Cartoons What Freaked Me Out A Bit

 

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I have to admit, when I was a young kid, maybe nine or younger, the MGM Harman-Ising cartoons had a way of kind of freaking me out. They tended to be highly dramatic, over-emotional, and starkly moral. Most of the other cartoons I watched were moral as well, but they tended to be simple-minded mayhem between good guys and bad guys. The Harman-Ising cartoons tended to be fever dreams, where the protagonists were put through a nightmarish ringer if they put a toe over the line in a dangerous world, trying to scare 'the kiddies' away from temptation. I think I've posted before about the trauma of watching 'To Spring' or 'The Field Mouse' or 'The Little Skunk.' 

Anyway, they also had a series about the 'Good Little Monkeys', based on the See-No-Evil, Speak-No-Evil, Hear-No-Evil  Buddhist knickknack. A series of three cartoons, where the Monkeys were basically in a library, then in what amounts to a tobacconist's, and finally in an art museum. This allows for all the usual cartoon hijinks of the items around them coming alive. What really freaked me out was the appearance of the Devil in the first one (emerging from Dante's Inferno); we had basically been told that if he was coming for you there was little you could do, because it must be because you had sinned and put yourself in his power (thank you, JW's!).

How they actually looked in the first cartoon, somewhat 'cutened' in the other two.

Anyway, here they are. I leave it to you to form your own opinions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0SrXhSF8cw Good Little Monkeys (3 Monkeys) #1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkratG8O968 Pipe Dreams (3 Monkeys) #2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKHBFJFNYYk Art Gallery (3 Monkeys) #3

Anyway, for completeness sake, I include 'Tale of the Vienna Woods.' Being the priggish little Puritan I was at the time, I had no conception of the difference between a faun and the Devil. I saw them as being the same kind of thing, or at least dangerously close. If I had someone to explain them to me, would I have listened? I don't think Mom and Pop were much up on Greek mythology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCWCTmdCaxQ Tale of the Vienna Woods (The Fawn and the Faun)

Friday Fiction: There Is A Season

 

THERE IS A SEASON 

          Blake Martin squirmed on the worn old coach in his apartment and tried to bring the second-hand paperback novel into focus. The old pages had deepened to a dark yellow that made the print hard to distinguish, and the long blocks of letters were a blur on the page. Still, he persisted. It was an old Del Rey Adult Fantasy, E R. Eddison’s “The Worm Ouroborous,” and he was determined to get through it.

Blake had found it in a surprise cache of similar books at a garage sale last week; a surprise because they were going for a quarter each and he knew that many sellers were asking at least thirty dollars on e-Bay for them. Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” movies had caused another boom in older Fantasy. Blake had scooped up the lot, Eddisons and Morrises and Cabells, and brought them home. He needed Fantasy these days as a relaxation from his job.

His books lay in scattered piles all around the place, on the coffee table, by his bedside, even on the fridge. It was not as if his little apartment had much room, but it looked even smaller with the way he kept it. Blake didn’t mind. It was more where he lurked rather than where he lived. Mostly he was out on cases.

Blake frowned and turned on the floor lamp, but it didn’t help. The book was, as some character named Brandoch Daha had just complained on another matter, “writ somewhat crabbedly, and most damnably long.”  He tossed the green volume down – gently – and sat back, arms crossed. He couldn’t understand it.

C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, two of his favorite literary heroes, had enjoyed it. That old magpie, Lin Carter, who always had a bright eye open for old gems, had chosen it for republication. Was it really as awful as it seemed? Was it just not Blake’s cup of tea? Or was there something wrong with him, some new twist in his psychology? Was he getting immune to the old thrills, and if so, would he need harder stuff to unwind?

It had been an intense ten months since he had joined the Department of Extranatural Activities. Leaving his little hometown in Texas and moving to Virginia to be on his own would be stressful enough even under normal circumstances. But working for the Bureau of Shadows was almost literally a new dimension of trouble.

