[Freya-dæg] Shocktober Pt.1: Some Screaming Skullduggery

{The movie poster from The Screaming Skull, found on Wikipedia.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

Introduction

Well, it's October proper now, and so there are a few movies that I've scared up for the month that hosts Halloween that I've just got to check out. First up in the four part Shock-tober film fest is the 1958 fright-fest, The The Screaming Skull.

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Plot Summary

Eric Whitlock (John Hudson), now happily married to his second wife Jenni (Peggy Webber), returns to his estate after some years away.

Everything within it is just as it was left, and the gardener has been keeping the grounds as if Eric - or his late first wife Marian who tragically died near the property's pond - never left. But as strange things begin to distract Jenni and she starts to see and hear things that Eric assures her are not there it seems that the estate is not yet finished with sorrow.

Bumps in the night become real reasons for terror, but is Jenni truly seeing and hearing things as they are? Or is Eric right and there's nothing at all the matter in their freshly minted marriage?

When it comes to matters of creepy gardeners, strange noises, and bizarre appearances of skulls everywhere, nothing can be certain - even the cry of a peacock could be the sound of The Screaming Skull!

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The Good

For better or worse, this movie has one thing going for it: A 1950s car with seagull doors!

Neat props aside, The Screaming Skull definitely has its moments of mild fright. But what the movie does best is create atmosphere. The colonial estate on which the film is set already lends itself well to this, but the tension is also ratcheted up through Jenny's constant edginess.

Much like another ill-thought of movie from the middle of the 20th century - a little picture called Manos: The Hands of Fate - the best character in the movie are those who are on the sides.

The Reverend Edward Snow (Russ Conway) and his wife (Tony Johnson), are interesting, if static figures, but just as in Manos, the greatest character in the movie is Mickey (Alex Nicol), the estate's gardener (and the film's director). Just like Torgo, Mickey's motivations and personality are the most developed and worked through, and so likewise, he is always a curious figure to watch.

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The Bad

However, the big problem with The Screaming Skull is that it fails to establish real relationships between its characters. The one between Mickey and the memory of Marian is the best in the film, but even it is terribly thin and shallow. We're basically given a Catelyn Tully/Petyr Baelish situation (if I may be so bold as to jump genres), but nothing as complex develops from it.

Worst of all, though, the one relationship that the movie really needs to make us care about, that between Eric and Jenni, gets no development whatsoever. Eric mentions once (once!) that she's moneyed, and she gives no real indication as to why she's interested in the man.

Despite the insistence of the script, this is not a good show of a madly in love married couple. That most of their scenes come across as reads rather than actual conversation between any truly in love couple does nothing to help their case.

{"We need someone outside of the confusions of our love for each other."}

What's more, the characters of Jenny and Eric, again, those whom we should be made to care about the most, are pitiably underdeveloped. All we know about Eric is that he's been away from the estate for 3 years, he's re-married, and he must have some kind of job (right?).

To be fair, we do learn quite a bit about Jenny's past, but we don't get enough early on to really relate to her. Eric's under-development is disappointing, but with Jenny's downright terrible.

But why are relatable characters so important to horror movies?

Well, horror movies require characters that their viewers can relate to, since when those characters are in danger, or in tense situations, or scared, then we can feel those same emotions.

Jenny, as the new wife who is being introduced into the way of life that Eric is planning for, is the perfect audience proxy character. She, just as those watching, is being brought into a brand new scenario. But, because we're not able to really make a connection with her due to the mysteries of her background and attraction to Eric.

As a result, what is supposed to be a largely sympathetic genre becomes instead a plodding tense fest that comes across as comical rather than scary not because of the era's effects, but because without a character to see ourselves as or to empathize with, we the audience become objective observers, coldly removed from a movie whose genre requires emotional investment on at least some level.

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Judgment

The Screaming Skull and Manos: The Hands of Fate are definitely of the same ilk.

Both movies are low-budget, poorly executed horror movies that are just plain bad.

Yet, the difference between them is that Manos is so bad that it's good - it can show people the absolute worst way to make a movie in all of its aspects.

The Screaming Skull on the other hand is badly done, but lacks the main thing that redeems Manos: Interesting characters that have dynamic relationships and that are fascinating in their own right.

Because The Screaming Skull is missing such characters the house in which much of it happens is a perfect self-reflexive metaphor. The estate house is frightening in its own right (it is a horror movie after all), but absolutely empty - and therefore entirely uninteresting. What's more, aside from two throwaway lines, we're never given any clear reason for Eric's actions - unless he is, in fact, bound for the loony bin.

So, Freya, leave this one below as you fly over the field of fallen films. Oh, and don't get too close, you might fall into its bubble of boredom and tumble to the ground.

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Closing

Coming up tomorrow - Annotated Links #19. So be sure to watch for more wacky news and information!

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[Freya-dæg] All-Request August Pt.3: Squirm

{Squirm's movie poster, found on Wikipedia.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

Introduction

The movie Squirm is one among many in the "nature-strikes-back" sub-genre of horror movies. And perhaps, since the part of nature striking back is none other than the humble worm, the surprise is supposed to horrify as much as the premise itself.

But is this movie really so horrible as to deserve the 30% (from critics) and 28% (from audiences) that it has over at Rotten Tomatoes? Let's find out whether those tomatoes are rotten or just soft because they're worm-eaten.

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Plot Summary

Mick, a young man from the city, comes to Fly Creek to meet with a girl he met at an antiques show named Geri. However, the idyllic Southern setting of their romantic rendezvous is ravaged by a storm the night before he sets out and one thing after another goes wrong.

