The future of A Glass Darkly

I know that I originally planned to re-launch this blog and Tongues in Jars for December, but recently my time has been short. I'll spare you the regular spiel about working three jobs and planning to move out and etc., etc. The shortest possible version is that I just haven't really figured out exactly what I want to do with A Glass Darkly going forward.

Now, I'm still going to blog (as is plain in my resuming regular updates at Tongues in Jars).

However, the big difference between my blogging in the future and my blogging in the past is that I'm only going to dedicate 1/4 of my writing time and energy to blogging. The other 3/4 are going to my novels, short stories, and poetry. Nonetheless, I want to keep updating these blog regularly. The best way to do this, as far as I've been able to figure, is to simply write more fluid entries.

So, rather than sitting down, planning out, strenuously editing and drafting each blog entry, from now on my entries will be shorter. Ultimately, the purpose of these blogs is to publicly indulge my hobbies, and to give you all a way to get to know me and what to expect from my writing. My blog entries will still have the usual polish, though the fiction and poetry I post here will still be drafts and thus a little unpolished. Think of them as the sketches that artists might post on their sites.

The new year's also going to bring some changes to A Glass Darkly's design and, possibly, name. I'll still post creative writing on Mondays, editorials will return on Wednesdays, and reviews will go up on Fridays. These reviews will mostly be of books, but there'll still be some movie reviews sprinkled in for good measure. But, these entries won't necessarily be regular.

Along with these irregular entries, the plan right now is to post thought pieces based on what I'm playing and reading every day. I've got a crazy book/video game backlog, and so there's plenty of fodder for free-writing. The difference between these entries and Wednesday's editorials will be that the former will be free-flowing wanderings with words, while the latter will usually be more concentrated mini-essays that try to make a point.

So, now that all that's out there - what about the rest of December? Well, for now all I can say is that I don't expect to get much up and running here. I might do one final movie review, either of a bad Christmas movie or of the famous flop Ishtar, but doing either seems unlikely. Instead, I can say for sure that Tongues in Jars will keep getting updated on a weekly basis, and I'll be publishing an article over on examiner.com every week as well.

So, watch this space, gentle reader, and something will appear!

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A Quick One

A proper update/entry is coming soon! For now, all I can say is that the purpose of this blog, and of Tongues in Jars is going to change come the new year. Plus, I'll be starting up a third, much more minimalistic blog as well.

Details coming soon!

Blog Happenings for the End of 2012

Because I'm using National Novel Writing Month to launch myself back into writing my fantasy series, my blogging time has been short lately. So, instead of pushing through and getting out some sub-par entries, I've decided to put my blogs on hold for the rest of November.

However, I will be posting the entry for Stanza 8 of "Dum Diane vitrea" this coming Tuesday, while the final wrap-up entry for that poem will be posted on 4 December.

So, enjoy what's posted here and over at Tongues in Jars for the rest of November, and watch for new content come December!

Oh, and if you're interested, watch my Examiner.com video game blog for a new article every Saturday, plus an extra one this Monday!

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[Moon-dæg] Looking East while Writing in the West

Context
Gazing Across Prairies
Closing

{The prairie's amber wave. Image found on Bridal Buds.}

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Context

Inspired by a lovely face, this is another poem I composed out West. It's been modified from its original to bring some more unity to the over all metaphor of face as prairie field ready for harvest, but still needs some work.

If you've got some suggestions, leave them in the comments!

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Gazing Across Prairies

Her face is like a field of wheat stalks
Each topped by grains massaged by wind
Bringing out the gold of harvest

Each grain heavy with meaning
Each gust a desirous finger
Joy itself is in the meadow beyond that field,
As each finger yearns to run
From field to hair through to air.

So that the deepest wells awake and open,
Awake to gaze, blink, and water

Always moistening in laughter's course,
Ridiculous echoes fill the field
As winter clouds call each grass leaf
Each stalk home.

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Closing

That's it for a Glass Darkly this week. My commitment to getting through NaNoWriMo, and this week's work hours have conspired to force my blogging into a minimum. But don't miss my translations and commentaries over at Tongues in Jars: tomorrow, I look at stanza seven of "Dum Diane vitrea," and on Thursday, my delve into the Old English epic Beowulf continues!

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[Sæternes-dæg] Annotated Links #24: Strangeness in the Sciences

1. Rosner, Hillary. "A Chemist Comes Very Close to a Midas Touch." The New York Times 15 October 2012. Web. 3 November 2012.

Paul Chirik, a chemist at Princeton University, has successfully managed to make iron react like platinum in certain chemical reactions. Though shy of changing the base metal into gold, Rosner describes this as a kind of alchemy and gives a brief glimpse at some of the implications of this discovery - including how it's contributing to new fuel-efficient tires. writes in a clear conversational style.

As a medievalist and someone interested in modern discoveries that either look or wink back at medieval beliefs and/or ideas, I just had to include this article.

2. University College London. "Virtual reality puts human in rat world: 'Beaming' technology transforms human-animal interaction." ScienceDaily 31 October 2012. Web. 3 November 2012.

Computer scientists at UCL and Barcelona have managed to create the technology to add a physical dimension to long distance interaction. The article details how this technology works (a mix of virtual reality and robotics), and includes some quotes from the scientists leading the project about its implications. This one is written in a clear style while making use of block quotes.

As someone who's been in a distance relationship for several years, this kind of technology is beyong intriguing. So, this one had to be included.

3. Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). "Asteroid belts of just the right size are friendly to life." ScienceDaily 1 November 2012. Web. 4 November 2012.

Rebecca Martin, a NASA Sagan Fellow from the University of Colorado in Boulder, and astronomer Mario Livio of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md, have published a study that suggests that a perfectly placed asteroid belt is necessary for life-sustaining planets to develop. The article summarizes these scientists' hypothesis, and walks readers through the possible asteroid belt-related scenario that lead to the formation of Earth, as well as suggesting that asteroid impacts can help to spur on evolution. This article is written in a clear, matter-of-fact style.

The necessity, and usefulness of asteroids is something curious to ponder. And what better way to stir thoughts on space rocks than to read about them? That's why this article is included in this week's Annotated Links.

4. Adams, James. "It’s high time: The Dreamachine is no longer just a dream." The Globe and Mail 31 October 2012. Web. 3 November 2012.

Adams' article provides a quick overview of the history and cult popularity of the dreamachine - a device that simulates light undulating in a regular pattern, as when passing by evenly spaced trees at sunset. Adams also gives some insight into the celebrities that have used it in the past, and uses the case of Margaret Atwood's recent receipt of one to provide a slightly cynical perspective on the device. This article is written in a steady going style.

Anything that offers a "drug-less high" is a curiousity. Not because it's possibly a legal way to get such a high, but because of what it suggests about the brain and its ability to, put simply, entertain itself. This article is included in this batch of links because of the insight into this phenomenon.

5. Kim, Sam. "Elephant in South Korean zoo imitates human speech." Bradenton.com 1 November 2012. Web. 3 November 2012.

Scientists have confirmed that an elephant in South Korea's Everland Zoo can imitate human speech. Kim explains how this phenomenon came about and why it seems to be isolated to just a couple of elephants. Kim's article is designed for the internet with simple sentence structure and short paragraphs.

Various birds can mimic human speech, but elephants? That's just plain weird, and so it just plain had to be included in this article.

