The UFO Incident

The UFO Incident

YouTube viewing

I first became aware of UFO sightings sometime in the mid-80s, and like many people, I dreamed of it happening to me one day. I still believe life of some form other than humanity is out there somewhere, but I suspect the odds of us finding it in our lifetimes is slim at best.

That doesn’t stop people from trying, of course. This 2018 New York article goes deep in re-examining UFO mythology in the age of DT and his proposed “space force.” 

If aliens exist, though, why would they abduct and experiment on humans? Do they see us as an inferior form of life? Possible—but I have a hard time imagining the popular image of little, skinny grey men with large, almond-shaped eyes and big heads (and no clothes) as genetically superior.

And at what point did this become the default image for “extraterrestrial,” anyway? (The emoji for “alien” on my iPhone is a simplified version of this.) It’s as if the same species were observing us for over half a century, and if that were so, at what point would they decide we actually are intelligent and talk to us? Or are they not as advanced as we thought? Could anal probes be their species’ equivalent of cow tipping? 

Regardless, the notion that aliens have nothing better to do than pick apart our insides persists—and one of the first widely-reported abduction stories was turned into an unusual and unsettling TV movie.

New year’s links

This Chaplin GIF is submitted in an attempt
to lighten all our spirits.

It’s not too late to reboot 2020 so we can start over, is it?

The holiday season, at least, was a good one. Virginia took me to a Cirque du Soleil show at Madison Square Garden, and in turn, I took her to a performance of Messiah at Carnegie Hall. These were our Christmas gifts to each other. It was the first time I had seen either one. On Christmas night we had dinner with friends—I made a salad—and on New Year’s Eve she and Sandi were once again part of the annual free choral recital in midtown Manhattan. Ann was part of it too, for the first time. It was kinda funny how many people I knew in the chorus this year. Our after-party was a tad smaller than last year, but that was okay.

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Last month was a sad one for Trekkies. On the heels of the death of popular Deep Space Nine supporting player Aron Eisenberg, we lost more stars, from both sides of the camera. I’ve talked about DC Fontana here before; not too much more to add. As a woman writer, she was an inspiration to many who came after her, whether they were professionals in the industry or fans writing for SF zines. As for Rene Auberjonois, I remember feeling good about him joining the cast of DS9 because of his TV and film work elsewhere, and his was a tremendous contribution. His interpretation of Odo was as a multi-faceted character, loaded with contradictions, yet with a human touch underneath his brusque exterior. His relationships with Kira and Quark were fascinating to watch unfold and they brought so much depth to the overall story. Great artists who gave us much to be thankful for as fans.

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On a somewhat happier Trek-related note: I had made peace with the belief I would never get to see Star Trek: Discovery, but Ann acquired CBS All Access last month and she was kind enough to invite me to her house so we could binge-watch it. No, I did not expect to do that quite so soon after my little experiment, but life, y’know?

We watched the first twelve or so episodes of Season 1, over two nights. I won’t go into specific details here, but while some things were impressive—Michael Burnham is a unique character in Trek lore, with her own set of morals, and I like the premise of a disgraced Starfleet officer seeking redemption—there was a lot more I didn’t care for. The technology which clearly is superior to that of Kirk’s era; the profanity, which wasn’t Scorsese-level but served no purpose I could tell; the gee-whiz shots of outside the Discovery and then zooming inside; the stronger-than-usual emphasis on action; the unnecessary redesign of the Klingons; the de-emphasis on Starfleet values; the generic American crew; the lack of humor, THE CONSTANT GODDAMN CUTS.

If you wanna get into specifics, let’s talk in the comments. For now, I’ll just say: I understand this is set during a time of war, but even during the Dominion War, DS9 placed a greater emphasis on character and plots tailored around each character than what I’ve seen from Discovery so far. That may change, but I’m not convinced yet. Here’s hoping Picard will be better.

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Let’s go straight to the links:

Le uses All Quiet on the Western Front to address violence in war movies.

Jacqueline on Lionel Barrymore and Christmas.

