Happy Halloween

Today's the day! If you know me, you probably know I love Halloween. The disguises, the sugary snacks, and—best of all—being scared out of your wits.

I appreciate the simple escape of horror. There's something paradoxically reassuring about the performance of terror. At a scary movie, for instance, we're scared because we want to be. Sure, media can still get under our skin, but we see scary movies because they give us a sense of control. The fictional terror on the screen is a distraction from the very real fears in our day-to-day lives.

Stephen King has a wonderful essay called "Why We Crave Horror Movies." He expresses the above points better than I can, so I'll send you his way instead. You can read the essay here on the King's College website (though be aware that the link is a file download).

Thanks for reading. Eat some candy, and happy Halloween.

Plan 9 from Outer Space

In the spirit of Halloween, I thought I'd share one of my favorite (non-) scary movies: Plan Nine from Outer Space. It's a delight, and an absolute disaster.

The film is remarkable for several reasons. Aside from being known as one of the "worst" movies ever made, it's the last film to feature actor Bela Lugosi (the guy who played the O.G. Dracula in 1931). Lugosi died before production really took off, so director Ed Wood hired a random actor to replace him. Wood still had footage of Lugosi, however, and he opted to simply splice the two actors' performances together.

Most audiences were unimpressed.

Now the movie has a quasi-legendary status. Almost everything about it is, by conventional standards, terrible. The acting, the writing; the production. Even when I first watched this as a naïve and impressionable six-year-old, I knew it was not a well-made movie. But that's its whole charm: as ridiculous a film this might be, it never takes itself too seriously.

For your enjoyment and chagrin, here's the whole thing.

- Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), directed by Ed Wood

The School Children

"The School Children" 

The children go forward with their little satchels.
And all morning the mothers have labored
to gather the late apples, red and gold,
like words of another language. 

And on the other shore
are those who wait behind great desks
to receive these offerings. 

How orderly they are — the nails
on which the children hang
their overcoats of blue or yellow wool. 

And the teachers shall instruct them in silence
and the mothers shall scour the orchards for a way out,
drawing to themselves the gray limbs of the fruit trees
bearing so little ammunition.

- by Louise Glück, from The House on Marshland (1975)

Little Love #4: Radio Tuning

Little Love Number Four: Tuning to that exact radio frequency

Since before I can remember, the radio has almost always been on in my living space: in the car on the way to school, at night as I fell asleep, on Saturday afternoons around the house. A constant companion, more or less. (I should also mention that my dad was, for years, a radio reporter, so that probably factored into our family's near-obsession with the format.)

Last Saturday, I was—somewhat unusually—changing the station on my little clock radio. It had been a while since I'd wrestled with the dial, and I forgot the small sense of victory one feels when getting the tuning just right. There's almost an entire dramatic arc within the act of tuning a clock-radio: the initial frustration of losing your channel; the false triumph of hitting your station and (alas!) replacing the radio on your bedside table, only to hear further static; the tentative hope when, fumbling with your radio (this time still in its place), you think you might have gotten it this time; the final, humble relief when you sit back to a crisp, unobstructed frequency.

Or maybe it's just me. 

A Cottony Fate

"A Cottony Fate"

Long ago, someone
told me: avoid or. 

It troubles the mind
as a held-out piece of meat disturbs a dog. 

Now I too am sixty.
There was no other life.

- by Jane Hirshfield, from The Paris Review (Summer 2014)

Shorter Days

So long, summer

Cool Cat

A lot of people would say that Queen's music wasn't as good in the '80's. That they shouldn't have explored disco; that they shouldn't have used synths. While I'd agree that Hot Space isn't their best album, this song is catchy as all get-out.

A few extra tidbits:

1. David Bowie contributed vocals to a demo, but later asked for his contribution to be removed before the album's release. Apparently, he didn't much like the song.
2. Michael Jackson allegedly cited this album as an inspiration for Thriller (though, to be honest, I don't have a reliable Internet source for this one).
3. One of my adolescent bedroom walls might have been covered with posters of Queen, and I might have spent too many lost dollars on VHS tapes, DVDs, and books about their work.
 

- "Cool Cat" by Queen, from Hot Space (1982)

A.D.D.

- "A.D.D." by Yannis Pappas, from Let Me Be Yannis (2016)

Dream Variations

The below poem is by Langston Hughes, a fellow Missourian.

Langston Hughes, February 1959

"Dream Variations"

To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
     Dark like me—
That is my dream!
To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening . . .
A tall, slim tree . . .
Night coming tenderly
     Black like me.

- by Langston Hughes, from The Weary Blues (1926)