Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Weight weight, don't tell me

Hey. I'm Kristin. And I weigh what I weigh.

At the moment, that's 110 pounds.
OMG 110 pounds! That's amazing.
No. It's not. That's underweight.The only time I've been not-underweight, I've been pregnant. That's when I put on another 50% of myself so I can drop a 9-pound person.

But this year, one of those little people started preschool, and he brought home oodles and oodles of little nasties. *ICK, GERMS!* I was sick from August until April, with nary a well week during that entire span. FIVE rounds of antibiotics, my friends.

While prescribing that last (28-day) round, my primary care physician said that thing all of my primary care physicians have said to post-adolescent me: If you just put on ten more pounds, you'd be a lot healthier.

Yeah, okay. I'll try.

Only I've been trying to do that since ALWAYS. Once I went from 95 to 108 pounds in the span of about 3 months. I saw a personal trainer, lifted weights four times a week, and took protein shakes three times a day. It felt like a full-time job--worrying about pouring in the calories. When I quit the shakes I dropped back down to 103. Still, an eight-pound success, yeah?

This time I focused on eating balanced meals and lifting weights. I did great with the food, but my get-to-the-gym willpower is not that great. Four months later, I still weigh 110. Not a single pound gained.

So I'm like, "Whatever, this is the size my body wants me to be. I eat when I'm hungry, and I'm active. I'm just supposed to be 110 pounds right now."

Really, Kristin? And if you were 300 pounds, would that excuse fly? If your doctor said, "You HAVE to do something about your weight," would you just be like, "Whatevs, this is the size I'm SUPPOSED to be"? Just because a weight is more socially acceptable does not make it healthy.

So quit bitching about how hard it is to control your weight. It's hard for everybody.
Go to the gym tomorrow, you lazy cow.**



**I'm talking to myself here. I don't know if you are a lazy cow or not. If you are, come to the gym with me--or just stop by and try to make me go. My willpower = not so great.

Friday, April 29, 2016

Ghostbusters -- I Ain't Scared of No Ghost

Somehow I neglected to make Ghostbusters a more integral part of my life. I wasn’t avoiding it, I just thought I’d seen what there was to see.

It turns out, most of my Ghostbuster memories come from the animated series The Real Ghostbusters.
And the Nintendo game.
Those were the foundation of my Ghostbusting experience. I must’ve been at least nine years old by the time I saw the actual movie, and here’s the thing—it probably wasn’t the actual movie even then. It was an edited-for-TV version. So those sexual innuendos? Those weren’t in the prime-time version.

I can’t say I went into this viewing with a lot of awareness of the plot. I remembered there being a marshmallow man, and also that Slimer was a bad guy—not the Ghostbusters’ funny little boogery sidekick. Oh, and Egon isn’t, like, the leader—he’s just their resident über nerd. That’s about the extent of it. Oh and, “There is no Dana, only Zuul.”


1) The opening scene in the library totally stressed me out. Not because the ghosts were scary, but because Bill Murray wiped ectoplasm on books, and that card catalog mess was going to take FOREVER to clean up. That’s actually why the librarian was screaming. She wasn’t scared either, she was just like, “Oh, hell no. I’m not cleaning that up. I quit.” She just forgot her lines and screamed instead. That’s my opinion, anyway.

2) The scene in which Sigourney Weaver opens her fridge to another dimension and there’s some monster that says Zuul? Those were some amazing special effects, man. I mean, I could almost understand the idea they were trying to communicate, but not quite. And when the monsters rip through her armchair and drag her to the kitchen? That was hilarious. But I wonder if it was scary in 1984. I don't remember.

3) I’m going to need to know more about that defunct firehouse and the super-sweet Ghostbustermobile. Ecto-1 must’ve toured the country for a while, because I saw it in person at the South Florida Fair back in the day, and it totally made my year. According to this site, one of the cars is just rotting away in a prop yard in Culver City. That makes me sad, because wouldn’t I be the coolest mom in the world if I pulled into the elementary school lot in that? And station wagons are really hard to come by these days, so converting an old ambulance/hearse wouldn’t be a terrible way to get one. That firehouse? Yeah, it’s still a functioning firehouse—Hook and Ladder 8, NYC. You can go see it, if you want. Or you can stalk them via their photos on Yelp.

So what about the actual movie, Kristin? What did you think about the ACTUAL movie?
I still liked it. I still thought the suits and gadgets were awesome, and the idea of a crew of undervalued paranormal scientists battling ghosts in New York City is kind of fun. Interesting, particularly, that an EPA agent was villainized by Hollywood. I wonder what that says about the ‘80s. I want to know how Egon comes up with the necessary tools straight out of the gate, when they had no plan of approach at the library. And what does happen to the spirits they contain in their ghost dumpster anyway? And so the ghosts just want to make a mess and end the world—is that the deal? I didn’t feel like my questions were all answered, but maybe the all-chick team of ghostbusters will take care of that for me this summer. Because, yeah, I’m definitely going to see it. If only because the theme song is the best one in the history of movies—ever. “I ain’t scared of no ghost.”


Ghostbusters. Prod./Dir. Ivan Reitman. Perf. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver. Columbia Pictures, 1984. DVD.

Poltergeist (1982) – A Cautionary Tale Regarding the Dangers of TV

This movie was very silly, and it really has nothing to do with poltergeists, does it? It’s more of a haunting, followed by the onset of a zombie apocalypse, right? I mean, there’s an angsty adolescent girl, but she’s not around for most of it, and her angst has nothing to do with the events. By the end we’re given to understand it’s the angry dead people wreaking havoc.