Cats is gonna lose a ton of money.

Sam Mendes on how his grandfather inspired 1917.

The animation studio behind the Lion King remake shut down.

Could Adam Sandler win an Oscar? If he doesn’t, he’ll unleash a bomb of a movie on us.

Former DS9 star Nana Visitor on Rene Auberjonois.

CBS All Access is expanding Star Trek in many directions.

This post sums up my feelings about the whole CGI James Dean thing.

The struggle to preserve film backdrops.

Spotlight on former NBA star Kevin Garnett in Uncut Gems.

And then there was that time the US government thought Wakanda was a real country.

Books: The Disaster Artist

For years, John and Sue have been after me to read The Disaster Artist, the behind-the-scenes account of the making of the cult movie The Room, written by co-star Greg Sestero (with Tom Bissell), and I kept saying yeah, yeah, I’ll get to it. I wasn’t in much of a hurry to read it because I wasn’t as huge a fan of the movie as they were.

When James Franco’s film adaptation came out in 2017, I felt I had understood everything there was to understand about the notoriously awful film that had won over audiences worldwide despite its mediocrity. As interesting and funny as this story was, Disaster the movie didn’t change my assessment of The Room much.

Then, when I visited John and Sue last month (they had moved upstate a few years ago), they lent me their copy of the book—and even though I was reading two other books at the same time, I started this one too. This time I couldn’t wait.

First of all, it’s an excellent account of what it’s like to pursue an acting career in Hollywood. Sestero describes the grind of going on auditions, living in both hope and fear that this next one will be the one, making compromises in his life, in pursuit of his dream. He had taken baby steps towards progress prior to The Room, but despite his youth, his good looks and his representation, he had made precious little headway overall. The Room had initially seemed like a stride forward.

Greg Sestero

It’s also a good example of all the little things that go into the production of a movie and what can go wrong when a director and his cast and crew aren’t on the same page creatively. I’ve always felt the “auteur theory” was overrated, but The Room is a legitimate example of how a film can be one creator’s vision—but at the expense of everyone else involved.

Mostly, though Disaster the book is Sestero doing his best to explain his complicated relationship with The Room’s auteur filmmaker, the enigmatic, possibly deranged, but ultimately heroic writer-producer-director-star, Tommy Wiseau. Yes, I say heroic, because in spite of everything, he winds up looking better in this book than he deserves to—and that’s saying something.

Sestero paints Tommy as a ruthless, dictatorial martinet on the Room set who insisted on doing everything his way, even when it flew in the face of reason. He alienated the cast and crew, antagonized everyone who dared question his vision, and tested the limits of Sestero’s patience—yet from the moment Sestero met him, he saw something in Tommy no one else did: someone supportive,  dedicated to his craft, and optimistic to a fault. To a young and inexperienced kid out of San Francisco doing his best to break into the industry, doubting his ability and desperate for a break, Tommy was, in his own weird way, inspiring—and Sestero captures that in the book.

Sestero, right, with Tommy in The Room

The book even provides a possible secret origin for Tommy, though Sestero makes plain it’s only one of a number of stories Tommy has told about himself, kinda like the Joker in The Dark Knight. Is the story real? It sounds plausible, but who knows? I remain unconvinced this isn’t all a put-on the two of them have staged. Tommy seems too improbable to be for real: that accent, his total ineptitude in learning a role, his eagerness to throw money away while making The Room—he sounds like a Saturday Night Live sketch character!

Then again, maybe he is real. Could Sestero be that good a writer, not to mention an actor, to collaborate with Tommy in perpetrating such a hoax? He’d have to be the greatest one alive if so. Sometimes, as the cliche goes, truth is stranger than fiction, and this might be one of those times. The Disaster Artist is funny, sad, banal, frustrating and in the end, inspiring. Tommy got his movie made and Sestero helped. That’s the bottom line—and good or bad, that puts them ahead of a lot of other folks.

