Welcome to WeeklyWilson.com, where author/film critic Connie (Corcoran) Wilson avoids totally losing her marbles in semi-retirement by writing about film (see the Chicago Film Festival reviews and SXSW), politics and books----her own books and those of other people. You'll also find her diverging frequently to share humorous (or not-so-humorous) anecdotes and concerns. Try it! You'll like it!

Category: Books Page 1 of 27

Connie will review the thriller/mystery/horror books of others and will keep you posted on her own writing.

Writing: The Art of Creative Invention

Based on a true story – The art of creative invention to tell a complete story

By Lisa Montalto

Titanic

 

As we all know, an autobiography or memoir is based on a true story, but there are also other forms of writing where the story happened. When a novel is written based on a true story, it can be written in first person by the person who experienced it, but often it’s written by a third party.

When a novel is based on a true story but written by a third party, there is a lot of research involved. And even with the most intense detective work, not all of the story is known. The little nuances and gaps need to be filled in and that’s where the writer uses their imagination to do the filling-in.

Where do you find a writer? Ghostwriters Central, Inc., is one great source. They have many skilled writers under contract, including me, thoroughly vetted, and ready to assist clients worldwide with books, screenplays, speeches, or whatever else they may need. The company was founded in 2002. If you need their help, click the link. Your first consultation is free. What follows are some examples of fiction based on fact.

TITANIC

 

Let’s begin with the story of the Titanic. There have been several books written and movies made about the days leading up to and the day the Titanic sank. So, what are the facts and what part of the story is fiction?

Fact: The RMS Titanic hit an iceberg off the coast of Halifax, Nova Scotia on April 14, 1912.

Fact: It sank two hours and forty minutes later.

Fact: 1,510 people lost their lives out of 2,240 souls on board.

Fact: First Officer Murdoch, on the bridge, was alerted the by a man in the crow’s nest at 11:40 pm about the iceberg.

Fact: There wasn’t enough time to avoid the iceberg.

Fact: The ship was sailing at full speed.

Fact: The band continued to play as the ship sank.

That book or movie would be relatively short if not for an author filling in the gaps, creating backstories for passengers who didn’t exist, and adding drama to the plot.

SCHINDLER’S LIST

This is how a book is written when based on a true story. Let’s take the movie Schindler’s List. It was written as a novel called Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally about Oskar Schindler. Its genre is historical fiction because, while the facts surrounding the story are true, the rest are fictionalized.

Oskar Schindler became a hero when he saved 1,200 Polish Jews from the gas chambers. Keneally wrote the story based on factual names and events, but he needed to fill in the gaps about things he couldn’t possibly know, such as private conversations and actions that only the long-deceased Schindler would know.

Novelist Thomas Keneally happened to be in the right place at the right time when he entered Poldek Pfeffferberg’s shop in Beverly Hills, looking for a briefcase. Pfefferberg was a Holocaust survivor who worked for Oskar Schindler. He had been trying to gain the attention of publishers and moviemakers to tell the story of Schindler’s heroic efforts to no avail. When he found out Keneally was an author, he presented his story idea. Pfefferberg had extensive files on Schindler from working with him and it didn’t take long for him to convince the author to write the story.

 

In the United States, the book and subsequent film became named Schindler’s List, a number-one bestseller and blockbuster movie.

UNITED 93

To be a great non-fiction author you have to be able to fill in the blanks using research to validate what you’re presenting. When writing dialogue, it has to be believable that the real-life figure would say this or that. You must be able to use their voice to speak for them in ways that are most likely to have been true.

 

In the case of the 9/11 movie, United 93. We couldn’t possibly know everything that was said on that plane. We have a great idea based on phone calls from the plane and can piece it together, but the writer had to do their research. They had to imagine being there and what the passengers and terrorists would say. They had to research the people through interviews with family and friends to hone in on their personalities and how they would react. All of this leads to a more complete and credible story.

Writing fiction and non-fiction requires their own special skill sets. A fiction writer can most likely write non-fiction because they have the skills to embellish and take on the voices of their characters. However, a non-fiction writer might have a hard time with fiction if they’ve only ever written factual-based true stories from interviews with the story’s subject. However, if you’re a good writer, you’re a good writer. If you’re not, contact Ghostwriters Central, Inc., at ghostwords.com.

Character Matters, But Does It Matter in 2025?

Bee Gone

Bee Gone book by Connie Corcoran Wilson

Something that the MAGA group seems to need to be reminded about is that CHARACTER MATTERS. A person’s past actions are the single best predictor of their future actions, as I was once told by a job recruiter running “mock” interviews for my Rhetoric students at Eastern Iowa Community College,

CHARACTER, DOES INDEED MATTER. A Washington Post reporter interviewed a former aide to Senator John McCain and the news from the front was not pretty.

“Karen Tumulty writes that we have catapulted past constitutional crisis and are now in the domain of constitutional collapse. She is also writing about the shadow emperor, whose designs lurk behind an executive branch “run-a-Musk.”

Of course, the president is at fault for this collapse, Karen writes, but so, too, is Congress, which the nation’s Founders could never have imagined would be “so supine in the face of such a barrage.”

Karen writes wistfully of the “statesmen of an earlier era, all Republicans,” who stood up for Congress’s authority when presidents overstepped. One of those was Sen. John McCain, whose former chief of staff Karen interviews.

He tells her: “We’re getting a pretty intense lesson in how much our constitutional order depended on people’s character. … Republicans, almost to a person, have failed.”

“Inkwo for When the Starving Return” at Sundance, 2025

"Inkwo for When the Starving Return"

“Inkwo for When the Starving Return” at Sundance (Photo courtesy of Sundance Film Festival).

“INKWO FOR WHEN THE STARVING RETURN” debuted January 24th at Sundance  in the Animated Shorts Film Program  with three additional in-person screenings to follow. The film will also screen online across North America January 29th, 7:00 AM  PST through February 3rd, 3:55 AM  PST. The series is in development. It is being coproduced by Spotted Fawn Productions (SFP) and by the National Film Board of Canada. Spotted Fawn Productions (SFP) is an Indigenous-led and community-oriented Vancouver-based studio founded in 2010, which focuses on visionary illustration, stop motion, 2D, 3D and virtual reality animations.

 

“Inkwo for When the Starving Returns” is a story set two lifetimes in the future (Denendeh), when the world hangs in the balance. Sadly, that seems very much like the world today. On tonight’s news they announced that the world clock predicting the end of the world has been reset  at 87 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been. (Hardly encouraging, but a good preface to this piece).

The animated story focuses on a young, enigmatic gender-shifting warrior named Dove. “Inkwo” means medicine; it is used to defend against an army of hungry, ferocious monsters that re-emerge to feed upon humans. The flesh-consuming creatures become stronger with each body and soul they devour.

Amanda Strong, Director of "Inkwo for When the Starving Return."

Amanda Strong, director of Inkwo for When the Starving Return, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

The animation, sound, and voice acting are top-notch. The creatures are appropriately horrific and threatening.  Amanda Strong, showrunner for the production, is a Sundance Native Lab Fellowship recipient (the first Canadian Indigenous Fellow), a Red River Métis artist, writer, producer, director, and mother. A Canadian Screen Award and Emmy-nominated director, Amanda is the owner, director and executive producer of Spotted Fawn Productions. Her collaborative creations amplify Indigenous storytelling.

The story is adapted from the collection of published and unpublished short stories and graphic novels “Wheetago War,” written by award-winning storyteller Richard Van Camp. It features voice talents Tantoo Cardinal (“Legend of the Fall,” “Killers of the Flower Moon”) and Paulina Alexis (“Reservation Dogs”) and Art Napoleon (“Moosemeat & Marmalade”).

 

"Inkwo for When the Starving Return" at Sundance.

“Inkwo for When the Starving Return” at Sundance. (Photo courtesy of Sundance Film Festival.)

The series articulates truths like this: “When people forgot their connection to the land, they lost themselves as well.” That sort of truth isn’t confined to just a futuristic animated series about monsters. The fading family farm, our pollution of the very food we consume, the escalating climate changes globally being largely ignored by U.S. leadership—all bear testimony to the truth of that observation.

 

Another scripted moment, between the frog that Dove saves (who promises strong medicine—-“Inkwo”) is a call to action to fight and protect against the forces of greed around us. There  seems to be a surplus of greed in the U.S. in 2025, so, hopefully the “inkwo” will help those who disagree with the way things seem to be going in the United States.  Another insightful line: “We are all born hunted.”

Certainly feels that way more and more, especially if you are an immigrant in the U.S.

I applaud the goal of the series, which is: “Taking a stand to defend the remaining humans and animals left on the Earth.”

In the United States in January, 2025, all of us need to take a stand to defend the remaining humans and animals left on Earth. Perhaps we could start by rejoining the Paris Climate Accords and the World Health Organization and not re-creating the sort of camps  the United States government established in WWII.  As concerned citizens, we must urge elected representatives to do what they know is best for democracy in the United States. Endorsing and embracing a kakistocracy is counter-productive to safeguarding peace and prosperity.

 

 CREDITS

   DIRECTOR

  • Amanda Strong
  • Screenwriters

Bracken Hanuse Corlett

Richard Van Camp

Amanda Strong

  • Producers

Amanda Strong

Maral Mohammadian

Nina Werewka

  • Principal Cast

Paulina Alexis

Tantoo Cardinal

Art Napoleon

  • Year

2024

  • Category

Short

  • Country

Canada

  • Language

English, Dene

  • Run time

18 min

  • Website

https://www.nfb.ca/film/inkwo-for-when-the-starving-return/

  • Contact

festivals@nfb.ca

 

“Scarecrows: Appalachian Tales” by Steve Rasnic Tem

 

Scarecrows: Appalachian Tales by Steve Rasnic Tem

Scarecrows: Appalachian Tales by Steve Rasnic Tem

Steve Rasnic Tem has compiled a second new collection of short stories, “Scarecrows: Appalachian Tales,” that revisit the Appalachian states like Tennessee and Virginia, sketching memorable stories of the miners and kinfolk who live there.

