Ought to/Writing
I ought to go to bed, but nothing great has ever happened on the basis of ought to. Want to is where it all begins, and I want to write.
I read The Grownup by Gillian Flynn today. I found it at Forest Books and Media for a whopping $4.44 after tax. Hardcover, mint condition. I saved money today by doing this, and for that I am grateful.
I'm a big fan of Flynn's, and I must say this short story was a let down. If the story was written BEFORE her works (Sharp Objects, Dark Places, Gone Girl), then I would understand it a bit more, however it wasn't so I don't. It feels like something anyone could have written. The most interesting part of the story was not the story at all, rather the details of the character. It has her classic unmistakeable thumbprints all over it, yet it falls short of great at every moment. I called the 'twist' from the get go, and then was annoyed when I was right, and annoyed when she tried to twist the twist, then twist the twist again. It was bothersome.
I think if she scrapped the step son's extreme intelligence and mischievousness and made him into a more believable character, it would have been more fulfilling. And, as a personal preference, if you're going to have an open ended finish to a story, I think a short-story is not the place to do that. A novel or novella is, but not a short story. Those are meant to be baked and finished to perfection.
All that said, if you have about thirty minutes or so to spare, I would recommend it on the basis that it's Gillian Flynn's latest written work (11 years ago, what the hell dude). If I were to recommend any of her full works to you, I'd say Dark Places is the place to start, then Sharp Objects, then Gone Girl. In my mind, getting Dark Places out of the way first really sets the tone for your interpretation of Sharp Objects.
Anyways, I figured today after the regular blog I'm just going to start freebasing some fresh writing, so here you go. As always, it'll be minimally edited, so if you catch a typo, no you didn't.
++ (sample below image) ++
"Good evening everyone. Thank you, Roswell, for your kind and blunt words. He's right, though he sounded a bit Dostoyevskian at the end there. If you find the images or the descriptions I use hard to bear, I do ask that you leave without a guilted conscience. Because of the nature of my work, I have permission from the Dean to count those that have to leave out of terror or upset as a pass and full mark for this lecture. I see a lot of you moving under those desks with your feet planted on the floor, ready to jump. I was you once; eager to get out of optional lectures or classes as quick as possible. I had an elective class on the topic of demonology in my Sophomore year that I skipped almost every week, until one day my professor pulled me aside in the hall and asked me this: If an elective is an elective, and therefore I elected myself to it, and I'm paying for it, why am I skipping it? I didn't have a good answer for him, so stayed in the class the next week. I'm glad I did, because through that class I became interested in Historical Supernaturae, which lead me to my career now- which I love. So give me a chance- it's only one hour, and I'm sure you'll leave with a different view on the chair you're shuffling in.
With a show of hands, how many of you know what the word 'supernatural' means? That's most of you. For those that don't know, supernatural in simple terms means something that cannot be explained by means of science or the laws of nature. There's two things that usually pop into people's heads when they hear the word 'Supernatural.' Jensen Ackles or ghosts. While some of you wish I was here to give a lecture on his toned physique and intense eyes, we're here to cover the broader topic of the latter; ghosts.
Another show of hands; who here has had an experience with a ghost or a supernatural event? It's okay, it's normal. I see some of your hands moving up and down. Don't be shy. I count, one, two, five, six, eight. Okay, about eight of you have. That's roughly a third of you, and that's pretty normal. On average, one in three people will experience a supernatural event in their life before the age of eighteen. After that, the number plummets for ages eighteen to thirty five to one in eight. For thirty-five to fifty, it's one in twenty. Then around fifty, the numbers go back up substantially, with it going up to one in ten, then around age eighty, it's one in two. Fifty percent of people experience a supernatural event past the age of eighty. One last statistic before I show you the next slide; out of the people that experience a supernatural event- from all ages- ninety-seven percent of them experience more than one.
