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probablynooneyouknow · 2 years

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Afraid of getting stuck in an elevator? Do you know what you would do if it did happen?

I work in building maintenance and I deal with ppl getting stuck in elevators occasionally and it can really freak people out, understandably, so here is a little info to tuck into your back pocket in case it happens to you.

So, you think you are stuck in the elevator. First off, try to stay calm and patient. Remember that this is much more likely to be inconvenient than dangerous. Give the elevator a full 60 seconds without pressing any buttons. Then, try the "door open" button. If the elevator has two sets of doors, try both of the "door open" buttons. If this doesn't work, try a different floor button.

If you don't go anywhere and the doors do not open, press the "call for help" button, if there is one. These buttons are typically required by code to go to a live dispatcher, no matter the time... but some buildings won't have them set up properly, or they might be broken. If you don't connect to anyone with the button, use your phone to call whatever building you are in and let them know you are trapped. Stay on the phone with that person or make sure they have your phone number.

If no one at the building answers, call 911. If you don't have a phone or it is dead, start making noise! Some elevators have a button with an alarm bell symbol, this will also make noise.

Now, if you are able to connect to someone with the call for help button, or on your phone, tell them what floor you are on (if you know), how long you have been stuck, and (this is important) if you have any health conditions that make this an emergency. Are you thinking, "well, I am stuck in an elevator! Of course this is an emergency!"? Fair enough, but the reality is, you will just be stuck in a small room for awhile and that isn't actually that big of an emergency... unless there is something that MAKES it an emergency (you're very claustrophobic, you need to take medication soon, you're on your way to a plane you can't miss, you can't stand for long periods without passing out, ect.)

What is most likely to happen if you get stuck in the elevator, is that a service technician will be called to get you out. This person will have the elevator knowledge and tools to ensure that you get out safely. Sometimes that person will be on-site, at the building you are in, but more often this person will be an elevator technician that works for whatever elevator company the building uses.

This technician will be called away from whatever they are doing and dispatched to get you out of this elevator as soon as possible. Depending on where you are, response times are normally around 15-30 minutes, trending toward the 15 minute mark.

If you cannot wait that long for whatever reason, tell the person you have contacted and the fire department will be called as well. The fire department will arrive (again, depending on where you are: likely between 5-10 minutes) and get you out using force. This often means destroying the elevator, so keep in mind the people whose building you are in are not going to opt for that unless there is a real good reason.

Afraid the elevator will suddenly drop you all the way to the ground floor? Unless you're in some sort of abandoned, un-serviced, haunted elevator, this doesn't really happen. Modernly, the whole reason an elevator gets stuck is for your safety. If something wrong happens to the elevator, you don't actually want it to keep moving or opening the doors, that is what causes the scary things to happen. If the elevator has some sort of fault or issue, the idea is that it stops doing anything and you just stay safe in your box until a trained professional arrives to get you out. With this in mind, don't try to open the doors. This creates more hazards (falling, pinching, smashing, you know—the scary stuff) and can make it more difficult for people on the other side to open the doors and get you out.

If you are genuinely having trouble breathing, or it is getting too hot, or if you are trying to get someone to hear you, opening the doors should still be a last resort, and should be done using something other than your body, if possible. Don't open the doors all the way for these purposes, just open them enough to get air/ call out.

Also, since we are talking about elevators, don't use them if there is a fire. If you are a wheelchair user or cannot use the stairs for other reasons, use the elevator if it is still operational to get to the ground floor. If it is not operational, get to an evacuation point (this is different for every building—but is usually a rooftop, patio, or window where fire crews can get to you with a lift or ladder) and, if possible, let someone else know where you are.

TLDR: If you get stuck in an elevator, stay calm and contact someone. Call 911 if you can't get ahold of anyone else. If someone is coming to get you out, it might not go as quickly as you would like it to, but try to remember you are just in a little room, waiting for someone to open a door. Keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times.

#elevators #stuck #stuck in an elevator #advice

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duskroads · 2 years

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Hey all, if you're noticing any Canadians missing from your dash today, one of the two major internet providers (Rogers) has been down all day across the country. So like if anyone has ghosted you today, there is a significant chance that's the problem.

We don't have an eta when things will be fixed yet either.

#debit card and some credit card readers are down #a lot of businesses and homes have been effected by it #most scary is some people have been having trouble calling 911 (emergency number) in some cities #I'm addicted enough to the hellscape I'll probably keep using data but others might not be #so don't be surprised if you don't see people

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missmentelle · 3 years

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lately ive been struggling with delusions and i cant bring them up with my current psych because she's really ableist. im not sure when ill be able to get a new psych, but im hoping soon. often im unable to tell that my delusions arent reality and i talk about them as though theyre real, and its starting to upset my friends. im wondering if you have tips on how i could manage this until i get a new psych, or maybe tips on how i could find a psych thatd work for me? i havent seen a new one in yrs

Hey, I’m really sorry to hear that you’re dealing with an unsupportive psychiatrist or psychologist. It’s always very disappointing when a mental health professional holds such damaging views about the people they are supposed to be supporting.

Unfortunately, there is not much you can do to manage delusions on your own, aside from getting on the right dose of the correct medication. It is, unfortunately, not really possible to talk someone out of a delusion. It’s especially unlikely that you’ll be able to talk yourself out of a delusion, as by definition, you won’t be able to tell if you’re in the middle of one. You can try to prevent delusional episodes by keeping your stress levels down as much as possible, but this is not foolproof, and it may be very difficult to avoid stress while you are living through an unprecedented global pandemic/climate catastrophe/economic crisis combo.

