Tag: Allen Kopp

On Company Time

On Company Time ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

Sterling Burgess drove a delivery truck for the Handy Dandy Laundry. He was thirty-seven years old, a short man—barely five feet, three inches tall—and had to sit on a built-up seat to see over the steering wheel of the truck he drove. Most of the employees at Handy Dandy were women and, to these women, Sterling was an object of ridicule. They made fun of him and called him shortstop and half-pint. Any time he walked into the part of the building where they worked, they nudged each other and stopped what they were doing and watched him with a kind of inexplicable fascination.

He had ways of getting back at them, though. For every shortstop and half-pint they threw his way, he countered with swine and witch. And when they failed to see he was in the room, he liked to sneak up on them from behind, get down low and make sudden pig snorts or wolf howls, causing them to jump and scream. This was more effective than name-calling because they knew it was a commentary on their appearance.

One day the boss, Mr. Hornblatt, called Sterling into the office. One of the women, Malvina St. Elmo, a former prostitute with a pockmarked face and a head full of springy curls, complained that Sterling touched her on a nether portion of her anatomy and whispered a dirty word in her ear.

“She’s full of shit,” Sterling said. “I’ve never laid a finger on any of those bitches. I’d be afraid of contamination.”

“We can’t have that kind of behavior here,” Mr. Hornblatt said, “or even the appearance of it.”

“I said I didn’t do it.”

“All right. I’ll take your word for it this time. Just watch yourself, that’s all.”

“Did you tell the old heifer who told the lie to watch herself?”

“Remember what I said, Sterling.”

He was hurt that anybody would tell such an outrageous lie. In the future, he would avoid going anywhere near Malvina St. Elmo and the rest of them. He wouldn’t give any of them a chance to tell more lies. He would find some way of getting back at Malvina, no matter how long it took. He was not one to forget a slight. He wouldn’t rest until he had evened the score.

There was one woman who wasn’t like the others. Her name was Irene Tarrant; she had been at the laundry only a few months. Like Sterling, she was small. Unlike the other women, her uniform, hair and hands always looked clean and tidy. She stuck to her work and rarely spoke unless spoken to. The other women hated her for her silence and aloofness. They believed she thought she was better than they were.

When he caught Irene’s eye, she smiled at him and didn’t sneer, so he came to believe there was a kind of connection between them. She seemed sad, though, and he wished he might talk to her when nobody else was around, get to know her better.

What was her life like away from the laundry? Was she happy in spite of her odious job? Did she have a husband? Children? Did she have a cheerful home where she baked cakes and fried chicken and made new curtains for the kitchen? Maybe she used to be a nun and had left after a few years when she decided the monastic life wasn’t for her. The possibilities were limitless.

And when the time came that he could talk to her without interference, he’d tell her to get away from the laundry before it was too late. She didn’t belong there. How long would it take her to become coarse, ugly and cruel, like the others? A year or two, maybe? How long before she told dirty jokes, cackled with laughter, had a cigarette dangling from her lip? How long before she didn’t bother to comb her hair or keep her clothes clean and sneaked nips of whiskey when she thought nobody was looking? He could easily see it happening. We can’t escape our environment.

At home, at the dinner table, Sterling said, “There’s a woman I’m interested in at the laundry.”

His mother’s dull gray eyes lifted from her plate. “I thought you didn’t like the women at the laundry.”

“I don’t. This one’s different.”

“Who is she?”

“I don’t know much about her. Her name is Irene.”

“I knew an Irene once. She was a shoplifter.”

“I don’t think this one’s a shoplifter.”

“Are you going to marry her?”

“Of course not. I don’t even know her. She might already be married.”

“Forget about her. She’s no good for you.”

He laughed. “How do you know?”

“Women will always mess up your life.”

Speaking about Irene, bringing it out into the open that way, strengthened his determination to ask her out, at least for a get-acquainted drink, and if she didn’t drink they’d have a cup of tea or a Coke. If she was married, she’d let him know soon enough. How might he convince her that it was just as a friend that he was asking her?

He continued seeing her every day at the laundry, but she rarely looked his way. She had not the slightest bit of interest in him, he knew, or in anything other than her work.

He continued to keep a watchful eye on Malvina—without her knowing, of course—for any misdeeds. When she did something she wasn’t supposed to do, he’d use it as a weapon against her. His fondest wish was to get her fired.

And then one Friday afternoon when the boss was away, he spotted her going out a little-used side door that opened onto an alleyway. If she only wanted some fresh air, it was nothing, but he was sure there was more to it than that.