Monsters and ghosts and witches were bad enough in individual encounters. But faced and piled up one on top of the other, as an agent must, left an increasing psychic smudge. The Bureau’s counsellors and psychologists had ways of countering the strain and knowing something about what you were getting into braced you for the shock, but there was still irreducible wear and tear to the spirit. Some agents drank. Blake read Fantasy.

In Fantasy, good and evil were clearly defined. In Fantasy, good could struggle but inevitably won, even if it’s by the skin of the teeth. In Fantasy, evil could be soundly defeated. In Fantasy, evil was inhuman. What disturbed Blake most wasn’t fighting monsters; it was so often finding humans behind so much wickedness – an old-fashioned term that he suddenly had found very relevant indeed. 

He knew Chesterton had said that children need fairy tales, not because the stories told them about dragons; children knew there were real monsters in the world. What the child needed to know was that there were knights, and that dragons could be fought. Blake hoped that he was a knight, if only a Fool Knight, and Fantasy kept those hopes up somehow.

His mouth quirked wryly. He knew religious agents who called upon the saints. Several times now, in some very tight corners, the thought of Gandalf facing down the Balrog had rallied his spirits and allowed him to bull through a tough encounter. What if he were losing that now?

He leaned back, barely thinking at all, eyes narrow and arms crossed. Several vacant minutes passed before he sat up, slapping both knees with a sudden thought. What if this were, indeed, some sort of attack on his mind? It seemed unlikely.

Blake snorted. At any rate, he was accomplishing nothing brooding on it. He would get up, get out, and check in with his overseers to see if there was any action going on. Perhaps that would shake him up. He grabbed his brown leather jacket against the cool September air and in minutes was out the door and on the road, headed north.

 

The first person he visited was old Mrs. Hay. Just how old she was, was a matter of speculation. She might have been a withered forty or a hale seventy; there was no telling. When he pulled up at her ancient ivied cottage, she was outside on the sidewalk, broom in hand like an irritable witch, trying to tease the debris out of a ratty brown doormat. She looked up as he pulled into the driveway, broke into a smile of a hundred wrinkles, and lifted her hand in a welcoming wave.   

“Hello, Mr. Blake! How are you? It’s been a while!”

“I’m all right, Mrs. Hay. How have you been?”

Her face fell.

“Ach, not so good. You remember my little dog, Bitsy? She passed away last week.”

Blake was taken aback.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Mrs. Hay.”

“Well, she was very old.” She shrugged and went back to sweeping. “It happens to us all, in time. But I miss her funny little face. She was good company.”

“I do remember her. She was a cute little thing.” Cute, but kind of cranky. She had tried to nip Blake the last time he had come by. If she had had any teeth, there’s no telling what damage she could have done. “Have you thought about getting another dog? Maybe visiting the pound and getting a rescue?”

Mrs. Hay did not stop sweeping.

“No, no. I’ve had fifteen dogs in my time, and they’ve always come looking for me. When the universe is ready, another will be sent, I’m sure. We’ll need each other. That’s what I’m doing now: cleaning everything up, to be ready for it.” She stopped, pointing down. “There. That’s the last of Bitsy’s fuzz.”

“Oh.” Blake stepped back and glanced down at the tangled ball of grey fur.

Mrs. Hay stooped down, picked it up, and pushed it into her apron pocket.

“Well, Mr. Blake, what have you come to see me about?”

“Oh, uh … Nothing really, I guess. Just to see how you’re doing, and … and, ask whether you’ve noticed anything unusual going on?”

Her face went a little absent, considering.

“No, I can’t say that I have. In fact, it’s been unusually quiet, extranaturally speaking. I’ve been kept pretty busy, though. I’ve been catching Bitsy’s ghost out of the corner of my eye, so I’ve been giving the house a good deep clean. That should clear her away, let her rest in peace, as it were. But nothing odd.”

Blake grinned.

“Mrs. Hay, you have an odd definition of what constitutes odd.”