If you struggle with delusions and you don’t have the correct medication yet, the best thing that you can do for yourself is to make sure that the people around you are aware of the situation and know what to do if you start having a delusion. This is a symptom that really takes a team effort to manage properly, and it’s essential that your friends and family know what to do:

Loved ones should be made aware of your delusions, including their common themes. It can be an extremely scary experience for everyone involved when someone starts saying and believing things that are completely detached from reality. Your loved ones need to know that this is something that happens to you sometimes, and they need to know some of the common delusions that they should look for. If you often have delusions that involve thinking there are secret messages on TV, for instance, that’s something your loved ones should know to look for so they can recognize it as soon as it starts happening.

Loved ones should record the time, duration, intensity and content of your delusions. Whenever you have a delusional episode, the people around you should note down what you were doing when it started, how it started, how long it went on for, how intense it was, and what kinds of things you were saying and doing. This information can be helpful for trying to figure out what - if anything - makes you more likely to have a delusion, and what kinds of delusions you are more likely to have. When you do find a good doctor, this will also be useful information for them to have.

Loved ones should remain as calm as possible. Delusions are often very scary for the person experiencing them - it is common for someone experiencing a delusion to believe that someone is after them, that they are being monitored by the government or some other large organization, that someone is sending them secret messages through ordinary TV broadcasts, or that their food has been contaminated or poisoned in some way. These are very scary, and people experiencing delusions are often in a state of extreme panic or fear. This is why it’s important for loved ones to recognize what is happening, and remain calm - if they also become panicked or fearful, it will only make you more afraid. To best support you during a frightening delusion, they should aim to be collected, reassuring and soothing. They should speak in short, clear sentences, and validate your emotions - if you seem very frightened, they can simply say “That sounds very scary, I am very sorry this is happening to you.”

Loved ones should not “play along” with the delusions, but they also should not try to talk you out of it. It is not possible to talk someone out of a delusion. Playing along with a delusion is also unhelpful, as it can make the person experiencing the delusion more agitated and even more disconnected from reality. Instead, your loved ones should simply try to redirect you - they should assure you that everything is okay, allow you to express your feelings and experiences, and then try to turn your attention toward a conversation or activity that is less frightening for you. If you are suddenly panicked that all the food in the house has been poisoned and are insisting you need to throw out all the food, for instance, your loved ones should not argue with you, but should simply assure you that everything is okay and try to direct you to another activity, like going for a walk with them.

Loved ones should try to safeguard you until the delusion passes. The vast majority of people who experience psychosis or delusions never become violent. However, there is a risk of harming yourself or ending up in legal trouble while in a deluded state, and loved ones should take steps to try to make sure you are safe. You should, for instance, absolutely be prevented from driving while in a delusional state. Some people have a tendency to make strange online purchases or book plane tickets while delusional - if that is the case with you, it’s probably best if you be prevented from accessing your credit cards until you’ve recovered.

If you become a danger to yourself and others, or if your delusions aren’t passing on their own, your loved ones should seek help right away. There are, unfortunately, limits to what your loved ones can manage on your own, and your safety has to be top priority. If you are at serious risk of harming yourself and your loved ones aren’t able to keep you safe, there needs to be a plan in place for how to get you help. If your loved ones can safely transport you to a hospital, that is one option. If they cannot, they should contact your local mobile crisis mental health team, if possible (this is a travelling team of mental health nurses and professionals who respond to mental health emergencies - this service may or may not be available in your area). If it exists, your loved ones all need to have the phone number for that service and be comfortable calling them. If 911 is the only option, your loved ones need to know when to make that call, and they should be prepared to accompany you to the hospital to advocate for your, or to request a patient advocate once you arrive (most hospitals in North America, at least, will have an advocate available - this is a person who knows your rights and ensures that everything is being properly explained to you and your family).

As far as locating a good doctor goes, I think your best bet is to seek out recommendations from your peers - try to connect with people with similar mental health struggles in your area, and ask them if they are happy with their current doctor. There may also be an organization in your area that can make recommendations - most areas will have a local schizophrenia or psychosis society (or something with a similar name) that may be able to point you toward doctors they’ve heard good things about. If your area has a specific psychosis team or clinic, that may also be a good place to start - they will specialize in your specific symptoms, and generally have a better understanding of how to work with you in a constructive way.

It’s also important that you start looking for a new doctor right away. Early intervention is critical when it comes to symptoms of psychosis - the sooner you get proper treatment, the better you’ll respond to treatment and the greater your odds that you’ll be able to successfully manage your condition. Although delusional episodes may pass on their own, the underlying condition won’t - without treatment, delusional episodes tend to become more severe and longer-lasting over time, and you may begin to experience other symptoms of psychosis like auditory hallucinations or a severe disruption of your sleep patterns. Early treatment can mean a huge improvement to your overall quality of life, and I really cannot emphasize enough how important it is for you take that step as soon as you can. Best of luck to you! MM

#Anonymous

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eldritchsurveys · 5 years

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662.

What is your favorite color for bridesmaid dresses? >> I don’t have a favourite colour for bridesmaid dresses. That’s nothing to do with me.

Do you ever count sheep to help you fall asleep? >> No. I doubt it’d work because I immediately get distracted and start thinking about other shit, which is... not going to help me fall asleep.

Do you have a youtube channel? If so, when did you start it? >> No.

Would you ever want to be famous? >> Absolutely not.

Does fame and fortune matter to you at all? >> No, it doesn’t.

Do you have a secret crush right now? >> No.

Have you drank a cup of tea today? >> No. Damn, every time someone mentions tea I’m like “fuck. I should probably have some.” but I never feel like getting up and making it. I just want it to appear next to me. I need a butler.

When was the last time you called customer service? >> I don’t. But Sparrow had to livechat with Xfinity’s last night because our internet stopped working yesterday morning and never came back on. And now I have to deal with a tech tromping through my apartment later today, messing up the vibes. Aaaagh.

