WIP: Opening paragraph of "Drawings of Patient O.T.", 1st draft

“Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places.” So begins “The Picture in the House,” a short story written by H.P. Lovecraft on Dec. 12, 1920. It’s a statement that has resonated with me ever since I first stumbled across it while flipping through the 1985 corrected sixth printing of Arkham House’s The Dunwich Horrors and Others, a book I found on my father’s bookcase when I was a child, a book with a green dust jacket and an Raymond Bayless illustration of Cthulhu emerging from his sunken tomb at R’lyeh. I can think of many people that Lovecraft’s statement could be applied to, people I’ve known in my own life in fact. Years ago, when I was attending high school at the city of Los Diablos, I knew a boy who was utterly obsessed with some old and abandoned chemical factory, an obsession which eventually led to madness and suicide. And after I graduated college and moved back to my hometown, which is the city of Thundermist in northern Rhode Island, I made friends with a gay man my own age who, like my friend from high school, was also haunted by a building, which in this case was an old church called St. Durtal’s. Even I have found myself drawn like a moth to a strange building: Kafka’s Clinic, an old abandoned mental hospital. It was there that I first came across the drawings of Patient O.T.

From the Vault: Snapshots From my Youth Pt. 1 (1980-1991)

This is a very young picture of me... I'm probably about a year old or thereabouts here. It kind of amazes me how happy I was during my childhood, and how often I'm smiling in many of these pictures. But then again, my childhood was happy, so what did I have to be depressed about?


I think I'm around two years old here. There's probably more body fat on my face in this picture than I have on my entire body today.


On the beach in 1982.


Holding my beloved Star Wars Rancor toy. Years later, when I was studying ventriloquism during my high school years, I would employ this same Rancor as a sort of ventriloquist's dummy, as it had a movable mouth.


Opening presents on Christmas of 1984. Kermit the Frog was one of my childhood heroes. Though my favorite Muppet was Uncle Deadly, the Phantom of the Muppet Show. My very favorite episode of the Muppet Show was probably the Star Wars episode, followed by the show where Vincent Price guest starred.


My mother reading to me on Christmas of 1984.


Along with Rocky Point Amusement Park, Kings Castle Land (in Whitman, Massachusetts) was my other favorite amusement park, even though I think I only went there twice. I read somewhere once that the place closed down in 1993. Here I pose on top of a fallen giant.


Another picture of me at Kings Castle Land, posing next to a big frog. I seem to recall this amusement park also had two giant dragons that belched flames.


Stuff I received for my sixth birthday in June 1986. I can spot some Star Wars toys (including Jabba the Hutt and the Wampa snow monster), Gumby and Pokey toys, and the Madballs toy known as Oculus Orbus, which probably sparked my fascination with eyeballs.


Christmas 1986. On the television set is a manger, that my parents still set up every year during the holiday season. On the bookshelf behind me I can read a few of the titles my mother owned: The Exorcist, The Bell Jar, Carrie, and, uh, Dallas.


Graduating from kindergarten in 1986, posing with a nun, who I think was one of my teachers, though I forget her name. Was it she who taught me about death? For kindergarten my parents sent me to a Catholic school, but it was kind of expensive so the following year they enrolled me at Bernon Heights elementary school, a public school.


Me posing next to a large shark poster at Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut, sometime in the early-to-mid 1980's. As a child, I was obsessed with sharks, and owned many shark t-shirts and stuffed animals. My favorite stuffed animal was a shark hand puppet that I named "Shark Puppet." In this picture it looks like I'm about to start busting out some rap dance moves.


Smiling for the camera in June, 1987.


My 7th birthday party, on June 17th, 1987. Here I pose behind my cake, the infamous Stay Puft Marshmallow Man cake. The theme that year was Ghostbusters, which was one of my favorite films. Other films I enjoyed in my youth wereThe Dark Crystal, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Godzilla, and the Star Wars trilogy.


Opening presents at my 7th birthday party. In this picture, I'm unwrapping the Ghostbusters computer game for the Commodore 64, while my father and two of my brothers look on.


Posing with some of my birthday swag. For some reason I'm holding my two favorite stuffed animals in this picture, even though I had gotten them in a previous year.


More posing.


A close-up of the famous Stay Puft Marshmallow Man cake.


