The movies that make me piss myself

Lists. I like to make them. I like to revise them. As long as they aren't composed of anything practical. Ask me to make a list of my favorites songs with synthesized seagull sounds in them though (#1: "It's my Life" by Talk Talk) and I'm in heaven.

I've been watching reruns of Carpenter's The Thing on cable recently which is still a majorly misanthropic paranoid masterpiece. I remember going to see this with my Dad when it came out. It came out the summer of ET so it's kind of curious we ended up seeing this but whatever. I also remember my Dad throwing a fit about a woman with a crying baby. I am most definitely the nemesis of fools who bring babies to movies (particularly evening movies. Which are loud horror movies. Do you put beer in the baby bottle to make baby nap too?) but the whole scene turned inevitably into an embarrassing "I demand to see the manager" fiasco. At any rate, I bring this up because this protracted interlude worked out quite swimmingly in the end because as a result I missed the horrible dog massacre scene. I still have to change the channel when this scene approaches-I think I've only watched it once through splayed fingers. Cannot handle bad things happening to doggies, even outlandish fictional things.

And watching The Thing caused me to seek out John W. Campbell's original story "Who Goes There" which is a hard book to find in these parts. Hooray for the internets.

Horror is one of those maligned and abused genres like science fiction back in the day. It's easy to do on the cheap. It's easy to do exploitatively. For every Halloween, there are 10 I Spit on Your Grave's.

(btw, does anyone else think Last House on the Left is a ripoff of Bergman's The Virgin Spring?)

Here are some horror flicks, in no particular order, that still threaten my bladder control even when they shouldn't:

• The Thing--of course I've already mentioned it. Still utterly freaky and stomach churningly gross. You are stuck in the Antarctic. One or more of you isn't human. There's some kind of extraterrestrial spider monster that will take over the world if you don't kill every last one of it. Even Kurt fucking Russell and Keith David are freaking out so you know that you would be Thing bait. Also has one of the greatest line deliveries ever courtesy of David Clennon, "You've gotta be FUCKING kidding." If you ever have to give CPR, I guarantee you one scene in particular is going to flash before your eyes.

•  The Exorcist--is there a choice that's more obvious? Linda Blair pees on the floor and does naughty things with a crucifix. I blame Catholic school for planting the seed of Satan panic in my head that still causes me to want to cross myself and promise to go to confession when I watch this even though I've been an atheist for several years. Damn it Sister Regina, this is not fucking based on a true story.And while I'm on the subject, Kiss is not in league with the devil.

• The Omen--second most obvious choice. "It's all for you, Damien." Damn it, that still freaks me out. Skip the shitty remake and the sequels. My parents had this book when I was a kid and I remember continually shuffling it so it sat behind other books on the shelf so that the 666 on the spine wouldn't taunt me. 

• The Howling--first, can you believe that is the Doctor from Voyager? The chick who played Terri was indeed a terrific screamer and whoever composed that extremely unnerving soundtrack should have won an award. Apparently it's Pino Donaggio, also responsible for Don't Look Now, Dressed to Kill, Carrie and that stupid haunted doll flick Tourist Trap (my parents getting Showtime when I was around 10 insured I would see many a shitty movie like this one.) Bummer moment: someone shoots John Steed. 

• Psycho--I'm just so damn cliche. However, even though I know it's coming, I still fight the urge to scream when Vera Miles finds "Mrs. Bates" in that rocking chair and spins her around. Apparently, the cast and crew were afraid this movie would look silly and Hitch told them just wait until you see it with the soundtrack. Doubts erased. Many showers changed to baths.

• Paranormal Activity 1 and 2--either these movies' leisurely pace, suburban settings and slowly ramped up chain of demonic meddling will leave you a nervous wreck that is afraid to walk into a dark room for the next day or so or you'll be bored and entirely unmoved. I have talked to plenty of people in the second category but what the hell-have you no pulse, people? They did an amazing job of weaving the storyline from the first into the second. Also, dirty pool adding a dog and a baby to the mix in the sequel. 