Do you take birth control pills? >> Yes. Or, as I call them, “pills I take so I don’t kill myself because I hate having a period exactly that much”.

Do you like chocolate cake? >> No.

Where was the last place out of your house that you went? >> The Wayland house, I think. It’s been far too cold and snowy for me to want to go anywhere. I have a hard enough time psyching myself up to go out as it is, and I’m definitely not going to be successful at it in this kind of weather.

Do you know anyone who doesn't want to have kids? >> I know plenty of people who don’t want to have kids.

Do you regret letting a certain guy or girl slip away? >> No.

Have you ever fainted? >> Yeah, once.

Do you consider yourself a good artist? >> No.

Do you ever play board games anymore? >> I don’t really care for board games. Something about them is just incredibly exhausting to me. Might be the combination of having to focus on all these rules and steps, and also socialise at the same time. I’m not sure, but ultimately I just prefer to avoid anything more complicated than, like, Trouble. (And board games these days are incredibly complex, so...)

Would you rather visit Tokyo or Paris? >> Tokyo.

Do you think you would like living in New York or Chicago? Why or why not? >> I liked some aspects of living in NYC, and hated others. I assume it’d be the same if I lived in Chicago, which is very similar (although, of course, smaller and a little less densely populated). I’m sure I would enjoy the multicultural elements, the public transportation, and the access to anything I might want -- nightlife, activities, food, parks, museums, etc etc. I’m sure I would not enjoy the noise level, the constant press of people, the frenetic pace of living, the cost of living, or the fact that despite the loveliness of the Lakeshore, I’m still nowhere near the ocean.

Who was your first celebrity crush? >> Matt Damon, for whatever reason.

Name 3 celebrities who are the same height as you. >> I don’t just go around memorising celebrity heights.

How tall are you? >> 5′5″ or thereabouts.

Are you happy with your height? >> I mean, it’s not something I think about.

Who in your family did you get your height from? >> *shrug*

Who did you get your smile from? your hair color? your eye color? >> Meh.

Do you have big or small hands? >> Small.

When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone? >> I don’t remember. I was probably still a minor.

What was the name of your first imaginary friend you remember having? >> The first Inworlder I remember was a girl named Clodagh. Back then, it was “normal” to have “imaginary friends” or whatever, so I didn’t really think much about Inworld until I was a teenager and realised that I was supposed to “outgrow” these invisible people. Funny how they didn’t magically disappear just because I got older, though.

Do you pray to God regularly? >> No. Not irregularly, either.

What is your favorite version of the BIble to read? >> I prefer the NIV for most reading, but sometimes the KJV can be a little more dramatic-sounding, and that’s fun too.

Have you been baptized? If so, how and where were you baptized? >> I was baptised when I was like 7 or 8. I just remember being very confused and really not enjoying being dunked into a vat of water in front of a bunch of strangers. Luckily, I’m sure all the heathenry I’ve been up to since then has probably negated that baptism, because I never wanted it in the first place. And in my opinion, one should only undergo a religious ritual of that magnitude if one is able to give informed consent. SO.

Do you eat meat? >> Sure.

What college did you go to? and what was your major? >> I did not go.

Do you miss living with a roommate? >> I really the fuck don’t.

Have you ever been abused in any way? >> Yep.

Do you like unicorns? >> I mean, sure, they’re neat.

How old were you when you found out Santa wasn't real? >> I was never taught about Santa.

Do you sleep with a stuffed animal? >> I sleep with like 10 stuffed animals. My bed is just filthy with them.

Name 3 things you are allergic to. >> ---

Is there one book you have read over and over again because it's so good? if so, which is it? >> I’m not really much of a re-reader? I’ll only do it with books I’ve forgotten enough of that it’s interesting again.

Who was your favorite Rugrats character? >> ---

Which fairytale resembles your life the most? >> I can’t say I’ve read a fairy tale that I feel is personally relatable. Not to say that one doesn’t exist, but I just haven’t read a lot of fairy tales.

Do you think your zodiac sign fits your personality? >> I think my natal chart bears a fair amount of insight into my personality, yes.

Do you play games on your phone a lot? >> Not a lot, no. I only have one game on it, and that’s for emergencies.

What's your favorite thing to do on your phone? >> Read, listen to music, or browse Reddit.

Have you ever had to put out a kitchen fire? >> No.

Where do you buy most of your clothes? >> I don’t have a place that I buy most of my clothes from. They come from a bunch of places.

Who is your favorite cousin? >> ---

Do you have family that lives in another state? >> ---

What states have you lived in? >> NJ, NY, NC, MI, CO.

What was your favorite piece of playground equipment as a kid? >> I don’t remember. I didn’t like most playground equipment because they scared me. Especially things that you had to climb on. I guess I liked the swings, but even those were scary because some kids liked to run up and push you so you go way-high and I hated that.

List 3 girl's names you like. >> ---

List 3 boy's names you like. >> ---

Do you watch birth vlogs on youtube? >> No???? What????

Have you ever cried yourself to sleep? >> Yes.

Do you use a sunlamp? >> No. We have one, but it’s way too bright and concentrated for me.

What is your favorite type of cake? >> Spice cake.

Do you listen to the radio? >> No.

Are you good at PacMan? >> Not especially.

Favorite arcade game? >> DDR.

Have you ever found a roller coaster relaxing? >> No.

Have you ever seen a spirit? >> Probably.

Have you ever been kidnapped? >> No.

How many 5ks have you ran? >> Zero???

Is there a running trail near your house? >> There’s a trail of some sort, yeah. It runs parallel to the highway. Sometimes I think about walking a bit of it, but IDK.

Do you know the number to 911? >> Ha.

A game you cheated on in elementary school? >> ---

What was the name of the first dorm you lived in? >> ---

Do you miss your college years? >> ---

Were your college years the best years of your life? >> ---

Were you ever in a school band? >> No, I was in choir.

