JK Rowling’s Legacy
Category: Writing and Poetry

    Whether you have read the works (thus far) of author JK Rowling or not, it's hard to argue against her place in modern writing history. This woman has created a character and a series of books to go with them that has shaped modern popular culture in ways that haven't been seen in generations, and has given birth to a marketing empire that's never been seen before.
The greater contribution, for me though, is that Rowling has inspired people, kids and adults alike, to read again, in a culture that rarely finds time for such a thing. I stood in line, with hundreds of others, to buy the last book as it went on sale at midnight, and I doubt I will ever see such a sight again, no matter how long I live.
People just don't stand in line for books anymore.
Time will tell as to how long Ms. Rowling lasts within the annals of writing history, but her legacy will live on for a great many years, I am sure of that.

    The thing is, it's a dangerous time, these days, for successful writers. With Ms. Rowling it's the dificult and controversial issue of a concordance that was collected online by a fan but which is being compiled as a physical book.
As an online resource, the author herself used the site and completely approved of it but now that it's being turned into a book, against her wishes, she finds herself about to face this fan in court.
A dicey situation indeed.
The inherent trouble here is that, by calling out a fan so publicly, and by taking them to court it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of the masses. What they see is a greed writer who is already rich beyond imagination and who wants to make it so no one else can make money off of this creation. What many see is someone removed and forgetful of her fans, and who is more caught up in the business of Harry Potter.
Ah, but there's another side -
Ms. Rowling herself wants to release a concordance for her books and who is merely protecting her interests and her intellectual property.

    For me, this isn't an easy case at all because I see both sides.
I see the legitimacy of publishing a book that is essentially a collection of a website that served as an encyclopedia, of sorts, to the Harry Potter world. I believe greed is the reason for this publication but I can see that heck, if you work that hard on a project, and have the author's blessing, you might want to put it together and out as a book. Look at the shelves and you will see lots of books about say, Stephen King and his stories. I am not sure how those came to be but I doubt the man signed off on all of those.
I am with Rowling on this one though, in spirit at least.
Ms. Rowling spent a great many years working on these books and she has every right to protect her interests here. She has every right to want to produce and release a book that will serve as a collection of facts about this world she's created. Personally, I can't imagine how weird it would be to have a fan try to make some money off of something I created.
What I am curious about though is that there are a good many books about Harry Potter, and I wonder what makes them ok and this not?
Curious.
So maybe this is personal, though I would hope not.
To me, in the end, Ms. Rowling, and her legacy, would be best served allowing this book to come out and to do what it will because, in the end, the true fans will want HER version of everything. They'll want her explanation. They'll want the world through her eyes and not someone else's. I appreciate what she's doing but, in the end, I think she's simply giving this guy more publicity than he deserves.
Whatever the outcome, I hope that this doesn't serve as a stain on the legacy of this talented writer. The magic of the Harry Potter books is that Harry is not always the hero, he is not always the victor, and he is not always right, but in the end, he stands true to what he believes, and there's a simple beauty in that, and one that I hope is not lost due to controversy.

...c...

8:59 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

The Count of Words
Category: Writing and Poetry

    Damn, damn, damn. That’s all I can say.
DAMN!
I dunno what it is about me but there are two things that make my stories stand out -
1. They are short as a motherfucker.
2. They are strange as hell.

Now, separately, these are fine things but, dagnabbit, together, they’re a killer. Most places you submit a story to want stories that are not too long, but that will fill some pages. Me, I write stories that are around four pages long, which is all well and good, but are not really reaching the word count that I need to get them published.
SHIT!
So, dammit, you know what a kick in the junk that is? To write these stories and say what I want to say and STILL not write stories long enough to get published.
BALLS!

Then there’s the fact that the stories that speak to me, the stories that really mean something to me are stories that are not really what most markets are looking for. Now, it isn’t as if I am TRYING to be all weird and tell these oddball, oft-times creepy stories, I mean, don’t blame me, I just write this stuff. I don’t think...it...up? Crap, I do.
Ok.
It’s  my fault.
Maybe I need to write happpy little stories about people, who need people, and who, I dunno, love puppies. Maybe I’ll throw in a character that sees angels or something.
You know.
Something almost supernatural but which stands for something else.
Something for the critics, and for people who need to feel as if they are reading something ’deep’.
Or maybe I’ll write another zombie story.
HA!
Beats me.
I just know that, whatever I am doing, I am doing it wrong.
DAMMIT.

c

8:58 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

genuine article
Category: Writing and Poetry

    it strikes me that something in the publishing world is wrong.
ha.
as if that isn't stating the obvious!
the thing is though, there has been more than a few recent autobiographies and memoirs that have been debunked by the most random of research and i have to ask - who is doing the fact checking?

