(Our grand prize winner – our Undead Zombie General -- in the DaRK PaRTY Wicked Scary Short Story Contest is, believe it or not, a loving wife and mother. Tiffany Biles, a Native-American writer from Oklahoma, is married to her high school sweetheart and the mother of two children. She works in advertising to support her unnatural addiction horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Biles has previously been published in the magazine “Thirteen.”

The judges were impressed with Biles simple, yet elegant prose and her ability to mirthfully string along the reader as she sets them up for a twisting tale of horror. Remember – not everything is as it always appears!)

Cattle Mutilations

There are more cattle in Oklahoma than most people would think. In fact, in many areas, where the endless pastures of buffalo grass graze the horizon in every direction, a person could drive for hours with cattle, and the occasional red-tail hawk, the only evident life.

Martin Kingsley liked it that way. He hated the city. Not the city itself, of course. He always thought it would be nice to be able to walk to the nearest McDonald’s or Taco Bell whenever he had the urge for a midnight snack. No, it wasn’t the city he hated, it was all the people. People so involved in their own hunger and thirst, pain and pleasure, thoughts and emotions, they charge or loiter through life with a dull glaze in their eyes and a dim wit in their step. That’s why Marty liked the country so much. He could drive for hours and never have to talk to a single human being. He could set his own time and terms for each meeting, catch them at home, away from their human herd, and take what he needed from them.

Martin Kingsley was a vacuum cleaner salesman.

Marty usually tried to hit about three houses a day. If he only made one sale every two days that kept him in food, gasoline, hotels, and the occasional pair of socks or underwear. Everything a man like Marty ever really needed. Other than his art of course…that’s what really drove him in life.

Marty was in southwest Oklahoma, somewhere between Walters and Duncan…on his way to dump coffee grinds onto the carpet of a Mrs. Brocks, a 250 pound mother of five who always had the appearance of melting wax…when he found Clive impaled in a wheat field on what appeared to be the remains of an ancient windmill.

He didn’t know his name was Clive at the time. In fact, he couldn’t even wrap his mind around the idea that the gentleman was impaled until he saw for himself up close and personal. Marty was simply minding his own business, trying his best to avoid the worst of the pot holes, listening to Jerry Reed telling him he still had a long way to go and a short time to get there, when he noticed, not fifty feet off of the road, an upright piece of timber with what appeared to be a man slouched over the top of it. As he slowed the car, eventually coming to a stop on the dirt-red shoulder, he realized that the timber did not end at the man’s stomach, but continued clear through his back, ending in a splintered point, below which the man’s feet and hands dangled nearly four feet off of the ground.

“What the hell,” Marty mumbled as he climbed from behind the wheel of the old Buick, mopping sweat from his pink forehead with a more gray than white handkerchief. He took the cell phone out of his front pocket, figuring he should call the Sheriff before the buzzards started in, and noticed that, like most of rural Oklahoma, he couldn’t even pick up a single bar of signal. He put the phone back, placed his hands on his hips, and pondered on what to do next.

“I could just leave,” he thought, “No one around, no harm done. But, how the hell did a man manage to get all the way up there?”

The pole, which he then realized must have once been one leg of a windmill based on the abandoned trough not far from it, rose at least eight feet off of the ground. The only way a man could get up there would be to be placed there by someone else who was no longer anywhere to be seen. Marty decided he couldn’t leave until he got a closer look at how this accident had occurred.

Marty was a big man. Actually, those are the words he preferred to use. Marty was in fact a fat man; a pink, bald, short, middle-aged, heart attack waiting to happen, fat man. These qualities did not aid in the short trek down a slight embankment, over a stagnant ravine, up the other side, then over the barbed wire. The walk left him with a torn shirt, wet shoes, out of breath, and only about twenty feet from the car. After the final thirty feet over rock-hard clods of dirt under a scalding 102 degree sun Marty was just about ready to kick himself in the ass when he reached the foot of the pillar.

The stench was already abominable, like any slaughter house in summer, thick with blood, bile, and excrement. Marty looked up, shielding his eyes from the two p.m. glare, but couldn’t make out anything more than a vague human shape; further down the pole, however, dripped the remains of the man who hung there, already drying in the heat. Marty looked around, thinking he would find a ladder or maybe some tire tracks, but other than his own footprints, there was no evidence anyone had been here since the last failed crop was plowed under leaving neat little rows of infertile soil. Marty shrugged over his stupidity as he turned to make the walk back to the Buick, figuring that even if he decided to report it he could at least let the deputy know he had made some sort of effort.

“Excuse me, sir, could I maybe get a hand. I seem to have fallen.”

Labels: Contest, Fiction, Horror

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(The second place winner – our Animated Corpse Colonel – in the DaRK PaRTY Wicked Scary Short Story contest is a Canadian college student. Shannon Fay is a journalism student at King’s College in Halifax. Strangely, she admits that when home alone – she sometimes tries to move objects with her mind. We like her already!

The judges were struck by how Fay incorporated her journalistic style into her story. The straight-forward narration and strong voice of the main character kept us reading to the surprise ending. Short, but powerful.)

By Your Side

By Shannon Fay

Love has always frightened me. How could it not? It is an omnipotent force, cruel in its blind impartiality. ‘Love conquers all.’ ‘Love will find you in a crowded room.’ ‘Love can come at any time.’ I took these quaint sayings for what they really were: warnings. Dire messages tucked safely inside greeting cards and sealed in envelopes. I’ve always been able to see the true meaning behind common words and pictures, and I always took their advice straight to the heart.

And so I was careful. I wore long sleeves and wore my hood up and tucked my hands in my pockets throughout high school. I avoided eye contact by letting my hair hang in front of my face and looking at my ink scribbled shoes. Somehow I managed to graduate without love finding me.

But then I went to university. I let my guard down and got comfortable, sure that love would never find me among Plato and Darwin. But love comes when you least expect it. And one day, I noticed that Jonathon Thisby wasn’t in tutorial. Where was he? Had he dropped out? Was he sick?

He came back the next day. I listened to every word he said, laughed at every lame joke. I was just so relieved he was back.

It was only after tutorial that I realized what this meant. It was a new sensation, this nauseous feeling from the root of my brain stem to the pit of my stomach. Even after I threw up in the dorm bathroom the feeling did not go away.

Last year I went to a party knowing that he would be there as well. I didn’t drink, I never did, but I watched as Jonathon downed shot after jello shot. It almost made me wonder if he was as uncomfortable there as I was.

I stayed late because he did, but it was worth it because he offered me a ride home seeing as we both lived on campus. I barely heard myself say yes. I just couldn’t believe it. I was going to be alone with Jonathon Thisby. The hours of standing awkwardly in the corner of a stranger’s house had paid off.

We didn’t talk too much on the way back. I was always pretty quiet, but I just couldn’t think of the right way to confess my feelings.

“How are you liking philosophy?” he asked.

“I like it,” I replied, surprised that he had broken the silence. “Even though I wonder if I even belong here.”

“Hey, don’t sell yourself short.” He rubbed his forehead with his hand. “There are plenty of people who will do that for you.”

He didn’t see the STOP sign. I did, but it didn’t matter. There was no secret message in the sign; it was one of the few things in life that meant what it stood for.

He didn’t STOP. Neither did the car coming from the other direction, but they didn’t have a STOP sign so it’s understandable. They slammed into the passenger door and pushed us into the other lane.

I don’t remember the accident beyond that. It’s been a year but things are still strained between me and Jonathon. He blames himself. His hands still shake when he puts them on a steering wheel.

We haven’t spoken since then, but he knows I’m around, always. Sometimes he’ll see me out of the corner of his eye, or glimpse me in the mirror when he shaves or brushes his teeth. Or he’ll be studying and suddenly look up from his book as if he expects to see me standing there, but he never does. But I am there.

I think he thinks I blame him too. He thinks I’m out for revenge. No, Jonathon, that’s not it at all. I’m here because I love you. Maybe if I had told you that night, things wouldn’t have happened the way they did. I know this love is bad for both of us; it consumes me and soon I won’t have any soul left. It keeps you up at night and looking over your shoulder during the day. It’s eating away at both of us, but hopefully I’ll be able to make you understand before it devours us whole.

Labels: Contest, Fiction, Horror

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Our third place winner -- who has the distinction of being our Rotting Carcass Captain -- is Michael Carr. The judges like the way Michael was able to create a rich, detailed environment with many distinct characters. The story -- a familiar one to zombie fans -- teams with fast-paced action and excellent dialog.)

Infection

By Michael Carr

“What happened?”

“Close the door!”

“Where’s John?”

“I said ‘close the fucking door!’”

With a snap the barred door jammed in place, I shoved the wooden brace against the handle for added security. Carter slid to the ground, his back against the wall. The sound of his harsh breathing filled the silent hallway.

Charlie stood above him, his eyes closed, his hands against his
head, the small gun in his holster shaking. Both their jackets were covered in mud and a mixture of dried vomit and blood. Mary and David appeared from the dining room.

“What’s going on?” David asked.

“Go back to the dining room, David, take Mary with you.”

“Where’s John?”

“Just get back into the dining room!” I shouted, struggling to keep my
patience, “and make sure your kids are safe.”

“Safe? What happened? I thought the hills were deserted-”

Carter stumbled up, tearing away his jacket. He hurled it to the floor. The inside layer was streaked with fresh blood. Mary turned away, burying her face in David’s chest.

“We were wrong! We were utterly, totally, completely fuck all wrong!”