The door didn’t close all the way. In the half-inch space between the door and its frame, he saw Malvina standing about thirty feet away with a tall, thin man with dark hair. The man leaned into Malvina and kissed her on the side of her face and she put her arms around his shoulders and laughed. After a minute or so they got into the back of a van parked against the brick wall opposite and closed the doors. Thirty minutes later she was back on the line as if nothing had happened.

Casually, when nobody was looking, Sterling went to the time clock and looked at Malvina’s time card to see if she had punched out when she went out into the alleyway to dilly-dally with her boyfriend in the back of a van. He already knew she hadn’t. The company called it time theft and it was grounds for immediate dismissal.

He couldn’t very well carry a tale to the boss of what he had seen. He needed more than just his own word. He needed some proof. He bought a small camera and learned how to use it and kept it in his locker with his lunch bag and his jacket.

In the middle of May, the boss was out of the office for a week. It was the perfect time for misdeeds. On Wednesday morning when Sterling was getting ready to make some deliveries, it was his good fortune to spot Malvina going out the side door again. He ran to his locker and got his camera.

It was the same man as before, but with a second man this time. Sterling pushed the door open a few inches without being seen and was able to get some clear shots of both men as they greeted Malvina in a way that left no doubt as to their intentions. Malvina cooed and giggled, going from one to the other, her delight altogether obvious.

The scene was repeated on Friday afternoon, but Sterling already had what he needed.

On Monday morning before the boss arrived, Sterling left an envelope on his desk marked Confidential. In it were enlargements of the pictures he had taken of the activities in the alleyway on Wednesday of the week before. On each picture he wrote in block letters the time and date the picture was taken and the words On Company Time.

By afternoon the company was abuzz with rumors. Malvina St. Elmo did something she shouldn’t have done and was in big trouble. Management was plenty worked up about it. What did Malvina do? Nobody knew for sure, but some of her closest chums had a good idea.

The result was that Malvina was escorted out of the building at the end of the day by the sleepy-eyed security guard. She screamed profanities every step of the way and threatened to take legal action for being fired for no good reason. It was the most gratifying sight Sterling had seen in all his years at Handy Dandy.

For a few days after Malvina’s departure, Sterling was treated with more respect than he was used to. The women didn’t call him names and laugh at him. Malvina had been their ring leader. With her gone, they didn’t know what to do so they did nothing.

While Sterling may have considered the score settled, someone else did not. Exactly two weeks after she was fired, Malvina returned to Handy Dandy. She knew exactly where Sterling would be. She found him and fired one shot into his abdomen and ran out the door.

Everybody heard the shot and went running to see what had happened. Sterling was lying on his back, screaming in pain, bleeding profusely. The women stood and gaped at him in fascination, nobody making a move to help him.

Only Irene stepped forward. “Somebody call an ambulance!” she screamed.

 Mr. Hornblatt came out of his office and when he saw what had happened he was the one who called the ambulance and then the police.

“Did anybody see who did this?” he said in his thunderous rally-the-troops voice.

“Malvina,” Sterling gasped.

“Somebody get me some clean towels!” Irene said in a commanding voice that nobody knew she was capable of.

With towels folded to make a compress, she pressed with all her might against his abdomen to try to slow the bleeding until the ambulance arrived.

Time passed. A little or a lot of time, it didn’t matter.

He awoke in a high bed beside a gray wall. His mother was there, dressed in her Sunday best. She smiled at him and he thought he might be dreaming.

“You almost died,” she said with a little laugh.

He didn’t have anything to say, so he said nothing. He closed his eyes, thinking to return to wherever he had been for so long.

“I’ve spoken to Mr. Hornblatt from Handy Dandy three times on the phone,” his mother said. “He wanted me to tell you that everybody at the laundry sends their best wishes and that your job is waiting for you when you’re ready to come back.”

“I don’t know if…”

“You don’t have to think about it now, though.”

“Has anybody named Irene been to see me?” he asked.

“Irene? Oh, Mr. Hornblatt did mention a person named Irene.”

“What did he say about her?”

“He said she saved your life the day that awful woman shot you. She kept you from bleeding to death while you were waiting for the ambulance to get there.”

“She did that?”

“Yes, I tried to call her at the laundry to thank her for what she did, but they said she never came back after that day and they don’t know where she went.”

“Went away?”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t worry. Did you see the lovely flowers they sent you?”

He looked in the direction of his feet but saw no flowers. He closed his eyes again then to make his mother stop talking. He knew when she left from the opening and closing of the door.

He slept and woke and slept again. Once when he woke, a small, dark-haired woman was standing where his mother had been earlier. He didn’t know how long she had been there and he wasn’t sure if he had ever seen her before. She smiled a rare smile and put her small white hand on his.

“I knew you’d come,” he said.