i get that people slip through the cracks.
i get that there are only so many things you can do to check to see if a person is being honest when they tell you that the story they are writing is truly their own - the life is theirs.
but, see, well, how the hell are these people slipping by?
how do they get away with it?
and why?

i appreciate that a story is sometimes more immediate and impactful if you can connect it to a person and can say - wow, that person lived this. heck, it's always more powerful to meet the person who lived through the Holocaust than it is to read a story about a survivor, but what one gets out of a story, fact of fiction, is completely up to that person.
the work of the storyteller, be they telling their own story or a fictional one, is to convey the story in a way that is engaging and passionate and which will drwa the reader in adn keep their attention.
that's what we do.
that's our job.
if you can't write something and grab that reader then either you are a poor writer or they're not your audience. there's a point though where any tale should have something to offer, at its basest level and, if it's a personal narrative, this is paramount.
you HAVE to have something to say.
it isn't enough to say, meh, i lived, here's my story.
we can all say that, but it's finding the truths in your life, the stories that connect you with other people, that's what makes those narratives special.
yeah, i can read a book about Lincoln, but a book BY him would be more powerful because he lived the history he helped create. so, for me, if i was to write a story about me, to write my history, it'd be my job to make sure that i told the truth, and that i had a point to my story.
easy enough, right?
alas, obviously not.

yet another wrtier's memoir has been debunked, their claim being that they wanted to tell the story of someone who lived this sort of life and wanted to bring attention to that.
swell.
but you wrote a fiction book, so sell it as such.
and maybe you don't sell it. maybe no one wants to publish that story unless it's for realsies.
well, then you take your story and you keep shopping it, and if you believe in it that deeply, you find a way to publish it.
you sure as hell don't lie.
when you take a story and make it your own, make it about you when it's not, it breaks the basic trust that links the writer and the audience - that you won't fuck with them.
sure, you may tease them, scare them, break their hearts, make them laugh, or any number of things, but you'll play them straight. you won't lie to them.
as soon as you break that trust, you may never get it back.
and if you're willing to lie to your audience, then who gives a shit about the publisher, the press, and anyone else?

i guess what bothers me is i write story, FICTION stories, and if i have something to say about life, i blog it. the idea, for me, of creating a fictional life story is against everything i believe in. as a writer, i live to tell stories, and if they are not mine but i want people to connect with them as if they were then i'd damn well better write it well.
shit, that's why they have the first person narrative, am i wrong?

it's a shame when people pull this kind of nonsense because they aren't just damaging their personal reputations, they are damaging the chances of young writers to get their work out there. you have a case where someone will have a story to tell, a story that will change lives and they may never get a chance to tell that story because some selfish asshole lied.
and right next to that lying jerk is the publishing field, who need to truly check the backgrounds on these people to see if their stories are legit. sure, if it NEEDS to be anonymous then you roll the dice and take your chances.
as soon as we break the trust of the reader then we're pissing the whole thing away and we won't be able to blame the publishers for our stories and books not being read or appreciated because in the end, we did it to ourselves.

..c...

12:36 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

SEMI PRO review
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

SEMI-PRO

            It was a weird scene, a year ago for we that call Flint, Michigan home. Rumors began going around that Flint was going to be featured in a new Will Ferrell film about basketball and, word had it, they might come to town to film some exteriors here. How rad is that. Since Michael Moore's seminal ROGER AND ME, Flint has sorta been seen as a barren waste of backwoods idiots and desperation. For man, Flint was a symbol for not just the decline of factory towns, but was an example of what could happen to a city that had given up hope. What you saw in that film was the pain, not the people, so, essentially, you saw half of the story. Even today you find people who will never have been here and will espouse how horrible Flint is. You can imagine how excited the city became at the notion that we'd have a shot at changing how people perceive the city. As the months pass and Winter '05 gave to '06 gave to the Spring, the rumors had it that there was going to be some first unit filming down around Michigan for the film but probably not in Flint. But the dreams became a reality and SEMI PRO ended up coming to Flint at the end of the shoot and for two weeks the city was able to get a taste of Hollywood. For me, there are two aspects that I was going to judge SEMI PRO by – how good the movie was, and how well it portrayed the city I love and live in.

            Jackie Moon (Will Ferrell) is a one hit wonder living in the shadow of Motown and desperate to cling to the last vestiges of fame his song Love Me Sexy has given him. As the owner of the Flint Tropics, a horrible ABA semi professional basketball team, he is desperate to make the team something the city and his dead mother can show pride in. Along with owning the team Jackie is also a player and he's certainly not the team's best. When word comes down from the basketball league that four teams are going to be absorbed into the NBA, he sees this as an opportunity to finally take the team to the next level. Unfortunately the Tropics are not one of the teams chosen to make the jump to the big league. In a last ditch effort Jackie proposes that the commissioner send the four best teams at the end of the ABA season to the bigs, this way giving the Tropics a chance. The commissioner begrudgingly agrees to this bargain, and now Jackie has to turn his team around. Trading (the team's washing machine) to get an ex NBA player onto the team, the Tropics have to start performing if they are to have a chance at turning their season around. It becomes clear to the team though that a big obstacle that is standing in their way is Jackie himself, who is a great motivator but an awful coach. It's decided that the person on the team with a championship ring and the only one among them with NBA experience should coach them; something Jackie is none too keen on hearing but which he agrees to, if it will turn the team around. The change in coaching and the return to fundamental basketball sinks in and the Tropics start climbing the ranks in their league. When the commissioner sees this he also puts the stipulation in that the four to get absorbed must also have high attendance, something the Tropics have never had. Jackie, a master of bizarre promotions pulls out all the stops to make sure to fill the Flint Coliseum and the town, not used to having a winning team, starts to rally around the team. Just when it looks as if the Tropics are going to be one of the teams to move on, they are told that the NBA has made its decision and that Flint is too small of a market for the team to be absorbed. Devastated, Jackie trades away the team's best player and loses the last bit of hope he had left, feeling as if he has let the team, the city, and worst of all, his dead mother down. There is one last game left for the Tropics though, and they have to come together if they are going to shock the basketball world and do what no one thought possible, and that's to finish the season as champions, rings or not.

            I can't tell you how impressed I was to see that SEMI PRO was going to be released as an 'R' rated film. Too often movies like this are emasculated in order to pander to a younger audience in the theaters and to release a harder cut onto DVD. Not so with SEMI, which has some the harshest, and funniest language I have seen in a while. The swearing in the film is used so broadly, and with such vigor that it's one of the funniest things in the movie. Ferrell is fantastic as Jackie Moon, a man who wants nothing more than to make his mother proud and to do right by her memory. This role is in his wheel-house and is the kind he can do in his sleep at this point but he really does bring the character to life. The rest of the cast is also good, the standout being Andre '3000' Benjamin, who is fantastic as the star of the Tropics team. Woody Harrelson does well in his role but there is a lot that wasn't fleshed out with his character. First time director Kent Alterman did a very good job with the film, allowing the actors the breathing room to let the comedy come naturally and really capturing some beautiful scenes in Flint itself. The writing is good, though this is a really hackneyed story – see any number of sports movies and you get a similar tale – but the magic is in the comedy, which feels spontaneous and improvisational. The best part of the film was that there is a surrealist bend to much of the film's humor. Be it a fight with a bear, an extended scene of gunplay, or a visit to Heaven, that SEMI has such a fun sense about it is what made it such an enjoyable film.

            As far as its portrayal of Flint, I can't complain a bit. While it doesn't show Flint as this glowing metropolis, which would be a lie, it does nothing to tarnish the city's image further, which I appreciated. It's become all too easy to make Flint the butt of a joke and SEMI never does that once. It was great to see places I know all too well and even to see the back of where I live in an extended scene in an alley. It's not often you can say THAT'S WHERE I LIVE during a screening of a nationally released film.

            The big problem I have with SEMI is that it IS a retread of other sports comedies. Without Ferrell and the over the top swearing, this would be a notch above direct to video. I think there is a lot more that could have been done with the story and it was hard not to get the feeling that there is a lot of material that didn't make it in. Heck, I know for a fact that there were scenes done in Flint that would have fleshed characters out that didn't make it in and I look forward to seeing how these scenes play out on the DVD extras. SEMI PRO is a well made film, and should do well at the box office, but it's not a terribly memorable film. This is far from a comedy classic, to be sure. I and the audience I saw SEMI PRO with loved the hell out of the film, despite its flaws, and no one seemed outraged by the blue humor. If you are a fan of Ferrell there is a lot to love, and if you love just raunchy as hell comedies then brother, you can't find one out that is much funnier.  Not an all star, but I wouldn't resign it to a life on the bench either.

…c…

12:02 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Unrated Director’s Cut!
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

    It's hard not to feel that the age of cinema is quickly dying in these days of marketing and money grabbing.
That's a pretty big thing to say, so let me explain.

When I think of movies, I put the trash with the treasure because it's all cut from the same tree. Sure, Citizen Kane is art, to be certain, but Uwe Boll's House of the Dead is still just a film, like CK. While there are some films that are, by some sort of magic, works of pure art, that doesn't mean that the movies made for kicks, made for fun, are less worthy of respect. The older the movie industry gets though, the more that each film is becoming simply product and any art is created by coincidence as much as any skill or passion put into its making.
Things are only getting worse these days with the onset of these Unrated, Director's Cut versions of films that are popping up on DVD.

    As a big horror movie fan, the words Director's Cut became like some sort of magic incantation for me. I was used to seeing only the sanitized, 'R' rated versions of films that were intended to be much more intese. I was tired of having to look around for a bootleg of a film just so I could see how it was intended to look. With the advent of the laserdisc it became easier to find these uncut visions and DVD only helped to make it easier. Suddenly though, alongside the genre films that were being released in longer, uncut versions, there were other films that were being re-cut and released. It was a new era on home video, where directors were given a chance to re-visit their old works and to put them out in the manner they had intended, without the time constraints put on films released to theaters.
Ah, but here comes the rub -
Now that there's been a market for these 'director's cut' versions of films though, it's created a very ugly trend in the film industry.

Films are now shot in a harder, 'R' rated version, then cut back to a friendlier, and more marketable 'PG-13' when released to theaters. As soon as these films make their way to DVD they are put back together into their harder versions to be released as 'unrated' and as 'director's cuts' Ridiculous.
At best, this is a horrible way to treat the art of the film industry, at worst, it's a manipulative money grab. How many of these films have extra, raunchier footage shot so the movie can be dumped onto home video in these 'uncut' movies, making fans believe they are getting something they were cheated out of in the theater?
How much of this 'unrated' content is really integral to the film and how much of it is sleazy crap that's just inserted to make a couple more bucks.
The trend has been for comedies to do this, to add nudity or sexually explicit material to the film but they are not the only ones. Horror films are notorious for throwing in buckets of extra gore into the movie just to get that added sale from gore hounds who aren't satisfied unless they can see something extreme.

I can appreciate the commerce inherent in the film industry. It is, of all the arts, the one that is about, and based on money. You just can't make a movie these days without having someone backing you. The thing is though that there IS still art in films. There IS still beauty. The more that this crap goes on though, this ridiculous crap with 'director's' cuts and all, the more integrity the industry loses.
I am always happy when a Director is able to present their vision as they intended it, whatever the genre of film, but this needless bastardization of films has become a bane of movie nerds like me. If i am only getting part of a movie, then why the hell are you charging me so much?
That's what I wanna know.

..c...

7:33 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Messy and the Meep Sheep...sample...
Category: Writing and Poetry

 This is a small sample from my chapbook Messy and the Meep Sheep. Link at the end of the sample if you want to read more.

            Inside her chambers Messy was working on a notion, a faint idea that had struck her as she sat out under that starless sky and had been deep in thought when she had been suddenly nudged by one of the sheep, and, seeing the black little face surround by the cloud of fluff, she couldn't help but smile. And that's when it hit her, the idea that had struck her like lightning and had given her a wild notion that set her mind to motion. And now, here she was, in the wee hours of the night and surrounded by failed attempts to capture the vision she'd had in her head.

She had seen, as she looked down at the sweet face of the sheep, the image of a sheep, flying through the air on bumblebee wings, flying down and landing beside a frowning child and then something happened between the child and flying sheep and the child smiled and above the clouds broke open and there it was, the face of the sun, shining down again for all to see.

But how did she get from that vision to something real?

She wrote a story and nothing happened.

She wrote a poem and nothing happened.

She wrote a song and nothing happened.

She molded clay and nothing happened.

She built a statue and nothing happened.

She drew a picture and…and felt a brief glimmer of something. Like a shock that ran through her fingers as she finished the drawing. But it wasn't right.

So she began to paint, and as she painted, she lost track of time, and place and of everything but the painting, and in her heart echoed her mother's word - You can change the world with art. You can change the world with love. And she could. She would. She could feel that in her hands, in her heart, as she painted with all she had. And when she had finished, the three sheep long asleep and huddled around her feet, her hands and face covered in paint, she stepped back from the painting and looked at it.

It took her breath away.

Never, not once had she ever thought she had anything in her like her mother or grandmothers had had, any of their magic or craft, yet here, before her, was a painting that, even looking upon it now, made her smile like a child on their birthday. The painting depicted a hill of thick, green grass, and upon it was a child who looked to be the saddest thing in the world yet, at the corners of the little boy's mouth was the beginnings of a smile, a smile that seemed to be in direct relation to the fluffy cloud of cotton that hovered on thin wings beside him. He had one arm flung around the flying sheep, squeezing it, and there above, breaking through the clouds was the sun, breaking the long spell of darkness that had covered the Kingdom for so long.

3:15 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

ASSIGNMENT - three perfectly awful opening sentences
Category: Writing and Poetry

~ Maybe it was Karma, maybe it was Fate, maybe it was simple perserverance, or maybe it was that wicked dump he'd just taken but damn it was a good day.

~Karla watched with a grin as her twin girls, Kim and Korie, played together in the yard, knowing that eventually they were bound to find the bear traps she'd hidden earlier.