Do you wear a retainer at night? >> No.

Are you craving cake right now? >> I can’t even think of a time when I craved cake, specifically. I rarely crave sweet things, and when I do it’s like... applesauce.

#surveys #survey #random survey

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Candyman: How Bernard Rose and Clive Barker created the horror classic

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

In the winter of 1992, one word was enough to send a chill down the spine of horror fans far and wide: Candyman.

Released in October of that year, Candyman was a slasher movie with a killer hook – quite literally. A horror movie built around an urban legend claiming that if you say the word “Candyman” five times into a mirror, a murderous spirit with a hook for a hand would appear, with grave consequences for those who summoned him.

In a time before the internet and social media, the original Candyman’s lore was enough to spark discussion among curious moviegoers who asked each other: would you say the potentially deadly incantation?

It was a talking point the movie’s marketing leaned heavily into with taglines like “We dare you to say his name five times!” and “Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman… Don’t Say Again!”

Director Bernard Rose took inspiration for the idea from the urban legend of Bloody Mary, rather than the Clive Barker short story “The Forbidden,” which Candyman was adapted from.

According to the legend, Bloody Mary’s spectre could be summoned by chanting her name repeatedly into a mirror. One of Rose’s masterstrokes was to assimilate this folklore into the Candyman mythology, although it was not without its teething problems.

“In the original script, they were supposed to say Candyman 13 times, not five times, because in the Bloody Mary legend they say it 13 times,” Rose tells Den of Geek. “During the first read through they started going ‘Candyman, Candyman…’ and I was falling asleep. You can’t do it 13 times. It goes on too long. Five is about the largest number you can hear. It did come from Bloody Mary but I had seen Beetlejuice, so I’d have to say Beetlejuice should probably get some credit.”

Rose first hit upon the idea of adapting “The Forbidden” after he was approached about making a film out of another story from Barker’s lauded Books of Blood anthology, “In the Flesh.” But that story wasn’t quite suited to a cinematic adaptation.

“I thought it was really well written, but impossible to make because it’s about two prisoners in complete darkness in a cell,” he says. “And of course, the one thing you can’t represent in a movie is darkness, because if you are in a movie theater there’s nothing to see. It would make a great radio play but wasn’t really a great idea for a movie.”

It was during his initial research into the Books of Blood that Rose read “The Forbidden,” Barker’s short story about a university student who, while studying and photographing graffiti at a local housing estate, learns from locals about a string of murders attributed to a mythical killer known as Candyman.

A rising star at the time, Rose had already collaborated with Jim Henson on The Muppet Show and The Dark Crystal, as well as directing iconic music videos like the S&M themed promo for Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Relax,” which ended up being banned by MTV. His debut feature, the dream-like dark fantasy horror Paperhouse, had been released to widespread acclaim opening up a wealth of possibilities when it came to his next film.

Rose was immediately struck by Barker’s story and the way it played on “the idea of belief.”

“All of these people believe in the Candyman, which actually means the Candyman exists, whereas if they stop believing in him he disappears, like how the old deities, like the Roman gods, died because people stopped caring. The idea that if enough people believe something, they manifest it. That’s scary.”

By the time he read “The Forbidden,” Rose had already struck up a friendship with Barker, who he met at Pinewood Studios while the latter was working on Nightbreed, the follow-up to his wildly successful directorial debut Hellraiser.

It was a match made in heaven – or maybe that should be hell – and a bond that made securing the rights to the short story that would become Candyman “really easy” according to Rose, who simply called Barker up with the author agreeing to sign off on the deal and sign on as executive producer.

Rose credits Professor Jan Harold Brunvand’s book The Vanishing Hitchhiker as a major inspiration to his script. A folklore scholar, Brunvand’s book explored the origins of several notable urban legends and has been widely credited with igniting America’s obsession with the phenomenon.

“The whole urban legends thing hadn’t actually been addressed in a movie at that point, which is kind of extraordinary when you think about it,” Rose says. “It helped give the film this intellectual aspect, the idea of having an intellectual elite character studying the myth not from a sociological point of view, but from a semiotics point of view. Somebody who was intellectual and therefore naturally skeptical about something supernatural.”

While some authors have been known to be especially protective of their source material when it comes to adaptation, Rose recalls Barker encouraging him to “run free with it.”

“He liked the script very much. He was very behind it and at certain key moments, as much as anything, he was an enthusiast. Clive is wonderful. A really nice, smart guy.”

One thing they agreed on was that the story would need to be relocated from its original setting in Liverpool, England, for a very specific reason.

“At the time within genre films, there was there was a real problem with people understanding regional accents, and Clive had that problem on Hellraiser where they ended up having to loop (ADR) the whole movie and change it into a sort of weird unspecific setting, when it’s clearly some market town outside London,” he says. “If we were starting the film now, unquestionably we would have done it in Liverpool. It’s funny, things change, but back then, we wanted it to be somewhere specific. So I said, let’s make it specifically American. That seemed like the easiest thing to do.”

Rose hit upon the idea of setting the film in Chicago after noting similarities in the public housing found there and in the story’s original Liverpool setting.

The Illinois Film Commission took Rose on a tour of the city’s most troubled neighborhoods, which included Cabrini Green. “It wasn’t the worst place they showed us by any means, the Robert Taylor Homes on the South Side but Cabrini Green was right by downtown Chicago and was just spectacular.”

Rose recalls first being taken there in the company of a “full police escort.” Eager to see the neighborhood from a different perspective, he returned later on his own and befriended somebody who lived there.

“That’s the woman who the character of Anne Marie [the single mother who helps Helen with her investigation and whose infant son Anthony ends up being abducted by the Candyman] is based on,” Rose says.

