Book Review: Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories by M. R. James

Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories by M. R. James

M. R. James was an academic at King's College, Cambridge, over the turn of the twentieth century. While he was a serious scholar, one of his hobbies was telling ghost stories at Christmas time. He's an acknowledge master of the genre and his stories have been adapted for both movies and television. This collection of fifteen stories includes a few short pieces by James in the appendix.

The stories are delightfully spooky. James's down-to-earth writing style helps to ground the uneasy situation in which the characters find themselves. A bit of humor goes a long way in heightening the contrast between the mundane realities of life and the supernatural intrusions that disrupt those realities. A lot of these people stumble into their problems or inherit something that on the surface seems desirable but has a lot of cost attached to it. My favorite stories here were "Number 13," "Casting the Runes," and "'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad.'"

The appendix has a short essay on the stock elements of a ghost stories with some humorous asides. There's also an early comic tale of being trapped in King's College Chapel with the stained glass windows coming to life and introductions to some of the collected volumes of his works.

Highly recommended--these make great Halloween reading or Christmas Eve telling, if you have that British-style Christmas eve.

TV Review: A Ghost Story For Christmas (2013-2022)

A Ghost Story For Christmas (2013-2022) directed by Mark Gatiss

These BBC show are five separate spooky stories by the guy who plays Sherlock's smarter brother in the Sherlock series, Mark Gatiss. The second one is an original tale by Gatiss, the others are adaptations of stories by the classic British ghost story writer M. R. James. They were broadcast on Christmas Eve on the BBC following a tradition dating back to the 1970s. Here's the episode by episode breakdown...

The Tractate Middoth--A librarian has an episode when he looks up a book requested by a strange patron. He goes on a short holiday to get some air and a change of scenery. His bed and breakfast is the home of a mother and daughter who have a problem related to a book. The mother's uncle was a wicked and manipulative man who had a nephew and a niece. Originally his estate was to be divided equally, but just before he died he wrote a will giving everything to the nephew. He told his niece that he made a will giving everything to her but it was hidden in a book. He gave her some clues which she passes on to the librarian. He goes back to his library only to discover the volume in question is the very volume the strange patron wanted. The story has a lot of atmosphere and thrives more on that than on a suspenseful plot. I enjoyed it but it felt very familiar.

The Dead Room--An aging voice actor (Simon Cowell) is recording a horror story in the original studio where he started narrating tales for "The Dead Room." It's a radio show he has been doing for decades. His return brings up some old ghosts (or are they just memories?) that makes the recording a difficult process. He's a bit condescending to the young producer (Anjli Mohindra), describing all the classical elements of a creepy story. Unfortunately, the rest of the story follows that exact same pattern, making the experience feel more mechanical than unnerving. There's some special effects with lighting, camera angles, and make up that are more serviceable than scary. This show depends entirely on style and there isn't enough to overcome the self-awareness.

Martin's Close--A member of the 17th century gentry is accused of killing a simple-minded woman with whom he had been having an affair. The story is told through both a modern-day gentry relating the strange case from a transcript he had bought and also through the period courtroom drama, where the story is mostly told through the prosecutor's words (the prosecutor being played by Peter Capaldi). The case is strange because the woman appeared after her death a few times according to the testimony of witnesses. The tale is a bit creepy but the double levels of narrative take the viewer a little too far away from the action to be truly effective horror.

The Mezzotint--A university museum art dealer (Rory Kinnear) is offered a mezzotint, a black and white print. This particular mezzotint is of an English countryside house. The merchant wants a lot more than its seeming worth but the dealer takes it anyway. The label on the back is torn, leaving insufficient evidence to identify the house easily. The dealer is also doing research on his family history. Things become unsettling as the picture changes from day to day, with a sinister figure coming out of the woods and entering the house. Of course it is impossible. His small group of university friends also see the changes which tell an unsettling story. The whole show is unsettling, with a minimalist style that builds a lot more tension than seems possible. I was genuinely unnerved by it, especially the ending.

Count Magnus--Englishman Mister Wraxhall (Jason Watkins) travels to Scandinavia to research a family's history. The family's founder, Count Magnus, built a great estate and was a merciless lord to the locals. He was so bad, he went on a "black pilgrimage" to the Holy Land, coming back with something or someone unsavory. Local legends are vague and pessimistic. Wraxhall's investigations lead to even more unpleasant discoveries. This is another good chiller like the previous story. Both were based on M. R. James stories and make for some fine half-hours of horror. 

