It’s finally come and I’m stymied. There are still so many monsters to choose from and I honestly don’t know which one deserves the final spot in the line-up of February’s daily monster posts. I could focus on how some monsters seem to repeat in mythologies across the globe — all those big cats with wings. I could have fun with my all-time-favorites and attempt a list of the ‘top ten’ monsters of all time. Or I could delve into the deep, dark well of HUMAN monsters — the serial killers, sexual predators and socio-paths that take the starring role
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This month of daily Monster Meditations is almost over. In fact, had this not been leap year, I’d be posting my last one today. That being said, I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of the wealth of monsters — and monstrous topics — out there. When I wrote the first version of The Mary Shelley Game (several years ago) I thought it was a one-off. But it needed a twin, so I delved into Dracula and came up with the novella that will be published as Bram Stoker’s Summer Sublet later this year. My road trip to Poe country,
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No, I’m not referring to the gigantic retrospective art shows like the recent and overwhelming Wilem de Kooning show at MoMA or the epic Salvador Dali show that I traveled to see in Philadelphia in 2005. (It was May 5, 2005 — 050505 so it’s hard to forget the exact date.) I’m talking about the wild variety of monsters depicted in art. Before and after my Poe hunt in Richmond, Virginia and dipped my toe into a few of the museums on the Mall in Washington, D.C. I found some great monsters! Since the Twilight series of books and movies
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POED — yes the name POE used as a verb in the past tense — is the third of Candy’s Monsters. I plan to publish this electronic novella before the end of 2012. POED is set at The Usher Clinic for the Criminally Insane. It is located on the far west side of Manhattan, overlooking the river by the Christopher Street Pier. The story is told entirely in the voice of the clinic’s Director of Psychiatric Services in a conversation with a tabloid reporter. POED draws from the famous Edgar Allen Poe canon of stories, but transforms and translates them
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I’m on a Edgar Allan Poe inspired road trip down to Virginia and Washington DC. This morning, my intrepid friends from Woodbridge, Virginia, drove me down to Richmond to visit the Poe Museum. There was an amazing amount of Poe-phernalia, a lovely Poe-ish garden and an exhibit of James Carlings 1882 illustrations of ‘The Raven.’ The images were fantastic in every definition of the word. fan·tas·tic  fan-tas-tik adjective 1. conceived or appearing as if conceived by an unrestrained imagination; odd and remarkable; bizarre; grotesque: fantastic rock formations; fantastic designs. 2. fanciful or capricious, as persons or their ideas or actions:
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I saw ‘Carrie’ on Tuesday. No, not the movie with Sissy Spacek — I saw ‘Carrie’ the musical. It was a huge flop in 1988, one of the biggest Broadway flops of all time with only 21 performances, even with Betty Buckley (of ‘Cats’ fame) in the role of Carrie’s mom. The team behind the musical revived it, and it’s now at a very nice Off-Broadway theater in the West Village. It’s not a monster hit. It’s also not the worse monster I’ve seen in the theater. I’m fortunate to have adventurous friends who join me for various off-the-beaten path
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I know I saw the 1964 movie ‘Mothra vs. Godzilla’ on TV when I was growing up. But when I checked the IMDb website — an invaluable resource — and read the plot synopsis I was surprised. I didn’t remember a thing about the story. To me, all the Godzilla movies were just those goofy scenes when Godzilla is stomping through Tokyo, chewing the scenery (literally), with panicked crowds fleeing in his wake. The Mothra movie had the added excitement of a giant moth defending the people — an addition that, even as a child, I found to be just
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It’s time for another snippet from one of the soon-to-be-published Candy’s Monsters. I’m hard at work revising this manuscript and preparing to release it in the late spring or early summer. It’s called ‘Bram Stoker’s Summer Sublet.’ Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ was written in diary entries, letters and occasional news clippings, so I wrote ‘Bram Stoker’s Summer Sublet’ as diary entries, post-it notes, newspaper horoscopes, email, voicemail messages… — you get the picture. The protagonist is adrift after canceling her wedding. Homeless for a month, she agrees to spend July caring for a dog and a cockatoo in an apartment overlooking
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The Golem is a monstrous creature of Jewish myth and legend. There are a few stories about a Golem’s creation and existence, but the definitive tale is about the Golem of Prague. It’s not a run-of-the-mill monster myth because it is tied to historical figures at a specific time and place. It’s been told and retold — even by the Simpsons on TV — and it’s inspired many great artists including the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. If you’re planning a trip to Prague, you will find it in every tourist guidebook. For centuries, the city of Prague was a
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The Internet is a great place to do research. You can find out that your blind date lied to you about the business he ‘owns.’ You can double-check the side effects of a new medication your doctor has prescribed. You can even find a good price on airline tickets. You can also drive yourself crazy. You can self-diagnose/misdiagnose; discover that ghostwriters are routinely hired by content mills to write college papers for money; and you can get lost on the trail of BIGFOOT. The Internet is full of shaky videos, sketches and first person reports of sightings of the big,
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