Category: horror

You Can’t Be a Beacon (If Your Light Don’t Shine)

Ah, back to the office Monday and what passed for normality this week. Tropical weather, even the smaller ones, are so disruptive. It generally takes about a week for everything–grocery stores, traffic lights, and other little things like that–to get back to normal. (Although after Ida it took weeks and I swear the grocery stores have never completely recovered from that, but I’m also older and crabbier now. Scary thought, ’tisn’t it?) The light at Prytania and Felicity, for example, is dead–not blinking, just dead to the world. It’s not a busy intersection, but….New Orleans drivers, and I’ll leave it at that.

Yesterday wasn’t nearly as lovely as Saturday. It wasn’t super hot, but rather muggy. I think that’s even worse than super-hot and humid; this is that unpleasant feeling where you know you’d be more comfortable if you’d start sweating, but you never do, you just feel greasy instead. It’s yucky, seriously. I did a big grocery run because we were out of things, but I forgot perhaps the most important thing–sweetener for my coffee. DISASTER! But I can drink my coffee unsweetened, I just don’t enjoy it as much. I’ll have to walk across the street at work today and get some from CVS. Ah, well. But the Saints trounced the Cowboys yesterday, in Dallas. They’ve scored over forty points per game so far, and are looking really good. Or, the two teams we’ve played really stink, who can tell? But I should probably start paying more attention to them again. I know that sounds band-wagon fannish, but what I mean by that is paying attention to the NFL overall; I only do that when the Saints are playing well. If they aren’t, I don’t care enough about pro football to pay attention to anything but the Saints themselves. If anything ,I am fair-weather fan of the NFL.

I also watched Civil War yesterday afternoon. I wasn’t sure what I’d think going in, and I know it was kind of controversial at the time–but while it didn’t really do anything for me one way or the other, I can see why it disturbed people. It’s very graphic, shot in an almost documentary style, like the filmmakers are following and documenting journalists covering what looks like the end of a prolonged, and bitter, American civil war. The backstory isn’t really explained much, either–so you can’t say it’s pro one thing or the other, so it’s kind of like a true news documentary in that way. It’s very realistic about what the country would look like in that situation, and how the weary journalists don’t have an opinion about what they are witnessing (and experiencing the danger right along with whoever they are photographing; they also still shot some of the images they are taking, showing the action through endless shots in one case, which I thought was an interesting technique. The acting was good, it was completely unsentimental, and while I wouldn’t say it worked completely, it’s not a bad film and if you’re curious about it, check it out for yourself. But I was inured to the whole “disturbing” aspect of America at war with itself, because there’s a long history of this sort of thing in popular culture and I’ve come up with at least three or four book ideas that are variations on the very same theme of American collapse, what would come in its wake, and what kind of dystopia/civilization would rise from the ruins. I think about those ideas from time to time, usually when I’m watching some kind of dystopian movie or television series. I’m just kind of ambivalent about the movie, but it really left me without much of an opinion one way or the other.

I did sleep really well last night, and my supervisor is out for the week at a conference, which leaves me in charge of my program and the answer-man for questions with other testing. Yay, responsibility. But hopefully this week will be normal; a quick look at the Hurricane Center reveals Tropical Storm Gordon out in the Atlantic heading west and something forming along the coast of the Carolinas….so at least a week without having to worry about another disruption. Huzzah, I suppose.

We watched the Emmys for a while last night before going to bed, and it wasn’t a particularly good show–it rarely is, most awards shows are incredibly tedious (and getting even more tedious with every year), and the older I get the less I care about who wins them. I know this makes me a bad gay, but I was very into them for decades and they were a part of my formative gay years, so they did have an influence on me, but I’ve never considered the Tonys or Oscars to be the ‘gay Super Bowl’. There are some good shows coming out this month, everything from Grotesquerie to the Menendez Brothers series, and English Teacher is something I’m hearing very good things about, so we’re going to try to check that out this week, too. I didn’t read yesterday, but I did work on the Scotty Bible and did some planning on the next chapter, and want to get back to work on it as soon as possible.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again perhaps later.

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World of Make Believe

I woke up reluctantly this morning to rain, which will be off and on all day, and probably getting worse as the day progresses. Okay, pretty much the same as yesterday. We were on the edge of the cone yesterday, and today we are just outside of it, expecting tropical storm conditions at worst for the moment when she gets here, and it’s going to be relatively nasty both tomorrow and Thursday morning. The whole thing should be over and past by Thursday afternoon. The models kept shifting yesterday; first we were outside, then inside, then back outside again. The agency hasn’t made any announcements yet, but I think I don’t want to drive in tropical storm conditions so might just take tomorrow off and ride this out at home.

The irony that I am writing a book set during tropical weather has not escaped me. I really didn’t need a reminder of riding out a storm.

