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The Drunken Odyssey

~ A Podcast About the Writing Life

The Drunken Odyssey

Monthly Archives: December 2020

The Curator of Schlock #334: Suspira

11 Friday Dec 2020

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The Curator of Schlock #334 by Jeff Shuster

Suspiria

The greatest horror movie of all time? I won’t argue. 

I made one request of Jervis. While I am busy scribbling away on the My-Dinner-With-Andre-but-with-vampires script, I thought a nice, cool glass of egg nog might hit the spot. I asked that the next time Jervis stop by the grocers that he pickle me up some. What does he buy me? Horizon Organic Low Fat Egg Nog. Are you kidding me? I can’t get the real stuff. I’m going to figure out a way to deal with Wally, Celestial, and Jervis. I’m as mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!

Speaking of hell, this week’s movie is 1977’s Suspiria from director Dario Argento. Jessica Harper plays Suzy Bannion, an American ballet student who travels to Freiburg, Germany to attend a famous dance academy. Unfortunately, there are sinister happenings going on at this dance school and by sinister happenings, I mean witchcraft. Nasty, nasty witchcraft.

Suspiria is the ultimate horror movie about witchcraft.

I believe it was the last movie in Europe shot with a technicolor camera. Accompanying the gorgeous visuals is a jolting score by the Italian prog-rock band Goblin.

So I’m struggling a bit to give my thoughts on Suspiria in that it’s as close to a perfect horror movie as I’ve ever seen. More often than not, horror seems to be about regular people running into evil. Sometimes that evil comes from the natural world, but sometimes it’s preternatural. And sometimes that regular person is destroyed by that evil. When you go into a horror movie, you don’t know if the main character is going to survive.

Take Suzy Bannion for example, an ordinary American woman visiting Germany. She comes European ancestry, might even be part German, but that country is as foreign to her as any other. When she arrives at the school, she notices another student running from the academy into the stormy night. Said student is murdered in a painful and terrifying fashion by some kind of spell. These spells attack other faculty and students at the school, anyone who gets too close to figuring out secret of the academy, that members are involved in the occult.

I remember when I first watched Suspiria, I kept trying to figure out who the witch was. Was it Madame Blanc, the aging headmistress of the academy as played by Joan Bennett? How about Miss Tanner (Alida Valli), an angry woman with a thick German accent that would probably feel right at home in the Third Reich? We’ve got Pavlos, a creepy Romanian dude with false teeth, and Albert who resembles Little Lord Fauntleroy. Which one of them is the witch? They all are.

The above mentioned belong to a coven running the academy. At the head of this coven is Helena Markos, a witch know as the “Black Queen,” thought to have died in a fire many years earlier. The coven kills anyone that gets wise to them. And they have set their sites on Suzy Bannon which they refer to as a “bitch of an American girl.” Well the coven shouldn’t underestimate the American girl. Sometimes it’s the American girl that will succeed where others failed. Sometimes it’s the American girl that will whoop your ass.

In Memoriam

Daria Nicolodi

June 19, 1950 to November 26, 2020

There would be no Suspiria without Daria Nicolodi. She cowrote the screenplay, inspired by tales she’d heard about a ballet academy run by practitioners of the occult, Daria Nicolodi starred in several Italian movies, but she was a writer as well as a performer. I’ve covered movies of her on the blog before and will cover more. May she rest in peace.


Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443 and episode 444) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #100: Cool Cats

09 Wednesday Dec 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart

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Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #100 by Drew Barth

Cool Cats

The horrifying ordeal of being famous hits hardest when you’ve been doing something a hundred times. You’ve been reading this blog for a while now and there is something that has been a consistent staple of every single installment since its inception. If you guessed “worrying about my cat,” you guessed right.

So, for this hundredth edition of Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart, we’re talking about some cats.

Comics are rife with cats. From Krazy Kat to Felix to Dex-Starr to Biggs, American comics have been obsessed with these tiny bastards since their inception. But if we really want to dig into cats in the medium we’re going to be looking at some manga. Books like Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu, What’s Michael? by Makoto Kobayashi, and With a Dog and Cat, Every Day is Fun by Hidekichi Matsumoto all provide varied looks at cat life. Ito is known for his horror manga and he brings that unique style when writing about his first cats. Kobayashi’s work is from the 80s and focuses on movement and expression for its cat humor. Matsumoto had originally started her series as short comics on Twitter detailing her life with her dog and cat and their particular hijinks.


Cats are some of the most interesting subjects. All three images here contain distinct styles of cats and storytelling in their panels, but they’re all about simply living with a cat. Ito utilizes his trademark horror to render a cat both realistic and slightly disturbing, as he’s able to do with a variety of subjects. Matsumoto’s Neko is a cat that takes on the appearance of a Yakuza patriarch as it lords its power over her apartment. Michael in Kobayashi’s stories borders perfectly on the realistic and the cartoonish—she’s able to provide accurate cat anatomy, but with an exaggerated face for better realized expressions.

Why cats? Why spend all this material about a pet that runs away at the slightest show of affection? Because, despite all that, it’s nice to have these vicious little predators around. Yes, my cat can kill me in my sleep, but I can give him a hug later. That’s one of the reasons it’s so fun to look at cats in comics as well: this is an experience millions of us have, but we all have different ways of showing how our cats behave. We just don’t let Andrew Lloyd Webber do that anymore.

Get excited. Get a cat.


Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

Drew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.

The Diaries of a Sozzled Scribbler #22

05 Saturday Dec 2020

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The Diaries of a Sozzled Scribbler #22

Transcribed by DMETRI KAKMI

5 December 2020

I’m writing from Saint School. It’s located in the bush outside the township of Maldon, Victoria. The latter is a state in Australia, for those who don’t know geography, which is just about everyone in the USA, n’est-ce pas?

Calm down. No one is interested in your outrage. I’ve bigger fish to fry.

You see, I’m in trouble. Our Farter who art in heaving insisted I attend school for saints or He’d kick me out of the holy assemblage. (Yes, God is a He, not a She; that’s just a neo-feminist conspiracy to turn men into domestic servants, like Mexicans in your country).

Apparently I’ve been bad and not at all modest or pious. I must learn to be like a normal person, He said. Come down to your level so that I may know what it’s like for mortals.

I tell you what, though, if ‘normal’ constitutes what I see in the streets of the towns hereabouts, we are in trouble. Bunch of apes, shuffling around as if someone sucked out their brains with a straw. Imagine a world covered by these imbeciles.

But what would God know, sitting up there on cloud nine, stroking his beard, listening to naked cherubs play harp music. Isn’t there a law against that? Hmm, might report him to the authorities. That’ll teach him for being high all mighty.

Wait a sec, I’ll send an anonymous tip-off.

Okay, I’m back. Where was I?

Oh, yes, Saint School. It’s sort of like Hogwarts for sadomasochists.

I’ve just arrived and so far so good. Got a nice cell with all the mod-cons, and Onan, son of Judah, is here to give us a massage with a happy ending.

The thing that surprises me is this. All the wanna-be saints are… How can I put it delicately? Shall we say of a very low standard. I mean the Vatican is really scraping the bottom of the barrel with this lot.

Madonna is here (the has-been singer, not Jesus’s mum or mom, as you Americanos say), and Angelina Jolie, and Princess Diana.

I’m glad you noticed. I’m the only man. When I complained to John the Baptist about the sexism he said not to worry. Jeffrey Epstein is on the way and he’s studying to become the protector saint of nubile young girls. So Jeff is obviously chucking in a few amends with his amens.

I should add that I knew John the Baptist when he still went under his original Jewish name, Yohanan. The Greeks changed it to Iωάννης. And Muslims went one better and changed it to Yahyah. Who calls a prophet Yahyah? It means ‘grandmother’ in Greek. No wonder poor John lost his head to that spoiled Valley girl Salome. But the thing I want to tell you about John is that he is actually a bit of stud muffin, if you like ‘em rough and hairy, but by Christ he smells like a fucking camel.

Anyway, these are the classes we have to take to become a proper saint:

  1. Modesty 101
  2. Exemplary life
  3. Miracle worker
  4. How to die a horrifically violent death and…
  5. Learning to walk around as if nothing happened even though your head is on a platter and there’s enough arrows stuck in your chest to make you look like a pin cushion.

Easy peasy.

Oops, Madonna’s fainted and Angelina has an urgent cat fight photo shoot with Jennifer Aniston for New Idea magazine. Bye, girls.

As for Diana, well, she can’t wait to get started. She loves being a martyr. This time, she said, she wants her head lobbed off and tossed to the adoring crowds. The girl is addicted to fame and martyrdom, I tell you, like those plastic surgery freaks.

My personal tutor at the school for saints is none other than the delightful Saint Lucy, or Lucia of Syracuse, who was martyred in the year 304. She’s a fun gal. I love hanging out with her. Carries her eyes around on a platter, which is a bit weird, but she doesn’t let that get in the way of a good time.

The first night Lucy raps on my cell door, as usual carrying her eyes in a gold plate.

‘Wanna go to to the pub and pick up men?’ she whispers.

You have to give it to Luce. Her eyes were poked out by a Roman back in the day, but she doesn’t hold that against the rough sex. Not the way some women do. Give ‘em the eye and they freak out. Not only that but they go on and on about how all men are rapists. Not Lucy. She still likes cock.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘But I’m a bit scared. God is probably watching and I don’t want to get into trouble. I’m in the bad books as it is.’

‘Not to worry,’ she says, her eyes ogling the clouds from the gold plate. ‘He’s not watching. We’ll be back before he knows it.’

No sooner do we step out of the front gate when a booming voice says, ‘And where do you think you’re going?’

Lucy and I get such a fright, we both scream and jump up in the air. Her eyes roll out of the plate, fall on the ground, and I accidentally step on them.

Squish go the delicate orbs under my Christian Louboutins.

‘Looks what you did,’ Lucy wails.

‘Oops, sorry.’

She bursts into tears, water gushing in a most disconcerting manner out the holes in her face.

And God pronounceth: ‘Because you have listened to this wench and have skulked out of the holiest of holies which I commanded you not to, cursed is the ground because of you. In pain ye shall live the rest of your days, looking after this blind sinner, thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the fields…’

‘Get on with it, will you. I haven’t got all night,’ I say, checking my Cartier watch.

‘By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread…’

‘But I’m celiac,’ Lucy cries.

‘…till you return to the ground, for you are dust and to dust ye shall return.’

‘And I’m allergic to dust mites,’ I add.

‘Oh, piss off both of you,’ God shouts. ‘Before I smite thee. And don’t let me see you here again.’

So here I am, dear reader, kicked out of saint school and back to being a mere mortal, though of a higher standard than you.

‘Want to go up to the Rock of Ages and score some Molly?’ says Luce. ‘That’ll cheer us up.’

‘Who am I to say no to that?’ I reply.

À bientôt, mes amies.


The Sozzled Scribbler was born in the shadow of the Erechtheion in Athens, Greece, to an Egyptian street walker and a Greek bear wrestler. He is currently stateless and lives on gin and cigarettes.

Dmetri Kakmi is the author of Mother Land (shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia), and the editor of When We Were Young. His latest book is The Door and Other Uncanny Tales. He does not endorse the Sozzled Scribbler’s views.

Episode 449: A Very German Christmas Discussion (with Vanessa Blakeslee)!

05 Saturday Dec 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Blog Post, Christmas, Christmas literature, Episode, Poetry

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Episode 449 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

In this week’s episode, I talk with Vanessa Blakeslee about the excellent new anthology, A Very German Christmas, from New Vessel Press.

TEXT DISCUSSED

NOTESScribophile

  • TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.
  • Register with Miami Book Fair Online in order to stream its free events, including a debut poet panel moderated by yours truly.

  • Check out my literary adventure novel, Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame.

Episode 449 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #99: Another History

02 Wednesday Dec 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart

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Black Lightning, John Ridley, The Other History of DC Comics

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #99 by Drew Barth

Another History

DC is one of comics’ oldest publishers, but much of its history is overlooked. DC’s focus occasionally shifts to its Golden and Silver ages, or into periods of the 1980s. Created by John Ridley, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Andrea Cucchui, José Villarrubia, and Steve Wands, The Other History of the DC Universe addresses this gap.

The first book of The Other History of the DC Universe centers on the life of Jefferson Pierce, better known as Black Lightning. This is a snippet of his life story—from his father’s murder, to his gold medal-winning performance at the Olympics in Munich, to the slow bubbling rage that gave him powers, and to his life slowly dissolving as a result. This is the story of a man who happens to be a superhero and every triumph and failure that entails. Ridley’s script gives us almost straight prose and spells out every struggle Pierce lives through—it is equal measure tragic and illuminating as at no point in the past have we ever been given such an insight to this character in so few pages.

This is the most important comic DC has put out this century. Ridley, Camuncoli, Cucchi, Villarrubia, and Wands completely re-contextualize the age of the superhero in the 70s and 80s. When Jefferson Pierce becomes Black Lightning in Suicide Slum, why is he called a vigilante when Batman is a hero? Why doesn’t Superman help out this part of Metropolis? How many black children have to die before the heroes do something? The story systematically tears down the idea of 70s and 80s comic heroism—even showcasing a “Let’s Make America Great Again” Reagan campaign button with the iconic splat of blood from Watchmen. More than anything, this series wants to show readers the reality they never knew was there.

The Other History of the DC Universe is the crowning achievement of DC’s Black Label imprint. This isn’t the gratuitous violence or sexual content that became a staple for the imprint—this is a comic that speaks truth to superpowers and doesn’t allow us to look away. It’s a comic I didn’t know I had been waiting for as it uses the uniqueness of superhero comics to tell a story that monthly comics don’t touch on enough: blackness in America, and what that entails.

Get excited. Get this issue.


Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

Drew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.

 

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