October's Daughter

Presenting Mr. Moundshroud

2011-10-29T11:20:00.000-05:00

Teaching Specimen

2011-10-16T16:56:00.000-05:00

So... my bestie wanted to learn how to corpse. Off to the Halloween store for materials, and a few hours later, I think she's got the hang of it. :-)

Just a few things I've been working on...

2011-10-15T23:48:00.000-05:00

Time to kill? Need something different for entertainment?

2011-10-12T18:16:00.000-05:00

The Monster Channel

As it says: The world's first interactive horror channel! On all day, on all night. All good fun!

"Spirit Photographs"

2011-10-12T18:07:00.000-05:00

From the portfolio of William Hope, fraudster.

Still, they're lovely to look at.

While we're talking podcasts...

2011-10-11T19:48:00.000-05:00

I'm also a fan of NPR's Hearing Voices. They've done multiple episodes on the weird, and here's an October special from a few years ago. Follow the link to hear Episode 74 - Bloody Hell: For Halloween.

Confessions of a Podcast Junkie

2011-10-11T19:39:00.000-05:00

Having recently given up "mainstream media" (read: I no longer pay any mind to the news), I find I've developed a taste for podcasts. I've come a cross some real gems as well as some real duds.
One of my favorites, though is Backstory with the American History Guys. I've enjoyed many of their offerings, but last October they produced a real treat: American Spirit: A History of the Supernatural. If you have an hour to kill, and would like to learn some interesting things about America's love affair with the kooky and spooky, click the link above and listen to the show directly from their website. (It's also available free on iTunes.)

Happiness in Glorious, GloomyTechnicolor

2011-10-11T19:20:00.000-05:00

So very pretty!!

2011-10-11T19:13:00.001-05:00

The Kingdom of Witches

All credit due to the artist.

F is for fun, for fantastic, for FREAKS!

2011-10-11T17:34:00.000-05:00

Austin's own 999 Eyes!

A MUST LISTEN...

2011-10-10T19:59:00.004-05:00

Mr. Lewis and the Funeral 5 have very quickly become a favorite band. Their newest release, Delirium Tremendous, is so delightfully gloomy and still manages to rock your ass off. Any band that can cover the Kinks ('Alcohol') with such style is ace in my book. I plan to make their October 20 show at Lambert's Downtown Barbecue in Austin - and you should too!

No really - Content pending Plus blog overhaul!

2011-10-10T18:11:00.001-05:00

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It's that time of year again. I'm trying to find a way to make it last all year long...

Stay tuned. Content possible.

2010-07-11T15:10:00.002-05:00

Newer posts will follow...

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Old posts below...

Happy Birthday Mr. Bradbury!

2009-08-21T20:58:00.002-05:00

All these years of magnificent storytelling, and he's still going strong.

If the world is lucky, we'll have a few more yarns from the master yet.

Random, naturally.

2009-06-10T18:36:00.004-05:00

I've been ignoring my little blog, haven't I? This is probably due to the uptick in actual activity in my life, thus leaving me with less time to sit around and wait for the brain-droppings to fall.

Anything interesting going on? Not necessarily. Just end of school, start of summer, work and other such things. I'm trying to organize the end-ish part of the summer though, and that's been occupying more skull space than I like. But, considering that my 20th high school reunion butts up against my son's birthday and the beginning of school all within a short space of time, I'm afraid that I have to sped the energy. Part of me wishes that I could just fast forward through the hot months and get it all over with. The logical side, however, tells me that I have to buckle down and plan things, and well, that's just a bummer.

Someday I'll learn to be spontaneous and not have to plan every little thing to the last detail before I can relax and enjoy myself. I'd also like to go ahead and lift my butt back up that last inch or so and flatten my stomach a bit, but that's not going to happen without work either. (Death I can accept easily but age I will defy to the end!)

Let's see, what else. Oh. I'm reading multiple books at once, which is another little brain scrambler. I must be slowing down mentally (grrrr) since I find that I have to actually slow down and study the various bits of material I'm digesting. Well, okay. Not the material itself, but the questions that come to mind while I'm covering said material.

I'm currently nursing something of a fixation on the Victorian Era, both the English and American. (Yes, there was something of an American Victorian Era, considering that the heyday of Victoria's reign and the Civil War and Reconstruction fell within the same time period, and admit it - whether we like it or not American culture has always taken many cues from the English... but I digress.)

