Stephen Frye is a god.

Not The GOD, but a god. Though the more I write these days the more Messianic he may become.
There is this wonderful post on Facebook that has him talking about words and someone has illustrated the speech with the words themselves. They move and punctuate and dance to the rhythms of his language and his emotion, adding even more to his voice and the speech.

Which reminds me of the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh movie. One of my favorite memories is of Tigger climbing down from the tree along the paragraphs and sentences as the book is set sideways for him. Words can be used to support a Tigger, so they must be good, was my thinking. And really, am I wrong? Words are full and wonderful and mailable and can they do anything and everything and nothing, all at the same time.

It is a truly blustery day outside and I am inside reading, and thinking of words, and hoping all the animals in the forest are indoors and safe and reading around the fire and drinking cocoa.

And I am thinking Stephen Frye is a god.

I am a Predator......

I have been watching a lot of the "predator" types of movies lately. Lost Tribe, Predators, Sleepless in Seattle, and it makes me think about the fact that I am a predator.

As Wiki tells us: In ecology, predation describes a biological interaction where a predator (an organism that is hunting) feeds on its prey (the organism that is attacked).

Be it movies, or books or experiences I find I get ravenous. I have been playing a video game all week where I have to shoot alien bunnies. I play til my arm is sore. I watch entire TV seasons in a couple of sittings. I loose sleep over a good (or even not so good book). The prey I feed on is ideas, other people's ideas. And this makes me wonder just what I expect to get from them. this consumption has been such a large part of my life that I wonder what it would be like not to consume, but to instead be the consumed? If I were to allow someone else to absorb part of me. If I were to allow someone else to know me and take on parts of me like I so happily take on parts of other people?

It is very easy to always absorb. We have so much to consume, that we really don't even need to prey on things, they are force upon us, into our spheres of influence.

I guess as I write this, and my inner critic is yelling "This is stoopid, no one wants to hear this drivel. Write something funny and flippant." I realize that this blog may be me poking at the predator out there.

Come and get me...

The Vampire Effect

What is it with bad movies and me lately? What? Have I seen enough good ones so now I am drawn to bad ones? Like I have been Good Sandy for so long that Bad Sandy is finally showing  her cigarette crushing heels. I blame Andy...He got so excited about the terrible movie I brought into the store, The Room, that I got swept up in the excitement.

Ok, unfair. I am the one who at 15 snuck out at 9 at night and drove in the snow 60 miles with my brother to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show at a midnight movie. Wait, earlier than that...

When I was a kid I spent so many hours watching B-movies that my parents thought I had a disease or something and took me to the doctor to find out why I fell asleep in class. I fessed up to getting up and watching late night movies. Anything. Everything. ( I think I may still be grounded because of this.)

Then there is my MST3K addiction. Years spent watching Joel (later Mike) and the Bots blast the movies I had been watching for years. And there was also the time my friends and I went to see Krull and were the only ones in the theatre and we MST3K'd it ourselves. 

The Vampire Effect is my latest guilty pleasure. Thinking Jackie Chan was in it more than he was (though ANY Jackie Chan in a movie is a good thing.) The whole story revolves around vampire hunters, and Anime-esque  girls in cutesy outfits with little puppy dogs and kick-ass skills. It is dubbed, so the language never feels right.

Him: "Thanks for the cake."
Her: "Your coffin is comfortable."

The contrivance to get Jackie Chan involved is weird and disconcerting. It feels like the Rude Mechanicals in the middle of Midsummer Nights Dream, but off by about one Stooge's worth. There is some fun chop and some silly sockey. And the story...well, who the heck knows or cares why the evilest of the vampires are all European, why the girls make grunting noises, where the puppies went, why there is a vampire antidote that tastes like banana???

I mean, you gotta let the art wash over you, right?

What was I talking about?

Oh, no, Life is imitating Art....

My worst fear...

So it is October and I have begun my annual Horror movie marathon.

I am at work so I am watching The Haunting. Lily Taylor, Liam Neeson, Owen Wilson , Catherine Zeta-Jones.

I have also built the Family Friendly Frights wall at work. The Spotlight wall. That way when parents come in looking for movies for their families...I have less work to do.

But I remember sleep overs at Helen's house when I was young., 10 maybe? And we watched The Mummy, The Mummy's Hand, Curse of the Mummy. I remember running upstairs and finding Helen in her bed with a book and the light on, ready for company from 3 freaked out 3rd graders. The next time I remember movies that scared me was when I stayed up all night with my little black and white TV turned on with the volume so low I had to be about a foot from it. I watched Frankenstein, The Wolfman, and Bride of Frankenstein. An amazing and scary triple feature. There was the night my sister and I were in my bedroom watching the TV (same one, I watched for years, small white case, black and white that I got from my Grandma Jake, along with her records and her costume jewelry when she died.) This time we had to hold the rabbit ears to get a signal. The movie was Trilogy of Terror. It may be the scariest movie I have ever seen. I remember my sister kept letting go of the rabbit ears when it got too scary. We both screamed and screamed. My mom was in the front room (in this particular house it was way at the other end of the house and she couldn't hear us). That night my sister and I spent the night in her bed, away from my TV. My sister and I never did that other than on Christmas eve. We didn't get along that well. I wonder if she remembers this?

When I was in high school a bunch of us went to see a revival of The Exorcist. We all held hands and I know that the boys were as freaked out as we were. This was the beginning of my love of religious horror movies. I later read The Omen Books, lights on for nights at a time just so I could sleep in my small bright yellow basement bedroom. When I got around to the movies, my TV was bigger and my boyfriend wouldn't watch them with me because his mom had told him they were anti-Catholic. And being I was a lapsed Catholic, even then, I let it go.

So I am going to watch my horror movies. And enjoy all the ghosts, vampires, zombies, and frights...And remember that that is what gets me through October.

NO idea what to write.

Starting this has taken me a lot longer than I had thought it would.

Seriously, how hard can this be?

But it doesn't hurt that I have this whole "Julie and Julia" vibe going on in my head. And if Amy Adams as a fictionalized version of a real life blogger can do this, then a fictionalized version of Zoe Claire as a blogger can do it....

Maybe I should promise not to use tons of ellipses....or parenthesis ( ).

Maybe I should only talk about movies, my love.  Cinema Claire
Or my cats, my masters. Squeeky Speaks, Elvis is Alive
Maybe I should talk about this stoopid idea I have to date again. Dating Again, Really?
Or what being a condo owner is like. Glorified Apartment Ownership

I could name the blog...Mental Pause and talk about hormones.

I think I will call it Running Down Hill, Mostly because it feels exhilarating and terrifying and because it is full of momentum and skinned knees.

Ok, here I go.