Reboot Part One

Today is -- or was, as I'm typing after midnight -- the 36th anniversary of the short-lived TV series, "Kolchak: The Night Stalker." Yep, on September 13, 1974, intrepid reporter Carl Kolchak began his weekly encounters with supernatural and sci-fi terrors.

I thought about watching the series from the beginning, seeing as I have it both on DVD and VHS (those great Columbia House videos), but I can't. I rebooted.

That is to say, I'm pretending I've never seen any movies or TV shows before, and I'm starting off as if from the beginning of things. I'll probably explain that more thoroughly in another post, but it does make old things seem fresh, if you can make yourself believe in the idea.

So what is at the beginning of things? TV-wise I started off with the two oldest genre shows I own, "Twilight Zone" and "One Step Beyond". I'm much too impatient to go through them all to get to later programs, so my idea is that after seeing a few episodes of each I have the "right" to see examples of later series. To me, "One Step Beyond" led to quasi-documentaries like "Unsolved Mysteries." "Zone", however, led to "Outer Limits", "Night Gallery", and even "Star Trek." After a few episodes of all those, I could snatch a couple of "Night Stalkers." Someday I'll even reach "The X-Files" and "Millennium".

But wait -- there are movies, also. Rebooting a lifetime of movies requires a multi-pronged attack: I have several areas I've started into: Classic Horror (Old Universals, serials, even way back to "Nosferatu" and the 1925 "Lost World"); 1950s (and other) SF films (starting with "The Thing" and "Day the Earth Stood Still"); Summer Blockbusters (an era that began with "Jaws", "Star Wars", "Close Encounters," and the like -- backing up to include James Bond); and "Other" (mostly non-genre films).

I just couldn't watch the Night Stalker series without watching the original TV movies, "The Night Stalker" and "The Night Strangler" . . . but the very first "Stalker" was something of an inversion of all previous vampire flicks, with the undead in the bustling metropolis of Las Vegas instead of a Transylvanian forest. So, at the very least, one ought to be familiar with the 1931 "Dracula", with the Lugosi accent and the opera cape and the rubber bats.

. . . But I've been slow in the Classic Horror area. I've seen "Nosferatu" (1922) and "Frankenstein" (1931), and that's about it.

I've got it! I'll do a crash course -- "Dracula", then "The Night Stalker", then "The Night Strangler", then "Kolchak: the Night Stalker"! I hope my nerves can take it.

Just to toot my own horn, my tale "The Curious Adventure of the Jersey Devil" is due to come out in September in Panverse Two, an anthology devoted to the nearly forgotten literary art of the novella (stories between about 15,000 and 50,000 words in length).

To continue publishing, however, Panverse needs your help:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/928299198/wonder-story-theyre-back

Meanwhile: I just re-read Ray Bradbury's R is for Rocket, the book that first opened my eyes to the amazing possibilities of language and words back in 3rd or 4th grade. R is for Rocket contains stories that first appeared in other Bradbury paperbacks; some of Ray's best, in my opinion, like "The Fog-Horn," "The Long Rain," "A Sound of Thunder," and the short-short, "The Dragon". The title story, along with four or five others including "The End of the Beginning," are true sense of wonder stories about humanity's need to explore, which must now turn to the universe as our little world is thoroughly mapped.

The strange thing, however . . . I've read or at least flipped through this slim paperback many times, but this time -- there's a story in it I swear I've never read before, "Here There Be Tygers." It's not something they slipped into a new edition; my paperback copy was published about 1967. Perhaps my little brain is turning to mush at last.

Oh, well, it's great to find a Bradburian jewel as if for the first time. In case you've never read it, I won't give away the plot, but it's sort of the opposite of another Bradbury classic, "Mars Is Heaven!"

Bradbury recently celebrated his 90th birthday. If only Mr. Electrico could wave his sparking wand of lightning and restore Ray's youth! But I'm not sure my mind and soul could absorb another near-century of poetic prose from the Master: such ambrosia may be too much for mortal senses.

YouTube is Five

As you can see by the dates, I haven't been able to post in a couple of months. Well, YouTube's recent anniversary gives me a nice excuse to fill space.

Favorites from YouTube:

"Premakes: Raiders of the Lost Ark" -- if the Spielberg/Lucas hit had been made in 1951:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUPDuQq9GsM

"Halloween" theme song -- lyrics that actually fit the music of John Carpenter's original:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8VfreZsuPg

"Iron Man vs. the Incredible Hulk": Best mixing of two movies I've seen yet, helped by the fact that Robert Downey, Jr., actually appeared briefly in HULK:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19Cm31h2NXI

"Dennis DePue Case" from "Unsolved Mysteries" -- I tried to describe this episode in one mof my first posts; at last I know its title. This video shows that the movie "Jeepers Creepers" was inspired by this segment. Guess I'll have to watch that soon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycS_RHbW3o0

"How Terminator Should Have Ended" -- this is the pastiche I was trying to write years ago. Heck, I'd fight to write the novelization now!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBBw9E2Q_aY

The After-Image Ghost

Keeping to my project of vacuuming up all my writings lost in cyberspace, and hoping to keep "Fiction and Reality" interesting, here's the strange story of:

THE AFTER-IMAGE GHOST

One night when I was seven or eight, I went to bed – or was ordered to bed – as usual. As always, I clicked off the overhead light and dashed across the room before any “boogers” could get me. When I crouched to make this brief run, I sometimes glanced up at the light, which would momentarily blind me. This didn't really matter, as I jumped under the sheets in complete darkness.