~ The butterfly considered the old couple as they considered the woman walking as she considered a dog, who considered a child considering whether he should eat the booger on his finger or not and above it all, the sun considered itself sleepy.

Here's my assignment for the Writer's Circle.
Whooo.
Back to writing just mediocre opening lines.

c

10:06 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Like Whispers In A Dream - a story

Like Whispers In Dreams

             The man pulled his car into the drive of his home and felt his heart sink as he saw how much snow had fallen during the day. You couldn't even tell he'd shoveled before he'd left for work. It was a mess. He frowned; it looked like he'd be shoveling again in the morning. He cursed under his breath at his stubbornness. A snowblower. How many times had his wife told him he should just buy one, hell, could have the old one her father had sitting in the shed if he wanted it. Nope, no, he could do it. It didn't snow that much anyway, and besides, it was good exercise.

What a stupid thing to say. After seven years of marriage though he was still trying to impress her; still trying to win her. He stopped the car, dropped it into park, and turned the engine off. He sat a moment and closed his eyes. Today made three weeks of working six days a week and he wasn't even into the meat of the tax season.

Another stupid thing – picking accounting as a career. Sure, it was good money but…his mind lost the thought as he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned and saw someone getting out of a car across the street from his own home.

Neighbors and their parties.

Assholes. Who had people over at this hour? Didn't they work?

He smiled. That made it official – he was old. He almost called the neighbors, only a couple years his junior, kids. Shit. He grabbed his briefcase and his wife's 'Preggo Food', as she called the strange things she had been craving for the past six months, and opened his door. He looked at the garage and frowned – another job for Spring. It wouldn't be long until he'd be cleaning out that damned garage. Ten years together and they still hadn't sorted out their mutual crap. They reall…

  "Excuse me, are you David?"

 The man turned towards the voice, suddenly realizing he wasn't alone and wondering how this person knew his name. As he turned though something struck his leg and he went down quickly, dropping his briefcase and the food for his wife. He watched the food fall and his heart sank, the pain clawing up his leg but he was distracted at the thought of how disappointed his wife would be when she heard he'd dropped her food. Another lightning strike of pain lit him up, this time on his arm, and he was back with the stranger.

  "Jesus, Jesus Christ, please, please stop. Please. I have money. I'll give it to you, just stop hitting me. Just, just please, please, please…"

  The man standing before him swung the baseball bat again and it connected with and shattered David's right wrist. He let out a howl of pain but before he could do more the man had his hand over David's mouth.

  "You should have expected this. You should have known I would come; that someone would come. You had to know you wouldn't get away with it. Even after all these years I remember what happened, don't you? Now, I swear to you, if you scream I will make this very messy for you. Do you understand? David, do you understand me?"

David sat as still as he was able, his body shaking and he unsure if it was from the pain or the cold. His slacks were soaked through with the snow and his arm had gone numb. He didn't know what to do, what to say. He didn't know…

And then he did.

   "David, do you know why I am here? Do you remember? David do you remember, or do I have to remind you?" 

The man swung the bat against David's side, hard but not too hard, he felt something crack just the same and he doubled over. No, no he didn't need to be reminded. He shook his head 'no'. He knew what this was. He knew.

  "So you know? Good. That's something. I am going to hurt you David. I am going to break things, and you are going to bleed. You're going to bleed badly, but when I am done I'll call an ambulance. I am not a monster. I'm not like you. I wonder though, how much blood is it going to take to erase what you've done? How much blood will it take until you appreciate what you are responsible for? How much blood until you've paid you're debt? Well David, what do you think?"

 David didn't think of blood though, he thought of how cold he was, and how upset his wife would be when she found out he'd dropped her food, and he thought about his son, or his daughter, whatever it was that his wife was holding in her belly, waiting to be born. He thought of them and wondered how much blood they would demand, if they were here before him, bat in hand.

David started to cry.

 The man took his hand away from David's mouth and stood up. David looked up and saw the man had an orange winter mask on, the kind you wore when you hunted, or worked outside. His coat was old and had a fur trim, the kind that was popular when David was a kid and was known as Davey. David fell back against the door of his car, his breathing labored and heavy, his headache deepening and spreading to encompass his entire body. He hurt so badly. He just wanted to go to sleep, just curl up right here and go to sleep.  He looked up at the stranger, the tears frozen to his cheeks, and in the eyes of his attacker there was nothing. David lowered his head and prayed for unconsciousness to spare him from some of what was to come.

Somewhere in town the clock struck midnight.

  "Ok. I'm gonna hurt you now. Don't scream. Don't scream."

