The Haunted Weblog

Wednesday, January 29, 2003

A Policeman’s Lot Is Not a Happy One – Police in Zambia have been having no end of trouble with witches. They chased down one who engaged in “chikondo,” a sort of geis placed upon a coffin. The coffin then directs the pallbearers to the witch or wizard responsible for the death of the occupant. Police say that this has lead to violence. They are also looking for a witch who sold “medicine” to fugitives that helped them escape the police. Unfortunately they have run out of gasoline and have had to postpone the dragnet. Coincidence? I think not.
Book 10:47 PM [+]
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You Eat What You Are – Congolese rebel soldiers have been cooking and eating pygmies and members of other tribes. The eye-witness reports are particularly gruesome. While no one can explain this recent surge of cannibalism, I find the theory suggested near the end of the story to be interesting. The rebels have been fighting with members of the Mayi-Mayi tribe. Some believe that the Mayi-Mayi can transform bullets into water. However, if you have eaten the heart of a young man, your bullets can kill them. Cannibalism is often based on a desire to consume the power, attributes, and life-energy of the victim along with his flesh. Or perhaps they just love their fellow man – on a spit. Either way, I think I’ll stay out of the Congo for a while.
Book 10:25 PM [+]
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Memento Mori – Planning a trip to Italy? You must visit the catacombs of Rome and Palermo. It is just wonderful what you can do to brighten up a tomb if you have a lot of time, an artistic touch, and a lot of Cappuccinos.
Book 9:49 PM [+]
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Vampire Vanquished – Longtime readers of this blog will know that I have been dreading Romania’s plan to build a Dracula theme park in Transylvania. The idea was to build a faux medieval castle, destroying a real medieval town in the process. The light of reason seems to have dawned, because the tourist trap will now be built in Bucharest. Some vampire fans will no doubt protest because the real Dracula came from Transylvania, but someone needs to point out that “real Dracula” is an oxymoron. Dracula was a fictional character. The widely held notion that he was based on Vald Tepes is seriously believed only by the Romanian tourist agency, the very gullible, and people who just haven’t given it much thought.
Book 8:30 PM [+]
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Our Past, Our Present, Our Future – I recently exchanged correspondence with that fair and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore. The subject of the Salem Witch Trials came up. Why would people believe and do such weird and awful things? An answer may be found today in Malawi. Nine people have been killed by lions, but the lions seem to have vanished. People have begun to think that the lions but catspaws of a witch. Here then are three great motivators that have always driven our species. The first is fear. Malawi is a poor country, where death stalks the people every day. Famine, disease, civil strife, and now wild animals can strike at any moment. Terror is a normal part of everyday life. If doom can envelope you and all you love without warning at any moment of any day, you will believe in anything that might help you survive. That brings us to our second motivator, the need to control our surroundings. We can’t catch the lions, but we can find out who is controlling them. Perhaps if we banish the devil from our town, we will feel a little safer. This leads to the third great motivator, the human desire for revenge. When things go badly for us, we seem to need to blame someone and make them feel our suffering. Whether it is hanging the old woman next door because my cow stopped giving milk or shooting people in a church because their religion is to blame for my suffering, the impulse to identify an enemy and make him suffer for our losses is a trait that may well define our species. You will find it wherever you find people who are terrorized. It has always been so, and will always be so.
Book 5:14 PM [+]
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Exorcismpalooza – Some 5000 people who are possessed by evil spirits are converging on the Indian village of Malajpur, where they will have their demons exorcised by the 200 specially trained priests who live there. The spirits are cast into two banyan trees, which are probably getting pretty full, since this exorcism fair has been held annually for about 250 years. Tens of thousands of people are there, and I’m betting it is a heck of a party.
Book 9:30 PM [+]
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Man I’m Getting Frustrated With Blogger – A couple of days of posts have just vanished. I’ll try to get them back. Damn.
Book 6:24 PM [+]
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Watching Watching the Nightingales – Oh wow. Episode 12 of Watching the Nightingales arrived in the inbox this week and it is a total trip. We have again flashed back to the protagonist’s childhood, and man that kid is going through some seriously surreal nastiness. This episode is a science-fiction horror with weird supernatural overtones. I have no idea what’s going to happen next, but I’m hanging on for the ride.
Book 1:59 PM [+]
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Book Biz – Last week Random House fired their respected publisher Ann Godoff. This week their arch-rival Penguin Group hired her (NYTimes, free reg. req.). For those of us who follow the book business like a sport, this is going to be fun.
Book 1:02 PM [+]
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Yet More Inspiration For Writers of Horror Stories – Auntie seems awfully tired lately. She never seems to want to get out of bed. She’s been there for a year and a half. And she seems to have lost her appetite. Entirely. She doesn’t look at all well.
Book 11:15 PM [+]