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Wuthering Heights ~ A Capsule Book Review

Wuthering Heights ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

English Author Emily Brontë was born into a literary family in 1818. Her only novel, Wuthering Heights, was published in 1847 when she was twenty-nine years old. She died the next year, in 1848, at the age of thirty. Wuthering Heights is a seminal work of nineteenth century English literature that has stood the test of time. In the 171 years since its initial publication, it has never been out of the public consciousness.

The estate Wuthering Heights (house and grounds) is on the desolate Yorkshire moors in northern England (“a perfect misanthropist’s heaven”). Four miles away is Thrushcross Grange. All the action in Wuthering Heights takes place in either of these two places. The action that occurs inside the two houses is as storm-tossed as the weather that occurs outside on the wild moors.

When the story begins, kindly Mr. Earnshaw is the owner of Wuthering Heights. He lives there with his two children, Catherine (Cathy) and Hindley. He takes in a poor orphaned beggar boy and gives him the name Heathcliff. Heathcliff has no last name. As a man, Heathcliff is the pivotal character in the book. All the other characters sooner or later fall into his sphere.

Mr. Earnshaw dies and leaves Heathcliff to defend himself against the cruel nature of Hindley. Hindley treats Heathcliff as a servant and a stable boy and never lets him forget where he came from, calling him a “gypsy beggar.” Heathcliff and Hindley become mortal enemies, to the death. Hindley is a good-for-nothing drunkard and gambler, squandering the fortune his father left him.

And then there is Catherine. Her tortured relationship with Heathcliff forms the core of the novel. They are brought up together as brother and sister. As children, they are inseparable companions. They come to love each other deeply into adulthood. Catherine knows that Heathcliff is not of her world and is socially unacceptable, but she can’t help herself. As she tells her faithful servant, Nelly Dean, she and Heathcliff are one and the same. As we will see by the end of the book, their love is a love that transcends the physical world.

Against her nature, Catherine decides to marry Edgar Linton of Thrushcross Grange, at which point Heathcliff runs off to only-God-knows-where. Edgar is nothing like Heathcliff. He is from a wealthy family, cultured and educated, and he has a sweet nature. Catherine lives in wealth and refinement with Edgar and his sister Isabella at Thrushcross Grange. Then, after several years of domesticated bliss for Catherine and Edgar, Heathcliff returns. He is his old self, only prosperous. Wherever he has been and whatever he has been doing, he has acquired money and a good suit of clothes, if nothing else. He buys Wuthering Heights to pay off Hindley’s gambling debts. Soon Hindley conveniently dies.

Edgar Linton’s sister, Isabella, is drawn to Heathcliff, even though she has been warned against him. Heathcliff marries Isabella, if only to get back at Catherine and Edgar. He takes Isabella to Wuthering Heights to live and thereby makes her miserably unhappy.

Catherine and Edgar have a daughter, also named Catherine; Heathcliff and Isabella have a son named Linton. The unhappiness engendered by their parents is carried on into their own lives.

Wuthering Heights is a dark book, with plenty of cruelty, brutality, hatred and unhappiness to go around among its characters. Its nonlinear structure and shifting of narrators make it a moderately difficult book to read. Most of the story is being narrated by the servant Nelly Dean to Mr. Lockwood, Heathcliff’s new tenant. (We don’t know until the end of the book why Heathcliff even needs a tenant.) When the narrator shifts to somebody else, we are a little disoriented. It is, however, a valuable reading experience. I first read it when I was nineteen and decided it was worth another look.

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Isle of Dogs ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Isle of Dogs ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

Director Wes Anderson is known for his quirky, visually arresting movies such as The Grand Budapest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom, and Fantastic Mr. Fox. His latest is Isle of Dogs, an animated fable, full of wry humor, about the search for a lost dog and political corruption involving propaganda and conspiracy theory (sound familiar?) in the fictitious Japanese city of Megasaki City twenty years into the future.

The mayor of Megasaki City, Mayor Kobayashi, is corrupt and has been in office far too long (he’s always re-elected overwhelmingly). As with despots and tyrants everywhere, he uses propaganda to turn the people against somebody or something. In this case, the something is dogs. The propaganda has it that dogs have diseases that can be passed on to humans and are therefore dangerous. He succeeds in getting a large portion of the human population to hate dogs. He has the dogs in the city exiled to Trash Island, a cankerous landfill where the dogs will die of neglect, starvation and disease.

There is, however, a passionate pro-dog contingent, who knows of the existence of a dog-flu serum that will instantly cure any dog of disease. Knowledge of the serum is, of course, suppressed by Mayor Kobayashi and his political machine. (Ever have the feeling that the government or slick politicians suppress information that we have the right to know?)