Another crucial step in the development of Candyman came when the filmmaker began researching the history of Cabrini Green.

“I discovered old articles in the Chicago Reader about a series of murders that happened in Cabrini Green, including one where the killer came into the apartment through the medicine cabinet through a breeze block.”

One such article, by Steve Bogira, detailed the killing of 52-year-old Ruthie McCoy, whose pleas to a 911 caller explaining that intruders were breaking in through her bathroom cabinet went ignored.

“There was a weak spot that you could actually get into people’s medicine cabinets, which is basically inserting holes in the breeze block and you can just literally punch them out and get into somebody’s apartment.”

These articles ended up featuring in the film for real, during the scene where Helen (Virginia Madsen) began researching the Candyman myth. Another element that rang true to life was the fact that the nearby Sandburg Village was “architecturally identical” to Cabrini Green with the only difference being that the former was turned into condos while the latter became public housing. These elements all combined to inform Candyman’s biggest departure from the original short story: Candyman would be Black.

“I wanted to make the film grounded in reality and the whole racial subtext of the film came out of that,” he says. “It wasn’t part of the original story. That was about politics and class differences. The racial element was added to it by the specificity of the location.”

Rose also incorporated his own experience discovering much of this material into Helen’s narrative. “I think that’s why it still feels relevant and powerful now because it came out of something real.”

The filmmaker credits the architecture of Cabrini Green with adding a layer of dread to proceedings.

“The early 80s was the point where we were seeing how modernist architecture could really decay in the most frightening ways and be more scary than the old Gothic spaces that were always designed to be plain and simple.”

Rose felt the film offered an opportunity to draw parallels between the Candyman myth and the myths attached to life in Cabrini Green.

“There was always this kind of exaggerated fear of the place like you might get shot, which is ultimately a very powerful form of racism,” he says. “The real danger is probably very, very small unless you happen to be very unlucky.”

While the stories of murderers emerging through mirrored medicine cabinets tied into the Candyman mythology, mirrors played a wider thematic role in Rose’s film.

“The film has got a lot of mirroring in it, from the imagery to the mirrored apartment. The idea that Helen’s apartment is the same as the ones in Cabrini green. It’s just about what side of the road you are on.”

Even so, Rose refutes any suggestion of Candyman having any kind of deep agenda.

“The film was not done with a thesis in mind that I then went out to prove. It was more like I was interested in the setting we had and the story which is unchanged from the short story.”

Madsen ended up landing the role of Helen, the protagonist after Rose’s then-wife Alexandra Pigg, who had been cast in the role, was forced to drop out after discovering she was pregnant.

When it came to the Candyman himself, one rumor Rose immediately squashes is the notion that Eddie Murphy was ever considered or even interested in the part.

“If Eddie Murphy had wanted to do it in 1991, it wouldn’t have even been a discussion, it would have just happened,” he says. “Yeah, that’s not even a tiny bit true.”

Instead, Rose and the film’s producers only ever had eyes for Tony Todd.

“He pretty much just came in and was fabulous and that was that. He just had it in every sense of the word and it was pretty obvious. There wasn’t even a discussion about it.”

Securing the rights, finding a great location and landing a stellar cast had all proven relatively straightforward for Rose. One thing that definitely wasn’t straightforward, however, would be the film’s use of bees.

The film called for scenes in which Madsen would be covered in bees, while in one particularly memorable shot, the insects would be seen emerging from Todd’s mouth, as per Barker’s story, which took its inspiration from the Bible and the story of how Samson killed a young lion only to find bees and honey in its corpse. The imagery struck a chord with the author, who weaved it into the ever-expanding Candyman mythology.

Coming at a time before filmmakers could fall back on CGI, Rose was in need of an expert bee wrangler. He found one in apiarist Norman Gary.

“I saw him, he was on the Johnny Carson show playing the clarinet, covered in bees. He was quite a character,” Rose says. “He had synthesized queen bee pheromones and had hives of bees on the top of the studio and he was hatching them for the first 48 hours of their lives. Their stingers aren’t fully developed at that point so they’re not really that dangerous.”

Gary would supply the immature bees for the crucial scenes, using pheromones to have them cluster in the areas Rose required before gently vacuuming them up into a pouch when filming was complete.

Rose speaks in glowing terms about the bees themselves, describing them as “intelligent but also very predictable” which made filming the scenes somewhat pain free. Except in the most obvious sense of the word.

“Everybody got stung quite a bit and certainly when we were doing those scenes, there were quite a lot of crew members who just stopped turning up to work,” he says. “I think people didn’t want to go into a studio that was literally buzzing with bees all the time because you would get stung. I remember asking Norman ‘How do you prevent yourself from getting stung?’ and he said ‘You don’t. You just decide it doesn’t bother you.’”

Away from the sound of bees, Rose credits composer Philip Glass with delivering a pitch perfect score, that imbued the film with a sense of both the Gothic and the academically-minded analytical.

“I gave him a brief to just score it for organ, voices, and piano,” Rose says. “He loved that idea of it being very kind of minimal orchestration. So he wrote the suite basically of the music that’s in the film. I think he’s hands down the best living American composer. Very original.”

For all the praise the film and its score received, Candyman was not without its detractors including several notable Black film directors at the time.

Reginald Hudlin, who had directed Boomerang and House Party and would go on to serve as a producer on Django Unchained called it “worrisome” while fellow filmmaker Carl Franklin said the decision to made Candyman Black and move the story to Cabrini Green was “irresponsible and racist” for casting a Black man in the role of a killer.

“People were nervous before we made the film because of his ethnicity, but I always said I understand how horror villains work,” Rose says. “The bogeyman is the hero. That’s it. That’s how they function. And it’s certainly true in the case of Candyman in that Tony’s character becomes larger than the film’s other characters.”

