Scaring the bejeezus out of Kalm

More on Peter Kalm and his travels through North America:

October 22, 749.  Here, Peter and some companions (French guides who he had never met before) were traveling through the wilds of Northern New York, returning from a trip to the French colony of Canada and on his way back to Philadelphia.  The weather was extremely unhelpful, delaying the waterborne portion of his trip for days.  I imagine sitting around in the same uninhabited area for days at a time, while the days are getting shorter and colder, among people who you are barely acquainted with and knowing that there remains a long way to go to the next settlement would begin to wear on anyone’s nerves.

Tales of Horror. During the evenings my companions were busy telling one another how they had gone forth in the last  war to attack the English; how they had had Indians among and how they had beaten to death the enemy and scalped him.  They also told how the natives often scalped the enemy while he was still alive; how they did the same thing with prisoners who were too weak to follow them, and of other gruesome deeds which it was horrible for me to listen to in these wildernesses, where the forests were now full of Indians who to-day might be at peace with one another and to-morrow at war, killing and beating to death whomsoever they could steal upon.  A little while ago there was a crackling sound in the woods just as if something had walked or approached slowly in order to steal upon us.  Almost everyone arose to see what was the matter, but we heard nothing more.  It was said that we had just been talking about scalping and that we could suffer the same fate before we were aware of it.  The long autumn nights are rather terrifying in these vast wildernesses.  May God be with us!

I can almost picture Kalm sitting around the fire with his compatriots, scribbling away furiously in his notes and trying like hell not to hear the stories about ambushes in the middle of the night and scalping the unsuspecting.  I’m guessing he didn’t sleep that well that night.

Kalm’s ghost story

This continues my occasional writing about Peter Kalm’s (the 18th century Swedish botanist, naturalist and blogger*) travels in the American colonies between 1748-1750.  Given we’re fast approaching the Halloween season, I thought it appropriate to bring the one instance (so far) of Kalm’s reporting on the supernatural in his wonderful book.

The following is an excerpt he made from some newspaper archives he reviewed while in Philadelphia during the winter of 1749.

A Curious Phenomenon.  The American Weekly Mercury N. 122, Newport, Phode Island, March 30, 1722.  There has lately a surprising appearance been seen at Narraganset, which is the occasion of much discourse here, and is variously represented; but for the substance of it, it is a matter of fact beyond dispute, it having been seen by abundance of people, and one night about 20 persons at the same time, who came together for that purpose.  The truth, as near as we can gather from the relations of several persons, is as follows.  This last winter there was a woman died at Narraganset of the small pox, and since she was buried, there has appeared, upon her grave chiefly, and in various other places, a bright light as the appearance of fire.  This appearance commonly begins about 9 or 10 of the clock at night, and sometimes as soon as it was dark.  It appears variously as to time, place, shape and magnitude, but commonly on or about the grave, and sometimes about and upon the barn and trees adjacent; sometimes in several parts, but commonly in one entire body.  The first appearance is commonly small, bbut increases to a great bigness and brightness, so that in a dark night they can see the grass and bark of the trees very plainly; and when it is at the height, they can see sparks fly from the appearance like sparks of fire, and the lieness of a person in the midst wrapt in a sheet with its arms folded.  This appearance moves with incredible swiftness, sometimes the distance of a half a mile from one place to another in the twinkling of an eye.  It commonly appears every night, and continues till break of day.  A woman in that neighbourhood says she has seen it every night for these six weeks past.

*I say Kalm was a blogger only slightly tongue in cheek.  It seems to be a stylistic method of writing (in days long past) that incorporates many of the same techniques that now are regarded as a model for good blog writing.  I’m also thinking of the letters of the younger Pliny and some of the works of Machiavelli in this category but I’m sure there are scads of such works.

If I’m correct, I wonder if this might lead to a resurgence of interest in the style of writing and therefore and increase in reading such works.  Gee, that would be great.