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Closing

Next week on the blogs watch for another poem on Monday, the second to last stanza of "Dum Diane vitrea" on Tuesday and more Beowulf on Thursday. As always Tuesday's and Thursday's updates can be found over at Tongues in Jars, and Monday's can be found right here at A Glass Darkly!

By the way, because of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and how my work week's rolled out, I'm not going to be reviewing a movie this coming week. But, watch for a review of something the next week!

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[Freya-dæg] The Room: "Leave your stupid comments in your pocket!"

{The Room's movie poster, found on Wikipedia.}

Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

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Plot Summary

Everything in the life of Johnny (Tommy Wiseau) seems to be going well: he's lined up for a promotion at work, he's about to marry his girlfriend of seven years (Lisa, played by Juliette Danielle), and he's surrounded by friends. However, little does Johnny know that his world of easygoing trust is about to collide head on with the truth of a betrayal of all he holds dear.

Although he lives there, Johnny risks it all when he enters The Room!

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The Good

The first 30 minutes of The Room are a bizarre quasi-softcore porn hurdle (sex scenes make up 1/3 of it at least) that needs to be leaped in order to arrive at the movie's middle. And what a middle. Although it should really take a viewer out of the movie, this movie's middle is like a sweet cream filling while the first and last 30-35 minutes are like a low-grade chocolate shell. What matters, though, is that this set up works.

As the movie's events heat up and become more dramatic Wiseau's curious delivery makes all of his intense lines unintentionally hilarious. This is, after all, the home of the internet-famous

{"You're tearing me apart, Lisa!"}

Speaking of Lisa, it's refreshing to see an average, real woman featured in the female lead role of a movie such as this.

{But, as Lisa's mother Claudette (Carolyn Minnott) says, she "can't support herself."}

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The Bad

Although Wiseau's acting often has a tinge of the (unintentionally) comedic, the movie as a whole doesn't share in the same off-yet-endearing quality.

For starters, several side characters are introduced and then forgotten like so many Scooby-Doo villains, and quite unnecessarily. For example, we're introduced to Mike (Mike Holmes) and Michelle (Robyn Paris) fairly early in the movie, but they don't survive into the third act, as Mike is nowhere to be seen at Johnny's party.

What's more, Mike and Michelle, as a fellow couple, could easily have been the source of advice for Johnny and Lisa. Instead, for the space of a couple of scenes we get Peter (Kyle Vogt), the psychologist friend. Even stranger is the third act introduction of a mysterious man in a white button up shirt at Johnny's party who is the one who finds out about Lisa's and Mark's betrayal.

Much more importantly for a movie called The Room, the setting is really unclear. We're definitely watching a story in San Francisco, and that takes part in an apartment building of some sort for the most part. But what kind of apartment is difficult to nail down. Some establishing shots suggests a modest apartment building:

Others suggest a townhouse:

Perhaps the movie's uncertain setting is simply meant to make the titular room more expansive than one four-walled enclosure, but this lack of clarity is distracting.

Along with the uncertain setting and character introductions, a couple of side plots are mentioned but then just forgotten.

Denny's run-in with drugs and owing drug money? Apparently solved after Johnny and Mark attack the drug dealer.

Claudette's troubles with her brother and a house she's looking to sell? Just noted, and never returned to.

Both of these sideplots feed into the movie's drama, but developing and integrating either or both would have given it a much more consistent feel.

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Judgment

Decidedly a weird one to watch, The Room has its merits (it inspired its own indie flash game after all).

Wiseau's strange, quasi-high/drunk, almost entirely eye-contact-less acting style makes all of his dramatic scenes utterly laughable. But as a result the movie's drama is almost always turned on its head and rendered ineffective. Coupled with an awkward handling of what can only be assumed to be an attempt to make Johnny's apartment a main character, too much of the movie's acting and writing undermine the possibility of it all being taken seriously.

The Room is good for a laugh, but its uneven characters, settings, and side stories hamstring its ability to be anything more.

So, Freya, let this one be. It lay already in a prominent place, splayed across a crumbling battlement - there shall all who desire to shall see it, but it simply is not the sort to be raised up.

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Closing

Leave your thoughts on this internet cult classic in the comments, and watch for tomorrow's Annotated Links - especially if you're drawn to weird science!

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[Moon-dæg] The Box and the Monk

Context
The Monk and the Box
Closing

{A mysterious box, and a bit of foreshadowing. Image found on the blog Siblingshot.}

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Context

Tonight's story is a bit of a long one, and, as was the case two weeks ago, it is an early version of a short story related to the larger world that I'm building for my novel series. It's something that could maybe be a prologue or first chapter to a novel in the future, but more than likely it will be the first part of a short story told in three parts.

Check it out, and let me know what you think in the comments.

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The Monk and the Box

"Come on, Let’s go.”

The light outside stung his eyes. He still remembered his writing desk - filled with notes that he had been copying and illuminating. But that was before the burning, the beating, and the bag.

He had no idea where he was now. only that the sun beat down so heavily as to make his formerly cool robes feel like a bear pelt.

"Hey! No lagging.” The speaker’s foot found his thigh without problem. After all, there was enough of it to strike, but he was glad of the boot's missing his backside. Spending so much of his life sitting seemed to have tenderized more than harden it.

At the least, he reflected, it was good to be able to stretch out once more. Hunching over the illumination desk for all of those winters had never crumpled his back and he continued to enjoy a height that intimidated most other men. Let alone women.

Though that had never been much of an issue. He remembered what his mother had said of him the night before she sent him to the monastery as the men in hauberks and greaves shouted at him and each other.

“All that fine skin. But no grace. And all that great height and no strength. You’re a misshaped one Hugh, but you’re my misshaped one. Maybe that mind a' yours is at least put right.” He remembered her gnarled cane raising to tap his forehead, “Least it never seems to have pointed you wrong. And it gave you the sponsorship of that roving Friar.

Least ways we can send you off to where the misshaped don’t matter long as the mind is sound. You’ll make me proud yet, you will.”
He brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes as best he could. His hands, tied together as they were, looked oddly over-large to him, as if he hadn’t seen them for days or even weeks. Of course, they were all he'd seen - he never was admitted to the Abbot's order, though he had read and heard about the herbs they used.

“Kneel here.” The man leading Hugh pulled on the rope tied to his bound hands and he fell forward. Unable to catch himself his face broke his fall. He thought he could smell blood, but when he opened his eyes he saw that the flagstone he knelt on was only splotched with dried red patches.

All he had wanted was to be as his elder sister was. Kind and shapely, admired by all - even if, as the brother Olaf had told him in confession, that admiration was only with the eyes. “Eyes make better company than mites.” Hugh had mused to himself then, though he never uttered the words aloud. Only when he was in his cell, struggling to sleep on a bed lengthened with uneven stones. A place whence he knew himself to be entirely alone.

That was still all he wanted, admiration of any sort. But the other brothers only gave congratulations and the Abbot only a wry smile whenever he saw Hugh’s illuminations. Hugh could appreciate their thankfulness for his gifts, but still felt unfulfilled by it. He wondered if any of is work would have survived the fire. He wondered if hoping to find out would help him to do so.

“Say these words.” The rope was yanked again and a piece of parchment was thrust into Hugh's face. Hugh reocgnized the characters but stared at the shapes before they registered.

Something cold reached under his chin. “You can read, can’t you?” The man’s dagger point pricked the excess skin about Hugh’s throat.

