Book One, Chapter Five

“Sex, Death and Starshine”

When I think of Books of Blood Volume One, I tend to forget that this story is in it. Even when I turn the page and, hey, there it is, it takes me a while before I can remember what happens in it. Compare that to “The Midnight Meat Train” or “Pig Blood Blues” or “In the Hills, the Cities,” the conclusions of all of which I practically have committed to memory.

Perhaps it’s because this story is very different from all of those, in a way that dovetails less with my concerns and preoccupations as a horror reader than they do. It’s far less fatalistic, I think. Which is odd, because if anything the characters involved, a troupe of theatre people putting up a production of The Twelfth Night with a soap star playing the female lead, deserve their fates less than the characters in the other stories; moreover, it’s tougher to square what we presume to be the motivation of the monsters here with their eventual actions. They seem not just cruel or even capricious, but contradictory.

But the unevenness of the story works for it in a certain sense. The idea here is that theatre people–Barker himself was one before he turned his attentions from script-writing to prose–the really great and dedicated ones at least, operate in a world of their own, where their art is both cause and effect, means and end, alpha and omega. Their actions and the consequences thereof, Barker appears to say, shouldn’t make sense to us, any more than a cat could understand that when her master disappears for an hour he’s actually gotten in the car and driven to the grocery store to pick up hummus and baby carrots. I’m not wholly convinced that it makes for effective storytelling, but there are certainly moments and images that linger all the more because it’s difficult to wrap your head around them. There’s a bit of business with footlights that’s like a collision of grand guignol with comedia dell’arte with the theatre of the absurd. “The mask he wore was neither comic nor tragic,” says Barker at another point of another character, “it was blood and laughter together.”

One final word: Lots of sex in this one! I remember thinking it was really hot stuff when I was in high school. His depictions of beautiful, sexual women and heterosexual liasons generally are certainly steamy enough to explain how he passed as straight for so many years, at least to the general public. And really, you’ve got to hand it to any author who takes the time to puzzle out the advantages and disadvantages of being fellated by a reanimated corpse.

Let’s get right into it…

The indefatigable Bill Sherman keeps on walking the post-Lost creepy hourlong drama beat. This time up, he looks at Night Stalker, comparing it to the original Stalker in both its TV movie and weekly series incarnations.

Pete Mesling’s Fearfodder is definitely a new favorite site of mine. He unearthed a couple of interesting links recently. First, he reminds me to remind all of you that Giant Magazine, the delightful pop-culture publication for which I review graphic novels, recently came up with its Scariest Movies of All Time list, which can be found online via The Guardian. Pete, I assure you The Shining made the top 15…

Second, Pete links to this interview with Clive Barker at Barker’s official fan site, Revelations. The usual talk of sequels to previous publishing projects and plans for upcoming movies abounds. Horror fans might also be interested in hearing Barker’s feelings on getting back in front of horror fandom, from which he’s been away for a while, at several upcoming horror cons.

Also on the Barker beat, Bloody Disgusting has some updates on the current status of Barker film projects The Plague and The Midnight Meat Train.

I don’t know why I never made this connection before, but Kevin Melrose at Dark But Shining makes a strong case for the central scene of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies as (though he doesn’t use the phrase himself) a monumental horror-image. That’s exactly what it is–surely it influenced my appreciation of such images even if I never picked up on it until now.

Des at the brilliantly titled Without Me You’re Only You is writing up one of his favorite horror movies every day all month. Fun stuff so far–just click over and keep scrolling.

Finally, just something I stumbled across while flipping through a magazine: Shadow of the Colossus, a video game that revolves around the awesomely intimidating nature of monsters that are really, really, really big. Take the vertiginous sensation of being dwarfed by skyscrapers or big sky country, add in the idea that the thing that’s dwarfing you is alive, and I think you’ll get a sense of why this is the sort of creature I really find exhilarating in a primal way. (It’s sort of like the flip side of the way my beloved sea monsters exploit depth.) Worth thinking about in advance of tomorrow’s Blog of Blood installment…

Book One, Chapter Four

“Pig Blood Blues”

This is one of the saddest tales in the series. Sadness is an emotion that horror should probably exploit with more regularity and force, because horror by its nature is about loss and weakness and futility. (One of the most horrific scenes in any movie I’ve ever seen is when Joe Pesci’s character in Casino is forced to watch as his brother is beaten to a pulp with baseball bats, then thrown into his grave while he’s still breathing. It’s also one of the saddest scenes I’ve ever seen–Pesci’s Nicky Santoro sobbing, mournfully muttering his brother’s name over and over again.) Throw in madness–real up-is-down black-is-white what-the-fuck madness–and you’ve got this story in a nutshell. Each of the characters seems to have arrived at the end of the road, resigned to a life that’s a lot less than they wanted it to be. When the horror happens, they desperately try to avoid it, but you never get the sense that they think it’s anything less than inevitable. “He even began to understand Lacey’s lassitude, his inability to fight the powers that overtook him,” writes Barker of his main character, bitter ex-cop and shop teacher Redman. “Mama, they fed me to the pig. Not Mama, help me, save me. Just: they gave me to the pig.”

