| Author | Message | ||
     Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.161.253.183 |
Never mind your zombies when we have this glorious-looking mofo coming our way; http://www.screengoblin.com/2008/03/22/the-wolfman-first-pictures/ | ||
| John_l_probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.208.48.94 |
I suspect I'll still prefer THE HOWLING but I will go and watch it | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
Well, we'll see. The problem with the original (which is otherwise rather fine) is the literalism with which it shows the transformation and its aftermath. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.249.146 |
This will either be utterly glorious or gloriously bad... but those photos are ace. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
I thought An American Werewolf in London was successful because it didn't show the beast until the end. There's a lesson there. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.249.146 |
The beast looked rubbish at the end of AMERICAN WEREWOLF, too - almost spoiled everything good that had gone before. | ||
| John_l_probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.208.48.94 |
That's why I preferred THE HOWLING - the werewolf that threw Belinda Balaski across the room is the scariest werewolf I've seen on screen | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.249.146 |
Agreed. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.97.200.24 |
And Mark Romanek was fired off the picture having spent a year developing it I think. So not good they removed him due to 'creative differences with studios' two weeks before shooting started. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.98.204 |
>>the werewolf that threw Belinda Balaski across the room is the scariest werewolf I've seen on screen Oh come on, even scarier than Oz from Buffy?  | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
I think the scariest werewolf movie was the first Ginger Snaps. The scene near the end in the basement is one of the creepiest scenes ever in a werewolf film | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.199.235 |
Don't forget THE COMPANY OF WOLVES. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.161.253.183 |
Funny but that never really felt like a Werewolf film, even though it was. Anyone like the Jack Nicholson movie Wolf? I remember it being slow more than anything, but keep feeling I want to see it again. Ginger Snaps was ok, but never really scared me; it felt like watching an emo band video. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
I thought an American Werewolf was one of THE most scary films I have EVER seen. In terms of raw fear and suspense. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
The Howling franchise stank the house out! | ||
| John_l_probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.208.214.57 |
I thought the wolf in COMPANY OF WOLVES looked as if it had been made from wood. GINGER SNAPS was OK but didn't scare me - too much sympathy going on. I feel werewolves should be complete and utter bastards. AMERICAN WEREWOLF didn't scare me at all because of Landis' too-knowing use of moon-themed songs and all that 'See You Next Wednesday' nonsense. THE HOWLING franchise was awful but the first is a classic | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.161.253.183 |
I liked the sense of doom in American Werewolf. I liked the characters, and the atmosphere of London at the time. Howling is great; it manages to be funny and then really scary a second later. By far Dante's best concoction/confection. I don't mind the werewolf human being nice and sad, but the wolf should be bad, yes. It should be a kindly mum who when transformed eats her kids (or would she?). What I liked about the old wolfman was the fact that he did have a few clicks in his cardigan to begin with, was a bit creepy. I think it felt intentional even if it wasn't. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
"Well, we'll see. The problem with the original (which is otherwise rather fine) is the literalism with which it shows the transformation and its aftermath." I thought it contained some of the scariest lumps of latex ever. If we are talking about The Howling. They were always scarier half way through a change than after it. Thought the character of Eddie Quist was rather a potent one. "I'm gonna' light up your body, Karen." Whatever does he mean? The mind boggles. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.161.253.183 |
That talk was amazing. He felt so amazingly real in just one scene. More real than the rest, which was a great twist. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
And he wasn't even in the book. Which was a shame. A serial killer werewolf is such a great idea. To combine the two psychologies. And the things he does and says. He's as odd as John Doe in Ligotti's THE FROLIC. Well, maybe. I'm going to light up you whole body, Karen. How? By raping her as he changes? inflicting that crumbling world of reality on her mind as he dissolves and bubbles? After he's changed? Is he going to bite her and bring on her own transformation as he rapes her? Both transforming at the same time? What would be left of your mind after that? Pick harder, Picardo! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.161.253.183 |
There was a fight between changing werewolves in Cursed. It wasn't as good as the stuff you've described there, though. We never got the climax of the transformation. Maybe some folk could already be werewolves underneath but it takes another full werewolf to unlock them with spit. They wander their lives feeling frustrated, being lunatics and the like, waiting. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
