It seems that somebody's had the temerity to turn Neil Gaiman's award-winning short story "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" into a film. Judging by the trailer, the film is going to be a very loose adaptation of the story; but it's directed by John Cameron Mitchell of Hedwig and the Angry Inch fame, so that gives me hope. If anyone can make a premise like this work, it's him. Plus we've got the adorable/slightly kinky Elle Fanning on board, as well as Nicole Kidman cosplaying an opposite-sex David Bowie from Labyrinth. Her character certainly wasn't in the short story, but the girl with the doubled middle finger was. Make of that what you will. Anyway, here's the latex-slick movie trailer, and here is the original (very funny) short story, which you can read online for free.
Showing posts with label Neil Gaiman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Neil Gaiman. Show all posts
Monday, April 23, 2018
Saturday, October 8, 2016
Vintage - but blazing hot - MC
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| painting by Zdzisław Beksiński |
Chambers is a much better writer than Lovecraft. In fact, Lovecraft once said, "Chambers is like Rupert Hughes and a few other fallen Titans – equipped with the right brains and education but wholly out of the habit of using them" - by which Lovecraft meant that Chambers was a fool to stop writing weird fiction and to shift instead to romance and adventure. I wish Chambers had written more weird fiction, myself, but at least he gave us five "King in Yellow" pieces and several other good spook stories, including one called "The Case of Mr. Helmer" in which you'd swear Neil Gaiman's own famous Death makes an appearance. Just for my own pleasure, I made an e-book of Chambers' "King in Yellow" stories and some of his other best work, and you're welcome to download a free copy if you like. All his work is in the public domain, so none of us will get in trouble for it. Here's the Dropbox link. And here's a hint: The very best "King in Yellow" story is "The Yellow Sign."
But all the above is just preface. After Chambers went mainstream, he wrote a handful of other supernatural novels, including one called The Slayer of Souls. It's about a young woman named Tressa who's captured by a devil-worshiping cult and escapes after learning all their magic. She then joins the US Secret Service in an attempt to track down and eliminate the cult leaders, who can control human minds and turn them to the worship of Erlik, the devil. It's a pretty cool concept, and especially cool when you realize that the novel was written just as women were beginning to get voting rights, yet Tressa is far more powerful than any man in the story. Then there's another powerful woman, one of the villains, who has this encounter with Tressa's so-called protector, Cleves:
Now, grasping his pistol but not drawing it, he began another stealthy tour of the apartment, exploring every nook and cranny. And, at the end, had discovered nothing new.
When at length he realised that, as far as he could discover, there was not a living thing in the place excepting himself, a very faint chill grew along his neck and shoulders, and he caught his breath suddenly, deeply.
He had come back to the bedroom, now. The perfume of the orchids saturated the still air.
And, as he stood staring at them, all of a sudden he saw, where their twisted stalks rested in the transparent bowl of water, something moving—something brilliant as a live ember gliding out from among the mass of submerged stems—a living fish glowing in scarlet hues and winnowing the water with grotesquely trailing fins as delicate as filaments of scarlet lace.
To and fro swam the fish among the maze of orchid stalks. Even its eyes were hot and red as molten rubies; and as its crimson gills swelled and relaxed and swelled, tints of cherry-fire waxed and waned over its fat and glowing body.
And vaguely, now, in the perfume saturated air, Cleves seemed to sense a subtle taint of evil,—something sinister in the intense stillness of the place—in the jewelled fish gliding so silently in and out among the pallid convolutions of the drowned stems.
As he stood staring at the fish, the drugged odour of the orchids heavy in his throat and lungs, something stirred very lightly in the room.
Chills crawling over every limb, he looked around across his shoulder.
There was a figure seated cross-legged in the middle of the bed!
Then, in the perfumed silence, the girl laughed.
For a full minute neither of them moved. No sound had echoed her low laughter save the deadened pulsations of his own heart. But now there grew a faint ripple of water in the bowl where the scarlet fish, suddenly restless, was swimming hither and thither as though pursued by an invisible hand.
With the slight noise of splashing water in his ears, Cleves stood staring at the figure on the bed. Under her chinchilla the girl seemed to be all a pale golden tint—hair, skin, eyes. The scant shred of an evening gown she wore, the jewels at her throat and breast, all were yellow and amber and saffron-gold.
And now, looking him in the eyes, she leisurely disengaged the robe of silver fur from her naked shoulders and let it fall around her on the bed. For a second the lithe, willowy golden thing gathered there as gracefully as a coiled snake filled him with swift loathing. Then, almost instantly, the beauty of the lissome creature fascinated him.
She leaned forward and set her elbows on her two knees, and rested her face between her hands—like a gold rose-bud between two ivory petals, he thought, dismayed by this young thing's beauty, shaken by the dull confusion of his own heart battering his breast like the blows of a rising tide.
"What do you wish?" she inquired in her soft young voice. "Why have you come secretly into my rooms to search—and clasping in your hand a loaded pistol deep within your pocket?"
"Why have you hidden yourself until now?" he retorted in a dull and laboured voice.
"I have been here."
"Where?"
"Here!... Looking at you.... And watching my scarlet fish. His name is Dzelim. He is nearly a thousand years old and as wise as a magician. Look upon him, my lord! See how rapidly he darts around his tiny crystal world!—like a comet through outer star-dust, running the eternal race with Time.... And—yonder is a chair. Will my lord be seated—at his new servant's feet?"
A strange, physical weariness seemed to weight his limbs and shoulders. He seated himself near the bed, never taking his heavy gaze from the smiling, golden thing which squatted there watching him so intently....
She lifted one hand and with her forefinger made signs from right to left and then downward as though writing in Turkish and in Chinese characters.
"It is written," she said in a low voice, "that we belong to God and we return to him. Look out what you are about, my lord!"
He drew his pistol from his overcoat and, holding it, rested his hand on his knee.
"Now," he said hoarsely, "while we await the coming of Togrul Kahn, you shall remain exactly where you are, and you shall tell me exactly who you are in order that I may decide whether to arrest you as an alien enemy inciting my countrymen to murder, or to let you go as a foreigner who is able to prove her honesty and innocence."
The girl laughed:
"Be careful," she said. "My danger lies in your youth and mine—somewhere between your lips and mine lies my only danger from you, my lord."
A dull flush mounted to his temples and burned there....
Look upon me, my lord!
There was a golden light in his eyes which seemed to stiffen the muscles and confuse his vision. He heard her voice again as though very far away:
"It is written that we shall love, my lord—thou and I—this night—this night. Listen attentively. I am thy slave. My lips shall touch thy feet. Look upon me, my lord!"
There was a dazzling blindness in his eyes and in his brain. He swayed a little still striving to fix her with his failing gaze. His pistol hand slipped sideways from his knee, fell limply, and the weapon dropped to the thick carpet. He could still see the glimmering golden shape of her, still hear her distant voice:
"It is written that we belong to God.... Tokhta!..."
Over his knees was settling a snow-white [shroud]; on it, in his lap, lay a naked knife. There was not a sound in the room save the rushing and splashing of the scarlet fish in its crystal bowl.
Bending nearer, the girl fixed her yellow eyes on the man who looked back at her with dying gaze, sitting upright and knee deep in his shroud.
Then, noiselessly she uncoiled her supple golden body, extending her right arm toward the knife.
"Look upon me attentively, my lord!
Her smooth little hand closed on the hilt; the scarlet fish splashed furiously in the bowl, dislodging a blossom or two which fell to the carpet and slowly faded into mist.
Now she grasped the knife, and she slipped from the bed to the floor and stood before the dazed man.
