#but the sperm one in particular did not feel horror to me at all

[hometownrockstar]

ive been having dreams lately where i am watching a show or movie or reading a book, and am just in awe of the writing and metaphorical and surrealist imagery and later go to my friends to tell them all about how cool it was (they never care in my dreams tho which is funny) but then i'll wake up and not understand the media anymore... not just because it was weird, like the imagery is usually normal enough for me to grasp in the sense of like, absurdist art, i mean i just can't grasp what the symbolic meaning or themes of it anymore like i could in my dreams where it all made sense... its as if they were symbolic of things that dont exist in the real world

the best thing i could compare it to would be the book The Melancholy of Anatomy by Shelley Jackson, its a short story collection about different human body parts, but in worlds where they exist with completely different purposes, its hard to summarize. one chapter shows eggs (as in the human reproductive kind) as a sort of hypnotic, folklore symbol that humans have valued in a supernatural way for centuries, and it includes a part of a supposed old film about the phenomenon with citation notes of critical analysis of it. another goes into the history and uses of sperm, which are now dog-sized creatures that run around and are pests like pigeons, and includes directions on how to properly cut and eat them. another tells the story of how a giant fetus flies down from the sky and becomes a sort of christ figure to a town, a tourist destination and a pastor and a deity. all of the stories are written in a matter-of-fact way, like they were written in these universes where this is completely normal, and its like i can grasp SOME sense of symbolism, some sense of themes in the text, but cant understand the meaning completely, as if the themes are ones only able to be understood within the universe with the amount of cultural context built in the universe over centuries. its extremely fascinating and unlike anything ive ever read

[logans-chestnuts]

Owed You One

This fic was requested by @neuroticpuppy. I can’t tag you but I hope you like it! 

"Hey! Mister!" you whisper-yelled at the handsome host sneaking past the room where you were tied to a chair. 

He glanced over at you with the darkest eyes you'd ever seen, looked you up and down as if considering it, then whispered back, "Sorry, darlin', I don't do damsel quests."

You were taken aback. "You're human?" you said, utterly shocked that total perfection such as his was actually just the product of a sperm and an egg. "No shit?"

"No shit," he whispered with a smirk, ego stroked enough to cut you loose. Swaggering over as only a man who had won the genetic lottery can, he pulled a knife out of his boot and set you free. "Hold on, are you bleeding?"

"Heh, yeah. I guess I misunderstood the 'hosts can't hurt you' thing."

Logan shrugged as he finished cutting you loose. "There is a reason we have all our guests sign a waiver."

"We?" you asked as you rubbed the circulation back into your hands. "You work here?"

"Something like that," he said as he looked you over. "You OK?"

"Yeah, I just need to find a horse I can steal and get out of here. My bounty hunter got dead so I'm on my own," you said. "Thanks again, appreciate it."

Logan nodded, intrigued that you really didn't seem like you were going to ask him for help. "Take care, darlin'." If he wasn't there for a very specific reason he would have tried to get you to play for a few days, but alas, he had business to take care of.

Logan had learned that his twisted new brother-in-law had a particular host that he liked as his evil minion as he raped and pillaged his way through the park. No one outside the park would ever believe what down-to-earth Bill, nice guy Bill was capable of; Logan intended to show the rest of the family who he really was.

His hatred for Billy was keeping him sane, his anger was making him devious. He was going to find evidence of what a sick cunt William was if it was the last thing he did.

You snuck off, leaving the impossibly handsome rescuer behind. 

You had decided to go on after your companion/guide had been killed. This was your second trip to the park so you thought you knew what you were getting into, but you had obviously bitten off more than you could chew when you had decided to go after Slim Miller despite the bounty hunter telling you needed a bigger posse. 

You still snickered remembering your retort: "I thought men preferred a tight posse?"

Holden was the ultimate white hat, though, and he didn't respond to your quip except to sigh about your stubbornness. 

After you had cornered Slim, you had been overconfident; he overpowered Holden and took you hostage instead, telling you how much his friends were going to enjoy you. You had felt the cold fingers of horror slide down your back, having to talk yourself down by reminding yourself that hosts couldn't hurt you, but goddamn, it had been terrifying. It pretty much became a mantra as Slim had led you to Pariah, hands bound to your saddle. The hosts can't hurt you, the hosts can't hurt you.

Which was how you found yourself in Pariah. It was truly the wild West equivalent of Sodom and Gomorrah. Brothels, booze, naked people wandering around, guns and gambling right out in the open everywhere one could look. 

You weren't quite sure what your captor's endgame was: he couldn't actually hurt you, so tying you up seemed silly. Maybe you were supposed to escape. In any case, escape was your new and improved plan since it didn't look like you were going to capture Slim and return him to justice. 

You shook off your questions. It didn't matter now and the distraction could get you recaptured. You needed a weapon, some food and water and a horse. A plan would be nice but it looked like you were going to have to wing it.

Logan was also playing it by ear. He had followed William to Pariah, wondering what he was doing since he had been so uppity about playing the game as if it were actually a game. All it seemed like he was doing was fucking and killing hosts, the goddamn hypocrite.

He had absolutely no idea how he was going to prove anything. There was no tech allowed into the park unless it was for a medical condition, and for the most part the park wasn't handicap-friendly. Bottom line, even if Logan did see more of William's cold, sadistic behavior, he had no way to record it.

Maybe he really was losing it. How else could he explain his obsession with Billy?

Didn't mean he was going to stop waiting and watching, though. At least he could prove to himself that he wasn't crazy.

You had been amazingly lucky. You had walked past an unoccupied room and there laid your gear like it was waiting for you. Now all you had to do was make it to the stables unseen to get a horse and you could put this embarrassing incident behind you.

As you slinked along a hallway, gun out and saddle bag over your shoulder, you saw your handsome rescuer crouched behind a huge plant. You also saw that there was one of El Lazo's men turning toward where Handsome was hunkered down and it was a matter of seconds before he would be seen, and there really couldn't be a good reason for him to be sneaking around like that.

Thinking quickly, you pulled off your shirt and pants and tossed your things into an unoccupied bedroom, mussed your hair and strolled over to Handsome in your almost-sheer lawn underclothes, looking drunk and like you'd already been bent over several pieces of furniture. 

"Hey, you handsome man!" you bellowed drunkenly. 

Logan followed the sound of your slurred voice and was treated to the sight of you in some very revealing underwear as you staggered toward him. 

"I believe I paid for the whole night with you, so you better get your sweet ass over here and fuck me so hard I won't be able to walk in the morning!" you demanded as only a drunk rich girl could. 

"Shhh," Logan tried to get you to lower your voice, but then he froze when he heard a chuckle behind him.

"Looks like the lady is ready for another round, boy. Better whip that cock out or El Lazo might just decide to cut it off," the passing guard threatened.

Logan had gained his feet and you started rubbing all over him, kissing his neck and groping his ass. "C'mon baby, mama needs to ride that cock again."

"Yeah sweetheart, it's all for you. Let's go back to your room, darlin'," Handsome said with the sexiest smile you had ever seen.

He put his arm around your waist to lead you back to where you had come, his hand sliding down and grabbing a handful of your ass. "Gonna make you feel so good, darlin'" he promised loudly enough so that the guards chuckled and went on his merry way. 

You led Handsome to the room where you had stowed your things and pulled him inside with you.

You both leaned against the door and caught your breath after you almost got caught again. "That was close," you whispered.

"Thanks," Handsome said quietly, then huffed a chuckle. "I thought you were nuts for a second."

"I owed you one," you said dismissively.

"I barely untied you. You went out of your way for me. So really, thank you."

You nodded. You extended your hand and introduced yourself. "So, do you have a name? Because I feel kinda silly calling you Handsome."

"I dunno, I kinda like it," he said with a wink and a charming smile.

"Oh, yeah, of course," you said shyly. "I mean, we'll probably never see each other again as soon as the coast is clear, right?"

Still holding your hand, he dropped a kiss to the back of it very chivalrously. Deciding to trust you, he said, "My name is Logan, but I used a fake name to make my reservations. I'm dressed differently than usual and I cut my hair and shaved my beard. My chin hasn't been this naked in years."

You smiled. "It's a very handsome chin. Logan."

"Why, thank you. And may I compliment you on your current fashion choice?" he said with a cheeky grin and a once over. "Very flattering."

You felt your cheeks heat when you realized that you had been standing around chit chatting while more or less naked. You slapped his arm playfully and said, "Jerk. I'm only half naked because I couldn't think of any other way to rescue you."

"Well, I appreciate the rescue and the view," he flirted.

You stepped over to your things and bent over to pick up your clothes, careful not to give Logan any more of a show than you already had.

Suddenly Logan tensed and leaned his ear to the door, gesturing to you for silence. His eyes widened and he started undressing quickly.

"Um," you began, but Logan was hopping across the room to the bed while pulling his boots off.

"Shhh! Get naked and get in the bed," he ordered.

"Excuse me?" you hissed, crossing your arms over your chest.

Logan hobbled over to you, shirtless and pants unzipped, one boot still partially on. He grabbed your arm to pull you with him and whispered, "They're going room to room looking for that bitch they're gonna ransom. Sound like anybody you know?"

"Shit," you said, untying your camisole and drawers and removing them. When you looked up, Logan was looking you over with such hunger that you felt your heart begin to race. Didn't hurt that he was naked and had a semi, either. 

You shook your head and yanked back the covers and dove in the bed, trying to mess it up as much as possible to make it look like the two of you had been rolling around in it. You felt the mattress dip and then warm skin touching yours.

"They're next door," he said, judging by the indignant shouts of a few voices that were apparently interrupted mid something or other.

When you heard the door slam and boots in the hallway leading to your room, Logan looked at you questioningly. 

You nodded yes and he slid over to lie on top of you, your hands and legs wrapping around him as he began to kiss you, hot and wet, teeth and tongue. If your heart had sped up at the sight of his body, it nearly stopped at the feel of his kiss combined with his body pressed against yours and hands moving over you. Your last coherent thought was how soft his hair was as you ran your fingers through it when he moved his mouth down to suck at a nipple, pulling an inarticulate yell from your lips just as the door burst open.

Logan flipped over into his back, reaching for his gun he'd had the wherewithal to put on the nightstand. "What the fuck?" he yelled angrily, cocking and pointing the gun at the intruders.

"Whoa there, fella!" Slim said, hands making a placating gesture. "Lookin' for a bounty hunter I brought here. You folks go back to what you were doin', sorry to bother you."

When he backed out and shut the door, you breathed a sigh of relief. You looked over at Logan and saw that his semi had grown into a whole -- a very long and delicious looking whole.

You unconsciously licked your lips as you looked up at him and saw him watching at you with a similar expression of avarice. 

"Thank you," you whispered.

"I owed you one," he whispered back, reaching over to gently caress your cheek, looking into your eyes. 

"I guess I should go try to get to the stables," you said quietly, reluctantly. Truth be told, you'd rather stay and finish what had begun, but you didn't know how to ask a complete stranger to continue, pretty please?

Logan finally tore his eyes away and said, "No, you should wait a couple hours til they pass out."

"Wait -- here?" you breathed.

Logan was just barely holding on to his control. He wanted you with an intensity he hadn't felt for anything but the hatred he felt for Billy since he'd been pulled half-dead from the desert. He swallowed hard and pulled away from you, turning to pull the blankets up and at least cover the temptation, even if it didn't precisely remove it.

"Yeah, we can talk," he said, as if it was a novel concept. It kind of was, really.

"OK," you drawled, turning onto your side to face him, noticing when his eyes were drawn to the exaggerated cleavage the new position created by pressing your breasts together. "Tell me all about Logan. Why were you sneaking around?"

He looked taken aback, like he hadn't expected to be the one answering questions. "Ah, you first."

You narrowed your eyes. "K. Well, I was trying to get Slim Miller's bounty. Holden and I went after him and he turned the tables, killed Holden and took me hostage. Said someone ought to want a 'purty thing' like me back, but he'd find a way to make a profit off me one way or another."

"Ouch."

"Yeah. I did not win the game," you said with a self-deprecating chuckle. 

Logan hesitated; he'd clearly been hoping there was more to your story. He took a deep breath and began, "The last time I was here, my now brother-in-law tied me naked to a horse and slapped its ass at the edge of the desert."

You gasped. "What the fuck? And your sibling still married the prick?"

"Thank you!" Logan said appreciatively, then laughed bitterly. "But yeah, nobody believed me. I've been a bit...wild. So my father and sister took his word over mine. He took my life: my family's trust, my company. This was mine. I crawled into a bottle and got high all the time for months, but then one day I got pissed instead of high, and here I am."

You wrinkled your brow. "What was yours?"

He averted his gaze for a moment, then said, "My last name is Delos."

"As in Delos BioEngineering, Delos Destinations? You own this place?" you asked incredulously.

"I did, yeah."

"So how does that explain why you're sneaking around here?"

"He's here. I wanted to catch him in the act." He flipped over into his back and slammed his fist on the mattress. "He went total batshit and they didn't believe me! Nobody would listen!"

"Hey," you said softly, giving him a hug that inadvertently pressed your breasts against his chest. "Um, well, awkward, but I'm sorry nobody would listen."

He smirked. "Thanks."

"So how are you going to catch him in the act?" you asked.

"Didn't think it through," he said in disgust. "No tech, no way to record."

You pulled away and hopped out of bed, grabbing your saddle bag and bringing it back to the bed. First you pulled a shirt over your head, no longer comfortable with your nudity.

"Aww," Logan complained.

"Hush," you said with a smile, then pulled a mobile phone out of your bag.

"How the fuck did you get that past security?" he asked in amazement.

"I have a medical condition I have to monitor."

"That's great!" he exclaimed. "I mean, not that you're sick…"

"I'm not sick, I have a medical condition. I'm perfectly healthy as long as I keep an eye on things. But yeah, recording device," you said, shaking it in front of Logan.

"You're -- you'll help me?" he whispered.

"Yeah," you said with a smile. "Dunno why but I believe you. Does that make me a fool?"