I grabbed Carter. His pale arms were slick with sweat.

“Calm down, Carter, just tell me what happened.”

Labels: Contest, Fiction, Horror

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DaRK PaRTY: It's often difficult to sift fact from fiction when discussing Ernest Hemingway. What do you think is the most common misunderstanding about him?

Bill: Many mistakenly believe that Hemingway truly was such an insensitive macho man. He did have a lot to do with that kind of commercial branding, but in reality he was much more sensitive, more deeply intellectual than that public image. A lot of harm has come out of that: people, who haven’t even read him, know him but as an icon rather than as a man.

The best way to understand Hemingway is to read all of him—not just “The Old Man and the Sea” (1952). Stay away from the biographies until you have read him first. Then, read Michael Reynolds and Carlos Baker both. Also, we are in the process of publishing the complete letters collections; read them as they come out as well.

DP: Hemingway remains a larger than life figure. Why do you think people remain fascinated by him?

Bill: Largely because he wrote so keenly about how modernity was so changing life and traditions and human spiritually so rapidly. Hemingway on many occasions tried to re-authenticate some of those lost special occasions in life, such as the fiesta of Saint Fermin in Pamplona, Spain, and they continue to attract a large number of moderns who seem hungry for something every year. The tragedy of Hemingway’s popularization of such traditions is that it has accelerated their loss due to increased tourism. In many ways, Hemingway was a brilliant travel writer and many moderns have been attracted by that. In doing so, they fail to realize that he was also a profound intellectual as well.

DP: What three Hemingway novels are your favorites and why?

Bill: “In Our Time” (1925) was a remarkable accomplishment for a writer of any age, but Hemingway was only 25 when it was published. It’s a novel about war, but the war remains off-stage. Instead we learn about war from its effects. And it’s about a different kind of war, one where the winners were also the losers. As one reads “In Our Time” within its historical context, one can feel the ground shifting: modernity has taken over and human culture will never be as it once was. That the book arrives at its truths episodically, in a series of inter-related but loosely woven strands distinguishes as a new way of story-telling, one that reflects modern art and imagination.

In “A Farewell to Arms” (1929) lies the tragedy of modernity. Frederick, the story’s protagonist, learns the ugly nature of war. As the book ends and he’s lost everything, we realize that modern man can turn only to an inner fortitude to light his way through an ever-darkening modern world.

“The Sun Also Rises” (1926). There is a no more poignant depiction of seeking the unobtainable. Jake’s unspeakable war injury has destroyed his future in ways both metaphoric and real. Still, he moves on, with unfathomable courage.

DP: Hemingway was a prolific short story writer. What story do think best encompasses his work and why?

Bill: As good as Hemingway was as a novelist, he was that much better as a short story writer. In fact, he may be the best in the English language. His greatest work is his collected short fiction. My favorite short story is the “Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” In it Hemingway distills the complexity of gender, masculinity, femininity, love, lust, and violence, and creates a penetrating analysis of the human condition. His second best work may be the nonfiction, “A Moveable Feast” (1964), which offers great insight into his life.

DP: What is the Hemingway Society and what are its primary goals?

Bill: We are actually The Hemingway Foundation and Society. We wear two hats. The foundation was established in 1964 by Mary W. Hemingway, his fourth and last wife, and we are chartered to promote Hemingway and modern fiction. As such, we present the Hemingway Foundation/PEN award annually at the John F. Kennedy Library. As a society, we promote Hemingway scholarship. For one thing, we meet biennially at a global location that meant something to Hemingway and his work. For example, we are going to Kansas City, home of the Star, the newspaper where he got his start. Look on our Web site for more information.

Labels: 5 Questions, Bill Newmiller, Hemingway, interview, literature

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By Rev. Colson Crosslick

In the 1980s there were several Halloween incidents in which innocent children were brutally murdered by liberal Satanists handing out poisoned candy and apples riddled with razor blades. Children literally perished on the streets!

This is just one of many reasons why Christians should boycott Halloween – a national anti-Christian holiday that celebrates evil, the devil, and witchcraft (It’s also a holiday that promotes drunkenness and wantonness in college kids).

Recently, some left-wing media types have tried to debunk the reality of tampered candy on Halloween claiming there are no creditable evidence of this ever happening. Don’t let these alleged “facts” get in the way. I happen to know first hand that these cases are true because I read about them on the Internet.

So if the life of your child isn’t enough of a reason to avoid Halloween then maybe you should also consider your soul. Think logically. Would Jesus condone a holiday symbolized by ghosts, goblins, witches, and orgies? If you need further proof – look no further than the Holy Bible:

“Don't participate in the things these people do. For though your hearts were once full of darkness, now you are full of light from the Lord, and your behavior should show it! For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.

Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, rebuke and expose them. It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret.” (Ephesians 5:7-12)

While Halloween isn’t mentioned by name in this passage of scripture, it refers to pagan rituals. Halloween, as any educated person knows, originated as a Pagan celebration of darkness – a time when the spirit world and the real world became one. Celtic druids would dance around bonfires and toss babies into the flames in order to pay tribute to their vile gods. The druids – mostly robust, muscular men – would then have a homosexual orgy and howl at the moon with unrelenting passion.

As you can plainly see this is behavior for a Hollywood movie set, not for good Christians! When Christians are lulled into the belief that Halloween is simply a secular holiday and harmless fun for children, they are falling into a trap. Let your guard down here and you might as well start buying your children licorice-flavored condoms and crack pipes.

So what should a good Christian do on Halloween? Here are five family filled fun activities to participate in rather than dressing up like a whore or a pirate to beg for poisoned candy at your neighbor’s house.

· Go to your church and worship Jesus Christ

· Hold a pumpkin carving contest with your kids using Bible themes. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a pumpkin carved to look like Moses smiting the Egyptians!

· Decorate your house with crucifixes and hand out pamphlets filled with Bible sayings to the children of misguided parents who clearly don’t understand that they are setting their children on the road to Hell.

· Hold a Noah’s Ark costume party and have all the Christian children come dressed up like different animals that were on the ark – including baby dinosaurs, bald eagles, and kangaroos!

· Hold a fundraising party for a local Christian charity. You can serve Jell-O and hand out lollipops while raising money for those less fortunate.

Some of my parishioners think my stance on Halloween is extreme. But in the eyes of God, celebrating Halloween would be the same thing as worshipping pagan gods, reading comic books or attending a service at a Synagogue. In other words, Halloween is a sin. Celebrate at your own risk!

(The Rev. Colson Crosslick is pastor of the Pretty Good Shepherd Church in Ripsaw, Arkansas. In the past, he has called for a boycott of not only Halloween, but Labor Day. He also writes the regularly appearing column Under God's Right Arm for DaRK PaRTY.)

Labels: Halloween, Under God's Right Arm

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Losing Faith in My Once Favorite Literary Gumshoe

I’ve read every Spenser novel -- from his debut in 1974 in “The Godwulf Manuscript” to last year’s “Hundred Dollar-Baby.” I use the word “read,” but I really mean that I devoured them as if they were a plate of boneless Buffalo wings. I joined Spenser when he first met Hawk in “Promised Land” to when he got shot trying to salvage his love for Susan Silverman in “A Catskill Eagle.”

I admired Spenser for his no-nonsense approach to life and his code of honor. He symbolized strength, resolve, and determination, and who couldn’t be amused by his wry approach to danger? I liked the concept of Spenser as the tarnished knight in shining armor protecting the innocent and the weak against criminals and bullies.

So it is with a heavy heart that I come to grips with the fact that I want his creator, Robert B. Parker, to kill the son-of-a-bitch.

There’s little chance of that. In a recent interview in the Boston Globe Magazine, Parker was asked if he ever considered killing Spenser. Never one to mince words, the ever-pugnacious Parker answered:

“No.”

He also admitted that he had no plans to “off” sidekick Hawk or Spenser’s annoying girlfriend, Susan.

It’s too bad. I’m about to fill out the Penguin Group’s “Great Read – Guaranteed!” to get my money back on “Hundred Dollar-Baby,” which was so mediocre that it could barely keep my interest during an overbooked flight from Texas to Boston. I fully believe Penguin needs to give me my money back – and to throw in a couple of extra bucks.

The plot was slap-dash, the characters – especially the unlikable and unfathomable character of April Kyle – were tired, and the banter between Spenser and Hawk is becoming stale (I think they need a new act). This is prostitute April Kyle’s third appearance in a Spenser novel – and it has been two too many.

But real problem is that Parker has been losing his Spenser fastball for a long time. The reality of that startling, but obvious, fact came crashing down on me after reading “Hundred Dollar-Baby,” but it probably started with the ill-conceived, Western knock-off “Potshot” in 2002 -- where Spenser turns into Wyatt Earp.

The signs have all been there: For example, after I read “Cold Service,” I realized that it was the same book as “Small Vices” – only the roles are reversed. In the first one Spenser is shot and Hawk nurses him back to life and in the second Hawk is shot and Spenser nurses him back to health.

After 35 Spenser novels (“Now & Then” comes out today), Parker’s shtick has gotten a bit tired. The books are blending together into a mishmash that’s difficult to discern. Hell, we don’t even get great titles anymore -- remember the good old days of “Taming a Seahorse” and “Pale Kings and Princes?” Now we get bland titles: “Double Play” and “Widow’s Walk.”

