I'm coming to get you, Barbara....

Richard and I are both sick again and have been slogging around the house like extras from a George Romero movie since Monday. I haven't been able to do much of anything but watch TV, but I wisely avoided daytime television this time around. I rewatched Twin Peaks and some Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Poor Richard's going to be sick on his birthday tomorrow. I told him we'll move it to a day next week.

A Halloween Sims Film + One Grumpy Rabbit

On Halloween night, a brave young girl faces her most terrifying fears...

The Worst Books I've Ever Read Part II

9 out of 10 cows hate this book.

Under the Dog Star by Joseph Caldwell

I can't recall the specifics of this novel (character names, setting, etc.), which I read when I was maybe 16 or 17, but I can remember that it was awful. AWFUL. Not one memorable - or even vaguely interesting - character graced the entire book, and it was basically just a cringe-fest from beginning to end. A sad but abrasive widow lives in an isolated farmhouse with her two teenage kids, a boy and a girl. To make ends meet, she invites a teenage drifter to live with them and do some farm chores. Despite his lack of charm, this urchin proceeds to seduce the entire family, including the cows. How could anyone resist him? The aroma of manure and hay, the grubby fingernails, the way words like "hyuck" trip off his tongue?

I can't remember how Under the Dog Star ends. Not that it really matters. The coolest ending in the history of fiction couldn't redeem this creepy mess.

The Worst Books I've Ever Read Part I

Nightmare Flower and When Darkness Loves Us (short stories) by Elizabeth Engstrom

I read these when I was about 12 or 13 years old. Being a fan of Joan Aiken's gothic short fiction for young adults, I thought Engstrom's might be the next step. Wrong-o. Instead of the sustained eeriness I'd already come to expect from artfully crafted horror fiction, I found:

• a story about a woman trapped for years in a cave system very close to her farm. She gave birth to her daughter alone and raised her in the caves because no one thought to look for her down there. She finally got sick of eating blind fish, so she made a backpack out of lichen and strapped her baby into it. Then she crawled up a well-like tunnel to daylight, inch by inch. It took her a month, and she had to survive by eating slugs and sucking the water out of moss. Srsly.
• a story about a mentally handicapped woman without a nose. By the end of the story she has a nose, but you really don't want to know where she got it.
  
• a story about an experimental community in which every resident's heart and breathing rates are in synch with an electromagnetic pulse that sounds somewhat like the Taos Hum.

I don't recall many details of the title story in Nightmare Flower (thank God), but it involved a carnivorous plant, a new house, and a pregnant woman. I think you can piece it together.

These premises could maybe be worked into something magical by more gifted writers (imagine if J.G. Ballard had written the cave story!). But poor Ms. Engstrom just didn't have the goods. The characters were stiff and soulless, the plots so absurd that they could only be appreciated on a camp level. "Lichen backpack! Ha!"
At least, that's what I thought. Nightmare Flower was actually nominated for a Bram Stoker Award in '92, and When Darkness Loves Us has recently been reissued (Engstrom is even doing a book tour to promote it). More evidence that someone up there hates us.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

The hostage crisis was resolved yesterday, with no injuries or other major problems. Whew. That's quite enough excitement for one week, thank you very much. Maybe now we can go back to the plain old weirdness of downtown living: stepping over guys who have passed out from drinking too much Listerine, avoiding suspicious puddles, etc.

What Next?!

Edmonton survived George Bush, but now we've got a hostage situation.

Sun Day

I've taken the bunny out for her Sunday stroll (or, more accurately, her frantic Sunday hop to get to the pigeons in case they're eating something interesting). Now Richard and I are going to a screening of In Prison My Whole Life, to see if someone can finally convince me that Mumia Abu-Jamal is innocent.

I love snow, but I have to admit I liked the sunny autumn weather even more today. Maybe I'm not as ready for winter as I thought I was.