Night Fears

2 Comments

Have you ever had one of those dreams?  The kind where your subconscious turns on you brutally?  I’ve often said I’m my own worst critic but this one took it to a whole new level.  In real life I’m working on novel number eight.  One through seven haven’t been published (and at least two don’t deserve to be).  I’ve kind of been thinking that this one might see the light of day.  I finished a very rough draft about a couple months ago and I’ve been working on revisions since.  Meanwhile I keep reading novels and seeing how well they flow compared to my story.  That must’ve been on my mind because in my dream I was in a room with five or six publishing moguls.  In the way of dreams it seems that perhaps an agent had arranged this.  I was in the room with them and when they finished, each took their turn telling me how awful it was.  Their critique was brutal.  So bad I couldn’t get back to sleep.  I found tears on my cheek.

Of course, my writing time is early morning.  Work is uncompromising.  So I had to get up and work on what my subconscious had just told me was, in the words of Paul, skubalon.  (Look up the commentaries on Philippians 3.8, if you dare.)  Like any writer, I have my doubts about my own work.  This particular novel I’ve been working on, off and on, for almost three decades.  It’s an idea I can’t let go.  Just a couple months back I was proud of myself for finally finishing a draft of it, and this morning I’m tempted to delete all the files.  Why does one’s subconscious do this to a person?  My very first attempt at a novel, as a teen, was torn up by my own hands.

The other dream that has been recurring, in various forms, is where I’ve been hired back by Nashotah House.  I taught there for a decade and a half, and I wasn’t very happy toward the end, but I did my job well.  In real life I wouldn’t go back, but in my dreams I’m always overjoyed.  I wake up happy and optimistic.  Some version of that dream comes to me at least once a year, I suppose.  Sometimes several times.  Dreams are mysterious.  They’re telling us something, but they’re coy about exactly what.  That’s what made last night’s dream so bad.  There was no ambiguity.  This was pure, unadulterated self doubt in the room with me and it gave me no quarter.  I got up and continued work on the revisions anyway.  Who’s afraid of omens?

Good Hearts

Leave a comment

If you’re looking for more religion-based horror, you might try the 1987 film Angel Heart.  As I’m discovering quite a bit lately, I could’ve used this one in Holy Horror as well.  The religious elements are pretty hard to miss, beginning with the protagonist’s name, Harold Angel.  (Hark the, any one?)  A private detective, Angel is hired to find a missing person for a Louis Cyphre.  His search takes him from New York (where a guy keeps a pistol in a Bible (there’s maybe an entire book in this trope), down to New Orleans.  First he meets Cyphre in the back room of a black church but soon he starts getting chased out when he starts to uncover any clues.  Time to head to the Big Easy.

In New Orleans he finds all kinds of occult practices taking place.  And the folks are none-too-friendly when he starts making mention of the guy he’s after.  He ends up witnessing a voodoo ritual and complains about the bad religion he encounters.  The big reveal indicates that there’s been a case of mistaken identity.  Louis Cyphre (Lucifer) has actually been setting an elaborate trap all along.  The portrayal of the Devil as a sophisticated gentleman isn’t new, of course.  There is a scene where Angel and the Devil are in a church and Angel, being a detective, uses inappropriate language.  Lucifer (not yet revealed as such) has to remind him a couple of times to watch his tongue while in a sacred place.  Satan is more pious than Angel.

The movie has multiple issues, but it has become a cult film over the years.  Like many others that I’ve discussed on this blog, the entire plot draws its horror from religion.  Angel has a difficult time with the non-Christian worship he witnesses.  But really, it is the Christian Devil that’s the antagonist here.  Quite often in movies like this, fear of other religions is based on the supposition that Christianity is correct.  That’s been a broad American trait for centuries, and it gives horror room to run.  The idea of a generic Christianity (which is probably what most Christians hold to) overlooks the doctrinal differences, often quite significant, between denominations.  This particular avenue isn’t much pursued in horror films, at least in my experience.  Interestingly, like Cat People (1982), it places this religion-based horror in New Orleans.  There’s plenty to explore in that connection as well.  Angel Heart is not a great movie, but it can lead in some interesting directions; a holy sequel may be necessary.

Step Far

Leave a comment

It made a bit of a splash when it came out, Longlegs did.  It took a while to get to a streaming service I can access, but I can say that it’s a movie with considerable thought behind it.  And religion through and through it.  I would’ve been able to have used it in Holy Horror, and it is one of the very few movies where a character corrects another, saying “Revelations” is singular, not plural.  Somebody did their homework.  Although the plot revolves around Satanism, you won’t be spoon-fed anything.  The connection’s not entirely clear, but it does seem to involve some form of possession.  The plot involves ESP and a literal deal with the Devil.  Things start off with a future FBI agent encountering Longlegs just before her ninth birthday.

As an adult, she’s forgotten the childhood encounter but a set of murders with a similar MO indicates that a serial killer, called Longlegs, is on the loose.  The murders are all inside jobs, and it turns out that a doll with some kind of possessing ability is responsible for inspiring fathers to murder their families.  No details of the connection between the dolls, Satan, and the reason for the killings ever emerges.  The movie unnerves by its consistent mood of threat and menace.  Satan, the guy “downstairs,” appears more properly to be chaos rather than a kind of literal Devil.  Satanic symbols are used and there are plenty of triple sixes throughout.  The Bible has a role in breaking the killer’s code, but talk of prayer and protection also find their way in the dialogue.  Longlegs uses a ruse of a church to get the dolls into his victims’ houses.

I’ll need to see it again to try to piece more of the story together, but Longlegs is another example of religion-based horror tout court.  Serial killers are scary enough on their own, but when their motivation is religious they become even more so.  Nicholas Cage plays Longlegs in a convincingly disturbing way, but there’s definitely some diegetic supernatural goings on here.  The art-house trappings make the plot a little difficult to follow, particularly early on.  Religion, however, shines through clearly.  The FBI agent, although psychic, has ceased believing in religion while trusting the supernatural.  Even as the credits rolled I had the feeling that I’d missed some important clues.  And those clues would be important, particularly if I ever do decide to write a follow-up to Holy Horror.

Thinking of Home

Leave a comment

The earth, and even life on it, will, I’m confident, outlive our petty desires for money and being the king of the hill.  Scientists are getting tantalizingly close to demonstrating something that many of us already know—life exists elsewhere.  Chemical signatures of life appear as close as Venus and as far as K2-18b.  I suspect our universe is full of life.  And life is more than just rationality.  We’re creatures driven to survive and that level of will appears to be universal.  As Ian Malcolm says, “Life will find a way,” or something similar.  Earth Day should be a celebration but under too many Republican presidents it has become a plea to please stop intentionally harming our planet.  I grew up in that distorted religion known as Fundamentalism.  I learned that the destruction of the world was necessary to force God’s hand with the second coming.  The planet was here to exploit and waste since he’ll be back any day now.

Unlike many of my cohort, I decided to learn more about that perspective.  The more I learned the more shocked I became.  A warped and twisted message had been passed along as Gospel truth, and that the care the creator bestowed upon creation was merely a smokescreen to hide Jesus’ return.  I still believe we are not capable of completely destroying the planet.  Life will continue with or without us.  Life is persistent and hopeful.  That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take care of it.  Earth Day has become a rallying point for those who see the world sensibly.  We have so much wonderful life on this planet.  In our arrogance and in our tendency to take mythology literally, we have assumed the worst.  Why not take care of what we were given?  Jesus may not come back, but perhaps the Lorax will.

There are ways to live sustainably on this planet.  It does mean that some of the richest will need to surrender some of their wealth and power.  We need to learn the habits of requiring less and appreciating more what we have.  Like most people born into the world in this era, I struggle against the desire for new things.  Novelty is natural to such curious creatures as ourselves.  But there are other such curious creatures too.  They have a place here, even as those which seem to have no curiosity do.  It’s a planet big enough for all of us.  We just need to be sensible about it.  And remember the earth today and be thankful for our home every day.

Image credit: NASA/ISS Expedition 28, public domain from Wikimedia Commons

Unusual Autopsy

Leave a comment

I avoided The Autopsy of Jane Doe for some time because, well, autopsy movies just aren’t my thing.  Besides, I thought it might be a “true crime” sort of movie and those aren’t my favs either.  That didn’t stop the recommendations, so I gave in.  I’m glad I did.  It’s a cut above a lot of what’s out there, and although it does rely on a few more jump-scares than I like, it isn’t all about them.  And it turns out that it’s Holy Sequel material.  Here’s how the story goes: a father and son mortician team, who have the morgue in their basement, specialize in determining cause of death for the local sheriff.  When four bodies are found in one house and none of it makes sense, the sheriff brings the most suspicious body, Jane Doe, to the morticians for their assessment.  Externally the body has no marks, so what killed her?

The majority of the movie is the attempt to solve this mystery.  The father and son find impossible things—evidence that the woman had been tortured, but there were markings on internal organs without any damage to the skin.  They soon determine this is bad juju and when lights begin shattering and corpses get up and walk around they know they were right.  They’re trapped, however, in their basement.  It’s clear that this Jane Doe isn’t quite through with them.  I’ll try not to spoil the ending here, but I did mention that the Bible comes into it.  How so?  Well, it turns out that one of the impossible things in the body is a charm that has Leviticus 20.27 written on it (the passage about not allowing witches to live).  And although it invokes Salem, it does so in a way that suggests the witch hunters were to blame.

This movie was actually out before Holy Horror was finished, but as I point out in that book, there is no website or repository listing horror films that use the Bible.  To write a book like that, you have to do a lot of watching.  I love watching movies, but it takes both time and money, items in constant short supply in my life.  When I do watch, I try to make connections.  It would also be interesting to write a book on how Salem is portrayed in horror movies.  What with the work-a-day world in which I live, I’m not sure how many more books I can crank out.  Especially when they don’t sell.  The important thing is not to let the title of a movie put you off, for autopsies can reveal much.

Seeing the Forster

Leave a comment

The thing about exploring dark academia is that its recognition is fairly new.  It seems that the “concept” emerged only ten years ago and the longer that it’s around the more sources it gathers, like a dust bunny growing under the bed.  I’ve never read E. M. Forster before, although I’ve seen movies based on his novels.  He was an interesting chap, trying out sci-fi (or at least dystopian fiction) as well as his literary novels.  Maurice was not published during his life because it explored homosexuality.  Forster was gay when it was technically illegal, and this novel reveals much of the struggle faced by homosexuals during the early decades of the twentieth century.  The novel has been cited as an example of dark academia, I suspect because much of the early part takes place in Cambridge.  Although it has a happy ending it’s not an easy novel to read.

Quite apart from the hideous paranoia of society at the time towards any kind of homosexuality, Forster’s style was, for me, difficult to decipher.  I know this is my issue, and not his.  His use of British expressions underscored for me how difficult it is to understand idiom in another culture.  At more than one place I was unsure what the speaker meant because the British slang used was so different from what I encountered living in the UK in the early nineties.  Not that the story is difficult to follow.  It is movingly written, demonstrating the torment of those who realized their orientation as they faced in an intolerant society.  Maurice even tries to “cure” his homosexuality, but efforts fail.  There is a darkness here, appropriate for dark academia.

Forster died in 1970, just when homosexuality was beginning to be understood not as a sickness, but a disposition.  It’s not a choice, and as the animal kingdom tells us, it’s certainly not limited to human beings.  The novel makes note of the fact that Greece, the origin of much of western culture, approved and promoted homosexual relationships.  Maurice is told that he could move to France of Italy where such relationships were not illegal.  There’s no question that the societal stance toward homosexuality was based on particular understandings of biblical texts, some now thoroughly discredited by biblical scholars (Sodom was not destroyed for homosexuality as biblical intertexts clearly show).  Generations of people, including Forster, were put through lives of torment in order to keep a prejudice alive.  Academia may be dark indeed.

A Christmas Parable

2 Comments

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Donald Trump that all the world should be taxed.  2 (And this taxing was first made when American troops were pulled from Syria.)  3 And all were to be taxed, every one to help build a wall.

4 And Joseph had just bought a house in Nazareth, but had to go into the IRS office, unto the city of record, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the county of Northhampton:)  5 To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child but no insurance.  6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered at St. Luke’s. 7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him under a bridge; because there was no housing for them in Bethlehem.

8 And there were in the same country soldiers abiding in their bases, keeping watch over their radar by night.  9 And, lo, drones appeared before them, and the glory of aliens shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.  10 And the ETI said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  11 For unto you is born this day in the city of Bethlehem a Democrat, which is the Prince of Peace.  12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying under a bridge in Bethlehem. 13 And suddenly there was with the UFO a multitude of the heavenly host praising democracy, and saying,  14 Glory to the American ideal in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward women and men.

15 And it came to pass, as the drones were gone away from them into heaven, the soldiers said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the ETI hath made known unto us.  16 And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying under a bridge.  17 And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.  18 And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the soldiers.  19 But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.

20 And the soldiers returned, glorifying and praising democracy for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.

Image credit: The Harmsworth Monthly Pictorial Magazine, Volume 1 1898-9; public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Yes, Yes

Leave a comment

You had to’ve seen this coming.  Ouija: Origin of Evil, with a different director and writer, and the same producer, pulled off the better prequel/sequel.  I don’t give that accolade lightly.  Now, I’m not a professional film critic, and I like to say nice things whenever possible, but even sequels/prequels that professional critics do say are better often find me in disagreement.  In this case I stand with them.  And I have some ideas, apart from natural talent, why it is so in this case.  The problem with ouija, and spirit boards, is that you have no way of knowing who or what may be answering your questions.  In the first movie we just know it’s someone with bad intent, and we need to wait until all the twists are finished to find out who.  The second begins with the premise that we already know who, but we want to know why and how.

But it goes deeper than that.  The first movie left religion out completely.  The prequel scoops it back in by the shovelful.  And if you want to make a movie about ouija work, you need to have demons.  To begin with, the family previously in the house is Catholic.  The kids go to Catholic school.  The headmaster is a priest who wants to help the family.  He quotes the Bible (Holy Sequel, anyone?)  He recognizes that the entity isn’t who it says it is.  Although showing demons is always a bit of a dicey proposition, the prequel opts for the preferred look from the period, and show them only dimly.  It still has to work with the world built by the original, which leads to a strange backstory of a Nazi in the basement operating on homeless people, but you have to work with what you’re given.

So the second movie is scarier and better made.  It didn’t earn as much as the first one did, though.  The idea hadn’t, I don’t think, been tapped out.  Rather, I think once you’ve laid out the premise, viewers have to be enticed back.  If a subject is mishandled, it does require extra work to convince viewers that the next experience will be better.  The critics, however, immediately saw the difference.  You really don’t have to know the story behind Ouija to see this movie, but it definitely helps.  It earned enough that unofficial sequels were released before the official prequel.  One of them only by a matter of days.  It pays to get it right the first time, and if you’re working with a naturally religious topic for your horror, you shouldn’t be afraid of religion.

Firebrands

1 Comment

Although I’ve never lived there, I believe I have a fairly good idea of life in Ithaca, New York.  I’ve spent many, many days there over the past few years, often pondering how it is a city that would be an especially good fit for me, despite the fact I’m unhireable at Cornell and Ithaca College has never showed any interest.  It’s a liberal college town where even the street people appear to be educated.  The money of Ivy League students keeps it fresh and evolving.  And the shops in Ithaca Commons are set at eleven.  So it was that a headline in Publishers Weekly some months back caught my eye.  (I’m not behind only on movies, it seems.)  It showed a historical plaque for Firebrand Books, on the Commons.  The story stated that the plaque had to be placed on public land since the owner of the building where Firebrand started has a Christian prejudice against homosexuality.

I suppose I ought to take a step back and give a little history.  Firebrand was established as a feminist and lesbian publisher.  Its offices were on Ithaca Commons, but when the founder, Nancy K. Bereano, retired the press eventually found a buyer in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  (I have also lived in Ann Arbor, but for less than a year.  Likewise, it is the kind of place I felt instantly at home.)  Ithaca, meanwhile, wished to honor its contribution to literature and elected to put up a commemorative plaque.  The objection, however, was based on a particular reading of the Good Book.  (It must be stated that lesbianism is never explicitly forbidden in the Bible.)  To make a statement, the owner forced the plaque to the public domain.