Things that were good:
  1.  Learning that TV stations used to broadcast the national anthem before going off the air for the evening. I was born in 1979. I have no recollection of this.
  2. Kids seeing things the grown ups can't. This compounded by kids conscious and wandering the house or talking to blank TV screens while they’re supposed to be sleeping is a nice little stress builder for all the parents in the viewership.
  3. A guy’s face rotting and him peeling it off. Okay, I looked away, and my husband told me when it was over, but the idea was cool. And gross. And the maggots. And that he set the meat directly on the countertop instead of on a cutting board. Horrifying cross-contamination of surfaces. Gross. So much horror here. (That one wasn’t very smooth, was it?)
  4. The clown appearing out of nowhere and dragging a kid out of bed. Kid could take him though. Kid for the win. By the way, did you guys know Oliver Robins almost died for realz in that scene? The puppet ACTUALLY tried to choke him. Read about it in the “Did you know” triviasection on his IMDB page.
  5. The giant yawning esophagus of hell. That looked like an expensive effect.


Things that were horrible:
  1. Was that wasted beer in the RC car scene? Moment of silence. (Too non sequitur? Sorry.)
  2. A tornado in Los Angeles? What?
  3. The mother’s inadequate reaction to her daughter’s disappearance. If it were me, I wouldn’t sleep for days, and my fingers would probably be bloody from clawing at the floors/walls of the closet, and from the first moment I hear that kid’s voice through the TV, I’d never turn it off. So sitting across the table from the paranormal investigator and being all affectionate with my hubby wouldn’t happen. I get that they’re trying to communicate how dulled the family’s become to the paranormal, and, yeah, that might eventually happen, but I don’t think you get dulled toward the absence of your child. They’d probably have to put me in the loony bin. She does finally almost earn mama-bear points when the giant skeleton-y goo monster is blocking her way to the kids’ room, and she’s all, “Leave my kids alone,” or whatever she screams. I kinda wanted her to grab it by its gooey little face and toss it's Satanic ass down the stairs so she could go save her kids. But she fell down the stairs instead. Let down.
  4. The lack of respect toward the medium. Hey, 1982, you’re not allowed to laugh at people because the look or sound different. That was played like a gag, and it made me hate Coach for playing along.
  5. Coach’s not-really-trying-too-hard effort to get his wife and daughter to breathe after they fall through the purgatory portal. Didn't they have CPR in 1982? And what is that, cherry Jello? Is that supposed to be some kind of Satanic special sauce or something? Maybe you should wipe it away from their noses and mouths, clear the airways, check for a pulse, and perhaps begin rescue breathing.
  6. The choreography of the esophagus scene. “Son, grab your sister’s hand—but only by the tips of her fingers! For God’s sake, don’t get a decent grip on, like, her wrist or something! Okay! I’m going to pull, and you two, just kind of stumble-walk out of the room.” Stellar work there, Mr. Spielberg. The time and money went to the esophagus, huh?
  7. Skeletons popping up everywhere. That was utterly silly. I mean, side-clenching WTF silly. Was it scary by 1982 standards? Furthermore, this whole section seemed like an add-on. Like the family is safe, they’re moving, and Shit, this film is too short. Okay, we’ll make them stay there one more night. But we already said they’ be staying at the Holiday Inn. We don’t have the time or money to reshoot that scene, so let’s hope no one noticed that. Oh, look, Mr. Spielberg. More money. Should we reshoot that scene now? Nah, let's just spend it making all hell break loose.
  8. That it’s called “poltergeist” and it’s not about poltergeists. It’s like recording a biography of Ice Cube and naming it after Dr. Dre instead. Swing and a miss. Kinda like this blog/review.



Poltergeist. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1982. DVD.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

One Man and One Woman...for Life?

Last Sunday I went to church.

Those of you who know me well also know that church is no longer part of my custom. But sometimes, when I'm visiting my mom, I go with her. Mostly because I think it makes her happy, but also because I really like some of the people she goes to church with. But they aren't the ones I'm writing about today.

Midway through a sermon on 2 Timothy 4:1-8, the interim pastor inserted a little rant than began with something along the lines of "I don't dislike homosexuals, but..."and finished with "but the Bible says one man and one woman for life." This was greeted with a few amens, and my very irritated, furrowed brow.

I've noticed this notion has been dragged out repeatedly to defend withholding civil rights from homosexuals. But when was the last time someone used it to prevent heterosexual divorcees (outside of the Catholic church) from remarrying? You don't hear a lot of sermons exhorting divorced congregation members to abandon their current families and return to their first marriages lest they continue to commit adultery. And Jesus spoke to that in the New Testament, even. Matthew 5:32 "But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery." Mmkay. So that's not some law of the old covenant. That's Jesus talking. And Christians really like Jesus. But they're super busy being worried about the heterosexuality of their mantra than the spousal quantity and length of sentence involved.

You know what else? One man and one woman is not the Biblical example at all. More like one man and 700 wives, and maybe 300 concubines. Everybody picks on Solomon, but he's not the only bigamist of the Bible. Here's a list.

You know what's even more fun than that? The Bible doesn't actually say "one man and one woman for life." Nope. Try and find it if you can. I spent most of the remainder of the sermon searching Biblical concordances on my smartphone, but I couldn't find it either.

There's Genesis 2:24 -- the part that goes "That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh." And 1 Corinthians 7:1-16 (read it here) in which Paul encourages the congregation at Corinth to get married only if they can't keep themselves from whoring around otherwise. And Ephesians 5:22-33 (read it here) in which Paul reminds men to love their wives, but tells the women they must submit to their men. Don't get me started on Paul. His misogyny makes me angry enough to spit, but it's not my religion, so whatevs.

My point is, I've heard this "One man, one woman for life" thing for a long time.
And it's not there.


Full disclosure: I'm an atheist, a recovering radicalized Evangelical, and I probably have a chip on my shoulder.