•  The Amityville Horror--is this movie really scary? I mean, the scene with the demonic pig thing eyeballing Margot Kidder just looks ridiculous now. I just remember my parents taking me to see this in the theatre (I would have been around nine) and me coming home convinced that the devil was going to make the walls bleed ANY MINUTE. I have to say even though this is laughably bad, what was scary at 9 is scary forever on some level. The sequel not so much. I'm so glad Ryan Reynolds career has been successful enough that he doesn't have to star in shit like this anymore. I wonder what became of the lawsuit regarding the sequel by the way--I remember the real-life guy sued the movie makers for suggesting that he was homicidal. Hey, he's a fraud not a killer. Get it straight.

• Poltergeist--I heard lots of bitchery form cinephiles that Steven Spielberg ruined Tobe Hooper's vision. I still think this was plenty freaky. Again, the cozy suburban setting makes you feel safe. Then a long-tongued closet monster comes after you and there are skeletons in the swimming pool. Also, clowns. Automatically eligible.

•  Halloween--I know so many people who say "I don't watch horror movies" blah blah blah and I try to get them to watch this one. There is almost no blood for starters-you are either remembering wrong or remembering one of the vastly inferior sequels. It's all suspense, pacing, camera-work and a great score from Carpenter.

• The Prince of Darkness--Carpenter was really on when he was on. I think it's time I forgave him for Ghosts of Mars. This was panned when it came out like The Thing but people seem to appreciate it more these days. Satanic space goop. Physics. Donald Pleasance. The Brotherhood of Sleep (sounds awesome-can I join?) Alice Cooper kills someone with a bicycle.  In fact, you will not be saved.

• Salem's Lot--sure it was a TV movie about vampires with Starsky in it (or was the blonde one Hutch? I never could keep them straight.) It's also directed by Tobe Hooper and written by Stephen King so it's ok to admit this TV movie made you scared of scraping noises at the window for a few days. Or years. 

I'm sure there are more. I don't want to cheat and put something like Bob Roberts on here (although Republicans are kind of scary.) I'll have to expand this when inspiration hits.

On IQ tests and other jive

So, someone convinced me recently to get my IQ tested if they paid for it. I took the tests last Saturday and it wasn't that bad actually as the whole process took about 90 minutes. 

The first is the Wonderlic which I just assumed was some convoluted acronym but it's the dude's name. A perfect score is 50. Apparently, they estimate that if your chosen profession is "warehouse", you will score a 14 while an average IQ is 20. I think I did ok at this one but because of the 12 minutes/50 question restriction, I didn't waste much time on anything that started out like, "Sally has 10 apples, Dave has 7.5 apples. How many apples will they have to eat to get to Dayton by 3pm if one of them is on the South Beach Diet?"

The second test was the Mensa Admissions Test. That was longer. Lots of visual reasoning and some more word problems. I ate it on that latter section.  Also, a girl who sat next to me stood up and reached over me for a pencil. Strangers touching and hovering over me--do not want.

During the course of taking these tests and talking to Dennis and Googling, I've learned there are a surprising number of high IQ societies. One called Triple Nine posts its requirements online and I see I'm already too dumb to be a member (they want an ACT score of 32, I got a 28. They want an SAT of 1450, I got 1100-something. Ouch. They want an IQ of 149, according to an online test which isn't valid anyways I'm around 144.) Triple Nine only has about 980 members worldwide though so it's not like I'm missing out on world of social interaction.

At least if I am shitcanned from Mensa, there is always Tensa. It's all kind of irrelevant anyways. What would I get out of joining Mensa anyways? Maybe I'd meet Geena Davis or Alan Rachins. Mmmm...LA Law.

April is National Poetry Month-and almost over

Who keeps track of this stuff? Someone at book group last night mentioned that April was also Jazz Appreciation Month. Cue Coltrane, somebody.

Anyways, I do like poetry when I understand it and reading the local library's blog clued me in that you can sign up for the poetry of the day email from the National Poetry Foundation.

Here is today's poem by Matthew Zapruder. I experience my literature primarily, in fact nearly exclusively, visually so I like the image of the typewriter key necklace:

April Snow

By Matthew Zapruder 

Today in El Paso all the planes are asleep on the runway. The world

is in a delay. All the political consultants drinking whiskey keep

their heads down, lifting them only to look at the beautiful scarred

waitress who wears typewriter keys as a necklace. They jingle

when she brings them drinks. Outside the giant plate glass windows

the planes are completely covered in snow, it piles up on the wings.

I feel like a mountain of cell phone chargers. Each of the various

faiths of our various fathers keeps us only partly protected. I don’t

want to talk on the phone to an angel. At night before I go to sleep

I am already dreaming. Of coffee, of ancient generals, of the faces

of statues each of which has the eternal expression of one of my feelings.

I examine my feelings without feeling anything. I ride my blue bike

on the edge of the desert. I am president of this glass of water.

 

First thoughts on Damage

It's hard to believe this was Josephine Hart's first novel. And that she had the moxie to turn what could have been a Judith Krantz novel or something just skin crawlingly tasteless into such a beautiful sliver of literature. That story being a middle-aged British politician who has lived a successfully respectable but passionless life  having an intense affair with his son's girlfriend/fiance. I loved the Louis Malle film, even more so because midway through my reaction was "This shit is weird" but by the end I was enthralled. And horrified. I am guessing the book follows the novel pretty closely which means Martyn, the son, is approaching a tragic end.

Of course I liked the film because I love Louis Malle (with the exception of Pretty Baby which is well-made but some of the scenes walk the skeevy edge of child porn. Naked 12 year old girls. Do not want.) 

Josephine Hart is Irish, but lives in England.She was a theatre producer and director of Haymarket Publishing before she turned author. Apparently two of her other novels, Sin and The Reconstructionist, have been optioned as films.

The entire book feels like it was chiseled into sharp prose so much of it is arguably a great line. Here are a few:

We may go through our lives happy or unhappy, successful or unfilfilled, loved or unloved, without ever standing cold with the shock of recognition, without ever feeling the agony as the twisted iron in our soul unlocks itself and we slip at last into place.

Had I died at fifty I would have been a doctor, and an established politician, though not a household name...But I did not die in my fiftieth year. There are few who know me now, who do not regard that as a tragedy.

(here's a bit of foreshadowing)...

Children are the greatest gamble. From the moment they are born, our helplessness increases. Instead of being ours to mould and shape after our best knowledge and endeavour, they are themselves. From their birth they are the centre of our lives, and the dangerous edge of existence.

Those who are lucky should hide. They should be grateful. They should hope the days of wrath will not visit their home. They should run to protect all that is theirs, and pity their neighbour when the horror strikes. But quietly, and from a distance. 

I have sometimes looked at old photographs of the smiling faces of victims, and searched them desperately for some sign that they knew....Nothing. They look out serenely, a terrible warning to us all. 'No, I didn't know. Just like you.'...so I know that in whatever photographs were taken of me at that time, my face will gaze back at you confident, a trifle cold, but basically unknowing. It is the face of a man I no longer understand. I know that bridge that connects me to him. But the other side has disappeared. Disappeared like some piece of land the sea has overtaken. There may be some landmarks on the beach, at low tide, but that is all. 

(on lying to his wife, after he follows Martyn and Anna to France. The evolution of a cheater's mindset though, is artfully laid out here)

It's so hideously easy, I thought. To tell her I was in Paris was risky, I could easily have concealed it. The new and strange shape I was assuming was hardening each day. The facile liar, the violent lover, the betrayer, would allow no return journey. My path was clear. I knew I was on a headlong rush to destruction..with a mix of restrained joy and cold deception that I began to find intoxicating. I felt not a shred of pity for anyone. That was the essence of my power....I left Paris in a triumph of moral degradation. 

Tales of ecstasy are endless tales of failure. For always comes separation.

And the most famous line from the movie uttered by Anna which, alas, I have heard since then at least one crazy bitch use as carte blanche benediction of her wackness:

That is my story, simply told. Please do not ask again. I have told you in order to issue a warning. I have been damaged. Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.

Philomathia: Gojira's roots

Ok, so maybe talking about Godzilla is not in good taste these days however NPR ran a story recently about how days after the Fukushima incident began in Japan, he became a trending topic on Wikipedia. That's....just odd.

One thing that really caught my attention during the story was a real event inspired the movie. Namely, the Castle Bravo test on Bikini Atoll in 1954. It's just impossible to imagine anyone thinking it would be acceptable to detonate a nuclear weapon-much less a hydrogen bomb-above ground although both the US and the Russians obviously have long histories of that. The yield was 15 megatons which was over double what they anticipated. In the process, they irradiated a Japanese fishing boat and their entire cargo of fish. At least one sailor died as a direct result. Even worse, after the US tried to cover it up, they later admitted around 100 additional fishing boats had been exposed and some of the Marshall Islands had to be evacuated. This story has some Chernobyl-esque touches to it, no? Fucking assholery. I don't even know who to blame so I've decided to hate on the late Edward Teller (the man Carl Sagan blamed for the hydrogen bomb and a whole lot of bullshit that followed.)

Curious about the crater? Naturally, someone has mapped it. 

I'm tempted to end on a positive note and mention my favorite Godzilla movie. I wonder if that's in bad taste.

Well, fine. It's Godzilla Versus Ghidrah, the Three-headed Monster From Space-which I am a proud owner of thanks to the Friends of the Library discard sale. My second favorite is that Arrested Development episode.

Final thoughts on Will You Please be Quiet, Please?

I love Raymond Carver when he's at the top of his game, but I don't always love Raymond Carver (apropos of my IQ test today, I feel like a Venn Diagram would be useful here.) I finished his first short story collection and it was wobbly at times. When the stories didn't work, I was reading them with half a mind to what the odd, melancholy kathunk of an ending would be. Like at the end of "The Student's Wife" where the woman who has spent the night trying to get her husband to entertain her insomnia by talking to her about past vacations and favorite things gets down on her knees and prays to God for help. Or in "How About This?" when a couple attempts to relocate to her father's cabin in the woods only to find it too primitive and the wife says "We just have to love each other."

The stories I liked best were:

• "Fat": a waitress dwells on the experience of serving an unusually zaftig diner and decides "My life is going to change. I feel it."
• "What's in Alaska?": an evening of trying out the neighbor's new bong gets the carpet pulled out on the reader when they learn what the husband already knows (I think-these Carver characters and their passivity)
• "Nobody Said Anything": a young boy skips school to go fishing. Meanwhile, he's only vaguely aware of his parents' marriage violently disintegrating in the background. And he brings home a giant fish that's actually a snake. 
• "Night School": a young divorced man living with his parents meets two hard older dames at a bar and ends up walking with them in search of a car so they can play surprise visit with their literacy class instructor.
• "Put Yourself in My Shoes": a wife drags her reluctant writer husband to drop in unannounced on the couple whose house they rented briefly at Christmas time. Hilarious awkwardness ensues. So, did they own a cat and use their linens or not? 
• "Jerry and Molly and Sam": I should hate this cheating bastard for dumping his kids' dog in a strange neighborhood but he's somehow both too pathetic and relatable for me to successfully pull it off.

Final thoughts and first and last for Notes From Underground

I frequently have fantasies of having the financial means to quit my job and then spending my time reading and rarely talking to others. Then I read this book and look at Underground Man and think, maybe that's... not healthy. Granted, he was a self-defeating sad sack and prostitute bully long before he barricaded himself in his apartment and contemplated his bad liver and any slight the world at large had ever visited upon him.

Despite the footnotes, I don't quite understand how his poor ass was able to afford his servant Apollon. Do you suppose they are the Russian Jeeves and Bertie?

I much preferred the narrative of "Apropos of the Wet Snow" (a reference to a frequent literary description for St. Petersburg) to the "Underground" manifesto. I do understand the reason for the order though.

First:

I am a sick man....I am a wicked man.

Last:

However, the "notes" of this paradoxalist do not end here. He could not help himself and went on. But it also seems to us that this may be a good place to stop.