"I liked the characters, and the atmosphere of London at the time." Is it only me, but many films now discernably look like historical documents than films. I was agog watching Ring of Bright Water recently. We caught glimpses of the real 60s London and a changing way of living. Awesome. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.161.253.183 |
Yes, I watch old tv shows for that reason alone, sometimes. It's why a lot of old US tv movies and recent tv stuff feels dead - they stamp these scruffy edges out, they feel dead. This sort of connects with what albie said about atmosphere in books being valuable. Memory is locked in these textures. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
A lot of the impact of horror is involving the reader in the world created. Another chunk is the realisation of being in that world. And as a writer you should be aware the reader is experiencing that, and help them to realise that better. (like I'd know) Back to Eddie. Suppose he gets off on the transforming and just transforms back and forth hours on end. The brain would change too, I suppose. That's probably what drove him mad. He could probably just change his brain alone. But writing is about transforming the mind of the reader. We are a different creature at the end of a story. A kind of wereman. Considering 'were' means man. You knew that. Imagine if the state of mind you were in at the end of a horror story was considered enough to tag you as a bogeyman. "RUN! he's just read a Campbell! Look! He's got that dodgy look in his eye and a slight stoop! Someone put Emmerdale on. It's the only thing that stops them!" | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.161.253.183 |
I have the freaky idea that when you leave someone and see them again they aren't the same person, that the little things that happened to them have changed them. The person you knew is, effectively speaking, gone. It happens even more if they go away for a week or so. Atmosphere hypnotises you; imagine derren Brown just saying 'your hands are now the size of tennis rackets', just like that. It'd be daft and you'd not believe it if he didn't warm you up first, the subtler the better. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.159.65.204 |
Tony, that makes a lot of sense to me. Ramsey once said that his main theme was the instability of personality. Another writer of my acquaintance said that, to her, a person's past has very little to do with who they are. Perhaps we need names and other signs of identity just to help us cope. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.161.253.183 |
I often feel haunted by whims, moods and ideas passing through my like ghosts. I feel like a house with no glass in the windows with all and sundry popping in and out as the day goes by. Thanks, Joel, for that. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.161.253.183 |
No wonder haunted house fascinate us so much; they're like us. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.159.65.204 |
Tony, do you know Ramsey's story 'Napier Court'? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.161.253.183 |
Ages ago. Haven't read Ramsey's shorts in a long time; I must - my reading matter has been a bit sucky of late. I mean, Lisey's Story... | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.159.65.204 |
Well, Ramsey's shorts haven't been seen since last summer. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.161.253.183 |
You know, I saw that one coming. And the next one. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
To get back to Eddie... You know how werewolves have a healing capacity. I wonder if Eddie might get a paper cut, from one of his sketches of bearded men and ladies with round buttocks, and be tempted to just go through the rigmarole of transforming just to get rid of the slight annoyance. I mean, the times a slight cut on your finger has spoiled a bag of crisps! But to get back to Eddie... | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
" often feel haunted by whims, moods and ideas passing through my like ghosts. " Tell me about it. My mind is like a close up of some particle field, with half ideas, merged with mutant emotions so tiny that you just exist for a second. Memories in negative, photoshopped to the police for crimes they did commit (that's just so pulpy, albie!) I swear the paper my louder thoughts are written on ( as safe as an Etchasketch picture left over night )is really the midnight in someone else's nightmare! Nah. That sounds cliche. The other day I saw a blob of old paint on the pavement. Pink and worn away. I looked at it and instantly felt I was reading fiction. I could find millions of memories that could link off that pink blob (the taste of strawberry milkshake the way it used to be, a blob of melted plastic I burnt my finger on as a child). Things are like links that open hundreds of websites at once. Like porn before the firewalls. But getting back to Ready Brek... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>I have the freaky idea that when you leave someone and see them again they aren't the same person Even freakier: it's no longer the same person who's doing the seeing... | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
I sometimes think I'm remembering things in my past. But then I wonder if I'm just remembering the memories. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
