Ray Bradbury 1920-2012

The human race never set foot upon Mars in Ray Bradbury’s lifetime.

When I first discovered the literature of Bradbury, and the American space program all but assured us humanity would soon slip the surly bonds of Earth and touch the face of tomorrow, the Red Planet seemed accessible, beckoning, inevitable. As a child of the 1920s, Bradbury looked up at the Waukegan skies and dreamed; as a child of the 1970s, my generation looked up at the skies and knew we would realize those dreams for him, and soon.

We were so very wrong. How it must have pained the boy inside Bradbury the man.

What small steps of discovery we did make showed us the poetry of Bradbury was very far removed from the real thing (although the semblance of a face in the Martian soil made us conjecture for years on end). He was unconcerned with the physics of rocketry or the biology of survival (his Mars had air), preferring instead to use the eerie Martian landscape as a backdrop for tales of our foibles and fragility. When pressed, he would confess to having written only one work of true science fiction (Fahrenheit 451), the rest being tales of science fantasy. Or suspense. Or dark, dark horror. Or…Bradbury had only to look around his cluttered office to find inspiration on every shelf, and he seldom suffered a block.

My very first Bradbury was “The Trunk Lady,” a rarely anthologized tale - he wrote over 600 – that would not be out of place within the pages of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; his love of the pulps remained with him till death. In 1972 our school was having its yearly book fair, and I always gravitated to the titles that promised black wonderment. I delightedly ordered my copy of Horror Times Ten, edited by Alden H. Norton, with the aforementioned story, also laden with tales by Derleth, Lovecraft, Bloch and others. This in turn led me to the Bradbury of The October Country, with its simple-titled stories of subtle-yet-nightmarish unease and unsettling metaphor. I have given copies of this book as gifts to more friends than I can possibly number, often in time for Halloween (an earlier version - Dark Carnival - was published in 1947 by Wisconsin's Arkham House, Bradbury's first book). With stories like “The Small Assassin,” “The Crowd,” The Wind” and especially “The Jar,” it is my single favorite collection of dark fantasy. For those who know the man as only a creator of futuristic visions, the stories spawned by his childhood night terrors are a revelation. The reader can  sense Bradbury working over the noun of every story title in his mind, maneuvering it to dark alleyways or neglected corners where so-called serious writers of the time dared not tread, and always to its shattering but understated conclusion.

From there it was a leap into the heavens with The Golden Apples of the Sun, R Is for Rocket, S Is for Space, A Medicine for Melancholy, and his magnificent collection of outré tales from other authors, Timeless Stories for Today and Tomorrow. I would also learn that EC Comics had adapted several of his stories for their short-lived horror and SF titles…as did he, picking up an issue and surprised at finding one of his stories. This prompted a gentle letter to editor William Gaines that their rendition was very flattering but, you know, they really should have asked for his permission, as he would have been happy to give it. (In later years he would be more protective of his ideas, as his anger at Michael Moore for borrowing his title as inspiration for “Fahrenheit 9/11” would demonstrate.) He became a household name; people in the 60s who did not know or care for genre fiction knew of Bradbury.

He made us nostalgic for the future, if such a thing is possible. Above all, Bradbury understood what it was to come from a small town in mid-America and appreciate its slower pace of life, and – paradoxically for a man interested in the future – caution against the ravages of dehumanizing technology run rampant (he despised computers and the internet). And yet, he saw humanity on the surface of Mars as a kind of bold frontier, exploring the unknown with the tools at our disposal, ever mindful that flesh and blood and red sand can mix to produce powerful metaphors of racism, intolerance and greed. And there is no technology, now or in the future, on Earth or on Mars, that can save us from those.

Mars is waiting for us. Sadly, Ray Bradbury could not. I hope he finally understand its mysteries. 

(For my earlier account of his immortal short story "The October Game,"  please click here.)

The Writers - Jack Oleck

It's a short, terse name; when said with the right panache, it has the crack of a rifle shot. It's a dramatic name, befitting a man who gunned out dozens and dozens of comic book stories in primarily the Horror and SF genres, working for such publishers as EC, Mainline, and for the last decade or so of his career, DC. Few writers wrote more to bring the EC aesthetic to the company of Superman and Batman, and after his death in 1981, small wonder that DC's Horror line collapsed without him.

Oleck was the brother-in-law of Joe Simon who, among many others, co-created the character of Captain America with his partner, Jack Kirby. Oleck used his familial ties to write for Simon's Timely Comics, but it wasn't until EC came calling that he distinguished himself in the field of Horror. The titles were on their last gasp before the congressional hearings into the effect of violent comics on youth, but Oleck still managed to squeeze out a few stories for Vault of Horror and Haunt of Fear before those books folded. Oleck wrote briefly for the company after it self-sanitized its content, but it wasn't long before he left comics entirely for the better part of a decade.

Oleck turned his attention to novels, experiencing a rousing success with his 1959 historical pulp novel Messalina. This lurid tale of Roman emperor Claudius' infamous wife ("She used her body uninhibitedly in the game of power politics. Nothing in the realm of passion was beyond her knowledge") never went out of print during the 1960s; later printings carried the cover boast of having sold over a million copies. In addition to turning out other titles that could be referred to as "toga rippers," Oleck also spent most of the 60s writing for and editing a magazine devoted to home decorating.