When I was a child, Halloween was, after Christmas, my favorite holiday. I just loved dressing up. My mother's a quilter, and she would often hand make costumes for my brothers and I. The above picture, taken on Halloween in 1987, showcases my favorite costume she made for me, that of a shark. It won second place in the school costume contest that day.


A side view of the shark costume.


Posing with my three younger brothers on Halloween. That year we apparently all dressed up as our favorite animals at that time.


June 17th, 1988: my eight birthday party. The theme that year was Pillsbury Doughboy, oddly enough.


Another picture from Mystic Aquarium, this one taken in 1988. This time I'm posing next to an actual shark, who doesn't look entirely pleased. As usual I'm holding my two favorite stuffed animals, Shark Puppet and Sammy.


October 1988. I'm in the backyard of our old house (my family and I moved into a new one the following year), showing off a praying mantis that had crawled onto my t-shirt. Aside from my obsession with sharks, I also had a huge interest in bugs and insect life in general, with the exception of bees.


This is me receiving First Communion on May 14, 1989, at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Church (where I also had my Confirmation, in 1996). The priest in this picture was the church's pastor at that time, Father Bill. I think this is one of the only times in my life where I've ever worn a suit. Below is a certificate I got marking the occasion:




This picture was taken in December 1990, when I was in the fifth grade. During my grade school years, I acted in two plays. One of them was entitled The Giggling Goblin, where I played a supporting character named "Dr. Dracula." The second one was Old King Cole, where I played the lead (and titular) character. In this photo I'm seated in the center, clad in a black cape and wearing a crown that was probably made from construction paper. The only thing I can recall from the experience was a realization that I had no interest in pursuing acting.


This was taken in June of 1991. That's me holding my pet lizard, Spiky, who I ended up immortalizing in a short story I wrote for school the following year (a story I posted on this blog not too long ago: http://onyxglossary.blogspot.com/2011/05/from-vault-adventures-of-spiky.html)


Christmas 1991, holding up my notorious Steve Urkel t-shirt, which I actually wore in public. That might explain why I got picked on in school. I actually dressed as Steve Urkel for Halloween of that same year, but out of respect for the sanity of all right-thinking readers of this blog I won't post that picture.

To be continued...

2011 Reading List Monthly Update: May

Books completed in May 2011:

"Star Maker" (Olaf Stapledon) 5/1/11
"Death in Venice" (Thomas Mann) 5/3/11
"The Celestine Prophecy" (James Redfield) 5/9/11
"Selfish, Little: the Annotated Lesley Ann Downey" (Peter Sotos) 5/11/11 *
"The Quantity Theory of Insanity" (Will Self) 5/15/11
"Principia Discordia" (Malaclypse the Younger) 5/18/11 *
"Topology of a Phantom City" (Alain Robbe-Grillet) 5/21/11
"The Archaic Revival" (Terence McKenna) 5/23/11
"The Wasp Factory" (Iain Banks) 5/27/11
"Stories Toto Told Me" (Baron Corvo) 5/29/11

2011 Reading List total:

1. "Welcome to my World" (Johnny Weir) 1/12/11
2. "Cold Hand in Mine" (Robert Aickman) 1/14/11
3. "The Mechanics of Homosexual Intercourse" (Lonely Christopher) 1/20/11
4. "Illuminated Shadows" (James Champagne) 1/20/11 *
5. "Eat When You Feel Sad" (Zachary German) 1/23/11
6. "The Marble Index" (James Champagne)
7. "Brigit" (Andrew Champagne) 2/15/11
8. "Gravity's Rainbow" (Thomas Pynchon) 2/25/11
9. "Demons by Daylight" (Ramsey Campbell) 3/4/11
10. "Neuromancer" (William Gibson) 3/7/11 *
11. "Don Quixote" (Kathy Acker) 3/16/11
12. "Snow Crash" (Neal Stephenson) 3/31/11
13. "Shoplifting From American Apparel" (Tao Lin) 4/1/11
14. "Franny and Zooey" (J.D. Salinger) 4/7/11
15. "The Failure" (James Greer) 4/8/11
16. "The Gospel of Anarchy" (Justin Taylor) 4/16/11
17. "Dhalgren" (Samuel R. Delany) 4/21/11
18. "There Is No Year" (Blake Butler) 4/25/11
19. "Star Maker" (Olaf Stapledon) 5/1/11
20. "Death in Venice" (Thomas Mann) 5/3/11
21. "The Celestine Prophecy" (James Redfield) 5/9/11
22. "Selfish, Little: the Annotated Lesley Ann Downey" (Peter Sotos) 5/11/11 *
23. "The Quantity Theory of Insanity" (Will Self) 5/15/11
24. "Principia Discordia" (Malaclypse the Younger) 5/18/11 *
25. "Topology of a Phantom City" (Alain Robbe-Grillet) 5/21/11
26. "The Archaic Revival" (Terence McKenna) 5/23/11
27. "The Wasp Factory" (Iain Banks) 5/27/11
28. "Stories Toto Told Me" (Baron Corvo) 5/29/11

