I Love my Love: An excerpt from Wolf's Complete Book of Terror.
So my cat threw up a hairball today....
And being the gentleman I am, rather than giving into my baser instincts and beating said cat with my cane, I cleaned the damn thing up. Wanna know what I don't like about this? How do you think I discovered said hairball? That's right, I stepped in it in the dark while getting up to stretch my leg after it started acting up again. Deputy Dipshit would probably laugh himself into a heart attack if he saw me like this.
Go ahead, yuck it up you son of a bitch. I've seen what you do to female suspects.
What's weird is that, for as disgusting as I find hairballs(and there are a lot of things that I don't find disgusting that most people do) I've never really been able to take hairballs as monsters or horror devices seriously. You'd think one of the few things that actually does disgust me in real life would be my personal fright button in the media, but nope. The things just aren't scary to me and make me laugh more often than not.
These being the most predominant pop-cultural images of the creatures may have something to do with it.
Now don't get me wrong, I love my werewolves and yetis like everyone else, but the overruse of the hairball monster as a comedy device(and in some really sad cases a fetish device. Hint, never browse the outer reaches of Deviantart) is just too prevalent in pop culture for me to fear them. If Eric & Dylan can throw it up, then I don't consider it a serviceable monster. And yes, that is what I named my two siamese cats.
"Prepare to die, you freshmen and preps!"
In fact, I'd go so far as to call "hair" monsters the lamest of all monsters. Most horror fans would name blobs the lamest monsters but I disagree; the majority of blob flicks that I've seen have been fairly decent; The Quatermass Xperiment, The Blob and my personal favorite Caltiki the Immortal Monster. Hair-based monsters need to be tweeked to work, like the Gorgons; who don't have hair at all, or those Frankenstein-Werewolf-Cavemen things from Carry on Screaming(though to be fair, I was paying more attention to Fenella Fielding's sexy vampiress character in that film to care.)
Most hair monsters in popular culture are just pathetic; I've actually found five stories involving posessed wigs and transplanted hair! One was a Simpsons Halloween special where Homer is posessed by Snake's hair after having a hair transplant performed with pizza slicing equipment(and it ended with the hair shooting it out with the cops. Not joking.). Even just five is waaaay too many uses for such a lame monster-concept.
This was one of the more effective treatments of the concept, sadly.
But would you believe that this incredibly stupid foundation for a horror story actually has some surprisingly classy(no pun intended) roots? Time to open up that all-time great compendium of horror esoterica; Wolf's Complete Book of Terror for a looksee. Would you believe it's the second story in the book? Would you also believe it's a romantic poem?
Written by the great beat poet Helen Adam(!!), who had been cranking out dozens of the things since she was 14, and had done a surprising number of poems with supernatural content and themes, it's quite a bizzare little number and I have to admit as a onetime wannabe poet that I actually enjoy and admire it. Here's the whole thing in it's entirety, and since I have this in another volume, I checked to see whether it had been altered like some of the other stories reprinted in the book, it hasn't:
I Love My Love
By Helen Adam.
"In the dark of the moon the hair rules"- Robert Duncan.
There was a man who married a maid. She laughed as he led her home.
The living fleece of her long bright hair she combed with a golden comb.
He led her home through his Barley fields where the saffron poppies grew.
She combed, and whispered, "I love my love". Her voice like a plaintive coo.
Ha Ha!
Her voice like a plaintive coo.
He lived alone with his chosen bride, at first their life was sweet.
Sweet was the touch of her playful hair, binding his hands and feet.
When first she murmured adoring words her words did not appall.
"I love my love with a capital A. To my love I give my all.
Ah, Ha!
To my love I give my all."
She circled him with the secret web she wove as her strong hair grew.
Like a golden spider she wove and sang, "My love is tender and true".
She combed her hair with a golden comb and shackled him to a tree.
She shackled him close to the tree of life. "My love I'll never set free.
No. No.
My love I'll never set free."
Whenever he broke her golden bonds he was held with bonds of gold.
"Oh! cannot a man escape from love, from love's hot smothering hold?"
