Hiatus...

Hi there.

Yeah, It's me. Your very own Writer to the Stars. I have to stop blogging for...well, I really don't know. Not too long, I hope. What's going on is that I've been working on some fiction, along with blogging. But I've reached the point where I need to really concentrate on my stories, and burrow into them like a wood tick. I thought I could hold to my beloved blog, while cranking out short stories at the same time. But I can't.

Not right now.

Problem is, I started blogging with a very singular idea. I wanted a place where people-who-like-to-read could come and nestle in with something interesting. I'm a compulsive reader myself; I know how happy I am when I discover a good writer on-line. So, following on the best I've read in cyberspace, I decided I wanted to explore themes at my leisure, and take my time with them. And I decided my posts would have a beginning, middle, and an end. And I decided sometimes what I wrote would be funny, sometimes not, but it would always be heartfelt, and it would always be truthful. I don't know if I've succeeded, but I will say I've always enjoyed the time it takes to post something on Write and Wrong. Each of my posts takes a good amount of time...sometimes two, three, or four hours until I get it right, so something else usually gets dropped with a thud. Too often it's my fiction.

Thank you, each one of you, for reading my posts and for your comments and emails. You've been very generous, and have kept me chugging along, even through my usual shadowy periods of self-doubt. Please feel free to keep commenting here...if and when you feel like it, or email me if you like. Somehow I've acquired a band of articulate, discerning readers and you've honored me with your attention.

I'll be back.

Hopefully it'll be soon.

The real deal?

A real live documented Haitian zombie

But probably not. Heartbreaking, I know. All of us have a tiny person within us, and that person is wearing a tinfoil hat and crammed with doubtful beliefs. F'instance, several years ago it only took a hot ten minutes at an urban myths website to realize that many "truths" I cherished, were actually pretty nutty. And so, onward in this post, to the possible reality of zombies, which was one of those "facts" I would have mud-wrestled you over.

When it first came out, I spent many happy hours pouring over Wade Davis' book, The Serpent and the Rainbow, a respected anthropologist's account of actual Haitian zombies. Later, a train-wreck of a movie was based on his book and I spent some happy time watching that too, shivering over the scary undead and marveling that zombies were real after all. Thanks to zombie-blogging, I've had occasion to revisit Davis' research and to wonder why I bought into it in the first place.

There are several problems with the Wade Davis book. Problem #1 is that the zombie powder used by witch doctors (or bokors) in zombie-making ceremonies is, on analysis, is far too weak to make a respectable zombie. You'd need a more massive amount of puffer toad plus fuga fish in the zombie powder to put someone in the comatose condition that's required. Once it's ingested, the zombie-nominee supposedly falls into a coma state so deep, it appears to mimic death. Then, after the zombie is "dead", he's quickly buried, periodically force-fed datura paste (which makes the zombie candidate catatonic) and dug up after an unspecified length of time.

Anecdotal and scientific evidence both suggest that people have been buried alive in Haiti for all kinds of reasons and that it's not uncommon. Since it's a tropical climate, the dead are buried very quickly, which increases the odds of a sad mistake. An interesting side-note is that people can and do recover from the whole puffer-fish, buried-alive, datura horror-show. But, according to Haitian bokors, if it looks like a zombie is coming to, he's just fed more datura. What supposedly emerges is a will-less, unconscious being, easily led and directed. However, that leads to another problem with Wade Davis book.

He seems to have jumped right into the whole spooky grave-corpse-witch doctor paradigm without considering any other alternatives (aka, hypotheses as used in the scientific method) to zombieville. The photo above pictures one such supposed "zombie", who was, in fact, never touched by a witchdoctor and is severely brain-damaged but is still considered a zombie, entirely for cultural reasons.

A considerable problem with the Wade Davis book is that, despite having a boatload of zombie powder, he was never able to zombify anyone or duplicate any "results" he saw. And a replication of results is the only proof the scientific method recognizes.

