Stuff and Moonshine

It’s an anthology of local ghost stories (also one loosely based on a personal experience, which imo is the best one).

Shivers, 2023

The world continues to be in a shambles, but I’ve got a long weekend. Here are a few lighter things to read/look at:

Project Gutenberg has at least two anthologies of ghost-stories by Mary Wilkins Freeman (1852-1930). I say ghost-stories, but some of them depict clearly supernatural events, some imply a psychological explanation, while others ambiguous and don’t lean either way. All of them can be described as “New England Domestic Realism, and also there are/might be ghosts involved.”

Vivaldi on marimbas.

For those who’ve never seen it, as well as those who haven’t in a long time: Wayne and Shuster’s “Rinse the Blood Off My Toga” (1950s CBC version, with intro).

And while we’re talking about Big Julie: The Molossian & the Vertragus (non-explicit) Asterix/Julius Caesar slashfic by ansketil.

Sapphire and Steel is on Youtube, the episodes edited together into complete stories, and for some reason today I found myself watching "Assignment 4" and "Assignment 5" (Sapphire and Steel gives no spoilers when it comes to titles.) I liked both of these better than "Assignment 1" -- the pace is less glacial, the show isn't trying to pretend it's for children, and the humans are more convincingly confused by the time paradoxes as opposed to just really stupid. I looked the series up and its creator, Peter J. Hammond, also wrote "Small Worlds" and "Out of the Rain" for Torchwood, and it shows in "Assignment 4" with its spooky!children escaping from old photos at the whim of a man with no face, or sometimes a different face depending on who's looking.

I really liked "Assignment 5" though it's by different writers than the rest of the series. Usually the show's budget, which makes Dr. Who look like a Cecil B. DeMille production, restricts cast size as well as setting, but this one has about ten characters in a sort of deconstructed Agatha Christie plot. A wealthy industrialist decides to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of his company by redecorating his mansion as it was in 1930 and throwing a weekend theme party with everyone in period dress. In the world of Sapphire and Steel, where time incursions are triggered by things like reading old nursery rhymes, or keeping too many antiques in one place, this is like throwing a bucket of chum into shark-heavy waters and then taking a dip; but on top of this, it's also the anniversary of the mysterious death of the industrialist's business partner, and something's trying to actually set the clock back to 1930 so events can be rerouted. Interestingly, none of the actors are rejuvenated to match the time period, which adds to the creepiness as their memories are rewound. I'm surprised they aren't saved by the mens' anachronistic haircuts, though.

Andrew’s been listening to audiobooks of Howard stories lately, and therefore so have I – hearing the texts is a different experience, somehow, than reading them – they seem slower and more detailed. The racist ones are even more uncomfortable when read out loud (there was a Conan one where I finally started making snarky comments, “oh gee, are the villains still black – I’d forgotten it since he mentioned it two sentences ago.” The frustrating thing is that Howard could write stuff that was much more sympathetic and nuanced towards PoC; maybe it’s a case of earlier stories vs. later stories. Anyway, I enjoyed the one last night -- a weird boxing story called “The Apparition in the Prize Ring.”

So in this story, "Mistah John," a white boxing manager recounts how African-American boxer Ace Jessel faced the toughest opponent of his career, Senegalese boxer "Mankiller Gomez" (his professional name), with inspiration (and last-minute supernatural assistance) from the ghost of early 19th-century black prizefighter Tom Molineaux (who was a real person). So for the count, we’ve got two good-guy boxers vs one bad-guy, all three of them black, and a white narrator telling the story to a (presumably?) white audience. Now to an extent I think Howard is able to sidestep skin colour in this story because it’s still basically a “heroic American vs. sinister foreigner” yarn; Jessel is a fast, skilled boxer whose only flaw, so far as his manager is concerned, is a lack of ruthlessness (see “flaws only a protagonist could have”); by contrast the brutal Gomez has won all his fights, up until the time he meets Jessel, through sheer strength and bloodthirstiness.

I think it would be interesting to translate the story to a comic or short film – a 3rd-person PoV would put Jessel and his manager on a more equal footing for character development (frex, although the manager attribute’s Jessel’s unwillingness to go for the kill to his ‘happy-go-lucky” nature, there’s a brief mention of “the wars’ if the story takes place in the 1920s that could indicate Jessel is a veteran – in which case he may personally want to keep a clear division between having killed men on the battlefield and boxing for sport) while allowing them to demonstrate despite the racialized setting, a convincing bond, demonstrated in the story by them being the only two able to perceive Molineaux’s ghost.