No it’s not some twisted scalp-hunt through the zombie infested streets. It’s something much more civilized. It’s Alive, a fund raiser for St Jude hospital in Orlando Florida got 80 artists to do their thing on a life-sized bust of Frankenstein’s monster. Some are clever. Some a little dumb but some are purely inspired like the Frankenberry I post above.
I am sorely tempted.
http://www.theitsaliveproject.org/Welcome.html
Russian Historian Mummified Bodies, Police allege.
Ah, the kind of heart warming tale you just don’t hear enough of any more. Sure the Golden Age of grave desecration was perhaps the pre-Victorian era where cadavers where harvested for medical purposes. The practice, I gather, has largely gone underground, so to speak if this little news bit is any indication.
The guy’s an historian. The lengths that some academics won’t go for research, I tells ya.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/07/russian-historian-mummified-bodies-police
My traveling companion “Igor” and I stopped in at the first annual Flint Horror Convention yesterday and had ourselves a blast. Since it was the first year for this convention, we knew the edges might not be brightly polished but we didn’t know if they’d be jagged and bloody, if you dig what I’m saying. I’m very pleased to say that for a small con, the inaugural Flint Horror Con was both well run and pretty darned satisfying.
The dealers’ room had a nice mix of vendors from across the state, each one hopped up and enthusiastic about their work. Sure they were selling something but most of them need to have a day job to fund their participation in the horror subculture. Like at any con, it was more about passion than cash. Readers of the DailyNightmare will have detected my predilection for artsy snob horror – not to diss the schlock-meisters and camp-crafters but it’s just not my thing. Let me note a couple artists who really delivered what I was looking for:
• Ash of 13 Foot Fall.com snaps graveyard photos that transcend the well-worn “ooky-spooky” feel so prevalent in other tombstone photography I’ve seen. As to be expected, he’s mastered and moved beyond capturing the sombre colors and rich textures of memorials left to the elements. His most effective work, for me, focused on toys left at the graves of children. At their best, they achieve that yearning tug of loss and nostalgia, with a nice dollop of revulsion and creep-out.
• Steve Jenks of Lost Highway crafts movie posters for classics of the genre – I snapped up his “Hellraiser” and “Halloween.” What delighted me about Steve’s work was how it used immediately recognizable subject matter but did more than simply reproduced a familiar screen capture. His posters express a synoptic vision of the movie as a whole encapsulated within the vernacular of the drive-in movie poster. That’s art school-speak for “he makes posters for well-loved horror movies that are both familiar and fresh.” Digital illustration gives him a clean precision and his clever use of color mimics the printing techniques of yore.
• Steven J Bejma of Classic Horrors is a generous, warm-hearted guy who memorializes horror greats in the classic media of oil paint and stretched canvas. My favorite piece of his was a portrait of Tor Johnson. In life, the face of Tor Johnson scares me about as much as a pile of cold mashed potatoes but Steven’s portrait transformed it with a greenish cast and subtle warts to a visage that is truly scary. Well done.
I also picked up discs from several Michigan film makers that I hope to view and review in the coming months and a few other trinkets here and there. I was really encouraged to see so many bright eyed horror creators from my home state venturing out from their crypts to support a new convention.
My eyes were still dripping full of movies from the Three Corpse Circus the night before, so I didn’t spend much time in the movie room, sad to say. “Igor” described a situation where the sound cut out on one of the films and an audience member familiar with the production rose to the occasion to lip-sync the missing dialogue. Sounds like a hoot.
I knew I just had to catch the panel discussion with Lucifer Fulci, a musician whose work I knew literally *nothing* about. Call me superficial, but I thought to myself, someone who looks that cool MUST be serious. Lucifer’s remarks didn’t disappoint if for no other reason than they go against the stereotypes some have about “those darned rock-n-roll types.” He’s vocally and un-apologetically anti-substance use. He holds down a respectable day-job in social work. He’s family man – heck Lucifer’s proud parents were sitting in the front row…. which is a sentence I never thought I would have the occasion to write. I appreciated his insistence on the theatricality of horror, the art and artifice, if you will. Horror is not about cruelty as it is about persona and presentation. A foundational influence on Lucifer’s work was, you guessed it, KISS.
