Strange Magic

   One of my new obsessions is Joe Hill's amazing comic Locke & Key, the trades of which I've been devouring lately. Eventually, I'll get around to writing up those books for Goodreads and repost here, which is something I've been meaning to do for awhile*.The book is fantastic, but I'm not necessarily going to talk about it today. However, there's a concept within the book that's been on my mind lately. In the story, there is magic. It is old and powerful magic, and so far, it is completely unknown by the adults of the series, even the ones that dabbled in it as youths.

   This isn't a groundbreaking idea. Going back to Peter Pan (and probably earlier), the idea has been raised that if magic were real, it would only be understood or appreciated by children whose minds have not been closed by... well, prolonged existence, I guess. I think this is a natural concurrence, really.

   I feel like my childhood was riddled with this, the magic of everyday life. The night I swear I saw a ghost in a rocking chair in the top window of an abandoned house. The power of a ghost story**, an out-of-body experience... these are things that I swear all happened to me before my teenage years. There was the time I went to Europe with my grandparents at age 8, and I returned with sore, hacked-up fingers. I thought for some reason that if I left fingernail clippings all over the streets and alleys of Italy then a piece of me would remain there and imbue me the wisdom and artistry of the ages. Now, it sounds like a pretty childish and disgusting habit, but you have to think that many, many superstitions have been started by less.

   There were two places in Maryland that I was terrified of. One was an old motorcycle clubhouse that hadn't been occupied in over a decade, the other was a cluster of trees around a streetlight. These were places I was certain were haunted, or at least held the power in my mind to be haunted. Nothing ever happened there, as far as I knew, although maybe some of my siblings tried to convince me otherwise. I don't know what it was, but I would fall into a catatonic state before willingly walking through these places. Weirdly, the giant abandoned hotel down the street was more or less fine with me. But a cluster of trees.... whoo, boy.

   Obviously, things didn't stay that way. The juju of the world is replaced by cold, dry logic. Gradually, the places I was terrified of became the type of places I would venture on dares from myself and others. It was somehow a part of the maturation process. Go to the places you once feared, and once you're not murdered there, a piece of magic withers away from your mind.

   I remember the first time I worked up the nerve to check out the old clubhouse, and the worst of my fears were confirmed when I saw someone had spray painted a pentagram on one of the walls. There has been foul business here. There were sacrifices of children and unholy ceremonies in my minds eye. It wasn't until later that I realized that it was a certainty that these were put there by kids not much older than myself, and with the intent of frightening kids like me. In fact, I'd put even money on the culprit being one of my brothers, trying to secure a place where they could smoke cigarettes without me finding them.

   There's a reason that teenagers love to spraypaint that shit. Pentagrams, 3 sixes. Swastikas. These symbols all have a power unlike anything else we know. It isn't until you're older that you realize that they are just lines and mean sweet fuck all. 99% of the time you see these things, it's a dumb kid trying to evoke a gutteral response from anyone that sees them. Unfortunately, it still works for a lot of people. Remember in the 80s, there was that massive fear of devil worshipers. the story of the West Memphis Three is pretty indicative of the paranoia associated with this stuff, which now we all look at as kind of silly more than anything. I feel sorry for devil worshipers at this point, since all they can really evoke from me is a rolling of the eyes.

   Nowadays, I miss that feeling. I think that I, more than just about anyone, fought the dissipation of magic from my brain. My reading habits (consisting largely of sci-fi, fantasy, comic books, mythologies, and occult manuals) probably helped with that quite a bit. But time goes on, magic grows stale and abandons our imaginations to more material pursuits. The Wonder of the world is replaced with a much different (and scarier) kind of fear.

The more I've been thinking about this the more I've been upset. I want nothing more than the ability to continue being amazed and enchanted by the world around us. I want one day to hear my child speak and not dismiss their magic as childish nonsense. So I started raking my brain for the magic in my life, and how I perceive it. and I realized, that I never really abandoned the concept, nor did it abandon me.