In 1968, to take advantage of a newly-relaxed Comic Code Authority, DC directed veteran Joe Orlando to rejuvenate a number of flagging titles and create a legitimate Horror line. Orlando had his hands in both EC and the black & white efforts over at Warren Magazines, but his goal was to recreate the winning formula of the EC fright books - minus the overt gore and sensuality. Assembling such legendary artistic talents as Neal Adams, Alex Toth and Bernie Wrightson, Orlando utilized in-house writers and young turks Gerry Conway, Marv Wolfman, Steve Skeates and Len Wein, but those writers lacked the noirish feel he felt necessary to truly pay homage to those comics of 15 years hence. Orlando coaxed Oleck away from his interior design mag and, together with his old EC compatriot Carl Wessler, set him loose upon the revamped House of Mystery and House of Secrets, among others.

Oleck had a flair for the O. Henry-esque final panel twist that often seemed written from the ending backwards. The denouements were familiar to anyone who had grown up watching The Twilight Zone and, like Serling, he often cribbed from genre writers of the time, including himself. His characters were incapable of thinking and speaking in exclamation points, and the tales flew by. His caption-heavy writing style was easy to identify, even when the books forgot to credit the creators. His omniscient narrator - the tone consistent from story to story - prodded the reader with continuous questions that it was unable to answer ("How did it begin? No one can say." "How long did she lie there in pain? She didn't know." My favorite was always, "Could he have stopped it then? Perhaps. Perhaps not." Almost *every* story contained these queries.) From the letter columns these questions bugged the hell out of readers, and Oleck's style seemed a trifle old-fashioned for sophisticated 70s tastes, but I always found it to be part of the pulpy charm.

Oleck would also repeat the last word a character would speak to start off the narration in the following panel. Let someone triumphantly declare, "We doing this in the name of science!" and the next-panel narrator would goad, "Science? What did anyone care about science? And what did that mean, anyway?" Say it with me, gentle reader; no one could say.

Oleck's output was prodigious. Of the three stories that would appear in an issue, two would often bear his byline. When Orlando's duties expanded to helm four more Horror titles (!), an issue would seldom hit the stands without at least one Oleck tale. In a few letters pages it was rumored that Oleck had inventoried many stories, with at least one file cabinet loaded with them; this may have been the case for a time, but the stories stopped after his death.

When Orlando inherited the editorial reigns of Weird War Tales from Joe Kubert, Oleck traveled with him. These stories evinced a greater sense of verisimilitude; Oleck fought in WWII and attained the rank of sergeant. The banner above the title promised stories of "mystery and madness," and these Oleck tales bore twists that were more cruel than most. For their sense of pulpish fun, they did not shy away from commenting on war's inhumanity; the Weird War battlefields were no place for trumpets of glory.

Oleck was at his most successful when his stories aspired to poetry or poignancy. Among his finest:

"Nightmare" (House of Mystery #186) - Boasting exquisite art by Neal Adams, this tells of a lonesome little girl befriended by a satyr statue come to life. It's widely considered to be one of DC's best achievements during this period, and the ending is a heartbreaker ("...and if she'd looked back she would have seen...something wonderful.").

"Bat Out of Hell" (House of Mystery #195) - Inspired by an unpublished EC picto-fiction tale entitled "The Mother," a violent thief in search of treasure in a ruined abbey does battle with a fearsome bat merely protecting her babies. The Bernie Wrightson cover for this issue is a stunner.

"The Monster" (House of Secrets #96) - It's Oleck's reworking of Twilight Zone's "Eye of the Beholder," albeit with a turned-on-its-head premise involving a little boy, and with a much unhappier ending. Orlando was able to get a rare appearance here from EC giant Wally Wood.

"Spawns of Satan" (House of Secrets #113) - Ruthless child vampires are the title characters. Due to an accident they wind up spending months at the bottom of a cold, murky lake. Eventually they arise, but only to discover their coffins paved over with concrete; they are turned to ashes by the sun, clawing at the cement of a playground the townspeople built in loving tribute to their memory.

Oleck did not entirely forsake his novelistic skills. In conjunction with Warner Paperbacks, DC published two House of Mystery volumes where Oleck converted a handful of his tales to prose format. And in a nod to his EC roots, Oleck was commissioned to novelize Amicus' cinematic adaptations of classic chillers, Tales from the Crypt (1972) and The Vault of Horror (1973).

DC's Horror line were among the best-selling comics of their time, routinely outperforming Batman, Superman and most superhero titles by other publishers; at one point the company had as many as nine titles competing for rack space. And where there was Horror, there was the ubiquitous Jack Oleck. How much did his writing contribute to their success? How much is attributable to his efforts?

Who can say?

Anthologies and a Defense of Roger Elwood

I grew up in the 60s and 70s, and that was an incredibly fertile time for genre anthologies in all media; short stories could readily be found on supermarket bookshelves, at the movies or on TV, even between the covers of comic books (I've blogged about it previously here). Perusing the spinner rack of paperbacks resulted in volume after volume of collected stories, both previously-published and original. It was easy to find anthologies edited by such luminaries as Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Terry Carr, Peter Haining, Hugh Lamb, August Derleth. But one name roused controversy, both for the sheer volume of books that bore his name and for the purported quality of said books - or lack thereof. That man was Roger Elwood, and for the better part of a decade, if you were a genre fan, it was all but impossible to escape his name.

Elwood was a New Jersey native who started off the 70s writing for wrestling magazines before turning his attention to compilations of SF and Horror, often working in conjunction with fellow editor Vic Ghidalia (when the latter didn't ghost-edit the volumes outright). During 1964-72 Elwood produced a relatively-few 13 titles, but 1973 & '74 saw a remarkable 39 books bearing his name, for a wide variety of publishers. The titles rapidly dropped off after that, and after 12 more volumes spread out over the next three years, books with the Elwood imprimatur disappeared. After about a decade of silence, Elwood, an avowed Christian, began producing novels with an evangelical focus. His writing ceased with the turn of the century, and he died in 2007.

