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SAN JOSE -- To observe teacher Clark Semple at work is to marvel at his connection with students and his ability to elicit their best efforts.
After all, he spends a lot of class time exhorting them: "No pumpkin heads! No doing legs like the Uniroyal man!" he says as he assigns them 5-minute gesture drawings. "Nice and loose -- loose like a goose!"
"Yah?" he asks.
"Yah!" they answer.
Semple is in his 17th year teaching animation at Mount Pleasant High in San Jose. His students have gone on to study at private art schools and San Jose State's acclaimed animation program, then to get jobs at places like Disney, Pixar, Lucasfilm and Electronic Arts. The four-year animation magnet program is one of the few of its scope in California.
At his room lined with student art, students arrive and get to work on their own. There's some low chatting, but they're heeding Semple's urging. "Remember the path of action! Do not lift your pencils off the paper!"
In his college-preparatory program, he teaches the fundamentals of drawing, principals and history of animation, stop motion, clay animation and computer-generated animation. He assigns homework, even over the Thanksgiving break.
"Do 15 minutes every day!" Semple says. "This has to look so good I'll have a heart attack when I see it," he tells students.
"Pay attention!" he says, managing to sound enthusiastic and insistent but not mean.
"Mr. Semple makes it so we can get the basic stuff, in a fun way," said freshman Riana Garcia, 14. "We work really hard."
Animation is the favorite class of senior Hannele Padre, 17, who has watched a lot of anime and has always been interested in film.
Perhaps it's the combination of expectations and acceptance that has students hanging out in the animation room before and after school and at lunch. The room features light tables for students and iMacs with 3-D software, all purchased with grants.
His supply budget, at $1.57 per student, produces a grand total of $175 for the school year. The senior class's current maquette project alone -- sculptures requiring clay, plywood foundations and wire -- cost $140.
Like many other teachers, Semple is adept at scrounging, saving and writing grants. "It's tough," he admits.
While a handful of high schools offer animation classes, Semple teaches fundamentals and better prepares students for a college program, said David Chai, coordinator of the animation and illustration program at San Jose State.
"It's such a cool opportunity. Any kid in the East Side Union High School District who wants to study animation can get four years of pre-college training," said Chai, who along with his students has helped support and mentor the Mount Pleasant students.
Semple is a stickler for meeting deadlines. "It was intense," said Keith Silva, a 2006 program graduate and now a senior in animation at San Jose State who hopes to work in feature film. By comparison, his other art classes seemed frivolous, producing work that was like, "Oh yeah, that's nice, put it up on your parents' fridge."
Semple himself was a graphic designer until age 38. Then, as a sideline, he taught art part-time at Oak Grove, later moving to James Lick and Pegasus high schools on the East Side.
When the district began the animation magnet in 1997 to draw more students to Mount Pleasant, he was invited to lead it.
"There are so many talented kids on the East Side," he said. "But sometimes their talents are misdirected.
He took crash courses in animation and built the program.
Animation is a burgeoning field, fed by the boom in Japanese anime. At San Jose State, the major is so popular that students must have a 3.85 GPA to enter, among the toughest requirements in the university. The program's top students get recruited before they graduate, Chai said.
At Mount Pleasant, finances are a challenge for many students, who head to community college after graduation. Some, like Silva, then transfer to four-year colleges.
He fell in love with animation as a freshman in Semple's program. "If you like to draw, you should consider it," Silva said. "This is a lucrative industry. If you work hard, and develop your skill and people skills, you can make a career out of this."
Jesus Robledo, 16, never took his doodling seriously. Now, in Semple's sophomore class, he wants to become a graphic designer.
But he's probably in the minority. Some may not make it to college. For those who do, majoring in art is a tough sell to parents, and art colleges are expensive.
Semple tells students, "I don't care if you go into animation, but do something with your talent." Even with all the talented students in his classes, he estimates that 10 percent study art in college. And that, he said, makes him happy.
Contact Sharon Noguchi at 408-271-3775. Follow her at Twitter.com/NoguchiOnK12.


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OAKLAND -- Warriors center Andrew Bogut will continue to sit out with a shoulder injury on a night when Houston's Dwight Howard comes to Oracle Arena, coach Mark Jackson said Thursday.
Bogut will miss his sixth straight game with shoulder inflammation, but Jackson said he didn't consider it to be a major injury.
"Hopefully he doesn't much more time, but obviously it's something that is requiring treatment, rest and most importantly daily treatment from our training staff," Jackson said. "But I wouldn't consider it major at all."
Jermaine O'Neal will start in place of Bogut for a second consecutive game.
saturday's game
Warriors (xx-xx) at Brooklyn
(25-27), 7:30 p.m. CSNBA
Thompson: x
x. PAGE 2

subset: commoncrawl


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Miley Cyrus Bares Butt and Midriff While Shopping at American Apparel in L.A.
| June 21, 2012 - 9:29 am
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Reed Fujii">
STOCKTON - BlueLinx Corp., a leading distributor of building products in North America, has leased a warehouse and adjoining acreage at the Port of Stockton, where it will relocate its regional distribution center, and about 50 jobs, from the Bay Area.
BlueLinx will occupy a 120,000-square-foot warehouse and a 5-acre yard at 1005 Humphries Drive, paying just over $439,000 a year on the five-year lease, which begins Jan. 1, port officials said.
"The company ... will be engaged in the storage and distribution of building materials," Port Director Richard Aschieris said. "We're very pleased to have them as one of our port tenants.
"It will employ 50 people, and the wages will vary depending on the jobs," he continued. Those wages run from about $35,000 to $80,000 a year.
Commercial real estate brokerage Cushman & Wakefield Inc. represented BlueLinx in negotiating the lease and also recently helped it sell its company-owned facility in Newark.
John H. McManus, executive director in Cushman's Oakland office, said relocation sites were considered throughout the Bay Area.
"The final decision was made on the basis of this site's prime location and rail service, the availability of enterprise zone incentives and the economics of the transaction," he said.
McManus also said the Stockton lease was a sign of a continued strengthening in the region's industrial property market.
"For the past few years, we've seen an improvement in the larger availabilities, and that improvement is beginning to trickle down to the smaller spaces as well," he said
Aschieris, too, has noticed increased interest in the port's available real estate.
"The interest in port property has been very strong in the last few months," he said.
Atlanta-based BlueLinx stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange.
Contact reporter Reed Fujii at (209) 546-8253 or email@example.com.
Location, ST | website.com


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Kuumba Dancers and Drummers of Tampa Bay Drummers to Perform Dec. 26 in Lakeland
Published: Thursday, December 13, 2012 at 5:56 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, December 13, 2012 at 5:56 a.m.
LAKELAND | The Kuumba Dancers and Drummers of Tampa Bay will perform again this year at Polk Museum of Art's annual Kwanzaa Celebration from 1 to 2 p.m. Dec. 26. Admission is free.
For details, call 863-688-5423.
Nutcracker ballet celebrates 20 years
>> LAKELAND — Moscow Ballet's Great Russian Nutcracker 20th Anniversary performance will take place at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 27 at The Lakeland Center, 701 W. Lime St.
For tickets, call 863-834-8111 or visit www.the lakelandcenter.com.
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Wednesday's letters: An important fitness issue
Published: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 3:15 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, April 9, 2013 at 6:28 p.m.
Recent visitor and letter writer Sallie Dearnley from the United Kingdom was spot-on with her comments about reconsidering and renovating the Spartanburg Swim Center. I would go so far as to say that a new full area fitness, gym and Olympic-size swim center is desperately needed in a central Spartanburg location.
As a lap/fitness swimmer for decades, I have supported our local YMCA aquatic centers and programs. They are excellent. However, both YMCA pools are homes to swim teams. Especially when the Middle Tyger Spartaquatics team is practicing and hosting meets, there are little to no pool lanes for members. The same is true at the downtown YMCA. I have also observed that the fitness centers and gyms at both locations are very busy.