"This is the Namaz-Ga," she said in her silky voice. "Behold, this is the appointed Place of Prayer. Gaze around you, my lord. These are the shadows of mighty men who come here to see you die in the Place of Prayer."
Cleves's head had fallen back, but his eyes were open. The Baroulass girl took his head in both hands and turned it hither and thither. And his glazing eyes seemed to sweep a throng of shadowy white-robed men crowding the room. And ... his stiffening lips parted in an uttered cry, and sagged open, flaccid and soundless.
The Baroulass sorceress lifted the shroud from his knees and spread it on the carpet, moving with leisurely grace about her business and softly intoning the Prayers for the Dead.
Then, having made her arrangements, she took her knife into her right hand again and came back to the half-conscious man, and stood close in front of him, bending near and looking curiously into his dimmed eyes.
"Ayah!" she said smilingly. "This is the Place of Prayer. And you shall add your prayer to ours before I use my knife. So! I give you back your power of speech. Pronounce the name of Erlik!"
Very slowly his dry lips moved and his dry tongue trembled. The word they formed was,
"Tressa!"
Not bad at all for a novel published in 1920, eh? And you can find The Slayer of Souls for free too, since it's in the public domain. I forgot where I found my copy, but I'll be glad to put that in my Dropbox too if anyone asks for it. Just be warned that the rest of the novel isn't anywhere near as hot as this scene; it's all very, very Christian; and Chambers thinks socialism and "lamaism" (by which I think he means Buddhism) are tools of the devil. The best thing about it, IMO, is its secret feminism. I'm not sure Chambers himself knew what he was implying by making Tressa the most powerful character in the book.
Not bad at all for a novel published in 1920, eh? And you can find The Slayer of Souls for free too, since it's in the public domain. I forgot where I found my copy, but I'll be glad to put that in my Dropbox too if anyone asks for it. Just be warned that the rest of the novel isn't anywhere near as hot as this scene; it's all very, very Christian; and Chambers thinks socialism and "lamaism" (by which I think he means Buddhism) are tools of the devil. The best thing about it, IMO, is its secret feminism. I'm not sure Chambers himself knew what he was implying by making Tressa the most powerful character in the book.
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Maneater
Of course, there's nothing sexy about Peter Stormare (at least not in this role). What is sexy is the goddess Bilquis. I wasn't sure, until I saw the trailer, how much we'd see of her most memorable scene; but it looks like we're going to get an R-rated version at least. Gaiman has confirmed this, and he says that all the best scenes and lines from the book are going to be in the series. That includes the goddess Media (played by Gillian Anderson!), manifesting as Lucy from I Love Lucy, asking our protagonist if he wants to "see Lucy's tits."
I'll embed the trailer at the bottom of this post, and I'll encourage you to watch it at least twice so you can take in every amazing little detail. Notice, especially, the look of glowing satisfaction in Bilquis' eyes after she does her thing. And just in case you need a reminder, this is her thing:
It seems to him that the lights in the red room have been dimmed, and the sole illumination comes from the candle, which burns with a bright flame.
"What's your name?" he asks her.
"Bilquis," she tells him, raising her head. "With a Q."
"A what?"
"Never mind."
He is gasping now. "Let me fuck you," he says. "I have to fuck you."
"Okay, hon," she says. "We'll do it. But will you do something for me, while you're doing it?"
"Hey," he says, suddenly tetchy. "I'm paying you, you know."
She straddles him, in one smooth movement, whispering, "I know, honey. I know, you're paying me, and I mean, look at you. I should be paying you, I'm so lucky..."
He purses his lips, trying to show that her hooker talk is having no effect on him, he can't be taken; that she's a street whore, for Chrissakes, while he's practically a producer, and he knows all about last-minute ripoffs, but she doesn't ask for money. Instead she says, "Honey, while you're giving it to me, while you're pushing that big hard thing inside of me, will you worship me?"
"Will I what?"
She is rocking back and forth on him: the engorged head of his penis is being rubbed against the wet lips of her vulva.
"Will you call me goddess? Will you pray to me? Will you worship me with your body?"
He smiles. Its that all she wants? We've all got our kinks, at the end of the day. "Sure," he says. She reaches her hand between her legs and slips him inside her.
"Is that good, is it, goddess?" he asks, gasping.
"Worship me, honey," says Bilquis, the hooker.
"Yes," he says, "I worship your breasts and your hair and your cunt. I worship your thighs and your eyes and your cherry-red lips..."
"Yes..." she croons, riding him.
"I worship your nipples, from which the milk of life flows. Your kiss is honey and your touch scorches like fire, and I worship it." His words are becoming more rhythmic now, keeping pace with the thrust and roll of their bodies. "Bring me your lust in the morning, and bring me relief and your blessing in the evening. Let me walk in dark places unharmed and let me come to you once more and sleep beside you and make love with you again. I worship you with everything that is within me, and everything inside my mind, with everywhere I've been and my dreams and my..." he breaks off, panting for breath. "What are you doing? That feels amazing. So amazing..." and he looks down at his hips, at the place where the two of them conjoin, but her forefinger touches his chin and pushes his head back, so he is looking only at her face and at the ceiling once again.
"Keep talking, honey," she says. "Don't stop. Doesn't it feel good?"
"It feels better than anything has ever felt," he tells her, meaning it as he says it. "Your eyes are stars, burning in the, shit, the firmament, and your lips are gentle waves that lick the sand, and I worship them," and now he's thrusting deeper and deeper insider her; he feels electric, as if his whole lower body has become sexually charged: priapic, engorged, blissful.
"Bring me your gift," he mutters, no longer knowing what he is saying, "your one true gift, and make me always this...always so...I pray...I..."
And then the pleasure crests into orgasm, blasting his mind into void, his head and self and entire being a perfect blank as he thrusts deeper into her and deeper still...
Eyes closed, spasming, he luxuriates in the moment; and then he feels a lurch, and it seems to him that he is hanging, head down, although the pleasure continues.
He opens his eyes.
He thinks, grasping for thought and reason again, of birth, and wonders, without fear, in a moment of perfect postcoital clarity, whether what he sees is some kind of illusion.
This is what he sees:
He is inside her to the chest, and as he stares at this in disbelief and wonder she rests both hands upon his shoulders and puts gentle pressure on his body.
He slipslides further insider her.
"How are you doing this to me?" he asks, or he thinks he asks, but perhaps it is only in his head.
"You're doing it, honey," she whispers. He feels the lips of her vulva, tight around his upper chest and back, constricting and enveloping him. He wonders what this would look like to somebody watching them. He wonders why he is not scared. And then he knows.
"I worship you with my body," he whispers, as she pushes him inside her. Her labia pull slickly across his face, and his eyes slip into darkness.
She stretches on the bed, like a huge cat, and then she yawns. "Yes," she says. "You do."
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
If you're into living statues...
You know those "living statues" you see in big city squares? I'm talking about the people who paint themselves in silver or gold and either dress in elaborate costumes or simple bodysuits. They pose stock still until you toss them some money, and then they do some little routine and return to stillness. Like clockwork. Like robots.
Seeing those performers always make me squirm inside because what they do in public skates so close to my private fetish. They're pretending to be dolls or robots, and in my mind, I'm imagining that they're people who've been turned into dolls or robots. When they stand still with their eyes either closed or unblinking, it's so easy to imagine they're in trance. Someone has hypnotized them into motionless mindlessness, and although money can break the spell for a little while, they always return to the truth: they're thralls.
I get these thoughts even when I see bad living statues: ordinary faces and out-of-shape bodies stuffed into cheap unitards, wannabe robots who don't look any sleeker than me - and believe me, I am not sleek. But experiencing these fantasies while in public, with even the living statues themselves probably watching me even though they pretend they're not, I feel simultaneously horny and embarrassed. It's like having that dream where I find myself naked in public.