 In another moment the bat was a blur and David was flooded with the past, his blood mixing with the blood of someone he'd almost forgotten about, as if they'd been part of someone else's story, someone else's life. He remembered why this man was here, the lies he'd lived with shrugged free and the truth revealed as if no time had passed and nothing had changed. But then, maybe deep down, David though, nothing had changed, in himself.
As the stranger swung the bat the snow quickly turned from white to red and David did as he'd been told, he never screamed, though he never lost consciousness either. In a matter of moments it became clear how much blood it would take.

11:42 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

The Beast Within - book review
Category: Writing and Poetry

    Color me desperately disappointed. See, I am a fan, gods help me, of the film The Beast Within, a cheesy '80s monster movie about a kid who inherits his illegitmate dad's nastier, more monster tendencies, which appear as he nears the end of his teens. It's a simple, silly movie that sorta falls apart at the end but which is so bizarre and fun that it amuses the crap out of me.
Well, I looked the film up on IMDB and people kept talking about what a poor representation the film was of the much better book. Intrigued, I decided I needed to read the book. Lucky for me, I have some awesome friends and one of them tracked the early eighties book down for me. The novel, The Beast Within was written by Edward Levy and, yeah, there's no denying the facts - the book and film are only related in name and skeletal story. After that, it's a world of difference.
The hell of it all though is that, in a very rare instance for me, I like the film a LOT more.
Why the hell is that?

Ok, so the book is about a terribly religious man who marries a woman he has no lustful intent for, instead he wants her just as a companion and I guess 'cause the Bible told him to marry. The young wife is desperately unhappy at her sexless marriage and the idea of a life without children so, when a handsome stranger happens upon the farm the woman falls easily into the man's trap and into his arms. Unfortunately for the two lovers, the husband is hip to what they are doing and finds them. His wife he burns alive, the man he beats and traps down in his cellar, where he is forced to eat the charred remains of the woman. This man is held captive for years, long enough for him to lose the vestiges of humanty he once had and to become a feral man akin to a werewolf.
This man, now made beast, having long forgotten who he was and living only to survive, escapes his bondage and is loosed into a world he no longer belongs within. The man happens upon a beautiful young wife in the woods looking for her lost dog he has already killed and, seeing her, his hunger is piqued, only now he longs for not just meat but flesh. The man rapes the woman, impregnating her, and returns to the woods where, in a sort of strange happenstance, his own fate finds him in a cave.
The story switches to this woman, her husband, and the son they will have due to the attack. Their son is a beautiful boy but seems closer to nature than they are accustomed to. When he begins exhibiting strange signs and disappears at night to hunt down nearby livestock, the family takes matters into their own hands and makes it so he can no longer escape at night. They believe he is possessed by a devil and intend to make sure they exorcise it. All goes well with their home brew exorcism and the boy seems cured.
Well, until that is he hits puberty and the beast within awakens yet again. This beast though, it is not just hormones but the manifestation of the will of the dead father. The sins of the father are literally passed on to the son. Soon, the monster is awake and killing again, only this time its not just farm animals that the beast is killing but people, and unless the boy's parents act quickly, there will be no stopping it, or saving him.

Now, I can appreciate a good, creepy book like a sonofabitch but the thing is that there is so little craft here, so little art to it that it ruins an interesting premise. The book gets caugt up and bogged own in the sexuality. It has a strange hint of mysogyny. And the wort thing of all is that it's just clumsily written. No, I am not famous, nor have I ever had a book on a best seller list, but I can still tell a well written tale from one that isn't well written. There are just so many needless grammatical and literary errors that it makes it hard to get to the heart of the book.
And lest we forget this heart...it's an ugly thing.
The book has some very ugly things to say about religion, sexuality, and the nature of Man. BEAST is a very mean story, which is fine...if there is something being said, and there just isn't here. What is being said is that Man, at its heart, is and always will be a beast, a monster, and as such, there is always the chance that we will revert to this state and become what we have worked so long to evolve past.

I will never dismiss the writing of someone else utterly and completely. People have loved this book, have gotten a good, scary read from it, and that's great. There are some very nice set pieces and it's an effective book at times, I just can't say that this book worked for me. It got bogged down within the writer's mire and this takes the story off course. There's an interesting story here but we never quite discover it. The ending also is a bit of a bitch because just as things seem as if we're going to get some answers...it's over.
UGH.

It's strange to imagine that the movie, a hokey slice of weirdness, is better than this one time best seller but, for me, it wasn't afraid of what it was, whereas the book could have been so much more and never is.

...c...

4:31 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

The Present - holiday story, sort of
Category: Writing and Poetry

The Present

            As a distant church's bells rang midnight she approached the house cautiously, watching to make sure she was alone as she made her way through the snow. If the papers were right and this was a bad city, then this area was the heart of darkness in the center. The city seemed strange when it was so quiet, the sounds of cars and people lost or muffled beneath the newly fallen snow. The bells of the church had stopped chiming but in the far off distance the woman heard the distinct sound of a bell and she realized she'd stopped moving at the sound of it and turned her mind back to the sidewalk in front of her and walked on. She felt watched by the row of empty storefronts with their windows boarded over, each one empty save whoever might be hiding inside from the snow and cold. Eight new inches of snow had fallen over the course of the night and while there were still eight days until Christmas, it looked like it was going to be white, or at least the dirty gray of city snow.