Mayor Kobayashi has a ward, a twelve-year-old boy named Atari, who has (or had) a dog named Spots Kobayashi. When Spots is exiled to Trash Island with other dogs, Atari takes it upon himself to fly there in a small plane he has commandeered. The plane crashes on the island and Atari is “rescued” by a small contingent of talking dogs: Chief, Rex, King, Boss and Duke. They help Atari look for his lost dog on Trash Island. “If he’s alive, we’ll find him,” they tell Atari.

Though it is animated, Isle of Dogs is not a movie for the kindergarten set. It’s strictly an art house movie for thinking people who want to see something entirely original and unlike anything they’ve ever seen before. And, remember: though Atari speaks only Japanese, all barks are translated into English.

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

1984 ~ A Capsule Book Review

1984 ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

George Orwell’s celebrated novel about a bleak dystopian future, 1984, was first published in 1949. It’s set in London, but it’s not called London anymore; it’s now called Airstrip One and it’s part of the landmass known as Oceania. There are three superpowers in the world: Oceania, Eastasia and Eurasia. A constant state of warfare exists between Oceania and either Eastasia or Eurasia (first one and then the other). We learn later in the book the cruel reason that warfare—or at least the idea of warfare—is perpetuated. As long as the subjugated people believe their country is at war, they have somebody to hate and hate is what drives them and ensures absolute loyalty to the Party.

The Party is all and everything in 1984. The slogans of the party are: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, AND IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. There are no laws and no religion and no government to speak of. Owning property of any kind is not allowed. People live in cheerless “flats,” each of which has its own “telescreen” that can’t be turned off. Everything a person does or says is heard and seen by the telescreen: BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU!

Winston Smith is the “every man” main character in 1984 who puts the story on a personal level for the reader. He’s thirty-nine years old and works in what is called the Ministry of Truth. His job is to change the historical record (books, magazines, newspapers, etc.) to conform to the current propaganda. There is no historical record of any past event that the Party doesn’t control: what is now has always been and will always be. The Party believes that whoever controls the past controls the future and whoever controls the future controls the past.

On the surface, Winston Smith tries to be a good Party member. He does what he’s told, but inside he’s rebelling. Inside, he hates the Party, Big Brother and everything they stand for. He knows these thoughts could get him killed, so he must keep them to himself at all cost. He hears about a resistance movement called the Brotherhood. He isn’t sure if the Brotherhood really exists or if it’s just hearsay. If it really exists, it might be a way to overthrow the Party. Does he dare hope that such a thing is possible?

He meets Julia, younger than him by almost fifteen years. She is more of a “free spirit” than he is, if such a thing is possible in this world. When he discovers that Julia shares his loathing of the way things are, they begin a secret love affair. They rent a room in the proletarian section of the city where they might be alone (they think) and discuss their subversive views.

A man named O’Brien comes to play an important part in the story and in Winston Smith’s life. Without words being spoken, Winston feels a connection to O’Brien that he can’t explain. Is O’Brien what he seems to be or is he something else? Might he lead Winston and Julia into the resistance movement (the Brotherhood) or might he lead them in another direction? Is it safe to trust anybody in this world?

The brilliance of 1984 is that it’s wholly believable and still so relevant. As our freedoms are slowly being eroded, we come closer and closer to the kind of world we see in 1984. In high levels of the U.S. government, there are enemies of the right to bear arms, of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, who would gladly remove those cornerstones of the Constitution if only they could find a way. There are also many people who would remove God and religion from public discourse and change the historical record to make it conform to today’s standards of political correctness. That’s what removal of Civil War monuments is all about: WE will change the past to make it what WE think it should be. The all-important WE, embodying Groupspeak and Groupthink. You think as we think or you die. This is exactly what happens in 1984.

And then there’s video surveillance. If you are in a clothing or a hardware store, at the library or at a gas station, or sometimes just walking along the street or crossing a parking lot, you are being watched in case you decide to do something you shouldn’t do. And if the cameras don’t catch you, there are always the snitchers, the do-gooders with their cell phones at the ready who will inform on you, whether there’s any reason to or not. “I just saw this man walking down the street wearing a long-sleeved shirt in July! That’s awfully suspicious if you ask me. I think he’s planning an attack of some kind.” BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU!

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Annihilation ~ A Capsule Book Review

Annihilation ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Jeff Vandermeer’s science fiction novel, Annihilation (the first installment of the Southern Reach Trilogy), is about a nether place on earth known as Area X, an uninhabitable region in which nature has gone awry, a place very dangerous to humans. Several expeditions have gone to Area X to try to ascertain what is going on and, also, to try to figure out why Area X is getting bigger, with the potential of encompassing the entire earth. Is it the work of an alien intelligence or is it just nature gone crazy? Many questions remain unanswered.