Well, just a little ago, I stumbled across an article written by a guy who performed as a living statue. He writes about his experiences as a Times Square regular and as hired entertainment at an increasingly bizarre party. It's a wonderful read. I'd love it even if I didn't have this crazy fetish, but having it makes the article that much better. It's so easy to imagine myself in his place...only without the dirty old man. So if you're into living statues, follow this link and enjoy the Lurid Confessions of a Times Square Silver Man.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
writing tips
Another thing you can do to polish your skills is to study the writing of people who really know what they're doing. Now, you have to be careful about this; as Gaiman says in his post, it's a bad idea to copy someone else's style. But you can learn techniques, like how to enhance a scene with the right setting or realistic dialogue, and (especially useful for writers of erotica), how to give it sensuality.
And this is where the idea for my post began. A few months ago I was reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. Amazing, fantastic novel - and (not to turn anyone off with hoity-toity-ness, because this isn't a hoity-toity novel) a Pulitzer Prize winner. It's about the birth of superhero comics and the relationship between two Jewish cousins, one a smart-alecky New Yorker and the other an escapee from Nazi-occupied Prague. The part I want to share with you concerns Sammy's first romantic experience. He's the New Yorker, and he's developed a friendship with a radio actor named Tracy Bacon. Despite the name, Tracy is a man. You can see where this is going. But let me linger over that name for a second. A few months ago I blogged about how to name characters, and "Tracy Bacon" is a great example. Not only is his first name androgynous, but his last name is Bacon. Remember, Sammy's Jewish. Bacon is forbidden for him...and yet....
I'll set the scene just a little - no need for much detail since Chabon lays it out so beautifully. And I'll encourage you to notice, as you read, how incredibly sensual it is despite involving nothing but a kiss. Everything is sexual: the inevitability of the approaching storm, the heat and electricity - of so many kinds - the phallic nature of the building and cigarette, the not-as-innocent-as-it-seems body contact, all the different liquids....It's nothing but a kiss, and yet it's more erotic than any dozen sex scenes on the EMCSA.
So anyway, the setup: Sammy hasn't yet realized he's gay, or that Tracy has been flirting with him, but he's definitely attracted to to the guy. Sammy is alone on the top floor of the Empire State Building (never mind why) when Tracy sneaks in to see him. Then this happens:
"Jeez," Bacon said, getting up from the table. "Thunder."
He went over to the windows and looked out. Sammy rose and followed him.
"This way," he said, taking Bacon by the arm. "It's blowing in from the southeast."
They stood side by side, shoulders pressed together, watching the slow black zeppelin as it steamed over New York, trailing long white guy wires of lightning. Thunder harried the building like a hound, brushing its crackling coat against the spandrels and mullions, snuffling at the windowpanes.
"It seems to like us." A feather of laughter fluttered in Bacon's voice. Sammy saw that he was afraid.
"Yeah," Sammy said. "We're its favorite." He lit a cigarette, and at the spark of his lighter, Bacon jumped. "Relax. They've been coming all month. They come all through summer."
"Huh," Bacon said. he took a swallow from the bottle of Burgundy, then licked his lips. "And I am relaxed."
"Sorry."
"That stuff doesn't ever, you know, hit the building."
"Five times so far this year, I think it is."
"Oh my God."
"Relax."
"Shut up."
"They've recorded strokes that were more than twenty-two thousand amperes."
"Hitting this building."
"Ten million volts, or something like that."
"Jesus."
"Don't worry," Sammy said, "the whole building acts like one gigantic - Oh." Bacon's breath was sour with wine, but one sweet drop of the stuff lingered on his lips as he pressed his mouth against Sammy's. The stubble on their chins scraped with a soft electric rasp. Sammy was so taken by surprise that by the time his brain with its considerable store of Judeo-Christian prohibitions and attitudes could begin sending the harsh and condemnatory messages to the various relevant parts of his body, it was too late. He was already kissing Tracy Bacon back. They angled their bodies half toward each other. The bottle of wine clinked against the window glass. Sammy felt a tiny halo, a gemstone of heat burning his fingers. He let the cigarette drop to the floor. Then the sky just beyond the windows was veined with fire, and they heard a sizzle that sounded almost wet, like a droplet on a hot griddle, and then a thunderclap trapped them in the deep black cavern of its palms.
"Lightning rod," said Sammy, pulling away. As if in spite of all he had been told one evening last week by the bland and reassuring Dr. Karl B. Maceachron of General Electric, who had been studying the electrical atmospheric phenomena associated with the Empire State Building, from Saint Elmo's fire to reverse lightning that struck the sky, he was suddenly afraid. He took a step back from Tracy Bacon, stopped to retrieve his smouldering cigarette, and sought refuge by unconsciously adopting the dry manner of Dr. MacEachron himself. "The steel structure of the building attracts but then totally dissipates the discharge...."
"I'm sorry," Bacon said.
"That's all right."
"I didn't mean to- wow, look at that."
Bacon pointed to the deserted promenade outside the windows. Along its railings, a bright blue liquid, viscous and turbulent, seemed to flow. Sammy opened the door and reached out into the ozone-sharp darkness, and then Bacon came beside him again and put out his hand, too, and they stood there, for a moment, watching as sparks two inches long forked from the tips of their outstretched fingers.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
An MC-Flavored "Top Twelve" List for 2012
When Callidus visited me in September, one of the things we did together was brainstorm a list of our top ten favorite MC scenes in movies and TV. We were thinking about publishing a single list of picks we agreed on, but later we decided it would be easier to each make our own list and publish that in our own time. So here's mine, just in time for the end-of-year retrospectives. In honor of the year (and because that's how many clips I found on YouTube out of all the ones I searched for), I'm giving you not ten, but twelve of my favorites.
If you like what you see, you'd better download these clips immediately, because there's no telling how long they'll stick around. Already, some of the videos I'd featured previously on this blog are gone; so I've had to make do with lesser quality versions or, in a few cases, interesting remixes. Then there was one (Eve Plumb in the "Pied Piper" episode of Wonder Woman) that I couldn't find at all. If you've seen that episode, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It would definitely have been in my top five.
Anyway, here's my "Top Twelve for 2012" MC countdown, minus Eve Plumb. Download while you can.
12. Lily's Seduction in Legend: Mia Sara is by far the best thing about this movie, and this is by far her best scene. Who or what is really seducing her here? No telling, but it's probably female...and Mia definitely loves it.
11. Emma Peel's Brainwashing in The Avengers: Brief and to the point, which is a blessing since this is supposedly an execrable movie. Thankfully, the only bit of it I've watched is this scene, which Callidus shared with me on his visit. I can't imagine what the poor guy suffered to bring us this brief moment of transcendence.
10. "I Want It" from Looker: Haven't we all been hypnotized by TV once in awhile? Too bad most of us don't look at hot as Susan Dey when it happens.
9. Close to You/Mirrormask: Neil Gaiman comes through again, this time with clockwork robots dancing to the very last song you'd ever expect to hear in an MC context.
8. Picard Gets Assimilated: I couldn't find a clip of his assimilation isolated from the rest of the plot, but I found something that might be even better: a chronological mashup of several MC-related moments from both parts of "Best of Both Worlds." Not only do you get the full horror of Picard's assimilation, but you also get the thrill of watching him betray the people he loves, all without having to wait on an actual plot. [Edit: I've replaced the original embedded video with a better, more atmospheric one - though oddly enough, both feature music by the same band. Even if you don't like Linkin Park, I recommend keeping the sound on because of all the horrified muttering by the Enterprise crew.].
7. Mannequin - Mutation: Here's something I stumbled across several years ago (via Asudem Latex, IIRC). I'm surprised and delighted to find it still online.
6. Carmilla Seduces a Young Maiden: I had thought this scene was gone from YouTube, but maybe I just needed to be logged in to see it. I found it today, anyway, in the middle of a ten-minute segment. If you don't want to wait around, just drag the slide bar over to 4:46. Carmilla smolders wonderfully, and her victim's expressions are almost as lovely as her pale, helpless body.
5. Fleurs du Mal: This video is technically an advertisement for Agent Provocateur lingerie, but in reality it's oh so much more. Xenia LaFleur linked me to the original clip on the AP website, and today I found a copy on YouTube that I could embed here. If you want the link to the original in its great big .mp4 glory, it's available here; and if you want to download that .mp4 but don't know how, you can find my instructions here.
4. Fright Night Club Scene, 1985 version: Here's another of those cases where I had to use a remix because the original video has disappeared. The shots in the remix are out of order, but at least the video is high quality. Plus, you get to see some nice bits from other parts of the movie. Nothing beats the club scene itself, though.
3. Eve's Virginity Test: Here's a clip from The Lair of the White Worm by famously wacko director Ken Russell. There's some extraneous stuff before and after the MC scene, but somehow I don't think you'll mind watching it. ;-P
2. Dana Scully's Hypnotic Orgasm: This scene comes from the X-Files episode "The Red and the Black." She's being hypnotically regressed so she can remember an alien abduction, but damned if it doesn't look like she's remembering something else! Unfortunately, there are no clips of the episode itself on YouTube and I've had to settle for dailies. Well, at least they're good enough to show you why this scene pushes my buttons the way it does.
1. Big Trouble in Little China: When the Calliduses visited me, we quickly agreed that "Big Trouble in Little China" is the right answer to anything. Best exploding heads of the 1980's? Big Trouble in Little China. Least convincing straight character in a fantasy film? Big Trouble in Little China. Shortest Neanderthal hockey player in the Brazilian league? Big Trouble in Little China. Anyway, if you're reading this blog, chances are you've already discovered that scene for yourself....and also that scene, and that one. At the moment (no guarantees how long this will last), you can watch the whole movie on YouTube with great quality video but out-of-synch audio (thankfully not much of an issue with that scene) and subtitles. Blogger won't let me embed it here while simultaneously starting the video at the right point, so you have two paths to choose from. If you want to jump over to YouTube and start at the right point, click here. Alternately, if you want to watch from here and scroll to the right point on your own, just enjoy the following pictures on the way down, then pick up the action at 1:07:25.
If you like what you see, you'd better download these clips immediately, because there's no telling how long they'll stick around. Already, some of the videos I'd featured previously on this blog are gone; so I've had to make do with lesser quality versions or, in a few cases, interesting remixes. Then there was one (Eve Plumb in the "Pied Piper" episode of Wonder Woman) that I couldn't find at all. If you've seen that episode, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It would definitely have been in my top five.
Anyway, here's my "Top Twelve for 2012" MC countdown, minus Eve Plumb. Download while you can.
12. Lily's Seduction in Legend: Mia Sara is by far the best thing about this movie, and this is by far her best scene. Who or what is really seducing her here? No telling, but it's probably female...and Mia definitely loves it.
11. Emma Peel's Brainwashing in The Avengers: Brief and to the point, which is a blessing since this is supposedly an execrable movie. Thankfully, the only bit of it I've watched is this scene, which Callidus shared with me on his visit. I can't imagine what the poor guy suffered to bring us this brief moment of transcendence.
10. "I Want It" from Looker: Haven't we all been hypnotized by TV once in awhile? Too bad most of us don't look at hot as Susan Dey when it happens.
9. Close to You/Mirrormask: Neil Gaiman comes through again, this time with clockwork robots dancing to the very last song you'd ever expect to hear in an MC context.
8. Picard Gets Assimilated: I couldn't find a clip of his assimilation isolated from the rest of the plot, but I found something that might be even better: a chronological mashup of several MC-related moments from both parts of "Best of Both Worlds." Not only do you get the full horror of Picard's assimilation, but you also get the thrill of watching him betray the people he loves, all without having to wait on an actual plot. [Edit: I've replaced the original embedded video with a better, more atmospheric one - though oddly enough, both feature music by the same band. Even if you don't like Linkin Park, I recommend keeping the sound on because of all the horrified muttering by the Enterprise crew.].
7. Mannequin - Mutation: Here's something I stumbled across several years ago (via Asudem Latex, IIRC). I'm surprised and delighted to find it still online.
6. Carmilla Seduces a Young Maiden: I had thought this scene was gone from YouTube, but maybe I just needed to be logged in to see it. I found it today, anyway, in the middle of a ten-minute segment. If you don't want to wait around, just drag the slide bar over to 4:46. Carmilla smolders wonderfully, and her victim's expressions are almost as lovely as her pale, helpless body.
5. Fleurs du Mal: This video is technically an advertisement for Agent Provocateur lingerie, but in reality it's oh so much more. Xenia LaFleur linked me to the original clip on the AP website, and today I found a copy on YouTube that I could embed here. If you want the link to the original in its great big .mp4 glory, it's available here; and if you want to download that .mp4 but don't know how, you can find my instructions here.
4. Fright Night Club Scene, 1985 version: Here's another of those cases where I had to use a remix because the original video has disappeared. The shots in the remix are out of order, but at least the video is high quality. Plus, you get to see some nice bits from other parts of the movie. Nothing beats the club scene itself, though.
3. Eve's Virginity Test: Here's a clip from The Lair of the White Worm by famously wacko director Ken Russell. There's some extraneous stuff before and after the MC scene, but somehow I don't think you'll mind watching it. ;-P
2. Dana Scully's Hypnotic Orgasm: This scene comes from the X-Files episode "The Red and the Black." She's being hypnotically regressed so she can remember an alien abduction, but damned if it doesn't look like she's remembering something else! Unfortunately, there are no clips of the episode itself on YouTube and I've had to settle for dailies. Well, at least they're good enough to show you why this scene pushes my buttons the way it does.
1. Big Trouble in Little China: When the Calliduses visited me, we quickly agreed that "Big Trouble in Little China" is the right answer to anything. Best exploding heads of the 1980's? Big Trouble in Little China. Least convincing straight character in a fantasy film? Big Trouble in Little China. Shortest Neanderthal hockey player in the Brazilian league? Big Trouble in Little China. Anyway, if you're reading this blog, chances are you've already discovered that scene for yourself....and also that scene, and that one. At the moment (no guarantees how long this will last), you can watch the whole movie on YouTube with great quality video but out-of-synch audio (thankfully not much of an issue with that scene) and subtitles. Blogger won't let me embed it here while simultaneously starting the video at the right point, so you have two paths to choose from. If you want to jump over to YouTube and start at the right point, click here. Alternately, if you want to watch from here and scroll to the right point on your own, just enjoy the following pictures on the way down, then pick up the action at 1:07:25.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Freaky sex with a side of MC
...and some body-horror, for those of you like me who enjoy that sort of thing. I might or might not have had this scene subconsciously in mind when I wrote Hoarder.This story, though, is American Gods, which I'm currently rereading. As I was enjoying the scene below, it struck me how perfectly appropriate it is for this blog.
If you haven't read the novel, all you need to know is that in modern America, the ancient gods of the Old World are near-powerless because they're deprived of worship. They make ends meet in different ways as determined by their temperaments. Bilquis turns tricks.
All ellipses below are in the original text. I'm not leaving anything out.
Now buckle your seatbelts and enjoy....
