And the Book Starts

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So, I have actually begun placing words in a line starting my next, still untitled, horror novel. Once again, I do not have a full outline in place, have only the sketch of a 5-act structure and only some of the key characters but delaying was not an option.

One thing I have learned about myself as a writer is that there seems to be a bank of enthusiasm when a project first explodes in my little noggin. The idea generates a lot of ‘wow’ and energy as I really really like the prospect. This fuels the research and planning stages but as time passes that burst of energy drains away. The idea and scenes are thought on less and less until if the writing doesn’t actually start, is empties and I find I no longer have any passion for the project.

It dies.

This novel, dealing with cursed nitrate movie footage and set in the summer of 1984 in San Diego, needed to start or I was going to no have the drive to write it at all. So, this week, despite still not have a great opening, I wrote an opening. Maybe a better one will come along. That has happened before, where after the entire book is written I finally figure out how it should have started. The important thing is to get this moving, after about 10,000 words a project usually has enough momentum to find its way to the finish line.

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This Photograph Isn’t Black and White

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This picture, while commonly called black and white, is actually greyscale. The picture elements, pixels, as I do not shoot on physical film but with a digital camera, recreate the image with tones that go from black, an absence of signal, to white, a saturation of signal, but with the vast vast majority somewhere in the middle creating some level of grey. We call it a black & white picture for simplicity and ease of language, but the actual image presented is not binary, it is more complex than that. Our troubles begin when we take what is used for simplicity and speed of communication, black & white, and mistake that for actual reality. The same applies to so much of life.

To many, the founding of the United States is a binary event, either good or bad depending on the person’s perspective. Terrible things were brought into this world with the European settlement of these continents, diseases that killed millions and destroyed civilizations, kidnapping and enslavement of millions more. It is foolish to dismiss these events and actions as mere history, products of their time, and insignificant to today’s events. Today’s home is built on the foundation of what has been. It is also true that the founding of this nation brought forth fantastic new ideas. The very concept of true human liberty and equality expressed in those events reverberated around the globe, inspired countless struggles for freedom and set the conditions for those who followed to even conceive of righting the wrongs of history. The founding of the United States, like the photograph, is not a black & white thing, it is both good and bad, existing far beyond the straightjacket of binary thought.

Nature doesn’t exist in any binary. Everything out there is part of a spectrum of existence, gender, intelligence, consciousness, everything.

Reject the binary and see what is real.

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Movie Review: Night has a Thousand Eyes (1948)

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John Triton (Edward G. Robinson) a stage mentalist working with his fiancé and best friend instead of the manipulated performance begins having spontaneous and accurate psychic visions. After several come to pass precisely as he envisioned, Triton flees, leaving his fiancé and friend without an explanation, hoping his absence will avert her death that he foresaw.

Paramount PIctures

Isolating himself from humanity and surviving by making mail-order tricks, Triton desperately avoids contact with people, unwilling to foresee more tragedy. However, when circumstances bring him into the orbit of his former fiancé’s daughter (Gail Russell) and his visions again spell doom, Triton struggles to prevent the future that now seems predestined.

Night Has a Thousand Eyes is usually categorized as a film noir, but the paranormal aspects make this a difficult movie to place definitively into any single genre. Where noir is often propelled by human weaknesses such as lust or greed, Eyes finds its motivation in Triton’s deep desire to not be the herald of disaster. The seemingly doomed nature of his vision, presenting what appears to be a hard, unalterable future, gives this film a touch of horror. Triton is a tragic character and, like all really good tragic characters, he is very sympathetic. He never sought the power that came to define his life. He never understood it and wanted nothing more than to be rid of it. Fate commandeered his life leaving him as helpless as a leaf blown by a wind. Robinson gives a fine nuanced performance, and he is the heart of this film. had he been unable to exude the required pathos none of it would have worked.