"No!" he said emphatically, taking your hand in his. "I am many things; a lot of them are bad. But I swear to you, I am not a liar."

You smiled. "Let's bring that bastard down."

Logan looked at you in disbelief for a moment, but then he saw something in your eyes that told him you meant it. He grinned and paraphrased the end of Casablanca, "I think this might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

@marauder--harder  / @giggleberts / @joelynnp / @astrangeevent2002 / @thesandbeneathmytoes / @squidscottjeans/ @delos-mio / @banditthewriter / @letsdanceinthedark  / @lilywoood / @ivegotillegalsinmybottom / @irinazatyk / @thinemineours / @ssserpensortiaaa / @starless-skyox / @lalafral / @hxbbit / @itsjustmylifeconfessions / @marauderskeeper/ @buddha-for-satan / @geeksareunique / @russosprettydiamondnow / @cutie-bug/ @deloslxgan  / @acciophoenx / @presstocontinue / @sassygirl25 / @iamnotbenbarneswifeyet / @the-temple-pythoness/ @youveseen–thebutcher / @random-quartz / @curlyhairedblueeyedangel / @myfriendmademedothisxd / @verniquelenoir / @aimingforthehiddenstars / @sssilverssserpent / @blogsulat  / @lostinthoughts23 / @sunaeroglu / @skwriddle / @lady1505 / @deviantly-gayy/ @whovianayesha / @delusionsofnostalgia / @songtoyou  / @funerals-with-cake / @abroadcastofthemind  / @i-padfootblack-things / @something-tofightfor/ @dylanobrusso / @suchatinyinfinity / @silverkitten547 / @propertyofpoeandbucky / @ponycake27 / @weallhaveadestiny /  @siriuslyimmoony / @breanime / @saltyshaggymeme / @bellamys  / @its-my-little-dumpster-fire / @luminex3 / @agent-scully-182 / @rockintensse / @ymariejp / @blah-blah-fuckit-shit / @grotesquely-creative/ @suna-the-lost-cause / @j-finco / @mathle0matle / @life-is-a-melody / @traeumerinwitzhelden

[arecomicsevengood]

More Quarantine Movies

Going to put up this log of what I’ve seen now, as some of the stuff I liked the most is leaving The Criterion Channel at the end of the month. I really don’t know if anyone gets anything out of these posts, these are mostly synopses and they’re maybe spoiler-heavy. Let me give you the gist of it now: Otto Preminger’s a really good filmmaker whose movies are really interesting, Jean Arthur’s a great actress who enlivens everything and is also in a bunch of good-to-great movies. Also, I didn’t write about it but I rewatched Death Race 2000, that movie rules, feels relevant to today’s politics, and is leaving Criterion Channel at the end of the month.

The Pawnbroker (1964) dir. Sidney Lumet

Based on novel by Edward Lewis Wallant, whose The Tenants Of Moonbloom was reprinted by NYRB Classics with a Dave Eggers intro. Also some of the earliest nudity in a mainstream American film. About the misanthropy of a holocaust survivor, living in New York City, and interacting with black people who vaguely feel like racist caricatures, in part because it’s a movie about a misanthrope told from his perspective. A ton of movies about race from this era feel dated, this feels legitimately edgy, which is a term that gets thrown around somewhat ironically now or viewed as a pejorative, like something trying to offend, this does feel like a genuine attempt to be honest and push things forward (I really was not expecting that nudity) but also doesn’t feel totally successful, definitely not particularly enjoyable.

Shockproof (1949) dir. Douglas Sirk

I haven’t seen Sirk’s later melodramas, this one intrigued me in part because the screenplay was written by Samuel Fuller, and it’s sort of a pulpy noir thing. A woman, fresh out of jail, ends up living with her parole officer who is trying to keep her on the straight and narrow and away from her criminal ex, but they end up falling in love. There’s a thing where the male lead’s younger brother talks about how the lady is beautiful that I sort of wish wasn’t in there, feels creepy to me. There’s a bit of a shift in the narrative with the third act, where the lovers end up on the run, the once-upstanding man now a criminal on account of love, but they are having the endurance of their love tested by circumstance, is one of those things where a story which felt somewhat unique over the course of its telling shifts into something more recognizable.

…And The Pursuit Of Happiness (1986) dir Louis Malle

I have watched most of Louis Malle’s feature films at this point, I believe, and had a vague curiosity about what his documentaries were like. This one, made shortly after he’d moved to the U.S. and married Candice Bergen (something that comes up in Susan Seidelman’s Smithereens, in that some prostitutes read aloud from a fashion magazine that discusses it) he made a film talking to various recent immigrants. He covers a lot of ground, covering people working as doctors, large communities living in housing projects and causing racial tension with black neighbors (who both resent the smell of the food they cook but also suspect they don’t know their rights as the property developers plan to evict everyone and have the projects demolished). By and large everyone spoke to believes in the notion of the American dream of working hard to get ahead. Malle also speaks to anti-immigration think tank people and border patrols. Nothing too surprising but a lot of ground gets covered in a short amount of time. If I didn’t learn anything I at least admired that it felt non-didactic. Anything with more of a point of view or an argument would probably be disingenuous were it to present itself as enlightening.

The Baron Of Arizona (1950) dir. Samuel Fuller

Based on a true story, although with fictionalized elements, about a dude (played by Vincent Price) who becomes a master forger to falsify land grants and claim the entire state of Arizona as his own. Not a great movie, though that’s an interesting story. I bet I could guess what elements were made up for the sake of making a movie out of it, it has this tension of being interesting and unbelievable (although unbelievable by way of rote moviemaking formula), but also the story takes place over an extended period of time and so has some of the structureless feeling of a biopic.

House On Haunted Hill (1959) dir. William Castle

I’m going to confuse this with The Haunting Of Hill House for my entire life, that’s just the way it is. This stars Vincent Price, who’s always great, doing the famous premise where a group of people meet up to spend the night at a haunted house to win money. Vincent Price has a contentious relationship with his wife, who’s openly contemptuous of him and wants his money. There’s a moment where everyone at the house party is given a gun, each in a coffin. There’s a few “twists” all sort of being of the “there was a rational, non-ghost reason for everything” although any of them individually sort of strain the limits of credulity as something that works as a hoax. Vincent Price is basically not the villain, so much as his wife is, although he’s such a ham that loves being creepy that this again strains credibility in that the conclusion of the movie plays against the style with which the previous action has been presented. An enjoyable viewing experience.

My Name Is Julia Ross (1945) dir. Joseph Lewis

This one’s about a woman, looking for work, who falls into a scheme that kidnaps her and puts her up in a mansion, where she’s kept drugged and basically is told to assume the identity of a woman who was killed. I found this one pretty nerve-wracking, as it’s pretty nightmarish, basically about psychological torture. I found this one under Criterion Channel’s Columbia Noir collection, but before these films were considered noir, they were thought of as melodramas, but it’s also sort of a horror film about being gaslighted. There’s a part where they remove a stairwell and try to trick her into falling down? What’s funny is that one of the things that sort of separates this from horror is how quickly it resolves, whereas later work would I think give the audience the satisfaction of seeing the villain be punished in some way, the ending that just goes “then everything worked out alright” ends up making the structure feel more like the whole movie’s reason for being is just to see the protagonist suffer.

God Told Me To (1976) dir. Larry Cohen

Did I write about this already? I watched that a few months ago. Pretty wild basis in seventies grit about people going crazy, committing murders, then goes to a weird/confusing place involving some sort of holy entity in human form, the police procedural aspect butting up against this strangeness which doesn’t feel entirely thought through, and is in fact sort of incoherent, makes for a movie that is, in fact, still pretty good and worth watching although a bit tedious by the end.

Zombi Child (2019) dir. Bertrand Bonello

This I guess just came out in America this year, to the extent that anything came out this year, in theaters, it coming to streaming is basically its release. The zombies in this are of the old-school voodoo sense, taken seriously as a system of belief juxtaposed against French colonialism, as a Haitian teen feels at odds with her circle of friends, flashbacks to Haiti occur. When you watch a bunch of older movies new movies just seem to be not as good. Bonello’s not a bad filmmaker though, he’s able to capture a sort of sensual aspect of particular moments and moods, just not in a way where they then coalesce into a narrative of shifting emotion.

Anatomy Of A Murder (1959) dir. Otto Preminger

This movie is close to three hours long.  It has a Law And Order procedural quality, taking up much of its second half with a courtroom drama, where Jimmy Stewart does a proto-Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer routine. He’s protecting a man accused of murdering the woman who raped his wife. The subject was surely shocking for its time. It becomes pretty clear, extremely quickly that the husband is an abusive piece of shit, but the main thrust of the narrative is still tasked with following the lawyer trying to get him off. Lee Remick, from Experiment In Terror plays the beautiful and doomed wife, who flirts with Jimmy Stewart. Some of these interactions feel weird from a modern perspective, because Stewart’s reaction is like “Yes, you’re a beautiful woman and any red-blooded American male would enjoy looking at you, but it is my duty as a lawyer to paternalistically insist you cover up!” Preminger is sort of known for pushing the envelope, and this one has a lot more talking about sperm and Lee Remick’s vagina than you’d expect. One of the things that’s meant to be a “quirky character detail” is that Jimmy Stewart is into jazz- The score, by Duke Ellington, is great, but there’s also a pretty corny cameo by Duke Ellington where Jimmy Stewart sits in with him, a second pair of hands on the piano. Still, I guess it’s better that he physically appears in the movie than there just being a scene where it implies Duke’s music is played by Jimmy Stewart, as the music is way too good to just be a lawyer’s quirky hobby. George C Scott, from Hardcore, plays the legal expert on the other side. After being pretty long, there is this sort of abrupt, (although well-foreshadowed) downbeat ending, where the jealous and abusive husband flees town to avoid paying his lawyer and to go somewhere quiet he can beat his wife to death, but said ending is played for this “you can’t win them all I guess, shame about the lower classes” quality from Stewart, who is dead broke all movie but seems like he just enjoyed being able to do work for once, even if it’s for a total shitbag. Good movie! Feels thorny and interesting.

Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) dir. Otto Preminger

This is even better. Great Saul Bass credits sequence too. A psychological thriller where the disappearance of a child gives way to the police not being able to confirm the child is real, and doubting the mother’s sanity, becoming pretty nightmarish, dreamy, and exhilarating by turns. Gets to a place of “huh, I wonder what is going on” and then when that finally resolves there’s a pretty extended sequence of silent escaping/hiding, which is, one of those things that films do really well and is super-satisfying. It plays out amidst this background filled with interesting supporting characters, who all, for the first half of the movie, feel like moving parts in this somewhat inscrutable narrative machine.

The Man With The Golden Arm (1955) dir. Otto Preminger

This one I don’t like. Stars Frank Sinatra, who I find annoying, as a recovering heroin addict who relapses again. While I normally like the sort of scenery-chewing supporting cast that shows up in Preminger things, I really didn’t Sinatra’s nerdy best friend, or his wife with Munchausen’s syndrome. While with the other Preminger movies there’s this feeling of a slow reveal of what the plot is with this one I feel like as soon as you know that Sinatra is out of rehab (which you learn pretty quickly) you can guess the movie will be about how he relapses and then tries to get sober for real.

The Human Factor (1979) dir. Otto Preminger

Preminger’s final movie, based on a Graham Greene novel, featuring Iman making her film debut. Movie is mostly about intelligence agencies seeking out the mole in their mist, with intentions to kill whoever it is once they’re certain. It stars Richard Attenborough, as the source of the leaks. Halfway through the story becomes interspersed with flashbacks about Attenborough and Iman’s romance upon meeting in Africa. Continues the habit of ending on a moment that maybe feels like it should be expanded upon or made more resonant.

Bonjour Tristesse (1958) dir. Otto Preminger

This stars Jean Seberg as a teenager being raised by a single father, David Niven, who’s kind of a cad/ladies man who’s very permissive with his daughter, who seems likely to grow up rich and spoiled and find another rich man to take care of her. Deborah Kerr plays the woman who Niven ends up falling in love for real with, and the conflict is then between this woman taking on a maternal role and a daughter who is resentful of this. Deborah Kerr is in Black Narcissus, a movie I love, and here she comes off as smart, the voice of reason. Seberg destroys her father’s relationship by taking advantage of his sort of innate desire to flirt and be liked by women, driving Kerr to commit suicide, and the whole film is then told in flashback by Jean Seberg a year later, as she flirts with boys but has a great sadness and emotional distance about her, which is both inherited and self-inflicted. I’m partly just writing these plot summaries as my way of remembering what these movies are about, but this one is nice because I get to account for complicated characters who are both pretty eminently understandable. I keep getting hung up on the fact that movies today now have a much dumber idea of what a female character is. Maybe it’s something as basic as the fact that, as people read less, it’s rarer for literary novels to be adapted? As I talk in terms of “less good roles for women nowadays,” which is a cliche, it’s obvious enough that bad roles for men follow, as everyone is only as good or interesting as who they’re playing off of.

It’s also funny to think, in this era of “comic book movies,” that very few artists can make a character come to life with body language and facial expression the way an actor can. “Literary” cartoonists like Dan Clowes or Tomine play into the mask quality drawing creates, generating inscrutability as part of their effect. Many of the biggest names in “noir” comics are removed from the melodrama elements of actor’s performance in favor of an aesthetic based on paperback covers, which makes for something far less lively. Meanwhile, Blutch is an amazing artist who would probably do a great job telling lively character studies in a genre form, but he’s way more preoccupied with these Godard-style interrogations of film’s cultural meaning.

