...Five Pop Horror Short Story Anthologies I Tripped Over as a Child...

Where I survey collections of short stories and drift from the overly popular...

I dug deep into the way back machine for horror books that I read as a child.  I read everything.  Horror really had no particular appeal to me, as it was, and still is, not my schtick.  What did intrigue me with horror, and why I returned time and again, was the thrill of the craft.  Horror, as a genre, has to find that fine line between reality and insanity.  Too often do authors slip into the latter, borrowing little from the former, and you end up with a mess that cannot pretend to keep you interested.  But when it's good - it's thrilling.

The first foray that I remember was drifting from paranormal books, which is a natural interest, then lapsing into horror via mystery.  The first mystery stories I read in grade school were the ones that centered around a picture, then you had to figure out who the culprit was based on the combination of the graphic and the prompt.  It was a back door into a reading comprehension quiz.  But, not being a gifted problem solver, really, I appreciated the lengths of logic that threaded out to arrive at the resolution.

Before I could buy my own books, I had to find them at garage sales with my mother, or, if I was with my dad for a weekend, it would be at the used book shops near Huntington Beach.  There I discovered Alfred Hitchcock, before I had ever seen a movie or TV show, with his anthology series.  The most memorable was "Haunted Houseful".  There was also "Ghostly Gallery".  continued below...

Even in death you would have to imagine Alfred trying to
scare people as much as possible.

Short stories was a normal route for
early King.

Years later, while in the Army, I turned to Stephen King books, more than likely because the small library we had in the Menden (Germany) barracks, which was nothing more than a large room in the attic of the building, had very few popular fiction choices but King.  Luckily, I read Misery first, then moved on to his master work, The Shining.  Both were tremendous reads, but, I think many of us would easily consider Shining such an artful balance of character, pacing and story.  I read it twice while on a 'field problem' - where we had to spend at least a week or two in the field simulating a war exercise.  One night was particularly eerie while trying to get through it, as a wind storm blew through an old farmhouse we were sleeping in.  The attic was well over two hundred years old and full of dust.  Its dark corners wouldn't lighten up even in the day.

From there, and the purpose of this post was short story, so Different Seasons.  King's short stories are a hoot and, in his style, very quick and enjoyable.

Post-Army, when I could start buying my own books, I got into Clive Barker's shorts including In the Flesh.  Barker is much more of a sadist than King, infusing his stories to cringe-inducing effects.  However, it's when he lapses into the more subtle forms of horror do we feel that he understands this world very well.

In The Further Adventures of the Joker, which was a cross-over for me, as comics were a hot commodity from '88 through '95, of moving from graphic renditions of the Batman and Joker and to the written rendition.  Of note was a particular story where, as the Joker was a child, he would lure kids into the forest and leave them dying in a water tower.  Creepy stuff.

Lastly, and fairly recent, was an anthology of stories as part of The Twilight Zone.  These original stories were in the spirit of what Serling did best: stories that are in the transcendent, rarefied air.  Since I couldn't get enough Zone on television and probably watched each episode at least five times each, this anthology gave me 18 new stories to cull over.  Interesting take away wasn't so much the stories, but the forward.  It gives a brief story about Serling's Korean War experience that probably set the tone for his take on storytelling.  Fascinating stuff.  What will you read yourself this Halloween?

..."The Most": A Cavalcade of Ingenious Halloween Candy '13...

What can be said about the joyous cacophony of colored treats that is Halloween?  It brings back memories of what was possible as we would go around a gaggle of stranger's houses doing exactly that which were told explicitly not to do.  In fact, unheard of today, is that one of my favorite scores on Halloween was this older lady that lived on Aristocrat Street in Garden Grove.  For at least the two times I was able to hit my best friend's street, she'd have freshly made caramel balls.  I mean, fresh: dripping with caramel and butter and a wee bit of salt, they would spot mark the paper bags they came in.  And, get this, she would complain that kid's didn't like it.  Didn't like it?!  I can still taste them in my mind today.  She didn't know that she was a queen among dross.  That thing was gone by the end of the walk, including my little buddies that didn't know heaven in a paper bag.  That doesn't sound right, does it?

Here's candy that I try to round out each year with my boys: interactive candy is the bestest.  Yes Virginia - each picture links to where you can order!  HTMLroolz<<<!