Spenser feels like he belongs in a recycling bin. Every novel is the same novel over and over again:

• Client walks into office with problem.
• Spenser solves said problem.
• Turns out the problem solved isn’t the real problem.
• Client lies to Spenser.
• Spenser cooks dinner and asks Susan for advice
• Sex ensues.
• Spenser annoys bad guys – and lying client.
• Spenser and Hawk get into a violent confrontation.
• Bad guys try to kill Spenser.
• Spenser, Hawk and politically correct tough guy friend (who is either gay or Latino) retaliate.
• Truth is revealed.
• Spenser saves client or client dies.

When I was a journalist, I has the pleasure of interviewing Parker before a talk he gave at a Massachusetts state college. He was a fantastic interview and a delightful speaker. I think Parker is an excellent writer – and should be credited with keeping the private eye novel alive during some very dark days. He's written some outstanding mysteries.

But even he has moved on to other protagonists – Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone. His two new characters have brought his writing back to life. He’s got new ideas and new characters to explore.

Spenser is a relic. He’s the old quarterback with the creaky shoulder and bad knees still trying to thread the needle – but tossing up more interceptions than touchdown receptions.

Parker should retire him with dignity.

With a bullet between the eyes.

Labels: books, mysteries, Robert B. Parker, Spenser

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Little Nutbrown Hare, who was recently released from the psychiatric hospital, held on tight to Big Nutbrown Hare’s very long ears.

He was still pissed off with Big Nutbrown Hare because of all the baggage, but this time he thought maybe he could make the whole sordid relationship work. “Guess how much I love you,” he said.

“Oh, I don’t think I could guess that,” said Big Nutbrown Hare.

Here we go, thought Little Nutbrown Hare, with the freaking games again. Always the games! “This much,” said Little Nutbrown Hare sarcastically, holding his fingers about half-an-inch apart.

Big Nutbrown Hare sighed and stretched his long arms. “But I love you this much,” he said. Hmm, figures the goddamn showboat needs to beat me, thought Little Nutbrown Hare. Even when I'm playing with him.

“Okay, then I love you as high as I can reach,” said Little Nutbrown Hare, lifting his arm half-heartedly to his shoulder.

“I love you as high as I can reach,” said Big Nutbrown Hare. Jesus H. Christ, is there nothing this one-upping cracker won’t try to beat me on, thought Little Nutbrown Hare. I wish I could kill him.

Then Little Nutbrown Hare had a good idea. He tumbled upside down and reached up the tree trunk with his feet. “Hey, I love you all the way up to my toes,” he said.

“And I love you all the way up to your toes,” said Big Nutbrown Hare, swinging him up over his head. Little Nutbrown Hare screamed and screamed because he hated – friggin’ hated – to be touched.

“Yeah, then, beat this. I love you as high as I can hop,” shouted Little Nutbrown Hare, bouncing up and down, spittle flying from his little mouth.

“But I love you as high as I can hop,” smiled Big Nutbrown Hare – and he hopped so high that his ears touched the branches above.

That’s it, thought Little Nutbrown Hare. I’m gonna give this bastard a night to remember. No more big/little crap. No more `I love you more than' bullshit. I’m sick of it and I don’t care what the doctors says about my “anger-issues.”

“Well, I love you all the way down the lane as far as the river,” said Little Nutbrown Hare with a twisted grin plastered on his furry face.

“I love you across the river and over the hills,” said Big Nutbrown Hare.

Reel him in, thought Little Nutbrown Hare gleefully. He feigned sleep and pretended to yawn.

Then he looked beyond the thornbushes, out into the big dark night. Nothing could be farther than the sky, except maybe his grip on reality and the burning, seething desire for revenge churning in his belly.

“I love you right up to the moon,” he said, and closed his eyes.

“Oh, that’s far,” said Big Nutbrown Hare. “That is very, very far.”

Big Nutbrown Hare picked up Little Nutbrown Hare and placed him gently into a bed of leaves. He leaned over and kissed him good night.

Then he lay down close by and whispered with a smile, “I love you right up to the moon – and back.”

And then Little Nutbrown Hare tore off his ears and strangled him to death with the severed ends. The cop hares found Big Nutbrown Hare buried in a shallow grave the next day. And several hours later, they ended up shooting Little Nutbrown Hare to death after he tried to rob a carrot store. His last words were: "Love this!"

Read the 12 Valuable Lessons We Learned from Hollywood Here

Labels: Horror, literature, Parody

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An Interview With Ghost Expert Jeff Belanger

(Some people believe in ghosts. Some people also believe in Bigfoot, space aliens and compassionate Republicans. What can we say? DaRK PaRTY can understand the allure of the supernatural – we just draw the line at believing in it. Paranormal Investigator Jeff Belanger, however, draws no such line and by his own account has led a very haunted life. He’s been fascinated with the supernatural since childhood when he investigated his first haunted house during a sleepover. He’s the founder of Ghostvillage.com, a repository for his writings and research on the subject of the supernatural. The site has grown to become one of the largest paranormal communities on the Web, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors per year. Jeff is the author of seven books including, “The World’s Most Haunted Places” and “Our Haunted Lives.” His latest book is “The Ghost Files.” Since its Halloween, we wanted to talk to Jeff about ghosts and, despite his busy schedule this time of year, he graciously consented.)

