Planet of the Apes

It's APES Week at Rusty's Fiction Factory.  I hope you don't me monkeying around!


Magic and Imagery #13

CORNELIUS

Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death.

The popularity of the original 1968 adaptation of Planet of the Apes, written mostly by Rod Serling, and its four sequels cannot be underestimated.  The 1970s were wild and woolly and shotgun, and for most of mainstream America, the syndicated reruns of Star Trek and the Apes theatrical series were their true introductions to science fiction.

Planet of the Apes is the most intelligent and the most witty of the series -- basically proving that the first entry is almost always the best (with some exceptions) -- and is certainly the most ironic.  Its moments of grandeur, along with its moments of ironic introspection, are what turned a dumb little premise into a classic that people quote even today.  Because Serling made it matter.  Serling turned a story about a race of violent simians into a reflection on man and his own violent predilections.  It resonates with us, in our very bones, and in our own fears.

We are a planet of apes, whether we want to face it or not.  Like a man once said, we're just cavemen in blue jeans.

Maybe it's about time we changed.  Maybe it's time we grew up.

I won't hold my breath.

'Salem's Lot

Magic and Imagery #12

The town knew about darkness.



It knew about the darkness that comes on the land when rotation hides the land from the sun, and about the darkness of the human soul.

The original paperback cover of 'Salem's Lot is what arrested me.  It's grandeur can't really be seen in the photo above, but it was a solid, glossy black, with the face of a girl embossed.  The only spot of color was a drop of crimson at the corner of her lips -- an image at once evocative of a tombstone, the darkness, and the undead.

Later editions were published without the embossing -- it was too expensive -- and instead showed the same face, but with blue, unearthly highlights.

I believe it was the paperback marketing of this novel and Carrie -- along with Brian DePalma's film adaptation in 1976 -- that really turned Stephen King into the known author he is today.  Carrie's first paperback was a double spread -- her face on the cover, and when you opened it up, a second scene of her town in flames.  Back then, books were marked in small dumps not only in bookstores, but at cash registers in department stores.  I bought Carrie at Montgomery Ward's.  That's good marketing, both visually and at point of purchase.  I wonder what would happen if they did that now . . .

'Salem's Lot remains my favorite of his novels.  I also believe it is his single best novel, and also his scariest.

The Andromeda Strain

Magic and Imagery #11

DR. JEREMY STONE

Stick to established procedures.

DR. RUTH LEAVITT

Establishment gonna fall down and go boom.

 
 
 
I can't remember what came first for me: reading the book or seeing the movie.  No matter -- they were both intense, groundbreaking experiences.
 
The movie was perhaps the first adult-oriented film that I truly appreciated, and I remember watching this with more awe and interest than I had with Kubrick's 2001.  The book -- to be precise, the book's cover -- instantly grabbed me when I saw it on the paperback racks at Woolworth's in downtown Newport News in 1971.  At first, I thought it was a sex book because the naked guy was a steal from a popular sex/sociography book, The Naked Ape, not-so coincidentally published by the same publisher.
 
Instead, it was something better: an adult sf novel that was also mainstream, that told its story not just using narrative text, but with computer illustrations.  It was like a comic book for grown ups, and it blew me away.  It still does.
 
Crichton went on to create Westworld (which I will talk about eventually) and, much later, Jurassic Park.  But Andromeda still lives on for me.  It's one of those movies I have to watch whenever I find it, just switching through the channels.  41 years later, it has lost absolutely none of its dramatic and graphics-intense impact.

M*A*S*H

Magic and Imagery #10

Capt. Peterson [hostile tone of voice]

What are you two HOODLUMS doing in this hospital?

Hawkeye Pierce

Ma'am, we are surgeons and we are here to operate. We just waiting for a starting time. That's all.

Capt. Peterson

You can't even go near a patient until Col. Merrill says its ok and he's still out to lunch.

Trapper John

Look, mother, I want to go to work in one hour. We are the Pros from Dover and we figure to crack this kid's chest and get out to golf course before it gets dark. So you go find the gas-passer and you have him pre-medicate this patient. Then bring me the latest pictures on him. The ones we saw must be 48 hours old by now. Then call the kitchen and have them rustle us up some lunch.

[turns to Hakweye]

Trapper John

Ham and eggs will all right.

[turns back to Capt. Peterson]

Trapper John

Steak would be even better. And then give me at least ONE nurse who knows how to work in close without getting her tits in my way.

Looking back at yesteryear . . .