Igor and I had a séance to get to so we had to bug out early. I would have liked to hear the panel about making movies in Michigan. Alas. The Masonic Temple was a cool, lightly creepy location for the convention and personally, I *loved* the opportunity to lunch again at the original Halo Burger. Next year, the Flint Horror Convention promises to be even better and I already plan to be there. And to stay the whole day.
The second annual Three Corpse Circus shambled its way into the historic Michigan Theatre in Ann Arbor last Friday night for another evening chock full of exceptional short horror films.
And I mean shambled quite literally. The event this year kicked off with a Zombie Walk. Yes, yes, I’ve spoken out against the zombie menace before and it certainly takes a lot for me to warm to the chilled flesh of the reanimated. But, really, there is something wonderfully theatrical about having a stream of undead patrons dragging themselves up the street and then into the movie house. Like a stamp of approval: horror movies that monsters like. Plus rotting remains got cheaper tickets. Think of it as a senior discount taken one step beyond. The Three Corpses also arranged another clever tie-in, this one with the American Red Cross – Dig the cool graphic they designed for this alliance. Donate a pint of blood, get cheaper tickets. Such pro-social team-ups can’t help but raise the reputation of horror fandom in the wider community.
The scope of the festival grew to be three full sets this year, three rings of the circus if you will. To cope with a presentation that long, attendees need to be prepared to step out for refreshment, smuggle in sustenance or push fleshly needs aside and revel in the sheer gluttony of film. An unrepentant glutton was I.
What rocked my world?
I am once again a little embarrassed for my county to note that most of the truly exceptional horror films originated outside of the US. We Yanks didn’t disappoint entirely though, and I think the “Backwater Gospel” stood at the top of the class for domestic product. This tale of fear and religious intolerance was told with crisp, presumably digital animation. Maybe not the most probing and insightful story but the design of the characters was tight and the sense of stylization was consistent. Well done.
The award for Most Deeply and Profoundly Disturbing (and well done) goes to “Lipstick,” directed by and starring Shannon Lark. I have oft found myself being labeled as a politically correct drone just because I want to see culture made by a wider variety of folks than is available currently. “Lipstick” is exactly the kind of deeply sick, deliciously twisted piece that a straight white guy would likely never come up with. No paraphrase could do it justice, I think. It’s a fresh and different kind of disturbing and frankly aren’t we getting a little bored with the same old kinds of revulsion? The Three Corpses got several of their offerings this year from the Viscera Film festival which celebrates largely female driven horror. These — well dare I call them “sick chick flicks?” — were quite inspiring because of the new vision they promise.
Another domestic shout out has to go to Daywalt Fear Factory, not primarily for any specific piece but for the generally high quality of their many entries. Daywalt Fear Factory had over a half dozen short films sprinkled throughout the festival. To be honest, some succeeded better than others but most of them had some spark of originality and accomplishment, from the makeup prosthetics of “The Many Doors of Albert Whale” to the presumably digital effects of “Bedfellows” to the narrative restraint of “Five Minutes Earlier.” Keep an eye out for Daywalt Fear Factory.
My flat out favorite of the festival was the British film”Don’t Lose Heart” and, like the Danish Opstandelsen last year, it made me set aside my seething hatred of zombie movies. The first thing I loved about it was the main character, an elderly woman who kept focused, kept motivated and well, never lost heart even as the post-apocalypse dragged on. Camera work was tight. Editing was especially good in the economical montage sequence that first showed the highlights of her day then suggested how those days stretch on and on. The sequence not only wasn’t repetitive, it effectively built tension. The filmmakers cleverly resolved the problem of “dialogue” in a one-person piece by having her listen over and over to a zombie preparedness loop played on a hand-cranked audio player. The only thing I can say against it was that it was a zombie picture. I just hate those things.
Runner-up, if I have the guts to admit it, I think was the French language film “Fantasy” by Izabel Grondin, a kinky tale of non-standard desires and practices. Pacing was great and the look was careful and precise. It successfully built a sense of extreme discomfort for the most part visually; the polite banter was nicely efficient (if the subtitles be trusted) but the images were what made the piece powerful.