“A monk who can’t read? Maybe one of us might as well try to open the damned box. It’s all ended already.” The voice was new and faceless.
“Shut up, Reg. This needs to be seen with fresh eyes. The wise woman said so.”

Reg muttered something as the sound of steel sliding back into a sheath came from his direction.

“You can read, right?”

Hugh looked up into the eyes of his captor.

They were small beady things that looked like the chapel tower windows as the fire licked through the yard. They may even have belonged to the man that burst into the library chamber and threw him from his chair.

“Yes I can read. The brothers taught me.”

“Good. That saves us from cleaning our damn swords later.” The man frowned deeply. “Maybe. Read it.” He pressed the parchment closer into Hugh’s face.

The words had finally settled and they gave Hugh no challenge though he had never seen many before. The parchment was not written in the common tongue, but in the same dialect as some of the older folios and sheaves that he had worked through. Living most of his life with regular prayers in the language made reading the parchment especially easy.

As he began to intone the words, he felt the kiss of steel at his throat.

"Read it to yourself! None of us want to get caught in this, otherwise we wouldn't need an other!" Hugh dared not look up, but a pause suggested a look passed between Reg and Grenn. When he spoke again, Reg's voice carried with it a low grumble, "just move your lips if you have to. Read it t'your self!"

After Hugh had finished reading and looked up, Grenn looked stymied for a moment before pulling his sword from its sheath and raising it over his head.

Hugh threw his hands over his own as he saw and heard the sword swooshing down upon him. He had seen many falcons and owls strike their prey from above but never before suspected that he’d find himself in the role of the rat.

After the sword flashed in its arc one of Hugh's thumbs throbbed, but his wrists felt freer.

“Grenn. Is that a good idea? Letting him loose like that after all his reading?”

“Relax Reg. He’s not about to go anywhere. Not just yet.” Grenn turned to Hugh. Sorry about the thumb, mate. I’m not so used to being precise with this thing.” His sword was swallowed by its sheath.

Hugh lowered his hands and said “It’s alright. What’s this about a box?” He popped his thumb into his mouth. The blood quenched a thirst he hadn’t even been aware of. The flap of his thumb was still well enough attached to keep, he felt. It’s just the end anyway. He pulled his thumb from his mouth, “what, then, about the box?” He still knelt.

“It’s right there. A thing that only the right person can open, at least so Slovan says. But you’re the closest they ever got.” Grenn threw his thumb over his shoulder. “The rest couldn’t read it. Or plain couldn’t read.”

“So what do you expect me to do?” Hugh rubbed his wrists.

“Open the box”

“Why should I do that?” Hugh tried to stand, but a hand from behind him fell onto his shoulder and pushed him back down.

“Hey now. We can end this well for everyone, if you just open the box. No need to get up so fast.”

Hugh heard steel ring against steel all around him. He noticed Grenn reading the parchment as his lips fell into a solid line.

“Now get up. But take it slow. Slow. Just to the box.”

Hugh made his way to where the box sat step by step. The place was completely walled in, yet but there was no echo. He swore he saw water dropping from the ceiling, but he never heard the sound of dripping. His steps were short and shallow, and he realized that his feet were still bound together.

He stopped at the box and looked at it. A large stone contaier of one sort or another. He reached for its edge but Grenn shouted him out of it.

“Wait. Wait. Here” He handed Hugh the parchment. “Hold it while you open it.”

Hugh searched the man but found no answer in his face. He held the paper in oe hand and dedicated the other to the box’s lid. It looked and felt as heavy as the bell rope in the chapel tower. But it moved so quickly that Hugh wondered if it was fleeing his hand rather than being pushed by it.

As the lid slid away, the box’s interior was revealed. A hollow dull space, occupied only by a bundled folio.

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Closing

That's it for this blog until my review of The Room and Annotated Links #24 are posted on Friday and Saturday respectively, but don't miss out my Latin and Old English translations and commentaries on Tuesday and Thursday over at Tongues in Jars.

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[Sæternes-dæg] Annotated Links #23: Chameleon Communications

1. Anders, Charlie Jane. "What would a Random House/Penguin merger mean for science fiction and fantasy?" io9 25 October 2012. Web. 27 October 2012.

Anders offers a handful of insights into what a merger of Penguin and Random House might mean for publishers, imprints, writers, readers and those aspiring to be writers. She also includes a link to an in-depth article about what mergers in general mean for science fiction and fantasy, and another link to a 2007 interview with Ace/Roc editor Anne Sowards. This article is written in a easy-going, conversational style.

This one is included, and set into the first place, because the possibility of a Penguin/Random House merger is huge news for anyone keeping an eye on the publishing industry.

2. Sullivan, Tim. "'Gone With The Wind' In North Korea An Unlikely Cultural Phenomenon." HuffPost World: Canada 24 October 2012. Web. 27 October 2012.

Sullivan writes on an array of reasons why Gone With the Wind is so popular among North Koreans. Among these reasons, he gives in depth treatment to the book's Civil War setting and its tough, hardship-enduring characters. He writes in a smooth style and uses a handful of quotations to underline his article's narrative quality.

This one's included because it's a great example of how cultural products can cross cultures and end up thriving in places that you would simply not expect.

3. Peng, Kan. "How to hard sell China's soft power." China Daily 26 October 2012. Web. 27 October 2012.

Peng begins by summarizing the Psy/Gangnam Style phenomenon, how social media has played an integral part in the phenomenon's popularity, and how the phenomenon has helped to promote South Korean culture and products across the world. He then moves into how China has tried and failed to do promote their soft power via cultural exports in the same way, but have failed because they've kept their attempts too official. Peng writes in a punchy, to-the-point style.

This article is included because of the contrast that it sets up between two nation's strategies for increasing their soft power. This contrast underlines the usefulness of pop-culture.

4. Rector, Gene. "'Science fiction' becomes 'science fact' following Utah test." WRWR The Patriot 23 October 2012. Web. 27 October 2012.

This is a brief article about a new microwave emitter-equipped missile (called CHAMP, or the Counter-electronics High powered Advanced Missile Project) that is designed to disable electronics. According to the article, the titular test in Utah saw this technology not only shut down all of the computers in a target building but also the camera recording the experiment.

As a technology article amongst articles about books and publishing, this one might seem out of place. However, at its heart it's about a missile that has the potential to take out communications systems - and what are publishing and books if not just friendly means of communication?

5. Perlow, Jason. "Computing's low-cost, Cloud-centric future is not Science Fiction." ZDNet 21 October 2012. Web. 27 October 2012.

This article looks at Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner as examples of futurism. Specifically, Perlow goes over the aspects of each movie that, some 50 and 30 years before the present, accurately depict technological aspects of our daily life and those elements of the movies that aren't here just yet. Perlow writes in an expositional style, using a generous number of links to his own and others' writing.

This one is included because it shows the importance of fiction as a way to explore ideas that seem far removed from reality, just one of fiction's enduring uses.

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Closing

That's it for this week in the blog, but check back here next week for another short story draft, a review of the recent cult classic The Room (Monday and Friday), and, over at Tongues in Jars, more of "Dum Diane vitrea" and Beowulf (Tuesday and Thursday).

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[Freya-dæg] Shocktober Pt.4: The unconventional arc of The Convent

{The Convent's movie poster, found on IMDb.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

Introduction

In today's entry, we take a look at the Mike Mendez' horror flick, The Convent. With its low budget effects and costumes, it's a great film for the end of October (and Part 4 of Shocktober) since the best Halloween costumes are often made on a budget.