In my opinion, the downtown YMCA constructed a pool too small for the projected future demands in aquatic programming, given our aging population. More people will need access to additional water programs, easing into aquatic therapies to combat obesity and arthritis. Prolonged life spans and desires for continued active living will mean "taking to the water" for many. Water workouts and therapies are regimens highly recommended by orthopedic surgeons.
Let's make the city Swim Center a county and regional fitness issue and get cracking on some solutions. I recommend we all put our heads together to find a way to keep the Swim Center open for now so a community recreational and fitness committee can be formed (yes, I'd volunteer). We should research county demographics, exercise needs, currently available facilities and funding sources.
If Spartanburg is sincere about being progressive, a top-notch aquatics center should be part of our planning.
Leslie Montagne
Pushing beliefs on others
As an atheist, I was perplexed by the letter to the editor published in the Herald-Journal's April 2 edition. Ms. Jeanette Morrison asked when she would have a "freedom from abuse foundation" based on her concerns about her being discriminated against because of her Christianity.
I am so glad I do not have to believe in a god to have morals. I also believe in being faithful to my wife, paying my bills, not stealing, no divorces, etc. But I do not believe God came down to Earth and had to be brutally murdered on a cross in order to fix man's imperfections.
The reason the Pickens County School Board changed its policy on prayer was precisely because of people like Ms. Morrison. What would she do if Muslims wanted to pray to Muhammad? There are almost as many Muslims in the world as Christians. In fact, there are hundreds of different religions in the world. Who is she to claim she is right and they are wrong?
I don't push my beliefs on her, and I and other like-minded people do not care to hear her beliefs. Did not Jesus say to pray in your closet so as not to be seen by man?
Richard Lawson
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Miley Explains Herself: 'People Forget What It Feels Like to Be 20'
Published: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 at 11:23 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 at 11:23 a.m.
LONDON | Miley Cyrus' transformation from a sweet-faced child star into a twerking, wild-child sensation has garnered plenty of debate, but she says it's not really all that deep — she just grew up, y'all.
"I think people forget what it feels like to be 20," she said in a recent interview. "People just evolve and that's all that's happened to me. But people think a mad scientist somehow cooked up this potion and turned me in to a different human, which it wasn't. All I did was get a haircut and buy some clothes and everyone thinks that I am made into a robot that changes with what's popular every 10 years."
Cyrus has raised eyebrows as she continues to distance herself from her former life as the star of the Disney show "Hannah Montana." Now engaged to actor Liam Hemsworth, Cyrus is concentrating on her musical career and due to release an album in the fall.
Cyrus has one of the summer's biggest hits with "We Can't Stop"; it's now No. 2 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. In the song's video, which has reached 100 million views on YouTube, Cyrus dances suggestively amid bizarre imagery, including a skull made of french fries. Cyrus says the video was inspired by her own life and the wild parties she's been at.
Besides, Cyrus says acting a little crazy can actually be good for the soul.
"That's why I think some people kind of fall off and they end up going crazy because you don't give yourself time to go crazy," she said. "That's what you're supposed to do; you are 20, you are supposed to be a mess because you haven't figured it out yet, and 10 years from now I am supposed to have it all together."
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EXCLUSIVE: Deadpool Dons the Venom Symbiote in "Back In Black" #1 First Look
Comic Books
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Cobie Smulders elaborates on "S.H.I.E.L.D." casting rumors! "Justice League" is dependent on "Man of Steel's" success! Robert Downey, Jr. discusses "Iron Man 3!" Plus, changes to DC Nation & more!
A new report indicates Warner Bros. executive are waiting to gauge the performance of director Zack Snyder's "Man of Steel" before deciding to move ahead with the long-developing "Justice League."
The "Injustice: Gods Among Us" latest trailer offers insight into the motivations of the game's character while offering gamers a first listen to the voice actors portraying Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman and others.
Cartoon Network has released new clips and stills from this weekend's "Green Lantern: The Animated Series," "Young Justice" and its new funny animal Justice League "Farm League" short!
Kevin Feige teases Happy Hogan's expanded role in "Iron Man 3!" Seth Gabel's Count Vertigo goes crazy in "Arrow" clip! James Mangold discusses tonal shift in "The Wolverine!" Plus, "Justice League" rumors & more!
DC Comics CCO Geoff Johns spoke with CBR News about his plans to build up everyone from "one-man Illuminati" Martian Manhunter to potentially powerful Vibe in his and David Finch's "Justice League of America."
Cartoon Network has released a handful of new stills and video clips from this weekend's all-new DC Nation block, featuring the latest episodes of "Green Lantern: The Animated Series" and "Young Justice."
DC Comics has released their full solicitations text and images for product releasing in April, 2013, including the latest from "Justice League of America," "Batman," "Action Comics" and more.
Nearly two-dozen cover images have surfaced online ahead of DC Comics' April solicitations, featuring new "Justice League of America" art, a provocative "Batman" cover and more.
In addition to video and stills from this week's new episodes of "Young Justice" and "Green Lantern: The Animated Series," Cartoon Network has released a clip from the latest Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld short!
In the final installment of CSBG's three-part 400th edition celebration, learn how Jackie Onassis was once the world's most famous comic book editor! Plus, the strange story of how Adam Strange first met the Justice League!
Casting reports surface for "Guardians of the Galaxy!" Kirkman and Gurira talk "The Walking Dead" season three! Rumors for the "Justice League" team of heroes begin to circulate! Plus, DC Nation news & more!
Already rumored to portray Batman in Warner Bros.' "Justice League," Joseph Gordon-Levitt is now said to be among the contenders to play Star-Lord in Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy."
ROBOT 6's Tom Bondurant dives into the "Justice League" & "Aquaman" crossover, noting "Geoff Johns always starts strong and 'Throne of Atlantis' is no exception."
Doug Zawisza gives "Justice League" #15 4.5 stars, calling the first "Throne of Atlantis" issue by Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis and Joe Prado "exactly what Justice League titles should deliver."
The new artist behind "Aquaman's" adventures dives into his half of "Throne of Atlantis," and Paul Pelletier explains how he's following Ivan Reis while making his mark on the Justice League, Darkseid and more.
As Ivan Reis and Joe Prado join DC's "Justice League" for the "Throne of Atlantis" crossover, Geoff Johns describes his long term plans for Aquaman, Cyborg and Superman and Wonder Woman's romance.
"Suicide Squad" film put on hold! Samuel L. Jackson on why "Unbreakable 2" never happened! Ben Affleck sets his "Justice League" record straight. Also, director Joseph Kosinski on "Oblivion" and more.
DC Comics has released a preview of "Justice League" #15 by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis, featuring variant covers by Jim Lee and Billy Tucci. The "Throne of Atlantis" crossover begins December 26.
New behind-the-scenes photo from "Iron Man 3!" Norman Reedus discusses "The Walking Dead!" New "Justice League" plot rumors begin to surface! Plus, "The Mummy," "The Hobbit" & more!
Ray Fawkes and Jeff Lemire discuss co-writing "Justice League Dark," from their initial "The Death of Magic" storyline to the upcoming "Trinity War," the future of Black Orchid in "Animal Man" and Steve Trevor's motives.
A new report contends Warner Bros.' planned 2015 "Justice League" movie will draw inspiration from a 1980 DC Comics storyline in which the Justice League, the Justice Society and the New Gods teamed up to stop Darkseid.
DC Comics has released their full solicitations text and images for product releasing in March, 2013, including the latest from "Justice League of America," "Earth 2" "Constantine" #1 and more.
DC Comics has provided CBR with an exclusive first look at the March solicitations for the publisher's Justice League titles, including "Justice League of America" #2, "Aquaman" #18 and more.