Oh, look what I found at Religion Hurts Humanity. Marriage, as depicted in the Bible:

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Since I just finished one novel regarding exorcism, I'm, of course, an expert. Which is great, because The Exorcism of Emily Rose follows much the same pattern as The Exorcist, and it’s super-gratifying to feel like I’ve prepared correctly for this experience. The ordeals in the two stories are so similar, in fact, that it feels as though one could have had fan-fiction roots in the other—and The Exorcist did influence The Exorcism of Emily Rose, right? It had to have.
Certainly The Exorcist’s prominent influence in the horror genre contributed to The Exorcism of Emily Rose’s similarities to it. But they are both said to have been based on true stories. Maybe they are based on actual common experience, and that’s simply the way possession functions. Or maybe they’re based on accumulated tradition regarding possession and exorcism. Burning smell, thumping sounds, environmental manipulation, attack followed by eventual possession. I liked The Exorcism of Emily Rose’s addition of the witching hour, though. Nice touch. When the priest busts out The Roman Ritual I was like, “Hey, I knew that was coming!” and I felt smart. Because, yeah, I’m an expert now. I know what they’re talking about.
In my last post I wondered if maybe I found movies scarier than books, though I would have assumed the opposite. But The Exorcism of Emily Rose is scary. And I watched it in broad daylight on a portable DVD player while my husband drove our family across I-70. Not a scary environment. Serious nervousness in the passenger seat anyway. That 3:00 stuff in the dark? Creepy. When the camera pans over to a clock reading 2:59, the anticipation is almost nauseating. The idea of being all alone in your dorm room when there’s that prickle of fear, followed by the unbelievable. There’s no one around to save you from what you have to suspect are delusions. And which is scarier? That it’s real or that you’re losing it?
One hour, two minutes, and forty-five seconds into the film brought an irritating little revelation. We're several days into a trial and we JUST found out there was another witness to the exorcism, AND he's a medical professional? That's handy. Good thing he took the liberty to call the lawyers. Funny that didn't come up in interviews with the defendant or the family. I mean, it DOES seem a little deus ex machina for this to come up right now when it's sorely needed, but whatever. I predict he’s going to die before he’s of any use. *spoiler alert* Oh, look. He died before he was of any use. Tension resolved and was rebuilt again in a matter of minutes.
I liked this movie. It was scary as all get out, but so good. The tension had a certain deliciousness to it. I’d give it four-and-a-half (out of five) stars for enjoyability and tension. Which means, of course, that everyone else probably hated it.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Dir. Scott Derrickson. Prod. Tom Rosenberg. By Paul Harris Boardman. Perf. Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson, and Campbell Scott. Sony Pictures Entertainment, 2005. DVD.

Friday, April 22, 2016

The Exorcist

There’s something wrong with me. I don’t mind the books other people detest, and am entirely irritated by books other people love. The Exorcist appears to be a book other people love.

The movie The Exorcist is the scariest movie I’d ever seen. That girl with her head turned all the way around?—yikes. And that scene appears in the book. I was waiting for it. Maybe that’s why it wasn't all that scary. Or maybe movies are scarier than books. Or maybe things that scared me when I was 23 don’t have as much effect on me, thirteen years later. Or maybe I was distracted by other things.

A writing instructor once told me it’s more important to tell an interesting story than to tell a story well. In his opinion, readers would forgive mistakes if they’re interested enough. And maybe that’s true, but that story would have to be extremely captivating—and this one must not have been compelling enough to obscure distraction.

That sounds really snotty. It's not as though my own writing is free from errors, but you just kind of expect more from a professional, you know?

Writing Mini Lesson, free for the taking
Let’s talk for a moment about the words “started” and “began.” Beginning writers use these words a lot, and we were all beginning writers once. “She started to cry.” “They started running.” And then did they stop? Like immediately? Because that’s the only time these words ought to crop up. If the action is continue or completed, just cut to the chase. “She cried.” “They ran.”

This is William Peter Blatty’s 5th novel. He’s not a beginning writer. Yet, I found three examples of this in two pages.

For example, on page 123 "And then, bending at the waist, started whirling her torso around in rapid, strenuous circles." 
In the next paragraph, "He fetched his medical bag to the window and quickly began to prepare an injection." 
And again on the following page, "Then looked again to Ragan as she started to arch her body upward into an impossible position, bending it backwards like a bow until her head had touched her feet."

So Regan whirled her torso? Okay. 
And the doctor prepared an injection? Good. I assume he finished this, so I don’t need to hear about how he started it unless something terribly interesting occurred in the initiation of the process. And then Regan arched her body. Great. Edit complete. You’re welcome, Mr. Blatty. For just 1¢/word, I’ll clean up the rest of your manuscript for you.

Except I really don’t want to read it a second time. As it is, I think I’ve read it twice in this one effort. Maybe I have a reading comprehension problem that’s never affected my understanding until now, but I found this book hard to read. I don’t usually mind incomplete sentences, but Blatty’s style of painting a scene with a collection of fragments didn't work for me. I had to reread sentences, paragraphs, entire pages. And I figured I’d get use to it, but even after three hundred pages I hadn’t. But not every book is for everybody. This one wasn’t for me.

Oh, and Timons Esaias says you shouldn’t describe a character by having her regard herself in the mirror. You might rewrite that bit on page 17 then, Mr. Blatty.

And Regan, when she’s in control of her own mind, reads more like an eight-year-old than an adolescent. You might—you know—fix that too.



Blatty, William Peter. The Exorcist. New York: Harper, 2013. Print.

Monday, April 4, 2016

Paranormal Activity: Only $15,000 to Make It? You Don’t Say.

Spoiler alert: You’ll probably be annoyed by the production quality of Paranormal Activity more than the ending I’ll spoil in this post. You’ve officially been warned of both.


I am not a fan of the low-budget, camcorder style of the movie Paranormal Activity. Furthermore, I’m not a fan of having had to endure so much of nothing BUT low-budget cinematography at the beginning of the film while it took its sweet time getting to the point.