That night the light blinded me just as I snapped off the switch. I jumped into bed and closed my eyes as I cocooned myself in the covers.

An after-image hung behind my eyelids, yellow and sharp with purple highlights. Rather than a simple blob of color, this image looked like a woman. The figure startled me, because I didn’t remember anything feminine-looking in my room – certainly not the overhead fixture, of which this was presumably an echo.

The after-image woman in yellow and purple had long, flowing hair and an oval, sallow face. She wore bell-shaped hoopskirts out of the mid-nineteenth century. Her arms seemed to be bare. In this quasi-photo image, she appeared to have just stepped into a room from a doorway on my left. The back of her dress was cut off vertically as if by a door frame, and her right arm stuck out as if she had opened a door wide and now let her hand hang on the knob. No background of wall or door was visible, however.

She had an air of looking for someone or something, though she did not move. Her eyes, mere purple blots in her yellow face, were turned intently upon me.

I opened my eyes in the darkness of my room. The after-image hung before me, only a shapeless mass now. I closed my eyes, and the image returned. Open, featureless blob; closed, ghostly woman in bell skirts.

The After-Image Ghost frightened me, but I did not run off to my parents’ room. It would have been difficult to explain, and, besides, how do you run from an after-image? Any direction you move, it’s already in front of you!

The After-Image Ghost took a long time to fade. I kept expecting it to move or speak, but it did nothing but shimmer and break up, finally becoming no more than those random sparks you see behind your eyelids.

Was the spectral woman just a trick of the light? Possibly, but it was some trick!

The Plastic Blob! A True Tale of Terror -- Sort of

When we were kids, my brother Mark and I made goofy home movies which spoofed James Bond, Superman, "Jaws", and horror movies. One of these teenage epics was called "The Plastic Blob." The Blob was just one of those thin, clear plastic sheathes that dry cleaners slip over suits. It made a perfect blob for several reasons: It was voluminous enough to pass as a large "thing" when shot at the right angle; when wadded up it really looked like a huge ameba, with endoplasmic reticulae and what-have-you; the thin material stayed wadded up, rather than "unfolded" as thick plastic does; it was so light that an off-screen fan would make it ooze along, and if left on the edge of a table or car roof, we could jump out of the way, start filming, and it would "flow" off with a natural-looking movement, like a living creature.

Anyway, we filmed "The Plastic Blob" one year during summer vacation, along with other deathless cinematic efforts like "The Glop Man" and "The Assassin." Then I graduated from high school and went to Oklahoma State University. Our filmmaking efforts ended and "The Plastic Blob" faded from memory.

I found the OSU Library to be a mind-expanding center of learning with its acres of floor space and its million-plus volumes. I would leave my dorm room and stay there until late at night -- often 'til one or two AM.

One night, probably in my Junior year, as I passed a wide parking lot on the way from the library to my dorm, I heard a soft hissing noise. Out in this parking lot, the wind -- which wasn't that strong -- was pushing along a large white mass. I recognized it as a plastic bag of the type put over suits at the cleaners. It made little impression on me, although it was certainly the largest object being pushed by the wind, and it was ghostly white in the darkness (of course, clear objects begin to look white when folded, wadded, or fissured, due to refraction).

Anyway, I was out late most week nights, and I always walked by or through that parking lot on the way back to my dorm. (It was a lot for professors and custodians, so few cars were parked there at night, although vehicles lined it on all four sides.) I kept seeing the plastic sheathe blowing from one side of the lot to the other, sometimes scooting under one side of a car and out the other. Sure, Styrofoam cups and little paper bags blew around too, but the "plastic blob" was large and eye-catching.

I supposed the janitorial services at OSU weren't efficient enough to catch all the detritus around the campus, but I found it odd the bag never blew away. The parking lot opened into another large lot on the west, and onto streets and open land on the north and east, but no matter which way the wind blew, the bag always stayed in this one lot. And the wind varied frequently -- at least, the bag was always sailing from one end to the other.

I reached the point where I watched for the plastic bag at night. I usually spotted it after hearing the hiss it made over the concrete. The way it billowed under or between cars made it look like a shy animal hiding from my approach. When it flowed in the same direction with other wind-blown trash, it looked like it was playing tag with empty paper cups and the like. I wondered why it never snagged on anything or got wedged under someone's tires. A plastic membrane that thin usually only has to touch a branch or something before it gets tangled like old cobwebs.

