Quote of the day:

"The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of the zipper on the fly of God Almighty."

--Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut

My favorite Vonnegut novel is probably Bluebeard, which is both hilarious and touching. It has a marvelously satisfying conclusion that works both as powerful emotional turn and as an inevitable development in the character of protagonist Rabo Karabekian. I also love the way in which Vonnegut skewers the world of high art critics and pretentious artists, and he takes a few jabs at himself.

What's your favorite Vonnegut novel, and why?

If you're a comics-geeky mom or a mom trying to shape your child into a comics-geek (because you so want your child to be just like me! Or better [worse?], Chris Sims), check out the awesome blog Good Comics for Kids, which recommends just what it says and offers age ratings for comics targeted to younger generations.

By the way, kudos to Marvel for their generally-well-done line of Marvel Adventures All-Ages comics, which include accessible, blood-and-profanity-free iterations of iconic characters like Spider-Man, Hulk, The Fantastic Four, and Iron Man, and a pretty kick-ass team of Avengers that features Hulk, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, Storm, Wolverine, and Giant Girl. These books are well written and well drawn, with stories rich in both action and dialogue (unlike the overly-decompressed titles in, say, many of the regular continuity titles).

DC's selection of all-ages titles isn't quite as robust, and it relies a bit too heavily on art that too carefully adheres to the recent animated series of Batman, Teen Titans, Justice League, and Legion of Super-Heroes. Also, what the hell kind of version of the Legion is it that leaves out Chameleon Boy, especially in favor of Bouncing Boy? I want my Reep Daggle fix! Of these, The Batman Strikes! (based on the animated The Batman) is the best. Still, I'd like to see all-ages versions of characters like Green Arrow, Flash, and Wonder Woman that didn't look like their cell-animated counterparts and featured some depth to the illustrations. The stories are decent the aforementioned comics, but they don't compare to what Marvel's doing.

OK, that's enough geeking out for the moment. Now let's go retro:

Huh. Not the result I expected, and to be honest I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Charitably, I could call myself a "problem play."

Link: The Which Shakespeare Play Are You? Test written by macbee on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test View My Profile(macbee)

A question for the "crowd": how many of you like musicals? If not, why not? If so, which are your favorites and why? And how do you defend the form against its many detractors?

As promised, here's the table of contents for the third issue of Dead Reckonings. I hope to see this available in a few weeks via Horror Mall and the Hippocampus website.

DR3 TOC

Jim Rockhill on An Itinerant House and Other Ghost Stories by Emma Frances Dawson (Thomas Loring & Co.)

Michael Marano on Duma Key by Stephen King (Scribner)

June Pulliam on The New Weird, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (Tachyon), and Inferno, edited by Ellen Datlow (Tor)

Stefan Dziemianowicz on The Grin of the Dark by Ramsey Campbell (PS/Tor)

John Langan on The Scalding Rooms (PS) and Rain (Gray Friar) by Conrad Williams

Mike Ashley on The First Humdrumming Book of Horror Stories, edited by Ian Alexander Martin (Humdrumming)

Rob Latham on One For Sorrow by Christopher Barzak (Bantam/Dell)

Bernadette Bosky on 5 Stories by Peter Straub (Borderlands)

Tony Fonseca on Sins of the Sirens, edited by John Everson (Dark Arts), and Five Strokes to Midnight, edited by Hank Schwaeble and Gary Braunbeck (Haunted Pelican)

Steven J. Mariconda on O Fortunate Floridian: H.P. Lovecraft's Letters to R.H. Barlow (University of Tampa) and Essential Solitude: The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth (Hippocampus), both edited by S.T. Joshi and David E. Schultz

Jack M. Haringa on Mad Dogs by Brian Hodge (Cemetery Dance) and The Unquiet by John Connolly (Atria)

Ben Indick on The Appetite by Nicholas Royle (Gray Friar)

Alan Warren on The Shallow End of the Pool by Adam-Troy Castro and Children of the New Disorder by Tim Lebbon and Lindy Moore (Creeping Hemlock)

Ramsey Campbell, Probably (column)

S.T. Joshi on Got to Kill Them All by Dennis Etchison and Slivers of Bone by Ray Garton (Cemetery Dance)

John Langan on Fangland by John Marks (Penguin)

Matt Cardin on Teatro Grottesco by Thomas Ligotti (Mythos) and Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)

Hank Wagner on The Painter, The Creature, and the Father of Lies (Earthling) and Mr. B. Gone (HarperCollins) by Clive Barker

Gary William Crawford on The Bleeding Horse and Other Stories by Brian J. Showers (Mercier Press) and Masques of Satan by Reggie Oliver (Ash-Tree)