And the freakiest thing for me: we all tacitly modify our behaviour towards one another according to our knowledge and expectations of each other's 'character'. So when I engage with you, you are engaging with me according to this knowledge (according to, perhaps, what I've carefully provided you with in the past), and I'm engaging with you in the same way. So we're both engaging with essentially fictional beings, and what's more, as our engagement unfolds, we continue to modify our behaviour so that my understanding of you is mediated by your understanding of me, and vice versa, and to such a degree that we're no longer ourselves but a dual being forged on the hoof and bound inexorably to this moment. We're in a whole new realm of identity. Anyone feeling schizophrenic today? | ||
| Barbara Roden (Nebuly) Username: Nebuly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 216.232.189.45 |
Not, it's not just you, Griff. The fact that older films are historical documents as much as, if not more than, entertainments is something I think about fairly often when I'm watching Turner Classic Movies, which I do a lot. Even the Hollywood films of the 1930s, which rarely if ever strayed off the back lot, give you a picture of life at the time: the fashions, the attitudes, the backdrops. When the films DO stray off the back lot, you get this feeling even more: a glimpse of a world that has vanished almost as completely as Ancient Rome. George MacDonald Fraser noted this in his book The Hollywood History of the World, which volume I would highly recommend to anyone who loves films. The general purpose of the book was to show that Hollywood, often accused of getting history wrong in films, very often got it right, and it's full of clear-eyed and fair assessments of the medium, shot through with humour and a very real affection. Here he talks about the way in which films of the 1930s show a society which has vanished, and thus are historical documents, but with the advantage of having been there, as it were, and not being a re-creation: "I think of the expressions I have used in earlier chapters - 'a faithful image', 'an accurate impression', 'a true picture of time past'. Well, Top Hat is all of those. What historian or lecturer could convey to a student born in 1960 a sense of what the thirties were like, one-tenth as well as that film? Astaire springing up a flight of steps, Edward Everett Horton dithering, Ginger Rogers' poise and gestures, Eric Blore's wicked Cheshire Cat gleam, the clean lines of the furniture, the light, airy decor, the quick, brisk chatter, the cheery inconsequence and gaiety - there are the 1930s for you, or at least one aspect of them, just as Grapes of Wrath and Love on the Dole are another. All three films are accurate pictures of history, in a way which the imaginative reconstructions of our other Ages cannot possibly be; these are reality, captured at the only possible moment, for if you worked till doomsday you could not recreate them now. It doesn't matter that they are fictions; they and all those other films of the thirties and forties are full of the small change of life and behaviour as it was then and will never be again, down to the tiniest details." Fraser goes on the detail some of the things movies from the time show us, finishing up with this example: "Some things can be described in words, and mere appearance in still pictures - but try to explain how the carriage, style, manner and even state of mind of Jessie Matthews or Dorothy Lamour differed from those of today's young women, and you may find it difficult. Show them Gangway or Johnny Apollo, and say no more. It may be said that none of this matters - that posterity can get by without knowing how an Edwardian lady summoned a servant (Gladys Cooper can show you), or the different techniques of pipe-smoking demonstrated by Aubrey Smith, Nigel Bruce and Errol Flynn, or how Ann Dvorak used her gloves and handbag. To which I can only say that as a historical writer I wish I had such models of Elizabethan, or even Victorian behaviour, because it would tell me things about them that I cannot get from documentary or still-pictorial sources. So I don't think that social historians of the future will consider our old movies beneath their notice." | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
"When the films DO stray off the back lot, you get this feeling even more: a glimpse of a world that has vanished almost as completely as Ancient Rome." This gave me a shiver, caused by sudden realisation and agreement. An exceptional post, Barbara. There was a two part play by Michael Bogdanov at the start of the year where one of the main characters had a private cinema where he watched private movies that simply showed the view from a camera mounted on the bonet of a car driving around a European City at the start of the twentieth century. There are bound to be more in peoples' attics. There's also the incredible work of Albert Kahn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Kahn_%28banker%29 I don't know if you're based in the UK but he was the subject of a superb series on BBC2. I love movies and I'll get that MacDonald Fraser book. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
What have you written, Barbara? | ||
| Barbara Roden (Nebuly) Username: Nebuly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 216.232.189.45 |