Given enough time, I sure I’d have something to say about all the films. “Elsa L.” my date for the evening particularly liked “The Ghost and Us.” The situation and the script were quite well done with characters having an emotional depth not usually found in horror movies of any length. “Igor” my horror buddy lauded “Together” which was, I agree, another gem of the night, a beautiful euro-horror piece that didn’t explain too much. Even though I could go on and on, the take-away lesson has to be the same as last year: If you’re into Horror and you’re in Michigan, get to the Three Corpse Circus. Get there early and maybe tuck a snack in your pocket.
(Female, 50′s) I had slept in because it was the weekend and I remember that when I woke up I had a horrible headache likely because my brain was caffeine starved.
I was in one of those surprise remodel TV shows. It seems like my whole family had gotten together to redo our kitchen. My husband and I have been remodeling the kitchen bit by bit improving it whenever possible for several years now. So the buildup to the big reveal comes… and the remodeled kitchen is just horrible.
It was worse than horrible; it’s a collection of everything dreadful that we’d ever gotten rid of dating back from just about every kitchen throughout our marriage. The fridge is this old white model — we finally upgraded to one with a nice stainless steel front. The cupboard were from our old condo. And they had the door handles right in the middle of the doors, which is a silly place for handles. There were dishes out on open air shelves which I hate because they just collect dust. It was horrible.
And everyone was standing around looking so pleased with themselves for what they accomplished. They handed me a bottle of wine and I was so upset I smashed it against the table.
And I woke up!
(Male, 30′s) I don’t normally have nightmares but I woke from this dream so deeply disturbed that I couldn’t go back to sleep. On the surface, it’s a simple story. I was at an amusement park of some kind. Maybe not one aimed exclusively at children. Maybe something more like a World’s Fair or an Expo or something. It was downtown in a big city but a city I didn’t know. The park was set aside from the city somehow, that is, it was it’s own world.
I had started out enjoying my time there with others, friends, acquaintances, I think even my wife might have been there too. But as the day wore on, I found myself alone. It was dark. The park was emptying.
I made my way between two areas, through what felt a little like a baseball field. As I crossed, I drew the attention of several beings. They appeared human, a gang. But the gang members were only superficially human. They were made of darkness, like compressed smoke. But they moved exactly like humans, almost like dancers in the sense of exaggerated, expressive gestures.
They moved quickly to surround me. I knew they were going to rob me so I offered to give them all the money in my wallet. I thought this was clever because then I wouldn’t have to replace my driver’s license, my credit cards, etc. (I suppose I was only giving my assets, not surrendering my identity.) I opened my wallet and pulled out many bills. Then I reached in again and there were more bills, including at least one $50 bill. I never carry such large denominations. The cash distracted them and I was able to slip away.
When I got away safely, I discovered that I had left my jacket somewhere, a lemon colored jacket that I quite liked – even though I don’t actually own such a jacket. I had also left my camera somewhere. When I realized that I had lost my camera and with it all of the photos I had made, I collapsed and had to support myself on a trash can. How was I going to get home? Where was I?
Polygonal dice as if assembled from tiny human skulls. 3-d printable at your command, of course.
Dig it.
http://www.shapeways.com/model/285240/
I am a serious fan of skeletal systems, those bits of organic sculpture / architecture that each of us carry around inside us — pardon, of course to the readers of this blog that are cephalopod or who have exoskeletons. You critters are too wonderful for mention. Don’t go changing.
So imagine my delight when I found eskeletons.org, an electronic archive of primate skeletons. (http://eskeletons.org/index.html)
Certainly IMHO the skulls are the coolest, like this multi-view scan of a human skull but the other bones are fascinating as well.
The only thing you can’t do with these bones is make broth.
http://www.eskeletons.org/
Theatre Bizarre had the best spread at the Maker Faire Detroit this weekend. These humble photos don’t do proper justice. Six foot tall hand-painted banners. Carefully decrepitized ticket booths. The works. They were so awesome my first assumption was that they weren’t local. But I was wrong. Theatre Bizarre host (ed) a miscreant Halloween party down by the old Michigan State Fairgrounds. The parties went on for nearly a decade until they were shut down last year.
A documentary is in process about Theatre Bizarre. It’s actively soliciting funds. Toss ‘em a few if you get a chance.
