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Strangers On A Train.

Source: Amazon UK

The combination of Halloween and the recent passing of Donald Sutherland reminded me of one of my favorite horror films, Dr. Terror’s House Of Horrors, and, in a roundabout way, that reminded me of Dame Maggie Smith who also passed away recently.

Dr. Terror’s House Of Horrors is about six strangers in a train car, played by Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Max Adrian, Peter Madden, Roy Castle, and Donald Sutherland. Cushing, the eponymous Dr. Terror, produces as pack of Tarot cards and tells each man’s future. This provides a frame for a series of stories dealing with werewolves, witches, monstrous plants, and even a disembodied hand. Sutherland, who gets a vampire story, was the last survivor of the main cast; they’re now all reunited which is, if you’ve seen the film, darkly fitting.

It’s a fun watch, especially if you like Hammer films–Amicus Productions was kind of a rival–and because it’s an anthology you can jump in and watch the stories in any order; only the opening and closing are connected, and it always makes me think about at least part of what gives trains their romance. The number of stories about trains is seemingly endless, ranging from Murder On The Orient Express to Silver Streak and I think Hitchcock even made a film about an encounter on a train. From the very beginning trains offered a mobility no one had ever experienced before and also brought together a whole spectrum of people. That’s why one of my favorite parts of living in Britain was taking trains regularly.

On one trip I sat next to a man a few years older than me and across from a woman who, well, looked like the sort of character Dame Maggie Smith would grow into. She had a nice dress and a large hat, also a pair of owl-like glasses, and even walked with a cane. But unlike the Dowager Countess this woman was friendly; she didn’t say anything about my scuffed shoes and jeans, but chatted nicely with both of us. The man next to me told us he was from southern India. She said she’d been there and had always wanted to go back because she loved it so much. Then she turned to me and said she’d never met an American before but was “gratified” I was so polite and charming.

Source: The Guardian

When we got to Waterloo Station we all got out. The Indian man let her hold his arm and I carried her very large suitcase. While we were doing that she yelled out, “Oh porter! I say, porter!”

A guy in a railroad worker’s uniform came over and she said, “My dear porter, these lovely young gentlemen have been kind enough to assist  me with the stairs and my valise. Would you please hail a hansom cab for me?”

I was trying so hard not to fall apart laughing, feeling like I was suddenly in an E.M. Forster novel. It got even funnier when the railroad worker asked if we were together and the Indian said, “Oh no, we’re just strangers on a train.”

“No criss-crosses, though” I said and we smiled at each other.

I know this has taken a lot of turns, from horror to Edwardian manners to, well, a joke about a murder mystery, but that’s what’s great about trains. The lines and destinations are fixed but inside you never know what can happen.

Hop To It.

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.

All These Worlds…

Source: NASA

Even the most dystopian science fiction is hopeful since it imagines a future where people are still around. And when something that sounds like science fiction becomes science fact, no matter what else is going on, it gives me a little hope. The Europa Clipper mission has launched on a six-year trip to study one of Jupiter’s moons that may be a home to life elsewhere in our solar system. Europa’s an intriguing little world that’s only a quarter the size of Earth but may hold twice as much water in an ocean hidden by an icy skin. The launch was delayed by hurricane Milton which is oddly fitting: Europa orbits Jupiter, whose storms are so enormous—that famous great red spot could hold three Earths—that studying them can teach us a lot about storms here on Earth. So there are good reasons to go more than four hundred million miles for a closer look at our biggest neighbor.

In Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010 Europa becomes the one place in our solar system that’s off-limits to humanity even as the rest of it opens up to us, and the 2013 film Europa Report imagines people making the trip to study the frozen world for possible life. It’s an interesting premise but it doesn’t seem plausible; Jupiter itself generates an intense amount of radiation, twice as much as it gets from the sun. Any life on Europa will have adapted, but it’s more than our fragile little bodies could tolerate. We can learn a lot from Jupiter and its moons, which currently number ninety-five and counting, but I don’t think it will ever be a place we can get close to.

The Europa Clipper reminded me of another science fiction story, Contact, and Jodie Foster saying, “They should have sent a poet.” Engraved on the spacecraft is a poem by Poet Laureate Ada Limon. That also gives me hope.

You can listen to her read her poem here.

In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa

Arching under the night sky inky

with black expansiveness, we point

to the planets we know, we

 

pin quick wishes on stars. From earth,

we read the sky as if it is an unerring book

of the universe, expert and evident.

