American Graffiti.

The dryer stopped drying. Specifically the heating element, which I can sometimes see glowing like the Eye of Sauron if I open the dryer when it’s still running, though it immediately shuts off and fades away once the door is opened, died. I try to use the dryer as little as possible anyway. We have a much more environmentally friendly and energy-efficient dryer called sunlight, but it’s not always reliable.

The guy who did the repair job left me the old burned out heating element which was an interesting thing. It’s not exactly aesthetically pleasing but then it’s never meant to be seen, hidden away at the back, though it’s incredibly important. Looking at it reminded me of when I was a kid and I’d find old electronics that people had thrown out—alarm clocks, mostly, some radios—and take them apart. I tinkered with an orphaned toy walkee talkee until it picked up audio from a local TV station. I have no clue what I did because I really didn’t know anything about electronics and most of the time I took the discarded equipment I found and built imaginary robots. They were imaginary because they couldn’t really do anything on their own, but that doesn’t make them much different from the robots in most science fiction movies and TV shows that are really just people in suits.

The heating element also reminded me of the coils inside the kiln one of my aunts who had a whole ceramic studio in the basement of my grandparents’ house. She made various pieces, including an R2-D2 that I used as a nightlight. Upstairs, in the bathroom, there was also a wall heater that had similar metal coils. I don’t remember when I figured out how these things worked but because I was always interested in science it seems like I understood pretty early on that, when turned on, electrons flowed into coils but because the coils weren’t very conductive the electrons would get slowed down, putting pressure on each other. This pressure would then turn into heat. I know that’s greatly oversimplified but that’s the basic principle, and that’s where all understanding starts. Resistance is a powerful thing; if something went wrong with the kiln or the wall heater they could easily start a fire, burn the whole house down. But the heater provided warmth, and the kiln could turn wet clay and liquid glaze into something glossy and hard.

It just made me think about the power of resistance and how it can be harnessed, either in destructive or useful ways.

Lately I’ve been feeling uninspired, thinking maybe I should even quit writing, but then I read two things this week that hit me very profoundly. The first was the sidewalk poem written on the sidewalk near where I work by Poetry By Boots. I followed their Instagram account but don’t check it regularly enough to know Boots was in my neighborhood, and anyway there’s something wonderful about the surprise of spontaneously coming upon one of their messages.

The second thing is from Michelle oveat Rubber Shoes In Hellwho said,

I have a suggestion for for. Maybe it is more a request.
Make art.
Make a lot of art.
Sing songs and dance. Unless your knees hurt a lot like mine, then maybe not a lot of dancing.
Write stories and jokes and plays and poems. Write a funny message on your bathroom mirror.
Act or tell jokes. Draw pictures. Glue sparkly things to something dull.
Make good food. Try new things. Decorate a cake. Paint a lamp. Deconstruct something unusable and turn it into something else.
Find the art of others. Appreciate their art. Support them and celebrate them.

That last part really stood out for me because I’d been thinking about how artists need communities, not audiences necessarily, but other artists, or even those who will just support and encourage the making of art. And that was followed by this:

The house with a large LD42 on it caught my attention for several reasons. First, I’m always looking for interesting graffiti, and this was definitely interesting. The colors, though muted, still stand out on the gray background. That brings me to the second thing that got my attention: the background was a house. A small house of the type you don’t really find anymore, with just two bedrooms, a small kitchen, a small bath, a little front sitting area. Some would call it cozy. Most would probably call it cramped or claustrophobia-inducing. It’s in an area that’s not exactly gentrifying, but right on a major road, along the same stretch as a small used car dealership, a vape shop, a car wash place, and across the street from a gym with a rock climbing wall. And if you take the first turn you’ll find Pink Door Cookies.

Finally there’s the number 42, made famous by Douglas Adams as the answer to life, the universe, and everything, not to be confused with Adams’ The Meaning Of Liff, but that’s another story.

Zew42 is a local tagger and there’s even a 42 Crew who do a combination of graffiti and commissioned work, which, I think, is a common evolution for most street artists these days. At least the ones with talent and drive get recognized, even if they have to start by tagging. It’s a shame but one of the benefits of the internet is it makes it easier for these artists to be found and offered work. Graffiti has also become a lot less local which has given it a level of respect it didn’t always have.