I am also seeing recommendations that everyone stay home Wednesday and Thursday, and little as I want to use my paid time off to not go into the office, I think my own personal safety and that of my car is more important than my job. Of course, we are completely unprepared–no bread, and probably won’t be able to get any at this point as people have probably already lost their minds about the storm. I still have a case of water from last year’s salt intrusion in the Mississippi, so we’re at least ahead on that score, and of course, we have a lot of candles. God, I hope we don’t lose power. We won’t lose much food, thank heavens, because I’ve been trying to use up everything in the house in order to combat my food anxiety (from being poor in my younger years) and not have a fully stocked house filled with food I never get around to eating.

Yesterday was a low energy day; I managed to get all my work done at the office but was dragging by the time I came home. I didn’t do any writing when I got home, but we watched The Deliverance last night, which was really interesting. It’s based on a true story, apparently, which makes it even more interesting, and the acting was phenomenal. I love urban horror–it’s so much more creepy when horror is set in an urban area, where the suspension of belief is even harder to pull off. A remote creepy big house in the middle of nowhere? Easy to go down that path than to think the house at the end of the block or across the street is haunted, you know? I’ve always wanted to write a great ghost story set in New Orleans.

Also, This Fresh Hell, an anthology I contributed a story to last year, has been short-listed for the Ditmer award for Best Collection! That’s exciting, and I am delighted for the editors. The story I contributed, “Solace in a Dying Hour,” is one of my personal favorites, and is one of my few Louisiana stories that isn’t set in New Orleans. That’s also a story I wrote post-pandemic, and so I guess I have been doing good work since the world shut down four years ago, but it was such a completely miserable time that it seems like I didn’t really write anything good. I also didn’t get as much work done as per my usual, which was a part of the entire self-recrimination thing. I’ve also realized, going through these old Scotty books, that I’ve always considered the ones after the first three as different from the first three. And they are, in many ways, but as always, rather than thinking it through I just thought I wasn’t doing as good of work on that series…but in thinking it through, I realized that mentally it’s like two different series; because there were the first three over four years, and changed publishers with it, starting it again about three or four years after the third came out. By the time I wrote another Scotty, things were different. Publishing had changed. There really weren’t ebooks when the first three came out. Working on the first three was a matter of getting corrected manuscripts in the mail, fixing everything, and then sending them another two copies of the corrected manuscript, and on and on. By the time I wrote Vieux Carre Voodoo, everything was being done electronically, and thus could move a lot faster than the olden days. It’s not that I worked harder on the earlier ones, but it was harder to publish and edit the old way, and time-consuming. And since that was the way I learned how to revise and rewrite and make corrections, in my mind I defaulted to this is the way it’s supposed to be done and I’ve never gotten comfortable with the new way, even if 90% of my books were done that way.

And the clinic is closed for the storm tomorrow. We don’t have bread, and it’s probably impossible to find any now…but we do have crackers. And protein shakes. And lots of soda.

I hope we don’t lose power.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, and everyone in the path, stay safe!

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If You Talk In Your Sleep

Well, here we are in the cone of uncertainty for a tropical storm that should be forming due south of Louisiana in the Gulf, which should make for an interesting week, don’t you think? How things have changed since I posted my blog yesterday morning… I imagine we’ll be hearing about contingency plans today at the office.

Sigh. Wednesday is also Pay the Bills Day, which should make everything all the more interesting. According to the hurricane center, landfall should be around seven pm on Wednesday, so who knows? It might impact work on Thursday, too. And of course, I am writing about experiencing a Category 1 with this new Scotty, and this one will be a Category 1, too, if not stronger. Yay. Needless to say, we won’t be evacuating as this has come up a little too quickly; we’d have to get packing and on the road today, tomorrow morning at the latest. There’s no call for evacuation, so we should be okay. But…we may lose power, and that truly sucks. If the weather is going to be cool…it might be kind of nice, but I don’t think that’s going to be the case. Guess I’ll be getting that case of water down from the attic and tossing a few of them into the freezer. But there doesn’t seem to be much concern in the news or on the weather channels, so I am assuming it’s nothing to be terribly concerned or worried about. It’s 3’s and up that are the real problem…and of course, now that I’ve said that…

Since it’s a Monday, it’s back to the office with me this morning. I had a lovely, restful weekend, how about you? Yesterday was a really lovely day here. I overslept so was a bit off for the rest of the day, but the weather was gorgeous. I didn’t do a whole lot of anything, but one thing I did was start the Scotty Bible, going through the already post-it noted copy of Mardi Gras Mambo and getting some interesting (and necessary) information out of it (the first names of his grandparents and his dad; the street the Diderot mansion is on) that I needed, and I felt very accomplished getting that part of it done and it’s off to a start. It was also kind of nice revisiting the old book, something I wrote almost twenty years ago. I’d forgotten how insane the plot of this book actually was, and I’m kind of impressed that I managed to pull it off, especially given how many aborted starts I made on it. But I certainly picked the right back-list book to start compiling the Bible with; it had all the answers I needed for this one in it. Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop doing it, mind you; I am planning on getting through one book per day (I already marked the places I need to get information from in the entire series, many years ago); today is Who Dat Whodunnit when I get home tonight. I’m also going to correct the chapters I’ve already written with the right names and places and so forth.