Oriental Trading's Interlocking Skeleton Candy
Not always anatomically correct, but fine trying

Oriental Trading's Realistic Gummy Earth Worms
Sprinkle in some Oreo cookies for 'dirt'

Groovy Candy selling Ghost Peeps
Saw one site have these on a stick and choco-dipped

Groovy Candy selling Round Up Candy Cigarettes
There's a time when smoking was cool - oh, yeah now

Tower of Sour's Urine Sample
*tss tss whatever urine to - get it? 

Candy Warehouse's Giant Gummy Skull ~ >$50Perverse eating, my teeth are ready

Lik-m-aid's Fun Dip - got one on a Halloween, once.
They really ought to go back to this packaging - how else
did you know the flavor?

Chocodiles, but not necessary Hostess'
Oh man were these the bomba back in '81

See's Candies Orange Krispys
Showing some love for my peeps at See's

Starburst Fruit Flavored Candy Corn
I'm thinking I can hit the entire bag

Hershey Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkin
The schools would go nuts if this made it's
way on campus - call the National Guard

Jelly Belly's Gummy Rat
The boys got one from Michael's the other
day, they love animals

...Eulogy of the last Father of Earth...(io9.com concept art writing prompt)...

The solemnity of the day would be lost on many.  There were very few in attendance, although there shouldn't have been one person in the System that would not have heard that Gerald Sivly had died.

We had risen early.  His body had been prepared the night prior.  He was stripped of his clothing, but for a loin cloth out of modesty.  Interred in a lead casket, the only items that were allowed were reactive rods.  One symbolized intrinsic hope, one was regeneration and the last was for humanity.  Even after only two generations since we fled to the oceans, the young were already forgetting the last one.  That is why I wrote into the Law: that we never forget.

We once inhabited a world with land.  We were able to run in fields of grass, under trees.  There was life teeming on the planet.  Gerald Sivly was the last to see all of this in its last grandeur.  I stared into his eyes after he had passed it I felt the heavy pull of loss - loss at the man and loss of his memories.  His eyes had seen streets, and cars.  He ran among them.  He was a child when they ran into the oceans to escape death.  It was seventy years ago now.  The eyes had lost its light.  He was no more.

I held his hands for a time.  Even as a child his hands were cut and calloused as humanity pulled together to build what would now be called the System.  If it wasn't for him and the 400,000 strong force, there would be little left of the human race and the handful of land species still alive here.  We were three million strong now.  Three million strong and still petty, still selfish.

That many stout and strong people in the massive structure we had worked on daily, and only a handful to pay tribute.  It makes me sick to think on it.  The casket topped the rise and my closest family and friends came with him.  I had come earlier.  I needed time where I can be alone.  It was quiet here in the fields.  Only larger predators would pass through here, so it was relatively clear.  The sharks knew to leave us alone now.  But only thanks to Sivly and the strength of the frontiersman.  It could have appeared, at the tail of the last century, that the strength of humans was abandoned to technology.  But the cosmic dance brought us a storm of comets.  Unrelenting, they came bringing fire and water.  The world finally tipped and water took the place of the remaining land.

Billions succumbed.  Sivly would tear up at that: the waters were filled, for months, with the bodies of the dead and dying.  Families tied themselves together.  Children, clinging to life, found floating on them.  Ultimately they became a part of the sea.

The pallbearers stopped at the foot of the grave.  This place was for the distinguished.  I turned on the intercom.  Anyone inside would be able to hear if they wanted.  I had a feeling they would not.

"Gerald Sivly said, of himself, he shouldn't have lived.  I paused when he intimated this to me, one quiet night years ago, when the power had blown during the typhoon of '46.  I didn't know what to say - I know now, of course.  I would have said if it wasn't for you we would not be a federation of peoples, but dissolved into tribes.  The great Improvement made forty years ago now.  The survey corps.  Life.  What things would I attribute to you now."  I paused when I spoke of him directly.  Why would I do that?

"Sivly can be directly attributed to our ability to stay alive.  More importantly, we thrived.  We have all felt that pang: the too familiar pang we share when events sour, when life makes us dig through hardscrabble to just get by.  But we have thrived.  Just a few years ago, we formed a library.  Our children, in the first time in decades, can feel safe enough to create art: in my lifetime, in Gerald's lifetime.