This is the first recorded image of a habitual anima. This photograph was taken in 1999 using a technique called 'firmament insertion.' Don't bother trying to decipher what that means; a man named Lyle Steppenvulf came up with the name while riding the high of recording something supernatural for the first time. It's pretentious hogwash, just like most of the names for things in the field. We like to fantasize that what we work on is supernatural, but what we do inherently contradicst the definition of supernatural.
Firmament Insertion is a method of capturing an essence of a spirit using a glass vessel and electrified plasma. Have you seen one of these before? This is a plasma globe. Back in the 1980's these were everywhere. McDonald's at Navy Pier used to have a dozen of them scattered about. Steppenvulf came up with the idea, allegedly, after a visit to the pier with his nephew in the summer of 1994. He theorized that to capture a spirit's essence, you must hold it with electric plasma. The best way to do this is in a glass container.
He was correct, and using brute force to do a crude summon, he got it to work. The picture you see here- that big wisp between the purple filaments- that's the first truly recorded ghost. I wish I could tell you who it was in the jar, but according to his paper, he was given instructions on how to do a summon from an unnamed woman he met at a palm reading.
While I am thankful for Steppenvulf's discovery, I hope that you do not take him for much heart. He was not a genius, he was not a professional. He was a photographer who struck gold on a wacky idea. But, because of him, we have been able to capture named spirits and study them. This slide was from my laboratory near South Washington University. Those essence domes were our means of examining beyond the grave. Putting HSA studies into practice, we are able to pick and choose our subjects when we need to take a look. In this slide, our vessel holds a spirit who was captured from a burned house in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Cassandra Womack, aged twenty three, got caught in an in-between state for too long, and was latched to a rocking chair. The family brought us the rocking chair- the only object that came out of the fire unscathed- and we went through a process of learning everything we could about Cassandra.
This is her body after the fire. See here that some of her unburnt skin is pink and scarred by her ribs? She was attacked at a very young age by a family member, and though she was attacked, we believe a covenant was broken by the family member, which lead to her prolonged in-between state. Our theory is had the rocking chair been burned, she would have haunted the land until someone caught up to her many years later. With the family's help, we were able to change her from a spirit to an essence, giving her family a sense of closure.
In our studies, we've deduced a few consistencies with supernaturae. The first is that who becomes super, and what they latch on to are almost completely random. We haven't been able to find any guaranteed correlating factors. Some people live awful lives and die awful deaths but don't end in a haunt. Some people are saints and get stuck in an in-between state. It does not matter.
The second consistency is the four classifications; anima, spirit, essence, and ghost. An anima is a confused or aggressive spirit type. They don't tend to harm people directly- not physically- often people are mentally harmed by them, but that is not their intent. Their intent is to get your attention- to alert the world that hey, someone's here. A spirit is a heavier form- yes, physically heavier. We've measured their weight and found on average their molecular mass is higher than an essence, leading us to heavier. They're moving objects in the home, disturbing sleep, making a ruckus. Again, not to harm, but to disturb. A spirit is rare, and latches on to objects more than places. Things the person might have been connected to in their life; those things are likely what a spirit latches onto. The essence is a freed spirit. They do not interact, nor can they intervene. There are essences everywhere all the time. You're probably covered in them. We do not study them since they disappear upon transition. Like some elements on the periodic table, we can only study them as they occur, and then not again.
The final is a ghost. The rare, malicious, often physical version. We don't have much data on them, other than that they're the most noticed form of supernatural being. Because of hundreds of years of stories and media, the ghost archetype is not something that we tend to focus on. When most people hear ghost, they lock up or find it humorous.
This is a recent image of a ghost lurking over a victim in an abandoned house near San Jose. I don't find this humorous. This ghost is a murderer by order of law. There is no punishment for a death caused by a supernaturae other than an exorcism, which we believe is not a real form of treatment.
Before we continue, just to clarify, the image first taken by Steppenvulf is not a ghost; it is an anima, not a ghost. The term ghost, as I'm sure you see, is a bit of a vague term unless you're in the field.
So what are we here to talk about today? We're here to talk about you."
Written by C. A. Winter
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