A later study by the British in 1993, included interviews with supposed zombies, analyzed zombie powders and various datura pastes, and ultimately concluded that these people were more likely the products of mental illness and oxygen starvation, seen in the context of voodou.

However, putting these poor souls to one side, to me, the more innaresting questions are small ones. Why do we use terms like zombie banks? And zombie creditors? Somehow we're conflating the economy plus the undead: Zombie Bankers Who Ate My Brain!

I'm not sneering at anyone's belief or joy in zombies, whatever type they prefer. It's forgivable. A quality of our species as human beings, is that we are highly suggestible. Like Kahnweiler wrote in his Introduction to the First Cubist Exhibition, We not only look at, we look for.

Right now, I think what we're actually seeing and participating in, zombie-wise, is one of our cultural allegories. We sit before our news websites, mouths ajar, goggling at will-less, unconscious, and immoral beings who can neither be held responsible or fixed.

That is a far, far scarier sight than any raggedy-ass zombie.

HERE ENDETH THE ZOMBIE CHRONICLES.

Fat zombies and other problems...

The chunky undead

As you may have figured out, I'm something of a monomaniac. Once I get into, uh, anything, I tend to keep at it until the topic/activity/chore and I are ground right into the floorboards, and my husband has to tell me what day of the week it is. But unlike a lot of obsessives, there's a more than a pinch of curiosity involved in my labors. So I've been researching zombies of all types, realizing that I may actually be looking for The Zombie Who Does Not Exist. In the last post, I took on girl zombies since I had this idea that girls were, at the very least, unwilling participants zombie-wise, and thus statistically rare. As you saw, I got my comeuppance big-time,and discovered that girls are totally enthusiastic about being zombies and would like blood to drip down their gray decaying faces 24/7. So, onward through the fog to fat zombies. I was positive there were no chubboid zombies, but check out my pix today. More where that came from too.

As half a minute's worth of the Google will show, fat zombies are not only ubiquitous, but according to the game, Doom 3, they're the most dangerous because their heft gives them momentum. However, in HellGate, fat zombies are just fat zombies, no special powers given. I think we can overlook HellGate entirely, since Doom 3 appears to be the gold standard zombie-wise. In fact, there's a certain consternation among the zombie websites about how to combat fat zombies. At LostZombies, it's strenously suggested that you not heave a fat person at a pursuing fat zombie, because you'd only wind up with two fat zombies as a result. Why you might heave anyone at a zombie, rather than just getting the fuck out of town is a question for another day. On PlanetDoom, zombie obesity is pondered, with one poster suggesting that once a body is dead and decaying, gases tend to bloat a corpse. This poster goes on to say that maybe fat zombies have been mislabeled as porkers, when they're actually just more dead than other zombies.

Since we're becoming heavier as a nation, I've wondered if zombies are just eating a richer diet and a lot more of it. Personally, I find fat zombies more appealing, since they seem to have less decay, and thus don't have the grisly display of exposed stringy muscles, body-parts and glimpses of the ribcage that skinnier ones seem to.

For myself, I've been wondering, on and off, if fat zombies might not spell the welcome end of this series. And yet...I realize I haven't considered the most important zombies of all: real zombies. The kind they create in Haiti to do the shit work like harvesting sugar cane etc. In that context, they seem mild enough and not prone to wolfing down passers-by. Anyway, their raison d'etre is to save money, since they don't eat much of the precious little there is to eat in Haiti.

Then too, as far as zombies go, I haven't considered a far more depressing kind of zombie: the symbolic kind. It's so depressing, given these troubled times, I wonder if I'm even up for exploring the topic. The fact that financial whiz-boys are talking about zombie banks doesn't seem accidental to me.

It means something is dead and stinking in the culture.

Been dead for a while, too.

Girl zombies, hotter than evs...

Girrrrrl zombie's night out.

I'd been thinking of zombies as being a semi-equal opportunity horror-fest, although probably lower on female participation than male. Some of that assumption reflects my bias. Since zombies-in-general look like hell on a cracker, I thought most females would recoil at the necessary slob-out of zombiedom. That's what I believed until I dipped into the Internet. Doing a Google on the phrase, "girl zombies" brought up a wealth of female longing and participation. Some of this is attributable to the female celebrity scriptwriter Diablo Cody's likely production of Breathers: A Zombie's Lament. Then, through www.evilontwolegs.com, I discovered that at one horrorific get-together, being a female zombie was the most popular costume choice, hands down.

Given the moldy look of most female zombies (except for Japanese zombies, see yesterday's post): flesh falling off, fucked-up hair, blood-drool on the chin, and hideous clothes, my knee-jerk reaction had been, Not in a million years. But actually, this is exactly what's attractive to many young women today, especially those who feel oppressed by having to shave above the knee, wearing a faceful of makeup, and the whole blow dryer thing.

Along my bumpy path of zombie research, I came upon the promising post: Zombies Ate My Brain from the blog Tales of An Ordinary Girl, which I highly recommend, in which the poster wakes up from a nap to overhear a conversation between her husband and sister-in-law. As she listens, it becomes clear that her sis-in-law believes zombies are real and is fretting about them. Her husband is far more patient than I would be, and points out that basing your assumptions on Dawn of the Dead doesn't make you the brightest bulb in the tanning bed. But the poster points out that she herself grew up in a Pentacostal household and believed in all manner of spirits and witches.

It got me to remembering a point I made early on in this blog. I wrote that down the road, Evangelicals would come to love them some zombies. If they were hot for rights of the unborn, they'd be maniacal about full-citizenship for the undead.

Seemed like a winner to me.

I wonder why no one ever commented.

Japanese zombies...

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This is not really the topic of this post, although for you zombie fans out there, I will certainly acknowledge the very real cultural contributions of the Japanese undead. Actually, I had just read an article in Slate this morning about RapeLay, a violent interactive rape simulation game from Japan. This got me thinking about Japanese teen fashions which, a couple of months ago, including the fashion-fad of dressing-up like you'd just been beat to shit: purple bruises, bulky casts, and artfully wound bandages. At this point my topic rapidly cycled into Why Are The Japanese So Nuts?

For that, I have a fairly speedy answer. The Japanese are nuts because, by necessity (eg. centuries old civilization, little-bitty island, few natural resources), they have an extremely rigid society. The more rigid the society, the more violent the porn. The End. All that is true, but hardly the stuff of a good chewy post, especially after discovering there is a US availability of RapeLay, and that knowledge is currently radiating in my brain like an exploded dirty bomb.

With a lot of throat-clearing, all manner of US venues are banning the game, but a fast 30 seconds on Google will uncover a fully functional copy you can download, creepily promising "hours of fun!". The Slate reviewer reports it's more like hours of depression, contemplating that special basement where true scum suckers live. Like a lot of Japanese bad-ideas, RapeLay is aestheticized so that its true yuckiness lives below a scrim of improbabilities. For example, once you've cornered your fair lady, a make-out session ensues and, after a yes-I-will-no-I-won't kind of struggle, the deed is done. And wuddya know. She likes it! Just like all rape victims really do. RapeLay is fodder for a lot of ire and ire a-plenty has already been expressed on the Jezebel and Shakesville websites. Me, I'm holding off on my own molten ire in order to hop on Japanese zombies.

Actually, the more I get into zombies, the more of a pounding I can expect from true zombie fans. Since I don't enjoy seeing the undead eat the living, my zombie-knowledge is woeful. In digging around, I discovered that some zombie lovers have created an artistic hierachy for zombie judging. There are those who believe that black zombies are the true undead creme, and they have their reasons. Zombies originate in Haiti, home of mixed races, and besides, there was that guy in Night of the Living Dead who was black, and Night of the Living Dead is the gold standard of zombie movies. However, an angry poster on a zombie website, like UnDead BackBrain, pointed out that the black guy in Living Dead wasn't a zombie at all. The first poster fired back, so what? He was the coolest guy in the movie. At which point I baled.