That being stated, I'm finding myself drawn (again) into the entire 'Culture of Mourning' that was very much prevalent around this time, and which also gave birth to the 'Spiritist' movement on both sides of the pond. Now, strangely, the material I've been covering leads me into the realm of physics for some damned reason, which I'm sure that I'll rant about at another time when my mind doesn't feel like wilted weeds. Still, the link between the two doesn't seem terribly fine, in my opinion, and I'm going to pester David a lot for harder data and cleaner conclusions than I could probably come to on my own. (Sorry Dave.)

But right now, I'm tired, and so I'll sign off for the time being and wait for one of those lovely bursts of inspiration that always come at the most inconvenient times. Until then...

I like being a nerd.

2009-06-02T20:55:00.001-05:00

I'm currently eating the last five Oreos in the packet, listening to 'South Park' and finishing Will Storr vs. the Supernatural (Will Storr) and The Diary of Jack the Ripper: The Discovery, The Investigation, The Debate (Shirley Harrison).

The world is a cool place at the moment.

Philosophy of the Month...

2009-05-17T17:38:00.001-05:00

What Would Morticia Addams Do?

That is all.

Also - Happy Birthday Trent Reznor. :-)

Happy Easter Everyone!

2009-04-10T18:32:00.005-05:00

Enjoy your chocolate!

(Hopefully my few and precious readers manage to perceive this post in the spirit that it's intended - humorous sarcasm. If you are offended, well, I can't help that.)

Flea Market Spirituality

2009-04-04T22:29:00.006-05:00

So, The Monkey and I decided to leave the house today, an increasingly rare endeavor. In an effort to put a little variety into our usual excursions, we decided to check the wares at the Austin Country Flea Market. We’d really enjoyed this place a lot in the past, and we hadn’t paid a visit since last summer, so off we went.

There were all the usual sights and smells; funnel cakes, roasted corn & turkey legs, beer, dust – enough to make it seem like a trip to something of a cheap goods carnival. Which, I guess, is precisely what it is, but with a dominantly Latino flair. There was a fellow singing Freddy Fender songs (pretty well actually) in his own little stall for whatever bucks folks were willing to put in his hat. It was cool to pass just in time to hear his rather decent rendition of “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.” There were even two other bands that were playing on the grounds and it really did have something of a fairground atmosphere.

The Monkey kept his eyes peeled for all the bargain toys and other geegaws that are always around, and I kept drifting off to look at all the lurid t-shits that are in such abundance. I actually like a lot of the designs on them – elaborate line drawings of angel wings sweeping outward from swords, and an almost endless array of skulls, crossbones, reapers and depictions of Santisima Muerte.

Now, Santisima Muerte is a current topic of interest for me, having just rediscovered her via random discussions with my office staff, who are a pretty interesting lot, and both Mexican immigrants. It’s pretty often that I’ll get a bug in my ear about different aspects of Mexican folklore, particularly the creepy sort, and we’ve had more than our fair share of discussions about La Llorona, the cucuy, and more recently, the Santisima Muerte. So she was on my mental radar, and kept appearing in my visual path throughout our visit.

Interspersed between the freestanding tire dealers, fashion label knock-offs, produce stalls and Latino music vendors were more than a dozen dealers of cheap plaster sculptures. Most of these were religious in nature, La Virgen de Guadalupe, Crucified Jesuses by the mile, St. Joseph and the like. Pretty frequently, though, stuck tidily among them were clusters of Grim Reapers in so many colors it was almost like looking at a series of morbid little Gay Pride rallies. These were, of course, the various representations of the Santisima Muerte.

I wanted to take them all home, to line the walls of my wee library. Green, yellow, white, purple, blue, black, red and even tie-die. They carried sickles, scales, crystal balls, books and owls. There was a series covered in small fake ten and twenty dollar bills, standing on piles of silver and gold coins, whose purpose was to draw money and ensure financial security. Some were colored in red and pink, dotted with hearts and spangles, meant to guard their new owners’ romantic affairs. It was clear that these were big sellers, as I noticed a fair number of empty spaces among these clusters.

Toward the end of our meanderings, I came a cross a booth that was actually just a mini botanica, and couldn’t resist stopping for a look. It was manned by an older gent, who was actually staying pretty busy, moving his wares and explaining their purpose and specific use. I was checking out what he had, and was pleased to see that not only did he have several statues of the Santisima, he had a good handful of other items. There were several varieties of incense and polvos (powders), copies of various oracions (prayers) and suggestions for ofrendas (altars). There were even photographs of various styles of altar and paintings of the Santisima for use with said altars. I knew I was going to lose some money here.

I checked everything out, and after a few minutes I had selected a candle, patchouli incense (patchouli I like, and the art on the package was cool), a Polvo de Proteccion, and a ribbon embroidered with a likeness or the Reaper and the words “Santa Muerte.” I didn’t particularly worry about what I was selecting beyond whether or not it had an aesthetic appeal. Being a skeptic, I have no real concern for its intended use. I just like it because of my (ahem) scholarly anthropological interest in Thanatology.

There was no way for the people surrounding me to know that. I noticed after a few seconds that I was getting some curious sidelong glances from the other patrons. I didn’t actually hear the words “guera loca” or “diablo blanco” or even “brujah” but I’m sure that these folks were at least wondering, “What the hell is that skinny white woman up to?” There was one little abuela who even shifted uncomfortably away from me as I made my purchase. She had in her hands a candle with La Virgen on it, and a book of oracions. I’m pretty sure she thought I was up to no good

Once I had given the nice gent my $16.00, thanked him and started to leave with the Monkey in tow, he called me back, as discreetly as he could with so many people around.

“Mija, please come here,” he said gesturing me into the entry of the little booth.

I walked over, and was as polite as I had been taught to be with older folks: “Yes sir?”

“Do you speak Espanol?” he asked.

“Un poquito,” I replied, holding my thumb and forefinger very close together to indicate that it was indeed a very little bit.

He asked a question in Spanish and I knew I was already lost. I smiled and shook my head. “No comprende.” He smiled back.

“We’ll both try with our little bits then?” I nodded. He was a very sweet old fellow, and I have a big soft spot for sweet old fellows.

“You know how to use the candle?” he asked.

“Yes sir, but I don’t actually mean to use it,” I told him. “Any of it really.”

This was not the response he expected, and I watched for a moment as he struggled to formulate a response that would get my attention.

“People have troubles, you know, si?” he began. His English was slightly stuttering but clean and direct. “Things are mal, or sad or hard, and there are things we must do, si?” I nodded. I was pretty sure I knew where this was going already.

“We must be careful in those times to turn to God, and to seek the positive, si?”

Yep. As I suspected. He saw my selections, and the blithe way that I had chosen them, and came to the conclusion that I was probably not up to malefic activities, but that I was headed for spiritual trouble. Only careless, probably, but carelessness can be dangerous. He only wanted to make certain that I wasn’t messing about with something that I didn’t understand.

“It is through God that we have our helps, even through the Santisima, for she too is His Servant,” he went on. I smiled at him while he searched my face very carefully for the understanding he hoped for. “And when we seek our helps, we must struggle to keep our hearts light, and hopeful. You understand?”

I nodded again, still smiling. Most people that know me would automatically jump to the conclusion that this line of conversation would annoy me, being the fairly hard line Atheist and skeptic that I am. They’d probably even wonder what I was doing, messing with the trappings of any brand of spirituality.

Well, the short answer to the second matter is that I like it. It doesn’t hold any deep personal meaning, per se, but I find it aesthetically pleasing and there is an undefined philosophy in it that appeals to me. And, regarding the first matter – why would I be bothered by such an encounter?

This gent meant no judgment whatsoever, that was immediately apparent. He assumed only that I was struggling with something difficult that demanded radical intersession from the Spirit of Death itself. He only wanted to make sure that I would be careful, that I wouldn’t bring something outside my understanding down on myself. How could that upset me?

What’s more, is the fact that is was very clear that he meant no imposition of belief – this was no proselytizing session. Instead, it struck me a nothing more than a stranger’s kindness. It was no different to me than if the woman across the way had offered to show me an easier way to make chicken mole, some recipe I might not have considered. A polite suggestion.

Now, my sweet gent many have actually had a tad more concern for me than what I perceived, but it didn’t matter. He was being kind. I saw no reason in the world to try and clarify my position, or to explain that I wasn’t going to use any of the items because I didn’t believe in their power, or the power of God – that these things were mere decoration to me. It would have served no purpose at all except to insult not only his courtesy, but also his very belief system. It was a lovely Saturday, and he was exceptionally nice, and so instead I listened to his instructions about how to sue the candle and ask for the help I didn’t really need. I listened carefully, because the process that he explained was interesting in and of itself. When he was done I shook his hand and thanked him for his help and information, and we bid each other good day.

“Finally!” Monkey said as we walked away. I thought that guy was never going to stop talking.”

“He was just being nice you know.”

“But he kept taking about God.” He pulled a face saying the last word, rolling his eyes dramatically. I cocked my brow at him, and he quickly added, “But it was cool how he explained all that stuff. And he was just trying to be nice, I guess.”

“Exactly. Good wishes for other people can’t be bad, no matter what the reason is for giving them,” I told him.