Much of that was down to timing. “The most disappointing thing you can do in a movie is bring out the monster,” he says. “This is why The Exorcist is a masterpiece. You never see a monster. What you see is its effect on the little girl.”

In the case of the Candyman, Rose used the first half of the film to build a sense of dread tinged with a sense of tragedy with the character’s backstory which explained how he was killed in the late 19th century over his relationship with a white woman. Even as audiences catch their first glimpse of Todd in that striking leather, fur-lined coat, they are being told a story.

“The idea of the costume was to show that he was quite bourgeois, like he was on his way to the opera when he was killed. It was a reminder that he was successful and affluent yet none of that protected him.”

Rose took his cues from the Orson Welles classic The Third Man in holding back on the introduction of his titular killer.

“Every single conversation in the first half of The Third Man is about Harry Lime.” he says. “So when Orson Welles finally appears It’s one of the great entrances in film history because you’re just dying to hear what he’s got to say,”

The Candyman writer also points to an alternative reading of the film that adds a fascinating subtext to the role of race in the movie.

“It’s an entirely subjective movie told from the perspective of Helen,” Rose says. “So whatever happens in the film, it’s what she thought happened and isn’t necessarily objective. There is definitely an interpretation of the film where she committed the murders.”

The film, he says, offers up an extension of one of the original themes of Barker’s book which was the fear of poverty.

“Inequality and oppression creates fear among the oppressors, because they’re afraid of one day being called to account,” he says. “The film is about that in some ways, and that’s why it is still powerful. But I did not have any sort of agenda except to try to represent what I’d seen in Chicago as realistically as possible.”

Rose would not return for any of the sequels, with 1995’s Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh helmed by future Twilight Saga director Bill Condon. In his absence and despite the best efforts of Todd in the titular role, the franchise died out after a third film, 1999’s lamentable Candyman: Day of the Dead.

Rose puts these failures down to a mismanagement of the properties and a rush to get a follow-up out after the surprise runaway success of his film, which made $25 million from a modest $8 million budget.

“The temptation when making sequels is to just basically do the same thing again which actually doesn’t satisfy anyone,” he says. “You have to develop it and you have to make it more complex and make the story actually have a grander arc. I had ideas, but they wanted to make damn sure that they got them out of me as quickly as possible so they could get on with the serious business of fucking it up. But that’s fairly normal, unfortunately.”

However, he says he submitted a proposal for a sequel which was “pretty extreme.”

“One of the producers read it and said it was the most disgusting thing he’s ever read. All I can say about it is that it involved cannibalism and royalty.”

Though he remains coy on the finer details, he insists it would have made a “great movie” though it wouldn’t have been a straightforward sequel by any means.

“It was an expansion of the ideas in Candyman and also involved another short story of Clive’s that was actually made later by somebody else, ‘The Midnight Meat Train,’ which was set on the London Underground.”

That said, Rose remains fully supportive of Nia DaCosta’s new film, which has breathed life back into Candyman once again.

“Honestly, I think that sequel is probably better than anything I could have come up with,” he says. “It needed to be taken over by someone African-American, so it’s better that way because if I make the film again, it’s just going to be about the same thing as the first one.”

Ultimately, he feels “immense pride” at the idea that Candyman has earned a place as a horror icon to rival the likes of Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger though he sees that as “something separate to the movie in a weird way.”

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“It was intended as a horror film, as a subjective, visceral experience. Obviously, if you write something and direct it, whatever you make is a reflection of your views on a myriad number of subjects. That’s one of the things that’s good about the film, the story is open to exploration.”

The post Candyman: How Bernard Rose and Clive Barker created the horror classic appeared first on Den of Geek.

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useyourwordspodcast · 4 years

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Self Care In 2020

I was recently interviewed on another podcast (links to come when it is published) and one of the questions that came up was how I am taking care of myself mentally in this time of Covid and forced isolation. I thought this was a good question - for a multitude of reasons - some of which I will get into below.

I have not been shy recently about my struggle with mental health issues - both past and current - and how a lot of the issues that came about from it is (honestly) are a result of me not learning at a young age how to process things correctly as well as how to care for myself mentally. And I will not lie - this Covid time really did have the potential to be very bad for me - and at the start of the isolation I was starting to feel the impact of isolation and seeing the same four walls day after day.

Covid has shown an increase in suffering - and we see people suffering from the forced isolation. Suicides, self harm, alcohol sales, drug use and depression have increased across the board in the United States across all age ranges. This is scary - yes we need to keep people healthy from the virus - but at the same time we also need to figure out ways to keep people mentally healthy as well.

So how do you keep mentally healthy in these days? Honestly this is going to be different from one person to the next - but there are some things which are consistent and applicable to everyone and self care/mindfulness is probably one of the most important parts of the equation that can benefit everyone.

If you searched on the web for a definition of self care you would find the medical terminology of self care being tied to ADLs - or activities of daily living. These ADLs include such things as eating, showering, brushing teeth, wearing clean cloths, and attending to medical concerns. But when talking about mental health self care - it is a little more focused and slightly different. While the things listed above are important - there are additional and varied steps you can take with self care to help keep yourself mentally healthy.

Self care (when talking about mental health) is an overarching idea and is not something that is the same for everyone - what I may do for self care may be completely different then what someone else does. The goal behind self care is to do something that you enjoy that is within your control - and typically it is something that will keep your mind busy and away from the troubles of the world. Now you may hear that and think - ok cool so what I enjoy - yes and no. Typically you want something that will busy your mind to keep it from dwelling on whatever is bothering you at the time - so sometimes just listening to music and letting your mind wander may not be the best thing to do.