First major footage of "Star Trek Into Darkness" hits! A new look at Chad Coleman as Tyreese in "The Walking Dead!" Dan Aykroyd updates fans on "Ghostbusters 3!" Plus, "Arrow" and more!
Voice actor Phil LaMarr stopped by the CBR Tiki Room at NYCC 2012 to discuss his role as John Stewart on "Justice League," his career in voice acting and more.
A new rumor contends Warner Bros.' planned 2015 "Justice League" movie will bring together Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and other DC Comics heavy-hitters to battle Darkseid.
Who will be the antagonist of "Justice League?" "Amazon" casting scenes detailed! First poster for "Star Trek Into Darkness" hits! Plus, updates on "Sin City: A Dame to Kill For," "S.H.I.E.L.D." and more!
Universal Studios is suing the producers of a porn rip-off of the film "Fifty Shades of Grey" -- SPINOFF ONLINE wants to know why that's worth a lawsuit when "Justice League XXX" isn't.
Has Matthew Vaughan been confirmed for "Star Wars?" Joss Whedon's "S.H.I.E.L.D." finds its Agent Grant Ward! Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart return for "X-Men: Days of Future Past!" Plus, "Booster Gold" & more!
Will Joseph Gordon-Levitt become Batman for "Justice League?" Kevin Feige expounds on "Iron Man 3!" Who is the mysterious new archer in "Arrow?" Plus, new looks at "Doctor Who" and more!
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is rumored to have signed a deal to appear as Batman in Warner Bros.' long-developing "Justice League" film, fueling speculation about a possible cameo in Zack Snyder's "Man of Steel." Updated
Under writer Geoff Johns, two of DC Comics best-selling franchises go to war with an underwater nation, as the CCO explains how "Aquaman" and "Justice League" both stand to change from Ocean Master's "Throne of Atlantis."
DC Comics has released a preview of "Justice League" #14 written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Tony S. Daniel. The League continues their fight against Cheetah November 21.
On the eve of talking over as artist on "Action Comics" in March, Tony Daniel spoke with CBR about collaborating with Andy Diggle on Superman following his two-issue arc on "Justice League" with Geoff Johns.
DC Comics writer and CCO Geoff Johns and artist Ivan Reis spoke with CBR about "Justice League," the Wonder Woman/Superman relationship, the new Green Lantern and what lies ahead for Aquaman in 2013.
DC Comics has provided CBR with an exclusive first look at Jay Fabok's variant cover for November's "Justice League" #14 featuring Geoff Johns and Tony Daniel's latest chapter on the road to 2013's "Trinity War."
"Justice League" gets a 2015 release date! Mary Jane gets a small role in "Amazing Spider-Man 2!" The official "Iron Man 3" synopsis revealed! Plus, "Deadpool" news and more!
Following the result of the long-running legal battle over the rights to Superman, Warner Bros. has announced that the "Justice League" film will begin shooting next year with a 2015 target release.
CBR stepped into the ring for a hands-on demo of "Injustice," the Justice League fighting game hitting consoles in March 2013. Hector Sanchez of NetherRealm Studios showed us the ropes and hinted what's still to come.
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8648 - Elegant Studio - West Village
Size45 m²
Floor No.
- Family/child friendly
- Internet/WiFi
- Kitchen
- Air conditioning
- Washer/dryer
- Towels
- Dishwasher
|Sullivan Street, 10012 new york city, United States
|Property type
|Property ID
|Acceptance rate
|Response time
|A few hours
|Calendar updated
Features include a flat panel TV with basic cable, high-speed wireless internet, heated and air conditioned, linen provided free of charge, etc..
Enjoy access to the best shopping, Chinatown, Tribeca, East Village and Little Italy. Half a block from all major subway/metro/trains. Times Square is only 5 minutes away by subway! Whole foods, New York University are just steps away. Galleries, restaurants, museums, cafes, shopping, 24 hour stores, theatres, cinemas and the most popular night life bars/clubs are right outside your front door.
No smoking
There is a late fee for check ins after 6PM (40 dollars before 9 pm and
80 dollars after 9 pm) and 40 dollars during weekends
Damage deposit = there is a 500 dollars damage deposit to be paid via paypal.
|Price for > 2 guests
|$ 122 HKD per guest/night extra
|Check-in after
|Check-in before
|On arrangement
|Check-out before
|Cancellation Policy
Hello !!!
The apartment is excellent and very near the "heart" of New York, a marvel.
As the person responsible for having us we do not hear from the time of payment and the day of arrival for check-in became a real odyssey, until we get to reach you by email and had to move to the office then again, with all the luggage ...
El apartamento es excelente y muy cerca del "corazón" de New York, una auténtica maravilla.
En cuanto a la persona encargada de recibirnos no recibimos noticias suyas desde el momento del pago y el día de llegada para hacer el Check-In se convirtió en una auténtica odisea, hasta que conseguimos localizarle por el correo electrónico y tuvimos que desplazarnos hasta la oficina para luego volver, con todas las maletas...
The location was great. Near Central Park and the subway just a few blocks away. The appartment was clean and the beds made. Very nice place to stay.
all perfect very recomendable
First of all, express my sincere complaint through the process of renting the apartment, as you can see the address of an apartment that does not match the rented (52 East 120 thn steet) still appears, this change has also to be taken pending refund of the price difference for us, to such return and after passing twice by the office (163 West 23rd street) has not yet given answer.
I believe that intermediaries between Wimdu and assumptions, Furnished habitat in our case there is no clear relationship that includes all the contingencies that have appeared.
I just want to thank the professionalism of the lady who kindly stayed at the office until 2 am on Sunday 29 to deliver the apartment keys.
Ante todo, expresar mi mas sincera queja por el proceso de alquiler del apartamento, como puede verse sigue apareciendo la dirección de un apartamento que no corresponde con el alquilado (52 east 120 thn steet), este cambio ha supuesto tambien que se tenga pendiente la devolución de la diferencia de precio a nuestro favor, a dicha devolución y tras pasar dos veces por la oficina en (163 west 23 rd street) no se nos ha dado aún respuesta.
Considero que entre Wimdu y los supuestos intermediarios, en nuestro caso Furnished habitat no existe una relacion clara que contemple todas las contingencias que han aparecido.
Solamente quiero agradecer la profesionalidad de la Señorita que se quedó amablemente en la oficina hasta las 2 AM del domingo 29 para entregarnos las llaves del apartamento.
The apartment didn't quite live up to expectations. Although advertised as 2 bedroom in reality it was a 1 bedroom with part of the original lounge area partitioned off to form a second bedroom. The apartment as a whole was well enough equipped and furnished. The toilet sink leaked when used resulting in flooding on a few occasions. This was reported at least 4 times to the leasing agency but it took 5 days before action was taken and the fault repaired which was most unsatisfactory. There was meant to be wifi availability but this did not prove to be the case. Also tv channels were limited.
In conclusion you were very much paying for the location rather than the apartment and the level of customer care was very poor indeed. I would not recommend staying at this property or booking through this agency.
The location is very good, wifi was perfect and the apartment is not bad, but there are many bad things you won't like:
- It is extremely noisy, sleeping will be very difficult.
- It has 2 bathrooms, but they are connected by a door and there's one room you can only access through them.
- It was very very dirty.
- Washer machine doesn't work, So, We couldn't try the drier.
- You will only get one towel per person... If washer machine doesn't work, you can imagine...
- It is located in a second floor... there's no elevator.
- Only one TV was working, the one in the dining room.
- Curtains and blinds are not enough, So, rooms are not dark enough to sleep confortably.
- You have to pick the keys up in an office; It is near the apartment and It is easy and fast, but after a long flight, It is a bit unconfortable.
I don't reccommend this apartment.
The apartment is well located; The nearest metro station is a few minutes walk, the Chelsea Market is less than 10 minutes. Furthermore, plenty of nice restaurants in the immediate vicinity. The apartment has two bedrooms, a small bathroom and a small kitchen / living space. In itself meets the space for a family of 4 persons. However, one should be good to his leg; it is located on the 5th floor, 67 steps. The wifi did not work, call the customer service ended (during office hours) in the voice mail, but was never called back. The TV we did not get the way to work. The worst thing turned the shower. Going rapidly from cold to burning hot and vice versa. One of us has serious burns over adhered to a shower bath. So be warned.
Het appartement is prima gelegen; het dichtstbijzijnde metrostation is een paar minuten lopen, de Chelsea market is nog geen 10 minuten. Verder tal van leuke restaurants in de directe nabijheid. Het appartement heeft 2 slaapkamers, een kleine badkamer en een kleine keuken/leefruimte. Op zich voldoet de ruimte voor een gezin met 4 personen. Wel moet men goed te been zijn; het ligt op de 5de verdieping, 67 treden. De wifi werkte niet, bellen met de klantenservice eindigde (tijdens kantooruren) in de voice-mail, maar er werd nooit terug gebeld. De tv kregen we trouwens ook niet aan de praat. Het ergste bleek echter de douche. Die gaat razendsnel van koud naar gloeiend heet en vice versa. Een van ons heeft serieuze brandwonden overgehouden aan een douchebeurt. Dus wees gewaarschuwd.
Apartment very noisy and windows without any insulation, it looked like you were sleeping in the middle of the street. In winter have to be super cold. The very small bathroom. Otherwise the apartment was beautiful, well equipped and clean
Apartamento muy ruidoso y ventanas sin ningún tipo de aislamiento, parecia que estabas durmiendo en mitad de la calle. En invierno tiene que ser super frio. El baño muy pequeño. Por lo demás el piso era bonito, estaba bien equipado y limpio
Flat located at 10 minutes from the metro. Spacious and bright. quite conform with a family or friends going on a trip together. Very comfortable beds with linen and towels change. However, it lacks some kitchen utensils (even if the goal is not made large kitchen) and a little effort to do the cleanliness of housing. Negative: very bad soundproof like sleeping with the windows ouvertes.Cela said, New York is never quiet ...
Appartement bien situe a 10mn de la bouche de métro. Spacieux et clair. tout a fait adapte a une famille ou a des amis partant en voyage ensemble. Lits très confortables avec draps et serviettes de rechange. il manque toutefois quelques ustensiles de cuisine (même si le but n'est pas de faite de la grande cuisine) et un petit effort est a faire sur la propreté du logement. Point négatif: très mal insonorise avec une impression de dormir les fenêtres ouvertes.Cela dit, New York n'est jamais très calme...
We arrived NY 13 April in glorious sunshine and retrieved the key to our apartment. The apartment was very central, with lots Puper, restaurants, Amy's Bread across the street where we bought fresh bread every day, and small grocery stores. The apartment was somewhat worn, do lid was loose, missing legs on one dining room chair, and for us who had planned to cook something yourself, it lacked some service. Glass was little off, so it had to be cleaned up after each time. It also lacked things like wash rag. No problem to buy, but seems it's like going to lie there. The bathroom was very soft after shower. When we arrived the apartment was this really hot and we were airing one bedroom. The window allowed himself open, but not again. This was also the bedroom off the main street so it was impossible to be there. We tried calling arrival, but got no reply. We went there the next day and they said they were aware of the problem. We were not the first this had happened. First Friday they turned up and repaired the window. This meant that three of us had to share a bedroom. So far no problem, but it was not what we had paid for. This draws some down.
Conclusion: The location was very good, but do not think it was been the 26,000 we paid for a week in respect of the things mentioned.
Vi ankom NY 13. april i strålende solskinn og hentet nøkkelen til vår leilighet. Leiligheten lå veldig sentralt, med masse puper, restauranter, Amys bread rett over gaten hvor vi kjøpte fersk brød hver dag og små butikker for dagligvare. Leiligheten var noe slitt, do lokk som var løs, manglende ben på den ene spisestue stolen, og for oss som hadde planlagt å lage noe mat selv, manglet det en del service. Glass var det lite av, så det måtte vaskes opp etter hver gang. Det manglet også ting som vaskefille. Ikke noe problem å kjøpe, men synes det er sånt som skulle ligge der. Badet ble veldig bløtt etter dusj. Da vi ankom leiligheten var denne veldig varm og vi skulle lufte det ene soverommet. Vinduet lot seg åpne, men ikke igjen. Dette var også soverommet ut mot hovedgaten så det ble umulig å ligge der. Vi prøvde å ringe ankomstdagen, men fikk ikke svar. Vi dro dit dagen etter og de sa de var klar over problemet. Vi var ikke de første dette hadde skjedd med. Først fredag dukket de opp og reparerte vinduet. Det betydde at tre av oss måtte dele et soverom. Forså vidt ikke noe problem, men det var ikke det vi hadde betalt for. Dette trekker en del ned.
Konklusjon: Beliggenheten var veldig bra, men synes ikke det var vært de 26 tusen vi betalte for en uke med hensyn til de tingene som er nevnt.
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Cuomo to Lobby for Sandy Funds in Washington
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will travel to Washington D.C. Monday to lobby Congressional leaders for a $41.9 billion aid package to help the state in its recovery from superstorm Sandy, a Cuomo spokesman confirmed Friday.
Cuomo has not visited Washington since his inauguration as governor in 2011, and he was equivocal in recent weeks about whether he would personally make the trip. Asked Nov. 12 if he would travel to the capitol to ask for the aid package, he said to a reporter, "If I went to Washington now, what story would you write?"
Further details on whom Cuomo would meet with on Monday were not immediately available.
Cuomo's planned excursion comes after New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg traveled to Washington earlier this week to lobby for the $41.9 billion aid bill. While Bloomberg said he'd gotten "good vibes" from both Republicans and Democrats he spoke to about the aid package, he acknowledged some Republican Congress members are reluctant to sign off on such a costly bill without requiring offsets in spending elsewhere in the federal budget.


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Netflix Inks Disney Deal; Shares Pop
Netflix shares are jumping this afternoon amid word that the Internet streaming company has signed an exclusive movie deal with Walt Disney
The deal is a multi-year licensing agreement that will make Netflix the exclusive U.S. subscription TV service for first-run Disney films, beginning with Disney's 2016 releases. Additionally, Netflix will also have access to legacy Disney movies, such as "Dumbo," "Pocahontas" and "Alice in Wonderland."
Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.
More In Netflix
Shares jumped after the news was announced earlier this afternoon. The stock recently rose 9.8% to $83.44, and is now up about 47% since August.
Disney shares were roughly flat at $49.27. The agreement comes two weeks after Disney said it was closing its online effort, from which movies could be bought or rented.
Dow Jones' Ian Sherr says the deal represents a way for Netflix to strike back against Amazon.com deal earlier this year for Epix. From Sherr:
Amazon.com got a lot of attention back in September when it added content from Epix to its nascent arsenal of movies and TV shows available to its movie-streaming subscribers. Now, Netflix is striking back, being the only pay-TV entity to show all Disney (DIS) theatrical releases starting in 2016. That initial window typically lasts for 18 months; then, movies are generally able to appear on other cable-TV channels and eventually network TV. The deal heats up the battle between Netflix and Amazon, which have been gobbling up rights to popular movies such as "The Hunger Games" and "Iron Man" in attempts to become the premier video-streaming provider.
Meanwhile, Disney's direct-to-video new releases will be available on Netflix beginning in 2013.
"Disney and Netflix have shared a long and mutually beneficial relationship and this deal will bring to our subscribers, in the first pay TV window, some of the highest-quality, most imaginative family films being made today," said Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer at Netflix. "It's a bold leap forward for Internet television and we are incredibly pleased and proud this iconic family brand is teaming with Netflix to make it happen."
