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silverstreams · 2 years

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closed loop: a doug rattmann oneshot

a short, first person exploration of why doug rattmann chooses to paint

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There are two things I know to be true:

One: I am alone inside Aperture.

Two: I am not alone inside Aperture.

I am alone because there are no people here, and therefore there is no one else to talk to, save my mind’s projections that animate my cube, that is. (It’s a great conversationalist.) Even if the cube’s voice wasn’t a hallucination and it was a simple companion cube, I would still talk to it. I need something to fill the airwaves besides the merciless march of machinery. Something to remind me I exist. That I am here.

Alive.

Defiant.

Defiantly alive.

Yet I am not alone because she is here. Not with me right now, of course. If that were the case I’d be dead. Luckily, the places I inhabit are places beyond her reach. These locations are few and far between and I guard them fiercely, because her reach is like a flood across a plain—sweeping and seeping—and I can never allow myself to forget that.

She knows that I am out here.

I know that she is out there.

She is weaved so intricately into the scaffolding of Aperture that I fear for every step I take, knowing that each footstep risks a ping to her systems that could ring loud enough to blind me. To survive, I must remain a ghost in her machine—a phantom bit of code that she can never trace into.

I cannot exist.

So, I do not exist.

And if I do not exist, then she is alone, too.

We are both alone. We are both here together. These diametric statements are mutually exclusive, and yet I hold the truth of them in my hand like a magnet. Positive. Negative. All part of the same closed loop.

A loop that neither of us can escape.

I struggle to mentally untangle the ways in which I am entangled with Aperture. This, more often than not, manifests in the paintings I scatter across my sanctuaries like some sort of horrible sneeze—a virus that can’t be eradicated.

I use these paintings to record what is true. Not necessarily what is accurate in a factual sense—that part doesn’t matter. It never matters. The brain is not a camera—it doesn’t care about the truth.

That’s the funny thing about truth: it’s subjective.

Our stories can be molded and edited and reshaped to suit our needs. Much in the way the neuroplastic brain restructures itself, we rearrange the truth until it becomes something we can handle. A distinct narrative. Because that is what we are, after all— one strange story from beginning to end.

I paint to create a rock-solid reference of reality. My brain, try as it does, cannot inject fabricated fears and doubts and events and memories if I have those stories painted in front of me. My brain cannot play with memory like a set of building blocks—removing and stacking and crashing and throwing—if I lock those blocks behind the glass case of a painting.

That is why I paint: not to know the truth, but to take my malleable memory and solidify it into something as solid as concrete.

But, like concrete, paint takes a long time to dry.

Even on the bone-dry panels, it takes tens of thousands of seconds for one coat of one color to dry, and it must dry before I layer on another. And I do layer. I must layer— because truth is not monochrome. It breaks the light of reality like a prism, splitting it into infinite facets of infinite colors. It takes time to capture even a fraction of that projection, but I have nothing if not time.

I can't ignore the possibility of my memories becoming corrupted before I can translate them into art. It happens. It always happens. That is why I started painting in the first place. My murals anchor me in the storm of schizophrenia, giving me a chain to grip when the maelstrom shrieks around me. But, in order to ensure that I paint the correct truth, I do my best to wait for a good day before finalizing any mural designs.

Even on the bad days, though, sketching out ideas allows me to record the reality of that moment—all that I think and all that I feel and all that I believe on that day. On a good day, I can recognize some of those past moments to be factually false, but what I felt was true to me in that moment, and I can still use that alternate reality to fuel my creativity.

Once I confirm my plans, I move into painting, and this does not depend on good days or bad days. My designs act as a blueprint for me to follow, a color-by-number that even I can't mess up. It takes time, yes, but all good things take time.

And, until I am alone no longer, I have nothing but time.

#portal 2 #doug rattmann #portal fanfiction #portal #silvers writing #rolled outta bed a few weeks ago and wrote the first draft of this in my notebook all in one go #the power of a headcanon you like

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doomedandstoned · 6 years

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Rise of the Wizard Union!

Part I: Seek & Ye Shall Find

By Billy Goate

Ceremonial Smoke by Wizard Union

After The Great Wizard Fight had scattered what was left of our clan to the four corners of this God-forsaken orb, it was believed that the Great Hoary Ones of Olde had all but disappeared from the land. Yet, in the progress of time, rumors passed by me -- whispers at first, faint as baby's breath, but slowly they crescendoed into a wyvern's roar. The Wizards were back, one traveler said feverishly before collapsing. His last words: "They have gone underground. Look to the barren wasteland of Michigan." Impossible, I muttered, as this region was long thought to be uninhabitable, cooked to a crisp after the nukes had done their worst.

Having heard good enough of these annoying anecdotes, my apprentice and I ventured forward into the vast unknown to find out whether this congress of baked mages was one of myth or of mischief. With cloak, staff, and Geiger counter in hand, we set out for the Forbidden Zone. As we crossed its borders, we begin to pick up on the trail of blunts and faint wi-fi signals. We did cross paths with Wild Savages and broke bread with Bubak, Blue Snaggletooth, and the Bison Machine. We did ride the Cavalcade to the dank steps of the Temple Of The Fuzz Witch, where we were compelled to partake in the bizarre Stone Ritual.

This unlikely fellowship with barbarian hordes led us ever closer to the fabled irradiated thaumaturges. It was said that after the blast, they had become both one and many and that these diviners could, through their strange alchemy, compel rocks to roll until they were transformed into an altogether different substance, something the smiths were wont to call "heavy metal." An enchanted guild had become responsible for crafting this heavy metal. They called themselves the WIZARD UNION.

Notes stealthily changed hands, leading us to close associates of this Wizard Union, both present and past. With care, I crossed the Laserbeams Of Boredom, walked over the husked remains of Lizerrd and Lord Centipede, followed the scent of Bladder and Verminous Scum. Nearer, still nearer, until my companion and I chanced upon the Wizard Union's lair.

There, my eyes could scarce believe, lay the very manuals of the Wizard Union containing the secrets of their magick. I tore eagerly through them, from 'Smoking Coffins' (2014) to 'Phantom Fury' (2016), finally partaking of the 'Ceremonial Smoke' (2017) itself. My eager apprentice could bear it no more and excitedly ventured forth into the cavernous dwelling of the Wizard Union in hopes of speaking with them. Meanwhile, I sent word to the skies by way of my trusty raven, declaring with a shriek: "Our brothers yet live in the frigid armpit of America!"

Art by Unexpected Spector

Part II: Knock & The Door Shall Be Opened

Interview by Shawn Gibson

Today, we're visiting with Samir Asfahani of the band Wizard Union from the Ann Arbor, Michigan area. Samir, maybe start by telling us who all is in Wizard Union and the album you just released, 'Ceremonial Smoke.'

Sure, sure. We have me on guitar and main vocals, Aaron (or "A Ron" as we like to call him) on bass and backup vocals, and there's Larry on drums. Though A Ron didn't record vocals on this particular record, we had special contribution from sound engineer JC and his girlfriend Lindsay, who recorded the special effects you hear in the album's title track.

You guys have a really good stoner-sludge sound -- vocals are harsh as hell.

Yeah, even though I run the Super Dank Metal Jams blog and my co-writer, Brandon, covers a lot of the doom and stoner stuff, I've kind of stuck with the sludge and now into more grindcore and death metal stuff. In Wizard Union's last album, Phantom Fury, we were experimenting more with hardcore-punk type vocals, and then things progressed from there. I approached the guys and said, "Hey, would you mind if I did it this way, to add something new to the mix? I'm not saying we need to tweak anything else at the moment, but this is kind of what I'm into." They said, "Yeah, go for it!" Anything to make us a little different or even just to be a little weird is good.