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The Terrible Legacy of Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Parris – I live near Salem, Massachusetts. Our local history includes the awful year of 1692, when people came to believe that their children had become witches. Madness ensued. Fortunate us, such things are relegated to the past. Fortunate us, we no longer fear our own children, and blame them for our misfortunes. Fortunate us, who do not live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where more than 20,000 children have been accused of witchcraft.
Book 8:44 PM [+]
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Interview With the Vampire’s Victim – Here is a pretty good article updating the ongoing Malawi vampire crisis. The government has begun trying to squelch the rumors and even arrested a journalist who interviewed a man who claimed that his village had been attacked by vamps. He has since been released.
Book 7:54 PM [+]
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A Thousand Words – The “anti-war” movement.
Book 10:34 PM [+]
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Criminal Poetry – The California Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of a teenager who was expelled from school, charged and convicted of a crime, and sentenced to 100 days in juvenile hall because he wrote a disturbing poem. When exactly was the Bill of Rights suspended in California?
Book 10:01 PM [+]
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Happy Birthday Mr. Poe! – Today is Edgar A. Poe’s 194th birthday. The great man was born Boston, the Athens of America. Unfortunately, Mr. Poe never warmed up to the Hub, derisively referring to it as Frogpondium. When I am doing research on EAP, I usually start at the Baltimore Society’s website. Highly recommended.
Book 9:49 PM [+]
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What Could Have Gotten Into Her? – We are getting used to seeing people protesting in front of Roman Catholic diocese chanceries, but the woman in the ski mask holding a sign had was upset about something we don’t see too often. It seems that she used to be possessed by several demons, but the Norwich Diocese refused to perform an exorcism when she needed it. What’s the world coming to if you can’t get your own Bishop to cast out a few demons for you? The photo that accompanies the story is priceless.
Book 9:41 PM [+]
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Watching Watching the Nightingales – Douglas Clegg is a tease. I mean that in the good sense. Episode 11 of Watching the Nightingales is finally here, with no answers, only hints of answers and promises of answers. The atmosphere of tension and dread is about as thick as it can be. What is it that awaits them in the basement? I guess we subscribers will find out next episode.
Book 5:52 PM [+]
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Eat. Sleep. Work. – That pretty much sums up my life for the last couple of weeks. I’ve had no time for anything but the essentials, so I’ve been a pretty lousy correspondent and blog-keeper for a while. Sorry about that, but I’ll be getting my personal life back very soon.
Book 2:23 PM [+]
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Irony – Researchers have isolated a protein in the saliva of vampire bats that they say could be converted into a drug to help treat people at risk for stroke. This gives us the image of humans hunting vampires in order to extract life-giving fluid. Take that, Drac!
Book 10:00 PM [+]
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What, Again? – We’ve seen it too often. Sometimes the news seems like it is on a tape loop. A spiritual leader, trusted and loved by his congregants, is not what he seems. By the light of day he runs the church and provides comfort to his flock, but in the darkness of his heart he holds a terrible secret. He wants that which he must not have – and he acts on those forbidden desires. Finally the police are called in and the tawdry secret is out. Yes, while it is hard to believe, he has been worshiping skulls.
Book 9:45 PM [+]
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Narrow Houses – A standard coffin looks just too boxy and old fashioned for you. No, you are a unique individual, you should have a unique coffin, a genuine work of art that expresses the real you. But once you have your art-coffin, it seems a shame to just keep it in storage until you are ready for it. One fellow who will eventually be buried in a canal boat uses his for a coffee table. In Ireland a gallery is putting on an exhibition of these wacky final resting places. Your thought-assignment for the day, fellow spirits, is to consider your ultimate residence. What would you like to be interred in? A comically outsized cigar box? A huge urn? A really big pumpkin? I’ve always fancied something pharaonic.
Book 9:28 PM [+]
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Frickin’ Blogger – Posted something three days ago, still not up. Frickin’ Blogger.
Book 9:26 PM [+]
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New Book By J.R.R. Tolkien To Be Published – A previously unpublished manuscript about Beowulf, including Tolkien’s translation, will be out this year. Lord of the Rings fans will be interested because this is the source of a lot of Middle-Earth. Fans of epic poetry will be interested because it was Tolkien’s scholarship that pulled Beowulf from the academic margin to the place of importance it now has. I’m interested because I’ve always thought it was a whomping great story. Somebody tell Peter Jackson, I can’t wait to see the CGI Grendel’s mom.
Book 11:14 PM [+]
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Just Another Day in Tanzania – What must it be like to live in Tanzania, where this is just another routine news story, mixed in with the usual headlines about crime and politics? Seems this wizard fell out of the sky. He was flying about, off to do some witchcraft, when he just falls, smack into a group of praying Christians. I guess the spiritual energy created some sort of cosmic turbulence. He was so freaked out by this (and who wouldn’t be?) that he converted on the spot, and swore off wizarding forever. Man. Nothing cool like that ever happens around here.
Book 10:53 PM [+]
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And Now, the Moment You’ve All Been Waiting For . . .