There remains magic in music for me. Not in the same way I saw it as a child, where members of KISS might abduct me in my sleep, or how Jim Morrison was some kind of stupid shaman. It is more subtle than that. When I was driving the other day, one of my favorite songs, "The E Street Shuffle" came on. Not the funky album version, but the shuffling, slow version that Springsteen and the band did live. Bruce tells a story, this one about Clarence Clemons and how they met. It's a long story, and a funny one. But it ends with Bruce cowering in the doorway of a closed shop, hiding from Clarence, who he thinks is out to get him. The giant man extends his hand and, this is where Springsteen's voice is practically a whisper:

Sparks fly on E Street when the boy prophets walk it handsome and hot 

 

   and I almost had to pull the car over. I can hear, feel the magic in those words. I've probably heard that song two thousand times in my life, and no matter how many times I might've glossed over that line, it still has that power over me. It was there the whole time.  Ditto for the beginning of the Velvet Underground's "Heroin", which I was certain I never wanted to hear again until this morning when it floored me by complete surprise. 

 

There is magic in The Exorcist, when that ghoulish face appears. I know it is a special effect in a film, but that has never stopped me from shuddering when I see it. There is magic in every single episode of Pushing Daisies that drips with a charm that distills in me a nostalgia for things I've never known. 

There is magic in The Stand, when we are introduced to Randall Flagg***, and in the narrator's home (a crumbling, waterlogged hotel) in Amnesiascope.

 

As I've mentioned before, there is magic in so many comic books I don't know where to start.

 

Though fiction, these things all come from someplace very real. Stephen King has admitted that his inspiration for Walter Flagg, one of the greatest villains ever created, came Symbionese Liberation Army leader (and Patty Hearst kidnapper) Donald DeFreeze. DeFreeze was a prison escapee who convinced people to do horrible things for him in the name of justice. Horrible, but absolutely magic. Same could be said for Charles Manson or Wayne Coyne (probably not a fair comparison, but I needed good and evil, you see).

In my rambling, incoherent way, I guess I'm just trying to remind you that there is magic out there. It's not Harry Potter or satanists, but it's in the minds of you and your loved ones, and creators, and in the atmosphere at large. the next time you get a feeling, instead of listening to the adult voice in your head or to rationality, try to just go with it. Make a note of it. Tell somebody else about it. Use it to wonder at the world around us. I know it feels naive, and perhaps stupid, even. But it makes things a hell of a lot more enjoyable. Don't preoccupy yourself with life, preoccupy yourself with living.

*So I've been pretty negligent with my Goodreads account, largely because I am always reading either too much or too little. One of my hobbies lately though has been to write up graphic novels and comics, since I feel they could use a bit more legitimization. I've done a couple, and I plan to do more. Unfortunately, most of these "reviews" are just diatribes about legitimization of comic books. Anyway, maybe I'll post a few after this post.

**query: Have I told my Tockwogh Hermit ghost story story here? If not I will fix that.

The Saw is Family. Horrible, disgusting family.

 At the moment, I'm watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. I have no good reason why, other than when Dennis Hopper died, I put it in my Netflix instant queue, and it's been sitting there ever since. Of course, nobody in their right mind wants to watch this movie with me. Hell, I don't want to watch it. But right now Carrie is in the throes of thesis hell in the other room and Jose is holed up in his room, so I can take this chance to watch a movie that nobody wants to watch.

Which leads to me sitting here, agog at the sheer insanity of this movie. As many of you know, I enjoy a horror movie. I don't go to conventions, and I haven't seen almost any of the remakes, but I do consistently own fake blood and probably would include 4 zombie movies in my top 20 of all time if you asked me right now*. But when I was a kid, I was terrified of horror movies. I remember my brothers making me watch Nightmare on Elm Street 2 when I was a kid and being aghast for WEEKS. My brothers, of course, thought it was hilarious, but the joke was on them when I began waking them up every night at 3 AM asking what they'd to if a murderer broke in the house**. I remember crying during the opening library scene of Ghostbusters when I saw it in the theater***. But every week my family would go and rent a movie from the Rite Aid down the street from my house**** and I would just sit in the horror section staring at the display boxes. It was the same unsettling curiosity I held for KISS posters, a band that my aforementioned brothers convinced me was comprised of serial killers. In retrospect, I was kind of a stupid kid if I thought a serial killer would dress up as a kitty cat.