This film had, what, four actors? Three of whom aren’t noticeably bad? That scene in which the psychic simply must leave because he’s angering the whatever-it-is felt like watching a middle school play in which the actor arrives, looks awkward, sounds awkward, and exits the stage. Audience wonders if there was a point to that. But I’ve consulted the all-knowing and always-trustworthy Wikipedia and been informed that there was no script. So now that scene makes sense in that the actor looked like he was flying by the seat of his pants because he was. And not everybody is cut out for “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” Certainly not a guy with just three credits to his name. Sorry, Mark Fredrichs.

Which brings me to my next observation: Oren Peli didn’t bother naming his characters. Katie is played by Katie. Micah is played by Micah. Amber is played by Amber. And Dr. Fredrichs is played by Mark Fredrichs. Very creative. Oh, wait. There WAS a fifth actor. Diana is played by Ashley Palmer, which tells me it would’ve been too hard to recognize “Ashley” if spelled by a Ouija board from their camera angle. Not that we could see what was being spelled out—we just took Micah’s word for it that it wasn’t “candy bar” or “marshmallow” or something similarly delicious and non-threatening.

But what a fun trip down memory lane to watch for an hour and twenty-six minutes how we wanted our homes decorated just one decade ago. Rear-projection TVs. Enormous furniture. The latest in ten-pound laptops. Looks like Peli has a nice home, since he shot it there, saving a couple more nickels and getting a home reno in the process. Clever.

So was it scary? I thought so. I mean, the sounds and footsteps did nothing for me, but when Katie gets out of bed and just stands there FOR TWO HOURS, that was scary. Especially when she left the room for God-knows-where. Micah, though, when he notices she’s gone, stops to pick up the camera while he searches for her. Glad you weren’t too worried, there Micah. I’ll be real sorry when your arrogant self-involved got-this-under-control ass dies later. *ahem*

I notice he didn’t make that mistake twice though, because when he vaults out of bed after Katie’s second stand-and-stare scene, and to be fair she IS screaming bloody murder this time, he leaves the camera where it sits. Consequently, Katie had to throw Micah’s lifeless body at the camera so we’d know what took place. Guess the demon wanted it on the recording, otherwise it’s not really clear why possessed Katie had to bring him back upstairs and throw him at the camera—it was solely for the audience’s benefit, I guess. Not actually scary.

When the bedsheets moved—that was scary. When the thing dragged Katie out of bed and down the hallway—that was really effing scary. But when she’s sitting in the hall squeezing a literally bloody cross and it’s clear she’s been possessed, I really didn’t care what happened after that. And the stand-and-stare trick only worked on me the first time. We crossed the too-stupid-to-live point when they didn’t call the demonologist, so I could wash my hands of someone who didn’t want to leave when it got ridiculously bad. I know why they don’t call in the other professional, though, and it’s not that Micah “has it under control” or is afraid it’ll get worse at that point—he clearly IS hell-bent on making it worse if he can. It’s just that Peli doesn’t want to hire another actor, so no demonologist.

Could I watch it alone? Yeah. And I still consider myself a wimp about these things. On a 1 to 10 scariness scale, 1 being The Care Bears and 10 being the middle-of-the-night features produced by my own brain when I’m under the influence of Benadryl, I’d give this a 5. Most of what’s scary here is just that we’re hard-wired to be afraid of monsters messing with us while we’re asleep, and that’s what’s played up most in this film.


Paranormal Activity. Dir. Oren Peli. Perf. Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat. Paramount/DreamWorks, 2009. DVD.

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Grave’s End: A Pretty Convincing Ghost Story. Almost.

The following post includes commentary on and possible spoilers for Grave’s End: A True Ghost Story, by Elaine Mercado, R.N.

I’ll admit it. I kind of liked this book. A lot more than I thought I would.

Grave’s End started with two strikes against it in my opinion. One: It’s a “true” ghost story, and I didn’t believe that even as far as I could throw it. Oh, you’ve got a story about a ghost sighting or an angel or something? You don’t say. Hmm. I’m sure you won’t follow up with a retelling riddled with unsubstantiated claims and attention-seeking language. (Okay, not ALL of them sound like this, and I’ll admit I hear this kind of thing mostly from middle schoolers.) Surprising to me at least, was that Elaine Mercado was able to keep such language to a minimum, in spite of the kind of book she was writing. Which brings me to that other strike. Two: It's a memoir. Those aren’t usually written very well. They're packed with filters such as “I thought,” “I felt,” and “I heard.” They overuse “started to” and “began.” They wander off on autobiographical tangents that aren’t pertinent to the central story. And this memoir does all of those things. (How much do I really need to know about Mercado’s nursing school experience? Almost nothing. Ditto marital woes.) But, assignment or no, once I got going on this book I was going to read it through to the end.

Somewhere in the pages of Grave’s End my suspension of disbelief morphed into something like incredulous belief, and I admit to uncertainty. Mercado tells her story in a non-self-aggrandizing, believable fashion. She inspires my trust. Consequently I have to believe that she experienced what she says she experienced, and I don’t have a skeptic’s explanation. But over here, back in the real world I live in, I still don’t believe in ghosts. That doesn’t make sense to compartmentalize belief like that, but I’ll work on it and try to make myself more open to the idea. A spooky night at Gettysburg might be just the ticket—stay tuned.

Mercado addresses, although casually, one of my problems with belief in ghosts which is that ghosts always seem to be people. Mercado’s medium, however, indicates that two dogs were also present in her vortex and went to the light. But we kill animals all the time. Not just the ones we eat and the bugs we step on, but what about the incalculable number of microorganisms that kick the bucket while living on my person? Do they have little microspirits that have to find the light too? And if they don’t, do their little souls wander aimlessly looking for the way out of limbo? Am I being haunted by tragic little dead things, and I don’t even know it?