It's certainly refreshing for the genre, whether it's straight-up doom or some death, black, grind, or sludge combo. Really heavy, crazy shit turns me on! Go for different, go for unique, because far too many bands sound the same.

I don't really fault bands for that, though. When we started out, we definitely were just like, "Let's play slow and heavy music. This is the stuff we know and like." From there, we spent a lot of time exploring whatever we happened to be into at the time. I dropped the idea of having more of a collective, which is kind of developing into its own record label now. We're going to be dropping a lot of stuff that encompasses side projects, not being anything Wizard Union-related.

Going back to not faulting bands, you start out with what you like. It might be knocking off like, Electric Wizard, Sleep, or Sabbath. I think from there, you're there three or four albums in, you kind of have to make a choice and ask yourself if that's what you want to be, just a knock off band or do your own thing and find your own sound. We're still exploring that. Our last jam on Sunday, we were playing what sounded more along the lines of "Give Me That Amulet, You Witch!" I don't know if in the future we're going to have a regular release, then a companion release with more stuff like that to follow it up. You get two different sides of Wizard Union there, so we'll see!

I've been digging a lot of Konvent, Cavurn, and Spectral Voice, so it's awesome to hear what you've been doing with those Wizard Union vocals.

Yeah, I really like the death doom lately, definitely more old school sound, not anything super technical. On top of that, I'm not a technical player. I don't know too many bands that mix the death, doom, and sludge thing. That's something I wanted to explore more. There's definitely more bands out there that mix grind and sludge, I've been digging more of that. That's probably where many of my side projects will go once they've picked up steam.

Yeah, I'm really into Dragged Into Sunlight, Clinging To The Trees Of A Forest Fire, bands that like to blend grind and sludge, playing heavy and fast.

I don't think we'll get there with Wizard Union. I have Verminous Scum, a project with Clay, the drummer from Mutalatred out of Toledo. So there's a lot of blasts on that coming up, whenever we get our first recording mixed. It's a little like if Wizard Union had blast beats; it still has that core sound to it. That's what I've posted lately on my blog.

You've been involved in the heavy scene around Ann Arbor for a while now, haven't you?

We've been playing shows with bands from the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area. Ypsilanti, for people who aren't familiar with the area, is the next city over from Ann Arbor and that's where Eastern Michigan University is. It's kind of like a shared area almost. Because of Ann Arbor being gentrified, you're seeing the price of things going up and a lot of people are moving out of Ann Arbor to buy houses in Ypsilanti, especially artists. We usually play in Ypsi. I actually used to be in a band called Lord Centipede. We put out a vinyl called Centipede Up Your Ass. It's a kind of doom-tinged stoner-hardcore-thrash album, came out in 2012 or 2013. After we broke up, it just kind of sat there. I decided I wanted to do something with it, put it out again -- it will be up for download as soon as it's done mixing. Now the drummer is in a new band we've just booked a show with, called Bubak.

Cool!

Then there's Temple Of The Fuzz Witch, a Detroit band we're playing with, as well. There's Wild Savages, not really a doom band but they've got that stoner vibe, as does Bison Machine. There's Stone Ritual, those guys are pretty good. Cavalcade is a band out of Lansing we liked playing with recently. There's Blind Haven, who play the Toledo area -- they're really good. There’s Hung From The Rising Sun out of Northern Ohio. Those guys also play in the noise rock band Wax. I don't want to miss anybody on this. I know some people will get upset if I do! (laughs) Anybody we played with, if I didn't mention you, you're awesome!

Phantom Fury by Wizard Union

So you edit Super Dank Metal Jams and you’ve organized the Burnout Society Film Club, as well?

I started the Burnout Society Film Club on a suggestion from Joe Eldridge from Shade Beast Records. We were talking about cult films and he said, "Oh, yeah! Somebody should start a group about this." I was like, "Shit, I'll do it right now!" I immediately thought of a random name that had the initials "B.S." so Burnout Society was born and it's actually becoming more of a real life thing, not just something on the internet. It's turned into a local group in Ann Arbor. We have movie nights and just chat about film.

Nice!

We screen movies and it's usually themed. The first movie night was The Wild Life (1984) with Chris Penn, Sean Penn's brother, and Eric Stoltz. It was kind of made by the people who made Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982). The theme of the night was films that are still stuck on VHS. That was a film that was obscure; a lot of people didn't know about it. Then we watched another film, Dudes (1987) , that hasn't made it to DVD or Blu-ray. For whatever reason, they’re kind of like obscure, even though they're good movies, so I thought it'd be a cool first movie night. The second event we held was holiday themed: we had Black Christmas (1974) and The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978).

Star Wars holiday Special that was a rare thing.

We had a bootleg copy we were watching and it had the original commercials that aired, which were probably more entertaining than the Star Wars Holiday Special itself! (laughs) The next one I think is going to be Bigfoot themed. We're also going to do an actual screening at a bar for a film that's been passed on to us that we'd like to show people. We'd like to do public screenings for DIY filmmakers whenever possible.

We are all into the cult movies -- weird, strange movies. I've always been into 'em. I think it really took off when I was working at a Hollywood Video in high school.

Lucky!

Yeah! You got three movie rentals at a time. I'd just grab whatever I could find. It didn't take long before I started getting into Troma movies.

Lloyd Kaufman! Man's a fucking genius.

Have you ever met him?

Not yet, I bet that's wild.

I've met him three times.

So what's Lloyd Kaufman like?

He's really weird. He's really eccentric. He was really cool, too. Around the time that I met him the first time, he was showing Citizen Toxie (2000) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I volunteered to be Toxie at those events. (laughs) Have a friend who volunteered to be the Noxious Offender from Citizen Toxie, but we hadn't seen the movie yet, so we had no idea what we're getting into. Lloyd gave me a screener copy and was like, "Here, just watch it before you come out or whatever." I remember my friend and I were at my parents’ house watching it until 3 am, just laughing. My parents woke up screaming at us, "Be quiet!" (laughs)

That's awesome! I got started with The Toxic Avenger (1984). I'd get my grandma to take me to the video store and I could rent anything, she didn't check. We got back home and I started to play it around 8 pm. My grandma walked in on the locker room scene with topless women. "Nope, nope, nope!" she said. I was like, "Goddammit!" So I waited until midnight or so, snuck out of bed, and watched the rest of the movie.

Shame on you! (laughs)

Then I rented that Class of Nuke 'Em High (1986) , Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. (1990) , and other Troma flicks.

I feel you on watching The Toxic Avenger while you're young. I was a product of the times, when they were pushing R rated movies onto kids by making them cartoons. There was a Rambo cartoon, as well as a Robocop, Toxic Crusader, and Police Academy cartoon. The original Police Academy, remember, was rated R.

Right.

I recall being three or four years old and watching the Rambo cartoon and just begging my mom, "I know there's a movie based off of this -- you've got to let me see it!" I remember how devastated I was when I brought it to her at the video store and she was like, "No, you can’t get that, it's rated R!" It was the same thing with The Toxic Avenger. I was like, "This was a movie? Oh my god, I've got to see it now!" So then, a couple years later, I go and find it -- same thing. One night I was able to persuade my mom to let me watch The Toxic Avenger: Part II (1989). That finally happened and then I realized somehow it was connected to Class of Nuke 'Em High, just like looking at the covers. It wasn't until years later that I realized what Troma even was. They used to have those marathons on the USA Network.

I remember them well!