He left after a few more pleasantries and headed out to his next contact. This was Kurt Parkis; he lived in a more modern part of town than Mrs. Hay, in a neighborhood of depressingly similar ranch houses, shaded by quick-growing ash trees. When he knocked on the white-framed screen door, he was called through the house to the kitchen at the back. There he found Parkis surrounded by piles of cardboard boxes, like a child barricaded in a play fort.

Notes

I paused writing this story in March 2022. It is another Bureau of Shadows tale, and it features Blake Martin, who also appears in Blake and The Day Delphine Disappeared. It takes place in ... 2009, I think? I may have to do more calculations about that. I stopped at the time just when Mrs. Hay appeared. Last night, I brought it up to this point. I have a sheet of notes about what will happen; it is about halfway done. I mean to finish it in the next few days.

It is not a very dramatic tale, although it has its points of interest. It takes a look at the more up-to-date (but still quirky) Department of Extranural Affairs, including its present head, Henry Byrd. I was writing it in March, but it takes place in September. Maybe a closer seasonal proximity will help me along with it.

The Fool Knight is a trope in some legends of a hero who has good intentions but keeps making the wrong decisions. His inexperience causes him many problems, but his innocence sometimes protects him and may lead him to accomplishing his quest.

Thursday Thoughts: What Am I Supposed to Do with All This Paella?

 

Having just ordered a couple more books, the thought struck me again (as it has many times before, even when I was much younger) of what would become of my library once I was gone. It always seems to me a living, growing thing, united and animated by a single force (me) and that once that organizing principle had gone, it would go flying apart, like planets bereft of their sun. And that seems a shame to me.

But what do I expect to happen? That my books would always remain together, either as a shrine to my memory, available to whoever might want to access them, or dumped wholesale on a single ‘heir’ who would delightedly assume curatorship? In the first place I would not wish such a burden on my folks, nor do I believe that anyone would or could accept it. In the second place, although I think there are elements in my library that several people would gladly accept, there is no single person in sight, no Mini-me as it were, to assume the whole ragtag assemblage.

It would be selfish of me to assume there would be. The least selfish element of that thought is that I would be passing on a legacy to someone who would appreciate the gift as much as I would have at any point in my life. The most selfish is that it would go to some sort of clone of myself, that my will would go on existing as a ghoulish parasite in another person. I shudder at the thought.

There are certainly parts of my library that could be easily bestowed. My brother John would no doubt enjoy the Complete Peanuts Collection and the set of Gold Key Comic Digests. My nephew Kameron has expressed interest in the volumes of The Absolute Sandman, among other things. I am sure there are Tolkien books (not to mention toys, music and other ephemera like calendars) that would appeal to many in the family, but here it seems especially a shame to have to break up the collection. But what about G. K. Chesterton? What of James Branch Cabell? What of James P. Blaylock? What about Robertson Davies? Excellent authors all, and I have many of their books, but niche interests to most at the moment. Who would take them?

Which brings up another concern. Would my executors even know the worth of what they were disposing of? Or would they just throw everything in a garage sale? That would be easiest, but there are things that would be worth much more on the market. The complete Storisende Edition of the Works of James Branch Cabell could bring in at least $300; each separate McBride edition of Cabell, illustrated by Frank C. Pape, goes for nearly $50. What look like grotty old paperbacks, hardly worth a quarter, are collectible volumes in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, that can fetch at least $20, and in some cases more. And so on, and on. I have many signed editions, quite a few by James P. Blaylock and Tim Powers; their value is subjective, of course, but a few, like The Man in the Moon, are also rare and so probably worth a bit more. There are many ordinary books that would be fine in a garage sale, but who would have the patience (besides a fanatic like me) to go through three thousand books and assess them all?

No good trying to dispose of them at a used bookstore and letting them assay them. We’ve seen the pennies such sales bring.

