The Theme of The Week Is Celebration
Life should not only be lived, but it should also be celebrated
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Peace and Love, Bums!
If you are new here, my name is Bambzi Ellis and I’m glad you’re here. I am a content writer that writes about writing, television, movies and I write short fiction of my own. Welcome To Earth To Bambzi! We write unapologetically here; I’d love for you to stick around.
Let’s check in: How was your two weeks? When was the last time you picked up your favorite hobbies? Went for a walk in your neighborhood? Are you caught up on errands? Or the work-related tasks that are staring you down on sharpie scratched sticky notes?
Better yet, are you caught up on content?
Let’s Catch Up!
We’re doing a double-feature this week(Special spooky season feature and storytime — I managed to miss a submission last week) so all the more content for this week!)
Also, we just celebrated our one year anniversary on Medium! A very Happy Anniversary to Bambzi Ellis. You can follow the link here to read the article celebrating the milestone!
Again, I want to thank my followers for supporting my content!
Spooky Season is officially upon us as the late summer simmers out for the year. In comes the morning chills and the sunsets that take a bit longer to roll over the horizon. The leaves are changing and so are our moods. My spooky bums, it’s our time!
Of course, what better way to celebrate spooky season than to give you the best spooky recommendations to read and watch this year!
Books
Fall’s the best season to curl up and read a good book to wind down after a long day at work. In lieu of spooky season, I’m obviously going to recommend my favorite horror/ thriller books that I’ve read so far, as well as those I’ll reread to kick off the season.
The Hollow Ones By Guillermo Del Toro
This is a thriller that will be the first in The Blackwood Tapes series. The first installment surrounds unusual happenings in a town. Unusual things happen that lead to detective Odessa Hardwicke having to turn her gun on longtime partner Walt Leppo.
She’s shaken up and confused not by the shooting itself, but the shadowy presence that leaves her partner’s body after. She’s left on desk duty until further notice — then meets a former FBI agent that directs to an even more unusual man that could help her figure out what happened to her partner.
Final Girls Support Group By Grady Hendrix
The author of The Southern Book Club’s Guide To Slaying Vampires is back with a plot that follows final girls — like a where are they now? These final girls are coping with their trauma being the only survivors in their own slasher attacks — decades later — through a support group. Only, someone’s figured out where they’ve been meeting. One by one, someone is taking out the final girls. But these final girls aren’t going to go down without a fight.
Dracula
I have to. I couldn’t bring in the spooky season without reading a classic. Everyone knows what Dracula’s about. Vampires, wolves, Van Helsing . I have to read it every year. You can’t bring in spooky season without vampires. Which leads to my next recommendation:
A Discovery of Witches
And I could honestly recommend the entirely trilogy. An academic who inherits powers from her maternal lineage. She discovers a grimoire in a library that is the book of powerful secrets. A vampire, who is also an academic that has his own intentions with the book. We follow these two and their struggle to build trust for one another to protect this grimoire against opposing forces that have evil intentions for the book. You get your fill of werewolves, vampires, witches, and if you’re into it, like me, art history. 10/10 recommend.
Movies/ Television
I’ve been wanting to incorporate my take on movies and television for a while — especially horror and thriller themes — into my Medium content. I’m someone that watches horror all year round, so of course, I have a long list of recommendations that would be impossible to cram in 31 days.
And yes, these are mostly Netflix Recommendations!
So I’ll give you my top recommendations:
Castlevania (2017)
Yesss anime. We love a dark anime. This series is based off the video games:
A vampire hunter, Trevor Belmont, is fighting to save a besieged city from an army of otherworldly beasts controlled by Dracula, whose avenging the death of his beloved wife.
Haunting of Bly Manor (2020)
Now I’ll admit — there’s going to be a couple of Mike Flanagan recommendations here. Bly Manor is the series inspired by the book, The Turn of The Screw. A tale of a young woman that witnesses strange things occur in her new home where she’s hired to take care of her bosses niece and nephew after the unexpected death of their parents. Like proper Flanagan fashion you get your crazy apparitions, love stories that wrench at your gut and characters that feel all too real.