Now I'll be blunt: I write the following to clear up some misconceptions about Elwood's work that have been allowed to foster on the internet, with several assertions having gone unchecked for the better part of a decade. I did not know Mr. Elwood nor any of his detractors, but a few claims need to be corrected (and, with a handful of exceptions, I own almost every title from the period in question bearing Elwood's name);

1) Elwood published no-name writers of questionable worth - A cursory glance of the contents of Elwood's titles does not bear this out. Considering his titles which were aimed at an adult audience, each book boasts 65-75% or more material from authors who well either well-established at the time or were readily creating names for themselves within the field. We may quibble over whether this material represented the authors at their best, but it is entirely disingenuous to insinuate that Elwood purchased stories from hacks.

2) Elwood flooded the market - It's difficult to explain away 39 books in only two calendar years, but here goes -

- The books were not all speculative fiction. At least six or seven of the titles are best described as appealing to a Horror audience; again, most of these are edited in conjunction with Vic Ghidalia.

- The books were not all meant to appeal to adults. In 1974 eight titles appeared from Lerner as part of a young adult "intro to SF" series that sported four stories apiece. Interestingly these are the books most often cited by his critics that Elwood published work from unknowns; yes, but for a very different audience.

- The books were published by a variety of publishing houses in both hard- and softcover formats. In 1973 three publishers released two Elwood books apiece (Avon, Macmillan, Rand McNally), Berkley/Putnam published three in 1974 (the experimental Continuum series; stories that continued from volume to volume like a pulp magazine), but apart from those exceptions, no publisher released more than one a year. It is also worth recalling that the markets for hard and softcover books could be quite separate; SF has always been a genre of cheap paperbacks stuffed into back pockets. Trade paperbacks that bridged the gap had yet to come into existence. Purchasers of the cheaper books were often completely unaware of what was being printed between hard covers.

To cite as merely one example, Robert Silverberg was editing yearly installments of two anthologies (Alpha and the original New Dimensions) and standalone titles as well, in addition to maintaining a yearly pace of one or two novels and dozens of short stories, many to Elwood's anthologies. It was not uncommon to find as many as 6-8 Silverberg titles on the shelf at once, yet one would never accuse the Grand Master of "flooding the market."

So while 22 books in 1974 seems like an intimidating number, readers would have only encountered about half of those, assuming they perused both the hard- and softcover departments of both the SF and Dark Fantasy sections - that is, if they didn't buy most of their books from either the new agency, drugstore or supermarket.

3) The books were of poor quality - Leaving aside the issues of "eye of the beholder" and the ability of the contributors, several of Elwood's titles were spotlighted by the Science Fiction Book Club, including paperback books that were granted a Book Club version. Since the SFBC would only highlight 4-6 books per month, quality was the determining factor. Their editors would review a number of titles from a variety of publishers (not merely Doubleday, SFBC's parent company), and so I'll defer to them. And stories from the books were nominated for awards and cited in various "best of" collections. Elwood's track record for exceptional stories was about on par with the monthly magazines.

4) Elwood sold all his anthologies to publishers during a spate in the early 70s - Quite likely. Keep in mind that the industry was on the lookout for original collections following the success of Harlan Ellison's groundbreaking Dangerous Visions in 1967, as well as he subsequent series it inspired (the aforementioned New Dimensions, Terry Carr's Universe, Damon Knight's Orbit, Harry Harrison's Nova, Samuel Delany's Quark, to name a few). The publishing industry was identifying a need, and Elwood was servicing it. Elwood would have been very unsuccessful had not the demand from almost every publisher been there.

5) Elwood's "theme" anthologies were too restrictive to produce material of worth. - Theme anthologies are a staple of SF, with volumes dedicated to robots, time travel, mutants, other dimensions, etc. Elwood's volumes were no more or less circumscribed than titles that came before or after. In fact, anthologies of "shared worlds" or ultra-specific themes are now normative; SF collections were far more inclusive of theme in decades hence.

6) Elwood's books collapsed the anthology market. - Not hardly; as an obsessive collector, a simple glance at post-1975 titles on my bookshelf confirms that. Original anthos could still be had. Knight's Orbit series lasted until 1977, but the final volumes were met with less than enthusiastic reviews. Silverberg kept New Dimensions going until 1981, while Carr edited Universe titles until his death in 1987. New series such as Stellar and Continuum were launched, but they were concurrent with a general contraction of the entire SF field for shorter fiction, including the magazines. Post-Star Wars inspired readers sought out galaxy-spanning novels, not the experimental and avant garde short stories that examined social and psychological conditions. And with the advent of Stephen King in the late 70s, Horror was becoming the hot genre. Even at the venerable SFBC, Fantasy titles were outnumbering SF. It seems absurd to blame the downturn of the early 80s on books that were published in 1973; the publishing industry, even in those pre-internet days, moved more quickly than that.

And SF readers are a discriminating but fair lot; if they felt burned by an editor, they certainly would not punish all anthologies and more than they would spurn all novels after encountering bad ones - and there have been, and will always be, bad novels of SF.

