Radio Ghost Stories

It was a really quiet day at work and by the end of the day it was almost completely empty. I got home at around six and listened to a reading of the story "Rats" by M. R. James on the radio. In this story a man is staying at a remote hotel and decides to investigate the other rooms, only to make a gruesome discovery.

It's the weekend now so that's one good thing. It's felt like a really long week.

Shadows

Last night I saw the 1959 film Shadows, directed by John Cassavetes. The film concerns three African-American siblings: Ben (Ben Carruthers), Leila (Leila Goldoni) and Hugh (Hugh Hurd) who live in New York City. Hugh is a talented jazz musician who is constantly frustrated by the fact that he has to earn money playing show tunes in sleazy bars and introducing strippers, Ben wants to be a cool, hipster writer but spends most of his time drinking and hanging out with his friends, while Leila is involved in a troubled inter-racial relationship. The film is one of the most influential films of the American independent cinema. Cassavetes started out as an actor, and is probably best known as Mia Farrow's husband in Rosemary's Baby. He wanted to play real characters dealing with real situations and was unhappy with what was on offer in Hollywood movies. However, Cassavetes realised that if no-one else was making the movies he wanted to be involved in then he would have to do it himself. Cassavetes ran an acting school and company who he used as actors for his film, which he raised the $40,000 budget for partly by issuing appeals to the public for donations on national radio. Shadows was made first in 1957 and was completely improvised by the cast, but was apparently so bad that few people sat through the whole thing, and so Cassavetes remade it in 1959 with the same cast and using a lot of footage from the original, but it was technically more proficient and was largely scripted (depsite a title at the end claiming the film was an improvisation). The film has a very loose plot and it is funny, interesting and spontaneous. The soundtrack features famous jazz musician Charles Mingus.

It was another very ordinary and dull day at work. When I got home I microwaved some lamb rogan josh for dinner and listened to a reading of "The Haunted Doll's House" by M.R. James in which a man buys a valuable antique doll's house at a surprisingly low price. Late that night however, he discovers that the doll's house has a disturbing and gruesome secret.

Empire and Inception

Last night I was reading a short story by Philip K. Dick called "If There Were No Benny Cemoli" in which an interplanetary law enforcement agency arrive on Earth in order to apprehend the people responsible for a devestating nuclear war, only to find that Earth's Government has stayed in power by fighting an endless campaign against an invented enemy. According to Dick, the story came about from his idea that at least half of the famous people in history never existed.

I finished writing a science-fiction story called "Shutdown" and started writing another one called "Hell Night".

It was another very average day at work. My friend Chris in the office lent me a CD of The Very Best of John Lee Hooker. On my way home a sudden gust of wind blew my hat off my head, but I managed to get it before it went very far. I bought the latest issue of Empire magazine. The main story this month was about the movie Inception and there was also a big article about the career of Alfred Hitchcock. When I got home I saw that my Film Festival tickets had arrived, so that is really good.

I had some microwave jambalaya for my dinner, which was really nice. While I was eating I listened to a reading of "A School Story" by M.R. James on the radio, in which two men are discussing traditions of ghost stories in schools and one of them relates a story from his own school days in which a Latin teacher with a dark past is hounded by a vengeful ghost.

Ghostwatch

Last night I was watching a documentary on TV called Ghosts in the Machine, which was about the depiction of ghosts and the supernatural on British TV. It was only an hour and so it was pretty condensed but it was really interesting. One of the things that it featured was this thing called Ghostwatch, which remains one of the most complained about shows ever on British TV. It purported to be a documentary about an investigation into a haunted suburban house, interspersed with segments in a studio where the presenters discussed the events in the house with experts and there was a hotline number for people to discuss their own supernatural experiences. Of course, by the end the ghost dramatically manifests itself. Ghostwatch was an entirely scripted drama, not a documentary that was made as a Halloween special in 1992. Of course, this was long before The Blair Witch Project and the whole fake documentary thing was pretty much unknown, and also it used well-known TV presenters playing themselves, and so a lot of people genuinely believed it was real and were absolutely terrified. To this date it has never been repeated. I watched it and I think it was the last scary thing that I have seen on TV or movies that genuinely frightened me, because at the time I didn't know what they were doing and I was kind of taken in by it. I can still remember it vividly after all this time.

I also started a new short story which is completely unrelated to the NaNoWriMo background that I've been working on. This one is about a small town fair which receives some sinister visitors. I'm hoping that when it's finished it will be kind of scary.

Today was pretty much the same as usual at work. Every day I just feel so relieved to get back home.

Summer Cold

Last night was really quiet. I spent more time reading and listened to the first part of a three part reading of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving on the radio. It's a very famous story about a teacher who is pursued by a Headless Horseman. It was made into a film called Sleepy Hollow by Tim Burton.

I was back at work today, and it was pretty quiet, as usual. I've got a cold at the moment. I seem to get one every summer. Hopefully it will pass soon.

The Five Doctors

Yesterday afternoon I was watching the Doctor Who story "The Five Doctors", which was first broadcast in 1983 as a 90 minute TV movie to celebrate the show's 20th anniversary. In the story, a mysterious figure is taking the Doctor's past incarnations out of time and space and taking them to a dangerous area of the Doctor's home planet, Gallifrey, known as the "Death Zone", which is dominated by a giant tower. The five Doctors, helped by a selection of their old companions, and hindered by a selection of old enemies, including a Dalek, the Cybermen and the Master, need to find their way to the tower to discover who brought them there and why. It is a fun episode, actually, although it does occasionally get bogged down by the need to include as many references and characters from past Doctor Who stories as possible. I remember seeing it when it was first broadcast.

In the evening I watched the Doctor Who story "The Curse of Fenric" which was first broadcast in 1989. In the story, the Seventh Doctor (played by Sylvester McCoy) and his companion Ace (Sophie Aldred) arrive at a top secret Naval Base in England during the Second World War, where a new type of computing machine is being developed to decode enemy ciphers. However, a squad of soldiers plan to steal the device, but the Doctor is far more interested in the local legends of an ancient Viking curse in the surrounding ocean. It is one of my favourite Doctor Who stories, and I remember seeing it when it was first broadcast. It is one of the darker and most complex stories, dealing with some fairly big themes, alongside Norse mythology, aliens and vampires.

I was also working on the ghost story that I started through the week. It's not really very scary, though. It's about someone who is researching a book on local myths and legends who goes to a small town, which he soon discovers is completely dominated by a powerful supernatual force.

Today I went along to my parent's house for lunch, which was tacos today, and the latest issue of Sight and Sound magazine had arrived, which this month featured fifty film critics choices of the best film of 2008.