I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-“The Dogs” (MGM Grand Garden Arena, Friday 10, 31, 2014).

In honor of Halloween, these Ghost Box stories will be attached to a recent Phish Halloween show [with quoted material from various reviews]. 

Known for dawning musical costumes to celebrate [Halloween], Phish broke with tradition last year to offer a set of original music.  The Phish Bill read that Phish’s musical costume would be a 1964 Disney album of sound effects – Chilling, Thrilling Sounds Of The Haunted House.  But it wasn’t a cover set. Phish played original music set amongst an incredibly psychedelic, theatrical graveyard stage accentuated by zombie dancers and a ghoulish MC.  At the start of the set, the stage was cleared before a graveyard came to the foreground.  Smoke filled the air, zombie dancers appeared, and music filled the venue. A haunted house was brought to the front of the stage, which eventually exploded, and all four-band members appeared, dressed in white like zombies. 

A little over ten minutes into the set, after the explosion, the walls of the Haunted House were exposed to show the band dressed in white tuxedos with zombie makeup.

Phish’s contribution to “The Dogs” was a catchy arena rock progression.  This song opens with the narration that as a child you were frightened by a huge snarling dog.  And as the dogs start barking, the band starts rocking.  It’s a big riff jam with some funky bass moments and rollicking piano.

But this is  rocking guitar song with raw chords that really move along and a great solo from Trey.

It ends with the squeaky door closing and a scream.

[READ: October 16, 2017] “N0072-JK1”

Just in time for Halloween, from the people who brought me The Short Story Advent Calendar comes The Ghost Box.

This is a nifty little box (with a magnetic opening) that contains 11 stories for Halloween.  It is lovingly described thusly:

A collection of chilly, spooky, hair-raising-y stories to get you in that Hallowe’en spirit, edited and introduced by comedian and horror aficionado Patton Oswalt.

There is no explicit “order” to these books; however, on the inside cover, one “window” of the 11 boxes is “folded.”  I am taking that as a suggested order.

This was the least satisfying story in the collection.  I read it twice and I still don’t really “get it.”

The subtitle is “Study of Synaptic Response of the Organism to Spontaneous Stimulation of Vulnerability Zones. Photographic Analysis.”

And it is indeed written up as a report, with a clinical tone.

It speaks of the study done for the laughter vector: why do we laugh when tickled.

People are isolated and tickled on the foot.  At the same time, I think, they were also shown a comedian and some cartoons.  After some time it stated that some men get erections and some women had orgasms.

What?

A pattern arose after four hours of stimulation.

Yes, I get it, it’s actually torture. But it is so detached that it never feels like a “scary” story.   In fact it doesn’t feel like story at all.

We never find out who is doing it or why.  I assumed aliens, but that never resolves itself.  We never find out subjects names.  And it is written so technically that I’m not even sure what happened some of the time.

There’s talk about cartoons with big eyes and postpartum murder.

And then it moves on to the cheetah footage test and “primal face.”  This section also seems like it’s supposed to be funny because the brutal cheetah who winds up ripping apart the participants is named “Fluffbucket.”

But nothing is particularly funny, either.

I simply don’t get it.