Just a reminder — if you happen to enjoy any of my poetry readings here at the blog, then you can find more over at my Youtube channel. There is a playlist for me reading the work of other poets, and another short playlist for me reading my own work.
I hope that all you guys have had a wonderful weekend!
So I’ve discovered a fun and easily accessible treatment for insomnia, and it’s also an interesting diversion for a horror fan looking for a change of pace. There are no small number of horror and suspense radio shows from the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s on Youtube. (They actually do have a significant online fandom.)
The programs are typically 30 to 40 minutes long, and the audio-only stories make you feel like you’re reading a book before bedtime (which for many people is a perfect treatment for sleeplessness).
The horror is a bit mild compared with modern films or TV shows, of course. But it’s still fun hearing what people found spooky before the days of television. It’s even better if the recording contains the original radio ads, which are even weirder than you might expect.
I started one last night that was narrated by the legendary Peter Lorre, and I know that Vincent Price starred in a slew of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF69zwR-N2I
That headline above is probably misleading — I’m sure there are more than one “alien interrogation” videos on Youtube.
But this is the one I happened across a while back and … quite like. I just shared it with a friend the other night. It’s a neat little sci-fi short film with some damned cool ideas in its four and a half minutes. Check it out.
Guys, if you have a moment, I really recommend that you stop by the Jenny S. Poetry channel on Youtube and listen to her reading of her short poem, “Happy Smiley People.” As you may know from reading this blog, the channel is where Jenny reads the work submitted to her by indie poets — in addition to some of her own work.
“Happy Smiley People” is a stark, superb piece. As I told Jenny, it’s brutally honest and bluntly perfect. And it’s got a great closing line.
I received some nice news a little while ago — Jennifer S. will record my poem, “hens staring upward,” as part of her ongoing Youtube audio series. As I’ve shared here at the blog before, Jenny is a poet herself who lends her voice talents to help other independent writers gain exposure. (She was kind enough this past September to do a very skilled interpretation of my 2013 poem, “The Writer.”) I recommend that you check out her wonderful audio series over at her Youtube channel.
“hens staring upward” was published previously by Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine and Dead Snakes in 2015.
Hey, gang! I had my reading of my poem “Roanoke Summer Midnight” included in a video by Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine a couple of weeks ago, after the piece was published in its 2017 anthology. If you happened to miss that, this is the individual recording that I sent to the publisher for the video’s creation. (I just uploaded it to Youtube.)
I am linking here to another terrific poem interpretation from “I Didn’t Write This.” The poet here is none other than Neil Gaiman.
You can check out the entire “I Didn’t Write This” series at Yulin Kuang’s Youtube channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChiPJ3Nyc0shHi91fOE0r6A.
Writer-director Neill Blomkamp (who brought us 2009’s “District 9” and who wanted to bring us a fifth “Alien” installment) is currently releasing a series of sci-fi short films via his “Oats Studios” channel on Youtube. There have been four released so far, with a fifth, “ZYGOTE,” scheduled for release today.
The two to which I’ve linked below, “Firebase” and “Rakka,” are fantastic. They’re both military science fiction, they’ve both got lots of gore and great special effects, and they both show Blomkamp’s trademark predilection for body horror.
They’re both incredibly dark stories, too. “Firebase” is disturbing; “Rakka” is downright horrifying. (The Eiffel Tower scene … yeesh.) It might make you smile, though, to see none other than Sigourney Weaver fighting alien invaders.
If “Firebase” doesn’t make much sense to you, try not to let it hamper your enjoyment of it. (The short’s reveal shows us that many of these disparate story elements actually aren’t supposed to make much logical sense, considering their cause.) And you should know ahead of time that both of these short films should serve as prologues for sequels or longer tales. (Maybe Blomkamp is planning their denouements in subsequent shorts?)
I was so befuddled by “Firebase” at first that I wound up turning it off and then returning to it later. I still think that its writing could be cleaned up a bit. It’s definitely out there, and strays from science fiction into fantasy and … maybe even theology. It was “Firebase,” however, that stayed with me and really got under my skin — much more than the more straightforward invasion horror story, “Rakka.”
Pictured are the Amphitheater, Mason Hall, The Link, Randolph Hall, Russell Hall, Brent House and Marshall Hall.
*****
The Amphitheater. Sorry the first picture is so blurry.
Me, performing “Richard III.” “NOW IS THE WINTER OF OUR DISCOVFEFE.” I was the toast of Sunken Road. The performance was brief; I only know two lines of “Richard III” — one, if I get stage fright.
Seriously, though, if you people haven’t checked out David Morrissey’s treatment of its famous monologue, then you don’t know what you’re missing. You can find it on Youtube.
I have no idea who I am supposed to be saluting here. My Alumbud taking the picture? Any competent commanding officer would take one look at that gut of mine and then BUST ME RIGHT DOWN DOWN TO PRIVATE.
Mason Hall and Randolph Hall, with the above-ground “Link” between them — a new product of the campus-wide remodeling. Previously, there was a line of dorm rooms unofficially known as “The Tunnel,” beneath a massive stone porch overlooking Fredericksburg. That porch was a great place to read, and I’m sorry to see it gone.
Another blurry picture — this one of Russell Hall. The old steps have been upgraded.
Seen from Russell is … Brent Hall? Is it weird if I have no memory of that building — and I lived right across the way over at Bushnell Hall?
The parking lots at the southeast corner of campus, behind Russell and Marshall Hall. Running behind those is Sunken Road, where a few of my friends had off-campus housing. There was a smallish apartment building (north of this spot) where various classmates of mine in the early 1990’s could be found residing or visiting … was it called Sunrise Apartments?
Marshall Hall.
You are really getting old if you can remember when MTV was cool. In the first half of the 1990’s, MTV had it all: weird, varying animated logos; Tabitha Soren; “MTV Unplugged,” which I still enjoy via Youtube today; “Liquid Television;” the sometimes priceless “Beavis and Butthead;” the always priceless “Aeon Flux;” and the bizarre promos featuring “Jimmy the Cab Driver.” (The date on the embedded video below is incorrect; Jimmy was annoying his fares in the 90’s — not the 80’s.)
This was the age when non-music-video programming more or less began for the channel. But it didn’t suck — it was actually quite good.
I think MTV’s greatness lasted until 1994 or 1995, around the time when my college career drew to a close. We didn’t have cable in our dorm rooms at Mary Washington College … except when we did. During my junior year, some intrepid, subversive genius had gotten into the vicinity of the Resident Director’s cable connection, and “split” it or something, in order to provide our entire floor with basic cable. He was an anonymous hero … like Batman, except probably a lot more chill, we figured. (He wasn’t the hero that Alvey Hall deserved, but he was the hero that Alvey Hall needed just then.)
God, did we all love it. Frederickburg, VA, was a small, quiet town, and we didn’t have the Internet, or even cell phones. We didn’t even have landlines in our room; we had two shared “hall phones” for local calls and a pay phone to call anywhere outside town. (And I guess college kids today might be unfamiliar with the concept of “local” and “long-distance” calls.)
Here’s what I can’t figure out in retrospect, after 24 years … I understand that cable can be “split;” New Yorkers do it all the time. But … wouldn’t Batman need to lay cable down throughout the length of our dorm? And wouldn’t he need to install cable jacks in each of our rooms? Did he do it on a Saturday night, when we were all drunk? How did he get in?
Maybe he came in the window. Godspeed, Batman.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 