Forry J Ackerman 1916 -2008

RIP 4e.
The Ackermonster is dead. It leaves me with the same sensation of grief I experienced when, as a little kid, I found of the deaths of Walt Disney and Boris Karloff.
My Father introduced him to me once,back when I was 15. I couldn't have been more surprised or delighted had Dad introduced me to Spider-man or Santa Claus.
God Bless FJA, and God Bless my whole extended Famous Monsters family.

Lamb To The Slaughter

Holiday dining takes a rather disturbing turn over at PHDiva.

The most important thing is to put the piece of lamb on a firm counter and 'christen' it - for example I might have called mine Edward. Take a sharp knife, holding it firmly vertically with the tip down. Raise your hand and stab Edward repeatedly, whilst pretending the meat is the lyin' cheatin' bastard in question. Think: shower scene in Psycho. Turn Edward, and repeat until one no longer has an urge.

I have spent the Christmas Season in Edward mode myself, and I can't say that I cared for it. I think the next time I find myself at Mass I will light a candle for the poor, endangered fellow.

I'm In Love With The Morton Salt Girl

I'm in love with the Morton Salt girl.
I want to pour salt in her hair and watch
her dance. I want to walk with her through the
salt rain and pretend that it is water. I want to
get lost in the Washington Cathedral and follow her
salt trail to freedom.

I want to discover her salt lick in the forests of Virginia.
I want to stand in line for hours to see her walk on in
the middle of a movie only to have the film break and watch salt
pour out and flood the aisles. I want to sit in an empty theater
up to my eyeballs in salt and dream of her.

When I go home she will be waiting for me in her white dress
and I will drink salt water and lose my bad dreams.
I will seek the blindness of salt, salt down my wounds,
hang like a side of ham over the curtain rod in the bathroom
and let her pour salt directly on my body.

When she is done I will lick her salty lips with my tongue
and walk her down the stairs into the rain, wishing that I
could grow gills and bathe in her vast salt seas.

-Richard Peabody

Colette Carr 1961 - 2004

"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have
withered," said the Ghost. "But she had a large heart."
"So she had!’" cried Scrooge. ‘You're right, I will not deny it!"
"She died a woman,’ said the Ghost, ‘and had, as I think, children."

Dear Colette,

I have just found out about your passing, and of the savage way you left us. You are mourned more than you, or even I, could have guessed.

I am mugged by a hundred memories of you. One, perhaps still more vivid and sweet than others, was on a warm spring day when you and I managed to sneak off to a carnival. Do you recall the Bottle Babies in the sideshow? Didn't have nothing to do that day. Nothing I wanted to do, anyway. Thank you for your time. We should have....But we had so much time left, it couldn't have mattered. A small crime of omission.

You were so pretty that evening, and so warm. So unexpectedly (always more than expected!) and so unrelievedly kind. Do you know that I remember the first time ever I saw you? I assure you that you and I will talk about these moments yet.

You remind me a little bit of the Rose in The Little Prince. The one that was so sure that her thorns would keep her safe. Honestly, you have never lacked for courage, Colette. I wish that I had been there at the end, when I could have helped. You would still be here with us, my dearest. Your thorns.

Einstein once said that the distinction between our past, our present and the future is nothing more than man's most "stubbornly persistant illusion". It is a comforting conceit to hope that, in some unknowable relativistic sense, you and I still circle on that carnival ferris wheel. To be rotating with you slowly, endlessly, happily, for one ancient moment in the eye of God - that might be The Ultimate E-Ticket Attraction. I'll buy you a popcorn when we get off.

Never dead to me, Dear.

Michael

I know that
I'd go anywhere
For your smile, anywhere --
For your smile, everywhere
I'd see