DaRK PaRTY: Do you believe in ghosts?

Jeff: Absolutely. Without any doubt whatsoever.

DP: What do you think ghosts are? Where are they in relation to the rest of us?

Jeff: That’s the real question. And I’m sorry to say that I’m just not sure. But I do know that ghosts are perceived as real by millions of eyewitnesses from all walks of life. They exist in religious texts, sometimes in history books, oral traditions are full of them, there’s a word for “ghost” in every language, and beyond the word, there’s an archetypal understanding of the concept.

There are several predominant theories as to what these specters are. One is that they are a discarnate soul—the person died and is still hanging around our plane of existence for whatever reason. Another theory suggests that in some cases, ghosts are merely an impression left on a location. For example, a witness may visit an historic battlefield and see a regiment of soldiers march across the field and then disappear. It’s not likely that this was a group of souls, but rather it was an event that took place at this location at some point in time and for some reason, some people are able to tune in to the event and witness it in the present-day. The soldiers aren’t intelligent or interactive; they just march over and over like a movie reel. Beyond that, the theories get more complicated and into the realm of quantum physics (which has postulated that time isn’t necessarily linear in all cases), or into the field of parapsychology which suggests that certain events like a poltergeist may be caused by living through some as-yet-unexplained power of the mind. In these cases, the witness may not even be aware that they are the cause.

From interviewing well over a thousand people about their ghost experiences, I’ve learned that ghosts are many things to many people. For some, it’s a supernatural sign of life after death. For others, it’s some kind of demonic warning. And then there are some cases where they just are -- meaning there didn’t seem to be a message or purpose, yet the phenomenon was witnessed and reported.

DP: Why do you think some places are haunted by ghosts and other places are not?

Jeff: There’s two parts to any haunting. There’s the location and whatever events (most often tragic events) occurred there in the past, and then there’s the living human witness. If there’s history (i.e., back story), and a witness who may be more sensitive to picking up on these supernatural things, then a legend will be born. Once others hear that a place is haunted, they focus on the subtleties of the environment and then more people start to experience unexplained phenomena. Once you have multiple witnesses over a period of time reporting similar events, the location will get a haunted reputation.

DP: Why do you think people are so fascinated by ghosts?

Jeff: Ghosts answer the big questions: Is there life after death? Every one of us is going to die someday, and just about all of us is curious as to what comes next. Various religions have their theories, but we don’t really know for sure. Ghosts are the least common denominator of spirituality. When a person sees what they perceive to be a ghost or spirit, that big question is answered for the individual. The answer is: something happens. There’s comfort in that.

Plus, ghosts are titillating, they’re beyond our normal understanding of how the world works, and people love a good mystery. Ghosts speak to something primal and magical deep inside us all.

DP: Can you tell us about Ghostvillage.com. What is the site hoping to accomplish?

Jeff: Ghostvillage.com is a Web site I started back in 1999—on a dark and stormy night just like this one… At first, the site was just six little Web pages that included two haunted places articles I had written for a newspaper I was working for back in the mid-1990s. On the home page I put a message that said, “Tell us about your ghost experiences.”

And the site exploded from there. Today there are more than 150,000 pages of content and the site receives between 6 and 10 million hits per month. We have people contributing articles and stories from all over the globe. The objective of the site is the same today as it was back in 1999: to promote the discussion and research of all things supernatural. It’s an open forum for people to share their thoughts and ideas and realize that they’re not alone.

Labels: 5 Questions, Ghosts, Horror, interview, Jeff Belanger

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Labels: Ghost, Horror, Movies

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Summary: In the Tarry Town, New York, near the Hudson River, an itinerant school master named Ichabod Crane taught the sons of the local Dutch farmers how to read and write. As thin as a reed, Crane is an ambitious, but starchy young man. He’s hard on his students, but generally not so about his own follies. He falls in love with Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter of a rich farmer. However, he finds himself in competition for her affections with the local ruffian and practical joker, Brom Bones, a big, rugged sort. Crane is invited to a party at the Van Tassel farm and borrows an old horse to take him there. He’s confident that this will be the night where he wins over Katrina. Yet he leaves the party – very late – and clearly distraught. Plotting along through the dark wood, he begins to dwell on the ghost stories told at the party, and when he gets to Sleepy Hollow he happens upon the Headless Horseman, the ghost of a Hessian soldier beheaded by a cannonball in the Revolutionary War. A desperate chase follows and Crane vanishes from the town – never to be seen again. Bones ends up marrying Katrina and “looks exceedingly knowing” whenever any brings up Ichabod Crane.

