the wolf hour

The wolf hour is when you can hear the whispers.

It is when you can sense the movement of water.  It is when the wind carries sounds you cannot recognize just outside of your wall.  If the void had a sound, this would be it. You wonder if perhaps the void does carry sounds, but this you cannot know until you’ve been altered enough that you are no longer recognizable.  The only thoughts that matter occur during the wolf hour, and the thoughts are close, so close.

Almost as close as the scrapes.

The scrapes, sharp as nails beneath the muffled whispers.  The broken glass edge against rusty metal.  The shapes you cannot recognize.  During the wolf hour the pulsing in your ears is at its loudest.  If you don’t roll over right now and steady the beat of your heart you will die.  Your heart will beat too hard and too fast.  The throbbing in your ears will burst.  Most people die during the wolf hour.

Some of this story takes place during the wolf hour.

The above four paragraphs are the beginning to a story I wrote a little over a year ago. I post them not to discuss the story, which has its charms but never quite worked out as I wanted. Rather, I find myself thinking tonight of the concept of the wolf hour.

Our friend Wikipedia defines the hour of the wolf thusly: 

The hour of the wolf is the hour between night and dawn during which the wolf is said to lurk outside people's doors, usually cited as between 3 and 5 AM.

I prefer the term “wolf hour,” which I believe I came across in a Stephen King essay years ago. Damned if I remember exactly where or what the context was, but the phrase made complete sense to me and has stuck with me ever since. The wolf hour is the time of night where you feel the universe as it is, in all its vastness. It’s also an impossible time to lie to yourself—the core of your being, couched in the darkness, is exposed no matter how many blankets you pull over your head. Ever notice your heart beats differently that time of night? As if it could so easily stop. And should there be a few wolves just outside the door, they’d be glad to help.

My, what big teeth you have!

I am not a night owl. When the wolf hour rolls around—let’s say it starts at 3 a.m.—I’ve been asleep anywhere from 3-5 hours, usually closer to five. Often, though, I wake up when the wolf hour begins. Sometimes it is because I have to pee. Sometimes it is because of indigestion. Sometimes it is because of a dream, one too intense to continue sleeping. Sometimes it is simply because it is the wolf hour. I am awake, my fears exposed. I hear the wolves just outside the bedroom walls.

Last night there were two dreams. The first involved trying to help a friend rid their house of the spirit of their partner who was recently deceased. If you know me, in my waking life I don’t put credence into such things. But dreams play in a whole different reality. The spirit in this dream had turned malevolent, and I could feel myself losing the battle to drive it out. I also did not understand the forces that were operating around me and I got very scared. As the urn containing the ashes of the deceased fell off the mantle in front of me, I awoke in complete fear. My heart was racing, my whole chest hurt. I was sleeping on my side and one ear had plugged up (a problem I frequently have) and my insides felt as though they’d been wrenched out of their natural positions by a few inches. 

I rolled over and looked at the clock. It was 2:30, almost the wolf hour. I could hear, on the other side of the wall, the sound of the bathtub draining which meant my wife (who is a night owl) would soon be in bed. Slowly my breathing returned to normal and the pain went away. But I was wide awake. My wife came to bed and I wanted to cuddle but I was too twitchy, talk but I didn’t know what to say. I yearned for closeness, for union. I had been scared and wanted comfort. But I’ve never been able to ask for comfort and even after decades of marriage I have a hard time reading my wife in the dark. Soon she was asleep.

I tried to do the same and after an hour or so, I finally did. That’s when the second dream came. This dream is too personal to fully describe here—the wolf hour has no shame about ripping every last mask away to get to the fears—but I can say that it involved a humiliating rejection from my wife in which she was, literally, laughing at me. Such a scenario is fortunately far from reality in my waking life, but remember we are in the wolf hour and the rules are different. I awoke from this dream around 3:45. This time my heart was not racing and my chest did not hurt, but I felt completely crushed by an overwhelming sadness. The wolf hour is as much about sadness as fear, and on this night I’d run the gauntlet. I felt tiny, futile and alone.