(Male, 30′s) Before I start I feel like I have to say that my relationship with my father, now dearly departed, was always friendly and never came to attempted murder and bloodshed.
So imagine my surprise with this nightmare. My wife and I were visiting my father at what must have been his apartment. It was the first floor of a house on a quiet residential street. We were sitting down to have tea and some kind of cake in the dining room. There was a bay window with many tiny panes of glass. My wife sat down in her chair, took a couple sips of tea and abruptly passed out. “It was a long drive to get here,” I tried to explain to my father. He encouraged me to have some of the tea as well while he stood over the tea cake, brandishing a huge chef’s knife. He seemed agitated and was quite insistent. I mimed sipping some tea. He relaxed his grip on the knife but he didn’t drink any tea. Clearly it was poisoned. He cut me a piece of cake which I tasted, then he put the knife down on the table.
I leaped up from my chair and grabbed the knife. But I was already feeling dizzy. Evidently the cake had been poisoned too! I took the knife and I plunged it into my father’s belly. The blade only penetrated an inch or so, hardly enough to get past the belly fat and damage any essential organs. I dropped the knife and ran… actually I stumbled away. I considered trying to use his telephone… and as I write this down, I realize that it was one of those old style rotary phones like we had when I was a kid. I figured he could cut the phone’s cord before the call went through. I continued making my way toward the front door. I braced myself against furniture that crashed down behind me. Fortunately, the wreckage of furniture slowed my father’s pursuit. I had nearly reached the front door when I woke up.
You’ve heard this advice before but it bears repeating: double check before sending someone to the morgue. This goes for family members, “private undertakers” and heck, probably especially for the folks who work at the morgue.
Sometimes folks are just unconscious, not fully deceased.
http://www.capetimes.co.za/man-wakes-up-in-morgue-1.1104810
They don’t make souvenirs like they used to.
The BBC reports (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-13522546)that up for auction this week is a human skull complete with hand-crafted display box. It likely came to the British Isles from Europe under the arm of some young landed gentry during a Grand Tour of the continent. “Grand Tour” was their loftier version of “Spring Break.”
There are rumors that it’s the head of a saint, perhaps Saint Vitalis of Assisi, the “Saint of Venereal Diseases” but that’s not the key part of the story, for me at least. I believe the auctioneer said it best himself “….it’s certainly the head of someone.” Indeed. It’s a HUMAN HEAD and it’s FOR SALE. Oh and the box looks cool as hell. It would look perfect atop the antique spinet I inherited from Aunt Gertrude.
I can’t bid on this item-a bit short on cash. But I take some comfort in a classic line from The Big Lebowski “You want a toe? I can get you a toe.” When I have the money, likely there’ll be a dessicated relic on the market somewhere in this wonderful, global economy.
(Male, 30′s) All throughout my dreams last night, I kept coming across a murderer. He wasn’t always trying to kill me, though he was always threatening me – sometimes I saw him while he was either preparing to kill someone else, or disposing of the body. Once, I was at a funeral and at a certain point in the middle of a conversation with the mourners, I realized that this person must have been killed by the murderer. Another time, I came across him as he was speaking with someone who I later realized he was stalking. Another time I saw him driving a truck down a long winding mountain highway. He looked me right in the eyes and I was chilled to the core. He had another body with him and he was daring me to do something about it. I’d be next.
The most interesting thing about this dream is that it wasn’t primarily about the murderer. He was just a recurrent though highly disturbing character. And actually, if I had to physically describe the murderer, he looked different each time I saw him on a purely physical level. But he was in fact, the same guy, if not just the same malevolent force.
Eventually, he started stalking me. I was home in a house that isn’t actually my house. It was dark outside. A motion sensor light turned on in the back yard. I knew it was him. He was back there but I couldn’t see him. There were the reflective circles of a half dozen creatures out there, staring back at me – racoons, possum maybe. I couldn’t see their outlines, only their eyes. I knew that they could see me and see the murderer and they didn’t care if I was about to be murdered. I flipped on another light but couldn’t see him any better.