I know they had the Up All Night series, where they'd play all the movies -- Nuke 'Em High 1, 2, 3, and what not. They did a Toxic Avenger marathon during the day -- it was the weirdest thing. I don't know of any other time where this happened, it was a rare moment for USA, sometime in the mid-'90s, so I got to watch all three back-to-back.

Smoking Coffins by Wizard Union

What's a damned good book you've read lately?

See, the thing is I only read non-fiction.

Me, too.

Last fictional book I read was Ready Player One (2011). As far as fiction goes, I would recommend that totally. Anybody who wants to go see the movie, Spielberg is directing it. The premise takes place in a dystopian future, where everyone's doing this virtual reality thing. It’s not unlike Facebook, if Facebook was VR. Every bit of information comes to you in VR format -- movies, stuff like that. Everybody’s creating avatars for themselves to portray TV and film stars. That'll be cool translated on the screen. From what I've seen of the trailer, unfortunately, it's not going to be as literal as the book. The fact is it's being put out by Warner Brothers and Amblin. I think whatever properties those two production companies own is probably what you're more likely to see on screen. There are plenty of obscure references made in the book, though. It's a very entertaining read. As far as non-fiction, I recommend The Disaster Artist (2013).

Cool. I've seen the trailers for the movie. I didn't know it was a book as well.

Yeah, that's what it's based on. I do most of my "reading" through Audible. It's one thing I've learned, to be more productive, is actually listen to audiobooks if you can versus wondering, "When am I going to have time to read, anymore?" I got an Audible account and started doing books that way. I get through two books in like a month. I don't feel bad about it, I still read what I need to -- blogs, articles, and stuff like that. The one physical book I'm reading at the moment is The Tao Of Bill Murray (2016), which I got my wife. That's a really entertaining book.

I bet. I love Bill Murray!

Trying to think of one more book -- a random one -- it's All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan (2005) from Elizabeth Warren and her daughter, Amelia. I'd recommend that to anyone who's having financial issues or trying to figure out how to get their financial troubles back together. I think after going through that book I was like, "If she ran for president, I'd 100% vote for her." She could get this country back on track. (laughs) If she's able to get the middle class to figure out their finances there has to be a way. She's got a plan! (laughs)

I’m not too confident in the one we have in office now. I don't think he's made it so great again. I don't think it was great in the first place. Just my opinion.

Well, I'm not going to go into that, just for starting a comment thread about who's on whose side. I'm sure that readers can figure out where we align politically. I feel like when Cheeto came into office, there were a lot of people who felt like this'll make music great again or whatever. It'll make people angry again. I haven't really noticed much of that. (laughs) There's always been angry music; there's always been politically charged music. Whatever gets you motivated to create, go for it, you know? That's one thing I want to encourage people, that's what I push myself to do. Everything I do is to create, to keep going and make more whatever it is and not to question yourself or hold yourself back. That's why I do the blogs. Burnout Film Society is going to starting a blog soon, with reviews for movies.

Cool.

The members of Burnout Film Society are all people that, as far as I know, haven't written for a blog before. I want to show people that you don't have to write for something. If you love something, if you have a passion for it, obviously you know what to say.

It exudes!

That's what it was for me when I wrote Dank Metal Jams. I thought, "If I were in a band, I'd want someone to write a review for me." Not that I'm doing these guys a favor, but I truly want the people to listen to their music! I'm going to write what I think about an album and just put it out there. Hopefully, I can get some other people on board that feel the same and agree, "Yeah you're right!" That's the only reason I have the blog around. It gives me something to do, while constantly introducing me to new music. It keeps me open to new ideas and fuels my creativity, especially when it comes to song writing. "Oh I can do it this way, I didn't even think about that way, or I can mix this with that."

What’s in the crystal ball for Wizard Union this year?

We've been around, this is going to be our sixth year now, and we're still kicking! We know we're not quitting anytime soon and we've got more ideas we want to put out there. I have another kind of stoner side-project I'm working on that doesn't have a name yet. It's me and Aaron, the bass player. Actually, we switched it up -- I'm doing bass and he's doing guitar. Then we have a local drummer who is in a one-man band called Laserbeams Of Boredom. We're working on that and finish recording in early spring. We still haven't settled on a name for that one, either. I don't want to drop any names or suggestions yet before it happens. I don't know if it will be out by the end of this year or the beginning of next year, but it's definitely something we're working on right now.

Samir, thanks a lot!

Oh yeah, thank you!

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#D&S Interviews #Wizard Union #Ann Arbor #Michigan #Doom #Death Metal #Death Doom #Doom Metal #Shawn Gibson #Doomed & Stoned

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sinfulfolk · 7 years

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Poem: Middle Passage

Black History Month: February

Middle Passage

Robert Hayden

Jesús, Estrella, Esperanza, Mercy:

Sails flashing to the wind like weapons, sharks following the moans the fever and the dying; horror the corposant and compass rose.

Middle Passage: voyage through death to life upon these shores.

“10 April 1800— Blacks rebellious. Crew uneasy. Our linguist says their moaning is a prayer for death, ours and their own. Some try to starve themselves. Lost three this morning leaped with crazy laughter to the waiting sharks, sang as they went under.”

Desire, Adventure, Tartar, Ann:

Standing to America, bringing home black gold, black ivory, black seed.

Deep in the festering hold thy father lies, of his bones New England pews are made, those are altar lights that were his eyes.

Jesus Saviour Pilot Me Over Life’s Tempestuous Sea

We pray that Thou wilt grant, O Lord, safe passage to our vessels bringing heathen souls unto Thy chastening.

Jesus Saviour

“8 bells. I cannot sleep, for I am sick with fear, but writing eases fear a little since still my eyes can see these words take shape upon the page & so I write, as one would turn to exorcism. 4 days scudding, but now the sea is calm again. Misfortune follows in our wake like sharks (our grinning tutelary gods). Which one of us has killed an albatross? A plague among our blacks—Ophthalmia: blindness—& we have jettisoned the blind to no avail. It spreads, the terrifying sickness spreads. Its claws have scratched sight from the Capt.‘s eyes & there is blindness in the fo’c’sle & we must sail 3 weeks before we come to port.”

What port awaits us, Davy Jones’ or home? I’ve heard of slavers drifting, drifting, playthings of wind and storm and chance, their crews gone blind, the jungle hatred crawling up on deck.

Thou Who Walked On Galilee

“Deponent further sayeth The Bella J left the Guinea Coast with cargo of five hundred blacks and odd for the barracoons of Florida:

“That there was hardly room ’tween-decks for half the sweltering cattle stowed spoon-fashion there; that some went mad of thirst and tore their flesh and sucked the blood:

“That Crew and Captain lusted with the comeliest of the savage girls kept naked in the cabins; that there was one they called The Guinea Rose and they cast lots and fought to lie with her:

“That when the Bo’s’n piped all hands, the flames spreading from starboard already were beyond control, the negroes howling and their chains entangled with the flames:

“That the burning blacks could not be reached, that the Crew abandoned ship, leaving their shrieking negresses behind, that the Captain perished drunken with the wenches:

“Further Deponent sayeth not.”

Pilot Oh Pilot Me

Aye, lad, and I have seen those factories, Gambia, Rio Pongo, Calabar; have watched the artful mongos baiting traps of war wherein the victor and the vanquished

Were caught as prizes for our barracoons. Have seen the nigger kings whose vanity and greed turned wild black hides of Fellatah, Mandingo, Ibo, Kru to gold for us.

And there was one—King Anthracite we named him— fetish face beneath French parasols of brass and orange velvet, impudent mouth whose cups were carven skulls of enemies:

He’d honor us with drum and feast and conjo and palm-oil-glistening wenches deft in love, and for tin crowns that shone with paste, red calico and German-silver trinkets

Would have the drums talk war and send his warriors to burn the sleeping villages and kill the sick and old and lead the young in coffles to our factories.