Eventually I fell asleep once more and whatever dreams then happened did not stick around to my waking hours. I awoke to daylight and the sound of the water cycling through the fish tank that sits at my bedside. Funny thing, the sound of that water: during the wolf hour it is sharp and dissonant, like knives clattering to the pavement. In the morning hours it gentle and melodic. Yet it was the same water. Except that it really wasn’t, was it? Things change during the wolf hour. Different notes are played. Molecules move. Somewhere above stars are born and stars die. We spend all of our waking hours ignoring this so we can live our little lives. The wolf hour then comes around to remind us.

I find it remarkable that on a night like last night the feelings of fear and sadness, of being lost and being alone, are so powerful that I can still touch them the next day. Of course, it is like touching an object that lies covered. There is a barrier there and no way to quite remember just how intense it really felt. Such barriers keep us all sane, allow life to go on, same as it ever was.

But there will once more come a night when the wolves are hungry. That they are there never entirely leaves the mind. It shadows everything you do. Life is what you make of it…as long as you keep the wolves fed.

black gloves and awesome titles: a trip through my favorite giallo films

Ah, giallo.

I love giallos. Many a Friday night has been passed enjoying these films. I can never pronounce it correctly (I believe it is ji-allo), yet I could talk about it all day. Thing is, many people far more erudite than I have examined the genre in-depth. So I’m not even going to attempt to do so. Instead, I’m going to take a quick spin through my six favorite giallo movies. Most of these are considered classics in the genre; some aren’t. Art is subjective, especially peculiar art.

First, a quick definition: giallo in this post will refer only to the cinema format of the genre (there is a literary genre as well from which giallo cinema initially sprang.) A giallo film, as I define it, is an Italian thriller, most commonly a crime/mystery film made between the mid-sixties and early eighties. I do not consider a supernatural horror film a giallo; many do, especially since many Italian directors of the era jumped around genres frequently and often made horror films. As such I do not consider Dario Argento’s Suspiria a giallo, though I absolutely consider it one of the finest horror films ever made. Deep Red, on the other hand, is a giallo as it is, for all of its sometimes bizarre trappings, a mystery film at heart. Other aficionados are more inclusive; your mileage may vary. Also note: Italians themselves consider the genre much larger than non-Italians as they often include non-Italian films (such as those by Hitchcock.)

While an occasional giallo still pops up from time-to-time, the genre essentially died along with the heyday of the Italian studio system sometime in the early 80s. The peak period of the giallo cycle maps to the relaxation of censorship and the Italian exploitation explosion, where the amount of sex and violence permissible onscreen was constantly pushed. I’d say the prime years were 1969-1973.

Ready to explore? Make sure to know your giallo tropes: convoluted plots full of red herrings and a twist ending; black-gloved killers; beautiful women (frequently connected to the fashion industry or high society in general) the victims; an outsider protagonist; imaginative and gory first-person death scenes and awesome titles (seriously, Short Night of the Glass Dolls? Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion? Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key!?! I’m green with envy—I can never think up a clever title.) Know your key directors: Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Sergio Martino, Paolo Cavara, Umberto Lenzi and the extremely underrated Aldo Lado. And of course, know the ladies: Edwige Fenech, Barbara Bach, Daria Nicolodi, Barbara Bouchet, Suzy Kendall, Anita Strindberg, Mimsy Farmer and my secret favorite, Dagmar Lassander.

I think that’s it. Let’s go.

Profondo Rosso (Deep Red)

Profondo Rosso is the greatest of all giallos. Along with Suspiria, it is Dario Argento's greatest film. Honestly, I think both of films are equally great, and general critical consensus over the years appears to agree. But while Suspiria is a full-on horror film, Profondo Rosso is clearly a giallo, albeit with plenty of horror imagery.

I first encountered this movie (and Italian cinema as a whole) in 1992 via a crappy, grainy VHS version entitled The Hatchet Murders. This version, in addition to reducing Argento's beautiful visuals to smeared murk, also edited out key scenes, making the plot, which like all giallos is convoluted, incomprehensible. And yet, I was utterly captivated. There was a genuine sense of unease that got under my skin and wouldn't let go. Years later, when I finally saw a clean DVD transfer, I was utterly blown away. I've watched the film half a dozen times since, and it never fails to inspire me with its artistry. This is why I watch cinema.