Thanks, Griff; glad you enjoyed the post. Do get the Fraser book; it's full of wonderful pictures comparing actors' pictures with the statues, paintings, and photographs of the historical figures they portrayed, and it's uncanny how accurate the likenesses of many of the actors are. As for the 'vanished as completely as Ancient Rome' line: I had in the back of my head something Kim Newman once wrote of the Rathbone/Bruce Holmes series made by Universal in the 1940s, the 12 films which updated the setting to World War II. These films are often attacked for being 'uncanonical' inasmuch as they abandon the Victorian/Edwardian setting beloved by so many; but Newman pointed out, in one of those sentences that state something so obvious you wonder why you've never thought of it that way yourself, that we're now further away in time from the Second World War than those Universal films were from the era of the original tales, giving the movies a period charm of their own. My maternal grandfather owned a home movie camera back in the 1950s and 1960s, when they were comparatively rare, and shot a lot of footage with it. My mom and her three sisters had the footage transferred to DVD not long ago, and last week we watched some of it. A lot of it was personal stuff, shot in the garden of their home in Vancouver or at their summer place in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia, so it mostly had personal, sentimental value (although the shots around the Vancouver house show a Vancouver which no longer exists). However, there was also footage shot when the family was in Europe in 1959, and it was like stepping back in time: Venice without millions of tourists! Stonehenge when you could walk up to and among the stones! The Lake District when whatever lake they were on wasn't overcrowded with a gazillion boats! The cars, the fashions, the look of the cities they visited, so different to what they look like now! And there was footage taken in 1958 of the collapsed Second Narrows Bridge in Vancouver, which cost the lives of 27 workers (it's now called the Ironworkers' Memorial Bridge). Grandpa was on a boat in Burrard Inlet and got very close to the accident site, and the footage was amazing. As for what I've written: a half-dozen or so stories have been published here and there, all but one supernatural. One tale, 'Northwest Passage', was picked up in a couple of 'Year's Best' anthos in 2006, and I have four more stories accepted for publication in different anthos over the next year, including one which features Sherlock Holmes and psychic detective Flaxman Low, and another appearing in Ellen Datlow's antho Poe in early 2009. No, I'm not exactly what you call prolific. . . . | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
Marry me! | ||
| Barbara Roden (Nebuly) Username: Nebuly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 216.232.189.45 |
Oh, sir (flutters fan in an agitated manner), this is so sudden! And I think my husband might object. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.182.120 |
Ditto what Barbara said (to use my usual elegant, articulate style) about old films often being valuable as a window into the past. Old films are like treasure in more than one sense, I feel. I don't have the book you mentioned, Barbara - I'll have to look for it. One of my favourite film books is THE PARADE'S GONE BY by Kevin Brownlow. It's all about the silent movie era. I'd also recommend FEARING THE DARK, a study of Val Lewton's life and work. | ||
| Barbara Roden (Nebuly) Username: Nebuly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 216.232.189.45 |
Huw: Yes, Brownlow's The Parade's Gone By is excellent, as is his companion book to his TV series Hollywood, which Thames (I think) brought out in the late 1970s, and which I'd love to get on DVD; I recorded the series on video, but the tapes aren't going to last forever. It was superb; I remember seeing Brownlow interviewed at the time, and he said that when he approached Gloria Swanson - one of the first people he talked to - she said something like 'You won't find too many of us left who were around then', and Brownlow proved her wrong by unearthing all sorts of amazing people - not just actors, but writers, directors, cinematographers, and stunt people - who had fascinating stories to tell. Several film books by Leslie Halliwell are well worth reading. Double Take and Fade Away - the title comes from Edward Everett Horton's signature gag - is a study of film comedy from the silent days to the 1970s, while The Dead That Walk looks at horror films (interesting to see Halliwell include the Rathbone/Bruce Holmes movies in there as well). Both books are laced with personal reminiscences of growing up with films in 1930s Lancashire, which get freer rein in Seats in All Parts, a combination of autobiography and love letter to movies; along with a vivid portrait of a way of life that's vanished are his tales about doing programming for the (alas long gone) Rex Cinema in Cambridge, which are fascinating. And while you might not agree with all his selections, Halliwell's Hundred and Halliwell's Harvest look at 200 of his favourite films, with a three or four page essay on each one. Halliwell didn't much care for anything made after about 1968, but his views on earlier films are wonderful reading. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.108.241 |
Let me add to chorus of praise for The Parade's Gone By -- an amazing book that will send you to your local film library to dig for obscure classics. Very well done stuff. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.161.253.183 |
I see a link between what Barbara wrote and Gary, too. This fictional world that exists in between the gaps between us, how it's as close to reality as we can get. Movies are now as real as the world gets, absolutely, because they catch their old 'now' and hold it up, whereas all we can do is remember what has completely gone. our memories are ghosts, our perceptions of things only we perceived, no-one else. Movies reality is the butterfly pinned to the board; it's dead, but it's there. We live in a world of pinned-down butterflies, now. I think it's affecting our ability to remember, or even trust our memories. | ||
| Barbara Roden (Nebuly) Username: Nebuly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 216.232.189.45 |