So, let's see if the same is true of B-Horror movies, as we settle into weighing the good and the bad of this flick,

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Plot Summary

In the middle of the 20th century, a convent of nuns ran a school - until one of the students went mad and slaughtered them all before setting the place aflame.

Come 2006, it's tradition for the local universities' sororities and fraternities to try to paint their letters on the old convent's bell tower. Clarissa's troop of newly minted preppy friends is new exception, and everything is going great for her until an old friend from a past she'd rather forget asks to go with them to the old, burned out convent.

In the end, Clarissa's old friend Mo (Megahn Perry) comes with them, and they all wander through the convent. However, instead of finding the bell-tower, they find Satanists who are trying to bring forth the devil himself. Instead, chaos is brought into the old hilltop religious building - unleashing a demonic deluge that surely no-one will survive.

Clarissa and her friends are about to find out that no matter how hard you pray, you're damned when you enter The Convent!

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The Good

This movie wastes no time whatsoever setting things up or putting things in motion.

The opening scene gives us one perspective of the urban myth about the titular convent, and from there we're immediately introduced to Clarissa's trying to gel with a new set of friends. This quick and dirty introduction is appreciated, because it gives the movie a great deal of room to expand things - maybe introduce competing perspectives on what happened in the convent, or really get into why Clarissa is looking for new friends when the old ones still seem to be around. But more on that later.

After this quick introduction things move along at a steady clip. The spooky convent and the woman responsible for the shooting at it are visited, and a great deal of tension is built up around the old burned out building. There's also quite a bit of humour and self awareness involved in these first tens of minutes. Some examples are:

{A black cop who delivers the mad analogy: "I'm gonna lock yo ass up so tight, they gon' have to have a combination to visit yo' nuts...white boy."}

{The group's blonde complaining about how a criminal record isn't: going to look good on my application to fashion school."}

And, without pictures, an exchange between the group's men that ends with the conclusion that they need to go back for the druggie's stash; plus a brief and direct Scooby Doo reference.

All of this humour and self-awareness make the movie feel like it's getting to something, like it's really on its way to telliing a horrific story that plays with the audience's expectations.

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The Bad

However, The Convent never gets that far.

After the movie's introductory moments are gone, they're never revisited. Instead, we're left with two thirds that could double as a Benny Hill sketch with just a little bit of redubbing.

Now, this shift to true b-movie stuff wouldn't be so bad if the start of the movie hadn't been so promising.

If the movie opened with cheesy lines and demons trying to convert the living, then that's being the focus of the last two thirds wouldn't be an issue. What's worse though, is that once the movie's big bad demons appear it becomes terribly uneven.

One minute, we're skulking about the convent with one of the gang, trying to find the others, the next we see the demons traipsing about and doing whatever it is that demons do in this movie (their workings/weaknesses being explained not being one of these things).

By the time the final scenes of the movie show us some genuine b-movie badassery, things have been too incoherent for anyone other than the most diehard of horror fans to have lost interest and dismissed this movie as nothing more than a disappointment.

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Judgment

The Convent is simply a letdown. It's a movie that clocks in at just slightly over an hour, and opens with such snap and self-confident ease. But that confidence erodes by the time the demons appear.

However, the erosion of a movie's confidence and atmosphere is one thing, frustrating an audience's expectations only to later follow some of the laziest horror tropes is the mark of nothing more than a bad movie.

There's really no other way to say it. If it had gone all out on its tropes or been as original as possible within the limits of its story, then it could have been a great bit of entertainment like Leprechaun in the Hood, or a neatly layered horror tale as was Silent House.

So, Freya, there's no need to skim the stinking Field of Fallen Films for the sake of The Convent. Let it be where it lay, and may its name be reluctantly whispered even among midnight cauldron stirrers.

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Closing

Check back here tomorrow for Annotated Links #23, a collection of five links that share some common thread and that are also pretty cool!

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[Moon-dæg] A West Coast Yawp

Context
West Coast Yawp
Closing

{Some beeswax, taper candles. Image found on Waxing Lyrical.}

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Context

Today's poem is one of several "yawps" I wrote while living over in Victoria, BC. Like this majority of these pieces, this one combines two of the larger hurdles of that experience: the weather and the burden of grad school.

In true yawp-like fashion, it might not make perfect logical sense, but logic isn't so much the point as is putting out words that stir emotions and produce strong images.

As always, you can leave your own thoughts of the poem below in the comments.

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West Coast Yawp

My eyes hoard the written word
And pass out its meaning like a
Miserly king
On the verge of becoming a dragon -

Ready to flaunt his draconitas
In the trick of his new found tail.

All the bone-houses and heart-thought
Of dead poets and buried heroes:
Now no help to me.

Scholar voices bound the crenellations
Of my cranium
And pipe up treble loud
when I place my nose into a book;

Something has gone out
Some spark or other has snuffed it.

More light,
More light,
Lest the West Coast wind
Topple my last lit tapers.

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Closing

Check back here Friday for a search through the sins of The Convent for part Four of Shocktober.

In the meantime, check out tomorrow's Latin ("Dum Diane vitrea") entry and Thursday's Old English (Beowulf) entry over at Tongues in Jars!

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[Sæternes-dæg] Annotated Links #22: Different, but the Same

1. Ramstad, Evan. "Are Koreans the Irish of Asia? Here’s a Case." Korea Realtime (Wall Street Journal) 16 October 2012. Web. 20 October 2012.

Ramstad recounts the recent visit to Seoul of Eammon McKee, Ireland's ambassador to the Koreas, and a speech he made there wherein he fleshed out the Korea-is-Ireland cliché. He quotes McKee's speech selectively, compiling a brief list of the ways in which the two nations are similar. This article is written in a pure journalistic style, this article reports on the idea of the two nations having shared traits.

An article about how two disparate nations actually have quite a bit in common is a great way to start of an Annotated Links about different things that, upon further analysis, can easily be considered similar. Thus, this article was an easy pick for this week's batch.

2. Lorditch, Emilie. "Using Science Fiction to Educate." Inside Science 17 October 2012. Web. 20 October 2012.

This one is a brief article that provides an overview of the basic argument for using science fiction in science education: to show the relevance of science to young people so that more of them will take an active interest in pursuing the sciences at college or university. It makes specific reference to science fiction and super hero films while leaving out anything about science fiction literature. Lorditch writes in a direct style of reportage, with an effective use of quotes.

Science fiction and science fact are definitely different, but the limits of human technology are always making gains on the limits of human imagination. This article doesn't make a direct comparison between science fiction and science in the classroom, but mining science fiction for examples to show how science does and doesn't work bridges the two nicely.

3. Houpt, Simon. "IBM hones Watson the supercomputer’s skills." The Globe and Mail 19 October 2012. Web. 20 October 2012.

In this interview with the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center's Eric Brown, Houpt explores the different uses for IBM's Question Answering supercomputer Watson. Specifically, Houpt asks about IBM's work with the US healthcare insurance provider WellPoint and how Watson will figure in with that. It's written as any interview is bound to be written - in a conversational tone.

Though comparisons between Watson and human personalities don't come up until near the end of the interview, this piece is included in this week's Annotated Links because it underscores how a stripped down version of human thinking (parsing sentences, taking certain elements and understanding the relationships between them) is being emulated by computers.