You want something that takes your full attention - and again that is going to be different for each person. For me - listening to music can take my mind fully away from whatever is going on. I have a background with music - so not only am I listening to the words but I am listening to the interaction between all of the instruments as well. But those times when I just want to put music on as background music - that doesn't help.....and why is that? Well one of the secrets to self care is mindfulness. Now mindfulness is not the only method of self care that one can use - it is just one tool to keep in an arsenal to help out with keeping mentally healthy.

Mindfulness is essentially being present in the moment - both the good and the bad. Seems simple huh? Wrong. Mindfulness in other words is focusing on what is going on in the moment and not worrying about the other things in the future or in the past. Taking time like this allows you to experience your emotions and the things going on around you and be present in what is going on - this helps you not only be aware of your emotions as they change based on what is going on around you but also what is going on around you as well and the subtle things that may be missed while being busy with other things. Some examples of mindfulness (at least on the pleasure side) is taking time to enjoy the sunlight against your skin, the sound of the wind as it goes over the grass outside, the interaction of the music in the room, and whatever else is going on around you. And I'll be honest - this is not an easy undertaking - being mindful and living in the moment is a hard skill to learn and implement. It takes times and practice - and I will admit it took me many months to learn how to put this method of self care into practical practice - and I am still learning how to do this properly.

And see here is the thing - you might be thinking right now - But Paul you have some mental health issues so of course you need to do that - true - but I have found that even people without diagnosed mental health issues right now are looking for assistance on how to navigate through these times of covid and remain grounded mentally. People who used to be able to hang out with other people to recharge their mental batteries may no longer be able to do that - and they may not know how to handle this change. I'm finding that even teens who are used to living their entire life online are having issues as well - and are saying how they miss the in person interaction. It would be one thing if this was a slow change in the way society worked - but this was effectively a light switch being flipped with people being able to interact socially to all of a sudden being told to stay home - sometimes even with threat of jail or financial penalty.

Some practical examples of self care besides mindfulness include: getting a massage, cleaning your room, taking a shower, going for a walk, playing with your pet, journaling, enjoying a snack you like.

Now at the start I said that this was a good question to have asked during the podcast interview- and here is why. When people are willing to have this conversation and they ask others about how they are keeping themselves mentally healthy it reduces the stigma of mental health issues as a whole. It doesn't lower it by orders of magnitude, but just slightly - and even slightly is a great start. We have gone way too long as a society where we keep mental health issues as almost a secret thing that we deal with in the shadow - afraid to let others in. We are afraid to be vulnerable with others about our struggles - and being vulnerable about our own mental health issues is harder (at least for me) then being vulnerable about other areas of our life.

Life is hard, and sometimes we need support. And that brings me to the last thing I want to talk about today.

If you need support for a mental health issue, there are a multitude of resources available to you. If you or someone you know is in an immediate crises where there is the potential to harm - then call 911 or get them to an emergency room. The person may not appreciate it at the time - but you know - someone living is better then someone appreciating what was or wasn't done. That being said - if someone needs help and it is not an immediate sense of danger - there are a multitude of resources. There is always https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ which has a phone number as well as a chat resource available for those looking for help or those looking to find help for others.

There is also heartsupport.com. Heartsupport.com is a site which offers hope for people dealing with a whole host of things - addiction, depression, suicidal ideation, and other hard things that life throws their way. They have live streams, texting options, and a web based forum to seek and give encouragement. They also have links to youtube videos from various bands, medium articles, and books/devotionals. Check it out - I will be on there posting and responding on the wall a little bit more frequently now - but I will talk more on that at a later time on why that is.

Take care of yourself out there.

Paul

#Mental Health #Health #ADL #HeartSupport #Monday Episode #Podcast

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gordonwilliamsweb · 4 years

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Eerie Emptiness Of ERs Worries Doctors As Heart Attack And Stroke Patients Delay Care

The patient described it as the worst headache of her life. She didn’t go to the hospital, though. Instead, the Washington state resident waited almost a week.

When Dr. Abhineet Chowdhary finally saw her, he discovered she had a brain bleed that had gone untreated.

The neurosurgeon did his best, but it was too late.

“As a result, she had multiple other strokes and ended up passing away,” said Chowdhary, director of the Overlake Neuroscience Institute in Bellevue, Washington. “This is something that most of the time we’re able to prevent.”

Chowdhary said the patient, a stroke survivor in her mid-50s, had told him she was frightened of the hospital.

She was afraid of the coronavirus.

The fallout from such fear has concerned U.S. doctors for weeks while they have tracked a worrying trend: As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, the number of patients showing up at hospitals with serious cardiovascular emergencies such as strokes and heart attacks shrank dramatically.

Across the U.S., doctors call the drop-off staggering, unlike anything they’ve seen. And they worry a new wave of patients is headed their way — people who have delayed care and will be sicker and whose injuries will be exacerbated by the time they finally arrive in emergency rooms.

It has alarmed certain medical groups, such as the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association. The latter is running ads to urge people to call 911 when they’re having symptoms of a heart attack or stroke.

‘Where Are All These Patients?’

Across the country, ER volumes are down about 40% to 50%, said Dr. William Jaquis, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians.

“I haven’t seen anything like it, ever,” he said. “We anticipated, actually, higher volumes.”

But doctors say once-busy emergency rooms have slowed to an eerie calm.

“It was very scary because it was so quiet,” Dr. David Tashman, medical director of the ER at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital in Glendale, California, said about the early days of the outbreak.

“We normally see 100 patients a day, and then, you know, overnight, we were down to 30 or 40.”

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Some of that decrease in normal patient volume was deliberate.

As hospitals prepared for a surge of COVID patients, officials advised people to avoid emergency rooms if at all possible. Tashman said he wasn’t surprised to see fewer trauma patients, because the roads were emptier. But soon he and other ER physicians noticed that even truly urgent cases were not coming in.

“We know the number of heart attacks isn’t going to go down in a pandemic. It really shouldn’t,” Tashman said.