I was waiting for a bus. All the newspaper boxes had run out of local papers, which disturbed the other people waiting for the bus. I realized that I was standing in front of the factory where the murderer worked. I could confront him and turn the tables. It was a big brick building. I had to walk around it to find a door. I passed by a large window. Inside, I saw the murderer acting out his next murder. He held an absurdly large piece of glass as if it was an ax. He shouted “I’m going to kill you like this” and he waved the glass shard around and around like he was stabbing someone. Then the murderer saw me and he ran at the window. I stepped back, both the window and the glass shattered but I was unhurt. I pursued him around to a loading dock where there were other workers.
I finally got a good look at the murderer. His most disturbing feature was a poorly trimmed mustache. Half of it was cut extremely close while the other half was bushy. It looked like it had been hacked at with a knife. The workers were being called in for a staff meeting. I stretched my finger out at the murderer, accusingly. He was angry, viciously angry but he was broken, exhausted. I was extorting him to be good, to stop murdering people, to stop stalking me. He agreed.
(Male, 40′s) This was one of those dreams that starts off so real then goes straight into craziness. I was sleeping next to my wife — as I must have been when I was having this dream — and in the dream I was cold and uncomfortable — again as I was while I was sleeping. So I roll over and try to get comfortable and I realize that we’re trying to sleep on this pretty narrow stone pew. It’s wide for a pew but far too narrow for a bed. And I look around the room which is dark. I can only make out the outlines of the windows which all have pointed gothic arches… and I remember that we’re on vacation somewhere in Europe and we’re staying in a castle.
And I wonder if the castle is haunted.
I am not going to be able to sleep any more so I get up and start poking around the place. There are no light switches or candles but my eyes gradually get adjusted to the dark. I met a friend in the next room and he was getting his shoes on. We must have gone on vacation with this other couple. He spoke on and on about all the places we’ll have to go to and somewhere in the middle of his monologue I realize that I don’t really like him all that much. It’s funny how one can have friends that you don’t really like.
Then I’m distracted by something in the next room. It’s another friend of mine. She’s sitting in the middle of the room weeping. I go over to comfort her and when I get there she is a child. A baby. Smaller than a baby. A fetus. A doll. I pick her up in my hands and she’s smaller than the breadth of my two palms. Her arms are fastened behind her back with a rubber band. I remove the rubber band and she stops crying. She asked for some food. I looked over at a table that had a white lace cloth on it and silver candelabras. It was set out for breakfast but I didn’t know what this child-thing could eat.
Underneath the table, I could see a large dog-like creature. It was moving so fast, it appeared to flash in and out of existence in different places. It was dangerous. I didn’t want to get close to the table. Then it appeared behind me. I recognized it as actually someone I knew, sort of. He was larger and had a line of spikes down his back. His shirt or maybe it was his skin was a thick brown leather like a lizard. He ran at me. I braced for impact and as he hit me, the force knocked him over. He fell to the ground, stunned then he scuttled off.
A phone rang. I went into another room to answer it. I was now entirely out of the castle because this felt like the front room of yet another friend. The phone was an old style phone and it sat on top of an old TV. I answered it. It was my mother who has been dead for years. When she was alive she would talk on the phone for hours, frantic about one thing or another. This time in the dream she was worried about two life insurance policies she had. What should she do with them? How should they show up on her income taxes. They amounted to $4,732 – that number was very precise in the dream. I told her she should just sign them over to me and I’d worry about them. Then I swelled up with such anxiety I had to put the phone down and walk away. I haven’t felt that anxious since my mother died, in fact. I came back to the phone and she was still talking. I told her I didn’t hear that last part. She asked why. I told her. She asked why I had set the phone down. “Why? Why? Why?” Over and over. Finally I simply hung up on her.
(Male, 30′s) This nightmare ended up a lot like a zombie dream but it really was different. The whole set up was strange. I was feeling sick, dizzy or out of balance so I went to the hospital. I was waiting to see a doctor in a long white corridor. I was trying to read a magazine but I felt really uncomfortable. Then I noticed that there was a strange substance coming out from around the joints of my body. It was a little like there were actual seams where the parts of my arm connected at the elbow. The stuff that leaked out was a lot like that spray foam sealant. Except this stuff didn’t set up. It just stayed soft foam.
Needless to say I was concerned.
I went up to the attending nurse and showed the condition. He squinted, looked at the foam very seriously, then he poked his finger into it and tasted it. Yup, he took a dollop of this goo that was slowly seeping from my body and he put it in his mouth.