And god help me, I never made the connection between the pig who lives in the story’s reformatory’s farm and the fact that Redman is himself a “pig” until this read-through. Can you believe that? It’s not like it’s subtly laid out, either. The pig is an interesting symbol in art–it represents a predatory greed, but also slaughterability. “This is the state of the beast,” as Barker puts it. “To eat and be eaten.” The cop who wants to save one last victim, for whatever (sexual? parental? more noble, or less?) reason–which is he, ulimately? Or does it matter? Does shit just happen, has it always happened, will it always happen? It seems like throwing the word “Blues” in the title is just a delicious way for Barker to deflate the capital-I Import of his prose, but aren’t we really singing these blues all the time?

Book One, Chapter Three

“The Yattering and Jack”

And now for something completely different.

This story is horror-comedy, believe it or not. While many of Barker’s stories have their funny moments–“What would a Resurrection be without a few laughs?” is the line from one of them upon which author Ramsey Campbell seizes in his introduction to Volume One–few are as through-and-through lighthearted as this one. Which is not to say it’s all Evil Dead 2, though; try to imagine that film with its predecessor’s tree-rape sequence grafted in and you’ll get a feel for some of this one’s darker moments. Nothing quite that untoward, but someone is driven insane, and since our protagonist (Jack), who loves her, knew full well this could happen, it’s a wrenching thought. “That was hard,” as Barker puts it. “That was almost unforgiveable.”

Almost. Barker extends quite a mercy in this one, one of the few he ever extends, when during the climactic confrontation between the two titular characters–a poltergeist-like minor demon and a more-than-meets-the-eye gherkin importer–Jack’s daughter smiles at her father, despite the fact that she on some level is aware that he’s put his daughters at grave risk for both their sanity and their lives. “Whatever was at issue here, she loved him.” Tender, all the more so because it’s probably undeserved, or at least underdeserved.

The comic business is a real larf in this one, provided you don’t mind animal mutilation played for laughs–three cats, a tankful of guppies, and a Christmas turkey meet unfortunate ends. The fate of the turkey, and of the Christmas tree itself, are antecedents of the wackily improvisatory calypso possession scene in Beetlejuice, tinged here though with menace that makes the laughter come through gritted teeth. And there are funny moments with the prose, too: Whenever the Yattering thinks of his masters, Beelzebub and the other Powers of Hell, he reflexively adds a parenthetical “(long may they hold court, long may they shit light on the heads of the damned).”

Underneath it all there’s a common Barker theme (albeit one that’s usually played much more seriously): that some folks are perfectly able to live outside the rules. It’s a Hell of a message. Pun (as is the case with the whole story) intended.

The Carnival is really crowded today. But then, it’s October now, so it would be…

First things first: This Dark But Shining post is your one-stop-shopping destination for all the big October/Halloween blogathons that are going on around the Internet. Dark But Shining’s own 31-day “My Favorite Monsters” postfest, by DBS member Rick Geerling, begins here.

DBS also has a little contest goin’, in which those of you who are visually inclined stand to win some truly terrific horror manga. Since the only book they’re offering that I’ve already read is Junji Ito’s masterful Uzumaki, I sure do wish I knew my way around Photoshop.

Speaking of horrorblogging marathons, Steven at Corpse Eaters has kicked off his comprehensive examination of the Friday the 13th series, and even though I have yet to see a single one of those flicks, I like reading what he has to say about them so far.

And were you aware that I may have been doing some marathon horrorblogging of my own? Scroll down this very site and see!

Jason at Infocult links to another hilariously reimagined film trailer–from the series that brought you The Shining as a feel-good comedy and West Side Story as a fast-zombie flick comes Titanic as an American J-horror riff. Fricking great.

The other day I mentioned that I was fixing to do a series of “meet the horror blogosphere” posts stemming from some of the sites I’ve discovered in my quest for fresh links to feed into Where the Monsters Go. I don’t think I’ve got the time to do dedicated posts to that effect, but let’s throw a few into the mix right now, shall we?

Fearfodder is a horror news blog with a clean, non-“ooh how scary” look, equally clean grammar and spelling, and a whole lotta opinionated news links. Here, Fearfodder blogger Matt links to an article in Scotland on Sunday in which Wicker Man director Robyn Hardy expresses his dismay with Neil LaBute’s upcoming American remake. Among the bits of news I’d not heard anywhere else are that 1) The new version will involve killer bees in some fashion; 2) the pagan community (now run by Ellen Burstyn) will be matriarchal; 3) Hardy and original Wicker Man villain Christopher Lee are planning a new film about Scottish paganism called May Day. Hmm.