The series is available to stream on Kanopy as this is published (October 2024), though it is just called "Ghost Stories." "The Mezzotint" was easily my favorite of the bunch.

Howard County Scavenger Hunt 2024

This year, we participated in the Howard County Recreation and Parks scavenger hunt. The hunt sent us all over the county, sometimes to businesses, sometimes to historic sites, sometimes to just plain fun sites. 

One of the challenges was to have a little dance routine. We did one at our studio, That's Dancing.

Posing with our teacher

The North Laurel Community Center is part of Howard County, so we fulfilled two other objectives by getting a snap at the skate park and one with an employee inside the center.

Luckily, we did not have to actually skate

At the front desk

By a sculpture

We were supposed to get pictures at outdoor art installations. The center's parking area has a spot that has hosted many different sculptures.

Another challenge was visiting libraries, which we did at the Savage branch. They have a nice garden.

Library garden

Pic with a "fREADom" sticker

At Savage Mill, we found more outdoor sculptures and a dog to pose with (finding five dogs was another challenge).

Outdoor sculpture #2

A dog in the game store

More outdoor art

We went to the lakefront and put our hats on the statues of the Rouse brothers. James Rouse was the real estate developer of Columbia, Maryland.

Join our team!

Playground by the lake

Another statue

Right by the lake is the Central Branch of the library, so we got some more pictures, including a stack of books sorted by rainbow color.

Reading rainbow!

Indoor art!

Not far away is the Charmery, an ice cream store, and GameOn, an arcade and bar combo.

Enjoying ice cream

Enjoying video games

GameOn's sign in the background

We were supposed to get pictures with a musical instrument and with a classic car. We found the car in our neighborhood and a uke in our house.

Strumming!

Carefully obscured license plate

We donated food at the county food bank, checking another item off the list.

Proof of generosity

Another business we went to was Black Flag Brewing Company. We got another picture with an employee there, along with some tasty beverages. The kids were with us and she asked them to tell jokes. Two of the three children complied! We also made a flag that did not come out well in photographs.

Employee and our flag

Our flag outside!

Next door was a dog training school which was closed on Saturday night.

No late night parties here

The next day, we went to Centennial Lake to get a picture by their amphitheater. We didn't get too close because some people were doing meditative yoga inside.

Rocking out at the amphitheater

We visited one of the old house of the county, Waverly Mansion. It is mostly used for events like weddings. It is also claimed to be haunted so we took a picture with a picture of the ghost.

Not quite visible

We also visited the Alpha Ridge Park and the Howard County Center for the Arts.

At Alpha Ridge

More outdoor art

In Ellicott City, we visited the Patapsco Female Institute, a boarding school from two hundred years ago. Since it was Sunday morning, they were not open.

Let us in!

We also visited the B&O Museum in town and took a pic with the train bridge from the early 1800s.

Museum entrance

Train bridge

The Robinson Nature Center was having a plant sale, so we bought some stuff and took some pictures there too.

I'm Spider-Man!

Photo with employee

Animal pic

Another animal pic

Back at home, we made dino puppets for a puppet show, another challenge we met.

Dragon, snake, or dinosaur?

We submitted our pics and videos. Later in the week we found out that we won! We got our picture at Parks and Rec HQ and on their Facebook page, along with a bunch of gift certificates to Howard County businesses.

Yay us!

Book Review: Batman Adventures: Nightwing Rising by H. Bader et al.

Batman Adventures: Nightwing Rising written by Hillary Bader and illustrated by Bo Hampton

This graphic novel follows the adventures of Dick Grayson, the original Robin, who gets fed up with Batman's heavy-handedness and lack of compassion. Dick quits being Robin and then roams the world, learning new skills from monks and gurus in hidden communities on other continents. He comes back to Gotham City as Nightwing, a new hero who occasionally checks in with the Caped Crusader. Meanwhile, Tim Drake has joined Batman as the new Robin. Once Dick is back in the city, they have a few adventures as a sort of "Bat-family."

The art style follows Batman: The Animated Series. I didn't watch enough to know if this is just a port over from the tv show or an original storyline. It's interesting enough as an origin story and develops Dick Grayson as a character. The book ends with a preview of The Lost Carnival, a graphic novel about Grayson's life before Batman.

Mildly recommended--more for Bat-fans than the general public.

Dual/Duel Review: Christopher Lee's Draculas

 Dual/Duel reviews are an online smackdown between two books, movies, games, podcasts, etc. etc. that I think are interesting to compare, contrast, and comment on. For a list of other dual/duel reviews, go here.