When I began watching Night has a Thousand Eyes, even though it is not a terribly long movie, I expected to watch only a portion before going to bed, but instead it sucked me in, and I completed the movie in a single sitting. It is well worth the watch.

Night has a Thousand Eyes is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.

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A Pleasant Weekend

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This weekend presented very little that was outstanding but a lot that was quite nice.

Saturday in addition, to our routine early morning walk around the condo complex with my sweetie-wife and a neighbor, my sweetie-wife joined me in walking around the neighborhoods of Kensington and Normal Heights as I took photos to help inspire my next novel.

These neighborhoods were two that I have been familiar with since the early 80s and lived in for a few years in the 1990s. The point of the photos is to help with atmosphere as I write and jog memories from decades earlier about what has changed since the time of Reagan. I also discovered, with my sweetie-wife’s help, that the location I thought had been a fabric store throughout the 80s only became one in 1988 and in ’84, when my book will be set, it was a punk rock music venue.

In the evening, I ran my tabletop role-playing game of Space Opera. Sadly, a coughing spasm reduced the running time to just about 90 minutes. The ‘long covid’ I acquired is far less debilitating than what many people suffer, and I’m glad for that, but it is annoying as hell.

Sunday morning was a trip to the San Diego Zoo, another opportunity to break in my new camera. (It’s not brand new; it is a used DSLR, but at a great price and in great condition, replacing my former camera that began killing lenses.)

While the controls are a little different and a few shots came out a little underexposed, overall things went swimmingly.

Robert Mitchell Evans

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I am Quite Conflicted About the Death Penalty for Luigi Mangione

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Luigi Mangione, the man accused of murdering a health care executive, will face a federal death penalty if the DOJ and Pam Bondi get their way, and I admit that doesn’t sit right with me.

Now, it is not that I am ideologically opposed to capital punishment. That debate is far more complex than the space here would allow me to elaborate on but in closely defined cases I think it is warranted.

Nor is it that I think the troubles and evils of the for-profit health care system in any wayjustify that murder, Our  for-profit health care system trades lives for cash and that is fucking repulsive but Mangione’s actions, if guilty, saved not a single life. I understand the rage that propelled such action, but understanding and condoning are very different things.

I can see and even condone the use of the death penalty for calculated premeditated acts of murder for political purposes.

What I know for a fact is that this Department of Justice, this vacuous-headed Attorney General, and this administration has zero interest in fair, dispassionate, and unbiased justice. Luigi Mangione is facing the death penalty not from any sense of justice or cool logical conclusion but because this is the sort of crime that has deep personal meaning to the corrupt people of this administration. While conversely, they liberated the criminals that they see as allies and fellow travelers. The violent terrorists that attempted to overthrow a free election received pardons, allies under investigation find those investigations dropped.

This is the fascist heart of the Trump administration.

For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.

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First Episode Review: MOBLAND

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Sunday saw the release on Paramount+ of Mobland, billed as ‘from the criminal world of Guy Ritchie.’

Paramount+

Set in the milieu of the present-day London world of criminal gangs and families of organized crime, Mobland seems to focus on the rivalry between competing families The Harrigans, led by Conrad (Pierce Brosnan) his wife Maeve (Helen Mirren) an assortment of their adult children along with the family’s chief fixer, Harry (Tom Hardy) and The Stevensons, led by Ritchie (Geoff Bell).

After an unexplained night out together between Eddie Harrigan and Tommy Stevenson leads to crisis the tensions between the family ramps up when Tommy Stevenson goes missing the open warfare is place in the table by his concerned father.

Amid the growing conflict Conrad Harrigan learns of a treason in his inner circle creating pressure on his organization in addition what is coming from the Stevensons.

The initial episode introduces a bewildering number of characters in the cast, some of which may turn out to be less consistent in their appearances than others but still requiring a sharp focus while watching. Mobland like much of Guy Ritchie’s crime movies, is not something one can take in casually while on a mobile device or performing household chores. To follow the intricate plotting and large cast demand attention.

