262. Notes toward } illustration in horror films.

 

The final episode of The Monster Club retells, w/ great fidelity, R. Chetwynd-Hayes’ short story “The Humgoo”; in the story, protagonist Gerald Mansfield spends a night in a church where he (conveniently) finds notes that explain his origins of Loughville—a village hidden by a spell & occupied by ghouls. In the short story, there is only text, but in the film, while Gerald reads, we see a series of seven illustrations. They’re not animated, but the camera pans & zooms over them for dramatic effect.

It’s strange. Cheaper than animation or live action? The use of the illustrations suggests that the notes Gerald finds are illustrated—though they’re not.

In the club itself, above the table where John Carradine enjoys a glass of tomato juice, is a “monsters genealogical chart”—Vincent Price uses it to explain “the basic rules of monsterdom.” The chart & the Loughville flashback illustrations were drawn for the film by illustrator John Bolton.

[ Screenshots of The Monster Club (1981), directed by Roy Ward Baker for Amicus Production. ]

261. Unfinished houses in } weird Providence.

 

Joshua Rex, house historian, will read w/ me & Rick Claypool this Saturday (April 25, 6pm) at the Arcade (65 Weybosset Street), known also as Lovecraft Arts & Sciences, known also as the laundry room. Rex is not related to Stephen King. He’ll read from his new collection Haunted Victorian America (Rotary Press); Mr. Claypool will read from his novel Skull Slime Tentacle Witch War (Anxiety Press). Of Claypool, I’ve read The Mold Farmer (Six Gallery Press, 2020). Joshua is Rhode Island homes, Rick reads tent encampments.

& I read unfinished houses. Although the event flier claims I’ll read from Stone Gods (NO Press), I’m uncertain. I probably will. But there’s a new story in an anthology called Back Into the Ground, edited by James Strayer & Erick Mertz; the story’s called “Amid the Hills of the Palouse” (as in Palouse, Idaho) & I’ve episodes from a novella in process.

The reading celebrates the illustrated hardcover edition of Stone Gods, w/ interior illustrations & a painted cover by Ru Kachko. There’s a chance Ru will be there. Autographs!

260. Stone Gods } Stone Gods.

 

Painter Larisa Kachko illustrated a hardcover edition of Stone Gods now available from NO Press. I saw Larisa’s work in-progress, in her studio—the painting she did for the cover & several charcoals—I was particularly thrilled w/ her illustration for “The Great Blind God Passed Through Us.”

When I commissioned her, my sole directive was not to diminish mystery—that is, don't create an image that makes it hard for a reader to see anything else. She thoughtfully read the stories (she’s a brilliant reader), listened to my suggestions, & worked to deepen mystery.

An added, unexpected bonus were her “title emblems”—small illustrations on the title page of stories otherwise not illustrated. These look especially sharp in the book.

As w/ the paperback, I insisted that text be kept off the cover art. The dust jacket, front & back, doesn’t bear my name or the book’s title (this info lives on the spine). HR Hegnauer, NO Press’s graphic designer (& now contributing design for Fence), carefully honored Larisa’s work.

NO’s hardcover run of Stone Gods is limited to a hundred copies (or so)—they will sell out. Order from NO Press here.

[ above: illustration for “The Great Blind God Passed Through Us” ]

259. Polaroid-verso } Somerville, September 2000

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258. “Flame,” Sula, & etc. } for Melinda M.

10/19/1993 

Of all the heavens of the Earth, I had to choose this one, the Earth spelled with a small “yes.” 

10/26/1993 

Tiffany’s work-study is at the [Emerson College] library. When I sleep there, I dream that I wake up & can’t get out of the library. Once, I woke up, weird, & I asked Tiffany, “Are you in my class?”

She said, “I made sure you were warm.”

When I next saw Tiffany she said, “It wasn’t until I talked to my roommates that I found out you knew I wasn’t in your class.”

I did think she was in my class & I said so. She doesn’t believe me.

I watch her catalog microfiche. Her hair is red. 

03/04/1994 

Melinda & I were married this past week. She bought a black dress & took two days off from school. The wedding was nice. Quaint. She said, “No priests because priests are men.”

Our honeymoon wasn’t great. Before we reached Niagara Falls we had a huge argument. I can’t recall what it was about, now that we’re divorced.

My new friend, a bunny, took me out drinking last night. I blurted the whole story. He said, “Chill out.” & said I “was boring” & that he wished I would “just shut the hell up & drink.” & added, “That’s what we’re here for.”

Thanks, Bunny.

[ photo: Melinda in basement of 96 Beacon Street, Boston, circa 1993 ]

257. Another glossary } of haunting.

 ——from Handbook of Autoethnography, eds. Jones, Adams, & Ellis: “A Glossary of Haunting” by Eve Tuck & C. Ree. An artist’s statement. An alphabet essay—a form I don’t like. I see the appeal—the alphabet is a fundamental tool, it’s a list… but… it’s easy. & not the best choice for an anti-colonialist essay. Tuck & Ree explain why they chose the form, “Glossaries can help readers pause and make sense of something cramped and tightly worded…” &, they see the glossary—rather, “this glossary”—as, “violating the terms of settler colonial knowledge….” That is to say their glossary is free from “its host.” 

