I don’t like the word defleshing. Fascinating stuff, though.

AOL says Instant Messaging service flaw fixed

all better. 🙂

I want a nappie-time, too! I feel the bedchamber calling me… why, oh why must I work in a place where there’s no after-lunch hammocks?

Duh. Amazon.com just reminded me that my birthday was coming up.

Who are they to say I don’t want salad tongs?

*note to self, wrap some sage smudge sticks tonight.

now to decide on which to use… White? Grey? Mix with Cedar? Lavender? Sweetgrass? I wonder if there’s any Juniper left…

My “hippy’s supply cabinet” is pretty full, I may need more thread, though. I could use hemp, but colored string is better, if I’m going to make an assortment, to figure out the different types.

First real use of my new jackknife! I love doing handmade stuff. 🙂

The Amityville Horror
The Shining
Hell House
The Haunting (of Hill House)

“The Amityville Horror” got a lot of press because it was “a true story” and all of that. It really wasn’t all that good in my opinion, and only it’s status as “real” made it of any interest. When I read it I remember thinking it was the most uncoordinated haunting I’d ever read about. Seeing through walls, black gunk in the toilet, missing money, glowing red eyes, what the heck? It doesn’t hang together, there’s no *theme*, just a bunch of disconnected happenings.

“The Shining.” Ah, haunted *hotel*. Now we’re cookin’. Hmmm. Not really sure if the dad was nuts before he got there, or if the place made him wacky. The idea of haunting being like an electrical charge, and the hotel wanted Danny and his shining to give it enough boost to break loose. Cabin fever, hidden history, going for the weak points… yeah. The family dynamic, the idea of “Tony” giving Danny advice from the future. Not bad.

“Hell House.” Can’t go wrong with Richard Matheson. Ghosts as an electromagnetic phenom. The creepy history making it the “Mount Everest of haunted houses.” The characters and weak points to be exploited, the clues to assemble and the ultimate secret to discover. It had everything Amityville lacked, and paid off with a lot of action.

“The Haunting.” Hey, don’t show *anything*. I’m speaking of the book, the play, and the older movie. I try to pretend the new film never happened. Having it “narrated” by Eleanor’s internal monologue. The parallels in personal history and house history. Nothing is seen but turning doorknobs and a bulging door. Loud noises and a little girl crying. Carvings and wallpaper that become faces when you look at them long enough.

Different approaches to a classic concept. “Hell House” and “The Haunting” even resemble each other in the situation presented, but they aren’t anything alike.

I have a writing task that I’d like to throw out to the LJ gang.

What I would like are rumors, lies, and heresies. The sort of stuff that people tell each other in the occult underground. It’s meant to completely muddy the waters and cause wacky urban legends…. a story seed for something a little (or a lot) weird.

Each bit should be no more than three or four sentences, and as short as one. Some examples:

• There’s an old man in Kansas who can only tell true stories, even if they haven’t happened yet.
• Bill Gates is putting magickal formulae into the code for Windows XP. It’s tied to a specific date, like a virus, and when it activates the world is going to change.
• The world is secretly ruled by pre-verbal children. When they start to become verbal, they forget all about their early months of abstract domination.

I’d like a bunch of these, so feel free to go nuts. So many wonderful creative people and writers on my friend’s list…I look forward to seeing what you come up with!