[Pauses to wash face with baby shampoo, washing away the spirits of long-gone eyelash mites.]

My point is, things die all the time. If there are ghosts, why aren’t there just shitloads of them? Everywhere. All the time.

But Elaine Mercado didn’t write a dissertation on the existence of the paranormal. She just wrote her story, and delivered it to the best of her ability. And it made a pretty good story. Maybe it would even make a compelling movie. Wait—wait a minute.

[click click tappity tap tap tap]

Oh. It was on a reality TV show.
Okay, I don’t believe her so much anymore.

Ah well, belief was fun while it lasted.

Mercado, Elaine. Grave's End: A True Ghost Story. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2001. Print.



Wednesday, March 30, 2016

The Amityville Horror--Déjà Vu All Over Again

This post contains spoilers for Jay Anson's novel The Amityville Horror.


I can’t be the only person reading this and feeling the arc and "reader feels" of The Shining, which, since I read it two weeks ago is still very fresh in my mind. The Amityville Horror has a slow-burning start with loads of backstory. Unlike The Shining, anything horrific is told with emotional detachment, so it doesn’t feel gut wrenching. At all. It’s a little inferior in that respect, but not terribly. Also unlike The Shining these characters don’t seem to have anything particularly wrong with them. They were just fine—right up until they encountered the house. But there is a similarity. It (the house/demonic force) affects each of the family members differently, and one family member in particular. And that one is the five year old. Everyone’s behavior changes, but the dad becomes impatient, particularly with the children. And it’s cold. And that hedge/stone lion moves. And being born with a caul causes psychic ability. Rip off.

But then Twilight was a rip off of Pride and Prejudice, and did I like it? Damned straight, I did.

I’m not saying it’s not worth reading. In fact, I think I enjoyed this reading experience better because once the tension built, it maintained a consistent level of enjoyable WTF, without pushing me beyond my comfort zone. Stephen King, however, almost always pushes me past where I’m comfortable. Some things I particularly liked: The way the house affects EVERYONE, including those who simply visit. AND that a momentary interaction with the house is enough for them to carry its malevolence away with them, like a virus. The priest with his car trouble, flu, and blisters. The brother and his money. Even the paranormal investigator who catches the flu before even arriving. It’s interesting that the house’s power isn’t constrained to just the property on which it stands. It tags along, effing things up for people who even think about the place. That’s fun.

Gawd, I’m shaping up to be such a pessimist. I hate to harp on what I didn’t like. Really, The Amityvile Horror was a fun read, and I didn’t want to put it down. I’d totally read another Jay Anson book—probably 666, which is the only one he wrote between Amityville Horror (1977) and his death in 1980.

But sometimes the action in this book was down-right irritating. Like, hey, crazy shit is happening in this house. Stone lions moving, weird smells, unseen presences, but it doesn’t even occur to Kathy, the mom, that the green goo could be a paranormal manifestation too (226). It must be those blasted kids. And when George (the dad) brings his dog inside to see if he senses anything, the dog reacts to exactly the things we expect him to—the secret room in the cellar, the sewing room, and Missy’s room. And George acts like he doesn’t understand why the dog would possibly behave strangely—“‘Goddammit, Harry…What’s bugging you?’”—when that’s exactly why he’s dragging the dog room-to-room in the first place. And then—“‘Nothing happened, that’s what happened,’ he said” (259). Perhaps he was expecting the dog to write a dissertation regarding his suspicions and discomfort, since George is blind to canine forms of communication. Sigh.

And then there’s the priest—Father Mancuso. I get why he wouldn’t want to go back to the house, but why doesn’t he just send another priest. Or someone to attempt an exorcism? He’s just like, “Sorry, suckas—you’re on your own. I’m not going to help you, therefore the Church can’t help you.” Thanks, buddy. May your itchy palms sprout humiliating hairs.

Based on a true story, my ass. But I wonder how much it increases a book’s sales if you swear on your grandmother’s grave that it’s true. Not that I’m interested in besmirching my grandmother’s grave. I’m just curious. Ahem. For a friend, of course.

Anson, Jay. The Amityville Horror. New York: Pocket Star, 1977. Print.



Thursday, March 24, 2016

The Others—It’s a Lot Like That One Movie

Hey.

This post contains spoilers for the movie The Others. Don’t read on unless you’ve already watched it.

And if you haven't, you need to.


The Others opened like any good horror movie should—with a scream. Okay, maybe it did strike me as a little cliché, but I didn’t mind the cheap gag. The producers were forgiven as soon as the camera panned out to include the antique architecture and décor—I could watch that all day. In fact, since this movie was filmed on location rather than on a sound stage, I watched it a second time just to focus on the set.

So here's what happens: A mom and her two allergic-to-light kids live in a fabulous old house in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Oh, and that house is probably haunted. The mom hires random strangers as house help, and the audience gets the definite idea there’s something dodgy with them, but they’re more likable than the main character. The kids allege that the house is haunted by a boy named Victor—which is a scary effing name if you ask me (I’m talking about you, Cypert)—and a lot of not much happens, but I think we’re supposed to be frightened by paranormal occurrences and the diminishing sanity of the mom. The husband/father comes back from WWII. Then he leaves because he’s not real. The mom gets crazier. The ghosts (or the Others) manifest until we realize that they’re the real people and Nicole Kidman and her kids have been dead all along. And, oh yeah, she killed them. That was the scary part—a mom who loves her kids can kill them in a fit of insanity.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find this movie scary at all—and my husband would totally call me out on it because he was trying to sleep and I kept waking him up to keep me company. (That’s happened a lot this semester.) But it took a long time to build tension. I don’t mind that so much—I wasn’t bored—I just wasn’t scared. I doubt anyone was terribly surprised to find out the house-help were dead, or that the war-scarred husband/father was also dead, so in that way I started to smell an element of The Sixth Sense, and even said so to my unconscious husband. And still, after saying it aloud to him, it didn’t even cross my mind the flip the writer would pull, with the entire main cast being ghosts, haunted by the living in their spaces. And I do so love that concept. Imagine ghosts being terrified of the “normal” activity around them. Clever. Better than Beetlejuice.