After over a decade of sitcom episodes on CBS starting in the early '70s, it is hard, for some, to gauge the impact the original film had on popular culture. M*A*S*H, the show was anti-war.  But the film was clearly anti-Vietnam War.  Even though politics were evident, yet also downplayed, in the movie, the author of the original novel reportedly loved the movie and hated the show.  It was close to what he wrote and experienced.  The show, was a different animal altogether, and the characters, while still uncontrolled and crazy, were whitewashed versions of the originals.
 
The movie remains a rebellious example of '70s filmmaking . . . and also a template for at least one groundbreaking comedy to come: Animal House.  It's a formative film, revelling in the spirit of life and irreverence.



Magic and Imagery #9

Every year, we return to Orlando. Instinct makes us do this. We are like the salmon who must swim upstream to spawn, and die. They are lucky. We must go to theme parks.

A theme park is an amusement park where you pay one blanket admission fee, which is quite steep, but once you're inside, everything is totally free, except all the other stuff you end up buying, which will run you around $11,000 per child. Every few yards you find yourself stopping to buy high-priced theme-park food, theme-park merchandise, theme-park clothing and theme-park photographs of yourself looking theme-park ugly.

Sometimes you stop and just spontaneously throw money into the theme-park air. You can't help yourself! You're theme-park stupid!

Everybody's IQ drops at theme parks. Really smart people, Mensa members, will stand in line for two hours so they can go on a 90-second ride with a name like "The Runaway Turnip." They do this because everybody else is doing it, and because they paid for it, and because they're going to have FUN, dammit!

Orlando, of course, is Fun Central; it's infested with theme parks. Thousands of Orlando residents make their living looking out through the eye holes of giant smiling character heads. At quitting time, they go to the Theme Park Workers' Bar, where you see everybody - Pluto, Popeye, Bugs Bunny, Piglet, etc. - pouring martini pitchers directly into their mouth holes, trying to forget about a day that consisted largely of having small, highly excited children run into them at exactly crotch level. Around 2 a.m. everyone staggers out to the parking lot to watch Chip and Dale pound each other senseless. Those two HATE each other.

Dave Barry

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2009/11/22/1324584/mindless-in-mickeytown.html#storylink=cpy

Looking back at yesteryear . . .

My first trip to Disney World was in 1972, when I was 14.  Today, a room at the Contemporary Resort will cost you about $400.  That year, it cost $42 . . . and it was so expensive, my father threatened to cancel the reservations.

I remember standing on Main Street, disbelieving that I was actually there.  I still have that feeling every time I visit.  I remember my first time in the Haunted Mansion, hoping to be scared, but knowing it would just be fun.  And it was way too short.

And I remember this book, the first book I ever owned with an absolutely fascinating, absolutely wonderful die cut: a hole in the middle of the friggin' cover that let me see the page just inside!

I don't know how many times one can read a book, but I certainly beat the record with this one, mostly concentrating on the pages about the Haunted Mansion, and the hotels, and how they built the place . . . especially the photos of the Jungle Cruise elephants and the Nautilus submarines on flatbeds as they're being carted down Interstate 4.

This book reflects what Disney World means to me: that it takes imagination to make unreality become real.

OBX . . . SUX?!?

Please don't hate me. But . . . I'm not a big fan of Nag's Head. I don't hate the place, but it's just not as great as a lot of people think.

Heresy! I hear some of you screaming. It's the best beach on God's sandy earth!  It's got wonderful seafood restaurants!  Our families love it there!  We love the buffets!  It's a great place to get away from it all!  You suck, Wornom!

Meh. It's a half-assed, rinky-dink theme park: overpriced, the restaurants are average at best, and there's not much to do after 9 p.m.

During a summer in the dim dark seventies, I went with some high school buddies in one used car, stuffed in some coolers of beer and a stack of Penthouses, and we camped out at Nag's somewhere there on Route 158. I think it cost us six bucks a night, the tent was hot as hell, we got sand burrs stuck in our feet, and not a single one of us scored. See, back then, there was absolutely nothing -- and I mean that -- nothing to do in Nag's Head after dark. They didn't even have a movie theater. Not even mini golf. No Putt Putt, no bars, no girls . . . no fun.

What I remember most was the boredom. All of us were bored out of our minds. And we were glad to get home a few sunburned days later.

Fast forward to the present. Nag's Head has experienced a touristic and financial evolution. Families from D.C. to Virginia Beach scrimp and save for an annual vacation. People LOVE it down there.

And I don't really know why.

I've had to drive there a couple of times the last few weeks on errands, so I've only had day runs instead of a vacation. But I think that's enough. I mean . . . I don't hate the place, but . . . it's just not as great as a lot of people think.