Update: There have been 2(!) chainsaws to the groin in this movie, which is not over yet, despite my lengthy ramblings.

So yeah, by age 8 I was intimately familiar with the covers and stills of some of the worst horror movies ever made. Maybe I was subconsciously trying to conquer my fears. Maybe it was the seeds of a dumb interest that would manifest around 7th grade. I wish I could say I preferred the more high-brow movies, but it was the slasher flicks that delivered the most satisfying images on the box. Plus, there's something to be said for a good slasher movie poster*****

Which brings me to Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. The poster was one of those that I constantly looked at. For one thing, it was a mirror of The Breakast Club poster. Also, it's like a family who are 80% walking corpses. and Leatherface is wearing a suit! People freak out about how smooth Patrick Bateman was in American Psycho, but look at how damned cool Leatherface looks with a tie and carnation in his lapel!

But this movie... holy shit. It's not so much as bad, but a disgusting exercise in splatter humor. In Roger Ebert's review of the original, he said something to the effect of "this is a well-made and effective movie, but I can't imagine for the life of me why anyone would ever want to make it". I can, because it's one of the scariest movies ever made. Special effects or jerky camera cuts in the world have yet to create a scarier movie in my eyes.

But this sequel... holy shit. It's actually grueling. Remember how that first Matrix movie was interesting, like scratching an itch you didn't know you had? Then you saw the second one, and it was like someone taken a belt sander to that itch and even the remnants of those nerve endings were long gone? The TMC sequel was like that, but with gasoline and fire ants. There are funny parts, sure, though most of the attempts at humor are more unsettling than anything. And the "scary" parts are more disgusting than scary. But I think the most disturbing part about this movie is that it wasn't hijacked by the studio or whatever, this is the same director of the first one. How the fuck does that happen? Also, how does Tobe Hooper go from Poltergeist to this mess in 3 years? Yikes.

So now the movie is over, and I'm thinking about watching Carnival of Souls just to purge what I just saw from my mind. Also, that I basically wrote for over an hour about horror movies when I sat down with a much different topic in mind. Chalk it up to my short attention span, or that I wrote this while watching a movie featuring at least ten chainsaws throughout, and once again, I've subjected you to to rambling nonsense, which I apologize for. The fact is I sat to write about something very serious and a little personal, but felt so sick over thinking about it that I started watching this shit to take my mind off things and it snowballed from there. I'll write the real update in a day or two. and hey, look at it this way. I might have just wasted a couple of minutes of your time. Okay, I definitely did. But there's good odds that I just saved you a good 90 additional minutes wasted on that movie. Or not. A few minutes ago, Carrie asked me what sort of person does this movie appeal to, and my response was "the kind of person who was an alcoholic Cannibal Corpse fan in high school". and I stick by that.


*Predictably, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later, and Shaun of the Dead, in no particular order.

**My brother Rob's response one night: "Well, then I guess we're all gonna die in our sleep. Go back to bed". I do not like to dwell on the psychological ramifications this statement might have had on my impressionable young mind.

***Again, I don't like to consider how this might have affected recent educational and occupational decisions of mine.

****I swear this was a thing, a Rite Aid renting videos, but my adult brain cannot comprehend the concept of someone renting The Exterminator from the same place they buy makeup, even if Target does that now.

*****I still think the original Friday the 13th poster is one of the best ever, and Prom Night 2 is no slouch. These asterisks are getting tired, no? Google needs to get with the damned superscript already. Or I should move this thing like I vowed to do like a year ago.

I know, I should be working on wrapping up Final #2. Well, I'm closing in on that. Halfway finished and have most of the research all lined up.

That didn't stop me from checking out Mental Floss on a study break.

When I hear the term Victorian, I tend to think of architecture. After that, it's Jack the Ripper, chimney sweeps, child labor, etc... you know, the fun stuff. But lately, what I'm realizing is that I should really just equate "Victorian" with "creepier than a haunted sanitarium".

I should point out that I don't mean that the Victorian-dressed goth kids are creepy. In fact, I admire their tenacity, especially in a subculture that has let itself go to a depressing (no pun intended) degree. I have no inclination to put on a corset and pointy hat and carry around a lace umbrella, but I respect that decision. At least more than the decision to wear ten year old Marilyn Manson t-shirts accompanied by a leash and acne.