For those dark and stormy nights…

Well, autumn is fast approaching and you need some good horror literature to get you reved up for Halloween.  Don’t wait for the last minute or you’ll find the moment has passed you by and you’ll be accosted by Christmas carols before the first frost hits.

So, I humbly recommend (again) the podcast Underwood and Flinch from Mike Bennett.  In fact, I’d recommend just about anything Mike’s done.  He’s a good writer, but he’s an amazing storyteller.  He has that all too rare combination of abilities:  writing and acting talent.  He does all the voices in some very character heavy stories and you will get addicted to his work.

Underwood and Flinch is a vampire novel he’s written and bringing to audio format.  There are 16 episodes in the hopper which should keep anyone occupied for a decent amount of time but if you find yourself craving more you can check out his short story audio collection Hall of Mirrors.

It is a shame he is not signed with some media outlet (traditional publishing would be a waste of his voice talents) so check him out and if you dig him send a couple of bucks his way.

So Twilight hasn’t ruined vampires…

This weekend I finally got around to watching ‘Let the Right One In‘, a Swedish movie on the Vampire theme.  I have to admit, I’ve grown quite jaded about vampire literature over the past few years.  It just seems that there hasn’t been much in the way of originality out there.  Once Anne Rice overturned the Bela Lugosi stereotype with the first couple books of the vampire chronicles (of which I can really only claim to be a fan of the first two, Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat), it seemed like everyone just decided to spend the next twenty years just riffing off of her ideas (even her).  So, we had vampires taking normal occupations, struggling with the ethical dilemma of whether or not to kill humans, and, of course, the vampire as the angst ridden teenager.

And really, the only thing more boring than a teenager is a vampire teenager.

Which is why I thought it was quite clever that that the vampire in this movie is a twelve year old girl (comfortably avoiding hitting that age where her obsession with the Jonas Brothers might interfere with communing with the children of the night).

Here’s the trailer…

So, while it was getting quite difficult to get interested about any vampire themed project lately (oh, wait…don’t tell me.  This time the vampire is a psychiatrist?  Trains poodles in his spare time?  Makes funny balloon animals for his victims?) I have to admit this one is quite good.  It’s got creepy atmosphere (in part because of the story and in part because of the pacing and style of the film which is quite different from an American film), subtle yet effective special effects, and raises some interesting questions to the vampire legend (I really enjoyed how they worked with the theme of vampires having to be invited into a house before entering).  Blood and gore was used intelligently and within the context of the plot, neatly and very ably avoiding the cheap torture porn so much in vogue today.  Its sparsity makes its use all the more effective.

It also addresses one of the weaker parts of Anne Rice’s book, what happens, practically, to vampires created in the form of a child?  How do they get on?

It does however seem to categorize all Swedes as either drunks, bullies, or vampires which I found very amusing but my better half took slight umbrage at.

It is subtitled, which I know turns some people off but, if you’re even slightly interested in the horror genre generally or vampires specifically you should watch this.  There is talk of an American remake, due out in 2010 but they’ll be using the original novel for source material instead of the screenplay so it may turn out very different from this version.  I am a bit concerned about it getting the Hollywood treatment (age the girl to 18 so they can tart her up a bit and avoid those pesky inferences that kids under 18 actually may have sex, lots more blood, shotguns that shoot wooden stakes, etc. etc.) but will remain optimistic.

Update: I received this comment from ‘Ann’ on my ‘about’ page in reference to this post.

“i red your post on the movies about vampires, and i have a question, can female vampires have babies? (in underword 2, it showed that they can, but i do not think i have read about it anywhere else)”

Well, I’m going to assume she’s talking about the vampire legend here.  As far as I understand most of the literature of vampires, their ‘undead’ status would preclude virtually all biological functions, including procreation.  The one exception would be the need to feed, but even then it’s only blood.  Rice’s work touched on this and in her vampire world, it came to be a cultural taboo among the vampires not to create children vampires because they would have too much trouble getting by.  I assume a pregnant women turned into a vampire could pass that condition along to her fetus but, of course, the undead fetus would remain in that stage of development for eternity and becoming a totally different genre of horror, not to mention a major pain in the neck in terms of care and feeding.