The film opens up at a parapsychology conference in Rome where a German psychic finds her public demonstration disrupted when she senses the presence of a psychotic killer in the audience. She points to the audience and proclaims "You have killed, and you will kill again." She is correct, as she is shortly thereafter murdered in her apartment. This act is witnessed from afar by a British pianist named Marc (played by David Hemmings, famous also for his role in Antonioni's Blow Up). Marc turns into an amateur detective, teaming up with Gianna, a reporter brilliantly played by Daria Nicolodi in her greatest role (though Bava's Shock comes close.) More murders ensue as David tries his damnedest to remember that final piece of the puzzle...

This is such an amazingly stylish movie. There are sudden shocks of grotesque, disturbing imagery (god, the first time you see that creepy doll...if you aren't shaking with fear, you aren't human. And the walled-in skeleton...but I'll stop there, lest I give too much away.) The blood is indeed deep red, a color you'd never see in real life that suits this piece of morbid fantasy perfectly. The acting is the strongest of any Argento film. And the soundtrack is probably my favorite of all time. Goblin's Suspiria soundtrack is more revered, but for my money the title theme for Profundo Rosso is the greatest thing they ever recorded, and the rest of the music is perfect.

Argento didn't invent the giallo, but he is arguably its greatest practitioner, and Profundo Rosso is his best work (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Four Flies on Grey Velvet and Tenebrae are also worthy, albeit very different.) This is one of my desert island movies, and any fan of cinema should view it at least once. Argento broke the mold. There's no way Suspiria happens without Deep Red first.

Short Night of the Glass Dolls

Directed by Aldo Lado, who also did Night Train Murders (aka Late Night Trains and a dozen other titles) which is an excellent film that doesn't fall into the giallo category as I define it, Short Night of the Glass Dolls is one of my absolute favorites. Definitely the best non-Argento or Fulci giallo.

Jean Sorel plays Gregory Moore, who, as the film opens, is apparently dead. The sound of a beating heart begins, alerting the viewer to the fact that Gregory is not dead, though clearly all around him believe him to be. Narration begins with Gregory pleading for help, but all to no avail, since he cannot speak. Nurses declare him DOA and we begin to find out how he ended up in this mess...

This film has a somber, dreamlike atmosphere. Flashbacks early on feel abstract but become less so as the plot is revealed, at which point they become more nightmarish. Not the most stylish of directors, Lado nevertheless drapes enough weird imagery throughout to make this one of the more unique giallos. Sorel, who I feel is the best of the male actors who made multiple giallos, is in fine form, even when lying still on a slab with an unfortunate 'stache. He kind of reminds me of Face from the A-Team for some reason.

And the ending! I can't say much about it without giving a far-too long plot synopsis (the bane of any giallo discussion) but I can say that it's a riff on Rosemary's Baby that arguably tips the film into the horror genre for the final ten minutes. I was stunned the first time I saw it, and man, I went to bed that night turning it over and over in my head...and didn't sleep that great. The building sense of unease, like realizing you got the bad acid and the trip hasn't peaked yet, is well-neigh unbearable for those ten minutes. Overall, STOTGD is one of the few giallos that bears repeated viewings. Just remember, tomatoes can feel pain...

Don't Torture A Duckling

Leave it to Fulci to turn genre conventions inside out. Don't Torture A Duckling was Fulci's last film before he turned to the horror genre with Zombi. There's no question that Fulci's best works are his horror films, but I feel his giallo offerings are quite strong in their own right and definitely underrated. Of these, DTAD is the least formulaic. There are no black gloved killers here, and the movie takes place in the countryside instead of the city. But DTAD is unquestionably a giallo of the highest order.

In a small village in southern Italy, young preadolescent boys are turning up dead from strangulation. There are many suspects, the most prominent of which is the local "witch," Martiara (Florinda Bolkan). The other popular suspect is Patrizia (Barbara Bouchet), a bored city girl hiding out after a drug scandal, who now passes the time by flaunting her naked body in front of children (seriously.) The local Catholic Church, headed by young Don Alberto (Marc Porel) and his mother, Aurelia (Irene Papas), tries to keep the population under control. Local police are baffled. A reporter from up north, Andrea (Tomas Milian), comes to investigate and recruits Patrizia to discover some genuinely ugly truths about the quiet provincial town.