It’s also a lucky thing I documented the graffiti when I did. The house is, as I said, in a commercial area, and no one’s lived there for a very long time. There may have been some legal wranglings over the ownership and value of the property, or maybe no one cared enough to bother with it. Maybe there have been plans to use it in an unlit cellar with no stairs or lights, in a filing cabinet in an unused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard.”

Anyway a day after I took the picture the house was bulldozed which seems like even more of a tribute to Douglas Adams than the number 42.

Werewolves come in many forms, as anyone who’s read Sabine Baring-Gould’s Book Of Were-Wolves or, for that matter, encountered one—or maybe is one—knows. Some are genuinely frightening. Some are more afraid of you than you are of them. That was the inspiration for this poem.

Werewolf

He, my best friend and I, were just bouncing
A fuzzy gray ball that had lost most
Of its bounce back and forth. The dog,
The big sheepdog who lived next door,
Was in its own yard, just on the periphery.
It was always there like the broken sink
In the vacant lot we went to sometimes
To look down at our houses. And then
It jumped at him, knocked him down, that
Engine in its throat humming loud enough
To be heard over him screaming. I ran.
I couldn’t tell where he was under the dog.
I’d been told not to run, that was wrong,
But what was I supposed to do? His mother
Was already coming out right at me
And I got behind her. The dog was gone.
And then he was gone.
The big blue car came
Out from behind the house and he went in,
Still screaming, a towel pressed to his face
With a stain starting to come through.

I heard enough from what his mother told mine
To see what happened, why the dog was gone.
Two men from the pound came and stood
On his porch and stared at themselves
In the man’s wraparound sunglasses. I’d seen him
Through the slits in the fence that kept his back
Yard from the neighborhood, so I could see him
In his white t-shirt, V-neck, telling them they
Were welcome to take the dog if they were willing
To come in and get it. And they said they’d be back.

That was the summer of the drought. Toward school’s
End I watched the corn come up emerald then turn gold
In a field just past the road my street disappeared into.
A year later the field itself was replaced by turnkey
Condominiums, every other one painted yellow.

That was the summer my quarter-Cherokee grandmother
Pulled down from the overhead crawlspace an old book
Of tribal stories and I learned that in the beginning
The wolf and the man used to sit together by the fire,
Until the dog came down from the hills and drove
The wolf away. Now the wolf lives alone in the hills.

I had to pee. My dog and I were out
Together in the summer night, following each
Other and finding our way in the dark by smell and sound.
If I went back inside I’d lose my night vision
So I dropped my shorts by a tree and let go, the stream
Reflecting the pieces of streetlamp that came through
The trees. I couldn’t see the mark I left but I knew
It was there. My territory. I was zipping back up
When I heard my dog barking in the street. I ran,
And there she was with the man who lived two doors up
Pinned against his car. She went after him like a stranger.
Dammit! You’d better get this dog away from me
Or I swear I’ll do somethin’! I’ll kill it! I swear!”
He swore and leaned at me while I grabbed my dog
And put my face in her ruff and pulled her back to me.
It was time to go in. The next day I was in my front yard
When he came home. He came over and didn’t look
At me, just said, Son, I wanna apologize about last night.
I’m sorry. I just wasn’t myself. You understand. He raised
His fist and something gold flew from it, sparkling
And I caught a butterscotch medallion. I understood.
I knew more than he realized, had known since the first
Week of summer when I was coming up the back steps
To water the bean plants I’d brought home from school
In a paper cup where they’d sprout and die. I heard
My father talking, telling someone who’d dropped by
Something so serious I knew I shouldn’t be listening.