When I read the story “Willie the Philologist,” the third story of the twenty-six stories  in the 180 page volume, I felt that this story accurately captured this award-winning writer’s love affair with  language. Explaining the term to Bill, the story’s protagonist, the author says, “That means you’re a lover of words, Bill. A bona fide lexical romancer…That was one of the things about words.  They let you love them…You could still love them, even when you didn’t understand them.” The narrator remarks, “People ought to be like that with each other, but too often we’re not.”

Bill, in the story, lives in Norton and just loves words like “gregarious,” “rue,” “pell mell,” “slapstick.” “He repeats them over and over for a time, but then their meanings always creep away, as if ashamed of themselves, and all he has left is their carcasses.” Later, he admits, “They can’t see that he just loves his words.”  This love of language and facility with it is true of Steve Rasnic Tem’s work, and it transports these semi-horrific stories into the realm of literary fiction.

Although I understand the wisdom of using the Appalachian setting as the unifying device for the collection (and, by the way, it’s not that easy to FIND a suitable unifying theme for short story collections), I thought to myself, “The author is a philologist, par excellence.”

Maybe his next collection will simply be titled “The Philologist?”

“The Cabinet Child” – The first story in the collection is set in 1901-1902 in Southwest Virginia.  Jacob and Alma are the main characters. Jacob seems to have supplanted caring about people, replacing that with caring about furniture.  “Sometimes, at night, she would catch him with his new acquisitions and talking to them as if they had replaced the family he no longer much cared for.” In time, “His family virtually abandoned him over his choice, but, as a grown man, it was his choice to make.” How did Jacob’s love of things rather than people affect Alma?  “Over the years, despair worked its way into her eyes and drifted down into her cheeks and the weight of her grief kept her bent and shuffling.”

“Smoke In A Bottle” – This one had a lighter tone than many, with a poverty-stricken family in St. Charles, Lee County, in Southwest Virginia  enjoying their father’s antics at Christmas-time. “We knew Christmas was over when Dad fell into the Christmas tree.” The town is typical: “I knew there was still a lot of good about the town, but it is not the kind of place you come back to.”  Eddie, a neighbor, gifts Willie with a Christmas tree and there is little for the family other than that. The narrator says, “I hadn’t been back in St. Charles in twenty years.  Not because I hated it.  When you live in a place as poor as that people think you must hate it and you can’t wait to leave. I knew I was poor, but I didn’t know I was that poor.” The alcoholic father of the story does his best to soften the blow of their poverty, including his Christmas tree shenanigans and sharing the wisdom that “You got snow, you’re a rich man” because “Snow was good for covering up shabbiness, and ugliness, and essentials missing.” A bittersweet story of life in impoverished circumstances.

Steve and Melanie Rasnic Tem

The author and wife Melanie on their wedding day.

“The Bible Salesman”.

Daddy Frank is a state trooper and “Daddy always looked angry as hell, even in his sleep.”  Jimmy, Sam and Molly witness Daddy’s King of the Castle demeanor firsthand. They are witnesses when a Pakistani Bible salesman sweet talks wife Janet into buying an expensive Bible. The book would cost $200 in four $50 installments and Daddy Frank, when he discovers Janet’s faux passe, isn’t having that.  I instantly related to the line, “Might as well say some day they might visit the moon” in relation to any of the family visiting Pakistan (where the Bible salesman is from), only, in my case, the line applied to the Beatles coming to Chicago to play and me traveling  to hear them. My elderly Iowa parents were not on board.  I remember thinking that my chances of making it to the moon during my lifetime were better than my chances of seeing John, Paul, Ringo and George play the Windy City. (Probably why it was such a thrill when I actually did get to see them “live” in 1965 while spending a summer studying at Berkeley, 7th row, San Francisco Cow Palace, $7 ticket.)

“Old Men on Porches:  Moony Holler is the setting for this one, that features Claire, Daddy, Billy, Momma, Aunt Jen and places like Big Stone, Storega, and Kimmerjam.  Old, retired miners sit on the porches of the small mining settlement. “Those old fools wave at everybody what come by, friend or stranger.  If the Russians was to march up this holler, those old men would just be grinnin’ and a wavin’ them on!”  The story continues with poetic lines like, “The wet wind reached in and touched her face, pulling on her skin like she could just float out the window.”

Nightcrawlers” – This short piece (poem) took me back to the childhood days when I would be part of a small group  catching night crawlers so that we could fish in the nearby Wapsie Pinicon River in Independence, Iowa.  It was always an exciting adventure to take a flashlight and go out to the green golf links and watch the night crawlers come up from the water-saturated ground of the neatly manicured greens. In this short piece “the worms danced there just like he said, their questing front and back ends pointing, then waving in distress.” The worms are under rocks in this story. The young person accompanying his father to the rocks says, “I wanted to go into the darkest woods where the worm songs go. But, to Daddy, they were bait.” I remember catching the nightcrawlers as being much more entertaining than sitting in a small rowboat the next day trying to catch fish. (We did catch a medium-sized catfish. Nobody wanted to cook it, so we put it in the beached boat, filled the boat with water, and watched it swim around for a few days before returning it to the river. But catching nightcrawlers was a great adventure for a young child.)

Sundown in Duffield” – This one focuses on an unidentified horror in the cellar of his parent’s old house in Duffield, Virginia, off Pattonville Road, in Scott County.  John and Franklin, John’s grandson, go back to visit the house where John had lived as a child. Why the family left the house in the first place is a bit of a mystery, shrouded in lost memory. “John couldn’t remember how old he was when his family left the house, fleeing in the middle of the night with time only to throw a few things into the car.” They left at least sixty years prior and the town has now shrunk to 73 inhabitants. Now, John is failing. His sister has left John the house and John wanted “one final look.”   “How come he could remember the names of all these weeds and yet so little of anything important?”  “He could feel his annoyance rising like a fever he could not control.”  “He was of two minds.  His grandmother used to say that.  But in his case one mind was sharp and clear and the other overflowing with bewilderment.  John never knew at any given moment which one was going to show up.”  At one point, the narrator tells us that “He (John) wanted to call for his Grandson but at that moment he did not remember his (Franklin’s) name.”  The fitting coda to the story:  “In his experience, when someone said, “It will be okay, it usually won’t be.” This one was a favorite.

Melanie and Steve Rasnic Tem

Melanie & Steve Rasnic Tem.

“Saved” – Walt sets off during a time near the pandemic to visit his 93-year-old mother. It is set in Virginia and Tennessee.  Walt’s brother, Frank, has sold their mother’s house and they are going to visit the nursing home where Doris Russell resides, the very same nursing home where their father died 10 years prior. Frank and his wife Peggy live nearby.  Doris is totally confused when Walt visits her. She thinks she is in her Daddy’s house. An “alarmingly pale young man too thin for his jet-black suit and wrinkled white shirt” is there to give a sermon, which began with an elderly couple singing, accompanied by tinny-sounding music from a tape player. The new preacher from Harlan County, Kentucky, the Reverend Parkey, delivers his “wonderful message for all of us.” Reverend Parkey is quite the talker. Among many other things, including his allegiance to the Bible, he says, “It’s never too late to be saved.” He adds, “I’m so ready to go to heaven, aren’t you? Won’t that be a wonderful day?” Walt is not impressed. In fact, Walt waves the young reverend away from Mother Doris. “It made Walt angry to hear this youngster speak to them that way, of heaven and paradise and the beautiful world to come, when this fellow knew so little of growing old, when death for them was so close.  This preacher was a young man who didn’t know what he was talking about.” (May I say, “AMEN?”)

“Scarecrows” – “Scarecrows” begins with a prison escape by a convict named Gibson. He and Frank Moore are working in a ditch not more than thirty feet from the woods. They make a successful run for it. Of course, that’s not the end of Gibson’s usually bad luck. He falls into the hands of “a crazy woman with a shotgun.  Gibson’s (bad) luck was at least consistent.” The old woman with the shotgun has an entire field full of creative scarecrows. They are even named and Gibson attempts to take the clothes of the scarecrow the old woman calls Hector. When accosted by the elderly woman in her sixties, she correctly identifies him as “a jasper,” meaning an outsider (who grew up in Maryland and lived all over the South.) Since Gibson tried to steal Hector’s clothing, the old woman decides that Gibson will make a good replacement scarecrow, even though he promises to simply disappear. Things do not go well for Gibson during his enforced stint as a substitute scarecrow. “Pain had been such a constant companion he’d barely noticed.” An interesting open-ended conclusion with Gibson being addressed as Frank, since he has chosen to lie to the field’s owner about his true identity.

“Miranda Jo’s Girl” – What happens to Miranda Jo Wheeler’s daughter is grim.  We hear of Betty and  the Willisville Store. There are references to Big Stone, Ender’s Ivy, Castle’s Wood and Drunkard Bottom. Made me think of how “different” children were treated in Sparta—or Nazi Germany. Not a cheerful tale but, sadly, more true to life than fairy tales with happy endings.

Steve Rasnic Tem

Steve Rasnic Tem.

“Mr. Belano’s Visit” – Mr. Belano makes a trip that he’d planned to take with his wife. Carla, the clerk at the Lowe Hotel finally calls the Point Pleasant Police when Mr. Belano doesn’t show up by the 11 p.m. curfew. A story of hotels, ghosts, faded photographs, and destiny.

