Larger Universe

C-C-C-C-C-c-c-c-combo breaker!

Spooky Month perseveres but the inherently musical aspect of the week falls, leaving in its wake a hybrid of the spooky and the auditory. Today, instead of emphatically suggesting a song or album for the month of October, I implore you to look at one of my all time favorite podcasts, Mysterious Universe.

I've been listening to MU since its inception, I think. To be fair, it was back in 2006 and I may have been in that hazy, post collegiate phase in which days string together in a seamless fashion while you look for a job to serve as a stop gap before a career takes shape. The internet and podcasting were ascendant, becoming a legitimate cultural presence. I was filling the time not searching job postings by cleaning my apartment and listening to podcasts, distracting myself with the weekly shows. I was enamored with Mysterious Universe, a podcast "bringing you news of the strange and paranormal" that touched on a childhood fascination of mine. I was, I am sheepish to admit, fascinated with anything and everything relating to UFOs, Bigfoot, Cryptozoology and my personal favorite - the Loch Ness monster. As I got older, I studied Philosophy in college, which I've found was basically these same niche subjects, only as they manifest in the mind. Same person, same weird interests, only now it was internalized through logic and self-examination instead of books about Roswell. I still adored a good conspiracy theory, only now more as an intellectual exercise than a serious debate.

I loved having the podcast on while I puttered. I started to accumulate back episodes and would listen to them on long drives to see my parents. At some point I interrupted my internet service and when I finally got my old pc back online, I downloaded every episode of MU from iTunes that had been backlogged. I had a glut of content and I was in rapture. Host Benjamin Grundy, now accompanied by Aaron Wright, intoned with pleasant demeanor about the most outlandish stuff possible. Shadow People. Scientific anomalies. Possessions. Modern relics. Anything and everything you would expect from Art Bell, only without the sinking feeling that you were listening to an elderly relative ramble on about murky memories (not to slight Coast to Coast, but they had their share of out-there guests). Grundy and Wright often take their subject matter at face value, and I love them for it. It makes for an interesting broadcast, if only for entertainment's sake. They also include some phenomenal mood music to break up the broadcasts, creating a fantastic air of peculiarity to go with the subject matter.

That's the real thing here, for me. I know so much of what they cover has little or no basis in reality. It doesn't mean it can't give me a thrill. In fact, there have been quite a few nights in which sleep has eluded me that end in me having to turn off my old-format iPod for fear of never sleeping again - stories of the paranormal and bizarre keeping me up beyond when I should have otherwise drifted off to slumber. Back in the original spate of episodes there's a report of a n investigator who made audio recordings of what supposedly was a Sasquatch in the distance. More than once I awoke from a fresh nightmare at the sounds of mournful howling as episodes played in the night, a strange and chilling sound that I couldn't really identify as a known animal. I eventually had to edit that episode out.

 The point of all this is that if you want to give yourself the willies this Halloween season - listen to a few episodes of Mysterious Universe. There will undoubtedly be a mix of stories harvested from all over the world - some strange, some funny, some undeniably made up. Still, there is just that one story in the bunch that will make you reach for the pause button. Tell you what - download an episode this weekend and wait until it's late at night. Put one on and see if there's something in there that gives you the willies. Mission accomplished.

Club Killers

Back and forth, back and forth.


I could make justifications about music for getting down or just get down to business, so why don't I cut you some slack, huh?


I first wrote about Beachland back at the end of July. I was fresh off my honeymoon and in love with the world. Mostly just my better half, but also feeling that universal buzz of feeling all is right with the universe. Now, as Fall settles in and most Minnesotans get ready for The Dreaded Winter, the two of us are feeling the approaching malice of Old Man Winter. We want nothing to do with it, but have to live our lives in spite of it. We may not be able to do much more than crank up the thermostat and imbibe a bit to fight off the impending chill, but we can also toast the dear departed and celebrate with our friends and family in the face of shorter days and yawning nights. Its's appropriately timed with Halloween that I bring to you Horror Club!