Tuck & Ree warn that the story the glossary tells “seethes in its subtlety” & they insist we “Pay close attention…” because, “I am only saying this once. ”

A claim is made about American horror films—all American horror films. All American horror films are “preoccupied with the hero, who is perfectly innocent, but who is assaulted by monstering or haunting just the same.” &, “the hauntings [in ‘US horror films’] are positioned as undeserved, and the innocent hero must destroy the monster to put the world in balance again.” The only American horror films named in the essay are The Shining (1980) & Poltergeist (1982)—two films that obviously upset Tuck & Ree’s claim. Who is innocent in The Shining? The child, by virtue of being a child—& while he evades the monster (his father & the Overlook Hotel), it cannot be claimed that he destroyed either monster (as confirmed in King’s sequel Doctor Sleep). The family in Poltergeist isn’t innocent, either. While ignorant that their house has been built on a graveyard, they are willfully immersed in a culture that keeps people ignorant. Do they destroy the monster & “put the world in balance again”—absolutely not! They become homeless, living in a motel (i.e., they are forced off the land they wrongfully occupied).

But Tuck & Ree’s claim is about all American horror films—two American horror films made within two years of each other hardly qualifies as a representative sample. & when I think of American horror films—even the most mainstream—I am hard-pressed to think of examples in which the hero (if there is an identifiable hero) is entirely innocent or is able to destroy the monster. It’s far more typical for the hero to realize that they are complicit. They’ve trespassed, they’ve lied, they’ve put other people at risk, they’ve stolen, their parents committed a (sometimes horrific) crime in order to protect them. Let’s take a stupid & well-known film as an example: Friday the 13th (1980). The counselors are not punished because they’re sexually active / casual drug users—they’re punished because they’re bad counselors (or, at least it looks to Mrs. Vorhees as if they are bad counselors based on her past experience). They’re punished because of their negligence—negligence that led to the death of Mrs. Vorhees’ son. & while Mrs. Vorhees is beheaded by the “hero,” the monster is not destroyed & balance is not restored. Instead, that act awakens the real monster—who kills the hero.

According to Tuck & Ree, American horror films are naïve, while “horror films from Japan” acknowledge “the depth of injustice that begat the monster or ghost” & “the hero does not think of herself to be innocent….” This might be true, but once again, only two examples are given: Ringu (1998) & Dark Water (2002). Both were remade for American audiences by American studios (& thus, arguably, became American horror films). That Tuck & Ree use these as their representative examples of Japanese horror films raises the suspicion that a.) they know about these movies because of the brief vogue for J-horror in the States & may have first encountered both films as American remakes & b.) they don’t know a whole lot about Japanese horror films.

There are no examples of horror from other countries—not even other English-speaking countries.

As Tuck & Ree’s essay progresses, it becomes apparent that the only movie that’s relevant to their work is Dark Water. The work that spurred this glossary (the host), is “a series of art installations, in response to Hideo Nakata’s popular 2002 Japanese horror film of the same title….” The installations use drop ceilings—generally used to hide pipes, wires, & ducts—as sites of fear. The water stains that form on the tiles of these ceilings & the subsequent leaks are portents of inevitable collapse—& the installations are designed to collapse. Tuck & Ree write, “This anxiety about leaks is what I dwell on” &,

Our ruins are not crumbled Roman columns, or ivy covered [sic] abandoned lots. Our ruins lie within the quick turnover of buildings, disappearing landmarks, and disposable homes, layered upon each other and over again.

Tuck & Ree’s logic behind their installations is compelling. (That they see horror in water-stained ceiling tiles (& mildew & leaky pipes, & decay) is hardly innovative—these are staples of the horror genre—as they are staples of the gothics & folktales that preceded the horror genre.) Are the installations compelling? I can’t say, I didn’t see them. But the logic behind them is compelling. Extending that logic to haunting & specifically to what haunts America is also compelling. The leap they make to “all American horror films” is not.

256. Bill Knott } is a terrible poet.

On the back of Nights of Naomi (Barn Dream, 1971), a quote—attributed to “Bill Knott (1940 – 1966)” —declares: “I consider ‘Nights’ my first and only book. The other books (including ‘Auto-necrophilia’) with my name on them are, like the patent office, full of garbage.”

That would include The Naomi Poems, reprinted against Bill’s wishes, by Janaka Stucky’s Black Ocean.

To celebrate Janaka’s flagrant disregard for Bill’s self-loathing, he’s invited Darcie Dennigan, John Cotter, Elisa Gabbert, me, & himself to read poems from The Naomi Poems at Riff Raff this Thursday.

My copy of Nights of Naomi belonged to Paul Hannigan, who taught (briefly) w/ Bill at Emerson College. Paul’s marginalia identifies sources & typos.

Some of us knew Bill. He was my undergraduate advisor & I frequently ran into him at bookstores in Cambridge & Somerville. We’ve been invited by Janaka to share anecdotes. My favorite anecdote about Bill is so offensive, I’ll keep it to myself.