Twenty years a trader, twenty years, for there was wealth aplenty to be harvested from those black fields, and I’d be trading still but for the fevers melting down my bones.

III

Shuttles in the rocking loom of history, the dark ships move, the dark ships move, their bright ironical names like jests of kindness on a murderer’s mouth; plough through thrashing glister toward fata morgana’s lucent melting shore, weave toward New World littorals that are mirage and myth and actual shore.

Voyage through death, voyage whose chartings are unlove.

A charnel stench, effluvium of living death spreads outward from the hold, where the living and the dead, the horribly dying, lie interlocked, lie foul with blood and excrement.

Deep in the festering hold thy father lies, the corpse of mercy rots with him, rats eat love’s rotten gelid eyes.

But, oh, the living look at you with human eyes whose suffering accuses you, whose hatred reaches through the swill of dark to strike you like a leper’s claw.

You cannot stare that hatred down or chain the fear that stalks the watches and breathes on you its fetid scorching breath; cannot kill the deep immortal human wish, the timeless will.

“But for the storm that flung up barriers of wind and wave, The Amistad, señores, would have reached the port of Príncipe in two, three days at most; but for the storm we should have been prepared for what befell. Swift as the puma’s leap it came. There was that interval of moonless calm filled only with the water’s and the rigging’s usual sounds, then sudden movement, blows and snarling cries and they had fallen on us with machete and marlinspike. It was as though the very air, the night itself were striking us. Exhausted by the rigors of the storm, we were no match for them. Our men went down before the murderous Africans. Our loyal Celestino ran from below with gun and lantern and I saw, before the cane- knife’s wounding flash, Cinquez, that surly brute who calls himself a prince, directing, urging on the ghastly work. He hacked the poor mulatto down, and then he turned on me. The decks were slippery when daylight finally came. It sickens me to think of what I saw, of how these apes threw overboard the butchered bodies of our men, true Christians all, like so much jetsam. Enough, enough. The rest is quickly told: Cinquez was forced to spare the two of us you see to steer the ship to Africa, and we like phantoms doomed to rove the sea voyaged east by day and west by night, deceiving them, hoping for rescue, prisoners on our own vessel, till at length we drifted to the shores of this your land, America, where we were freed from our unspeakable misery. Now we demand, good sirs, the extradition of Cinquez and his accomplices to La Havana. And it distresses us to know there are so many here who seem inclined to justify the mutiny of these blacks. We find it paradoxical indeed that you whose wealth, whose tree of liberty are rooted in the labor of your slaves should suffer the august John Quincy Adams to speak with so much passion of the right of chattel slaves to kill their lawful masters and with his Roman rhetoric weave a hero’s garland for Cinquez. I tell you that we are determined to return to Cuba with our slaves and there see justice done. Cinquez— or let us say ‘the Prince’—Cinquez shall die.”

The deep immortal human wish, the timeless will:

Cinquez its deathless primaveral image, life that transfigures many lives.

Voyage through death to life upon these shores.

[Read more Poetry Posts]

Poem: Middle Passage was originally published on Ned Hayes

#Poetry #Writing #sinfulfolk #books #writing #novels #book #bookshelf #sinful-folk #Sinful Folk #novel

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incorrect-pokespe-quotes · 7 years

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The Phantom of the Musical

I hope it’s not too late for me to enter this for the AU fanfic contest. This isn’t exactly a traditional AU - the story pretty much follows the plot of the musical Phantom of the Opera, and references most of the songs from it - but it is definitely an alternate universe, and includes a lot of worldbuilding to get all the characters to where they are. I currently have 12 chapters completed and am working on the 13th, so this is pretty much just a preview of the project & it may be edited by the time I start posting the whole story. Enjoy :)

Chapter 1 - Newbies

The stunning soprano sang boisterously to the nonexistent audience, throwing her arms into the air as if gathering their praises and drawing them into herself. Each of her steps was pompously placed on the stage, jostling her hair, which dangled above the thin white shawl that covered her shoulders. She held her head just above relaxed position, but not so high that she couldn’t look down on the empty seats that stretched out in front of her.

Behind her, the chorus girls – or, as she preferred to call them, the background dancers – mimicked her movement around the stage, but with more fluid and graceful motions. Their magenta and black dresses had been chosen specifically to compliment the soprano’s pink and white dress; she had tried to get the blonde girl to wear a wig so her own hair would stand out more, but the girl’s mother refused and got her way only because she managed the ballet chorus.

Per the script, the scene that they were rehearsing included a pair of Audino to dance with the soprano, but the Audino in question were being borrowed for the afternoon by the Pokémon Musical team for a special demonstration show. She liked it that way, since those two Pokémon weren’t hogging her stage.

Backstage, the head of the Musical Theater watched the practice. Her arms were folded and she had a pensive expression on her face. “What’s on your mind, White?” asked the ballet manager, who was watching the practice next to her.

White didn’t react immediately. The ballet manager had to repeat her name a few times before she finally registered the question. “Oh! Sorry,” she said with a sigh. “There’s a producer from the Sinnoh region visiting today who’s creating a documentary on alternatives to battling for Pokémon Trainers, so we’re doing a special demonstration Musical for him. As the creator and head of the Pokémon Musical I ought to be there to help. But this show has to be ready for tonight…”

“Your team is quite capable,” she reassured White.

“I know you’re right, Iris,” White replied. “But I can’t let this overbooking problem happen again.” She glanced behind her and saw two young men approaching them. “Perfect! Your timing is impeccable, gentlemen,” she told them. Then she headed onstage and waved to the maestro to stop the music.

“You’re doing fine, everyone,” she called. “But I have an announcement to make.”

The soprano’s arms fell. She seemed offended that anyone would dare interrupt her performance. The chorus girls, the maestro, the stagehands, and the tenor who had just come onstage all gathered around White, Iris, and the two young men that they didn’t recognize.

“As you know, for some time there have been rumors of my imminent retirement,” White began. “I can now tell you that these were all false. I am twenty-four years old and I have a long work life ahead of me. However, I don’t intend to work myself to death. Between the Pokémon Musical, Musical Shows, Pokéstar Studios and my BW Agency, I don’t get a moment’s rest and I still don’t have time to do everything I need to do. So,” she continued, gesturing to the two men beside her, “I’ve hired these two gentlemen to manage the Musical Shows from now on. Please, introduce yourselves.”

“Gladly!” exclaimed the bigger of the two men in a thick Kalosian accent. He looked a bit out of place in his baggy cargo pants and brown-and-white striped polo shirt. “My name is Tierno André. I have been a native of the Kalos region for 22 years, and been dancing for 17. Consider me your expert of song and dance!”

“I will be taking care of more of the business side of things,” the other man said, quite the opposite of his companion in terms of height, weight, and attire. His cream-colored suit framed his slight figure well and matched his wire-frame glasses, but didn’t quite match his bright orange bob of hair. “My name is Trevor Firmin. I am also from Kalos, and it is my pleasure to work with you all.”

“We would also like to introduce to you our new patron,” Tierno adds. “The Viscount of Chenonceau…here he is now!”

A young man in a navy-blue suit walked up from the wing, waving and flashing a beautiful white smile. His messy brown hair fell around his face in a handsome way, and his light-gray eyes sparkled with enthusiasm.

“My parents and I are honored to support the arts,” the viscount said coolly, shaking White’s hand. “Especially those held in this world-renowned Musical Theater.”

The soprano strode up to him and offered out her hand. He shook it politely, and she mirrored his smile. “Viscount,” White said with a hint of reluctance, “Lady Yvonne Gābena. Our leading soprano for the last six seasons.”