The main character of Annihilation is without a name. We only know her as “the biologist.” She is telling the story in her first-person voice. Her husband, also nameless, went on the most recent expedition. He was “lost” for almost a year but one day miraculously turned up again and then died right away (or did he?). The biologist is a solitary, brooding person. She signs up to go on the twelfth expedition, realizing that it is almost certainly a decision that will result in her death. She is willing to die, one supposes, for the sake of knowledge.

All the other members of the twelfth expedition are women and they are all without names. We only know them as “the psychologist,” “the anthropologist” and “the surveyor.” They are all business with no bonding or camaraderie among them. Soon they all die freakishly and the biologist is left on her own to try to learn the secrets of Area X, starting with what she calls “the Tower,” a massive cylinder (apparently) implanted in the earth that might be, in fact, a living organism. Stairs lead downward in the Tower and along the wall on the stairs is a peculiar kind of writing that is composed of tiny, hand-shaped living organisms that write words, which the biologist comes to call “the Crawler.” What do the words mean and what intelligence is behind them? The biologist inhales a spore from the writing on the wall that changes her. After the spore, she glows from within and seems impervious to things that might otherwise kill her. Is the alien intelligence (if that’s what it is) protecting her so she might learn the secrets of Area X?

And then there is the lighthouse that is the epicenter of Area X. The biologist journeys to the lighthouse and there discovers the notebooks of all the previous expeditions, including the notebook of her (lost or dead) husband. She comes to a fundamental understanding of what Area X is about and is able to formulate some theories, but still there are many unanswered questions, which will, it is presumed, be answered in books two and three of the Southern Reach Trilogy.

Annihilation is an imaginative excursion into the unknown in just under two hundred pages. While it’s a little overly descriptive at times for my taste and the middle section seems to drag on a little too long, we can overlook those things in view of the overall fine quality of the writing and of the story itself, which is unlike anything I’ve ever seen or heard of before. We do appreciate originality wherever we can find it.

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

The Catcher in the Rye ~ A Capsule Book Review

The Catcher in the Rye ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

J. D. Salinger pulled off something of a miracle when he wrote his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye. It’s a book that’s almost universally loved or at least admired. It’s thoroughly readable, undeniably engaging, absolutely compelling, and completely original. Every writer wishes he had written it. It has often been imitated—the sincerest form of flattery—but never duplicated. It has to be one of the best American books of the twentieth century. It’s a small book but it manages, in its scant 235 pages, to create more of an impression with the reader than much more ambitious books of two or three times its length.

One of the remarkable things about The Catcher in the Rye is that it’s not wholesome (there’s plenty of swearing and references to sex) or life-affirming. It’s about angst, alienation and loneliness. It’s protagonist (or anti-hero, if you prefer), Holden Caulfield, is plenty messed up. His observations on life are cynical, funny, dark, and oftentimes cruel and misanthropic. It’s no surprise that Catcher in the Rye is often the book of choice among killers and criminals. Do you know the poem “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley? The poem is saying that no matter what I’ve done and no matter what is done to me because of what I’ve done, I stand before you bloody—but unbowed—because I am the master of my fate and captain of my soul. For me, Catcher in the Rye embodies the same spirit.

The Catcher in the Rye is being told in the first-person voice of Holden Caulfield. He’s seventeen years old and a student at a boys’ boarding school, Pencey, from which he’s being expelled because he’s failing all his subjects except English. Pencey is one of several schools that he’s been expelled from. It’s Saturday and the action of the book takes place over three days, from Saturday to Monday. The time is in December, right before Christmas.

Holden is an interesting character, full of contradictions. He has an outer appearance of confidence and bluster but is in reality terribly insecure. He’s confused and alienated by the world and by most of the people in it. People he believes are his friends he finds out are not. And, in spite of his dislike and his distrust of most people, he’s lonely and is always seeking somebody out to spend time with. The only people in the world he seems to truly like are his brother DB, a writer who has gone to Hollywood to write for the movies, his fourth-grade sister, Phoebe, and his deceased younger brother, Allie.

As much as Holden is preoccupied with sex, he has never indulged. His encounter with a whore in a hotel room is one of the best parts of the book. He gets the whore to his room at “five bucks a throw” but then can’t go through with it. He gives her the money, anyway, but then has an ugly, frightening encounter with her pimp, the elevator boy, who insists the price was not “five bucks a throw” but “ten bucks a throw.”

Even though it’s right before Christmas and Holden has been expelled, he can’t go home right away. He wants to wait a few days, until Wednesday, before going home, because that’s the day his parents are supposed to get the letter from Pencey telling them he’s been expelled. The action of the book takes place between the time he leaves Pencey on Saturday and the following Monday. A lot happens to him over those three days and that’s what the book is about.

