Kristopher Kelly's Blog, page 15

The Large Box Lifestyle

I'm a lone banana, and I've got the whole box to myself.

Someone wanted me. Just me. And off I've been sent, in this big old box, which I guess is the smallest one the people who sent me could find.

It wasn't always like this. Time was, I had a whole BUNCHA friends. They're gone now, and it's just me. Just me in my big box. I never did think I'd have it so good, but a banana can really stretch out here and bounce around.

It's really the most fun I've ever had.

I know there will come a time when I'll be shoved in someone's bag, carried to work, and eaten on the way to gym, but for right now, I'm bouncing, sliding, sliding, bouncing–living the large box lifestyle.

Not Even Pen Pals

People think they know what it's like because they've lost friends before, but this is different. Straws wasn't just any old friend. It's not like I can find him on Facebook now, you know? There's no way to reach him, ever–no phone number, no address, I don't even know where he is, really–where he's from.

I'll tell you what makes it so bad: it's that when he was here, it was the single most incredible time of my life. But when that happens, you don't think it's just going to end. You don't think that it's only going to last a couple weeks. You think it's forever, that your life's going to go on being more and more awesome. You feel touched. Blessed. You don't think at all, not one bit, about how you're gonna get sad and drunk some night at a bar and your girlfriend's gonna ask you why you're crying and you're going to be stupid enough to tell her everything and say, "Meredith, I'm depressed and feel like life isn't worth living, because when I was a kid I was friends for a little while with an alien."

Girlfriends just don't understand. Sooner or later, I always tell them, and then they get that look–the one that says, "Oh, I get it now. Why you're single. Why you were hospitalized."

What? Oh, no, see, there you go, thinking about Hollywood shit, thinking about E.T. and Mac and Me. Well, it wasn't like that exactly–Straws never made my bike fly across the moon or caused a sudden dance party in a McDonald's–but it was still a thrill to be near him. Straws was telepathic, and he would share visions with me of other planets he'd visited, and I thought he'd take me to some of them someday, but now even thinking about those things he shared with me is painful. He never took me anywhere. He just left one day. The government didn't chase him off, either, and he didn't die from anything; he just showed up one day and left another. I can't even watch those other movies, because they make me angry. I keep wishing it was something else, something explicable that made Straws leave.

Fucking movies. Everything's always better in the movies. Let me tell you, it's painful to live something they made a movie about if your version isn't as good.

People say I'm needy. That I have too much trouble enjoying things for what they are. I'm even too bitter to read news about the space program. When the Space Shuttle made its last flight, I was ecstatic. I'm so angry about space and all that stuff it ruins my whole day whenever I hear anything about it on the news or whatever.

Whatever's out there, it can stay out there for all I care. To hell with Straws.

Ok, fine, you're right. I wish he'd come back. I'd give anything. I really would.

Great, now I'm crying again.

I Held My Breath as Long as I Could Now a FEATURED Horror Book on iTunes!

Featured!

Oh, my. This … is cool. I am sitting there, right beside Stephen King, Robert McCammon, and William Peter Blatty. I mean, really?! Are you serious? How cool is that?

Holding a physical copy of my book in my hands was one dream. Being on the shelf next to these guys … that's another HUGE win. And in time for Halloween, too! Unbelievable!

Thanks to everyone out there who bought and rated my collection!

So happy right now.

About That Time I Might Have Said Goodbye But Didn't

It happened again today. We were on the phone, and you were telling me where you wanted to meet, and I said, "Meet me on the corner of 34th and Madison in twenty minutes," and then I just hung up without waiting to see if that was okay with you, or if you had any additional thoughts on the matter.

If this seemed rude, I apologize. It's simply something I do–something I've always done. I don't like saying goodbye, especially on the phone. I'm trying to lower my daily word count and omit the needless words in my life, and I didn't think the rest of our conversation was going to be interesting. Again, I'm sorry if that seems rude.

Also, if it ever appears to you that I don't listen to the second half of your sentences, it's because I already know how most of them are likely to end. Yesterday when you said to me, "I got an A on my …," I must confess my attention cut you off right there. I assumed you were talking about your Bio test. If you weren't–if, say, you were saying something like that you'd gotten a scarlet A sewn onto your blouse–well, then, I probably misunderstood, because I wasn't really listening to that part. If you want me to listen, please structure your sentences in a more suspenseful way.

I also apologize for showing up late to your birthday dinner and then leaving a few moments later. Everyone was far too agreeable, and that one guy was talking at great length about the dream he had the previous night, going way beyond the standard two or three line maximum allowed by modern dialogue. It was horrid, and at any rate I just didn't think anything interesting was happening in that scene–that scene that was your birthday dinner.

I hope you accept this apology, realizing that I am apologizing not because I mean to change, but because I want you to accept my behavior, even if you find it rude. Because it's not rude. Not really. I'm just trying to trim the meaningless parts of my life away, and some of them, I'm sorry to say, include pieces of you.

Review: The Passage

The Passage by Justin Cronin


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is long. Reeeeeeeeally long. Unnecessarily long, and the prose itself often super-bland, even cliche at times.

But this book is also really, really good.

The plot is easy to describe. The story starts in the near future and speeds into the future, where a vampire apocalypse (otherwise known as a plague of virals) decimates North America. We tour the landscape with a fairly well-drawn group of survivors in what at times seems almost like the Waltons meets Mad Max; there's a lot of focus on characters and family values amidst the scattered post-apocalyptic mayhem.

While I liked the first third a fair amount, I almost didn't make it out of the sections after that which introduced the Colony. Too many descriptions of what people were dreaming about (I'm looking at you, Chapter Thirty-Five), and Cronin sometimes seems too quick to skip around the really fun parts of the story–you know, the parts where the virals actually attack? I've never been so infuriated by a section as I was by The Night of Blades and Stars portion of this book, which was a lot of tedious build-up with the ensuing event barely written about. Cronin goes into great length about how uneasy everyone's sleep was, but to learn about the event itself, we have to get it after the fact during a town meeting. Unbelievable. I almost stopped reading right there.

But I'm glad I kept going. The second half of the book was a blast, and the end of the book I found satisfying, interesting, and moving. Cronin has structured his story in an unpredictable way–often the chapters and the parts seem almost random in their length–and character lifelines are equally uncertain. How long anything lasts is never a given, and sometimes the narrative itself speeds ahead through years and decades at a time. The novel's scope is actually epic, and that makes for a lot of interesting reading. And the book's real standout is the section called The Haven, which culminates in a fantastically gripping sequence involving a train.

And like Stephen King, Cronin's preference for his characters over his monsters is clear, and on the balance it works. I grew really attached to almost all the people we follow out of the Colony, and after finishing the book, I find that it's fun to have them living in my head. I like thinking back on the events of the book, and I'll definitely be reading the promised sequels.

But seriously … this book could be at least 300 pages shorter, and I wouldn't complain.





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Behind the Scenes of Curious George and the Mysterious Box

It was one of the best nights of my life.

We'd been to the Alamo Drafthouse Open Screen Night before, and we'd been gonged. The we here was myself, Scott Raulie, Justin Tunkkari, and Jason Rude. The Alamo allowed anyone to bring a movie to screen, and every film would be given at least two minutes, after which time, the audience was free to clap or boo, with the hosts determining whether the response suggested to keep the movie rolling or bang a gong on the stage and move on to the next. At the end of the night, a winner would be chosen based on audience reaction.

We were determined to win the audience award, which came with a cash prize of $100. We were gonged.

The video we presented, which was gonged, was called Heisters. Here it is (I play the guy with the burlap over his head).

Heisters – watch more funny videos

Shameful, that gonging. But, you know, it was pretty scripted, what we were doing. And what can I tell you? All those continuity errors and the wedding rings on the guys … that was all intentional. All for laughs. I still think Heisters is pretty funny. But we licked our wounds and regrouped. We decided that next time, we would make something that had a running time under two minutes, so that there would be no way possible for our film to be gonged.

So we went and made Curious George and the Mysterious Box. I have to admit that I was giggling furiously the entire time we were filming it. Scott at one point said, "I'm getting a little sick to my stomach," which only made me laugh harder. I can't say for certain, but my euphoria over the project might have resulted in some distance between me and my soon-to-be-ex wife.