But what really grinds my gears is that there is another generation a-blooming who might very much want many of my books, in time. Who knows what my grandnephew (now just a toddler) might find interesting, or his sibling on the way? A legacy from a granduncle might very well be a welcome surprise; it almost sounds like the start of a fantasy adventure. Indeed, such a hope sounds like an idle fantasy itself. But I can speculate. What will most likely happen even if they do grow up to share my interests is that my library will be long dispersed by then, memorialized only in this blog, a subject, perhaps, of wonder and regret.

But I will be dead then, and, one way or the other, way past caring. “You can keep my things, they’ve come to take me home.” But, on the other hand, “Who will take care of my little boots?" I can't help but think about it sometimes.

The Shadow Library: What Became of The Monk?

 

The Monk: A Romance, by Matthew G. Lewis (1796; this edition by Grove Press, 1978)

Matthew Lewis published this novel (in three volumes) before he was even twenty years old. It has all the hot blood and drama of a young man. He first published it anonymously (he was already a Member of Parliament) but when it proved enormously popular, he signed the second edition. The novel was scandalous, full of sex, rape, incest, blasphemy, murder, and witchcraft. So of course, everyone had to read it. Lewis himself came to regret it as he grew older, revising and making it milder in later editions. It is a seminal work in what would become the Gothic Tradition.

The novel follows the virtuous monk Ambrosio as he spirals down a tortuous path of sin, going from crime to crime until finally he makes a deal with the devil to escape prison, where he is awaiting execution for his crimes. The devil flies him out of his cell but points out that he never promised him safety. Lucifer drops him where his broken body takes six days to die, and then Ambrosio is damned for all eternity.

I first became aware of the novel from a book about Fantasy that our Creative Writing teacher gave me, a book of which I vexingly can’t recall the title, a book which definitely belongs in the Shadow Library if I could remember it. We got our copy of The Monk at Yesterday’s Warehouse, I think. You could definitely tell it was published in the 70’s: that particularly lurid shade of purple (seen as appropriate for Fantasy – purple prose?) and cover design screams the Groovy Age. This edition was published by Grove Press, famous as being the publishing niche for ‘transgressive’ authors like William S. Burroughs, Samuel Beckett, and Harold Pinter that more mainstream publishers wouldn’t touch. Also, they did a lot of porno.

Well, I had it for years and never read it and eventually sold it. During the covid lockdown my brother Kenny read it aloud in a series over Facebook. Listening to it, my interest was finally aroused, and I found my way into the story. I imagine he was reading the spicier First Edition. Revisions happened that way with Frankenstein, too: Mary Shelley rewrote it later in life, filling it with more philosophical gas.

If I were going to get a new copy (and I’ve been toying with the idea; they’re fairly cheap at under $10) this is the Penguin Edition I would like (it has an old illustration from the novel on it):

But this is the new Penguin (White Ribbon) Edition I would probably have to settle for: it is illustrated with a medieval painting and copies are more abundant:

Update: After I spent about an hour racking my brains over the book about Fantasy that Mr. Fleming gave me (putting such terms as fantasy, imagination, genre , history, guide, and so on, in all kinds of combinations), I let it go and turned my mind to other pursuits. I can’t even remember what was my train of thought when suddenly the unlikely name of the author popped into my head. Franz … Rrr … Rottensteiner! I immediately dropped everything else and looked him up to see if that was right. It was! The title turned out to be The Fantasy Book (1978), a title so easy and simple it’s no wonder I couldn’t recall it. We also had his companion volume, The Science Fiction Book (1975).

I found out that Rottensteiner (b.1942) is still alive, and something of a big name in the curation of Speculative Fiction in Germany. Looking on Amazon I saw there were copies of The Fantasy Book, of Very Good grade, going for under $4, with shipping, of course, which added almost the same amount again. It was too cheap not to buy again! It should be here before the end of the month. If I recall things correctly, I only sold it because I was feeling the pinch. It is a pretty good assessment of the genre before The Sword of Shannara came out and Fantasy became more of a publishing industry.