He unbuttons his blue jeans and removes his olive T-shirt. She massages his white shoulders with her brown fingers; then she turns him over and begins to make love to him with her hands, and her fingers, and her tongue.
It seems to him that the lights in the red room have been dimmed, and the sole illumination comes from the candle, which burns with a bright flame.
"What's your name?" he asks her.
"Bilquis," she tells him, raising her head. "With a Q."
"A what?"
"Never mind."
He is gasping now. "Let me fuck you," he says. "I have to fuck you."
"Okay, hon," she says. "We'll do it. But will you do something for me, while you're doing it?"
"Hey," he says, suddenly tetchy. "I'm paying you, you know."
She straddles him, in one smooth movement, whispering, "I know, honey. I know, you're paying me, and I mean, look at you. I should be paying you, I'm so lucky..."
He purses his lips, trying to show that her hooker talk is having no effect on him, he can't be taken; that she's a street whore, for Chrissakes, while he's practically a producer, and he knows all about last-minute ripoffs, but she doesn't ask for money. Instead she says, "Honey, while you're giving it to me, while you're pushing that big hard thing inside of me, will you worship me?"
"Will I what?"
She is rocking back and forth on him: the engorged head of his penis is being rubbed against the wet lips of her vulva.
"Will you call me goddess? Will you pray to me? Will you worship me with your body?"
He smiles. Its that all she wants? We've all got our kinks, at the end of the day. "Sure," he says. She reaches her hand between her legs and slips him inside her.
"Is that good, is it, goddess?" he asks, gasping.
"Worship me, honey," says Bilquis, the hooker.
"Yes," he says, "I worship your breasts and your hair and your cunt. I worship your thighs and your eyes and your cherry-red lips..."
"Yes..." she croons, riding him.
"I worship your nipples, from which the milk of life flows. Your kiss is honey and your touch scorches like fire, and I worship it." His words are becoming more rhythmic now, keeping pace with the thrust and roll of their bodies. "Bring me your lust in the morning, and bring me relief and your blessing in the evening. Let me walk in dark places unharmed and let me come to you once more and sleep beside you and make love with you again. I worship you with everything that is within me, and everything inside my mind, with everywhere I've been and my dreams and my..." he breaks off, panting for breath. "What are you doing? That feels amazing. So amazing..." and he looks down at his hips, at the place where the two of them conjoin, but her forefinger touches his chin and pushes his head back, so he is looking only at her face and at the ceiling once again.
"Keep talking, honey," she says. "Don't stop. Doesn't it feel good?"
"It feels better than anything has ever felt," he tells her, meaning it as he says it. "Your eyes are stars, burning in the, shit, the firmament, and your lips are gentle waves that lick the sand, and I worship them," and now he's thrusting deeper and deeper insider her; he feels electric, as if his whole lower body has become sexually charged: priapic, engorged, blissful.
"Bring me your gift," he mutters, no longer knowing what he is saying, "your one true gift, and make me always this...always so...I pray...I..."
And then the pleasure crests into orgasm, blasting his mind into void, his head and self and entire being a perfect blank as he thrusts deeper into her and deeper still...
Eyes closed, spasming, he luxuriates in the moment; and then he feels a lurch, and it seems to him that he is hanging, head down, although the pleasure continues.
He opens his eyes.
He thinks, grasping for thought and reason again, of birth, and wonders, without fear, in a moment of perfect postcoital clarity, whether what he sees is some kind of illusion.
This is what he sees:
He is inside her to the chest, and as he stares at this in disbelief and wonder she rests both hands upon his shoulders and puts gentle pressure on his body.
He slipslides further insider her.
"How are you doing this to me?" he asks, or he thinks he asks, but perhaps it is only in his head.
"You're doing it, honey," she whispers. He feels the lips of her vulva, tight around his upper chest and back, constricting and enveloping him. He wonders what this would look like to somebody watching them. He wonders why he is not scared. And then he knows.
"I worship you with my body," he whispers, as she pushes him inside her. Her labia pull slickly across his face, and his eyes slip into darkness.
She stretches on the bed, like a huge cat, and then she yawns. "Yes," she says. "You do."
*The image above, of course, is by H. R. Giger.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Two Neils and Some Smut
I've thought for some time that the coolest name anyone could give a male child is Neil/Neal. Just think about it: Neil Gaiman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Neil Stephenson, Neil Patrick Harris....the list goes on and on. If you want your son to be awesome, just name him Neil.
So anyway, I just happened across this delightful interview with Neils Gaiman and deGrasse Tyson - who, being the wacky and wonderful souls they are, promptly start talking about venereal disease. For the full effect, you should watch the video before reading on.
Okay, now, if you're like me, you're suddenly curious to know more about the Earl of Rochester. I've just done a bit of googling and turned up several quite entertaining X-rated poems. These are the two most accessible for non-poetry geeks:
The Imperfect Enjoyment (spoiler: it's about premature ejaculation)
Signior Dildo (This one should be obvious)
As always, enjoy!
P.S.: If you really want to know more about Rochester, you can always rent this.
So anyway, I just happened across this delightful interview with Neils Gaiman and deGrasse Tyson - who, being the wacky and wonderful souls they are, promptly start talking about venereal disease. For the full effect, you should watch the video before reading on.
Okay, now, if you're like me, you're suddenly curious to know more about the Earl of Rochester. I've just done a bit of googling and turned up several quite entertaining X-rated poems. These are the two most accessible for non-poetry geeks:
The Imperfect Enjoyment (spoiler: it's about premature ejaculation)
Signior Dildo (This one should be obvious)
As always, enjoy!
P.S.: If you really want to know more about Rochester, you can always rent this.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Love Kills
As you know if you've been following this blog, I've begun work on the longest EMC story I've ever written. My current outline calls for eight or nine chapters. It will be a purple story, according to the EMCSA's color codes, and it will have straight and gay inductions of every possible combination.
Not too long ago I wrote a particularly nasty M/f induction for this saga. I knew going in that if I was going to write an M/f induction, I had to go all the way with it. I couldn't skimp on the details just because they made me uncomfortable - and some of them certainly did. But the relationship between the man and the woman in this scene made it satisfying for me to write, from a hot-button standpoint. You'll see what I mean when I publish the story. Me being me, I won't post it until I have the whole thing written; and I'm still not sure how long that will take. But I can tell you that I'm so excited about it that I'm writing or at least brainstorming in every spare moment.
Meanwhile, I stumbled across this video last night on YouTube. The theme of the song ties in neatly with this post, and the famous Metropolis robot scenes provide an added dash of fetish - especially since they're presented with almost no context.
Finally, if you're still in the mood for betrayal stories, you might enjoy (and/or be horrified by) this poem Neil Gaiman recently offered up on his blog.
Happy pre-Halloween.
Not too long ago I wrote a particularly nasty M/f induction for this saga. I knew going in that if I was going to write an M/f induction, I had to go all the way with it. I couldn't skimp on the details just because they made me uncomfortable - and some of them certainly did. But the relationship between the man and the woman in this scene made it satisfying for me to write, from a hot-button standpoint. You'll see what I mean when I publish the story. Me being me, I won't post it until I have the whole thing written; and I'm still not sure how long that will take. But I can tell you that I'm so excited about it that I'm writing or at least brainstorming in every spare moment.
Meanwhile, I stumbled across this video last night on YouTube. The theme of the song ties in neatly with this post, and the famous Metropolis robot scenes provide an added dash of fetish - especially since they're presented with almost no context.
Finally, if you're still in the mood for betrayal stories, you might enjoy (and/or be horrified by) this poem Neil Gaiman recently offered up on his blog.
Happy pre-Halloween.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
A Sunday school teacher and a Hell's Angel walk into a bar...