Separate Tables (1958) dir. Delbert Mann

From the same year as Bonjour Tristesse, and also featuring David Niven and Deborah Kerr. Deborah Kerr’s good in this- while she is sort of uptight in a maternal way in Bonjour Tristesse, here she’s sort of crippled by repression her mother imposes on her. It’s a totally different character, but she remains defined by various manifestations of repressed energy; I would say she’s most known for playing a nun in Black Narcissus. She’s again opposite Niven in a sort of romantic context, though Niven’s character is meant to be a neurotic freak and he’s not really convincing in that capacity. I couldn’t really work out what the deal is with Niven’s character, he gets arrested in a theater, seemingly because he takes his dick out to show women? Or that’s how I interpreted what was being discussed, but he’s mostly defended by everyone except this lady you’re supposed to hate for how domineering and judgmental she is so maybe it’s something less bad. I honestly couldn’t figure it out because it seemed like the thing I was guessing they couldn’t talk about. This movie also features Burt Lancaster and Rita Hayworth as a couple that broke up once before and are reuniting now. This movie is pretty dull in a way I didn’t know whether to attribute to it being British or it being based on a play, as it feels extremely both.

Seance On A Wet Afternoon (1964) dir. Bryan Forbes

This one’s British too, and features the quality I recognize from British television, where the stars are not attractive, which always feels surprising. This one’s got a pretty great title, and a great premise. This woman, a professional psychic, convinces her husband to kidnap a child so she can comfort the parents and get publicity. The cinematography’s great. I got pretty nervous watching this, I think I am feeling more sensitive to movies as of late, way more willing to find things upsetting and nerve-wracking than usual. I can partly attribute this to the feeling of taking something in from a different cultural context, that leaves me unsure what to expect, but it’s also true that nowadays I sort of constantly have this feeling of “I don’t know how bad things are going to get” about the world in general, and it makes sense that I would apply that to films.

Only Angels Have Wings (1939) dir. Howard Hawks

Jean Arthur’s amazing in this - saw her the first time in The Devil And Miss Jones and then there’s this whole Criterion Channel featurette video running through what her whole deal is: This vulnerability/innocence crossed with an attempted toughness that really is very charming. Here she plays an entertainer just stopping briefly in town who gets hit on by some pilots, and develops feelings of impossible love for a man (played by Cary Grant) whose insistent toughness and refusal to show fear (despite having a dangerous job, of a pilot, that makes everyone who cares about him fall to pieces with nervousness). It’s this very universal type of entertainment, where there’s all these special effects shots of planes flying and a drama of men being men that’s nonetheless anchored by this love story, carried by the fact that Jean Arthur is very real and complex. She’s also a legit comedic actress, which I think makes her feel richer and more watchable than someone without a sense of humor would be. Rita Hayworth plays Grant’s ex, a woman who couldn’t take his daredevil ways but is now married to another pilot who has to do dangerous flights essentially to make up for an act of cowardice that got someone else killed. She’s got her own charisma obviously (and Cary Grant’s equally solid, in this sort of old-Hollywood glamor way) but Jean Arthur feels very alive in a way that carries the movie.

The Talk Of The Town (1942) dir. George Stevens

This one also stars Jean Arthur opposite Cary Grant, but it’s less interesting, partly because of a domestic setting and some stale-seeming comedy. Cary Grant plays Lionel Dilg, (great name!) who breaks out of prison and hides out in Jean Arthur’s attic, with a hobbled ankle, while a preeminent legal scholar moves in. There’s a love triangle between the three of them, and a friendship between the escapee and the scholar. Grant’s been unfairly framed for arson for political reasons by his boss for pointing out the factory where he works is a death trap. The people of the town are easily turned against this sort of leftist agitator  by a last and biased judge. Insanely enough, there’s a movie called “The Whole Town’s Talking” also starring Jean Arthur but it has no relation to this one.

The Ex-Mrs. Bradford (1936) dir. Stephen Roberts

Upon realizing that many of these Jean Arthur movies were leaving the Criterion Channel at the end of the month, I started taking more in. This is a murder mystery, with screwball comedy accents, and again I’d say it’s really good, although the “comedy” premise wherein a woman sort of plows through the life of a man with no real respect for personal boundaries is the sort of thing that works in a movie even though it seems totally nightmarish when looked at from a certain angle. She writes mysteries, he’s a doctor, people are getting murdered. He is played by William Powell, from The Thin Man movies, which maybe these resemble. I guess the bickering couple that solves mysteries is a trope but it’s one that I don’t think has had any currency in popular culture since Moonlighting, which was in my lifetime but before I would have had any awareness of it. (I would probably enjoy it up until the point where I got bored of the formula.) I thought this was great and would make a good double feature with L’Assassin Habite au 21.

History Is Made At Night, 1937, dir. Frank Borzage

This has Jean Arthur in it too, but the reason I became aware of it was Matt Zoller Seitz tweeting about it. Partly this is because the description on the Criterion site is so bare-bones it barely seems like anything, but it turns out this is because the plot is completely insane and has a ton of twists and to talk about them very quickly veers into spoiler territory. It is, in brief, a love story. The first totally insane in it is the handsome male lead does the “drawing a ventriloquist puppet on his hand” thing and the woman’s totally on board. An element that doesn’t spoil the plot, but does seem somewhat incongruent with the tone, is there’s a French chef character for a comic relief. It’s really good. I’m pointing out the lightest element but the story’s villain is believably sociopathic.

Secrets (1933) dir Frank Borzage

Not nearly as cool or good. While History Is Made At Night feels like a cohesive story that’s just pretty crazy, this one feels divided into acts that have nothing in common with each other. First act is romance, between a rich man’s daughter and his banker. They run away together. I’m basically unsure of when this movie takes place timewise, the rich lady is wearing massive layered gowns I know would’ve been out of fashion by 1933. The second act is a western where they make a home together and have to fight off bandits! But the action is shot in a a pretty disinterested manner. Third act, I’m pretty on edge and bored, but the banker is now the governor of California and is having an affair with another woman, and they’re at a party together, and then the ending feels epilogue style as they’re both old as hell and they have fully-grown children and they’re talking about how they’re taking their leave of the kids to discuss their secrets. Female lead is Mary Pickford in her final film role. I guess this is a remake of a silent film, which was itself based on a play. Yeah this movie sucks basically.

Bitter Moon (1992) dir. Roman Polanski

Sure, I’ll watch a sex criminal’s erotic thriller that’s way too long. Hugh Grant is a married guy on a boat who has a French dude talk about all the sex he and his wife have because he knows Hugh Grant wants to fuck his hot wife. Said wife is played by Emmanuelle Seigner, Roman Polanski’s actual wife since 1989. This is a bad movie by pretty much any metric. It kinda feels like the social function of erotic thrillers is not to be a more socially-acceptable form of pornography, but rather to be pervy enough to remind the audience why you shouldn’t talk about sex publicly and have that be your whole thing. The French, of course, misunderstand this.

The Burglar (1957) dir. Paul Wendkos

Another noir, written by David Goodis. This one is a little formulaic, in terms of what you think of crime movies as being “about.” A burglar, who learned the trade from his adopted father, works with that man’s daughter to commit heists. His gang doesn’t like her. Once the two of them are separated, a corrupt cop seeking to steal a burgled necklace for himself tries to pursue a relationship with her as a means to an end, while a woman allied with him works on the burglar. A drive to New Jersey gets stopped by cops, violence quickly escalates to make the situation more dire. Members of the gang die. Not a bad movie but by no means essential.

My Brother’s Wedding (1983) dir. Charles Burnett

Criterion Channel removed the paywall for a bunch of Black-made independent films, this is one of them, Burnett’s follow-up to Killer Of Sheep. Seemingly starring non-professional actors, it’s about the conflict a guy feels as his brother is planning to get married to a rich woman he resents, and the loyalty he feels to a guy who just got out of prison who everybody hates. The main character is a good dude who wants to help out this pretty dangerous friend the best he can. The film captures his pride and resentment.

Dial M For Murder (1954) dir. Alfred Hitchcock

A few iconic-seeming shots of Grace Kelly in the role of a Hitchcock blonde, i.e. her standing at a phone while someone looms behind her about to choke her, and later standing traumatized. Suffers a bit from clearly being based on a play, with a ton of dialogue, particularly in the second act. The first act is able to provide this very particular type of satisfaction, where someone outlines a “perfect crime” in dialogue and then we see it play out and it falls apart and happens completely differently. It’s funny the criminal gives themselves away due to mistaking one key for another, because this sort of structure really does feel like a key fitting into a lock, things perfectly designed for one another, parceled out at the right time.

[rosecorcoranwrites]

Thoughts on Twists

Every story ever told can be broken down into three parts. The beginning. The middle. And the twist!

—Goosebumps (2015)

Jordan Peele’s Us and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village Spoilers ahead, so read with caution!

There's something about a good plot twist: the shock, the awe, the feeling of having your world turned upside down. A good twist might make you see a character in a new light, or rethink everything you thought you knew about the setting. A bad twist, on the other hand, can ruin an otherwise decent story. Bad twists feel cheap and stupid, and make what might have been good, even great stories into muddled and unbelievable messes. So what makes a twist good or bad?

First, some preliminaries: what is a twist? Although we all use the phrase "twists and turns", I submit that a plot twist is a little different than a plot turn. A turn might be defined as the plot taking a completely unexpected direction, like "Wow! Who would have thought that guy would end up becoming the villain!". On the other hand, a twist is when we learn an unexpected fact about the world or a character that had been there, secretly, all along: "Wow! Who would have thought that guy was the villain the whole time!".

Since we're on the subject, it should be noted that twist villains are not the only type of twist there is. Nor are twist endings, the quote from Goosebumps notwithstanding. Though twists tend to occur towards the latter part of narratives, they can be sprinkled throughout. I would love to give some examples of this, but one of the problems with talking about good twists is that you don't want to give them away, and talking about them almost invariably does just that.

Obviously, a twist ought to be unpredictable, but a predictable twist does not make a bad story. Erased, which is one of four perfect stories in existence, has a twist you can see coming from a mile away, and yet it remains perfect. Why? First, because the story doesn't hinge on the twist, for one thing; it's cat and mouse, so it's okay if we know who the cat is. Second, a twist that is predictable isn't really a twist. I mean, it is but it isn't; it's one of those weird gray areas of trying to be the thing, but failing. But that's okay. A failed attempt at being a twist is, in my mind, not the same thing as a properly executed but just plain bad twist. But maybe we're getting into the weeds a bit.

I would say that a bad twist is any twist that is not a good twist, and a good twist follows certain rules: it must be believable; it must make sense in retrospect; and, for double twists, the second one must make the story better as a whole. Basically, good twists are satisfying, and bad twists aren't, usually because they break one of the three rules.

Rule 1: A twist must be believable!

By this, I mean believable in whatever world the writer has set up. If supernatural elements are established, or at least hinted at, a supernatural twist is fine. If, however, there is not one hint or peep of the supernatural throughout the story, but it turns out that the killer is a wizard, or an alien, or a ghost, it's awful. Sure, it's unexpected, but in the dumbest way possible. Good twists should be like slight-of-hand; the audience should delight at being fooled. Unbelievable twists feel more like being lied to by someone who's really bad at lying. They feel like an insult.

And don't think that introducing random supernatural elements into a story is the only way to be unbelievable. Sometimes, making a "real world" twist can feel just as unrealistic. I'll say as little as I can, because it's still less than a year old, but I think that Jordan Peele's Us pulls this. I was really excited for that movie when I saw the trailers, and then I read the synopsis and got even more excited, because I hoped that he would try a certain twist. And he did, and I think it's brilliant! But he went for another twist as well (the one that occurs first in the film, actually), which kind of ruins the whole movie. Why? Because that first twist is logistically, financially, geographically, and hereditarily unbelievable (in particular, (SPOILER, obviously): it's idiotic that the child doppelgängers are the offspring of the cloned parents, and not clones of the normal kids. Even if the clone parents had sex at the exact same time as the normal parents, the sperm and egg that happen to unite would be totally random, even accepting the ridiculous idea that the mother clone would ovulate at the same time as the normal mother. Never mind the rest of the absurdity of a vast government(?) clone experiment that just leaves an unlocked exit in a beachside funhouse). It took what could have been a great movie and made it seem fake and silly. I know I wrote a whole post about not being harsh on the plot holes in horror movies, but this particular twist is based on real things in the real world, not monsters or spirits or what have you (and seriously, a mysterious, ever-changing-yet-always-present carnival funhouse that inexplicable spits out doppelgängers from time to time is way scarier than a poorly run scientific experiment). It strains the suspension of disbelief. It's too much to take. Quite simply, I don't buy it. And a good twist should never make the audience say "I don't buy it."

Rule 2: A twist must make sense in retrospect!

The best twists are those that are staring you in the face the whole time. Once you finally learn the truth, you should be able to look back and say, "I can't believe I didn't see that coming!". As an example of such a twist is M. Night Shyamalan's The Visit. Every time I watch that movie with someone who hasn't seen it, it strikes me just how obvious the twist is, and yet no one ever guesses it.

Bad twists tend to come out of left field, or else don’t mesh with what came before. They feel like the writers are cheating by not giving you anything to go off of, but still want you to cheer for them anyway. Hans being the villain in Frozen is one such twist. His early actions in the film don’t jive with his take-the-throne scheme, specifically in that he stops Weselton’s men from killing Elsa in her palace. Why does he do this? The only reason I can think of, given that he was just going to have her executed later anyway, is so the audience wouldn’t know he’s a villain. It’s not in character and doesn't make sense when you learn what he was eventually planning.

Part of making sense in retrospect is having clues to the twist throughout the rest of the story. These might be seemingly unimportant, mundane details that the audience passes over, or they might be red herrings that seem to indicate one thing but actually mean something quite different. Either way, once the twist is revealed, those clues should become obvious. The Ace Attorney games excel at this. There was a case I was playing, and, after finally eliminating one of the two main suspects, I was stumped. If it wasn’t one of those two, who was it? I pulled up the cast list and went one by one, slowly eliminating the impossible until I was left with one improbable suspect. “No,” I thought, “it can’t be them. But, it can’t be anyone else, so…Wait!” Like puzzle pieces falling into place, everything suddenly fit. That person not only had to be the killer because no one else could, it made sense for them to be the killer given all of their past actions.

A twist that I’m not a fan of is the one in And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie. Before you grab your pitchforks and torches, let me explain for those people who have never read the book: ten strangers meet on an island and are killed, one-by-one, for their past misdeeds. While the book is entertaining and is the granddaddy of all such whittling-down-the-cast who-dun-its, the twist itself is kind of… meh. Yes, the killer’s motive makes sense, but there weren’t any clues or details one could look back on and say, “Ah! Of course! I was blind not to see it!” The little twist as to how they accomplished some of the killings was clever, but as for their identity, well… I feel like Christie could have chosen any of the ten and done the same thing with them. Nothing pointed to that one person in particular being the killer, and it made the whole twist a lot less satisfying.

Rule 3: Double twists must make the story better as a whole!

Double twists are those where one twist comes after another. The second twist can either build on the first one, or subvert it. As an author, I can tell you that double twists are a nice way of covering your bases, because even if someone sees the first twist coming, they usually won’t see the second one. As a reader, I’m crazy about double twists. And yet, people either misuse them by having them make the story worse or don’t use them to make the story better. Basically, a bad double twist is one of those that breaks rule 1 or 2. Sometimes, though, a really good double twist can salvage a single twist that breaks either of these rules, assuming that the story isn't too far gone at that point (Jordan Peele, I'm looking at you).

Let’s take at movie with a double twist, and see if it works or not: M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village. Shyamalan is quite...something, in that he soars to heights and sink to depths in terms of quality. On a scale of The Happening to The Visit (I don’t acknowledge the existence of The Last Airbender or After Earth; they're not Shyamalanian enough), I would say that The Village is just above Lady in the Water but below Glass. Don’t get me wrong, there are parts of The Village that were quite scary and interesting, but its twists? They're just not doing it for me.

SPOILERS, I guess, but this movie's been out for fifteen years, and the twists are nothing great, so, here we go: it turns out the monsters in the woods are actually villagers in suits who deter people from leaving the community, and—double twist���the movie takes place in the modern day, but the village’s inhabitants experienced loss and crime in regular society and formed their weird community in the woods in order to raise their children peacefully. This second twist was neither believable nor hinted at. For example, why do all the adults—all of whom presumably grew up in normal society—use a stilted, old-timey speech (other than to fool the audience on time period)? Also, though we know the elders have secrets they keep in black boxes, we’re never shown even a hint that these might be things from the modern era until the ending. Why not have a full color photo, or an anachronistic piece of technology? The audience would think these were goofs or sloppy filmmaking, until the reveal that it was all part of a carefully set-up twist.

I’m not a fan of the fake-monster twist either, because I’m always in favor of supernatural elements, but it’s not bad in and of itself. If it were the only twist in the film, it would be an okay movie. But that second one, well…It doesn’t make the film better—I think most people would agree it makes it worse—so it’s not a good double twist. How would I fix it? Add one more twist. The blind girl goes into the woods to get medicine, and is attacked by the murderer in a monster suit, just like in the original movie. Only this time, rather than luring him into a hole, she is saved by another creature. “Who’s that?” the audience wonders, until it rips the murderer apart with its claws and then gallops away on all fours or climbs up a tree or something, because—plot twist—there really are monsters out there in the woods! Like I said, I’m always in favor of the supernatural (Besides, the elders do say that they based the creatures off local legends). At this point, you can keep the modern-day twist or not (if you do, I would move the monster fight to after she’s coming home with the medicine). This new twist wouldn’t make it the best movie ever or anything, but it would make it a little better, a little scarier, a bit more unsettling. If the modern setting stays, this twists hits home the already-present-but-somewhat-undercut message that you can try to make a perfect, planned life, but there are still things out there you can't control. I think it would make for a more satisfying story over all.

And that, right there, is what should be at the heart of any twist (or, dare I say it, any story element): satisfying the audience. No one goes into a book or a movie or a game wanting to be lied to or cheated. We want to be dazzled, amazed, maybe even fooled but in a way that we can appreciate. We want a twist that will knock our socks off and change everything we thought we knew, while being right in front of us the whole time. But, honestly, we'll settle for a not-so-mind-blowing twist that at least satisfies our need for a good story. Heck, we'll even take a predictable twist, as long as the story itself is good. Why? Because surprising your audience is a bonus, but satisfying them is a necessity. And that is what a good twist does.

[goodticklebrain]

Q&A August: David Prosser of the Stratford Festival

Remember back when I called Austin Tichenor my Comedy Fairy Godfather? Well, the subject of today’s Q&A August interview is my Shakespeare Fairy Godfather. David Prosser is the Literary and Editorial Director at the Stratford Festival of Canada, and is also indirectly responsible for much of Good Tickle Brain’s growth and success. (Also, if he’s reading this, I would like to sincerely apologize to him for all grammatical errors in today’s post, most likely related to misplaced punctuation, the correct disposition of which I have never properly mastered.)

I met David on Twitter a scant four months after I had started Good Tickle Brain. Fresh out of the gates, with few followers or readers, I was desperately trying to get my work in front of as many eyes as possible. To that end, I went on Twitter and promptly followed everyone I could find who was remotely associated with the Stratford Festival. One of the people I stumbled upon was David, whose wonderfully dry and witty tweets immediately attracted my attention. On day, embroiled in a bit of an ongoing brouhaha with some Oxfordians, David tweeted a riff on “Duke of Earl”, rewriting the chorus as “dupes, dupes, dupes, dupes of Earl”. Never one to shy away from a song parody, I provided the rest of the lyrics. David was amused enough by my efforts that he followed me, and started retweeting my comics. I cannot tell you how much that meant to me at the time.

Later on that year, I was visiting the Stratford Festival with my family, and (of course) tweeting about it when David slid into my DMs and invited me up to the Festival offices to have tea with him before that day’s matinee. I jumped at the chance, and we spent a wonderful half an hour or so chatting in the sunshine on the Festival Theatre balcony. It was like meeting my long-lost benevolent Scottish uncle. David was not only immediately supportive and encouraging of my work, but he also began actively brainstorming ways in which to help me reach a larger audience, specifically among the theatre community. To that end he introduced me to the Shakespeare Theatre Association, which quickly became my Shakespeare family and has helped me grow and develop Good Tickle Brain into what it is today.

There is absolutely no reason why the Literary and Editorial Director of the largest classical repertory theatre in North America should have given the time of day to a random person on the internet who drew sub-par stick figures and routinely committed egregious spelling errors in her text. However, David did not hesitate to lift me up, and has been a constantly warm, supportive, and thoroughly entertaining presence in my life since then.

But I’ll let him talk now. He’s much better at it than I am. 

1. Who are you? Why Shakespeare?

Who am I indeed? Isn’t that the mystery that haunts us all? “Who’s there?” asks Barnardo in the opening words of Hamlet, and that same question echoes down through centuries of subsequent literature. Call me David. Or Prosser, David Prosser.

I was born and grew up in Scotland, where, in early childhood, I first encountered Shakespeare as the author of the “Scottish play” and didn’t realize till some time later that he’d written anything else; came to Canada in my twenties; had a fourteen-year career at a small daily newspaper, where, among other things I was the theatre critic (boo, hiss) and editor of the TV listings (zzzzzz….); then quit in order to spend more time with my wife and cats and to pursue new opportunities for financial ruin; and finally washed up on the shores of the Stratford Festival, where, under various unconvincing job titles (most latterly that of Literary and Editorial Director), I have been an in-house wordsmith for the past quarter-century.

And why Shakespeare? As a nearly dead white male myself, I have a particular affinity for the work of dead white males in general—and Shakespeare in particular has intrigued me ever since childhood, when my father (an English teacher) showed me some black-and-white slides of scenes from a staging of that Scottish play referenced above. I’m sure if I could see them now, those images would prove cheesy; at the time, though, they haunted my imagination; it wasn’t till some time later that I began to discover that there were words to go with them.

As I started to discover the actual plays, I found to my excitement that they had the mind-expanding power of dreams, in which human life is transformed into something rich and strange—an alternative universe of experience, if you like, but one that brilliantly illuminates the “real” one.

2. What moment(s) in Shakespeare always make you laugh?

Sticking with the Scottish play, I generally laugh at Macbeth’s (oops, said it) “‘Twas a rough night,” and I always smile whenever an actor has to tackle the unsayable “O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart / Cannot conceive nor name thee!” Also, I’m afraid I can never suppress a schoolboy snigger when Mountjoy, in Henry V, comes in and announces himself with the words “You know me by my habit.” I can’t remember where I heard it or read it, but someone, somewhere, made a joke about the entire English army responding with rude gestures suggestive of that habit, and I have never been able to get that out of my mind.

3. What’s a favorite Shakespearean performance anecdote?

See Mountjoy above. Also this, one of the many stories from the late Richard Monette’s memoir This Rough Magic: an autobiography “as told to,” er, well, me. Peter Ustinov was playing King Lear at the Stratford Festival in 1979; Richard was playing Edmund.

“At one performance,” Richard recalled, “Peter began, ‘We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage. . . .’ and then he dried. ‘We’ll sing . . .’ he repeated, ‘and then we’ll sing some more. Oh, we’ll laugh. . . . We’ll dance. . . . And then . . . we’ll sing some more.’ Realizing what had happened, I tried to save him by coming in early with my line: ‘Take them away.’ He regarded me with mild curiosity, then waved me away with his hand—'Foof, foof, foof’—and began the whole speech over again, determined to say it all.”

4. What’s one of the more unusual Shakespearean interpretations you’ve either seen or would like to see?

In 1998, or thereabouts, at a theatre festival in Quebec City, I saw a production of The Tempest directed by Robert Lepage. More precisely, it was La Tempête, a translation into French by Normand Chaurette. What was novel about it were the settings, which were computer-created projections—but not just flat background images. The audience wore polarized 3D glasses throughout, which created the illusion of a three-dimensional landscape and objects (such as the royal ship) that seemed to come floating out into the auditorium. It was a stunning effect, perfectly suited to the magical powers referenced in the play, and it had a huge effect on me.

5. What’s one of your favorite Shakespearean “hidden gems”?

An obvious one, obviously, but it’s the “wretched strangers” speech from Sir Thomas More.

6. What passages from Shakespeare have stayed with you?

I am constantly on the alert for opportunities to work any of the following into my conversation:

“Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul, / And there I see such black and grainèd spots / As will not leave their tinct.”

“I’ll no pullet sperm in my brewage.” (Have to be careful about that one when placing an order in a bar or restaurant, though, or the server might spit in my Sauvignon.)

“For this relief much thanks.” (Always apt in washrooms.)

More seriously, I always get a wave of nostalgia for the homeland when I hear Macbeth say, “Light thickens, and the crow makes wing to the rooky wood.” For some reason that line evokes Scotland for me so strongly for me that I feel sure Shakespeare must have toured there when the plague was on in London.

7. What Shakespeare plays have changed for you?

When I was an undergraduate, a professor told me that Titus Andronicus was an absolutely dreadful play, what could Shakespeare have been thinking; and for many years I believed her. Then I actually read it, and thought, wow.

8. What Shakespearean character or characters do you identify the most with?

Wow, that is a question, isn’t it? Erm, well…. Oh, I don’t know: it might be…. Or, no, maybe not. No, shoot, I just can’t make up my mind. Sorry, I know I’m procrastinating, but I’m going to have to set this aside for a while, while I think on it more precisely. Maybe get a bit of sea air to clear my mind….

Okay, that’s better. I’d like to think it maybe would be Benedick, but I’m very much afraid it might be Falstaff. Or King John.

Actually, a few years ago, I really identified with the King of France, but, lacking a Helena, I had surgery for it, and I’m fine now.

9. Where can we find out more about you? Are there any projects/events you would like us to check out?

I pop up from time to time on Facebook (though not Instagram, which I’ve never seen the point of). Occasionally I make snarky remarks on Twitter. Otherwise, I can sometimes be found in the lobby of the Festival Theatre, giving Lobby Talks before selected performances. C’mon down! They’re free!

(Back to Mya) Thanks so much to David for taking the time to answer my questions! If you can, pick up a copy of former Stratford Festival artistic director Richard Monette’s memoir, This Rough Magic, which David worked on. It’s a wonderful read.

COMING THURSDAY: My other self, my counsel’s consistory, my pocket dramaturg!

[siren-theories]

Do Sirens have body hair?

TL, DR.: Females seem to consistently not have body hair, for males it is more complicated and seems to be a genetic choice between having body hair or facial hair. 

All images are taken from the PG-13 show Siren on Freeform. 

When I first saw the question by the very talented @imaginejolls (go read their Siren fanfic on Ao3 it is awesome) my initial answer would have been an (overconfident) "of course they do have body hair". This was based on a simple assumption: 

Sirens are biologically very close to humans, so close in fact that they can mate with humans and produce fertile offspring. This is a big deal as it means that Sirens are more closely related to humans than donkeys are to horses or zebras are to horses (different species that can produce infertile offspring with each other). So therefore it stands to reason that in everything (except for those things the show explicitly tells us are different) Sirens are generally replicating the human baseline. We see this for example with their diets - while they prefer fish, they are biologically speaking omnivores (Cami and Ryn for example ate fruit and digested it with no problem at all). So based on that I would have confidently claimed that they would have body hair.

I soon however realized that a more measured approach needs to be taken. For example, while things work the same or may even look the same on the outside there are several cases in the show where they are not the same. Take for example the reproductive system of the mermaids, which definitely is not human in structure even though it has human elements, works like a human reproductive system and is compatible with a human reproductive system. Another example of "similar looking, same function but different" would be the bones and muscles of our mermaids which are way denser and stronger than their human equivalents. So while I still think the general argument that they are very close to humans is a correct one there needs to be a case-by-case study being done to see if we can find evidence in the show itself for questions such as the one that is being posed here. 

Let's dive deep into the visual evidence of the show for body hair. I apologize in advance if pictures of armpits and male chests are not your thing. 

Part A: Females

We certainly never see as much as a hint of body hair on Ryn or any other female mermaid. The most exposed we see Ryn is in a backshot (Episode 102), her undressing on the boat (in 201) and the transformation scene in 210. She does not have any visible body hair in those scenes.