Bohemian links

Big news! Some of you are familiar with The Dark Pages, the newsletter (as in actual paper, not an e-newsletter) of the film noir website All That Noir. The December issue is a year-end, oversized special, and guess who got an invitation to contribute a guest article?

The theme for this special issue is "great couples of noir," and after watching so many of his noir films back in 2015, I decided to take on director Anthony Mann, along with his DP, John Alton. The issue will come out December 20. It's sure to make a nice last-minute Christmas gift for the noir fan on your list.

My thanks to Kristina from Speakeasy and TDP editor Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for the opportunity.

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By the time you read this, the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody should be playing in theaters everywhere. If you like Queen and the movie, I'd like to give a plug here for a graphic novel by my friend Mike Dawson called Freddie and Me.

It's a memoir about when Mike grew up a Queen fan, in England and America. He's a very good artist, and he infuses this story with a lot of love for Freddie Mercury and 80s pop music in general. Check it out; you won't regret it.

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The novel rewrite is close to done, and once it is, I'll have to edit it, which means checking for grammar and spelling, not to mention any other minute changes I may want to make (and I will want). In the new year I'll go shopping for an agent and we'll see what happens.

I've decided not to self-publish after all. After giving it some thought, I don't think I have the resources or wherewithal to commit to that route at this time. Maybe I'd do it in the future.

With all due respect to people like Jacqueline, from what I can tell, it's not like self-publishing comics, where it really is as easy as folding and stapling some Xeroxed photocopies and selling them at your local con, or better yet, scanning those pages and posting them online. It costs more, for one thing. And the truth is, I really do wanna see my book in a bookstore. Queens has seen the birth of two new independent bookstores within the past year. (Yes, it's possible to get your self-published book in a bookstore, but my understanding is it's rare.)

I have a couple of ideas for what to write next; it's just a matter of deciding on them.

Links after the jump.

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Sundance Channel viewing

The first witch I ever met wasn't what I expected. Let's call her Barbara. She was in my Playwriting class during my junior year of college. I didn't know about her occult proclivities at first. She was short, with long, scraggly hair and big round glasses. I don't recall what drew me to her. She was not a great beauty, as much as it bothers me to say because I adore her regardless, and she tended to keep to herself for the most part. Maybe it was something about her writing. The point is, though, we became friends.

One day she invited me over to the room she rented out at the Y across town. I always called it the shoebox on account of it was so tiny. That's when she let me in on her little secret, though as far as witchcraft in general goes, she was no Elizabeth Montgomery. She had a few boxes full of rocks and crystals, some books on the history of arcanum and occult lore, and a few "spells" she picked up from her mother that were more of the old-wives-tale variety. Barb was basically a New Ager who dabbled in what she called witchcraft for fun.

Thing is, though, I still found it unsettling at first. Like many people, I grew up believing all the things people say about the occult and its adherents, and while I didn't seriously believe that Barb was Evil and was gonna go to hell - I didn't really believe in heaven or hell anymore by this point in my life - I still had a hard time shaking my conditioning. It's not even like she was a hardcore pagan or anything - I've known people like that, too. Barb was simply a quiet geek girl from a small town who enjoyed the trappings of Wiccan culture. And anime.

I visited Barb at her childhood home on several occasions, where she lived with her parents. They were no Gomez and Morticia Addams; quite the opposite, in fact. More like Ma and Pa Kettle! They were as sweet and wholesome and down-to-earth as you can imagine, and they certainly weren't Satan-loving leaders of any secret coven bent on humanity's subjugation. They would've laughed at the thought.

I still had my instinctive fears, however. Through conversations with Barb and her mom, they set my mind at ease about their dabblings in the occult and convinced me it was harmless, at least as far as they were concerned. Eventually, I was able to relax around Barb and enjoy her company much more.

Over time, though, we fell out of touch. She never came back to New York as far as I knew; indeed, I think she preferred small town life - and I can't imagine her on social media. She never seemed the type for that sort of thing, though I could be wrong. I still think about her now and then, though...

...like when I watch movies such as Rosemary's Baby. The remarkable thing about this story is how mundane the supernatural elements tend to be presented, at least within the real world. (Rosemary's dream world is another matter.) The film is almost totally unreliant on special effects, and even the atmosphere seems remarkably ordinary on the surface. Perhaps the original novel was written with that in mind; I don't know. (And don't ask me about the recent television remake with Zoe Saldana; I didn't see it.)

I imagine this movie probably drove people bananas when it first came out, but today, it kinda comes across as a little campy - but in an endearing way: from Mia Farrow's la-la-la theme song in the beginning to Ruth Gordon's over-the-top performance to the general look and feel of the iconic Dakota Building in which it was shot, all the way up to the "Hail Satans" at the end. There's something a little kooky about the whole thing that seems more obvious now, but then, this movie is a William Castle production, so maybe that's not too surprising!

The Changeling (1980)

The Changeling (1980)
YouTube viewing

The Changeling is one of those movies that would have a hard time getting made today, at least by a major studio. The cast is full of old people, the scary scenes in the movie rely far less on "jump-scares" than most, there's no real hook to hang this film on, like the "found footage" format, for instance, and it's far too quiet!

It just so happens that it's not an American movie at all, but a Canadian one, and it cleaned up big time at the Canadian equivalent of the Oscars, the Genies, winning eight awards including Best Motion Picture. Not that I knew any of this the first time I saw it, back at the ol' video store job a lifetime ago. This always made for a good early afternoon video, before the school kids came into the store and before the calls for pick-ups starting piling up.

George C. Scott stars in this one, and if you go into this expecting General Ripper, be prepared for a shock: he gives a very subdued performance as a music professor and a widower, who moves into an old house with a ghost inside. His investigation into who it is and what it wants leads him to an old and unsolved mystery.

One of the things about this movie that fascinated me occurs during the seance scene, when a medium tries to contact the ghost using a concept known as "automatic writing," which is writing without using the conscious mind, as if the hand writes whatever it writes without the will of the brain. In the movie, the medium sits at a table with Scott and other people involved in the seance, and as she asks questions of the ghost, she writes in a trance-like state. It looks like scribbles at first, and she uses a lot of paper in the process, but the ghost "uses" her to communicate, and words appear without her knowledge.

This isn't too far removed from a trick we were taught during NaNoWriMo. For those who don't know, it's an annual writing event where the goal is to write a 50,000-word draft of a novel in thirty days, so speed is more important than quality. To get you writing, and more to the point, to get you unstuck from writer's block, one common trick is to take thirty seconds, or a minute or two, and just write - free associate without thinking about whatever it is you're writing, even if it's gibberish. 

The technique definitely freed me up on more than one occasion - and now I find it even helps a little bit in my writing group. When we spend the first hour writing, I'll often write whatever comes to mind, even if - especially if - it's not on my conscious mind at the time, and it has led to some unexpected bits of prose. I have yet to encounter any messages from the Great Beyond this way.

The confluence of ghosts, automatic writing and Scott's musician character also remind me of one of, if not, the scariest nightmares I ever had. In college, I knew this girl named Jolanta. Very sweet girl; very friendly. I wasn't what you might call close with her, but she was someone I cared about. We all cared about her. Anyway, I had a nightmare that she was murdered. She was pushed down a flight of stairs by this other girl in my freshman class. I remember arriving too late to stop her and seeing Jolanta's broken body at the bottom of the stairs and the other girl laughing. She wasn't someone I hated, so why I'd dream of her doing this is beyond me. I don't even remember her name.

I remember waking up convinced that Jolanta was totally and completely dead and I was so grateful when I saw her in school, alive and well. This was also back when I attempted to try my hand at music, and weeks later, I ended up composing an instrumental song inspired by that dream. Jolanta even offered a suggestion or two for it when I told her what I was doing, not that she was a musician. She just thought I should add a coda at the end representing her soul ascending into heaven, and I did. She took the whole nightmare thing pretty well, all things considered - better than me. I really did think she was dead!