This introduction was followed by a courteous but quick round of applause, and the tenor gave a polite cough. “Ah, and we mustn’t forget Leo Piangi,” White says, gesturing to the lanky young boy behind Yvonne. He looked slightly ridiculous because of his costume, which required a pair of green foam monster legs that made his movements sluggish and awkward.

“Good to meet you, sir,” the viscount nodded to him. “But I believe I’m keeping you from your rehearsal. I look forward to this evening’s performance.”

“Yes, yes, thank you, sir,” the maestro said briskly. “Now, Monsieur André, Monsieur Firmin, you’ll need to acquaint yourselves with the script. Yvonne, please keep your chin down when you sing. I can hear you choking your voice when you hold it that high. Leo, your footsteps are too loud. I don’t need to hear exactly when you run onstage.”

Yvonne folded her arms crossly, Leo nodded obediently and White left the stage with the viscount. The rest of the crew dispersed to their own jobs and the performers returned to their practice. Iris took the new managers upstage, where they could watch the chorus girls dance without interrupting their performance. “We’re quite proud of our ballet chorus, monsieur,” Iris informed them.

“I can see why,” Tierno replied. “You train them all, signora?”

“Skip the formalities, if you please,” Iris said. “A simple ‘Mrs. Giry’ will suffice. I am the ballet manager, so naturally I make sure all our chorus girls perform splendidly.”

“That little blonde angel is especially talented,” Tierno commented.

“My daughter, Yuki Giry.”

“And that exceptional beauty!” Trevor butted in, pointing to another chorus girl. Two long strands of her dark brown hair followed her as she moved; the rest of it was held up in buns on either side of her head. “No relation, I trust?”

“Whitley Daaé,” Iris identified her. “Very promising talent. Very promising.”

“Daaé?” Tierno echoed. “Any relation to the famous violinist from Fiore?”

“Her only child. Orphaned at twelve, when she came to live at the Theater and train in the ballet. She’s like a daughter to me.”

Iris brought the pair to the other side of the stage, where they watched the performers finish the routine. Once they were finished, the maestro, frowning, called to Yvonne. “Lady Gābena, you need to keep your steps light as well.”

Yvonne lifted a hand to her head in a dramatic flourish. “Chin down, arms up, feet light,” she moaned. “Will the maestro ever be satisfied?”

He exchanged glances with Iris and looked back at Yvonne. “I will be satisfied when you can get it right,” he replied.

“When I can get it right!?” she repeated shrilly. “I–” She broke off when she noticed White and the viscount returning and quickly spun around, storming off in a huff. “I will not put up with this – this harassment any longer!” she shrieked.

“My, she’s overreacting a bit,” Trevor commented. “Miss White, calm her down, will you?”

“Ah, but isn’t that your job now?” White said, feigning surprise. She handed him the copy of the script that she had gone to get, then smirked and added in a fake Kalosian accent, “Good luck, messieurs. You will need it.”

The new show heads were taken aback by White’s response. She gestured towards the opposite side of the stage, where Yvonne was arguing with a blonde stagehand. Trevor and Tierno exchanged glances and quickly hurried over to her.

“Where is my precious Furfrou?” Yvonne demanded.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know,” the stagehand replied awkwardly. “Er, weren’t your assistants taking care of it?”

“Then fetch them!” Yvonne shouted. Trevor and Tierno stood awkwardly behind her. Finally, Trevor cleared his throat.

“Signora,” he said hesitantly. “Please, calm down. There is no need for all this.”

“There is complete need for all of this!” Yvonne cried. “I deserve respect, but these – these beasts give me none! I cannot spend another day working for these ghastly people!”

“Do not say that, Lady Gābena,” Tierno interjected. “We have only just arrived. Allow us some time to get settled in, to see what you can do, all right?”

Yvonne scowled, and they could tell that she wasn’t convinced. Suddenly, Trevor had an idea. “A song!” he exclaimed, flipping through the script. “Ah – the aria in Act III, perhaps? You should sing it for us, Lady Gābena.”

“Well,” Yvonne huffed. “I suppose I could manage one song. Reyer!” she snapped. “You know the song.”

The maestro sighed and began to conduct the orchestra. Yvonne began to sing the aria in a very operatic style, stretching every note and forcing the orchestra to play much slower than the recommended tempo for the song. He hated it, but he knew trying to correct her would just make her even more insufferable. She hardly listened to him in the first place.

Suddenly, screams from onstage caught his attention and he looked up from the music in time to watch one of the backdrops falling to the stage, just behind Yvonne. The maestro quickly stopped the musicians and made his way onstage as people clamored to check on Yvonne and speculated about what had just happened. “He’s here!” Yuki Giry’s voice rose above the others. “The Phantom of the Musical!” The viscount glanced at her in interest.

“Bianca!” Maestro Reyer called to the blonde stagehand, who had gone up to work in the rafters. “Bianca Buquet, what’s going on up there?”

“Please, Cheren, don’t look at me!” Bianca protested. “I wasn’t at that post…and there’s no one up here besides me,” she continued. “If there is, well…he must be a ghost!”

There was more murmuring from onstage. “Signora, these things do happen,” Trevor offered nervously, attempting to laugh it off.

“‘These things do happen,’ eh?” Yvonne repeated, chuckling softly. “You have been here five minutes, what do you know?” she hissed. “‘These things do happen’ all the time! For the past three years, these things do happen!” She spun around and pointed a finger at White, who was conversing quietly with Iris near the edge of the stage. “And did you stop them from happening? No!”

White was a little taken aback to be addressed so directly, but she said nothing – what could she say? Yvonne’s accusations were spot on. “And you…you are just as bad as her!” Yvonne screeched at Trevor. “Until you stop these things from happening, then…this thing,” she pointed to herself, “is not happening! Good day!”

She stormed off the stage, calling, “Xavier! Shauna! Bring me my Furfrou!”

White cleared her throat. “Well, gentlemen, I’m afraid there’s not much more I can do to assist you,” she said. “If you need me, I’ll be giving the viscount a little tour. Good luck, and, ah…please do mind my friend in the rafters.” With this cryptic message, she dragged the viscount off the stage.

Tierno looked quizzically at Cheren. “Mind her ‘friend in the rafters’?”

“Ah, I can answer that, monsieur,” Iris said, walking up between them. She offered them a letter. “I have a message for you from our resident phantom…the Opera Ghost.”

“Oh, good heavens, you’re all obsessed,” Trevor complained.

“He welcomes you to his Musical Theater–”

“His Musical Theater?” Tierno repeated scornfully.

“–and commands that you continue to leave Box 5 empty, for his use.” Iris smiled slyly. “He also reminds you that his salary is due.”

“His salary!”

“Well, Miss White used to give him 600,000 Pokédollars a month.”

“600,000 Pokédollars!?”

“Yes, that’s what I said,” Iris replied. “Of course, maybe you can afford more, with the viscount as your patron…”

“That’s preposterous!” Tierno spluttered. “Miss White hasn’t left the theater. If she wants to pay this ‘ghost’, then by all means let her continue to do it.”

“But he doesn’t bother with Pokémon Musicals,” Iris informed them. “The Phantom is only interested in Musical Shows.”

“Speaking of Musical Shows,” Cheren interrupted, “we must get back to practicing for the gala tonight.”

“Why bother?” Trevor snapped, snatching the letter from Iris’s hands. “Obviously, we will have to cancel the gala,” he said, ripping up the note, “because it appears we have lost our star!”