Of all the books that you might have read in high school or college (or been forced to read), The Catcher in the Rye is one that is worth another look. Even people who don’t care about “good” books will find plenty to like in The Catcher in the Rye.

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places ~ A Capsule Book Review

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey is not about ghosts or ghost stories but is instead about the places (houses, prisons, brothels, mental hospitals, parks, cemeteries, etc.) that have, for one reason or another, come to be thought of as haunted. This book doesn’t espouse a belief in ghosts or hauntings or a disbelief in them. When you read the book, you decide for yourself.

Most ghost stories are folklore, “urban legend,” or tall tales. They start with a grain of truth and go on from there to fantastic make-believe. But, no matter how implausible the stories are, people are willing to believe them without question because they affirm a belief that there is, indeed, life after death. When you hear a ghost story that begins with a tragedy, an unresolved and unavenged murder, it’s satisfying on a psychological level because it makes you feel good that such a terrible thing has happened to somebody else and not to you and, more importantly, it makes you glad you’re alive.

Ghost hunting has grown into an industry, popularized in part by “reality” shows on TV. People believe what they want to believe. If a person on TV is telling you convincingly that a house, a commercial building, park, or cemetery is haunted, you believe it because it’s so easy to believe. Why shouldn’t you believe? When somebody takes the time and effort to dig deeper into a ghost story, however, the truth is often uncovered, and the truth is not nearly as interesting or as much fun as the tall tale.

Sometimes a house or its owner need only be eccentric or unusual. Sarah Winchester (1840-1922) is a perfect example. As heir to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, she was fabulously wealthy. The Winchester repeating rifle was the gun that “won the West.” Sarah bought a house in San Jose, California, and began adding on to it and, once she got started, she added and added and added. The house was never finished but, by the time she died in 1922, she had 160 rooms, staircases that went nowhere, and other features that, over time, marked the house as “haunted”—haunted supposedly by all the people who were killed by the Winchester rifle. When people think of American haunted houses, the Winchester house in San Jose tops the list. Serious scientific investigation, however, has yet to uncover credible evidence of a single ghost at the Winchester house. People believe what they want to believe.

The house that inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne to write his 1851 gothic novel, The House of the Seven Gables, is in Salem, Massachusetts. The house still stands and is a tourist attraction. There’s no absolute proof that the house is haunted, although it very well could be if you go entirely on the way it looks. Inside the house is a “secret staircase” on which people claim to have experienced ghostly emanations. Nobody has ever seen an actual ghost in the house, though. Hawthorne didn’t think the staircase was important enough to include in his novel.

The Lemp family of St. Louis became wealthy from the manufacture of Falstaff beer in the 1890s. They had their brewing plant, and their residence, in South St. Louis. Underneath their property were vast natural caves in which they stored the beer before electronic refrigeration became common. As wealthy and successful as the Lemps were, they were also plagued with mental illness, which today might be diagnosed as bipolar disorder. Several of the Lemps committed suicide. People believe the ghosts of the Lemps haunt the house, which is now a restaurant and a bed-and-breakfast. Employees at the restaurant claim to have seen spirits, or at least felt them. Teams of “ghost hunters” regularly inhabit the premises, looking for evidence of spirits that nobody else has been able to find. The vast brewery is also still standing but is mostly unused, except as a haunted Halloween attraction in October.

So, in addition to the Winchester house in San Jose, the House of the Seven Gables in Salem, Massachusetts, and the Lemp house in St. Louis, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places takes us to a brothel in Nevada, an abandoned mental hospital in Maine, a plantation in Louisiana, a park in Portland, Oregon, that’s haunted by the ghost of a murdered fifteen-year-old girl, a house in New Orleans where slaves were mistreated, a prison in West Virginia where prisoners were starved and neglected, and from there to creepy Los Angeles hotels, where deceased stars still cavort, Civil War battlefields where many thousands of men died and on to Detroit, the once-thriving industrial hub of the U.S. that has its share of tragic ghost stories, most of them fabricated but still believed by people who are willing to believe what they choose to believe.

If you believe in ghosts, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places won’t get you to not believe in them, but the one thing the book does is to show that most ghost stories can be easily explained and debunked. The thing is, though, the truth is not nearly as compelling as the legend or the tall tale that, over time, has come to be accepted as the truth.

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp  

by allen0997

The Shape of Water ~ A Capsule Movie Review

The Shape of Water ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

A middle-aged woman named Elisa (played by Sally Hawkins) works in a government research facility where she cleans toilets and floors. She is lonely and alone, partly because she doesn’t speak; she is mute and communicates using sign language. She is not without friends, though. Her co-worker and friend of ten years is a funny and straight-talking woman named Zelda (Octavia Spencer). Another friend, and apparently her best friend, is a man named Giles (Richard Jenkins), an obviously gay, past-middle age, depressed, alcoholic commercial artist who was recently fired from his job for drinking too much. Elisa and Giles are next-door neighbors in a seedy apartment building over an old movie theatre, from which they hear perpetual movie dialogue. The place is Baltimore and the time is the early 1960s, when there existed an intense competition between the United States and Russia for domination of space.