Ryn in 102 - notice the abscence of any body hair, especially in the armpit area.

Ryn in 201. At this time she has spent enough time out of the water that we would expect her to exhibit some signs of body hair.

What about the lower body areas? Ryn's legs are smooth and hairless.

Ryn’s (and Maddie’s)  legs from 209 (there also are plenty of leg shots in 205 when she was on land a lot longer but these suffer from bad lighting or lack of focus. Suffice to say they too do not depict any body hair).

Now it might be the case that Ryn decided to adopt human customs and started shaving her armpits and legs. I highly doubt this to be the case though as Ryn is quite possibly the person most comfortable with her body on the show. Everytime her body comes up in conversation she is very proud of it (except when one compares it to sharks). There is no indication at all that she would conform to human beauty standards or even feels the need to change anything about her body. After all, if she does not care a lot about what clothes she wears what are the odds that she suddenly cares about how much (hypothetical) body hair she is showing? And I cannot imagine any situation in Season 1 where Ben or Maddie or Helen would have decided to teach Ryn how to shave her body hair, nor can I imagine any situation where something this intimate and something this unimportant to the issues facing our protagonists in those episodes would even have been discussed. Considering Ryn reacted almost violently to slight pressure on her arm during an attempt by Ben to measure blood pressure in episode 103 it seems highly unlikely anybody would have even tried bringing a razor blade near her body.

Therefore, it seems most likely that Ryn at no point shaved her body hair and therefore it seems most likely she never had any body hair on her legs or armpits in the first place.

Due to this not being some HBO fleshfest no visual evidence exists for the genital areas (and thank god for that because that would not fit the tone of this show or the respect with which the show treats its characters). However I find it very unlikely that Ryn or other female sirens would have body hair in the genital area if their entire body is missing body hair elsewhere. Body hair in that particular area would also cause problems with transformation as said area is covered by layers of additional flesh and muscle in the water form. Having hair covered by flesh and muscle is not a good thing biologically speaking (if you want a horror show google "ingrown hair"). Given how Ryn's skin is also more insulating than human skin as shown in 208 there would not be a need to have body hair in the first place.

Furthermore, we have no indication that for the females forming body hair is even an option to form during their transformation.

Ryn's immediate post-transformation body in 210 shows no sign of any body hair (neatly sidestepping the whole ingrown hair issues).

The same seems to be true for the other female sirens who never exhibit any sign of body hair, not even when in states of light dress or undress (various scenes in Helen's shop or in the forest from the first half of Season 2 come to mind.)

Convincing any of those apex predators to start shaving seems out of character for any of the humans that interacted with them (they had a lot more important things to do) and in any case I cannot imagine that any attempt to convince an apex predator to let a sharp blade come anywhere near vulnerable body areas would have gone over well. In fact, it would have been downright stupid and suicidal to even attempt such a thing.

Therefore I have no other option but to conclude that female Sirens do not have body hair in human form.

Part B: Males

But what about the Males? After all, body hair does differ in humans as well according to their respective sex. 

Frank's body exhibits facial hair but otherwise is devoid of body hair, as seen in 205 before he jumps into the water.

This is also several days after his first transition, so if he has the capacity to grow body hair in those areas we would expect it to be shown there. As there definitely is nobody who has ever taught Frank to shave his body I would therefore argue male Sirens also have no body hair.

So case closed. No body hair whatsoever.

And then it got complicated, because there is one male Siren who constantly exhibits body hair.

Levi in Episode 108 (the first time he comes on land) has chest chair in human form. We get a closeup of his chest in Episode 201 when Ben drains the fluid from his lungs, this also shows clear chest hair despite him only having transformed a short time ago.

Levi in 108 and 201. 

However Levi is also an aberration in that he has no facial hair at all (and does not grow any during his time on land) but has body hair at the time of his transformation. Truth be told I do not know how to classify Levi. Is he the one exception that prove the rule? Is he the rare case where the recessive genes (body hair) triumph over the dominant genes (no body hair) in the males? Or did the writers and directors forget to be consistent here?

Assuming that Levi is not special in the genetic category the conclusion must be that for male Sirens you either have facial hair but no body hair (Frank) or you have body hair but no facial hair (Levi).

I tried to get a tiebreaker in the form of the walking sperm bank of Episode 214 but the lightning in his scenes prevented me from getitng any good evidence either way. I also wish I had more than two examples to base this analysis on - I am in general much less certain when it comes to the males than when it comes to the females as we have many more examples of the former than the latter. 

So after examining all visual evidence and the case for and against body hair, I have to conclude that my earlier assumption of them having body hair was wrong for the females and at least partly wrong for the males. It seems females have no body hair at all and males seem to either have facial hair or body hair - but not both.

Thank you for reading this long post about a (seemingly) trivial issue. I look forward to any criticism or additional information you might have, feel free to drop them via reply or message anytime.

TL, DR.: Females seem to consistently not have body hair, for males it is more complicated and seems to be a genetic choice between having body hair or facial hair.

(Oh and here is an imgur link for bigger versions of the pictures in case you have trouble viewing them in the low resolution I used for the article) 

[justjessame]

Double Shot Chapter 27

I was stir crazy and George knew it. He threw me a bone, arguing Davey down and backing me in my decision to return to work. He wouldn’t agree to me staying in my apartment alone, but small victories, right?

Keli had The Little Drip running like clockwork, but she pretended she missed me to make me feel better. “Bout time you showed up for work,” she muttered, smirk on her face as she nudged me with her hip, eyes glancing from the clipboard to the supplies and back to me. “How are you doing?”

I shrugged, looking around the coffee shop, seeing the pastry case filled reminded me of George stepping up to bat for me, but all I could think about was how much I missed the hustle and bustle, AND my favorite feisty four. Jensen’s table was bare, no black suit jacket flashed into my path, Pooch’s bright smile wasn’t peeking out from a corner, and Cougar wasn’t perched anywhere I could see him. Sighing, I begged off inspecting the main shop, telling Keli and the others that I’d be in the office going over the books.

Ensconced in my office, the peace that once would have overtaken me, the shop laptop, the scarred top of the desk, the cramped space, all of it would have just worked somehow to make me feel in control of my world wasn’t present. A quiet knock and I let out the huff of hair that wasn’t quite a sigh, but wasn’t quite a simple exhale.

“Come in,” I offered, expecting one of the baristas, or an uncle, but instead got Walter. Great. “Now get out.” I woke up the laptop and pulled the stack of paperwork that Keli had carefully piled and sorted for me closer. The door closed, but I knew he was inside of it, instead of outside. Damn it. ���Seriously?” This time there could be no mistaking the sigh. “What, aside from the literal unluckiness of my actual birth, did I fucking do to deserve this?” I gestured to the man who gave me my last name and theoretically part of my genetic makeup.

“Charlotte,” he’d taken the chair that Clay had sat in before, and I flinched at the memory. “Why must you make every single meeting between us awkward or-” he sighed and unbuttoned his suit jacket, forcing me to make peace with the fact that he was settling in for a visit of some length. “What do you know about this Clay you’ve been seeing?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to have the ‘talk’ with me, Walter?” A snort left me and he glared. “You missed that boat by YEARS.” I was almost impressed by how narrow his eyes could go without shutting. “I guess that Matthew and Alex have been whispering sweet horrors in your ears, and you, being my-” I considered the best adjective for whatever Walter was roleplaying as and came up empty handed. “I’m sorry, Walter, what precisely are you in this particular scenario?”

“Charlotte, regardless of what your-” was he really pursing his lips like a displeased auntie? “Uncles have inferred about me, I am your-”

“Jesus, are you going to mangle a Star Wars quote?” I shook my head and sighed dramatically. “You, Walter Ramble, are my biological sperm donor, nothing more, nothing less.” I sat back in my chair and studied him with a growing smirk. “You really think that my memory doesn’t go back too far, or far enough, do you?” He was staring with some interest at me and my smirk grew in smugness. “I was five, she’d worked so damn hard on that dinner, wanting it to be special to make it so fucking perfect for you.” My head fell to one side, remembering how my mom had fussed over my dress and hair, making me look like a miniature of her, like the miniature house/mailbox and my dollhouse. Make-believe all the way, but she wanted so fucking badly for it to be real. “And you came in, sneering at her, and me, and then, like you’d wanted to since I imagine the first moment you got your little title, you told her EXACTLY how you felt about her. And me. And I remember every fucking moment.”

He flinched, and paled slightly, and I watched his Adam’s apple bob. Clearly this meeting wasn’t going the way he’d hoped. “Charlotte, when a relationship is ending-”

I laughed, harsh and humorless. “Ending? It never should have begun, you told her how she REPULSED you, how I repelled you.” I sighed, and shook my head. “Get out, leave me alone, keep Clay’s name out of your mouth and give me a wide berth, Walter.”

“Do you know what happened in Bolivia?” I’d refocused on the stack of papers and I didn’t look up from them, since I DID know what happened in Bolivia.

“Yep,” I grabbed a highlighter from the cup I kept nearby and started marking the lines that I’d be inputting first.

“I don’t mean the explosion that supposedly killed his team, Charlotte,” I didn’t stop marking my work, since I thought I knew what he was playing at. Their efforts to get back to the United States, their back channels, like it mattered? “Him and that woman he’s got along burned down a motel.” I hesitated, Asha, or Aisha wasn’t it? “That’s extreme foreplay isn’t it? Then again, arson seems in their wheelhouse.”

“This again?” I glanced up and saw that Walter was studying me. “Honestly, it’s like all of you are on repeat. I have NO idea what happened to Matthew and Alex’s building, and the insinuations are getting stale. Nice try with the added spice about Clay’s sexual escapades from the past.”

“Past?” He raised an eyebrow and I worried that it was a family trait. “Charlotte, isn’t she with him now? And from my understanding, he was screwing her right up until they arrived in our little town, she shot the computer nerd one and it didn’t seem to sour their fervor.” Jensen? She shot Jensen and he kept her around? “Of course, from what I’ve heard, Clay seems to attract the less than stable types.” His eyes were boring into mine and I felt a twist inside of me at his implications. “He’s been shot and one attempted to blow him up.”

“Is there a point to this?” My mouth was dry so my voice came out quieter than I’d wanted it to. “I mean, if nothing else, I should be thanking him for bringing us closer together, Walter. After all, I’ve seen more of you in the past few months than I have since I was five years old.”

“Again, Charlotte, regardless of what you’ve been told by-” his nostrils flared at the mere thought of Davey and George. “I’m your father, I don’t want to see you hurt or worse, made a fool of in front of the entire town.”

“Maybe you and Mom weren’t so different after all,” I offered as he finally stood up, buttoning his suit jacket, and his eyes meeting me in astonishment. “Image is everything, isn’t it?”

[weeklyhumorist]

BOOK EXCERPT: Slouchers: The Novelization

The following is an excerpt from Slouchers: The Novelization, a book based on the 1992 Gen-X movie by the same name.

It’s being re-published for the first time since 1992 and is available here, among other stores:

    Excerpt from

Slouchers: The Novelization

    “Did you guys know R2D2 and C3PO were designed by the same inventor?” announces Cody. “But that he was bi-polar? So each robot represents a different emotional side to his personality?”

“Watched Jaws again last night,” says a voice from the pitched roof, changing the subject.

It is Wes.

Willow’s camera pans upwards, past the NO LOITERING SIGN. Wes likes to sit on roofs. Also, he is gay, which can only make Willow’s documentary that much more interesting—and current. Homosexuals have been in the news recently because they are “coming out of the closet,” which means they are announcing to their families they are “homosexuals.”

This has never before happened in the history of “homosexuality,” which most likely goes back years, if not decades.

“I believe that the entire premise of Jaws was based on the Kennedy assassination,” he finishes.

When Willow first met him, a week ago, Wes had already been on the roof for a month. He’s in it for the long haul!

“Here we go,” says Cody. He rolls his eyes in mock exasperation. He doesn’t have time for any of this.

Actually, he does.

All he has, really, is time.

The video store doesn’t open for another hour. It will then close one hour beyond that.

Cody likes to earn extra dough by participating in the bootleg cassette and video black market: celebrity sex tapes, illegal rock concert movies, and hours upon hours of hilarious bloopers from the recently released Silence of the Lambs, including a long scene in which the lotion is not properly placed in the basket.

Wes—up on the roof—also has nothing but time. He’s been kicked out of his home and he intends to stay up on the slanted roof until his parents, who just don’t understand, eventually visit him and profusely apologize.

Like all parents in movies, they do not understand “homosexuals.”

But Wes is a Gen X’er.   And Gen X’ers take matters into their own hands!

The term “Gen X” was coined in 1991 by writer and “Baby Boomer” Douglas Coupland.   “Baby Boomer” is another important sociological term, this one coined years ago by a writer from the “Greatest Generation.”   Before that, no generations—at least with any marketable names—ever existed.   That’s just the way it was.

And this is the way it is now …

“Okay,” says Wes, from the roof, encouraged. “So listen to this: the shark is Oswald, right? The first woman to be killed—the swimmer in the ocean— that would represent Kennedy, okay? The rest of the dead would be the soldiers in Vietnam, yeah?” Wes looks down at Willow. “Isn’t the memory card full? You’ve been shooting on your Fuji DS-100 digicam ten minutes already, right?”

“Not yet,” answers Willow. “Few more minutes! Show the entire universe what you’re made of!”

It’s interesting that the Kennedy assassination was just mentioned. One of Willow’s all-time cinematic influences—more so than even Truffaut, whom she has yet to see—is the herky-jerky camera movements from the Zapruder Film, so influential on MTV’s documentarian, vérité style: exciting, loose, impulsive.

Volatile.

Standing gingerly, and making sure his left foot is planted properly so as to not fall off the roof, Wes spreads his arms wide. “Welcome to our reality! We’ve just graduated from college. And we have no jobs. Or prospects! Fuck it! Down the up elevator!”

As if to prove his point, Wes opens his graduation robe wide and dips his head so that his mortar board can be seen. It’s badly stained with alcoholic drinks. Written in white electrical tape across it is “NOW! WHAT?!”