4. Taylor, Kate. "Picnicface: Why are we laughing? I don’t know, but it sure beats crying." The Globe and Mail 20 October 2012. Web. 20 October 2012.

Taylor's article offers some quick background information on the Picnicface story, along with a very quick rundown of where the three-person comedy trio is today. Her article also offers some thoughts on the matter of internet fame vs. old school fame, and how being popular on YouTube does not necessarily translate being popular on the boob tube. This one is written in a straightforward style, with quotes from players in the Picnicface story sprinkled throughout.

Including this one in the Links for this week was necessarily partly because it fit and partly because of personal prejudices. Picnicface is an hilarious troupe, and the ways in which culture on the internet is different from culture on TV or radio or in print is something that needs more mainstream attention.

5. Strickland, Eddie. "Red Potion (The Legend of Zelda cocktail)." The Drunken Moogle 14 October 2012. Web. 20 October 2012.

Simply a recipe for a cocktail inspired by the Legend of Zelda (clicking on that tag at the bottom of the recipe shows another 4 pages worth of Zelda-inspired booze bombs). This recipe is written in a direct style without any extra notes.

This one's included for the obvious reason that video games ('The Legend of Zelda,' perhaps especially) are not the same as real life. However, it must definitely be noted that medieval medicine (and therefore medicine in a high fantasy setting such as the one in 'Zelda') would invariably involve alcohol in some way - so the two different worlds of the real and the virtual are bridged by the cause of and solution to all of life's problems: alcohol.

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Next week, watch for a poem post for Monday, and Part Four of Shocktober, when I'll make the call for the conversion of the campy horror flic The Convent.

Plus, over at Tongues in Jars, watch for the fifth stanza of "Dum Diane vitrea" in Tuesday's Latin entry, and Wiglaf's tongue lashing of the cowardly thanes in Thursday's Beowulf entry.

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[Freya-dæg] Shocktober Pt.3:Making some Noise about Silent House

{Silent House's movie poster, found on Wikipedia.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

Introduction

Based on Gustavo Hernández's independent horror film, Casa de Muda, this week's movie is a chilling one.

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Plot Summary

Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen), her father (Adam Trese), and her uncle Peter (Eric Sheffer Stevens) have returned to their old vacation house to prepare it for sale. But, if working in a big, old house isn't bad enough, there are stories of people who have been squatting in this vacation home while Sarah and her family have been away.

What's more, Sarah hears things as she works her way through sorting old possessions. Her father and her uncle say it's just an old house, but Sarah's ears aren't the only thing deceiving her when she begins to see people who, on second glance, appear not to be there at all.

When faced with strange stories, noises only you seem to hear, and things that only you can see what could be worse than a Silent House?

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The Good

The overlooked indie horror movie of 2012, Silent House, has quite a bit to offer.

Much like The Screaming Skull it shows its mastery of atmosphere early on, but rather than pumping up the tension to the point where our patience bursts and we wind up with something comedic rather than horrific, Silent House knows how to moderate its tension. In that regard, this movie is to The Screaming Skull as Edison's DC electrical system is to Tesla's AC system.

Helping to maintain this atmosphere is ace camera work by Igor Martinovic. His handling of angles and long shots is not only effective but convincing when it comes to showing us what perspective we're seeing everything through. Much of the movie is shot so that Sarah is the focus, and paired with the single camera approach, this is a dynamite movie for cinematography. In fact, it should definitely be looked at as a reference for communicating perspective through film.

{Throughout most of the movie the camera focuses on Sarah; putting Peter in front of her fantastically expresses his protective role.}

Of course, the bread and butter of any horror movie couldn't be moderated by cinematography alone. The movie's script and direction are also great at stringing out just enough frights throughout the movie to release excess tension and to make way for more.

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The Bad

However. Silent House's strengths are met by its major flaws.

As an experiment in what I'd consider first person film, we aren't given the same information that we'd get if we had different character perspectives or even a script that allowed for omniscient (or near omniscient) story telling/filmography. Because we lack the sort of information that could only be delivered explicitly if we were privy to another character's perspective, we're given an ending that is a shock, but not in an expected way.

At the risk of spoiling the ending - here I go - rather than a final moment that sends shivers up and down your spine (as Paranormal Activity did for me), we get something softer, more akin to the ending of Shutter Island, or Inception even.

It's not a bad ending in and of itself, but it's not what's expected from a horror movie, especially one that tries so hard to combine jump scares with more psychological frights. Ultimately, however, the movie's attempt to balance these two makes it much more lopsided.

It also doesn't help that one of the actors simply has a presence that suggests his/her involvement in some unsavoury activities.

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Judgment

Silent House is a sleek, and considerable horror/thriller.

It makes effective use of camera work to tell its story and to create atmosphere.

It withholds a little too much information, and its ending suggests that the next scene could be more interesting than everything that came before it.

This movie's a strange beast because it's really quite a strange movie when considered. Much like Shutter Island it plays with perspectives, and there are twists throughout, but the thing is that despite its admirable attempt to be a story told mostly in the first person, what's lost as a result leaves us to piece far too much together.

This challenge that Silent House presents is a welcome one, and can make for an engaging movie experience, but it's not engaging if you're not willing to do some speculating throughout your watching of it.

Nonetheless, it still offers some chilling scares and an ending that, as far as soft, conversation-generating endings go, is better than Inception's. And for that, as well as Igor Martinovic's masterful work behind the movie's single camera, this is one to save, I say, Freya.

So swoop low and lift this one from the muck and mire - it's a movie to be seen and to be talked about for what it does right as much as what it loses in trying to do too much.

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Closing

Check back here tomorrow for Annotated Links #22!

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[Moon-dæg] From A Ship's Crow's Nest

Context
Blue Bricks
Closing

{A replica of a medieval ship. Image found on the Seasalt Cornwall blog.}

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Context

Today's story is one of the many shorts that offers some insight into the backstory of the fantasy series that I'm currently working on. In fact, it's a kind of world building story, in the sense that it (once it's as finished as it can be) will offer a glimpse into a major aspect or two of my created world.

To date the process of writing this series has been drafting it book by book (as a "discovery" writer) to figure out how the world works. However, after taking a fair bit of time off from writing this series during my MA, I've gotten to the point where the discoveries made by writing the larger books need to be refined through shorter stories. These shorter stories will also, ideally help me to see how these aspects of the world I'm creating can feed back into the five books of the series.

This story was written based on a prompt at the local writing group, and just evolved from it. The prompt was to write a story in which each paragraph starts with a colour. It's still a draft of sorts, but much of what the story is is already here.

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Blue Bricks

Blue bricks are a rare sight but still seen. The walls around the island city of Shev have them near their bottom, though other sailors said they were just turned that colour by the sea.

Ermina believed instead what some of the Shevites themselves told her. That the blue bricks around the bottom of their city's wall were made of the purest stone found in all the caves that wended through the cliffs over which the city sat. Caves where the more superstitious among them said they would never dare to tread. But even from her place at the top of every ship she ever sailed in, Ermina had never seen anything beneath the city's walls but breaking waves. Part of her wondered about the stories she had heard in the city's inns where the crews she had been with stayed. She believed what she would about the bricks, despite the evidence of her eyes, but the stories were always such a deep red.

She knew that red stories were not necessarily better than any other, but she loved them the most. They almost never moved at a slug's pace. Since she was a child the red stories always moved faster than gulls diving for fish, and their heroes and villains always came up from the plunge with their prey.