The research facility where Elisa works has recently acquired from South America an amphibian man-beast that looks something like the creature from the 1954 movie Creature from the Black Lagoon, only more human-like and not as scary. The man-beast, of course, is lonely and sad because he has been taken away from his natural habitat to a faraway country and placed in a confining tank, awaiting…what? Elisa makes surreptitious visits to the tank where the man-beast is held, and she recognizes in him a fellow being in pain in a cruel, callous world. She gives him hard-boiled eggs and plays sentimental retro music for him, and the two of them develop a friendly rapport.

Most of the management of the research facility, with one notable exception, view the man-beast as a “thing” instead of a thinking, feeling being. The idea is to experiment with him to get a better understanding of how men might fare in space and thereby gain an advantage over the Russians in the space race. (I don’t see how this is possible, but never mind.) The one member of management who views the man-beast as a miracle, “a beautiful creature who can reason and who understands language,” is Dr. Robert Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg, who played a dapper gangster in Boardwalk Empire and the understanding father in Call Me by Your Name). Dr. Hoffstetler is, in reality, a secret Soviet agent. He is working behind the scenes to get the man-beast to the Russians. Or is he? Wouldn’t the Russians be just as cruel as the Americans, and maybe more so?

When Elisa hears that the cruel, uncaring men plan to vivisect the man-beast (i.e., cut him into pieces to study him), she knows she must save him, any way she can. Dr. Hoffstetler, Zelda and Giles assist Elisa in stealing the man-beast from the research facility and hiding him in her apartment. The idea is to keep him hidden there until a rainy period in October when the water in the canal that connects to the sea (remember, this is Baltimore) is high enough to release him so he’ll be safe. It’s while the man-beast is in Elisa’s apartment that the two of them “fall in love.”

The Shape of Water is about two opposing forces in the world: the force for good (compassion, empathy, sensitivity, understanding) against the force for—if not exactly evil—then hard-assed reality, practicality, and insensitivity (the failure to recognize beauty and uniqueness). It’s a whimsical fantasy that requires a suspension of disbelief on the part of the viewer. An isolated, unattractive, human woman with a physical defect falls in love with a man-beast from South America who may be a kind of god and tries to save him from the world. If reality is what you crave, then The Shape of Water is probably not for you.

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

The Handmaid’s Tale ~ A Capsule Book Review

The Handmaid’s Tale ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, is set in a nightmarish dystopian America where the government has been usurped, its leaders murdered and the Constitution discarded. People no longer have individual rights, except for the right to serve. If people are not exactly slaves, they are chattel. Everybody must live in fear because any perceived infraction can result in exile to the Colonies (cleaning up dangerous hazard waste, resulting in death) or hanging in a ritual execution called a “Salvaging.” Dead bodies appear overnight hanging from hooks on a wall for everybody to see, and it’s not always certain what the people hanging there did to deserve such a fate.

The Handmaid’s Tale is not, however, about revolution or the overthrow of a government. It’s a personal story about one “Handmaid” whom we know as “Offred.” (We never learn her real name.) She’s thirty-three years old and had a husband and young daughter in times before. Offred is narrating the story in her own voice. We are privy to her private thoughts and inner feelings, which she must keep secret to go on living.

Childbirth is in decline. The country needs babies to replenish its dwindling population. Since Offred is known to have reproduced before, she is chosen as a “Handmaid.” She lives with an older couple and her job is to provide them with a baby. (She must wear a red habit-like dress and a stiff white headdress with wings, rather like an old-time movie nun.) The man is known as the Commander and his old lady is the Wife. Offred and the Commander copulate mechanically, fully clothed, and with the Wife present, of course. Offred is supposed to bring forth a baby from these couplings. She has three chances and if she fails she will end up in a much worse place, being forced to do very unpleasant work that could easily end in her death. It’s better to be a Handmaid than not.

The Commander has a young chauffeur named Nick. He flirts with Offred surreptitiously when he has the chance. Offred knows that any association she has with Nick could be dangerous. When she fails to conceive a child by the Commander, the Wife arranges a clandestine session for Offred with Nick in his room over the garage after everybody has gone to bed. Nick is happy to oblige—it’s part of his job—but he makes sure Offred knows there is to be no romance involved. Offred develops “feelings” for Nick anyway. He represents for her what her life was like before her world was turned upside down. Where exactly do his loyalties lay? Will he help Offred to escape to another country, or will he betray her in the worst way by turning her over to the authorities?

