Wednesday, October 24, 2012

That Season


It’s been a while. Perhaps an inexcusable while. But it is close to Halloween, which is far and away my favorite holiday, because of decorations and scaring people and pumpkins and fall and etc.

I love to scare people.

A couple weekends ago I went to this haunted cave in Lewisburg, Ohio. It was AMAZING. The longest walk-through haunted attraction I’ve ever been to (the longest in the world, apparently), and one of the scariest. So many cool effects going on in this place:

  1. My favorite portion was probably the simulation of a marsh—a room full of waist-level, giant inflatable things you had to slog through, plus dark cut only with laser-light, thick fog, plus ghouls leaping out at you from the pressurey inflatable stuff. This was BRILLIANCE.
  2. Bridges! With monsters underneath to grab at your legs.
  3. Cave = perfect dark. They exploited this possibility in several scenarios, allowing you to fumble around and disorient yourself a little. Gets the adrenaline going, adding to that particular panic that makes you the easiest to scare. Used a little too much for my taste, but always effective.
  4. Alternate pathways! In a haunted house! Like I’ve never seen before. Lots of standard tableaux (hospital, slaughterhouse, graveyard, hell), but with passages labeled like “Damnation,” “Hate,” “Absolution,” and stuff that didn’t necessarily lead you anywhere. Replay value!
  5. Folks in ghillie suits, hiding along the walls. Most of the time it was just dark enough that you couldn’t distinguish what was prop foliage vs. what was a small person in a costume waiting to jump out and seize you.
  6. Cave muck.
except in a cave


So, needless to say, if you live in this general geographic region you should make a visit this place, the Haunted Cave at Lewisburg. So good, so scary. And you’re running out of weekends, so GO.

Additionally, I do have some cool news to report to you (here listed with letters, for variety’s sake):

  1. First, I have a poem in PANK’s third annual Queer Issue, called “JUST TRY.” It’s a massive, tumescent thing. Basically it describes how human bodies are built. You can also hear me yell it at you.
  2.  Second, I had a story recently featured at Necessary Fiction, called “Intruders.” Thanks to Stefanie Freele—this month’s writer-in-residence at NF—for presenting the story.
  3. Finally, my first comic ever was published in Rocksalt’s fifth issue, put together by the amazing Jeanne Thornton. It features some gob-smacking cover artwork by Zach Taylor (of Bear Quest fame) and with a dime-sized piece from me on p. 12, from a saga called “Adventures of a Yak in a Flying Teacup,” which will follow in future issues (hopefully).
Letters! What fun!