Ermina watched such gulls now. They looped and glided, all immaculate white tipped with grey, yellow and orange. Not the kind found around lakes but the sort that would give dull old hawks fair competition - the sort found by the sea, flying between white sails, white masts. She wondered why the place where she stood, her arms on its railing, was even called a "crow's nest." She'd never seen any crows flying out at sea, or even heard stories of such things.

The gulls's cries drowned the waves' crashing against the ship's side. The ship's sides that were still the colour of the meadow honey they made on the Kael Isles, despite recent layers of pitch. While the familiar sound of someone climbing rung over rung snuck in beneath that of the gulls she imagined herself back on those Isles.

“We’ve only just reached the green water and already this one is off beyond the Crumbs.”

Ermina stirred. “Oh, Cyril. There’s not as much to see out there as you and yours’d like to." She didn't bother to turn or straighten from her place at the nest's edge. "What’s got you up here?”

Cyril looked back down the way he had come. Beneath him the ship’s sides rose and fell. “Just to remind myself that even green has its limits.”

“Your maps'd tell you that just as easy.” She turned back to the water. “What’s the real reason?”

"We are bound for Shev. I thought you should know."

Ermina hunched her shoulders. "I already know. I'll get another look at those blue bricks, and hear some more stories about the creatures or gods or demons that gave them."

"And?" Cyril fingered a loose thread in his sleeve.

Ermina said nothing. Why does he press me on this? "And I'll be sure to shout down real loud when I see it all."

Ermina heard Cyril's leather jerkin creak before she heard any of his footsteps back to the ladder. She refused to look back, though she knew that he would linger before heading down. When she finally straightened and turned, she could hear him back down on the deck, giving commands and sending orders. She tried to think of the best red story from past voyages to Shev, but could only fear that with Cyril along the only one to be told would include them both.

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Closing

Check back here on Friday for Part Three of Shocktober, a peek into the perils of Silent House. For mid-week stuff, check out Tongues in Jars on Tuesday (Latin) and Thursday (Old English).

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[Sæternes-dæg] Annotated Links #21: Simple Solutions

1. "Scholars finish dictionary of ancient Egyptian language." ScienceBlog 19 September 2012. Web. 13 October 2012.

The Chicago Demotic Dictionary, developed at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, has finally been completed. The article details how the Ancient Egyptian common language has contributed to Modern English, as well as how it sheds light on how the common people of Ancient Egypt lived. It is written in a fairly conversational style.

Language news is always fascinating news, and so this one had to be included.

2. Knight, Chris. "From Doctor Who to Looper to Robot & Frank: The best sci-fi is made on a shoestring." National Post 7 October 2012. Web. 13 October 2012.

Knight uses Doctor Who (the Daleks, specifically), Looper, and Robot & Frank as examples of effective science fiction that's financially successful because of its small budget. These are contrasted with blockbuster movies of the past summer, and the take away is that good science fiction needs to be more substantial and referential to our own present to be successful.

This article is included because it shows that substance is more often appreciated than flash.

3. McGinn, Dave. "The $55K, 2,900-square foot, eco-friendly home – with no electricity bills." The Globe and Mail 10 October 2012. Web. 13 October 2012.

This article explains just what an "earthship" home is (one built from recycled materials, and that uses natural heating and water) and how they're more economically and environmentally feasible than your standard home. Its focus on a couple from Tilsonburg, Ontario lends this story a human interest element, and it's written in a simple style that makes broad use of quotations.

Wild designs and neat aesthetics combine with practicality in this subject, and so it's something I've got to share.

4. Baumann, Chris, and Shu Setogawa. "Korean teachers preferred." The Korea Herald 10 October 2012. Web. 13 October 2012.

This one is a report on a study of teacher preferences among Koreans. It shows that Koreans do prefer Korean teachers, even when it comes to English language instruction, because they are believed to be the most apt to demonstrate the proper etiquette and cultural values. Baumann and Setogawa's report is written in a formal, academic style and includes a handful of charts.

Although this report addresses the issue of ESL teachers, I included this one to help spread these findings and because it very quickly details how the Korean approach to ESL teaching is changing.

5. Everett-Green, Robert. "1K Wave: Can a great film be made for $1,000? Ingrid Veninger thinks so." The Globe and Mail 10 October 2012. Web. 13 October 2012.

Ingrid Veninger, Toronto filmmaker, believes that local filming and at-home editing mean that anyone who wants to make a movie can - and for only $1000 up front. Veninger has already run the 1K Wave contest, and five films were created as a direct result. This article is written in a conversational style with quotes from a variety of local filmmakers.

Creative contests that stand out like this one deserve to get attention. So, since this one also works with this Annotated Links' theme, it had to be included.

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Closing

Next week check the blog for a new polished draft of fiction (Monday), a look for the lurking in Silent House (Friday), and the next Annotated Links (Saturday).

And to keep your reading going throughout the week, check out Tongues in Jars for translations and commentary of the Latin poem "Dum Diane vitrea" and the Old English Beowulf.

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[Freya-dæg] Shocktober Pt.2: Is Leprechaun in the Hood any Good?

{Leprechaun in the Hood's movie poster, found on Wikipedia.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

Introduction

Welcome to Part Two of Shocktober - a look into the litanous Leprechaun series. Specifically, as requested, this week's review is a foray into the fifth movie in the Leprechaun franchise: Leprechaun in the Hood.

Interestingly enough, after four previous movies, this one's picked up the label of "comedy" as well as "horror," so let's just see how this freestyle film fares.

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Plot Summary

It's the 1970s and the man who will soon be known as "Mack Daddy" O'Nassas (Ice T) strikes it rich when he finds a stash of gold and an ugly statue of a leprechaun. He learns the secret of the two, and uses a magic flute found in the leprechaun's (Warwick Davis) gold to drive himself to fame and fortune.

Flash forward 20 years. The rap trio of Postmaster P. (Anthony Montgomery), Stray Bullet (Rashaan Nall), and Butch (Red Grant), are trying to get on the hip hop scene but just aren't that great. Down on their luck, and looking for some quick promotion to earn money they need to repair their equipment, they turn to rap mogul Mack Daddy.

But Mack Daddy's help will come at a cost: the trio will have to change their entire image! The trio's de facto leader Postmaster P. objects, and they're thrown out. Having no other alternative, the three plan to steal the medallion they saw hanging on a grotesque leprechaun statue in Mack Daddy's office.

Their heist is a success, but when they remove the medallion, the leprechaun comes back to life and begins hunting down everyone the trio's pawned his gold to. On top of that, Mack Daddy starts after them as well to get back the flute that they stole - the very source of his fame and fortune.

Will the trio figure out how to use the flute to cause their own meteoric rise to stardom? Will Mack Daddy catch up with them and bust a cap in each of their asses? Or will the leprechaun succeed in stealing back his gold as he leaves a trail of bodies in his wake?

The only thing that's sure is that nothing can be good when there's a Leprechaun in the Hood!

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The Good

First off, because this is a Leprechaun movie, it's an Irish exploitation movie to some degree. Add in the hood, and you get a modern blackspoitation film. Take them both together, and we get a heaping helping of rhyming lines. And any form of entertainment with rhyming couplets is as good as a cellar full of fine wines.