I ran an errand and the weather was stunningly beautiful–the 70s and cool; the breeze was nice and cool, a lovely change from it feeling like the air coming out of a floor vent in Minneapolis in January. I watched the Saints win, which was also lovely, and then I had a ZOOM call with some friends before settling in for the evening, where we got caught up with Bad Monkey and Only Murders in the Building.

So, all in all, a pleasant if lazy weekend here in the Lost Apartment, if not a particularly productive one. Which is also fine, you know. Weekends don’t have to be productive anymore.

It’ll be interesting to see how this storm–which is now projected to be a Category 2 when the eye comes ashore–is going to interrupt the week and my work. If we lose power, we have plenty of candles and things to drink, and I can catch up on my reading. Now that I’ve broken through my “reader’s block” and binged an entire novel in one sitting (Alison Gaylin’s We Are Watching, available now for preorders and being released in January), reading isn’t going to be as big an issue as it was. I am also making progress on getting through Rival Queens, and am revisiting some Ira Levin classics, preparatory to a longer essay for Substack about one of my favorite writers that I sadly forget about when asked about influences; Levin’s work had an influence on mine in some ways, but he was definitely a master. He wrote one of the greatest crime novels of all time (A Kiss Before Dying, which still amazes with its twists and turns and surprises), and three others that became part of the zeitgeist and had a lasting impact on our culture: Rosemary’s Baby, The Stepford Wives, and The Boys from Brazil. (I also want to reread “A Rose for Emily” this week, too.) I also haven’t reread Rebecca in quite some time, nor The Haunting of Hill House, either. I am going to be trying to read horror all month for Halloween again; I have some terrific horror novels collecting dust that I need to get around to, and Halloween Horror Month sounds like a great idea to me.

I also want to watch The Deliverance this week.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. It’ll be an interesting day, for sure, and maybe I’ll be back later. Stranger things have occurred.

Daydream Believer

Hello, Monday morning and how are you? I am feeling okay this morning, all things considered. I slept well last night but am once again unused to getting up early in the morning so feel a bit groggy this morning and like I really want to go back to bed, if I am being completely honest. I wrote quite a bit last night, which was terrific, and went to bed later than usual because I was trying to finish chores before going to bed. The laundry did get finished, and I did run the dishwasher last night. I’m not feeling so great this morning, but my COVID test (several co-workers were out last week with it) is negative so it’s probably something else other than that. I am feeling better at the moment, which is great, but man did I have some serious nausea there for awhile this morning. Sparky is trying to get something out from beneath the couch, like the sweet little apex predator he is, and I am hoping I feel better within the next few minutes. The shower will probably help, but I also need to shave–never a lot of fun under the best of circumstances1–so I need to be able to pay attention and be awake before I press a razor against my skin.

It was nice having a do-nothing weekend (untrue, I did some things) for the most part and also found myself thinking oh, so this is what it’s like to for people who do not have a second job and have their weekends and evenings free and it’s rather seductive, I have to say. It’s also nice to spend time with Paul again on the weekends, and that will always trump anything else I might have to do. Even as I sit here this morning, waiting to wake up and feel better before getting ready for work, I think to myself maybe it’s time to step away from the writing, or keep taking time off. I probably won’t have a book out this year, which is fine with me, actually. I write because I love to write, and sometimes it’s hard to find that joy when I’m writing now. But sometimes you do have to force it, even when it doesn’t feel organic or good or like you’re doing your best work, because if you wait for inspiration or when you “feel” like doing it, it would never get done.

In fact, the problem with do-nothing weekends are how seductive they are. Even now I find myself thinking oooh next weekend I can do nothing other than chores and errands and that is NOT a good thing by any means.

Obviously, I am more awake now (thank you, coffee!) and feeling better. I guess maybe it was just the getting up early again adjustment thing. I don’t know. But tonight I know there’s another load of laundry to do, clean dishes in the dishwasher to put away, and I need to get the mail on the way home from work. We’re in yet another heat advisory today, hurray, which will make driving around this afternoon unpleasant at first.

We wound up watching more Evil yesterday, which took a very interesting turn that I didn’t see coming, and now I am really interested in what’s going on in the continuing arc of the show. It also made me (again) think about how horror tropes inevitably always require an affirmation, not of Christianity but of Catholicism. Exorcisms, trappings of Catholicism are used against evil or vampires, and so on and so forth. Catholicism is the oldest form of Christianity, no matter what you think of that brand, and so it only makes sense that the legends and myths that come down through history use the signs and symbols of the Roman Catholic Faith–which I’ve always wondered about; wouldn’t Vlad Tepes, as a Transylvanian, have been Eastern Orthodox rather than Catholic? But the West never thinks about Eastern Orthodoxy, do we? Ah, Western bias–it IS a thing.

And on that note, I am going to get ready for work and head into the office. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back probably later. You know how I am.

  1. I would happily give up my ability to grow facial hair so I’d never have to shave again. It’s not like I can grow a beard in the first place. ↩︎

I’m a Believer

Thursday and my last day in the office for the week, Huzzah! It’s been a pretty decent week, overall, which is pretty amazing and pleases me endlessly. Is it just me, or is this summer just swimming by? It’s almost mid-July already, holy crap. I’d fully intended to be further along in my book than I am, so I need to kick it up a notch. Now that I have most of the busy work done around the apartment, I don’t need to spend as much time on that on the weekends and can start focusing on getting back into a strong writing groove again. I’m spending a lot of time thinking about the book and developing the characters out further–I need to do some more work on that as well before moving on–so I am working, just not in the way that gets me closer to a finished first draft. A chapter a day for the rest of the month should do the trick, really, but that’s also a lot of writing to cram into a short period of time and I don’t know if I have the mental stamina to do that without burning myself out a bit.

I guess I need to stop being afraid to find out, right? Fear is such a useless emotion when it comes to living your life, really. Sure, if a spree killer is coming for you, you should be afraid–but you need to stay calm so you can think your way out of the situation. (I’ve always wanted to write my own take on a slasher movie; I have a couple of ideas that could be a lot of fun to explore.)

Yesterday wasn’t a bad day at all. I managed to make it through the entire day without getting tired or worn out. I came straight home from work between the rain storms (Beryl’s remnants are still plaguing us in New Orleans, but there was no flood warning last night, either) and we watched Presumed Innocent and more of Outer Range, which is very strange. There’s only one more episode and there’s no way they could possibly get everything wrapped up and explained in one, so it’s either going to be continuing into a second season and a lot is going to be left unexplained at the end of the series. It’s entertaining enough, and the acting is pretty good, so it’s involving us, but part of that involvement is “what the hell is going on?”

Not a way to end a first season or a mini-series, I’m afraid.

I was a bit tired when I got home yesterday, not going to lie about that. Not worn out must lie in chair all night doomscrolling social media while the television plays as background noise, but still fatigued. Today is my last day in the office for the week, so here we are at the end of another week with the weekend looming. I really need to get a to-do list together, because I know I am forgetting things I need to be doing. I think I am going to try to use this weekend to do a few things on the apartment, but get everything looming finished and caught up. I also want to finish Hall of Mirrors this weekend, so I can select my next read, and I have a pretty good idea of what that is going to be–it’s either the new Lori Roy or the new Wanda Morris–and of course I have some other blog posts I need to get finished. Ironically, I was already writing one about “the art v. the artist” re: the recent publishing community scandals when another broke yesterday, involving someone I know slightly and have always liked…so now I can write it from a more personal headspace. All of the scandals were surprises, but once the surprise wore off, it really wasn’t as surprising as I’d initially thought.

I also discovered yesterday that a short story I need to write isn’t actually due until December, so that was very good news. One of the things I need to do is also keep working on short stories. Maybe I’ll work on editing some this weekend; there are quite a few in progress and I really would like to get the collection finished and turned in. It can be very daunting sometimes when I think about all the things I have in progress and the fact that I am probably going to work on two of the more recent ones before I go back to anything else. I also think I am going to start working on the next Scotty book, too. I mean, what’s another thing to have on my plate, really? But I’ve written two at the same time before–going back and forth; when I’d get stuck on one I’d go work on the other, and by the time I’d get back to the original I wouldn’t be stuck anymore. It IS a lot to be juggling two books and a short story collection at the same time, but I have a lot of free time now, which I am still trying to get used to and wrap my mind around and figure out how to manage that time the most effectively I can–it is very easy to get sucked into doing nothing, particularly since I am so damned lazy and “a Greg at rest tends to stay at rest,” which has been true most of my life.

Ironically, I was writing a post about the “art v. the artist” argument this week in the wake of the last two authors outed as shitty people from the outside perspective of someone with no skin in the game (I’ve admired Gaiman’s work, but was never really vested in it; was aware of Munro but hadn’t read her; I bought a collection when she won the Nobel Prize), as has been the case pretty much always; I’d read the Harry Potter books as an adult so wasn’t vested in them, so that author’s descent into homophobic TERFdom wasn’t hard for me…but yesterday news broke about someone I actually do know and have worked with before, which means scrapping that post and starting over again. But even that acquaintance wasn’t much, and while I admired his writing successes, as I do with everyone, but I’d only ever read some of his short stories…so it’s again not something emotionally wrenching for me. So this brings a whole new perspective to it, and so I need to roll it around in my head a bit more.