Nice post, Tony. I sometimes wonder what the children of old film stars think when they see their mother or father in an old film. Isabella Rossellini watches Casablanca and there's her mother, forever frozen at that age, yet Rossellini remembers someone completely different. You saw this parent grow old; how does it feel to see them as they were when they were twenty, twenty-five, thirty, up there on a screen? And how do you feel when, after they've died, you happen to stumble across them in a film on telly? One of the most poignant things I've ever seen was in a TV documentary called Canada's War in Colour, about the Second World War. One man who was interviewed must have been in his sixties at least, and he recalled being a very young boy when his father went off to war in 1939, too young to remember his dad at all; when his father came back in 1945 he had lost a leg and was old before his time. This was the father the boy grew up knowing: a man prematurely aged. Then, years later, he came across a box of old films in the attic, and there was his father, filmed before the war in the garden of their house: laughing, young, whole, a man the son had never seen. It's difficult to imagine the shock of building up a picture of someone and then viewing a few minutes of film and being forced to re-assess everything you knew of them, the picture you had built up. On another note, I looked to see if Hollywood was available anywhere; apparently copyright wrangles are holding up its release on DVD. Being in a silent movie frame of mind, I watched the last ten minutes or so of Safety Last with Harold Lloyd, and Tim watched it with me; to judge by the laughter coming from this twenty-first-century boy, it's stood the test of time. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Tony, are you familiar with Guy DeBord's idea about the "society of the spectacle"? "Degradation of human life Debord traces the development of a modern society in which authentic social life has been replaced with its representation: "All that was once directly lived has become mere representation."[7] Debord argues that the history of social life can be understood as "the decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing."[8] This condition, according to Debord, is the "historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Spectacle | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Not that good art should fall under into category. It's was just that your post reminded me about the darker side of representation. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
"Oh, sir (flutters fan in an agitated manner), this is so sudden! And I think my husband might object." Lol! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.161.253.183 |
Hi Gary - not familiar with that at all, but it sounds about right. I've just been aware of people trying to step out of this world, find elbow room among folk they only see on screens or in magazines, falling in love with masks and not actually caring that they are. I feels like we're the animals people give teddies to to look after; we don't mind that the thing we adore isn't real, we just want to love something 'ideal' - and be it, ultimately. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Tony, you'd really love Erich Fromm's stuff: The Art of Being, To Have and To Be, etc. You'd find a kindred soul there, and an enlightening one. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.161.253.183 |
I'll check him out. Thanks, Gary. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.161.253.183 |
'his interpretation of the biblical story of Adam and Eve's exile from the Garden of Eden' - Proto has been talking about this. I don't think he's aware of Fromm. He said basically the same stuff, that this is what's wrong with us. We are guilty and ashamed of our own awareness of ourselves. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
That's very much like Sartre and Lacan, too. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 172.188.133.146 |
@ Tony "Proto has been talking about this." Where is he? You haven't kidnapped him and locked him in the attic have you?! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.161.253.183 |
Er, um... Hey - look at that - over there! (points) Nah, he just liked the old board too much and sits looking at it, willing it to breath and stuff. I just mop his drool now and then. Want me to try and force him back here? | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
Yes. Summon him! | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
eiei  | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
You're freaking me out, Albster. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
That's my incentive. Ask the locals. I've been trying to freak them out for -how long now?- five, six years? And yet only half of them are now incarcerated for their own safety. How you feeling? | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
I think you could make a niche for yourself with your writing. What's the prognosis for your unwellness (if you don't mind me asking)? | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 87.102.113.65 |
Well, it's complicated. You see, I used to be a census taker...but I knocked on this door of a doctor. Let's just say I had to get a transplant pretty quickly, and he stole my lunch. I was looking forward to those fava beans and that niiiiice chianti. Fufufuf. Don't know I made that noise. (i'm nervously depressed. once it was a purely social malady, now it has become a philosophical one) | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.147.50.90 |