First, he has to wade through a swamp and forest to reach Geri's house when the debris blocks his bus' path, then he's accused of hijacking his egg-cream at the local lunch counter. But things get really weird when Mick and Geri go looking for old man Beardsley, the best antiques dealer in town. Of course, just Mick's presence alone is enough to leave Roger, the hopeful for Geri's heart, seething.

What happened to Mr. Beardsley? Why are worms cropping up where they shouldn't be? And to what lengths will Roger go to to make sure that Mick is taken out of the picture?

Sit back and relax - but, also, be ready to Squirm!

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The Good

The acting in this movie is fine, but the accents - the accents are so bad they rebound into the comical.

Everyone except Mick has a Southern drawl of varying intensity. Some of these are light and breathy like those of Geri, her sister and her mother, while others are as heavy as the hillbillies' from Deliverance.

To top off the overdone characters, Mick plays up the role of red-hot lover to a ridiculous extent.


Yet, despite shots like the above, Mick's act is also restrained enough to keep things from going over the top.

The cinematography at times is also fairly well done, considering the movie's genre. Take this excellent dutch angle shot for instance:

{In this shot Geri's mother is saying "Something evil about it."}

For a B-horror flick, Squirm is a good example of the genre. It takes its scares very seriously, and unlike many of the horror films put out today, it relies more on psychological horror than shock horror.

A prime example of this in the film is a scene where Mick and Geri find the Sheriff eating spaghetti with a woman. They tell him about a skeleton they've found, and mention worms a number of times. The woman seems to be there as the audience proxy as she slows herself down and at one point even puts down her utensils - eating spaghetti while talking about worms is never an easy task!

But, the expected scare never happens. None of the spaghetti bits turn out to be the movie's starring monster.

What's more, the movie clearly establishes the potential for the worm-as-spaghetti scare when, earlier in the film, Mick finds a worm in his egg cream (soda) - the next logical step is to have one on a plate of spaghetti, but it never happens. Although it's a relatively small detail, the film is much stronger for leaving this cheap, expected scare out.

Further, even when it doesn't build up the scares, the movie can be down right terrifying. Things get into spoiler territory here, so skip the next paragraph if you're worried about such things.

When Roger gets attacked by the worms we expect them just to kill him. Just to leave him a skeleton as they did the others they've destroyed. Instead, the worms seem to, well, possess him, making him a strange (undead?) worm-man hybrid. This is terrifying visually (thanks to Oscar-winning make-up artist Rick Baker), and also conceptually as we see the worms wriggle up under the skin of Roger's face, leaving welts in their wake.

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The Bad

But, why Roger gets possessed while the worms kill everyone else they attack is never explained. This lack of explanation exposes the films' major weakness: its premise is never given any kind of detailed treatment.

Granted, Roger does tell us that when his dad started the worm farm he tried to use electricity to get them out of the ground and that this enraged them (to the point where they bit most of his thumb off), but we don't get any information on how these enraged worms operate.

Case in point, the worms knock down a tree, late in the movie, destroying the dining room in Geri's house while her family and Mick are in it. But this is the first they've knocked down - such a tree's being selected and knocked down suggests some level of consciousness. It seems that they're out to get Mick, and maybe Geri as well.

The other thing that's ill-explained is the worms' being dispersed by "light." This makes little sense because they couldn't have attacked Roger if such was the case, having done so in broad daylight. However, the way that they react to light later in the movie suggests that it's the heat they don't like, not the light. And if this were established as the worm deterrent rather than light when Mick voices his realization, it would help the movie as a whole make more sense.

Now, the same narrow miss at sense is present in the case of Roger.

Because he had his thumb mostly eaten by worms before, it's possible that he has some kind of bond with them. Pair that with his hatred for Mick as competition in the romantic field (though Geri's mother seems to have the hots for him, for some reason), and you have yourself an explanation for his becoming a weird quasi-zombie after the worms' initial attack on him. But this connection is never clearly established. It's strongly implied, but nothing explicit is ever said about it.

Perhaps, though, this is the result of the scientist character being left out of this movie. There's no one in it to say "don't you see...?" or "Of course!" This character could also point out how why, in the world of the movie, this works:

{I've heard of people being oily - but this is pretty ridiculous.}

In fact, a scientist character would be incredibly useful at the movie's end where there are so many loose ends that you could bait all the fishing hooks in a salmon derby with them.

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Judgment

Squirm is the kind of movie that drive-in theatres would show back when there were more than a few handfuls of drive-in theatres left within the Western world. It's got it's cheesy moments, it's acceptable acting, and its genuinely terrifying bits (so it's also the kind of movie any real life, mack-daddy Mick would approve of). But there are no drive-in theatres anymore.

Times have changed, and the horror genre has changed.

The modern horror movie genre is divided into two sides: One that relies almost entirely on shock horror, and another that relies on human psychology for its scares. Squirm falls in between these two, and so were it to be released now it would probably fall into complete obscurity.

Yet on it's own it does still do what a horror is supposed to do: frighten, scare, and induce a kind of contained paranoia or fear.

However, a truly good horror movie leaves this fear, this paranoia lingering in your mind so that when you flick off the lights that fear can manifest in the darkness of your own home.

Squirm does not manage to do this because it doesn't explain itself well enough. Is Roger possessed? Can Roger control the worms? Does the whole town wind up dead? After the power's fixed and the electricity is no longer running into the ground do the worms go back to being docile?

It's a horror movie that scares, but at the same time forgets that it also needs to tell a complete and coherent story.

So, Freya, fly low if you like, but leave your hook empty for another of the movies in the Field of Fallen Films - this one seems too comfortable where it is, down there in the dark with its worms for company.

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Closing

Next week this blog is going to be left to fallow. I'm going to take some time to recalibrate my writing activities so that I can get some of my larger fiction projects moving again and so that I can tidy some things up with my translation blog (as well as with this one).