Wideo Wednesday: Try The Other Handle

 

Today's videos deal with subjects that don't have an obvious handle. James Earl Jones was a Catholic? Is it a somewhat comforting thought that Tolkien always had people who took him the wrong way? Boris Karloff singing a song from Mary Poppins (though only at the end of the clip)? The Lord of the Rings imagined as a dark 80's fantasy movie? And what does God really want?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZvKINSGXo8

James Earl Jones Most Catholic Movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXWH1opO7Bs

Tolkien’s Deplorable Fans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbNcueR00iU

Karloff Sings Chim Chim Cherree

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJCsNvEdDFA

LOTR Dark Fantasy Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRi_DqRbmyU

Jimmy Akin What Does God Really Want?

The Lord of the Rings: Minas Tirith (Part Seven and Last)

The Tale

Pippin comes to the lowest and widest circle of the city, where he is directed to the Lampwright’s Street where he finds the Old Guesthouse, a large grey house with two wings and a grassy yard. There he sees some boys, the only children he’s seen in the city, playing on the steps and pillars of the porch. A boy sees him and comes over with several others to check him out. The boy challenges him. He’s never seen him. Is he a stranger to the City?

Pippin answers that he is , but he says that they tell him he is now a man of the City. The lad laughs at the word man and asks him a lot of questions. The boy brags that he himself is ten years old and almost five feet tall; his father is one of the tallest of the guards. Who’s your father?

‘What question shall I answer first? Said Pippin. ‘My father farms the lands round the Whitwell near Tuckburough in the Shire. I am nearly twenty-nine, so I pass you there; though I am but four feet, and not likely to grow anymore, save sideways.’

The boy whistles, impressed with his age. Still, he reckons he could stand Pippin on his head or lay him on his back.

Pippin laughs and agrees that he might. But they know some wrestling tricks in his little country, where he is considered quite large and strong. If worst came to worst, Pippin might have to kill him rather than be defeated. Perhaps when the boy is older he will learn that people aren’t always what they seem. ‘I am a halfling, hard, bold, and wicked!’ He pulls a grim face.

The boy steps back a pace, then advances with battle in his eyes. Pippin laughs again. And perhaps the lad will learn that strangers don’t always tell the truth about themselves, either. But what is the boy’s name, the hobbit asks. He replies that he is Bergil, son of Beregond. Pippin said he thought so; he looks like his father. Beregond has sent him to find the lad.

Bergil is at first dismayed that his father might have sent him to tell him he must leave, but the last wains have left. Pippin assures him that the news is better than that. If he’s not too busy trying to stand him on his head, the boy should be his guide around the City. Bergil is relieved and says they should go to the Gate to see the Captains of the Outlands who will be soon arriving.

Pippin and Bergil walk along, and the boy proves to be the best company Pippin has had since he parted with Merry. Pippin himself is in many ways just a boy himself. Bergil is impressed when Pippin can give the password and get them through the Gate; boys aren’t allowed out without an elder. They join a crowd of men waiting around the Gate, looking southward, until there is a cloud of dust approaching, and the sound of horns.

The first troop is greeted with ‘Forlong!’ Bergil explains that this is old Forlong the Fat, Lord of Lossarnach, the land where the boy’s grandfather lives.

‘Leading the line there came walking a big thick-limbed horse, and on it sat a man of wide shoulders and huge girth, but old and grey-bearded, yet mail-clad and black-helmed and bearing a long heavy spear. Behind him marched proudly a dusty line of men, well-armed and bearing great battle-axes; grim-faced they were, and shorter and somewhat swarthier than any men Pippin had yet seen in Gondor.’

He is hailed by the men of the City, but when he and his men have passed through the Gate there is murmuring. There are only two hundred; they had hoped for two thousand. This must be because of the black fleet attacking Lossarnach; they can only spare a little from the defense of their own homes. ‘Still every little is a gain.’

