Finally a Finale

Seven years ago today, Typing Monkey International launched a subsidiary publishing effort known as Typing Monkey Industries. Thus The Typing Monkey began with a music review and all was right with the world.

In the years that followed, we went through four interns, coped with the death of two animals dearly loved by all at TMI, and this blog gradually degraded from critical voice on corners of the pop culture world both bright and dark, to a YouTube video re-posting machine.

The time has come for The Typing Monkey to turn off the lights (except for the one above the stove), draw the shades and cancel our subscription to Highlights.

As far as we know, former publisher and editor-at-large, S.L. Kreighton has taken a job as a docent in the Chasing Rainbows museum. He didn't even say good-bye. [Curiously, the petty cash box is missing. -- ed.]

Custodian and sometime-contributor, Kris Kendall, has volunteered to auction off the furniture. And should he decide to post anything here, reader, you'll be the only one who cares.

All inquiries may be directed to typingmonkeyATlive.com. Thanks for reading. You've been great. G'night!

Skatin' Death

The Grim Reaper don't even look twice at your "No Skateboarding" sign.

[A note: If you're not following Weird Tales on Facebook, you're missing out on tons of fun artwork, photos and writing. We swiped this image from their feed. Whenever possible, if we re-post their selections, we give credit to WT, and more importantly, the artist.]

Diana, Huntress of Bus Drivers

Ciudad Juarez in Mexico City may have a costumed vigilante, and she means business. The story, if it's true -- and this news report give it a squinty eye -- concerns direct and violent retribution against bus drivers in the city.

What did transit workers do to bring down the hammer of old-world justice on themselves? For years, it's believed that some drivers have been raping and killing female passengers, leaving their bodies in the desert.

But someone calling herself Diana, Huntress of Bus Drivers, alleges she's responsible for the recent shooting deaths of two drivers in the area. Each driver got two shots to the head, and police are investigating.

Read the story and cross your fingers that Diana has her targets straight. Her press release is chilling and righteous. And as has been pointed out elsewhere, if the police there put as much effort into stopping the rapes and murders of women as they are in attempting to find Diana, there'd be no need for Diana.

[Hat tip to The Stranger for the lead.]

Goodbye Aubra, Goodbye Eleanor

Stage and film actress Julie Harris died on Aug 24. She was 87. Harris was the kind of actor who just does the damn work, and as a result, turned in many great performances.

She wasn't a movie star, but one peep at her IMDB resume shows how much she worked during a six-decade career. That's right: six decades.

Chances are you've seen her in something and maybe didn't know who she was. Two excellent places to start watching Harris and paying attention to how quietly she slides into roles and really soars with the material are two of her most well-known:

East of Eden - James Dean's screen debut and the little mumbler couldn't have asked for a better female lead. Harris plays Aubra, a thoughtful farm girl who can't decide if she loves Dean's tortured youth or his brother, played by Richard Davalos, who is dad's favorite. The film isn't about Aubra, it's about the brothers. But Harris delivers as an almost mythical love interest, too kind and too in love to hurt either boy, which only complicates the familial battle.

The Haunting - Hands down, this movie is one of the best horror films ever made, anywhere, and every single member of The Typing Monkey staff will fight any jerk in the bar who says otherwise. And what's key to this terrifying, theatrical masterpiece? Julie Harris. She doubts everything, mostly herself. She's wound up and may be psychic, and holy balls, the walls just took a breath.

Like we said, these two are probably her most famous film roles, and there's a reason for that. She takes good material and elevates it with her performance, making them better, greater. If you've not seen them, they're easy to come by and seeing them will make you more interesting at parties.

Thank you Ms. Harris.

The Sasquatch Phonetic Alphabet

Last week, you may have heard about the Greek-tragedy level death of two women, friends who got lost hiking in Roque Bluffs State Park in Maine. They were rescued, and got back into the minivan belonging to one of the two women, and promptly drove off a boat launch, into Englishman's Bay.