I know we’ve talked about that good surprise/bad surprise thing in our Horror RIG discussions, and in that conversation several of you talked about disliking the twist for the sake of the twist or something like that. Because it gets old. And, yeah, it probably does, especially if the writer/director makes a habit of it, and you expect it. So maybe in this genre the more widely read you are, the less you enjoy the experience—picking up clues and patterns faster. But I didn’t see it coming this time. And I flipping loved it. But when I watched it the second time, it was really just some boring stuff that happened in a beautiful old house.



The Others. Dir. Alejandro Amenábar. Perf. Nicole Kidman. Buena Vista, 2001. DVD.

Thursday, March 10, 2016

The Shining--Colorado from an outsider's perspective. There was snow. And big deer things.

I love Stephen King’s work. Yeah, that’s what I meant.

His interviews are pretty amusing.
This: 

Stephen King On Twilight, 50 Shades of Grey, Lovecraft & More (55:51)

And this: 

Has Stephen King Won Writing?

And I love his insights on the creative lifestyle, pantsing vs. plotting, and substance abuse in

Since this was my third read of The Shining I thought I’d listen to the audiobook. A good idea on paper, maybe, but it turns out I read a little faster to myself than Campbell Scott does aloud, so that wasn’t really saving me time. And I missed Stephen King’s voice. I couldn’t hear it while someone else was reading. So I read it the usual way. Again. And I liked it again.

I used to have a quote on my classroom wall that read, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” ― Heraclitus
That’s how I felt about reading The Shining again. It was not the same book for me this time. I’m not the same person. I’m a mom now. It took me three days to get through the arm-breaking scene this time because I had to keep walking away from it, and I wouldn’t be surprised if other parents felt similarly. I think in my pre-kids days I found the same scene upsetting, but probably not as nauseating.

You know what else I am? A fault-finder. I should really knock that off because I think (whatever…I KNOW) it’s getting in the way of my enjoyment of reading. Stephen King is SO GOOD at writing disturbing stuff, but I totally got hung up on his classic outsider misconception of how much snow falls in Colorado. “By November the snow up there in the mountains would be higher than the beetle’s roof…maybe higher than three beetles stacked on top of each other” (33). Colorado is a high desert. Sure a freak storm could dump snow like that, but you know what's a more common sight in Estes Park in December? The ground. Snow falls, then after a week or two it either melts off or sublimates because it’s too damned dry to stick around. Stephen King lives in Bangor, Maine, where the average annual snowfall is 56 inches. (www.bestplaces.net/climate/city/maine/bangor). You know what it is in Estes Park? 34 inches. If all the snow for the entire year fell at once, it would just about reach a VW’s door handle. But, whatevs, it was a snow year for the Torrance family.

I was able to get over the Overlook not ACTUALLY being the Stanley Hotel—the hotel that inspired the book. “Some of the most beautiful resort hotels in the world are located in Colorado, but the hotel in these pages is based on none of them. The Overlook and the people associated with it exist wholly within the author’s imagination." So the Overlook is in the middle of nowhere and NOT actually right behind a Safeway and a McDonalds. And in StephenKingLand, Colorado gets a lot more precipitation. You know what else Colorado has in StephenKingLand? Caribou.

“We might see some deer. Or caribou” (61). “They had seen caribou tracks in the snow and once the caribou themselves, a group of five standing motionlessly below the security fence” (213).

I double checked this to be certain, because at first I was like, “What? Caribou?” But yeah. Not here. “The last herd of caribou to roam as far south as Colorado probably lived during the Pleistocene” http://www.denverpost.com/ci_4514208?source=rss

I have seen a real live caribou in Colorado. Someone up at Keystone had one on a leash and he tied it to a tree while he stopped in at a bar. The caribou waited outside like a patient Labrador. That’s because caribou (reindeer) are domesticable. If they weren’t, Santa would have to get sled dogs.



We have elk though. They’re a lot bigger. I don’t think I’d try to walk one with a leash. They can be kind of mean.



Lesson: Even if your name is Stephen Effing King, do your homework or you’ll irritate your readers. And the guy lived here (in Boulder) when he wrote The Shining, but, you know, in 1974 Al Gore hadn’t yet invented the internet.

King, Stephen. The Shining. New York: Anchor Books, 2012.

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Ghost Story: It gave me nightmares. Truth.

Ghost Story, by Peter Straub
This post may contain spoilers. They won’t likely affect your enjoyment of the book.

From the cover:
“The scariest book I’ve ever read...It crawls under your skin and into your dreams.”
   –Chicago Sun-Times
“The terror just mounts and mounts.”
   –Stephen King

So. Was is scary? You’d better believe it.
Did it keep me up at night? Damn straight.

My copy of Ghost Story, by Peter Straub, is 567 terrifying pages long. That’s about 67-117 pages longer than the romance novels I'd typically devour in a day. I figured I’d be through this in about that length of time. I wasn’t. This book held me in its not-very-captivating grip for seven days. I couldn’t stop putting it down. And the nightmares—I’d startle awake terrified of not finishing my assignment in time and failing out of my degree program. Did I mention I have a little bit of school-based anxiety? That was really the source of my panic, and this book, after eating hours of work time, left me disoriented, disenchanted, and behind in my other schoolwork. It’s magical in its ability to suck time, while still not managing to entertain.

The good news: I was able to read even before bed without being frightened by the plot.
The bad news: I kept falling asleep. 

It’s not that the book’s story concept was a failure. It’s not that the characters weren’t richly developed. It’s not that the prose lacks poetic or skillful turns of phrase. It’s just that it took Straub so effing long to get to the point.