The obvious comparison of The Handmaid’s Tale is with George Orwell’s novel, 1984. Both novels are about the individual in a world where individuals don’t matter and survival is never certain. It’s a harrowing world and one that most of us, thank goodness, will never have to experience firsthand. You experience it, without any danger to yourself, by reading the book.

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

A Cross-Eyed Woman

A Cross-Eyed Woman ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

(This little all-dialogue story that I wrote in 2015 is a re-post.)

“Did I tell you I’ve got a new girlfriend, grandpa?”

“Is that so? What’s her name?”

“Lucille Meisenbach.”

“How much does she weigh?”

“A hundred and thirty.”

“How old is she?”

“She’s a year younger than me, grandpa.”

“Don’t be in no hurry to marry a person with a name like Lucille Meisenbach.”

“I’m not. I only just met her.”

“Make sure you know everything about her before you marry her. Her people, too.”

“I’m not going to marry her.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing, except that she’s cross-eyed.”

“You don’t want to marry no cross-eyed woman.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

“Cross-eyed woman is a sign of trouble.”

“How do you know, grandpa?”

“I’m seventy-three years old. I’ve seen everything and what I haven’t seen I’ve heard about.”

“I wouldn’t want to marry her, anyway.”

“Why not?”

“She’s got six toes on one foot.”

“How many on the other?”

“Just five.”

“Eleven toes is bad luck. It’s a mark of the devil.”

“If you say so, grandpa.”

“You don’t think you’d want to marry her after you’ve known her for a while?”

“No, sir.”

“You say that now, but if she gets it into her head to marry you, she’ll find a way to ensnare you against your will.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen, grandpa.”

“Why not?”

“She’s not very smart.”

“You don’t have to be smart to be evil.”

“I wouldn’t exactly say she’s evil, grandpa.”

“You probably just don’t know her well enough to see her evil side.”

“If I start to see it, I’ll dump her.”

“Maybe she won’t let you dump her.”

“If I want to dump her, she can’t stop me.”

“I see you know very little about women.”

“I know enough.”

“Just make sure you find out everything there is to know before you marry her. If she’s got them two flaws, she’s bound to have others.”

“I haven’t seen any others.”

“Well, she’ll be setting her trap to catch you.”

“I don’t think so, grandpa.”

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I went to dinner at her house on Sunday after church. We had fried chicken. Her mother’s name is Vera Meisenbach.”

“How old is she?”

“Forty-three.”

“How much does she weigh?”

“Two hundred.”

“A big woman.”

“Yes, sir. Big and tall. Broad shoulders. A wild look in her eye. Kind of scary.”

“And that’s not all, is it?”

“No, sir. She’s got a hump on her back.”

“Uh-oh! A big woman with a hump on her back has a cross-eyed daughter with eleven toes. Freakishness runs in the family. That’s not good.”

“I can’t claim to be perfect myself.”

“You’ve got the right number of toes, you’re not cross-eyed and there’s no hump on your back.”

“That’s true.”

“Count your blessings.”

“Yes, sir. I also met Lucille’s daddy. He’s a little bitty man like a midget.”

“A pattern has been established.”

“Lucille told me he’s got a metal plate in his head that lets him pick up radio transmissions. I tried to keep from laughing.”

“How much does he weigh?”

“Ninety-four pounds.”

“His wife weighs more than twice what he weighs?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Not pleasant to contemplate. How old is he?”

“He’s forty-nine years old.”

“And his name?”

“Luther Meisenbach.”

“Any other progeny besides Lucille?”

“A brother named Norland Meisenbach. He’s sixteen.”

“Is he cross-eyed?”

“Not that I noticed, but I didn’t pay that much attention.”

“How much does he weigh?”

“A hundred and ten.”

“That’s small for sixteen, isn’t it?”

“I guess so.”

“Anything freakish about him?”

“He’s got a turned-in foot and he doesn’t talk much because he’s got a stutter.”

“So there’s something wrong with every one of the Meisenbachs.”

“Yes, sir. I guess you could say that.”

“If you take my advice, sonny, you’ll get as far away from that bunch as you can. They’re not wholesome to be around.”

“Yes, sir. I don’t really care that much for Lucille, anyway. When she looks at me, it looks like she’s looking over my shoulder.”

“She’s probably looking to her satanic master for direction.”

“You sure have opened my eyes, grandpa. I’m glad we had this little talk.” 

“Not at all, sonny. That’s what grandpas are for. And be sure and bring her around some time so we can all get a good look at her.”

“I was thinking about Sunday dinner, grandpa.”

Copyright © 2018 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997