Also on Fearfodder, a title too good not to pass along: From Ringwraiths to Cenobites. It’s from a post about the upcoming documentary Ringers, about the fan culture surrounding The Lord of the Rings, which apparently features your friend and mine Mr. Clive Barker. Considering how influential the look of the Cenobites has been on everything from Dark City to Darth Maul, and how influential the look of the Ringwraiths is becoming (we all love Dave McKean, but if he sincerely the Dementors in the last Harry Potter movie are derived from his designs, he’s got another think coming), the confluence was a welcome one.

Continuing our blogospheric tour, welcome to The Black Lagoon, a beautifully designed blogspot site (!) featuring lengthy and considered reviews of tons of horror classics. If you can forgive them for perpetuating the inexplicable hardcore-horror-fan CW that the Dawn of the Dead remake was soulless Hollywood action-horror hackwork, there’s much to be read and admired there.

Bill Sherman continues his series of posts on how the networks have all been saying “Let’s get Lost” this season with a review of Invasion. Along similar lines, Kevin Melrose at Dark But Shining tries to figure out what exactly is so fishy about the underwater-monster series Surface.

This is not horror-related at all, really, and I’m breaking my embargo to do this, but I don’t think anyone will care. People, DO WHAT ERIC REYNOLDS SAYS and order Michael Kupperman’s absolutely hysterical Tales Designed to Thrizzle. This humor comic is an absolute classic in the making, I’m telling you. I mean, look at this cover:

That’s comedy!

Finally, this is why I love the Internet: This morning I open my inbox and I find an email linking to a ton of downloadable, Halloween-themed mp3s. The source? Sub Rosa, an invite-only, clothing-optional, underground stoneworking studio-slash-slow-food restaurant in Dundee, Oregon. Ladies and gentlemen, is the world not a pretty fine place? (Thanks to Sub Rosa proprietors Mike and Linda for the link!)

Book One, Chapter Two

“The Midnight Meat Train”

What a title this story has! (When I find titles I like, I like ’em a lot. I remember starting a thread on the Comics Journal message board back in the day asking people to list simply their favorite comics titles; I’m fond of Our Cancer Year, Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, That Yellow Bastard, “I Was Killing When Killing Wasn’t Cool”…I like them wordy and off-kilter in a specific way. That’s also why I like Gang of Four song titles so much: “I Found That Essence Rare,” “At Home He’s a Tourist,” “Natural’s Not in It,” et cetera.) The Books of Blood boast a whole lot of wonderful titles–“How Spoilers Bleed”; “In the Hills, the Cities”; “Pig Blood Blues”; “The Life of Death”; “Skins of the Fathers”; “Confessions of a (Pornographer’s) Shroud”–but this is a standout even among the standouts. It’s the closest to a Texas Chain Saw Massacre-style guarantor that what is to follow will not end well.

This is a story of dark New York City, seedy, vulgar, evil New York City, “DROP DEAD” New York City. New York City is my favorite place on Earth, so in a way that makes this hard to relate to. I had very little independent experience of the place before Rudy Giuliani transformed it from the 10th Level of Hell into the sort of place where a guy like Mike Bloomberg stands to win a sizable chunk of the African-American vote. But a lot of the ugliness can never be gotten rid of, and that’s really what this story is about. The rot is in the foundations.

It’s also a story of race, which I must admit I never picked up on until this most recent re-reading. The references to skin tone, ethnicity, religion, and racial strife aren’t necessarily going to beat you over the head (with one notable exception), but they’re present throughout in a way that they don’t tend to be in most of Barker’s work. Some of those who end up on the titular train are described as “black bucks” or “an anemic Jewish accountant”; the hero of the piece, upon stumbling across a victim, mentally takes the time (to follow the logic of Barker’s word choice) to “decide” that the dark-skinned corpse is (was?) Puerto Rican. There are also blissed-out punk teenagers and graffiti and “opinionated brute[s] that New York bred so well.” Race and class, and among them a one-man Hurricane Katrina.

This is a story about disillusionment with the New York experiment in particular and–as becomes apparent when we meet he who motivates the Subway Butcher, that Jack the Ripper of the West 4th Street station–the American one in general. I’m curious as to whether the pre-success Barker had visited either place before writing this; with the exception of a few misplaced Britishisms, it does seem, to his credit, as though he had. Barker, I think, is both fascinated with and repelled by America (aren’t we all, though?); he writes love-letters to Hollywood and to America’s expansiveness and shoots them through with revulsion for its willful, indeed prideful ignorance and ugliness–and as this story about NYC shows, it was not a red-state-only antipathy. (There’s plenty of that too, though–Cabal/Nightbreed, anyone? Still and all, America hardly comes off looking any worse than the UK, but given the attitudes of most English artists during the era of Maggie Thatcher, that’s probably to be expected.)