So...here I am with Callidus. He told me ahead of time that he looked like a biker, and I told him ahead of time that I looked like a Sunday school teacher. Actually, he looks more like a roadie for a death metal band, but I do still look like a Sunday school teacher. ;-)
We'll be off in a little while for lunch and touring, but until then, we're at my place chatting about Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, and comic books.
And now, over to Callidus....
I'm sitting at thrall's computer trying to reconcile the blog I visit regularly, the EMC fiction I've enjoyed for years, and the epic email discussion I've shared with the clever, cheerful person sitting next to me. In some ways she is exactly what I expected and still a complete surprise. It is so...fun to finally be connecting in-person with this lady I've known for years through her messages and website.If the past hour is any indication, one day isn't going to be nearly enough to talk about all the things we have in common and all the things we want to share.
-Callidus
thrall again. I'm having just as much fun getting to know the real-life Callidus and Ms. Callidus. They're very sweet and funny people and clearly have a wonderful relationship with each other. I'm looking forward to spending the day with them. So now we're off (after I give them a quick tour of my Virtual Hypnotist setup). More to follow.
We'll be off in a little while for lunch and touring, but until then, we're at my place chatting about Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, and comic books.
And now, over to Callidus....
I'm sitting at thrall's computer trying to reconcile the blog I visit regularly, the EMC fiction I've enjoyed for years, and the epic email discussion I've shared with the clever, cheerful person sitting next to me. In some ways she is exactly what I expected and still a complete surprise. It is so...fun to finally be connecting in-person with this lady I've known for years through her messages and website.If the past hour is any indication, one day isn't going to be nearly enough to talk about all the things we have in common and all the things we want to share.
-Callidus
thrall again. I'm having just as much fun getting to know the real-life Callidus and Ms. Callidus. They're very sweet and funny people and clearly have a wonderful relationship with each other. I'm looking forward to spending the day with them. So now we're off (after I give them a quick tour of my Virtual Hypnotist setup). More to follow.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Me, Neil and Steve
Over on his blog, Neil Gaiman has just posted an interview of Stephen King that Gaiman wrote for the Sunday Times Magazine. Now, I've been a King fan for almost three times as long as I've been a Gaiman fan, so I was fascinated to see how they'd interact with one another. It turned out that my favorite part was the "two writers talking about their craft" section, and my favorite part of that section was the bit I'm quoting below.
Now, I don't for a second think I'm as talented as either of these writers (well, except in my fantasies), but I can relate to the experience they talk about here, of finding what you need for a story just at your fingertips, just at the right time. It happened to me last night as I was working out the next scene of my upcoming story. Completely out of the blue (I'm giggling as I write that, but you don't know why...yet) I realized that something I'd already written fit perfectly with something I was about to write. I hadn't even planed on connecting those two bits, but they clicked together as neatly as a couple of puzzle pieces. I love it when that happens.
So anyway, the quote below is as much of a tease for my next story as it is an advertisement for the Gaiman/King interview. But the interview is a treat either way.
Now, I don't for a second think I'm as talented as either of these writers (well, except in my fantasies), but I can relate to the experience they talk about here, of finding what you need for a story just at your fingertips, just at the right time. It happened to me last night as I was working out the next scene of my upcoming story. Completely out of the blue (I'm giggling as I write that, but you don't know why...yet) I realized that something I'd already written fit perfectly with something I was about to write. I hadn't even planed on connecting those two bits, but they clicked together as neatly as a couple of puzzle pieces. I love it when that happens.
So anyway, the quote below is as much of a tease for my next story as it is an advertisement for the Gaiman/King interview. But the interview is a treat either way.
I told him about the peculiarity of researching the story I was working on, that everything I needed, fictionally, was waiting for me when I went looking for it. He nods in agreement.
“Absolutely – you reach out and it's there. The time that it happened the clearest was when Ralph, my agent then, said to me 'This is a bit crazy, but do you have any kind of idea for something that could be a serialised novel like Dickens used to do?', and I had a story that was sort of struggling for air. That was The Green Mile.And I knew if I did this I had to lock myself into it. I started writing it and I stayed ahead of the publication schedule pretty comfortably. Because...” he hesitates, tries to explain in a way that doesn't sound foolish, “...every time I needed something that something was right there to hand.
“When John Coffey goes to jail – he was going to be executed for murdering the two girls. I knew that he didn’t do it , but I didn’t know that the guy who did do it was going to be there, didn’t know anything about how it happened, but when I wrote it, it was all just there for me. You just take it. Everything just fits together like it existed before.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Would China Mieville really destroy the world?
Now I have my answer, so the only remaining question is how much to tell you. I don't want to spoil the book for anyone, but some of you might feel like Lady K. She read Perdido Street Station at my recommendation and hated the ending so much that she was ready to swear off Mieville completely unless I told her Kraken was a safe read. So, Lady K, here's your answer: YES. By all means, check out this book.
When I blogged about the novel at the halfway point, I said it reminded me a lot of Neil Gaiman, especially Neverwhere and American Gods. I left Anansi Boys out of that post only because it seemed a little redundant to mention when I'd already name-checked American Gods. Now I feel like I have to include it, because Kraken ended up being more like Anansi Boys than American Gods. I say that for a number of reasons, but most of them involve spoilers, so all I'll tell you here is this: a) AB is funnier than AG, while still retaining plenty of horror; and b) Billy Harrow is a lot like Fat Charlie, both in personality and in character arc.
Hmm, I wonder if Gaiman has read much Mieville (I don't have to wonder the opposite, because it's just so clearly true). Maybe they even know each other. Wouldn't it be interesting to have dinner with the two of them together?
I know some hardcore Mieville fans look down on Kraken because it's more lightweight than his Bas-lag novels, so I guess that means I'm not a hardcore fan. But I'm okay with that because it means I got to enjoy a fun novel with real emotional weight, fantastic characters, terrifying villains, hundreds of geeky in-jokes, and "confirmation" of a personal theory I've always held about Star Trek's transporter technology. ;) So what if the ending didn't make me want to stick my head in the oven? Is that a bad thing?
P.S.: The picture at the top of this post doesn't really have anything to do with Kraken, but you didn't really want to see that boring old book cover again, did you? ;) I thought you'd appreciate a bit of stuntkid art instead.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Not quite the right kraken apocalypse
Folks, this is a very different kind of Mieville novel. For one thing, it's not what I was expecting, which was a modern spin on H.P. Lovecraft. This isn't a Cthulhu mythos tale at all, although there's been one joking reference to the Elder God so far.
Actually, there are a lot of jokes in this novel, and that surprises me as much as anything else. Who knew China Mieville had a sense of humor? The biggest source of wisecracks is Collingswood, a constable assigned to an under-the-radar paranormal division of the London police. She looks like a blonde Amy Winehouse, dresses like someone posing as a police officer for a costume ball, and has a seriously bad attitude. I love her.
But about the plot (Funny how that's never the first thing I talk about, eh?). It revolves around a stereotypically impossible crime: the theft of a giant squid, still in its case, from the depths of the Natural History Museum. The squid and the museum are real, but I doubt that Billy Harrow, the protagonist of Kraken, was involved in the preservation of the actual beast. Anyway, he's the one who discovers it missing, and for some reason that makes him very important to a bunch of scary and not-so-scary denizens of what Neil Gaiman would call "London Below."
Actually, I see a lot of Gaiman influence in Kraken (mostly from Neverwhere and American Gods) - and a lot of Clive Barker influence, too (mostly Weaveworld). Mieville has come up with some seriously freaky villains so far, and I don't even know who the real squid thief is yet. It might be someone I've already met, or it might not.
