Week ends/begins as it ended/began, the brick wall ctd: simultaneous shock, resignation, and pervasive weariness over total stalling out on all creative fronts: neck deep (at least for the last few days) in that feared state which Isabel Allende likens to "swallowing sand," though my only point of reference is the "eat a spoonful of cinnamon" test/dare/internet thing from a decade or so back because I did it and have an experiential knowledge from days young and stupid.

Maybe I'm simply worn out from trying to break through again, from pounding a little harder against that diamond brick wall from Capaldi's best episode of DOCTOR WHO, my hands bleeding, my brain on something that passes barely for autopilot.

Rewatched, for the umpteenth time – though my first in probably 20 years (and K's first time – and her first silent film) – the 1925 Lon Chaney / Mary Philbin PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and, of all the times I've seen it, I think this may have been the first time I've seen it with the technicolor Red Death sequence; planning to pick through some of the extras – especially the bits from the 1930 sound version – that Kino's latest beautful Blu version gifted.

Unrelated though no less important: I am now in possession of a high-powered electric leafblower: beware, zombie-leaf horde, for I will now vanquish you without melting an icecap.