Additionally, we're treated to turns of phrase like this one:

{"Kinda like Robin Hood, 'stead we gonna be robbin' in the hood."}

Further, we get to see Ice T show off his acting chops. For example, we see him reacting to his friend's death:

We also see him scrounging around his afro for another weapon:

And, we see him (for much of the movie) acting pretty full of himself:

It's not an Oscar-worthy performance, but it ups the comedy and campiness of the movie. These things are important ingredients for its potency because they really help to carry it along. After all, being the fifth in the series, it can't really be expected to be as terrifying as the last four movies. So, instead it goes for the base comedy so often found in B-movies. As a result, this movie's like a bag of popcorn: you take one handful and then by the time you actually check to see how much is left in the bag, you find it empty.

Beyond the movie's B-qualities, it has some surprisingly dark moments. These are both major plot points, but definitely work well both to bolster the movie's characters and to buttress its comedy and campiness by adding some variety.

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The Bad

However, it can also be said that the movie's darker moments are there to make up for its lack of a "horror" element in general.

Leprechaun in the Hood follows the formula of a slasher or serial killer movie well enough (one person or entity is out to kill a group of people or an individual), but we're told right off the bat why the leprechaun goes after who he goes after. Because we know that whoever has the leprechaun's gold is going to buy the farm, the movie musters very little tension.

It doesn't help matters that the movie's titular villain isn't very menacing either. He's definitely brutal in the pursuit of those who have his gold, but otherwise he's as comedic a character as Ice T.

The other issue with the movie is that it doesn't really answer many of the questions it raises. Questions like: how did Mack Daddy know enough about the flute to only be interested in it when he first comes across the leprechaun's gold? Why is the flute's power selective in certain scenes? And how does the leprechaun manage to escape and hypnotize someone at the end?

Why all of these things happen is clear (convenience, convenience, and to leave it open for the next one), but the "how" is just as important because without that the movie loses its depth.

Explaining how the leprechaun's magic (and magic in general in the movie work) would add such depth, and help to build more tension as audiences tried to figure out the leprechaun's weak point for themselves based on what we're told. Instead, we're told nothing, and the movie becomes just a bit of light entertainment.

However, the worst part of the film is that the leprechaun isn't even really the main focus - instead, it's "The Hood." Since both things are in the title, both should share the spotlight, but the leprechaun is used as little more than a plot device.

He spouts off some dope rhyming couplets, makes cheerful threats, and then follows through with them. But he's really just the impetus for events, he never really gets into them. For example, the whole conflict between the rap trio and Mack Daddy barely involves him at all - he's just a third party that sometimes interferes with either side's plan.

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Judgment

Leprechaun in the Hood is an light romp that mixes comedy, camp, and exploitation style film into one entertaining blend. But if you're looking for substance, you've got to go with an earlier Leprechaun movie, or an older horror film. This one's as substantial as blown smoke.

That said though, Leprechaun in the Hood is well-paced, and it does offer some rather surprisng twists near the end.

So, Freya, dust this one off, and lift it up (but be sure to set it along the lower seats of Filmhalla).

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Closing

Check back here tomorrow for Annotated Links #21!

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[Moon-dæg] Some Lines about Laity?

Context
Child in a Church
Closing

{The sort of chancel that a child might run up to. Image found on chancel.org.uk.}

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Context

A poem that was written a few months ago, and that is based on some lines that came my way one day.

I can't say what, if anything, directly influenced this poem, but I had the image of a child walking up to the front of a church and just let a pen finish the thought. Maybe it's got deep resonances with modern day religious situations, or maybe it's just a configuration of words that sound pleasant together - after you read it, leave a comment to let me know what you think!

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Child in a Church

There is a child in a church
Raising and felling eye-sized feet
To claim further carpeted ground.
Before the front pew now,
An edge more shear than a fall from grace.

She turns back to titter and gibber at
Parents seated
Where only she can see.
Then back to the front and further stalking
But no more footfalls.

Giggles
As unlined hands grasp without cross
to reach the wooden table
From which her sight
Slips to the smithed cupboard lock
set as high as her apartment.

No man in any dress all of one colour to stop her,
She clamours to the ground floor of that ceiling scraper,
But begins to cry when no doorman smiles the wooden entrance open.

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Closing

Check back here on Friday for a search for what's truly scary in Leprechaun in the Hood, and on Saturday for Annotated Links #21!

In the meantime, head over to Tongues in Jars for my dead language translation posts on Tuesday and Thursday.

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[Sæternes-dæg] Annotated Links #20: Bending Borders

1. Koh, Yoree. "Novelist Murakami Weighs In on Japan Territorial Rows." Japan Real Time (The Wall Street Journal) 28 September 2012. Web. 06 October 2012.

Koh recaps Haruki Murakami's stance on Japan's current territorial disputes as they appeared in an essay that made the front page of the Asahi Shimbun. Murakami argues that these territorial disputes are threatening the cultural ties that the three Asian countries have established over recent decades, and that they're "like getting drunk on cheap sake." This article is written in a plain, direct style.

Haruki Murakami is an amazing writer, and the matter of Japanese-South Korean-Chinese territorial disputes is one of interest since I recall how passionate many South Koreans were about their owning Dokdo (Takeshima, in Japan), so inlcuding this article was a must.

2. Stusinski, Melissa. "‘Looper’-Like Time Travel Possible, Scientists Say." The Inquisitr 28 September 2012. Web. 06 October 2012.

A misleadingly titled article that suggests that time travel to the future is possible, while time travel to the past is much more problematic. This one is written in a very conversational style that makes it seem like a token blog entry.

Despite its brevity, this article is included because it is a solid summary of time travel mechanics.

3. Tozer, Jessica L.. "Sensors on Scan." Armed With Science 2 October 2012. Web. 06 October 2012.

Dr. Chris Field at the Naval Research Laboratory is currently working on technology that does just what Star Trek's tricorder does - scan an area for any and all vapours it contains. Various applications for this quarter-sized technology are discussed, ranging from carbon monoxide detection to airport security applications. Tozer writes in an informal style.

Anything about such amazing science simply has to be included. It's practically the law.

4. Oh, Young-Jin. "Coming out on Psy." The Korea Times 2 October 2012. Web. 06 October 2012.

This one offers a thought-provoking look at the Psy phenomenon from the perspective of someone who thinks that Psy represents nothing Korean. In it Oh relates his thoughts on Psy and how they've evolved to his current stance that Psy represents more of global pop culture than Korean pop culture. It is written in a prim, yet conversational style.

Because of the wild popularity of Psy, this one had to be included to offer a counter-argument to his apparent bolstering of the Korean cultural wave that's supposedly swept over the world in recent weeks.

5.Clayton, Nick. "Scientists Look to Use Bee’s Brains to Control Flying Robots." Tech Europe (The Wall Street Journal) 4 October 2012. Web. 6 October 2012.

Researchers at the universities of Sheffield and Sussex are looking into using bee brains to power flying recon robots. Among the uses for these robots, the article focuses on their being used to gather information to help rescue teams figure out what the next best option is. It is a short article, written in a plain style.

This one's included because it's some exciting news from the world of robotics, and it's not often that social insects are thought of as being as useful to science as social mammals.


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Closing

Next week, watch for another (much more recent) poem on Monday, and a prowl for the palatable in Leprechaun In The Hood on Friday!

