Author: admin

Seeing Michelle Williams in Adrian Hodges’ film “My Week with Marilyn”, I was amazed at how she pulled off the impossible. She looks nothing like Marilyn Monroe, and yet she was completely successful in convincing us, the audience, that all of the other characters were seeing Marilyn up there on the screen. And make no mistake about it, the entire film hinged on her ability to pull off this seemingly impossible feat.

It was also one of those rare films that provides real insight into some very intricate personalities. The film’s central thesis, which was hiding just behind the sweet little romance between Marilyn and young Colin Clark, was that Marilyn Monroe and Sir Laurence Olivier, as opposite as they seemed, were actually two of a kind — talents of such overwhelming power that they were both essentially monsters, more less toxic to ordinary mortals in their path.

Yet to me the most fascinating aspect of the story was the spectacle of two such larger than life geniuses — Marilyn and Sir Lawrence — coming into contact, finding their respective muses completely incompatible, essentially going to war with each other, and yet somehow recognizing each other as two fellow aliens among the ordinary humans.

Olivier’s monstrous ego and vanity, Monroe’s all-devouring emotional neediness, these were not random personality traits, but were the essential demons that drove their art.

One thing that’s wonderful about Colin Clark’s peek inside the making of “The Prince and the Showgirl” is knowing that the very next projects Olivier and Monroe would each do after this failed film would be their finest work. Arguably the frustration of trying to combine their incompatible talents drove each of them to find their quintessential selves.

After all, Olivier’s very next project, John Osborne’s “The Entertainer”, was by far the greatest performance of Olivier’s career, the one in which he laid bare, with unstinting courage, all the terror and self-doubt underneath the egotism and vanity.

And of course Marilyn’s next character, Sugar Kane Kowalczyk in “Some Like it Hot”, was the role she was seemingly born to play. She had clearly thought through the various layers of this complicated character, and the result was sexy, comical, sweetly needy, kooky yet sensible, dizzy but centered, and completely, utterly irresistible.

It’s as though their mutual brush with failure forced both Olivier and Monroe to dig deeper inside themselves, to locate and bring out the very center of their particular genius, and thereby to create their best and most transcendent work.

As Sharon pointed out in her comment yesterday, writing a novel as a collection of self-contained short stories creates a double constraint. On the one hand, each short story should stand on its own, which means it should possess some kind of plot movement and resolution, as well as characters who, within the context of the individual story, fit the modest goals of that story.

At the same time, those characters need to have a deeper existence, with larger plot and character arcs that come into focus only when one reads the entire collection of stories.

In a way this is a bit like the constraints of ambitious writers of episodic commercial television, as seen in the work of Joss Whedon and his collaborators on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. You can tune in and watch a single episode and be entertained — a practical requirement for commercial television. Yet you would then miss the real power of the series, since its most compelling aspects arise from the fascinating relationships between characters that form and evolve over the course of years.

The nearest equivalent I can think of to this double constraint within the world of novels is the episodic work of an author like Charles Dickens, who was paid to write his novels in the form of monthly or weekly installments within popular journals. It is plausible to conjecture that the publishers of these journals expected any given entry to be a self-contained entertainment in its own right.

Unfortunately there is no easy way to ask them about this.

It was interesting to create a series of stories around a common theme, with a sort of Oulipo constraint to the whole enterprise. I’m not sure how it resonated with readers — people tend to not comment so much on fiction posts.

I could continue on with the Demonology series, but it occurs to me that it might be even more interesting to come up with a series of stories that end up interconnecting into a coherent novel. Each story would stand on its own as an individual work, but taken together they would link together to form a single larger narrative arc.

I am aware of similar projects, as in the stories of Zenna Henderson. But those stories were only loosely coupled, via a common theme. It would be interesting to create a more tightly cohesive narrative, a true novel that just happens to consist of self-contained pieces.

Note from the author

Dearest Readers,

The original intent underlying this humble exercise was the creation of twenty six gothic tales within these pages, one per day, mutually bound together by a common demonic theme, each narrative to begin with a successive letter of the alphabet. Further, every tale was to be constrained in length by a mystical curse that required its fictional author to pen only tales containing precisely two hundred words. No more, no less.

Within this mystical framework, should said author lose focus and stray from this strict injunction, inadvertently penning a tale that contained an incorrect quantity of words, then the insidious curse would immediately take effect, the poor wretched soul thereby finding himself doomed.

Which, dearest readers, would mean no more stories.

Ironically, the selfsame error that precipitated the premature demise of our esteemed yet unfortunate narrator was the inclusion of a certain word not generally associated with mystical beings, nor with demonology in general.

It is a further irony that this apparently innocuous utterance, closing as it does both this series and its fictional author’s life, was intended to serve as both title and initial word of the very next tale in this series.

Oops.

“Melvin Glopnik, clean your room!”

“I’m busy.” Melvin said, an empty beaker in one hand, bunsen burner in the other.

“I’m your mother, and I say your room is a mess.” Agnes Glopnik frowned and tugged sourly at her dark hair. What was it with all the experiments? Honestly, sometimes she didn’t know why they’d had a kid in the first place.

Melvin hated having his concentration disturbed. Especially now he’d finally gotten the bunsen burner working.

He found that these experiments helped take his mind off always feeling dislocated. Living in a different town every few months, needing to deal with new people, it made his head hurt.

He understood it was necessary, and he was learning from it, but sometimes this constant moving got to him.

“Melvin!” Agnes Glopnik said again. “Are you listening?”

He sighed. Clearly this wasn’t working. He muttered quietly. She shimmered and was gone.

It was all fine, he thought, to spend time living among humans. Every young demon goes through the training. It just required altering human memories, which was easy. But it didn’t always work out.

He peered into the beaker, examining the small dark haired figure inside. Now where was he?

“Leap of faith,” he told himself.

“Jump in, the water’s great!” she said again.

He took a running leap and jumped off the pier, as the afternoon sun sparkled off the water.

He found time slowing down at moments like this. They’d met on a day like today. She in the water, and he taking that first jump. Well, several first jumps, if you counted their relationship, a crazy leap of faith if there ever was one.

Part of him was already bracing himself for the call that would come out of nowhere, over the phone, when she would tell him it was over.

He imagined how things might go. Hiding out in his apartment for weeks after she was gone, hitting the bottle again, finding himself revisiting places they’d gone together, like those romantic night visits to the rooftop.

One night he’d go up again in a drunken daze, hoping against hope to see her, stumble over the edge. One final crazy leap of faith. In his mind’s eye he could see the pavement rushing up toward him.

And then he was in the water, the sparkling lake all around him, hearing her laughter as she swam toward him.

“Kangaroo!” said old Eddy.

A young woman at the bar moved away from him.

“Listen Eddy,” the bartender said, “You’re gonna have to stop that.”

“Kangaroo!” old Eddy repeated, looking intently at the bartender. He seemed mildly disappointed when nothing happened.

“OK,” the bartender sighed. “I’ll bite. Why do you keep saying ‘Kangaroo’?”

“Demons,” old Eddy explained.

“There are kangaroo demons?”

“No,” Eddy continued patiently. “Demons walk among us, just blend right in. Only way to get rid of them is to look ’em right in the eye and say ‘Kangaroo!'”

“That’s enough. You’re disturbing the customers.”

A few minutes later the cops arrived. “Evening Hal, what’s the problem?”

“Evening Fred, Joe. Old Eddy here thinks he sees demons.”

Officer Fred sighed. “We just came back from a call, guy jumped off a building ’cause his girlfriend left him. That guy had demons.”

Old Eddy snorted. “No, that guy was an idiot.”

“We done here?” officer Joe asked. “My turn to spring for donuts.”

Old Eddy looked at him. “Kangaroo!”

Suddenly where officer Joe had been there was just a pile of clothing on the barroom floor.

“Told you,” Eddy muttered.

Officer Fred looked down. “Does this mean no donuts?”

“Jump in, the water’s great!” she said.

He took a running leap and jumped off the pier, as the afternoon sun sparkled off the water.

He like the way time slowed down at moments like this, giving him time to think. It had been a day just like this when they’d first met, at that summer place by the lake. Seeing her there in the water, he had taken that first jump. Well, several first jumps, if you counted their relationship, a crazy leap of faith if there ever was one.

It wasn’t until weeks later, out of nowhere, over the phone, that she’d told him it was over.

He remembered other things. Hiding out in his apartment for weeks after she was gone, hitting the bottle again, finding himself revisiting places they’d gone together, like those romantic night visits to the rooftop.

And tonight, when he’d gone up again, in a daze, somehow hoping, against all hope, that she would be there. One final crazy leap of faith.

It wasn’t until the last moment that he saw the pavement rushing up toward him. Out of nowhere. His last thought was that now she would never come back to him.

“In a moment it’ll be my stop,” he said.

“Don’t you need to get ready to go?” she asked.

“It’s ok,” he said. “I can get out at the next stop. I’m really enjoying talking with you.”

She blushed prettily. “Does that mean you want to hear the rest of my theory?”

“Definitely. You were talking about demons, and desire.”

“Yes,” she continued, “I think demons use desire as a way to steal time. It’s their power. People’s lives generally move forward, until they meet their demon. The jealous demon takes that away.”

“Hmm,” he said, “Like demon alcohol, right?”

“Exactly!” she said. “The moment an alcoholic takes that first drink, life begins to stop moving forward.”

“I see what you’re saying,” he said, “After that, all the alcoholic does is circle around that bottle. The demon wins.”

“You catch on quick,” she said, giving him a warm smile. “Have you studied philosophy?”

“No,” he grinned, “But maybe I should. Oh wait, here we are. In a moment it’ll be my stop.”

“Don’t you need to get ready to go?” she asked.

“It’s ok,” he said. “I can get out at the next stop. I’m really enjoying talking with you.”

He waited on the platform, clutching the flowers he knew she loved. Three long weeks she’d been away, but now everything would be ok.

It hadn’t been easy at first. She was still traumatized by the crazy ex. He remembered how she’d held him when she talked about it, clinging to him for protection, like a frightened child.

The gun had been her idea. “You never know,” she’d said, “he could show up anywhere.”

It seemed a bit extreme to him, but he’d gotten it anyway, just to make her feel safer. “Thanks,” she’d said. “Not all men are like you. It’s hard to find a good one.”

The train was coming in now. He was glad he’d remembered the flowers.

“That’s the guy,” the officer said, “he’s got the flowers, like she said.”

It all happened so fast, his arms jerked back, the cold cuffs around his wrists, the flowers falling to the platform, the second officer saying “Check his pockets for the gun.”

Then he saw her, coming off the train. There was a strange man, one arm protectively around her.

“You don’t understand, officer” he protested weakly, knowing it would do no good. “I’m the good one.”