I was amazed to discover that Christopher Lee played Count Dracula not only for the Hammer Studios horror films from the 1950s to the 1970s but also for an independent production in 1970 (in the middle of the Hammer run!). I will present these two performances of the iconic blood-sucker in chronological order, so the first Hammer film is, indeed, first.

Horror of Dracula (1958) directed by Terence Fisher

Known simply as "Dracula" in the United Kingdom, this Hammer Horror follow up to Curse of Frankenstein brings back Peter Cushing (here as Dr. Van Helsing) and Christopher Lee (here as Count Dracula). The story starts off seeming like a faithful adaptation of the novel with Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) going to Dracula's castle. But viewers quickly find out that he's there to kill Dracula. Harker reveals he is already working with Van Helsing. Harker is thrown a curve ball when a young woman (Valerie Gaunt) wants him to help her escape from the castle. He agrees and tries to comfort her only to find out she is also a vampire. Dracula saves him from the vampire woman though Harker is knocked out in the scuffle. Harker manages to survive to the next day but has slept through most of it. He finds the tomb where Dracula and the vampire woman are resting. Harker dispatches the woman after a lot of effort. He's too slow to finish off Dracula, who has risen at the (second) death cries of the woman. Dracula bites Harker. 

The scene then changes to Van Helsing showing up in the town Harker passed through. The local tavern keeper does not want to provide any help in finding Castle Dracula but the serving woman is more helpful, even passing on Harker's journal. Van Helsing arrives at Dracula's castle as a hearse is speeding away with a white coffin. Van Helsing discovers the newly vampiric Harker and stakes him through the heart. Then he returns to Harker's fiancee Lucy (Carol Marsh) who has taken ill and is living with her brother Arthur (Michael Gough) and his wife Mina (Melissa Stribling). Lucy then goes through the novel's story beats for her character (slowly succumbing to multiple Dracula bites, dying, rising as a vampire who stalks children), which puts Arthur on board with hunting down Dracula. Things get worse when Dracula starts attacking Mina. Arthur and Van Helsing struggle to find where Dracula is hiding during the day, eventually discovering his white coffin in Arthur's basement! Dracula takes Mina back to his castle where the final confrontation goes down.

The movie cleverly changes up a lot of the novel's plot elements to throw viewers off their expectations. But most parts (except Renfield--they only had 82 minutes) are in the story. Some bits are confusing--it's unclear if they ever went to England. I just assumed they did for Arthur and Mina's home, but then they are able to return to where Dracula's coffin was shipped in less than a day with no mention of sea voyaging (or even channel voyaging). On the other hand, Lee is very menacing as Dracula, even when he isn't given extra makeup with bloodshot eyes and blood-dribbling lips. He's a little stiff at the beginning when initially dealing with Harker, who he clearly does not suspect will cause trouble. Interestingly, all his dialogue is in this first sequence. After he leaves his castle, he has no lines, only a physical performance. Lee has the screen presence to dominate just like Dracula should. The Hammer style is in full flourish, with bright technicolor and women more scantily clad than in the Universal horror films.

Recommended.

Count Dracula (1970) directed by Jesus Franco 

This Spanish production starts with Jonathan Harker (Fred Williams) on a train to Transylvania where he has a nice chat with a fellow passenger, until the fellow passenger discovers that Harker is headed to Dracula's castle. They debark in a town where Harker spends the night at an inn. The people at the inn are all incredulous and stand-offish with Harker. The innkeeper's wife tries to warn off Harker, but he continues on anyway. He takes a coach to the Borgo Pass where he meets with Dracula's coach that takes him to the castle. The Count himself (Christopher Lee) opens the door and offers hospitality to Harker, who provides details on Dracula's purchase of an abandoned home in England. Harker asks why Dracula would leave his home. Dracula gives a long speech about his ancestors and their great warrior tradition, protecting their country from eastern invaders. But in his old age (he has grey hair and a grey mustache), the count has some wanderlust. Harker has a harrowing night of what seems like a dream--three vampire women want him but Dracula stops them by offering a local baby (the mom appeared in a previous scene at the castle gates begging for her child). Harker is his. In the morning, Harker wakes up to bite marks on his neck and no way of escape other than jumping from his window.

Harker wakes up in an English sanitarium run by Van Helsing (Herbert Lom) who is slowly nursing him back to health. The other inmate viewers meet is Renfield (Klaus Kinski), a weird case of a man obsessed with eating bugs and staring out the window at the building next door--the very abandoned home that Dracula purchased. Harker doesn't see it right away, so no one is warned. Harker's finacee Mina (Maria Rohm) and her best friend Lucy (Soledad Miranda) come to check on him and decide to stay at the sanatorium. Lucy goes through her story arc of being victimized by Dracula, dying, and victimizing local children. By this point, Van Helsing has an idea what's going on and gathers Lucy's fiance and Harker to fight Dracula.

Dracula eventually attacks Mina as he gets younger and younger each time he feeds. The men break into Dracula's house but he's already fled back to Transylvania. On paperwork left lying around the house, Van Helsing sees the route Dracula arranged. His return will take three weeks. Harker and the fiance can make it to the castle in one week. They go and dispatch the three vampire women. Then they bless Dracula's coffin so he can't use. The wait for Dracula to arrive is short. They are on the roof and send some large boulders down to disrupt the local escort for Dracula's box (it's still daylight). The men race down, open the box, and set Dracula on fire. He dies in the flames, ending the film.

While this is a more plot-accurate adaptation, it does have some flaws. The lighting and sets are very reminiscent of the 1970s. Kinski (who had his own Dracula performance almost a decade later in Nosferatu) is reliably kooky as Renfield, though he does not contribute anything to the story other than a bit of atmosphere. He never escapes or does anything other than menace Mina when she tries to see him. He is a bit wasted, especially since he had second-billing after Lee but is only a third- or fourth-tier character in the story. The movie also has a lot of shots where the camera pushes in on a performers eyes, so much so that it would make a good drinking game for each time it shows up. The score is heavy-handed, a natural temptation for a horror film and overdone here. Lee is good as Dracula, more on that in a bit.

Mildly recommended.

Which is better?

Both plots move through their material at a good pace, with a bit more style being shown by the Hammer film. But the real interest is in Dracula himself. Lee achieves a dominating presence in both films, even though the first film doesn't let him use his sinister and smooth voice after the first third. Lee was reluctant to continue playing the vampire but was convinced that a lot of people would be put out of work if he did not continue the role. So he was more of a workman than a passionate player. He signed on for the Spanish production with the promise of a strictly faithful adaptation of the novel. He gives a very good performance here (that one speech is a lot of fun to watch) but the budget was curtailed during production and it shows. Lee is better in the Spanish film but the Hammer film is the one I would rather watch again. Also, his performance in the Hammer film is not much less than the later film.

Winner:

Loser:

1st Beer Results

In the interests of science (and with a little lack of patience), I put one of the brew bottles (see the brewing and the bottling) in the fridge the day before the 14-day carbonating period was over. I opened the bottle that night. The cap removal had that nice "fizz" sound and some CO2 wafted out the neck. A little bit of head formed but vanished before I could take a picture. For an Irish Red the color is fairly dark. The flavor is a little more on the sour and the bitter side but it still drinks okay. Considering how long I waited to make the brew and this attempt was a first time, I am satisfied with the Day -1 results.

Before the moment of truth

Not the right shade of red

I put another couple of bottles in the fridge on the proper day. That evening, I tried one with slightly better flavor. Did the day really make a difference or is it just my imagination playing tricks on me? The color is still very dark and the flavor is still fairly sour. Surely something went wrong in the process. I still put the blame on expired ingredients (which is putting the blame on me for waiting so long to try it out). 

I opened the bottle that was only two-thirds full to see how that turned out. It had a lot of fizz when I popped the cap. The beer had at least a slight tinge of red but the flavor was more of the same. It's just not satisfying. 

Even the light barely helps it look red

I tried another bottle on proper day plus four. The flavor is the same awfulness with no change in color. It is time to admit failure and move on! I will pour the rest down the sink and try a new recipe from Maryland Homebrew. They recommend a brown ale for starters, I will give that a try.

TV Review: The Day of the Triffids (1981)

The Day of the Triffids (1981) produced by David Maloney and directed by Ken Hannam based on the novel by John Wyndham

Triffid farmer Bill (John Duttine) has had his head bandaged for several days. Triffids are from a rare botanical species that provides an oil that makes fuels more efficient. They also have stingers that can kill someone. Bill was stung as a child and survived. He had an accident on the farm that effected his eyes. The show starts on the day the bandages come off. The night before, an amazing, world-wide meteor storm enraptured the world. Pretty much everyone went outside to see it. This morning, most people are blind. No one shows up to take Bill's bandages off, so he does the job himself. As he wanders the streets, he discovers that only a few people, like Jo (Emma Relph), missed the show for one reason or another (she was passed out) and can still see like he can. If 95 percent of the population being blind isn't bad enough, the triffids are moving around (they have weird locomotive roots) and killing people. Bill and Jo find each other and start wandering through the apocalyptic landscape, hoping to find safety.

The show focuses more on the survival horror and various possible new societies than on monster mayhem (the focus of 1960s movie version). Considering the early 1980s BBC special effects, the choice is good to have fewer triffid scenes. The plants don't look terrible except when they are moving. Their drumming with their roots is a bit unnerving--several characters believe that is how the plants communicate with each other. Bill insists that they have no brains and yet their behavior has a sort of intelligence behind it. The real focus is on Bill seeing various communities and trying to reunite with Jo after they get separated. They had a plan to go to a house with its own electric generation and plenty of land to farm but they were swept up in an urban social group that was very militant about what people were to do. Bill's journey is very reminiscent of 28 Days Later, which has borrowed heavily from this. I found the exploration of other possible societies interesting though the show rushes through with little commentary on the value of those solutions (many of them get wiped out by the triffids or by a mysterious disease that adds more problems to the situation). In the last few episodes (the show is six half-hour programs), the characters acknowledge that the only future for humanity is to rebuild communities, an idea Bill reluctantly comes to agree with. Choosing the right community is the big trick in such situations.

Mildly recommended--it's an interesting exploration of apocalyptic survival for an individual and for communities.

1st Beer Bottling

See the brewing process here.

After fermenting a home brew for two week, I had the next task, bottling the beer.

I've accumulated empty bottles over the years, but only 24 or so. I don't have some giant horde! Of course, the labels would be wrong if I didn't remove them. After looking around online, I tried soaking them in water and dish soap for about 24 hours.

I had to fill them to keep the bottles from floating!

That did not work too well. I had to do a lot of scrubbing afterward. The bottles eventually were clean and ready for bottling day. I had a bunch of other stuff from the brewing kit.

More tools of the trade

The first part for bottling is putting the fermentor in a high location, like the edge of a sink or table. I had pre-planned for this, so the fermentor was already on the table in the laundry room. I just had to move it to the edge so I could attach the hose and bottle filler. The hose is a tight fit around the end of the bottle filler, so I had to soak it in hot water for a minute to make it expand. Even so, getting it on the filler required some effort. At least it makes a good seal.

Close up of the house/filler connection

I made another batch of sanitizing solution, then soaked the bottles and caps in the solution, setting them up to dry. Drying bottles upside down is a challenge, so I used a box in the rack to keep them from falling over.

Bottles went one at a time

All the caps went together

Drying bottles upside down is tricky!

Caps are easy

I sanitized the bottle filler and hose. Then I put the other end of the hose on the spigot (which required another hot water immersion to make it slightly larger) and then dispensed some beer through it to clean out any of the sanitizing solution still in the hose and filler.

Heating the other end of the hose

On the spigot

In order to carbonate the beer, it needs another round of sugar for the yeast to consume. So little tablets went into each bottle before filling. Out of the ten more or less identical bottles I used, two had trouble swallowing their tablets. I am pretty sure it was the tablets' fault since they had melded together a little bit (another side effect of waiting too long to use the kit). Some industrious jabs with a pointy item made the tablets go all the way inside.

Give me some sugar, baby!

Filling the bottles was fairly easy. Just stick the bottle filler in the bottle and let gravity drop the uncarbonated beer into the bottle. Filling the bottle all the way to the top left a small amount of air once I took out the filler. Then a cap sat on top and the next bottle got filled. Out of the ten bottles, only the last one came up a bit short, about two-thirds full when the fermentor ran out of liquid. So one bottle will be very fizzy or very potent? I will find out in two weeks when the carbonating is done.

Gravity does the work

A little space left over after taking the filler out of the bottle

The capping gizmo was very easy to use. The one from the kit even has a magnet in the middle to hold the cap in place!

Sealing the bottles

I stored the bottles in a box on a shelf in the basement to maintain the 65 to 75 degree temperature. Then I cleaned up all the other supplies in hopes of using them again soon...as soon as I see how this batch turns out.

Sanitized bits (except for the bottle capper)

The fermentor required a little work to get clean

Now the two-week wait...

The bottling process was about two hours with some down time while items were drying from the sanitizing solution. You definitely do not want to serve santizer-flavored beer to your friends. Or yourself!