It was a foggy, rainy night, and they were probably quite shaken by the previous event. The story fascinates -- was death simply there to collect them, no matter what? The strange, sad details are reported in the Portland Press Herald.

We didn't come here to talk about that, but had to mention it on the off chance you missed it. For some reason, the story really sticks with us.

***

In far lighter news, linguist and writer Karen Stollznow wrote a piece for Scientific American's blog, about the language of the Sasquatch. That's right: The alleged language spoken by the crypto-zoological simian said to roam the remote mountain forests of North America.

Stollznow, being a scientist, demands extraordinary proof for the extraordinary claim. It's a gentle beat down, if such a thing can be, but still a surgically precise beat down.

The article led us to the vast sea of YouTube clips that contain portions, or the entirety, of the "Sierra Sounds recordings." Which, you may have guessed, are field recordings of the Sasquatch language in use, by a Sasquatch.

Read Stollznow's baloney-detecting exercise, 'cause it's fun. Fall down a well of Bigfoot videos on  YouTube at your own peril.

Your Dead Are Safe Until Winter

The corpse-eating fly, thought to be extinct, and possibly apocryphal, is alive ... and hungry.

Thank You Ray Harryhausen

Stop-motion animation and visual effects master Ray Harryhausen has died.

For a certain kind of kid, the mere mention of Harryhausen stirs up many happy memories of watching his films on TV, or in the theater if you were lucky enough, and being fully transported to worlds where the beasts of Greek, Arab and Hindu mythology were very real and frequently out to kill the hero.

The AV Club's obit contains the fun "Creature List" video from Youtube, with a montage of nearly every beast that came to life at Ray Harryhausen's hands -- including his wonderful dinosaurs that are clearly the foundation of Jurassic Park.

Coming Soon's obit contains this wonderful quotation from Phil Tippet, the man who is as close to inheriting the Harryhausen throne as any: "You know I'm always saying to the guys that I work with now on computer graphics -- do it like Ray Harryhausen"

The Typing Monkey spent many afternoons running loose in the suburban wilds, recreating scenes from the Sinbad movies, and especially Ray Harryhausen's master work, Jason and the Argonauts.


[courtesy of jasonargomov]

The Mothership Is Getting Crowded

Cordell "Boogie" Mosson died on April 18, 2013. News of the P-Funk bassist's death didn't circulate as fast as it might have, given that he died during a week where the news was concerned with bigger stories.

That does not diminish his passing. Mosson played bass for the legendary funk collective, taking over the low end when Bootsy Collins left to pursue a solo career. But Mosson was, by all accounts, equally adept at drums and rhythm guitar.

One sad day, the Mothership will be operating with a full crew again, in some other galaxy, and our loss will be that other world's gain.

Aloha, Pineapple Princess

Actor/singer Annette Funicello died today. Her twilight years were complicated by multiple sclerosis, but she will be remembered as the Mouseketeer who vaulted to teen flicks for Disney and a handful of squeaky-clean/covertly salacious "beach movies" for American Pictures International during the mid-1960s.

Her beach movie co-star was usually Frankie Avalon, but later another Disney grad, Tommy Kirk joined her. It was with Tommy Kirk that Funicello starred in The Monkey's Uncle, a live-action Disney caper released in 1965.

In the opening credits for Monkey, she's billed simply as "Annette" because she was just that famous at the time, ya dig? But crazier still is the theme song, recorded and performed during the credit sequence, by Annette and The Beach Boys:


[Thanks to j peoplemover for the Youtube upload.]


Good-bye, Ms. Funicello.

Three Words: Black Death Pit

Just in case the news item didn't make it across your desk -- and really, if you're coming to The Typing Monkey for news, we're sorry -- an excavation crew working on a Crossrail project in Londond, unearthed a mass grave believed to date back to the early days of the Black Death plauge.