I hate to make this story sound this political–I’m really only working these issues through for myself, see. Mainly it’s a tremendously gruesome and exhilarating horror story, the real tone-setter for the entire project, actually. This is the first place where Barker really tests you. The description of the bodies and what happens to them, first through some accidental post-mortem injuries, then through some quite deliberate ones; the unknowable City Father, a splatterpunk remake of the notion of the Lovecraftian monster; the fate of our hero’s mouth…it’s stomach-turning and transgressive and very scary. And there is worse to come, but this is where Barker asks you what you’re really made of.

If you can make it here, in other words, you can make it anywhere.

Everybody is a book of blood;

–Clive Barker, Books of Blood

2003 was a very good year for me, in horrorblogging terms. That was the year I did Where the Monsters Go, the big October-long horrorblogging marathon thing that began with the posting of my senior essay on horror from Yale University and ended with a thirteen-day marathon-within-a-marathon starring reviews of my thirteen (and then some) favorite horror films. (Click on the preceding link, or sniff around the sidebar at your left, and you’ll be on your way.) At the time I was mostly a comics blogger and a far more casual horror film watcher than I had been, which was what made the horror blogathon so challenging and so rewarding. See, I’d come to feel that, through a sort of benign neglect, I had started growing away from horror.

Needless to say, that feeling didn’t survive the month.

Back then, as best I could tell at the time, there were no dedicated, year-round horror blogs. (That’s another thing that made “Where the Monsters Go” v1 so challenging and so rewarding.) Today, of course, things have changed. Just take a look at that old blogathon’s namesake horrorblog aggregator. October horrorblogging sprees are delightfully plentiful this year as well–be sure to check out Dark But Shining’s list of ’em; Dark But Shining itself is doing its own as well, and as a matter of fact I’ll be participating in it before the month is out.

Okay, fine. I get to this point in this post, and now what? What’s the point of this ramble? (Other than to brag that, to paraphrase Al Columbia, I was horrorblogging when horrorblogging wasn’t cool?) The answer I’m stuck with is “none, really.” And yet I think that that is the point. When I started typing on October 1st, 2003, I really had no idea where I’d end up. I mean, I knew I’d be posting many of the papers on horror I’d written in college, and I had vague plans for a culminating movie-watching marathon, but beyond that, I was wandering. Seeing where the days and the month and the horror took me.

And that reminds me of my earliest experiences with the work of Clive Barker. It’s no secret he’s my favorite horror creator, but what might be a secret is that I was a comparatively late bloomer in that regard, and with horror in general. As a child I loved Godzilla and the Universal monster stable; as an early adolescent I devoured Stephen King; I’d seen The Lost Boys and some of Kubrick’s more unpleasant works; but in the autumn of my junior year of high school my experience with unabashed Horror Films was nonexistent. One night, though, I was flipping through the channels before bed (like as not looking for either a half-decent video or a skin flick) when I came across the opening credits of the movie Nightbreed. I’d heard about this film from friends who were already big-time Barker devotees, but had never seen it, or Hellraiser, or anything like it. No slasher flicks, no zombie movies, no gore, no splatter, nothing. So when I landed on this channel, playing this movie, I can’t begin to tell you how my heart pounded. I knew full well that what this movie stood to contain could, well, horrify me–frighten, terrify, nauseate, traumatize.

But I watched it anyway. And I loved it.

And that was that, really. By the time Christmas passed I’d asked for and either received or acquired myself with gift certificates the Barker books, the ones that came most highly recommended by my horror-fan friends: the Books of Blood. Here in America they’re called Books of Blood Volume One, Volume Two, Volume Three, The Inhuman Condition, In the Flesh, and Cabal. I plowed through them. I remember reading them on the train down to visit my then-girlfriend now-wife in Delaware, Massive Attack playing in my headphones. They opened an entirely new vista of imagerey and ideas before me, a huge one. This had happened once or twice before then (with The Hobbit in first grade and perhaps The Dark Knight Returns in sixth), and maybe once since (with Jimmy Corrigan in my senior year of college), and since I’m sure you’ve had a similar experience at some point, I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s wonderful. It’s a world to wander in, is what it is.

It’s been a long time since I’ve read the complete Books of Blood. I’ve read and reread several of the stories (esp. in Volume One) often enough to have them nearly memorized, but from start to finish? Not since the winter of, what was it anyway, 1995? Over ten years, I think. Well then, Sean, consider the next 30 days your tenth anniversary present.

Welcome to Blog of Blood, my month-long Books of Blood blogging marathon. Every day I will read and comment upon one of the 30 short stories in Clive Barker’s Books of Blood: The Complete Edition, the lovely and massive hardcover omnibus collection released by what is apparently the now-defunct Stealth Press in 2001. (The novella “Cabal,” which was collected in and lent its name to the final American volume, was not in the original batch and therefore not in the collection, but we’ll see, we’ll see.)

