The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption is not your average prison flick. Whether or not you’ve read Stephen King’s novella Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption, you’re sure to enjoy this poignant drama.

Almost a study in the effects of incarceration, this movie has it all. Brilliant acting by Tim Robbins as Main Character Andy Defresne, a young man wrongly accused of killing his wife and her golf-pro lover. Ditto applies to Morgan Freeman as Red – the man who can get anything.

James Whittemore plays the tough old librarian inmate Brooke; his role touches upon man’s dependency on the penal system. Add a corrupt warden, maniacal guards, and homosexual thugs and watch this movie span generations symbolized by pin-ups of Rita Hayworth and Raquel Welch.

Keep an eye on the pin-ups. They play an important part as Andy learns the best ways to survive his life of hell known as the Shawshank Prison. If you’re a King fan, or even if you’re not – watch this movie.




The Shawshank Redemption: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

The Shawshank Redemption

#fridayflash: Remedy

Lottie’s flawless white hands smoothed silky folds of pink satin undergarments as she placed them into her squat old brown suitcase. A cool spring breeze drew her to the open window where moonbeams shimmered softly through sheer lace curtains. A brisk knock on the door and Lottie jumped back from the window, her beautiful sky blue eyes darting anxiously around the soft pink haven she’d cocooned herself into for the past five years.

“Go away,” she whispered.
Instead, as Lottie knew would happen, the door swung inward and Frieda bustled into the dainty pink and white bedroom.
Frieda, buxom and shapely in her blue satin nightdress and reeking of the remedy, stopped short and stared down into the hastily packed old satchel on Lottie’s pink bedspread.
“What’s this? You’re not still seriously thinking of leaving, are you Lottie Dear?”
“I’m not thinking of it. I’m doing it,” Lottie said flipping back her long blonde hair and snapping the latches closed on her worn old suitcase.

“You know what will happen to you without the remedy,” Frieda said, reposing into a pink satin armchair, like a queen on her throne. She clutched an ornate silver flask in her lovely, perfectly manicured hands.

“I don’t care, I’m leaving and I’m leaving for good this time,” Lottie said, her pretty face puckering into a frown as she backed toward the open door. “What we’re doing is wrong.”
“What’s wrong with wanting to look our best? What’s wrong with bringing a little pleasure to some lonely men? We have to make a living, don’t we? What’s wrong with that?” Frieda uncorked the slender silver flask increasing the pleasant lemony, jasmine scent of the remedy. “Are you leaving without tonight’s treatment? It’s almost midnight, you’ll revert soon.”
“We’re not beautiful, Frieda. It’s wrong to deceive these men. It’s wrong to take their money. This remedy you created is wicked—it’s addicting and evil. The remedy—it’s changed you—made your face and your body beautiful, but it’s poisoned your soul. It’s made you cold, calculating, and greedy. I often wonder, is any of my sweet sister really still in there?”

Lottie smoothed the folds of her old gray cotton dress with warty, liver-spotted hands. Her face began to sag on one side, her top lip splitting into a hideous fixed grin as words became harder to formulate. Tears sparkled in sky blue eyes. Beautiful eyes now receding into lumps of bone and wrinkled flesh which sprouted haphazardly across Lottie’s ravaged skull.
“Cuh wid me,” Lottie begged.
Frieda laughed.
Lottie shrugged her bent shoulders, grasped the handle of the old suitcase with a twisted talon, and limped out into the fragrant spring night.
“You’ll be back,” Frieda shouted from the window of Lottie’s old room. “You always come back.”

End

Note: I’ve discovered, through a little blog research, a movement called “#fridayflash.” It’s to post flash fiction (stories under 1,000 words )on our blogs each Friday: the stories are then rounded up into a collector site to give fiction writers some exposure. At least to each other.

It’s sort of an excuse to get us off our butts and doing something that we all aspire to do – write.
I think it will be lots of fun. Remedy is my first “#fridayflash” piece.
--ld

Flash Fiction: Airdog

#fridayflash: Remedy

Dragon Chronicles II

In a recent post, I promised a new prediction quatrain per week in the spirit of Nostradamus. Below is my most recent Dragon Chronicle:

II. Trades and commerce bulge and swell
The paper trail leads into Hell
A lifelong wafer fits the need
This new knowledge quells the greed

Nostradamus

Dragon Chronicles II

Subtle Sorcery

Dear Weezel,
This is a little scary because I think my Grandmother is a witch.
Whenever I spend time at her house, I have nightmares and I see strange things. She lives deep in the woods with lots of bizarre plants in and around her house.

She grows huge ugly plants and I’ve seen her out in her yard whispering to the plants.
She dries a lot of the weird plants and often I see her cooking bunches of smelly plants in a metal pot on top of her wood stove. Sometimes when she’s stirring her concoctions, her eyes are closed and her lips are moving like she’s in a trance or something.

What really convinced me, however, happened last weekend. On Friday night I had a wicked bad nightmare where a shadowy figure chased me through Grandma’s garden of strange bushy plants; the plants reached for me with their slick rubbery leaves . . . I woke up then to find Grandma perched beside me on the bed, her face scrunched into a dried apple of concern above her narrow shoulders. I’ve been suffering nightmares for as long as I can remember, but that one grossed me out and I think Grandma knew it. I think she saw something in my eyes.

The next day, she gave me a little cloth cushion about the size of a bar of soap, and instructed me to keep it under my pillow at night and my nightmares would disappear. The little pillow smelled funny: kind of like mint and cabbage, almost a little sickening. It also crackled and puffed a bit when I squeezed it, but I placed it under my pillow like a good granddaughter.

AND my nightmares are gone. I sleep so well, I’m afraid I won’t be able to wake up on my own. I have the little pillow at home in my room with me now. I’m afraid to close my eyes without it. I guard that little pillow like my life depended on it; running home from school each day to make sure it’s still where I left it.

What’s wrong with me? Is my Grandmother a witch? Is she putting evil spells on me?
--Carrie H.

Dear Carrie,
Nature provides us with a magical pantry. Since ancient times plants and herbs have been used to improve our lives. Energy harnessed secretly by knowing practitioners can create a powerful balance – can guide fate with a blend of whispered mystery carried down through the ages. I call this subtle sorcery.

You are right to guard the pillow, it’s your natural instinct stepping in to protect you. The pillow was made for you and to work it needs to be near you: keep it safe. Your grandmother believes that she is helping you. It sounds like you believe it to. Set your fears aside and enjoy another good night’s sleep.
--Weezel

Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic: A Materia Magica of African-American Conjure

Subtle Sorcery

The King’s Magic

It all started during the Night Shift.

In 1977, in a small Massachusetts library, a bored housewife picked up a volume of short stories by an almost unheard of author. Thus, The Magic griped me in it’s fist before I finished my first King edition.

I became so spellbound by the words and workings of Stephen King; I guzzled everything on the library shelves bearing his name. Once I’d absorbed works already in print, new books and stories just didn’t happen fast enough. Have you ever harassed librarians and bookstore clerks? Tormented them as thoroughly as Pennywise plagued seven children in one of my personal favorites? It wasn’t a pretty picture.

The article in Time magazine first appeared in 1986. What a big mistake. Not only did the article feature a picture of his house, it printed his address. Needless to say, it took me no time at all to locate the big mansion in Bangor, then about four hours away. I burned rubber, making that four-hour trip in Maximum Overdrive – just content to Stand before the big black gates and gaze with Shining wonder at the Dark Tower of the most talented author of my time.

Soon I found a job and settled in the Bangor area to begin my phase of worship. I sent fan letters; I begged for an autographed photo. I even shot many pictures of the King mansion from every conceivable angle. I hate to admit it, but one Halloween in the late 80’s; I followed a group of pre-school trick-or-treaters right up to the doorstep and stood mere inches from the King Himself as he doled out treats to the youngsters. I was his number one fan . . .

Until I peeked into the mirror and spied Annie Wilkes peeking back. With the writing of Misery, I glimpsed Mr. King saying something important to his fans.
“Back off.”
I’ve changed my behavior considerably since Annie Wilkes swung her ax. I no longer haunt the neighborhood of West Broadway in Bangor. The King’s Magic is still with me but in a different way; I create my own magic.