As we lay him into the soil that once was Earth, where he was born, where he once played," I nodded to them and they put him into the soil.  The light dust blew upwards with the weight, clouding the sea around us.  "We should remember to keep our heads up, as he taught me.  He never flagged.  I wouldn't say that he didn't fail, we all do - but he showed, in action, to keep driving forward.  He worked until he died."  I paused.  I didn't do it out of dramatics, we knew nothing of them anymore - I did it because it felt right to pause and think of him again.

The thousands of times I visited his workshop, but I would remember this singular time: he stood in a shaft of light that had drifted through dozens of feet of clear ocean.  The light stayed still long enough to be queer to me.  It was as if he was lit by some entity far above us.  It was lit for me to remember him, I knew that much.  He smiled at me.  The light made his ears translucent.  His skin was frail even then.  But there was a glow.  He had animus, he was creating a new tool at his desk.  Another tool for us.  A tool he remembered or divined.  Either way, it was for us.  I will not forget this.

"It was an honor to know him.  We commit him to the ocean.  He will become part of that which he fought so desperately to avoid.  But so shall we all."

I stood behind as everyone left.  Their figures blurring in the distance, the ever present rise of bubbles from their masks.  The dust had settled some time ago.  Most of the disruption we caused had already smoothed here.  The light was fading.  I touched his grave stone and didn't want to leave, like I was a child again.

May my life be even a pale reflection of yours.  May I lead these people to a better place.  Thank you, father.

I turned and walked quickly, the dwindling dancing light slowly fading in the afternoon, the angular lines of broken cities in the periphery of my vision.

Vitaliy Shushko - io9 Writing Prompt

...Where I Am...9/26/13...

I stood alone, although she with me, and the silence cooled the air
What I had said, could not be caught, it steeled her glance
A thieving quip had stole my love and stole her shine for me
She was fair and fairer more with her love subdued
And I loved her more for hating me: for what else then could I do?
Patience is not the suit of men and less the crown of me
I've waited long, I've waited fair that she would come to me
And there she was and the ground did swell about
Proclamations in a glance and declarations in a breath
None before or since, none since or before, I say again
Again I say it, to linger in the air that it may to her abate
Her mood.  Can such a thing be said by the very few
Before or since could say the same could stand the same
Yet here I am and here are you, before or since.

She left, she went to adorn the halls of palaces

With pretty boys, they prate and whisper draughts

Distilled of wantonness.  Twisted pillars arise
And art is left to settle its score with time and easy fancy.

Though don't doubt that I doubt where I roamed

In cover and concealment in camouflage

Trudged in rain on mud in cold Balkan winds

To arrive here as if I knew and knew tragedy

Is it too late it must be I know it is late

For winds they come only once and storms are

Frightening and glorious and beautiful all at once

As you, before or since.

If I have not proved, let me prove with the only
Forms I have: not fancy but form and not just form but this:
enticements perhaps, but think them not of me, for that is
Falsity assured; dismiss me still, hate me, reject me
For fade I shall as all shall fade and memory will it too
But none of me retain (reject assured) but retain at least what is left
Then that is all, and all and all, when you uncover it
What you believe you know will not be so and the
Falseness dissolve and bitter cold and night and dark
Will resolve all else and prove '---'

Face 67 - 25sep13 JE

...of yellow pads and foolscap...

In The Oxford Companion to the English Language, the term for foolscap puts its origin at "[17c: from a watermark showing a fool's or jester's cap and bells]", in Britain this would be about 17 x 13.5 inches, whereas in the Colony, we are used to the yellow writing paper of 8.5 x 14, also commonly known as 'legal size'.

Why yellow?  There may not be an exacting reference to the use of yellow, but, if we are to follow common sense, the yellow, and a darker one with brown accouterments, is to ease laboriousness on the eyes.  Those over the age of 27 will remember that most paper is seldom stark white.  The brightness of the paper is harsh for any long period of study or writing.  With yellow, especially in the litigious arts, the color enables feeble-eyed law students the ability to pull an all-nighter.  I also find that the size, with that added 'height' of 3 inches, is just enough to keep even the largest hands the ability to rest on the pad without tiring.  Either way, it has lasted over 100 years in its current state (low grade paper, in the larger size, bounded, with a left margin drawn on its side).

Why was it named foolscap?  If we are to take the "unsubstantiated qualifier in wikipedia, it was introduced by a 'Sir John Spielmann' in 1580 at his established papermill in Dartford, Kent.  Having the name spielmann basically means "wandering fool" in German, so it could be attributed to his surname.  However, wikipedia than pushes the date to a "firm" 1479.  Either way, the size and the watermark became one and the same.  This 'folio' size and the imprint, fantastically done with thread sewn into the paper, became matter mixed.