            The woman moved silently through the snow along the sidewalk, picking up her pace as she entered the dead areas where the streetlights were out, the darkness of these places making her feel as if she were on the moon. She'd forgotten about the hole near the butt of her jeans and was shivering from the unwanted breeze. She wished she could have driven but the fender-bender she'd found herself involved in a week earlier had left her car-less and left to the whim of the public transit system, which, though it ran all night, wasn't much for traveling into this part of town. The street's population turned from retail to residential and now it was the houses which were abandoned and empty. There was one house which still had a light on inside, a dim blue glow which came from an open second floor window.  The sight of the light only made her feel more nervous and it was almost a run that brought her to her destination.

The house was the third house from the last on the right side of the street. Three of the five numbers were gone from the house so that it appeared that its number was 'Zero-Nine', which made a chill run down the woman's spine. None of the windows were boarded on this house and, to her surprise, the glass remained in them. The front door was broken off of its hinges but it leaned against the jam, to bar entry and made it appear as if no one had entered the house, or that they'd at least made it look as if no one had been in. The house was two stories and had once been painted red but it was now a very pale pink and in some places the yellow it had once been was showing. The yard, what yard there was, was full of black snow, the sort that came at the end of winter usually, when it's winding down, but here it looked as if the snow had been burned or had somehow wilted. The woman stopped in front of the house, at the end of the small walk that lead to the front door. Standing here again made her uneasy and turned her stomach.

She stood and looked at the house, as if dared to do it, and felt unable to break its gaze.

            As empty as the house looked, it looked better kept than the others on this block. There were no broken windows, was no graffiti, and it really did look as if no one had been inside to vandalize it, though she couldn't really know that for sure. It looked as if it was dead, yes, but it was slow to rot. She had been here every year since she'd left; sneaking here every year at this time and it always looked the same. The paint was fading, and the nine years had taken their toll on the house but otherwise, it looked good. She had never seen it in the summer, so she'd never seen what the grass and ground looked like but she would wager that if she dug down into the snow she'd fine the grass gone from green to black, like the snow. Death had a way of marking its territory and it guarded those places jealously, as a dragon guarded its gold, her sister might have said.

A tear came to her eye and she wiped it away. This was a dead place, a haunted place, and over the years she'd heard its reputation as an evil place to be feared and avoided. A place of great power and dread. It had put a chill in her once when an ex had mentioned the place, saying he wanted to photograph it because he'd heard it was where things went to die. When pressed by friends of lovers over the years as to where she came from, she'd reluctantly tell them this neighborhood, which seemed to have started its decline the night everything had changed in her own life. As soon as people heard where she was from they'd grill her with questions about what had happened here, at this house and whether she'd known the family who had lived in the old haunted house on Lakfore Street.

Yes, she'd known the family.

No, she didn't want to talk about it.

No, she didn't want to talk about it at all.

            She had been much younger then, when she had lived here, in this house. She had been seventeen, and her sister had been eight. They were inseparable, the two of them, at least as inseparable as two people could ever be. Ever since the younger one had been born, her older sister had sworn to God and anyone who would listen that she'd watch over her little sis, no matter what. 'I'm her guardian angel', was what she'd tell people, and over the years, everyone began to believe it. Whether she needed a friend, a babysitter, a protector, or a hero, the older sister was as good as her word.  There are some deserts that cannot be crossed though, some oceans that cannot be sailed, and some things that are greater than blood and love. For the sisters it was the magical age of seventeen where the gulf showed itself, where the sisters were separated, and where the shadows were formed that would soon show themselves. It was December the seventeenth, and the girls' mother had to work late and it fell to the older one to watch over her younger sister and to make sure she ate, did her homework, and took her bath before bed. Being so close to Christmas though, malls were open later and her friends were out that night and her younger sister, knowing how bad the older one wanted to go, told her she'd be ok for a couple hours. She was eight after all. The older sister needed only that bit of encouragement before she made her mind up to go and leaned down and kissed her little sis on the forehead and told her she was the best, and that she'd get her something at the mall. At the mall that night was supposed to be Aeron Kaye and he had the prettiest eyes the older sister had ever seen and it were his eyes she was thinking of as her friends picked her up and took her to the mall.