*= book I've read at least once in the past

currently reading:

"Ecpyrosis: The Best of Starfire Volume One"
"The Oblate of St. Benedict" (J.K. Huysmans)

From the Vault: The Adventures of Spiky

What follows is a short story I wrote as a student in the sixth grade, during my first year at Woonsocket Junior High School. This story, which was written in January of 1992, consists of 8 pages of text (written out in cursive on lined paper) and 7 pages of illustrations (done in colored markers), along with a title page. Apparently the powers that be felt that my story was good enough to win me that year's "Young Author Award" for my grade. It was the second time I had received such an award, the first time being when I was in second grade, for a contemporary re-imagining of the Frosty the Snowman story. The story that won me an award in the sixth grade, and which I now reproduce here, is entitled The Adventures of Spiky. The setting is my parent's house (where I still live), and the hero is Spiky, who was my pet lizard at the time (see the notes following the story for more details on this). The supporting cast was also modeled after pets that shared our home at that time. So, without further ado, here then is the worldwide debut of The Adventures of Spiky... (click on the illustrations if you want to see them in greater detail)



The Adventures of Spiky
James Champagne

(January 1992: written in the sixth grade)

* * * *

It was a beautiful day in the Champagne house. The sun shone brightly on Spiky’s aquarium. Spiky was James Champagne’s lizard. He had gotten Spiky for his birthday. In Spiky’s aquarium, there was a heat rock, a water bowl, a false lizard toy, a glass dinosaur, and a big wooden stick.

Spiky had a tannish, brownish color. Around his neck was a black piece of skin. He also had a spiky tail.

James came in the room, holding a box of crickets. “Food time, Spiky!” he said. He gave Spiky two crickets. They were big.

“Hello!” said the crickets.

“Hello, lunch and dinner!” said Spiky, drooling.



“Wait! You can’t eat us! Not when there is a whole house to explore!” cried the crickets.

“What?” asked Spiky, climbing up his stick.

“Oh, you really should enjoy the house,” they agreed. “The next time James opens the aquarium door, hop out!” said the crickets.

“Well, okay, but just for this once!” said Spiky, uncertainly.

The next day, James walked up to Spiky’s aquarium with the box of crickets. He opened the little door. Jump! Spiky hopped out. “Hey, get back here, Spiky!” cried James, but Spiky was long gone.



“Wow, this place is huge!” said Spiky. He crawled to the kitchen. All the furniture loomed over him. He found a piece of yarn and climbed up to the counter. Then he hopped into a bowl of cold soup.

“Brrrr! It’s cold in here!” muttered Spiky. “Now, how will I get off the counter?”

Then he saw a spoon. He climbed on one end of the spoon, and threw a meatball on the other end. Spring! He got sprung into the cat’s food bowl. What bad timing! Two cats, Rusty and Panda appeared.

“I’m outta here!” cried Spiky. He ran away, but the cats were still chasing him. He ran into the den. The cats were still following him. He ran faster. Soon he was at Hamton’s (the family hamster) cage.



“Can I come in?” asked Spiky.

“Sure!” said Hampton. He opened his cage’s door, and Spiky ran in. The cats gave up and walked away.

“Who, may I ask, are you?” asked Hampton.

“I am Spiky, the lizard who lives in the parlor. I decided to have a vacation, and those cats started chasing me.”

“Well, you can stay here as long as you want,” said Hampton.

Spiky enjoyed it in Hampton’s cage. It reminded him of his own aquarium. Soon he was homesick. So he made a plan. “When everyone is asleep, I will sneak back into my aquarium,” he thought. Soon it was midnight. Everyone was asleep. “Here’s my chance!” said Spiky.