Fulci has some nasty things to say about organized religion in this film, and honestly, my Catholic upbringing is surely part of why I react viscerally to so much of his work. You can also see hints of the patented Fulci violence to come; while not a particularly violent movie, there is one scene towards the end that is classic Fulci, as well as one involving a main character getting sadistically whipped that is hard to watch.

The acting might be the best in any Fulci picture. Bolkan gives a fully committed performance, second only to her performance in Flavia the Heretic (a film outside the scope of this conversation but absolutely essential for anyone interested in this period of Italian filmmaking.) The rest of the cast is strong, and it's fun to see Tomas Milian in an atypical role for him.

There's nothing supernatural in this film, but it has a weird vibe that, like Short Night of the Glass Dolls, can feel more like a surreal horror film than a thriller. But DTAD is, for me, absolutely a giallo and one of Fulci's best. Both The Psychic and A Lizard in a Woman's Skin might be purer giallo films (both are excellent) but DTAD captures Fulci on the verge of his great artistic breakthrough. It is a weird and wonderful film. You won't think of Donald Duck the same.

Blood and Black Lace

If you are looking for the first “true” giallo film, you could do worse than Mario Bava’s 1964 masterpiece Blood and Black Lace. Although it was Argento who truly popularized the genre, Bava was there first and laid the foundation for what a giallo was every bit as much as he did for the Italian horror genre with classics like Black Sunday and Kill, Baby, Kill! He would later arguably invent the body count film with Twitch of the Death Nerve (aka Bay of Blood), from which Friday the 13^th Part II would directly rip off several set pieces. The man was a pioneer. Cursed by budgets that redefined the term “shoestring” and indifferent promotional support (and, to be fair, often indifferent screenplays), Bava has always seemed to me to get the short shrift, despite being well-known among Italian film aficionados. Such are the perils of being a pioneer. 

The film opens with a stylistic murder of a model during a windy, stormy night. From there terror and suspicion overtake her coworkers, who fear what she may have written in her diary prior to the murder. An intricate web of drugs, blackmail and sex (not explicit; this was 1964 and Bava was always conservative in terms of nudity in his films) spills out as the diary changes hands and the body count piles up. A double twist ending, back when such things were still fresh, finishes off the film in style.

The film is an intense affair, perhaps the most intense of Bava’s films, and though the plot itself is no wonder despite its myriad twists and turns, the set pieces range from very good to absolutely fantastic. A master of color, the bathtub murder scene is one of the greatest in all giallo, with its chilling final shot of Claude Dantes in a see-through bra, floating dead in the tub as blood begins to seep from her wrists. Unfortunately that same scene and parts of the opening murder in the film were frequently censored and created many distribution problems, making it a long while before fans could see this movie as Bava intended (sadly, this would not be the first nor last time this happened to Bava.) Fortunately, it is easy to find the full version these days.

Though there is certainly violence in Blood and Black Lace, and, as mentioned above, it is a fairly intense film, it is still a good entry point for novices to the genre, particularly if onscreen violence makes one squeamish. Bava was not a particularly gory filmmaker (until Twitch of the Death Nerve, anyway) and I think this film can be appreciated by someone who likes a stylish murder mystery. It still holds up well.

What Have You Done to Solange?

Massimo Dallamano’s What Have You Done to Solange? is the prototypical giallo. You could say that this film is the very essence of the genre. When you hear the term giallo, this film is what it refers to.

Dallamano is a workmanlike director. There is none of Argento’s stylish flair, Fulci’s morbid obsessions, Bava’s striking cinematography or Lado’s oddness. Pull up a list of giallo tropes, and you’ll be able to check off nearly all of them. This film will not change your life or blow your mind. I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m knocking it, though, because I love this film. The films I’ve talked about so far push the boundaries of what a giallo can be whereas Solange does not. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a perfect example of what the genre is at its twisted little heart. It’s a great way to spend a Friday night, you know?

