LINDAAAAA!
Hey, you guys, I've discovered a new vice! It's old-time radio, preferably horror and thrillers. They're short, melodramatic, and wonderful: horror hors d'oeuvres, the Gouda-stuffed mushrooms of sinister entertainment. You know how they call the Miss Marple books and various other British murder mysteries "cozy mayhem"--well, that's what these are, cozy mayhem in an adorable package. With tasteless advertising for Carter's Little Liver Pills and Camel cigarettes. They're perfect for the frayed nerves of a student, because all you have to do is listen. If you're feeling energetic, you can put one on while you're folding the laundry, but if you want to lie down for half an hour, an episode of "Lights Out" is the perfect reason. You just sit back and enjoy the sounds of Peter Lorre's latest maniac getting ready to murder his wife again.
I've only listened to a few, so far, but there's a vast fund of them here. You just e-mail them and ask for a password, they send you one, and then you can listen to any of the 500+ shows on their archive. I can see many enjoyable late-night revels in my future. The archive features shows with the voice talents of horror actors like Vincent Price, Claude Rains, Bela Lugosi, Margaret Hamilton, Charles Laughton, Peter and Boris, and many others.
The first one I listened to was "Cat Wife", with Boris Karloff and some woman who does a good cat impression. (It's on the Monster Club website, too, but I first ran across it here; you can hear the whole show without having to sign up for a password.) At first, I found it ridiculously bad. Every single element is so predictable you could guess the whole story from one detail, like reconstructing a skeleton from one tibia. Oh, and it also features some pretty unsubtle acting from Boris--he tears a passion to tatters as if he was Peter Lorre and he'd been directed to do a sobbing M-style breakdown. His character spends most of the time screaming, "Linda! NOOO! LINDA!!!!!" at his monster of a wife (in every possible sense of "monster"). I was so embarrassed that I gave up halfway, blushing hotly. But, in the usual way, I couldn't get along without knowing what happened at the end, so I went back and finished it and I'm glad I did. It actually is intended to be funny. I was relieved; I'd thought they meant the whole thing to be deadly grim and serious, and that I was laughing at something done in earnest. Whew! It's okay! But it's not entirely a laugh, even so. It's disturbing in a good way: they ring some interesting changes on a much-used theme, and create some weird mental images. Also, I was kinda flabbergasted by how much sex they could get away with on the radio. Early on, our hero and his wife are having a screaming fight, in the middle of which she stops and puts the moves on him. It's actually quite hot, in a worrying way. I suppose you could get away with more if there wasn't a visual--but that's the thing, radio creates its very own visuals if it's done right. ...Oh, boy, does it.
Then, the next day, the other students and I all drove over to Stonington to take a walking tour of the historic district. And one of the girls had her car stereo hooked up to her mp3 player: "You guys, this is my favorite song ever," she said. It was "What Kind of Cat Are You?" To top it all off, I went to a swing dance that night, and the DJ's third or fourth dance piece was "Stray Cat Strut". You know, "I got cat class and I got cat style". (Here is a video so that you may ogle the band's creative hair.) I'm haunted by catness... haunted, I tell you, haunted! At this dance, they had a big water cooler, with paper cups and a marker so that you could personalize your cup and save it for the rest of the evening. It was fate. I took a drink of water, then got a marker and wrote "LINDA!!!!!" on my cup. And went out and padded slinkily round the dance floor.
...Well, I keep amused.
This is perfectly timed for Halloween, I realize, but really I like old-fashioned horror, ghosts, and mayhem at any time of the year. October is special in part because this is when the rest of the world joins me in my sense of the happily macabre. On that note, I need to decide on a costume for Halloween. Here are my options, so far:
--Ancient Mariner. Old coat, hat, boots, and work shirt and pants. Dark circles around eyes. White plushie albatross suspended from neck, cardboard crossbow. (Buy plushie albatross at aquarium gift shop.) Up-side: instant recognition by most people. Down-side: expensive plushie.
--Edna from Kate Chopin's "The Awakening", which we've been reading in class. Victorian bathing costume, soaked in seawater. Up-side: sexy (but almost anything looks sexy compared with the Ancient Mariner). Down-side: cold.
--Howard Blackburn, maritime disaster survivor, bar-owner in Gloucester, MA, and death-defying adventurer. Man's suit; fingers taped under hands; pasted-on mustache. Up-side: drag is funny and cute, plus Blackburn was a real and fascinating person. Down-side: can't use fingers all evening.