Sherry Austin on Homeplace by Beth Massie (Berkley/Penguin) and The Worthy: A Ghost Story by Will Clarke (Simon & Schuster)

Jack M. Haringa on Now You're One of Us by Asa Nonami (Vertical)

Ben Indick on The Fate of Mice by Susan Palwick

Kevin Dole on Dark Hollow by Brian Keene (Leisure) and Firefly Rain by Richard Dansky (Wizards of the Coast)

Richard Bleiler on American Supernatural Tales, edited by S.T. Joshi (Penguin)

Scott Connors on Blue Devil Island by Stephen Mark Rainey (Thompson Gale) and Johnny Gruesome by Greg Lamberson (Bad Moon)

Capsule Reviews by diverse hands

...by someone I don't personally know! The genre is so tiny these days, and I've gone to so many conventions and conferences over the past 10 years, that this sort of thing seems to be a rare occurrence. In any event, Chris Perridas posted a review of the second issue of Dead Reckonings in the Indie Horror Spotlight over at the Horror Mall (where, incidentally, you can order copies--just follow the link at the end of the article). I don't know exactly when this article was posted, but I'm glad Mr. Perridas enjoyed the issue.

I have the final TOC of DR3 around here somewhere and will post that tonight or tomorrow.

I hadn't read much about it before, but apparently NBC will be running a horror anthology show this summer (because those are so successful in today's market). I suspect this is an effort to cash in on Showtime's sort-of success with their Master's of Horror series, since it looks like a number of the same writers and directors are involved. Of course, Showtime can offer its viewers (and subsequent renters of the DVDs) graphic violence, gratuitous nudity, and abundant profanity--which somehow makes a horror film better, at least according to a large contingent of commentators on message boards and fansites.

NBC can't work blue, which means they'll have to adhere to PG-13 restrictions. Personally, I don't think this is a real problem, given the number of effective horror films that have done this over the years (including pretty much all of them made in the US prior to 1960 or so). Unfortunately, they would have to employ talented writers, decent actors, and skilled directors who know how to pace a story and not merely use the twin crutches of modern horror: the jump scare and the gross out. We'll see. They do have Brad Anderson directing one episode, but unfortunately it's written by the mind, to use the term loosely, behind White Noise 2. Sigh.

The network has released a description of the episodes shot or contracted for thus far, which can be found at shocktillyoudrop.com and other similarly ridiculously named websites*. One in particular stood out to me for the story concept, an episode titled "Community." Here's the synopsis:

"Community" is directed by Mary Harron (American Psycho) and written by Kelly Kennemer ("The Music Within"). When a young married couple, played by Brandon Routh (Superman Returns) and Shiri Appleby, find the perfect house in the perfect neighborhood, their lives seem...well...perfect. But as the dark underbelly of their neighborhood creeps to the surface, they soon realize that their neighbors will go to any extreme - even murder - to make sure that they comply with their twisted sense of conformity. John Billingsley ("Star Trek: Enterprise") also stars.

That sounds remarkably similar--some might say identical--to Bentley Little's 2001 novel, The Association. There's no credit given Little in the description, and the story could be in its details much different from the book, but that's the first thing I thought of.

*For a tragicomic experience, read the comments after the story. Not as bad as the gross illiteracy of, say, YouTube comments, but a sad reflection of writing skills in America represented there.

Additional funny stuff (and serious stuff) available at Geist.

Thanks to jaylake for pointing out this take on Twitter at Penny Arcade!

David Foster Wallace stuck on a Desert Island at Pictures for Sad Children.

Wondermark takes 19th C. illustrations and makes with the funny.

xkcd knows how to freak out the Whedon-Otaku posters on message boards. Read the archives, too.

And for my fellow geeks, enjoy the whole selection of funny at Dork Tower.

The Sleeper in the Valley

by Arthur Rimbaud

It is a green hollow where a stream gurgles,
Crazily catching silver rags of itself on the grasses;
Where the sun shines from the proud mountain:
It is a little valley bubbling over with light.

A young soldier, open-mouthed, bare-headed,
With the nape of his neck bathed in cool blue cresses,
Sleeps; he is stretched out on the grass, under the sky,
Pale on his green bed where the light falls like rain.

His feet in the yellow flags, he lies sleeping. Smiling as
A sick child might smile, he is having a nap:
Cradle him warmly, Nature: he is cold.

No odour makes his nostrils quiver;
He sleeps in the sun, his hand on his breast
At peace. There are two red holes in his right side.

I don't know exactly how accurate this is as far as other see me, but there's a lot of overlap between their description and my self-image. Of course, given the fact that I answered the damn questions, that should come as no surprise. Still, it strikes me as pretty perceptive for a 3 minute test.

"Enraged" is a bit of an overstatement, though.