Horror Club is a playlist by Nate LC that mixes the best of inescapably dance-able tracks with a hint of brooding, foreboding unease, a sense of the macabre and the morbid. It's a mix that kicks off in high gear, with Salem blasting out the mega-sized 'King Night', setting the tone for the rest of the mix. Flying Lotus tweak the ear just a bit, to keep you off kilter. Chromeo's 'I'm Not Contagious' adds to the dance flair with another added layer of dark, 'Thriller'-esque malice. It's a phenomenal track. Kanye's massive 'Monster' makes an appearance with guest spots by Jay-Z, Bon Iver and Nicki Minaj, of all odd pairings. It fits, but contributes more in bounce than it does in vibe. MGMT's 'Brian Eno' flips the equation on its head, throwing in tons of weird atmosphere with less fun and bounce, but a rocking and ultra-modern song none the less. The Black Keys do their damnedest with 'Too Afraid To Love You', an appropriately haunting tune. Skrillex does his best to melt our collective faces with the evil, funky 'Kill Everybody', almost doing so with the cut beats and snapped and twisted samples. It's one of the few times I feel acceptably old listening to club tracks. HEALTH make even the stiffest, whitest city kids feel hip and loose with 'USA BOYS', a stuttering, staccato track that opens up at just the right times . Sleep Over & Grillgrill ease us out of the madness, singing us to sleep with soothing, more ambient numbers that encourage coming down from the crazy dance sounds.

Look, I could go on and on for the rest of the night making fervent endorsements for this insane playlist of Spooky Month Music. Instead of doing that, I will just hit the integral facts - A) it's free B) it's spooky C) it jams. Straight up. This mix is insane and twisted and full of music you can download right now to get whatever business you claim to instigate on a Friday night going. I've already got it and enjoy the living end out of it. Do yourself a favor and download Horror Club now, before Nate LC pulls it. He's got great mixes for every season, so flip through his tumblr and see what's there. I'll sell you on more of his mixes when the season changes.

Darker, Donnie

Maybe I'm full of it.


I wrote, in yesterday's post about White Zombie, that sometimes the Spooky Month music posts wouldn't all be about solitary, creeping experiences and ambient soundtracks. Today's post is absolutely that. Maybe not quite as solitary, but it definitely touches on the idea. But I'm stalling. On to business! Tonight - the soundtrack to Donnie Darko.


I, like many people, discovered Donnie Darko after the fact. Not quite as late as some, but I am pretty confident I was in that first or second wave of viewers, along with my college roommate Phil, who were tipped off about the movie. My friend Jimmy, an avid cinephile, made emphatic recommendations about it in late 2003, when it was finding its audience on DVD. We were part of the crowd that would have seen it in theaters were it not for the shelving of the film due to September 11th. When I was visiting my parents, I rented it and watched it in the dark of their quiet house, off in the woods of Wisconsin. It may have been the setting or my state of mind at the time, but I was deeply moved by the quiet little movie of mysteries. So I went back to my college apartment and made Phil watch the trailer. He was cautiously curious, having dealt with the brunt of my science-fiction and B-movie obsessions. 

Being the good sport he was, he watched it when in the right frame of mind. And again. And again. We were hooked. We discussed the movie and its many layers, the deleted scenes, the hidden meanings and unintended messages in the movie. Being fall and in a very contemplative mood, I also procured the soundtrack whilst dinking around on the internet. Thus began a long series of autumn nighttime drives up and down the Mississippi River Boulevard, debating college-y concepts while listening to the spooky sounds of the Donnie Darko Soundtrack. These cool, rainy nights approaching Halloween are just a bit spookier and more mystical when listening to the haunting chords and piano melodies that scored the other-worldly film.

Written and arranged by Michael Andrews, the soundtrack is a minimalist, ambient affair (of course) that creates an ethereal air by eschewing typical instrumental dramatics by taking a few unusual routes. No guitars, no drums. Lots of piano and organ, some mellotron. Long, drawn out ideas that create musical landscapes to play inside instead of simply echoing what happens on the screen. Little snippets of electronic sounds and bells add a scare here or there. It's serene and unnerving at once, lulling you into a bizarre dream you find yourself questioning. I love having a big old pair of headphones on and letting this soundtrack shape my thoughts while I write or take a walk through the leaves. Of course, that was less of a risk for getting mugged when I lived in residential St. Paul than the middle of Uptown. 