The BBC has all the details. It's another incredible find in an area that's seen a fair amount of archaelogical surprises in recent years. Read about it at the BBC site. Then register your Bandcamp, Facebook and domain name "Black Death Pit" right now and get started on that doom-metal band you've been fantasizing about starting.

No. 1 Rule of a Hoax: Don't Die

A 44-year-old man from Kalispell, Montana died on August 27 when he was struck by two cars, allegedly while attempting to perpetrate a hoax. The man was wearing a ghillie suit, possibly to incite reports of Bigfoot sightings. Instead, he walked onto Highway 93, was hit by one car, and run over by another.

We like cryptozoology stories, hoax stories, and Fortean tales of the unexplained as much as the next little-read vanity blog, but you're not supposed to die while executing a hoax. The story reads as unfortunate, to say the least. And two teen drivers now have to live with this man's death hanging over them.

And anyone who buys one of these signs now is going to feel like a big, fat jerk:

From the Fortean News Desk: In the Dead of Night

Sometime before midnight on Dec 31, 2010, thousands of dead blackbirds fell from the sky above Beebe, Arkansas. As of Jan 3, 2011 workers were still collecting bodies to send for testing. Though preliminary tests show no signs of poisoning, and it appears the birds suffered some sort of physical trauma, it's easy to let the mind wander into conspiracy territory.

Especially because early in the week, some 125 miles north of the site of the blackbird deaths, thousands of dead drum fish washed ashore for a 20-mile stretch along the banks of the Arkansas River. Surely Charles Fort would have loved these news stories.

These people probably have a theory too.

Death and the Mouse -- Finale & Epilogue

Yes, we're late in sharing the nearly cliched conclusion of the ongoing saga of the first murder and first suicide in Celebration, FL.

On Dec 6, police arrested a homeless man and charged him with first-degree murder. The suspect knew the victim. In the realm of criminology, the mechanics of this crime are mundane.

More compelling about the sudden pall cast over this Disney-built town designed to emulate an Eisenhower-era idyll is the likely cause: money.

Death and the Mouse -- Part II

Yesterday The Typing Monkey joined the crowd of horrified/mesmerized/guiltily titillated onlookers and shared the story of the very first homicide in Celebration, FL.

Today brings more fascinating Lynchian news from the no longer quiet village.

We could blurt out some collegiate nonsense and dig into the sociological, philosophical and cultural implications of these stories. But TMI is confident that our readers can and will do that on their own. So stop reading this and go talk to somebody about murder and suicide in the town that Disney built, as it's very much worth conversation.

But keep it civilized please. Two people are dead, afterall.

Death and the Mouse

In Florida is a town called Celebration. Disney built the planned community in the late 1990s. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, somebody murdered on of the residents of Celebration. It's the first murder in a town designed to shelter its residents from the harsh realities of the outside world.

That's all there is to say about that, though you should read this if you'd like to know what little else there is to know. Speculate, because you know we are.

Christmas is Canceled

If you click on this, after Oct 31, 2009 it won't work. Good bye, Encarta. The Typing Monkey will miss you.

Negative Creeps

Harris Smith is "a writer and media producer living in New York City." He posts select covers and panels from comic books, novels and magazines (movie reviews too) on his blog, Negative Pleasure.

Not content with words and pictures, Smith hosts Negative Pleasure 2, a tumblr image blog with even more pics, links, and none of that pesky text that gets in the way.

His Oct. 12 posts on Tumblr focus on occult/satanic images from various films. Bonus points if you recognize the movies from which he harvested. Our new intern, Marie, declared that she felt she should go to church after looking at those pics. Which means Mr. Smith's blog is a rousing success.

Prior October posts are a bounty of horror comic shots to tease, torment and delight your eyeballs. Visit both his blogs and destroy the remainder of your afternoon.

The Monkey Reads: On Death

The Year of Magical Thinking
By Joan Didion
(Vintage)
Leave it to Didion's short, sharp new-journalism-defining style to examine the grieving process with both a microscope and telescope. As with her other non-fiction writing, Didion inserts herself into the equation carefully and well, a feat often imitated but rarely duplicated or perfected by generations of others who've attempted reporter-as-the-story writing.

Discussing her life and her emotions is essential for a book about the death of her husband of 40 years, John Gregory Dunne. But her research and explanations of the cause of death, and how hospitals and other medical staff in the United States deal with death, pulls back just far enough to let the writing function as an examination of our attitudes toward death all while reminding the reader of the very real event that triggered Didion's words.

Identified early on by hospital staff as a "cool customer" because she didn't instantly sob and rend her clothing at the news of her husband's death, Didion immediately -- perhaps uncontrollably -- goes into reporter mode and learns what being a "cool customer" means, even as the layers of her grief peel away. With each layer comes a new discovery about mourning, what we allow ourselves to do and show when everyone around us knows of our personal tragedy.

For all the sadness (her daughter Quintana is fatally ill throughout the course of the book) Didion squeezes some humor out of the story. An attempt to take up crossword puzzles reveals how distracted she is. Later when she reports to a friend that she and her daughter split a Big Mac during a cross-country flight with two medics, Didion's daughter is conscious enough to correct her. It was a Quarter Pounder they ate.

Magical Thinking paints a tender picture of lasting love. For the reader it's a brave exposure of what goes on in the mind of a person who is just beginning to discover and navigate the empty spaces in a life no longer shared.

Reference material: Mary Roach's Stiff is a fascinating book about what happens to cadavers before and after the funeral -- a good read for the clinically minded. But William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience is a better companion to The Year of Magical Thinking. Both touch on the universal and the personal for events that are assured for all of us, and always intertwined.

Blue Wednesday?

April may be the cruelest month, but Wednesday is a killer. According to a five-year study of deaths in the United States, nearly a quarter of all suicides happen on Wednesdays. Read an MSNBC article here or dig into the study itself, from the journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology.

Holding in the Spirit World

The Typing Monkey likes to pretend that there are no other media outlets, but the guys in typesetting brought an article to our attention that merits mention. (That they stopped giggling long enough to put together a complete sentence surprised us all.)

The mummified remains of a 2,700-year-old corpse were uncovered in China's Gobi desert recently. Buried along with the man was a musical instrument, a bow and arrow, some other odds and ends and a big bag of marijuana. Not hemp for rope and clothing, but good old fashioned pot -- the female buds of the plant that some folks smoke or bake into brownies for the purpose of getting high.

Now, burying your dead with items they prized while living is not unusual. And sending loved ones into the great beyond with tools they might need in the afterlife is not unheard of either. The Egyptians put wine and other gifts into tombs so that the deceased could gain entry into the next world.

What's worth noting in the article is that the scientists who examined the Gobi mummy's personal effects are puzzled by the absence of a pipe or other smoking device. Academically, they not only wonder if the cannabis was for "spiritual or medicinal" purposes, but how this man and his people enjoyed the benefits of their marijuana since it's not clear how he was supposed to torch up in the great beyond.

The Typing Monkey offers an alternate theory. Let's cast aside the idea that his rolling papers disintegrated, or that a clay or wood pipe that was interred with him decayed over the centuries. This gentlemen's stash is an offering for the inhabitants of the next world.

If you're bringing wine to Zeus and his fellow gods and goddesses, you don't bring some crummy bronze goblet you bought at the open-air market. They live on Mount Olympus -- they have quality drinking vessels. Just bring your best wine and let them serve it up. Likewise, you don't bring a stein for Odin. You bring some quality mead and hope he welcomes you and your gift.

Whoever this fellow in the Gobi believed he was going to meet once he crossed over into the great beyond, he did the right thing by brining the best his people had to offer and counted on his ancient Chinese deities to have a proper smoke-delivery system. The gods gave him the cannabis, surely they know how to indulge.

Here's the article.