One of a number of giallos based on the works of Edgar Wallace (in this case, the novel The Clue of the New Pin), What Have You Done to Solange? opens with a young couple making out on the shores of a lake. Turns out the couple are a student and her gym teacher. During the tryst, Elizabeth (the student) catches sight of a flashing knife in the woods. Henry (the gym teacher) doesn’t believe her and is, of course, annoyed that their dalliance has been disturbed. The next day we find out two things: Henry is married and more or less a jackass, and the corpse of a young lady was discovered close to the spot of the tryst. From there we get a typical giallo murder mystery, though the body count is not as high as most giallos. But we do get a secret society that likes their orgies! Alas, there is no footage of said orgies. Despite the lurid plot, this is a relatively restrained giallo. There is some rough imagery involving knives in places where knives should not go, but the film itself is not all that graphic.

The characters in Solange are well-drawn and decently acted, which is in part what raises this film above other giallos. The protagonist is not a particularly likeable fellow, which I appreciate—it makes the movie feel a little bit closer to the real world where people are complex. On the negative side, some of the police procedural scenes drag, a curse many a giallo contend with. The film loses some of its steam over the middle but picks it up nicely again at the end. I must also mention the fabulous Ennio Morricone score. He will always be most famous for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly but I think he did some of his best work in the giallo genre.

All of these factors make What Have You Done to Solange? the very essence of the giallo genre and a sterling example of what the genre can be at its purest. It came out in 1971, which was the peak of the golden age of giallo. It kind of got lost amidst the glut of giallos at the time, but today is recognized as one of the finer offerings. If you want a pure meat-and-potatoes giallo, you can’t do much better than Solange.

Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion

I love this movie. Ok, part of it is that I have a complete crush on Dagmar Lassander in this film, whose sensual allure makes the heart speed up rather rapidly. She was very good in Bava’s Hatchet for the Honeymoon as well, but I think this is her best role.

Minou (Lassander) is far too often left alone due to her husband’s frequent business travel. She has a tendency to binge on the ol’ booze, which leads to sleazy—even morbid—daydreaming. One night she goes strolling on the beach and is approached by a none-to-friendly stranger who possesses a knife-equipped cane (doesn’t everyone?) Said stranger growls some threats about Minou’s absent husband, the gist of which is he (or she) could implicate Mr. Absent in a murder if he/she so desired. Later, a friend of Minou’s shows off a series of erotic photographs which appear to highlight the stranger. Said stranger torments Minou via the phone and eventually names his price for silence: her body. From there it’s a lurid trip into degradation for poor Minou until the obligatory plot twist at the end.

Forbidden Photos has a wonderfully stylish vibe that contrasts well with the early-70s sleaze and keeps the film from being as exploitive as my description above sounds. Another great Ennio Morricone score keeps the tension tight, and the silly plot holes don’t matter as you watch Lassander give an intensely internalized and sensual performance. There is almost no bloodshed in this movie and it is actually quite restrained. I’ve noticed a funny thing writing about giallos for this piece—they probably sound far worse when you describe the plot elements than they actually are when viewing.

We aren’t sure of Minou’s sanity during the bulk of the film, and this helps keep everything off-center and engaging. I wouldn’t go so far as to call this the quintessential giallo as I did What Have You Done to Solange?, but virtually all of the elements that make giallos enjoyable are here. Trust no one!

I could write about so many more of these films, but my word counter says this piece is already over 3000 words and if you’ve read this far, hopefully you will find some of these films to your liking and further explore the genre. These films are far, far better than the overstuffed CGI monstrosities that pass for filmmaking in America today. Below are eight additional giallo films I’d highly recommend:

A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (Fulci)

Four Flies on Grey Velvet (Argento)

Tenebrae (Argento)

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (Argento)

The Black Belly of the Tarantula (Paolo Cavara)

The Perfume of the Lady in Black (Francesco Barilli)

The Psychic (Fulci)

Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (Sergio Martino, one of the most consistent giallo directors)

Enjoy and beware of black gloves and red herrings!

solstice notes

Solstice thoughts:

The longest night of the year. On this day the pagan imagery speaks more strongly to me than any other time of the year, save Halloween. On both of these evenings one can sense how thin the veil is between worlds. I think some of the greatest art has been created when the veil is thin.

Tonight I could crack open my skull and not feel it.

Stolen from Coil: Moon's milk spills from my unquiet skull and forms a white rainbow. One of my favorite sentences ever...