Jesus, the world in which we live.

And on that horrific note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back probably later.

You Make Me Feel Brand New

Saturday morning and we had a marvelous thunderstorm last evening. Paul got caught in it, coming home from the gym, but it was also a flash-flood alert storm, too. I should have curled up in bed with a book, but settled for the easy chair, my chair blanket, and a sleeping kitten. We wound up watching Godzilla Minus One, which was enjoyable. It’s funny that I can watch these movies so comfortably and easily now and enjoy them, when they terrified me as a child. I think it was WGN in Chicago that would run them and call them “creature features” (which was probably the case everywhere) and that always stuck in my head. I had such bad nightmares that Mom and Dad banned me from watching the monster movies, but the vampire/wolfman/Frankenstein monster movies also were nightmare material for me. I know I also used to have Dark Shadows nightmares, too.

Having a big imagination when you’re a child isn’t always a good thing.

I haven’t had nightmares in years, at least not ones I remember–I don’t remember any of my dreams anymore when I wake up, which used to be a thing for me. Not sure how or why that changed over the years, but it did. Maybe it’s because I use my imagination so much to write and create that it’s too drained for me to dream anymore. That might be the case, but then again who knows?

I spent some time in the laundry room working on the shelves, and I did purge more books to take to the library sale today. I am going to do that and go to the gym today–errands are first, of course–and then I think tomorrow morning I’ll cross over to the West Bank to go make some groceries. I have to clean out the refrigerator today, too. I’ve been kind of low energy this three day weekend; and not getting nearly as much done as I would have liked this weekend, but that’s life these days, you know? There’s also today. I want to work on the files and do some writing today, get rid of these boxes of books, and maybe clean some. I need to do the dishes and the kitchen, too. I also need to clean myself up; I haven’t shaved since Monday and my face is itchy and scratchy. I’ve really been a slacker this weekend thus far, but I am also not beating myself up over it. It is what it is, and sometimes I need down time just like everyone else. (I do miss my old energy levels, though.) I haven’t checked today’s weather, either. I am hoping for some rain this morning so I can curl up with my book for a while this morning before lugging the books to the library–but that’s going to open up so much space in the living room! I am really enjoying this progress I am making on the house, you know. I may even attack that last file drawer today, too.

As you can tell, the coffee is starting to work its magic on my brain and I am starting to feel alive and awake. I definitely am going to get through some of this stuff this morning, huzzah! (A quick check of the weather indicates rain at ten, so huzzah!)

I have also been thinking about the book projects a lot these last few days, which has been cool and helpful. I keep getting Imposter Syndrome every time I think about the WIP–but not the usual kind, thank God; this time it’s more “are you sure you’re telling this right?” before realizing that the plan for this book was to always over-write it to begin with and then trim it down and turn it into something I can take pride in; which isn’t how I usually write books in the first place. I also realized that I am not in fact finished with Chapter 3, either; I rushed it and did one of those “I can fill this in later because I want to call this done now” things that I always regret and resent during the revisions, so this weekend I need to get back to that chapter and really finish this draft so I can move on to the next. I also need to get back to work on some short stories, too. I’ve really got to stop letting my mind have the night off more regularly!

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. I need to get the books organized in their boxes for ease of transfer, get the dishes finished, and maybe–just maybe–work on the floors some. I’ll also probably be back later at some point, too. Have a lovely day and catch you later, Constant Reader!

That’s Why God Made the Movies

I love nothing more than a good horror movie, unless it’s a well-written horror novel…and with his latest, the amazing Paul Tremblay has somehow managed to give his readers both.

Our little movie that couldn’t had a crew size that has become fluid in the retelling, magically growing in the years since Valentina uploaded the screenplay and three photo stills to various online message boards and three brief scenes to Youtube in 2008. Now that I live in Los Angeles (temporarily; please, I’m not a real monster) I can’t tell you how many people have told me they know someone or are friends of a friend of a friend who was on-set. Our set.

Like now. I’m having coffee with one of the producers of the Horror Movie remake. Or is it a reboot? I’m not sure of the correct term for what it is they will be doing. Is it a remake if the original film, shot more than thirty years ago, was never screened? “Reboot” is probably the proper term but not with how it’s applied around Hollywood.

Producer Guy’s name is George. Maybe. I’m pretending to forget his name in retribution for our first meeting six months ago, which was over Zoom. While I was holed uip in my small, stuffy apartment, he was outdoors, traipsing around a green space. He apologized for the sunglasses and his bouncing, sun-dappled phone image in that I-can-do-whatever-I-want way and explained he just had to get outside, get his steps in, because he’d been stuck in his office all morning and he would be there all afternoon. Translation: I deign to speak to you, however you’re not important enough to interrupt a planned walk. A total power play. I was tempted to hang up on him or pretend my computer screen froze, but I didn’t. Yeah, I’m talking tougher than I am. I couldn’t afford (in all applications of that word) to throw away any chance, as slim as it might be, to get the movie made. Within the winding course of our one-way discussion in which I was nothing but flotsam in the current of his river, he said he’d been looking for horror projects, as “horror is hot,” but because everything happening in the real world was so grim, he and the studios wanted horror that was “uplifting and upbeat.” His own raging waters were too loud for him to hear my derisive snort-laugh or see my eye-roll. I didn’t think anything would ever come from that chat.

