Upper Island Cove, Newfoundland

I watched The Mist a few nights ago on fast forward. Even Marcia Gay Harden’s apocalypse-hungry character could not save this film. SPOILER ALERT: The acting was so poor that at the end when our “hero” shoots four survivors including his own wide-eyed child to spare them from a fate torn apart by massive mist-dwelling CGI-tentacled critters only minutes before tanks pour in to the rescue, his grief is so shallowly performed the viewer can’t possibly care.

Speaking of mist, the California version blotted out the sun, and the entire landscape yesterday (hint: in the white is a beach, a lagoon, and hills):

This non-tentacled critter staggered out, but luckily didn’t see me, probably due to weather:

…at the Studio last night, uncanny yet nonthreatening.

A Still from my new video, working title Ghost Fields, featuring artists in residence and visitors to The Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin, California. Still room for more zombies if you are in the area…

I hear vague stories about ghosts and other undead that haunt The Headlands. No one wants to tell me the stories which is fine with me. These three were in the field the other night, emerging from the fog. Luckily very slowly, although I heard a muffled “kill kill” in the wind.

The fog is sneaky tonight, definitely not merely mist - the visibility well below one kilometer. Above, a view from my studio; Below, the same scene with “reveal particles” setting.

I wish you could hear the fog horns which are now about 20 seconds apart.

Joe Ryan, intern extraordinaire at The Headlands Center for the Arts, models his LRG “Friday the 47th Hoody”, haha. Lest you think the designer got the slashers mixed up, “wasn’t Leatherface the Chainsaw maniac?”, think again - this is progress. By the time Jason Voorhees gets to sequel #47, which if you are young enough may happen in your lifetime, he will figure out the effectiveness of power tools and leave his machete and axe behind. Big Daddy, lead zombie in George Romero’s Land of the Dead, used a jack hammer in 2005 to hurl his way through shopping mall glass where his 1978 predecessors in Dawn of the Dead merely pawed hungrily at the doors until they opened and they lumbered in. If a zombie can evolve, Jason can too. After all he went from wimpy preteen mamma’s boy to strapping youth to a hulk of a man in merely a decade.

He’s looking mighty powerful in this 1989 interview with Arsenio Hall to promote Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan:

Check out the detail on the appliquéd chainsaws. The mask also detaches to reveal bloody drips inside the hood, if you don’t feel like wearing the slasher mask on a given day. This reminds me of a reversible Red Riding Hood/Granny/Big Bad Wolf doll of my childhood. And here I am in the dark foggy woods surprising myself by sleeping deeply and soundly not even afraid of big bad wolves.

Speaking of dolls and zombies, you might not expect someone who knits to be a horror fan, much less take horror as their craft subject. But knitting isn’t just for tea cozies and sweaters anymore! Ms. Hannah Simpson of the UK skillfully knits the cutest zombies I’ve seen - blood and maiming included - snuggle up with that!

Knitted Flyboy and fellow zombies from Dawn of the Dead.

Visit her blog or see her Dawn of the Dead slideshow.

Fellow artist-in-residence Scot Kaplan told me last night that he just learned the two foggiest land masses in the world are Point Reyes, California (a little north of where we are in The Marin Headlands) and Argentia, Newfoundland (a little south of Conception Bay where I was in mid-July). No wonder I am dreaming of fog - I’ve been ensconced for weeks and it’s in my Newfoundland blood.

I can’t wait for The Fog and The Mist - a double feature coming from Netflix.

This is the view from my studio over the foggy hills of The Headlands. I’ve been sleeping inordinate amounts of time here, heavy as a fog, with no dreams.