Finally…a day off!

My slacker nature was really pushed to the limit lately.  There should be some sort of law mandating a 14 hour work week for slackers but until then I’m the victim of this exploitive system.  Just like this guy…

But, all this work has allowed me to check out some podcasts on my way to and from work and here are two I give virtual thumbs up to.

Let’s face it, a lot of stuff generated by us on the web is crap.  In fact, for some ‘glass is half empty‘ types it makes them think that the whole experiment is leading to the downfall of Western civilization.  Well, I think that is crap (so there!).  Of course most of what is produced is crap, that makes us appreciate the really good stuff.   If we listened to this sort of nonsense we’d miss out on those gems that might not ever see the light of day if we had to rely on the dinosaurs of publishing and recording acquisition and distribution.  So, with no further ado I give you…

Hall of Mirrors – Tales of Horror and the Grotesque  – Mike Bennett writes and narrates this creepy tales in a Twilight Zone/Night Gallery style.  The stories (at least the ones I’ve read so far) aren’t the sort of horror in vogue today in the theaters (that torture porn garbage) but rather more subtle and much more interesting.  The podcast also benefits from the fact that Bennett has a superb voice and is simply brilliant in giving voices to his many characters.  These are definitely ones that will stay in my collection to be replayed every fall as Halloween approaches.

12 Byzantine Rulers – Lars Brownworth has put together an impressive and fascinating history of the Byzantine empire by profiling 12 of its most important rulers.  He’s got a brilliant, clear style and are so good I feel a bit guilty not paying for them.  Even if you aren’t a history buff, check these out (they’re in relatively small bits – less than 30 minutes each) and use the knowledge you gain to bluff your way into a tenured professorship at your local university.

Meet Robert Neville

I went to see I Am Legend last night and thought it was a pretty good action flick. Without Will Smith, however, it would have been a ’so-so’ movie at best. He’s one of those actors that can make you ignore plot and scripting shortfalls.

The movie differs significantly from the book. So different, in fact, that you can’t really discuss which version was ‘better’. The book had a darker, more complex ending for sure (although the movie doesn’t exactly end with a ‘happily ever after’ either) but the special effects in the movie are pretty powerful and a even a mildly active imagination will force you to enjoy the post apocalyptic mayhem of the film.

The evil doers of the film were pretty two dimensional but gave a few small hints at being more interesting.  Either there were some scenes left on the cutting room floor (wait for the DVD!) or, when combined with the ending, it may have been a set up for a sequel (which I do not think would be particularly good).

The original film, with Vincent Price, was closer to the book (you can watch it here) but it has it’s own faults and, in my opinion, the movie has difficulty in capturing the despair Neville feels in the book or the sense of how empty the world is in the story.  I watched it again recently but it didn’t do much for me.

Another movie called Cloverfield will be kickin’ the crap out of NYC soon. I don’t have high hopes for this one.  It looks like the Blair Witch Project meets Godzilla where a bunch of clueless 20-somethings decide to film a huge monsters assault on the city.  The movie obviously intends on making a lot of mileage out of the fact that they have the monster decapitate the Statue of Liberty.  That’s fine with me but if you have to reference that gimmick three or more times in a two minute trailer I’m guessing you don’t have much else to show.

