Supernatural Tales

While Poe wrote more artistically compelling stories - notably 'Usher' - one of my favourites is 'The Cask of Amontillado'. I read it as a wee lad, having been told about Poe by a pal. He was very taken with 'The Masque of the Red Death', but for me the (at the time) baffling antics of Montresor were fascinating. 

When I was spotty malodorous youth in the late Seventies I didn't like long-haired hippie music. Never trust a hippie, etc. I was into New Wave stuff, and doing ten minute guitar solos with your hippie back to the audience was A Bad Thing. Of course I was wrong to dismiss a whole sub-category of pop/rock in such a cavalier fashion. But if you can't be ignorant and prejudiced when you're young, when can you be?  Anyway, last night - as I lay in my bed, by the light of a single flickering candle - I listened to Alan Parsons' concept album, Tales of Mystery and Imagination . It's classy stuff, and in my limited experience of concept albums, it's one of the best. Interesting choice of material from Poe's collection, and Orson Welles guesting as quotemeister. It all stands up rather well, and bears comparison to Mr Wayne's War of the Worlds. Anyway, here's a good bit that someone has done a fine job of visually realising, or whatever it's called.

I often tell would-be contributors to ST that it’s quite definitely not a horror magazine. This is because would-be contributors often send me emails along these lines: 'Hi Dave! I’d like to know if you are interested in receiving submissions right now? My work has appeared in Nutjobs with Power Tools 1, 2, 3 , and 5 , along with Slashed , Poked , Crushed , Gorefest , Bloodspurt , Disembowelled Orphans , Put That Down, Myron, It’s Rusty! and other leading literary periodicals. My novella ‘Rabid Woodchucks in Chopperville’ was shortlisted for the Wouldn’t Be Allowed to Roam the Streets in a More Rationally Ordered Society Award for budding authors. I am currently working on a novel about aliens that suck people’s brains out through their eyeballs, as friends tell me children’s books are easy money. My hobbies include thinking wrong things about Girl Guides, eating cold pizza and wearing the same death metal tee-shirt for months on end. I hope to learn the banjo if I can win a schola...

Gosh, in furtherance of the factomation in my previous post, I've found a trailer for a portfolio movie of Edogawa Rampo stories. One is clearly 'The Hell of Mirrors', not sure about the others. Here it is: I'm sure Poe would approve of his disciple's high-octane loopiness. Looks nice, too.

As I've mentioned before (where were you? Well, you should rub something on it), this is the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe being born into our veil of tears, from which he departed a bit sharpish after writing some spiffing stories, some cracking poems, a brilliant bit of mystic cosmology , and a sort of novel .  Now, there's this Japanese bloke, Taro Hirai, who took the name ' Edogawa Rampo ' because it was as near as he could get to Edgar Allan Poe. Rampo was one of Japan's premier writers of detective fiction. Indeed, reading the only selection of his work I could find, it's clear that the side of Poe that influenced him most was the weird, psychological story. Rampo's work is very strange, but not actually supernatural. His stories tend to focus on the bizarre, improbable and downright loopy. Thus in 'The Hell of Mirrors', a man obsessed with his own reflection ends up inside a kind of giant mirrorball, which is not good for him. 'The ...

It's on ze wireless zis week. BBC Radio 7 has at least done its share of Poe pushing to mark the poor chap's bicentenary. Nobody else seems to have paid much attention. Poe may be a minor writer, but when I was a young chap it seemed that virtually every literary anniversary got a right old hoohah in the media. Post-literate culture? Maybe.  Ah well, here's a bit of fun from not one, but two admirers of Edgar.

Edgar Allan Poe is 200 years not entirely alive! I once stayed in his house in Scotland, y'know. Well, a house in Scotland where he lived for a bit. Anyway, BBC Radio 7 is having a bit of a Poe-fest, and three stories can be listened to online . The stories are 'The Pit and the Pendulum', 'The Tell-Tale Heart', and 'The Gold Bug'. The third story is not of course remotely supernatural, but it is a very good dramatisation, giving the tale a good twist. At this moment I'm listening to a play about Poe's life, starring John Moffatt and Kerry Shale. Yes, listening and typing at the same time - versatile Valdemar. The play by Christopher Cook dates from 1988. Shale stars as Poe, with Moffatt as Dupin, Poe's fictional detective who attempts a 'real' inquiry into the author's life - and death.  Interesting news item here , about the battle to 'own' Poe for tourism. He lived in several places, the cunning devil, and so various bits o...