He sneaked out of Hampton’s cage and crawled away. He was back in the kitchen. Everything was dark and scary. “Gulp,” said Spiky. He edged into the hallway. Okay, now he was at the door to the bathroom. He was almost at the door to the parlor! Just a little more, a little more…

Boom! Peter, the big black dog, burst into the room! He ran at Spiky. “Grrrrr!” he said. Spiky scrambled down the hallway, but the dog was still following him. So he ran into the basement and shut the door. Phew! He was safe! He crawled down the stairs.

Then, Rusty and Panda appeared. Uh oh! Spiky had forgotten that Rusty and Panda slept down there at night. Spiky ran up onto the pool table. The cats followed, but they slipped on the balls.



Spiky ran into one of the pockets in the pool table. He turned and saw an 8 ball rolling at him! Spiky ran off the pool table and climbed on the boards on the roof.

“Phew!” said Spiky. He crawled along the roof. Suddenly, he stepped right into a spider web.

“Uh oh!” said Spiky as a big spider crawled at him. What could he do? He couldn’t move, and the spider was coming closer! There was just one thing he could do! So he hissed. “Hisssssssssss!” hissed Spiky. The spider was so startled he accidentally cut Spiky’s ropes. Spiky ran past the confused spider and hopped from the roof on to the stairs!



Poor Spiky was so tired when he got upstairs, he just wanted to get in his aquarium. Then, he felt dog breath on his neck again! It was Peter the dog!

Spiky quickly jumped on the dog. He grappled the dog’s collar with his claws. The dog got all riled up and ran toward the basement. Spiky let go of the collar and crawled on the dog’s face. The dog went into a frenzy. Spiky hung on for dear life. The dog ran up the stairs, into Mom and Dad’s room. “Who’s there!” asked Dad. “It’s the dog!” cried Mom. “And Spiky’s on top of him! James will be so happy!” So they put Spiky into his aquarium.

The next morning, James woke up and walked downstairs. There, to his amazement, he saw Spiky in his aquarium. “Spiky, I’m so glad to see you!” Then he called Mom, Dad, and his three brothers, Tommy, Billy, and Andrew. They all had a small party. That night, comfortable in his cage again, Spiky walked over to the crickets.

“Did you have a good vacation?” they asked.

“Gulp!” went Spiky. Now those troublesome crickets were in his stomach! He happily fell asleep.


* * * *

NOTES:

Re-reading this story after all these years was a somewhat bittersweet experience for me, seeing as how all of the animals depicted within, such as my beloved cat Rusty, died many years ago. I find it odd that I decided to use Peter the dog as the story's antagonist, as in real-life Peter was perhaps one of the gentlest and easy-going dogs I've ever encountered (to this day, my mother often refers to him as "St. Peter" in fact). I wish I had spent more time on the illustrations: I was taking advanced art classes at the time, though you wouldn't know it from looking at the drawings (the rendition of the spider web in particular is painfully crude). Having said that, I like the drawing that showcases Spiky launching himself into the air via spoon and meatball, quite MacGyver that.

Sadly, poor Spiky passed away a few months after this story was written. His decline and death were hard for me as, unlike the cats and dogs of the house, he was my own personal pet. My mother and I tried to get him back to health by force-feeding him crickets (a confession: I never did quite feel comfortable feeding him live crickets in general, but that's the only thing he would eat), and during his last days I would spend hours sitting by his aquarium just to be by his side. When he died, my family actually sent me a sympathy card in the mail (though really, I suppose they could have just given it to me), telling me what a good friend I had been to Spiky and how he would always be with me in spirit. I had totally forgotten about this card until I found it a few days ago in one of my old shoe boxes that I use to house personal belongings. In any events, Spiky's memory lives on. Below is a picture of him:

Spiky and me.

From the Vault: Halloween Time (poem)

The following poem was composed when I was a student at Bernon Heights Elementary School, probably when I was in the second or third grade. It won some kind of school-wide poetry contest that was being held then, and I and the rest of the winners had to go down to a local radio station and read our poem on-air, which was, needless to say, an interesting experience.