But a month later, we returned to the next Open Screen Night with our second film. Watching this play on a movie screen in front of a real audience that had no idea what was going to happen–and hearing them react in real time–was one of the single best things that has ever happened to me.

And what do you know–the second time around, we won.

Curious George – watch more funny videos

To my friends I left in Austin–guys, I miss you, and I'll always love the stuff we put together.

Happy Halloween!

Thirteen Great Scary Songs for Halloween That Aren't The Monster Mash

It's time for Halloween party-planning, so I figured it's a good time to take a stroll through some of my favorite Halloween / horror film theme songs. Here goes …

13. Tales from the Crypt



Another classic theme from Danny Elfman. It was a bit of tough call which Elfman piece to go with for this article, the other strong contender being something from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Either way, no Halloween mix is complete without something from this guy.

12. The X-Files



It might've ended ingloriously, but this theme still recalls years of pleasant creepiness. The best episodes of The X-Files still hold up, and I've yet to find a good replacement for the hole left by its slow dissolution.

11. Ghostbusters



The song that became a cliche, and yet … it's still fun, just like the movie. Of course, it's also unintentionally hilarious in places, such as when Ray Parker, Jr. sings, "Bustin' makes me feel good!" I mean, I'm sure it does, but c'mon, Ray, there are children here.

10. Unsolved Mysteries



Ever since I was a young kid, this theme has filled me with the uneasy sense that something terrible is at work in the world. It doesn't hurt that the show was about awful things happening in the real world that were always left disturbingly unresolved.

9. Hellraiser



Now it's time to start getting a bit more scary. Christopher Young's theme sounds exactly like the kind of horrible, revelatory stuff you'd hear playing when someone opens a gateway to Hell. Perfect for any party!

8. Pennywise the Clown Theme



Ha ha ha! C'mon, everybody loves a creepy clown theme that almost sounds like it could be a jingle for an ice cream truck. And really, I might have just loved this photo of Pennywise, one of Stephen King's finest creations. "We all float down here …"

Oh yeah.

7. 28 Days / Weeks Later



This adaptation of "East Hastings" by Godspeed You! Black Emperor is the perfect theme for an apocalyptic nightmare spinning out of control. I listen to it all the time while I write.

6. Thriller



Arguably the best music video ever made, I might sometimes think I don't need to ever hear this song again … until it gets to the Vincent Price part.

5. Scream, "Red Right Hand"



Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' "Red Right Hand" was on endless repeat after I saw the first Scream film. Nick Cave is really at his best writing songs about murderers. Special points awarded to the editor who timed Deputy Dewey closing the car door to one of the dramatic musical hits in this song. Nicely done!

4. Halloween



John Carpenter not only wrote and directed a movie that spawned a franchise and gave endless fuel to the bogeyman/slasher film sub-genre, but he also created one of the single best scary movie themes ever made. This one is not only a must for a Halloween mix, it's also probably a given.

Did I mention it's what I programmed into my phone's to wake me up every day?

3. Dead Man's Bones, "My Body's A Zombie For You"



Not technically from a movie or TV show or whatever, although it was originally planned as a kind of musical, Ryan Gosling's odd side-project is actually amazing and perfect for Halloween. I can't get enough of the album, and this song in particular is especially great. As if being a good-looking, talented actor wasn't enough, Gosling has to go and make one of my favorite creepy cool albums …

2. Rosemary's Baby



Never has a lullaby been put to such good effect. The way this theme is woven into the film through several clever variations is masterful. This is gorgeous, creepy stuff!

1. The Shining



I mean, you could try to do better than this opening music to one of the best horror films of all time.

You could try … 

Daily Words: How Long Does it Take for iTunes to Approve My eBook? I'll Tell You …

It took them 9 days in my case. And that was AFTER I jumped through the hoops of creating a new Apple ID, buying my own block of ISBNs (which I'll be lucky if I ever use up), and struggled through a day of format wars with their fussy epub validation process. But now I have a book on the iBookstore … which will have a rating just as soon as I meet the minimum number of required ratings to have them actually display a rating.

I'd still be unrated on Barnes and Noble and Amazon if I were waiting to get over five reviews.