He’d been drinking all day.
Maybe around sunset he decided he
Wanted fried chicken for supper and sent
His wife out to get it. We hadn’t been here
That long and didn’t know any of this
Was going on. She was gone too long to suit
Him or something, I really don’t know, but while
She was gone he decided he was going to kill
Her when she got back. She
Got away somehow and came down to our
House. We let her in and he stood there on
The porch and yelled and swore. The kids were
Gone that night, away at camp. I called
The cops and it took eight of them to get him
Into one of their cars. She stayed with us
That night and told us, It’s over, he
Won’t do this to me ever again. We
Didn’t know it had happened before.
We saw them next week at the pool
Holding hands. She smiled, but he wouldn’t
Look at us. I thought, Never again.
They’re lucky it wasn’t worse than it ended
Up being with all those guns he has in there.”

This was news to me. I thought all attics
Were the same, webby with years of old clothes
And moth dust and naked bulbs over rivers
Of cotton candy insulation. Now I saw the inside
Of the three-cornered roof with blue-steel bars
Marching along the walls like corrugated wallpaper
Or bare columns propping the whole structure.

On the dead-end street late in summer
The world was hot and thick all night. Not even the moon
Frozen outside my window could cool it. In drought
Wind in the leaves sounds like footsteps.
You wake up believing someone else is in the house
And the phone is in the other room or dead.
There at the yard’s edge the jingle of metal
On metal means tags for rabies, or just
House keys, someone else coming home. Across
The street is the opal of a doorbell
Or a cigarette of someone blindfolded.
The movement I see in the window is my hands
Washing the dishes, the reflection imposed on
The brown stubble of the yard. If I went out
Water on my hands would freeze and break.
I keep all the doors locked from inside.

Source: Letterboxd

When I ask people what their favorite Poe story is the same ones come up over and over: The Tell-Tale Heart and The Cask Of Amontillado seem to top the list, and The Fall Of The House Of Usher, The Black Cat, and The Masque Of The Red Death are always popular. Usually they’re ones most of us read in school, the ones that were our first introductions to Poe. I also remember The Murders In The Rue Morgue being talked about a lot, though it would be a long time before I read it, and in fifth grade watching a strange, and very loose, adaptation of The Gold Bug with a young Anthony Michael Hall.

One Poe story that never seems to come up is Hop-Frog. It’s one I think deserves a lot more attention. In eleventh grade I wrote a term paper on Poe and read a biography that kept referring to A Descent Into The Maelstrom as Poe’s most autobiographical story. Oh no, I thought, if you have to single out one Poe story as “autobiographical” then it’s Hop-Frog. Even his most sympathetic biographers describe Poe as a touchy guy who took criticism personally, but people also liked him because he was funny. The image of Poe as the gloomy goth misses the fact that he wrote satire and humor pieces too. In Hop-Frog the title character is an abused servant, a jester, who—spoiler alert–finally gets revenge on the royalty, and, I think, is as clever and funny as it is brutal. Hop-Frog has dwarfism and maybe that’s why we didn’t read the story in school, but he’s also the hero. Ultimately he succeeds over those who think they’re better than he is, and I think that would have been a good message for a lot of us.   

Two things came up recently that reminded me of Hop-Frog. The first is the new AppleTV series Time Bandits, based on Terry Gilliam’s 1981 film. The original cast five little people, and I understand the new series didn’t want to go that route for fear of seeming exploitative, but the casting got some well-deserved criticism for that. The original film wasn’t in any way making fun of its characters for their stature. The five “bandits” in the original are complicated characters who, it’s been pointed out, resemble the Monty Python gang in their personalities, with filthy, mute Vermin representing Gilliam himself.

The other thing is PBS just released a documentary called Judy-Lynn del Rey: The Galaxy Gal. As an aspiring writer and science fiction fan I read a lot of Del Rey books growing up without knowing, or even thinking, that Del Rey was a person, and I wish I had. Judy-Lynn del Rey was a little person but, obviously, that’s only part of who she was. She was a smart, passionate publisher and editor who helped make Del Rey a publishing powerhouse. Among other things she spotted the potential in the novelization of a little forthcoming science fiction film called Star Wars.

And finally there was an adaptation of Hop-Frog, also on PBS, titled Fool’s Fire. It was directed by Julie Taymor before her groundbreaking stage adaptation of The Lion King. The two stars are two little people, Michael J. Anderson, probably best known for being a dream character in Twin Peaks, and Mireille Mossé, a French actress with a few credits, as the woman Hop-Frog rescues. The rest of the cast is puppets. This made sure that, as Taymor said, “These two little people, so often used in the theatre and cinema as special effects themselves, were deeply and painfully real.”