But that's neither here nor there. Because what I'm talking about is the everyday Victorian-era items that are routinely used to terrify me. Like baby carriages, medical equipment, and the super-creepy practice of port-mortem photography. I mean, I get it, and I can sort of understand that having a portrait, any portrait of the deceased might be a valuable memento. I get that.

But Mental Floss went the extra mile by showing me a number of post-mortem pictures in which the deceased is posed as if they are awake and alive. Sometimes, retinas are painted on their eyelids.

I think I can blame a lot of my vear of all things Victorian on the slew of horror movies that make great use of these props (and often nothing else), but I still have nobody to blame but you, dead people of the era, for this insanity.

for shaaaaaaame.

Now I'm supposed to try and sleep? Great.

Your morning terror: "Vampire Squid from Hell"

I've mentioned my utter fear of marine biology here before, and at 2 AM this morning, after trying to dose myself with some Tylenol PM, I still sat there in shock watching the Blue Planet episode "The Deep". Some people can't watch horror movies before going to bed, I simply cannot watch stuff like this. It's really an unsettling feeling, to be frozen in terror in a dark room watching deep sea biology at work while drowsy and sleep-deprived.

Of course, most of this is beautiful. A major theme of this episode is bioluminescence, and it's amazing to see what goes on that deep. That said, you start seeing footage of the Gulper Eel, the Viperfish, and of course, the Vampire Squid from Hell:



I don't know what asshole named this thing, but I came away from that video admiring it more than fearing it. Sure, if I saw a dead one washed up on a beach, I'd still hit it with a stick and run away peeing, but it's still a pretty impressive cephalopod, no?

But yeah, if you get the chance, watch this video (you can watch it on Netflix RIGHT NOW) because it's insanely entertaining. and because David Attenborough's voice might just help you sleep more than it helps me...

It was 40 years ago yesterday that Cleveland's lake Cuyahoga caught fire, giving Pittsburgh something to feel good about for years before the Steel Curtain instilled a whole new pride. It's improved a great deal since then, but it does remain on the EPA's polluted list. Frankly, I think it's nice just to see some improvement in the region. Western PA/Ohio has historically had some of the most polluted waterways in the country, stemming largely from industrial sites, many of which are long gone. The region is still paying for it, though (Consider that PA has as many superfund sites as California, for a second, despite having less than a third of the area). So as laughable as the fire was, at least it gave birth to some serious reconsideration on our environmental stance, which we should be grateful for.

Anyway, there's a great article here documenting like 15 other fires that took plce on the river, going back well over a century. Apparently, "Compared to the 1952 inferno, the 1969 fire was nothing special, a freak accident that merited little local concern, but sparked national attention because of increased environmental consciousness throughout the country".

It seems like most of the pictures we see and associate with the 1969 fire (and likely including the one above) were actually from the 1952 fire. Huh.

As a requirement for one of my classes, I've been working what amounts to an online reference desk at the Internet Public Library. So far, it's been a pretty pleasant experience, and I enjoy it because I get to choose what questions I answer, which means it's usually something that I'm at least mildly curious about. Anything from Philadelphia's role in the Civil War to copyright laws, I've managed to pick up some interesting stuff.
A question I answered today was "Is Hello Kitty from Japan or England". It seemed like a pretty easy one to me, but as always that's a little deceiving (answer: both). Anyway, in my research, I stumbled across news records of the Hello Kitty murder, a case that shocked Hong Kong towards the end of the year 2000. Basically what happened is that a young woman was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered before her decapitated head was stuffed inside of a Hello Kitty doll. Terrifying, right? What's even crazier is that a 13 year-old girl had apparently been dreaming about it before the police there figured out what happened. Yikes. Anyway, I'm sorry if I'm ruining it for you, but I thought it was morbidly interesting.

Hopefully I'll have something a little more positive to report on for my next question...

Not to mention that there seems to be a number of Hello Kitty guns on the market... which I'm not even gonna get into.

Think we're out of the woods as far as the economy is concerned? The Economist says to pull your head out of your ass.

only, you know, much nicer than that.