Duck and Corolla were not the upscale areas in the '70s and '80s that they are today, and their rise into the prominence of vacation homing is a big, big reason The Outer Banks -- we shall call the region OBX from now on, thanks to the ubiquitous, oval stickers in the back windows of cars and countless copper-colored SUVs -- has become so popular with the middle class that has a lot of disposable income. The main drag of OBX, Nag's Head and Kill Devil Hills are, in nature, very much the same as they were in the '70s: shifting dunes, tall grasses sparsely spiking the sands with ochre slashes, sun- and sand-blasted beach houses on stilts, and people walking up and down Virginia Dare Trail half naked or in sweaty t-shirts. Duck and Corolla reflect our middle class, upscale desires. Nag's, proper, is still pretty much the same. Kids on bikes, couples flapping their flip-flops, teens and twenty something's racing their engines at the stop lights. And now they have a ten-show movie theater.

So now we have upscale Duck and Corolla where Olive Garden families can rent a three story house with a tiny pool right on the beach, and think they're getting away from it all when every room has a plasma tv and every family member has brought their iPhones, their iPads, their laptops and their Wiis. There is a shitload of more shit the same as in every suburb in America: more stores, more restaurants, Wal-Marts, Harris Teeters, Ace Hardwares, and rustic places using plays on words such as cap'n, crabby, fisherman, surfside . . . and, yes, mini golf -- so many more opportunities to lose your money . . . but one thing hasn't changed.

There aren't a lot of places for night life. Two, maybe three venues are there now, which is 200-300% more than in 1975. The restaurants serve only two kinds of fish: fried or broiled, and those few restaurants that are different or better than their mainstream counterparts don't even get mentioned online by the OBXers that go there year after year.

The fact is, the OBXers like the crap. They like quantity, not quality. They don't ask for more or better. And they're happy -- no, they're fucking ecstatic -- to have a vacation that really isn't much different than staying at home for a week . . . except for the not working 9 to 5, and the pool, and the beach.

And the endless crappy seafood.

I dont get it. But, as my friend Roger said in a Facebook post, to each their own.

My kind of vacation is a little different . . .

Beach house, ok. Pool, definitely. But the area to which I'm going must have better and more things to do than where I already live. No exception. I don't mean mini golf, either. I mean restaurants that are better than Chili's or Olive Garden. Night clubs. Dancing. Comedy. Shopping for more than OBX tshirts, sandals and shells. And seafood that is sautéed with fresh, magical sauces; grilled exquisitely with compound butters and spices; steaks you can't get at the fucking Sizzler. Dishes that are unique.

Here's my one, overriding rule for vacations: wherever I go, I want to experience something new and better than I can at home. I hand over my wallet to the vacation gods and proclaim, "Do me! I'm yours for a week! Show me what you've got."

And if their best is only poorly-cooked flounder, rubbery fried shrimp, or the Number 7 at Applebee's, then that's not a holiday. That's a day in an upper level of vacation hell.

Rooftop restaurants and candlelight. Soft music. The smell of cocoa butter and pineapple on tanned skin.  Local cuisine, cared for and prepared by chefs who give a damn. Exploring neighborhoods. Moonlight on the waves. Laughter and drinks, listening to a live rock and roll band . . . even better, a blues band. An extensive wine list . . . and North Carolina wines are not allowed.  Playing, and learning, eating at places, having fun . . . doing things that are absolutely unique to that place, and completely different from the day in, day out.
And if a place isn't unique, then why bother?

My cousin in Ohio posted this on Facebook, talking about the OBX, and I cannot fault her or her desires:

Have you been down the coast to Ocracoke, in the area of the national seashore? My favorite times were fall, winter and spring, where one could walk the beach and see only wildlife. Surreal--kind of earth before people. That's the experience that was there, and still is in a few places. It was a country road, along an ocean. No rest stops, no grocery stores, very few gas stations. Sand, road, sun, ocean, wildlife. Mother Nature on a huge scale, minimal parts. Huge sun, huge sand, huge space, desert island. Does that help? I felt exactly the same way the first time I was out in the Arizona desert---told friends the desert was an ocean, too.  Oh, and excuse me, the SOUND of the wind, waves, birds. How can I leave that out? Without the distractions of cars, folks and businesses, you can hear each of them ROAR. . . . . .

There's nothing wrong with wanting that.  Nothing at all.  Sometimes we all need to get away.

But mostly, I get away through immersion instead of silence.  Like the motto I quote up top of this blog: I cried for madder music, and for stronger wine.

I know, anonymous reader, I know . . . you probably love it down there.

Sorry.  I just wish the OBX had more for me.