“You do realize what it will look like to the public if you cancel Miss White’s birthday gala, right?” Iris interjected. “They’ll see the new managers refusing to celebrate their predecessor. It won’t gain you any favor in the public eye.”

“Surely there must be an understudy for the role,” Tierno said hopefully, in contrast to his partner’s horrified look.

“Understudy?” Cheren echoed incredulously. “There is no understudy for Lady Gābena. She’d never allow it.”

Trevor groaned and rubbed his temples. “What do we do now, André?”

“Whitley Daaé could sing it, sir,” Iris offered. The chorus girl stared at her in surprise. “She has been taking lessons from a great teacher.”

“Who?” Tierno asked skeptically.

“I-I don’t know his name, sir,” Whitley stammered. But how does she know that?

“Let her sing for you, monsieur. She has been well taught,” Iris assured them.

“This is doing nothing for my nerves,” Trevor grumbled as Whitley timidly stepped up in front of them.

“From the beginning of the aria, please, miss,” Cheren called, stepping back to his music stand.

She began slowly, her voice trembling. “Think of me, th-think of me fondly when we’ve…said…”

Her voice trailed off into silence. She couldn’t do it. Not with so many people around, for something so important as the starring role of the show…

Think of me, think of me fondly when we’ve said goodbye!

That’s right…he had practiced this part with her so many times that she knew it by heart. He had been encouraging her to do it for so long…she just had to imagine she was back there, practicing with him. All she needed to do was open her mouth and sing.

“Think of me, think of me fondly when we’ve said goodbye! Remember me, once in a while. Please promise me you’ll try! When you’ll find that once again you long to take your heart back and be free, if you ever find a moment, spare a thought for me!”

She never thought she’d do it, but here she was, Whitley Daaé, standing on the stage in the Musical Theater, singing for hundreds or maybe even thousands of people. It was just like he had said – it felt right.

“We never said our love was evergreen, or as unchanging as the sea, but if you can still remember, stop and think of me. Think of all the things we’ve shared and seen; don’t think about the way things might have been.” She had a wistful smile on her face as she sat back on the bench, looking up at the pair of Illumise and Volbeat that danced through the air. “Think of me, think of me waking silent and resigned. Imagine me, trying too hard to put you from my mind. Recall those days, look back on all those times, think of the things we’ll never do. There will never be a day when I won’t think of you!”

The viscount watched her performance with muted awe from his personal viewing box. “Can it be? Can it really be Whitley?” he murmured to himself. Long ago, it seemed so long ago, how young and innocent they were. “She may not remember me, but I remember her.”

“Flowers fade, the fruits of summer fade. They have their seasons, so do we. But please promise me that sometimes you will think of me!”

The end of Whitley’s song was met with thunderous applause, and she looked out at the audience with excitement sparkling in her eyes. For the first time since her mother’s death, she felt like she could be the performer she always encouraged her to be.

#pokespe AU fanfic contest #not a quote #trainer white #trainer cheren #trainer bianca #trainer lack-two #trainer whi-two #trainer x #trainer y #trainer trevor #trainer tierno #trainer shauna #submission

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hermanwatts · 5 years

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Sensor Sweep: Firefly, Black Mask, Original Adventures Reincarnated

Anime (RMWC Reviews): By 1969, Japan had advanced quite far in terms of animation. Especially when a studio would put real effort behind a project, such as when Toei Animation released Sora Tobu Yuureisen in July of that year. Known in English as The Flying Phantom Ship or The Flying Ghost Ship, the film is a 60 minute full-color adventure into suspense, conspiracies, and super science with a few important creators involved.

T.V. (John C. Wright): We were discussing Joss Whedan’s late and lamented outer space horse opera FIREFLY. A reader named Sophia’s Favorite holds forth sharp criticism for the show: In my opinion Firefly is the JFK of TV shows: a mediocrity at best that gets ludicrously overrated solely because it was taken “too soon”. He goes on to list several reasons for saying so.

T.V. (Jon Mollison): If you’re into network action/dramedy shows, you’ll want to give tonight’s episode of Hawaii Five-O a look. For one thing, the show has not been renewed for an eleventh season. Ten years is a pretty good run for any show, and this revival is one of the few to come close to matching the original.

Writing (Pulprev): Conventional wisdom states that characters should be flawed. Nobody can relate to perfect people. Flawed characters are more believable, more likely to gain the reader’s sympathies. But the conventional wisdom doesn’t teach how. In the hands of lesser writers, this usually manifests as a grab bag of random negative traits. Alcoholism, smoking, minor but not debilitating mental illness, snarkiness, cynicism. Poorly handled, these traits add flavor to the story but they do not significantly influence the characters, and therefore do not influence the plot. The result is a patchwork person, a collection of traits and behaviors sewn together and little else.

RPG (RPG Pundit): “Adventure Paths” Aren’t Deep-Roleplay, They’re D&D for the Special Bus Today: “Adventure Paths” and story-mechanics are not ‘deep roleplaying’. For that, you need the freeform style of the OSR. Take off the D&D training wheels!

Horror Fiction (Wasteland & Sky): Today I would like to talk a bit about horror fiction. It isn’t brought up much on this blog because my knowledge on the subject isn’t too vast, but I have been reading a bit about it recently and would like to share some observations. This is because horror, like just about everything else, isn’t doing so hot these days. Though I suppose that isn’t much of a surprise.

Science Fiction (Washington Post): In “The Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom — Volume One: The 1930s,” David and Daniel Ritter — a father-and-son team — show us, through words and pictures, how a passion for science fiction evolved into a way of life for young people who couldn’t get enough of that crazy Buck Rogers stuff. The result is a sumptuous scrapbook of photographs, magazine covers, artwork and hundreds of articles, letters and typescripts, everything beautifully held together by the Ritters’ concise but enthralling text.

Cinema & H. P. Lovecraft (DMR Books): Entertaining adaptations of H. P. Lovecraft’s work are, in my estimation, few and very far between. While I’ve been pleasantly surprised by a few films over the years, for the most part movies tapping into Lovecraft’s work tend to feel like they’re miles away from the cosmic horror themes that saturate most of the author’s stories. Five years of working at a video store and taking home anything that promised to delve into the Cthulhu Mythos have, I confess, made my approach to these kinds of films rather antagonistic. They have to prove themselves to me.

Anime (Walker’s Retreat): Given the point-and-shriek swarming attacks done on other targets, this was inevitable. Amazon is vulnerable due to having SJWs in junior positions who are amenable to SJW swarm attacks, and one can likely assume that Ebay and other Western-controlled outlets will feel the swarm in the days to follow once Amazon’s seen to bend the knee. As usual, the SJWs in the media will reliably inform you that this is the play by making a big deal out of it once such swarming gets sufficient momentum to amplify in their outlets.

RPG (Karavansara): Fantasy AGE does not walk any extraordinarily original terrain – it’s basically a sword & sorcery engine, very similar in tone to the old classic D&D, but running on a system that’s both lightweight and cool, allowing for the creation of original, detailed characters rather swiftly. Clocking at a little over 140 pages, the Basic Handbook is beautifully illustrated, rationally arranged, and covers all the bases: the races and classes we expect from a fantasy game, combat and magic, and all the basic perks.

Pulp Magazine Fiction (Pulp Fest): Although a trailblazer as a specialty magazine, DETECTIVE STORY did little to further the development of the detective or crime story. That task would be left to its highly prized successors: BLACK MASK — the pulp where the hardboiled detective story began to take shape — and DIME DETECTIVE MAGAZINE — where the tough guy detective became extremely popular. Call them what you will — flatfoots, gumshoes, dime detectives, or private eyes — it was these hardboiled dicks that transformed the traditional mystery story into the tough guy (and gal) crime fiction that remains popular to this very day.

