Life, Fannishness, and Thespic Infatuation

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
~~ Katharine Lee Bates, "America the Beautiful"

As I was going up the stairs,
I saw a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish, I wish he'd go away.

So goes the refrain in Identity, a nifty little horror/thriller that kind of flew under the radar in our household. It was released in 2003, and though I thought it sounded interesting at the time, Geo had no interest in seeing it. Then we saw the trailer on Geo's new DVD of Let the Right One In (I think) and he thought it looked really interesting and with a really good cast.

A group of strangers, connected by the most coincidental and tenuous threads, find themselves stranded together in a remote motel (definitely inspired by the Bates Motel) during a torrential downpour. One such pair of people is a cop (Ray Liotta) transporting a serial murderer (Jake Busey) to trial. When the cop and convict arrive, people start dying, and their bodies disappear. John Cusak is the level-headed hired driver (driving a prima donna actress, Rebecca DeMornay, to . . . somewhere . . .) who tries to keep everyone calm and solve the killings.

Other faces you might recognize are Clea DuVall (from Ten Inch Hero), Leila Kenzle (Fran from Mad About You), and Alfred Molina (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Maverick, and a bunch of other stuff).

All in all, if you're looking for something creepy and atmospheric, but that keeps gore and language to a minimum, and has the best use of creepy shudder-inducing poetry* I've heard in a long time, pop yourself a bowl of popcorn and curl up with Identity.

*Seriously. It's the creepiest poem I've heard in a long time. I told Geo it reminded me of a really creepy, dark version of Shel Silverstein.

The actual text by Hughes Mearns, from what I can find without going to the library, goes like this:

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away...

When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door... (slam!)

Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away

Seriously. Is that not the creepiest thing you've read in ages?

I learned a lot of Halloween songs and poetry when I was a child. Some of it was because my mom had been a grade school teacher and new a lot of songs she taught her kids. Halloween was one of our favorite holidays of the year.

~~~
Jack-o'-lantern trim you light,
Fairies come and dance tonight.
Skipping, skipping on the green.
Merry be your Halloween!

Witches ride their broomsticks tall.
Goblins out and black cats all.
Let your gayest tricks be seen.
Merry be your Halloween!
~~~


~~~
Tonight is the night
When dead leaves fly
Like witches on switches across the sky,
And jack-o'-lanterns can be seen . . .
Tonight is Halloween.
Boo!
~~~

~~~
Five little jack-o'-lanterns sitting on a gate.
The first one said, "My, it's getting late."
The second one said, "There are witches in the air."
The third one said, "I don't care!"
The fourth one said, "I'm ready for some fun!"
The fifth one said, "Let's run and run and run!"
OOOOOOOO went the wind.
OUT went the light.
And away rolled the jack-o'-lanterns into the night.
~~~

Then there were all the Peanuts pumpkin carols, set to the tunes of Christmas songs. Which had me practicing Christmas music in October, so I was all practiced up come December.

To be spoiled, or not to be spoiled. That is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous wankage,
Or to take arms against a sea of unrevealed plot points
And by opposing, be completely blindsided when they appear?
To spoil, to flail no more?
And by the spoilers to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That fannishness is heir to, 'tis a consummation
that has its pros and cons.
To spoil, to flail. To spoil, perchance, to squee. Ay, there's the rub.
For in that squee what flails may be forstalled
When we view the ep as aired,
Must give us pause . . .