The First Annual Prix Invisibles !

The Prix Invisibles – The Prix Invisibles are the official literary awards of The Haunted Weblog. Awarded to the books and stories that most haunted us in the previous year, the awards are unusual in that they do not reward merit to new books only. Since the keeper of this weblog is an incomplete reader, he often reads and reviews older works in a never ending attempt to get caught up. These works are just as likely to win as any other.

The Prix Invisible is unique among literary awards as it has the quality of being completely invisible. It is delivered to the honoree by spiritual messenger, there to take a place of pride in the author’s home. The recipient will feel a warm glow when contemplating its presence, while visitors would no doubt gaze upon it with envy, if such were possible.

And so, without further ado, the 2003 Prix Invisibles!

History of the Year – The Prix Invisible for most haunting history book of the year goes to Buried Alive by Jan Bondeson. Reviewed in August, the award comes with special hemlock leaf clusters added by The Flaming Orangutans, our local Edgar Poe appreciation society. Mr. Bondeson’s book revealed one of the hidden passions of history, demonstrated the weirdness of man, and shined new light on previously murky corners of folklore, European and American history, and literature. It did all that while delivering the occasional laugh. For all this, and for introducing us to the words scheintod and leichenhaus, we confer the 2003 Prix Invisible for history to this book.

Instructional of the Year – The Prix Invisible for instructional book of the year goes to The Weblog Handbook by Rebecca Blood. Reviewed in July, it is important to note that this blog took on the style and focus that it now has in August. This is by no means a coincidence. While a bit long on “netiquette” and a bit short on nuts and bolts advice, The Weblog Handbook inspired me to think about the process of keeping a weblog in new ways. The best “how-to” books inspire as well as instruct, and this book caused me to focus my thoughts and find the style I was looking for. As such I credit Rebecca Blood with helping me find my bloggy way, and therefore confer upon her the 2003 Prix Invisible for instructional of the year.