Sometime soon, the physical paperback version should be available on Amazon (and elsewhere? that part is murky to me; I signed up for an many channels as I could on CreateSpace.com, so who knows where this thing is available now). For now, it's available through the link on the sidebar on CreateSpace's estore. This is a better place to buy it from in terms of getting money directly to me; Amazon's store lops another 3 bucks off my take.

Should be getting my own box of books soon. Looking forward to it. I've dreamed of opening a box of my own books for so long … if only it meant I was actually validated. Still waiting for the first review from someone I don't know …

Review: The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson


My rating: 5 of 5 stars

How can you tell if you, or someone you know, is a psychopath? Reading Jon Ronson's superbly entertaining exploration into the way we catalog each other and the benefits and dangers inherent in affixing labels to people, I found myself doing exactly what Ronson describes himself doing the first time he picked up the DSM-IV–I started diagnosing myself and worrying about the contents of my own head. Luckily, by the conclusion, I felt reassured that I was probably fine, but the question remains: if I can't be sure about myself, how easy is it to be sure about someone else? And what's the cost of being wrong?

Ronson's stories and the portraits he presents of the people he interviewed are quite compelling reading. There's Tony, who is stuck in an institution for violent psychopaths but maintains he isn't insane and that he claimed to be so only to escape his jail sentence. The trouble is no one believes him, because psychopaths apparently never want to admit they're insane, too. Then there's the former CEO of Sunbeam, who may have had a bit too easy of a time firing people, and a man goaded into coming up with insane sexual fantasies by an undercover police officer hellbent on proving he's a murderer.

As a librarian with a professional interest in the idiosyncrasies of the cataloguing process, I was fascinated to read the chapter detailing the history of the DSM itself. While I don't follow Ronson all the way down his path, I am overall sympathetic to the point that all systems of categorization are flawed, the people behind them often full of strange prejudice (just look at Melvin Dewey! that guy was a total jerk!), and the application of any given taxonomy to the complicated stuff of life is never an exact science.

But make no mistake — this book is fun reading. I was engrossed and fascinated the whole time, and I adored the enthusiasm and open-mindedness of Ronson himself.

This is some well done pop nonfiction, and I'm definitely going to read The Men Who Stare at Goats. Highly recommend this one.





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Review: American Horror Story

"Don't make me kill you again."

When the pilot episode of American Horror Story opened with a shot of another creepy house behind another creepy gate, I braced myself for a boring hour of television. While I loved the promos, I was almost certain they wouldn't deliver on their promise. I could not have been more wrong. If this show, created by Glee co-creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, stays as good as its first episode, I am going to have a new obsession.

The story is a perennial favorite: a family, looking for a fresh start, moves into a house with a troubled past, hijinks ensue. Any story of this kind lives or dies by the strength of its cast, and it's here that American Horror Story really shines. There's a creepy daughter next door, Adelaide (Jamie Brewer), who likes to walk into the house and tell people they're going to die, but there's also her mom, Constance (Jessica Lange) who's even creepier overbearing nature masked by southern courtesy recalls a bit of Ruth Gordon's character in Rosemary's Baby. Add to these two the (literally) two-faced housekeeper, played by Frances Conroy, and the delightfully earnest and psychotic Tate, who in one scene writes 'TAINT' on a chalkboard for no apparent reason, and I was having a blast even before the Rubber Man showed up. While I have yet to warm to Dylan McDermott's acting skills or his philandering character Ben, I already adore the other two members of the family, Connie Britton's Vivian and Taissa Farmiga's Violet.

The show itself is unnerving; I'm never entirely sure what is going to happen next, and there's never long to wait between the creepy moments. American Horror Story sets out to spook and entertain us, and I appreciate its commitment to those goals and the earnest delight the creators seem to take in pursuing them. This is a show made for people who like scary stories made by people who love scary stories. There's also wit and sexiness and misbehavior–although maybe a few too many shots of Dylan McDermott's naked butt. You can't win them all.

There were a few logical problems (psychotics, I'm learning, are not curable, and it seems like Ben at one point suggests he has cured some in the past; after what I've seen in the first episode, I would move out of the house; there is no way the school bully would go to the house of the girl she's bullying, especially without backup), but aren't there always? For now, I'm choosing to give these a pass.

I hope the show stays this strong. I am already looking forward to next week.