For full details of the temporary stoppage, check back here tomorrow.

But, though I'm not going to be updating Monday-Thursday, I still plan on finishing All-Request August with a look at the TV miniseries loosely based on the work by Ursula K. LeGuin: Earthsea. So, watch for that review in one week's time, and for tomorrow's fully detailed temporary blog stoppage guide.

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[Freya-dæg] All-Request August Pt. 1: Plan 9 From Outer Space

{The Plan 9 From Outer Space movie poster, found on Wikipedia.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

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Introduction

For this, the first part of All-Request August, we're delving into Plan 9 From Outer Space.

This is a film that has become infamous as the epitome of the "so-bad-it's-good" movie. Perhaps the most well-remembered of director/writer/producer/actor/author/editor Ed Wood had to offer, it sits in the hearts of many a movie-goer as the sort of film that hits all the wrong notes, and as a result has a harmony all its own.

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Plot Summary

Two grave-diggers (J. Edward Reynolds and Hugh Thomas Jr.) are attacked by a mysterious woman (Maila Nurmi). Around the same time, two pilots - Jeff Trent (Gregory Walcott) and his co-pilot Danny (David De Mering) - encounter a flying saucer during an otherwise routine flight. After this incident the small town that are home to the mysterious cemetery and Jeff Trent is never the same.

Meanwhile, on Space Station 7, aliens Eros (Dudley Manlove) and Tanna (Joanna Lee) meet with their commander (John Beckinbridge) to discuss their current work on the planet earth. The commander is less than pleased with their progress, but Eros promises results.

After the aliens return to the same small town they had visited earlier, more bodies return to life, and locals and government forces are equally alarmed. As the mysterious connection between the cemetery and the aliens is revealed and their plot made clear, will the efforts of a pilot, a detective, and a colonel be enough to foil Plan 9 From Outer Space?

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The Good

{Bela Lugosi in some of his spliced-in capering.}

Plan 9 From Outer Space's reputation preceeds it. This alone is one of the good things about this movie. The fact that it's quite memorable despite it's absolute ridiculousness in all of its aspects speaks to its charm.

Perhaps it's most charming aspect is the movie's pacing. Instead of feeling like a waste of time, Plan 9 does a great job of keeping your interest; either because you find pulp science fiction fascinating or you find the movie to be so much of a train wreck that you just can't look away. That the same can't be said for movies like The Last Airbender or Cool World reflects even more poorly on them.

Like many other B science fiction movies of the 50s and 60s, Plan 9's also a movie that's not afraid to deal with absolutely wild scientific ideas.

First among these is the idea that an electrical charge applied to certain parts of the human body can restore it to life, or at least to a zombie-like functioning. By no means is this a new idea as it's been around since at least the 19th century, where it played a role in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Appropriately, the exact method behind the re-animation the aliens in the movie use is explained and described, and such pseudo-scientific explanation is one of this movie's strong points.

In fact, the movie's drive to explain its science also helps to buoy its other outlandish idea: that it's possible to create a sunlight bomb.

The logic that this movie puts forth for it makes this otherwise wildly unlikely idea seem sensible enough.

From basic explosions caused by combustion in grenades and bombs, humanity moved on to create bombs that explode atoms, and then bombs that explode hydrogen (that "actually explode the air itself"), and, so the alien Eros argues, the next step is "Solaranite."

Eros then goes on to explain the danger of this last explosive by way of comparing the sun to a gas can, the earth to a gas-soaked ball, and the rays of sunlight to trails of gasoline. Thus, if you ignite "solaranite" then you set off a chain reaction that blows up the sun, its sunlight, and all things that its sunlight touches. In the heat of the moment, this is all made to sound plausible, though ridiculous.

That sort of meticulousness is quite refreshing, because it shows that though the attention paid to all of the movie's other areas was lacking, at least there was enough paid to one of the most important parts: The underlying principles of the movie's major threat.

Plus, the aliens' fear of humanity's stumbling across a "solaranite" bomb beautifully illustrates the movie's main point about humanity being a danger to itself and all those around it.

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The Bad

{The movie's narrator, Criswell, with some bad news.}

Acting, directing, editing, and screenwriting, all weigh Plan 9 From Outer Space down.

For the most part the main characters are well-acted, with only a few flubs or flat scenes, but all the other actors could be replaced with the contents of a lumber yard and there'd be very little difference.

Though the movie's acting is terribly uneven, the scriptwriting (for the most part) is often awkward. New information springs up out of nowhere, narration is used in the place of dialogue that could develop character as well as plot, and characters often make no transition or excuse for remembering information just a little bit too late.

Continuity is quite possibly the movie's roughest area. It's not unusual throughout it to have scenes instantaneously switch from a faint evening to the darkest depth of night. Around the movie's middle there are also some rough edits that can be seen between scenes.

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Judgment

Plan 9 From Outer Space deserves all of the harsh criticisms that it has received to date, and continues to receive.

The movie makes many screenwriting and technical missteps, has enough bad acting to fuel the most trite of modern action sequels or remakes (The Three Musketeers, anyone?), and its editing and effects could never hope to hold a candle to even the cheapest of studio-backed films today.

But I really enjoy it. I've seen it three times now, and I really enjoy it.

For all of it's flaws, Plan 9 is a great example of the B horror and science fiction movies of its era. Its acting, effects, and writing aren't anything that will receive wide critical acclaim, but it's a fun movie that can entertain, keep your attention, and give you a premise so ridiculous you have to stop and wonder about the breadth of the imagination that created it.