We know that what we see with our eyes is but one level of what really exists. Will we, I wonder, eventually evolve to where we can see multiple levels at once? How might we interpret such stimuli? I confess I find it odd that we put so much effort into creating unreal experiences and so little towards seeing what is around us. If we could see waves of energy! I'm not the target audience for virtual reality, I guess.

A friend posted this conversation on Facebook tonight:
Friend to her two-year old: "Oh, I just love you so much. As much as all the universes and solar systems that have ever existed forever."
Two-year old: "And the Kuiper belt."
Friend: "Yes, and the Kuiper belt."

I got away from burning candles for a number of years but they've come back strong since we moved to this house. And now I notice the children burning them. This makes me happy to see. It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness. It is better to light a candle than wake up with a raging hangover.

I've never been able to meditate. But sometimes I can be still and hear the hum. The universe sings a steady lullaby, electrical and full of colors we've not yet seen. But sometimes we dream them. When we wake up our head hurts. And then we get coffee and go about our little lives.

Sometimes I knock this meat wagon we call a body, but it is pretty amazing what it can do. Sometimes all I want is skin-to-skin touch. A universe within a universe.

I never thought Arthur C. Clarke was a particularly good writer, but as a mind he was fascinating. And he is responsible for one of the most truthful statements I've ever read: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Magic is intent. Magic is storytelling. If we ever meet a true alien race, and if we could somehow communicate with it, storytelling is what would bridge the gap. I believe this. But then, I'm kind of naive and stupid. Except when I'm cynical and stupid.

Even atheists are touched by ghosts.

I want to say: moon, moon, moon. I want to shout: Moon! Moon! Moon! I want so sing: moon moon moon. I want to whisper moon--moon--moon.

There is so much beauty.

Books read in 2014

Goodreads says I read 38 books this year. That's kind of sad, especially since several of them I didn't actually finish (but Goodreads can't figure that out.) I thought I read more, somehow. Of course, this doesn't count the books I re-read, of which there are always a few each year. In any case, here is the list, followed by a few random thoughts. 

Acceptance, by Jeff VanderMeer
Authority, by by Jeff VanderMeer
Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer
Revival, by Stephen King
After the People Lights Have Gone Off, by Stephen Graham Jones
Call Me Burroughs: A Life, by Barry Miles
Unseaming, by Mike Allen
The Best Horror of the Year Vol. 6, edited by Ellen Datlow
The Best Horror of the Year Vol. 4, edited by Ellen Datlow
Fearful Symmetries, edited by Ellen Datlow
The Street of Crocodiles, by Bruno Schulz
Origin: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution, by Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith
Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo and the Battle that Defined a Generation, by Blake J. Harris
The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt
Dance Dance Dance, by Haruki Murakami
Neuromancer, by William Gibson
Mr. Mercedes, by Stephen King
The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett
Thirst for Love, by Yukio Mishima (did not finish)
Darkness at Noon, by Arthur Koestler
Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher
Lean on Pete, by Wily Vlautin
Afraid, by Jack Kilborn (did not finish)
The Drowning Girl, by Caitlin Kiernan
Here We Are Now: The Lasting Impact of Kurt Cobain, by Charles R. Cross
The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made, by Greg Sestero
Ask the Dust, by John Fante (did not finish)
The Talented Mr. Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith
Atonement, by Ian McEwan (did not finish)
Blue of Noon, by Georges Bataille
Hitchcock and Bradbury Fistfight in Heaven (McSweeney's)
Out, by Natsuo Kirino
To Live is to Die: The Life and Death of Metallica's Cliff Burton, by Joel McIver
The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All, by Laird Barron
Today I Wrote Nothing, by Daniil Kharms
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan
The Summer of Black Widows, by Sherman Alexie
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami

Ok, so...Revival was one of the pretty good late-period SK books, Mr. Mercedes one of the meh (though I still enjoyed it enough)...Patricia Highsmith is a frighteningly cold writer. Like deep space ice. No warm blood flows...Caitlin Kiernan deserves so much more recognition than she gets. The Drowning Girl is one of her best...Natsuo Kirino's Out was a recommendation from my sister-in-law, I loved it though the ending stumbled. But the rest was brilliant...Speaking of stumbling endings, the first half of Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch was among the best things I read this year, but the second half went from ok to boring and then it just went straight downhill at a frightening pace. If she ever figures out how to finish a story, she'll be one of the very best writers of the era. I'll keep trying. there's so much promise there... 