Analysis: “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820) has proven to have incredible staying power. It’s one of the oldest and best known short stories in American fiction. Its success can be traced to a simple question:

“What really happened to Ichabod Crane?”

This question lies at the heart of the story. There are two possibilities:

• The headless wraith of the Hessian solider attacked Crane during his ride home and spirited him off to the netherworld.

• Noted trickster, Brom Bones, disguised as the Horseman murdered his rival for the affections of Katrina Van Tassel.

There is, of course, no correct answer. In fact, every time a reader finishes “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” they can come to a different conclusion. That’s the beauty of the work. Irving masterfully presents a ghost story and a murder mystery.

The power of the story is in the set-up. Irving captures late 18^th century New York State with stunning detail. It was a time when people lived closer to nature and the surroundings and landscape had more of an impact on their lives. He portrays a sleepy village filled with superstitions – ghost and goblins seeming to live in every swamp and dark wood.

But the greatest of these haunts is the Headless Horseman. Here is Irving’s description of the Horseman:

“On mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveler in relief against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-struckon perceiving that he was headless! But his horror was still more increased on observing that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of the saddle.”

What is amazing about “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is that it is a tale of horror. Today academics often deride the works of Stephen King and other horror writers as popular pulp – yet one of the greatest short stories in American letters is a ghost story (and a relatively tame one by today’s standards).

Yet like all good horror writers, Irving was capturing the anxiety of the age. Here we have an America battling against the modern age – as country villages (closed societies) finding themselves forced to open up as more immigrants moved in. We have in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” a tale about stranger anxiety.

Because if we read the story as a murder then the consummate insider, Brom Bones, murders his outsider rival (and probably buries him in a shallow grave in the woods). Yet the villagers do nothing.

They are content to think that Crane was done away with by the Horseman – even as we’re told at the end of the story that Bones “was observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichadbod was related… which led some to suspect that he knew more about the mater than he chose to tell.”

Why? Because Ichabod isn’t one of them. He’s an interloper (and a priggish one at that) from Connecticut.

The writing style used by Irving set the tone for the modern short story, especially his narrative style. He uses an off-stage narrator who found the story outlined in the papers of a decreased associate. It’s a complicated narrative device and its pulled off expertly.

Halloween is a good time for reading stories of the supernatural and if you’ve never read “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” – you really should. It’s a like a fine glass of red wine – getting better with age.

Read our literary analysis on the mad ramblings of Edgar Allan Poe here

Labels: literary criticism, literature, Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving

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(Having recently read William Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury” (1929), DaRK PaRTY’s interest in the Southern writer has been renewed. Faulkner isn’t for everyone – in fact, he drives many readers completely bonkers. The best way to read Faulkner is with patience and an eye toward language. Recently, DaRK PaRTY reached out to Boston University Professor John T. Matthews, the current president of the William Faulkner Society. John has written two books on Faulkner: “The Play of Faulkner's Language” and “The Sound and the Fury: Faulkner and the Lost Cause.” He helped us get our arms around this literary icon).

DaRK PaRTY: Where to you rank the influence and importance of Faulkner among American novelists of the 20th century?

John: I think by the measures of his individual achievement as well as his influence on writers in the U.S. and the world over, Faulkner is our greatest 20^th century novelist. He wrote 19 novels, probably a third of which are absolutely first-rate--memorable and permanent contributions to the American canon. Two of his novels—“The Sound and the Fury” and “Absalom, Absalom!” --are masterpieces, and rank among the very best American novels of all time.

Faulkner also wrote dozens of fine short stories, some of them very well known as the result of their frequent appearance on high school and introductory college literature curricula: "A Rose for Emily" always shows up as an example of modern Southern literature, and as tasty a bit of Southern Gothic as it is, it's more a spoof of such appetites than anything else. Faulkner's best short stories, such as "Barn Burning," "Dry September," and "That Evening Sun," are compressed and elegant versions of many of his principal themes, and they're a little more accessible because they were tailored for magazine publication.

No other American novelist I know has written so many outstanding novels, but Faulkner is also distinguished by his creation of an entire inter-linked fictional world, an imaginary
Mississippi county he called Yoknapatawpha.

Most of his novels are set in Yoknapatawpha, which resembles the place in the north central part of the state where he grew up and lived his whole life. Locales and characters reappear novel to novel, and we get to follow their stories over multiple installments, and to watch Faulkner get to know their lives and personal histories better and better over his career (as he put it). Faulkner's inimitable style, those breath-defying long sentences and head-spinning jags of stream-of-consciousness propelled by free association, as well as his favorite subjects of historical guilt and shame over slavery and racism, the struggle of agrarian regions to adapt to modernization, the tension between inherited beliefs and your own desires -- these inspired a lot of followers. You can see Faulkner in Cormac McCarthy's ornate descriptions of the violent southwest. When Toni Morrison was a graduate student in English at Cornell, she wrote a thesis on Faulkner and Virginia Woolf, and her great novel “Beloved” clearly looks back to “Absalom, Absalom!”.

