catches airplanes. He destroys tenement housing to force the government to build brand new housing in its...

Scary Fear

Hello Again,

I think about horror a lot. I think about horror movies, horror short fiction, horror novels, about the things that terrify us day-to-day.

Horror is a vital thing, an important thing and a thing worth studying.

I’ve had a project in the back of my mind, something I’ve been thinking about working but it’s a daunting project.

I think that I’ve finally reached the point where I don’t care about how daunting it is. I think it’s an important thing to work on.

I want you to watch this...

An Education in Cruelty

Hello Again,

I am pretty angry about Betsy DeVos and her decision to cut federal funding to the Special Olympics.

I believe that the responsibility of the government is to take care of its citizens. That is its sole function. It takes care of the citizens. We may disagree on the best way to do that or the focus of how to do that, but in the end, that is the government’s job.

It builds roads. It builds hospitals. It supports a police force. It provides schools. All in the service of the public...

Writing On Writing About Writing for a Writer

Hello Again,

I’ve been going back and forth on what I want this blog to be and that’s just given me plenty of great excuses to not write anything.

And, if there’s anything I excel at, it’s creating excuses.

In an attempt to make sure that I write something, anything, in this space, I’m freeing myself from any and all restraints. I’m not going to try and make this some politically intense blog or  a blog about just horror or pop culture or dinosaurs or whatever else I happen to be interested i...

Welcome Back

Hello,

It has been a long time, but I think it’s time to come back.

Since I stopped writing here, I have been writing. I have, in fact, never stopped, but I needed to stop writing here.

Part of it was that I just don’t know how to tackle this format without getting very angry. I want to write about politics. I want to write about the ways that the system, in many ways, has failed us. I want to scream about the anti-scientist, anti-intellectual, anti-progressive. I want to fucking tear all dow...

The Science-fication of Horror

In the days of olde, let’s say the 1940’s and back, horror movie monsters were the stuff of legends and myth. They were the vampires and werewolves of Eastern Europe. They were the mummies of Ancient Egypt. They were the primitive beasts from the Pleistocene Era. They were the ghosts and ghouls from Victorian castles.

With few exceptions, these beasts came lurking out from the shadows of superstition. They were magical or gypsy curses or hell-borne. Their reason for being was shrouded in the...

Can We Talk?

I want to talk, just you and me.

I don’t want to argue.

I don’t want to yell.

I don’t want to resort to cheap tactics and name-calling.

I want to honestly and truly have a conversation.

I admit that this particular conversation has become heated. I admit that both sides of this conversation have resorted to vicious rhetoric.

But this conversation needs to happen and I don’t understand why people have so much difficulty talking about it. People are dying. This is not a lie or an exaggeration.

...

Discussing Horror: The Ten Podcast

Horror, for a large part of my life, has been very important to me. I believe that great horror movies help us deal with our every day fears, the fears that we cannot control. We cannot prevent every accident, every illness, every tragedy. Horror helps us to release that fear, helps us to relieve that stress. It presents a scare that we can deal with, that we can resolve. There is no silver bullet for Alzheimer’s, cancer, drunk drivers or insane political candidates, but scary movies give us...