I'm thankful Ellen Datlow does what she does. There's a sameness creeping into too many of her anthologies and sometimes I think she's just burnt out, but she always pulls in enough good stories to be worth reading...I can't decide which book impressed me more: Mike Carey's Unseaming or Stephen Graham Jones' After the People Lights Have Gone Off. Both are outstanding and an excellent starting point for anyone looking for the best contemporary horror...Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy is the only thing I've read in the last six, seven years that made me say "This. This is exactly what I want to read. I wish I had written this." An absolutely astounding achievement, and the yardstick to which the whole fantastical field will be measured against for years, even as it transcends that very field...

Do they teach classics in school anymore? What defines a classic? Because everyone should read Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon, but I suspect it is a largely forgotten book. It's haunted me since I read it, and anyone interested in understanding the torn-apart psyche of the 20th century would do well to read it. Where are the writers with the courage to write such stories now?...War is a demonstration of the failure of human evolution, and that we lost a talented mind like Daniil Kharms says the worst about us a species. He understood the absurdity of his era, even as that absurdity cost him his life. What would he think of this era? You could say the same for Bruno Schultz. To think of what these two writers could have produced...

I've said it many times and I'll never stop saying it: Haruki Murakami is a treasure. He just amazes me. We are all kids in a sandbox next to him...I miss Carl Sagan something fierce, but I am thankful Neil DeGrasse Tyson is out there doing his best. His writing is still not as approachable as Sagan, but he's getting there...I wonder what I would have thought of Neuromancer if I'd read it back when it came out, as I meant to. I'm glad I finally did, but it's hard to suspend the last 30 years of history while reading it. A bit too late...

So, about those books I didn't finish: Atonement sucked, it was as boring as watching paint dry, maybe worse. Paint drying at least has a point. I find it hard to believe this is the same guy who wrote The Cement Garden, which is a fantastic book...I would have been impressed with John Fante's Ask the Dust when I was 15. At 40, not so much...Thirst for Love is actually brilliant, I just couldn't sync with it as I had just finished Darkness at Noon and couldn't shake that book. I'll try it again one day...Afraid is the kind of paint-by-numbers book that just does nothing for me anymore...

Nonfiction: The Disaster Artist was fantastic if you've seen The Room, and if you haven't, you've missed the most brilliant bad movie ever made. I got obsessed with the movie and the book was a wonderful compliment. Seriously, you just have to see it...I did a post on Call Me Burroughs last month, great biography...Console Wars was an entertaining story but the framing of it, mostly from the point of view of Sega of America's president during that time, was a problem. Context was missing, and as such it felt one-sided. Still, there I had  a twinge of nostalgia, even though I wasn't gaming much in that era...I very much liked Charles Cross's Kurt Cobain biography, Heavier than Heaven, but thought that this year's Here We Are Now was reaching and thin. A couple of interesting chapters, but it also proves that it's pretty damn hard to say anything new about Kurt...To Live is to Die, on the other hand, shines a light on the number one rock tragedy (in my eyes, anyway) ever, which would be the death of Cliff Burton in a bus crash in 1986. Not only did Cliff play a major role in shaping Metallica's sound, teaching the rest of the band music theory and exposing them to different influences, he was arguably the best bass player of the era and a musician of immense talent. Orion? That's his, man, and it's maybe the greatest Metallica track ever. To Live is to Die is an entertaining read of a life that was cut too short not from lame rock star excess, but pure bad luck. Heaven owes us, man, heaven fucking owes us. 

On to 2015! Well, after I *finally* finish The Dark Tower series. Halfway through Volume 7!

shaking through

We constantly try to put everything into a narrative. We think we know the way the story goes, and if we don't, then we will damn well frame it so it makes "sense." So it serves the function of a communication tool, be the audience few or many. We do it to make order out of chaos. To categorize and file away for future reference.

I wish we'd stop trying to do this all of the time.

