Answer to Another Question

Presbyterian Gal asked about my favorite B movie horror flick.


I don't know that I really have a favorite. They're all the same, you know.


I'm a fan of all the old classics - Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney. And of course Vincent Price. I love everything Vincent Price ever did. (Even that Discover Card commercial where his wife talks about how they spent their 'reward' rebates on "a little something for Vincent". Anyone else remember what they bought?) (I love his voice too. If you have a chance, check him out as The Saint in old time radio programs. Pure silk, I'm tellin' ya.)


The best of the crappy horror flicks were made in the fifties and early sixties. That was when the genre was really into morality plays and such. I guess they were hoping to save those over-heated souls in the backseat of the cars at the drive-in.

The horror movies rules really take hold in these years, too. You know the rules - the first couple to have sex seal their fate and die spectacularly early in the film. There's always one dark-skinned dude and he always outlives the sleazy light-skinned chick. The virginal blonde may work as a logger or a rescue diver or something, but she will twist her ankle towards the end of the film and will not be able to recover in time. The stoners survive longer than the sluts, but not a lot longer.


Usually I just rent these cinematic gems when I'm in the mood to watch them. However, I do own a few; one of which is Carnival of Souls (got it for .49 cents on clearance at the video store - imagine that!). It's a great story told in black and white and makes absolutely no sense. It starts with a classic scene...

Three young ladies in the front seat of a car. They are laughing and talking animatedly - probably about, gasp!, boys. The car careens down the road, being driven too fast - obviously by a loose woman. The other girls are putting on - grimace - lipstick. And all three of them demonstrate their preference for damnation by listening to 'rock-n-roll' music on the radio.


The heavy black sedan crosses on to a bridge. It swerves unexpectedly and plnges nose-first into the judgmental river below.

Cut to a scene of solemn-faced officials watching as the mechanical carcass is pulled ashore and divers dredge the river bottom for bodies. It has been hours since the accident. The general feeling amoung the men appears to be that it was a terrible, if not wholly undeserved, tragedy.

Suddenly the crowd becomes even more hushed as the heroine - a platinum blonde with straight seems in her nylons - emerges pretty much unscathed from the depths of the river.


Following her freakishly miraculous escape, she decides to leave home and move to another town to take a job as church organist. I kid you not. Church organist.


The city is not unlike the one she left, yet she is haunted by nightmares and images of the suspiciously abandonded carnival on the edge of town and the zombies that inhabit it. The ghost carnival somehow summons her spirit, drawing her into a twilight world that dangles on a thread between life and death.

Well, not really.

I don't really know what the carnival does. The movie stops making sense at this point. It is gleefully misedited and just sort of ends for no apparent reason. Sort of like this post.












Well, not really.

There is a fairly new remake of Carnival of Souls out there. It's a remake in name only. No mention of a church organist anywhere in it. The remake tries too hard to make sense and relies on such nonsensical devices as plot and narrative. It fails miserably. Don't waste your time on it. Stick to the 1962 version.







I wrote this in between innings at the softball game. (Katie hit a home run.) As I sat there making marks in my little black notebook, I kept hearing some guy back behind me calling to someone. He was repeating a name over and over. Poor man. I wondered why he was being ignored. He kept calling - "Miz Fairly-Common-Name! Miz Name-That-Rings-A-Bell!"


After several shouts,I finally realized why the name was so familiar. He was talking to me! He was calling for "Miz Married-Name"! Hell, I've been married for nearly nine years and I think this is the first time anyone ever actually called me that. (Neither Jackson nor I changed our names when we got married.) Poor little guy now thinks I'm either stupid or a complete snob.

There is yet another game tonight. Maybe Ichabod and I will have time to work on another question.

Answering a Question

Bunny Bunster asked about my favorite author. There is no way to narrow it down to just one. I've mentioned before that I'm addicted to English country house murder mysteries, so pretty much any of the classic crime writers of the early twentieth century could qualify as favorites.

Bill Bryson has to be somewhere near the top of my list of favorites, too. His work makes me laugh louder and longer than just about anything else I've ever read. We come from different generations, but much of his experience as a child growing up in middle America mirrors my own experience. Or at least the feel of my experience. I love his attitude towards life. Anything he writes is gold, from travel memoirs to stories of his life to his side-splitting book on English grammar and his short biography of William Shakespeare.


As much as it pains me to admit it, Jane Austen is another of my favorite writers. It's sad but true. I am not a romance reader but I can't help but love her books. I like how such massive and pivotal things happen with just a few simple words between her characters. She has an occasionally cynical view of humanity as well as a good natured sense of humor that make her stories fun to read.

I tend to crave quietness and subtlety in my free time. My work environment is normally loud and crass. I'm accustomed to working in a boisterous setting and that is perfectly fine with me. I wouldn't change it. But when I'm away from that and looking for something to read, I gravitate towards Austen's restrained and whispery world.

My favorite of her books is probably Persuasion, but her best humorous scenes are in Pride and Prejudice. The sadly comedic picture she paints of the whole Bennett family is dead on perfect. I think I have met Mrs. Bennett several times in my life. And she is almost always - regardless of her particular incarnation - married to a Mr. Bennett.

Truthfully, whatever I'm currently reading is my favorite. I just recently finished the original Zorro story, compiled from the pulps of the 1930's. Loved it. (I have a bit of a thing for costumed vigilantes, or hadn't you noticed?) Now I'm starting a new retelling of the legend - Zorro by Isabel Allende. Her touch seems to be just perfect for this story. I've not read any of her other works, but I'm thrilled with this one so far.


My current unfavorite author is Caroline Graham, the creator of the Inspector Barnaby mysteries. (Do you love Midsomer Murders on BBC?) I just finished two of her books in quick succession. I was in a crummy mood when I read the second one and was incensed to find that in the end Barnaby was unable to arrest the murderer. He knew whodunit, he just couldn't prove it. It was very realistic of course, but who needs that? There is far too much reality in the world already.


Graham is actually an excellent writer. Her continuing characters are almost secondary to the intricate communities she weaves for each of her books. I'll read more of her work later, I'm sure.


So, is that way more than you ever wanted to know about what I like to read?