Beneath his robe, Wes wears a ripped T-shirt recently purchased from Old Navy. He would have ripped it himself, in all the right places, but he figured he’d just let the Chinese workers do it for him.

“We call it our maxi pad,” announces Topper to the world. “Our den of equality. Here, anybody is free to be a sloucher!”

“And proud of it,” Cody semi-screams.

Cody slumbers over to the pay phone. He’s holding a half-eaten slice of convenience store pizza and a stack of quarters. He places the receiver to his ear. He’s been on hold forever with KQMV, the grunge radio station. He wants them— no, needs them—to play “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

It’s been fifteen minutes.

Fuck it.   On to something new.   He hangs up. Inserts quarters. He dials 1-900-DAY-DREA.

An operator answers. “1-900-DAYDREAM. How may I assist you to daydream today?”

“I need a daydream please,” says Cody.   He’d think of one himself but he’s too lazy.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Interests?”

“Films. Pop culture. Sci-Fi. Um …”  He pauses. What else?  “Fantasy, I guess? Horror. That’s about it. Oh, equal rights for … everyone, I guess, too?”

The operator is silent. She’s thinking. What would a twenty-three year old with these particular interests daydream about?

“I think I have it,” she eventually says. “You’re a famous filmmaker. And you’re walking into the premiere of your new blockbuster. It’s all about monsters.”

“I daydreamed that the other day. Another operator gave it to me.”

“Hmmmm. Then let’s try this one. You’re attending a party with many beautiful women—do you like women?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. A bevvy of beautiful women are attending a party and you are invited. Maybe you had a crush on a few in high school. Typically in these sorts of social situations, you’re shy, you don’t say much. Not that you can’t. It’s just that you don’t want to. But you decide that this party will be different. You walk in confidently. All heads turn. You loudly announce that you have a few conspiracy theories about the movie The Shining. There’s a gasp. What a way to enter a party! The women are stunned! They’ve never seen or heard anything like this!”

“Oooh, that’s good,” says Cody. “Very good, yes! I like that!”

“Before long, the most beautiful women are in the bedroom, listening to all of your fascinating, original theories on The Shining.”

“Ooooh.”

“You have so many Stanley Kubrick theories, like how The Overlook’s distinctive, hexagonally-patterned carpeting depicts the chemical compound for the soon-to-be invented crack cocaine. The girls are blown away. They’re in heaven. You sit back on the bed, your arms behind your head, and you’re nodding, as if to say: Yeah. No big deal. I just knew you would dig my theories. Whatever!”

“Wow.”

“And that is your daydream for today.”

“Do I sleep with them?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to insert another $1.25 in quarters to find out.”

Cody hangs up.

Harsh realm. 

But cool. He can handle the rest of the daydream himself. He has enough to work with—barely, but enough. He takes a bite out of his pizza, a huge one. He places the slice back down on to the dirty, metallic surface within the phone booth. It’ll be safe until he returns in ten minutes. He blades over to the curb, mouth stuffed, and sinks down with a loud sigh. His energy for the day is sapped.

But he has some daydreaming to do …

“Hey, everyone!” says Topper, skateboarding past Cody, “how much realistically to run into the Convenience Mart right now, buck naked, and then eat a roller dog and then jet right back out? How much realistically would it take for you to do that? Seriously? Realistically?”

“Twenty,” says Jack Jack.

“Fifteen,” says Wes.

“I’d do it for nothin’,” says Royce, chewing languidly on a straw. “Fuck it. I’d do anything for free. I’m crazy like that!”

Royce smokes his Camels “straight.” Kicked out of the Army after forcing the citizens of Baghdad to memorize at gunpoint the lyrics to R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts”, he’s back in Seattle and living it up in the parking lot. Royce is the badass of the bunch, the one with the streetwise panache. The one who wears the Army fatigues and a hospital bracelet that’s never been explained but is now fraying. The bracelet is tie-dyed.

Sipping on a 40, Royce has just returned from yet another visit to the plasma bank. His purpose this time was to pay for all the personal lubrication at the Convenience Mart that will assist him in making a deposit at the sperm bank so that he can earn enough money for all the Ring Dings and tall cans of 40 he so desperately craves at the Convenience Mart.

It’s the perfect hustle.

“Then why don’t you?”  Royce shrugs. He adjusts his camouflage Army jacket. He fiddles with his plastic hospital bracelet.

“Juss don’t feel like it, is all,” he says. “Fuck it. Fuck everything!”  “Hey, guys,” asks Topper. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure,” says Wes from the roof.

“So when you’re sitting in a pool and you feel something that ain’t cool, does it have to be diarrhea?”

Wes laughs. He’s heard this before. And yet it never grows tiresome.

Willow turns off her digital video cam by hitting the large, red STOP button.

“You guys,” announces Willow. “Incredible! Amazing! MTV will love this! You guys are the best! Just acting like yourselves, you’re stars! The world will soon know you all!”

“When’s the contest deadline?” asks Wes, sitting back down on the roof’s slope, making room for his graduation robe to bloom out like a red cloud within a heroin syringe. “When do you have to mail this in?”

Leave it to the homosexual character to be overly concerned about logistics!

“One week from today,” answers Willow. “At exactly this time. They’ll pick a winner, live on the air, for their Grunge Voice of a Generation! I’m going to be cutting it close! But I must get this right, I just have to! There are no second chances!”

“And then you’ll be MTV’s first Grunge Veejay!” says Topper, skateboarding past, sipping on a mug of locally crafted Hefferveisen brew, the latest hops “craze.”

There are so many breweries in this Northwest city that you can practically smell yeast in the air!

Willow prays it’s yeast.

“And we can all move into your mansion. And do nothing all day, every day,” exclaims Topper.

“Do?” asks Jack Jack. “More like yabba-dabba-don’t!”

“I thought you wanted to be the first skateboarder to perform a 360-inward-double-heel flip in slow motion on a Doritos TV ad,” says Wes.

Topper’s face flushes. That is, indeed, his dream. But when someone else says it, it just sounds too insurmountable for anyone to actually achieve …

“Maybe,” he mumbles. “I don’t know. You know, maybe.”

“I don’t want to be MTV’s first grunge veejay,” says Willow. “I want to be a filmmaker. I want to capture my generation on expensive VHS tape.”

“But can we still move into your mansion? And do nothing all day, every day?” asks Topper. “When you get famous?”

“We do that anyway,” says Wes from above. “All day, every day. Nothing.”

“Right. But we can then do it inside,” says Topper. “And not outside. Where it rains.”

“Rain is nothing but a conceit,” announces Wes.

“Of what?”

“Of reality,” says Wes. “We’re living within a giant computer.”

“Like Tron?” asks Topper, reaching for another nacho and dipping it into a cardboard container of liquid cheese. “Greed is good. Nachos are better.”

“Can you imagine?” asks Topper. “We’re nothing more than images and pictures inside a huge Tandy TRS-80 in the sky?”

“Can’t even,” says Cody, although it’s hard to tell if he’s being sarcastic.  It’s his second language.

“Being programmed by a Radio Shack employee to do anything the guy wants,” says Topper.

“So you’re saying that if my programmer wants me to spit, then he would just have me spit?” asks Jack Jack.

He spits.

“Yes.”

“But what if my programmer does not want me to spit and yet I want to spit?”

Jack Jack goes to spit but stops himself at the last moment.

“Then he never wanted you to spit,” says Cody. “He didn’t want you to spit from the beginning.”

Jack Jack spits.

“I guess he did want you to spit. So he just had you do it.”

Jack Jack spits. “Wanted you to spit.”

Jack Jack goes to spit, stops himself.

“Didn’t want you to spit.”

“So what you’re saying,” says Jack Jack, “is that I have zero sovereignty over my own destiny?”

“You vill obey the programmer’s wishes or zelse!” says Wes, from the roof, in the hilarious voice of Sergeant Schultz from Hogan’s Heroes.

“All this with an 8-bit Radio Shack computer,” says Topper. “Imagine the possibilities with a 16-bit!”

“But if we all are truly and really programmed,” says Spooner to Wes, “would this mean you were programmed to be gay?”

“Wouldn’t want it any other way,” says Wes, now in his own voice.

“I’m a Pepper, he’s a Pepper, she’s a Pepper, wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper, too?” sings Spooner, mimicking the 1970s Dr. Pepper commercial he sings whenever something even halfway earnest is said in conversation.

The Greatest Generation had their earnestness.

The Gen X’ers have something far better: studied insouciance.

Something that actually matters.

“You might be a Pepper but crass materialism will get you nowhere,” declares Cody, sipping from a plastic bottle of OK Cola. He is obsessed with this drink, as are all twenty-somethings.

The Greatest Generation had their World War II.

The Gen X’ers have something far better: the Cola Wars.

“Time to hit the grindstone,” declares Willow, as she clips the digicam onto a belt-loop of her factory-aged work jeans, just next to her large pink beeper. “Can’t just chat all day!”

“You’ll know where to find us,” Wes announces from behind her, still on the roof. “Out here, in our little slice of paved heaven.”

Cody is at the curb. He’s done with his daydream.

He didn’t end up sleeping with any of the beautiful women after talking about conspiracy theories from The Shining but he did manage to receive oral pleasure.

So, really, the daydream could have been a hell of a lot worse.

“Yeah, ain’t going nowhere,” agrees Topper, still on top of the overturned trash can. “Because there ain’t nowhere to go.”

“Turtle and the hare,” says Jack Jack. “Turtle and the hare.”

“Prozac and the booze,” says Wes. “Prozac and the booze.”

“Echoing that,” says Cody, mouth full of cheap ’za, some of which falls to the concrete below. “Man, remember when twenty-two felt old?! Now it don’t feel like nothin’!”

“Rimbaud did he best work before twenty,” says Spooner. “Maybe we’re doomed.”

He lazily scratches at his club hand-stamp. It is in the shape of Bart Simpson wearing unlaced combat boots. Cody is infamous for being too cool to chew; and when he’s truly feeling the grunge spirit—too lazy to even breathe—he’ll wear a working sleep apnea mask fashioned for the daytime. The mask is flanneled.

“It’s the nineties,” Jack Jack says, as way of explanation. “It’s the motherfuckin’ nineties.”

“See ya soon, boys,” says Willow, leaving the parking lot and this amazing conversation behind.

She enters a record store …

  BOOK EXCERPT: Slouchers: The Novelization was originally published on Weekly Humorist

[the-master-cylinder]

SUMMARY Beautiful bookseller Virginia (Jenny Wright) fosters a growing interest in the works of reclusive novelist Malcolm Brand (Randall William Cook). After much fruitless searching, Virginia finally receives a package containing Brand’s recent book, “I, Madman,” about a deranged doctor spurned by a beautiful woman. But, as Virginia devours Brand’s latest offering, she begins to have chilling visions of characters from the book — and the line between fiction and reality grows terrifyingly thin.

DEVELOPMENT/PRODUCTION This is David Chaskin’s second horror film for distributor Trans World Entertainment; the first, The Curse, directed by actor David Keith. Moshe Diamant, head of Trans World, approached Chaskin with his concept for I, Madman (a.k.a. Hardcover) while The Curse was in postproduction. Chaskin wrote two drafts of the screenplay and Rafael Eisenman was brought in to produce. Takacs had been offered many projects in the wake of The Gate’s success, but chose I, Madman. “It was the most interesting script I read,” Takacs says. “I was really attracted by the idea of experiencing danger in a safe environment. There’s a cozy feeling you get when you sit down to read a good horror story. You say, ‘This is gonna be good,’ like watching an old Twilight Zone episode. There’s a certain feeling of familiarity, but then the story goes more and more into left field. It’s the power of imagination. Does it really matter that you’re frightened in your dreams? Is it real because it felt real to you?”

Both Chaskin and Eisenman have high praise for Takacs. “It was not a typical director-producer relationship,” marvels Eisenman. “It was almost like a student film-not in the level of the production, but in the spirit of the filmmaking.”

“There is no comparison for me between The Curse and I, Madman,” Chaskin remarks. “I, Madman was a delight. I was involved from the beginning right through postproduction. The project had a guiding intelligence behind it, from the director, the producers and the actors. They all shared the same creative sense about the film.”

Eisenman’s background includes directing commercials and music videos, so he is sympathetic to the director’s job. “I support the director as much as possible,” he reasons. “It’s a writer’s film first, but once it goes into the director’s hands, it’s the director’s film. I protect him from anything that interferes with the creative process.”

The nightmarish horror in I, Madman will inevitably prompt comparisons between Freddy Krueger and Malcolm Brand. “They’re both complex characters,” comments Chaskin. “They both have twisted agendas, although Malcolm is a far more complicated character than Freddy. I tend to view Malcolm as a more classical monster, more stylized, less like Freddy and Jason and more like the Phantom of the Opera. I like to think of him as a character that Lon Chaney would have relished playing, a classical character in a 1980s frame.”

Production began on I, Madman in November 1987 in Los Angeles, and principal photography wrapped the following January. “The main problem, production-wise,” confides Eisenman, “was taking the limited amount of money we had and getting the most value I could on the screen with the cinematography and the special effects. It was a very tricky thing to do, but we had some great people on the crew. The cameraman, Bryan England, studies the old masters like George Folsey, who shot Forbidden Planet and Animal Crackers. He hangs around with these guys, takes them out to lunch. He has a tendency to go into their classic style.’

“I know Trans World is pleased with it,” declares the producer. “We had the most incredible creative freedom on this film. There was no intervention from them. We ended up with the director’s cut, which is rare. I had input, but I never forced my ideas on Tibor. I’d argue until I’d either convinced him or not.”

Chaskin is happy with the picture. “I was at rehearsals, polishing and making dialogue changes to fit the actors, and even in postproduction we were looping new lines,” he marvels. “I was privy to the whole process. It was probably the best experience a writer could have, short of directing the film himself.”

Producer Eisenman, meanwhile, hopes to work with Takacs and Chaskin in the near future. “It was a very good team,” he testifies. “I’ve never had anything like that and I don’t know that I ever will. That’s why we’re talking about doing something together again with Tibor and David.”