"Halloween Time"
by James Champagne

It's Halloween, and the Ghostly Queen,
is sending out monsters all slimy and green.
On the streets are headless goons,
and a wicked witch flies past the moon.
Jack-o-lantern's eyes are bright,
as people run in terror or fright.
A ghost goes and haunts a house,
scaring away a giant mouse.
The werewolves run and bite people they've never met,
causing many horrible deaths.
Vampires bite people on the necks,
a giant frog says "Blech!"
But out comes the sun, the monsters run,
and Halloween is all done.

* * * *

Some tortured rhyming aside, I kind of like the Edward Gorey-ish vibe of this piece, and it interests me that so many years later I'm still mining the same horrific/monster imagery that so obsessed me when I was a child. Everyday is Halloween indeed!

From the Vault: My 1992 Summer Reading List!

1. How to eat Fried Worms (Thomas Rockwell)
2. Batman Returns (movie novelization)
3. Chicken Trek (Stephen Manes)
4. The Fright Face Contest (Stephen Mooser)
5. Rats (Pat Hutchins)
6. Slim Down Camp (Stephen Manes)
7. Revenge of the Nerd (John McNamara)
8. Wally (Judre Walkoff)
9. Be an Interplanetary Spy (Seth McEvoy)
10. Make Four Million Dollars by Next Thursday (Stephen Manes)
11. The Curse of the Egyptian Mummy (Pat Hutchins)
12. Monster of the Year (Stephen Mooser)
13. The Pink Panther Adventures in Z Land (David L. Harrison)
14. Star Wars: the Glove of Darth Vader (Paul Davids)
15. Doors to Doom (Bill McCay)
16. Koopa Capers (Bill McCay)
17. Pipe Down! (Clyde Bosco)
18. Unjust Desserts (Matt Wayne)
19. The Crystal Trap (Matt Wayne)
20. Brain Drain (Matt Wayne)
21. Leaping Lizards (Clyde Bosco)
22. Flown the Koopa (Matt Wayne)
23. Star Wars: Zorba the Hutt's Revenge (Paul Davids)
24. Star Wars: the Lost City of the Jedi (Paul Davids)
25. Hollywood Dinosaur (Daniel Cohen)
26. Honey I Blew up the Kid (Todd Shasser)
27. The Escape of the Plant That ate Dirty Socks (Nancy McArthur)
28. Steve Urkel's Super-Cool Guide to Success (Billy Aronson)
29. Monster Mix-up (Bill McCay)
30. The Shadow Prince (Matt Wayne)
31. Monster Maker (Nicholas Fish)
32. Crazy Mixed-up Valentines (Stephen Mooser)

-The spellings of the last names of a few of these authors might be incorrect.

-Entries #15-22, along with #30, were from the Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda "choose your own adventures" series.

-I seem to recall really loving "The Curse of the Egyptian Mummy," to the extent that I just ordered a used copy of it off Amazon a few minutes ago, though I forget most of the content. "Chicken Trek" was pretty good also as I recall.

-Six years after this list and I'd be reading "Naked Lunch." Proof that it's a thin line that separates "Steve Urkel's Super-Cool Guide to Success" with avant-garde counter-cultural fiction.

2011 Reading List Monthly Update: April

Books completed in April 2011:

"Shoplifting From American Apparel" (Tao Lin) 4/1/11
"Franny and Zooey" (J.D. Salinger) 4/7/11
"The Failure" (James Greer) 4/8/11
"The Gospel of Anarchy" (Justin Taylor) 4/16/11
"Dhalgren" (Samuel R. Delany) 4/21/11
"There Is No Year" (Blake Butler) 4/25/11


2011 Reading List total:

1. "Welcome to my World" (Johnny Weir) 1/12/11
2. "Cold Hand in Mine" (Robert Aickman) 1/14/11
3. "The Mechanics of Homosexual Intercourse" (Lonely Christopher) 1/20/11
4. "Illuminated Shadows" (James Champagne) 1/20/11 *
5. "Eat When You Feel Sad" (Zachary German) 1/23/11
6. "The Marble Index" (James Champagne)
7. "Brigit" (Andrew Champagne) 2/15/11
8. "Gravity's Rainbow" (Thomas Pynchon) 2/25/11
9. "Demons by Daylight" (Ramsey Campbell) 3/4/11
10. "Neuromancer" (William Gibson) 3/7/11 *
11. "Don Quixote" (Kathy Acker) 3/16/11
12. "Snow Crash" (Neal Stephenson) 3/31/11
13. "Shoplifting From American Apparel" (Tao Lin) 4/1/11
14. "Franny and Zooey" (J.D. Salinger) 4/7/11
15. "The Failure" (James Greer) 4/8/11
16. "The Gospel of Anarchy" (Justin Taylor) 4/16/11
17. "Dhalgren" (Samuel R. Delany) 4/21/11
18. "There Is No Year" (Blake Butler) 4/25/11

*= book I've read at least once in the past

currently reading:

"Star Maker" (Olaf Stapledon)

Mini-book review: Blake Butler's "There Is No Year"

Blake Butler frustrates me. While undeniably a talented young writer, with a knack for creating both disturbing imagery and evocative and atmospheric sentences, I've yet to read one of his books and end up walking away feeling 100% satisfied. I came across his "novel-in-stories" Scorch Atlas during the summer of 2010, while vacationing with my family in Philadelphia, and when I first began it I thought it was one of the most incredible apocalyptic novels I had read in awhile, a stunning and even breathtaking murky glimpse at a world in which all logic had suddenly gone out the window, a world suffering through a number of surrealistic apocalypses, with Butler, like some sort of necromantic magician, conjuring up scene after scene of dazed people numbly trying to cope with a new civilization in which everything was rotting and decaying, a sort of textual recreation of Max Ernst's Europe After the Rain, if you will. At least, that's what I thought about the first 100 pages: the 52 pages that follow seemed to jettison the horror and clarity of what came before them and in their place was just a lot of free form imagery and tired stabs at experimental writing (for example, one page consisted of a few terse sentences interspersed with hundreds of parentheses repeated over and over again). In the end, it just wound up leaving me feeling disappointed, a missed opportunity.

I kind of feel the same way about Butler's newest novel (and major publishing debut), There Is No Year (Harper Perennial, 2011). Like Scorch Atlas, there isn't much in the way of a plot or a story. The novel can best be summed up in this manner: in a world suffused by a sort of vaguely described light, a father, mother and their sickly son move into a haunted house and weird things happen. It's a flimsy set-up that somehow Butler manages to stretch out for 400 pages, whereas I feel it probably would have made a more effective novella or short story (as it is, the whole "house-within-a-house"/"house that's larger on the inside than it is from the outside" feels like it's been done to death before anyway: Borges tackled the same theme in a lot of his short fiction, as did J.G. Ballard in stories such as "The Endless Space" and "Report on an Unidentified Space Station"). I thought the first 230 pages or so were quite good, thinking that maybe this was how a book like Lunar Park should have been written (another novel dealing with a family experiencing weird phenomena in a house that may be haunted, albeit told in a more conventional, less flashy style). But after that tedium started setting in as the book just dragged on and on before "ending" with not much of a bang. While the book certainly looks great, with its gray pages and its blurry photographs, this just seems to serve as a mask to cover up the "been there, done that" nature of Butler's themes. It doesn't help matters that the main characters in question (none of which are named) are such abstract stick figures that it's hard to really give a damn about them and the bizarre things that happen to them, and after awhile all of the unrelenting weirdness starts to become banal and routine, all of it written in Butler's blank style. I'm kind of curious as to how he feels about his own work: there seems, to me, to be a lack of passion or emotion present.

This isn't to say that the book isn't enjoyable, as like in Scorch Atlas there are some effective and disturbing scenes and images, such as a scene where the son plays a video game that finds him trapped in a level that never ends. But as the book goes on these interesting scenes start to become few and far between, and it just doesn't seem to add up or cohere into a successful whole. If one views There Is No Year as an illogical and choppy nightmare set in the form of a novel, one might be tempted to see it as a literary success, but as a friend of mine (Chris Stamm) recently noted in his own review of the book in question, "one man’s bad dream will almost always be the same man’s dull tale, no matter the amount of typesetting tomfoolery."

Update

It seems I've been updating this blog infrequently as of late. Part of the reason for that is that I haven't been doing much writing recently. I do have a big project planned for the future, but it's still in the planning stages. There are maps that need to be drawn, timelines and bloodlines that need to be created. More details to come.