–Kevin Kingsbury contributed to this post.
For more MarketBeat and other streaming markets coverage from The Wall Street Journal, point your mobile browser to wsj.com/marketspulse.


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squirtisblow wrote: i wonder how bam and company will respond to the WBC:
icarus502 wrote: Just to reiterate: the claim that he had "three shots and three light beers" was patently false. If that were the case, he'd most likely be alive. For a man of his size (I'm guessing ≈ 230 lbs), six drinks in four hours would hardly register as anything whatsoever.
anomaly wrote: i just realized I can't stand Pennsylvania accents
adic wrote: Yeah, he's apparently the only one that's gone sober too...


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Hopeless romantic Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to release his memoir next October—and according to his publisher, Simon & Schuster, the book is tentatively titled Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story.
However, a source told the People's Magazine that it will "not be a tell-all," so it should actually be called Partial Recall: Shit I Feel Like Telling You. (One of his earliest and least-popular movies, Partial Recall depicts Schwarzenegger as bodybuilder who wakes up under a table in a Rio nightclub and tries to remember what he did the night before.) Those things so far: Growing up, bodybuilding, making movies, politicking, and his terminatored marriage to Maria Shriver. No word on whether any love children or mistresses will make appearances. Maybe the book will come with blank pages and a pack of crayons so you can draw them in yourself.
[NYT. Image via AP]


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Emily Fluck is returning to school this year with some reservations about being a part of community living-- because she knows Swine Flu could attack at any minute.
"I just keep hearing that you should wash your hands, and my parents want me to get a flu shot," she explains.
If it hasn't already.
"I actually did hear of someone on my floor who has the flu, so that was a little weird," Fluck explains.
Weird, she says, because that person on her floor could have Swine Flu, just like students at Universities similar to MSU like Purdue. That school has reported at least 47 suspected cases.
Fluck's hunch may prove to be true says Marcus Cheatum of the Ingham County Health Department.
"We are confident that at least a few people at MSU have had H1N1 by now," Cheatum explains.
But just how many? Well that's a good question. Kent Casella is an MSU spokesman.
"Knowing and being able to clearly identify those cases becomes problematic because the state and CDC are no longer testing for them," Casella says.
In other words, the University isn't sure who has it and who doesn't, so instead they're going to have to use a common sense approach because at this point it's all they can do.
"Since we know most of the symptoms are H1N1, doing the test doesn't add any new information," Cheatum says.
Meaning if a student has a fever or some respiratory issues, there's a good chance it could be Swine Flu and will therefore need to take time off from class to get better.
In the meantime healthy students like Fluck have to do everything possible to stay healthy.


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Discussion in 'Fantasy / Horror' started by Hobbit, Sep 13, 2010.
To be opened soon, in preparation for October.
Excited here!!!!!
I am so excited!!! Randy M. ...... get that list of yours out! lol I am so dying to see what is on your mind for reading during in this wonderful month of October!! I believe i always look forward to this time of year more and more!
The fall leaves, raking....cemetaries and ghouls!! hahahah!
After your list...I have a few things to mention, but shall wait and see!!
Please begin!! Can't you just feel it!!!
Oh and
PS: Thanx Hobbit!! I was waiting for you to let the ghouls out!!!
LOL. Can I tell you're excited about this, Shayna?
Randy will be along in a bit.... he's just hauling the tomes from the catacombs!
I'm starting the season out right by starting Dark Harvest tonight; I've heard alot of good things about it.
Standard Disclaimer
Hi, all.
Before I start I thought I should issue the standard disclaimers:
I'm not an expert, I've just read a lot.
I look forward to comments and discussion.
Oddly enough, I also look forward to corrections. Sometimes I start typing and just get carried away. If I say something less than bright, let me know; the sound you hear will be me smacking my forehead.
You will see a ton of short stories mentioned because I think the form suits the genre. But I won't ignore novels.
You'll see titles repeated for two reasons:
Stories are more than just one thing;
I've read a lot, but not everything!
I'm probably weakest with newer works, so you'll see a lot of older works mentioned. Still, there will be some newer books and stories mentioned.
And I think that's it. I need to make a couple of corrections to some of what I've written about ... Ray Bradbury, and I'll send it off the first list as soon as I can.
Randy M.
Evoking October and Halloween: Ray Bradbury
The October Country (1955)
"The Crowd"
"The Small Assassin"
Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962)
The Halloween Tree (1972)
The plaudits earned by The Martian Chronicles (1950) – particularly the praising review by Christopher Isherwood – followed by the success of Fahrenheit 451 (1953) propelled Ray Bradbury's career to a level beyond that of any other writer who came to maturity in the s.f./fantasy pulps: Best-seller status and critical acclaim. At the height of his renown, Bradbury was thought of as one of America's premier s.f. writers.
Which seems a bit odd now considering a good deal of Bradbury's early work was published in Weird Tales magazine and his first book, Dark Carnival, appeared from Arkham House, the small publishing house best known for preserving the works of H. P. Lovecraft. Bradbury himself has said that he was a fantasist and over the years this view has become more prevalent among readers. Certainly the science in his writings is thin, the technology mainly the furnishings around which he wove his true stories which were about aspects of love, about family, about growing up and what is lost and what is gained in the process.
While other writers have written about autumn and even about Halloween, for 3 generations of readers Ray Bradbury's name has been indelibly linked to the season. Starting with the story "Homecoming" – my nomination for the great American short fantasy of the 20th century – Bradbury returned time and again to the season, to the sense of aging and mortality that the season inspires, and to the theme of loss. The October Country incorporates several of the stories from Dark Carnival and pulls in others, and hovering over all of them like the shadow of Uncle Einar is that melancholy, that apprehension of decay and of loss of the fecundity and energy of summer; there is in these stories a sense of turning inward.
The three stories mentioned above are among the most well-known of the stories in The October Country, itself a true cornerstone of 20th century American fantasy. "The Crowd" is a rather (Fritz) Leiber-esque story observing something we've all seen in cities and finding the sinister in it – where do the crowds at accidents come from? Who are they? What do they want? "The Small Assassin," arguably Bradbury's most effective horror story, concerns what should be the happiest time in a married couple's lives, the birth of their first child. "Homecoming," not really horror but a story that uses the furniture of the horror story as backdrop, recounts events leading to and during a family gathering, a family composed of werewolves and vampires, men with wings and great-great-etc grandma, who is a mummy, and Timothy, who is none of those things, and in the process evokes the nature of family and familial love, the sense of belonging or not, the feeling of late Fall, the magic of Halloween, and the curse and blessing of mortality like no other story I know.
I'll add some thoughts on Something Wicked This Way Comes presently, but first a brief note about The Halloween Tree: I read it about ten years ago and no longer recall details. I do remember thinking it was a variation on Something …, but with less emphasis on the truly scary and greater emphasis on the weird and eerie and the adventure of it. As with most of Something… it is written from the viewpoint of young boys, or more precisely of the young boys of Bradbury's mid-west youth. Like, say, Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea books, it was a Young Adult title before there was a Young Adult category, and for me it seemed like a drawn-out short story that pulled its punches a bit for the perceived audience. Which is not to say I disliked it. I would recommend giving it a try.
Something Wicked This Way Comes is, arguably, Bradbury's greatest achievement at novel-length, a story about coming of age, of facing mortality, of love between friends and between father and son. The catalyst for this is the arrival of Mr. Dark's carnival in town. The carnival is supernatural, battening on the souls and hopes and dreams of unwary and gullible townspeople, using their desires and needs and vanities against them.
While the narrator is anonymous, the narrative voice is exuberant and aware of the vistas of possibility before the two young boys who are the center of the story. The narrative voice is also aware of the misgivings and fears of the father of one of them, and that discordance is what gives the book much of its power: The worries and frets of an aging man contrasted to the joy in life of his son, which in turn is contrasted to the worries and needs of his best friend, all held together by their mutual love and respect.