The beauty of the pad is its ability to be scratch and/or finery, depending on what context it is.  It can be torn away, or all pages saved like a functional journal.  The tried and true yellow, with its light colored blue lines is ingrained in our tactile memories.  They have paved the way for the tablet, which roughly follows the form and its function.

In the Dispersion of a Web

Face XV ~ DeviantArt

A search about the web will find some interesting links and where, in these wilds, where the fruit of our art can be found.

Powder Blue Gentleman:
The unfortunate story is that of a forgotten movie, Powder Blue, of which its only claim to fame is that Jessica Biel strips in it.  Great.  But, this first compendium has gotten some through-put:

- Amazon Italy

- Amazon Espana

- Barnes and Noble Nook

- iTunes

Heart Shaped Box: an Edwardian Jackal Anthology:

Of course there are more than a few books with the same title.  One is a collection of erotic short stories.  Another from a gentleman who writes horror.  Mine is neither erotic or horror, but what an intriguing genre that would be.

- Barnes and Noble Nook

- iTunes

- Book Depository UK

- Amazon Italy

- Amazon UK

- Tower Books
- Fishpond New Zealand

- Abebooks UK 

- Blackwell UK

Bing Crosby and the Interminable Da Vinci:

- loot.co.za

- iTunes

- Nook Sample

...insanely early geek Christmas list...because now...

Not only the DeLorean, but the < BTTF 1, with retractable tires for flying over Hill Valley.  How precious is mini-fig Doc and Marty?

AMAZON: LEGO BTTF DeLorean Time Machine

No longer virtual, actual blocks.  You'll have to make all the sound effects yourself.
AMAZON: LEGO Minecraft Original Set

THINKGEEK: Star Trek Attack Wing Game
Star Wars has had lots'o success with their miniature 3D flight games.  Time for ST to take wing.  If only I had time to geek out for a few hours drinking strawberry soda and eating Zingers with the buds...those days are long gone.

TOYSRUS: Bruce Lee Fists
Teetering between cool or whah?!  Jury's still out in my mind.  Actually, I'm wondering if they can be used to...what?!  Boy, do you have a dirty mind.  I was thinking of oven mitts.  (On a dog?  NO you sick bastard.)

WALMART: LEGO Mindstorms EV3
Latest Mindstorms incarnation will take it through the next five years for sure.  $350?  That's just a drop in the bucket for you rich boy.

Comes with an ARM9 processor, USB, wifi, micro-SD reader and 4 motor ports.  I'm thinking I can make a robot that can store my pictures.  Although that may not be the best design.  I suck at this.

TOYWIZ: Kenner Vintage SW X-Wing
Doesn't come with a figure though?  Have to figure out which one will fit correctly.  Yeah, they come out with one of these every couple of years, but it comes in the classic 'Kenner' design from 1978.  How can you not crack the thing open and run around the house shooting womprats?  Well, that's just racist.

ENTERTAINMENTEARTH: Sci-Fi Movie Maker
Not sure how this will work, but I love the premise.  You take the pieces of cardboard props and move them around I suppose.  I think it could come off right to an imaginative kid, but then I think you could spend the time making a real movie.  Please use landscape mode people.

TINTOYARCADE: Mini Bakelite WORKING FM Radio
'nuff said!  Had to read it twice to believe it.  Working FM in a little Bakelite.  Hang it on a tree, hang it from your backpack.  You'll be the life of any office party.

FATBRAINTOYS: Water Games
So, like, pre-Gameboy we had these 'pocket' toys to have fun with on the road.  Hours of fun when you have absolutely nothing else to do.  How much time was spent watching the swordfish swing back and forth.  How do you win?  IT'S NOT THE POINT.


{no picture}
WACKYPLANET: Pocket Weather Station
Never thought I'd need one, then I saw it.

OFFICEPLAYGROUND: Solar Powered Cat
Solar power is the way of the future - for, how long do we need a UL-listed plug to keep your lucky cat movie it's little paw?  It's 2013!

RETROPLANET: Vegas Tin Sign
Who doesn't love tin signs, especially one that hearkens back to when Vegas was a series of block-colors.  Love the colors though: I suppose it's 'reminiscent'.