Dr. Larry Stock, an ER doctor at Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster, California, thought the same thing.

“I mean, we’ve all been scratching our heads — where are all these patients?” Stock said. “They’re at home, and we’re starting to get … the tip of the iceberg of this phenomenon.”

One study collected data from nine hospitals across the country, focusing on a crucial procedure used to reopen a blocked cardiac artery after a heart attack. The hospitals performed 38% fewer of those procedures in March than in previous months.

At Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Dr. Malveeka Sharma has tracked a 60% decline in stroke admissions in the first half of April compared with the previous year.

Nationally, 911 call volumes for strokes and heart attacks declined in March through early April, according to data collected by ESO, a software company used by emergency medical service agencies.

In Connecticut, Dr. Kevin Sheth noticed a similar trend at Yale New Haven Hospital.

Sheth started calling other stroke doctors, trying to understand what was happening.

“The numbers had dramatically plummeted almost everywhere,” said Sheth, chief of the division of neurocritical care and emergency neurology at Yale School of Medicine. “This is a big deal from a public health perspective.”

Sheth said clinical stroke centers have seen an “unprecedented” drop in stroke patients being treated, with decreases from 50% to 70%.

In April, the American Heart and American Stroke associations put out emergency guidance to ensure health care providers keep stroke teams active and ready to treat patients during the pandemic.

Sheth said he worries it could be challenging to care for all the patients who eventually show up at hospitals in even worse shape after delaying care.

“When those stroke numbers come back, we could have serious capacity issues,” he said. “We were already bursting at the seams.”

“People are in this fear mode,” said Dr. John Harold, a cardiologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and board president of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Heart Association.

Harold said the full public health consequences of people avoiding the hospital aren’t yet clear.

“The big question is, are these people dying at home?” he asked.

Patients Fear The Hospital

Patients who are already at higher risk of experiencing medical emergencies describe a mix of fear and confusion about how to get safe and adequate care.

In March, Dustin Domzalski ran out of his epilepsy medication.

The 35-year-old from Bellingham, Washington, had trouble reaching his doctor, whom he would normally see in person, to get a refill.

Within a few days of not taking the medication, he had a major seizure while in the shower. His caregiver called an ambulance, which took him to the ER.

“I woke up and asked where I was and what happened,” Domzalski said. “The guy in the next room to me was coughing and doing all kinds of stuff.”

The experience was so unnerving that Domzalski now plans to avoid the hospital if at all possible.

“I am not going to the hospital unless I have a seizure and injure myself,” he said. “I’d rather stay here than potentially have problems from the virus.”

Miami resident Stayc Simpson recalled a frightening ordeal when she went to the ER in mid-March.

Simpson, a cancer survivor with heart failure, woke up with a pounding heart rate that she worried could signal a heart attack.

At the hospital, she was screened for COVID-19 and was soon moved to a unit for suspected cases because she had a cough, even though that is also a symptom of heart failure.

“When the reality hit that I was in the COVID unit, I thought, ‘If I didn’t have it before, then I probably will now,'” Simpson said.

She spent a day there, wracked with anxiety. Six days later, back at home, she learned she had tested negative for the virus.

Simpson knows the hospitals have made many changes since the early days of the pandemic, but the thought of calling 911 still scares her.

“I have seen news reports that tell me it’s safer now. … I don’t know if I have full confidence in that right now,” she said. “The risk of COVID is terrifying.”

Dangerous Risks Of Postponing Care

Some physicians are already glimpsing the consequences of patients putting off care.

“I’ve never seen the number of delays that I have in the last month or so,” said Dr. Andrea Austin, an ER physician in downtown Los Angeles.

She’s treating more serious cases because patients are waiting. “That’s really one of the tragedies of COVID-19,” Austin said. “They’re staying at home and trying to diagnose themselves or really playing down their symptoms.”

Chowdhary, the neurosurgeon from Bellevue, Washington, said some of his stroke patients have already seen life-altering consequences.

One older man noticed weakness on the left side of his body but avoided the hospital for four days.

“Now, at that point, we couldn’t do anything to reverse the stroke,” Chowdhary said. “That weakness is permanent.”

Because of the stroke damage, the patient could no longer take care of his wife, who has cognitive issues. Eventually, the couple had to leave their home and move into a nursing home.

Jennifer Kurtz, stroke program coordinator at Overlake in Bellevue, said some patients who delayed care are now grappling with the physical and emotional toll.

“They feel so much guilt and regret that they didn’t come to the hospital earlier,” she said.

A caregiver confessed to Kurtz that she didn’t bring her husband to the hospital when she first noticed symptoms of a stroke.

“She can’t even tell her daughter [that] … because she is so ashamed,” Kurtz said.

Doctors Plead: ‘Don’t Delay’

Patients must navigate the sometimes conflicting messages from public officials as well as disruptions to their routine medical care.

The surge of COVID-19 patients in hot spots such as New York City and New Orleans led to “the sense of an overstretched health care system without capacity,” said Dr. Biykem Bozkurt, president of the Heart Failure Society of America and a cardiologist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

“This may have created a false sentiment that routine care is to be deferred or that there is no capacity for non-COVID patients — this is not the case,” Bozkurt said. “We would like our patients to seek care, not wait.”

Hospitals are also trying to reassure patients they are taking precautions to keep them safe. Many have set up protocols for admitting suspected COVID-19 patients, such as separate screening areas inside the ER and dedicated areas of the hospital for coronavirus inpatients.

Tashman, the emergency physician at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital, is pleading with patients to come in for help immediately for heart attack and stroke symptoms: “Don’t delay. You’re not bothering us. You’re not imposing on us.”

This story is part of a partnership that includes KPCC, NPR and Kaiser Health News.

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stephenmccull · 4 years