The Literature Award – This award is given to the best book about books or literature, which this year was Wide as the Waters by Benson Bobrick. Reviewed in July (scroll down a little ways), this could easily have won the history award too. This book is about the creation of the most significant book in our language, the King James Bible. If you are at all interested in theology, literature, language, or history, this book is for you.

The Lovecraft Citations – At this point we take a break in the formal ceremonies while the Esoteric Order of Dagon awards The Lovecraft Citations. Not Prix Invisibles, the Citations are awarded to the literary works in long and short form that best uphold the tradition of weird, cosmic horror. The short form citation this year is awarded to “The God of Dark Laughter” by Michael Chabon, which we read in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror after its first appearance in The New Yorker. The long form citation is presented to Threshold, by Caitlín R. Kiernan, reviewed here in September. Congratulations to the honorees for these weirdly powerful works.

Children’s Book of the Year – The Prix Invisible for children’s book of the year goes to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Potter. Reviewed here in November, the fourth book in the wildly popular series was the darkest yet, and promises much for future volumes. Because I have joined the millions of people around the world waiting for those future volumes, it was pretty much a no-brainer to grant this Prix Invisible to Harry Potter.

Anthology of the Year – The Prix Invisible for most haunting anthology goes to The Darker Side, edited by John Pelan. Reviewed here in October, this original anthology includes some of the best stories I saw all year. While a couple of stories were sub-par, they were more than made up for by the overall high quality of this book. Since I am sure we will be seeing a lot of these stories nominated for the better known awards, I thought I’d get a jump on them by granting a 2003 Prix Invisible to The Darker Side.

Short Story of the Year – The Prix Invisible for short story of the year goes to “Unspeakable” by Lucy Taylor. It was included in the Prix Invisible winning anthology The Darker Side (see above), and is one of the most original and devastating works of psychological horror fiction I’ve seen. It is an amazing story that fully deserves the Prix Invisible.

Novella of the Year – The Prix Invisible for novella of the year goes to “Demons” by John Shirley. Included in the book Demons and reviewed here in July, “Demons” is dark fantasy of the highest order, combining mythology with Shirley’s own mythopoetics to create a story filled with intelligence and emotion.

Collection of the Year – The Prix Invisible for collection of the year goes to The Death Artist by Dennis Etchison. Reviewed in July, the psychological horrors in this book are insightful and painful.

First Novel of the Year – The Prix Invisible for first novel of the year goes to Night Terrors by Drew Williams. Reviewed here in September, Night Terrors transcends its well worn major plot device to deliver a complex and nuanced story tied to a fast-paced gory thriller. Featuring well drawn characters who find themselves in horrific dreamscapes, this hardcore horror novel could be the beginning of a career worth watching.

Fantasy Novel of the Year – The Prix Invisible for fantasy novel of the year is presented to American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Reviewed here in August, Mr. Gaiman’s fantastical palette holds the various mythologies of all mankind. The pictures he paints on his American canvas are deep and mysterious. This book contains stories within stories and meanings within meanings, and is the best modern fictional use of mythic archetypes I’ve ever seen.

Horror Novel of the Year – The Prix Invisible for horror novel of the year goes to The Hour Before Dark by Douglas Clegg. Reviewed here in November, this novel prompted a lot of critics to proclaim Douglas Clegg to be the reigning master of family-based horror. I would argue that such a designation is too limiting, and here proclaim Douglas Clegg to be the master of character-based horror. Even that is really too limiting, as Clegg frequently wraps his fascinating and true-to-life characters around big, jaw-dropping horror ideas (and sometimes around small, jaw-droppingly well written horror ideas). I will be stunned if The Hour Before Dark is not honored at one or more of the major visible award ceremonies this year. You heard it here first.