Supposedly the best Japanese zombie movie is one called Junk. I don't know. I've only examined a bunch of stills from few undead flicks. Checking those out, I conclude that Japanese zombies appear well-groomed, neatly often fashionably dressed, with really excellent makeup, which makes them scarier in a way. You're unlikely to know who's really a zombie unless you spot one squatting on a subway platform, munching up a commuter. Here at least, they demonstrate one universal quality of zombies: making pigs of themselves. After gobbling up one of the unfortunate, the Japanese undead have whole rivers of brilliant red blood coursing down their chins, which they leave in place (see illus. above). Actually, I consider this a weak point, horror-wise.

I'm a great fan of the straight vanilla Japanese horror movie. My quibble with them, however, is their buckets-o-blood syndrome. It's always too bright, too glittery, too much of it. But that's just my cultural bias.

We Americans like our virtual blood to look realistic.

I'm not sure why.

Zombies or vampires?......

I have to give a lot of credit to my readers, who are an uber-thoughtful bunch and inclined to mull over the deeper issues at some length. In my initial post on zombies versus vampires, I was persuaded towards vampires simply because of personal hygiene issues...superficialities in other words. Embarrassingly, I became fixated on how male vampires get to wear shirts with puffy sleeves, have long yet clean super-black hair, a preference for tight britches, and they rarely climb out of the coffin in saggy underpants and a lot of stubble. Female vampires get to sex it up with tight bodices, beaucoup cleavage, big black hair and, in more modern times, a nod towards S&M leather.

Yet a reader says in a well-reasoned Comment:

"Tough call, but I have to vote for zombies.

Don't get me wrong. Vampires are interesting. But I think there've been too many changes to the vampire concept in the last 20-30 years. It seems like the core vampire rules have been abandoned. One of the best-selling vampire books in recent memory features vampires who sparkle in the sunlight? Puh-leeze.

But zombies are (mostly) still mindless killing machines. The details have altered somewhat, but at heart they're still similar to the zombies of yesteryear."

And I have to say, on further reflection, he's right. The classical vampire of the snaggly Nosferatu type is no more. Overlooking the standard '50's I Was A Teenage Vampire (Wolfman, Werewolf, Blob etc.), probably the first important historical break with the accepted vampire-genre came with the movie, Near Dark, made in 1986, which postulated a bunch of white-trash vampire no goodniks, who rolled around the country in a dented Bondo-body van. At the time, a reviewer billed it as the first "...vampire hill-billy film", which brings to mind MA and Pa Kettle vampires and misses the point. It's really the legacy of Near Dark that informs the HBO series True Blood, although the True Blood vampires look like the League of Women Voters in comparison to the Near Dark skanks.

Zombies, on the other hand, are remarkably and classically unchanged. In fact, a very partial list of zombie movies gives you a quick sense of the remorseless unchangeablity of zombies and their goals.

Zombie 4: After Death, 1988
Zombie 90: Extreme Pestilence, 1991
The Zombie Army, 1991
Zombie Creeping Flesh, 1981
Zombie Cop, 1991
Zombie Holocaust, 1979
Zombie Island Massacre, 1984
Zombie Lake, 1984
Zombie Nightmare, 1986
Zombies of Mora Tau, 1957
Zombies of the Stratosphere, 1952
Zombies on Broadway, 1945
Zombie Rampage, 1992
Zombiethon, 1986

Zombies, in a real sense, are democracy in action. By the end of the film, they're all still together as a group (those who haven't had charcoal-starter squirted on them and set afire), gnawing on someone's leg, with no higher aspirations. Although they seem to get around a lot (to lakes, Mora Tau, Broadway, islands, nightmares, army posts etc.), travel doesn't appear to broaden them. Once there, whatever their destination, it's the same damned program: grab a human, tear his head off and gobble up his brains.

The whole business of zombie vs. vampire is, I see, a replay of that aesthetic argument between the post-modern and classical virtues.

But which is better?

Are you going for results or looks?