My Personality

Neuroticism	23
Extraversion	75
Openness to Experience	80
Agreeableness	44
Conscientiousness	51

You do not feel nervous in social situations, and have a good impression of what others think of you, however you feel enraged when things do not go your way. You are sensitive about being treated fairly and feel resentful and bitter if you think you are being cheated. You like crowds but sometimes feel overwhelmed by them. Sometimes you feel like you need some privacy and time for yourself. Generally you are not considered to be an emotional person, however you are aware of and in touch with your emotions. You do not enjoy confrontation, but you will stand up for yourself or push your point if you feel it is important, however you feel superior to those around you and sometimes tend to be seen as arrogant by other people. You have a reasonable amount of will-power and are able to follow through on tasks that you feel you need to complete. You can be distracted however and have been known to procrastinate.

Take a Personality Test now or view the full Personality Report. The best Buying Pet Gifts.

Could someone please explain to me the value of Twitter? More specifically, what is the value of using LiveJournal as some sort of Twitter aggregator?

The minutiae of most people's lives just aren't that interesting, and Twitter's model is diametrically opposed to sustained narrative or even coherent exposition. I look at these Twitter-generated posts on my f-list and find them incomprehensible; they're too fragmentary, too link-heavy, and too filled with decontextualized pseudo-content to be readable.

So, what's the point of dumping a whole bunch of these Twitter entries into a blog and calling it a post?

I assigned a number of now-obscure poets to my AP students for their project on Symbolists, Aesthetes, and Decadents. Among these was Charlotte Mew, who was praised by contemporaries like Siegfried Sassoon, Ezra Pound, and Thomas Hardy. Virginia Woolf called her "the greatest living poetess." She's nearly entirely forgotten today, not even meriting a mention in the Norton Anthology of English Literature, and it's possible to argue that this isn't entirely unfair. There's much of her poetry that seems heavy-handed in its rhyme and sing-song in its meter, and the treatment of some themes seems, at least to a modern ear, to be maudlin others to be saccharine. But she did write some substantial verse that transcends these limitations.

The first poem here features among its strengths the use of a symbolic inversion typical to Mew's work: the flower as deathly, sick, or dark.


Mew also wrote some substantial poetry related to World War I, which is partially what drew Sassoon's attention to her work. In "The Cenotaph" she examines the battlefields of Europe with unrestrained irony and bitterness:

The Cenotaph

Not yet will those measureless fields be green again
Where only yesterday the wild sweet blood of wonderful youth was shed;
There is a grave whose earth must hold too long, too deep a stain,
Though for ever over it we may speak as proudly as we may tread.
But here, where the watchers by lonely hearths from the thrust of an inward sword have more slowly bled,
We shall build the Cenotaph: Victory, winged, with Peace, winged too, at the column’s head.
And over the stairway, at the foot—oh! here, leave desolate, passionate hands to spread
Violets, roses, and laurel, with the small, sweet, tinkling country things
Speaking so wistfully of other Springs,
From the little gardens of little places where son or sweetheart was born and bred.
In splendid sleep, with a thousand brothers
               To lovers—to mothers
               Here, too, lies he:
Under the purple, the green, the red,
It is all young life: it must break some women's hearts to see
Such a brave, gay coverlet to such a bed!
Only, when all is done and said,
God is not mocked and neither are the dead
For this will stand in our Marketplace—
              Who’ll sell, who’ll buy
              (Will you or I
Lie each to each with the better grace)?
While looking into every busy whore's and huckster's face
As they drive their bargains, is the Face
Of God: and some young, piteous, murdered face.

I'm pretty sure I've written about my love of Theodore Roethke's poetry before. As with Yeats, much of his poetry--especially his last collection, The Far Field--can be categorized as metaphysical. In the following poem, Roethke treats binary oppositions of emotion and existence in an attempt to synthesize them for the purposes of his own cosmology. It's full of great phrasing and vocative imagery in the service of philosophy.

In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood--
A lord of nature weeping to a tree,
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall,
That place among the rocks--is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.

A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is--
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.

Dark,dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.

Worcester homeboy Jack O'Connell, author of the strange, dark mysteries Box 9, Wireless, Skin Palace, and Word Made Flesh, has a new novel out called The Resurrectionist.  He's doing a reading and signing tonight, at 7 o'clock, at the Barnes and Noble at Lincoln Plaza in Worcester. If anyone's in the area, I expect to be to the event by about 6:30 to browse the store. I haven't seen a ton of promotion for this appearance, but I hope there's a good turnout.