SPECIAL EFFECTS Similarly, FX technician Randy Cook, who had worked on The Gate and designed the animated “dogs” in Ghostbusters, is influenced by model animation great Ray Harryhausen. Eisenman reports, “When Randy told Ray Harryhausen what he was going to do in I, Madman, Ray said, ‘It’s not possible.’ Randy proved his technique as he went along, and when he showed the film to Harryhausen, he was very impressed.”

Cook also delivers a bravura performance as the malevolent Malcolm. “It was something that Randy always wanted to do,” grins Takacs. “To entice him to work on this low-budget movie, I had to come up with something!”   It’s fitting that the interview should take place on Halloween, one of Cook’s favorite holidays. (“I’d go out trick-or treating tonight, if I thought I could get away with it,” he said.) Ever since the age of 12, How did he get the job as the titular character in I, MADMAN? Cook smiled knowingly. “I could give you any number of hyperbolic interpretations that I was the best man for the part, that they couldn’t have done it without me, and so on. But the fact is, I got the job through sheer extortion. I said to Tibor, If you want me to do the special effects, let me play a part in the movie.’ Tibor asked, ‘Which part do you want to play?”The villain, of course,’ I said. Simple as that.”

Genre fans will find I, MADMAN of particular interest due to the fact that Cook, the actor, is killed by a creature that Cook, the effects supervisor, designed. At the end of the film, Brand does battle with a stop-motion character referred to by Cook as the “Jackal Boy” (a pint-size character from “Much of Madness, Much of Sin”)—a “horrid, tormented character, made miserable by his misbegotten parentage,” Cook explained. (The doctor combines his sperm with the ovum of a jackal-thus the creature’s name.)

Cook eventually expanded the fight sequence-which takes place in the attic of the bookstore where Virginia works-when it was decided to make more prominent use of the Jackal Boy. “I wanted to make their fight somewhat less perfunctory, something more of a miniature set piece,” said Cook. “So I tried to orchestrate the scene the way one would do a live-action fight within certain limitations based on the fact that we were using one character that existed and one that didn’t. There’s a lot of biting, tussling and scratching between us–I even used a stop-motion puppet of myself in certain shots. We tried to construct a fight that people would talk about.”

Working on the film both as an actor and a special effects technician meant that it was often necessary for Cook to be on both sides of the camera. “It was a really busy shoot,” he said, his weary expression mirroring the exhaustion he experienced during his multiple 14 hour days on the set. “We not only had to shoot the live-action plates, but I had to be in the plates and check them on video playback to make sure I was in the right place in the frame-as well as tell the other actors what they were supposed to be reacting to. It was just me and Jenny and Clayton, and a bunch of air that would later be filled with a creature.”

Because he likes expressionistic compositions, Cook changed the setting of the scene to a bookstore warehouse with an open-beam ceiling. Originally the scene was to have the Jackal Boy on top of a bookcase. “Arguably, it would have been more metaphorical, but it wasn’t nearly as visually evocative as putting him up in the rafters,” said Cook. Elsewhere the Jackal Boy will be used in two very short scenes at the beginning of the film both done through suggestion, so as to save the actual look of the creature until the climax.

The effects were prepped and shot over “a grueling six week period” in November December of 1987 at Ruckus, by I, MADMAN’s director of photography, Brian England (who will also be shooting THE GATE II). Cook’s crew consisted of his chief assistant, Fumi Mashimi (who constructed most of the Brand miniature animation puppet. Cook did the sculpting), Bill Bryan (the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man in GHOSTBUSTERS, helped sculpt the prosthetics for Cook’s makeup) and Gil Mosko, who ran foam for the shop. In addition to the 15 inch-tall articulated model of the Jackal Boy (a foam-rubber construction over a tooled metal armature), Cook designed and sculpted a cable-controlled closeup head with eye, brow, lip and tongue movement.

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Cook didn’t seem particularly interested in discussing the gruesome makeup he devised for his Dr. Brand character, so he whipped out a photo album-titled “Randy’s Hair Cut”—to do most of the talking for him. “I came up with the perfect way to do a bald cap,” he explained. “I shaved my head.” To be precise, makeup effects artist (and friend) Craig Reardon played barber for the shearing, and Cook took a razor to his scalp to obtain the final billiard ball look.

The degenerative makeup for Brand was done in five stages (which Cook humorously described as “a subtle augmentation of progressive male-pattern baldness and organ-rejection syndrome”). It was created using face casts, prosthetics and the like. “I’m not remotely interested in presenting a textbook version of decaying tissue, “Cook said. “I’m more interested in finding a way to dramatically illustrate the degeneration of the character in physical, concrete terms. The makeup needs to work metaphorically as well as theatrically.”

Cook and crew worked about a week longer than they had planned-which meant extra post-production shooting and more time spent by Cook in makeup. “As so often happens when you’re shooting in a locale unfit for human habitation, I got sick-I got the flu that was going around. Everyone else got very green and sickly looking; I got green and sickly looking under two inches of green and sickly looking makeup. I couldn’t get the pity that the other people were getting. The crew would come up to me and say, ‘The makeup looks real good tonight.”   Cook’s long hours under makeup-23 days, 12 of them consecutive-eventually took their toll. “I didn’t have any face left after the shooting was over,” he recalled. “The skin around my eyes was like jelly. And the bitch was, I couldn’t sue the makeup man.”

  CAST/CREW Directed by   Tibor Takács Produced by Rafael Eisenman Written by     David Chaskin Jenny Wright … Virginia Clayton Rohner … Richard Randall William Cook … Dr. Alan Kessler/ Malcolm Brand Stephanie Hodge … Mona

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Cinefantastique v19 Fangoria#80

  I, Madman (1989) Retrospective SUMMARY Beautiful bookseller Virginia (Jenny Wright) fosters a growing interest in the works of reclusive novelist Malcolm Brand (Randall William Cook).

[fuelgrannie]

Child of God

I have very controversial views of Jesus Christ, at least to Christians. I was raised in the Catholic faith and can thus attest to having played in the Jesus-as-God pool. I do believe Jesus existed and was an extraordinary bright, curious and loving mortal, but I do not believe he was a god nor in a god’s direct bloodline (because gods have no form, no blood, no sperm). But I do believe a higher force, God, exists.

I came to believe Jesus was mortal very early on in my life by a combo of logic and gut. This doesn’t mean I’m right. This just means I never bought into the idea that a couple thousand years ago a virgin gave birth to the lone valid god of all humankind. This belief in me has never wavered.

In my college Byzantine and Christian art history classes, I learned the Bible was edited in the 4th Century by the Council of Nicaea (a bunch of bishops and Roman Emperor Constantine at the latter’s lake house) so to exclude the years of Jesus’ life from age 7 to 32 when Jesus had traveled the world to learn about as many religions and forms of faith he could find and study. Decades of this trek, decades of this personality’s life and record of what he learned, were promptly and permanently erased from the primary tome of the Christian church.

By the fluke that I loved the teacher, I was in this particular art history class to learn potential confirmation of something I had long suspected: a more complete and full story of Jesus Christ, his travels and studies, perchance even his own attesting to his human mortality, may have been purposefully kept from public knowledge by the church itself.

The Council of Nicaea in AD 325 also decreed that the Bible universally refer to Jesus as the actual son of God, eliminating the concept and possibility that Jesus may have preached all humans were children of God, not just him. I’m not the only one to wonder or even suppose Jesus meant being a child of god was a universal concept, not just his sole status, so the Council of Nicaea deliberately set in stone for all forthcoming editions of the Bible that Jesus meant to refer to himself alone when referencing being a child of God; he more solidly and literally became the son of God.

It is not just my own supposition that Jesus never directly said, “I am the son of God and you are not.” He was known to have said that we were all God and that God was in all of us. Only an unresolved douchebag would land on this planet and say essentially, “I am better than you all, I am the son of an almighty power and you need to follow me,” yet that still happens from time to time when someone tries to pull off a second coming and pretends to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. These people are nothing unless, and until, they are believed (and then the trouble starts: “hey, is it me or does this Kool-Aid taste bitter?”), but, as of yet, none have proven to be Jesus, who has made only one earthly appearance so far. Still, what Jesus lectured, the word he tried to spread, was made foggy by the spreaders, the editors of his very lectures: it’s hard for me to trust what’s left. The Council of Nicaea had its own intentions: as previous empires declined in power, the rising popularity of this new Christian religion had become a critical tool for human leaders. Emperor Constantine recognized the power of unifying his people, perhaps with more than a whiff of fear, to keep his own flock in check.

There are very few versions of the Bible to be found that originated before the Council of Nicaea and they are certainly not in English, a language whose long, clumsy unearthing is centuries yet to come. No one talks about the Council of Nicaea anymore, but some people will tell you exactly who they think God is, as if they know. They’ll tell you Jesus Christ is the son of God. They’ll be sure they’re right. They’ll pray for your soul because they’re sure they’re right.

Glory

One night in the mid-1990s, I was up very late with the TV on, and instead of watching infomercials, I stumbled upon televangelist Jimmy Swaggart and thought, “okay, what the hell: let’s just see what this is all about.” Swaggart paraded on his stage, his face wet from tears and sweat. He yelled and sobbed “glory, glory, glory” over and over again. He said nothing else. People in his audience howled, throwing up their arms, crying, dancing, responding as if new words, different words were coming out of the mouth of the minister with the blow-dried hair in critical need of a decent trim.

“Glorrryyy, galloryyy, glORY, oh glorrryyyyy.” He cried looking at the ceiling.

“Say something,” I told my TV set.

“Ahhh, glorrrrryyyyy,” he stomped from one side of the stage to the other. He then held the microphone close to his mouth and stood still. The camera closed in, framing his face which glistened with tears, snot and dripping hair product. He raised his eyes again to the heavens, shaking his head, the mike capturing his raggy breath, the camera tight on his visage.

He inhaled. “Here we go,” I thought. Now he’s going to say something, I reckoned. You could hear the saliva in his mouth, the audience held its breath.  

He sucked in air, the microphone steady at his wet chin.

“Glory,” he whispered.

The crowd went even more insane.

I watched for 20 minutes. I wanted to give it a fair shot. The camera panned from sweating Jimmy, exhaling only the syllables “glore” and “ree,” to his hysterical constituents, who in turn shook their heads with an affected joy, smiling those creepy, religious know-it-all smiles that have never rung true to me. Nothing else was ever said other than that one word in as many ways as that word can be uttered. I finally turned the channel to Cher hawking shampoo. At least she talked. At least she was selling something you could actually buy.

Pliz Coiny

My sweet Brazilian neighbor Cecilia recently invited me to join her one weekend at a Baptist church service.  

“Awww hell to the no!” I thought as I tried to think of an excuse not to go but the truth always works best: “I don’t feel comfortable.” I said.

“Pliz, Coiny,” she pleaded “please Connie” pinched by her Portuguese. “Oi neffer ask anniting uff you. Pliz.”

I wasn’t thrilled with her logic. It’s true she never asked anything of me but then again she shouldn’t; I hadn’t of her, I don’t operate that way. Neighbors are not automatic friends to me: I’m a New Yorker after all. And now here she was asking me to join her at church, let alone a Baptist church, and she had somehow decided I owed her something because she had never asked me to do anything before.  

Given the choice, I would have rather cleaned her toilet with one single Q-Tip than haul myself to an hours-long non-English service (“dey haff interpritters,” she tried to sway me) at an outer-borough Baptist church. Baptists go crazy, don’t they? Crying in the aisles, yakking in tongues, yelling at the perceived devil? Did my neighbor expect that I would stagger out of a Queens storefront church at 6:00pm after having arrived at 11:00am, singing “Paaarrraise Jahesus!” and vowing to “spaaaarrread the WORD” to all non-believers?

I mean, I got stuff to do on a Sunday: I got to launder my unholy panties and stock up on ice cream and tortilla chips. I got DVRed episodes of The Real Housewives of Atlanta and Love & Hip Hop I got to catch up on. Sunday is for me, not Jesus.

“No, Cecilia.” I was firm, I was smiling: there were no hard feelings. I was not going.

“It do you good, Coiny. Pliz. Comm on.” Cecilia likely envisioned me burning in hell, innocent to the fact she’s arrived decades too late and with way too little ice.

“No, Cecilia,” I replied. “It’s not for me.”

HE HAS RISEN!!!!

Ten years ago, I worked at a Christian organization. My first week of work was a shock: I received emails that started with “Greetings in the Precious Blood and Name of Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior!!” with signatures that screamed “Blessings in Christ!!!” and “He has RISEN!!!!” It was being shoved down my throat in capitalized words and ever-extending exclamation points. This was not my belief system and I resented seeing it so blatantly and that I felt unable to say anything about it because I suspected I would be perceived as offensive. And I did know no true ill was meant by these words so I learned to tolerate them even though they never became less jarring to me during the four years I worked there.

A Southern man called our office (the ecumenical agency of a major American Christian church) to complain that the Today Show had featured the Encyclopedia Britannica’s assertion on evolution. He sounded gay to me (a totally unfair assumption on my part but my gaydar is on point, sister, even over the phone) and he wanted me to do “something about” the fact that NBC may actually not believe that Adam and Eve are the ultimate foreparents.  

What shocked me even more was my kindness and tolerance of this man; I did not yap into the phone, “are you kidding me and when are you going to do yourself a favor and get out of that closet?” Instead, I told him I sympathized with his frustration, which is the truth: frustration is one of my favorite hobbies. Everything makes me kind of crazy, too and I’ve never been shy with my opinions, but my caller was absolutely beside himself with horror, he almost couldn’t be consoled.  

“They need to present both sides!” He squeaked in a lilt. “Doesn’t Al Roker beLIEVE?”

Apparently not. Maybe it’s out of Al’s hands even if he does.

I calmed down the Southern man and said I would follow up, which of course I never did. What could I say to NBC?  And why hadn’t this guy contacted them directly himself?  Did he know that only guffaws awaited him?