We have a way of letting our prejudices become biblical.  I recently re-read 1 Corinthians—one of the infamous “clobber” texts for any number of people—and realized just how many of the words assumed to refer to “homosexuals” are words of uncertain Greek connotation.  King James, who seems to have preferred the company of gentlemen himself, was apparently not bothered by the text he had translated.  Of course, kings will be kings.  Our concern with sexual behavior is one of the hallmarks of our species.  We’re very concerned about how other people do it, even if it’s no business of ours.  And we consider it one of the highest moral concerns and a source of constant shame.  That was another thing that struck me while re-reading 1 Corinthians.  I wondered why Paul keeps coming back to it.  Maybe he was just being a firebrand.

Pan Pandering

Leave a comment

The Greek god Pan has had a rough go of it.  And I don’t mean that his name is a homophone for an essential kitchen item in English.  No, Pan was mistreated by early Christians, made evil, and then good, before finally being largely forgotten.  We’ll start with the bad and move to the good.  As I discuss in one of my publications, Pan was considered evil by medieval Christians for a few reasons, apart from being a “foreign god.”  First, he was associated with nature.  Early Christians weren’t naturalists.  They were looking to escape the world (a trait that continues to be manipulated by politicians even today).  Not only that, but Pan had goat legs and horns.  While horns could be used to represent any deity, including Yahweh, the combination with goat legs suggested Pan might be demonic.

Image credit: Walter Crane, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Nobody knew what demons looked like.  They are incorporeal, after all.  As I point out in Nightmares with the Bible, the fact that the rarely used Hebrew word for demons is roughly translated to “hairy ones” added to Pan’s sins.  This was a common Hebrew phrase for goats, and over the course of many centuries, when people had the irresistible urge to draw the invisible, they gave Satan the Pan treatment.  Goat lower half and horns on his head.  In many esoteric groups the goat, i.e., Pan, became a symbol of demons.  All of this has a rich and detailed history and it literally demonized Pan.  Yes, he was all for free love, but he was a musician, after all.  Then something interesting happened.  

When the King James Version of the Bible was first printed, the biblical books each began with an illuminated letter.  The book of Psalms began with an L.  This letter was inscribed with an image of Pan.  What the devil was he doing in the Good Book?  Well, by 1611 Pan was considered a type (or foreshadowing, if you will) of the good shepherd.  And we all know who the Good Shepherd is, right?  Not only that but his name, “Pan,” translates to “all” in English.  Since Jesus is “all” to Christians, it was appropriate that he be symbolized by Pan.  This ancient force of nature had gone from being the Devil to representing God.  Indeed, he could, at the same time, be symbolic of both.  Now this is quite an accomplishment for any entity, let alone a rustic god who was never an Olympian.  Pan isn’t much discussed in Christianity today, but he had a fascinating place in its view toward goats, both bad and good.

Keep Them Open

Leave a comment

“To be is to be perceived.”  That was the summary of Berkeleyian philosophy we were taught in college.  In other words, not to be perceived is not to exist.  So, Don’t Blink kind of runs with that idea.  Before getting started, a spoiler: close your eyes if you don’t want to know something important.  Okay, so no explanation is given.  Ten friends (a lot of names to remember) drive to a resort that is so remote that you arrive with the fuel tank on empty.  The friends explore the resort but there’s nobody there.  Clearly people were there, just shortly before, but they’re all gone.  And then the friends start disappearing, but only when nobody sees them.  That’s the Berkeleyian angle.  The last survivor never does figure out what is going on, although the authorities seem to be aware that something’s up.  For those of us easily ignored, this is a scary movie.

It’s also another potential film for Holy Sequel.  After her boyfriend vanishes, one of the girls finds a Bible and begins claiming that God is punishing their sins.  Given that these are all millennials, this kind of thinking starts to get on the others’ nerves.  It’s not a major event in the film but it reinforces, as so many factors do, that religion and horror aren’t ever very far apart.  And in case you’re wondering, no, she’s not the survivor.  Neither does she suggest this might be the “rapture.”  During said event, the righteous disappear, not twenty-somethings with a weekend of sex on their minds.  The director, Travis Oates, is apparently a Hitchcock fan, so some elements fit into that sensibility.