This soundtrack, while not specifically written with Halloween in mind, is definitely spooky in the best way possible. In my defense, the movie itself is set around Halloween and the climax occurs during a costume party. These quiet, sneaky songs give off an air of the strange and uncanny. If you're up late reading a scary book or going for a walk tonight, put on this album and see what unusual things jump out at you. 

Monster? Mash!

Spooky Month gets funky.

They can't all be paranoid little pieces about haunting, ambient music and personal memories of leaves crunching on the ground, can they? Nah, I ought to switch things up. Stay fresh. Get moving. How about instead of a nostalgic bit on eerie tunes I give you a sonic blast of Halloween-themed goodness? Let's get a little funky. No, not horror-core. That's just bad all around. I'm talking about the furious funk of 'I'm Your Boogie Man'. Yeah, that kind of funk. To be honest, as much as I love the original flavor by KC & The Sunshine Band (with bonus points for being the soundtrack to the scene in Watchmen when The Comedian and Nightowl tame a riot) the version I want to put out the good word for is the insane re-grind by White Zombie.

White Zombie are...were...crazy. Largely the brainchild of Rob Zombie, the band made a pretty dynamic series of evolutions from a groove metal group in the late 80s to become the industrial funk outfit they were most known as by the time they dissolved in 1996. They had mainstream success with their last album, Astro-Creep: 2000, which of course unleashed the massive 'More Human Than Human' on the public. One of their last offerings to the masses before their dissolution (Rob Zombie spinning off to become a distilled entity of the band on his own) was this cover for the soundtrack to City of Angels, the disappointing sequel to The Crow. In one shot they sent out a blast of funky, grinding spooky madness that I make sure to include in any Halloween playlist/mix/partymusicwhathaveyou. I loved blasting this song, for example, while gearing up for the recent mess that was the Zombie Pub Crawl. Good times in grease paint and fake blood? Rob himself would be proud.

Kicking off with a dirty bit of distorted wah-wah guitar, 'I'm Your Boogie Man' jumps right into the thick of it with a heavy, somehow danceable combination of drums and minor bass notes that build the core of the song. Mr. Zombie layers on discordant keys and a chorus of excited kids screaming "The boogie man is coming! He's gonna get you" to build atmosphere and just be freaky in general. The verse rips open with a searing guitar to match the bassline while Rob's voice growls the words in an almost inhuman wash of distortion. Like the band or not, there's no denying they do this kind of thing incredibly well. I adore the synth lines that come in before the chorus that ape the horns in the original version. When the song breaks loose and tears into the hook, it's insanely heavy. The blasts of guitar and bass while Zombie screams the hook are full of menace and Halloween cheer, both dangerous and fun. Somehow it's totally danceable despite the madness comprising the tune.

Like I said, I love this crazy cover and throw it into any October entertaining I do. Not like a sit-down, wine glasses and fancy cheeses kind of thing, but more of going to a scary movie or having people over before a midnight screening at the Uptown Theater. White Zombie may have called it quits soon after releasing this cover but I'm glad they let us have this one before they did. It's Monster Mash, for sure. 

X Marks The Spot

Let's get less political and more fictional, eh?


Yesterday's Spooky Month post got a little to real for me. I know, I wrote it - I should be able to reign it in. So how's about a whole soundtrack to my favorite month and a bit of cultural zeitgeist from days past? Instead of just a spooky single, let's take a look at a creepy collection of music, one that works from ambiance and subtle hints rather than hit-you-on-the-head heavy handedness. I want to tell you about the musical companion piece to the old cult hit The X-Files, Songs In The Key of X.