Horror that is “uplifting and upbeat.” Oooo-kay then.

I’ve been a fan of Tremblay since I read his brilliant A Head Full of Ghosts, which was so real and believable and so original that it blew my mind. It was one of the more ambitious horror novels I’d read this century, and having enjoyed that thoroughly, delved more deeply into the Tremblay canon. I’ve yet to be disappointed in one of his novels–they are always very original, even when taking on a horror trope; they are hard to stop reading or put down at any point over the course of the narrative; and his characters are always believable, absolutely real, and completely relatable, even if they aren’t the nicest people around.

The “cult horror movie” trope is one that has been used before, of course, both in fiction and on film. The primary reason for the success of The Blair Witch Project back in the day was due to no one being certain whether it was a work of fiction or if the film’s conceit–found footage of something that actually happened–and that huge success resulted in the rise of the “found footage” trope. Tremblay plays a bit with this here–the original film in this book, Horror Movie, is also named Horror Movie. Five kids made the movie back in the day, with everyone participating and everyone having off-camera duties as well as their on-camera performances. The movie was never released, but about ten years earlier than the time of the novel, the director released some scenes on line and also published the script, posting links on every horror film board and horror fan board she could find. This has stirred up interest in the movie again…and the book is about the “reboot/remake” of Horror Movie, and the person telling the story is the only survivor from the original movie…but we don’t learn that right away. (Part of the lore of the movie is its “curse”.) He also played the monster the kids in the movie “create”, by isolation, torture and mind control–and the use of a mask that he (only known as The Thin Kid) is forced to wear.

The story has two timelines–the current day with the making of the new version, and his memories of making the original. There are also flashbacks to periods in his life between the bookends of the film being made–the film being made reminds me of Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door–and as the book goes on, the timelines cross over and over again and once again, we have a completely unreliable narrator–but that doesn’t become very apparent until the book continues to move on and this blurring of fact and fiction is done so incredibly well that you can’t help but wonder how all of this is going to play out and what is real and what isn’t–while the tension keeps building and building as everything spirals out of control.

This book is utterly amazing, and I am so grateful I started reading Tremblay. Highly recommended, and will make a lot of Top Ten lists this year.

Science Fiction Double Feature

Lips! Lips! We want lips!

The first time I went to a midnight movie1 was when I was either eighteen or nineteen. I still lived in Kansas then, and the midnight movie was playing at the old movie theater on Sixth Street that was rarely open other than for some special occasion. They’d been doing midnight movies for a while before I went that first time, and I was going with a co-worker who promised me I was going to have an amazing time. I wasn’t so sure. The line outside the Granada Theater was a bizarre sight–many of them dressed up freakishly, and a lot of them were carrying paper bags full of stuff, which I also thought was odd.

I was about to watch, and experience, The Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time.

I had no idea what was to come.

At the late night, double feature, picture show…

The crowd started chanting for “lips” as the lights in the theater went down, and then I saw what they were chanting for, as two bright red lips appeared on the black screen and started singing as everyone cheered….and started shouting responses to the opening credits.

And I liked the song.

What followed was ninety-eight minutes of insanity. I had never heard of an “interactive” movie before, and it really caught me off guard. How did people know what to yell, and when to yell it? They sang along with the movies, and I soon was caught up in it; getting sprayed with water, ducking out of the way of flying pieces of toast and toilet paper and tampons, and it was all so delightfully subversive in terms of questioning gender and sexuality. You still couldn’t swear on prime time television shows, and you definitely couldn’t say “sex” (I always hated the coy and cheesy ways television writers came up with as a workaround).

And then of course, there was Tim Curry’s Dr. Frank-n-furter.

I’d never seen anything like that before in my life…and I howled with laughter as he removed his robe to reveal what he was wearing beneath, and several people shouted in unison, “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Liza Minnelli!”

And after ninety-eight minutes of madness and mayhem, I was a convert. I walked out of the theater with my head still reeling from all the subversion a still moralistic 1970’s American culture had taught me was wrong on every level, disgusting sin and decadent morality, and I wanted more.