Fantasy (Dark Worlds Quarterly): What I do like about Rabkin’s scale is it helps me to identify or codify some types of fiction that don’t fall neatly into genres (which we must remember were invented by publishers as a marketing tool, not academics). For example Doc Savage is a genre-crosser, with some Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror and Mystery elements, and yet none of the above. But ol’ Doc can be placed on the scale, outside of genre considerations.

Men’s Adventure Magazines (Paperback Warrior): During the 1950s and 1960s, Men’s Adventure Magazines like “Stag” and “For Men Only” told salacious stories – often masquerading as non-fiction journalism – of daring deeds and lusty ladies around the world. The magazines were illustrated with vivid action drawings by many of the same artists who created the cover art for the vintage action and crime paperbacks we adore. Robert Deis and Wyatt Doyle have preserved many of the great stories and art from these magazines in a series of anthology books called Men’s Adventure Library published by New Texture.

RPG (Goodman Games): You’ve speculated. You’ve wondered. You’ve waited. Now you get an answer. Coming this September, Goodman Games will release Original Adventures Reincarnated #5: Castle Amber. Intended for levels 3 through 7, Castle Amber was the adventure that launched the Mystara campaign setting, and was the second adventure for the D&D Expert Set. Here’s some text from the back cover:

Music & Comic Books (Far out Magazine): We dive straight back into the Far Out Magazine Vault to find Marc Bolan, the musician, guitarist and poet who is arguably best known for being the lead singer of the glam rock band T. Rex, who was seemingly obsessed with comic books. Now this tale seemingly twists and turns into areas that even we weren’t sure where it would take us next. This story is going to depict how three extremely popular figures of popular culture all interviewed each other, at different times and in different circumstances but all with aiming for the same end result.

History (Peter Grant): The so-called Shangani Patrol was a legendary encounter in 1893 between colonial forces and the Matabele tribe of Lobengula in what is today Zimbabwe. The entire patrol was annihilated, after having killed more than ten times its own number in an epic fight through the bush. In colonial Rhodesia, it was regarded in the same light as the fall of the Alamo in Texas, or the doomed fight of the three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae.

Gaming (News Hump): Nation turns to Warhammer players for advice on how to stay at home for two weeks. Pungent men with severe vitamin D deficiency and a large collection of overpriced figurines are suddenly very much in demand as they are deemed the nation’s greatest experts at staying indoors for weeks on end while they paint space goblins.

Comic Books and D&D (Goodman Games): Thus begins the Crypt-Keeper’s Corner, the letters page in the June-July 1950 edition of E.C. Comics Crypt of Terror. You could be forgiven if you mistook that dramatic introduction as the opening salvo from any game master at any table-top role-playing game. In fact, it’s also fairly easy to see how Gary Gygax, the main co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons (and an entire gaming industry) would fess up to being influenced by the art and storytelling found within the comic books of his formative years.

Sensor Sweep: Firefly, Black Mask, Original Adventures Reincarnated published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

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thegloober · 6 years

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Bright Wall/Dark Room October 2018: A Story with A Ghost in It: On Family, Trauma, and Hope in Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak

by The Editors

October 9, 2018 |

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We are pleased to offer an excerpt from the latest edition of the online magazine, Bright Wall/Dark Room. The theme for their October issue is “The Uncanny,” and in addition to the “Crimson Peak” essay by Kate Horowitz below, they’ll also be featuring pieces on “Annihilation,” “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Step Brothers,” “Minority Report,” “Birth,” “Nocturnal Animals,” “The Swimmer,” “A Serious Man,” “Stoker,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” “Yolanda and the Thief,” “Gattaca,” and “Nocturnal Animals.” The above art is by Tony Stella.

You can read our previous excerpts from the magazine by clicking here. To subscribe to Bright Wall/Dark Room, or look at their most recent essays, click here.

I used to have a t-shirt with a cartoon of an axe murderer on it. The killer clutched her still-dripping weapon in one hand, a man’s severed head in the other. She wore a polo shirt and an expression of abject horror. OH NO, read the caption. I’VE BECOME MY MOTHER.

The joke is that the killer needs to reassess her priorities. The joke is that a woman in golfing attire has removed a man’s head from his body. The joke is that we can’t outrun our roots. The joke is that buckets of blood are her birthright, that this violence was inevitable.

On its surface, Guillermo del Toro’s film Crimson Peak presents the same story. The tale of creepy British nobles (Tom Hiddleston and a gloatingly-villainous Jessica Chastain) luring an American heiress (Mia Wasikowska) to their haunted mansion hits all the major gothic horror notes: the gauzy nightgowns, the poisoned tea. A little dog trotting curiously down a darkened hallway. Dark legacies. Axe murder.

But all of this is beside the point. On this subject, del Toro has been quite vocal, both personally—“Crimson Peak is not a horror movie,” he insisted in interviews—and through his plucky hero, the heiress/writer Edith Cushing. Her novel is not a ghost story, she explains to a patronizing publisher. “It’s more a story with a ghost in it.”

We’re meant to chuckle, here; it’s understood that Edith’s defensive pedantry is del Toro winking at his own reflection. Yet the distinction still matters, because this really isn’t a story about ghosts. It’s about learning to listen to them.

All three of the film’s central characters faced gruesome trauma as children. Edith was visited by ghostly visions of her mother’s blackened, decaying corpse; Sharpe siblings Thomas and Lucille endured far, far worse. Young Lucille bravely bore the brunt of her family’s violence, but no child’s body could possibly contain it all. Her impulse to protect her little brother twisted into something terrible. The horror began to surge forth from her. It didn’t stop.

These are, of course, extreme cases, the awfulness aggrandized for dramatic effect. Technically, trauma is any experience that makes a person feel unsafe and overwhelms their ability to cope. That might be extreme violence like military combat or sexual assault. It might be an accident like a car crash, or sustained stress like chronic pain or emotional abuse. Too much happens too fast, or for too long.

Which is to say: trauma befalls everyone at one time or another. But not everyone develops post-traumatic stress. The difference between someone with PTSD and someone without is not, experts say, the nature or severity of the event, but whether the person in question can regain a sense of safety, and process what’s just happened. We need social support in order to soothe our activated nervous systems. We also need to physically release our panic-fueled energy. Sometimes that looks like fighting back. Sometimes it means running away.

Family violence is often bound up in secrecy, creating a closed system that normalizes dysfunction. Children born into these systems may be trained from birth to accept abuse, no matter how it might hurt them. They may be taught that destructive behavior—others’, and, often, eventually, their own—is an ugly fact of life rather than a decision. They may be told that it’s unsafe to leave.

A stranger tried to abduct me when I was 17. I was lucky; I realized what was happening just in time and ran. It would happen again a few years later, and I would begin to wonder, because how could I not, if everything my mother had said when I was a child was true. If I really was too cute and little! for my own good. If venturing outside alone was inviting violation. If it really would be better to stay in the house, no matter who or what else was in there with me.

Trauma psychology is still a young field; our understanding of what trauma is and how to treat it is constantly shifting. Many psychologists argue that post-traumatic stress is not an illness but a healthy response to unbearable circumstances, that aftereffects like panic attacks and hypervigilance are survival mechanisms activated by a body under siege. These practitioners believe that the focus of recovery should not be suppressing a person’s so-called symptoms, nor erasing a traumatic event from their memory. It should be helping the traumatized person pay attention to what their body is telling them—to help them finally find their way to safety.

