Uno, dos, tres...

While walking around my house knocking on walls saying some form of, "Uno, dos, tres toca la pared," my fiance finally stopped me and asked me what I was doing. I told him about the Spanish movies we watched, and he was really interested (he majored in Spanish). He saw Franco's grave when he went to Spain, so I thought I'd put a link to an image of it. He said the cross could be seen for miles. We then spent a great deal of time trying to figure out if any of the characters from "Pan's Labyrinth" were based off of real people, but we couldn't find any links — other than Franco being the dictator.

Real Vampires

I found this link when I was researching for my paper and I thought it would be interesting to share with everyone:

"Vampire" discovered in mass grave

There is a picture too!

Story volunteers for March 10

According to my notes, here are the folks leading our March 10 discussions, as we finish up the second volume of the Straub anthology. Correct me if I err, please. And keep in mind that you needn't wait till March 10; the discussion can begin sooner, here on the blog.

Tara Bullock: Saunders, "Sea Oak"

Daniel Dye: Kiernan, "The Long Hall on the Top Floor"

Charlotte Brady: Hill, "Pop Art"

Claire Norrell: Brite, "Pansu"

Elizabeth Howell: Rickert, "The Chambered Fruit"

Lauren Heartsill: Link, "Stone Animals"

Here's a topic about John Wayne Gacy for Elizabeth

I have a weird fascination with serial killers, and talking about killer clowns last week reminded me of John Wayne Gacy. This guy was a living nightmare. He would dress up in a clown costume and rape and murder his victims. What a creep.

Here's a link to the Wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne_Gacy

Surprisingly not burned out

After writing 2000 words about "His Unconquerable Enemy" and "The Monster Maker," I'm surprisingly not burned out on these stories. I still think "His Unconquerable Enemy" is a perfectly designed and written story, and I actually liked "The Monster Maker" more the second time I read it than the first time. Here it is if you'd like to join in on the messed-up fun: http://www.horrormasters.com/Text/a0438.pdf

Thank you Mercedes

So this whole time I feel as if the stories we've read have portrayed women as weak, pathetic or dependent. While Ofelia's mom is somewhat so, I was glad to see Mercedes step up to the Capitan.

I was very impressed with her bravery to sneak things to the enemy right the captain's nose. She defied the very man she worked under. Then when the captain threatens her to tell him everything by torturing her, she attacks him. ( I wonder how he lived and was able to continue moving around and all, he was a beast! haha) But even after that, when she tells the captain that his child would know nothing of his father, I smiled. She's tough, she was not putting up with his crap anymore.

So thank you Mercedes for finally going against this pathetic, weak, docile, stereotypical female archetype.

Yuki-Onna: Other versions

Not to use to corny of a blog post, but I wanted to link to this version of Yuki-Onna. It is quite different than the version we read, as you will discover if you read the short story. I also read an actual folktale version that lasted all of half a page, but as I am not sure about copyright, I will let Andy guide me on whether and how to post it. I found it interesting while writing my paper just how vast the different characters of Yuki-Onna can be. Each story I compared had very different features that I guess is common to all folklore.