The joy of thunder

As a transplant from Illinois to upstate New York, I can say this: The Northeast may have better scenery (by a long shot), but the Midwest does better thunderstorms. Something about the mountains dissipates storms, it seems, in a way that the plains don't. That said, the weather gods are making quite a show of it now: blanket of gray above, soaking deluge down here, the proper sound-and-light show where appropriate. All of it just what I needed this afternoon.

I wanted to write about thunderstorms, about how they tap into something primal for me, about how an approaching storm sends me into full-blown Mythic Quest mode, stalking the streets for...well, Something, and sending me to the bookshelves for all my John Crowley and Robert Holdstock and to the stereo to crank up side two of Hounds of Love or any of the other items I usually save for Autumn. But I fail at words on this; it's the sort of thing where I feel like an idiot for even trying to explain, made worse when I start waving my hands and babbling, groping for language that just isn't there. I'm sure a lot of you know what I'm talking about here, but...I...gahh. It's simply One of Those Things, y'know?

So we'll just take it as read that there's rain, and thunder and lightning, and all is well. For the next few minutes, all is well.

Sombody in Hollywood's a-gonna get a dope-slappin' if I have my way

This morning, I finally watched the entirety of the 1943 Jacques Tourneur classic I Walked With a Zombie. If you haven't seen it, by all means do. It's horror almost by accident, a sort of The Serpent and the Rainbow crossed with Jane Eyre, all shadow and atmosphere and innuendo, with some of the most amazing black-and-white cinematography you'll ever see (you'll need to pinch yourself to remember that it's technically a B movie). Tourneur was a true master of his art—he did the original Cat People, too—and here he created nothing less than dark and sumptuous poetry. Simply gorgeous.

Which is why I need to dope-slap somebody: in heading over to the film's IMDb page, I accidentally discovered that they're developing a remake, due out next year. Which means, of course, that they're going to put in all the gore and unpleasantness that Tourneur didn't need and wouldn't have used, even if he could. *sigh* Y'know, at this point, Hollywood just needs to be taken out back and severely horse-whipped. (And NO, Hollywood, you canNOT film the horse-whipping and cast a Hilton sister in it.)