In my opinion it is worth that attention. These are deeply crafted characters being performed by a very talented cast. Of course, an opening episode directed by a major director may not show the entire show’s true quality but so far this is something to look forward to each week.

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My Two Unpopular Takes on Frankenstein

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rankenstein is not science-fiction.

The Creature/Creation is not sympathetic.

There is not a small number of people and fans who want to count Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly’s 1816 novel as one of the first if not the first work of science-fiction. I disagree, but not because I want to dismiss such an influenceable work. Frankenstein is one of the most important works of literature. Two hundred years plus after its publication we still not only debate and adapt the work itself, but the theme of irresponsible creation echoes in so many works it would be futile to list them all. Both HAL9000 and the Terminator owe a debt to Shelly’s vision. But the fact that so much science-fiction mines that productive vein that she uncovered doesn’t make the original science-fiction as well.

In a work of SF, the method of the fantastic is vitally important to genre. Taking a Pegasus to the moon is not science fiction, but using a cannon to shoot myself there is. Method defines the genre. While Shelly may have been inspired by Galvanism it is absent from the text. In fact, in the text of the novel Shelly doesn’t just hand-wave her way past how Frankenstein created life, she leaves out the method entirely. She leaves it out because the method is unimportant to her theme and her subject. She wasn’t interested in how he created life only the ethical issues that raised. Verne’s trip to the moon is built upon the method of getting there and far less interested in what that means. Shelly’s creation of life ignores the ‘how’ but explores the why and the consequences. Frankenstein is one of the most important works ever created but it is not science-fiction.

The Creature is not sympathetic to me because it comes off to me as a dangerous, murderous, narcissist. Much has been made about how the doctor abandoned the creature, leaving it to suffer torment in isolation. That’s fair enough and is Shelly’s point, but the creature’s actions following that are impossible to justify.

While I think we can agree that vengeance is at best a questionable course of action, and had the creature’s vengeance been directed solely at Frankenstein it would be far less reprehensible but that it is not how the text unfolds.

To make his creator suffer the creature not only murders a child only because the boy is a relation to his creator but then frames an innocent woman to suffer the mob justice for his own crime.

When the creature confronts his creator in the ice caves of Switzerland, he proclaims that no being could love as greatly as himself but hurt and abused he swore to hate as greatly. He betrays the classic profile of a narcissist, his own feelings are paramount and those of others, such a murdered child, grieving parents, or those unjustly lynched for his crimes are of no consequence. There is precious little difference between the creature taking his violent vengeance on innocent bystanders and the mass murders of American murdering strangers.

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The Prisoner, A Conservative Psychiatrist, & Our Dark Times

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In 1967 star and producer Patrick McGoohan released into the world a surreal allegory of television series The Prisoner about an unnamed espionage agent kidnapped to a secret island called ‘The Village’ with the reason for his sudden resignation of great interest to his captors. A full decade before the brilliant surrealist filmmaker Daid Lynch would burst onto the scene with Eraserhead, The Prisoner would be most people’s introduction to film and television that would later be called Lynchian.

An important aspect to The Village and its totalitarian governance is that dissidents, malcontent, and people who attempted to resist were not labeled criminal but rather sick, mentally unbalanced. after all, no sane person could possibly resent to idyllic life present by the Village.

36 years after the debut of The Prisoner, conservative columnist and former psychiatrist Charles Krauthammer commenting on Democratic politician Howard Dean toying with conspiracy theories that President Bush had been forewarn of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 coined the term ‘Bush Derangement Syndrome,’ mirroring the Village’s policy of treatment dissent and disagreement as mental illness allowing easy dismissal of any and all criticism. Granted, Krauthammer probably meant the term as merely play on words and not at all a serious rebuttal, but the fast adoption of the term and its repeated deployment negates whatever intent the writer had.

