But I Don't Control the Hand -- the Hand Controls Me!

We've all listed the Great Movies, genre-related or otherwise, and our personal favorites, but sometimes my own lists ring false. Yes, sometimes I'll list a film as a favorite because everyone calls it a classic, or it was so influential, or it was a favorite growing up. Now, though, I think I've found a true measure of what my genuine loves are.

On Friday nights, it's time for my own personal sf/horror theater, and I reach for the DVD/video shelves. When I do so, unless I make some conscious decision ("Last week it was Quatermass Xperiment; this week, Quatermass II"), my hand will reach of its own accord toward the same small number of films. I'll grin like an idiot and pull out the same movies over and over unless I remind myself, "You've seen that this year already! And sit up straight!" So here's a list of movies the Hand of Fate always returns to, written as I thought of them myself, stream-of-consciousness style:

• The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas


• X -- The Unknown


• Dinosaurus!


• Monster That Challenged the World
  
• Day of the Triffids
  
• Quatermass and the Pit
  
• The Thing
  
• The Day the Earth Stood Still
  
• War of the Worlds
  
• The Andromeda Strain
  
• Legend of Boggy Creek
  
• Revenge of the Creature
  
• The Mysterious Island
  
• Journey to the Center of the Earth
  
• Duel
  
• Rodan


• Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster
  
• Destroy All Monsters
  
• THEM!
  
• The Blob
  
• Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet
  
• The Monolith Monsters
  
• Atragon


• Dogora the Space Monster
  
• War of the Gargantuas
  
• Godzilla: Final Wars
  
• The Deadly Mantis
  
• The Lost Continent
  
• Village of the Damned
  
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
  

There may be others, but this will do for a start. I personally see little rhyme or reason to this list. A lot of 50s SF, but no early Universals or other 30s-40s films; I subconsciously see those all as classics and am a bit intimidated because I should like them. RODAN, GHIDRAH, GARGANTUAS but no GOJIRA? I feel like I should pay more attention to serious films, and I guess that detracts from the sheer fun of watching. THEM!, the first "big bug" movie, and the goofy DEADLY MANTIS, but not TARANTULA? I can't explain that one. Anyway, the Hand has spoken -- or made the sound of one hand clapping -- or something.

Magazine Review -- "How It Works"

When the British magazine How It Works began appearing a couple of years ago, I cheered. I've read plenty of science magazines, but I always seemed to lag behind the curve -- far behind -- OK, flatlining. How It Works took it upon itself to explain to techno-feebs like me pretty much everything -- diagramming and identifying the inner workings of just about anything from iPads and Harrier jets to dinosaurs and the moons of Saturn. It let you understand LEDs, laptops, and nuclear submarines.

Visually, I can't complain about the 'zine. The photos, computer generated images, and artists' conceptions are vivid, large, and exciting, and quite up to date (such as an amazing image of the Sun, "taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)" on March 20, 2010, seen in the recent How It Works Book of Space. However . . .

I noticed some odd typos in this 'zine starting from the very first issue. I'm not the one to quibble over a few misspellings, but the typos were often in numerical info that, above all else, ought to be correct. Now the new Book of Space seems to be taking errors and poor grammar to a new level.

The first page with prose, "Journey through the Solar System" (page 8), ends with this line: "In addition, the solar system is home to numerous small solar system bodies*, which include all minor planets," . . . and that's it. Presumably they might have listed comets, meteoroids, and dust -- but there is no "continued" for this page.

There's a two page spread on pp. 10 and 11 devoted to the Sun and its planets. At the top of page ten we're informed that "Saturn is so light that if it could be hypothetically placed in a galactic-sized ocean of water it would float." Lower down the page, on "Map of the Solar System," we're told that "Saturn is so light - thanks to its compositon from the lightest elements - that if it could be hypothetically -" etc. And at the top of page 11, under "5 Top Facts: Solar System," we learn that "Hypothetically speaking, Saturn is so light that if it were placed in a galactic-sized swimming pool --" Well, you know.

There are lots of little "Statistics" areas that look almost like Magic: The Gathering cards. Page 10's "The Statistics -- The Sun" states: "Surface temperature: 5,500 degrees C." All well and good, but on page 12 -- another blue "The Statistics -- The Sun" card: "Average surface temperature: 1-2 million degrees." that was quite a jump in two pages!

Page 18 brings us to the Moon. "The moon does have days that last about 29.5 hours." Page 19 asks "Could We Ever Live There?", answering that colonists would have to get used to many hardships, such as "the relatively long lunar nights (15 hours)."

Whoa, whoa there! Day to night to day is marked by sunlight passing over the surface of an object. The sun's rays do pass across the moon -- in what we call phases, from new to full to new again -- a period that last approximately 29.5 days. We get the word "month" from "moon", in fact.

The above is what jumped out at me after reading only 11 pages out of nearly 170. I'm almost afraid to read further. All I can say is -- guys, you have the best-looking science/technology publication on the planet, but invest in some proof-readers!

_______

*Ya think?

Lost in Darkness and Distance

It's December -- guess I'll write a little tale for Christmas.


LOST IN DARKNESS AND DISTANCE

The Monster slogged tirelessly across the pack ice.

"I do not forget my vow to immolate myself, Victor Frankenstein," he muttered, "but firewood is scarce in this frozen clime."

He huffed a thundercloud of breath and marched on, hearing only the crunch of snow and the howl of wind. Here, at the top of the world, he could wander unchallenged and unfeared, but only because no one lived here to object.

"Perhaps it was you, not the Almighty, who made me, Victor," he said to the black sky, "but I prayed for so long that there might be a place for me somewhere in God's creation."

Ahead the jagged peaks of a small island rose over the ice. Tiny flames crackled on the shore. Intrigued, the Monster approached.

Small creatures huddled around the fire. Some resembled animals up on their hind legs. Some resembled children with malformed heads and limbs. Stitches lined their bodies as if each one had been sewn together -- badly.

"Oh!" exclaimed a girl with red yarn for hair. "You're the biggest dolly I've ever seen. You must be a misfit!"

A bear with the incongruous fan-tail of a peacock ambled up.

"If you're a misfit, you're welcome here."

A winged form passed overhead, backlit by the wavering aurorae. It was no bird, but a regal hunting beast.

The Monster smiled.

Another Death

Only three weeks after my father's passing, my uncle (Don's brother) Bruce Winkle died in Eldorado, Kansas, at the age of 73. Although Bruce had suffered a number of strokes, it was cancer that did him in. Ironically, the doctors only discovered he suffered from cancer two weeks before he succumbed.

These exposures to mortality drive home the fact that our time on this globe is finite. If I can glean anything positive out of the past few months, perhaps it will be the desire to work anew on the goals important to me, the projects that have stalled out during the past few years.

The new year is approaching. Perhaps, for 2011, you, too, should review your priorities -- before personal tragedies force them upon you.

Donald W. Winkle, 1930-2010

On October 21, 2010, after years of fighting cancer, congenital heart failure, and Alzheimer's, my father, Donald W. Winkle, passed away.

Don's health problems began nearly a decade ago, when it was determined that he needed triple bypass surgery. He has been in and out of hospitals ever since. Anesthesia and drugs never seemed to affect him as they were supposed to, and he learned to hate the doctors and hospitals stays -- I can't say I blame him. Don's increasing physical and mental problems were hard on everyone close to him, particularly so on his wife of 37 years, Sharon Stewart Winkle.

The end came with shocking swiftness. One weekend he was still quite active and talkative; two weeks later he all but stopped speaking, spending his time simply wandering around the house and yard. A week after that he collapsed, having literally (according to the hospice nurses) forgotten how to walk. A few days later, his pulse, blood pressure, and respiration simply grew weaker and weaker until they ceased altogether.

Donald Winkle was interred in Bixby Cemetery, Bixby, Oklahoma on Monday, October 25, 2010.

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.