Horror movies and intelligence analysis

A little while ago I sang the praises of the John Carpenter movie, The Thing. After thinking about the movie a bit and checking out an unofficial fan site (which made me realize that I’m not nowhere near the ‘big leagues’ of fandom like I thought I was) it occurred to me that the movie could serve as an excellent vehicle for teaching many of the principles of intelligence analysis. The traditional way analysis is taught (at least as I’ve seen it in military and law enforcement circles) is to give a block of instruction and then give a highly scripted practical exercise that gives participants little opportunity to make mistakes or any encouragement do anything other than regurgitation. Also, usually blocks of instruction are taught as self contained units with few examples of how different techniques can support each other and not even much discussion of how these isolated skills fit into a coherent, systematic strategy of analysis.

Most teaching is also heavily focused on skills (which is pretty easy to demonstrate competence in) and very light on critical thinking (hard to teach/demonstrate/evaluate) and production (which is time consuming and varies considerably between agencies).

I’ve often thought that training would be more effective if it revolved around a scenario and skills could be taught around the flow of an analytical process. If done properly, this would enable analysts to see how various skills fit into the bigger picture as well as demonstrating the need for critical thinking skills throughout the process. Of course, for a scenario to be effective it would need to be rich enough to allow analysts to take different paths and end up with different results. This can be really difficult to do in scenarios with a law enforcement or military focus because participants bring their knowledge and biases to the scenario which can tempt them to take shortcuts that circumvent the skills and processes you want them to learn. It’s very difficult to counter without making the scenario large, unwieldy and very difficult to create.

I’ve thought about using a historical event as the basis of a scenario but there are some difficulties with that as well. You can’t use something too well known (like 9/11) or people who know the outcome of the event will make their analysis fit the end result. In any case, if you do use a real event you’ll have to create a host of additional information to put around it so everything you hand the trainees doesn’t have a huge (virtual) neon light on it that screams “This is relevant to your scenario! Make sure you include it!” Some information should be relevant, some irrelevant and some intentionally misleading.

The movie would lend itself well to acting as a training scenario because it has the following characteristics:

• Multiple characters (12 humans and at least one ‘thing’)
• The movie does not provide a ‘god’s eye view’ of the situation so there is information hidden from viewers
• Ambiguous ending (so it doesn’t matter if trainees have already seen the movie)
• Extended time line (with breaks of unknown duration where activity is only hinted at)
• The subject matter is such that previous knowledge isn’t going to be of much help

In a 109 minutes therefore, you can have a complete scenario set up. At a minimum, the sorts of things you can teach from a scenario like this are:

• Analysis of Competing Hypothesis
• Link Analysis
• Event Flow Analysis
• Presentation

For those who haven’t seen the movie before I think there’s a natural break just before the blood test scene where the movie could be stopped and analysts could be asked to present their description of what’s gone on thus far as well as their assessment of who has been ‘infected’ by the thing.

The movie presents great opportunities for trainees to present the evidence for their hypothesis and argue their cases with others.

I don’t imagine we’ll be seeing any training like this though. I can almost picture the response such a proposal would get…

“Great, training for intelligence analysts! Just what we need. Wait…you want to show a movie? A horror movie? Uh, we’ll get back to you on that. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

That’s the ironic part. For a job that requires imagination, thinking from different perspectives and benefits from collaboration, training for such positions (when it occurs at all) remains stuck in the old lecture format with minimal interaction with instructors or classmates.

Jon Carpenter is a god!

 I didn’t say a nice one though…

Halloween is coming so it’s time to break out the John Carpenter movies (although it’s always a good time for John Carpenter movies).

Last night I watched The Thing with my wife and cousins (Who are almost 30 and have never seen it! What the hell are they teaching in schools these days? How can a great piece of American culture not be included in the curriculum?)

The more I watch that movie, the better it gets. Now, the monster is really secondary to the physiological tension of who can and can’t be trusted. And the ending is simply great. Is McReady or Childs infected?

So..if you haven’t seen it lately (or…gasp…at all) go out and rent the danged thing. It’s amazing how well it’s held up considering it was made 25 years ago. I don’t think a remake would really improve it at all.

If you’re a total geek like me, do what I’m going to do and read this guy’s 136 page ebook about the movie!