I only found out about the movie because a friend suggested that it might be good beginner horror.  There are a couple of pretty intense scenes, but overall there’s not a ton of blood and guts.  There aren’t any jump startles, just a dread that continues to grow throughout.  I’m pondering how the Bible is being presented here.  It’s used as an apotropaic device—as protective magic.  Because the Bible is divine, it has, so the belief goes, the power to prevent harm.  Ultimately, in the world of this movie, nothing has that ability.  Although the Bible’s there, the message is pretty nihilistic.  Kind of like thinking about the heat death of the universe.  Still, the acting is good and the premise, although Vanishing on 7th Street also covered the idea of people just disappearing, is engaging.  Even though it doesn’t answer the question of why, or how, it is a movie that underscores the philosophy of George Berkeley as having perhaps been onto something.

From God’s Mouth

2 Comments

If book banners would actually read the book they claim to protect, the Bible, they would run across the account of Jehoiakim and Jeremiah.  It’s in Jeremiah 36, if you care to follow along.  Jeremiah was not a popular prophet.  In fact, he was often in trouble for speaking what God told him to say.  He wasn’t wearing a “Make Israel Great Again” cap.  In fact, his message was that the kingdom of Judah had to fall in order to be restored.  So in chapter 36 he dictates his message, straight from God, to Baruch, his secretary.  Baruch reads the words in the temple and this comes to the notice of the royal staff.  They arrange for a private reading and it scares them like a good horror novel.  One of them reads the scroll to the king, Jehoiakim, who cuts off a few columns at a time and burns them in the fire.

My favorite part of this story has always been the coda: “Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah; who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire: and there were added besides unto them many like words.”  Many like words.  So we have book banners around the nation trying to stop children from reading.  The hope is they will become unreading adults because reading expands your mind.  Jehoiakim was a book banner—a book burner, in fact.  But the response from God himself is to write the whole thing over and add many similar words.  

The Bible has been, and still is, fairly constantly abused.  What it seems to be is unread, at least by those who use it to stop other books from being read.  I came to believe, while majoring in religion in a conservative college, that if literalism was truly from God there would be no way to stop it.  I took a route unlike my classmates, who tended to go to the most conservative seminary they could find to have their minds further closed.  I figured that if it was true then testing it by reason couldn’t hurt it.  It’s pretty obvious the way that turned out.  I don’t stand with book banners.  This is Banned Book Week.  Read a banned book.  Stand up to those who do the banning.  And if you need something to convince them that their tactics don’t meet with divine approval, point them to Jeremiah 36.

Under Construction

Leave a comment

It’s fascinating, watching a book taking shape.  Just yesterday I noticed Sleepy Hollow as American Myth is now up on McFarland’s website.   And yes, it’s on Amazon too.  Go ahead and preorder!  (It hasn’t made it to Bookshop.org yet, though.)  I have to say the feed to Amazon was much quicker this time than it was with The Wicker Man.  That book took several weeks to appear, probably because it was with a UK publisher.  Yes, it does make a difference.  Now the trick is to try to get people interested in the Legend of Sleepy Hollow again.  I’m thinking I ought to join Historic Hudson Valley.  They might be interested in such a book.  It is, in a sense, right in their back yard.

The thing about writing a book is that you come to suppose other people are interested in your obsession.  I know that Sleepy Hollow is deeply embedded in American culture.  I also know that some of the fandom began to die down when Fox’s Sleepy Hollow went off the rails.  Most analysts suggest, with good reason, that the show failed when it began foregrounding white characters and writing Americans of color into the background.  A great part of the appeal was the melting-pot aspect of the cast, no doubt.  In the book, however, I suggest a somewhat different reason for the decline.  It’s one I’ve seen no one else suggest.  I’m hoping that we can both be right.  In any case, that was the fandom that got this book started.

You see, I had written my first popular culture article on the role of the Bible in Sleepy Hollow.  That article, published in the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, led to the book Holy Horror.  I was already thinking about a project around Sleepy Hollow then, but I had a couple more books to finish first.  I’m excited about this one because it marks a move away from publishing primarily about religion to publishing primarily about a story.  There’s still religion there, of course.  We have the Old Dutch Church to pay mind to, but there’s even more about the Headless Horseman, and Ichabod Crane.  And so much more!  Sleepy Hollow as American Myth was a lot of fun to write.  I’m not sure when the book will be out, but I’m hoping next year.  Maybe if I can generate a little excitement around this Halloween—it is closely connected with the story, as I explore—there’ll be some interest next time.  Until then there are still plenty of steps to be taken. 