Plus, the movie brings up an idea that is incredibly relevant to our modern, zombie/vampire crazed pop-culture: "it's an interesting thing when you consider... the Earth people, who can think, are so frightened by those who cannot: The dead."

So, Freya, fly low over the widest part of the field of fallen films and fish this one out from the depths, for it, like Manos: The Hands of Fate, is deserving of a place in Movie Valhalla. Though for very different reasons.

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Closing

Next week, check out this blog for more creative writing, an editorial, and Part Two of All-Request August with Alien Apocalypse. Plus, on Tuesday and Thursday watch for Annotated Links #14 and #15.

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[Wōdnes-dæg] Fantastic Fantasy and the Grit of Popularity

Introduction
The Article Summed Up
Fantasy and Cynicism...Hand in Hand?
The More Names, the More Things
Closing

{Who is the knight standing over, and will he or she hang as well? Image found on the blog A Fantasy Reader.}

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Introduction

The subject of today's editorial comes from the website Fantasy Faction - a site that hosts articles, interviews, reviews, forums, and a podcast that are all about the fantasy genre.

This article by Douglas Smith caught my eye because it attempts to explain the current trend away from "classic" tales of black-and-white good versus evil in modern popular fantasy. The article also grabbed my attention because it speaks to the variety that can be found in the fantasy genre.

These elements aren't just interesting, but are also quite relevant to me since I'm in the midst of writing my own fantasy universe into existence.

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The Article Summed Up

In his article Douglas Smith notes the growing popularity and presence of gritty, realistic fantasy and tries to explain it.

Quite deftly Smith looks at the trends in entertainment more generally, and concludes that what we watch and read to relax as a whole has become grittier as the world around us has changed into something a bit grittier, too.

Gone are the days of massively popular soap operas and police procedurals, and now things are more about characters so real we might bump into them on the street and involve plots so intricate that it's as easy to become entangled as it is to become immersed.

Smith concludes with the statements that writers of gritty fantasy are reinvigorating the genre, that it's cool to read fantasy again, and that this might just be "a second 'Golden Age' for fantasy."

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Fantasy and Cynicism...Hand in Hand?

As far as its explanation of why gritty fantasy is now popular goes, this is a great article.

The world certainly has changed, and, as those of older generations have said from time immemorial, it may actually be worse off (in some ways). Technological advances aside, events like "9/11" have made people more readily dubious of others and paranoid enough that fear could now be considered a small animal living in most people's heads as much as a human emotion.

Older stories that follow a straightforward plot and shimmering, clean-cut characters are definitely no longer enough to put this animal to sleep for a time so that the human host can truly enjoy an escape.

Instead, worlds and characters need more depth. In fact, this might be an analogue to the extra cynicism in a lot of people's worldviews. Just as more scrutiny and attention is paid to the real world and goings-on therein, so too in entertainment are characters and plots under more and more scrutiny.

The best way to meet that scrutiny, so far, has been to present things that are more layered and more like the world that can be seen all around. Instead of escaping into worlds that contrast the real one, the increasing popularity of gritty fantasy suggests that people are more willing to escape into worlds that are like their own.

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The More Names, the More Things

Another factor to consider when looking the rise in gritty fantasy is the ever-increasing drive to categorize literature and entertainment. Particularly, the urge to separate the "adult" literature from the "children's" literature.

Both fantasy and science fiction have always been perceived as children's literature.

They aren't set in the real, contemporary world.

They aren't written by those who aspire to write capital-L literature.

But at the same time, there have always been adults who enjoy fantasy and science fiction more than other forms of not-true stories. These adults would read Frank L. Baum, they would flip through Asimov, they would delve into the world of the Harry Potter series.

At times these stories, labelled as being for "children," would be adapted into re-tellings or versions that were more "grown-up," and at other times they would be distributed with darker, more "adult" covers. Anything to appeal more directly to those who were outside of the original key age demographic but nonetheless liked what they read for whatever reason.

Enter gritty, realistic fantasy.

Just like that, there's now a fantasy sub-genre for adults, those who'd been generally perceived as "too old" for stories about magic, heroes and villains, Good and Evil. And where there is a supply to fill a hitherto unfulfilled demand that supply will soon prove insufficient.

After all, give something a new, more specific name, and those previously too shy to admit to liking that something under it's old, general name (let's say fantasy) will come out and help push demand even further.

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Closing

Don't miss tomorrow's Annotated Links (#13), and keep an eye out on Friday for the first part of All-Request August, featuring a search for the superb in Plan 9 From Outer Space!

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[Moon-dæg] Words and Their Stories

Context
Collisions
Persuasion
Closing

{Shadows, mentioned and unmentioned, are a common element between today's two stories. Image found on www.foundshit.com via dimitridze.}

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Context

Tonight's creative writing entry is something of a double feature. The exercise that these works came from asks you to take five words that are rarely used in everyday speech and to create meanings for them. They can be nonsensical meanings, serious meanings, or meanings that are just plain wrong. Then, as an additional part of the exercise, you write short stories using each set of words.

So, here are the words that I used and their real definitions:

• quaquaversal: something that protrudes in every direction at once (a geological term).
• adynaton: an impossibility.
• petrichor: The scent of the air after it rains over an area that's been dry for a while.
• auto-de-fe: A ceremony used by Inquisitors to affirm the faith of converts in South Western Europe; the destruction of something by mob; the destruction of something by fire.
• millefleurs: a perfume made by mixing various flowers together; the pattern, as in tapestries, of various plants and flowers woven together.
• ombrifuge: anything that protects a person or thing from percipitation (an umbrella).

And here are the words and the definitions that I made up:

• quaquaversal: something commonly known among private school headmasters (because they all know Latin, right?)
• adynaton: the Neo-French term for a particularly delicious cut of tuna, which is most often served at dinner.
• petrichor: the fossilized form of a nuclear reactor's core.
• auto-de-fe: the kind of car that the faeries use to get around.
• millefleurs: extra large bouquets found in country shops in rural Europe. OR The mush that you get from mising flour and water
• ombrifuge: a machine that spins things around so fast that it separates them from their shadows.

Curiously, both of these stories are about science in one way or another, and particularly about machines that move things at very high speeds.

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Collisions

"Millicent, power up the grid. We need to run this test today."

"Today? But the instruments aren't ready. The necessary precautions..."

"We need to throw caution to the wind. Albert is coming to the lab this evening and he'll snap up our funding faster than a duchess snaps up millefleur on the high street if we don't have results."

The woman stiffened her shoulders and was about to cross her arms. But Jones' hand at her elbow made them go slack instead.

"Alright we've tested enough to know that hull fracture is an adynaton."

"Alright." Jones' look carried the scent of petrichor.

Maybe he's forgiven me? Millicent tried to catch a glimpse of Jones' eyes, but he had already turned back to his clipboard.

She walked over to the throw switch and turned the power loose on the control panel before her. She stood and waited while Jones stepped into the collider and pulled the rock into it behind him.

"This will crack the bastard open. I'm sure of it." He turned from the rock, set snugly into a ring raised in the collider's bottom.

"Sending particles flying at each other and putting rock between them isn't the usual way to crack a walnut."

"This isn't your usual walnut." Jones had climbed out of the collider and now stood beside the control panel. "Throw the switch Millicent." He must have sensed her hesitation through sound alone. He looked up from the controls. "You can relax. If this doesn't work nothing will reach us - like you said. The hull's defenses have tested positively. The worst to happen will be a little splatter that the ombrifuge will keep from hitting us - even if debris flies quaquaversally."

"I know, but I'm still concerned that this will all end in an auto-de-fe." She leaned onto the panel that housed the switch.

"Bah. There aren't any peasants around. Besides, what could we have done to have called on the wrath of a mob? We've done nothing wrong."

Millicent tried once more to get a look at Jones' eyes. She could see the same certainty in them that she had seen that night, weeks before. It churned her stomach, but she saw her hand reach for the power switch and pull it downwards, completing the circuit and powering up the collider.

As the machine wound up all of its sprockets and gears it roared behind them like some hideous animal struck with a rock.

Millicent's arms crossed. "No. Not yet."

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Persuasion

Alton struggled to keep his expression from changing as he muddled through his mind. Password. Password...what was the password?

"Come on, bub. It's quaquaversal. All your kind knows this."

"Alright. So then let me in." Alton leaned heavily on the hood of the auto-de-fe he'd stolen.

"I don't think so, mac. We need more than that if you're to get in here."

The man slid his eye slot shut, but Alton flung a stone into it before it closed completely. In the same second, the stone was caught in the slot, and the man's eye bulged and blinked.

"Hey! This is very un-headmaster like of youse!"

"Maybe so. But this stone's important."

The man made no move to loose his eye slot's cover. "It's just a stone. Get it outta here before I call up security."

"It's not just a stone. It's a piece of petrichor."

Alton could see the curiousity rising in the man's eyes.

Typical underclassman. Alton fought the smirk from his face.

"Petrichor? Where'd you ---"

"Don't ask questions of me here. I'd much rather discuss this over a nice adynaton - something more than the millefleur we get out here."

The man on the other side of the door was silent.

"Well? Can I come in now?"

"Uh." The man loosened his slot and the stone fell through. The absence of the sound of stone hitting stone assured Alton that the man had caught it. "Sure. But don't get loud. Just follow me."

Alton smiled to himself as the door's hinges protested their being moved. He knew they had an ombrifuge inside and that all of the petrichor he carried would be more than enough to convince them to change their minds. Just as long as he was far far away when they tried to extract the stones' shadows.

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Closing

To let me know what you thought about these stories you can leave a comment or check out my Contact page for other ways to reach me. And, don't miss tomorrow and Thursday's Annotated Links (Nos. 12 and 13), Wednesday's editorial, and Friday's movie review!

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[Wōdnes-dæg] The E-Book Shades and the English Classics

Introduction
The Article Summed Up
A Classical Fixation?
Fan-Fiction and a Possible Future
Closing

{All three books in the Fifty Shades series, covered. Image found at the telegraph.co.uk.}

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Introduction

Fifty Shades of Grey and its sequels are exploding all over the internet. Though some might be too shy to buy it from brick and mortar stores, they will soon be able to use convincing cover stories when buying other racy reads.

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The Article Summed Up

In today's Globe and Mail, Russell Smith reports on Total E-Bound's announced e-book series of re-vamped literary classics.

These re-releases aren't abridged versions, or copies re-written with androids, zombies, or werewolves (that's all been done, after all), but instead will have "graphic sex scenes" added to them. Rightfully so, this series of e-books will be called "Clandestine Classics." According to Total E-Bound, the series was planned before Fifty Shades came out.

Smith ultimately regards the re-release of classics with addition prurient bits as positive as it potentially brings new readers to the English classics.

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A Classical Fixation?

Smith definitely has a valid point in his closing paragraph. Total E-Bound's altered classics do have the potential to draw new readers to the established classics of English literature. But is that really a good thing?

Some might say that the English classics are horribly under-read nowadays, and as a result the Western world's literacy and taste are slowly slipping. Genre fiction is eroding what was once a great literary tradition.

But what the apparent manipulability of English classics suggests is that they're anything but un-read.

Back around 2009 and 2010 we saw nineteenth century novels re-written with horror and science fiction elements added to them. Now, sex is being explicitly added to them, and they'll be read anew.

At its heart, the desire to see the classics read and thus to add things to them to entice new readers seems like a sound strategy. But, it also seems like sugar is being added to medicine. English classics are considered classical because they speak to various aspects of human nature in a rather direct way, and shed light on much of the foundation of Western society. Yet, there's no end to new books that do the same, both those considered genre fiction, and those considered regular fiction.

And that's where the focus needs to be. Nineteenth century classics are a fine literary cornerstone, but that cornerstone has plenty of sound material built on top of it as well. Why not look up?

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Fan-Fiction and a Possible Future

Although Smith only mentions it briefly, fan-fiction, a form that often involves the "a gleeful uncapping of [established] texts’ repressed fountains of desire" merits expansion.

Fifty Shades of Grey started out as Twilight fan-fiction. Many young writers cut their teeth writing fan-fiction under an alias or anonymously. Projects like Total E-Bound's "Clandestine Classics" are definitely a variety of fan-fiction.

Yet, they're obviously something more - most people on fanfiction.net aren't getting paid for their efforts, after all.

And so, the question that we need to ask is: To what extent does the success of Fifty Shades of Grey and the existence of a project like "Clandestine Classics" validate fan-fiction?

Ultimately, though industry-validated fan-fiction might see success and may open for more in the future, the track that some publishers seem to be on now seems dangerous. Re-hashing classics by adding what is essentially fan-fiction portions seems to be a perilous few steps away from going the way of Hollywood and making a senseless number of sequels and re-makes rather than focusing on original ideas.

Though, at the same time, were the mainstream to become more predictable, all of the vibrancy and life that's to be found in genre fiction would get more and more exposure.

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Closing

Don't miss tomorrow's Annotated Links #11, or Friday's Nicolas Cage Month finale featuring Seeking Justice! Watch this blog!

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[Moon-dæg] Gesturing towards Science Fiction

Context
The Train Ride to the Freeholds
Closing

{Another world, but similar trains. Image found on www.guardian.co.uk.}

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Context

This short story was written based on an exercise that asks you to write a scene between two people where all of the communication happens in body language.

The lack of dialogue really opens things up, while the fact that you need to describe the gestures that you want to use means that you really need to pay attention to your description. Everything has to work well together for such a piece to work, and after some minor edits, this piece is a decent example, I think.

It's definitely the start of something bigger, and possibly a story from the world that my five part fantasy epic is set in (though possibly further down the timeline).

Enjoy!

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The Train Ride to the Freeholds

There was a lot of nodding going on. Everyone in the box car seemed to be bobbing their heads, wagging their chins. But it was al silence. Like a tunnel the train had entered that would only be left at sunrise when the windows and the thin drapes could not hold any more light at bay.

It helped that everyone was asleep.

Except for Roscoe, whose eyees swept the train car's passengers over as the auto duster had swept the car clean while it was still in the station. Some people stirred, but only to shift their positions. It was a difficult maneuvre but one that Roscoe was impressed to see carried out so flawlessly. The new chips really had improved the brain's higher functioning in sleep. The boy's gaze stopped at one of the windows behind a line of heads, its drapes waved back and forth in time with dull metallic chug of the locomotive. The resulting shafts of moonlight slid between people's feet like a reluctant ping pong ball.

One of the feet kicked it away. Or seemed to. Roscoe looked up to see the rest of the foot's owner, beyond the leg. A young woman, maybe from the facility just before he was started, looked back. Her eyes struck him clearest of all the aspectsof her face, for they were as large as the moon most nights now, and the irises were such a pale blue that her eyes looked almost entirely white except for both of her ebony pupils. Roscoe thought back to the city's mascot, the eyes simple white circles with black dots. But the young woman's eyes were more life-like. More genuine. Especially when he noticed them looking at him.

The young woman shrugged and looked around. She put her hands on the seat beside her and pretended to dangle her legs in the space between seat and floor, although her feet had no difficulty reaching the cold steel bottom of the car. She lowered her face and then raised her eyes to Roscoe.
He could feel his cheeks redden and hoped that the car was too dark for the girl to see what he knew was an imminently rich color. He stared back at her and shrugged as well.

Then, without any thought, he crossed one leg over the other at the knee, set his elbow on top and leaned into his arm, resting his chin in his hand. At first, he returned his eyes to her feet, but then raised them to hers.

She pointed to her head and then shrugged as she leaned forward.

Roscoe immediately dropped his hand across his chest as if presenting something there and used the same hand to point at her. The moonlight helps, but even if she was wearing her id I couldn't read it from here. Not without those other upgrades.

The young woman mimicked his gesture and then sat still for a moment. She drummed her finger on her lower lip and seemed to be looking everywhere but directly in front of her. She straightened herself and then threw her hands into her lap. She curled them upwards and slowly raised them towards the ceiling, fingers first. Once her elbows touched she fanned out her fingers and swayed the figure made by her arms and hands almost imperceptibly.

Ah. She's definitely from the facility from before me. Animals come two after flowers, so she's two cycles older than me.

Roscoe put his hands over his eyes, separating his middle and ring finger so he could look through them. He could see her nod off-rhtyhm to the rest of the passengers though his hands. Her lips rose into a smile and he copied the motion as best he could, hoping that she noticed it rather than the color he felt filling his cheeks once more.

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Closing

Check back here tomorrow and Thursday for Annotated Links #10 and #11, on Wednesday for an editorial on some of the newest news, and on Friday for part four of Nicolas Cage month - a look at the decent in 2012's Seeking Justice.

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[Wōdnes-dæg] A Well Placed Documentary Makes Science Fiction Science Fact

Introduction
The Article Summed Up
Not New, But Great
Publishing's Next Stage and Mainstream Acknowledgement
Closing

{Screenshot from the documentary "Mermaids: The Body Found," posted with the original article.}

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Introduction

This past Sunday, the Discovery Channel aired a documentary that has stirred up controversy. The program in question is called "Mermaids: The Body Found," a work of science fiction in the form of a documentary.

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The Article Summed Up

The article (from The Christian Post) gives an overview of the controversy and sums it up by stating that the documentary's description and creators said that it is "based on some real life events." Whether or not this is a case of misdirection is not made clear.

Making things even more provocative, the article ends with some statements from the Discovery Channel that present logical arguments for the possibility of mermaids existing.

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Not New, But Great

The controversy here isn't so much about whether or not mermaids are real, but about media literacy. And, much more specifically, about the power of the claim that things are "based on some real life events" (or "based on a true story" or "based on real events," whichever variation you might encounter).

This intertitle has become so overused that it's almost meaningless. Anything can be "based on a true story." In fact, any story that is in any way metaphorical (such as science fiction and fantasy stories) is "based on" reality, otherwise its metaphor is useless. The same can be said for comic book stories like Batman - society is faltering because good people do nothing, and then those good people stand up (only in an extreme way that goes beyond what most people would do).

Moreover, it's human nature to relate things to what we know, and most of us know some sort of "real life."

This connection might not seem like a strong argument against specifying that certain things are 'based on reality,' but just as people are apt to read things into various stories, so too are stories apt to feed these readings. Stories that don't have some relation to "real life" often don't make sense and often don't become very popular.

To take a risk and go out on a limb, stories that are successful speak to people's basic desires. Many stories that are coming out now are complicating these desires and the road to their fulfilment.

Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, or Geroge R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series are good examples of these desires being complicated. Yet, even they still come down to basic desires like wanting to be the hero, personal growth, or safety.

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Publishing's Next Stage and Mainstream Acknowledgement

In terms of the documentary form itself, especially regarding the "Mermaids: The Body Found" documentary featured in today's article, it is an especially powerful tool for science fiction and fantasy.

These genres are so continuously popular because people are always looking for more than what they have.

As humans we're always trying to reach beyond our grasp. Putting this desire for more into a form that purports to give straight facts says to people, "hey, you know that thing that you really want to be real? Well, it is, and here are the facts."

That we're so willing to believe is also a great sign of our open-mindedness. Some might say that this willingness to believe is something that people need to guard against when it comes to the stuff of fantasy like mermaids and supernatural cures, but open minds are as necessary for advancement as they are for distraction.

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Closing

Don't miss my look at 2011's Trespass for part three of Nicolas Cage month, and be sure to catch tomorrow's Annotated Links!

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[Moon-dæg] When the Guard is Down

{A figure, a silhouette, a being - but with what intent and purpose? Image from the Minecraft modding site mcmodding.com.}

Context
Still Not Saved
Closing

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Context

This piece of flash fiction (or scene from a longer work) came from a writing exercise, that, as far as I remember, just involved a phrase. The idea of the exercise is to take a phrase and then to write a piece that starts with that phrase.

So, once the phrase "She could hear them living all through the house" came up, I just took it and ran.

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Still not Saved

She could hear them living all through the house. She felt herself sink deeper into the bed, all of the muscles in her arms and legs loosening for the first time in weeks. Mathias' plan had worked. And he was right about them not wanting to get into this room.

A quick glance to the window still showed a pillar of smoke rising from somewhere below the lintel. And the sky remained filled with the kinds of clouds that brought drabness but no rain.

Yet she knew that they were all living beyond the door and down on the first floor. The still silence confirmed it. Silence enough to hear someone's walk. It's brisk, she mused. A word she hadn't been able to use to describe anything's walk for far too long.

She relished the sound of shoes squeaking on the floor. A stop! Low voices. Low voices that only survived as undulations of sound full of pitch and intonation - but measured and easy - after they crossing through walls and even floors.

But then, a scratching. A scritching against wood that forced Emma back into the fore of her mind. She closed her eyes and tried to melt into the mattress. The memory faded, but the sound did not. She put her feet on the floor, faced the closet and walked over to it.

Her hand reached for a knob of the folding door. Her hand's steadiness caused her no surprise - she knew the door led only to a closet. And nothing terrible had ever come from a closet. They had never seemed to get into them.

The scritching subsided and air rushing through the corner of a canine mouth could be heard.

How on earth did he wind up in there?

She turned the door knob. The hinge creaked and the colour of clothes formerly worn only by shadows rushed to get through the crack of light.

A low growl followed.

Her arm continued to push the door outwards. But before the panel door snapped into place a weight latched onto her neck and she fell backwards.

"No..." she managed, as low as the voices that had now resumed below and around her. But teeth and flesh would not part. "No...bad. Bad...Dog-uugh!"

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Closing

On Wednesday, come looking for an editorial on some of the newest news, and on tomorrow and Thursday be sure to watch for annotated links #8 and #9. Plus, don't miss part three of Nicolas Cage month on Friday, featuring his 2011 thriller Trespass.

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[Moon-dæg] A Childhood Horror

Context
Vous Allez Dormir (You'll Be Sleeping)
Closing

{A child's tombstone in Boldre Church, Hampshire, England. Image from geograph.}

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Context

This is another thing that's come out of the local writing group. If you've got one in your town, then I heartily recommend attending it. Writing groups are a great way to boost your productivity and to find inspiration through challenges and through sharing perspectives.

Anyway, the exercise that resulted in this piece of writing comes from Pat Schneider's Writing Alone and With Others, a guide to getting into the writing habit and to starting a writing group.

What the specific exercise that lead to tonight's piece involves is simple: take a song or prayer or poem that you know by heart, and use its lines as a refrain for whatever it is you write.