There was a time in the mid 90s where my older brother was part of a CD Club. Do those even exist anymore? For those of you too young to know, you join this organization that gets you a whole slew of cheap CDs the first month, then kind of auto-mails you the next CD every month after. Usually people singed up for the crazy deal (20 CDs for 20 cents!) and then got a crummy CD mailed to them every month at cost because they were too lazy to cancel. Not us, though. We got in, got our music and got out. He got tons of good music and let me pick a couple albums with him, then we had to order I think two or three at retail price to get the full discount. He had nothing on his wish list he wanted, so I sorted through the catalog to see if anything stood out. See how quaint this was? Man, iTunes was such a game changer. Anyway, I saw a compilation that listed among its entries Foo Fighters, Filter, Rob Zombie, The Meat Puppets and R.E.M. I was also big into The X Files at the time, so I filled out the paperwork (yeah, I know) and it arrived a couple weeks later as the leaves were turning. Both the impending Fall and the tone of the album have inextricably tied Songs In The Key of X to Halloween for me, and this time every year I find myself putting it on for both enjoyment and nostalgia. Turns out it still holds up, if it appeals in any way.

The thing about this album is that it's not really a proper soundtrack to the wonderfully twisted TV show. It's more a loose collection of songs that fit in theme or tone to the paranoid and twisted, the conspiracies and cover ups. The iconic theme song, haunting as ever, opens the album. From there, though, it branches out into appropriately weird territory. Alterative legends Soul Coughing turn in the fun and bizarre 'Unmarked Helicopters', a buzzer of a song that bears all the signs of the decade. Sheryl Crow sings the heartbreaking 'Standing On The Outside', which creates an air of noirish isolation with sparse, reverb-drenched guitars and walls of harmony. It's actually a beautiful, if mournful, tune. Foo Fighters cover 'Down In The Dark' by Gary Numan, adding to the paranoia and weirdness with the hypnotic head-bobber of a track. Filter, then still known more for 'Hey Man Nice Shot' than 'Take My Picture', offer a strange and squiggly little acoustic number with 'Thanks Bro'. Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds make their indelible mark with the always spooky 'Red Right Hand'. This song screams Halloween, with its chimes, plucked strings and dark, dramatic vocals.

While the paranormal and off-kilter exist in harmony here, things sometimes get more off kilter than paranormal. Show-casing the more quirky side of the show are numbers by P.M. Dawn, R.E.M.'s collaboration with William S. Burroughs or Screamin' Jay Hawkins. The Meat Puppets are all alt-pop with their lyrically relevant but sonically cheery 'Unexplained'. Elvis Costello pairs up with the ambient genius Brian Eno to make a wonderfully weird addition with 'My Dark Life', which fits both in tone and theme. Rob Zombie teamed up with progenitor Alice Cooper to deliver some blisteringly evil metal with 'Hands of Death', showing how the student became the master in their shared genre. Also, in another bizarre sign of the show's influence, rewinding the album behind the first track brought out two more songs, another from Nick Cave and Mark Snow. This under-utilized trick of the medium blew my mind when I first discovered it back in 1996, just as Chris Carter would have wanted it to.

This album, while not a soundtrack in the proper sense, is nonetheless a soundtrack to my Fall and Halloween every year. I adore the creeping and strange sounds, the light and the dark of the pop and alt, the sad and upbeat sounds playing off each other so well. The tunes may not all have appeared in the paranormal procedural but they fit the tone in spirit, creating an air of mystery for my favorite time of year. If you miss this iconic show or just want some music to give you pause while you walk through the leaves collecting on the sidewalk, go dig up this gem. There's an artist for everyone here, I guarantee it.

Citizen Suspicions

Evening, all.


I write this with a bit of trepidation, as I feel it warrants a fair bit of justification in order to include it under the umbrella of Spooky Month Music. You know, though? I'm going for it. Why should I have to apologize for a track in a playlist? I'm not trying to offend, just throwing mental spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. So it is with mixed levels of confidence and wariness that I make today's Spooky Month recommendation. I'm Afraid of Americans.


Who wouldn't be? We're huge. We are the elephant in the room. We barge in at any social (global) event and make it about us. We're teenagers on a global scale, why wouldn't we? That's what we do, and for better or worse we do it well. By and large we've been responsible for some amazing things in the last 200+ years we've existed. We've also been present for, and caused, some of the most horrible things you could fathom. Being an American, at least in my own short existence in the post-modern age, has been a dichotomous one - pride in being a powerful, prosperous nation (at least five years ago, anyway) yet shame in our heavy handed, ego-centric approach to some of the more nuanced issues. Lest I delve any further into the issue and start actively and irreparably shoving my foot into my mouth, I will say that this understanding of American citizenship helps shape my context of David Bowie's killer single, remixed by Trent Reznor.