Free Word

Leave a comment

“Anything free is worth saving up for.”  That’s a line from one of my favorite movies of all time.   Free, though, can mean many things.  The “free cookie” is something good to entice you to buy more.  It often works.  Free, for a person, indicates the ability to do what we want (within the constraints of capitalism, of course).  But “free” can often mean cheap, overly abundant.  I like to decorate our lawn with rocks, which are often free, but if you want decorative rocks you’ve got to pay for even the ground beneath your feet.  So it is that when I attend book sales I marvel about the fact that Bibles are nearly always free.  It occurred to me again when I attended a spring book sale a few months back.  I always look through what’s on offer—call it an occupational hazard.

I used to attend the Friends of the Hunterdon County Library book sale in New Jersey.  I believe it is the largest I ever visited.  I used to get there early opening day to stand in line.  One year, one of the volunteer friends came out and announced that they had a really old Bible (only 1800s) that would be $100.  People do, however, tend to donate Bibles to book sales in great numbers.  I suspect organizers are reluctant to put Bibles in the trash.  They also know that people aren’t going to shell out money for them, so they try to give them away.  What does this say about being free?  Is it desirable to be so abundant that you’re left on that table in the back while everyone else is leaning over the more exciting items on offer?  There’s perhaps a message here.

Of course, Trump is selling Bibles for $60.  That’s a bit steep, even for an academic Bible (which his is not).  It might be suggested that this $60 is cheaper than free.  Now, I work with Bibles that are sold at a profit.  One thing I’ve learned is that Bibles sold are always for profit. Those who are honest admit what they do with the lucre.  Although he’s tried to keep it under cover, the Trump Bible does funnel profits to the GOP hopeful.  Yes, he is making money off the Bible and wants to be elected.  If that happens, freedom will disappear.  He’s said as much at his rallies.  Looks like stormy weather to me.  There are organizations that give away Bibles.  Somebody, however, pays for them.  In this strange experiment of a country, anything free is worth pondering.  Nothing, it seems, comes with no strings attached.

Bible Lives

Leave a comment

How well do we know our parents?  Occasionally I think about the things I’ve never told my daughter.  This was brought home to me when, looking through a box hurried packed after my mother’s funeral, I came across an artifact.  I should say that my mother died going on a year ago, and the emotions had been a bit too raw to look at the things I’d picked up in a moment of grief.  This particular artifact was one of her Bibles.  Mom never had as many Bibles as I do (or did).  I remember distinctly asking for, as my sole Christmas present, the New International Version when it came out in 1978.  I have no idea how I knew about it (pre-internet) but I was pretty tapped into evangelicalism then.  I still have that Bible.  I also have the Bible my grandmother gave me in 1970, when, at the age of eight, I was, as it is termed, “saved.”

What makes my mother’s Bible an artifact, to me, is the information inscribed on the various dedication pages.  The Bible was my mother’s sixteenth birthday gift.  That made me stop and think.  Mom used to tell me about being a rebellious youth (she did not get along with her mother).  She smoked and drank and eventually married someone her parents disapproved of.  She gave up smoking when she was pregnant and gave up drinking when she saw what it was doing to her alcoholic husband.  I wonder what my mother’s rebellious years were like.  My entire life she was just “Mom.”  As stable as she could be, religious as she needed to be, and as selfless as a saint.

How did she feel as a sixteen-year-old receiving a Bible as a birthday present?  I never got to ask her that, but she saved the Bible and even did a DIY recovering of it with shelf-paper when the faux leather cover began to come apart.  It was a King James Version, and I knew from conversations with her that she preferred The Living Bible because it was easier for her to read (she never finished high school).  Ours were lives defined by the Good Book.  I don’t know the story of what prompted that sixteenth birthday gift.  I was sixteen when I begged for the NIV.  Now I work surrounded by Bibles.  And I’m no closer to knowing what it was that my mother really wanted when she turned sixteen.  I do know, however, that it eventually defined my life.