Christian fantasy literature, and commentary on assorted subjects
Today was pretty good. The lovely weather is continuing, and I was able to set up a couple of things that I’ve wanted to do for a long time for tomorrow.
I feel like the inertia that has been bothering me has 
diminished.
So tomorrow should be good, too.
On that note I will close.
See you tomorrow.
Have a good night, all.
God bless everybody.
Patty
From September 14, 2013
Very often I find I need something to just blow the cobwebs out of my brain–whoosh! Sometimes comedy will do it: a good, hard laugh is excellent medicine.
But sometimes a stiff scare will do it, too. I don’t mean being scared by something real–I mean, what could be scarier than the knowledge that we have you-know-who in the White House? No, I mean a good, hearty, imaginary scare, administered by a work of fiction. One that gets you all cranked up and then–ta-da!–it’s over. And don’t you feel great because it wasn’t real?
Here are a few of the books I’ve found to really do the trick.
1. The Collected Ghost Stories of M.R. James. These are in a class by themselves. No one, but no one, ever wrote better ghost stories than M. R. James. Wait’ll you read, for the first time, Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad–positively guaranteed to freak you out. But if that one doesn’t get you, The Ash Tree or Casting the Runes surely will. A lot of these stories have been anthologized to death; but if you haven’t read them before–oh, baby!
2. The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft is a novelette, really. However, it packs a wallop. Its combination of claustrophobia (if you could just get out of Innsmouth!) and paranoia (who’s that trying to sneak into my hotel room in the middle of the night?) is mighty potent.
3. The Haunting by Shirley Jackson goes on scaring readers long after gaudier, gorier haunted-house stories lose their power. By understating and soft-pedaling the special effects, Shirley Jackson gets under your skin and gives you a fine case of the willies.
4. Dracula by Bram Stoker has always scared me–the older I get, the scarier this story gets. I realize opinions are divided; some readers think Dracula is hokey. But I’ve never read anything scarier than poor Jonathan Harker trying to find his way out of Dracula’s castle before night falls again, and the harder he tries, the more lost he gets–until he winds up in the very heart of the place, where you definitely don’t want to be…
5. The Horror from the Hills by Frank Belknap Long was inspired by a nightmare experienced by H.P. Lovecraft, according to Long himself. Wow, that must’ve been some dream! No wonder Lovecraft was so weird. This isn’t a full-length novel, but if you’re looking for padding, go to Stephen King. The long and the short of it is, an ancient, obscene idol comes to life (but wasn’t it alive all the time, and just pretending to be an idol?) and wreaks havoc in New York: and it ain’t gonna be easy to get rid of it.
The great thing about this kind of horror is, you close the book, and you’ve escaped. The real world is full of imaginary horrors–e.g. Global Warming, the War on Women, Income Inequality–that are even worse because they are imaginary; and one is hard-put to escape them.
If only those shambling creatures from Innsmouth would chase down Al Gore…
The comment contest is no longer active, but I had to post this lovely picture of Byron. PD
From September 12, 2020
I don’t know who wrote that “hot flashes” headline! It should have been “hot news flashes! It should also have been three hot news flashes.
First, there are only 146 comments to go, to reach 65,000 and have a winner in our current comment contest. And this time the grand prize (there he goes again–there’s only one prize) will either be an autographed copy of His Mercy Endureth Forever (first edition, collectors’ item, etc.) or an autographed fli-back paddle ball toy.
Second, I don’t know how, but suddenly that annoying “301 error” message has disappeared from our Facebook posts on Patty’s Facebook page. We’re glad to see it go.
Third–now what was it?–oh, yeah! Quokka University will offer a course on how to read this blog. This is because we’re afraid people are missing special features like Joe Collidge and Oy, Rodney by not backing up a day or two and reading them. You don’t have to read them on the same day they were posted. We’ll also go into the wonderful treasure-trove of the blog archives, going all the way back to late 2011. Do you realize there are literally thousands of blog posts you could read? I’d never do it myself, but it’s all there if you want it.
To attend Quokka University, all you have to do is come to Rottnest Island. There is a rumor that if you close your eyes, click your heels together three times, and bellow out our Latin motto, “Ipso loquitur mannimota,” you will be instantly transported to our campus. I can’t test that because I’m already here. If you can make it work, please let us know! Make sure you tell us where you get transported to.
When I get up in the morning, I make my coffee and sit down at the computer (very, very early in the morning).
I don’t put on news, first I just look up the hymn for the day and begin to seek things that you might find of interest. Also, I’ll look up posts of Lee’s that you might find interesting as well. And if it’s Joe Collidge day, or Byron the Quokka day, or Violet’s Oy Rodney day, I screen them, too.
So I had no idea about how bad the weather was yesterday in much of New Jersey. I didn’t find out about it until this afternoon.
It was really bad. It affected the airports, and the highways. As you saw in that news feature–it was a mess. During that period of time, we had a little rain and some gray clouds and that was it. It didn’t rain here for more than ten minutes. And some of the hard-hit places are quite close to here.
Thank you, Lord.
Feeling quite a bit better than yesterday. Who knows? Maybe what I was picking up on was the bad weather in other parts of the state.
Have a good night, all.
See you tomorrow.
God bless everybody.
Patty
This was literally all around us yesterday, but not here. We had a few sprinkles, but no real rain. Thank heaven for that. I think it would have been the last straw, the way I was feeling yesterday. Some of these places are a little far from us, but others are quite close.