I bought the soundtrack shortly thereafter, both vinyl and eight-track, and it didn’t take long for me to have the entire thing memorized. I don’t remember seeing it again while I lived in Kansas–we moved to California shortly thereafter–but I did discover the theater in Fresno that showed it, and I started going weekly. It was more of a production in Fresno–people dressed up and acted out the parts in front of the screen (they tried to recruit me once to play Brad, but I said no; it would be over another decade before I was comfortable enough to wear only underwear in public; I was really uptight). Eventually, after memorizing the film and soundtrack, learning everything there was to know about the movie and play, I finally stopped going to the midnight movies. HIV/AIDS ripped a lot of the joy out of life in the 1980s for me, and once I was out of the habit of the movie, I was out of the habit and looked back on it as a past experience with nostalgia and joy.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show was the perfect amount of subversion at precisely the right time for me. It opened a world of possibilities to me, but at the same time, it made me very aware that I needed, more than anything else, to get out of Kansas. Much as I loved the movie, those memories of seeing it that first time–and the self-actualization and realization that came in its wake–are also tied up with my growing misery and dissatisfaction with living in Kansas. It’s also tied to discovering actual queer people in Fresno, and recognizing that even this little bit of subversion, something I could go see with the straight friends without any questions or fears, kept me going through the early 1980s as everything started turning even darker than they had ever been in Kansas.

Watching it on television just isn’t the same, either.

But the movie always holds a special place in my heart–and I imagine it does with many other queers for whom it proved an awakening of their true freak selves–and I became a lifelong fan of all the stars, whose careers and successes I followed…but one is now dead to me forever, and Her Name Must Not Be Uttered….and her being in the film has also kind of tainted its legacy with me.

But seriously, what a great movie. I may write an essay about the movie someday, you never know!

  1. I’m not counting the night of the senior prom, when the school districts got together and got the Twin Theaters (I think that was the name) to show a midnight movie to keep us all out of trouble. It was Smokey and the Bandit, by the way. ↩︎

Daydream Believer

Ah, Saturday morning. I have to make a brief errand run today, nothing major or horribly annoying, but it still means going outside. Tomorrow….tomorrow I am not leaving the house. We did all our errands last night, including a Costco run (we made it out for less than $300! It’s been years), and then we just hung out and watched television–the gymnastics Olympic team trials–and called it a night relatively early. I also managed to get some things done around the house, too–the bed linens laundered, the dishes put away and another load washed, cleaning up the kitchen–and was in a pretty good mood almost the entire day. I realized something else, too; I also bought the new car and took on all that additional monthly expense right around when Mom had her first stroke, too–so there was the Mom subconscious worry on top of monetary stress; something I hadn’t experienced in a very long time and I. Did. Not. Like. That. One. Bit. I am finally beginning to see a distant light at the end of a very long dark tunnel in that regard, but still. I don’t regret the car purchase; I am very pleased with the car and intend to hopefully keep it until I die. It’s hard to believe that I’ve had it now for almost eight years. That’s INSANE.

It was strangely cool and beautiful yesterday–granted, it was 86 degrees, but after the last few weeks it felt heavenly, and the damp in the air was cool not hot. I imagine that was the aftermath of Thursday night’s downpour, but regardless the reason it was lovely. The sun wasn’t out as much, either–there were a lot of clouds, so no endless punishing direct sunlight was also a pleasure to experience this close to the 4th. I am also going to have to keep watching Tropical Storm Beryl. Ah, hurricane season is already revving up for a long and busy summer.

I was also exhausted after we did the errands. I fell asleep in my chair for over an hour after getting back home, and the place is a mess. I was too tired when I got home from Costco (the last errand) to put everything away properly, and I’d also intended to do some work on the workspace, but…tired. I slept later this morning and feel better now that I am up and swilling coffee, but whew, it was hard to get up this morning and my joints all ached. The joys of being an elder, I suppose, but sheesh. I literally thought when I woke up (when Sparky woke me up) that I was too tired physically to get out of bed, but I got there eventually. I do have some errands to run today, but it shouldn’t take very long and then I can come back home and work on the house more. I also want to write this morning (and maybe this afternoon) and hopefully today I won’t get sidetracked or distracted.

The gymnastic trials were fun to watch; I always forget how fun it is to watch athletes trying to reach their dream goal of the Olympics–but of course the thrill of victory also carries with it the agony of defeat or worse, injury. It’s also hard for me to conceive that it’s an Olympic year and I’ve heard so very little about the Olympics (other than Parisians treating it all as a horror and inconvenience; I do sometimes think the Olympics will eventually die because they are too expensive to host) because naturally the election and the horrors that the Christofascists’ puppet SCOTUS are inflicting on our country are sucking all the energy and air out of the room.

I was too tired to make a Pride post yesterday, so I will definitely have to make up for it today by doing perhaps two? I am going to continue Pride through Independence Day, haters be damned, because Pride is about freedom and so is the 4th and therefore Pride should lead into a celebration of everyone’s freedom. And if straight people don’t like it, they can literally just fuck right off. I am so tired of being told how to behave and how to be an adult and how to “not upset the heteros” and you know what? Fuck the heteros and their delicate sensibilities. They’ve been tiptoed around and catered to more than enough, thank you very much. You know what offends me? Abused children, adultery, deadbeat dads, racism, transphobia, homophobia, and misogyny. Clean up your own fucking house before you come for queers, thank you very much. But it’s easier to blame us than take any responsibility for the messy world you’ve created, isn’t it?

