bITS 'N CHUNKS
Okay fam,
So last week I heavily implied that I would be running these Halloween skreets with a boatload of content and then...not so much. Technically I have been over here at Global Comment (y'all like Halloween countdowns?) but I wanted to get a little more ambitious with my blogging space! Unfortunately, the malady known as D E P R E S S I O N took me down through there and I had to focus my energy on my professional work otherwise I wouldn't be getting shit done. Well, I'm not really better per se but I feel good enough to share the things that I literally wrote months ago in case of just such an emergency, so FINALLY here we go with the writings again. As I said previously, I started a self-imposed flash fiction challenge that went from "flash fiction" to "what can i finish with minimal editing in a day" to "regular short story writing". I wasn't feeling any prompts so I decided to do a play list. I'm really no good at making play lists but I like writing to music, as you may have heard. While I'm getting my other posts together, I'll be sharing a few stories. Most of these will be me clowning on myself, but good or bad the purpose of this challenge for me was just keeping the pen moving/keyboard clacking. And I don't really mind making a spectacle of myself; I mean, come on. That being said, here is my curated play list:
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I don't really remember what my first encounter with body horror was. I know it was a movie. It was more than likely Alien or probably Nightmare on Elm St II. Yeah, I think it was that. Anyways, other than being thoroughly grossed out and creeped right the hell out, I right away appreciated the transformative nature of body horror. Of becoming something greater and bigger than yourself and of course terrible and scary. Do I think body horror is the scariest subgenre? Nah, it's just my preferred one. It couples well with so many things, most notably psychological horror. The feeling of wrongness out of your control to fix it. Being helpless in your own body and in your own head is something I can relate to as someone that frequently goes through suicidal periods thanks to depression. I also frequently draw on my own bodily pain because I'm way too familiar with that. The Fly ('50s with all due respect to Cronenberg) made me want to write sci-fi but Clive Barker made me want to write horror. Weird shit, unpublishable "what the hell?" type material. It wouldn't be fair to say Clive is my favorite author -- I can admit he has his short comings. Sometimes he's a little too out there when he drifts away from the splatterpunk and into dark fantasy. I don't dislike dark fantasy, mind you! I quite enjoy it. Sometimes, though, Clive is trippin'. I remember how emotionally exhausted I was after reading Imajica. The mark of a good author that has gone too damn far. But yeah, my first exposure to Clive was of course Hellraiser. Pinhead was so damn blasphemous and so over the line it wasn't even funny. I wore the first two movies out and I actually like the third and fourth movies too. The creature design and most importantly the storytelling have stayed with me forever. When I found out that it was based off a book, I used the online library search tool to find it and immediately rent it. From there, I read quite a bit more of his work but my favorites are the Books of Blood series and Cabal. Nightbreed!! When I decide to get flippin' weird there's a lot of elements of grotesque body horror in my work to the point where I am kind of scared that I'm a sociopath. I love bodies splitting in half to reveal something that shouldn't be there. I love tears of blood. I love painful horns growing out of the forehead. I love the revelation. Like I said, it's the transformative aspect. Body horror is also often dystopic and sleazy, kind of a left over from my B-movie days. Think Cronenberg. There are forces beyond your control using your body to commit unspeakable acts and when they're done with you they will discard you in the most ugly ways. Look what they've done to you! The history of body horror is neat, too. Arguably it's been around since folklore in the form of shapeshifters like vampires and werewolves. Stories of people dying unclean or the devil using your corpse to spread evil. Even worse if you voluntarily gave up your soul. Body horror exists in nature as well in the form of parasites and fungus and invasive plant species. It's something we've seen and we're familiar with, so when it happens large scale it makes us a little uneasy. I'm reminded of an interview with Dario Argento in which he explains his philosophy towards murder scenes -- he goes for things that the audience is familiar with, like scalding hot water. They say write what you know, right? I can definitely relate to you the experience of someone or something hijacking you consciousness & putting you through some shit. Not too many people know what it feels like to be shot with a bullet but just about all of us have been burned by something. Similarly, not too many of us have borne host to a parasitic alien but a lot of us have been sick, had a mysterious virus, or maybe even experienced a troubled pregnancy.
This is another one of those times where it pays to know people. Please check out Jowin's Bandcamp.
When the visuals for Kids Food started hitting the YouTubes I was really interested in the project. I ended up buying it on iTunes so I could listen to it on my own time. The videos were cool and well done and the whole thing had a neat concept behind it -- it mimics the structure of an anime or, to me, specifically an OVA. OVAs are usually short (although there are OVAs that are basically complete anime series), experimental, and have a definite beginning and definite end. Now whether you agree with that ending is another matter… Anyway, I remember OVAs (along with fansubs and v-kei) being a big part of my Otaku childhood. OVAs were like the director's cut of your favorite animation or bonus features and often the only way to see things truly uncensored and Straight From Japan. They were also rare and kind of costly, and there's nothing us oldtaku love more than something hard to get and costs a bleepton of money. Me and Jowin are around the same age-ish so I don't feel like that speculation is too out there. Now, I wouldn’t pigeonhole Jowin as a geek rapper. Yeah, he references games & the '90s and he has that nerd aesthetic but I feel like those are more attributes more than his defining characteristics. It's like a heads up to say "this dude is one of us". That being said, back to OVA structure and why this EP is pretty much perfect and inspiring. The structure of it is so solid and neat -- the opening track, "Cross 1Ne", sounds exactly like an anime OP (opening theme) and lays out pretty much what this is going to be about. The two middle songs, "There4U" and "Time (Jeff's Dilemma)" function as plot and give us more information about the character (either Jowin himself or a representation of himself, think it's up for interpretation), his fears, insecurities, his lifestyle and changes his making to better himself; it hits an emotional climax and ends on a note of hope and optimism. Then the final track, "Can We", is the ED or ending theme. Ending themes in anime can be cryptic sometimes but they basically wrap up the plot of that episode and sometimes foreshadow the series conclusion. In this case, "Can We" pretty much sums up the plot and carries out that note of optimism while alluding back to "Cross 1Ne" lyrically and melodically. I have been thinking about this a lot as I look over some of my older narratives. I realized I've been dissatisfied with my own structure and the editing process has been frustrating for a while. I started favoring more "experimental" story telling styles a few years ago because that's what I was reading and listening to. I felt like I had to and so I gave myself permission to do it. But to be honest with you I don't know if it's been that good to me. I think that's one of those things you either just do naturally or later in life when you don't give a damn. I love reading an unconventional narrative with an ending, beginning, and a middle but I'm still at that point where nothing is more satisfying to me than a definite beginning, maybe a hazy middle, and an end. I remembered that was the fiction I enjoyed writing. If Jowin presents what is a perfectly structured narrative for me then I've been on some …And Justice for All isht, where I have a general theme but told through unconnected episodes. That's fine too but it just doesn’t work all the time. Seriously, this is ridiculous for an EP that is like…less than 15 minutes. I've spent my whole life trying to achieve that kind of structure in my fiction. Are you kidding me? |
Ia! If you've come this far, you're either looking for weird or you know you've found it... TRESPASSING
September 2018
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