Crimson Peak’s Edith seems to know this instinctively. Raised by a loving father in a warm, sturdy home, Edith is equipped with the resources she needs to carry on despite her losses. She grows into a compassionate and courageous woman. This doesn’t mean that she is not haunted wherever she goes. It means that when the ghosts appear, grotesque and terrifying though they may be, Edith does something extraordinary: she asks the moaning phantoms what they want. And, when they tell her to flee, she heeds them.

Thomas and Lucille spent their early years locked in an attic. They never once knew safety or a parent’s love. They also never developed Edith’s uncanny talent for seeing the dead. Unfortunately, this doesn’t spare them from being haunted. The red riptide of their past drags them endlessly toward a red horizon. They do a lot of very bad things. They can’t conceive of doing anything else.

When Thomas and Edith first meet, he is mystified by her wild ideas about free will. He devours her story-with-a-ghost-in-it while she’s still writing it.

(reading): This fellow Cavendish, your hero.>span class=”Apple-converted-space”>

THOMAS: There’s a darkness to him. I like him.

THOMAS: Does he make it all the way through?

EDITH: It’s entirely up to him.

THOMAS: What do you mean?

EDITH: Well, characters talk to you. They transform.

EDITH: They make choices.

THOMAS: Choices.

EDITH: As to who they become.

The Sharpes set a marriage trap, and lovely Edith gamely wanders in. She does not share her wealthy, protective father’s distrust of her suitor. She also does not doubt the accidental nature of her wealthy, protective father’s sudden death.

Thomas brings his new bride home to desolate Allerdale Hall. The Sharpe family home is in a state of literal collapse. Snow and dead leaves fall softly through room-sized holes in the rotting roof. A pit of liquid red clay oozes beneath the house like an open wound.

At first Edith roams the halls too freely, disturbing the mansion’s deadly stillness. The house’s ghosts shriek and snatch at her with their mangled hands; Edith holds out an open hand in return. She listens to what they have to say. Cracks appear in Lucille’s chilling composure. This is not how it’s supposed to go. Thomas’ resolve wavers. Crimson clay bleeds through the walls.

But before long the poisoned tea does its work, and Edith’s bright eyes dim. Even as the ghosts accosting her grow more insistent, escape becomes harder to imagine.

EDITH: I have to leave. I have to get away from here.

LUCILLE: Edith, this is your home now.

LUCILLE: You have nowhere else to go.

Yes, is the answer. I do.

A moth is not the opposite of a butterfly, nor a refutation of it. The differences between them—genetically, aesthetically, behaviorally—are infinitesimal compared with all they have in common. And a blonde woman is not the opposite of a brunette, even if the brunette murders people. They are both human, and haunted, and falling apart. By the time this is all over, they’ll both have blood in their mouths.

My heart is tender, as Edith’s is, and as Lucille’s was, once. And like Lucille, over the years I did more than my share of damage.

These days, I feel most like Thomas: scarred and remorseful, stepping hopefully over the threshold.

“Trauma is a fact of life,” writes psychologist Peter Levine in his book Waking the Tiger. “It does not, however, have to be a life sentence.”

Survival often comes down to chance or privilege or luck. Being born into a safer body, or family, or world. Realizing the danger you’re in before it’s too late to run. Being able to run. Having someplace safe to go. Finding the right self-help book or support group or therapist or meditation or medication or poem or prayer or all of the above. Deciding on a whim to listen to an album or watch a TV show that ends up saving your life. Meeting someone who says, Why are you doing this?, which is another way of saying, You don’t have to do this, which is another way of saying You get to choose what kind of person you become. Realizing that they’re right.

When my realization came, I knew I had to tell my mother. I sat her down at my dining-room table, took a deep breath, and started weeping. She pulled me into her lap and held me tight. I was 33 years old.

I told her that I was making some big changes in my life. I outlined for her the size and shape of my dysfunction. She was silent for what felt like a long time. When at last she spoke, it was through a pained smile. “Well,” she said, “you certainly come by it honestly.”

Del Toro may disagree, but to me the climax of Crimson Peak is the moment Thomas—passive, tormented Thomas—makes the improbable decision to escape with Edith, and his sister, if he can.

THOMAS: We can leave, Lucille, leave Allerdale Hall.

LUCILLE: Leave?

THOMAS: Think about it. We can start a new life.

LUCILLE: Where?

THOMAS: Anywhere. It doesn’t matter.

I won’t claim that Crimson Peak has a happy ending. Lucille dies, and Thomas dies too, horribly; our curses and demons don’t give us up easily. Still, the last moments of Thomas’ life are brave ones, and his fleeting afterlife is expended helping Edith escape. The ghost of Thomas Sharpe bids his wife a loving goodbye—and then, at last, he leaves.

The axe murderer t-shirt eventually went to Goodwill. It wasn’t that my sense of humor matured; if anything, the older I get, the harder that horrible cartoon makes me laugh. What changed was my willingness to dress myself in violence. We can’t control what happens to us, or the stories we’re born into. But we don’t have to live, or die, or kill, inside these bloody houses. We can leave, Lucille. We can leave.

Previous Article: Scott Wilson: 1942-2018

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Source: https://bloghyped.com/bright-wall-dark-room-october-2018-a-story-with-a-ghost-in-it-on-family-trauma-and-hope-in-guillermo-del-toros-crimson-peak/

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mrmichaelchadler · 6 years

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Bright Wall/Dark Room October 2018: A Story with A Ghost in It: On Family, Trauma, and Hope in Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak

We are pleased to offer an excerpt from the latest edition of the online magazine, Bright Wall/Dark Room. The theme for their October issue is "The Uncanny," and in addition to the "Crimson Peak" essay by Kate Horowitz below, they'll also be featuring pieces on "Annihilation," "Rosemary's Baby," "Step Brothers," "Minority Report," "Birth," "Nocturnal Animals," "The Swimmer," "A Serious Man," "Stoker," "The Killing of a Sacred Deer," "Yolanda and the Thief," "Gattaca," and "Nocturnal Animals." The above art is by Tony Stella.

You can read our previous excerpts from the magazine by clicking here. To subscribe to Bright Wall/Dark Room, or look at their most recent essays, click here.

When Thomas and Edith first meet, he is mystified by her wild ideas about free will. He devours her story-with-a-ghost-in-it while she’s still writing it.

(reading): This fellow Cavendish, your hero.>span class="Apple-converted-space">

THOMAS: There’s a darkness to him. I like him.

THOMAS: Does he make it all the way through?

EDITH: It’s entirely up to him.

THOMAS: What do you mean?

EDITH: Well, characters talk to you. They transform.

EDITH: They make choices.

THOMAS: Choices.

EDITH: As to who they become.

But before long the poisoned tea does its work, and Edith’s bright eyes dim. Even as the ghosts accosting her grow more insistent, escape becomes harder to imagine.

EDITH: I have to leave. I have to get away from here.

LUCILLE: Edith, this is your home now.

LUCILLE: You have nowhere else to go.

Yes, is the answer. I do.

My heart is tender, as Edith’s is, and as Lucille’s was, once. And like Lucille, over the years I did more than my share of damage.

These days, I feel most like Thomas: scarred and remorseful, stepping hopefully over the threshold.

“Trauma is a fact of life,” writes psychologist Peter Levine in his book Waking the Tiger. “It does not, however, have to be a life sentence.”

Del Toro may disagree, but to me the climax of Crimson Peak is the moment Thomas—passive, tormented Thomas—makes the improbable decision to escape with Edith, and his sister, if he can.

THOMAS: We can leave, Lucille, leave Allerdale Hall.

LUCILLE: Leave?

THOMAS: Think about it. We can start a new life.

LUCILLE: Where?

THOMAS: Anywhere. It doesn’t matter.

from All Content https://ift.tt/2OPBwe8

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