And so it goes as company after company enter, always fewer than they had hoped. Dervorin of Ringlo Vale; three hundred. Duinhir and his sons Duilin and Derufin, of Morthond; five hundred bowmen. Golasgil from the Anfalas, with a long line of hunters and herdsmen and villagers. A few grim hillsmen from Lamedon. About a hundred fisher-folk from the Ethir. From Pinnathe Gelin, Hirluin the Fair with three hundred gallant men in green. And last and most heartening Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth, with a company of knights in full array and seven hundred tall men at arms, singing as they come.

The troops pass in, and silence falls on the men of Gondor. There are less than three thousand men come to their aid. Gloom descends on the dying day; the sky is grey but the setting sun seems to kindle the dust and fume in the East a blazing red.  ‘So ends a fair day in wrath!’ Pippin comments.

There will be wrath if Bergil doesn’t get back before the sundown bells. They go in and the Gate closes. Bergil says he is glad to have met Pippin and to thank his father for sending him to him. They separate and Pippin heads for the company messhall again; he is feeling hot and hungry. There he meets Beregond. They eat and then Pippin returns to the Old Guesthouse, hoping to see Gandalf. Beregond bids him farewell and reminds him he will be summoned before Denethor early tomorrow.

The streets are unusually dark; no lights after curfew and now no stars are in the sky. When he gets to their rooms Gandalf is not there. He tries looking out the window; it is like ‘looking into a pool of ink.’ He lies down, listening for the wizard’s return, and falls into an uneasy sleep. He wakes up to a light beyond the curtains of his alcove. The wizard has returned and is pacing and muttering. There are candles and rolls of parchment on the table. Pippin hears the wizard sigh. ‘When will Faramir return?’

Pippin pops his head through the curtains and greets him. He thought Gandalf had forgotten him; it’s been a long day.

‘But the night will be too short,’ said Gandalf. ‘I have come back here, for I must have a little peace, alone. You should sleep, in a bed while you may. At the sunrise I shall take you to the Lord Denethor. No, when the summons comes, not at sunrise. The Darkness has begun. There will be no dawn.’

Bits and Bobs

It was always (and may still be) a convention, especially in British literature, that when boys first meet there are usually challenges and even fights while they take each other’s measure. Then they become fast friends. Bergil is no exception here. Their friendship goes to emphasize Pippin’s basic youth and light-heartedness.

Forlong: (untranslated pre-Numenorean name)

Lossarnach; (Sindarin ‘flowery’ + untranslated ‘Arnach’)

Ringlo: (Sindarin ‘chill + flood’)

Dervorin: (untranslated Sindarin)

Duilin: (Sindarin, ‘swallow’[bird] or ‘singer by the river’)

Derufin: (?)

Anfalas: (Sindarin ‘long’ + ‘shore’; aka Langstrand)

Golasgil: (Sindarin? ‘leaf-star’?)

Lamedon: (untranslated pre-Numenorean)

Ethir Anduin: (Sindarin: ‘the mouths of the river Anduin’)

Hirluin: (probably Sindarin ‘lord’ + ‘blue’)

Pinnath Gelin: (Sindarin: ‘hills, downs’ + ‘green’)

Imrahil: (untranslated Adunaic); Denethor’s brother-in-law

Dol Amroth: (Sindarin: ‘dol = hill’ + Amroth ‘up-climber’)

It has been suggested that this list of lords is an example of a ‘Homeric catalog’, a roll of names made mostly to add ‘thickening’ or convincing detail to a narrative.

Imrahil’s sister married Denethor; that makes him Faramir and Boromir’s uncle. His home, Dol Amroth, used to be an Elven city, named after an elf-lord, and it is rumored that there is elven-blood in his heritage. His symbol is a silver swan on a blue field.

 

Two-For-One Deal

 I usually have two recurring dreams. In one I am cutting out pizza crusts back at my old job; in the other I have found a treasure pile of ornate old books and must try to acquire/save them. Well, last night I dreamed that they were forcing me to cut pizza crusts out of good old books, but I managed to save four particularly good ones before they were shut down for health violations. You shouldn't be making pizza without the proper ingredients.