“It’s… delicious. Light, creamy and sweet.” the nurse declared. His eyes changed and he clearly became possessed with some kind of demonic hunger. He leapt on top of me, his teeth gnashing like he wanted to eat my insides. I hit him forcibly with something heavy and metallic. Maybe it was a bedpan. I looked around for assistance. Up and down the long hallway, doctors and nurses were attacking patients, trying to devour their guts.
I had turned into a cream-filled doughnut. It would be very difficult to get out alive.
(Male, 50′s) I dreamt about my dad last night. He’s been dead for over twenty years. I was cleaning in his basement which was a mess when he died. Crap everywhere. All sorts of stuff. Half finished projects, materials to do other jobs around the house, papers spilling out of filing cabinets and a far amount of crap I had no idea what the hell it was. By the way, this is pretty true to what happened when he died. His basement work area was a mess and it took me an awfully long time to clean it up and get the house sold. But I suppose if anyone dies unexpectedly there’s going to be a lot of unfinished business. In the dream I moved a piece of furniture in the basement and I found a doorway in the floor. I never knew THAT was there, I remember thinking in the dream. It was just big enough for me to crawl through. There was another basement underneath the first one. It was a mess too, though just a bit more organized perhaps. Maybe like an over stocked thrift store.
But the weirdest thing was that my dad was there. He was the same age as he was when he died. He was wearing a white t-shirt and work pants. He’d been down there the whole time, I figured. It would take some getting used to, him being alive again. I’d have to introduce him to folks. We didn’t exactly have a bad relationship but we didn’t always get along. I don’t think it was his fault or my fault. We just didn’t get along as well as we could have. He was kind of surprised to see me and not exactly happy either. I was interrupting. I didn’t really want to tell him I’d been clearing out his workshop in the upper basement but he figured out anyway. He was more than irritated. He was angry about what had happened since he died, about how I’d tried to clear his stuff out of the basement.
Next thing I know, he’s got my brother in a death hold, like he’s trying to kill him. A couple things strange with this picture. My old man was NEVER violent. He was always calm and gentle. Very peaceful, really. A real gentleman. But the guy in my dream was murderous and enraged. He was physically destroying my brother, wrestling with him, battering him. And the other strange thing is that I don’t have a brother. Never did. I knew I had to save this guy, this “brother,” so I looked around for something I could use. I found a long bread knife and a sledge hammer. And I hit my dad with the hammer. Only I don’t hit him with the head of the hammer. I use the handle of the hammer which is hardly effective.
Then things get really weird. I tell my dad to relax and imagine all the pieces of paper that were written about him during his entire life. Every document, every record, every report card, every bill, every bank statement, every love letter. Then add to that pile every piece of paper he read or even looked at. Every magazine, every book, every porno picture, every postcard. It would be a huge pile but it still would be a finite amount. Then I told him to imagine selecting out only the most important pages, the ones that really “got” him, whether they were good or bad. Imagine someone who loved him saved all the pages that described him in a favorable light, but that that collection of pages got lost. All that remained was the collection of pages that described his unfavorable characteristics. I told him not to worry. No one who found that other collection of pages, those bad descriptions, no one who found those pages would ever think that they fully described him. They’d know there were good things that weren’t mentioned.
Then I woke up. Strangest thing.
(Male, 30′s) The nightmare was like an old movie. It was brown and white and a little bit blurry. I was in a room about the size of my living room, except there were no windows and no doors. It’s not obvious how I got in there, though it felt a little bit like I was on-stage, that one of the walls was the “4th wall” where the audience watches from. Except all the walls appeared real.
I was with this other guy and we were busy trying to crack into this safe. The safe was huge, probably 5 feet tall, 4 feet deep and wide. It obviously didn’t belong in this room but again, I have no idea how we got it in there. I knew that we had stolen it somehow. It didn’t belong to us.
And if all this wasn’t bad enough, I wasn’t really sure if opening it was the best idea. For some reason, I thought that it could contain either an immense fortune… or an extremely powerful bomb that would blow up the entire building. My partner, however, didn’t have any worries and he kept fiddling with the lock like he knew how to open it. I didn’t know whether to help or try to find a way out of the room.