I was proud of my kid at that moment. While he’d inherited his parents’ (sometimes all too evident) disdain for religion and other hokum, he at least understood that we all had to get along and respect each other regardless of belief or non-belief. That’s a pretty big concept for a kid that puts up with a lot of trash from the few kids in school who are aware that he and his family are irreligious.

So. I had a little bit of the jade knocked off of me this afternoon, and I have a cool new candle on my shelf. Sometimes you can get a pretty good deal on something unusual at the flea market. You just have to keep your eyes and your mind fairly wide open. Not bad for an aimless Saturday excursion.

A day outside

2009-03-22T19:31:00.007-05:00

Yes. We left the house. We spent it in the sun. It was lovely. It was also an excuse to use the fancy pantsy new camera we got in December. I have to admit, I'll probably never learn to use it correctly, but it's really cool and takes wonderful shots. I'm not so sure I can brag about the composition of the photos themselves, but I'm pleased with the final result nonetheless.

These were all taken at the Oakwood Cemetery in Austin, Texas. It's a favorite place of mine to shoot. I'm actually in the process of rebuilding my scant little portfolio, since a huge number of my photos were lost a while back due to a technological hiccup. This is rotten, not because I lost some brilliant photo work, but because I had completely documented the entire Sam Bass Cemetery in Round Rock about four years ago. The S.B.C. includes the remnants of an old slave cemetery in the rear corner, near a growing rural residential area. I've visited this plot since and it has deteriorated very badly, and my photos had recorded its previous condition very thoroughly. I suppose that will teach me to make back-ups for posterity. Those shots might have actually been useful to someone.

I did manage to take what I thought were some nice shots today though.

Zombies.

2009-02-15T23:10:00.003-06:00

Yeah. Zombies.

Anyone who’s known me for more than an hour probably understands that I have a little peculiarity of personality that causes me to have a deep and abiding affection for the darker, more shadowy aspects of life. I love Halloween, and horror novels and movies. I love sideshows and freak shows and creaky run-down old carnivals, the kind you don’t ever see unless you live out in rural areas (and awfully rarely even then). To me, old cemeteries are fascinating, beautiful places. For the love of hell, I’m fascinated by thanatology.

You get the picture, I’m sure.

So it may come as a surprise that despite all this affection for these morbid preoccupations that I’m not really a zombie fan. Okay. I’m just not a fan. This is irksome because zombies are everywhere these days. There are more zombie films than I can name given a half an hour dedicated to doing nothing but, there are zombie flash mob events held all over the world, numerous video games (‘Left for Dead’ anyone?) and zombie toy sets.

I can’t watch zombie movies without getting an inner twitch, even if the movie is actually pretty good. The best way to sum it up is by recounting a conversation I had with my friend Delia several years ago. While I can’t recall the film we were actually discussing (‘Shaun of the Dead’ perhaps?) I admitted that zombies bugged me.

“You’re not scared of them or something stupid like that are you?” she asked me, a snigger in her voice.

“Nope,” I told her. “I just don’t buy it.”

“What?!” she asked. After a few beats of silence she burst out laughing; the opportunity to give me hell about something is always just too appealing, a favorite pastime even. “Now, you do know they are just movies, right?” The cheerful mockery dripped through the phone and stuck to my ear. Peals of laughter pelted me through the receiver.

Of course I know they’re just movies. The movies don’t scare me. (Precious little does, actually.) I’m not even terribly bothered by the traditional idea of zombies (folkloric Caribbean, et al). The movie or book or what have you may be interesting or even quite entertaining, but I’m never able to suspend my disbelief enough to really get into it. That’s what stops me.

Now, I am quite a skeptical person by nature – the list of things I don’t “believe” is a damn sight longer than the list of things I do. But even so, I can rationalize my way around most things.

Ghosts? Well, energy itself cannot specifically be destroyed, so the human energy that makes us us, has to go somewhere, to shift into some other form, so I can stretch around that corner a bit. Vampires? Well, they’re just a representative Freudian archetype for the human tendency to victimize one another through various forms of subjugation. Werewolves? The beast within, our feral selves. Freaks or the deformed? Our fear of the "other," the perverse, the thing we’re horrified that we may actually be but are as yet unaware of. Haunted houses…? Again – I think you get my meaning, so I won’t belabor the point.

But zombies? Give me a f**king break. Having spent way too much time studying death and the dead in one form or another, my mind refuses to relax when it comes to the notion of zombies. (Honestly – short of sticking my hands into a cadaver I’ve studied an amount of putridity that most consider quite disturbing, considering the fact it’s not even my vocation.)

I mean – think about it. When you consider what happens to the human body upon the cessation of life, and when you have even a rudimentary understanding of that series of biological processes, it becomes impossible to even imagine that such an astonishing phenomena as the walking, moaning, hungry dead is remotely feasible.

The muscle tissue is deteriorating and lots of little bacteriological shimmies are forcing decay, rendering muscle tissue inert – no working muscle, no movement kids. And, by definition, one of the things that determines the end of life is the cessation of all electrical activity to the brain and therefore through the nervous system. No neurological impulses, no compulsion to munch a brain, right?

But let me get all obnoxious and keep going – remember our old friend rigor mortis? You know, the last stiffie? From a quick Wiki: “Immediately following death the body is flaccid. It becomes increasingly rigid over time due to lack of ATP [Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP)-energy source produced in respiration in mitochondria of cells] and buildup of lactic acid. This process happens in stages over the first thirty six hours post mortem.” Long story short, this is the process that ensures that muscular tissue will shortly be absolutely useless, and in the process the ligaments and tendons attached thereto will lose their functionality as well.

It just won’t work. Dead flesh is dead flesh, the end. Seriously. So how the hell can old Uncle Ebenezer, buried some decades or what have you earlier, come jangling toward you with a yen for fresh grey matter, huh? Okay. Maybe he’s been under for too long. What about the freshly dead, say a la George Romero’s masterpiece “Night of the Living Dead”? (I admit to its mastery for it atmospheric quality and its unusual cinematic construction, thanks.) Maybe there’s still some sort of latent charge, like the batteries in that old flashlight under the sink that no one has touched for years?

Nah. That series of processes involved post-mortem are too biologically overwhelming for there to be any physical activity. So forget it. Zombies are horseshit, and as much as I want to drop the internal dissection (pun very much intended) and just enjoy a good gut jumper, I just can’t do it.

So. I actually take the time to explain all this to Delia. By the time I’m finished I’m not altogether certain she’s heard a word, she’s laughing so hard. I’ll be damned but the woman is actually gasping for breath.

I wait it out. This is something I’m used to. Once Delia gets started laughing at something, you just have to let it go, man, because, trying to stem its flow will only make it worse. And she is my best friend, after all, so I don’t want to kill her just to test my anti-zombie hypothesis.

“Heeee… heeee… heeeeeeeeeeaaaaahhhh!” My eardrum is bleeding, but I think she’s winding down. “Who in the f**k actually thinks like that?” she wails between gasps. “It’s a movie! Dork!”

I have to laugh myself and agree with her. It is pretty damned weird that I actually spend the mental energy on such a thing when I should be enjoying the absurd beauty of watching some pasty white limeys whack skulls to the tune of Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” (because honestly – that was tremendous). She’s right. Who the f**k does think like that?

Evidently I do. And I just don’t get why other people don’t.

But then I consider my brother in law, Chris. Chris has a rather odd preoccupation with the idea of zombies. When I say preoccupation, I mean latent obsession. Every window and every door to every enclosed space that he could potentially occupy is locked tight, even when the mundane threat of a regular old break in is at its smallest. This includes holiday gathering of ten to fifteen people in broad daylight. You’re screwed if you walk outside for a smoke and Chris happens to pass the door after you’ve gone out. You’d better hope it’s not cold!

This behavior makes him seem kind of twitchy and paranoid. I can sort of see it, but… come on man, relax. I don’t think it’s personal or home security that motivates this unease either. I’ve actually heard tell from other family members hat he’s made multiple references to the inevitable “zombie invasion.” The dude is serious.

While I haven’t personally had this conversation with him I really get the idea that he has a genuine concern, nay – terror - of a sudden swarming of mindless hordes, all coming his direction with gaping maws and stupid opaque gazes. It’s the sort of thing that kind of makes me want to cover myself in oatmeal and strawberry syrup and wander underneath his window at night just to see what sort of response I get. I’d do it if I wasn’t half-convinced I’d end up summarily decapitated. I’m funny that way.

But anyway, Chris and his “zombie thing” and Delia and her mocking laughter and all the movies and books and this and that made me think. There’s something to this.

I don’t know if you recall how, in the Seventies, there was a spate of interest in demonic possession after the release of “The Exorcist” that was almost frenzied. The release of “The Omen” compounded the issue; even if you managed to exorcise one batch of demons the Devil Himself was off procreating and preparing to wreak havoc on humanity. Cases of “actual” demonic possession sprang up all over the country.

It kept going into the Eighties. I remember Coach Dallas actually warning we poor mushy and impressionable minds about the threat of backward masking in rock music and subliminal images - in class. I remember Detective Lee Reed of the Abilene Police Department coming to Eastland to give an informative lecture for parents, so that they would be aware of the warning signs of Satanic activity and protect your children. Watch out for Ozzy Osborne! Beware of Judas Priest! And never forget – your neighbor may be a cult member!

[I actually interviewed Det. Reed a number of times years later on another loosely related but similarly absurd topic, and his fervor on the subject of occult influences had not waned one iota. I have never met a man so serious about the need to protect the unassuming and soft-minded from the ever-increasing powers of evil. This guy made Fox Mulder look like a skeptic of Dawkinsian proportion. This is a great story, but one for another time.]

Then, in the Nineties, there (to my personal observances) emerged a sort of tug-of-war between the sacred and profane that was suddenly, well, rather clinical. The religious right was emerging with a not unimpressive force in the wake of the Reagan Era, but there was suddenly very vocal opposition in the form of the New Secularists. There was a lot of back and forth in the media about who was right and who was wrong, who was damned and who was a gullible fool that has yet to wane this day. And this is where I get back to the zombies.

I think the thing that troubles Chris, and the thing that has crept into the popular, cultural subconscious has little to do with the lumbering crackers-open of craniums. If you ask me it’s everything to do with a nebulous concept of overall societal safety. Make a note – most of the cultures that are currently enjoying the zombie genre the most are the Western cultures. I’m talking about North America, the U. K, and much of Europe. The cultures of affluence that are suddenly faced with the reality of class and racial disparities that they’ve really, really tried to ignore for generations.

The same cultures whose educational expectations have dropped but whose media consumption has increased in almost perfectly proportional levels. The cultures in which we’ve managed to kill off the old gods and replace them with much larger, shinier, perfectly packaged varieties – versions much more in harmony with what we crave or are comfortable with. Brand new, brand name, easily assimilable and ready for consumption.

Basically, we’re either thinking less or someone else is doing the thinking for us. And for those with a little more finely tuned radar, the problem with this is obvious. Those who don’t think for themselves, or are easily led and manipulated, particularly in large groups, are bloody dangerous. Yet there’s something that’s even more dangerous, if you ask me, and that’s when one of those large and easily led/misled/manipulated groups gets its teeth into a little truth or fact.

Not a lot. A little. Just enough to start moving the herd in a potentially beneficial arc… but not enough to keep the trajectory on the right path. The perverse genesis of a great big, homogenous mind, set on one cause, belief, or crusade, all but dead to reason and dialogue, lumbering steadily toward the smaller, still living (thinking) organism. That’s when all hell will break loose. Perhaps it will manifest like an infection of the group mind or an immunization against an evil - perhaps literally, perhaps figuratively. No one will know until the outbreak begins. Either way, the disease will spread like the Black Death, creating a new Dark Age, or the “cure” will be mandated at once to protect us from ourselves, initiating a forced “enlightenment.” Either way, it’s not like we’ll have any choice in the matter.

Oh hell.

I’ve gone and done it again. I sat here and got to thinking and ruined another perfectly good movie with way too much analysis. I guess that what it comes down to for me is that, while I enjoy a good diversion as much as the next guy, I do have to keep wondering: are they serious with this shit? And, while I keep my eye on the mental midgets behind the curtain, I should also realize that they shouldn’t worry me too damned much. Delia has a point and Chris has a point and I’m stuck right in the middle.

I’m the dork that actually thinks like that. Still, don’t think that there’s not a small but growing stockpile of provisions down in the garage…

Recommended reading:
Stiff by Mary Roach
Danse Macabre by Stephen King

Copyright L. E. C., 2009, All Rights Reserved.

Halloween Memory #1

2008-09-27T23:08:00.009-05:00

Note: This post is a huge space suck because I am technologically inept. If some kind soul would provide me with some idiot-proof instructions for posting behind a cut, I would be very grateful. Thanks!

Anyone that knows me knows that I love Halloween. I mean, I really love Halloween and always have. That quirk of my personality has been just one of the many that has always marked me as a little off, not exactly normal, or in the opinion of many of my grade school classmates, downright weird. And so, the Dark Holiday has been the one night of the year when I always felt perfectly normal.

My earliest memory of Halloween is fuzzy at best. I must have been no older than four, and the memory itself is so indistinct that it is preserved mostly in old photographs that jog odd bits loose here and there.

I was a witch that year. A terrifying, horrible, powerful witch, in whose path lesser mortals fled for fear of their lives, or at least a vicious and incurable runny nose. Such was the extent of my evil nature at the time.

There is a picture of me on the front porch of a now nonexistent house that was on the corner of Main and Ammerman in Eastland, Texas. I’m standing between my brother and sister, who are nine and seven years older than me, respectively. I’m utterly dwarfed between them, a scrawny wad of garishly colored plastic. You can’t see it, but underneath the brittle mask I’m grinning like a thing gone quite happily mad.

I don’t remember any more about that particular Halloween. Not going Trick or Treating, or the candy, or being gleefully ill on cheap sugar, or anything except the feeling of being utterly content with my world and myself. I probably slept in that stupid plastic smock.

The following year was much the same. The only recollection of it is a snapshot (once in color, now faded to that horrible yellow that seems almost exclusively associated with bad photos from the Seventies). There I am, center frame, a still-scrawny five-year-old girl with mousy brown hair, badly tucked into an old sheet. There’s not much else in the way of memory there, either, except that I tore the sheet running up the street or some such, and that I was very relieved that it was an old one, and Mom didn’t care.

Now, six. That one’s different. I was much older, see, in first grade and everything. That year the festivities were much bigger and involved the Siebert Elementary Halloween Carnival. Oh yes, an actual school sponsored Halloween Carnival, where the teachers dressed as Witches and Raggedy Ann and Mother Goose, and in an especially creative instance, the truant officer (a well known and loved character, actually) was wrapped up like a mummy and chasing kids up and down the sidewalks.

[An interesting side note is necessary here, and I ask that you patiently tolerate this indulgence. I am nearly loathe to admit this next bit, because in almost every other instance where I may be asked, I will be forced to tell you that Eastland is a Sinkhole of Human Misery, The Armpit of the Universe… An Undeniable Shithole. On top of that, the town must have been situated on some seriously disagreeable ley lines as well, because it was (and remains) an absolute Vortex of Weird.

I don’t mean the good kind of weird either. What I refer to here is the kind of weird that makes people shake their heads in bewilderment decades later, wondering if That Whole Thing really happened. (There are numerous incidents in Eastland’s history that can be referred to as That Whole Thing, incidentally, far too many to list here.) Just an odd place in the overall. What else can you say about a city whose claim to fame is a mummified Texas Horned Frog that once visited President Calvin Coolidge? Seriously. Look it up.

Still, the one thing I am happy to credit Eastland with is that it was a major contributor to my love of Halloween, and so many good memories that are tied to the holiday. This is because, in the Seventies, in Eastland, the school still sponsored the annual Halloween Carnival, and the Jaycees still set up the spook house across the auditorium stage in full earshot of the cakewalk and apple bobbing booths.

There was none of that “Fall Festival” bullshit In Eastland then, no way. Everyone except the local Pentecostals were in on it, and I’d wager there were several of those running amok under cover of their own costumes. The whole town got in on it, and fully expected and prepared for absolute mayhem. Everyone decorated and everyone gave out candy. The cops were prepared with their own eggs and water balloons. Hell, they were better shots, naturally.]

It was quite literally fantastic in those days - a kid’s dream.

I was a skeleton in 1976. This was a step up in my estimation, and if I’d had a fuller grasp of the language then, I would have said it was a visceral sort of costume. It was scary. Oh yes, it was. And because of it, I was horrifying and invincible.

It was made by Collegeville, and it came straight from Perry’s Five and Dime downtown on the Square. I think it was expensive that year too, something like seven or eight bucks. It was almost all black, except for the lurid blood red and pus yellow highlights; cheaply screen printed and reflective for my safety. (Ha!) It was more than just a smock too, it was a bodysuit, the kind you stepped into and tied at the neck, printed on both sides and everything.

But the real prize was the mask. Oh. The mask, with its cracked skull and grinning rictus design, complete with a rubber-band elastic that managed to pull each tiny hair above your ears while securing the mask itself to your head – it was brilliant.

The best thing about that mask, about all those shoddy plastic abominations, really, was the magical way they smelled. Those cheap things somehow managed to change your very breath from something normal and everyday to a nearly otherworldly thing. It captured the something rotten and something sweet so inherent in Halloween. It was fallen leaves stinking and damp in a pile and candy corn and Mary Janes and Tootsie Rolls… there is really no description for it. It magnified the sweetness of the candy while choking off your airflow, and to this day I’m not sure if it was really that wonderful of if I was simply oxygen deprived.

So now that you can see me, and imagine where I was, here’s what I did: I ran positively amok. Practically arm-in-arm with J_____, who was then my closest friend, I screamed and gorged and terrorized and was terrorized. I chased Mr. M_____, the aforementioned truant officer, straight up the sidewalk myself, and he rewarded me with what I thought was a very horrified yelp. We exhausted and deafened every creep and monster in the spook house with lunatic little girl screeches.

All this was before dusk.

Then we ventured out into the real dark to beg for even more treats, to go after the good stuff. Under the supervision of our maternal units (who had attended school together from kindergarten, just as J_____ and I would), we went from house to house all over town. After pillaging several blocks we’d jump into the car and head for another darkened corner of our little universe. Before long, we had so much gooey loot that we were hiding it under the car seats so we wouldn’t be told that we had enough, it was time to go home. Weren’t we clever?

Before too long though, my mother had had enough, and around nine o’clock she had made the announcement: “We’ll do this last stretch and then it’s time to go home, girls.” J_____ joined me in a chorus of “Aww! But…!” to no avail. We’d reached Seaman Street, and it was the general consensus that Seaman Street was quite far enough east to be getting on in those days. Just a few blocks beyond there were only the municipal softball fields, the cemetery and several grassy lots that signaled the End of Town Proper in those days. This would indeed be the final run.

I had no idea that in the next few minutes I would be introduced to my first taste of The Dark Side of Halloween. That night, dear friends, is where I learned that there is indeed a Trick for every Treat, and that kind was paid in kind, if not by a beast in the shadows, then by the Great Karmic Scorekeeper of the Universe.

Mom and S_____ were engaged in a lively conversation, the topic of which I cannot recall (for I did not care), one that they had focused the bulk of their attention on for at least the last half hour. The car had pulled up just short of the home of legendary Halloween prankster and overgrown kid D___ H_____. Mom gave the instruction that had been repeated a dozen times or more already: “We’ll pick you up at the end of the block.” Eager and giddy at the prospect of being horrified witless by old’ D___, J_____ and I escaped the car for the last time that night.

Well. J_____ did.

I, on the other hand, hesitated just a little too long releasing the car door, and when Mom hit the gas – unexpectedly fast, mind you – the door slapped shut with the force of inertia, catching the four fingers of my right hand as it did. When I say that the door caught my fingers what I really mean to say is that it bit down and began to chew on my fingers; it had closed completely flush with the rear panel of the car, and my tender six-year-old fingers were being devoured.

All I remember about the next few minutes was seeing a slow motion shower of Halloween candy – coming from my pumpkin! – flying through the air with agonizing clarity, a shrill howl of pain that could only have been mine, the sympathetic and somehow harmonic wail that came from J_____, and a giant gorilla coming at us both, shooting out of the dark nowhere and coming right at us.

Then the damned car began to roll forward, and it’s a wonder I didn’t piss myself.

The Gorilla of Doom proved to be my unlikely hero. It didn’t come to eat us, but instead went running toward the front of the car, then stopped right at the front bumper, and started to slam its hairy paws onto the hood with freakishly loud thuds. The brake lights popped on like flares, and J_____ (who typically kept her wits somewhere on Mars) had the presence of mind to heave at the door handle to release my hand.

As the phrase goes, luck had it that the Gorilla of Doom was actaully D___ in his annual disguise. He’d seen the whole fiasco unfold from his front porch, and ran forward to try and to stop the carnage. I was hurriedly whisked into his living room for first aid, which consisted of ice for my hand and copious quantities of chocolate for my belly. As it turned out, there was no real damage done beyond an ugly slice across the back of my knuckles and the loss of about half the candy in my bucket.

Afterward, I sat not on a sofa or chair, but squarely on top of a mammoth beast – commonly known as a Saint Bernard - with the completely inaccurate name of Sin. Sin, being a dog after all, lent his own medicine to the moment in the form frequent laps with his tongue, which was about the size and texture of a slimy bath mat. J_____ eyed the dog warily and preferred to stay across the room at D_____’s side, should the Fates decide that she should be eaten for her Halloween Trick. Mom and S_____ were on the sofa, managing somehow to look guilty while stifling sniggers.

I went home that Halloween sticky, smelly, damaged, and vaguely traumatized. It had been a great night.

Contents copyright L. E. C., 2008, All Rights Reserved

I Love This Guy!

2008-05-20T19:47:00.005-05:00

Billy Connolly is the sh*t.

I mean - seriously.

"If we're lucky it'll eat us first."

2008-05-14T19:34:00.003-05:00

Which is the kind of optimism that I can relate to.

Aren't the initial posts of these things typically abysmal? Is it truly akin to the dreaded first sentence rule that applies to all other prose? Must my first offering on this blog be truly striking, making the eyes goggle and mind recoil in order to gain or hold anyone's attention?

If so I'm f*cked. So hello, I guess.

I'll be using my own freshly turned corner of the intarwebs to vent, to keep my family and friends up to date on what I'm doing. (I don't return calls or emails worth a damn - I might as well give this a try.) I'll post rants and pictures periodically. Sometimes I might spew an essay or something. (These will likely be indistinguishable from the rants.)

And so it begins I suppose.