Snooze

Ahhh, the quiet life.

Jen, still trying to get over a cold and failing miserably, spent the weekend on the couch, leaving me to my own devices. I failed to get creative and spent most of the time hanging around her, fetching soup and Diet 7Up with liberal doses of cranberry juice added.

Saturday morning we had to go do ACT testing. This is something we each do for some extra spending money, and it's easy work. The supervisors are set up in individual classrooms, and I just roam around my assigned rooms, giving them breaks if they want them. Basically, I get paid to read my book in the company of teenagers. (Speaking of books, I'm reading "Heart Shaped Box" by Joe Hill. Good stuff. It wasn't until someone saw me reading it that they mentioned Joe is Stephen King's son. I hadn't realized, but now looking at his picture I don't know how I didn't see it. I'm about half through the book though, and it is really good. I've been striking out with my reading lately, so it's been fun to get into something again.) Not a bad gig. Plus, it's paying for my Kim Jong iLL frames and will finance a new creative endeavor I've got in the works.

It's strange to go back to a school though. Like the hospital, it's one of those worlds that are so easy to forget, but feel so familiar once you're forced to step back into it.


My view while patrolling the halls.

After testing, we had plans to go run around and do some shopping and then head over to my brother's place to see my sister-in-law (home from the hospital and doing well) and watch a football game that neither Jen nor I had much interest ing. She was feeling worse than ever though, so we cut our errands short and headed home. That's where she stayed the rest of the weekend.

I watched some slasher (Hatchet, Mr. Brooks) movies, played Dr. Mario with the infected one, did what cleaning I felt like and headed out on Sunday for our weekly supplies of frozen whole wheat waffles and Coke Zero. Jen slept on the couch both Saturday and Sunday, so I fell asleep each night watching reruns of the US version of The Office.

Big times, kids. Big. Times.

A Few of My Favorite Things

There are a few things that I'm totally hooked on right now and I thought I'd share. In no real order of importance:

Toilet Ink - Jen and I kind of have his and hers bathrooms. Mine is in the hall close to the extra bedroom that we use as a den. One of these glorious creations will be spicing up my throne post haste. Not 100% sure which one I'm getting yet, but pretty sure that it will be "The Hot Seat.

TV on the Radio - I've loved this band since I stumbled blindly upon the "Young Liars" EP and they are consistently good. The new album is amazing and totally worth picking up. I don't know if it's as good as their previous album "Return to Cookie Mountain", but this is a bit more fun and funky, and not quite so dark. If you want to hear what they do, but don't want to pay cash money up front, check out their free live set on the The Interface - Live Feed podcast from iTunes.

This American Life - I'm a bit of a Public Radio / NPR geek. It's OK, I'm fine with it. It's the news I listen to when I'm in the car, and entertainment for me when I'm running around on the weekends. Specifically though, This American Life is hands down the best hour of radio you will ever hope to find. For those unfamiliar, each week there is a theme for the show, and each week they explore different perspectives of that theme from (generally) three or four different people. The topics range from topical (the Mortgage Crises episode was brilliant beyond words) to emotional (coping with death, lying, etc.). The different views or approaches to a subject can be in the form of a book reading, interviews, stand up, or journalistic style reporting. Often, the experience is moving. Again, iTunes has the show available for free Podcasting, so don't be shy. Go subscribe. Fall in love. Then, go to their website and give them a few bucks. It is Public Radio after all.

Urban Medium - I know I've sung the praises of UM here a few times in the past, but I love them so I'm going to do it again. I FINALLY got the cash together to get Kim Jong iLL framed. I placed the order and dropped them off last weekend and will hopefully have them back in the next 3-4 weeks. Now, they have a new Charles Manson / Hello Kitty print that's pretty amazing. I'm gonna have to see if we have room for that too. On it's own, it wouldn't be a hard sell, but she is giving up a substantial chunk of wall space for the three prints I'm already getting framed. Not sure that she wants to live in a UM gallery.

Rue Morgue - I've been picking up this magazine at the bookstore from time to time and it's always been entertaining to me. It's an amazing collection of all things horror in all its art forms. Specifically though, this year's Halloween issue is fantastic. Filled with lists of best ever gore films, reviews for novels and video games, and just fun reading over all. If you don't mind stills of nude people impaled on giant poles, this magazine is for you (or maybe just me).

True Blood - Alan Ball, the genius behind Six Feet Under (my favorite television show of all time), is now giving us vampires in rural Louisiana. Lots of blood, sex, death, and black comedy in a show that imagines life after vampires have come out of the closet. Jen said it best: "I can't wait for this show to be over so we can buy it and watch it all again."

Blood on the Bookcase

So, I finished "The Girl Next Door" by Jack Ketchum, and still don't know what to think or feel. It's not something I enjoyed reading at all, but still I couldn't stop. If you don't know anything about the book, it's a fictionalized account of the abuse two girls were subjected to at the hands of their aunt and a group of neighborhood kids. There was an actual occurrence of this in the 1950's in Indiana, and the documentation of the crimes and subsequent trial served as the basis for the "action" of the book. The subject matter alone would be enough to keep me from sleeping even if it were handled with care, but Ketchum was far from careful.

There were times that I found myself reading a paragraph and skipping to the end because the details were just too much for me to read. It was too real and the victims were children. I just couldn't get through it all line by line, and I am FAR from squeamish.

I'm a guy who loves horror. I enjoy my movies drenched in blood and I love to feel uncomfortable when I'm reading a book, but there is something about torture for torture's sake that just leaves me wanting more. "The Girl Next Door" straddled that line. I realize that the book makes a comment about what normal people are capable of, and how madness can be contagious, but the bulk of the book read like a play by play of childhood torture. It wasn't scary per se, just really disturbing and gross.

When Hostel came out, Jen and I were there the opening weekend and left a bit disturbed because we hadn't really seen a lot like it before, but now Torture Horror is all over the place. When I went back and watched it again, it didn't hold up for me, even with all the nude college women. Most horror out there tends to be a great scary premise (people paying money to torture and kill others, children locked in the basement, serial killer setting bizarre traps, etc.) but then doesn't hold up because there isn't enough story to string together the cool visuals and splatters.

After reading reviews of Jack Ketchum's work, I was super excited to read him. I've been waiting to find someone who is able to twist the whole horror genre into a new form of literature. I want to read a book that is dense with story and character that happens to be filled with mind numbing gore. It would be so great to have the reading population confused by a piece of writing that is so strong and beautiful on one hand but also happens to have a page long descriptions of graphic murder in it. I was hoping "The Girl Next Door" would be it, but it wasn't. Not by a damn sight.

Still, I did like some of his writing style. He sticks to blunt short prose, which appeals to me because writing like that is something I'm not able to do at all. It was good enough for me to start reading his first book last night, and I might find that more to my liking. I think it will read more like a story and less like a historical account. Plus, it seems to be about children who hunt and kill people for food, so it won't feel quite so rooted in reality. It will be a nice switch to read something where kids aren't the victims. Dinner is served.