7) Elwood made a fast buck and got out of the field. - Not immediately. Sensing the genre was turning to novels - and it was - he launched Laser Books, an effort from Harlequin to apply their monthly format of releases to the SF market. Starting in 1975 and ongoing for 16 months, three new titles were released every 30 days, all from fledgling authors. Ultimately the experiment was a failure, with some authors complaining that Elwood edited out sex and violence to conform to Harlequin's restrictions and his own sense of Christian rectitude. Elwood would embrace idiosyncrasy - his anthologies were a regular home for quirky cult author R.A. Lafferty - he did not push the content envelope like an Ellison.

Elwood released the mammoth collection Epoch (with Silverberg as co-editor) in 1975, perhaps viewing the title as a capstone to his anthologies before turning his attention to longer fiction. He also briefly attached his name to the short-lived SF magazine Odyssey, but it was gone after only two issues. And with it Elwood was as well. He was no fixture of the conventions, he did not travel in SF circles; indeed, it is difficult to come by a simple photo of this man of mystery. For one decade he was with the genre but not of it, a man who came and went to the surprise of many in the field. There are stories of authors who claim he stiffed them for a story, or displayed a heavy hand when editing their work. And there are those who claim he was merely a figurehead, with collaborators such as Ghidalia, Silverberg or Virginia Kidd doing all the heavy lifting. But for better or worse, in many ways Roger Elwood sat astride the genre in the 1970s, and while the collections remain, the man whose name was emblazoned on so many books is all but a forgotten memory.

Hello again

Well. It's been a long time since we've talked. You've had very good reason to wonder if I vanished off the face of the planet, and in a certain way I did. The fault, gentle reader, was entirely my own, and for that I do apologize. Making the Jar a priority when one is essentially holding down two jobs is a difficult thing at best. I've tried to resuscitate this little excursion into the eerie and existential a few times in the past, and you would be forgiven for thinking this is another halfhearted (heh) attempt.

But you would be wrong. This time is truly different, and let me number why...

1) Ten days before Christmas 2011 I suffered a hemorrhagic brain stem stroke; as such events go, it was comparatively mild, but it rendered my right arm and leg virtually useless. More important, it led to a stream of physicians, nurses and therapists who informed me with no small amount of solemnity that I was a very lucky bastard, as such events frequently affect such involuntary reactions like breathing and heartbeat. When enough people intone "You almost died," it does sink in after Expert #11 or so.

I am told that my recovery has been nothing short of miraculous. Yes, I would recover from said stroke, but it would require months of housebound convalescence. I was given a catalog and told to refit my apartment with accoutrements for the disabled. When I went out in public, I was to use a walker. And driving? Fuhgeddaboutit.

Fuck that shit. I was driving myself in five days after coming home from the hospital. I returned to work after a month. There are miniscule daily improvements that clearly indicate I continue to be on the mend. Most days I feel as though recovering from a bad traffic accident. I walk without a cane; catch me on a good day, and people will tell you they don't even notice a limp. And my handwriting, once nonexistent, is legible. I'm coming back, baby.

Doctors tell me my brain is rewiring itself, because...I read. A lot. And constantly. If I sat around and sucked on the glass teat for hours a day, such wiring would be questionable. But I owe that practice, engrained at an early age, to my parents, which leads me to Point the Second...

2) My father passed away about ten days ago; he was preceded in death by my mother back in 2008. Together they instilled in me an almost ridiculous love for the printed word; the thousands and thousands of books that still reside in my parents' house are mute testimony to that fact. They will be mute no longer, as...

3)...this blog is now reborn with an emphasis on old books, genre literature and comics, and, true to my icons such as Rod Serling, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson and (of course) Robert Bloch, it will expand in scope to cover Dark Fantasy and Speculative Fiction. These gentlemen were not easily pigeonholed, and neither shall I be. Over the past few months I've been enjoying the hell out of exposing a dear friend to classic novels of SF, and I realize that, damn, there once was a time when I was awfully conversant in that genre too. Besides, the world scarcely needs another blog reviewing new films or covering recent developments. But looking backward from a perspective of years - especially when you're unexpectedly reminded those years are finite - that I can do. I promise to be pithy, personal and entertaining...and I will look at the occasional wild and wooly old movie, but on my terms. Oh, and there will be a podcast. It's about time I draw upon decades of acting and radio work, dontcha think?

Two of those four gentlemen I referenced are still very much alive, and damnit, so am I.

There's work to be done. So let's get to it. And welcome back to the Jar.

Social Disease

Film Review - CONTAGION (2011)
Screenplay by Scott Z. Burns
Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Yes, it was a generation ago when the film industry was all a-buzz about the forthcoming non-fiction bio-thriller The Hot Zone, Richard Preston's best-selling cautionary tale of the dangers of pandemic-causing viruses like Ebola and Hanta. A bidding war ensued, competing projects were announced, and the Spring of 1995 saw Warner Brothers' glossy thriller Outbreak, with a tony cast including Dustin Hoffman and Morgan Freeman. Pulpy and over-the-top, it provoked true unease only during a sequence where a cough in a movie theater disseminates the virus among the audience; when a flesh-and-blood patron coughed, my crowd broke into nervous laughter.

What a difference a generation makes. Now the same studio gives us Contagion, as serious and solemn a film as could be made on the subject. Unlike earlier disease-run-amok entries like The Andromeda Strain, there are no chromium-plated laboratories constructed in desert enclaves, no no leaps of technological faith. This is plausibility of the present moment. The film is committed, often bracingly so, to presenting the spread of a heretofore unseen pathogen in detail that is both panoramic and intimate in scope. I give away nothing when I say that, no, the disease is not contained before it exacts a horrific toll on humanity, and accolades and Oscars will not save every member of this star-studded cast.