My own result is a short horror story, but the same song in another's hands might have lead to something a little more innocent and pitched to the audience of the song that I used. Also, Wikipedia was used as a reference for the full song.

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Vous Allez Dormir (You'll Be Sleeping)

Frère Jacques...

The sound spewed out from the top of the door jamb, an empty space of just a few centimeters – but enough for the sound wiggle through and into the room. Clarence held his fingers in his ears and hoped that it would mute the sound enough to let him think. To come up with a way out.

Frère Jacques...

It didn't seem to be working. The melody pinned all of his muscles to the spot and made his arms feel as heavy as the furniture he had pushed up against the door. At the time he hadn't considered the use of the towel that Joyce had offered, screaming as the song ate at her from the inside out, turning her every movement into a concentrated step and swing in time with the schoolroom chant.

Dormez vous?...

Clarence wondered how much more pressure his inner ear could take before it burst. He cursed himself for refusing the ear plugs, though by the state of the house, it seemed like no one here had taken them either. And why would they?

Dormez vous?...

Who would have believed the news reports and status updates and tweets? That there was a song in the air and it was out for human blood?

Clarence was beginning to feel woozy, and he staggered backwards, his elbow striking a lamp, the thing bursting on the floor.

Sonnez les matines...

It was getting clearer now, trying to pour its whole essence through the crack at the closed and [fortified] door's top. Clarence imagined that he could see the vibrations as each recognizable word lilted through the air, tugging at his own childhood memories of its recital like French Canadian nuns pulling at taffy.

Deafness was better than this.

Death was better than this.

Sonnez les matines...

Clarence forced his fingers harder against his ears, until he could feel both digits compressing the ears' inner chambers. It felt like two walls were being pressed down into the same room – he wondered which would top which.

Din, dan, don...

He wondered and pressed.

He pressed and wondered.

Din, dan, d-

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Closing

Check back here on Wednesday for an editorial on some of the newest news, and on Friday for a hunt for the good in the 1993 Nicolas Cage film noir, DeadFall. Also, be sure to come by the blog tomorrow and Thursday for more Annotated Links.

And, if you'd like to leave me some feedback on today's story (positive or negative, but only constructive, please), feel free to add a comment below.

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[Wōdnes-dæg] Wild Things Are Beyond Genre Classifications

Introduction
If Genre’s a Guide, Keep Reading Your Map
What’s Behind the Words
Closing
References

{Colbert and Sendak in a mid-interview dramatic pause. Image from chron.com}

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Introduction

In memory of the late Maurice Sendak, today's entry is all about the arbitrariness of genre. Sendak's own take on the matter is nicely encapsulated in an exchange he had with Stephen Colbert during Colbert's interview segment "Grim Colberty Tales with Maurice Sendak Pt. 1" on 24 January of 2012:

“Colbert: Why write for children?

Sendak: I don’t write for children.

Colbert: You don’t?

Sendak: No. I write. And somebody says, that’s for children.”¹

With age comes wisdom, and Sendak nailed it when he gave this brief explanation of how what he wrote was classified.

But if genre is something that “somebody says” it is, where does that leave the writer?

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If Genre’s a Guide, Keep Reading Your Map

As a mysterious writer decipherable only as "CH Tung" points out, genre can help to guide a writer by giving a sense of direction or purpose.² This is true, and a good point to be made about the classification of writing, but it seems to be saying something different from Sendak’s quick explanation.

Like a painter who decides to paint a landscape rather than a portrait, a writer who decides to write a novel rather than a short story helps to give him/herself direction, but beyond that the definition of “genre” ceases to be useful in literature - especially in today’s mixed literary scene.

After all, are the books in the Harry Potter series children’s books, young adult books, or can they be said to hold an ageless appeal?

The magical elements in the series mark it quite clearly as fantasy, but each one also contains a central enigma or mystery that is usually solved by each book’s end - so are they also mystery stories?

And taken as a whole, the series very obviously shows at least some growth of its central characters, so could an omnibus edition also be considered a bildungsroman?

This is the application of genre to take issue with, that which tries to pin a work to a narrow field of interest or audience.

It's also good to be wary of the academic sense that the term only extends so far as the essential kinds of writing (poetry, prose, drama), and yet can also be used to refer to fantasy, science fiction, and mystery all lumped together as one, like some kind of literary equivalent of the word “cancer” meaning both a constellation with a celebrated and storied past, and a terrible disease living off of and destroying its host.

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What’s Behind the Words

At the heart of the issue of classification, and maybe what Sendak was poking at with his assessment of what being someone who 'writes for children' meant with Colbert¹ and elsewhere,³ could be the idea that classification to such a degree isn’t what writers do, but is instead what readers - or sellers - of books do to make sense of all the literature found in the world. Writers merely write, and though they might call their works one thing, those generations that come after them may call them another.

Given things like Pottermore and the Harry Potter theme park being built in Japan, in fifty years maybe that series will be classified as a work of trans-media/revenue-seeding fiction.

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Closing

Check back here Friday for a hunt for the good in the Knightley and Farrell flick London Boulevard.

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References

Be sure to check out the wikipedia article on Maurice Sendak for an overview of all of his works (as writer, illustrator, and both).

1. Colbert, Stephen. Grim Colberty Tales with Maurice Sendak Pt. 1. 24 January 2012 -from- Oldenburg, Ann "Stephen Colbert talks politics, sex with Maurice Sendak." USA TODAY 25 January 2011.

2. CH Tung. “The Value of Genre Classification.” 1986.

3. Barber, John. “The Globe's interview with author Sendak: Portrait of a cranky old man.” Globe and Mail 24 September 2011.

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