Written by Donna Maurer.
Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

Living in a world of digital streaming and music apps galore, it may seem surprising that vinyl records are making a massive comeback in the mainstream. But the sales for vinyl have boomed, and it seems as though people enjoy having physical media as well as digital these days.

The resurgence of vinyl isn’t only about nostalgia, though; many feel that the sound quality of a record far outweighs that of a master recording online. Which one is correct? Let’s explore how vinyl records provide for people yearning to remember the past and whether or not the audio is better.

The Record Still Sells in a Digital World

Ah, the travails of post-adolescent youth. Graduating high school, (hopefully) moving out of your parent’s home and spreading those metaphorical wings to soar freely on your own. It can be a heady time, but the clash between that idealized version of adulthood many of us foster with its stark and oftentimes disappointing reality can be jarring; menial employment, asinine roommates, the pitfalls of alcohol and/or drugs, the first fitful stings of mature relationships, all leave their marks, yet also form who we will eventually become.

Transformation is a staple theme of horror. Whether it be the man-to-beast metamorphosis of a lycanthrope, Dr. Jekyll turning into Mr. Hyde, or the grisly decay of a rotting zombie, the genre thrives on physical change. In film and on the printed page, the human body—nude and/or dead—has become the oft-fetishized narrative centerpiece; ‘90’s splatterpunk provocateur Poppy Z. Brite, Japanese writer/director Shinya Tsukamoto of Tetsuo: The Iron Man fame, and celebrated Canadian auteur David Cronenberg have all built careers upon augmenting flesh in any number of ghastly ways.

It’s in that same vein that the Ghoulish Books multi-author fiction collection Bound In Flesh is presented. Subtitled An Anthology of Trans Body Horror, editor Lor Gislason has masterfully assembled thirteen disturbing tales centered on bodily transformation with startling, evocative, and eye-opening results.

Horror is a tree with many branches. The classics—Frankenstein, Dracula, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Gothic graveness of Poe and M.R. James—serve as the trunk, and while each burgeoning new subgenre creates its own fledgling offshoot, the tree’s root is undeniably folklore. Many of horror’s most familiar stock figures evolved directly from those superstitious myths of old, passed down through the generations by our ancestors: the vampire and werewolf of Eastern Europe, the Haitian zombie and Arabian ghoul, the Russian child-devouring witch Baba Yaga, the vengeful yōkai (ghosts) of Japanese lore. All originated as warnings about the dangers lurking in the dark bowers of man’s domain, but if, as is often claimed, every legend has some basis in fact, what are we to make of these supernatural archetypes? Are they mere boogeyman fables that have assumed roles in the collective unconscious far beyond their intended purpose?

Introduction

Online poker has grown increasingly sophisticated, with players developing complex strategies to gain an edge over their opponents. One common and challenging tactic is the multi-street bluff, where a player bets aggressively across several betting rounds without a strong hand. To counter this, players must develop robust defensive play styles. This article explores various strategies and insights from research to help players effectively counter frequent multi-street bluffs and enhance their overall game performance.

Wow, it's been 25 years since this album was first released and 19 years since I first heard its songs on Jack’s Big Music Show on Nickelodeon's channel “Noggin” with my daughter. We fell in love with these songs back then and still love them to this day.

When I was a wee lad many, many years ago, I did not have the luxury of kids' music being so widely available. What little there was, I treasured. Very little was played on the radio back then, and music geared toward kids was not overly common on records that I remember. My mother always made sure she bought me a music album whenever she went shopping and could find something. I still have the very first album she ever bought me, and yes, I still play it to this day. Why, you might ask? Because of the wonderful memories that are forever tied to it.

Whether or not one believes in the existence of ghosts, we’re all haunted by them. If not literal spirits, than the memories of those dearly departed who’ve shared our lives: relatives, teachers, friends. We remember their words of wisdom, their jokes, stories they’d tell. Voices of the dead, speaking to us still.

Acccording to Social Media Statistics, in 2024 an estimated 5.17 billion people—over half the global population—are regular users of social networking sites. While social media allows easy connectivity to others, as the world becomes increasingly digital the negative effects of such platforms continue to rise. Depression, anxiety, catfishing, sexual harassment, cyber-bullying and -stalking are just some of the dangers faced by millions, and as laws in many nations have failed to keep up with constantly-evolving technology, there are often few legal avenues victims may pursue in order to attain justice from online tormentors.

There’s something about the drama and high stakes of a casino that lends itself perfectly to climactic movie scenes.

Whether our heroes are gambling with the villain as he tries to discern their identity or pulling off the heist of a lifetime, casinos have provided the backdrop to some of the best and most memorable scenes in cinema.

We’ve put together a rundown of the 10 best casino scenes in movie history to help you relive the high-rolling majesty of some of the big screen’s most iconic moments.

If you find yourself wanting to play for real after watching some of these, remember that some casino operators offer 120 free spins for real money, so you’ve got plenty of options for casino gaming online!