I honestly have no idea what I’m going to think or write or say about any of the stories. I’ve done very little blogging on prose fiction over the years, and even less concentrated marathon-style blogging on same. Plus, part of me really wants those of you who haven’t already read these stories not to have the thrill of discovery sapped out of it by giving away major spoilers, so I tentatively plan to avoid doing that as much as possible (though I’m not making any promises–caveat lector), giving me even less to rely on in terms of easy material. The stories themselves, of course, are about as far from easy material as it gets, especially for someone on whom they’ve had such an impact. It runs deep, and it runs wide.

So my plan, of course, is just to wander through it. Wander with me, won’t you?

Book One, Chapter One

“The Book of Blood”

I like this story because it feels like a beginning.

And I stole that opening technique from the story itself, which begins with a simple statement of fact, or what passes for fact in Clive Barker’s world: “The dead have highways.”

Right from the start he’s setting this all up as a journey–a frightening one, sure, since your travel-companions-to-be are, well, dead; but a sorely tempting one, because that’s a highway you’ve never travelled before, is it not?

I also like this story because it revolves around the premise that certain stories need to be told. That’s why tragedy befalls our handsome, callow young lead, Simon McNeal–the dead have things they want to say, or more precisely things they want heard, a fact Simon chooses to ignore even as he purports, fraudulently, to speak for them. When they finally do get their chance to testify, the release is physical, explosive, and extremely violent. You can’t note that you’re reading part one of a thirty-round assault on the foundations of horror fiction by a then-30-year-old Liverpudlian playwright and not feel that there’s an element of autobiography in there. (That the conceit of the story is that those dead men’s tales constitute the remainder of the anthology appears to bear that theory out.)

And I like the story for the sex. Not that there is any, beyond a little male masturbation, which I assure you is very little indeed for Barker at this (or any) stage in his career. But Barker does such a fine job of conjuring an image of a painfully desirable young man, laying (and lying) in an empty upstairs room in just his underwear while a (presumably middle-aged, though it’s never made clear) expert in the paranormal sits in the kitchen below, fiddling with a wedding ring that’s outlived the man who put it on her finger, psyching herself into believing she’s found success in the form of the fraud above her, and wanting this kid so badly she can practically taste it. It’s really very sexy. (When the violence is done, by the way, I feel it’s done sensually, certainly with more delicacy than many of the subsequent stories, though even in the most brutal there’s a sensual element that can’t be denied, or in many cases resisted.)

So the groundwork has been laid here–the body horror, the sex, the need to see and to share, the instaneously blown mind (about which much more in the weeks to come, I’m sure). These are all themes that wind back and forth fugue-like throughout the subsequent 29 tales. Like I said, this one feels like a beginning. “Read and learn,” Barker exhorts at the story’s end. Okay then.

Thanks to Technorati’s Blog Finder and some diligent Google searching of my own, I discovered a whole bunch more horror blogs last night and added them to the big list; really, you should just scroll down and start clicking on anything that’s new to you, because there’s a lot of good stuff out there. If I have time sometime in the near future (unlikely, given my plans for October), I’ll do a “Meet the Horror Blogosphere” series running down some of the best. But for now, I leave it to you as a DIY project. (I’d also like to email the various blogs who don’t know they’re included and give them a head’s-up, but that too is a project for another time. But hey, if you find a new blog through the list, tell ’em Sean sent you!)

As always, I would encourage you to email links to any blogs or sites of note that aren’t already included to me here.

One blog I found last night deserves special mention, though, for reasons that are apparent to regular ADDTF readers: Dumb London, a very well-written zombie blog. At this point I’m no longer surprised to find these, though with Dumb London I at long last found one newer than mine. I haven’t had a chance to really dig into this one yet, but I already appreciate the time the author took to develop what appears to be a zombie hierarchy, or at least a zombie taxonomy.

Finally, from (I’m told) the same contest that produced yesterday’s Shining trailer, here is a balls-out terrific zombie horror trailer assembled from…well, you’re just going to have to see for yourself. Mambo!

A few days back I asked if any of yall were planning on watching any members of this season’s crop of “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Lost!” TV shows. Loyal ADDTF reader Kerry answered thusly:

Hey there! I have posted a few basic reviews on my blog, which you are welcome to check out. I took it upon myself to watch at least one episode of the new shows, and trust me, that was no easy task!

The best of the spooky award goes to Supernatural, so far. Demons, spirits, haints, hags, and other campfire creepies being hunted by two brothers searching for their father, burning ladies on the ceiling … how can you go wrong? [It’s also] X-Files-y in the sense that each episode is self-contained, though there is a running plot as well.

Threshold is more conspiracy-based, all about the futile attempt to keep the lid on some alien invaders, but is also worth watching. It is decidedly creepy, what with the backward-talking and the midget. [Sounds familiar… -Ed.]

I watched Invasion last night, and it was not terrible; Threshold seems to be a superior show, but I’ll continue to give Invasion a chance.