A dozen years after Krauthammer introduced mental illness as a dismissal and pejorative for those is disagreement the term ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ entered the political terminology with current events expanding it to include ‘Musk Derangement Syndrome’ to include the wealthiest man alive and the administration hatchment man for regulatory governance.

As this administration proves itself criminal, callous, careless, and cruel the terms ‘TDS’ and “MDS’ are employed more and more. After all, no ‘right thinking’ person could possibly oppose such ‘common sense’ actions such as ignoring the courts, holding due process in contempt, and persecuting ‘enemies of the people’ for their speech.

At the end of the Prisoner’s only season when our unnamed protagonist finally discovers who is ‘Number One’ the person in charge of the Village and all its conformity demanding madness, it is a person who looks precisely like himself. The allegory clear, we all live in the Village. We have put ourselves there, caged by our own conventions and demands for tranquility.

And now in reality we are trapped in a ‘Village’ of our own making. Our wardens insisting that our rejection of an insane, idiotic, and cruel administration proof of our mental illness. I, for one, wear the ‘syndrome’ badge with honor. The truth remains, this is a cruel, criminal and deeply stupid administration and the truly deranged are those who profess that is normal and good.

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STREAMING MOVIE REVIEW: AUDITION (1999)

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Omega Project

Shigeharu (Ryo Ishibashi) a widower of about ten years and a workaholic with the help of a film producer friend sets up a series of auditions for a non-existent production in hopes of finding the right young woman to become his wife. From the moment Asami’s (Eihi Shiiina) headshot and CV cross his desk Shigeharu is fascinated and soon obsessed with the mysterious young woman, ignoring the communist parade of red flags surrounding Asami. Soon enough Shigeharu discovers the depths of Asami’s unbalanced mind the hatred she harbors for deceitful, manipulating men.

Audition came to my attention due to a YouTube video about frightening moments in film and I have to agree the scene where what appears to be a large laundry bag moves if startling and unsettling. While this film has a generally good score in its reviews and overall, I did enjoy it I think it runs a little long in duration. The second act, the middle of the film, feels a little aimless slows down just a tad too much for my tastes. It many ways the feels much like many Frankensteinadaptations first acts. We know what is coming and the delay in getting that building very little in tension of suspense. At an hour and fifty-five minutes I think Audition might benefits for just being 10 to 15 minutes shorter.

That said, if foreign film works for you and if subtitling doesn’t interfere with your suspension of disbelief than Audition is worth a watch.

Audition is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel and Shudder.

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Spaghetti Western Review: The Price of Power (ll prezzo del potere)

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I was never into the Italian produced westerns until my sweetie-wife came along and now we will seek them out, either on streaming or on disc. Some have been real gems and others rather tedious to screen. However, this one proved the most unique in the thematic structure of its story.

It is 1881 and President James Garfield (Van Johnson, dubbed even in the English Language version) is touring the western United States as he pushes for greater civil rights for the recently liberated enslaved people. In the sleep desert town of Dallas, Texas, a conspiracy of bitter-end Confederates plot to assassinate Garfield. Only a former Union officer, Jack Donovan (Ray Saunders) stands in the way of the powerful interests plotting the president’s murder.

As the film unspooled, I wondered just how much of the story, a presidential assassination plot in Dallas, was deliberately crafted to invoke the Kennedy killing. My answers came at the end of the second act when hidden gunmen shot and killed Garfield as he rode through the street in an open carriage with the lovely dark-haired wife at his side. This was quite directly a retelling of November 22, 1963, but with a different assassinated head of government. (Garfield was shot and killed while in office, but back east and by a disgruntled office seeker.)

I haven’t yet finished the film, but I strongly suspect that the third act will be fairly standard for a spaghetti western as our hero has plenty to avenge beyond the murder of a president. It’s a shame that the only version streaming in Tubi is the dubbed one but still it’s revealing itself to a most interest example of those late 60s Italian productions.

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