Just out today: Shirley Jackson: Novels and Stories (Library of America)...with an afterword by Joyce Carol Oates (I can't think of any other writer more suited for the job of writing about Ms. Jackson, the two women both have the sense of the macabre about them!!)

I'm so excited I can barely type...okay, maybe I exaggerate just a tad (I'm holding my index finger and thumb close together right now)...



For someone who looked so safe in her publicity stills, Shirley Jackson was anything but. An inspiration to Stephen King (whose photo DEFINITELY gives you a clue to his dark side), Jackson wrote stories that are creepy because you can’t sweep them under the bed, thinking they could never happen in real life.

Her infamous short story "The Lottery" eerily captures the brute force of a small town gone wrong, years before mob mentality became front page news. But as chilling and powerful as "The Lottery" is, it’s her lesser known tales that are my absolute favorites and (I think) her true gems.

Some of the stories are downright scary; besides "The Lottery," there’s the bizarre and chilling "The Intoxicated," where a teenage girl startles a grown man with her vision of the future. Others, including “Charles” — complete with a startling twist at the end — are surprisingly adorable and funny. And some are heartbreakingly sad, as is “The Daemon Lover” where a hopeful, deluded woman waits a LONG time for the fiance who never shows at her door.

Response to the publication of "The Lottery" in the New Yorker was so strong many people canceled their subscriptions: response to "The Lottery"

(This essay gets to the heart of why some of us Shirley Jackson fans love her work so much!)

Jackson was not particularly prolific, but what she did write (including posthumously released collections like Just An Ordinary Day) was (and still is) often downright delicious.


Also included in the Library of America edition (it's about time LOA recognize how great a writer Jackson was!) are the two unnerving novels The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

About two years ago I checked out "Pacific Ocean Blue" by Dennis Wilson and brought it home from the library. I really never gave it a proper listen until now and boy have I been missing out on some very lovely, amazingly painful beauty.

The All Music website writes: "Dennis could sing like angel, but an earthbound one who lost his wings yet never lost his love of the spiritual and romantic in the world."

Highlights from this underrated masterpiece include: "Riversong," "It's Not Too Late," "Dreamer," "Friday Night" and "He's A Bum"...

Dennis Wilson (who looked much older than his actual age) lived a hard life and died way too young. Often he was overshadowed by his brother Brian (considered the genius behind the Beach Boys) but after hearing this 2 disc set I have to ask myself why Dennis hasn't gotten more of the attention he deserves...this is heady stuff!!


more on this later!!

As you probably already know by now the lovely and talented singer Lena Horne passed away yesterday at the age of 92. She had an amazing voice and did incredible justice to one of my favorite songs of all time, "In Love in Vain." (It appears on the Capitol Sings Jerome Kern collection "The Song is You.")

She gave the song all the passion and frustration and loneliness that moves its spirit and I've never, ever heard anyone else sing it better. You will be missed Ms. Horne!!

One of my favorite oldies of all time is "Elenore" by the Turtles. Released in September of 1968, the song (a satire on love songs, specifically their own hit "Happy Together") had some of the quirkiest rhymes in pop music history and was meant to be a joke. No matter what the group's original intentions were nothing could keep this from being a cute, infectious frothy cup of bliss that never fails to put a smile on my face...I love it!


About the song band member Howard Kaylan once said:

"Elenore was a parody of 'Happy Together.' It was never intended to be a straight-forward song. It was meant as an anti-love letter to White Whale, who were constantly on our backs to bring them another "Happy Together." So I gave them a very skewed version. Not only with the chords changed, but with all these bizarre words. It was my feeling that they would listen to how strange and stupid the song was and leave us alone. But they didn't get the joke. They thought it sounded good. Truthfully, though, the production on 'Elenore' WAS so damn good. Lyrically or not, the sound of the thing was so positive that it worked. It certainly surprised me."^[4]

Take a look at the lyrics:


You got a thing about you
I just can't live without you
I really want you, Elenore, near me
Your looks intoxicate me
Even though your folks hate me
There's no one like you, Elenore, really

[Chorus:]
Elenore, gee I think you're swell
And you really do me well
You're my pride and joy, et cetera
Elenore, can I take the time
To ask you to speak your mind
Tell me that you love me better

I really think you're groovy
Let's go out to a movie
What do you say, now, Elenore, can we?
They'll turn the lights way down low
Maybe we won't watch the show
I think I love you, Elenore, love me

[Chorus:]
Elenore, gee I think you're swell
And you really do me well
You're my pride and joy, et cetera
Elenore, can I take the time
To ask you to speak your mind
Tell me that you love me better

Elenore, gee I think you're swell ah-hah
Elenore, gee I think you're swell ah-hah
Hah

Clocking in at almost seven and a half minutes, "The Cedar Room" is very mellow and sad and so ethereal I can almost feel myself leaving my body and traveling somewhere far far away...songs like this are why I love music so much!

The other day I came across a copy of The Cure's album "Kiss me Kiss Me Kiss Me" and it wasn't "Just like Heaven" that jumped out at me but "Why Can't I Be You?"

There have been a few times in our lives (maybe?) when we've fallen in love and we're not sure whether we want to be with that person or we want to be that person. That's what "Why Can't I Be You?" makes me think of...about the times in my life I've liked someone so much I wasn't sure whether it was admiration or being in love...or maybe a little bit of both...

I wonder if that sounds as creepy as I worry it does. I hope not!

Scary how much I can't wait to get home today and watch the episode of  Y&R I set up on my DVR...the last time I taped a soap was probably back in the early 90s!

I've somehow been sucked into the "Patty" storyline (see previous post) and have been watching it ever since I discovered it last week. Stacy Haiduk has been doing a wonderful wonderful wacky job as "Patty" and is quite convincing in playing two different personalities ("Emily" and "Patty"). The very brief and sudden outbursts of despair, guilt and doubt that "Patty" is experiencing is expertly brought forth by Haiduk who is way-too-good for this horrible horrible story line. Funny, but I don't remember 80s "Patty" being so disturbed...remember her being distressed (severely!), but NOT "disturbed"

Even funnier is how in the midst of all that bad writing the discovery of  Patty's journal (left behind between the cushions of a couch) is such a clever touch. It's clear it's (foreshadowing) going to be used to prove "Patty" isn't "Emily" and the one shot the camera panned on showed an amazingly detailed and deranged spread of two pages that someone in props went to a lot of trouble to fill in...odd that Y&R can get THAT right but not the storyline around it...

"Are you an idiot or a stalker?" Meredith says to her inquisitive half sister Lexie sometime early during the fourth season of "Grey's Anatomy." It's a harsh question that's rather out of place for the situation (I mean, wouldn't anyone be curious about their newly discovered half sister?) but a good general question for anyone who has ever unabashedly (and sometimes quite aggressively) sought the attentions of someone she likes...usually meaning well (but maybe not always.)

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt so unless someone is waiting outside your house every night to catch a glimpse of you or calling you on the phone and hanging up, I'm not sure you can call wanting to be someone's friend or asking them personal questions "stalking." I am sure, though, that when you're very young and possibly in love (or at least thinking you are) that you can have the best intentions while doing some of the most thoughtless things ever...

I'd at least like to think that you can be forgiven for these kinds of things and that the answer to Meredith's question leans more toward "idiot."