It's two great flavors that taste great together. Bowie, with his British style and refinement, writing a biting, insightful track about our omnipresence in the world with the help of genius Brian Eno. Reznor, all American dramatics and angst, deconstructing and re-contextualizing the established order to create a fresh, biting sound. These two, working on the song from Bowie's 1997 album Earthling, crafted tune that not only forces the listener to question assumptions but also makes a Hell of an ominous, funky little ditty to have throbbing in the background while entertaining. It's the kind of song that I like to include as part of my Halloween/cocktail-hour playlists in iTunes because not only is it a killer song with a killer vibe but those who hear it and get Bowie's message might think about how the world is a dangerous place, even here in America. It's spooky music, not in the ghouls and goblins sense, but in the mood established through tone and message, a song full of paranoia and malice. 


The track, with its Reznor-requisite beeps, buzzes and fuzz, is also bolstered by the crazy video produced for it. One must bear in mind, though, that it was created back in a pre-9/11 world wherein criticizing the U.S. was a much different thing than it is today. Seeing Bowie chased through New York by a menacing Reznor and kids with finger-guns was both odd and amusing. It was cool to see the two, a pairing of kindred artists, making a bit of a statement about our gun-obsessed culture and our lack of tact. Now it seems even more odd and somehow more provocative in light of our political landscape. 

See how I get off on tangents when I get going on geo-political topics? It's not a Halloween song like the Addams Family theme or the Monster Mash, but it's a track with teeth, a darkly toned grind of a song that Bowie delivers with unflappable cool. Reznor's influence is just icing on the cake. Sneak it into a mix and see if anyone picks up on it. It's like a musical Rorschach test for Halloween.

Bleed Out

We're switching gears!


Spooky Month is now going to be focusing on music for the morbid, tunes for the twisted, metal of the macabre! Other puns! Bad descriptions! It's going to be a week of creepy, freaky deeky music, the kind of stuff you would really only want to play on Halloween but I play all month long because...well...I love Halloween.


So...Slipknot. Yeah. They're insane. They're kind of nuts. Like, they're a band I have little-to-no interest in pursuing much further beyond this single. I'm too old and soft to be into such aggro, antagonistic metal. There's like 9 guys in the band and they do all sorts of weird things during their shows, injuring themselves and I don't know what all. I know I sound like an old, writing this, but it's beyond the realm of my give-a-crap. I'm just saying, I'm all for the spectacle of Marilyn Manson, but these guys are nuts.

So why do I bother writing this? Cause their single 'Wait and Bleed' from 2001 is actually pretty decent for horror-themed tunes. It's got all the right moves for a nasty, grimy track that gets under your skin. The vocals (depending on the mix you hear) vacillate between anguished howls and grunts to a sing-songy, pleasant voice that almost seems out of place in such a furious tune. The low bass riding under the refrain gives a slinky, evil feel to the softer vocals; the buzzsaw guitar riffs in the verses add machismo and malice to near-indecipherable lyrics. It's antagonistic and pained, but man if it isn't catchy.

Like I said, not a huge fan of this band. I dig 'Wait and Bleed' for the things their fans probably hate. Parts of it have a cool melody. The verses show what they're know for. It's unnerving stuff for Spooky Month. Let's find some more palatable music tomorrow, eh?

Skull & Bones

Last book of the month, kids.

Spooky Month has been full of freaky deeky books. There's been children's books that made a lasting impression, comics to make a visual spectacle, some gnarly stories about zombies and plenty of Stephen King. To finish out the week in circuitous fashion, how about a look at my favorite collection of King's short stories? Sound good? All right, then - Skeleton Crew. Published back in 85, the collection is a series of shorts that were all written and published early in the horror writer's career when he was apparently bursting with ideas, this book following on the heels of the collection Night Shift and the novella-grouping of Different Seasons. Skeleton Crew is King at his best, writing bursts of characterization and tossing out horrendous and even offensive ideas, doing so with inspired bits of creativity giving them life.