And of course Hop-Frog is the hero.

It’s that time of year when the Monster Cereals come out. They’ve really been out since September, but I like to hold off until a little closer to Halloween. Maybe I should start earlier too, though—I’m getting older and, since my wife doesn’t like them, finishing off five or six boxes of family-sized sugary cereal by myself isn’t as easy as it used to be, and is a reminder of the passing of time.

I’d really like to say a sincere word of gratitude to the people behind making the Monster Cereals—not just the cereals themselves but also the packaging. I’ve worked in enough businesses to know that nothing happens quickly, especially with established brands. The Monster Cereals are seasonal, not really promoted, and, I suspect, not even that profitable anymore. Their target demographic is a dwindling subset of Gen Xers who grew up eating them—or, in my case, not eating them but wishing I could—and yet there’s care and thought put into making each year’s release just a little bit different.

Carmella Creeper, introduced in 2023, and the first new Monster Cereal in thirty-six years, has made a welcome comeback for this year, and I’m glad. It was about time they brought a woman into the mix and while the “caramel apple” flavored cereal doesn’t taste like either caramel or apples it does have a distinctive tangy flavor that I like. She’s also gotten her own retro-style box, confirming her place as one of the gang.

The other big change is the return of the Monster Mash, introduced in 2021 for the 50^th anniversary of the first Monster Cereals. It’s not, as the box would suggest, a mix of all four flavors but rather a combination of green Carmella pieces and gray pieces—gray being such an appetizing color for food. The box is also missing my personal favorite Frute Brute (I like werewolves) and Yummy Mummy. The latter’s name has taken on a meaning of its own, and I’m sure Tony The Tiger can sympathize, but that’s another story.

The biggest change has been that the this year’s Monster Cereals have gotten “pets” with their own back-of-the-box stories and a new batch of marshmallows. Not even monsters live forever. There will be a year when it’s just not worth it to bring them out. In the meantime it’s nice that they’ve got friends.

I stopped to get a bottle of wine as a thank-you for a friend and as I was walking past the beer I noticed a certain…theme. October is the month for pumpkins, though they’ve been popping up since August. I like an occasional pumpkin latte or a piece of pumpkin pie but I try to restrict my indulgence to the witching month. Pumpkins hold a special place among vegetables even though it’s not really the pumpkins themselves but rather their role as a delivery system for a combination of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger. And that got me thinking that maybe there are other seasonal vegetables that deserve some attention as well. Here are the pros and cons of a few contenders:

Potatoes: We’re spoiled by having potatoes available year-round but technically they’re a fall crop. The fact that you can get your potatoes mashed, boiled, put in a stew, and of course fried at any time of year knocks them out of the running.

Turnips: Although turnips can be harvested in the spring too they’re a cool weather plant which makes them ideal for fall. Both the leaves and the root are edible and the original Jack-o-lantern was a turnip. Carved turnips, a Celtic tradition, are so much creepier than pumpkins. So I’d definitely put them in the category of being worthy of consideration.

Source: The Scotsman

Broccoli: This is another fall crop that’s available all year, most often as an overcooked side dish or taking up space on crudité platters where it begs to be dipped in ranch dressing. Broccoli’s resemblance to miniature trees would make it great for decorating but you can’t really stick a candle in broccoli so I’d give it a pass.

Gourds: Aside from pumpkins there are lots of gourd varieties that are great for turning into birdhouses and other craft projects. Here’s a fun idea for your Halloween porch: get a pumpkin and a tall skinny gourd for a Bert and Ernie theme.

Beets: I think beets are delicious so I’m biased here but there are dozens of varieties in colors ranging from blood red—which is perfect for Halloween—to orange and even striped. If you’ve read Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game you may remember that, before the hunt begins, General Zaroff serves borscht, the soup named for the noise it makes as it passes through you, with a big dollop of sour cream in the middle. It’s very evocative, resembling blood and bone, or an eye with the colors reversed. Why aren’t they more popular around Halloween? Beets me.

Source: Giphy