Even before the lights rise on Scene One, we are put ill at ease by the sound of a cough and the unsettling typeface that tells us we have already jumped to Day Two. Gwyneth Paltrow is on her cellphone, post-assignation, and looking more than a bit peaked. (The entire movie appears shot through a thin veil of mucous.) Through a rapid sequence of cuts, we are shown the exponential spread of the virus, and how within days it is infecting Hong Kong, London and, for those of us nationalists, Minneapolis and Chicago. Paltrow's husband Matt Damon is a widower before the first reel ends, and that's not the extent of the damage done his family. The MEV-1 virus is a terrible swift sword, and screenwriter Burns (The Bourne Ultimatum) is also interested in the machinations that occur on the political, corporate and social network levels. It does not take long for Uncle Sam to discover that there are few protocols that are effective when the greatest enemy we face are the relationships that bring us together - along with our unfortunate tendency to touch our faces 3-5 times per hour.

That's what makes Contagion an odd endeavor, and ultimately one that's less than fulfilling. For all its attention to scientific jargon and intrigue, director Soderbergh struggles with the relationships that not only must power the plot but engage the emotions. There is much to accomplish here, and the film clips along briskly - perhaps too briskly - in an effort to mirror the spread of the disease. Jude Law is a blogger who stumbles upon footage of one of the first victims, and may or may not have found the cure in nature (think Laetrile). From his initial YouTube-spread home trial, we cut to a mob vandalizing a pharmacy unable to keep the substance in stock. The rhythm throws us off balance, and we struggle to connect to characters that are there to advance the thesis. When the film permits the audience a scene of emotion, it's as though it reminded itself that, yes, this is still about the human race and we wouldn't be in this mess if we didn't like to cuddle.

Considered as a pseudo-documentary, Contagion has greater impact. Many of the cast members have seldom appeared this fragile, even puffy, onscreen. Damon has taken on the additional heft of a guy who loves his Vikings and his bratwurst, and Kate Winslet is thoroughly de-glammed as a CDC employee assigned to keep a lid on a situation that has spun out of control before it has been recognized. And underneath my viewing of the movie, there is this amazement that it could be released on the same weekend as the decade anniversary of the inciting incident for years of national fear. How far we have come from the days when the Twin Towers needed to be digitally erased from Zoolander lest the audience be reminded of what it could never possibly forget. For such an abjectly grim look at global catastrophe, Contagion saves its most fearsome moment for the very end. It's the shoe-dropping Day One; the casual prelude to cataclysm has a more shattering impact than the scenes that precede it. Perhaps it's finally time to move beyond 9/11 fear. But then again, they never really did establish who mailed that anthrax in 2001, did they?

Your move.

Great Comic Book Covers - THE TWILIGHT ZONE #35 (December 1970)
Artist Unknown

By 1970 the entire world knew writer Rod Serling through his accomplished teleplays for such landmark dramas as Patterns, The Comedian and Requiem for a Heavyweight. But it was his five years as artistic powerhouse behind the incomparable Twilight Zone that affixed him permanently in the cultural zeitgeist. As the success of this Independence Day's TZ marathon on SyFy can attest, he has never left. A recent tribute column by Maureen Dowd went so far as to include this epitaph: "Everything is Rod Serling now." Television's original Angry Young Man was a man ahead of his time.

But in 1970 I did not know this. Due to the vicissitudes of syndication, I never saw an episode of Twilight Zone until I was into my college years. But it was my favorite television series, despite never having watched a single installment. I devoured the paperback books that adapted Serling's teleplays into prose (even the Bantam anthologies that were "edited" by Serling, Devils and Demons and Rod Serling's Triple W - Witches, Warlocks and Werewolves), and did the same for the Night Gallery volumes when released. No, my exposure to one Rodman Serling came as the man who introduced stories for Gold Key's Twilight Zone comic book. Gold Key made their mark on the industry by licensing virtually every TV property they could get their hands upon, and in addition to publishing a handful of originals like Doctor Solar and Turok: Son of Stone, they also brought young readers new tales from series like The Man from UNCLE, Dark Shadows and Star Trek.

Twilight Zone was an anthology comic, one of dozens that filled the newsstands in the 1970s, and I have to admit; reading the tales now, the writers at Gold Key (including such comic luminaries as Marv Wolfman, Len Wein and Arnold Drake) did an excellent job of nailing Serling's approach to the series. These were not standard "spook stories," but were mostly set in contemporary settings and dealt with workaday folks who somehow slipped between the cracks in reality. In one noteworthy tale, "Fortune and Men's Eyes," they blatantly cribbed from Serling's Night Gallery teleplay "Eyes," replacing Joan Crawford's imperious dowager with a male character who meets a similar fate. And check that title! "Fortune..." was lifted from a Shakespeare sonnet, but also inspired by a then-controversial 1967 Broadway show about homosexuality. Oh, what they got away with back then...

But what drew readers to Gold Key titles were the rich, lustrous painted covers by such artists as George Wilson and Morris Gollub. (GK did such a poor job of record-keeping that proper credits are missing for most of what they published.) They had the appearance of paperback books of the era, and made me feel very adult when I slapped down my 15 cents for an issue. Check out the composition on this stunner. It was a common approach to have a large figure that was symbolically dominating a smaller figure, not necessarily a literal depiction of a moment in a story from the issue. Gold Key meant for their books to stand out on the newsstand, and they did.

One more element to the story of this cover: In 2004, just after I had finshed a move down to Chicago, I happened to be browsing through eBay auctions, and lo and behold, the original art for this cover was up for bids, with a starting price of $900. That would not have been a deterrent at any other point in my life, but having just relocated, money was tight, and the artwork slipped away from me. I still sentimentally covet one of these Gold Key covers, but this striking chess-themed beauty went to another (hopefully appreciative) owner. File it under "M" for "missed opportunity" - in the Twilight Zone.