I first read this book back in 1997, actually on the recommendation of me darling mum. She had recapped a fairly edited and cleaned up version of one of the more remarkable tales in the book, about a man who finds himself stranded on a tiny island with no food and only a bit of water. When pressed for details, instead of relating the grisly bits she drove me to the library. As I mentioned in another King-focused post, it didn't matter what I read, so long as I kept my mind moving. So I checked out Skeleton Crew and devoured it - it quickly became my personal favorite of his short stories collection. Full to the brim with his signature style, the stories here are perfect for getting under your skin for Halloween.

 'Survivor Type', I should explain, is just as remarkable and horrible as I was lead to believe. Related in a series of broken journal entries, the tale of a h smuggler gone wrong is captivating and without an ounce of fat on it. It's a lean, fast-paced story that cuts right to the chase and sucks you in, creating repulsive images in your head as you read. I love just regaling friends with the concept of what happens in it and watching them squirm. Fun cocktail party stuff, for sure. Another iconic tale in the collection, 'The Monkey', evokes more of an inescapable terror but in a more mystical sense. Your classic children's toy becomes an unshakeable omen in impending doom, to the terror of a young man. It seems to have been the inspiration to more than a couple episodes of television, from The X Files to b-movies in MST3K. 'The Jaunt' sees King veering out of his comfort zone into science fiction. In typical fashion, though, he uses the genre as a launching point for some creative concepts and horrible, mind-bending results. The basic premise involves a future in which a form of teleportation has become common practice. The only catch to the revolutionary manner of travel is that the traveler must be unconscious for the jaunt. To be awake would...well, you'll have to read the story to find out, but I have to say, it's one that has always stood out as a high point in short-form fiction. I particularly loved the portion where King relates the scientist creating the technology and experimenting with mice to varying degrees of success.

 I would be remiss if I were to discuss Skeleton Crew without talking about the heavyweight in the bunch - The Mist. This has to be one of my favorite bits of fiction by King, ever. It's one of those things that is somehow able to suggest so much from so little. To long to be a short, too short to be a novel, King leads off the book with this fascinating tale of military experiments gone wrong. Actually, that's never really confirmed in the story, only rumored. You see, there's a man who's community endures a terrible storm. Afterwords, while he waits with his son to get some groceries and supplies while the power is out, a heavy and pervasive mist rolls through, blanketing everything. He and everyone in the store are curious but cautious at this strange development - it's not fog, so what is it? A man bursts in, in a panic, screaming about monsters, things, in the mist. They soon find out he's right. The paranoia and survival instinct-driven mob mentalities that follow are harrowing. King is scarily effective at conjuring up the worst in people who are under the worst circumstances. The hints we get of the creatures and their potential origins are horrifying and fascinating, some of the most memorable fiction I've read. 

So you've stuck with me for the first leg of Spooky Month. You've got plenty of fodder for the rest of the month - something for your kids (but only if they can handle it), something for lighter fare, and some longer stuff to chew through. If you want some quick shots of nasty, bizarre horror - look no further than Skeleton Crew. It's King at his best, when he was young and full of vinegar. Stay tuned for more Spooky stuff. 

Repressed

Alright, here's the thing.


I fully intended on writing up a piece on some of the most disturbing books I read as a kid, all in the name of Spooky Month and this book themed week. I did some research, I looked some stuff up on the ol' Google. Then I started to remember why I blocked out my experiences of reading the books. Then the pictures showed me why I couldn't just post a bunch of them and wipe my hands of this. They were actually really disturbing.


If you were a kid in the last, say, 30 years who enjoyed reading, the odds are you came across Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark. When I was a child the collected Urban Legends and folk tales  were spine chilling. Now I find them to be enjoyable slices of lore that distill what unnerves us. The drawings that accompanied them were as disturbing then as they are now, to the point that just seeing pictures of them online brings me back to the discomfort and terror I felt as a child. Having read other people's recollections of their experiences and their disbelief at how the images compare with any other children's books, I am obviously just one of many who have been traumatized by this short lived series.

