Archive for October, 2009

And so it’s come to this: some schools want their students to wear certain types of friendlier Halloween costumes–princesses and food items, for example–in lieu of the scary stuff. No crazed axe-wielders, no monsters with fangs and jagged fingernails, etc. No stuff most children like, the stuff they get to wear only once a year and have it miraculously lead to a bag of candy.

The biggest problem I have with this (aside from the creeping sanitization of childhood) is that it ignores Halloween’s importance as a ritual of reversal. These rituals are a necessary catharsis for both adults and children. Children get to “threaten” adults for candy, adults get to act like children by dressing up, and death is teased/imitated and yes, maybe glorified. Good. Death deserves it–we’ve shut it out too much in modern society. Children are fascinated with death. This doesn’t mean they’re one scary Halloween mask away from becoming murderers. The truly scary stuff–depression, alienation, abuse, etc.–is harder to deal with, so we pick on the hockey mask and plastic machete. How lazy.

I’m putting together a special Throwback Thursdays Halloween special for this weekend. Until then, here’s a trailer for MAGIC, the classic horror movie with Anthony Hopkins, Burgess Meredith, and full-on 70’s aesthetic:

I was expecting more hits but these things happen–you think your pop culture experience will translate across generational borders, and you discover otherwise. I’m referring to my most recent Throwback Thursdays column (found here).

True, the writing isn’t my best, and Swayze isn’t as entertaining as, say, terrible gangster rap lyrics. But Swayze deserves better. Spread the word.

Remember a few months ago, when I was working on that little film treatment? I’ll refresh: an indie producer hired me to adapt an old bestselling novel. I agreed with two conditions–that I be paid in bundled cash, delivered in an old physician’s bag (creased black leather, brass clasps, faint smell of menthol).

The job wasn’t awful and he paid on time, in full, with an antique physician’s bag thrown in. Nice. I figured that was the end. These projects rarely make it past the conceptual stage. But then something unusual happened.

The author of the old bestselling novel–by now an aged lion in the literary world–agreed to throw his weight behind the project. Some A-list producers are supposedly intrigued. Will anything happen? Who knows. But it sure makes for good conversation.

Here’s my favorite email of the past month:

Hey Micah,

How’s school?

Polonius would be proud. Anyway. School is…school-ish. I’m writing less and reading more. I have little time to work on long-standing projects (by now they’ve taken a seat), and time is ticking on that graphic novel deal. As for my workshops, I question the validity of spending over an hour on any of my short stories. I like my writing but let’s be serious. Spend an hour on Maugham. Or Murakami. Not on Nathan. After a while, we’re picking at a corpse.

The good news–and I’ve said this before–is the consistency of criticism. Some workshops have bad readers. Not mine.  I believe every author falls prey to quirks and ticks, and without fresh criticism we are in danger of becoming overly stylized. Why? Because style is easy. Think of it as aesthetic cliche. Stylized writing writes itself, and who the hell wants to read anything that came too easy?

(I’m not saying hard work equals quality writing, nor am I saying that anything easy is necessarily bad. But you get my point. Or you should.)

I cannot get enough of this. Synergy, synergy, synergy: