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All of the writings on this page are by Alison Armstrong

My bio:

Alison Armstrong is the author of two literary horror novels (Revenance and Toxicosis), a novella (Vigil and Other Writings), and a collection of writings addressing women and horror archetypes (Consorting with the Shadow: Phantasms and the Dark Side of Female Consciousness). Her work focuses on inner terror, stealthily lurking, solipsistic dread and nightmare flash epiphanies. Having obtained a Master of Arts in English, she has taught composition and literature at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, MI and Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn. In addition to her novels and novella (available on Amazon), she has had writings published in The Sirens Call and the horror anthology Book of Bones.  Further information on her writings is available on her Web site, https://horrorvacui.us/ , and on her Facebook page for the novels Revenance and Toxicosis .

Promo video for Dark Visitations:

Oct. 2023:

I’m glad to have my Halloween essay featured on the Horror Writers Association Web site  Horror Writers Association Web site

Added a Halloween-themed excerpt from my novel Toxicosis, which includes references to characters and scenes from Dark Visitations.  

July 7, 2022:  My short story “Limbo” is featured in the Summer 2022 issue of The Sirens Call ezine.  “Limbo” is on pp. 229-230.

March 29, 2022: My short story “Blood Rose” is featured in the Spring 2022 issue of The Sirens Call ezine.  “Blood Rose” is on pp. 70-71.

March 6, 2022: I am featured in a Horrorific Chats podcast to discuss horror writing:

 Oct. 31, 2021:  Link to my interview on Richard Damien’s blog:  The Psychology of Vampires with Horror Author Alison Armstrong – Damien Richard – Author

June 2019: Consorting with the Shadow: Phantasms and the Dark Side of Female Consciousness is available in e-book and print format at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble

Oct. 7, 2018:  Toxicosis is now available as an e-book at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble

Consorting with the Shadow discussion (presentation at The Center for Optimal Performance, New York, NY, Oct. 20, 2017, with Dr. Brian Healy)

BLOG POSTS:

David Bowie’s Impact

Jan. 10, 2021

When I was in my teens during the 1970s, I first became a David Bowie fan. I loved Bowie’s androgynous allure, his aesthetics, as well as his music. He reminded me of a 20th century Dorian Gray, a Decadent from another time, another world. Having always been a loner and a bit of an outsider, I felt akin to him in many ways. He lived the kind of life I fantasized about. At that time I could not imagine myself living to be as old as I currently am. I didn’t want to grow up, drive a car, be stuck in an unfulfilling job, or have kids. I just wanted to pursue my passions–writing, playing piano, and listening to music. Bowie seemed to me to be the eternal misfit rock and roll king, free, defiant, unlimited by gender or society’s conceptions. I remember attending my first David Bowie concert, in about 1977, at Wings Stadium in Kalamazoo, MI, with my cousin Shelley. To celebrate Bowie’s fashion influence and my own aesthetic quirkiness, I wore my grandfather’s Masonic Lodge uniform–a black velvet robe-type jacket with some silk patches and some metal buttons, if I recall. I put a fake flower in the lapel. Although Bowie was late and didn’t play that many songs, it was still a wonderful experience I am thankful to have had. Unlike a lot of contemporary performers, whose songs seem to embody the most crass, shallow, narcissistic, commercialistic tendencies of our media-obsessed society, David Bowie’s music often addressed metaphysical, ,philosophical, and psychological themes. Instead of perpetuating oppressive societal paradigms associated with materialism, superficiality and conformity, David Bowie combined elements of science fiction and spirituality to create his own mythology celebrating individuality, diversity, gender fluidity, creativity, and a non-dogmatic quest for personal truth.

Dec. 23, 2021

Imagery of light and darkness figure prominently in the depiction and celebration of Christmas, reflecting the holiday’s association with the winter solstice as the night of longest darkness slowly, reluctantly, gives rise to the rebirth of hope. The duality of the Yule season, represented by the conflicted partnership between Santa Claus (St. Nicholas) and Krampus (or his malevolent kindred, Perchta, Mari Lwyd, etc.) can be felt and expressed on a personal as well as an archetypal level, for in this wintry gestation the ghosts of the past, the phantoms of loss, wistfully linger around the stained-glass shimmering tree lights.

The Yuletide myths of ruthless vigilante monsters such as Krampus who attack and devour children may symbolize the bleak, indifferent, at times brutal, afflictions of winter. Like the Grim Reaper wielding his lethal scythe, winter, particularly in pre-modern times, was a harvester of humanity, bringing death to the young, weak, or infirm. In times when food was scarce and hard work, service to others, mutual respect and assistance, was essential for survival, those who were greedy , lazy, or uncooperative were detrimental to a community. To help keep children in line and influence them to become useful members of society, parents could use these myths as frightening warnings against indolence, selfishness, and disobedience. The prevalence of folklore involving tyke-gobbling witches and beasts (as in “Hansel and Gretel” and “Little Red Riding Hood”) may also be evocative of parents’ suppressed ambivalence regarding their children, love mixed with occasional resentment and anger, particularly if the children are demanding material things the parents cannot provide them. Although nowadays these ogres are less commonly invoked as disciplinary tools, parents and other elders often use less frightening aspects of Christmas folklore to admonish naughty or disobedient children, telling the kids that Santa will leave them coal instead of presents, or that, as my grandmother warned, Santa’s red birds are watching and reporting every misdeed. These threats, innocuous when compared with the gruesome folk tales of the past, nevertheless cast a faint shadow of fear over the exuberant holiday anticipation. As I look back on my Christmas memories, Grandma’s red bird Santa spies, formerly a source of childhood worry, now are a humorous example of my grandmother’s rather dark imagination. The unease they once caused has been replaced by far greater emotional turmoil associated with the holidays–the feelings of sadness I experience, having lost nearly all of my close family members, and the dread of the future, of time relentlessly passing. In a similar manner perhaps, the monsters of myth, wintry personifications of fear and death, may have helped emotionally prepare children for real-life terrors and sorrows, the moments of darkness, so that they can more fervently appreciate the moments of light.

Dickens’ ghosts in A Christmas Carol, like the flesh-rending ghouls of yesteryear, remind us of Cronos’ reaping, the ravages of time and grief. Dragging chains of karmic bonds, these gloomy spirits reveal tantalizing moments of happiness lost, once-savored visions now tainted by mourning as loved ones die, good fortune fades, opportunities wither, and the will to live sickens. As with the grisly gremlins of Yuletides past, the ghosts impart a grim but timeless message that is even more relevant in this age of rampant materialism, demonstrating the dangers of egotism, selfishness and materialism. The ghosts, dark oracles offering unsolicited otherworldly advice, nevertheless reveal a path to redemption, a glimpse of the light.

Although Christmas nowadays lacks much of the joy it had when my mom was still alive, I still find a sense of magic in the pageant of darkness and light. The mutilcolored tree lights wistfully welcome me into their shimmering radiance, red as flames, golden as the sun, green as the fragrant pine, blue as the intersecting sky and sea. They and the surrounding darkness they illumine cast a spell of remembrance and renewal, the spirit of the season, its bittersweet longing and struggling hope.

New Wave Music, the 1980s, and Presages of Apocalyptic Doom

Aug. 15, 2021

Listening to the New Wave station on Sirius, I am reminded of the ways the world has become worse since the end of the 1970s. Although much of 80s music seems, on the surface, upbeat, dance-oriented, there is, also an undercurrent of cynicism and gloom, at least in some of the songs, such as my favorites from that time period–”Fade to Grey,” “Tainted Love,” “Blue Monday,” and works by Goth artists (Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy, Joy Division etc.). I sense in works by these artists a premonition of doom , a glimpse behind the vapid, prosperous facade of Reagan-era, billionaire-enriching economics to reveal a future of increasing income disparities, callous commodification of health care, erosion of worker benefits, and rampant destruction of the environment. Although there have been brief periods of apparent social progress, the negative impact of the Reagan era continues, increasing during Trump’s ruthless regime.

Now, with Coronavirus and the pandemic of selfishness, many people do not seem to care about anything but their alleged right to disregard the safety of others by refusing to wear a mask or follow other health mandates. More than ever, I am often disgusted by humanity, its treatment of other living beings and the environment. We now face an environmental crisis that may within the next few decades result in the extinction not only of ourselves but of nearly all other forms of life. All of the magnificent works of art, the cultural and scientific achievements that have been made throughout the beginnings of humankind may also be destroyed. If our ancestors could see what has happened, how their creativity and innovation have been defiled by the greed of those having the power to prevent such catastrophes and the ignorance of those swept up into nonsensical furors by divisive despots, what would they think?

I wonder if, back in the 1980s or before, we would have been able to prevent or at least slow the destruction wrought by climate change by acting more quickly and unselfishly to implement changes regarding energy sources, wilderness conservation, etc. Back in those flippant days of big hair and big money, would we have at least had the chance to stop this looming apocalypse?

Thoughts on Anthony Bourdain Roadrunner Documentary,   Fungi, Viruses, etc. 

Aug. 13, 2021

Neurons shiver, synapses touching, as input from varied sources connect, and ideas emerge. There’s an electrical tingling, as thoughts are generated, brought to life, like Frankenstein’s monster, by a mish mash of parts. Such is the case with my ragged patchwork of ideas regarding the Roadrunner documentary about Anthony Bourdain, the continuing Covid pandemic, and concepts regarding physical and metaphorical parasites.

Watching the Bourdain documentary a few nights ago, I was sadly reminded of a friend and former therapist, Dr. H, who died about a year after Anthony Bourdain’s suicide. Dr. H and I both liked watching Bourdain’s Parts Unknown series, and we were both distressed about Bourdain’s sudden, unexpected passing.

Despite the upsetting depictions of war and animal slaughter sometimes included in his series, I loved the way Bourdain showed us how humans, despite their conflicts, prejudices, and at times agonizing hardships can find joy, unity, and meaning that enables them to survive what may seem insurmountable obstacles.

As someone who, from childhood on, have experienced depression and anxiety, Bourdain’s series offered glimmers of hope that in spite of the wars humans can maybe someday learn to more peacefully coexist. In some of his later episodes he also poignantly explored the devastation of climate change, demonstrating the urgency of protecting the planet, source of life and nurturance for all beings. Bourdain’s death seemed to dim these hopes for human and planetary healing, for as Roadrunner pointed out, Bourdain did not have the wonderful, enviable life many of us imagined. The allure of visiting exotic and thrilling locales, like Dorian Gray’s beautiful portrait, concealed a festering sickness of the soul–Bourdain’s battle with depression and addiction. I wonder if the travel, though hiding the symptoms of the sickness, may have even partly contributed to his depression because of the upsetting things he may have witnessed, the horrors of war, hunger, poverty, and human cruelty.

My sadness over Bourdain’s death was similar in some ways to the feelings I experienced after Amy Winehouse, David Bowie, and Leonard Cohen died. Although I did not feel as closely connected with Bourdain as with those musicians I loved, I did feel a sense of personal loss, as if he was an embodied symbol of qualities precious and rapidly declining in our society–creativity, integrity, and eloquent passion.

Dr. H also embodied those qualities. He was not only my therapist; he was also a friend and muse, offering feedback and encouragement on my writings, even sharing many of my interests–William Burroughs, J. G. Ballard, Twin Peaks, supernatural and psychological horror movies, etc. Before Anthony Bourdain died, I had noticed that Dr. H seemed a bit less energetic, somewhat tired. Then, about a year after Bourdain’s death, Dr. H told me that he had some kind of fungal infection, but he did not think it was fatal. A day or so before our weekly session, he called me to say he wasn’t feeling well and would have to cancel that week’s appointment. I told him that I would give him a copy of my new book the next session, and he said he was looking forward to that. The next week, when I arrived at the session, one of his colleagues informed me that Doctor H. had died in his sleep the night before.

The loss of Dr. H. was devastating. It seemed to me that almost all of my muses and people I felt a creative bond with had died. Also troubling was the mysterious nature of Dr. H’s death–a fungal infection.

Fungi had always reminded me of aliens, powerful, magical, sometimes deadly beings that lived on decaying matter and transmuted it. I was reminded of movies about invasive parasites (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and real-life ones (Cordyceps invading insects and turning them into zombies), as well as invasive parasites of other kinds, such as viruses (rabies, Covid, etc.), and metaphorical viruses (Burroughs’ concept of language as a virus, the addictive, contagious aspect of Internet memes and conspiracy theories), the ways we are shaped by invisible entities within us and outside of us.

In 2020, near the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic, I posted about a dream I had involving viral or fungal parasites:

“I am in a boardroom with several people, and someone tells me there is a tiny, yellow crab-like creature on my head. I then look down and see the creature, along with many other similar things, their numbers multiplying, their shapes mutating. I start to gag and something comes up from my throat that feels and looks like cooked pasta. Other people start experiencing the same thing. We are surrounded and invaded by these creatures, some larger and more gruesome, including one that resembles a centipede. Some are in fluorescent colors and fanciful shapes, such as a two-headed one that looks like two cats playing with a toy. A man next to me exclaims that he wants the cat-head one.The dream is, no doubt, inspired by the coronavirus, our fears and sense of helplessness surrounding this indifferent, alien entity of contagion.A lack of connection with Nature and the worry about being infected by other people intensifies the mesmerizing power of the virus, the invader within, the cryptic tenant living invading us, living within our chromosomes, in a sense, trying to become one with us. Like everything in Nature, it is neither good nor evil; it just exists and seeks to perpetuate itself. It is a competitor, an enigma, a threat to our concepts of human dominion over the planet.”

I am again reminded of fungal and parasitic invasions as I watch the sci fi series Legion, which deals with mental parasites, evil entities that possess the mind and body There is a scene in Legion that chillingly describes how a real-life fungus , Ophiocordyceps unilateralis,  invades an insect’s body, transforming it into a self-destructive zombie, dying fodder for the fungal spores, which, then spread and infect other ants.

Other fungal, viral, and bacterial, such as rabies, follow similar protocols, controlling body and mind as they use the host to transmit infection. The parasite Toxoplasma gondii, for example, controls a mouse’s mind so that the mouse, naturally fearful of cats, begins to be attracted to cat urine, and, thus, becomes likely prey to cats. The Toxo then again continues its cycle inside the cat, since Toxoplasma can only reproduce in the feline gut. Toxoplasmosis has even been suspected to cause mental disorders, such as recklessness and schizophrenia in humans. In fact, it is theorized that schizophrenic cat artist Louis Wain may have been infected with Toxoplasmosis  (In case anyone is interested, my novel Toxicosis explores aspects of Toxoplasma with vampiric cat characters.)

Coronavirus, likewise, has been suspected of contributing to dementia in older people infected by it. Even those not directly infected by it, however, are psychologically impacted by the pandemic and the depression, mental instability, and hostility that often results from isolation. Making matters even worse is the spread of viral Internet conspiracy theories that spawn paranoia, divisiveness, and violence. People are being manipulated by these theories, becoming in a sense slaves to them.

Horror and Literature

  May 28, 2020

Fascinating discussion of horror in literature as well as works often classified as genre fiction–https://crimereads.com/literature-is-built-on-a-foundation…/

Horror and its counterparts, dread and helpless despair, underlie much of literature, expressing perhaps our most primal, tightly suppressed emotions. In horror the nightmares, uncensored, run free, and we see with eviscerating clarity the things we try in vain to conceal from awareness. During times of tragedy and turbulence, it may, paradoxically, illuminate the truths of our vulnerability to forces beyond our understanding and control–disease, pestilence, senescence, and the inevitability of death. Although we as humans often delude ourselves by thinking we have dominion over the earth and sanctimoniously congratulate ourselves on all of the technological marvels we have created, we are still at the mercy of viruses and microbes, still the plaything of entities who, like many of us, are indifferent to the suffering they cause. Not only are we at the whim of non-human entities; we also have cause to fear our own kind, the careless crowds blithely shunning safety protocols or the gullible people blindly disseminating deceptions that put us all at risk. We can be our own worst enemies or become a source of inspiration and solace. We can, through literature and other works of art, symbolically encounter our fears and, in the process, reconnect with our shared humanity.

Internet as Virus

May 18, 2020

I have been thinking a lot lately about the disease-like tendencies of the Internet, its capacity to infect, addict, and ensnare its victims as it propagates conspiracy theories and other destructive, deceptive ideologies. This capacity seems intensified by the emergence of Covid-19, the virus and its technological counterpart growing stronger while our resistance appears to grow weaker. Like the fictional Internet bogeyman the Slender Man, which inspired two young girls to violently attack their friend, the fiction can assume a sense of reality while it feeds on the fears and needs of its victims.

As I wrote in my book Consorting with the Shadow: Phantasms and the Dark Side of Female Consciousness, “The infectious allure of [urban legend] Slender Man and his archetypal predecessors demonstrates the seductive power of a shared belief, a contagious process biologist Richard Dawkins, featured in the Slender Man documentary, terms a “virus of the mind,” transmitted, in this case via an Internet meme. The Werner Herzog documentary Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World also discusses the infectious quality of Internet memes, their power to invade and control a multitude of minds. Although popular media has been influencing people for a long time, inciting desire, anger, hope, and paranoia. . . . the almost instantaneous spread of media via the Internet makes the transmission much more virulent. . . . the malevolent power of an image, a meme, an online urban legend, like that of a ghoulish revenant from ancient lore, is nourished by those it infects. Nurturing an obsession enhances its strength, and sharing it with others gives it an illusion of life. It becomes increasingly real, progressively more intoxicating. Like a tulpa, it assumes a sort of separate yet semi-parasitic existence, dependent on its creators and nurturers yet dominating them.”

Coronavirus Dream

April 15, 2020 

I am in a boardroom with several people, and someone tells me there is a tiny, yellow crab-like creature on my head. I then look down and see the creature, along with many other similar things, their numbers multiplying, their shapes mutating. I start to gag and something comes up from my throat that feels and looks like cooked pasta. Other people start experiencing the same thing. We are surrounded and invaded by these creatures, some larger and more gruesome, including one that resembles a centipede. Some are in fluorescent colors and fanciful shapes, such as a two-headed one that looks like two cats playing with a toy. A man next to me exclaims that he wants the cat-head one.

The dream is, no doubt, inspired by the coronavirus, our fears and sense of helplessness surrounding this indifferent, alien entity of contagion.

A lack of connection with Nature and the worry about being infected by other people intensifies the mesmerizing power of the virus, the invader within, the cryptic tenant living invading us, living within our chromosomes, in a sense, trying to become one with us. Like everything in Nature, it is neither good nor evil; it just exists and seeks to perpetuate itself. It is a competitor, an enigma, a threat to our concepts of human dominion over the planet.

My Review of 18 Straight Whiskeys by Michael Easton:

Dec. 7, 2018  

Review of Michael Easton’s 18 Straight Whiskeys  

Originally published in 1997, Michael Easton’s 18 Straight Whiskeys has been recently reissued as an expanded, collector’s edition with 30 new poems. The book, available at https://www.michaeleaston.com/product-detail/18-straight-whiskeys , provides a fascinating glimpse into Easton’s evolving poetic style, the sparse eloquence and anguished vulnerability of the new works complementing the gritty, cynical, darkly humorous, occasionally scatalogical, musings of the earlier works.  

Divided into sections representing three different eras of writings (2011-2018, 1991-1994, and 1995-1998), 18 Straight Whiskeys explores desire, despair, disgust, creativity, addiction, parenthood, the beauty and filth of mortal existence. Easton’s unflinching examination of human nature in all its degradation, as well as its transcendent yearnings, gives the writings an earthy yet poignant, at times almost mystical, sensuality. Fluctuating between these extremes of abasement and ecstasy, the poems probe the mystery of love, its shifting moods and manifestations. Throughout the poems love assumes various masks, taking on the quality of a bloody, agonizing struggle, a poison, an intoxication, an insatiable yearning, an “exquisite torture,” a caressing, tearing erosion of self.  

In addition to his poetry about love and its manifestations, Easton harrowingly describes experiences shaped by his vagabond journeys of self-discovery after his mother’s death in 1994. These works, depicting the life of a youthful wanderer, are awash in scenes of debasement and despair–abusive relationships, puking addicts, gurgling toilets, “the smell of bleach, with a feces twist,” “smoke rings and smoker’s cough,”  “the sun hanging by a noose, about to be dropped.”

In the midst of this sordidness and dissipation, however, tepid rays of light beckon; epiphanies flicker in even the lowliest places. Like Leonard Cohen, who found traces of the sacred in the darkness, the carnal, the depths of agony, Easton reveals signs of illumination–”the moontide light passing through the rib cage of Joshua trees; like morning for Matisse”, as well as inspiration from his muses (Dylan Thomas, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, Leonard Cohen, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman,  Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix). He also draws strength and inspiration from memories of his deceased parents and, in his new poems, his love for his children. “Poem for an Improper Wake,” for example, gives a tribute to Easton’s father, focusing on small details, random, fragmented memories that most concisely and powerfully express his essence–a neatly stacked pile of quarters, “the sound of his walk,” his feisty Belfast spirit. As this poem and the earlier one about his mother (“Poem 37”) perceptively express, our loved ones live on through ever-present associations, objects evoking their presence, thoughts echoing their conversations, the parts of ourselves we realize have been shaped by them. The poems about his children celebrate the parental bond while offering visions of hope (“Same Eyes, Blue Eyes”) and empowering advice (“JBE”).  His concern for future generations in a world where innocence and faith are easily corrupted is also evident in “Remembering Green and Blue Things,” written long before the birth of his son and daughter: “They’ll ask us to tell them about / the stumps and the sky./ A time, when dolphins didn’t lie on rocks;/ a time when all of it was avoidable.” Whether or not this dire forecast becomes reality and despite the desolation (social, moral, as well as environmental) afflicting our world, Easton’s poetry reminds us that love, its sublimely inspiring yearning, gives life meaning and purpose. We may, as Oscar Wilde proclaims, be living in “the gutter . . . but some of us are looking at the stars.”

My Analysis of Ginger Snaps on Wicked Press Blog

July 15, 2017 

Thanks to Mark Matthews, my essay on the film Ginger Snaps has been featured on his Wicked Run Press blog.

Analysis of Twin Peaks (New Series, Episodes 1 and 2)

May 22, 2017

The new Twin Peaks embodies my favorite aspects of David Lynch’s work as it eliminates some of the more audience-friendly elements of the original series. Sacrificed in favor of a darker, more atavistic surrealism are many of the comic, rather satirical soapy trademarks of the 1990s episodes—the endearingly loopy eccentricities of the background characters, the comforting illusion that a tragic mystery will eventually be solved and some type of justice will prevail. Instead, chaos or some malevolent, inscrutable system of order inimical to humankind seems to dominate Twin Peaks and perhaps the world as a whole.

Like the bizarre glass cubicle that a lone witness must continually watch, the series is an enigmatic puzzle box from which at any moment something terrifying may emerge. Linearity, logic, and language twist and turn.  Attempts to communicate often result in nonsensical replies, reversed utterances, palindromic slogans. Doppelgangers wage a cryptic war amongst themselves, and, like the gods and demons of ancient lore, use humans as their pawns and sustenance. Severed body parts reshape to become new creations—an arm, for example, evolving into a monstrous, tree-rooted head reminiscent of Redon’s “Spirit of the Forest.”

Resurrecting imagery from some of his previous works (sinisterly sizzling electricity, menacing, meandering highways, dismembered corpses), Lynch engulfs viewers in his oneiric vision. Like a dream that momentarily fades but never actually ends, each of his works may merely appear to be a separate entity but may instead be part of one continually recurring nightmare, interspersed with scenes of humor and beauty but then resuming with renewed intensity.  Does the dreamer ever actually awake? Does the dream continue, even in death?

(Note:  I was especially surprised and pleased by the reference to “Armstrong.”  In the first episode, it was used as the name of a dog, but perhaps the name has symbolic meaning that relates to the severed arm that transforms itself into a terrifying new creation.)

The  Vampire Carmilla–An Analysis

April 11, 2017

One of the earliest examples of vampire literature, Carmilla by Sheridan LeFanu, brilliantly explores the passionate, tenacious bond between the  adolescent female narrator Laura and the seductive vampire Carmilla. In this novella Carmilla, also a young woman, appears as a mesmerizing doppelganger, the shapeshifting shadow side of Laura’s conflicted psyche.   A femme fatale with lesbian proclivities, she is a manifestation of forbidden female desires as well as an embodiment of male misogynistic fears.

The first encounter Laura has with Carmilla takes the form of a childhood dream or visitation. This experience, evoking contradictory emotions of tenderness and terror, perhaps reflects a yearning for her mother, who died when Laura was an infant.  Never knowing her mother’s caress, Laura has a feeling of being “delightfully soothed” by a mysterious, attractive young woman who visits her in the bedroom one night and gently lulls her back to sleep.  However, this nocturnal reverie takes an unpleasant turn when Laura is awakened by “a sensation as if two needles ran into her breast very deep.”  Alarmed at Laura’s cry, the haunting lady immediately disappears but returns many years later when a carriage accident causes the traumatized passenger, Carmilla, to be invited into Laura’s home as a long-term guest.  Details of the so-called “accident” are as hazy as the moonlight-shimmering veil of mist that creeps with graceful and paradoxical “serenity” across the castle grounds soon before the carriage crash takes place.  Laura, walking with her father and other caretakers on this “enchanted,” fateful night is in a sad, reflective mood, for she has learned that a young female guest she had looked forward to spending time with at the castle has passed away due to a sudden, life-draining illness. As if in response to Laura’s sorrow and disappointment regarding the death of her guest, the carriage crash brings a replacement guest, Carmilla, into Laura’s lonely life.  When Carmilla’s mother explains to Laura’s father that she must leave for an urgent errand and needs someone to take care of Carmilla for several months, Laura eagerly begs her father to let Carmilla stay with them.  Laura feels irresistibly drawn to Carmilla, sensing some connection that binds her to the beautiful young woman.

This connection, Laura discovers, has psychic and genetic aspects. Soon after Carmilla moves in as a long-term guest, Laura, realizing that Carmilla’s face is the same one she saw in her childhood vision, tells Carmilla her memory of that strange nocturnal encounter, and Carmilla confides that she had a similar dream involving Laura. The dreams described by the two women are mirror images of each other. In Laura’s vision, Carmilla is a young lady and Laura a child, whereas in Carmilla’s dream, Carmilla is the child and Laura the older girl. Carmilla declares their shared vision to be a sign that they were “destined” from childhood to be friends, and Laura agrees.  However, despite her attraction to Carmilla, Laura feels a slight twinge of repulsion towards her psychic double, the shadow of a consuming, addictive allure. Later, Laura finds that she and Carmilla not only share the same vision; they may also be distantly related, for Laura’s mother, like Carmilla, is descended from the Karnsteins.  This genetic connection emphasizes the relationship between Laura’s motherless yearnings and Carmilla’s first visitation as a sort of incestuous surrogate mother. Carmilla reflects Laura’s maternal yearnings and ambivalent feelings of desire. She is the sweetly caressing mother and the life-withering succubus, a memory of love and a pang of mourning.

Although LeFanu’s novella barely discusses the death of Laura’s mother, merely mentioning that she died when Laura was an infant and that, therefore, Laura found maternal affection in the form of her female caretakers, the spectre of the departed mother whom Laura cannot remember lingers like a ghost of unacknowledged grief. The vampire Carmilla, tied to Laura’s mother by bloodline, may be perceived as a malevolent aspect of Laura’s unexpressed, inchoate emotions of mourning for the mom she never knew, the haunting residue of sadness and anger that, though suppressed, may never completely fade.  These emotions, associated also at times with survivor guilt, have been linked throughout history with a fear of the dead, a need to appease and put to rest the spirits of the deceased, in so doing acknowledging and making peace with one’s grief. Vampires and ghosts, the unappeased, restless dead, are manifestations of our ambivalence towards our deceased loved ones—the sorrow (and sometimes anger) experienced at their passing, the desire to be with them again, and the terror of dying.

As wandering, insatiable spirits, vampires, in particular, symbolize fatal love, a passion so intense and consuming that it brings death or a perpetual, damning eternity of yearning. Carmilla rapturously confides the destructiveness of her love (and perhaps love in general) when she tells Laura, “Love is always selfish; the more ardent, the more selfish.” Early in her visit as a guest, she even hints at her true nature when she says to Laura, “I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine.  I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love. . . . You are mine, you shall be mine, you and I are one forever.” Carmilla’s “rhapsody” of words and “soft kisses” evoke in Laura “a strange tumultuous excitement that was  pleasurable … mingled with a vague sense of fear and disgust.” “It was like the ardor of a lover; it embarrassed me; it was hateful and yet overpowering,” Laura relates.

Enticed yet revulsed, Laura cannot resist Carmilla’s spell. Following another rapturous confession in which Carmilla alludes to being “assassinated” at a ball and declares that love demands “sacrifices,”  “no sacrifice without blood,”  Laura senses a frightening entity in her bedroom that evening.

Unlike the sweetly caressing female presence which visited her when Laura was a child, this time the nocturnal visitor takes the form of a large, black, “monstrous” catlike creature. As in the earlier encounter, Laura then feels “a stinging pain as if two large needles darted ” into her breast. Awakening “with a scream,” she dimly sees a “female figure” standing, motionless as a stone, at the foot of her bed before disappearing from the room. Carmilla, assuming feline form and then transforming back into a woman, has left her mark on Laura, claiming her beloved “sacrifice.”

Throughout the book Carmilla oscillates between occasional violent amatory urges and her usual listless melancholy.  Often described as “languid,” lacking energy and vitality, she exhibits symptoms of neurasthenia, a common 19^th century medical term for individuals experiencing depression, irritability, and fatigue. Although individuals of both sexes were diagnosed with neurasthenia, women with the same symptoms were often considered “hysterical,” and the treatments differed according to gender.  This difference in approach regarding treatment reinforced misogynistic views towards women, suppressing their intellectual and creative drives to focus female attention on the domestic virtues of passivity and complacency.  As Anne Stiles, discussing American views towards neurasthenia in the 19^th century points out (“Go Rest, Young Man,” APA Monitor on Psychology, Jan. 2012, Vol 43, No. 1, p. 32, http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/01/go-rest.aspx ), while men with neurasthenic symptoms were advised by doctors to partake in vigorous outdoor activities as a way of curing their nervous exhaustion, women were prescribed bed rest and told to avoid mental activities. Whereas the exercise and fresh air probably helped, at least in part, the male patients, the confinement, the seclusion, the lack of diversions no doubt exacerbated some of the women’s symptoms.  Given no outlet for the mind or body to release tension, the women held captive could only find release in their imagination, and, as Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s  short story about this type of experience, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” harrowingly depicts, this release can take the form of a demonically obsessive vision, a liberating psychosis.  In the case of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the imaginary spectre, like “Johnny Panic,” represents the narrator’s means of maintaining her creative vitality and integrity while, like Carmilla, functioning as a sort of feral doppelganger.

Carmilla, however, unlike mortal women with symptoms of neurasthenia or psychosis, has no need for doctors or the advice of men. Her languor, taking place in the daytime, is associated with her vampiric need for darkness and blood. A morning slumber, as well as an infusion of blood, provides the only treatment she needs to restore her vigor.  Despite demonstrating traditionally feminine qualities of weakness and fatigue during her daylight hours, Carmilla, in her fierce nocturnal aspect, becomes an aggressive, powerful predator capable of slaying men, as well as women, in her insatiable sanguinary urges.

At the end of the story, Carmilla, though destroyed in traditional vampire fashion (stake to the heart, decapitation,) remains an ineradicable presence in Laura’s memory. Appearing in visions of paradoxical intensity as a “playful, languid beautiful girl” and a “writhing fiend,” this creature of fascination and loathing still haunts Laura’s soul. She, like “Johnny Panic” and other dark entities of the imagination, lingers within the unlit, often acknowledged parts of the psyche, bringing chaos or liberation.

The Image of the Vampire 

March 28, 2017    

 Horror Antihero Caleb Morley

Analysis of the Vampire Caleb Morley    

Although daytime dramas, better known as “soaps,” began as languorously-paced, narratively-anemic television stories designed to divert the house-bound wives and mothers while promoting sanitizing domestic products, they evolved into increasingly convoluted melodramas depicting adultery, murder, mental illness, and whatever social problems or taboos enticed their progressively more diverse audience.  Deranged twins, falsified medical records, long-presumed dead siblings or children miraculously wreaking havoc upon their scheming relatives are now standard plot devices in the once-prosaic realm of homes, hospitals and detergents.   Despite the often implausible storylines, however, the  daytime drama genre has rarely  ventured or sustained forays into the supernatural.   Whereas a few soaps have briefly featured plot elements involving ghosts or demonic possession, “Dark Shadows” was, for years, the only soap that continually delved into otherworldly scenarios.  In 2001, however, the General Hospital spin-off Port Charles, originally, like other soaps, focused on romance, intrigue, deception, and betrayal, followed Dark Shadow’s example by introducing supernatural storylines about magic and vampires.  The most compelling and creatively inspiring of these storylines focused on the vampire character Caleb Morley, portrayed by actor Michael Easton.   Not only were these stories intriguing and innovative in their portrayal of vampires, but they also included immensely perceptive explorations of psychological and spiritual conflicts that have afflicted people for centuries.   Like the works of Edgar Allan Poe , Joyce Carol Oates, and  Robert Louis Stevenson, among other writers of horror-themed literature,  Port Charles used imagery of the vampire, the sinisterly seductive stranger, and the doppelganger as a way to explore mysteries and aberrations of consciousness, the monsters within.