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[Freya-dæg] Shocktober Pt.1: Some Screaming Skullduggery

{The movie poster from The Screaming Skull, found on Wikipedia.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

Introduction

Well, it's October proper now, and so there are a few movies that I've scared up for the month that hosts Halloween that I've just got to check out. First up in the four part Shock-tober film fest is the 1958 fright-fest, The The Screaming Skull.

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Plot Summary

Eric Whitlock (John Hudson), now happily married to his second wife Jenni (Peggy Webber), returns to his estate after some years away.

Everything within it is just as it was left, and the gardener has been keeping the grounds as if Eric - or his late first wife Marian who tragically died near the property's pond - never left. But as strange things begin to distract Jenni and she starts to see and hear things that Eric assures her are not there it seems that the estate is not yet finished with sorrow.

Bumps in the night become real reasons for terror, but is Jenni truly seeing and hearing things as they are? Or is Eric right and there's nothing at all the matter in their freshly minted marriage?

When it comes to matters of creepy gardeners, strange noises, and bizarre appearances of skulls everywhere, nothing can be certain - even the cry of a peacock could be the sound of The Screaming Skull!

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The Good

For better or worse, this movie has one thing going for it: A 1950s car with seagull doors!

Neat props aside, The Screaming Skull definitely has its moments of mild fright. But what the movie does best is create atmosphere. The colonial estate on which the film is set already lends itself well to this, but the tension is also ratcheted up through Jenny's constant edginess.

Much like another ill-thought of movie from the middle of the 20th century - a little picture called Manos: The Hands of Fate - the best character in the movie are those who are on the sides.

The Reverend Edward Snow (Russ Conway) and his wife (Tony Johnson), are interesting, if static figures, but just as in Manos, the greatest character in the movie is Mickey (Alex Nicol), the estate's gardener (and the film's director). Just like Torgo, Mickey's motivations and personality are the most developed and worked through, and so likewise, he is always a curious figure to watch.

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The Bad

However, the big problem with The Screaming Skull is that it fails to establish real relationships between its characters. The one between Mickey and the memory of Marian is the best in the film, but even it is terribly thin and shallow. We're basically given a Catelyn Tully/Petyr Baelish situation (if I may be so bold as to jump genres), but nothing as complex develops from it.

Worst of all, though, the one relationship that the movie really needs to make us care about, that between Eric and Jenni, gets no development whatsoever. Eric mentions once (once!) that she's moneyed, and she gives no real indication as to why she's interested in the man.

Despite the insistence of the script, this is not a good show of a madly in love married couple. That most of their scenes come across as reads rather than actual conversation between any truly in love couple does nothing to help their case.

{"We need someone outside of the confusions of our love for each other."}

What's more, the characters of Jenny and Eric, again, those whom we should be made to care about the most, are pitiably underdeveloped. All we know about Eric is that he's been away from the estate for 3 years, he's re-married, and he must have some kind of job (right?).

To be fair, we do learn quite a bit about Jenny's past, but we don't get enough early on to really relate to her. Eric's under-development is disappointing, but with Jenny's downright terrible.

But why are relatable characters so important to horror movies?

Well, horror movies require characters that their viewers can relate to, since when those characters are in danger, or in tense situations, or scared, then we can feel those same emotions.

Jenny, as the new wife who is being introduced into the way of life that Eric is planning for, is the perfect audience proxy character. She, just as those watching, is being brought into a brand new scenario. But, because we're not able to really make a connection with her due to the mysteries of her background and attraction to Eric.

As a result, what is supposed to be a largely sympathetic genre becomes instead a plodding tense fest that comes across as comical rather than scary not because of the era's effects, but because without a character to see ourselves as or to empathize with, we the audience become objective observers, coldly removed from a movie whose genre requires emotional investment on at least some level.

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Judgment

The Screaming Skull and Manos: The Hands of Fate are definitely of the same ilk.

Both movies are low-budget, poorly executed horror movies that are just plain bad.

Yet, the difference between them is that Manos is so bad that it's good - it can show people the absolute worst way to make a movie in all of its aspects.

The Screaming Skull on the other hand is badly done, but lacks the main thing that redeems Manos: Interesting characters that have dynamic relationships and that are fascinating in their own right.

Because The Screaming Skull is missing such characters the house in which much of it happens is a perfect self-reflexive metaphor. The estate house is frightening in its own right (it is a horror movie after all), but absolutely empty - and therefore entirely uninteresting. What's more, aside from two throwaway lines, we're never given any clear reason for Eric's actions - unless he is, in fact, bound for the loony bin.

So, Freya, leave this one below as you fly over the field of fallen films. Oh, and don't get too close, you might fall into its bubble of boredom and tumble to the ground.

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Closing

Coming up tomorrow - Annotated Links #19. So be sure to watch for more wacky news and information!

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[Moon-dæg] Watching the Detective

Context
All an Act
Closing

{A traditional ransom note - probably from a real cut-up given its content. Image found on Free the Maps.}

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Context

This is another draft from my time spent at the local creative writing group. It's a story that carries on with the mystery element from the previous fiction entry, but that is completely unrelated to that piece.

Since it appeared incomplete in my notes, it still has the feel of being the opening for something bigger. Though, of course, I have given it a bit of a polish.

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All an Act

The page was still sticky with the yellow paste that held the letters to it. Bland letters and frazzled letters. All cut out by the same hand, but each written in its own.

"Where did you say you found this, again?"
"On the tuba case."
"And the tuba was still inside it?"

Ren rolled her eyes as Jason said the instrument was still in its place when he claimed to have found the note. It was unfortunate, but that was something her younger brother hadn't lost. Another thing. She put the letter down and then walked over to the case. Maybe there's a print or something, she mused.

The case was elephantine amidst the rest of Jason's room - strewn with miniatures. All of them were upright as if guarding every square inch of surface space not occupied by lamps. The music stand crowded close to the tuba's case for comfort.

"Look at this." Ren bent over the case.

Jason took his time to respond. When he did it was mostly just a grunt.

"Come on, now." She waited until his attention swung around to her. "There's a line along the case - in the dust, I mean."

"I don't see it." Jason looked over Ren's shoulder.

She stepped aside and pulled him into place in front of the case by his arm. "Here." Ren put her hand behind Jason's shoulder and nudged him to the exact spot where she judged she had been standing when she noticed the line. "You can only really see it in the light right here." She pointed. "It's just the way it falls."

Jason shrugged and turned to her. "So there's a line. What's that even mean?"

"Somebody must've dragged something across the case. Maybe it's a drawing or something." She craned her neck until she could see the path in the dust clearly again. "Are you sure you don't notice anything missing? Anything out of the ordinary? Out of place?"

"No. It's all here." Jason made a quick spot check over each shoulder. "Yeah. All there."

"And your room's locked?"

He eyed the door and then lowered his voice. "Yeah, you know that sis. It would need to be in a house like this. The rent's so cheap, after all - something's got to be wrong somewhere."

Ren straightened and turned to him, picking up the note along the way. "This better not be another job, Jason. I can't be playing the detective here, too."

Jason shrugged as if the motion was necessary to squeeze the words out of himself, "Why not?" He paused long enough to grin, "Acting practice never hurt anyone."

Ren eyed Jason as she turned, the note in hand. Watch that grin, brother - the last I checked, you were the only one in the house with liquid glue.

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Closing

Check back here on Friday for the first part of Shocktober, a four week look at some of the reportedly worst horror films ever made. First up: The Screaming Skull!

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