I emailed my gay friends immediately: “Wait ‘til you hear what I just went through!” I was living in a skit from The Kids in the Hall.  I was a fish out of water: all the elements felt false and I chose to play along just to stay neutral.

My first year at the Christian office, at their Christmas party, with home baked cookies and apple juice, the few other employees and I stood in a circle with our heads bowed while our boss led a prayer. I felt extremely self-conscious and didn’t mouth any words. I am not one to say anything “in his name;” after all, I hadn’t bowed my head to take two minutes to sing the praises of the New York Stock Exchange during previous parties at previous stints at financial service companies. I felt resentful this Jesus business was something in which I was literally being forced to participate. But I went along. How could I not?

Pussycats in Outer Space

I was five years old when a human boot first hit the moon’s surface on July 20, 1969 so I grew up grudgingly watching the plethora of space travel TV shows from the 1960s and 70s, the airways thick with the concept of this new frontier. The prospect of such a life, tooling around on a space ship with a bunch of people wearing the exact same upside-down-triangle uniform while exploring the dark unknown, was one of my first visions of hell. My autistic brother Christopher loved Star Trek and we watched it every day, I bored out of my mind yet totally anxious at the same time.  

Star Trek at least depicted willing participants in space travel. A horrific sub-genre grew from this theme: the unwilling, like in Lost in Space, a dreadful scenario built around the non-Swiss family Robinson, forever banished from planet Earth due to some spaceship mishap and doomed to an existence of trying to get back home while accompanied by a talking robot (clearly a costumed man resembling a large vacuum cleaner) and an obnoxious, fussy British guy. The latter two were almost like a couple, TV’s first inter-metal, intergalactic, gay marriage.

But the absolute worst for me by far was the animated series Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, a spinoff of the Archie comic books. Josie and the Pussycats were a musical group of beautiful girls, all small-waisted with turned up noses, who wore tight outfits, sang songs and played instruments, including an obligatory token African American girl who played the tambourine. These characters suffered a similar fate to the hapless Robinsons: the band accidently fell into a space vehicle which was then suddenly catapulted into deep space. The group proceeded to then float from planet to planet, back-dropped by paisleyed psychedelic purple swirls, running endlessly from kidnapping aliens who all (magically!) speak English. Josie and the Pussycats never make it back to Earth: every episode depicts another nightmare of being lost and being doomed, running and escaping. It was the ultimate exercise in frustration, almost pointless to watch. Gee, I wonder what will happen this week? Um, let’s see: they don’t make it home. No satisfaction, no variation, no happy ending: no ending at all. The same thing, the same existence of longing, loss: being trapped. 

Heaven

Every Sunday morning, my father hauled my four siblings and me five blocks south from our Fifth Avenue apartment to St. Thomas More, the Catholic church in which my parents were married, although my mother scandalously remained a Presbyterian. My mother was thus spared the pilgrimages down to the 89th Street red brick building where my dad assisted in services and sang in a loud voice. I paid no attention to any words spoken and instead spent my time people watching because people all performed when they were at church. I watched my father, too: at times he was called to the front, near the altar, to read from the Bible, he took it very seriously. I remain confused by my father’s blind allegiance to Catholicism; it was a faith that made not one milligram of sense to me at any time in my life. Even as a tiny child, I disagreed with the religion, especially appalled by the lack of romance allowed for its clergy.

“You mean they can’t get married? That’s ridiculous!” I announced at age three.

It all seemed so sad to me: nuns and priests couldn’t even kiss, couldn’t have kids or live together or make dinner together or wear normal clothes to not stick out. They were alone in a lonely life and I wanted to play matchmaker for them: it seemed so easy to just pair them all up, like by size or age maybe. But apparently the clergy had no use for base physical needs; they chose this life, this consequence, but to me they seemed trapped. Church was the last place I ever wanted to be, church was the last life I would ever want to live.

I deeply believe in something outside myself. But I don’t need to gather with other humans to express my respect and thankfulness for that something. I do that on my own, and not only by praying because, really, I am more of a thanker. I thank God constantly all through the day. I live like a queen in comparison to the vast majority of my fellow global peers, especially the female ones, and I never forget it, with every water faucet I turn, with every bite of Thai takeout I enjoy, with every precious second I get to spend by myself in the exact way I want. I don’t need church to remind me of what I have and how lucky I am; believing in and thanking God is me, church is not. Church is about the other people in the church.

I don’t know why religion segregates people; you’d think it would bring us all together but it’s just another thing by which we compete. I can’t begin to understand why we have spent centuries yelling at each other and killing each other because we think our version of God is the right one and that anyone who doesn’t think the exact same way that we do must experience our vengeance. None of us can ever prove we’re right and yet we are violent with fear to be proven wrong.

I look at our planet-mates: animals don’t need religion. They don’t gather at a certain place during regular time periods to ponder something outside of themselves. Their souls and brains are too busy making sure their bodies sustain. Religion has no place in any animal’s process of being alive and neither does God. The existence of God doesn’t affect their own existence or prove to them their presence on this planet: their very birth already did that. Instead of “I think therefore I am,” it’s “I’m alive therefore I am.” And unlike us, they don’t kill for God: they kill to eat. Or to not be killed, to just keep living. Somehow this is too simple for humans.

I also don’t believe God is a Christian.  

This concept makes some Christians absolutely crazy. I don’t believe a loving God (a male god) would plop his “son” (male child) on Earth (via untouched, virgin female flesh) and have that son represent only one religion. That’s favoritism, a very human tendency, and I do not believe God operates that way.

The old white guy who lives with his wife in the apartment upstairs from mine, rolls his eyes on occasion when he sees burqa-wearing Muslim women running after their kids on the sidewalk.

“I tell you,” he exhales, “I’ll never get used to it. They need to go back to their country.”

“They’re in their country, Monty,” I yap back. We both know he doesn’t mind finding no kindred in me when he gets into one of his rants. And I tolerate not one ounce of his crap.

“I know, I know. My wife says the same thing. You two are better than me.”

“Aww Mont, we’re not better,” I laugh, “she and I just look at it differently. Think about it: when you go to heaven, if there is such a place, do really you think it’s just Americans, just whites, just Christians who are allowed into heaven? Do you honestly think when you traipse through the Elysian Fields that you will be only surrounded by ‘your kind?’ Honestly?”  

(It’s not gonna be like Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space: the folks you meet outside this stratosphere will not always know your native tongue.)

Monty’s eyes slant as he ponders this. “My wife says ‘angels come in all colors.’”

“Well, there you go,” I say.  

All colors, all languages.  Each child with their rightful place at the messy table, as it should be, amen. No “get out of my country:” instead “come sit next to me, I saved you a seat.”

Earth

The dirt of me has no god, the material of which I am made is leaderless, it is solely of this earth. I have not risen, I am not lost in outer space. I am selfish and arrogant about God: I expect Him to accept me, not the other way around. I taste Him in pork and chive dumplings in Flushing, Queens; I see Him inside the running sweat off a lover’s chest; I decide He loves me when I watch reality TV on the floor drinking lite beer out of the can with a pink bendy straw. I am the basest of humans. God is my ally, I honor Him by merely living, I pay no other respects, I am a rotten subject.

I assume I am loved by God but by no one else. I assume God loves us all. I assume organized religion is a joke and doesn’t really count, that it’s a human construct and no direct creation of God’s. I assume some humans wouldn’t mind killing me for such thinking, or at least feeling that I deserved a good yelling at.

It’s awful: I actually think I have all the answers for me in this area. I must be wrong: it just couldn’t be that easy.

All I have is the truth I know in my heart, it’s all I can go on, here on the grimy path: my church is portable with God existing inside and outside all bricks.

Glory, glory, glory and even some more glory.

[laurajanecostello]

Yesterday, you may have read the start of my friend Beccy’s journey to donate her eggs. Here is the second part of her adventure…

As always, descriptions of bodily functions ahead! Part one is HERE if you missed it!

So, I was shown how to use the injections – again, a good thing I’m not scared of needles. I have to inject myself with Gonal every evening between 6pm-9pm. They are really strict with the timings of these injections. This injection is a bit like an epi pen but you have to inject it into your stomach rather than your leg (Gulp, panic, cold sweat, inject it into my tummy?!) but it’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s very easy and simple and you hardly feel the needle going in. I had to take this one every evening for four days and then go back for a check-up. I was told I may suffer from a bit of bloating, but drinking lots of water (2.5 litres a day) will help with that.

I used to work behind a pharmacy counter and I left the clinic feeling like a OAP, with a massive plastic bag, bursting at the seams with drugs. I was hoping that there weren’t any nosey parkers on the tube going home!

Days one to four were fine. I didn’t feel any bloating and even managed to fit in a Pilates class and a trip to the gym! My check-up was fine, although the weekend nurse was not so gentle when it comes to the scan as the week day nurse but it was still nothing too bad. From the scan they saw that my ovaries are getting bigger – I felt like a proud parent looking at the scan having that explained to me. “Ahhhh look at my ovaries getting all nice and big!”

From that not only did I have to inject Gonal every night, I also had to inject Cetrotide every morning between 6am-9am. This injection is a little harder than the Gonal, as you have to mix it yourself and use an actual syringe, but again once you’ve done it once its easy peasy and the actual injecting is painless, thought I did manage to get a couple of bruises. I have to say, the nurse was pretty impressed with my injecting skills, when showing me how to use the Cetrotide injection, to which I replied, “thanks, I’ve never injected myself before!” ( what a stupid thing to say!?)

Everything was going fine for the first 5 days and then, day 6 – felt rubbish, I have never been so tired in all my life! Day 7 onwards I felt bloated  and had a constant dull ache in the ovary area. I have never really suffered with period pains before – I’m one of the lucky ones -so this was something new to me, but again, it wasn’t too bad, I know people who suffer a lot worse. I had my last check up and everything was going great, the harvesting ( for lack of a better term) had been booked in and only 3 more injections to go until I can stop. This injecting yourself gets boring very quickly, in total I injected myself seventeen times in the space of 10 days!

The trigger injection of Buserelin was done 36 hours before the egg collection. By this point, not only was I bloated but my nipples had become very tender. Wearing a bra was fine, but they were sensitive to touch. I remember I leaned over the arm of a chair to pick up a pen – NEVER AGAIN!!!

The day of the egg collection, I had really bad period pains, the worst I had to date. Once inside the clinic, I was taken to my bed; change into a gown, all my details were checked to make sure I am the right person and the procedure is explained to me. I admit, I am not a nervous type of person, it does take a lot to faze me or worry me, but this was the first time I had had any type of operation or surgery. It was even the first time I had spent time in a hospital, apart from visiting people, so I did start to get a little nervous with all the machines beeping and buzzing around me. There was a girl opposite me who had just come back from having her eggs collected and was in terrible pain. It didn’t help hearing her moan in pain and ask for pain killers. I was already a little nervous, plus for the first time in my life I was suffering with strong period pain – like I said before, I am one of the lucky few, who doesn’t have to deal with that every month. If this is how I felt now, what was it going to be like once I had the procedure, based off this poor girl’s reaction? Time for some deep breathing…

Soon, It was my time, I am taken to the operating theatre, where they stuck one of those massive needle things into my hand to administer the cocktail of drugs they give me to knock me out. If I’m honest, this was most probably the most painful part of the whole process – yes – more painful that stabbing needles into my tummy and the bloating pain. I remember the room starting to spin and thinking that if I shut my eyes, it will make it better. The next thing I knew I was being helped out of a wheel chair onto my bed and the nurse is tucking me into bed! There was no discomfort after the collection and the bloating and period pain had completely disappeared. I actually felt better after the op than I did before. There was a slight sensation below – something similar to the feeling you have after a smear test once they have cranked you open, but this lasted probably 10 mins, tops.

After dozing for about 30 mins and drinking crazy amount of water (I had been nil by mouth since 8pm the previous night) and scoffing down loads of biscuits I was ready to leave, the doctor came and told me how many eggs they had managed to collect. I was told they managed to get more than average from me, but can’t help but feel they say that to everyone, to give them an extra boost.

So that’s my story.

Things learnt during this whole process: · The general public are very un-educated on the egg donations process, they seem to know more about donating sperm than they do eggs – this needs to change! · Injecting yourself with needles isn’t as bad as I thought it was, but I’m glad I won’t be doing that again! · I put on weight during the process. I didn’t change my eating habits at all, just put on a couple of pounds due to the bloating – nothing toooooo bad. · It made me so tired; it’s nice to be back to normal again. · I missed going to the gym and exercising. The last week, I was so bloated and uncomfortable the thought of even walking anywhere made me tired. · My boobs got very tender, in particular the nipples. Someone brushed past my on the tube and their bag touched my boobs and I almost cried! (this was the day before my collection) · The injections are very time dependant and some have to be stored in a fridge. Don’t plan too many things during the hormone treatment stage that interfere with injection time. · The hormone injections can cause a mucus build up in the vagina, so be prepared for the occasional leak! It’s nothing too bad, I wasn’t walking around looking like I had wet myself and I didn’t need to wear any type of pad, just be prepared when you change at the end of the day ready for bed, your knickers may be a little damp – I’m making this sound much worse that what it was. · I got serious baby brain, I kept forgetting things. · A nice surprise, I was given a box of chocolates at the end of the op by the lovely doctors and nurses at the clinic.

Overall, it wasn’t a horrible experience. Somethings were nicer than others. The injecting yourself  and the actual egg collection op, wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. I read some right horror stories, but then maybe this prepared me more. Who knows?

Would I do it again? Yes I would, it is completely worthwhile and within a couple of hours I was feeling like my old self. I easily could have gone back to work the next day but having quite a physical job, I decided to take a couple of extra days off and managed to enjoy a bank holiday weekend, the first one in ……. Can’t even remember the last time I had a whole bank holiday weekend off.

If you are considering becoming a donor, I would highly recommend you go through with it, (hopefully you won’t have as many delays as I did). I didn’t suffer too badly with the side effects and those that I did were only for a few days here and there but the end result is completely worth it.