Publisher's Weekly gave the book some high praise: "Two worlds wrapped tight in gloomy gothic trappings vie for dominance in this engrossing, elaborately staged exploration of consciousness from O'Connell (The Skin Palace). Sweeney, an Ohio pharmacist, brings his comatose son, Danny, to the Peck Clinic, "a sandstone monster on fifty acres of private land near Quinsigamond's western border." Danny is all Sweeney lives for; he even studies the comic book Limbo, featuring a troupe of circus freaks led by the visionary Chick the chicken boy, for what his son may have imagined when his brain functioned normally. Like Stephen King in Richard Bachman mode, O'Connell digs for darkness as Chick and his companions, who inhabit the fantasy realm of Gehenna, encounter Dr. Lazarus Cole, "The Resurrectionist" (stoned to death only to walk again) and dread the inevitable showdown with their nemesis, "the mad doctor called Fliess," in his "enormous laboratory castle, the Black Iron Clinic." Meanwhile, in the real world, cultists kidnap Sweeney in hopes of using fluid from Danny's brain to transport them all to Gehenna. This strange brew is sure to enhance O'Connell's growing cult status. (Apr.)"

I can't wait to read it. It's been too long since the creepy and surreal Word Made Flesh. 

In my defense, my son forces me to look at icanhascheezburger.com once a week. No defense for the fact that it makes me laugh. But I go unwillingly!


see more crazy cat pics

"The past will disappear and the future will go next." -- J.G. Ballard

Earlier this year I picked up a terrific little paperback from RE/Search called J.G. Ballard: Conversations, which is roughly 350 pages of interviews with the great writer conducted between 1983 and 2004. It makes an excellent follow up to RE/Search #8/9, which was a double issue of the magazine dedicated to Ballard that came out in 1984.

Poking around for further interviews, I found a treasure trove on YouTube. Of particular quality and interest are the following:

J.G. Ballard on the South Bank Show (in 3 parts)--interview by Melvyn Bragg

1: http://youtube.com/watch?v=E55vUH_Ppb0

2: http://youtube.com/watch?v=opdlYl0Fq8M

3: http://youtube.com/watch?v=b7yH7IHiN68


J.G. Ballard interviewed in the BBC Profile series: http://youtube.com/watch?v=X6MV9EcOfFY

A 2003 adaptation of Ballard's short story "The Enormous Space," starring the excellent Antony Sher. (an hour long)

As with last April, this month I'm going to post as regularly as I can some poetry that I find remarkable, noteworthy, or at least amusing. Today's entry falls into the first category, as I frequently find myself a little breathless in reading Yeats's later poems. In grad school I took an excellent seminar entirely on Yeats, reading nearly all of his poetry, a number of his plays, some Noh dramas, A Vision, The Celtic Twilight, and his autobiography.

Yeats's metaphysical poetry is the most interesting to me, and I place it in the company of the best work of Traherne, Vaughan, Blake, and a few others. After (or at the same time as) Yeats, the metaphysical tradition seems to jump shores to be picked up by Americans: Wallace Stevens, Theodore Roethke, and A. R. Ammons.

"Sailing To Byzantium" marries the metaphysical tradition with the stylistic flourishes of fin-de-siecle Aesthetes and Decadents (with whom Yeats fraternized) and alchemical and mystical imagery. One can also see a connection to the Imagism of Pound and Eliot that had emerged a decade or so earlier, with its demands on the reader for inferential understanding. All of this combining isn't to take away from Yeats's achievements, of course; he's his own man and forges his own style, particularly in a later poem such as this. See for yourself.

Sailing to Byzantium (1928)

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Dr. Seuss says "Stop Making Movies About My Books," and as only he could. A taste:

Horton, my favorite—look how he's been treated!
Stuffed with tinsels and tassels and promptly excreted!
The puns! And the filler! The script fees you must save!
While I tumble and grum-humble around in my grave.
Did you learn all but squat from The Cat In The Hat?
Please tell me you fired the prick who made that.
I would have stopped writing, maybe sold Goodyear tires.
If I knew one dark day I'd costar with Mike Myers.

Click to read the whole, perfect thing.

Oh, and Happy National Poetry Month. Once again this year, there will be poems!

Here's wishing for joy and renewal to all of you on Easter. And I hope you get just what you want in your easter baskets, too. I've got my fingers crossed for this.

But I managed to finish at last my feature review of Brian Hodge's Mad Dogs and John Connolly's The Unquiet for the third issue of Dead Reckonings. The piece came in at a little over 1700 words. The short version: both are worth reading.

Next, I need to complete my shorter review of Asa Nonami's Now You're One of Us. That should be under 1000 words. Oh, and capsule reviews of Piccirilli's The Fever Kill and Matt Ruff's Bad Monkeys. And there may be one more, if time permits. Other things are distracting me, of course, and it's back to work on Monday, too.

Thanks to everyone for the kind and supportive words. Tomorrow's going to be rough.