He roared with fury. He broke her bonds. He ran in the light of the sun.
Her soft hair rippled and trapped his feet, as fast as his feet could run,
Ha! Ha!
As fast as his feet could run.
He dug a grave, and dug it wide. He strangled her in her sleep.
He strangled his love with a strand of hair, and then he buried her deep.
He buried her deep when the sun was hid by a purple thunder cloud.
Her helpless hair sprawled over the corpse in a pale resplendent shroud.
Ha! Ha!
A pale resplendent shroud.
Morning and night of thunder rain, and then it came to pass
That the hair sprnag up through the earth of the grave, and it
grew like golden grass.
It grew and glittered along her grave alive in the light of the sun.
Every hair had a plaintive voice, the voice of his lovely one.
"I love my love with a capital T. My love is Tender and True.
I'll love my love in the barley fields when the thunder cloud is blue.
My body crumbles beneath the ground but the hairs of my head will grow.
I'll love my love with the hairs of my head. I'll never, never let go.
Ha! Ha!
I'll never, never let go."
The hair sang soft, and the hair sang high, singing of loves that drown,
Till he took his scythe by the light of the moon, and he scythed that singing hair down.
Every hair laughed a tilting laugh, and shrilled as his scythe swept through.
"I love my love with a capital T. My love is Tender and True.
Ha! Ha!
Tender, Tender, and true."
All through the night he wept and prayed, but before the first bird woke
Around the house in the barley fields blew the hair like billowing smoke.
Her hair blew over the barley fields where the slothful poppies gape.
All day long all it's voices cooed, "My love can never escape,
No, No!
My love can never escape."
"Be still, be still, you devilish hair. Glide back 'to the grave and sleep.
Glide back to the grave and wrap her bones down where I buried her deep.
I am the man who escaped from love, though love was my fate and doom.
Can no man ever escape from love who breaks from a woman's womb?"
Over his house when the sun stood high, her hair was a dazzling storm,
Rolling, lashing o'er walls and roof, heavy, and soft, and warm.
It thumped on the roof, it hissed and glowed over every window pane.
The smell of the hair was in the house. It smelled like a lion's mane,
Ha! Ha!
It smelled like a lion's mane.
Three times round the bed of their love, and his heart lurched with despair.
In through the keyhole, elvish bright, came creeping a single hair.
Softly, softly, it stroked his lips, on his eyebrows traced a sign.
"I love my love with a capital Z. I mark him Zero and mine.
Ha! Ha!
I mark him Zero and mine."
The hair rushed in. He struggled and tore, but whenever he tore a tress,
"I love my love with a capital Z," sang the hair of the sorceress.
It swarmed upon him, it swaddled him fast, it muffled his every groan.
Like a golden monster it seized his flesh, and then it sought the bone,
Ha! Ha!
And then it sought the bone.
It smothered his flesh and sought the bones. Until his bones were bare
There was no sound but the joyful hiss of the sweet insatiable hair.
"I love my love," it laughed as it ran back to the grave, its home.
Then the living fleece of her long bright hair, she combed with a golden comb.
Well, it's not Dylan Thomas, but it sure as hell is effective. Reminds me very much of the "Golden Arm" folktale, and the gradual revealation that the woman is a sorceress is refreshing, since this could easily have been one of those symbolic poems where nothing is literal. Sometimes foregoing subtlety can be very effective. I could see it working as a bizzare Japanese pantomime play. For some reason, I picture Laurence Olivier from Wuthering Heights as the poor sap in the poem. Hey, murder may seem a little extreme to escape a posessive relationship, but sentient hair BDSM is where I draw the line.
Still, I like it. I remember reading some of Adam's other stuff, but can't remember for the life of me where. All I know is I want more. Most poets don't write tales of romance turned sour with sentient witch-hair from beyond the grave!
"Sentient Witch Hair from beond the Grave" Now that's some Band-name potential. Even better than "Joesph Javorsky & the Thirsty Pigs".
And the thought of grass being undead hair is just....*ick*. I'm never gonna hear that Sting song the same way again.
And being the gentleman I am, rather than giving into my baser instincts and beating said cat with my cane, I cleaned the damn thing up. Wanna know what I don't like about this? How do you think I discovered said hairball? That's right, I stepped in it in the dark while getting up to stretch my leg after it started acting up again. Deputy Dipshit would probably laugh himself into a heart attack if he saw me like this.
Go ahead, yuck it up you son of a bitch. I've seen what you do to female suspects.
What's weird is that, for as disgusting as I find hairballs(and there are a lot of things that I don't find disgusting that most people do) I've never really been able to take hairballs as monsters or horror devices seriously. You'd think one of the few things that actually does disgust me in real life would be my personal fright button in the media, but nope. The things just aren't scary to me and make me laugh more often than not.
These being the most predominant pop-cultural images of the creatures may have something to do with it.
Now don't get me wrong, I love my werewolves and yetis like everyone else, but the overruse of the hairball monster as a comedy device(and in some really sad cases a fetish device. Hint, never browse the outer reaches of Deviantart) is just too prevalent in pop culture for me to fear them. If Eric & Dylan can throw it up, then I don't consider it a serviceable monster. And yes, that is what I named my two siamese cats.
"Prepare to die, you freshmen and preps!"
In fact, I'd go so far as to call "hair" monsters the lamest of all monsters. Most horror fans would name blobs the lamest monsters but I disagree; the majority of blob flicks that I've seen have been fairly decent; The Quatermass Xperiment, The Blob and my personal favorite Caltiki the Immortal Monster. Hair-based monsters need to be tweeked to work, like the Gorgons; who don't have hair at all, or those Frankenstein-Werewolf-Cavemen things from Carry on Screaming(though to be fair, I was paying more attention to Fenella Fielding's sexy vampiress character in that film to care.)
Most hair monsters in popular culture are just pathetic; I've actually found five stories involving posessed wigs and transplanted hair! One was a Simpsons Halloween special where Homer is posessed by Snake's hair after having a hair transplant performed with pizza slicing equipment(and it ended with the hair shooting it out with the cops. Not joking.). Even just five is waaaay too many uses for such a lame monster-concept.
This was one of the more effective treatments of the concept, sadly.
But would you believe that this incredibly stupid foundation for a horror story actually has some surprisingly classy(no pun intended) roots? Time to open up that all-time great compendium of horror esoterica; Wolf's Complete Book of Terror for a looksee. Would you believe it's the second story in the book? Would you also believe it's a romantic poem?
Written by the great beat poet Helen Adam(!!), who had been cranking out dozens of the things since she was 14, and had done a surprising number of poems with supernatural content and themes, it's quite a bizzare little number and I have to admit as a onetime wannabe poet that I actually enjoy and admire it. Here's the whole thing in it's entirety, and since I have this in another volume, I checked to see whether it had been altered like some of the other stories reprinted in the book, it hasn't:
I Love My Love
By Helen Adam.
"In the dark of the moon the hair rules"- Robert Duncan.
There was a man who married a maid. She laughed as he led her home.
The living fleece of her long bright hair she combed with a golden comb.
He led her home through his Barley fields where the saffron poppies grew.
She combed, and whispered, "I love my love". Her voice like a plaintive coo.
Ha Ha!
Her voice like a plaintive coo.
He lived alone with his chosen bride, at first their life was sweet.
Sweet was the touch of her playful hair, binding his hands and feet.
When first she murmured adoring words her words did not appall.
"I love my love with a capital A. To my love I give my all.
Ah, Ha!
To my love I give my all."
She circled him with the secret web she wove as her strong hair grew.
Like a golden spider she wove and sang, "My love is tender and true".
She combed her hair with a golden comb and shackled him to a tree.
She shackled him close to the tree of life. "My love I'll never set free.
No. No.
My love I'll never set free."
Whenever he broke her golden bonds he was held with bonds of gold.
"Oh! cannot a man escape from love, from love's hot smothering hold?"