Latin American "boom" writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez pointed to Faulkner as a major influence in the 1950s and 60s. I've heard novelists from China, Japan, and several African countries talk about discovering Faulkner in translation and about how much his writing has meant to them.

DP: What did Faulkner do that was so different from other writers of his time?

John: Like a whole generation of European and American writers born at the end of the 19^th century, Faulkner came of age in the very heady days of the 'teens and '20s, when life in the West was changing dramatically. The most insightful and imaginative of these writers, like the poets T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, or novelists like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, Thomas Mann, D. H. Lawrence, and so on, were alert to how radically the world was being transformed.

It's out of the friction between modernity and more traditional ways of life that much modern literature arose -- to celebrate innovative ways of seeing the world, new forms of social freedoms for women and ethnic 'minorities', a spirit of anti-colonialism around the world, a sense of disillusionment requiring new sources of spiritual values after the catastrophe of World War I, and so on.

Faulkner embraced modernist technique and took it to a new level: he experimented with ways to capture the rhythms and habits of individual ways of experiencing the world; he imagined how all sorts of different people would be displaced or given new opportunities by shifts in agricultural production and the rise of a culture of consumption; he described how memories of the past continue to haunt us even in changed circumstances (as we move around, or invent new lives for ourselves). A little like Picasso, though not so extremely, Faulkner restlessly tried different kinds of styles or artistic modes.

Some of his novels are told in characters' voices; others have strong narrators (too); some are written more conventionally as straighter narratives. Faulkner's unique in combining a full-fledged modernist technique to his regional subject matter (most modernist writing is about city life, like Joyce's “Ulysses”). And he's unusual in having organized his whole career around that vast imaginary domain.

DP: A common complaint about Faulkner is that his writing is dense and meandering. How do you respond to such criticism?

John: Well, it's true that his writing is sometimes dense and meandering. The denseness comes from a kind of urgency to put everything between one "cap and period," as he put it once. He's trying to say everything in one sentence. But why? The sense you get in reading Faulkner is that everything is inter-related, and that that effect is magnified in Southern society. Every object you touch has a history, every clod of soil evokes the ancestors or predecessors who occupied it, every word you say or scene you see comes framed by the past. That's emphatically so in a past-obsessed place like the South in the decades after the Civil War.

The meandering has a purpose too. Faulkner's characters often struggle to figure out complicated problems, many of them mysteries buried in the past that no one really want to dredge up. The meandering can be a kind of evasiveness, a symptom of putting off painful knowledge. In “Absalom, Absalom!”, a pre-Civil War cotton planter has a mysterious stranger knock on his door one day. This man ends up becoming engaged to the planter's daughter, but is inexplicably killed in a duel by the planter's son. "Why?" the townsfolk wonder. The murder becomes a town legend, and the novel shows us several individuals trying to solve the mystery. They expose a lot of evil behavior in the past as they do so. Also their own prejudices.

DP: For a reader who has never read Faulkner before, which novel would you recommend starting with and why?

John: “As I Lay Dying” is a good introduction to Faulkner's typical style and themes. It's told in brief sections from the various points of view of a number of characters. It tells the story of a farm family in the late 1920s who undertake a journey -- a pretty bizarre one -- so that their recently deceased mother can be buried in town with her people, as she's requested. The Bundren family encounters numerous obstacles, and the story turns into a comic epic that explores how people deal with profound personal losses, against a background of profound historical changes for agricultural families in the 20s.

DP: What do you think are the three greatest novels by Faulkner and why?

John: “The Sound and the Fury” captures the individual sensibilities of very different persons as they suffer a crisis in common: the decline of their once prosperous family. Faulkner never wrote more beautiful prose than his descriptions of the first two Compson brothers' anguish: one is an adult who never develops mentally beyond the capacities of a child, and so experiences the world innocently; the other is a sensitive young adolescent who eventually commits suicide because he cannot stand the thought of losing to marriage the sister he loves, and the innocence she represents to him.

“Light in August” is a sweeping double narrative that follows the meandering lives of two individuals on the margins of traditional Southern town society. This novel probes deeply into the confinement of women in Southern life, and even more disturbingly into the violence of racism, since the famous protagonist Joe Christmas is a person of indeterminate racial ancestry who is ultimately lynched.

I've described some of “Absalom, Absalom!” already, but it is the novel in which Faulkner comes closest to telling the whole history of the South from his standpoint.

Labels: 5 Questions, literature, William Faulkner

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Labels: Halloween, Music

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Labels: books, literature, Stephen King

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