I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BLUE OYSTER CULT-“Joan Crawford” (1983).

Most people include “Don’t Fear the Reaper” on their Halloween playlist, but for me, “Joan Crawfford” is far creepier.

The song opens with Allan Lanier’s classical piano motif.  Nothing scary about that until it is continues through the song during the heavy guitar crunches.

The chords are simple but loud and quickly bring us to the short but effective lyrics:

the song burst with some heavy chords and then the creepy lyrics.

Junkies down in Brooklyn are going crazy
They’re laughing just like hungry dogs in the street
Policemen are hiding behind the skirts of little girls
Their eyes have turned the color of frozen meat

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no-no, no, no, no  [done with strings and harmony vocals]
Joan Crawford has risen from the grave [with creepy violin slides]

Catholic school girls have thrown away their mascara
They chain themselves to the axles of Big Mack trucks
The sky is filled with herds of shivering angels
The fat lady laughs: “Gentlemen, start your trucks”

Aside from the poor rhyme of trucks and trucks, these are nice, scene-setting lyrics.

But the real creep factor comes in the middle when a series of sound effects set up…what?  things about Crawford’s life?  Her movies?  I have no idea.

Car crash phone, baby crying, rooster crowing, car starting, horse race opening horn, ship whistle, opera singer, school bell ringing

As the bell fades, a quiet part begins with a distorted other worldy voice whispering “Cristina…. mother’s home.”  It gives me chills just thinking about it.  Combine with Eric Bloom quietly whimpering No no no no.  It’s a nightmare song.

Pretty great.

I had no idea there was a video made (it was banned by MTV) and, pretty rightly so, even if it is tame today.

[READ: October 25, 2018] “The Quest for Blank Claveringi”

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

This is once again a nifty little box (with a magnetic opening and a ribbon) which contains 11 stories for Halloween.  It is lovingly described thusly:

The Ghost Box returns, like a mummy or a batman, to once again make your pupils dilate and the hair on your arms stand straight up—it’s another collection of individually bound scary stories, edited and introduced by comedian and spooky specialist Patton Oswalt.

There is no explicit “order” to these books; however, Patton Oswalt will be reviewing a book a day on his Facebook page.

Much respect to Oswalt, but I will not be following his order.  So there.

This was one of my favorite stories in the box.

It is a simple tale and one that is pretty obvious how it will turn out, but it’s the journey that is so interesting.

Avery Clavering is a professor of zoology.  He heard about the giant snails on the island of Kuwa–twenty-five miles from the Matusas islands.  The claim was that the snails were twenty feet long and high and would eat humans.  Previously, a Dr Stead had gone to the island but found nothing.

Since he had a sabbatical coming up, Professor Clavering decided to use part of it to check out this island (the rest would be spent on vacation with his family).  He wrote to Dr Stead but Dr Stead said not to waste time or money with this idea–the snails were a hoax.

But Clavering was not deterred. He wanted more than anything to discover a new create blank claveringi and massive snails would be pretty outstanding.

So he set sail for the island, alone.  He didn’t know a lot about sailing but he managed to get there okay.  He wandered the island, learned its contours and then saw it–snail with a shell about fifteen feet tall.  As he was marveling at the creature, he rained some pebbles down upon it, rousing it.

Once the snail was awake, it started to pursue him. He knew about snails teeth–some twenty thousand pairs–but Clavering was in no way afraid, it was a slow snail after all.  He would take pictures, get back to his boat and become famous.

He ran into the woods and the snail crawled over the trees–Clavering was able to get a great view of the underbelly of the creature. He as also impressed by the snail’s speed and wondered how fast it could go on a straightaway.

When he headed back towards his boat, though, it was not where he left it.  He thought he had misread the geography of the island, but then he saw the boat drifting out to sea.  He saw the snail’s mate, about he same size, had chewed on the rope that was holding the ship anchored.  he wondered if the kind of hemp in the rope was a good food source for the snail.

Angered but unafraid, he set out for safety on the island.  That’s when he realized there were not very many places to hide.  But he found one–a gully which the snails could not crawl into, but which they could cover with their giant foot. It didn’t remove his oxygen, but it was pretty freaky.

He was now hungry, cold, and tired with no real hope of getting off the island unless someone saw the boat.  He would just have to kill the creatures which he was very reluctant to do.

Then he realized just how small his hatchet actually was.

The end was, as anyone reading could tell, inevitable, but the way it ends is pretty great,