Surface is more family-oriented, but offers some thrilling moments, especially when you realize how MAMMOTH the whatever-it-is IS. [Soooo tempting… -Ed.] The only irksome aspect so far is that some kids found an “egg” and are now raising a baby whatever-it-is in a cooler… I feel that the quality of this show will decline as the “baby” gets bigger and is used as a plot device, but I could be wrong.

Prison Break might just be the best piece of TV drama I have seen since …well, since I don’t know when. Of course, the things that happen on the show would NEVER happen in a real prison, but the script is so compelling you voluntarily suspend your disbelief and just take the ride.

The Night Stalker has not yet premiered; when I see it, you’ll know what I think of it.

And Lost is still the leader of the pack

You’ve probably already had this emailed to you by your officemates today–I’ve received it from at least two separate groups of people–but what the hey, it’s horror-related and funny as all get-out: The Shining as a feel-good comedy. This is so well done in its mockery of a particular type of uplifting Hollywood pablum that watching it will actually creep you out. The use of “Solsbury Hill” is a particularly nice touch–I now feel about movies that use that in their trailers the same way I feel about ones that use “Takin’ Care of Business” or that song that goes “hey! hey! hey! hey!”

Oh my god.

This is a red-letter day for people who love sea monsters, let me tell you:

For the first time, a giant squid has been captured on film in its natural environment!

Photo (c) Reuters.

A pair of Japanese scientists were the lucky fellows who managed to pull this off (somewhat literally–the squid lost a tentacle to the crew during its struggle to free itself from the bait it had snapped up). The discovery was actually made this time last year, but the scientists’ report on it is only now being made public.

For those who are unaware, giant squids have long been known to exist thanks to everything from carcasses washed up on shores or caught in fishing nets to scars on sperm whales. However, actually observing a live one doing its thing in the ocean has up until now been a vision quest not unlike capturing Bigfoot, only all the more frustrating because the giant squid is and was indisputably real.

I’m so damn excited about this I may have to add Surface to my TiVo To Do list.

I was gonna wait till October before I brought this to your attention–it seemed more appropriate that way, somehow, even if ADDTF is now pretty much a 24/7/365 horror blog–but this post by Kevin Melrose at Dark But Shining forced my hand.

So to speak.

Horror site The Flesh Farm has put together a set of lovely tributes to folklorist Alvin Schwartz and illustrator Stephen Gammell’s infamous Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark book series. Click on the links below for pictures, stories, and general pluggy goodness for one of the current generation of horror fans and creators’ universal formative influences:

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones

I came across these pages when conducting research a few weeks back for what I hoped would be an interview with Stephen Gammell for Giant Magazine. I found out that Mr. Gammell doesn’t give interviews, so that plan fell through, but any excuse to re-immerse myself in these books is a welcome one. I’m of the mind that Gammell’s work with Schwartz (who passed away several years ago, unfortunately) is one of the great unheralded touchstones of contemporary horror, particularly in comics. Here’s what I said on the topic over at Tom Spurgeon’s ComicsReporter.com site:

I know [the Scary Stories series] isn’t comics per se, but fans of cartooning and illustration are hereby heartily advised to go to their local Borders and pick up the chain’s super-cheap omnibus hardcover collecting all three volumes of this series, which they may remember fondly and fearfully from their childhoods. Schwartz’s economical, just-so prose meshes perfectly with the incredibly bizarre and still-frightening ink-washed illustrations by Stephen Gammell. These books are an unsung influence of contemporary American comics, I’m quite convinced; for example, the work of artist Ben Templesmith, whose collaborations with writer Steve Niles have almost singlehandedly revived the commercial fortunes of the genre, is thoroughly indebted to Gammell’s style.

And when I said “still-frightening,” I meant it: Any of you who (like me) occasionally flip through your copies of the books before laying down to sleep will undoubtedly testify that it makes for a nerve-wracking night. And hey, if the only people the books scared were kids, they wouldn’t have been the 1990s’ most frequently challenged library books.

There’s so much to recommend these books: The astoundingly frightening art, some of which is seared into my brain as deeply as any scene from my favorite horror movies; the all-business prose, written for children but translating as economical and almost documentary-like for adults; the brilliantly worded story and section titles, which when taken as a group are my favorite batch of titles this side of Gang of Four’s first album; the stories themselves, selected from folklore and urban legend across the United States and striking chords you didn’t know you were equipped with. Just wonderful in every way, and an utterly essential addition to every horror fan’s library. Makes a fine Halloween present for the kiddies, too. Provided you don’t mind scaring the daylights out of them.

Now this is bad news: D’Angelo was critically injured in an SUV wreck a week ago.