Maybe it's just human nature to do so. But I think our evolution is running a lot faster than our narrative. It can't keep up. Just like our technological capabilities have outpaced our ethical constructs, our ability to discuss the rapid changes in our species over the last 150 years or so outstrips the need to turn everything into a narrative. Narrative has its place, but it cannot bear the full weight of such a discussion without masking part of it.

Somehow the above came out of thinking about my father's shaking hands this evening. Not shaking as in a greeting, shaking as he can no longer keep control of them all the time. Sometimes they shake, they tremble. Last weekend I watched my father, who has worked with his hands his entire life, who has built so many things with those hands, struggle to screw the top on a lamp. I tried to do it for him but he would not let me. Perhaps it was pride, perhaps embarrassment, but I saw it as determination, the same determination he's had his whole life. He sees a job through to the end.

"My hands sometimes shake now," he said. And then made a joke about operating tablesaws and growing old.

So tonight I was turning this incident over in my head, trying to turn it into some kind of comment on mortality and the cycle of life and how weakness can be strength and god knows what else. And then it hit me, like a bottle breaking over my head in some imagined bar fight: I was trying to force a narrative on it. If I could do that, it would be safe. I would be safe. The incident could be dissected and examined and theories proposed.

Fuck that. It's not that simple. My father's hands are shaking and that means one of the foundations of my life is shaking. It's dangerous because every moment is dangerous. My father could live many years yet, or not. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. Seeing his hands shake unleashed a lot of emotions in me. They are not all processed. Perhaps some of them never will be. To process suggests an end date. A time when something is done. Filed away. Organized. Dead. Safely fit in a narrative.

I like beginnings, middles and ends in my fiction. Human life does not fit into this pattern so neatly. We can't say we have an end date or a start date when we don't even know what death is. We understand more than we once did...and even that little bit is enough to tear down human constructs that have provided the framework of our world for most of our existence. We live in the resulting chaos. And we understand very little still. What happens when we learn more, understand more? I am excited to bear witness, to think, to wrestle with it all. It will not fit into a narrative.

My wife--my beautiful, lovely wife--sent me this quote today: ""You're a ghost driving a meat-covered skeleton made from stardust, what do you have to be scared of?" I can't get it out of my head. Funny, truthful, wonderful. This entire post was an attempt to say just that. Sometimes I feel fear, but I'm not scared.

Our bones are filled with stars. May we be wise enough to allow our intellect to follow.

when i close my eyes the lights of the world go out

When I close my eyes the lights of the world go out.

My most unrelenting fear is of drowning. Tonight I read about an airplane disaster. A plane crashed into the ocean. Later they found a few bodies. Many they never found. How many of those people had a fear of flying but never thought about drowning? Reading it, I found myself hoping that they were killed in the crash itself, that death was quick and painless.

To die slowly in the ocean, utterly alone, would be the worst of deaths. There was a movie made a few years back called Open Water that dealt with this. Supposedly based on a true story (really, the connections were tenuous...yes I researched it; I am obsessive in my own way) the story concerned a couple who went out with a scuba diving group. The group was not well run, the crew failed to take an accurate head count, and as a result the boat later left without the couple, no one aware they were ever there in the first place. The film follows the couple as they come to grips with what has happened and their inevitable demise. It is a minimalist film, as befits such a terrifying idea. There is almost no soundtrack, just the sound of water, of the vast ocean.

How cold they must have been. How very, very cold.

My reaction to this movie was visceral. I still find it hard to write about. I don't know how to swim. I'm uneasy around the water. And yet I love the ocean...love it and fear it. I am utterly in awe of its power. The ocean doesn't care about you. The ocean can make you disappear without even trying. Your life does not scale to the ocean. The ocean is always at the end of the world.

I can feel my bones humming. Rolling waves of my blood. Warmth. I am not cold, I am not chilled, I can walk and the solid earth is beneath my feet.

In the dark early morning hours I roll over and drape a hand across my wife. Her body is warm. My body is warm. Together we make warmth, the blankets covering us. I say a prayer into her skin. We are alive and together. We will not escape death. But for this moment, we are alive together, she asleep and I awake. These moments are known only to us. This is our secret history, the history of lovers. This is the other side of the unknowable Cosmos.

The cold ocean waits out there. The end of the world waits out there. Let it wait, wait, wait.