And may no one else ever have to fear about their rights every election cycle–although SCOTUS has already delegitimized itself and we know they are coming for marriage equality at some point, too–and sooner than we think. And just remember–there is no divine right of Republicans to rule. How are they any different from the Jacobean Stuart kings of England? Claiming a God-given right, or a “divine mandate”, to be in power is hardly a Christian thought; Jesus said very clearly (if you believe the Bible) that his kingdom was not of this world, and coerced religious conversion isn’t what the Jesus I read about and studied would have wanted for anyone. (I still don’t believe that, if Jesus were real, that he was sent here to start a new religion, but rather to teach by example what a life devoted to good works and godliness looked like.

Funny how all they care about is the Word and not the Deeds.

Well, that got feisty for a bit, didn’t it? I guess I am more awake than I gave myself credit for! I also managed to finish reading Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay, which I really enjoyed (he is a masterful writer, and the language is superb). I am still digesting that book today, because it was a lot of ideas and intense creativity, which is why he’s one of my favorite writers and I am saddened to realize I am running out of his backlist to read, which means postponing reading more of him because I never want to be out of things to read by authors I really enjoy. I am planning on starting the new John Copenhaver today as well, which is exciting. I have quite a recent-release TBR pile–Kellye Garrett, Amina Akhtar, Angela Crook, Angie Kim, and Scott Carson, to name a few glittering names from the stack–and more just keep getting released every month. Sigh. I also need to do a book purge this weekend, too. Heavy heaving sigh. It never ends, does it?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday wherever you are, Constant Reader, and I’ll definitely be checking back in with you later.

Be Thankful for What You’ve Got

Well, it’s Thursday AND it’s National HIV Testing Day! Know your status!

I feel good this morning, so I am back to the normal-yet-still-bizarre routine of being tired earlier in the week and being more awake later, apparently. I was tired after work yesterday, but I did do some writing (not much, really) before finishing the laundry and making dinner–shrimp fajitas, and they were amazing–and we settled in for the next episode of Presumed Innocent, in which Jake Gyllenhaal continues to shine but Rusty is such an unlikable prick that I forget that it’s gorgeous Jake I am watching and get repulsed by his behavior…but it makes sense for his character, and it’s a terrific performance. I didn’t get to read anything last night, but it’s fine. Tonight I need to clean the kitchen once I am home from work. I have lots to do at home on Friday for work, so hopefully it’ll be a productive day. Next week is of course the 4th holiday, and I did take Friday off for another four day weekend, which will be lovely.

And I get to have leftovers for lunch today! Huzzah!

One of the most fun things about being a writer is imposter syndrome. I do experience this (a lot) but it doesn’t mean I don’t have confidence in my writing or what I’m writing; what I experience is more along the lines of things like should you even be telling this story or are you sure you are structuring this book properly? ` But that’s the great thing about editing and revising; you can always restructure and move things around once you move on to the next draft. I don’t believe the story is too complicated and complex for me to write, by any means; i know I can write this and it will be a terrific book when finally finished. I love writing, and it’s lovely to be back in the weeds with something new. I’m writing again, and while all may not be right in the world, at least it feels like it is in mine.

I hope to finish reading the Tremblay novel this weekend and get started on another. I also have to revise and proof my story for that anthology deadline this Sunday–it’s been so long since I’ve submitted anything anywhere that I am not entirely sure how that will feel. But if I get rejected, I get rejected. Rejection is all part and parcel of the business, which can be very brutal on a fragile ego laced with insecurity. Why do I still have those insecurities? Why do I still need to get validation as a writer? I’ve written over forty books. But instead of looking at the shelves of my bookcase and feeling satisfaction (which I did do several times during the malaise), I tend to think about the books I’ve not finished, and feel like a failure because I started and never finished something. I am a completist, alas, and so as long as those unfinished novels still are hanging out in my files, it’s going to bother me that they aren’t finished. I particularly want to finish a horror novel I started writing in my twenties–can you believe I still think about that book? And what I originally wrote is absolutely terrible–and that’s not me being self-deprecating. I’ve always been able to write stories and come up with ideas, but the things I wrote weren’t good. I wasn’t very good at dialogue and I was prone to melodrama (the soap opera influence), but the raw ability and talent was always there–some were just able to see it while others weren’t. Rightly or wrongly, I was always able to write coherently; it might not have been good but the sentences were grammatically correct and my writer’s eye was sometimes able to spot something so true and honest and real that my stories stood out. The one thing I could always count on was writing a cohesive story or paper for any class, and I never feared writing papers.

I actually preferred essay tests to multiple choice, frankly.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Happy Friday Eve!