A key theme of Port Charles and horror in general is duality, the battle between good and evil.  As in many horror films and literature. Port Charles dramatizes this dichotomy by having one character, the vampire Caleb Morley, associated with evil, and some of the other characters, particularly the angel/vampire slayer Rafe Kovich, represent aspects of virtue.  This apparent dichotomy, however, reveals layers of ambiguity, mirror doubles reflecting latent desires and fears.

Dream demon, seducer, taker of souls and infester of visions, the vampire Caleb is the stranger we know from somewhere deep within ourselves.  He offers those willing to surrender to him a thrilling journey from which we may never return, a dangerous expedition into our primal selves. The wildness and darkness Caleb releases in those he has touched is as ancient and potent as the first bloodstained, firelit gods scrawled on cave walls. He lurks within  human consciousness, taking many forms, many guises as he is summoned from his slumber by the dreams and invocations of questing, restless souls

A shadowy figure with fierce, entrancing eyes, Caleb is a tantalizing  voice trickling into an innocent girl’s ears, a demon shaman hitchhiking his way into her yielding soul, a seductive stranger who offers dazzling  gifts that come at an undisclosed price.  Will he ravish the body or gnaw away at sanity? Does he lead into damning temptation or release one into the limitless depths of imagination? Only by giving oneself up to the perilous but potentially illuminating possibilities he promises can the answer be revealed.

Like the Wolf in the “Little Red Riding Hood” fairy tale, he can assume a charming guise, luring  his prey with sweet, gentle words, as he does with his soul-mate Olivie (Livvie) Locke, or, for those who unknowingly thirst for excitement, such as the young, romantic Gabriela Garza, he can tempt with forbidden pleasures.  At times he  offers both danger and magical romance, promising an eternal unconditional love that is attainable only by sacrificing one’s human existence and all mortal ties. During their first conversation (by the river, a symbol of transformation),  for example, Caleb tells Livvie that he is her “future,” the one who can take away her grief and loneliness; all she has to do, he murmurs, is “surrender,” and her emptiness will disappear forever. He invades her dreams, becoming the secret lover, the erotic phantom who knows what she desires and is the only one who can satisfy her, the only one who can love the darkness  and torment harbored within her lost little girl soul.

Caleb’s seductive enticement and ability to peer inside one’s  psyche has similarities to the mysterious temptations offered  by A. Friend in Joyce Carol Oates’  short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” a mysterious character who appears  to a teenage  girl (Connie) and proceeds, by sweet talk and threats, to seduce her into going for a ride with him in his flashy  gold car.  One of the most intriguing aspects of Oates’ tale is that, as with Caleb, A. Friend seems to exist as a   fantasy lover, evoked by the unconscious libido, a demon who knows one’s deepest needs and darkest secrets.

Like the girl in Oates’ story, Livvie at the beginning of “Tainted Love” is a young woman with two sides to her, an innocent “good girl” side and a more rebellious, thrill-seeking, defiant side.  After Livvie meets Caleb, she, like Connie, is forced to choose between two worlds. Livvie must decide whether to continue living in an illusory, childlike world, represented by her boyfriend Jack, or let herself experience the dangerous passions and forbidden knowledge represented by Caleb.  By choosing Caleb, Livvie forsakes human notions of love and security for the fierce, transfiguring, soul-scarring love binding immortals throughout eternity.

Relishing his status as an immortal bloodsucker, Caleb embraces the arrogant, ruthless powers of the defiant damned.  Cruel, mocking, treacherously alluring, and nearly invincible, Caleb savors  his wicked ways and considers himself to be far superior to the beings he depends upon for sustenance.  Stalking, deceiving,  and murdering, Caleb terrorizes Port Charles and brainwashes his beloved Livvie, stealing her innocence and forever tarnishing her soul.  Even after Caleb is killed twice, struck by lightning, then stabbed in the heart by Livvie, he remains as indestructible and inescapable as a dream,  returning to haunt his beloved, as well as the rest of Port Charles, by assuming the guise of the enigmatic, mesmerizing rock star “Stephen Clay.”   The first glimpse of him in his new identity is in the shadows of a limousine. Like A. Friend, he uses sinister charm to entice his young female prey.  Smiling cryptically and somewhat lewdly at young female songwriter Marissa while sitting beside  her in his limousine, he  claims to see inside her soul, know her better than she knows herself.  “Take a little ride with me,”  he urges, luring her away from safety and drawing her more closely into the enclosed, womblike darkness of his limo.  Later, after Marissa  is dropped off at her destination, “Stephen” sees the innocent, virtuous waif Tess wandering aimlessly in the park and offers her a ride.  “All you have to do is get in the car,” he tells her, warning her of the dangers she may face by herself in the park.  Although Tess declines his offer and begins leading a life of bland domesticity with Livvie’s  boyish cast-off,  Jack, she later finds herself irresistibly pulled towards the dark, fiery intensity and passion she perceives in Stephen/Caleb. As with her lookalike, Livvie, she cannot resist her attraction to this seductive stranger.this  potential threat or  possible savior who seems to know her most private hopes and fears, who offers escape from boredom, loneliness, stagnation, or despair.  Taking a “ride” with this stranger can bring death, transformation, or shattering self-knowledge, but few can turn away from his perilous, poisonous magic.

Caleb’s dual nature goes beyond his role as a vampire, giver of death or eternal life. Just as we think we understand his motives or begin to perceive him as merely another intriguing but unredeemable villain, he reveals yet another conflicting facet of his personality.  Early on in his story, we see him depicted as the villainous counterpart of his priestly identical twin, “Father Michael.”  Lurking in the basement of Father Michael’s monastery, he glares with fiery, beast-like eyes, a phantom dream-embodiment of sin in a sanctuary of virtue. He is sensed by the flakey yet psychic Lucy Coe as an ominous force, appearing to her as the Stranger card, cloaked and sinister, in her Tarot deck.

Caleb is too complex, too ambiguous, however, to be confined to the vampire’s customary realm of evil. Although Port Charles, as is typical of classic horror films, externalizes the conflict between evil and good with its depictions of the vampire and his/her virtuous nemesis, it differs from the typical Universal horror films of the ‘30s and the Hammer vampire horror films of the ‘50s through ‘70s by exploring in considerable depth the inner conflict of its characters, particularly Caleb.

Although on the surface Caleb appears to be the embodiment of pure evil, he is actually much more vulnerable and tormented than he will admit. Torn between a murderous id and a moralizing superego,   Caleb’s  intense inner conflict takes the form of a dual personality disorder.  Like Norman Bates in “Psycho,” Caleb is split into two relentlessly battling aspects, and neither Caleb nor his priestly “twin” Father Michael realize that they are actually opposing aspects of the same consciousness. His first screen appearance on Port Charles, in a dark basement of a dilapidated church, vividly symbolizes the antithetical dualities raging with him.  Throughout this scene the basement is lit in a gentle, ochre light, dusky and foggy yet pierced in areas with golden rays which illuminate Caleb’s face, making him appear like some radiant, almost holy figure in a Da Vinci or Caravaggio painting.  Both Father Michael and Caleb in their scenes together (which are, of course, before it is revealed that they are the same person) have a mystical, ethereal glow.  Caleb’s  menacingly glowing eyes and his wild, predatory demeanor, however, contrast with the golden aura  surrounding him. He is like a beast imprisoned. The basement, symbolizing the id, the savage impulses lurking in the darkness of the unconsciousness, shelters him in its protective yet confining womb, while the church, representing the superego, morality and spirituality, towers above its dank foundations.   Apparently unaware that his pious  “twin” is merely a creation of his divided psyche, Caleb  hides in the shadows as his other aspect struggles to rebuild the derelict church.  Unlike traditional vampires, Caleb is  immune to the sacred symbols that traditionally repel those of his kind.  Escaping from seclusion, Caleb defiantly enters the church, touches the crucifix in a mocking yet somewhat reverent manner, and attempts to destroy all the hard work “Michael” has done to restore the beautiful old chapel.

In a clever twist of the good/evil dichotomy, both aspects of Caleb, the vampire as well as the priest, appear to be incited into battle against each other by their mutual attraction to the same woman, an unmarried pregnant woman with the Biblical name “Eve.”  The shy, gentle “Father Michael” gains Eve’s friendship with his kind demeanor and spiritual insight,  but despite his chivalric gestures, he seems to harbor unacknowledged feelings of desire.  Like the slyly slinking serpent in the Garden of Eden, Michael hands Eve an apple, symbolic of forbidden temptation. Although “Michael” tries to conceal his lustful feelings from Eve and himself, he cannot hide them from Caleb, who continually reminds Michael of his secret sin. Caleb likewise covets Eve but for a different, far more malevolent reason; he wants the fruit still ripening inside her, the as-yet unborn child he plans to steal after it is born and raise with his true love, Olivia, as their own baby.  This yearning for his beloved and a family of his own is one of Caleb’s few weaknesses, one that Michael can use against him, for, as Michael rather cruelly reminds Caleb, vampires cannot reproduce.   Michael, the celibate but love-smitten priest and Caleb, the lecherous but infertile predator,  share the loneliness of   a family-less life.  Both are outsiders, observers of human experience denied to them, but whereas Michael feels love and compassion for the human world, Caleb feels hostility and resentment.

Just as Norman Bates protects his murderous “mother,”  Father Michael shelters his vampiric alter-ego deep within the bowels of his church, Caleb’s dangerous impulses symbolically suppressed by the spiritual, moralizing superego.  Caleb, however, continually  battles his constricting, compassionate protector, usually triumphing over his priestly counterpart.   In a particularly chilling scene Caleb breaks free of his repressive priestly alter-ego, and, still wearing his priest’s robe, stalks Eve.  Hearing what appears to be a conversation between Father Michael and someone else, Eve enters the church and sees the priest by himself, his back to her and still talking to an invisible presence.  He senses her presence, and, without turning around, urgently warns her to leave. Concerned for her friend Michael’s safety, she refuses to go away, and by the time she realizes what is happening, it is too late.   Father Michael is no longer there, his body and soul now controlled by Caleb. This scene in which the priestly-garbed figure turns around and reveals himself as Caleb evokes memories of Psycho as well as The Night of the Hunter.   It echoes the Psycho scene in which one of the female characters, searching the basement for clues, sees what she believes to be old Mrs. Bates sitting on a chair, only to discover, in horror, that the old woman is actually the shoddily preserved body of Norman’s mother, the eyes staring back at her as dead, glazed, and ominous as the many stuffed birds of prey Norman has arranged in frozen flight around the dank, musty house of gloom.  Although Caleb, in obvious contrast to the gristly Mrs. Bates, is beautiful and breathtakingly alluring in his menace, he is as cold and sinister as a basilisk with his eyes of death.  This scene, with its chilling blend of holy and demonic imagery, also shares similarities with the classic thriller The Night of the Hunter.  Like the murderous reverend in Night of the Hunter, evil conceals itself behind a religious persona.  Caleb, still wearing the priestly collar of Father Michael and otherwise identical to his twin, appears horrifyingly different—his fixed, serpentine stare of loathing diametrically opposed to Father Michael’s shy, kindly demeanor. An othewordly being, indifferent to human suffering, he glows with the luster of a Byzantine icon or a hellishly brilliant devil.  Eve watches in horror as Caleb, disguised as her friend Michael, threatens to steal her unborn baby, even if he has to rip it from her womb. Realizing that Caleb and Father Michael are the same person, Eve cleverly decides to coax the sweet, compassionate priest from within the malevolent vampire.

She calls upon Michael, the sweet, shy, sensitive man who befriended her, sheltered at his church, and helped her find her way back to her beloved Ian.  Her insistent summons somehow sneak past Caleb’s cruel bravado and bring back his gentle alter-ego.  Back and forth the split personalities, demonic god and anguished priest, battle.  Seized by convulsions, the Caleb/Michael hybrid staggers, grips his stomach and retches.   Like werewolves and other shape-shifters, Caleb is possessed by two opposing aspects of his personality, but in Caleb’s case the transformation is much less visible, revealed only in his facial expressions, voice, and demeanor.  “One soul,” the Michael aspect tries to remind his arrogant, vicious Caleb counterpart.  Caleb may think he can break away from his more human, vulnerable side; however, the two aspects are one being.

In the end it is this vulnerability, Caleb’s love for Livvie, his addiction to her, that proves his undoing. Killed by a lightning bolt in “Tainted Love” and by Livvie’s stake in “Tempted,” Caleb, phoenix-like, dies and resurrects, but remains hopelessly enthralled by his beloved.  Although his “Father Michael” aspect does not appear again onscreen after Caleb’s first death, that human-like vulnerability, love, and addiction continue to undermine his  attempts to seize power.  The doppelganger, invisible, unacknowledged, still exerts its self-limiting, self-destructive force.

Caleb in all his self-divided intensity represents the turmoil within us all, the energizing, primordial desires and impulses fighting against conflicting emotions and needs. Manipulative,  dangerous, even at times “monstrous,” he is nevertheless a character driven by an all-consuming  devotion transcending time and betrayal, a man risking everything to be with his eternal beloved.

Thanksgiving Memories

Nov. 17, 2016    

We shuffle into the school auditorium, and the teachers line their pupils into more or less orderly lines.  A teacher, who at the time seems elderly but is probably only 40, sits down on a pencil-etched piano bench and starts plinking off-tune keys on an upright piano. Solemnly, a teacher beside her raises her hands, signaling the beginning of the Thanksgiving song “We Gather Together.”

Tiredly, unenthused by the plodding, possibly Puritan-inspired, melody, the students sing along.  One by one, directed by the teacher of each class, the children trudge up to a large box decorated with construction paper turkey feathers and deposit their offerings. When it is my turn, I walk towards the box, cradling my cans of creamed corn and congealed cranberry sauce, then, at a cue from my teacher, plop them into the cardboard receptacle.

As one box is filled, another one, similarly decorated, is brought into the center of the room, and the ritual resumes.  The children, exhausted by this wearisome ordeal and eager to get home for the 4-day vacation from school, fidget. Breathy whispers and unsuccessfully suppressed giggles are sternly shushed by teachers. Finally, as the last can is tossed into the last overladen box, the ceremony concludes.

Looking back on these moments of Thanksgivings past, I experience a jumbled smorgasbord of emotions, feelings clashing, dissonant tastes blending—gelatinous, salty grey-brown gravy, spongy, clot-red cranberry jelly, bland, ubiquitous pumpkin puree.  Moments of pleasure, scented of cinnamon and sage, sweetly settle into a safe, childlike corner of my brain, while all around them, more recent memories bombard the cozy, cave-like walls.

A flimsy cardtable in the living room is set for our preteen banquet, all of us cousins under the age of 13 clustered around it. My oldest cousin, Julie, though only a few years older than the rest of us, always manages to sit with the grown-ups. Another cousin, the one I feel closest to, envies Julie and wants to desert our special table to be seated with the adults.  For that moment in time, however, she is with us and still, thankfully, a child. I resolve never to grow up, trying to forget about the elders around us as I savor the engulfing aromas of the turkey and other oven-nurtured delights.

Shelley, my closest cousin, spending the night for the long weekend, accompanies me to my bedroom to escape the chattering and chewing sounds. Restless that the early afternoon feast is still continuing, we sense an approach of something we do not know whether to fear or welcome.  Before another year rolls around, that “something” may irrevocably change us. Childhood is dwindling; the adult table, laden with temptations and regret, soon awaits us.

As the aunts, uncles, and other cousins leave, Shelley and I venture out of the bedroom to say “goodbye.”  Dishes stained crimson and orangish-brown, smeary with residue of grease and starch, are stacked in precarious heaps alongside the kitchen sink.  Grandma, always the designated cook, dishwasher, and hostess, wipes her dish-soapy hands upon her food-splattered apron. Suffocating in the steamy odors of her kitchen domain, she has missed out on almost all of the meal-time conversations and barely has a chance to see everyone before they, clutching their Tupperware-containers filled with leftovers, depart.