Something Wicked This Way Comes is part The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and part The Circus of Dr. Lao but it is mostly pure-quill Bradbury, flawed by lapses into sentimentality, descriptive passages that go over the top (often connected to pitch perfect passages), and moments where the consequences of decisions and actions or inactions are not quite as rigorously worked out as maybe they should be. Yet the essential optimism of the work, its celebration of friendship and of the energy and possibilities of youth, its careful detailing of an older man's coming to terms with decay and mortality, its recognition of what is bad in the world and the power evil can exert over us raise it above its flaws. I know of nothing quite like it in American literature and though my critical faculties rebel at parts of it, that I've read it at least five times must mean it speaks to me at some level beyond the intellectual, even if I can't quite figure out what level that is.
Lastly, even in old age Bradbury hasn't abandoned autumn and Halloween. From the Dust Returned (2001) gathers together his stories about the Family, first depicted in "Homecoming." I haven't read it yet because I've heard he rewrote the stories and I'm not sure I like that. Those stories are old friends and I'm not sure I want even their author messing around with them. Still, I expect I'll give in and read it eventually.
Next Monday, Evoking Bradbury
my pick also!!
Oh! yes!! I have it by my bedside ready for this week-end!!
Randy - I read a lot of Bradbury's short stories when I was younger. Only a couple have stayed with me and "The Small Assassin" is one, but unfortunately because I remember thinking it was was ridiculous to the point of hilarity. I'm not sure that Bradbury achieves the suspension of disbelief necessary to get the reader to accept a newborn might be trying to murder its parents. And the doctor's acceptance of this idea based on what, I recall, to be flimsy evidence also beggared belief. Now I'm the father of a 3 month old maybe I should read it again - or maybe not - It would be horrible to think I could empathise with the story more now!
Another Bradbury story that I remember vividly is "The Man Upstairs", and I think this one is much more effective. This is probably one of my favourite short stories. Bradbury's wonderful descriptive powers are at their height in this tale and used to create an atmosphere of growing suspense and terror. The opening description of the chicken being gutted is so beautiful and disturbing it really has stayed with me since I was a kid.
Fair 'nuff, Luke. But that is one thing to remember about horror stories, what scares one person will cause guffaws in another. For me -- and for a lot of anthologists -- Bradbury sets the scene well enough and manages to gain willing suspension of disbelief.
I haven't read that one. I'll have to see if it's in one of my collections. Thanks.
By the way, another story I meant to mention (not in TOC) and didn't was "Black Ferris" (believe that's the correct title; I'll double-check when I can) which was an early run at Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Randy M.
I'm pretty sure "The Man Upstairs" was in The Small Assassin short story collection if you have that.
EDIT: Oh, and to be fair, "The Small Assassin" is one of Bradbury's better known and loved short stories, so your opinion is probably more relevant to others than mine.
Well, I was completely wrong in my earlier estimations to myself: It didn't take me a full week but only part of a day to say something embarrassing. Another indication to me, as if I really needed another one, that I should always double-check my memory.
Before writing about Bradbury I pulled TOC out and reread a few stories, but not this one. I'll reread this one before much longer.
I wouldn't go that far, especially after the gaff I just made. But this is one of the aspects of horror that parallel humor: Some people find certain things funny or scary, and the person next to them wonders what the fuss is about. Wait until I start discussing Lovecraft -- some readers are mesmerized by his writing, others can't stop laughing long enough to get scared (Brian Aldiss, for one).
Randy M.
My favorite Ray Bradbury story is "Pillar Of Fire". It's perfect reading for this time of year. You can find it in his collection " S Is For Space".
Evoking Bradbury
On Halloween
a. The Night Country by Stewart O'Nan (2004)
b. Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge (2007)
c. A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny (1994)
d. "Mr. Dark's Carnival" by Glen Hirshberg
Not specifically Halloween
e. Blind Voices by Tom Reamy (1978)
f. Coraline by Neil Gaiman (2002)
g. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (2008)
A mostly non-horror title of possible interest
h. Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman (1996)
Ray Bradbury's influence has been widespread, and his October and Halloween stories have inspired works by many other writers in and out of genre.
Stewart O'Nan's The Night Country recounts the events on Halloween one year to the day after a car accident killed several high school students; it is told from the perspective of the students' ghosts as they revisit the town in which they lived and died. While O'Nan dedicates his novel to Bradbury, neither the concept of the novel nor O'Nan's prose seem particularly Bradbury-like. Even so, as in Bradbury, O'Nan instills the quiet winding-down of autumn with a pervading melancholy, a growing sense of something dire soon to happen, and even a Bradbury-esque empathy from the narrator for the living characters being observed. O'Nan's novel leisurely reveals the actions and motivations of his characters, and gradually unveils the mystery surrounding the accident and the reasons for the return of the ghosts.
By contrast with O'Nan's novel, both Roger Zelazny in A Night in the Lonesome October and Norman Partridge in Dark Harvest approach Bradbury-like material with an adventure story sensibility, but diverge drastically from there. Zelazny takes an idea similar to Bradbury's the Family: What if the monsters we know from books and movies, and even one from real life, were conspiring to either save or destroy the world? Like most of Zelazny's work that I've read, the narrator is the protagonist and while not flawless, he is intelligent, knowledgable, loyal and courageous. Unlike those other Zelazny works, the narrator is also a canine, the companion of a man simply known as Jack. Zelazny, completely aware of the not-so-latent silliness of his premise, draws the reader in mainly through making his hero sympathetic and with writing that is sharp, concise, straight-faced and mischievously funny. And it is that sense of humor and having fun with genre materials that most distinguishes Zelazny's novel from Partridge's.
Partidge's Dark Harvest posits a mid-west town with an unbroken streak of fine weather, good crops and great yield at harvest. And the secret for this success is revealed as the novel follows a young man transformed into … well, that would be telling; Partridge's depiction of young people in their late teens trying to break away from the conventions and expectations of their particular town is convincing. While the setting and some of the description is Bradbury's mid-west, Partridge's view of small town life is closer to that of Thomas Tryon in Harvest Home, and his narrative voice is drawn from noir, less akin to Bradbury than to Dashiell Hammett or Fred Brown. This is the only one of the novels listed above that I would call an outright horror novel, and a well-constructed, entertaining one.
Arguably a bit closer in tone, theme and setting to Bradbury, the title of Glen Hirshberg's novella, "Mr. Dark's Carnival," (The Two Sams; 2003)) refers directly to Something Wicked This Way Comes. In this story a professor and his lover visit a recently arrived carnival and learn things about themselves they hadn't known. The story is distinguished by loving, longing and loss.
I cannot recommend these three novels and novella strongly enough. While not Bradbury, they take us near Bradbury territory and do so to some effect.
Not set on Halloween, Blind Voices is a first novel by by Tom Reamy, who died before seeing it in print. Reamy evokes a similar mid-west setting to Bradbury's; his characters would not seem out of place in a Bradbury story, and early on Reamy's well-phrased descriptive prose brings a similar flavor to the novel. As in Something Wicked This Way Comes a travelling carnival comes to town, exciting the townsfolk with its acts: a Snake Goddess, a gorgon, a minotaur, and others. These aren't quite Mr. Dark's soul-sucking entertainments, though, and Reamy's attempt to explain them in a science fictional manner undermines the book's overall effect; further, since his plot does not spring as fully from character as Bradbury's does, a good deal of narrative energy is lost in just getting the plot to work. All-in-all, this is a good first novel, but it's still only a shadow of the book that inspired it.
More successful, I think, and great fun are Neil Gaiman's two Bradbury-esque Young Adult novels, Coraline and The Graveyard Book. The former tells of a young girl who feels neglected and ignored by her mother and father as they move to a new house and try to balance working from home with raising a precocious and inquisitive daughter. The latter tells of a young boy lost in a graveyard and brought up by ghosts and a vampire. Again these are adventure novels of a sort, Coraline Gaiman's attempt, I believe, to provide his own daughter with something to read like Bradbury, in whose books young girls seem noticably scarce, and The Graveyard Book another attempt to write something along the lines of Bradbury's Family stories.
Lastly, Alice Hoffman's prose in Practical Magic is the most like Bradbury's in tone of any of these works, flowing ebulliently and springing on the reader appropriate and sometimes startling, sometimes delightful imagery in this story about two sisters, witches, and how they nearly destroy themselves and how they fight for each other. I think, like Gaiman, Hoffman was looking to give female readers the heroines Bradbury did not in a story like those Bradbury wrote for boys and men. Certainly, when writing about love, particularly familial love, approaching it like Bradbury seems to work. (One note: avoid the movie based on Practical Magic; good cast, but the filmmakers went for a lowest common denominator plot.)
Next: Not sure you like horror stories? A sampler for beginners to choose from...
Not sure it fits some of the criteria Randy is thinking of, but when it comes to Bradbury, 'the Emmissary' is one that always sticks out in my mind - chilling ending.
This collection comes highly recommended by me http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ray-Bradbur...=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1286211564&sr=8-3
Anything is fair game, Jamieem. And "The Emissary" was originally part of The October Country.
Randy M.
I loved "The Jar" and "The Scythe" in The October Country.
Not sure you enjoy horror short stories? 13x3 stories that might decide you
Early formative stories
"The Sandman" by E. T. A. Hoffman
"The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe
"Young Goodman Brown" by Nathanial Hawthorne
"Mr. Justice Harbottle" by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
"The Monkey's Paw" by W. W. Jacobs
"The Damned Thing" by Ambrose Bierce
"The Great God Pan" by Arthur Machen
"The Wendigo" by Algernon Blackwood
"The Yellow Sign" by Robert W. Chambers
"The Judge's House" by Bram Stoker
"Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" by M. R. James
"The Voice in the Night" by William Hope Hodgson
"The Penal Colony" by Kafka
From the pulps and slicks and digests
"The Rats in the Walls" by H. P. Lovecraft
"Shambleau" by C. L. Moore
"Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" by Robert Bloch
"Evening Primrose" by John Collier
"The Foghorn" by Ray Bradbury
"The Tenebrous Alley" by Jean Ray
"They Bite" by Anthony Boucher
"The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" by Fritz Leiber
"The Mind-worm" by C. M. Kornbluth
"Vintage Season" by C.L. Moore & Henry Kuttner
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson
"Where the Woodbine Twineth" by Davis Grubb
"The Howling Man" by Charles Beaumont
"The Distributor" by Richard Matheson
"Ringing the Changes" by Robert Aickman
"Roaches" by Thomas Disch
"The Mist" by Stephen King
"The Tugging" by Ramsey Campbell
"River of Night's Dreaming" by Karl Edward Wagner
"Bubba-Ho-Tep" by Joe Lansdale
"The Panic Hand" by Jonathan Carroll
"Calcutta, Lord of Nerves" by Poppy Z. Brite
"This Year's Class Picture" by Dan Simmons
"Out of the Night, When the Full Moon is Bright..." by Kim Newman
"The Wall of Clouds" by Sarah Monette
"Northwest Passage" by Barbara Roden
No real commentary for this list since many of these stories are considered classics, including a few in the "Contemporary" section. Included in the list are stories with ghosts (Le Fanu, Stoker, James, Grubb), a werewolf (Newman), a mummy (Lansdale), vampires (Moore, Leiber, Kornbluth – sort of), ghouls (Monette), a zombie (Simmons), a few Lovecraftian nasties (Lovecraft, Campbell, King), at least one unequivocally s.f. story (Moore & Kuttner) and one proto-s.f. story (Hoffman), two fantasies (Wagner, Phillips), several where man or men or society are threatening; some are less easily categorized.
A few possible pairings:
• "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes & "The Panic Hand" (if you can find it, you might throw in Karl Edward Wagner's "The Kind Men Like")
• "Mr. Justice Harbottle" & "The Judge's House"
• "Evening Primrose" & "The Lottery"
• "The Penal Colony" & "The Lottery"
• "The Wendigo" & "Northwest Passage"
• "Young Goodman Brown" & "Ringing the Changes"
• "The Rats in the Walls" & "The Mist"
• "The Tenebrous Alley" & "The Tugging"
Anyone interested in sources for these titles, contact me. It will probably be the weekend before I can pull that list together, though.
Next: Fritz Leiber
Fritz Leiber
[I fell behind yesterday, so I hope to send out two lists tomorrow.]
When I started to read s.f. Fritz Leiber was one of the first writers I read. Gather, Darkness and The Book of Fritz Leiber (1974) and The Second Book of Fritz Leiber (1975) were early favorites and at that time, in the late 1970s or early 1980s, he was as well-known for his s.f. as for his fantasy. Even so, it wasn't until later that I read some of his most famous s.f. stories from the 1950s and early 1960s, like "A Pail of Air" and "Coming Attraction," and then I found Conjure Wife around the time Leiber first published Our Lady of Darkness and read them together.
I also bought, at one of the first s.f. conventions I ever attended, the Gregg Press edition of Night's Black Agents, having already read, somewhere, "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" and thinking it some sort of classic. Still, I didn't read the entire collection for some time because my interests moved away from s.f., fantasy and horror for a number of years.
When I came back to sf/f/h among the earliest books I dipped into was Night's Black Agents, rereading "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" (which I still consider some sort of classic) and finally getting around to "Smoke Ghost," "The Dreams of Albert Moreland," "The Hill and the Hole," "The Inheritance," and the other fine stories in that collection (although I have yet to read the Fahfrd and Gray Mouser stories in there; I want to read them in the context of the other stories about that pair).
Leiber was a prolific writer of fantasy, science fiction and horror, probably the only one of his generation known as a major writer in all three categories. While most contemporary readers are aware of his fantasies about Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and some know of his s.f. works like The Big Time, Gather, Darkness and The Wanderer and his even more influential short stories, his impact on horror, and especially the kind of horror that led to contemporary urban fantasy, doesn't seem as widely known.
i. Conjure Wife (first serialized in Unknown in 1943; as a book, 1953)
ii. Our Lady of Darkness (1977)
Conjure Wife is one of the precursors of urban fantasy. In it a young, untenured professor learns that his wife is a witch. As a modern male of the 1940s he doesn't believe in such things and demands that she stops her spells and incantations and, reluctantly, she does. The consequences, of course, are far worse than anything the young professor could have imagined. (This has been filmed at least three times and somehow I've managed to miss all of the filmed versions.)
In Our Lady of Darkness a writer sees something from his window that tickles his curiosity and spurs him on a search through San Francisco. He also comes across a book on megapolisomancy, essentially a grimoire centering on the power to be found in cities. What he learns from the book and his searches have a profound and even dangerous effect on his life. Our Lady of Darkness is both autobiographical and a culmination of one part of Leiber's career as a writer and that began in the 1930s in the magazine Unknown.
Leiber would probably be remembered for these novels, but what cements his importance for the modern horror genre are his collections, notably his first collection:
Collections of interest
i. Night's Black Agents (1947; expanded, 1978)
ii. Heroes and Horrors (1978)
iii. The Ghost Light (1984)
iv. The Black Gondolier and Other Stories (2000)
v. Smoke Ghost and Other Apparitions (2002)
vi. Horrible Imaginings (2004)
I haven't yet read every relevant story in these collections except Night's Black Agents, but I've read a large percentage of them. The last three were published in small-ish print runs by Midnight House and probably constitute the most comprehensive collection of Leiber's horror/urban fantasy stories so far published. The others, all in paperback editions, are somewhat easier to find and less expensive. (PS Publishing put out a trade paperback edition of The Black Gondolier and Other Stories but I'm not sure how widely they distributed the title.)