Albie should leave all his stories to someone when he dies, and they can be like the very famous bloke who discovered Van Gogh, Reg North. Albie - your recent stuff is very interesting, like the literary equivalent of abstract painting, colour field etc. It shouldn't read so well but it does. Maybe not lots in a row, I don't know. I've just finished reading Lisey's Story. Somehow an Albie short had more imagination-stirring in its swift size than the entire bulk of King's breezeblock, which was an ok read, just not worth all the effort of reading it. Sad; it started off wonderfully, and page 264 is very nice. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
I like to think I'm being experimental. Which means I'm probably going to produce lots of weird smells and small explosions and very little at the end of it. But what else am I going to do? What stories are you referring to, btw? The sci fi ones? | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
You are right about colours though. I've been trying to make the images more vibrant. But I've also been trying to be more inhuman. To write away from the human world. So you can't say things like "the crenallations along the aperture were the colour of tobacco." Tobacco or banana yellow would just be too human. And "as yellow as a viral fibre." just won't be knowable enough. But I've been feeling disgustingly sane since writing those two sci fi shorts! Disgustingly! How dull. I need to feel mad to write. Need to do something weird to fill my whacky batteries. I may have to go and see Alan's Bike again. How do you need to feel to write? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 129.11.76.229 |
Use pataphors, and not metaphors. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pataphysics#Pataphor Once I've figured out what one is... | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
Apparently there are eighteen types of metaphor... http://literaryzone.com/?p=99 | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
Of course I would need to introduc what a viral fibre looks like before I would compare it to something else. But that would complicate things. Might look a bit intentional. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
I've started revising A level English in preparation for teaching it. Join me, Albie! | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
I used to know a Griff. Have you ever lived in Hull? | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
Oh, I forgot.  | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 172.201.141.187 |
Hull! Brrr... Nope. But seriously, Albie, don't waste your talent. Get an A level under your belt, it'll do wonders for your self respect and self-confidence. If you need any advice just ask. I'm serious. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
An A level? When I can make smilies like that in just a few hours? People on here have been pushing me gently towards the same things, Griff. I'm not sure an A level would make any difference to me. I just don't have the attentive powers. Nor can I write to order. Go on, order an essay. I won't do it. I'll just write a story about robots eating frogspawn for the delight of pervert mutant toad children. Of course I would never actually THAT story because it is patently without taste or depth. I'm going to suggest you do a BTECH in engineering. DO IT! Don't waste your talents, Griff. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
Meh, chav it is then. BTEC? Don't think so mush, I'm, hopefully, going to do a pharmacy degree. Where I can make mutant clones of you and populate my empire of slum properties with shimmering eye's ne're do wells on Housing Benefit! Bwahahaha. Then I'm going to hunt down Fry. I've bought a lock up under a railway arch in Peckham with an assortment of powertools for just that occassion. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
Chav? I am unfilable, madam madman. And an A level won't make me any more employable. Believe me. Also, it wouldn't teach me a thing. Go on, test me. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Hey, don't knock BTEC (although, I don't think the body exists any more). I have a BTEC OND in Building Studies and a HNC in Civil Engineering. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
I have A levels in: Chemisty Biology Statistics Economics Sociology Law After I decided not to persue a career in law I realised how worthless all but the first three are. Law is a demanding subject but if you choose not to become a lawyer it's just another humanities subject - and the UK is awash with them. One of the head honchos in the Law Society recently stated that with the ongoing reforms to the legal profession there are twice as many solicitors than are needed. Fucking.Hell. I had to get AAB to get into Law School and then good grades to get into The College of Law for the Law Society Finals. I wish I'd become a dentist! M300 the UCCAS code for law is etched in my soul. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
"Hey, don't knock BTEC (although, I don't think the body exists any more). I have a BTEC OND in Building Studies and a HNC in Civil Engineering." But no complaint about hunting down Gary Fry like a dog and putting him into a lockup in Peckham with assorted powertools!?  | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Purhaps they decided not to persue the issue, Mr Erudite. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
I'm just bustin' yer balls, Gary. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
And me yours, Griff. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
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| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
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