Lesson learned and applied to my manuscript, so it wasn’t a total waste.

When professional writers say, "Don't use a prologue. Readers skip them," I have difficulty believing them. I'd never in my life been tempted to skip a prologue. Until this one. It’s monotonous and long, and nothing much happens.

For 26 pages.

I hoped that by the end I'd have a different opinion and think it was brilliant, but I'd've set this book down approximately 26 times before chapter one even commenced if it hadn’t been an assignment.

Maybe it’s evidence of my microwave-generation culture that I expect to be interested in a book right away. But I sucked it up and gave this slow-starter a chance. I made it to Part Two on page 155, at which point I wrote in my notes: Stuff’s happened. People have died. So have the sheep. I'm still having trouble caring. I mean, if killing off animals doesn't get a rise out of me, someone's doing something wrong.

And by page 290: Oh look, another character is dead. I have no attachment, therefore no grief, but also no anxiety or fear. What a let down.

By page 500 so many characters had been bumped off it was looking like Hamlet or a George R. R. Martin book. I figured they were all going to die. I still didn’t care. Straub could have used lessons on tension-maintenance, constructing fear, and maybe some of Heidi Ruby Miller’s advice on pacing. Perhaps we could send him a copy of Many Genres One Craft. Or perhaps one of us should rewrite it. Wouldn’t it be interesting to pull a Richard Matheson and revisit this plot—do it right?

Since sexism has been a recurring topic in our books thus far, I might as well voice my complaint regarding this one. Straub’s portrayal of women sucks. And if Kristin Molnar and Rasheedah Shahid-Tezak don’t speak more to this in their blogs, I’ll have to revisit the subject in greater detail in my comments. They’re more articulate than I about feminism and equality. I’ll say this though: I was born in 1979 so the year was good to me, but if this book’s outlook is any indication of American culture at the time, I’m not sorry to have been more interested in primary colors and milk bottles.



Anyone happen to know the going rate for a Stephen King endorsement? I mean, he got paid for that, right?

Straub, Peter. Ghost Story. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1979. Print.

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Hell House vs. Hill House

Warning: This post may contain spoilers for Richard Matheson’s Hell House.
Two library books sit side by side on my coffee table. Both about haunted mansions left empty for decades and what happens to the groups of strangers who investigate them. Both follow four characters—one scientist, two sensitives, and one average person. Many of the scenes have a strange ring of déjà vu—Matheson’s Florence recoils away from the chapel the same way Jackson’s Eleanor does from the library. The first three words of one title is in a smaller, less-conspicuous font, so at first glance even their titles look the same: Hill House and Hell House. I don’t think Richard Matheson makes any apologies about his novel being a knockoff of Shirley Jackson’s. It may have been his attempt to do it right, since his book avoids many of the problems I had with The Haunting of Hill House. His book, though an improvement in many ways, lacks in some ways that Shirley Jackson’s does not.

For starters, Matheson’s characters are compelling because they’re each well-developed and complex of their own right, and each has a well-defined goal that hinges upon surviving the experience. Florence, a mental medium, wants the payout money—one hundred thousand dollars—for her church. Dr. Barrett wants to prove the legitimacy of his work and his theories. Edith doesn’t want to be separated from her husband, lest she suffer crippling anxiety, the account of which gives us an early warning that she’s dealing with emotional instability. And Fischer (whom I keep wanting to call Luke due to his relatively passive role) wants to unload the emotional baggage that’s plagued him since his first traumatic visit to the house. He says he’s sticking it out for the money, but he really wants to best Emeric Belasco and prove his individual worth. And that focus on his worth—proving himself—his ego—is a set up for his insight to what drives Belasco, and to what will be Belasco’s undoing.

Matheson’s characters ping off each other in a reasonably interesting fashion and everybody possesses likeable qualities, but they don’t enjoy the witty repartee that Shirley Jackson’s characters do. Matheson’s characters experience interesting divisive circumstances, but since they’d never experienced the playful closeness of Jackson’s characters, the relationship arc seems less dramatic.

The clearest difference, though, that I see between these two books is mood. The two authors manage tension in completely different fashions. I complained that Shirley Jackson allowed the tension to dissipate too much—that she actively dismantled it—between scenes. But her scary scenes did the job of invoking fear (except for art-hating Philistines like Michael Ingram.) Jackson uses fear of solitude and fears of the unnatural and the unknown to excellent effect. Matheson, on the other hand, never really allows the reader to let his or her guard downweird stuff could happen at any moment, day or nightbut there aren’t very many fear-invoking scenes. The overall reader feel was one of interest, anxiety and concern, even, but not actually fear. Either I’m becoming very rapidly inured to ghost stories (which I doubt, because I’m a wimp) or Hell House is an example of revealing too much of the monster.  “Once you can see ‘it,’ your brain can quantify it and it becomes less frightening” (Johnson, 102).

Despite the absence of humor and fear elements, Hell House is the stronger of the two books on the basis of there not being anything glaringly wrong with it. The hook is still great, the tension is consistent, the characters are complex, and the plot took several turns I didn’t expect. I prefer the more modern close-third POV to Jackson’s impersonal omniscient. Both books, though, are worth reading and have earned spots on my shelf. The library books go back tomorrow, right about when I expect Amazon to deliver their replacements.

Works Cited
Jackson, Shirley. The Haunting of Hill House. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.
Johnson, Scott. “Blurring the Line: How Reality Helps Build Better Fiction.” Many Genres One Craft. Ed. Michael A. Arnzen and Heidi Ruby Miller. Terra Alta: Headline Books, Inc. 100-104. Print

Matheson, Richard. Hell House. New York: Tor, 1999. Print.