I'm not getting into the whole torture thing, largely because I think that this is all stuff we've known or at least suspected to have known for a long time. Whether you're a proponent of torture or not, and I'm not going to pretend like there aren't people that don't advocate torture, nor am I going to say that they're wrong for doing so. It's a valid opinion, just not one that I happen to share. Anyway, I can handle that just fine, what I just can't tolerate is the renaming of it and pretending it's something that it isn't. I can understand why someone might think torture works (though I refuse to accept 24 as a reference point here), but they should at least have the stones to admit they're in favor of torture and not enhanced interrogation techniques.

Anyway, I'm not going to get into that (see what I just did there!!??). But I just read a story that provides some pretty compelling testimony that we can also add kidnapping children to the list of things I can be ashamed of our government doing and that pit in my stomach just grew a little bit. I mean, I guess we've been kidnapping children for awhile now (how old were some of those kids in Gitmo? 15? 16?), but these are kids. like, 7 and 9.

Anyway, I don't really have all that much to say about it, I just figured that it's worth pointing out.

I really feel shitty about not updating this as regularly as I should, but in truth I just haven't been able to devote enough time to the outlets where I usually end up gathering all my odd information, and my extracurricular input time has been reduced to the Rachel Maddow audio podcast and the Best Show, so it might be a little while before I get this stuff on a regular schedule. In the meantime, though, I think I should have another mix to put up soon.

The reason I'm posting today, though, is the 25 biggest censored news stories of 2009. It's pretty scary stuff, especially considering that 2009 isn't even halfway through at the moment. Oh well, at least we're finding out about them somehow, right?

That's all I got for the moment, but I'll try get over here later today with something more substantial...

I've mentioned this before and I was mocked cruelly. Now I am here to tell you once again:

KOMODO DRAGONS: THE THREAT IS VERY REAL

"A man picking fruit on an island in eastern Indonesia fell out of a tree where he was then mauled to death by two Komodo dragons."

Yeah, that's right. They're killing folks.

Apparently, my hometown newspaper is publishing op-eds by John Yoo.

That's about as embarrassing as it gets.

Icky thought of the day: Remember the protest groups in Maryland and DC that were flagged as terrorists for their peaceful demonstrations? Well, it turns out that Homeland Security helped out on that one.

Jim DeRogatis on the Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger.

I tend to hate his writing, but he's always been a smart guy and I don't think any of us agrees with this merger.

If at all possible, don't give these fuckers a dime in 2009. And watch for the name change.

Two nuclear subs collided un the Atlantic this month and they didn't even realize it.

I don't like the looks of this one bit

Your Minitrue moment of the day

An Associated Press investigation found that over the past five years, the money the military spends on winning hearts and minds at home and abroad has grown by 63 percent, to at least $4.7 billion this year, according to Department of Defense budgets and other documents. That's almost as much as it spent on body armor for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2004 and 2006.

Surprisingly, that's one of the less upsetting portions of the linked article.

You sick bastards

I complain enough about remakes on this thing that I really should just make it a theme. But really, most movies don't need to be remade, and I can't possibly believe we've exhausted every good idea.

I thought I'd addressed the upcoming Friday the 13th remake here already, but my search came up empty. Which is fine, because they already remade well, let's go down the list:
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Omen, Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Prom Night, Carrie, The Hills Have Eyes, The House on Haunted Hill, The Amityville Horror, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (like seven times), Dawn of the Dead, The Hitcher... I could do this for HOURS without even delving into all the foreign remakes or sci-fi, but italicizing them all bores me. I mean, why should this genre in particular seem so ripe for the plucking? Why hasn't anyone tried to remake Gone With the Wind, or Casablanca? The Maltese Falcon or The Wizard of Oz? Eh, I guess The Wiz sorta counts.

Because people will lose their goddamned minds, that's why. As long as they avoid movies that aren't widely considered classics they're in the clear. But these are my classics. And it pisses me off to see them treated so shoddily. Remake Dr. Zhivago into a Dane Cook vehicle for all I care, but I swear to you, if some fucker puts their creasy hands on Phantasm, there's going to be a bloodbath.