Finally one night came the culminating horror, or at least a sort of climax. At two AM, the library guardians kicked me out, and I walked through the cold, dark night toward my dorm. I took a short cut through the parking lot, staying near the line of parallel-parked vehicles on the south side.

I heard a hissing, scraping sound that I could not place at first. I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I could see through the driver's side window of one parked car, across the front seat, and out the passenger's side. A large mass rose up into view on the passenger's side. It looked like someone had ducked down behind the vehicle and was just lifting their head up for a peek, except the "head" was clear/white. It was the plastic bag, wadded up. After a moment that really gave the impression of it "looking" back, it rolled up the passenger's window and flowed onto the roof with a "crinkly" sound. It flowed over to my side of the car and waited in a half-spread lump, like some predatory animal with its forelegs splayed, ready to pounce.

I wonder how many students were roused from slumber by my cry of "Holy _____! It really is the Plastic Blob!" Then I hurried away -- not quite running -- to my dorm. From then on, I took an alternate route to and from the library.

In these modern times, when plastic bags have essentially won out over paper (they don't even ask "Paper or plastic?" any more in the stores hereabouts), I have seen plenty of bags scooting along in the wind. I have seen small bags blown toward a car, scraping the ground all the way, which looked like they'd just slide under but instead swept up the side of the car high into the air, caught in some errant eddy. I've never seen anything that gave such an impression of deliberate movement, however, as the Plastic Blob. I can't help but wonder, too, if I would have found it so strange -- or even have noticed the bag in the first place -- if my brother and I had not made that short 8mm film. Go figure.

The Shortest Stories Ever

In 2006 WIRED magazine asked a number of SF/fantasy writers to come up with stories only six words in length. Unable to resist a challenge, I had to scribble some of my own:

Cockroaches. Dinosaurs. Mastodons. Humans. Cockroaches again.

Molecules – cells – brains: Universe, Know Thyself.

“We come in peace – AAACHOO!” Genocide.

Nostradamus’ Predictions for 2020: (Blank pages.)

“EXTRA! Hiroshima Destroyed!” “Oy,” said Einstein.

Gollum, falling: “Hey! This is brass!”

"Humans? No such thing," said Bigfoot.

"Holmes!" "Elementary, Watson. Jekyll was Hyde."

Cthulhu groaned. "Again with the Necronomicon?"

“I’ve captured the God Particle!” Silence.

1984 has passed. Big Brother stayed.

“We are the Martians!” “Well, duh.”

Kong wins! (Godzilla took a dive.)

“Don! We forgot Dr. Smith!” “Who?”

“You okay, Mister?” “Shaken, not stirred.”

“Stormtroopers? That’s your answer to everything!”

“Time ended – yesterday!” “Sorry, not original.”

Gaslight Encounters

One thing I've worked on occasionally is a 19th Century/Victorian era world, where the characters and stories of various authors co-exist. There were so many ghost and horror stories published in the 19th and early 20th centuries, you could have a "monster manual" of Gaslight Encounters: monsters, spirits, and villains that might appear in a tale set in the era.

Here is a sample entry from one of the most basic stories of one of the most famous authors:

BLACK CAT (PLUTO)

Pluto began life as a housecat, “a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree.” His owner, unfortunately, was a sadistic drunkard who blamed alcohol for his rages, during one of which he cut out one of the animal’s eyes. Later the violent owner killed Pluto by hanging him from a tree in his back yard. Soon thereafter the man’s house burned down, except for a wall on which was, “as if graven in bas-relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat.”

The cruel man and his wife lived in the basement of the burnt house, unable to afford better lodgings. He drank even more and beat his wife frequently. A stray cat appeared in their impoverished lives, to the delight of the woman and the horror of the man – a black cat with one eye missing. This cat, however, bore a white patch on its breast that slowly resolved into a gibbet.

During one drunken rage, the man attempted to slay the cat. His wife intervened only to die in its stead. The killer walled her corpse up in the cellar of the burnt-out house. Like the killer of “The Tell-tale Heart,” he was rather pleased when the police came to search for the missing woman. Suddenly, however, a mournful howl rose from within the walls. The bricks were torn down to reveal that the killer had entombed the second black cat with the dead woman.

Pluto became a spirit of vengeance due to the sadistic nature of his death. His haunting presence can cause misfortune to strike (such as a house fire), as in the traditional view of black cats being “bad luck.” He can possess, influence, or become reincarnated as a similar black cat, missing an eye, and possibly displaying some sort of disturbing symbol made of white fur on his breast. In this form he re-enters the physical world and allies himself with a new master. Although not powerful physically, he can judge circumstances with near human intelligence, especially those that will ruin or destroy people who maltreat him. A kind owner may allay his anger, perhaps even let him know peace at last, but he seems drawn to cruel and sadistic people.

When/Where: Circa 1843 onward; place unknown, possibly New England.

“Black Cat,” Poe