THIS is a CLOSE-UP?

I was reviewing some old blog posts -- some not-so-bad, some cringeworthy -- and I watched time pass and the entries dwindle, coming to a stop in February 2013. One of the problems for someone like me (not a writer) is coming up with source material, and a few of my last posts were pretty pedestrian -- JPEGs, year-end best-of lists, and the like -- which is probably why things went fallow for over two years. Over the past few months, I've tried to kick myself in the ass to write more, so last night I wrote a bit about The Shining , with a funny anecdote about childhood urinary herbicide. Turns out that I already wrote about that in a post from 2.15.13, although not in as much detail as yesterday's dispatch. While not a lot of people read this on the regular (unless I'm writing about someone's untimely death), I should probably avoid ripping myself off in the future. Of course, it would make writing this a lot easier.

There are horror movies, and then there is The Shining . As time passes, The Shining jumps around a bit in my personal list of all-time favorite movies (as well as favorite Kubrick movies, but that's another post), but it never leaves, like the echoes of the murdered twin girls, bloodied and ever staring in the tight hallway. As much as I enjoyed the book -- in Stephen King terms, I'm a Constant Reader -- the movie has largely wiped away my memories of the text and replaced them with indelible images and genuinely unsettling sonic landscapes. Uproxx has posted a nice long-form piece about what The Shining means to various horror directors, but if I'm ever asked what The Shining means to me, the first thing that comes to mind for me isn't quite related to the movie. I was nine years old when The Shining was released in theaters, and as Halloween and Friday the 13th  jump-started the horror renaissance as the '70s turned into the '80s, the anticipation for