The Passing” -Granny Gibson has cancer. She is also a healer and a “seer.” Because her granddaughter unexpectedly becomes pregnant and the father runs off to Cincinnati, Granny Gibson has to work some special magic to make sure she is around to serve as midwife to her granddaughter—especially since the child’s mother (Granny Gibson’s daughter) has  kicked her out after learning that she is with child. “Granny could do lots of things, but seeing was her special talent.” She has a plan to rid her own body of the cancer that is eating her alive. As the story notes, “Cancer was the magic word they used for all the different ways a body would turn against itself.” Granny’s philosophy?  “Folks weren’t built to last forever and she’d grown content to take her turn on life’s big wheel.” However, Granny Gibson must attempt a plan that involves her terminally ill friend Rose, who is hospitalized, and what sounds like a voodoo doll and Black Magic. Only things don’t go as smoothly as Granny Gibson had hoped.

“La Mariee” – Focuses on Chagall’s painting(s). Jan is the admirer of a Chagall print. Line that resonated in this tale of Bristol, Tennessee, “…out of the relief of purposeful movement.”

“The Grave House” – A southwest Virginia setting. Annie is supposed to clean up “the grave house,” which is a mausoleum or tomb-like structure where relatives are buried. “She didn’t like the grave house, for sure didn’t like livin’ in the grave house, but she did like this part, makin’ the best out of a bad sigiation.” Annie’s father seems to have been a failure in life, if soft-hearted. “Nothin’ her pa made was ever worth much. Annie hadn’t made up her mind yet if that included her.” A spooky ending.

Diorama” – Set in the southwest corner of the state, in Wise County. Aside from the cooked squirrel that Jake is offered, it centers on his relationship with Lily, who is suffering from breast cancer. (As a fellow survivor, I can relate.)  The diorama comes in in reference to medical museum of the Civil War or, as the author phrases it, “windows into a lost time and place.”

 

Steve Rasnic Tem at 20

A twenty-something Steve Rasnic Tem.

“Deep Fracture”- This was one of my favorite stories. I think it’s because it is about a hidden city beneath the mines that might exist. (Or does it?) My home town of Independence, Iowa, has been making itself into a bit of a tourist attraction in the northeast corner of that rural state with an attraction called “Underground Independence.” The “underground city” part came about in my small home town when the river nearby (the Wapsi Pinicon) drowned the town and the city fathers simply decided to build ABOVE the flooded structures. You can now go visit “underground Independence” on certain special days of the summertime, which I did recently. https://www.weeklywilson.com/underground-independence-takes-us-on-a-stroll-down-memory-lane-in-independence-iowa-on-aug-19-2023/  This story got me thinking about, once again, setting pen to paper for something other than book and movie reviews. Great lines from “Deep Fracture:” “Shabby is the basic human condition.” “The need for maintenance never ends. Because of that, it’s doomed to fail.”

“Almost A Legend” – Jake Carter is playing in the Coeburn game with the Coeburn Blues against the Dorchester Cardinals. A “ringer” is brought in—someone who was once a promising baseball player, a pitcher—maybe even in the major leagues—but has fallen upon hard times. The ringer, this time, is introduced as A. B. Collins. The crowd knows this is bogus, because his initials spell “A-B-C.” Jake ends up carrying the bogus pitcher off the mound and away from the post-game chaos. Has some particulars about small-town baseball leagues and how they operate (and cheat) in Appalachia.

“Cattiwampus” and “Bingo Thompson’s Flying Cat” – These two stories had a lighter tone, especially “Bingo Thompson’s Flying Cat.” The humor between Paul and Ralph in the flying cat story was a welcome relief, especially when the final line is, “Lots more interesting than last Saturday, huh?” The term “cattywampus” is one that my Norweigan/Dutch mother used a lot. When I was a child, I managed to take the word and subvert it into misstatements like, “Don’t push me in crookwards,” to the amusement of my parents.

Crawldaddies” – This one, set in Rayburn Twist with Josh and Arlene and other assorted cousins who all seem to be inter-related is NOT humorous. You do not want to meet a Crawldaddy. Jake even says, “Josh kept thinking how scared his own son Trace would have been.”

Lookie Loo” – More bird imagery. Jackson had moved to Monroe County, Tennessee. (His ex, Sheila, had moved back to Ann Arbor). Jackson sees some odd-looking brothers, “shambling between the trunk in a dense stand of trees, like apes with their too-long arms, faces a dark shaggy blur, and in the shadows with those baggy coveralls they looked like a family of Big Foot, or Cave Yellers as they called them in Kentucky.” Eventually, Josh—who is an aspiring writer who thinks that, some day, he may write a book about these interesting folk called “Strange Tales of the Smokies”— ends up in the custody of the strange creatures. Josh’s book would not have been critical of the inhabitants of the Smokies. “He wouldn’t be putting the locals down—it would just show how interesting folks around here could be. He’d finally have something to say about the world.” My daughter lives in Madison, Tennessee. She went to school at Belmont in Nashville, so Tennessee is a state I know much better than before 2005.

Powell Mountain Cedar Grove – is a poem, not a story, although it manages to tell a story of nature within its 69 lines: “Grandad says cedars come first, take the sun.  Poplars need shade, and soon take over.  But they grow so big they darken their own seedlings, die out.  Beech and hemlock grow last to fill the forest.” A short interlude.

Steve and Melanie Rasnic Tem

Steve and Melanie Rasnic Tem.

Redbud Winter – is a story about aging. Ted decides to drive his late wife’s station wagon to Norton to see his daughter Janet. She lives with her boyfriend and her daughter, Abby, Ted’s granddaughter. “There comes a time when you have to stop driving, stop doing everything.”..”A few miles out of town, the tires making a pleasant splashing noise on pavement dark with layers of leaf rot, he smelled it for the first time.  The scent of death, clear and palpable, an unmistakable presence in his nose and lungs.” Things don’t cheer up much after that. You just know there is going to be some kind of mayhem with the car. And you’d be right.

“His doctors never mentioned a smell.  But doctors don’t tell you everything when you’re old. They don’t want to upset you when there’s nothing they can do.” I could add, from personal experience, that ageism is rampant in the medical community. Some doctors probably wish that, after age 70, they could just hand you a card that reads, “Waiting to die” and have you go stand in that line until your time. Young doctors, in particular, will talk right past an elderly patient, even if that patient (my mother, in this case) is of perfectly sound mind. It used to drive me mad when I’d be taking her to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics for appointments. My mom was more “on top of” things than I’ll ever be, and she remained so until the day she died. Yet they wanted to speak to me, then in my 40s, and Mom was just “old” and, therefore, not worthy of being directly involved in the discussion.  So, maybe the doctor is trying not to upset you because “there’s nothing they can do” and maybe some of the younger generation of doctors are just NOT the compassionate types that made house calls during my youth and young adulthood.

“Old Crow” features a talking crow. Birds remain major images. I’m attributing this to the author’s home  and its influence on his work. (See previous review of “Everyday Horrors”). After “Old Crow” comes “A Jack Tale.” A few notes I jotted down on “A Jack Tale” include “Jakob was tired, old, and he wondered if he’d ever tell another tale.” Thomas Oliver (a pig) features in the story and Jakob is Old Death’s Companion.” Those two shorter stories bring the final tale, “The Return.”

The Return” – Joel goes back to revisit his childhood home after 40 years away. “The sun’s setting fast on this old town.  You should have come back sooner,” say the locals.  “Despite its problems, this had been a good place to grow up.  He could find no justice in its abandonment.” “When you grow up in a place you never imagine it going away.  People don’t last, but it seemed to him a town should.”

This line spoke to me when I realized that every single school I have ever attended, except for some classrooms on campus at the University of Iowa, has been torn down. My elementary school: gone. My 1st through 6th grade school:  gone. My high school: gone in 2013. The school I taught at from 1969 to 1985: torn down. The school where my mother taught for 40 years: gone.  Very off-putting to have institutions of higher education disappear before you do.

Joel gets a room in a hotel, but the landlady, after checking him in, seems to have disappeared. Joel’s memory is fading. His memories of his dead wife, Celeste, are growing fuzzy. “On the way back through town he tried to find the spot where their house had been, but as hard as he tried he couldn’t remember the address. He drove back and forth through the neighborhoods for hours with no luck…He wasn’t sure whether it was Friday or Saturday.  Perhaps it wasn’t even the weekend.” Not only can Joel not find the landlady, he cannot find the house where he was staying.  “He couldn’t find the place.  He drove from one end of town to the other and beyond, trying every road, sometimes driving at a crawl to make sure he didn’t miss it, and found no indication of its existence…Joel couldn’t think of anything logical to explain this omission, or what a next reasonable step might be.” Joel seems to be losing it, in more ways than one: “He could remember nothing else and knew that what he could remember only yesterday had faded away.” I am happy to see that a writer as talented as Steve Rasnic Tem is not in Joel’s mental state, and neither am I. (Long may we remain cognitively alert and firing on all cylinders.)

CONCLUSION: Silver is an ongoing motif, signifying death in this and in others of the author’s stories. (“The morning came up all silver, and he was aware that something new was about to begin.”) Bird imagery re-emerges. The poetry of the prose is even  augmented by some actual poems, in this collection. Death, dying, and deterioration are continuing themes, with our old adversary, cancer, always lurking in the shadows. But there are some truly ingenious and intriguing plots, as in the stories “Sundown in Duffield,” “The Passing,” “Deep Fracture,” and “Scarecrows.”

As a writer older than the author I limited myself to three stories a day, to keep from depressing myself over the indignities of aging and the inevitability of deterioration, decay and, ultimately, death. Once I got through my own unwillingness to deal with being in the last decades of life, I could enjoy the spot-on descriptions and empathize with  the protagonist’s poetic language.

I can both relate to Steve Rasnic Tem’s stories on a personal level and appreciate his accuracy as a narrator. This collection, unlike “Everyday Horrors,” even has a couple of more lighthearted stories., which I enjoyed.

What I see happening in films  by older directors (Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, Robert Zemeckis, Ridley Scott, Pedro Almodovar, etc.) is a recognition on the part of many of these creative types of their legacy. Many of them seem to be acknowledging that their opportunity to create is coming to an end. Not all dwell on it; some do. It seems natural, when we come near the end of our life. [*PLUG INSERTED HERE FOR RETURNING TO MY BLOG FOR MY PRESS COVERAGE OF “SUNDANCE” FROM 1/29-2/2).

While “Everyday Horrors” is almost universally somber in tone, “Scarecrows” has poetry, and even a couple of lighthearted entries. It is as well-done as any horror short story collection you’ll find—if you can categorize observations on life and living  as “horror.” (After all, the book reviewed just before this IS entitled “Everyday Horrors.”) It’s literary fiction examining the human condition, with an emphasis on the last chapter of life and  imaginative plots executed with Steve Rasnic Tem’s usual competent and evocative poetic language.

“Everyday Horrors:” Short Stories By Steve Rasnic Tem

"Everyday Horrors" short stories book by Steve Rasnic Tem

“Everyday Horrors” short stories book

Steve Rasnic Tem has written over 500 published short stories. His stories have won awards from the International Horror Guild, the Horror Writers’ Association, and he has won the British and World Fantasy Awards.   His novels and writing with his late wife Melanie Tem are also lauded. His short fiction has been compared to that of Franz Kafka, Ray Bradbury and Raymond Carver.  Joe R. Lansdale proclaimed him to be “a school of writing unto himself.” As a writer and a teacher of writing, immersing myself in this collection, “Everyday Horrors,” was a treat, but a dark one. This description by another was right on the money: “Steve Rasnic Tem’s large body of tales: imaginative, difficult-to-pigeonhole works of the fantastic crossing conventional boundaries between science fiction, fantasy, horror, literary fiction, bizarro, magic realism, and the new weird.”

With Christmas bearing down on us like a train jumping the tracks, I had to limit myself to three stories a day. The tone of each tale is solemn, grim, evocative of so many depressingly ordinary things in our lives as we age. As a woman in the seventh decade of life, five years older than the author, I could relate to Steve Rasnic Tem’s themes, just as I remember relating  to Melanie Rasnic Tem’s excellent short story “Best Friends.”

I’m not sure that a younger reviewer would relate as well to this collection’s themes of death, dying and deterioration. There was a time when I, too, would have glossed over recitations of the indignities of aging. Now, fighting cancer, diabetes, auto immune hepatitis, fibromyalgia, asthma and side effects from the drugs prescribed to make you better (which seem to always make you worse), I could better relate to passages like this excerpt from Steve’s story “The Old Man’s Tale” (one of my favorites):

Steve Rasnic Tem

Steve Rasnic Tem.

“He was so tired of this, having to schedule his life around his unreasonable bodily needs, the toilet, his fatigue, his bouts of worry and anxiety.  It was humiliating.  None of those had been considerations when he was young.”

Ah, yes, remind me again about “the golden years.”

Or  how about this soliloquy on aging from the same short story:  “How do you know when you’re old?  I really don’t know.  I guess when everybody tells you.  I look at other people—with their white hair, all their wrinkles—and I think they’re a lot older than I am.  But most of the time it turns out they’re younger.”

As that story about a couple traveling to the Grand Canyon goes on, the author muses, “It’s too bad we can’t leave our sorrows there, isn’t it?  If everybody drove to that giant wound in the earth and could toss their sadness inside, and walk away to get on with the rest of their lives, wouldn’t that be a great thing?”

The short story “Everyday Horror” begins this collection, a story of Aubrey and Jeff, two brothers who are involved in cleaning out their dead father’s things. The beauty of the writer’s vision is once again conveyed to us with a passage: “Suggestions of death and dismemberment journeyed across the darkening dome of sky.  Symphonic wraiths gathered for meaningless consultations.” One of the brothers has inherited the ability to see and hear things that normal people’s senses cannot perceive. The brothers are dividing the contents of the house into a “KEEP” and “BURN” pile. [I must admit that I wanted the end of this story to be a colossal pyre, a funeral pyre, if you will, with flames crying out to the heavens; that’s just me.]

fire

fire

“Fish Scales” followed “Everyday Horror” with the poetic story of Charlie, who has fish scales on his face, and a blind wife. This memorable line lingers:  “Sometimes sorrow falls into such a deep place it cannot escape.”

This passage also caught my eye:  “When he was a kid, he imagined the night creatures might think him dead if he lay still enough, and so they wouldn’t bother him.  The logic of this now escaped him.  A dead body was easy prey.”

I smiled. When I slept upstairs, alone in my isolated attic room, and a dream re-occurred, night after night, a nightmare of a man stealthily stalking me, following me down a shadowed street (and whispering my name in ever-increasing volume), fedora hat obscuring his features, I thought that if I kept my eyes shut tight and made my way down the treacherous stairs to where there was light and company, I would be safe. The danger of falling down the stairs (since my eyes were shut) eluded me. Logic, indeed, was on holiday as it is, to a point, in this story.

Steve Rasnic Tem, young & old

The young & the old.

“Gavin’s Field” gives us the story of Blackburn’s Field and how Gavin is bequeathed a house in Vermont by his father.  Lines like, “The mist transitioned into a needle-like rain” give mood to the story of stone walls and characters like Lawyer Martinson and Whitby, the town watchdog. The gradual integration of Gavin into the Vermont town ends with, “Gavin decided not to struggle when the man-sized insect began feeding the mulch into his open mouth.  It really wasn’t that terrible if he let himself relax and accept what he was being offered.  The taste—rich and dark and nourished with death—was not at all unfamiliar.”

“An Gorta Mor” began the commentary on our world today, which continued with a story about the effects of the pandemic.  As the author notes, “People had become unbelievably cruel, or perhaps they’d always been, and he’d just failed to notice…So much of the world had become poisonous.  Poison permeated the air he breathed and the food he consumed.” All of this while waiting for food delivery and fighting a loss of interest in eating anything at all.

Steve & Melanie Rasnic Tem

Steve and Melanie Rasnic Tem.

“Black Wings,” the story of Harry and Sheila’s marriage, is more a story of Harry’s obsession with birds. Harry has made their home into a temple to birds. Sheila does not seem that thrilled with his hobby:  “Despite Harry’s protestations there had always been a stench of death and decay and negligence.   But she couldn’t expect to have survived marriage to such a man without some lingering birdish stench.” We learn that Harry was struggling to put (yet another) cabinet dedicated to his all-consuming hobby, the birds, in an upstairs room, when an unfortunate accident ensued. Or was it an accident? Meanwhile, a black bird terrorizes Sheila, and one has to ask if it is karma:  “Sheila took a step down, and her bird—all hers, it was too late to get rid of it now and too late to stop—was right beneath her shoe…As she lay there on the floor, thinking about the mess she’d made, something unexpected came over her and she heard herself making this awful sound with notes of both despair and defiance while she flapped her broken arms.” The bird theme may stem from a home that Steve and Melanie Tem bought from a bird enthusiast when they downsized from their larger family home.

“Bags” – Consumerism in all its aspects is criticized:  “You buy, you throw away, and then you buy some more.  The ‘regurgitating economy’ Dad called it. Dad was as bad as everyone else in this regard, but at least he recognized the problem.” There are other problems, health problems, for Dad. Ascites fluid must be drained. “It was hard to believe in upcoming catastrophes beyond the disaster which was already here.”

“Late Sleepers” – seemed to be a chance to revisit many memorable horror movie scenes. Theater one is closed in the small ready-to-close theater and off-limits for reasons that will become clear. “The stillness troubled him.  He didn’t hear anything, but it seemed the noise of nothing was pounding in his head.  He breathed deeply, smelling only the stale air.” The theater is closing this very night. Is that his house he sees onscreen?

“A Thin Silver Line” is “for Harlan Ellison;”  silver is the color of death. [That’s too bad for me, because I just bought a new silver car that we call “the Silver Bullet.”] “A thin silver line: color of moonlight, or morning fog, the highlight on your grandmother’s lips.  The fading borders of the dream just before you discover it is morning.  It’s a separation keeping you from the dream, the day from the night, and the fantasy from nightmare.  The division is less substantial than mist; you can cross it and not even know.” Bobby and Linda are expecting and then things go awry. Bobby’s father AND Linda are both heard screaming “Get it out of me.'” I’m in Texas writing this, so getting a ruined child out of its mother surgically is not an option in this state at this time. God help us all. Since many of the Steve Rasnic Tem works are going to eventually be warehoused at Texas A&M, this is not news to the author.

“Inappetence” is a term used to denote a lack of hunger. As the story puts it:  “They slipped from the shadows to monitor his decline.  Impatient, they moved forward to taste the light.  All the world was hungry it seemed, except for him.  Even the thought of food repelled him.”

“The Winter Closet” – this one was very short and dealt with the memories conjured up by the contents of “the winter closet.”

“Privacy” – “He’d come to understand that in solitude was the way people lived, even if they imagined otherwise.  They pretended a knowledge of others they did not have.  Now that he was elderly, the anxiety from loneliness had become palpable.  He had to lie in bed with fists clenched until it passed.  If a manual existed for old age, he would certainly read it.”

I second that observation.

And, “It wasn’t that he wanted to be a hermit.  All he wanted was some control over people’s access to his life.  It wasn’t that he disliked people.  He simply believed they lied about everything.”

In the year of Trump, this certainly seems true. The end of this one may be a bit over-the-top, but the idea of privacy remains paramount.

“Monkeys” – Polly and Maude in a Jack-the-Ripper setting.

“When They Fall” – “He was an adult.  He knew life was ephemeral.  Each person was given the slimmest shard of time.  But children had no idea. They dwelled in the forever now.” This one asks the poetic question:  “Are we ghosts hiding within our costumes of flesh?”

Steve Rasnic Tem

A twenty-something Steve Rasnic Tem.

“The Things We Do Not See” – “One evening he became aware of a great shift in gravitation, as if something massive had suddenly entered this world.  He could not see it, but he knew it was there.”  A character named Cathy seems to have amnesia. Some salient observations about mankind include this:  “True self-knowledge is a rare thing, an ephemeral moment of clarity out of a lifetime of confusion.  Most of us will never experience such a moment.  I wonder if it is even possible.  Because our minds latch onto pain and pain consumes us and informs our stories about ourselves.  Mental health involves countering those stories of pain with one positive ones. But they are still stories, still untrustworthy narratives of the truth that is out there…We cannot trust our memories of who we once were.  Those times, that self, are all gone now.  Look around you.  See what exists in your world right now.  Trust that.”

Dead things start showing up; the dead things keep getting large and larger. A generally open-ended  finale to a tale with wise observations.

“Within the Concrete” – Carl and Grace are in this one, which observes:  “It seemed he’d been better at solving things when he was younger.  Now his brain was like cement slurry, right on the edge of hardening, after which no thoughts might escape.”

Very astute. Certainly relatable. Imagine how lost we’d be if we didn’t have the Internet!

https://www.facebook.com/reel/497657436685488

“The Last Sound You Hear” – Connor, the grandson, visits his grandfather. They listen to their hearts using a stethoscope. This one had a “Sixth Sense” ending. Read it for yourself to find out what is meant by that.

“Into the White” – I grew up in northeast Iowa. I still live in snowy Illinois half of the year with a place in Chicago. A journey back to the days when schools would be canceled because of the white stuff. Since I ran a school of sorts for a while (and had to be the one deciding when to cancel or when to persevere) I enjoyed the descriptions of the snow and the buried carousel beneath. The language is extraordinary for its poetic brilliance:  “The sky was so intense, it became a dream scorched into his now.” Or, “His snowsuit began to shred.  The emptiness washed over him, embedding itself in his flesh.  He saw blood upon the snow.  Ahead of him the sky began to tear.  He thought at first it was the Northern Lights, but he came to believe it was something quite different.”

“The Old Man’s Tale” – I have referenced this previously, because it hit home and summoned so many memories, mostly of the Covid experience that we all just lived through (and which my mother lived through at the age of eleven, just as my granddaughters lived through it at the same age in 2020.) Steve Rasnic Tem says, “We still feel on the lip of oblivion.  I can’t be the only one…Just to see something eternal when so many people we knew were dying, losing their jobs, fracturing inside.”

I remember the Covid experience through the prism of a breast cancer diagnosis (December 2021), a podcast that I had just agreed to conduct upon my return from an Alaskan cruise, and my daughter (a flight attendant) who was laid off for the duration. She moved from Nashville to Austin to join us. While I felt the isolation from others, just as everyone did, I had my WeeklyWilson.com podcast giving me a life-line for talking to others. I received many phone calls from people I had not heard from in literally years.

For the first time in nearly 20 years, I had my entire nuclear family together in the same place for more than just a few days. Since my children were born 19 years apart and my son works from home, as does his wife, the flight attendant daughter was assigned to amuse, educate and entertain the eleven-year-old twins. It was a strange time, watching the daily casualty reports on television from then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was receiving plaudits for his daily reports to the nation. Do you remember when there was talk of Andrew Cuomo running for President, because of his high profile leading the nation at a time when we seemed to be leaderless? No? Well, that did happen, briefly.

Melanie & Steve Rasnic Tem

Melanie & Steve Rasnic Tem.

In ”Whenever It Comes” the author writes:  “It broke my heart trying to keep our children safe.  I didn’t want to tell them the world had become a dangerous place.  As parents we made mistakes, sometimes terrible mistakes, as all parents will.  Yet our children still looked to us for answers…I didn’t understand how things worked any more. I didn’t believe anyone did.  I no longer trusted people, least of all myself.  No one knew for sure what lived inside the human heart.  No one knew how this would end…It was a long year of quiet dread.”

In “An Old Man’s Tale” the author touches upon the dilemma of homelessness, as well as on Covid. “I’m not claiming to understand what I saw.  I’m just putting it out there.  I’m a rational human being trying to deal with the irrational, these phantoms at the periphery of my vision, like someone just arrived, or someone just left, or someone’s waiting there, ready to do some damage, cause some mischief. I don’t want to say it’s related to the pandemic, but maybe everything is, if you think about it.”

“People have changed so much the past few years, don’t you think?  Things will be fine for a while, then these pockets of—I don’t know—derangement appear, and they spread through the population.”

Bee Gone

Bee Gone, the book

The character’s wife, Jane says, “It’s that awful man they elected. People now think it’s okay to say anything that pops into their heads.”

As a blog dedicated to the whims of its owner with her interest in film and national politics, (and a person five years older than Steve Rasnic Tem), I can definitely relate to his observations. I listened to a University of Chicago professor try to explain all of the unrest and chaos, (and ascribing  the change in our nation to the demographic shift from one that is predominantly white to one that is polyglot. The white males, threatened by immigrants and the loss of their preferred status (and their jobs), steeped in nascent racism and distrustful of authority, refused to support a bi-racial woman to lead our country, thereby sticking us with the other alternative, a candidate who lied and postured his way to power, much like a German autocrat of yesteryear. Shall we blame “The Apprentice?”

The lack of affordable housing and the high cost of groceries (which is bound to continue regardless of regime change) tied the vice presidential candidate to the status quo and the attempt by the geriatric incumbent to continue in office past his shelf life date doomed his second-in-command’s hopes. Whether she could have succeeded if President Biden had stepped down earlier, (as he had promised to do) is still a debatable point.

All I know is that book-ending my life with JFK at its political outset (age 15) and DJT near my demise is some sort of cosmic joke. It is these observations in a couple of the stories in “Everyday Horrors” that I enjoyed the most. When spaceships entered stories, I was less interested, but “different strokes for different folks.” The imagination of the writer still gripped me. The poetry of his language was pleasing.

As a blog that still devotes itself to discussing movies and politics, passages like this resonated with me:  “We were sitting on that couch watching when the 500,000 deaths from Covid were announced.  And we watched that George Floyd video again and again, trying to understand why it happened, and knowing it had happened many times before.  We felt helpless as we watched it, and feeling helpless made us feel ashamed….We have seen so many terrible images.  Those poor refugees.  Children abandoned in the desert, or their bodies washed up on shore.  You’ve seen those pictures too? Or am I crazy?

“He waited for an uncomfortably long time.”

Finally, someone in the distance said, “yes,” and another, “Yes, I think we’ve all seen them.”

Steve Rasnic Tem & Melanie Tem

The author and wife Melanie on their wedding day.

“The true facts of history are going to rise to the top however deeply you try to bury them.  If people’s houses are burning, they’re going to find somewhere else to live.  The way I see it, fires are burning all over the world.”

Adds Steve Rasnic Tem in words that we should all be able to relate to:  “I wish the ones in charge would do a lot of things, but they don’t.  The economy leaves lots of folks behind.  On top of that, the climate’s changing.  We pretend there’s nothing we can do. Pretty soon it will be our own family member, trying to find safety.  Maybe you.  Maybe me if I live that long.  We need to do better if we want to save ourselves.  We could start with those (homeless) folks out there…They expect people to cooperate and be on their best behavior during a crisis, but that’s not how people act.”

I enjoyed this collection to the point that I could absorb so much about misery, death and destruction right before the Christmas holiday.  [Talk about a contrast in tone!]

There is no good time to dwell on misery. But there is a necessary time. Reading “Everyday Horrors” may be that time for anyone who appreciates mastery of the insightful phrase and a keen eye for commentary, coupled with the word skills to pull it off beautifully.

“Falling Stars” Presents a Creepy Witch World on October 11 (Just In Time for Halloween)

"Falling Stars"

“Falling Stars” movie about witches.

“Falling Stars” is a film about witches written, directed and edited by Richard Karpala (co-directed by Gabriel Bienczycki). It releases on October 11th. The film begins with these words onscreen: “Every year by the full moon of late October witches from high use the night as cover to descend onto earth’s harvest.  Skygazers say they resemble falling stars.  In hungry years, the stars fall early.” The film is a story about three brothers who make an ill-advised journey to see the body of a dead witch.

Witch World

This Fantastic Fest 2023 entry establishes an entire witch world, with rules for preventing witches from putting a curse on the humans they  prey upon during harvest season. An entire mythology exists around the falling witches. There are even warnings on radio and television telling the locals to stay indoors, although the danger is said to be wind. And there are ingredients for performing protective spells.

I now know that the spell requires apples, rue, sage and something called valerian. (I was unsure what “rue” was. Had no idea what “valerian was.” We might need another movie. Had to look both of them up.)  I now have a rudimentary idea of what the boys were thinking of using to protect themselves from mysterious witches who fall from the sky like falling stars.  Apparently, the spell doesn’t really work, especially if you desecrate the witches’ sacred circle in any way…for instance, by spilling beer on a witch’s corpse. There is a protective option involving sacrificing a child, but nobody seems keen on that choice —(which could make for good conflict in a sequel for “Falling Stars II.”)

After we become aware that the title of the 80 minute film could more accurately have been “Falling Witches,” the script moves quickly to inform the audience of the various idiosyncrasies of witch world. For instance, although you’re not supposed to be able to kill a witch,  one of the group, Rob (Greg Poppa) has already proven that wisdom wrong. He shot and killed a witch and buried her. (The corpse is appropriately gnarly. Kudos to Noodle Mikael Gustaffson who did the creepy creature effects.)

THE PLOT

Mike in "Falling Stars" (Shaun Duke Jr.)

Mike, lead brother in “Falling Stars.”

The three brothers of the story, Mike (Shaun Duke Jr.), Sal (Andrew Gabriel) and the youngest, Adam (Rene Leech) want to see the dead witch.   Mike— the leader of the brothers—decides without much consideration or discussion, that the three brothers should go pick up Rob (who lives in a nearby trailer with his wife and 2-year-old daughter Katelyn) and visit the grave of the deceased witch. Bad idea. The male trio’s curiosity certainly was not good news for the family of Rob and Meg (Orianne Milne and baby Katelyn Felicia Milne.)(*Spoiler alert) Because the brothers decided to make a joy ride to the witch’s grave, an entire family is wiped out. (Talk about not thinking through the consequences of your actions.)

Because the brothers are driving a pick-up truck without enough seating, some have to ride in the back. One passenger disappears from the back of the truck without so much as a struggle or a scream. We assume that a fallen witch carried him off. The fraternal trio do an excellent job of acting, but they don’t seem particularly close as brothers, nor do they look alike. The youngest of the trio (Adam) comes off a lot more intense and emotional than the other two, but we can attribute that to his unique personality or because he’s the baby of the family.

Adam in "Falling Stars" (Rene Leech)

Adam, the youngest (and most emotionally intense) of the trio of brothers in “Falling Stars.

We get radio station KNWK giving the locals, via Barry Foyle, Radio Host, directives to stay indoors. The warnings mainly mention wind. There is no acknowledgement that the populace is really being told to watch out for falling witches. The system seems fairly well-established, so these Witch World Warnings must have been going on for  years. Everybody understands the situation.  Think of it a bit like the “red/yellow/orange” terrorist threat warnings some of us remember from the “W’ years. Certainly a good way to get the locals concerned, then and now. (Apologies for the fact that “W” was in office from 2001 to 2009, so you have to go back 14 to 23 years to remember when we, as citizens, were constantly being given color-coded “terrorist threat” warnings by the Republicans in office after 9/11, a date which most of us do  remember.) So the televised  warnings are a bit like those in  “The Purge” in warning people of a long-established tradition.

THE GOOD

"Falling Stars" movie

“Falling Stars”

Cinematically, there are a lot of overhead shots. Even the very first shot of a girl walking her dogs is shot from above. (That girl is also the head make-up person). I found the overhead shots really worked, as did the acting, the witch corpse, and the creepy, tense mood set in this indie film set in Joshua Tree, California and shot on location. The music (Patrik Herman) was good. Coupled with the excellent acting, this horror outing was a welcome departure from most recent indie horror films.

The cast is rounded out by a hitchhiker Ouami (Piotr Adamczyk), who just came off as weird. There is also the excellent radio host Barry (J. Aaron Boykin), and his assistant Elana (Samantha Turret) who are under-utilized.

 

CONCLUSION

Baby Katelyn and Meg in "Falling Stars" (Felicia & Orianne Milne)

Meg and baby Katelyn in “Falling Stars,” innocents in peril.

I hope this team gets the opportunity to fill in some of the blanks in witch world in another outing because “Falling Stars” showed real promise.

 

“Voice of Shadows:” Long on Creepy; Short on Screenplay Sense

“Voice of Shadows” has the benefit of a truly intriguing trailer that should interest viewers. It appears to be a classic horror film dealing with a possibly haunted house and an elderly woman named “Milda” (Jane Hammill) who lives in it. And dies in it, willing the house to her niece Emma (Corinne Mica). There’s also a claim that Milda has “died twice” and a poorly explained tie to occult goings-on in the past.

The tag line for the film was, “A young working class woman stands to inherit an estate if she and her boyfriend abide by a set of bizarre stipulations.” The film was written and directed by Nicholas Bain (as Nick Bain) and shot in Minnesota—a surprise, as the house and setting seemed more European than American, but, then, Nick Bain is originally from Minnesota, which he left in 2014 to travel to Los Angeles to make movies.

THE GOOD  

Right now, horror is an extremely hot genre. (It makes me think I should do something more with my screenplay for the three-novel set “The Color of Evil.”) If Nick Bain can write this script, mine might have a chance. The good news for me is that this script gives me hope for my own to succeed. “If this one can, my script can.” [That isn’t necessarily good news as my commentary on the script for “Voice of Shadows.”]

The cinematography by Neil Murphy and the music by Utkucan Eken and Elif Karlidag was quite good at setting the spooky overall mood. Trailer totally sucked me in. (Read on, to see if that first peek pays off).

The acting was adequate. We won’t be seeing any of the actors or actresses at the Oscars, but horror is a hard sell to the Academy.

The length of the movie, at 90 minutes, was like “the old days,” a welcome relief from the 3-hour marathon recent films. Bravo!

The house set was impressive, but the time the movie is supposed to take place in is a mystery. The old rotary dial phone would indicate long ago, but we never really find out.

The visual effects by Jeff Sardar were fine. The visual effects won the film an award at the Los Angeles Crime and Horror Film Festival. Having black stuff come out of the heroine’s mouth isn’t that new a visual effect, but it still works. For that matter, the film has had three wins and four nominations, with the Latitude Film Awards and the Romford Horror Festival naming it Best Feature Film.

THE BAD

Voice of Shadows horror film, featuring Aunt Milda

Voice of Shadows poster, featuring Aunt Milda

Guillermo Blanco (The Queen of Flow”) plays the lead of Gabriel. It seems that Milda, the old woman who owns the house, doesn’t like Gabriel. One of the “bizarre stipulations” that Milda has put on the inheritance of her impressive house by her niece Emma is that Gabriel never stay there—not even for one night. Given the “plot spill” that the script begins with, where Gabriel is in the confessional and confesses to being a murderer (for good reasons as he lays out the case for the first murder) that scene makes Gabriel’s first murder initially seem reasonable, (just as the old television series “Dexter” used to justify Dexter’s homicidal acts with a variety of plausible excuses.)

Gabriel’s character throughout is difficult for the audience to figure out. He is swilling liquor from a bottle while in the confessional. We can conclude from that that he drinks too much (and in the wrong places). That certainly might influence his decision-making. But Gabriel still seems very willing to murder people at a moment’s notice. The worst assault  was a fellow named Ernest (Martin Harris). Gabriel’s motives for plunging a knife into Ernest are unclear; the screenplay goes downhill from there. I wanted to sympathize with and like Gabriel, because he initially seemed like a good fellow and Milda’s instant dislike for him appeared to be  petty jealousy, but murdering multiple people with little or no  motivation was a bit much, even for me.

The acting by female lead Corinne Mica (“Always, Lola”) as Emma and Maria Jose Vargas Aguidelo as Celeste and Guillermo Blanco as Gabriel was adequate. I thought that Father John, played by Michael Paul Levin was stronger in his supporting part. Bee Vang (“Stranger Things,” “Gran Torino”) plays Father James.

PLOT REVEALS

There was a lot of information dumped on the audience, beginning with the very first confessional scene. Too much telling and not enough showing. I’ve written scripts. A couple of them have even won awards. It’s better to assume the audience is savvy enough to put two-and-two together than to have your main characters ranting on about why they did this or why they did that in a long monologue.

It’s easy to see that Emma’s character and behavior is changing once her Aunt Milda leaves her the house. Emma begins disappearing with Ernesto to “the art gallery.” As a general criticism, most of the climactic scenes in the film—murders and the like—either have no explanation or are overly explained. So, for me, the script needed work.

There was nothing super original or new in the film, but the trailer is very well-done. As horror movies go, “Voice of Shadows” (the title made me think of “Stir of Echoes”)  was a good effort with some inexplicable plot directions that might need rethinking or refining.

VOICE OF SHADOWS will arrive September 17 on digital and streaming platforms, including iTunes/Apple TVAmazon Prime VideoGoogle Play, Fandango at HomeVimeo, and local cable & satellite providers.

 

VOICE OF SHADOWS

Directed by: Nicholas Bain

Written by: Nicholas Bain

Starring: Guillermo Blanco, Corrinne Mica, Bee Vang, Michael Paul Levin, Martin Harris

Produced by: Guillermo Blanco, Martin Harris, Jamie Roberts

Executive Producers: Nick Breid, Todd R. Johnson, Dan Lehto,

Stephen McGraw, Nicholas Bain

Associate Producers: Matthew Fahey, Matt Roy

Cinematography by: Neil Murphy

Edited by: Mark Ferris

Music Composed by: Utkucan Eken, Elif Karlidag

USA I 2024 I Horror, Thriller I 90 minutes | NR

Kamala Harris Accepts Democratic Presidential Nomination; DJT Phones In on Fox

I had planned to write a piece commenting on Kamala Harris’ acceptance speech on the final night of the DNC in Chicago, Then, (following the dry cycle of my laundry), I moved to the bedroom to change the now clean  sheets and put them back on the king-sized bed. In the bedroom, Fox News was carrying the DNC.

While I changed the sheets, I listened to Donald J. Trump phone in and rebut Kamala Harris’ speech. I will insert the complete 37-minute content of Kamala’s acceptance speech (in case you missed it), but I have to assume that most of you were watching it, so suit yourself. Unlike Trump, who rambled his way through a basically unlistenable litany of untruths at the RNC, Harris hit most of the issues and delivered her speech with sincerity and enthusiasm. She looked and sounded presidential (because she IS presidential.)

Then I watched 8 voters in Allentown, Pennsylvania say that her speech had sold her to them (auto workers all) and they would be voting for her (they had been unsure in a previous meeting). One woman retained the right to decide later. One  Black male (in real estate) said he’d vote for Trump. Listen to Trump’s remarks about how the auto workers are all supporting him in the phone call above. [*Apparently not the 8 that just spoke to a reporter in Allentown, PA.]

Trump’s illusion that he is “strong” (Macho Macho Man) was consistent with why Black males were supporting DJT over Biden before July 21st. It also explains why Black males find it difficult to get behind the idea of a female president, even if she is half Black (and half Asian).

CHANGE

People want change for the better. This was emphasized by John King, Chief National Correspondent for CNN, who has been traveling the country gauging the temperature of the nation.  Coming into the convention,  Trump had 55% of voters selecting him on the economy versus 43% for Harris and 53% on the immigration issue versus 44% for Harris. Harris led only on the abortion issue (55% to 40%.) [This was from the New York Times Siena Poll. ]  In the next 75 days Harris and Walz must change these perceptions.

CONVENTION BUMP

There are 75 days during which Kamala has to convince voters that she, the current vice president, represents change for the better. That will not be simple, since Harris has been in office as Vice President for 4 years and the GOP will attack her on that basis. (as DJT already did in the phone call above). 

The Siena poll showed that 56% of voters disapproved of Biden. Only 41% approved of Biden in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and the other swing states. Now, the Republicans are going to try to give Kamala “Biden Baggage.” It started tonight with DJT phoning in to Fox & Friends. (*Did Fox & Friends, who claim to be so “fair and balanced” offer Kamala Harris the opportunity to phone in and rebut DJT’s RNC acceptance speech? No.)

John King, who has been doing political reporting for 40 years, says that Kamala did well.  I agree. He pointed out, however, that in 1988: Bush won over Dukakis, but Dukakis had left the convention enjoying a convention bump that put him 17 points ahead in the polls.  Despite the post-convention bump, Dukakis lost “bigly” to George Herbert Bush. This was partially because people wanted change and partially because of the Willie Horton dirty tricks that depicted Horton as practically Dukakis’ running mate. (*For those of you who don’t remember Willie Horton, he was a convicted murderer and rapist, who was released on a weekend furlough from a Massachusetts prison in a trial program and committed a rape and murder while temporarily free. Dukakis was the Governor of Massachusetts. The Bush campaign used Horton’s case to tar and feather Dukakis in a textbook example of what is known as “dog whistle politics,” which is what Harris and Walz are about to encounter, if I were to take an un-wild guess.)

John King was born in 1963, which means he is 61. I haven’t followed politics for as long as John King, but I am close to 20 years older.  I go back to every President since Truman. I’ve also written 3 books on politics (the campaign of 2008) and was named the Content Producer of the Year for Politics by Yahoo in the wake of my coverage of the 2008 election of Barack Obama. (See my books on that topic, “Obama’s Odyssey: The 2008 Race for the White House.”)

Taken during a McCain rally at the Cedar Rapids Municipal Airport during the 2008 presidential campaign. Cover of Volume II of “Obama’s Odyssey: The 2008 Race for the White House.” (Available on Amazon in paperback and e-book).

LIKEABILITY

I agree with the white-haired CNN commentator with the 40 years following campaigns, and I agreed with Geraldo (whom I watched on News Nation) who stressed that “likeability” was key to electing anyone. It was likeability that doomed Hillary Clinton and, to a certain extent, John Kerry, who always seemed a little bit too patrician. We’ve all heard the remarks about how “W” seemed like a guy you would enjoy sitting down and having a beer with (*I don’t drink beer, so that’s a no for me.)   

TAX INCREASES

Bogus. Tax increases on the rich, yes. On the middle class, not so much. Trump’s point on companies taking their business to another country (increasingly Mexico, not China) is fair, but THAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING FOR DECADES. Companies moving to cheaper countries is not a Kamala Harris thing; to say it is is unfair. It is far likelier that DJT will raise taxes on the middle class to give tax breaks to people like himself.

BORDER

Trump said, of the bi-partisan border bill, “It was a horrible bill. It was a joke.” It was a bi-partisan bill that was said by those who worked on it long and hard to be quite good. Trump told his allies not to vote for the bill, because it was to be his border issue. If you really don’t know what was in the bill, click on the link above and it will tell you. Don’t just trumpet things that either candidate says; research it. (Anthony Fatone: that is for you, Dear Heart. And thanks for saying I’m “smart as a whip” because that should tell you that, if I’m saying you need to do more “reading up” on these things, maybe I’m right.)

MARXIST ACCUSATIONS

First of all, as our old friend Wikipedia tells us, “There is no single, definitive Marxist theory.[1

It is likely that the “Marxist” accusations are a legacy from Kamala’s economics professor father, who taught at both Stanford and the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He has advised his country (Jamaica) on economic issues and some aspects were derived from Marxist writings of various sorts, but her father has remained completely out of Kamala’s career, refusing to be involved in her 2020 campaign and making a rather brusque rebuttal to a lighthearted comment that Kamala herself made (about smoking pot) on a radio show. She said something about smoking pot to the effect of, “Are you kidding? Half of my relatives are Jamaican.” Dad did not like it much, issued a rather public reprimand (Kamala did not respond) and has not had much involvement in his daughter’s career (or her life before that) since the couple split when she was in elementary school.

Jamal Simmons, political commentator on CNN, compared DJT to Midnight Elvis, calling in to talk shows, rambling around in Mar-A-Lago. Jamal mentioned  Trump’s recent appearance in Howell, Michigan. White supremacists held a march there recently and voiced support for Trump, Hitler, Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.  So, Trump’s strategy is to cater to THAT demographic. Roger Stone, a big Trump supporter, has a yearslong relationship with Proud Boys leaders, Enrique Tarrio in particular, and would regularly use members of the group as his personal security detail at political events.

The Many Looks of Roger Stone

Roger Stone.

I seriously doubt that DJT has much of an idea what Marxism is (and, quite frankly, it is difficult to pin it down as there are many offshoots.) There is actually a book on Amazon entitled “Marxism in Plain and Simple English.” It’s 62 pages. If Donald J. Trump really thinks that Kamala Harris is a Marxist simply because of her estranged father (a professor of economics), that is really reaching. I think The Donald needs a copy of that book. (*After all, Steve Bannon, his brain trust, is currently in jail until 2 days before the election, so the Wizard of Odd is having to rely on people like The Mad Hatter, Roger Stone, for intellectual guidance.) Another thing that his insult brings to mind are recent put-downs that DJT has made about Kamala Harris’ intelligence; she is quite obviously the child of two very bright people (while Trump’s own intelligence is often questioned, despite the supposed expertise and education that led to multiple bankruptcies.)

Here’s a snippet from “How to Compare Marxism to Capitalism.” It is quite clear that Kamala Harris is no Marxist. To wit: “Marxism, oftentimes interchangeable with communism, emerged from the writings of Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels in the 19th century, and is based on the theory that class conflict will eventually result in the establishment of a society where the public owns the means of production. The two theories are historic enemies, and their differences are most acute when examining their attitudes toward individualism, private property and profits.”

At no time has Kamala Harris sounded like she is not supportive of capitalism simply because she has argued for everyone in our society having a fair shake and an equal chance at making a life where they each of us has the freedom to make choices for themselves (as, for instance, in reproductive rights.)  Trying to paint Harris as a Marxist or Communist is a page right out of the “dirty tricks” playbook of the GOP going back to 1988.

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (D. New Mexico), commenting after Harris’ speech, said she “showed us tonight what leadership looks like.” It is up to every woman of voting age in America to ask themselves whether they want the freedom to decide about their own health care and to decide if they do (or do not) want to have a child. Women need to mobilize like our grandmothers to gain us the right to vote. Only, this time, it is the right to live free (and not die) under an autocratic ruler who simply wants power for himself and his cronies.

IN CONCLUSION

As D.L. Hughley said at the convention, “The only way that Trump can keep Kamala out of the White House is if he buys it and refuses to rent to Black people.”

 

M. Night Shymalan “Traps” Us Again with Twist After Twist

Night Shymalan is a Writer/Director whose films seem to provoke strong reactions. He always seem to be trying for that “surprise twist” ending that appeared in his break-through iconic film “The Sixth Sense” (1999). In “Trap,” which opened August 2nd, the film has so many twists concluding at 103 minutes that I’d be giving away too much of the plot if I were to list them all. Just when you think “this is the end” there’s yet another twist. Personally, I enjoyed most of that. Other critics did not and savaged the film, but it definitely holds your interest throughout.

PLOT

Josh Hartnett plays a father with a dark side who takes his daughter to a music concert that has been set up to catch him there. How do they know he’s among the 3000 men present in a crowd of 20,642? You’ll find out as the plot progresses. His goal is to escape. But can he?

The premise of a doting father taking his teen-aged daughter to a Taylor Swift-like concert is timely. I could definitely relate to the hysteria of young teen-aged girls at these things. Not only did my daughter work for Ms. Swift and have the task of bringing audience members backstage to meet their idol  (the role that M, Night Shymalan has here), but I was present at a Beatles concert in 1965 at the San Francisco Cow Palace, where teen-aged girls with tears streaming down their faces knew every line of every song and screamed themselves senseless.

I remember looking around, each time, and saying to myself, “WTF is going on?”  I was beyond the age of hysterical fandom. But I’ve seen it go down, and it is something to behold and to be in the middle of it is an experience. More could have been done with that by the skilled cinematographer.

I have three main things that I would say about this film:

  • It appears that M. Night Shymalan’s daughter, Saleka Night Shymalan, wants to become a music diva like Taylor Swift. What better way to launch her career than depicting her as one in this film? (she wrote most of the music and performs a lot of it.) After all, it worked for DJT on “The Apprentice” and launched him to the presidency. Saleka even gets to be the heroine of the film when it finally winds down (which doesn’t seem to be happening for Trump right now).
  • Josh Hartnett is an actor whose talent should have been recognized long ago. However,  a less-attractive male lead (Jesse Plemens or Mark Wahlberg, for instance) would have been a better choice to play Cooper. Hartnett is a good actor; he does his best with the script. But we expect our serial killers to be less handsome. We can argue about this, citing Ted Bundy (et. al.)as a serial killer whose appearance was not sinister, and I realize that Hartnett’s good looks did contribute to the success of many of his manipulative moments in “Trap”, but I still think that he comes off as way too “good.” The hidden evil is extremely well -hidden under that good-looking exterior. In “Twisters” (which I recently reviewed) both female leads did credible jobs, but the new (plural) “Twisters” needed the grit of the original “Twister” female lead,Helen Hunt. “Trap” needs less of the matinee idol handsomeness of Hartnett to really convince us he could be “the Butcher.”
  • The music wasn’t as “catchy” as Ms. Swift’s tunes lyrically, but Saleka Shymalan acquitted herself nobly onstage, aided by Kid Cudi as The Thinker. Great costumes. Okay songs and she can sing and play—definite pluses.