He roared with fury. He broke her bonds. He ran in the light of the sun.
Her soft hair rippled and trapped his feet, as fast as his feet could run,
Ha! Ha!
As fast as his feet could run.
He dug a grave, and dug it wide. He strangled her in her sleep.
He strangled his love with a strand of hair, and then he buried her deep.
He buried her deep when the sun was hid by a purple thunder cloud.
Her helpless hair sprawled over the corpse in a pale resplendent shroud.
Ha! Ha!
A pale resplendent shroud.
Morning and night of thunder rain, and then it came to pass
That the hair sprnag up through the earth of the grave, and it
grew like golden grass.
It grew and glittered along her grave alive in the light of the sun.
Every hair had a plaintive voice, the voice of his lovely one.
"I love my love with a capital T. My love is Tender and True.
I'll love my love in the barley fields when the thunder cloud is blue.
My body crumbles beneath the ground but the hairs of my head will grow.
I'll love my love with the hairs of my head. I'll never, never let go.
Ha! Ha!
I'll never, never let go."
The hair sang soft, and the hair sang high, singing of loves that drown,
Till he took his scythe by the light of the moon, and he scythed that singing hair down.
Every hair laughed a tilting laugh, and shrilled as his scythe swept through.
"I love my love with a capital T. My love is Tender and True.
Ha! Ha!
Tender, Tender, and true."
All through the night he wept and prayed, but before the first bird woke
Around the house in the barley fields blew the hair like billowing smoke.
Her hair blew over the barley fields where the slothful poppies gape.
All day long all it's voices cooed, "My love can never escape,
No, No!
My love can never escape."
"Be still, be still, you devilish hair. Glide back 'to the grave and sleep.
Glide back to the grave and wrap her bones down where I buried her deep.
I am the man who escaped from love, though love was my fate and doom.
Can no man ever escape from love who breaks from a woman's womb?"
Over his house when the sun stood high, her hair was a dazzling storm,
Rolling, lashing o'er walls and roof, heavy, and soft, and warm.
It thumped on the roof, it hissed and glowed over every window pane.
The smell of the hair was in the house. It smelled like a lion's mane,
Ha! Ha!
It smelled like a lion's mane.
Three times round the bed of their love, and his heart lurched with despair.
In through the keyhole, elvish bright, came creeping a single hair.
Softly, softly, it stroked his lips, on his eyebrows traced a sign.
"I love my love with a capital Z. I mark him Zero and mine.
Ha! Ha!
I mark him Zero and mine."
The hair rushed in. He struggled and tore, but whenever he tore a tress,
"I love my love with a capital Z," sang the hair of the sorceress.
It swarmed upon him, it swaddled him fast, it muffled his every groan.
Like a golden monster it seized his flesh, and then it sought the bone,
Ha! Ha!
And then it sought the bone.
It smothered his flesh and sought the bones. Until his bones were bare
There was no sound but the joyful hiss of the sweet insatiable hair.
"I love my love," it laughed as it ran back to the grave, its home.
Then the living fleece of her long bright hair, she combed with a golden comb.
Well, it's not Dylan Thomas, but it sure as hell is effective. Reminds me very much of the "Golden Arm" folktale, and the gradual revealation that the woman is a sorceress is refreshing, since this could easily have been one of those symbolic poems where nothing is literal. Sometimes foregoing subtlety can be very effective. I could see it working as a bizzare Japanese pantomime play. For some reason, I picture Laurence Olivier from Wuthering Heights as the poor sap in the poem. Hey, murder may seem a little extreme to escape a posessive relationship, but sentient hair BDSM is where I draw the line.
Still, I like it. I remember reading some of Adam's other stuff, but can't remember for the life of me where. All I know is I want more. Most poets don't write tales of romance turned sour with sentient witch-hair from beyond the grave!
"Sentient Witch Hair from beond the Grave" Now that's some Band-name potential. Even better than "Joesph Javorsky & the Thirsty Pigs".
And the thought of grass being undead hair is just....*ick*. I'm never gonna hear that Sting song the same way again.