The night at the mall hadn't been as great as she'd hoped, Aeron not making it out that like his friends had but her friends made sure to get her home early, to beat her mother, so there was that. As her friend Melissa pulled down the street, past the stores, past the other houses, and to the end of the street the street became filled with the reds and blues of police cars and an ambulance. Fearing the worst, the older sister burst from her friend's car before it had pulled to a complete stop and she fell hard to her knees on the icy pavement but was up and running to the house in a blur. Her mother caught her before she had made it to the porch, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her, asking over and over again – how could you, how could you, how could you? The girl felt a scream welling in her chest and pulled free from her mother and ran to the steps and up them and to the front door and when she saw inside the house the scream tore free from her throat and echoed over the snow covered houses and street. On the floor of the living room lay a small form covered by a great gray sheet, several of the officers standing around it while a woman took photographs of the scene. The rest was a blur of voices and faces, sounds and images, all of it lost beneath the weight of what she'd done, and what she'd lost.

She was told that someone had broken into the house after she'd left, had been found by the younger sister and she was then strangled before the house was ransacked. She had fought them, for what it was worth but, well… They had no witnesses or suspects. They were very sorry.

            Her mother had never forgiven her and at the turn of the year the older sister moved out and in with a friend's family and away from her mother, the house, and the memories. Her mother moved away herself that year as well, to some distant place, some foreign where, and the house was sold, then sold, then sold, then abandoned and left to die. As the house died, so died the neighborhood and the weeds of crime and neglect grew wild. Stories that the house was haunted began to get around and enough people claimed to have seen or heard something there, in that empty place, that no one dared venture near it now. No one came here anymore save for her, the fallen angel who had once been an older sister, so long ago.

She came here, every December, bearing a gift for her sister in the hopes that some day she'd be forgiven, or in the least that she'd start to forgive herself. Forgiveness was all she wanted, all she'd ever wanted. It was the one thing her mother had refused to give her, and the one thing she longed for from her sister.

And here she was again.

            The wind picked up and moaned softly along the empty streets and through the houses. It was such a lonely place here and it all seemed so strange to her, even after all the years, compared to when it had all been so vibrant and alive She looked at her watch and it was ten past. She must have let her mind wander and lost those few minutes, it happened to her a lot in front of the old house. She shivered and made her way up to the porch. It struck her as strange that she didn't feel watched as she mounted the stairs so much as known – she felt as if this place knew her, knew why she was here, and was unimpressed. She was sure it was in her head, but it was an awful feeling to have. She moved to the door and fell to her knees before it. She bowed her head and prayed that her sister was safe, that she would forgive her one day, and that she hadn't suffered long, at the end. It was then, on her knees before the broken front door, that she felt as if she was being watched. She looked up quickly and saw two small white pinpoints of light looking at her from just over a foot away, behind the door and at the same height as she was. She stood quickly and walked backwards slowly, thinking a feral dog must have gotten into the house. As she rose though, so rose the lights, and she saw them, and no body, just on the other side of the door, behind the cracked glass of a window.

  "Anna? Anna is that you?"

The woman called out and got no reply.

She stepped forward and there came a low growl from behind the door.

She wanted to run, more than anything in this world she wanted to run, but she stood her ground and reached into the bag slung over her shoulder and pulled out a present wrapped in red with a pink bow atop it. She knelt and laid the present before the door, then backed away, down the stairs.

As she watched white smoke poured out from beneath the door and the present was pulled back inside the house. She stood a moment but heard nothing and began to retreat, her heart racing as she wondered if she'd make it to the bus stop before she passed out. From behind her came a growl of a voice that still came out as loud as a whisper.

  "Don't come back here again. Don't you dare. I don't want to see you anymore. This isn't your home anymore. I don't ever want to see you again."

Another chill ran up her spine and she nodded, not looking back for fear of what she'd see. She had never heard or seen anything in the house herself, in all the years, and now she didn't know if she was hearing the voice of her sister, her mother, or something else. She'd heard her mother had disappeared a year before and had been assumed dead, and it was now that the woman wondered if this could be her, and not her sister, within the house but she didn't want to know.

She began walking again and the further from the house she got the better she felt, then there came another voice –

  "Happy Christmas Mary, Happy Christmas and Happy New Year." And this voice wasn't cruel, wasn't angry, but was quiet and meek.

Mary turned and the door to the house was thrown wide open and there stood the two white pinhole lights, hiding the body in the shadows, and beside those were another pair, and these were a pale blue, like her sister's, and were at the mid-section of the other lights. Unlike the other lights, these seemed not cruel but sad, and didn't bore into her as the others did, and hanging from where its hand might be was the brown stuffed bear she'd left on the doorstep.

The world started to spin and she started backing away, unable to break the stare of those eyes but knowing she had to move, and to keep moving until she was home again.

She would scream when she was home.

She would faint when she was home.

She would cry when she was home.

For now, she would leave here and live, and live, and live, and come what may, she'd never return here.

Never.

…c…

10:34 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment