Useless Monday Blogging

Meaning, of course, that today was sort of a useless day. You're just coming off a fabulous weekend, and you have to go into work for a day....and then you're off again another day. Veteran's Day. It's also Martinmas, but that's not a big deal in the U.S.

Temperatures are dropping here in the DC area, thank goodness. It IS November, after all, it's SUPPOSED to be chilly. But considering some of the warm autumns we've had, where it's hard to get in the Halloween mood, or even do your Christmas shopping, because you're running around in shorts. Thanks, global warming.

The last week has been a haze. What with Halloween, the Zombie Walk, and then that momentous Tuesday that I'm still in state of semi-disbelief about, it's just been too much. On election night, I was to be part of a live webcast from a local bar-n-grill (actually, the same place the Zombie Walk left from), with some local folks, but there were "technical difficulties" and it didn't last long. Oh well. We had some good things to say about the campaigns and what we hoped would come along in the future. Too bad the video feed conked out before someone else popped up with "Nailin' Palin" on his laptop. Filming us reacting to that would have been precious.

This was a burlesque-heavy weekend for me, with a show up in Baltimore on Friday night, to honor my pal Trixie Little's birthday. And then another on Saturday night down at the Palace, an 80's themed show hosted by another pal, Li'l Dutch. Socialized with a lot of folks, and found out I had a couple regular readers (Hey, Gina!), and another friend wants to start contributing at some point (Hey, Bill!).

Sunday afternoon, I decided to be lazy. It was fairly chilly, so I did what chilly lazy Sunday afternoons are made for: I watched an entire 40s film serial, THE CRIMSON GHOST.



It's a great example of serial madness, and the villain's costume is something you've probably seen before. The image of the Crimson Ghost basically became the logo of the band The Misfits, and has been overused on all sorts of merchandise that you wade through at your local Hot Topic store. It's kind of annoying, really. I wonder if the kids buying that stuff have any idea where it came from. It's sad, but I've sometimes had to explain to people of my generation what the old serials were. They have no idea. This is something that was a vital part of pop culture from the 1910s through the 50s, and it's saddening to think people don't know about them.

Oh well. I've got several reading projects going on, including plugging away at Dumas' THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO for my book club. I'll post a review when I'm done; I think the occasional swashbuckler will fit in here. I'm also working on yet another volume of Clark Ashton Smith stories, an Arkham House tome dubbed A RENDEZVOUS IN AVEROIGNE, but luckily I can skip half of it because there's quite a bit that was included in the stuff I read earlier. And I picked up P. J. Tracy's MONKEEWRENCH at the library, which looked intriguing.

And I've got another busy weekend coming up. A concert with the Washington Sinfonietta on Friday, going to see QUANTUM OF SOLACE on Saturday with my best buds, and trying to fit in the new Molotov Theatre play, Closet Land, opening up this weekend, and I just found out about another play, a live-action Punch and Judy from Mead Theatre Lab. I'll be posting reviews as I see them!

And, of course, it's fall. Meaning I'll be taking some time to walk around and kick up the leaves.

We did it.

OK, this isn't a political blog, but I'm over the moon.

We did it.

I'm so afraid I'll wake up in the morning and it will all have been a dream.

But we did it.

Sorry, this may bother some of my readers (if I have any), but I'm overjoyed right now.

Let's hope the next four years goes well.

Zombie Walkin'

I went to my first-ever zombie walk last night....sweet Lucifer, it was a grand time.

We started by gathering in Silver Spring's venerable Quarry House tavern. The organizers had no idea how many would be showing up, and it ended up being jam-packed with zombies. After a few burgers and beers, we started to lurch north on Georgia Avenue. We'd startle locals by clawing at windows of open businesses, and any cars that slowed to watch the mayhem got surrounded. At one point, an ambulance went by, and I started yelling "Rrrrr! Mmmmmeatwagon! RRRRRRRRM!" which led to zombies clawing after it.

A bit further down the road, we came upon a stopped bus, and proceeded to claw at the windows, moaning for meat. We probably scared the living shit out of the passengers and the driver was rather alarmed.