Hungarian director Peter Medak has stuck to mostly American television throughout most of his career since The Changeling, though he did do such films as The Krays, Romeo is Bleeding and, um, Species II. Among the Genie wins for his movie include Sound and Sound Editing, and while it was difficult to appreciate the sound, listening as I was through my tiny little headphones, I can imagine how important it is to a film about things that go bump in the night, so to speak. This one's worth checking out if you've never seen it before.

The links will come out... TOMORROW

MAJOR BLOG-RELATED ANNOUNCEMENT THIS TUESDAY. This is big, folks, big enough to require a separate post, because it concerns the direction of the blog for 2015. I highly recommend you come back here for it tomorrow. Not kidding.

December 17! That's when the launch party for the next issue of Newtown Literary comes out, the one including my short story, "Airplanes." That's later than I expected, but that's okay; I'm just glad it's gonna be out there at last. It's not like I expect to be discovered by a publisher or anything, but it feels like a progressive step forward for me. 

Another step has been me joining a local writing group here in Queens. We meet on Sundays. We spend an hour writing, about anything in general, and afterwards, we critique work that's been submitted by members. These people seem fairly committed to writing. The analyses they give are quite detailed at times.

In other news, I've already started writing the second draft of my novel, although in  a sense, it feels more like a first draft. The basic story idea was salvaged from my NaNoWriMo draft last year, but it's been greatly expanded on to the point where it's almost a different story, but not quite. I hope to submit a piece of it to my writers group for analysis sometime within the next month or so.

Regarding the WSW collection, I'm no longer sure whether or not releasing it as an e-book is right for me. I'm pondering other options at the moment, so consider it on hold until I decide how I want to release it.

Your final link round-up for 2014:

Winding down her year of Ann Blyth, Jacqueline goes into the actress' singing career.

The modern silent film Blancanieves, a Spanish take on Snow White, was one I wanted to see but missed. Le did not miss it however, and in this post she compares it to an old Snow White silent film. (Google Translate required.)

Dorian salutes the fine character actress Agnes Moorehead.

Ryan saw Dear White People and has nothing to say about it.

Spotlight on TCM host Robert Osborne.

What was "Smell-o-Vision" and why did it fail as a cinematic gimmick?

Now that the first trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens has dropped, it's as good a time as any to reflect on why the Star Wars franchise has succeeded the way it has.

The Hollywood Film Awards get a lot of hate and scorn, but is it possible that they're good for something?

Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson looks back on what went right - and wrong - in the history of his involvement with the film franchise.

Malabar Farm: Ghosts and Hollywood

[Maybe you believe in the paranormal. Maybe you don't. Either way, I suggest that you take the following for what it is: a really cool story from a good pal of mine. - RW]

Guest post

by Andrea McEnaney

Ohio is not a state thought of as a getaway destination. When most people think of Ohio, if they think of it at all, they imagine farms and fields, not Hollywood icons. But for a period in the 1940s, Ohio was a destination for some of the biggest names in movies. James Cagney, Tyrone Power, Dorothy Lamour, Clark Gable - who, incidentally was born in Cadiz, Ohio - they all came and spent time there and when they came, they came to a farm.

Louis Bromfield was born in Mansfield, Ohio in 1896. He grew up on a farm like the typical Ohio boy. After high school, he went to Cornell University and studied agriculture, but eventually left for Columbia to study journalism. His studies were interrupted by World War I. He enlisted as a ambulance driver just as another famous author, Ernest Hemmingway, had. His efforts earned him the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor medals. After the war, he returned to the United States and lived in New York City working as a reporter. 

In 1924, he wrote his first novel, The Green Bay Tree, and in 1927, he earned a Pulitzer Prize for Early Autumn.  In 1925, the Bromfields left the U.S. for a vacation in France. They ended up living there for  the next thirteen years.  During that time, one of Bromfields books, The Rains Came, was made into a motion picture, and he was introduced to Hollywood society. Two more of his novels were made into movies, Mrs. Parkington (1944) and The Rains of Ranchipur (1955). The latter starred a young Richard Burton.