Chris Udvarnoky 1961-2010

"Holland...where is the baby?"

If you grew up during the early 70s, that whispered query can still raise gooseflesh, and much of the reason it can is that it was voiced by the talented young actor Chris Udvarnoky. Together with his twin brother Marty, they took on the roles of Niles and Holland Perry, brothers who were joined at the soul but separated by the grave, brought to life in Thomas Tryon's novel The Other and brought to the screen by director Richard Mulligan in a deceptively pastoral 1972 film. If you think that horror can only take place within the dark of night, this atmospheric and unsettling work will prove you wrong, its Andrew Wyeth color palette stands in stark contrast to the evil and dread that eventually consume the Perry family. And the answer to the above question requires the strongest of hearts to absorb. It haunts.

And perhaps the role haunted Udvarnoky as well, as The Other was his solitary film credit. The history of cinema is lousy with precocious, over-coached performances from child actors, their parts sounding jarringly adult because no one working on the film had the slightest idea of how kids really talk. But Udvarnoky's Niles feels genuinely ten years of age, able to whip up mischief in a moment's notice, while also possessed of a developing ethos that makes him feel guilt and shame. But after all, it's not Niles who is responsible -- it's Holland, right? Holland, who no longer walks the earth, but rather occupies six feet of it. It's a difficult part to pull off, and Udvarnoky is unforgettable. (He was also fortunate enough to have a frequent screen partner in the tremendous Uta Hagen, and the consummate acting teacher certainly must have offered him some pointers. However, it's a double-edged sword; he subsequently has to act opposite her, but instead of being intimidated, he enters into the spirit of every scene with the commitment and focus that only a child can know while playing "pretend.")

Word comes today that Chris Udvarnoky passed away in New Jersey on Monday of this week at the age of only 49. He had achieved success as an x-ray technician and an EMT. His were hands that saved lives, and while we might wonder what other accomplishments we were denied in cinema, there are surely others who owe their time upon earth to his ministrations. Reference to his appearance in The Other was missing from his official obituary, but in an eerie coincidence, it aired in the wee hours of this very morning on TCM. I'd like to take that as confirmation that somewhere his soul is soaring, like on the wings of a great black bird.

Somewhere, I hope Niles Perry is once again playing The Game.

True Blood: The Musical Revue - Sam Merlotte

I like Sam.

(Sung to the tune of "Soon It's Gonna Rain")

See in the sky the eagle soaring
Hear how the German Shepherd bays
Smell when the bull responds to nature
Out in the fields where cattle graze
Now is the time I long to join the chase
Now is the time I leave without a trace
The human race

Soon I’m gonna change
And you’ll see it
Soon I’m gonna change
Be prepared
Soon I’m gonna change
And become something new

Soon I’m gonna change
Think and be it
Soon I’m gonna change
Don’t be scared
Soon I’m gonna change
Wish you could do it too

I’ll have four limbs like a dog
Perhaps four claws like a cat
Or grow a snout like a hog
Oh, please don’t run away

After I have changed
Then I’ll need you
After I have changed
Need you so

After I have changed
That is when I dare suppose
You’ll stay with me
And hold on to my clothes

I may be big as a horse
I may be small as a mouse
Whatever I am, of course.
I won’t decide to stay

For when I’m changing back
Back to human
When I’m changing back
In my nude

When again I’m me
Naked as any jay
.
Well, that’s the time you’ll see my art
After all the years of practice, boy, I’m smart
Carefully I turn and hide my private part
Away

Exorcist: The Musical - The Exorcism!

This one was just ever so much fun. More stanzas could follow. Please imagine extended dance breaks...

(Sung to the tune of "America")

REGAN
Why did you call in an exorcist?
I’ll have a ball with your exorcist
Give it your all, Mr. Exorcist
Back in the hall you go, exorcist

KARRAS
Get thee behind me you Satan
REGAN
I hope you do not mind waitin’
MERRIN
God’s holy power compels you
REGAN
I wouldn’t buy what He sells you

Think you can bring in an exorcist
Look how I’m flingin’ your exorcist
Your ears are ringin’ now, exorcist
You like my singin’ now, exorcist?

KARRAS
She’s just a child, have pity
REGAN
Go back to Vatican City
MERRIN
You will be gone by the morrow
REGAN
Why am I sounding like Charo?

You can’t defeat me, you exorcist
Never will beat me, you exorcist
Step up and greet me, you exorcist
Then you can eat me, you exorcist

MERRIN
Don’t give up, we may be winning
REGAN
Wait til my head begins spinning
KARRAS
God’s will is sure to take over
REGAN
I’ll give this room a makeover

Stop bible-quoting now, exorcist
Satan is gloating now, exorcist
It is worth noting now, exorcist
That I am floating now, exorcist

Your fortitude is appalling
MERRIN
Feel how the temperature’s falling?
REGAN
Soon you’ll be meeting your sure doom
KARRAS
Who put this statue in her room?