THE CAST

Who knew that Hayley Mills of “The Parent Trap” (1960) was still alive? And why would she be running the show as the FBI profiler who sets the trap to catch the Butcher at a concert by the teenaged songtress of the moment, Lady Raven? Someone suggested that Shymalan simply liked the fact that Hayley Mills was in “The Parent Trap” and that was enough. [Not really.]

Alison Pill portrays Cooper’s wife Rachel, and she is one of those faces that you just know you’ve seen in a million movies. She does a respectable but unremarkable job. She’s known for “The Newsroom” (2012-2014) and “Vice,” and has an extensive resume of work.

More remarkable in his role as Jamie, the Black guy who unwittingly helps Cooper out at the arena, is Jonathan Langdon, who provides a bit of comic relief (along with assistance to the bad guy) He’s so memorable that Shymalan has attached a small post script in the film that shows Jamie’s reaction when he learns that he has been duped by The Butcher.

I’ve seen nearly all of Shymalan’s films: “The Sixth Sense” (1999); “Unbreakable” (2000); “Signs” (2002); “The Village” (2004); “Lady in the Water” (2006); “Split” (2016); “Old”(2021); “A Knock at the Cabin” (2023). That only leaves a couple and some of his television work, so I feel comfortable saying that of the films in this list, the best is the classic “The Sixth Sense.” “Trap” would be included as one of the three best, otherwise, book-ended by “Split”—which benefited greatly from a world class acting performance by James McAvoy—and by “Signs”—which had Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix and Rory Culkin (and don’t forget the tin-foil hats!).

The others I’ve listed left you feeling very disappointed, but I was not disappointed in the acting and tension and twistiness of “Trap.” I was just unconvinced that Josh Hartnett was the right choice for the role.

One player onscreen who WAS the right choice for the role was the young girl playing Riley, Cooper’s Lady Raven-obsessed daughter, Ariel Donoghue. The 14-year-old has appeared in a television series, “Wolf Like Me” (2022-2023) and already has eleven IMDB credits. She’s good, and, in this part, she is excellent. I’ll be watching for her in future roles.

So was Josh Hartnett fine at emoting, but he was just too darned good-looking and charming to convince me that he was bad-to-the-bone. (His cross to bear!) Harnett has said, in interviews, that attending a Taylor Swift concert really helped him to understand the scenario.

THE BAD:

Cinematographer Sayonbha Mukdeeprom (“Challengers”) could have done more with the crowd scenes within what is presented as the Tanaka Arena in Philadelphia. Only it isn’t.

Shymalan always pays tribute to his Philadelphia roots and even had a CGI insertion of a building into Philadelphia’s skyline for “Glass,” but I had a sneaking suspicion that this film, which was shot in Canada, was playing fast and loose with the Tanaka Arena’s real location. In fact, the exterior of the building is actually Canada’s Rogers Centre in Toronto and the exterior is Canada’s First Ontario Centre.

In his desire to have numerous twists, a few are waaay out there, (like the final one in the film.) I also object to the “escape from the limo” plot premise. I’m sure others will contribute their own objections to the many attempts at  “twists” that seemed to go on for a good 30 to 45 minutes past what I thought was the finale.

It’s tough to always hit a home run and get a “twist” that satisfies. I salute M. Night Shymalan for continuing to try and for delivering an enjoyable film that holds your interest, despite its shortcomings. I’d predict more singing for M. Night Shymalan’s talented daughter Saleka. Her “Trap”role was a better premiere effort than Ishana Shymalan’s directorial debut with “Watchers,” which had far bigger plot problems than “Trap.”

“Tired of Winning” by Jonathan Karl Tells It Like It Is

Excerpts from “Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party,” by Jonathan Karl of ABC News:

Jonathan Karl's Biography - ABC News

Jonathan Karl of ABC News

 

“He lacks any  shred of human decency, humility, or caring,” a former White House official wrote of Trump, the man he had served for more than a year. “He is morally bankrupt, breathtakingly dishonest, lethally incompetent, and stunningly ignorant of virtually anything related to governing, history, geography, human events or world affairs.  He is a traitor and a malignancy in our nation and represents a clear and present danger to our democracy and the rule of law.” (p. 263, Jonathan Karl, CBS Political Affairs Reporter)

Jonathan Karl's book "Tired of Winning"

“Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party” by Jonathan Karl of ABC News.

“Two and a half years after January 6th, the man whom many of the rioters said was ultimately responsible for the carnage seemed on the way to finally being held accountable…He faces a maximum of 55 years in prison—the maximum in the documents case is higher—but because Trump stands accused of betraying the very oath of office he hopes to take once again. The charges include defrauding the United States and depriving Americans of their right to have their votes count—a right central to the meaning of democracy.” (p. 269)

“President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.  No question about it.” (Mitch McConnell on Feb. 13, 2021.)

“Remnants of the Trump era will be a strange reminder of how Trump operated—his disregard for history and for the law—in this case, the Presidential Records Act of 1978—says that official presidential records are the property of the American people, not of any individual, not even a president. Trump destroyed some of them, others he took home to Mar-a-Lago as if they were personal souvenirs of his time as commander in chief.  Fortunately for future historians—and current criminal investigators—many of the documents he attempted to pilfer were returned, and many of those he tried to destroy were gathered, taped back together, and preserved  by government employees attempting to comply with a law their boss had no intention of following.” (p. 272).

The MITT ROMNEY IS A TOTAL LOSER napkin:  “One of the more unusual documents now under seal at the National Archives is a paper napkin from Air Force One.  The napkin—the existence of which has never been made public—is hardly a state secret, but it reveals much more than the words written on it by Donald Trump with a Black sharpie: MITT ROMNEY IS A TOTAL LOSER.” We don’t know the exact content of this presidential musing—or even the date it was retrieved—or  why Trump chose to scrawl those words on a napkin. Did he write it after Romney became the only Republican to vote to convict him in his first impeachment trial? Or when Romney became one of seven Republicans to vote to impeach him in his second impeachment trial? Or maybe it was after Romney and his wife, Ann, congratulated Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on winning the 2020 election.  “We know both of them as people of good will and admirable character,” Senator Romney said in a statement issued minutes after Biden and Harris were projected as winners of the election. “We pray that God may bless them in the days and years ahead.”

Trump had called Romney a loser many times, but the context of the words scrawled on the napkin—TOTAL LOSER—were different than those he blurted out on Twitter or during speeches. The napkin was a private note, probably one he had written to himself, and an indication Trump had Romney on his mind, and perhaps a reflection of the obsession with the man who won the Republican nomination four years before Trump did. Of course, the note wasn’t completely wrong—Romney, like Trump, was a loser.  Both men had lost a presidential election. But, unlike Trump, Romney took his loss with grace and dignity.  He did what Trump would never do.  He congratulated his opponent—Barack Obama—and put the country above himself, offering words of support to the man who had defeated him.

Sam Houston, 1859–1861 - Friends of the Governor's Mansion
Sam Houston, 1859–1861

SAM HOUSTON STORY:  Sam Houston, the former Governor of Tennessee, battlefield hero, and founding father of Texas independence.  Houston was the first president of the Independent Republic of Texas, the first senator from the state of Texas and  one of the most independent, unique, popular, forceful and dramatic individuals ever to enter the Senate chamber.  Houston put all of that on the line beginning with a vote he took in the Senate in 1854 against what would become the Kansas-Nebraska Act.  To Houston’s fellow Democrats, it was a must-pass bill, a test of Southern unity and survival.  Houston saw the bill for what it was—a way to reopen the the issue of expanding slavery that would set America on a path to civil war. Not a single Senate Democrat joined him in voting against it...His stand against Southern secession was so forceful, Houston received a few votes to be Abraham Lincoln’s vice president. He traveled around his state to make what had become a very unpopular case for Texas to remain in the Union. While he was campaigning in the city of Waco, a bomb exploded behind the hotel he was staying in—an unsuccessful attempt to either kill or intimidate him. He survived the bombing, but he lost the battle.  And when Texas officially seceded  from the Union and joined the Confederacy, Houston was once again defeated, removed from office after he refused to take the oath of the new Confederate state of Texas. Sam Houston was far from perfect, but at the end of his life, he stood up to the madness of his own party—and the madness of his own constituents.  Despite the steep personal price he paid, his place in history was secure—and it started with a vote, an act of political courage—made inside the Senate Chamber.” (p. 279).

“Trump’s betrayal shows just how vulnerable our democracy is and how much it depends on people who are in positions of responsibility to act responsibly.” (p. 281).

“The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack.  Everything that followed (January 6th) was his doing.  None of this would have happened without the President.  There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.” (Liz Cheney, R, Wyoming, while heading the January 6th Commission.) (p. 285).

Of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump the second time, the vote of Representative Tom Rice of South Carolina to impeach was among the most surprising. Rice’s reason for voting to impeach, articulated in Jonathan Karl’s book:  “When Trump watched the Capitol, the People’s House, being sacked, when he watched the Capitol Police officers being beaten for those three or four hours and he lifted not one finger or did one thing to stop it—I was livid then and I’m livid today about it.” (p. 285)

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