Louis Bromfield

When the dark clouds of war began to build over Europe, Bromfield and his family returned to America and Ohio. He purchased a farm outside of Mansfield and began to work it as his father and grandfather before him had worked the land. He named the farm Malabar after the Malabar region of India, the setting for The Rains Came. Bromfield had made many friends in Hollywood, prominent among them was Humphrey Bogart. Old timers will tell you that it wasn't unusual to see Bromfield and Bogart walking the streets of Mansfield. Bogart loved Malabar so much that he chose the farm to be the site of his marriage to Lauren Bacall in 1945.  

The Hollywood elite began to come to the farm as a spot to get away from the paparazzi and bask in anonymity for a time. But they did not lounge around. Bromfield put them to work doing chores. The old timers remember seeing James Cagney selling produce from the farm at a market in Mansfield.

By the 1950s, Malabar Farm had become the standard for soil conservation and innovative farming practices. Bromfield had moved from fiction writing to writing about the land and how to preserve it. In 1952 Bromfield's wife, Mary, died of cancer, and Bromfield himself passed away in 1956. The children - three girls, Anne, Ellen, and Hope - moved away and began their own lives, and the Big House, as it was known, stood empty. 

Bogart & Bacall, at their wedding
at Malabar Farm in 1945

In 1972, the state of Ohio acquired the farm and created Malabar Farm State Park. The Big House was restored to the way it looked when the Bromfields lived there, right down to Louis' crumpled hat on the grand piano in the foyer. Over the years, many visitors came to the farm to see the house and barns. Some of them saw things that weren't on the tour. The rumors began that Malabar Farm was haunted. People, including the park rangers who worked there, saw Bromfields long dead boxer dogs. Some heard conversations in empty rooms.

In 2005, the Central Ohio Paranormal Society (COPS) was contacted by Malabar Farm to investigate the alleged hauntings. The group, based out of Columbus, was founded the year before by Mike and Gena Robare and use the scientific method of investigation, i.e. debunk everything that can be explained rationally. The first investigation yielded many EVPs (electronic voice phenomena) that could not be attributed to members of the team. Subsequent investigations found many more, including a voice that said, “tapes' done” a second before the click of the recorder stopping was heard. Gena Robare photographed a shadow figure standing in the doorway of one of the upstairs bedrooms. All attempts made to reproduce the photo were unsuccessful. 

Eventually, C.O.P.S became the paranormal investigation group of record for Malabar Farm and conducts investigations once a month, from May to August, that coincide with the Night Haunt event hosted by the park. Almost every investigation has yielded a result, whether it is electronically documented or a personal experience. 

Myrna Loy & Tyrone Power in The Rains Came,
based on Bromfield's book

The group has concluded that Malabar Farm is indeed haunted. Most of the activity is considered “residual,” that is, like a tape recording that plays over and over again. The group also believes there is an “intelligent” haunting occurring. This is a spirit and/or energy that is aware of its surroundings and interacts with the living. This conclusion was reached by the many voice recordings that answer questions posed, the instances of people being touched, and objects that move to different locations when there is no living person present. 

Alas, to the hopeful, I have to say that none of the spirits haunting Malabar Farm are the Hollywood legends whose pictures adorn the wall of an upstairs hallway. The ghosts are of the people who lived there day in and day out. Mary Bromfield still lives in her room, and Louis is usually in his study or sometimes in the living room. Anne, a rather tragic figure in that she may have had some mental health issues that resulted in her remaining upstairs most of the time, can be felt in her bedroom where the sadness is palpable. Occasionally, a invisible cat will mew and brush up against a leg. Still, for the movie buff, a visit to Malabar Farm will bring back the Golden Age of Hollywood and the beautiful rolling hills of Pleasant Valley will soothe away the worries of modern life.

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Andrea McEnaney grew up on a farm in Eastern Ohio that wasn't a bit haunted. She is a medical assistant, a cartoonist, and a paranormal investigator and lives in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio with her husband, two cats, and a flatulent Beagle. She can be reached at scarlet_termite2003@yahoo.com.