This Blog Has Been Brought to You By the Letter “L”, the Letter “B” and by the Specter of Death Itself

La La La

It was only a few days ago that Norah began stringing together vowels sounds to add a little flavor to her vocalizations. However, she feels that she has adequately explored the possibilities presented by “A”, “E”, “I”, “O, and “U” and has now decided to pepper her speech with a consonant. For this all important first foray letter formation, the young Miss has chosen “L” to be her steppingstone.

With the addition of this extra sound to her vocabulary, she is suddenly in love with talking. She wiggles happily on her play mat, belting out monologues with eerie roller coasters of inflection. You can see by the full concentration on her face that the “L” is quite a tongue twister for her to produce.

She will look you in the eye and proclaim, “Eeeeooolaaa,” with full seriousness.

“Really?” I reply. “And then what happened, Norah?”

She grins and flings her hand about and explains that, “Oooouuulaaaalooo.”

“Uuuooolaaalooo?” I repeat for clarification.

She shakes her head and laughs at my ridiculousness. “Oooouulaaaloo,” she reiterates.

“Oh, well then, Ooooleeeebaaa,” I explain to her…careful to throw an extra consonant into the mix, just to keep her eyes on the roadmap.

Our conversations continue in this way until she feels she has exhausted the topic and then moves her focus back to her hanging toys.

“Well,” I say, “it’s always nice talking with you, Norah.”

And it really is.


A B-Movie Eulogy

As mentioned previously, Taltap and Elsa made the grueling 10-hour trip down from Minneapolis over the weekend. Although the trip was cut short by Elsa’s need to get back home for work earlier than expected, we had a great time. We rented horrible horror films and laughed when the director seemed to think we should scream. On this list was a beauty of a low budget zombie flick called Zombie Honeymoon. I mean…how can you go wrong? This film is a jewel of a make-your-own-movie type independent horror flick that is made far creepier by watching the Making-of documentary. Seems the writer/director’s sister suffered a horrible tragedy a few years back and he decided to make a horror film about it. The back-story goes like this:

Sister, Denise, falls in love with a wonderful man named Danny who surfs and wears loud shirts. Together they dream of moving to Portugal. Shortly after their wedding, Danny dies in a surfing related accident.

Ok, so imagine that this has happened to you or someone you love. Now imagine that writer/director David Gebroe is your brother and makes the following film:

A woman named Denise (played by a woman who looks a lot like the real Denise) marries a man named Danny (played by a guy who looks a lot like the real Danny) who surfs and wears loud shirts. While surfing on their honeymoon, Danny is attacked by a zombie. Through the course of the film Danny slowly becomes more and more zombie-like with lots of bloody, flesh consuming scenes. Denise’s love for him is so strong that she hides his murders and stands by her man to the very end.

Um…

Now, in the “Making of” documentary, the director and all the actors talk about what a wonderful tribute this film is to Danny’s life and to Denise’s strong spirit. But, I couldn’t help but notice that at no point does Denise herself show up. Maybe she found solace in the scene where a gore-drenched Danny devours her best friend on the dining room floor. Maybe she did. But I find it far more likely that such a scene would be terribly difficult for her to watch and quite frankly terribly inappropriate to make. While I’m not going to tell anyone how they should grieve, and while I know that some of the appeal of the zombie genre is its ability to make us look death in the face…I couldn’t help but be slightly weirded out by this particularly blood-soaked eulogy.

And oddly...that made it creepy enough for me to enjoy the whole twisted experience.


Death vs. Zip-Ties

Have I mentioned that Halloween is a big holiday around this house? If not…then I should mention that. I was already a big fan of the spook-fest in my pre-Moonshot years, but my wife borders on obsession. During October she only watches scary movies, reads scary books, and generally tries to keep herself in a state of perpetual fear. We have a big Halloween party each year as our one excuse to pack our house with our friends. So, our place is fairly decked out in creepy ambiance. Every year we have 10 or so jack-o-lanterns strewn about the house, the vast majority of the artwork through out the house is replaced with posters for classic horror films, a headless scarecrow rests in our sunroom rocking chair, the antique six-panel door that we splattered with blood-red paint in a “Help Me” pattern is brought up from the basement, and we set up a graveyard in front yard. We try to set-up at least one new thing each year. This year we decided the graveyard, while eerie in a quite way, needed to really reach out and grab the little trick-or-treaters. So we began dreaming of a 6-foot tall grim reaper who could loom over the tombstones.

As the holiday approached, however, and our attention was so focused on our infant that we were worried that even the Halloween party might not get fully planned, we began to seriously wonder if it was realistic to expect Death to grace our lawn this year. Luckily, Taltap and Elsa would have none of that. Being the wonderful friends they are, they turned our reaper into a group activity.

And so, on Saturday, armed with construction material no more complex than electrical conduit, duct tape, chicken wire, and plastic zip ties…we set forth to conjure the spirit of Death to hover over our plywood cemetery.

Since we never took the time to make plans…or measure…or really think about what we were doing at all, our six-foot goal was overshot. Our monstrosity stands about 8 feet over our lawn. And since our yard is a good three feet above sidewalk, our beastly reaper looms a full 11 feet over the passing children.

Some wizards of the past have attempted to bind Death with complex wards drawn in chicken blood or some such foolishness. If only they had known about the all-powerful binding force that is duck tape and zip-ties. Death didn’t stand a chance.