Clickbait(2021)
Well, because there’s nothing scarier than reality. In our reality, you never know who’s could see your photos online and utilize them for their own gain. You never know who’s truly the villan in your story. And you realize just how easy it is to make someone believe the picture you paint for someone. This limited series made me want to delete all of my socials.
Midnight Mass (2021)
This is another incredible series by Mike Flanagan. I watched this show right after Clickbait, and I’ll tell you, this is the most beautiful and horrific depiction of a church I’ve ever seen.
I don’t want to spoil too much about the show because it did just release September 24th. But I appreciated the Muslim representation, the monologues, the monster. It all came together as this a story that teaches you ultimately to accept the things you cannot change.
Hocus Pocus (1993)
Duh. Who doesn’t like to greet the Halloween season with the Sanderson sisters. If you are a fan of all things horror and macabre surely you have room for your cozies. I call this the palate cleanser for my marathons of the gory content I consume on a regular basis. Spooky movies like this are a must.
Now let’s move on to Medium Originals.
Medium Originals
This week, we start off with an excerpt from an unreleased short story, a thriller in time for spooky season!— publishing day TBD:
Kai slowly turns her head to the door, the source of the rattling. The door handle is turning aggressively as if someone is trying to open it. Another door, which led to another bathroom in the house, is slamming open with a ridiculous screech and crashing repeatedly into a loud bang
Eeeee! Bang! Eeeee! BANG! Eeeee! BANG!
“Turn it off, turn the fucking board off!” Mita says, she let go of her partner’s hand. A unanimous “No!” Chorales from the table. One of the voices was not familiar. Kai noticed.
-Excerpt from No One’s Safe, release TBD
Follow on Twitter: @bambziellis for updates!
When No One Else Celebrates You, Celebrate Yourself
When was the last time you celebrated an accomplishment of yours? I personally struggle to do this myself and often times get in funks where I feel like I’m not doing enough in my life.
My 26th birthday is in twelve days. Lately, I’ve been thinking to myself, I haven’t done enough in my 26 years of life. Twenty fucking six. I don’t even feel that old. It’s normal now for friends who are getting married, have children, buying homes. It makes you feel like, where did I go wrong in life?
The “When are you having kids?” conversation is popping up way too often with my parents. I get the excitement, my brother has a son and another one on the way. My parents thinking, this is it, this is the grandparent era. But I think it's weird. My parents didn’t have my older sister until they were in their thirties. My dad was almost forty by the time my brothers and I came around. Not “Are you dating someone?” just “Where are the grandkids?”, Is the question I get the most.
They ask the daughter who hasn’t been on a date in years. Barely brings up anything about men, to begin with, and just really wants to focus on the future of her higher education. It’s been a whole lot of comparing these days. Not my parents, mostly me because occasionally there’s this spark that goes of in my brain; and it says, “Are we behind, Bambz?”
The case of the late twenties blues, I guess. A mid-twenties crisis?
Focusing on these milestones I haven’t reached made me forget the milestones I have. Fortunately for me, I have an older sister that will put me in check at the drop of a hat.
“You started a publication to showcase your writing online even though you tell us how nervous it makes you.”
“You’re working a job you’ve wanted for years.”
“You have friends that love and support you.”
Her words brought me right back down to Earth. A wake-up call. The call to celebrate.
I’m choosing to celebrate more this month: Celebrating the fact that I’m alive — and given an opportunity to try again every day. I have a job, where I can pay my bills while showcasing my work. Celebrating love and friendship is the greatest gift you can have in the human experience.
The Theme of these last two weeks is a celebration because we often forget that we don’t need validation from anyone else to celebrate one’s own accomplishments. Whether it’s college, or finding the love of your life, or making your life passion a career. Celebrate every win, no matter how small.
And The Q’s
What was the last thing you celebrated?
Are you celebrating Spooky Season this year?
What are your favorite scary movies to watch this time of year?
What are your go-to activities for fall?
Until then everyone, Good day, Good night, where ever you are, and I’ll see you next week!
It’s important to celebrate your failures as much as your successes. If you celebrate your failures really well, and if you get to the motto and say, ‘Wow, I failed, I tried, I was wrong, I learned something,’ then you realize you have no fear, and when your fear goes away, you can move the world.
Sebastian Thrun