The rest of the evening is ours. As Shelley lies on the creaky cot beside my bed, we talk and make up songs.  One of them is a parody of “We gather together.”  In our version a hungry family eagerly waits for a delivery truck bearing the cast-off Thanksgiving bounty donated by us schoolchildren. With the innocent insensitivity of children, we laugh at our lyrics about the feast of canned peas and gravy.  We do not realize that sadness lurks behind our grimly hysterical ditties.

Now, many years later, as I anticipate another Thanksgiving, the sadness predominates. Almost everyone at the grown-up table has left, never to return except in my dreams and memories. “We gather together” no more, and the feast is a ceremony of hunger, loss amongst plenty.

Dark Oases

Nov. 14, 2016      

Whenever “reality” becomes depressing, I seek solace in works of imagination, particularly the dark oases provided by speculative, metaphysical, psychological horror literature, movies, and TV shows. The television series Black Mirror, Channel Zero, and Westworld especially invigorate my creativity. I am thankful for these intellectually stimulating, labyrinthine explorations of the psyche, dream worlds, cybernetic consciousness, and dystopian prophecies. More than ever, it seems, television programs, at least non-mainstream cable or Netflix shows, dare to challenge, confound, disturb, illuminate rather than to placate or numbly entertain. I was pleasantly surprised a few weeks ago when Westworld made perhaps the first television reference to a rather obscure scholarly work, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes, which I read many years ago. This revelatory work theorized that consciousness evolves, that the inner voice we now realize as being part of ourselves used to be perceived as something external, a voice of the gods. Whether or not the theory is true, it is thought-provoking. It makes one focus on the process of thought, opening up a mirror maze of self-reflective paradoxes and awakening the nightmare of solipsism I first encountered when reading Mark Twain’s “Mysterious Stranger.” Black Mirror, likewise, offered an enthralling paradox in its episode “San Junipero,” proposing the possibility of consciousness encoded in a virtual reality where paradise is an eternal state of mind. Although unlike Black Mirror and Westworld, Channel Zero is set in the past and present instead of an imaginary future, it also focuses on the relationship between consciousness, electronics (in this case, TV), and the unleashing of phantasmal monsters. I take joy in these fantasy worlds whose darkness offers at least some wisdom.

Independent Creators Alliance

Oct. 10, 2016 (edited Nov. 15, 2017)      

Having attended an Indie Book Fair recently as an author, I learned some valuable information regarding marketing and distribution, but the overall message of the advice left me feeling disheartened regarding the arbitrary standardization of the publishing industry. Instead of focusing on creativity and literary talent, the speakers at the event seemed to emphasize orthodoxy in page design (justified text, avoidance of stylistic content-driven page and paragraph breaks, etc.). I support the importance of proper grammar and punctuation and feel that these aspects, along with originality in content, expression, and style, are essential in quality writing. I do not believe, however, that standardization of font, margins, and other traditional publishing practices should be given such a high priority. After all, readers would probably not notice or care whether the margins were justified. In fact, often justified margins make reading more difficult to comprehend due to breaks in words. Even though there are increasing numbers of indie authors, the publishing industry persists in perpetuating typographic conventions that are usually not used in Word or other common writing programs; in so doing, the publishing industry imposes an arbitrary standard to differentiate between indie and non-indie authors so that indie writers may feel pressured into purchasing services to make their work appear more like traditional published materials, thereby making their work less independent, more restricted by financial concerns. In addition, publishers seem to be promoting an increasingly conventional approach to cover design, resulting in a glut of covers featuring blandly attractive, nearly identical male torsos or other figurative clichés associated with the book’s genre.

After the death of my mother, I feel that I have become increasingly adrift from my body. I have dreams that promise a world beyond the body, a vampiric world where the astral body partakes of an idealized, almost Platonic world of sensory delights. In one dream I remember walking barefoot on a beach, the sand under my feet and between my toes, curling exquisitely soft, like kitten’s fur. As I walked further, the sand gradually become moister, submerging my feet and legs, body, and head. I was underwater, engulfed in a grayish, greenish blue blankness that eclipsed my breath. At first I was afraid, but eventually I grew calm, overcome by the suffocating caress of the water. Somehow I managed to make my way upwards, out of the water, and free, reborn.

My favorite vampire movie, The Addiction, which I also discuss in Revenance, is featured in the following article about 18 philosophical films: http://www.tasteofcinema.com/…/the-18-best-philosophical…/2/ Here’s an excerpt from Revenance comparing and contrasting The Addiction with the vampire film The Hunger:

“Once snugly inside our room, my Awakener browses through his small stash of DVDs. Since we have limited space, he has only brought his favorite films with him. Looking over his collection (Requiem for a Dream, Sid and Nancy, Naked Lunch, etc.) he selects two vampire films we both like—The Hunger and The Addiction. We begin with The Hunger.

The opening music video-style sequence of this film powerfully introduces the contrast between a vampire’s fierce animality and its seductive, almost ethereal, elegance as scenes featuring the beautiful, genteel undead couple Miriam and John (portrayed by Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie) are juxtaposed with imagery of monkeys fighting in a cage. Miriam and John, sunglass-shielded, scan the cramped, crowded dance floor of a raucous nightclub, seeking their prey while Bauhaus’ Peter Murphy, caged like the monkeys, performs his Goth classic “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.” His long, graceful hands grasp the cage bars, the song’s sinuously repeated bass line and pounding, fibrillating drums evoking the mood of imprisoning dread. Selecting an attractive punkish young couple, Miriam and John take them back to a luxurious Manhattan apartment. As Miriam and John gently kiss the young man and woman they have brought home, the scene shifts to the caged monkeys, fangs bared, tearing at each other’s flesh. The scene culminates with Miriam’s ankh dagger plunging into the male and female victims, throats slashed, and a caged monkey being torn apart, bloody sinews throbbing. Like the aftermath of a murderous orgy, the next scene is deadly calm. The apartment, as white and solemnly majestic as a marble mortuary, is bathed in light, white curtains billowing as soft, melancholy classical music plays in the background. Tenderly, John and Miriam caress each other in the shower, while John murmurs the words “Forever. Forever and ever,” wistfully, nostalgically. The film, losing momentum after this opening sequence, then begins to show the connection between the caged monkeys and the two elegant vampires. Apparently, the monkeys’ sudden vicious rage is triggered by insomnia, which, in turn, leads to rapid aging, dementia, and death. These symptoms eerily correlate with those of Miriam’s doomed lovers—inability to sleep, followed by accelerated aging as well as physical and mental deterioration. Miriam, unlike the traditional vampires of lore, cannot bestow the immortality she alone possesses. She can only give a shoddy semblance of it—a few centuries of youthful beauty as a blood-drinking murderer—then a sudden, irreversible decline into a state of perpetual putrefaction, the mind, still sentient but trapped in a rotting, entombed body that can never die. This ultimate horror—the mind locked inside a decomposing body—is a theme underlying many horror films, but here it is evoked in all its gruesome yet poignantly sad implications. Forever denied sleep and oblivion, Miriam’s ex-lovers remain in their sealed coffins, cloistered as if in a living dead dormitory, within Miriam’s light-filled attic. She has promised them an eternity of youthful delight but given them a hell as tortuous as it is timeless. Yet monstrous as her actions are, Miriam is a strangely sympathetic heroine. She truly loves the male and female partners she has unwisely, unethically selected to keep her company during their limited counterfeit “immortality.” Doomed to an eternity she cannot share, she lies to her lovers, gives them a beautiful, romantic fairytale fiction she is unable to make true. She watches as John, like all the rest of her loved ones, eventually turns old and decrepit, fiercely craving the blood that can no longer sustain his youth and beauty. Cradling him in her arms in a scene reminiscent of a Pieta, she kisses him “goodbye,” easing him gently into the casket that will be his place of eternal unrest. Up in her attic, the dead lie, flesh peeling, minds endlessly spinning in futile desperation, as white doves, like angels, look down on them with impotent pity.