Best known to the general public for his outrageously good physique–in his video for “Untitled” he made Brad Pitt in Fight Club look like Will Ferrell in Old School–D’Angelo is also EASILY the greatest member of that whole “neo-soul” movement from a few years back. His album Voodoo is in my opinion a major funk achievement, and ran neck-and-neck with Kid A for best album of 2000. I hadn’t been paying attention to what has been something of a downward spiral for D’Angelo in the years since, so reading that article and its account of his various substance-abuse-derived legal problems was upsetting. And it also made me lose some sympathy for him, as he’s quite clearly someone who had no business whatsoever behind the wheel of a car (which is where I’m assuming he was during this accident). If he were a defendant on Judge Judy I’d be angry if the audience didn’t clap after he lost his case, let’s put it that way. But he’s a brilliant musician and I hope this doesn’t keep him from making more music.

Perfectly Frank: Bibi’s Box unearths a metric ton of Frankenstein-related links pertaining to every imaginable permutation and iteration of Mary Shelley’s great creation. I wonder if one day someone will make a version of this monster with the ability really to frighten the contemporary audience. It seems like it’s doable.

Mondo Schlocko links to Cake & Polka Parade’s assortment of mp3s ripped from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. I got really excited about this at first because I thought it would be recordings of “Fool for a Blonde”–if you’re as big a fan of Texas Chain Saw as I am you know what I’m talking about–but nope, it’s the sounds of whole segments from the movie. That, of course, is still a wonderful find, and I say that independent of the fact that the post effusively links to my essay on the film.

The other great thing about this post is that it was my first exposure to Cake & Polka Parade in general, and it’s a heckuva find. There are a goodly number of horror–related posts and mp3s to be found there in addition to the Texas Chain Saw one, but what really caught my eye is this post and mp3 assortment featuring Godley & Creme. I am hugely in love with G&C’s fluke ’80s hit “Cry,” which I first encountered when Beavis & Butt-Head hilariously mocked it on their show back in the day. I think it’s a very lovely song, in no small part because it boasts the awe-inspiringly slick production of Trevor Horn. (See also “Video Killed the Radio Star,” “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” “Poison Arrow,” “Relax (Don’t Do It),” and Seal’s entire career.) Ever since discovering the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City soundtracks I’ve been immersing myself in ’80s pop music (though to be fair I was working my way there by way of late-period Roxy Music and Bowie, not to mention Joy Division/New Order), and one of my favorite flavors is “Cry”-style crystal-clear mid-tempo afternoon music. (I could listen to “Taken In” by Mike & the Mechanics for hours on end–godDAMN that is good music!) The tracks Cake & Polka links to aren’t anything like that–they’re from G&C’s more arty, almost glammy period, and they’re really worth a listen. “An Englishman in New York” should be downloaded for the delivery of those lyrics alone.

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: One of the great pleasures of maintaining The Horrorblog Update List has been my discovery of The Dark Side, the true-crime blog of writer/journalist Steve Huff. Simply put, I think this is some of the finest Internet-based writing of any kind I’ve ever come across. It is very, very dark–a given, considering the subject matter–but very, very good–considering the subject matter, almost the opposite of a given . Highly recommended.

Final Girl’s Stacie Ponder is back, with a delightful (but spoilery, so be warned) post about horror-movie moments that really and truly scared her. Her single scariest moment is mine too. I honestly don’t know if it can ever be topped.

Finally, my old comics blogosphere compatriot Franklin Harris has called it quits after a long and illustrious genre-blogging career. I’ll miss him. Good luck, Franklin!

I don’t know if this is something every music blog on earth has already linked to, but frankly, nor do I care: Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Minnetonka (Minnesota) High School Percussion Ensemble’s near-flawless renditions of DJ Shadow’s “Building Steam with a Grain of Salt” and “Changeling,” as arranged by teacher Brian Udelhofen. More info here and here.

You have to hear it and see it to believe it. Best high school band ever.

I’ve decided that THAT will be my new catch-all link-post title; what with all the blog carnivals that already exist, it seems like a perfect fit, even if I am misusing the term somewhat. (We horror fans are antiestablishment types anyways. Fuck ’em and their law!) This carnival will be of short duration, though.

Bloody Disgusting links to (and, well, reproduces in its entirety) this MTV.com story/interview with Quentin Tarantino, and it’s a veritable cornucopia of information on upcoming projects: Grind House, Sin City 2, Inglorious Bastards, Kill Bill 3, Vega Brothers…really the only thing it doesn’t talk about is the super-duper deluxe edited-together Kill Bill director’s cut DVD and/or theatrical release, but it does imply that this is being worked on. The nice thing is that none of the above-listed projects has been totally shitcanned–even Vega Brothers, the oft-rumored prequel to both Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction starring Vic and Vincent Vega (Michael Madsen and John Travolta’s characters from those two films), seems like it stands a decent chance of getting made. Three cheers.