Of course, as I'm looking up this stuff, I see that they're remaking Poltergeist. Are you kidding me? Is there any reason to do this? What, was the trail of bodies not long enough after the last few? The original Poltergeist is one of the best movies ever made. In fact, the very remake of it makes me suspicious. Can you imagine Spielberg remaking any of the other movies he's ever made? Is it because he didn't credit himself as the director that he felt okay selling the rights to it? Fuck you, Spielberg. Go remake Hook or Empire of the Sun or some other bullshit movie and stop messing around with the ones that I love.

Apparently, they're remaking Hellraiser, too. Though to be honest, I don't really care. There's already like 40 of those, and I'm not sure anyone has noticed that.

My real reason for starting this post, though, is completely different. Because the movie that they're remaking now is even more ridiculous. The Last House on the Left is an extremely disturbing movie. It's gorey and rapey and honestly makes you sick to your stomach watching it. Along with I Spit on Your Grave and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, this movie heralded an entirely new wave of low-budget horror that not only became Drive-In staples, but really fucked up a lot of the American psyche and certainly helped usher in that acid hangover that followed the late 60s and early 70s. Also, I would say they're directly responsible for Cannibal Holocaust, make of that what you will.
BUT.
There's no reason to remake it. Especially since there is NO FUCKING WAY POSSIBLE that it can be made in today's studios without half of America starting their own letter-writing campaigns. So we will get a watered-down and and ill-conceived version of a movie that really can't be made more terrifying. Let's face it, one could argue* that the original should never have been made. But it was. And it sets a boundary for about as sick as a (non-Japanese) horror movie can get. Why fudge that line?

So listen, Hollywood assholes. PLEASE knock it off. Make more comic book movies if you have to. Shit, make another 200 Fast y Furiouses if that makes you feel better. But try to give us something remotely new.

or you know what? Remake chick flicks. Steel Magnolias could use an update. or Beaches. If cou can't use a sliver of imagination in writing movies, at least pretend to have some variety in the genre of film you want to ruin. Dicks.

*Not me, but I can see the rationale behind it. I wonder if the remak would be NC-17. Is that still a thing?

I haven't made any mention of the Coatesville arsons here because there isn't anything I can say that hasn't already been said. It's disgusting and I can't imagine how hard this is for the people that live there. This sort of thing should always be abhorred, and that it's being done in such trying economic times (not to mention the middle of winter) is just salt in the wound. To the person lighting these fires: These people are going to tear you to fucking* pieces when they find you. Furthermore, nobody will want to stop them.

I truly hope this situation gets resolved as soon as possible for the sake of Coatesville and its residents. It's a terrible situation that nobody should be subjected to.


*my profanity reform has gone off the rails**, but I'm trying to use it only when I feel really strongly about something.

**the fucking rails.

note the painting in the background

by Joel Aron
(via Riotclitshave)

11 Toxins found in our drinking water

Scary shit right here.

My favorite site of the day: Abandoned Places. This is probably as predictable as I can get, but what can I say, I enjoy rust, overgrowth and uninhabitance. Anyway, it was nice to see some local sights on there. Also, this Magnetic Mansion thing is completely crazy, though I have no idea if any of it's true:

"Zack Heikel buys on a whim an old abandoned mansion and after moving in, he stumbles upon an enormous vault hidden in a secret room in the basement. After using an acetylene torch to gain entry, he finds four million dollars in cash, along with journal records from illegal rackets in the Chicago and Detroit areas in the 1930's. More surprising was a jar of formaldehyde containing nine severed human fingers, three of which wore a very unusual silver signet ring. An ancient manuscript found among the rubble in an upstairs library explains the rings and also spoke of an order of men from biblical times calling themselves "The Knights of Zion." Zack spends years trying to find answers to these mysteries woven into the old mansion as well as why it was built the way it was and who is the old hunchback caretaker that still lives in a shack on the rear of the property. Stranger still, who were the nine bodies buried in the woods behind the mansion and what exactly was the secret elevator shaft that enabled a phantom observer to spy on guests in various parts of the house? Zack finally meets an old time gangster at the hunchback's funeral who is all too familiar with the interior of the mansion. He gives Zack several answers to the mysteries surrounding the old place because he was once a prisoner in the basement dungeon".

Okay, so maybe none of it.