We proceeded through Silver Spring's commercial strip, Ellsworth Avenue, where we terrified teens and traumatized tots. (I'm sure some kids were having serious nightmares last night.) It was a warm night, so folks lingering late at the sidewalk tables were treated to the sight of the walking dead. A teenaged girl coming out of Cakelove was screaming and running for her life. A group of us stumbled into Borders and lurched around. A crowd exiting the local multiplex was menaced, and a few more teen girls ran screaming back in.

We lurched toward the AFI Silver Theatre, and along the way clawed at the windows of various fancy restaurants, terrifying the servers and amusing the patrons. Everything ended at the AFI, which was showing NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Rrrrrm. It was quite an experience, watching it amidst a group of zombies.

I had a chat with a gal while waiting in line for a beer. She observed how liberating it was, and I had to agree. It was amazing fun, dressing up and getting in character and creating all sorts of mayhem. (Really, some of us did start to worry that we'd get arrested for some of the stuff we were pulling, like impeding traffic.) But it was refreshing to have an implicit license to act like a complete maniac, to take part in what I later described as "feral street theater." It made me realize why I enjoyed trick-or-treating so much as a kid...dressing up, running around after dark unsupervised, and acting wild. An evening of freedom from the usual social constraints is probably very healthy psychologically, and drives home the point that holidays like Halloween serve a greater purpose than simply a chance to sell decorations and candy. It's not just for kids, folks. If there's a zombie walk, or some similar thing going on in your neck of the woods, take part. You won't be sorry.

Staggering back to my car after it was all over, I was momentarily alarmed when a group of tough-looking fellows approached me, but all they wanted was my picture. They thought I was the coolest thing around.

This is me when I got back:


I had to take a long shower to get the makeup off, and tossed my filthy old jeans and a bloodstained wifebeater top in the trash. Oy, what a night, but kudos to the Quarry House and the AFI for handling this rowdy crowd with grace.

More photos can be found here and videos here.

Happy Halloween!

OK, so I originally wanted October to be a big blow-out for this blog, and I've barely posted anything at all. I'll be honest...work was busy, I had a nasty cold for a while, and when I wasn't blowing my nose and coughing out my lungs, I was out taking in all sorts of Halloween fun.

I've done things like go pick pumpkins at farm in the country, and gone with friends to the full production of Goatman Hollow. I had two parties last weekend, and attended Gaylaxicon in Bethesda a few weeks ago.

All in all, it's been a pretty good Halloween season, compared to a few I've had in the past, including one disastrous Halloween night where my boyfriend of the moment dumped me in the middle of Dupont Circle.

So, tonight I'm off to a party at a friend's; I had hoped to go to a big Halloween show at the Palace of Wonders, but I procrastinated getting tickets and, guess what, they were sold out. Well, poo. I'll just make the best of it.

And then tomorrow night I'll be participating in the first-ever Silver Spring Zombie Walk, which starts a local bar & grill and ends at the AFI Silver, for a late screening of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Should be fun....

So I hope all my readers out there are having a safe, spooky, and fabulous Halloween. And if you're just going to stay home and read, that's fine, just enjoy it!

HYPERBOREA, by Clark Ashton Smith

Some more fun from Klarkash-Ton, as he was known in Lovecraft circles. This time, instead of the far future, we've got the far-flung past, the lost continent of Hyperborea, slowly being taken over by glaciers.

While there are lots of similarities to the Zothique stories, there are some major differences. While the stories often have a sense of impending doom, it's not quite as relentless as Zothique. Hyperborea's doom is only one of a series of dooms; doom in Zothique is final. There's also a lack of Zothique's near-relentless decadence and frequent hints of necrophilia and carnal depravity.

The stories are, of course, great high fantasy. "The Seven Geases" is a classic of pulp fantasy, with a cursed man wandering the underworld, finding that every being that he's sent to isn't interested in him. "The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan" is a nice bit of supernatural revenge. "The White Sibyl" is more subtle, a tale of fairy-tale romance with a sharply mundane ending that calls up some of the truths of human nature. "The Testament of Athammaus" is one of the better ones for sheer grotesquerie, in which a criminal of strange ancestry takes a horrible vengeance on a city, seemingly for no real reason except for the sheer joy of evil. "The Coming of the White Worm" is fairly standard pulp fantasy with tinges of horror. "Ubbo-Sathla" is unusual for being a story that involves the contemporary world, in which a man finds an antiquity that allows him to travel into the distant past of Hyperborea. "The Door to Saturn" is a perversely humorous tale of two enemies from Hypberborea finding themselves transported to an alien world and having to cope. "The Ice-Demon" is a fun bit of heroic fantasy, with a team of thieves seeking a treasure in a glacier. And the last two, "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros" and "The Theft of Thirty-nine Girdles," are fun picaresque adventures of a master thief and his exploits.

The edition I have (Ballantine Books' Adult Fantasy line) also has Smith's "World's Rim" stories, which really are one actual short story, "The Abominations of Yondo," with a trio of brief vignettes. Nicely atmospheric but hard to put down in any sort of organized mythology or context. They just simply are.

This wasn't as tough going for me as the Zothique tales were...perhaps I'm getting used to Smith's style?

The Greatest Show Unearthed

So, not long ago my new friend Bella Donna told me about an interesting-sounding show, a Halloween belly-dancing performance. I thought, yow. That's definitely something I should check out.

And it turns out it's the third annual show. How the bloody hell did I miss out on the first two?

At the Saturday night show, I had a terrific time. This was great spooky eerie fun, the perfect way to kick off the Halloween holiday season. And the lovely touches of decadence only make it better. Well, jeez, a belly-dancing show can't help but be decadent by its very nature.

(By the way, the title for this post was cribbed from one of the segments. Sorry, it was so good I couldn't resist.)

Performances ranged from a reflection on murder to a swivel-hipped Frankenstein to naughty trick-or-treaters to other stuff. Bella Donna did a terrific Little Red Riding Hood number with local drag king Ken Vegas. Two groups, Troupe 'Hip'notic and Mortifera, did effective sideshow/freakshow pieces. And the routine by Miss Joule and Surprise! was a fun B-movie inspired hypnosis piece (at one point ordering the audience to vote Obama, which roused the loudest cheers of the evening). Baltimore-based Shems did a very thought-provoking number, which switched between traditional belly dance music and combat sounds. But everyone was outstanding in their own way. I had a great time, not only with the show, but also hanging out with my growing circle of friends in the DC burlesque/performance community.

Alas, there were only two performances, and Saturday's was the last. So keep your eyes peeled for next year's show. I'll see you there!

(I can't believe this, but I forgot a link to the show's main site. Here it is: BellyHorror.)

Other notes...

My glaucoma turns out to have been caused by one of the nasal sprays I've been on, Nasacort. If anyone reading this is on a steroid nasal spray, I'd suggest you talk to your doctor as soon as possible. But the really good news is that it's responding to treatment amazingly well. My ophthalmologist said my reaction has been "ideal" which is heartening.

I'm currently reading THE GHOST IN LOVE by Jonathan Carroll which I'm reviewing for Amazon (!) and won't be reviewing for this blog, alas. And I've been approached to be an "artistic consultant" and do some writing for Houston's Opera Vista, albeit it'll be all by email. Being an urban bohemian on a limited budget, I can't afford to jet down to Houston for the performances. Sigh. But it is seriously cool that these things are happening!

Looking for the Goatman

So, naturally, our favorite season is coming, and I got a little headstart on the fun. Tonight, I was a Very Special Guest at the dress rehearsal for Goatman Hollow, a haunted attraction in Riverdale, MD. Goatman Hollow is not just another haunted house, with guys in black hoodies and dime store masks snarling at you or waving an axe with a visible Home Depot sticker, or indifferent ghosts who turn in your direction and intone, "Oh yeah. Boo." GH is a real theatrical experience, with great makeup and costumes, a storyline, and effects that are, well, effective.