 

Still, there are mysteries below our sky:

the whale song, the songbird singing

its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree.

 

We are creatures of constant awe,

curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom,

at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow.

 

And it is not darkness that unites us,

not the cold distance of space, but

the offering of water, each drop of rain,

 

each rivulet, each pulse, each vein.

O second moon, we, too, are made

of water, of vast and beckoning seas.

 

We, too, are made of wonders, of great

and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds,

of a need to call out through the dark.

 

You’ve Got A Friend In Them.

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 50th 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.

Strange Magic.

I have a strange but very vivid memory from childhood, from a time just after my family had moved to a new house, which, itself, was kind of a strange and disruptive event in my young life. It wasn’t negative. I was only four when we moved, though the memories from our first house seem so much longer than that. And though the new neighborhood wasn’t that far from the old one it still seemed like a very new and very different world.

The early experience I remember so clearly at the new house is a day when there was fog. The new house was on a hill and I could stand in the driveway, or look out my bedroom window, over the backyard and see for miles, all the way to a very distant row of hills where radio towers stood. The fog had spread out over the low lying area between me and those radio towers, and had even reached up to them, obscuring the hills, but I thought I could see construction equipment—tall cranes and bulldozers. Maybe I’d seen them earlier, before the rain and the fog. This seems plausible; at that time there were a lot of new buildings going up in that area as the city expanded.

I was in the driveway looking at this scene and my new friend Troy, who lived at the bottom of the hill, was with me. I thought I could hear the construction equipment, the clanking and grinding of gears, though this was probably just my imagination. Maybe it’s something my mind has added in the intervening years. Maybe none of this even happened and it was all something I dreamed, but I distinctly remember Troy saying, “A cloud fell. They’re trying to put it back up.”

I don’t know if he was serious. He was four too and we both had really active imaginations, and maybe he thought that was really how the world worked: clouds as something people made, shifted into place, controlled. It was a wonderful idea, and I think my mind has held onto it for so long because it makes the world a little more interesting, a little more magical to imagine clouds work that way.

I still like fog, too. It has a wonderful way of making the familiar unfamiliar, renewing my appreciation of the world around me. And then it goes, leaving only a memory, because it can’t last. Or, as King Arthur once sang,

By eight, the morning fog must disappear.

In short, there’s simply not

A more congenial spot

For happily-ever-aftering than here

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p style=”text-align: center;”>In Camelot.

The Root Of It.

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

Old Friends.

Source: San Francisco Art Exchange

An old friend of mine came to Nashville and we met for lunch. And “old friend”, I realized, has taken on a whole new meaning. We’re both close to the same age and haven’t seen each other in person in over twenty years. Instead of talking about old times, as I expected, we ended up talking about everyone we know who’s died and comparing medications.

Even though we haven’t gotten together in so long we’ve stayed in touch and I have a pretty good idea that he’s open to, well, just about anything, but going back and forth making plans prompted me to post this online and, funny enough, it hit a nerve:

Maybe this is just my experience but any two people making lunch plans need a third person to say “Here’s where you’re going, here’s when you’re meeting, and you can thank me for sparing you fifty text messages over twelve hours.”

I had a similar experience when Ann Koplow came to Nashville. To be clear I really enjoy doing things with people, whether it’s an old friend or a new friend, and I’m sorry scheduling has prevented me from meeting some fellow bloggers—I keep hoping there’ll be another time, and that will be another story. Meshing schedules and deciding what to do can be a fun puzzle but a puzzle nonetheless. I want to be a good host. I want someone visiting here to have a good time, to do things they enjoy doing. Most people are agreeable and upfront about what they like to do and, thanks to the internet, it’s a lot easier for someone who’s never been to a place to figure out what it has to offer regardless of your likes, dislikes, and general interests.

On the other hand I know some people like to be surprised. Some people—yeah, I’m thinking of myself here—will, when asked what they’d like to do, say “Whatever!” and mean it. I’ve visited friends and family in other places and, for example, go-kart racing is never something I’d have thought of, but some friends and I had a great time doing it.

I also know how badly that can go. I know someone who once hosted a well-known writer. He’d written a book about educating children and she thought it would be fun to take him to the circus. It wasn’t.

My friend and I had a really good lunch at an Indian place and then we just walked around, going nowhere in particular, and that’s when I realized that, really, it’s not the place or the activity that makes for a fun experience—it’s the company. And though we didn’t talk about old times or drink any beers we are both still crazy after all these years.