REGAN
You cannot win, Mr. Exorcist
Save your own skin, Mr. Exorcist
Once I am in, Mr. Exorcist
Leave her to sin, Mr. Exorcist

True Blood: The Musical Revue - Godric

I was hesitant to put this one up for a number of reasons. I'm definitely taking a tongue-in-cheek approach to these parodies, but the self-sacrifice of Godric has been one of the emotional highlights of the series for me, and I didn't want to diminish its impact with snark. On a certain level, the song that the moment brings to mind is perfect as is, requiring little adaptation or revision. Also, you can find bigger fans of ALW out there than me, and I just couldn't keep those bridges from feeling clunky, but then I figured - hey, the original bridges are clunky (singing the words "gutters, mutters"? Not pretty). So while this might smack of something that a 13-year old would write in her school notebook, I still submit the following...

(Sung to the tune of "Memory")



Daylight
See the dawn of a new hour
As the nighttime is fading
Shadows wither away
Like a sunflower
I yearn to turn my face to the dawn
I am waiting for the day…

Midnight
Now my source of resentment
I am weary with memory
Sick of standing alone
At each twilight
The human souls collect at my feet
And the wind begins to moan

Memory
Once I stood in the sunlight
I can smile at the old days
It was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again

Every moment
Seems replete with fatalistic warning
Vampires warring
And the world ignoring
And soon there will be mourning

Daylight
Now I wait for the sunrise
I must hope for a new life
Find my strength from within
When the dawn comes
My life will be a memory too
And a new day will begin

May my sacrifice preclude
The battle that’s a-borning
When humans die, another life takes over
Now let that day be dawning

Touch me
Eric, you must believe me
You alone hold the memory
And know what should be done
Now release me
It’s time I knew what happiness is

Look
A new day has begun

True Blood: The Musical Revue - Russell Edgington

How about some Gilbert & Sullivan?

(Sung to the tune of "Better Far to Live and Die")

Oh, better far to be undead
Than to live a human life instead
My stately home, my glorious manse
With a staff that caters me at a glance
Werewolves see to my every need
They love me when it’s time to bleed
I hardly lack for nary a thing
As Mississippi’s Vampire King

For I am a Vampire King
And it is, it is a bloody good thing
To be a Vampire King (2x)

Three thousand years above the ground
Have made me the canniest king around
For who could ever want to know
The Vampire King of Idaho
I seek a Queen to share the throne
(But I fill that requirement on my own)
For Talbot is as a wife to me
When my scepter calls for TLC

For I am a Vampire King
And it is, it is a jolly gay thing
To be a Vampire King (2x)

You see, it’s incomparably great
To reign o’er this Magnolia State
And according to this plan of mine
I’ll soon own the rest of the forty-nine
When Wall Street is the last to fall
(That shouldn’t take much effort at all)
Then all will shout, “Hurrah! Hurray!
The Vampire King of the USA!”

For I am a Vampire King
And it is, it is a powerful thing
To be a Vampire King (2x)

Twilight Zone: The Musical Revue - Nightmare at 20,000 Feet

(Sung to the tune of "Another Hundred People" from Company)

BOB
There’s a man outside my window on the wing of the plane
I can see through the rain
Wait, he disappeared - oh no, I think I see him again
And he’s poking around
Look, he’s ripping at a panel on the wing of the plane
And he’s looking at me
And I’ve got to explain
Though they think I'm insane
I just have to say…

Ev’rybody’s in danger
Listen to me, understand
The plane is in danger
Must tell the crew, got to land

STEWARDESS
Excuse me, sir
Don’t cause a stir
I have to ask you to re-take your seat and to please remain

JULIA
I’m sorry, miss, he hasn’t been himself, he’s been under strain
Gotta stop it, sweetie or you’ll wind up you-know-where again.

BOB
Please forgive me, honey, I could swear I saw him standing there
He was big and fuzzy, like a strange mutated teddy bear
Do you have some Bayer, ‘cause I feel a pain
It’s the one I get so often, deep within the brain
Give me two, I’ll toss em back and have a glass of some champagne
And I’m really wishing now that we had taken the train

Twilight Zone: The Musical Revue - Welcome to Maple Street

(Sung to the tune of "On the Street Where You Live")

We have always lived on this street before
But we’ve never seen such evil and deceit before
From the neighbors who we once thought we knew
On our dear Maple Street where we live
Does your Chrysler start? Have you any lights?
Why, I’ve seen you up and working late so many nights
And your picket fence could be evidence
For j’accuse on the street where we live
And oh! The heightening feeling
That our friends are not what they seem
It’s such a frightening feeling
That any second we could wake up from this dream
Is it Commie plot, or attack from Mars?
Well, we'll teach them not to tangle with the Stars n’ Bars
Honey, grab my gun, ‘cause it’s time to run
And defend Maple Street where we live

And of course, a coda from the aliens...

Now you see the plan? Pure simplicity
Be selective when you cut off electricity
Once they’re feeling stressed, nature does the rest
As we take every street where they live

True Blood: The Musical Revue - Jessica

I realize that I tempt fate by writing song lyrics for an ongoing project whose characters are in flux, knowing full well that something may happen on a Sunday night to render my work irrelevant. Ah, so be it. For those of you who think these postings should deal with more timely source material, here's the first in a series of True Blood musical soliloquies, coming from a character who has become one of my favorites -- tortured teen vampire Jessica. (Keeping with my custom of only choosing songs from Broadway shows, my choices from my beloved Bacharach / David are limited to only one tuner - Promises, Promises - so I have to choose wisely and well. I was taken by how this re-purposes the song's title. What in the show is delivered with the sub-text "I won't fall in love" becomes here "I can't fall in love.")

(Sung to the tune of "I'll Never Fall in Love Again")

What do you get when you fall in love?
When you’re a vamp, you just get trouble
Then be a teen, it seems like double
I’ll never fall in love again
I’ll never fall in love again

How do you feel when you kiss a boy?
When you got fangs, just like a sinner
Then, in a snap, he looks like dinner
I’ll never fall in love again
Dontcha know that I’ll never fall in love again.