Please forgive the dust, the cobwebs, the sepulchral silence that has befallen this site as of late… unless you’re into that thing, and given the topic, it’s likely you might. But it’s no excuse for the appalling boredom and lack of new material. My only excuse is that I’ve been hammered, er, I mean, hammering away at the prospectus for my doctoral dissertation. And yesterday morning, Boxing Day, I boxed it up and sent it off. There will be pain – oh, yes, overflowing tumblers of sweet, delicious pain and hours, dreadful hours stretched to ennui before I can rightfully assume the title of “Doktor Leech” but this first hurdle has been, well, hurdled.
The topic of the dissertation might also amuse readers of this blog because it is about fear. Specifically it’s a philosophical examination of fear from the perspective of epistemology (how we know the things we know) and aesthetics (the meaning of our sensations.) I eschew both enlightenment rationality and postmodern irony for an approach I’m calling encouragement. Blah-blah, blah and blah. My favorite section is the one where I get to talk about horror movies. I picked the Saw franchise because it’s a franchise which allowed me to discuss it as an economic object, it got sucked up in the whole “torture porn” discussion which allowed me to discuss it as a social object. And then of course it’s relatively novel with respect to the serial killer as social critic sub genre. Yawn. I know you’re falling out of your chairs. But there’s also dollops of Hegel and Adorno and Nietzsche and maybe a spatter of Freud and Sun Tzu and Seneca, Aristotle, Horace… yup, it’s a regular Kellog Variety Pack of philosophers.
It’s not done — in fact, I’ve just *started* throwing my heart to the dogs — but it’s noticeably closer than it was a week ago. Someone give me a shout out, will ya?
(Male, 20′s) I had this nightmare about an hour after I fell asleep and when I woke up, I seriously considered just not going back to sleep.
I was in a house with a half dozen other guys. It felt like we were in college and we had rented a house together. What a weird house though. It was like a hollowed out tower but a loft had been built inside that stretched up three full stories. The top floor had a floor entirely covered with mattresses, so I guess that was the bed room.
Most of the guys seemed friendly but shallow, always smiling but just skin deep. I didn’t know if they really were dumb or if there was something else underneath that silly happiness.
One of the guys was very disturbed and very disturbing. He gave off “serial killer vibes.” Tall, wore a wide brimmed hat and a black raincoat that always seemed to be wet. On one occasion he was actually dragging in a plastic bag that looked like it could have contained a dead human body.
I accidentally crossed his path. I was using my computer and I was watching a movie / playing a game about a serial killer. It was a horror survival thing. But then I realized that I had somehow hacked into his computer and I was actually seeing what was live on his screen. And worse, he knew I had seen him. He used the camera in my computer to spy on me all the time.
I was freaked. He was coming for me but I figured I’d be safest if I climbed up to the top of lofts, to the bedroom floor. There were two other guys there. They told me not to worry, that the crazy serial killer guy never climbed up the ladder. We started wrestling for some reason and then I discovered gradually that I couldn’t move my arms or legs. One of the guys laughed, “That’s because we drugged you.” I started to foam at the mouth. “We’re going to rape you and then give you to the serial killer so he can chop up the evidence.” I fell over face down on the mattress, paralyzed, my mouth filled with foam. I was unable to scream but eventually I shook myself hard enough that I woke up.
When I was a kid, everyone I knew thought “The Exorcist” was the scariest movie they’d ever seen. Me? When I watched it, I had the overwhelmed sensation “Damn, that looks cool.” Forget fireman or doctor or lawyer, I wanted to be an EXORCIST!
Trouble was, the high school guidance counselor didn’t really have much advice for that career path. Things might be changing though, following this report:
Catholic Bishops: “More Exorcists Needed”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40151974/ns/us_news
The most recent guidelines appear to have been updated in 1999 – so they won’t be able to address any juicy new demons that the 21st century has spawned. And of course, they’re written in Latin, which wasn’t exactly one of my strongest classes. I suppose the most damning blow to my demon-evicting job search is that I’m not Catholic must less a priest nor am I likely to become one in the near future… like this life-time.
Maybe I’ll have to fall back on my other childhood dream job: astronaut who leaves earth never to return.