1. Casino Royale (2006)

Two movies exist under the Casino Royale name, but only one of them is worthy of this list

Finding the best padel racket for tennis can be challenging for players. This is true whether you are shopping for your first racket or replacing an old one. There is more to choosing a high-quality padel racket than meets the eye. If you want to head to the court with the right racket for the game, learning a few basic tips can help you select a good device for your next match. New racket models get introduced every year, and they typically feature more advanced materials.

Practical Tips to Buy the Best Padel Racket

It helps to consider factors like shape, balance, material, and thicknesses when buying new rackets. Your playing level and style can also determine what racket to choose. Once you consider these crucial factors, you can select a device that feels comfortable and allows you to deliver your best performance. Here are four practical tips to choose the right padel racket.

If you're a comics fan with a few decades of experience under your belt, you will be familiar with the event that forever changed the comic book industry -- DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths, a 12-part maxi-series with tendrils that touched nearly every title the company published at the time. Whether it was a good idea is something we debate with 20/20 hindsight, but at the time there was no denying that it was a big deal, and it had everybody excited about what was going on in the comic books every week.

There have been numerous attempts to recapture this kind of "lightning in a bottle." The CW network did their version, with the cast limited to the lineup of their handful of superhero shows in an epic crossover. Now DC is bringing to a close their direct-to-disc animated universe with their own version of COIE.

In its most simplified form, religion is the pursuit of knowledge about who we are, what the world is, and our place in it. While science has largely supplanted religion in that quest during recent centuries, for much of humankind’s existence, tales of gods, divine intervention, and supernatural occurrences were not only vividly real, but often the only explanations available to understand the physical and cosmological phenomena of our primeval surroundings. As time passes and old belief systems fall into the realm of mythology and folklore, so, too, do their ideas and rituals and deities evolve: consider the surfeit of modern-day works of horror that utilize demonic possession and angels and magic as plot points for entertainment rather than the spiritual notions they once were.

“Swingset Serenade,” a family album conceived, written, and performed by Melanie Dill and Tom Johnson, accompanied by the talents of a whole slew of musicians and kids, brings an excitingly different take on children’s music. So much so that calling it just a children’s album doesn’t do it justice. This is an album that the whole family can get into, and to quote an age-old saying and allow them to “swing and sway like Sammy Kaye!” And that’s no stretch of the imagination. This album is a multicultural swing fest from the first song to the last!

Since the first recorded discoveries of their fossilized remains in the early nineteenth century, dinosaurs (Greek for ‘Terrible Lizard’), have captivated our collective consciousness. During their approximately 140 million-year reign during the Mesozoic Era, dinosaurs varying in size from the Compsognathus—no larger than a domestic chicken—to Brachiosaurus, which is known to exceed fifty tons, dominated the earth, and their extinction baffles as much as it intrigues. The simple fact that dinosaurs no longer exist (except, as many scientists concede, the modern-day birds into which some evolved) is perhaps what excites our minds the most; the notion that an entirely different world arose, thrived, and then disappeared before humankind ever appeared captures the imagination in boundless ways.

In my recent review of the Lejonklou Entity Moving Coil-only Phono Stage, I extolled the virtues of how much more musical and natural it made my records sound.

In that review, I also mentioned how Frederick Lejonklou, the designer of the Entity, created and voiced the phono stage using Linn Silver Cables. Other reviewers of the Entity, who used these cables instead of their personal choices, preferred the sound with the Linn Cables. Even someone I trust unequivocally, Charlie Schnyder of Stereo Haven, who doesn’t normally use Linn Cables in anything else and was skeptical at first, assured me of how wonderful the sound was using the Linn cables over the Auditorium A23 cables (which were the cables I originally used to listen to the Entity and which made beautiful music together).

For seemingly every holiday there exists a horror film that adapts and exploits its unique festive rituals and pageantry for their own devious ends. Movies such as New Year’s Evil and Bloody New Year illustrate the perils surrounding the transition from December to January; the labyrinthine mine shafts of My Bloody Valentine (and its subsequent remake), and the cupid-masked killer from 2001’s Valentine turn the lover’s holiday red; the Leprechaun franchise proves St. Patrick’s Day isn’t always lucky. Even April Fool’s Day has been (twice) made into a slasher flick; ditto for Mother’s Day and Halloween. Thanksgiving has been represented by Home Sweet Home, Blood Rage, and Eli Roth’s recent titular hack n’ slash masterwork.

FROM J.S. EARLS: 

Photo by Wendy Wei

Dive into the heart of your community's cultural landscape with regional music and film festivals. These events are not just celebrations of local talent and creativity but also pivotal in knitting the community closer and driving economic benefits. In the digital era, the scope for promoting these festivals through dynamic digital campaigns is vast and promising. Let's explore how to craft digital campaigns that not only spotlight these cultural festivities but also engage and captivate a wider audience.