Written and compiled by Alvin Schwartz, the books all tell tales that are brief and to the point. There are classic Urban  Legends like the Man with the Hook Hand or the Unseen Hitchhiker in the Backseat or the Roommate who was Dead All Along. There are folktales of the uncanny and the taboo - tales of songs and chants and things to ward off evil. Again, these are not the most bone-chilling reads as an adult, more capsular versions of our horror movies. As a child - I slept more than a night or two on the floor of my parents room, feeling safe in their presence. 

The illustrations accompanying the collected writings are by Stephen Gammell, who has a long and celebrated career as an illustrator for children's books. Having over fifty books to his name, it's a bit of a wonder this series stands out the way it does in his career. Once you see them, though, it becomes a question of forgetting them rather than remembering them. The surreal and deformed, decaying figures are uncanny in the worst possible way. They are things of remarkable artistry, there is no question of that - they are so well made, though, that you can't help but shudder just a bit as you see some of the more...inspired...creations.


These books terrified me. If you think your kids can handle it, by all means let them have at them. But please, err on the side of safety. If you read them as a kid, conquer one of your old fears. Spooky Month! 

Desperate Measures

Hola, gang.


Let's just cut right to the chase, shall we? 


As I have made it abundantly clear, I do love me some Stephen King. For better or worse, I'm hooked on his relentless writing, all character based and paired up with other-worldly horrors. It may not be the most high minded and literary for those of us that still enjoy the written word, but man if it isn't habit forming. It all began years ago.


I"m pretty sure Desperation was the first book of King's that I read. There's the possibility that it was Needful Things but that cold winter year was so damn unpleasant that I tend to run together or straight up block out some of the memories. I was a miserable little pissant in middle school, I recall that much. My older brother had either sneaked home a book of King's or just slipped it under the parent's watchful radar. He could be plenty convincing when he wanted to be. Whatever the case, I picked up Desperation out of curiosity, having heard his conversations with our neighbor Ryan over the messed up thematic elements and horrible occurances. My morbid litte mind was more than just a bit curious, I'll confess. The illicit nature of the book was soon lost on my hungry mind - I was so desperate to keep reading that I thought nothing of bringing the book to school, sneaking the 700+ page book into my stack of required texts. I still remember Ms. Zubrowski asking me if my parents knew I was reading such gruesome fodder. I smiled and nodded, saying "They don't mind, as long as I'm reading."

In what was perhaps a harbinger of things to come, Desperation was both an examination of faith and a tale of evil things setting their sights on mankind. I was struck, as a young adult, by the honest and frustrated take on religion and nature of God that King took in the novel. On top of the angst-ridden diatribes were the nihilistic attacks on humanity as seen through the ancient deity Tak. In a way, they set the tone for my appreciation for horror literature and my rationalization for the world around me - awful, incomprehensible things may happen on any given day, but they do not mean I have to lie down and accept them. I am not just a reaction to the world but a presence in it, one that can shape it as it happens. 

The plot of the book is actually fairly simple - a long forgotten and malevolent evil is released from its imprisonment beneath the ground in the desert. It begins leaping from person to person, killing and consuming everything in its path as it continues marauding through the desert. When the ancient entity inhabits the hulking body of a local sheriff, it uses the man's authority and power to capture a group of people travelling through the local township. These people are find themselves imprisoned by the sheriff as a result of his con, and soon find themselves tasked with combating the demonic force. What ensues is a confrontation with evil, faith and one's own fallibility. It's a moving book.

Desperation is not one of King's highest regarded works. I'm willing to overlook that, though, as it has always been one of my favorites, if only for it being one of my earlier experiences. There's plenty of horror to go around here - animals being possessed, inhuman acts of violence, wanton destruction and an absence of the divine. Desperation is filled with the lonesome scares of the wilderness that draw on our sense of the natural world aligning with the gods against us. It set me on a new path when I was a teenager, one full of peculiar tales with distinct characters. Give it a read for a Southwestern taste of torture.