My house in Maine is small, dark, and hidden: it lies quietly on the outskirts of Bangor. As I blaze ahead to where every fiction writer has gone before, I can now look back on those days of idolatry with fresh eyes. My Dark Half has always been here: waiting for the ax to fall.

End

Note from the author: The King’s Magic first appeared in the September 1994 edition of SKIN (Stephen King Informational Network), a newsletter published for Stephen King fans. All first time article contributors had to answer this important question: “What does Stephen King’s writing mean to you?”

SK Tidbit: Stephen King’s The Graveyard Shift was filmed in the town where I currently live. The film was shot at a small woolen mill where my son worked. My son, a high school student at the time, is actually in the movie for a split-second. Each day, during the filming, he would fascinate me with stories of how the movie was made. At the end of shooting, the crew gave him a Graveyard Shift tee shirt for his on-the-set assistance in the making of the movie.

Stephen King's Graveyard Shift

The King’s Magic

The Puppet Masters

I like an old horror movie from time to time. This Golden Oldie, circa 1994, from Hollywood Pictures recently aired on Cinemax. Directed by Jeffery Dashnaw, The Puppet Masters still holds enough punch to keep the interest of horror and science fiction fans alike. The special effects are a tad weak by today’s standards, but the story line is well thought out.

In the small, sleepy, town of Ambrose, Iowa – a UFO crashes to earth witnessed by three average teenaged boys. They don’t remain average for long nor does anything else in this cool thriller.

The aliens, who seem to be a cross between a stingray and a cicada, quickly flatten across backs and attach themselves to spinal cords. Hidden beneath bulky clothing, they control the minds of town residents. From their concealed positions, they branch out quickly making it all the way to the White House. Candidates needn’t worry, however, the president is miraculously spared when Donald Sutherland (the main Dr. Goodguy) realizes that his son (Eric Thal) is infected.

Julie Warner does a superb job as the beautiful scientist with a degree in alien life forms. The twists and turns of this movie make it an enjoyable two hours of solid entertainment. It is extremely difficult, as the movie progresses, for the watcher to distinguish the puppets from the uninfected. I would recommend this movie to all fans of horror and science fiction, provided you realize the special effects are from the region of 1994.
--w

The Puppet Masters -- Get the paperback!

The Puppet Masters

Was Nostradamus Yesterday’s Blogger?

In a recent airing of Nostradamus Decoded on the Discovery Channel, experts speculated that the Frenchman’s quatrains (circa 1560) appeared on the market of the day because they suspected Nostradamus wanted to write something people would read – much like today’s blogger.

I was fascinated by the assumption that Nostradamus, one of the most quoted writers of his time, may have simply wanted to write fiction that sold.

His predictions (quatrains), popular with French common folk and royalty alike, streamed doomsday historical clues to his public via early printing presses and small volumes sold in markets and apothecaries.

Unlike today’s blogging crowd, Nostradamus dealt with a public who could have literally served his head on a platter if they didn’t like what he had to say, or if they thought he leaned toward the supernatural or practiced witchcraft. Some believe this is why his written words appeared shrouded in anagrams and necessitate decoding by civilizations past and present.

In society today, writers may be shunned and verbally flogged for their beliefs and convictions, but blogging and the Internet give anonymity. This is a unique opportunity for the common people not readily available in bygone times. We have the freedom to marvel over whatever suits us and to place these written words on our blogs for the entire world to see. If Nostradamus were alive today, I predict that his rhythmic blog would be one of the most popular and largely viewed on the WWW.

So . . . how can I make my blog as popular as a perceived Nostradamus blog? Maybe some really cool and bloody predictions about Anti-Christ number four? How about another elaborate end of the world prediction?

I think not.

Written below is my first quatrain. It serves as my initial prediction for the future. My quatrains are written in English, of course, so they may not have quite the same ring to them as those of Nostradamus. Maybe you will know what I am predicting, and maybe you won’t.

Dragon Chronicles
I. An ancient Scribe came to pass
Scholars join through the looking glass
Voices hush across the land
Witness the miracle of the twisted hand
--ld

Nostradamus 2012

Was Nostradamus Yesterday’s Blogger?