Housekeeping, features, and a promise.
By: Erin
Posted: November 24, 2023
Every time I set a routine to work on the site, I tend to have really great bursts of creativity. It turns out that dedicating some consistency to your craft and passion leads to you having fun and working hard?! What?!
(more…)Or, a gallery of the custom tapes & discs I've made.
By: Erin
Posted: November 23, 2023
EMN Home Video is a catch-all name I give to projects involving the creation of physical media. It all started when I was buying as many versions of the Twilight series as I could for one of my best friends, Alyssa. It was her birthday and she enjoys the movie series, and of course, what’s better than one copy of a movie? That’s right – every possible copy of a movie! I raided all the thrift stores in the area. It was the kind of absurd dedication I thought she’d also find funny. Along the way I said to myself “Why not hop on eBay and grab a VHS copy, too?” Well, I was a fool, because no VHS copy existed! Undaunted, I decided to do something absolutely ridiculous, and that was make it my own damn self! I grabbed a copy of Little Giants from Goodwill, ripped the insert out, and got to measuring and designing a new clamshell cover. I even recorded the movie onto the tape using one of the DVD copies, first recording a custom intro bumper to make it as official as possible:
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By: Mandy
Posted: November 21, 2023
Originally Written: November 3, 2023
Image courtesy of TheMovieDB
Hey, 14-year-old me.
You’re going to go through a phase for a few years where you’ll be embarrassed to have ever loved this movie. Really, you’re more mad at yourself for having a Beatles phase in the first place, but you shouldn’t be.
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– Image courtesy of TheMovieDB
By: Mandy
Posted: November 21, 2023
Originally Written: October 23, 2023
This essay contains spoilers.
Maniac in the streets, Bumblebee in the sheets.
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By: Erin
Posted: November 21, 2023
Originally Written: October 23, 2023
If one wishes to live their life, one must be prepared to die.
My first ever experience with transness was a Tumblr blog called “whycantibehim”. The owner of that blog posted short yearning missives that fit the URL and would reblog pictures of traditionally masculine bodies, of masculine romantic and sexual attraction, erotic and artistic, passionate and plaintive. I didn’t understand what I was seeing at the time – it was 2010 and I had just graduated high school – and my own journey with queerness was still over a decade away, but the sentiment broke something deep in my heart. A URL, some pictures, a wish. That’s all.
That single experience was tied to my other main experience with transness at the time, the secret a friend online confided in me after showing me that blog, the deep desire that she wanted to be a boy. She had even picked out a name – Evan. To try it out, I called her that a few times, and then every time we spoke. We grew close – we had already been close in the past, but our relationship was fraught and complicated. And then, one day, Evan didn’t want to be Evan anymore. As far as I know, she never went back. And the blog she showed me stopped posting in 2012.
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By: Erin
Posted: November 21, 2023
Originally Written: August 11, 2023
Image courtesy of TheMovieDB
Revisiting The Shape of Water, I finally understood the heartache that lay within the DNA of this wondrous fairytale. I previously never really thought of this film as a horror until Joe Bob Briggs mentioned that it was “the only horror film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture”, but in my older, more horror-attuned years, it’s so obvious that while it’s a powerful romance it deserves to be recognized as the horror movie it is as well. Everything leading up until Elisa meets the Monster is pure Universal horror, and even after the pivot there are uncomfortable and violent scenes that do not shy away from the inspirations of the film. This movie is unafraid and unashamed. I saw this film initially on stream with my now-partner in 2017. How naive we were – the best of friends, ready to move in together, neither of us ready yet to say how much we loved the other. I didn’t even know I was queer at that point, or at least I couldn’t admit to myself what that gnawing feeling was deep in my heart. It feels like yesterday, yet so much has changed that it also feels like a lifetime ago. The distance between 2017 and 2023 is as much a rivulet as it is a gulf.
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By: Erin
Posted: November 21, 2023
Originally Written: March 4, 2023
Image courtesy of TheMovieDB
There’s a famous interview from David Lynch where he calls Eraserhead his most spiritual film and when asked to elaborate, refuses. I understand why not – there’s nothing he can say about it that isn’t already elaborated on in the text itself. If you don’t got it, get it. If you don’t get it, figure it out. Laying the nightmare bare only serves to take its power away. Art begs us to converse with it. Ironic that a film following our wide-eyed almost-mute protagonist would inspire such conversation.
(more…)Or, a photo gallery of the time I saw Maki Itoh in Columbus.
By: Erin
Posted: November 15, 2023
May 12th, 2023 marked a monumental moment for me – my return to independent wrestling! Well, sort of.
You see, at the start of the year, Mandy and I got back into wrestling in a big way. The biggest contributor to that was Mandy’s desire to watch more Japanese wrestling, and I had heard good things about Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling. We ended up springing for Wrestle Universe, which at 900 yen a month is an absolute bargain. Not only do you get TJPW, you get DDT, Ganbare Pro, and Pro Wrestling NOAH as well! Four awesome wrestling federations all in one! As predicted, TJPW was the first one we really fell in love with, and it’s a big thanks to the over-the-top characters mixed with the special blend of in-ring humor and heart, as well as some seriously sick moves.
One wrestler we knew from TJPW before diving in was Maki Itoh, the vulgar “fired idol” who calls people simps on Twitter and says “fuck” really loudly. She also sings her own entrance music. Basically, she rules. And what do you know, one day Game Changer Wrestling announced they were booking her! Our wonderful friends Silas and Lazer let us know, and before you know it we had gotten tickets to the Valley Dale Ballroom to watch Maki Itoh wrestle Steph De Lander. Oh, and there were a lot of other cool wrestlers there, too!
(more…)32 Years, 24 Channels.
By: Erin
Posted: November 14, 2023
Well, it’s been a year since the last update, and now I’m a year older! Hooray! “Erin,” you may ask, “how is this website not finished yet?”. Well, I’m asking that myself! That’s why just about every day this month I’ve set a goal to work on this site for at least an hour until everything is finished! Of course, being ourselves, that means more than just the existing pages…
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