In the meantime, I have a tumblr now: http://randommonsterencounters.tumblr.com/

The Demons in the Fresco

When one is a writer of fiction, one must always keep the eyes and ears open at all times for new ideas and sources of inspiration. Really, I've found it's almost impossible to turn the writer "off." I recall reading some years ago how, when Neil Gaiman's first child was being born, the writer in him kept bugging him to memorize all of the details, in case he ever wanted to use the memory of the event as material for a novel. It's something I can relate to, and I'm always looking out for fresh sources of inspiration. Sometimes I find these ideas in the most unexpected places (one of my most recent stories, "The Yellow Notebook," was inspired by the schizophrenic contents of a very odd yellow notebook I saw a customer flipping through at work late one evening during a closing shift). My most recent short story, "The Demons in the Fresco," was inspired by another story, this one concerning a fresco in one of my city's many churches.



The city of Woonsocket, my hometown, doesn't have a whole lot going for it, but it does have some quite beautiful old churches, many of which were built in the late 19th century by the French-Canadian immigrants who flocked to the city in great numbers when it was first founded in the hopes of landing jobs in its burgeoning textile industry (I myself am descended from these aforementioned French-Canadians). Last summer I began researching many of the old churches and cemeteries of my hometown, including one St. Ann's Church. Having been raised as a Catholic, I've never been quite able to exorcise my appreciation for Christian art and literature, the pomp and ritual of the Liturgy, or my love for many of the old churches associated with that religion. Although I'm exceedingly liberal on social issues, when it comes to ecclesiastical architecture I'm very orthodox and I don't really care for modern churches at all. St. Ann's Church is a real gem: it's located right next to the building where my therapist's office is located, and even though the church was closed by the Diocese of Providence in the year 2000 these days one can still tour the church on Sunday, as it is currently maintained by a non-religious affiliated, non-profit corporation known as the St. Ann's Arts & Cultural Center, who are dedicated to restoring and preserving the church. I'm kind of sad that I never really attended Mass at this church during my childhood, as it really is quite beautiful... though I think I may have attended a funeral Mass for a relative at one point in the mid-to-late 1990's.


Prof. Guido Nincheri

The church itself is 200 feet long and 118 feet wide, built on a granite block foundation, its main body constructed of light-colored brick with cement stone trimmings. Like many old churches, its built in the form of a large Roman cross, in the Modern French Renaissance style. Its architecture is Romanesque in design, inspired by the 16th century architects Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola (who is perhaps best known for his Jesuit Church of the Gesù in Rome, the interior of which clearly influenced that of St. Ann's) and Andrea Palladio. The roof of the church is covered with slate and copper trimming, while the front is flanked by two 160 foot tall towers, each of which is topped by an eight foot tall copper gilded cross (the tower on the Locust Street side had a belfry which housed three giant bells). Construction on it began in 1914, and it was opened to the public in 1918. Over the years it was gradually added to: between the years 1923-1925 40 stain-glass windows were added to the church, and between April of 1941 and the Fall of 1948 the interior of the church was painted by an Italian hunchback named Prof. Guido Nincheri, who ended up painting the entire church using the buon fresco technique. He ended up doing over 200 different fresco paintings for the church, featuring over 600 characters.


This is what you see when you first enter the church nave. Pictures don't really do justice to how large the inside of this church is. It's almost dizzying, really, and in terms of square footing its interior is actually slightly larger than that of the Sistine Chapel. In its day the church could hold 1,300 people, and the ceiling vaults are over 65 feet high. And everywhere one looks is Prof. Guido Nincheri's art, which illustrates scenes from both the Old and New Testament of the Holy Bible. In effect, to gaze around this church's interior is to look at one of the world's largest illustrated bibles. The church's art tells a story: it's a building you can read.