Monday, January 25, 2016

Review: The Haunting of Hill House

Is this really the same Shirley Jackson who wrote “The Lottery”? The slowly-building style is there, but where’s all the richness? The symbolism? Maybe I need to give the book another read to find it, and at 246 pages I could probably squeeze that in, but I think I expected more—though the humor and the witty banter lent a charm I wasn’t expecting.

I’ve made it sound like I disliked The Haunting of Hill House, but I didn’t. I loved it. It just wasn’t what I expected. I love Shirley Jackson’s slow-building exposition, setting up the situation and the selection of the cast of characters. On page 6, when Shirley Jackson explains the various reasons others didn't join the group, she says simply of those who did: “The other two came.” 
Maybe it's my imagination, maybe I was already keyed up for a scary story, but I read that line as the action by which they damned themselves. To me, it was too straightforward to be anything but foreboding. And when a little old lady quickly changes her “Damn you” attitude to “I’ll be praying for you,” I have to wonder if the protagonist Eleanor is going to be needing all the divine intervention she can get.

Jackson set up Eleanor’s nothing-to-lose situation through her unhappy relationship with her mother, her bullying sister, and her interest in just about anything—from an empty field, to a secluded cottage near a depressing town—so long as it is away from home. She’s so awkward and sad that standing up to her sister and taking the car counts as her "save the cat" moment.

I don’t know that Shirley Jackson does anything by accident. I wonder if the two sisters, squabbling over the car was intentionally set up to mirror the situation of the two Crain sisters who squabble over Hill House. The latter’s disastrous consequences set up the result for the other, so I needn’t have been surprised when it added badly. Lesson learned from Professor Shirley Jackson: Don’t fight with your sister.

When Theodora is introduced, she brings life and banter and joy to the character set. Eleanor becomes wittier after her arrival, and their cheerfulness is  a welcome change to the stern and foreboding backdrop of the house. But then, Luke’s wit sounds a lot like Theodora’s too, so maybe all of the characters are written with the same voice—Shirley Jackson’s. Nevertheless, I needed those moments of levity between dark scenes of oppressive fear, but I wonder if Jackson relaxed the tension too much in those moments. It seems everyone is safe so long as the sun is up, and not every night is eventful, so at times I think I relaxed too much.

Still, I could learn a thing or two from Jackson’s ability to build an anxiety-filled scene. In the four pages from Eleanor’s arrival in the blue room until the sound of Theodora’s car door, Jackson had me terrified, and I think it’ because Eleanor, too, is terrified by then. After looking out the window she’s “afraid to go back across the room.” But even before that the descriptions are all qualified with negativity—“unbelievably faulty design,” “pressing silence,” and “the sunlight came only palely through.” Still, I’m not sure what exactly is wrong with the room, but I’m afraid every time she’s in it.

At the end of chapter 4, after the first nighttime fright with the banging on doors and trying the knobs, Dr. Montague says, “Doesn’t it begin to seem that the intention is, somehow, to separate us?” That’s a turning point in the book, because at that point we know the house’s game. But it waits. No more overt separations. Instead, it lets them separate themselves when they react to stress and confinement, judging each other's actions, motives, and characters and assuming the worst. The house sets them on a course, but it’s their reactions to paranormal occurrences that drive wedges between them, not some persistent phantom dog. And Eleanor’s attitude toward the spirit of the house turns from fear to acceptance, and she begins to relish being the one who can hear the chattering song—being special in some way—which she is because the house is singling her out, ostensibly because she’s experienced poltergeists before. Speaking of which, isn’t Theodora supposed to be special too? Isn’t she telepathic? Why hasn’t that come up after page 8? Is she a fake?

As for the symbolism I was looking for, should I read more into the oleanders? The “Journeys end in lovers meeting” refrain? Should I try to read more into Dr. Montague’s name—like Romeo, he’s fated to want what’s forbidden? Seems a stretch. Maybe her symbols went over my head this time, but the absence of meaningful symbols and motifs in The Haunting of Hill House makes me think those overly-eager high school lit. teachers may have been reading too much into “The Lottery.” 


Disclaimer

If it looks like I'm reviewing books/movies for a class, that's because I am. If reading ghost stories for graduate credit sounds like something you want to do, check out Seton Hill's MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction.

Friday, January 15, 2016

My Name is Kristin, and I Write Genre Fiction

"The notion that popular fiction is easy fiction is a self-congratulatory myth perpetuated by elites...But when a writer is spinning a yarn of a particular type, a genre tale, then even more special knowledge is required to win over an audience, not less." Michael A. Arnzen, Many Genres, One Craft

I just have to post about this because I'm getting pretty sick of taking shit for wanting to write the kinds of books I'd want to read. 


   I appreciate Dr. Arnzen's defense of genre fiction. He does it all the time--in writing, in class, in the hallway outside of the cafeteria. It's like he can't help himself. Or like he's been called a hack one time too many, and he's had it. Sometimes in the course of doing what I do and meeting the people I meet, I forget this is an artistic endeavor I'm pursuing. To create is to be creative--and it's hard, hard work. I should hold my head up and be proud of what I do, even when surrounded by the literati.

Still, there's that literary vs. genre thing, and I'm not entirely certain I can identify literary fiction when I see it. I've heard it defies categorization in a single genre. By that definition, all hybrid novels would be literature. From what I can tell--and this is my prejudice talking--I recognize literary fiction when the author uses poetic language and complexity to make a piece sound more beautiful and artistic. The writer sounds smart, but doesn't consider the reader. It's pedantic.

   To me it comes off as self-indulgent on the part of the writer to wander through flowery language and leave it to the reader to search for the meaning. Or in some cases it's not language but avoidance of structure--there again the reader is left to sort through superfluous information while he or she searches for the story. 

I'm not suggesting that writers pander to the reader and write only on demand, though I don't blame those who do--real people have real mortgages that have to be paid with real money. I might suggest, instead, that the writer keep readers in mind so the work communicates clearly, and the meaning isn't lost in translation.