All I know right now is that the squid's disappearance seems to herald the end of the world...but not the right end of the world, according to a cult that actually worships giant squids. Thus the quote at the top of this blog entry. Yes, it is a quote. Like I said, who knew China Mieville had a sense of humor?
I have no idea whether that humor will carry through to the end of the novel or not, but I hope it will. And I hope Collingswood survives, too. She could use a novel of her own. ;)
Friday, April 22, 2011
How to turn yourself into a creepy-ass fortune-telling doll
I wish I had an opportunity to try this out myself.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Neil Gaiman encounters an undead Ulorin Vex
Saturday, September 4, 2010
A Peek Beneath the Duct Tape: A Whiter Shade of Pale
So...A Whiter Shade of Pale has been online for almost a day now, but you might not have noticed because Simon posted this week's update early. He caught me off guard, too, which is why I'm a little late getting this Peek online. But here we go!
Now, at last, you have the answer to at least two riddles I've posed in this blog. The first is the solution to this post, in which I invited you to guess what three out of four pictures have in common.
Actor Jeffrey Combs was the obvious inspiration for the character of Geoff Coen; in fact, Dalila even teases him at one point by "misremembering" his last name as "Combs." Jukebox and I borrowed Amanda Palmer's dress from the center picture for Dalila to wear in seducing Abby (You haven't seen the last of that dress, either!). And of course, the Count was your big clue that the whole post was about my upcoming vampire collaboration with Jukebox - who, as he said in his own Behind the Music blog post, really didn't want our vampires to be traditionally vampiric. That was fine with me, since a certain sparkly blockbuster series has pretty much peed in the genre's pool, anyway. Check out the fantasy/SF section of any large bookstore these days, and practically half the books look like really awful vampire fiction (Half the rest, of course, look like really awful werewolf fiction).
But back to Combs/Coen for a moment. I'm sure you've realized by now that he's the character I had in mind when I said someone had a very obvious "Jukebox" stamp across the forehead. Combs is also the actor I hinted about when I said we'd specifically "cast" one player in our story before we even started writing. It's funny how he turned into such an obvious Jukebox character, considering how equal our input was in his creation.
Let me give you a taste of our collaborative process in action. The dialogue isn't exact, because it's been too long for me to remember everything we said, but this is the gist of the discussion leading to Geoff's creation:
And now on to a couple of other sources of entertainment and inspiration. I promised you new pictures, and I try to keep my promises! So first, here are a few more potential Dalilas. My casting post to the contrary, I never really settled on a single mental image of Dalila; she's just too mutable by nature. Before, I used this picture from my collection because I couldn't leave her out, but Mela von Winter is no more "my" Dalila than any of the women below. They all have a certain look, though - a certain essential attitude that is part of my mental image of Dalila. Put all four of these pictures together, and you'll start to see what I think about her.
At left is Kitty Cosmo, photographed by Jennifer Garcia. Next is Ruby True, photographed (wearing Violaceous Latex) by Allan Amato. And on the right is Courtney Cruz, photographed by Michael Helms. Just pretend for a moment that Courtney's tattoos are body paint. ;-)
Now here's one more source of inspiration that I've been dying to share for ages. I just had to wait until enough of the White Album had been published for it to make sense to you. Quite some time ago, I ran across the work of Kimiko Yoshida, a Japanese/French photographer who's even more fascinated with the faceless/voiceless aspect of traditional brides than I am. She takes pictures of herself veiled, painted, and otherwise obscured, so that she becomes less of a person than an object of art. These are just a few of the images I've saved from her website. I chose them because they're most in line with my vision of The White Album, but the website has dozens more - some even tastier than these. Check her out.
Now, at last, you have the answer to at least two riddles I've posed in this blog. The first is the solution to this post, in which I invited you to guess what three out of four pictures have in common.
Actor Jeffrey Combs was the obvious inspiration for the character of Geoff Coen; in fact, Dalila even teases him at one point by "misremembering" his last name as "Combs." Jukebox and I borrowed Amanda Palmer's dress from the center picture for Dalila to wear in seducing Abby (You haven't seen the last of that dress, either!). And of course, the Count was your big clue that the whole post was about my upcoming vampire collaboration with Jukebox - who, as he said in his own Behind the Music blog post, really didn't want our vampires to be traditionally vampiric. That was fine with me, since a certain sparkly blockbuster series has pretty much peed in the genre's pool, anyway. Check out the fantasy/SF section of any large bookstore these days, and practically half the books look like really awful vampire fiction (Half the rest, of course, look like really awful werewolf fiction).
But back to Combs/Coen for a moment. I'm sure you've realized by now that he's the character I had in mind when I said someone had a very obvious "Jukebox" stamp across the forehead. Combs is also the actor I hinted about when I said we'd specifically "cast" one player in our story before we even started writing. It's funny how he turned into such an obvious Jukebox character, considering how equal our input was in his creation.
Let me give you a taste of our collaborative process in action. The dialogue isn't exact, because it's been too long for me to remember everything we said, but this is the gist of the discussion leading to Geoff's creation:
Jukebox: I'd like to have a character who can tell Abby what Dalila is and warn Abby about her. Maybe she's some kind of supernatural detective.
Me: That sounds great, but let's use a man this time. Right now, all our main characters are women. He could be a Harry Dresden kind of guy, a street-smart vampire killer. Having Dalila take him down would show our readers just how powerful she really is.
Jukebox: No, I'm thinking he's just a bumbler who keeps trying and failing to kill Dalila: he uses a stake, but it just glances off her rib, etc. That will make the ending even more tragic.
Me: Oooh, perfect! And hey, if we're going that direction, then let's make him Jeffrey Combs! He always plays the best loonies. [One quick Google Image Search later]. Here, take a look at this picture. Isn't he perfect for the part?Our whole collaboration was like that: constant back-and-forthing, pushing each other to higher levels of imagination. Every character, every scene, every sentence, is a combination of thrall and Jukebox - even the bits where you think it's all one of us or the other.
And now on to a couple of other sources of entertainment and inspiration. I promised you new pictures, and I try to keep my promises! So first, here are a few more potential Dalilas. My casting post to the contrary, I never really settled on a single mental image of Dalila; she's just too mutable by nature. Before, I used this picture from my collection because I couldn't leave her out, but Mela von Winter is no more "my" Dalila than any of the women below. They all have a certain look, though - a certain essential attitude that is part of my mental image of Dalila. Put all four of these pictures together, and you'll start to see what I think about her.At left is Kitty Cosmo, photographed by Jennifer Garcia. Next is Ruby True, photographed (wearing Violaceous Latex) by Allan Amato. And on the right is Courtney Cruz, photographed by Michael Helms. Just pretend for a moment that Courtney's tattoos are body paint. ;-)
Now here's one more source of inspiration that I've been dying to share for ages. I just had to wait until enough of the White Album had been published for it to make sense to you. Quite some time ago, I ran across the work of Kimiko Yoshida, a Japanese/French photographer who's even more fascinated with the faceless/voiceless aspect of traditional brides than I am. She takes pictures of herself veiled, painted, and otherwise obscured, so that she becomes less of a person than an object of art. These are just a few of the images I've saved from her website. I chose them because they're most in line with my vision of The White Album, but the website has dozens more - some even tastier than these. Check her out.
Monday, July 5, 2010
The keys, if you want them
There's a section in Stephen King's nonfiction book Danse Macabre where he talks about the folly of trying to analyze a great story because that takes all the magic it....Then King proceeds to analyze The Haunting because, well, he just can't help telling you why it's as great as it is.
In a similar spirit, I've decided that I probably should say a little more about that Neil Gaiman story I linked you to last Wednesday. So here's a direct cut-and-paste from an e-mail I sent a friend who asked me about it. I don't think I'm a good enough literary analyst to get the deepest levels of the story, but this is what I've come up with so far. If you hated English class, feel free to stop reading now. ;-)
BIG-ASS SPOILERS BELOW:
-- The narrator never names himself.
-- Calum's son is also named Calum.
-- The narrator says he never saw Calum's wife and doesn't know what color her hair was.
-- The narrator and Calum discuss their views of how you arrive at truth: are there lots of ways to arrive at the same spot, or is there only one right way, with every other path leading you astray?
-- BUT the thing in the cave says, "You are thinking like a mortal man, making things always to be one thing or another." This implies that things really don't have to be just one thing or another. They can be many things at once. With that in mind....
-- Note the ambiguity in this passage: "I was remembering every landmark — climb at the sheep skull, cross the first three streams, then walk along the fourth until the five heaped stones and find where the rock looks like a seagull and walk on between two sharply jutting walls of black rock, and let the slope bring you with it . . .I could remember it, I knew. Well enough to find my way down again. But the mists confused me, and I could not be certain." Why would the narrator say he was "remembering every landmark" at the top of this paragraph if he was really seeing everything for the first time? You think you know what he means, but maybe you don't. Not entirely.
-- Think about the scene where the narrator and Calum both see what appears to be another version of themselves, and ask yourself which direction they're looking when they see it.
-- The narrator steals sheep. Calum is a "reaver," which is another word for someone who steals - but think about all the connotations of that word.
-- Think about the ambiguity of this quote from the ferryman: “For not every day is it that I take a reaver and a little dwarfy man to the Misty Isle.” Is he talking about two people or one?
-- The Misty Isle is west of the mainland, where the narrator begins his story. One of the narrator's secrets is that his father came from the West.
-- The old woman says Calum's hand is "burned," which isn't quite the same as saying it has a burn scar. There is also a "burn" outside Calum's house. "Burn" is a Scottish term for "brook," but of course it can also mean a place that's been burned by fire - and you can also say someone was burned if they were cheated and/or stolen from. Again, Calum and the narrator are both thieves.
-- Calum burned his hand taking his father's dagger out of a fire and refusing to give it up. The narrator takes Calum's dagger.
-- When the narrator and Calum come to the croft house with the abused woman inside, Calum says, “No one at home.” The thing in the cave tells the narrator, "You leave the way you entered, through the mouth of my home." The last line of the story is, "There were a hundred roads and a thousand paths that would take me back to my home in the lowlands, where my wife would be waiting."
Are you starting to see now? These are just the things I've noticed so far, and I always feel like I miss a lot of things real literary scholars notice. Besides, Gaiman is just absolutely freaking brilliant and extremely knowledgeable about things like fairy tales and legends. So I feel like I'm just scratching the depths he built into this story. But from what I can see, it appears that the narrator and Calum are the same person - and Calum's son and the abusive husband in the croft house are other aspects of him (just as Flora, Morag, and the abused wife are all aspects of the same woman). The thing in the cave keeps sending him out and calling him back, taking more and more, making him a worse and worse person. The narrator doesn't care about gold (And characters in the story note more than once that gold is bad but silver is acceptable), but that's all Calum cares about - while the abusive husband doesn't seem to care about anything at all. You can't really make a linear path from one version of the main character to another because that's a "mortal" way of thinking. But clearly, the narrator is a more innocent version of Calum; and the abusive husband is probably a more corrupt version - which means Calum did survive the end of the story in one way or another. Since the thing in the cave says it sends a piece of itself out into the world with each person who visits the cave, then calls that piece back to itself, this is entirely possible. Now you start to see different paths leading back to the same truth, which is in that cave in the Black Mountains. And you begin to see the thing in the cave as being like a spider lurking in the center of a web.
In a similar spirit, I've decided that I probably should say a little more about that Neil Gaiman story I linked you to last Wednesday. So here's a direct cut-and-paste from an e-mail I sent a friend who asked me about it. I don't think I'm a good enough literary analyst to get the deepest levels of the story, but this is what I've come up with so far. If you hated English class, feel free to stop reading now. ;-)
BIG-ASS SPOILERS BELOW:
-- The narrator never names himself.
-- Calum's son is also named Calum.
-- The narrator says he never saw Calum's wife and doesn't know what color her hair was.
-- The narrator and Calum discuss their views of how you arrive at truth: are there lots of ways to arrive at the same spot, or is there only one right way, with every other path leading you astray?
-- BUT the thing in the cave says, "You are thinking like a mortal man, making things always to be one thing or another." This implies that things really don't have to be just one thing or another. They can be many things at once. With that in mind....
-- Note the ambiguity in this passage: "I was remembering every landmark — climb at the sheep skull, cross the first three streams, then walk along the fourth until the five heaped stones and find where the rock looks like a seagull and walk on between two sharply jutting walls of black rock, and let the slope bring you with it . . .I could remember it, I knew. Well enough to find my way down again. But the mists confused me, and I could not be certain." Why would the narrator say he was "remembering every landmark" at the top of this paragraph if he was really seeing everything for the first time? You think you know what he means, but maybe you don't. Not entirely.
-- Think about the scene where the narrator and Calum both see what appears to be another version of themselves, and ask yourself which direction they're looking when they see it.
-- The narrator steals sheep. Calum is a "reaver," which is another word for someone who steals - but think about all the connotations of that word.
-- Think about the ambiguity of this quote from the ferryman: “For not every day is it that I take a reaver and a little dwarfy man to the Misty Isle.” Is he talking about two people or one?
-- The Misty Isle is west of the mainland, where the narrator begins his story. One of the narrator's secrets is that his father came from the West.
-- The old woman says Calum's hand is "burned," which isn't quite the same as saying it has a burn scar. There is also a "burn" outside Calum's house. "Burn" is a Scottish term for "brook," but of course it can also mean a place that's been burned by fire - and you can also say someone was burned if they were cheated and/or stolen from. Again, Calum and the narrator are both thieves.
-- Calum burned his hand taking his father's dagger out of a fire and refusing to give it up. The narrator takes Calum's dagger.
-- When the narrator and Calum come to the croft house with the abused woman inside, Calum says, “No one at home.” The thing in the cave tells the narrator, "You leave the way you entered, through the mouth of my home." The last line of the story is, "There were a hundred roads and a thousand paths that would take me back to my home in the lowlands, where my wife would be waiting."
Are you starting to see now? These are just the things I've noticed so far, and I always feel like I miss a lot of things real literary scholars notice. Besides, Gaiman is just absolutely freaking brilliant and extremely knowledgeable about things like fairy tales and legends. So I feel like I'm just scratching the depths he built into this story. But from what I can see, it appears that the narrator and Calum are the same person - and Calum's son and the abusive husband in the croft house are other aspects of him (just as Flora, Morag, and the abused wife are all aspects of the same woman). The thing in the cave keeps sending him out and calling him back, taking more and more, making him a worse and worse person. The narrator doesn't care about gold (And characters in the story note more than once that gold is bad but silver is acceptable), but that's all Calum cares about - while the abusive husband doesn't seem to care about anything at all. You can't really make a linear path from one version of the main character to another because that's a "mortal" way of thinking. But clearly, the narrator is a more innocent version of Calum; and the abusive husband is probably a more corrupt version - which means Calum did survive the end of the story in one way or another. Since the thing in the cave says it sends a piece of itself out into the world with each person who visits the cave, then calls that piece back to itself, this is entirely possible. Now you start to see different paths leading back to the same truth, which is in that cave in the Black Mountains. And you begin to see the thing in the cave as being like a spider lurking in the center of a web.
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