Don’t tell me that it’s all a phase
I’ll be like this till the end of days
Don’t you let Twilight try to sell you
That is why I’m singin’ to tell you

What do you get when you fall in love?
A pain in the heart no stake could rival
Chewing on boys for your survival
I’ll never fall in love again
No, no, I’ll never fall in love again

Don’t tell me how a love could be
‘cause I can’t lose my virginity
All the sweet boys will only scorn you
That is why I’m singin’ to warn you

What do you get when you fall in love?
A boy who’s content to be your buddy
Cry in your sleep, your pillow’s bloody
I’ll never fall in love again
Dontcha know I’ll never fall in love again
I’ll never fall in love again

The Shining: The Musical - Touring the Torrances

Yesterday was Stanley Kubrick's birthday, and I was neglectful in noting it here. I offer the following to make amends...



















(Sung to the tune of "Camelot")

It’s you! It’s you! The facts have made it clear
The Torrances are perfect for us here!

A crime occurred a distant moon ago here
A staffer gave his family the hook
But there is nothing frightening to know here
At Overlook
The winter enters heavy in December
But exits as a gentle bubbling brook
The coming months are ones that you’ll remember
At Overlook

Overlook! Overlook!
It’s Colorado’s hideaway
Why, at Overlook, Overlook
You may decide to stay
It feels a bit oppressive after sundown
But morning makes the shadows disappear
So let us take a look
At every crannied nook
You’ll find your home away from home right here
At Overlook!

Overlook! Overlook!
I know it seems a trifle large
But at Overlook, Overlook
We’re glad you’ll be in charge

Now right this way, our pantry is awaiting
Just look at all the food that you can cook
Eat ev’ry day, no dinner duplicating
At Overlook
(I can’t escape this feeling that I’ve seen him
Perhaps within a photo someone took
It’s best I made the effort to pre-screen him
For Overlook)

Overlook! Overlook!
And have you seen our famous maze?
Overlook! Overlook!
You’ll lose yourself for days!

Your tenure starts the first day of October
Departing April First, so that it’s clear
And on that day you’ll find
We’re hard to leave behind
Why, part of you may always be right here
At Overlook!

Twilight Zone: The Musical Revue - It's a Good Life

I can so see Cloris Leachman singing this.

(Sung to the tune of "Children Will Listen")

Careful the things you say
Anthony listens
Careful the things you feel
Anthony hears
And knows
Careful for what you pray
Anthony answers
Anthony looks at you
A stare that could burn
Through layers of wood
Better to simply say
“Ev’rything’s good.”
Anthony listens

Careful the wish he makes
Wishes are deadly
You know the path he takes
Under the corn
The fields
Careful the song you sing
Any old medley
You know what it could bring
The horror it yields
And how we would mourn…

Life here is good and well
This is our Hell
Anthony listens…

Twilight Zone - The Musical Revue

Since I've been using these intros to catch you up on where I am in this process, a few FYIs...

1) No, I've not abandoned The Exorcist as a source for musical material. In fact, there are at least two more songs coming in the next week or so. I'm just finding that certain lyrics are demanding they be committed to the blogosphere sooner than other, and I am ever their humble servant. Today's subject not to your taste? Tomorrow may be something different.

2) Please keep in mind that these songs are barely one or two steps removed from First Draft. They may undergo considerable reworking or rewriting once they're "up on their feet"...

3) ...as I definitely want to see these babies staged. Many of them are conceived with definite blocking or choreography in mind, and they are meant to live on breathe on the cabaret (or larger) stage. I'm pursuing avenues even as you read this, and if you are a possessor of a suitable venue, let's talk.

One recurring theme is going to be representative songs from a proposed Twilight Zone revue, the first being this plaintive entreaty from a towering, tome-toting Kanamit. This of course comes from the classic episode "To Serve Man," springing from the great minds of Damon Knight and Rod Serling...and now, Stephen Sondheim...


(Sung to the tune of "Not While I'm Around")

Nothing’s gonna harm you, not while we’re around
Don’t mean to alarm you humans, panic or confound.
We are a tenderhearted and peaceful race
Why else would we have charted our way through space?

Take our gifts of science, dreams you’d only dare
If you don’t abuse them, use them, they are ours to share
Tho' we seem alien at a glance, take a chance.
And you’ll find
Nothing’s gonna harm you, not while we’re around.

Not to worry, not to worry,
You may not be smart, but you’re not dumb
We can do it, nothing to it,
There is nothing we can’t overcome
Forces joined as one

Kanamits are very clever
But we’re always true
In all we do
We would never hide a thing from you
Like some…

Kanamits and Mankind working now as friends
Partnership that can bind Earth to undiscovered ends
Come, take my hand and let us start, trust your heart,
And you’ll find
Nothing’s gonna harm you, not while we’re around


Needless to say, this song has a reprise:

We are here to farm you, cattle in the field
No more need to charm you, our agenda is revealed
Starships are waiting to convey you in style
No hesitating, step this way, single file

Greater might controls you, you’re in for the worst
And if it consoles you, know that you are not the first
Think of the honor you should feel as a meal
For our kind
This is why we’ll farm you, long as you’re around

PS - There is of course a song that occurs between the two, taking the immortal "It's a cook book!" and playing out that moment with a song that originates from a more obscure show, but it's one of my favorites ("On the Twentieth Century" ) and is a helluva lotta fun. Keep watching -- I'm working hard to get it just right...