Magic and Imagery #8

Now with comments, just to make Cliff happy . . .

ARTHUR FRAIN

I bred you, I led you.

ZED

And I have looked in the face of the force that put the idea in your head. You were bred and led yourself.

"Zardozism"

John Boorman's Cult of the Future

John Boorman, the man who directed "Deliverance" which included a scene of male rape, has made another controversial film. It is called "Zardoz" and is set in a "technological commune" in the 23rd century by which time an intellectual elite is ruling the earth.


To control the masses, the elite foster a new religion embodied in the god Zardoz, a huge stone head that flies by means of gravitational power. It brings terror to the ignorant masses in a world dying from pollution and lack of resources, commands their obedience and is used, according to Boorman, "as a means of repression and exploitation."


Boorman made his film in the summer of '73 in the devoutly Catholic Irish Republic with the sanction of the Irish authorities. He denies it is an attack on the Catholic Church or that it is irreligious.


"I am not a Catholic but I was brought up by Jesuits," he says:"I have always had a nostalgia for the rituals and ceremonies of the Church and I would rather spend all evening with a good Jesuit priest than with any atheist I know. But it's a fact that religion has been used at times as an instrument of repression and my film overtly says so. Yet it's a film about man's search for meaning, it's about life, death and rebirth, and it's about the need we all have for one another. I don't think you can be irreligious about subjects like that."

Looking back at yesteryear . . .

Zardoz was one of those movies that was cool.  Dirty Harry cool, with a science fiction spin.  And it was supposed to have an ending that you didn't expect.

Even though I figured it out before the big reveal, I still loved this movie, and the poster captures its uniqueness, AND its Britishness.  That's really what it's all about: a sci-fi future dystopia with a British worldview, American guns, an uber-religion, and James Bond in red leather bondage gear.

There are some things I miss about the '70s, and the shotgun approach to moviemaking is one of them.

Magic and Imagery #7

'Star Trek' is way cool.  How'd that happen?  Because the geeks have inherited the earth, and the White House.

Nice article here.

Magic and Imagery -- book covers, posters, art -- fondly-remembered icons that once evoked mysteries and emotions within my savage breast, and that still resonate with the echoes of tales wondrous and well-told.

Magic and Imagery #6

“The Madonnas rest high above,

the lion’s head watches the dove,

and in the womb beneath the hill –

a blazing light glows bright and still.”

Magic and Imagery -- book covers, posters, art -- fondly-remembered icons that once evoked mysteries and emotions within my savage breast, and that still resonate with the echoes of tales wondrous and well-told.

Magic and Imagery #5

Although the age of the dinosaurs was of course long over before the dawn of humanity, the co-existence of dinosaurs and humans has been a frequent flight of the imagination in these fantasy films. This trend peaked in 1966 with legendary British studio Hammer Films’ 100th movie One Million Years BC (a remake of the 1940 effort) still unsurpassed as the ultimate piece of prehistoric-themed pop culture. Indeed the rather silly movie became something of a phenomenon in the sexual revolution of the 1960s, when its poster of fur bikini clad cave girl Raquel Welch became a pin-up and elevated the actress to true sex-symbol status. The film went on to become one of Hammer’s biggest hits, especially in America, and the centerpiece of a mini-sub-genre of erotic, teasing fantasy adventures that included She and the later Prehistoric Women.

letterboxd.com

 

Magic and Imagery -- book covers, posters, art -- fondly-remembered icons that once evoked mysteries and emotions within my savage breast, and that still resonate with the echoes of tales wondrous and well-told.

Magic and Imagery #4

TAGGART

I got it, I got it!

HEDLEY LAMARR

You do?

TAGGART

We'll work up a "Number 6" on 'em!

HEDLEY LAMARR

"Number 6"? I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that one...

TAGGART

Well, that's where we go a-ridin' into town, a whampin' and whompin' every livin' thing that moves within an inch of its life. Except the women folks, of course.

HEDLEY LAMARR

You spare the women?

TAGGART

Naw--We rape the shit out of them at the Number 6 Dance later on!

HEDLEY LAMARR

Marvelous!

Magic and Imagery -- book covers, posters, art -- fondly-remembered icons that once evoked mysteries and emotions within my savage breast, and that still resonate with the echoes of tales wondrous and well-told.

Magic and Imagery #3

"The Fun They Had"

by

Isaac Asimov

Margie even wrote about it that night in her diary. On the page headed May 17, 2157, she wrote, "Today, Tommy found a real book!"


It was a very old book. Margie's grandfather once said that when he was a little boy his grandfather told him that there was a time when all stories were printed on paper.


They turned the pages, which were yellow and crinkly, and it was awfully funny to read words that stood still instead of moving the way they were supposed to--on a screen, you know. And then, when they turned back to the page before, it had the same words on it that it had had when they read it the first time.


"Gee," said Tommy, "what a waste. When you're through with the book, you just throw it away, I guess. Our television screen must have had a million books on it and it's good for plenty more. I wouldn't throw it away."


"Same with mine," said Margie. She was eleven and hadn't seen as many telebooks as Tommy had. He was thirteen. She said, "Where did you find it?"


"In my house." He pointed without looking, because he was busy reading. "In the attic." "What's it about?" "School."


Margie was scornful. "School? What's there to write about school? I hate school."

Margie always hated school, but now she hated it more than ever. The mechanical teacher had been giving her test after test in geography and she had been doing worse and worse until her mother had shaken her head sorrowfully and sent for the County Inspector.


He was a round little man with a red face and a whole box of tools with dials and wires. He smiled at Margie and gave her an apple, then took the teacher apart. Margie had hoped he wouldn't know how to put it together again, but he knew how all right, and, after an hour or so, there it was again, large and black and ugly, with a big screen on which all the lessons were shown and the questions were asked. That wasn't so bad. The part Margie hated most was the slot where she had to put homework and test papers. She always had to write them out in a punch code they made her learn when she was six years old, and the mechanical teacher calculated the mark in no time.

The Inspector had smiled after he was finished and patted Margie's head. He said to her mother, "It's not the little girl's fault, Mrs. Jones. I think the geography sector was geared a little too quick. Those things happen sometimes. I've slowed it up to an average ten-year level. Actually, the over-all pattern of her progress is quite satisfactory." And he parted Margie's head again.

Margie was disappointed. She had been hoping they would take the teacher away altogether. They had once taken Tommy's teacher away for nearly a month because the history sector had blanked out completely.

So she said to Tommy, "Why would anyone write about school?"

Tommy looked at her with very superior eyes. "Because it's not our kind of school, stupid. This is the old kind of school that they had hundreds and hundreds of years ago." He added loftily, pronouncing the word carefully, "Centuries ago."

Margie was hurt. "Well, I don't know what kind of school they had all that time ago." She read the book over his shoulder for a while, then said, "Anyway, they had a teacher."

"Sure they had a teacher, but it wasn't a regular teacher. It was a man." "A man? How could a man be a teacher?" "Well, he just told the boys and girls things and gave them homework and asked them questions." "A man isn't smart enough." "Sure he is. My father knows as much as my teacher." "He can't. A man can't know as much as a teacher." "He knows almost as much, I betcha."

Margie wasn't prepared to dispute that. She said, "1 wouldn't want a strange man in my house to teach me."


Tommy screamed with laughter. "You don't know much, Margie. The teachers didn't live in the house. They had a special building and all the kids went there." "And all the kids learned the same thing?" "Sure, if they were the same age."


"But my mother says a teacher has to be adjusted to fit the mind of each boy and girl it teaches and that each kid has to be taught differently."


"Just the same they didn't do it that way then. If you don't like it, you don't have to read the book."



"I didn't say I didn't like it," Margie said quickly. She wanted to read about those funny schools.


They weren't even half-finished when Margie's mother called, "Margie! School!" Margie looked up. "Not yet, Mamma."

"Now!" said Mrs. Jones. "And it's probably time for Tommy, too."


Margie said to Tommy, "Can I read the book some more with you after school?"


"Maybe," he said nonchalantly. He walked away whistling, the dusty old book tucked beneath his arm.



Margie went into the schoolroom. It was right next to her bedroom, and the mechanical teacher was on and waiting for her. It was always on at the same time every day except Saturday and Sunday, because her mother said little girls learned better if they learned at regular hours.

The screen was lit up, and it said: "Today's arithmetic lesson is on the addition of proper fractions. Please insert yesterday's homework in the proper slot."

Margie did so with a sigh. She was thinking about the old schools they had when her grandfather's grandfather was a little boy. All the kids from the whole neighborhood came, laughing and shouting in the schoolyard, sitting together in the schoolroom, going home together at the end of the day. They learned the same things, so they could help one another on the homework and talk about it.

And the teachers were people...

The mechanical teacher was flashing on the screen: "When we add the fractions 1/2 and 1/4..."

Margie was thinking about how the kids must have loved it in the old days. She was thinking about the fun they had.

Copyright by Isaac Asimov.

Magic and Imagery -- book covers, posters, art -- fondly-remembered icons that once evoked mysteries and emotions within my savage breast, and that still resonate with the echoes of tales wondrous and well-told.