I first took a tour of St. Ann's in mid-summer 2010, then again in October of that same year (the second time to jot down notes and take some pictures). Both times the tour's guide told me some very interesting information about the stories behind the frescoes. Consider the above fresco, "The Original Sin," depicting the Serpent tempting Adam & Eve to eat forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge in the Graden of Eden. This fresco can be found in the ceiling arch of the church's south transept (like most of the church's ceiling art you have to crane your neck to see it), and the guide told us how parishioners, back in the day, had objected to Adam and Eve's nudity. To appease the philistines, Prof. Nincheri had added a few strategically placed leaves to the fresco. However, he supposedly flew into a rage when the pastor requested further leaves be added, to the extent that he demolished the scaffolding and stated that if the St. Ann's parishioners wished to further cover up Adam and Eve's nudity, they could do it themselves! Apparently students of the church's school were forbidden to gaze up at the "racy" Adam & Eve fresco, and those caught doing so by nuns were punished in class on Monday morning. Some clever boys would smuggle in little pieces of glass or mirrors which they would then use to secretly admire the artwork. The guide also mentioned how the church was supposedly haunted, and that female voices could sometimes be heard whispering in the choir loft, which delighted me to no end, given my love of the supernatural and things that go bump in the night.


By far the church's largest and most impressive fresco is the one painted within the large central dome located on the ceiling above the church's crossing, entitled "The Last Judgment." What makes this piece of art so interesting is it's one of the only frescoes in the church that depicts demons (angels, on the other hand, are in abundance: over 400 of them can be seen depicted in the stain-glass windows, the frescoes, on the ceiling, the walls, and the arches). The three demons in question are at the bottom of the fresco. Two of them have faces that can clearly be seen. The guide mentioned how many of the Biblical figures and angels in the frescoes were modeled after real-life parishioners, who would pose for the artist for 50 cents and a peanut butter sandwich. The St. Ann's Arts & Cultural Center have managed to figure out which fresco characters were modeled on real-life parishioners... with the exception of the demons in the fresco. The story goes that one day in the mid 1940's Prof. Nincheri visited a nun's seventh grade class and asked her to show him who she felt were the two most wicked & mischievous boys in the class. It was supposedly these two boys who served as the models for the demons, though to this day the identity of the two boys is unknown, and even though the St. Ann's Arts & Cultural Center placed an ad in a local newspaper a couple years back asking if the models would identify themselves, no one stepped forward to admit it. It is one of the unsolved mysteries of the church.


detail of the demons in question

Naturally, once I heard that tale, I thought, "Man, that sounds like the perfect set-up for a horror story." So I began doing tons of research into the church. I started working on the story in early January 2010 and finished it on the last day of February. That's the first draft... now I just have to type it out (groan). The finished result is kind of a cross between H.P. Lovecraft's short story "Pickman's Model" and J.K. Huysmans' novel The Cathedral, and it's dedicated to the Johnny Dixon horror novels of John Bellairs, which I read voraciously in grade school: the Dixon mysteries were aimed at younger audiences and were steeped in an atmosphere of Catholicism, even though Bellairs himself was an atheist. Of the many short stories I've written over the years, this one by far was the most difficult for me to write, and at 40 pages is almost a novella! I ended up changing some details though: in my story the city of Woonsocket becomes the City of Thundermist, while the church is renamed St. Durtal's Church (another nod to Huysmans). Having said that, aside from a few minor details and cosmetic changes, the church described in my story is pretty much St. Ann's Church.

Further photos:


St. Ann's Church, seen from a distance.


This is what it looks like when driving to St. Ann's Church. The building in the immediate foreground and to the left is where I see my therapist. His office looks out directly onto the church itself.


A photograph of the rectory side of St. Ann's Church, where the large stain-glass window of the north transept can clearly be seen.


A look towards the main entrance of the church. The large frescoes on the ceiling of the nave depicts scenes from the ministry of Jesus in the Gospels, including his baptism by John the Baptist, his transfiguration on the mountain, the feeding of the 5000, the agony in the garden, and the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Directly above the doors leading into the foyer is the supposedly haunted choir loft.


The church's sanctuary. The artwork in the dome above the sanctuary depicts scenes from the life of St. Ann herself.


The south transept (also known as its "Locust Street side" due to the fact that this side of the church is flanked by a street called Locust Street).


The church's north transept (its "rectory side").

Here's a link to the webpage maintained by the St. Ann's Arts & Cultural Center: http://stannartsctr.org/default.aspx (click on the "Facility" tab if you want to have a virtual tour of the church). Those interested in further information should check out the book Towers of Faith and Family: St. Ann's Church; Woonsocket, Rhode Island, 1890 - 1990, which was edited by Paul A. Bourget and published by St. Ann's Church itself. A few of the pictures in this blog entry come from that book: the rest of the photographs were taken by myself.