Next, one of my all time favorite stupid-smart rock musician quotes was from Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, from one of MTV’s old “rockumentary” band bio shows, on why Aerosmith’s album Rocks was called Rocks: “‘Cause it is–’cause it does.” With that in mind, gaze upon the wonder that is COOP’s new painting (NSFW, but given that it’s COOP you probably knew that), about which the artist has “paintblogged” extensively: It’s called “Boss” ’cause it is–’cause it does. Extra special bonus tidbit: It was inspired, believe it or not, by the work of Edward Ruscha, who painted the painting my wife and I fell in love in front of, “Oof”! And since we also listened to a lot of Lords of Acid back then, and COOP played more than a small part in that band’s success, I guess the circle is now complete.

Finally, hooray! And a question: Is anyone watching or planning to watch any of the other vaguely paranormal, ostentatiously intricate hour-long dramas with one-word titles that are coming out this season? Threshold, Supernatural, Surface, Invasion? (Not to mention honorary members Prison Break and The Night Stalker.) I guess I’m reasonably curious about some of them, but there’s only so many hours in a day, you know? If you end up biting the bullet, let me know what you think.

It was an awful week and a half, thanks for asking, and for more reasons than the obvious one. But I think I’m starting to walk it off.

Here are some links.

Infocult links us to Where London Stood, an academic site examining the literary and artistic trope of the ruined famous city, one with which we’re all too familiar with at this point, I suppose (though fortunately, it seems, not with the body count that usually comes along with it). This page focuses on its use in 20th-century sci-fi. I’ve said before how much I love post-apocalyptic horror, and the link to the ruined-city image is obvious–would 28 Days Later have done nearly as well as it did with both audiences and critics if not for that unforgettable walk through a moribund London?–so if you’re like me, you’ll want to check this out.

Matt Rota is an artist and cartoonist whose work I like. Eerie naturalism. Take a look.

One Louder links us to the Village Voice’s review of Analord, the 11-vinyl-EPs-and-counting analogue-only project by Richard D. James, aka Aphex Twin and AFX. As one of the many who found his last album to be a difficult listen, particularly compared to, well, all his other albums (among the most compulsively listenable in my collection), this sounds very promising indeed. However, I am not in the way of buying vinyl, so I will hope and pray that this finds its way onto CD eventually. (Or hell, mp3.)

In Sean-on-dead-tree news, the new issue of Giant features my reviews of Charles Burns’ masterpiece, Black Hole, as well as Chris Ware’s Acme Novelty Library hardcover. These are not yet reflected on GiantMag.com, but go visit anyway, and while you’re there, subscribe–people, this magazine’s latest issue featured a cast reunion for The Big Lebowski and, for no real reason, a two-page spread consisting of a picture of David Bowie exiting a limo during the post-Station to Station tour of Europe. I don’t know what else to tell you.

The Dark But Shining boys have big things cooking for the month of October, it appears. And I missed it when it happened, but M Valdemar made a barely audible noise of a Lovecraftian nature before resuming radio silence late last month. I guess I’m just gonna have to come up with something big for October…again…

This is what I read at my grandfather’s wake this past weekend.

—–

My mother ended her eulogy for my grandfather by referencing his frequent use of the phrase “men of our talents.” He

God bless America
Land that I love
Stand beside her
And guide her
Through the night with a light from above
From the mountains
To the prairies
To the oceans
White with foam
God bless America
My home sweet home

—–
As he followed her inside Mother Abagail’s house he thought it would be better, much better, if they did break down and spread. Postpone organization as long as possible. It was organization that always seemed to cause the problems. When the cells began to clump together and grow dark. You didn’t have to give the cops guns until the cops couldn’t remember the names…the faces…

Fran lit a kerosene lamp and it made a soft yellow glow. Peter looked up at them quietly, already sleepy. He had played hard. Fran slipped him into a nightshirt.

All any of us can buy is time, Stu thought. Peter’s lifetime, his children’s lifetimes, maybe the lifetimes of my great-grandchildren. Until the year 2100, maybe, surely no longer than that. Maybe not that long. Time enough for poor old Mother Earth to recycle herself a little. A season of rest.

“What?” she asked, and he realized he had murmured it aloud.

“A season of rest,” he repeated.

“What does that mean?”

“Everything,” he said, and took her hand.

Looking down at Peter he thought: Maybe if we tell him what happened, he’ll tell his own children. Warn them. Dear children, the toys are death–they’re flashburns and radiation sickness, and black, choking plague. These toys are dangerous; the devil in men’s brains guided the hands of God when they were made. Don’t play with these toys, dear children, please, not ever. Not ever again. Please…please learn the lesson. Let this empty world be your copybook.

“Frannie,” he said, and turned her around so he could look into her eyes.

“What, Stuart?”

“Do you think…do you think people ever learn anything?”

She opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, fell silent. The kerosene lamp flickered. Her eyes seemed very blue.

“I don’t know,” she said at last. She seemed unpleased with her answer; she struggled to say something more; to illuminate her first response; and could only say it again:

I don’t know.

–Stephen King, The Stand