Unlike the pastel-tinted grisliness of The Hunger, The Addiction presents its interpretation of the vampire myth in gritty, raw-edged, film noir black and white. Although it also takes place in New York City, its Manhattan is far removed from the upscale neoclassical luxuriousness of Miriam’s oasis. The heroine of The Addiction, Kathleen (portrayed by Lili Taylor) is thrust into her undead existence one night when she is bitten by a female vampire in a subway tunnel. After being taken to the hospital and treated for her wounds, Kathleen begins developing the thirst for blood. Unable to eat or sleep because of her incessant craving, she attacks a homeless man, whom she stabs with a needle, and then injects herself with his blood. Swooning with euphoria as she plunges the needle into her arm, she realizes that she is trapped by her addiction to blood. She needs the fix and will do anything to attain it, even attacking her philosophy instructor and her best friend. Since she is a philosophy student working on her graduate degree, she struggles to find philosophical meaning in her addiction, relating it to her thesis on the nature of original sin, predestination, and complicity in evil. According to Kathleen, she, as well as the other victims, did not actively resist their victimization but merely submitted; therefore, they are complicit in the curse they, in turn, end up transmitting to others. She realizes that the addiction is self-perpetuating. It is an escape from one’s “hunger” and yearning, as well as an escape from the truth of one’s own addiction. This escape, ironically, is an imprisonment. Eventually, while stalking what she thinks is a potential victim, she is abducted by her prey, who is actually a very ancient vampire (played by Christopher Walken). Stoically, citing the Tibetan sages, this ancient one, Peina, informs Kathleen that he has managed to survive for centuries by learning how to control his cravings; no longer enslaved to them, he can choose when to feed. He forces her to confront her addiction by starving her and draining her blood until she is reduced to trying to slash her wrists for a few drops of blood; then he releases her to face her downward spiral of addiction to its disastrous, mayhem-filled conclusion. The film’s pessimistic philosophical emphasis, starkly haunting cinematography, and absence of supernatural clichés make it unique in vampire-themed cinema. As I ponder The Addiction’s grim message and the gruesome interpretation of immortality offered in The Hunger, I worry about the secrets not yet told to me by my Awakener. What is this metaphorical clod of native soil that we must carry with us, like a curse and a fix, to keep us as we are? How do we survive the avalanche of years, the piles of corpses, the rotting residue of nightmares? ”

On “Placental Consciousness”

Ballard’s View of Consciousness   

The following is a quote from the author J. G. Ballard in his book The
Drowned World which I find particularly relevant to my interests in
myth, psychology, “dark muses,” and art works originating from our
inner void:

“The brief span of an individual life is misleading. Each one of us is as
old as the entire biological kingdom, and our bloodstreams are
tributaries of the great sea of its total memory. The uterine odyssey
of the growing foetus recapitulates the entire evolutionary past, and
its central nervous system is a coded time scale, each nexus of
neurones and each spinal level marking a symbolic station, a unit of
neuronic time.”

In this book Ballard describes a future in which global warming has
made almost all of the planet uninhabitable except for the arctic and
antarctic regions. Since the polar ice caps have melted, much of the
earth is a boiling lagoon, filled with primeval life forms. Human
consciousness, like the plants and animals of the external world,
seems to be drifting towards a prenatal, placental state , a solipsism
in which the boundaries between dream and reality are dissolving.
This world is an autistic oasis, each individual in his/her own oceanic
universe. Such is the world as depicted in the works of Expressionistic artists–the painter Edvard Munch, the poet Sylvia Plath, the films of David Lynch, as well as the ancient shamanic maskmakers. These works summon the urges, the wild, tangled, seductively ensnaring roots of our earliest memories.

Review of Michael Easton’s new graphic novel, Credence (also posted in Reviews section of this site)

Credence Review  by Alison Armstrong       

Where tawdry, contrived “reality” shows featuring floozy debutantes and wannabe poseurs have replaced creatively expressive forms of media, authenticity, integrity, courage, as well as the most profound depths of horror, are obscured beneath a fluorescent sheen of mindless, sensationalistic entertainment. Michael Easton’s graphic novel Credence, illustrated by Steven Perkins, vividly depicts this bleak yet all-too-familiar contemporary milieu, highlighting its depressing banality while exploring the capacity for heroism in the midst of the most gruesome depravity.

Danny Credence, the main character of the novel, is a deeply flawed detective at home in the cesspool landscape of filth, crime, drugs, and celebrity worship. He is a rebel, a transgressor of some of the very laws he as a police officer is supposed to enforce, yet he is also a man struggling to retain his battered ideals. Subjected to abuse by his hateful, tyrannical father, Credence learns that violence is a means of survival and that the boundaries between conventional morality and immorality are often hazy. Despite his shortcomings as a policeman, husband, and person, however, he is driven by a sense of honor, a need to protect the innocent and vulnerable while destroying the malevolent forces that threaten everything good within humanity. Credence has the opportunity to redeem himself when he encounters a murderer who delights in dismembering his young victims. This diabolical nemesis, Andras, like Jung’s concept of the Shadow, represents the darkest aspects of the psyche, the twisted, unappeasable demons haunting, tormenting, and tempting mankind in many different guises and masks throughout history. Bolstered by his proud, pugnacious Celtic heritage, the “Belfast blood—a snake pit of Irish American rogues out there just waiting to be summoned,” Credence prepares to battle Andras to the death.

Easton’s prose—raw, at times profane, yet balanced by passages of poignant beauty, such as his description of the 9/11 rescue dogs searching for signs of life buried beneath the crushing, indifferent rubble of mass-scale death—lays bare the bones, skin, guts, and blood of our worst nightmares and traces with shadowy, evasive tenderness the resilient, revivifying whispers of hope. Giving cinematic vividness to Easton’s words, illustrator Steven Perkins presents in lushly shadowed gradations of black, white, and grey dizzying perspectives—towering skyscrapers and plunging descents. Alleys, basements, and subways lurk with chiaroscuro menace. Faces snarl, scream, and contort with hellish intensity. Like a film noir movie in print form, Perkins conveys an everpresent mood of mystery and unease in a landscape where the worst things are always waiting to happen.

Although the book’s subject matter is dark and disturbing, Easton’s sly, sarcastic wit, his scathingly perceptive observations of our society’s obsession with shallow, insipid, ignoble idols provide invigorating doses of comic relief. In opposition to these crass, disreputable icons, Easton pays homage to heroes who embolden and inspire–the dedicated police officers and servicemen who risk their lives to save others, as well as the artists and musicians (such as Lou Reed, Patti Smith, and Shane MacGowan depicted towards the close of the book) who challenge us to create a new, much more vital and satisfying, reality. As in his Soul Stealer graphic novel series, Easton’s new book is a riveting exploration of sin, valor, love, brutality, and sacrifice. This time the mythic elements are concealed within the gritty, contemporary urban setting. Celebrity flunkies have presumptuously tried to take the place of the ancient gods, but, as Credence shows, the battle between good and evil is as fierce as ever, and heroes, despite their flaws, are just as crucial.

About My Work

Inspirations         

Dreams, memories, images from films, notes of music, dust on a fireplace mantel, stained and fading photographs, the endless, indifferent stars–all these shape and define me. As a child, my favorite book was Thomasina; as an adolescent my other favorite was Dracula. I love animals, vampires, the supernatural, mythology, the arts, the surreal, the mystical, the sublimely unexplained

Having always felt a kinship to cats, dogs, and their wild relatives, I often envy them their beauty, power, gracefulness, and sensory awareness. They, like vampires, represent what humans lack.

We, as humans, have lost many of our instincts, our blood summoning. Only possessing the most rudimentary of fangs and claws, we go through life not knowing the intensity of a world beyond the capacity of language. Our senses, like our teeth, are blunted. In my dreams I know that animal-vampire ecstasy, but when I awaken, the daylight shrivels the eidetic images. They die, like worms on parched pavement, and I thirst for the darkness always beyond my grasp.

My interest in vampires and the supernatural began when I was about 13 and saw “Dark Shadows” on TV. From that point on I became fascinated with depictions of vampires in literature, films, myths, and art. Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla, and Anne Rice’s Lestat, Louis, and Claudia helped to shape my perception of vampires as seductive, enigmatic, sensual, charismatic, and dangerously enthralling beings. Although I have been writing poetry, fiction, and essays since childhood, I didn’t write about vampires until I began creating a series of Web pages analyzing the TV series”Port Charles” and its vampire character Caleb Morley (portrayed by Michael Easton). I then began incorporating vampires in my fiction, using them as a way of expressing my feelings about death, spirituality, creativity, animals, and human existence. Vampires, to me, represent a synthesis of human, animal, and the divine. They are muses, bringing visions, dreams, and nightmares from mythic realms. They haunt, torment, and inspire, awakening the libido, the senses, and the imagination.

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