Novel of the Year – A hush draws over the audience here in The Haunted Auditorium as we wait for the most coveted prize of all, the Prix Invisible for novel of the year. The envelope is opened, the card is read . . . the winner is American Gods by Neil Gaiman! American Gods is the first multi-Prix Invisible winner. As we said back in August, this novel “is about faith, worship, god-hood, fidelity, love, sacrifice, and the soul of America. It is one of the most profoundly spiritual novels I have ever read. Just as myths and legends are repeated to be understood more deeply at each telling, this novel cries out to be read more than once. It’s that good.” Therefore, we are proud to award the Prix Invisible for novel of the year to Neil Gaiman for American Gods.

Well, there you have it, the 2003 Prix Invisibles. Congratulations to all the winners. I hope you enjoyed the show. See you again next year!
Book 4:31 PM [+]
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I’m Pretty Sure Decapitation Isn’t In the Rules – Finding a frozen head floating in a river should be weird enough, but the media has to make a big deal of the fact that the victim liked to play Vampire: The Masquerade. A Swedish guy in bits and pieces? No big deal. He was a horror fan and liked to play dress-up? Ooh, there’s a story.
Book 11:29 PM [+]
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Seems Like a Reasonable Response to Me – Let’s say you are living in an area known for its large number of lightning strikes. Let’s say that a few houses are hit by lightning in this high altitude lightning-prone region of yours. You certainly don’t want this sort of thing to continue, so you get the local neighborhood watch together, talk it out, decide who in town is probably the witch that is bringing all this lighting down on you, and torch his house. Who could argue with that?
Book 10:55 PM [+]
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Fearless Forecasts – I have swirled my tea leaves, consulted the oracles, studied the giblets of a duck, and peered into my mystic crystals. Here then are the Fearless Forecasts, The Haunted Weblog’s predictions for 2003.

1. The New England Patriots will not repeat as Superbowl Champions.

2. The Boston Red Sox will not meet the Chicago Cubs in the World Series.

3. This time next year the economy will be better than it is now. This will be driven by a drop in oil prices.

4. The Booker Prize will be surrounded by controversy. This controversy will cover the fact that the winning book will be insipid and unoriginal.

5. Douglas Clegg will win another Stoker award.

6. However, Douglas Clegg’s name will not appear on the New York Times Bestseller list.

7. Over 90% of everything that does appear on the New York Times Bestseller list will be crap.

8. The late V.C. Andrews will continue to communicate from the grave.

9. A big book by a man named Robert Jordan will sell pretty darn well starting next week.

10. Before the end of the year the next Harry Potter book will have sold more than five million copies (a mind-numbingly large figure) making it the biggest bestseller of all time.

Book 3:37 PM [+]
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I Resolve – Here they are, my pointless resolutions. We’ll check back next year and see how I’ve done.

1. To post more regularly.

2. To post more book reviews.

3. To consume less sodium and be less massive (as death would be a significant inconvenience).

4. To read more books (my average of just over 3.5 per month in this last year is a little low).

5. To write fiction that is not crap.

6. To make ravioli (just something I’ve always wanted to do).

7. To make more money (since poverty sucks).

Book 2:58 PM [+]
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Ashes to Jewelry, Dust to Paint – It was last summer when we first heard of the process to turn human remains into jewelry. This week the first “diamond” was delivered. The quarter-carat stone used to be an eighty year old grandmother from Alberta. The story suggests that the next thing will be to have our remains mixed with paint and worked into art. Imagine spending eternity as a painting of Elvis on velvet.
Book 2:31 PM [+]
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The Littlest Vampire – The touching tale of the littlest vampire and how she came to America.
Book 2:07 PM [+]
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Happy Symbolic Re-set – Greetings fellow spirits. The New Year is upon us. Best wishes for 2003. Stay tuned, as the next few days will bring us my pointless resolutions, my fearless forecasts (I’m polishing my crystal ball and consulting my oracles), and the all important, highly anticipated, first annual Prix Invisibles, The Haunted Weblog’s own literary awards. Now there’s something to look forward to.
Book 12:12 AM [+]
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