Following are some of the stories from these collections that make Leiber important:
Stories of importance
i. "Smoke Ghost"
ii. "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes"
iii. "The Dreams of Albert Moreland"
iv. "Four Ghosts in Hamlet"
v. "Belson Express"Lesser known but very good stories
i. "You're All Alone"
ii. "The Hill and the Hole"
iii. "The Inheritance" (a.k.a. "The Phantom Slayer")
iv. "The Button Moulder"
v. "Black Glass"
vi. "Dark Wings"
vii. "A Bit of the Dark World"
viii. "Diary in the Snow"
Leiber came to specialize in portraying cities and the odd, dark corners of cities where the weird, the eerie, the outré, the supernatural or the paranormal lurked and gathered and sprang at the unwary passerby. He began this specialization with "Smoke Ghost," first published in Unknown magazine in 1939. Almost every anthology of ghost stories that purports to represent a history of the genre includes "Smoke Ghost" …
But first a short tangent: In the late 1930s John W. Campbell Jr. decided to do for fantasy what he had done previously for s.f., shake it up, streamline it, bring it into the present century. No more Cabell-esque imaginary settings, no more exquisite formal writing, tell stories in the times, of the times, in the vernacular, and his stable of writers, including Heinlein, Sprague de Camp and Kuttner and Moore responded for several years with fine short fantasies written in everyday language. Campbell, in spite of this aim, published some of the early Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories because they were too good to let pass, even though they were not exactly what he wanted. Then, in 1939, he published "Smoke Ghost," and Leiber in essence recreated the horror genre. "Smoke Ghost" was transformative.
In "Smoke Ghost" a former psychic notices something moving along the rooftops when he's on the train to work, feels watched at home and at the office, is being followed, pursued – haunted – but he doesn't know by whom or what. The ending of the story, when he confronts his pursuer, is one of those moments in prose fiction when the reader feels the stakes being raised, the author pushing the story beyond what it had been, a well-constructed ghostly story notable mainly for its then contemporary city-scape, and intentionally or not creating a statement about his time and place. From "Smoke Ghost" and other Leiber stories spring the work of Richard Matheson and Stephen King. (In fairness, the stories of Robert Bloch appearing about this time were moving in a similar direction, but not until 1943 and "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" did he publish a story that, for readers of the time, felt as important as Leiber's story.)
Much the same said about "Smoke Ghost" could also be said about "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes," in which a young woman, not at all prepossessing, somehow becomes a sex symbol, a media darling, seemingly gaining greater power to hold the public's attention with every moment she is in the spotlight. The story felt prescient when I first read it in the 1970s and perhaps even more so in these reality-show, Internet-personality times.
While I recommend all the stories listed above, besides "Smoke Ghost" and "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes," I would especially draw your attention to "A Bit of the Dark World" and "You're All Alone." The former feels like an early run at Our Lady of Darkness: a couple meet with a friend who begins telling them of his discovery of a gap between the material and the unconscious world, but they aren't prepared for what they find there. In "You're All Alone" there's a different sort of gap: The protagonist finds the hidden clockwork of the world, learns to enter it and negotiate it, and then meets the other people who inhabit it. (Leiber later expanded this novella into The Sinful Ones, which I have yet to read.)
Next: A Novel Experience
A Novel Experience … 13x3 fine novel-length October readings
Some of the Usual Suspects
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Psycho by Robert Bloch
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Other by Thomas Tryon
The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice
Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
The Shining by Stephen King
Pet Semetary by Stephen King
Ghost Story by Peter Straub
Of all of these fine novels, I would most strongly recommend Jackson's, Straub's, and King's Pet Semetary.
Jackson's novel is the quietest, gradually revealing character, not just of the four explorers of Hill House, but of the house itself. Perhaps the scariest moment in the novel sneaks up on the reader, so that we're not really aware how frightening it is except in retrospect. Eleanor, the main character, remains one of the most developed and sympathetic characters in horror fiction.
Straub's Chowder Society and their stories are compelling as he reveals the truth in bits, the reader having to piece together the full story as the novel continues. This might be even better reading for winter.
King's novel gives us one of his best family portraits, showing the care and love the family members have for each other, and then … What the father does is something most fathers, in that position, would do, and the consequences are heart-wrenching.
Some Less Usual Suspects
The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore
Night Has a Thousand Eyes by Cornell Woolrich
The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll
Voice of Our Shadow by Jonathan Carroll
Perfume by Patrick Susskind
Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber
The Cormorant by Stephen Gregory
Finishing Touches by Thomas Tessier
Midnight Sun by Ramsey Campbell
Anno Dracula by Kim Newman
The Course of the Heart by M. John Harrison
Threshold by Caitlin Kiernan
The Red Tree by Caitlin Kiernan
There's a lot to enjoy in this group, from Victorian vamps (Newman) to a 17th century werewolf (Endore), from noir creepiness (Woolrich) to Southern Gothic (Kiernan's Threshold), from the threat of an intense winter (Campbell) to the debilitating effects of summer heat (Kiernan's The Red Tree), from monsters of the mind (Carroll) to monsters manifest (Leiber, Harrison) to human monsters (Tessier).
I especially recommend Perfume, a historical novel that somehow manages to make one man's sense of smell seem sinister, The Course of the Heart, which was influenced by Arthur Machen's "The Great God Pan," and tells of a small group of college students who experienced something supernatural, or paranormal, or certainly beyond their worldly experience, and how the experience shapes their later lives and still haunts them, and Finishing Touches, a truly disturbing novel of one man's descent into perversity.
Unusual Suspects: Maybe not horror, but dark … oh, yes, most certainly dark …
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathaniel West
The Bride Wore Black by Cornell Woolrich
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O'Nan
Beloved by Toni Morrison
In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien
Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
Twilight by William Gay
The Red of His Shadow by Mayra Montero
These are novels that sit on the fringe of the horror story.
Beloved is the only one of these novels with a true supernatural occurance when a mother feels the presence of her daughter who had died years before, and I would argue it is a horror novel, although Morrison's literary reputation stops most readers from acknowledging that.
Wuthering Heights, Twilight, The Red of His Shadow and No Country for Old Men all feel as though something supernatural could happen, even though, arguably, it does not. The first is an acknowledged classic of the Gothic mode, and the last features one of the most ruthless men in literature. The other two, relatively recent novels, are not well-known but would repay reading, the first with a story of a chase through a forest that seems alive with the imminence of fairy tale, the other with a story of the Dominican Republic and the Haitians who live there and their practice of voudun.
Ethan Frome reads like an extend conte cruel, an exercise in a sort of poetic justice and unsettling because it seems so vastly unjust. Miss Lonlyhearts is an existential nightmare, a portrait of a man falling apart. The Bride Wore Black follows a detective trying to solve a series of murders, and the woman committing them. The ending is still potent, even after years of other mystery writers cribbing from the novel. The Loved One is a pitch-black satire of the American mortuary business (Twilight also features what may be the most twisted mortician in literature as one of its highlights) and is sometimes funny in an uncomfortable way. The story in A Prayer for the Dying proceeds with a relentless, ruthless logic that still allows for compassion and empathy in its characters.
In the Lake of the Woods may be about a murder or may not, it may be mostly illusion but that's not likely, though the main character was once a magician. Lastly, Mary Reilly and Wide Sargasso Sea spring from past classics, the former following the experiences of Dr. Jekyll's maid, and the latter following the early life of a mostly off-stage character from a different Bronte's classic, Jane Eyre.
If your autumn interest lies not in the horror novel, but in works that deal with the darker side of human nature, I believe these would appeal to you.
Separate names with a comma.