Sorry: Wrong Dimension by Ross Rocklynne, 1954

Patti Abbott is the generous host of Friday’s Forgotten Books at her wonderful blog Pattinase.

So the baby had a pet monster. And so nobody but baby could see it. And so a couple of men dropped out of thin air to check and see if the monster was licensed or not. So what's strange about that?

Last month, I reviewed two sf stories, The Father-Thing by Philip K. Dick and Rain, Rain, Go Away by Isaac Asimov, which centered on families and exposed their vulnerability. This week, I read another sf story, Sorry: Wrong Dimension by Ross Rocklynne, which had a similar theme.

Families appear to be a pet topic among many science fiction writers, as evident from these and a few other sf stories I've read, including the very entertaining The Million-Year Picnic by Ray Bradbury. Each of these stories has a twist; some of them are scary, others chilling. No one likes to see, or read about, bad things happening to good people, especially to families, to women and children. It’s only fiction, still what if...

Ross Rocklynne, the assumed name of American sf writer Ross Louis Rocklin (1913- 1988), once again demolishes the notion of the happy family, or so it would seem, in his short story Sorry: Wrong Dimension published in Amazing Stories, March 1954. 

Stella Weaver is a lovely housewife who is having tea with her neighbour, Mabel Aspectia, also a housewife. They are bored but contented with life. They are talking about what housewives often talk about: what to cook for their husbands that evening. When Stella realises that her baby hasn't been crying for a while, she goes into his room to investigate and finds the little tot gurgling with joy, as if playing with someone—or something. She reaches out for the baby in the crib and, instead, touches an invisible furry monster that is, in fact, playing with her child. Stella is stricken with horror and screams out instinctively. That is when she discovers they are in another dimension, possibly not of our planet, our solar system or our galaxy.

Unlike The Father-Thing, this was a funny and delightful story. Stella doesn’t faint or anything like that. When she realises that the pet monster is harmless, she takes things in her stride and decides to call her husband to tell him about it. Except, each time she does, she gets the wrong dimension! The story ends on a happy note with friendly “people” from the other dimension coming to pick up the little wayward monster and Stella and Mabel carrying on where they had left off—what to cook for their husbands.

Sorry: Wrong Dimension is an excellent example of the immense and unimaginable possibilities that lie in sf.

Note: You can read more about Ross Rocklynne and his work here.

Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again, 1990

For Overlooked Films at Todd Mason’s blog Sweet Freedom, this Tuesday, a very hazy recollection of a film that was best left inside the comic.

I have only the vaguest of memories of Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again, 1990, based on the popular teenage icon Archie and his friends. They return to good old Riverdale High for a grand reunion. Unlike in the comics, Archie and the gang—Betty, Veronica, Jughead, and Reggie—are all grown up, their teenage angst replaced by adult troubles. There is much talk among the old friends. But, as in the comics, the freckle-faced Archie must still choose between the dewy-eyed blonde and the spoiled-rich brunette. The weirdest bit in the movie, if I recall correctly, is that woman-hater Jughead has a young son. There is no sign of a wife, or Big Ethel, around. In short, I remember not liking it much.

The film is directed by Dick Lowry, known for television films and serials, and has Christopher Rich as Archie Andrews, Lauren Holly as Betty Cooper, Karen Kopins as Veronica Lodge, Sam Whipple as Jughead Jones, and Gary Kroeger as Reggie Mantle. Fran Ryan plays Miss Grundy, David Doyle impersonates Mr. Weatherbee, and Mike Nussbaum is Pop Tate.

Going only by names, I don’t know who Dick Lowry is or who any of these actors are, though I might have seen them elsewhere.

I have found that there were at least two other films, Archie (1964) and Archie's Weird Mysteries (1999), a television series.

Impersonations
It’s not easy to recreate a comic book hero on screen. For those who demand exactness, like me, it’s also more difficult to accept them. They seldom live up to my expectations. Christopher Rich and Sam Whipple did not seem like Arch and Juggie to me. They could’ve been in any film.

But then, neither did Michael Keaton, George Clooney and Christian Bale as Batman, Brandon Routh as Superman, Robert Downey, Jr. as Iron Man, Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man, Billy Zane as The Phantom, Macaulay Culkin as Richie Rich, or Christian Clavier as Astérix and Gérard Depardieu as Obélix.

As far as Dr. Bruce Banner/The Hulk is concerned, I’ll give the benefit of the doubt to Eric Bana, Edward Norton, and Mark Ruffalo.

The only actors who have looked the part of the comic book heroes they have played are Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent/Superman, Val Kilmer as Bruce Wayne/Batman, and Ben Affleck as Matt Murdock/Daredevil.

Steven Spielberg did a wise thing by deciding to recapture Belgian cartoonist Georges ‘Hergé’ Remi’s famous hero, Tintin, only in animated form. The first of the series, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011) was a big success mainly because the young reporter stayed inside his comic book.

Archie lives
Coming back to John L. Goldwater’s creation, Archie comics are still around, though the drawings and storyboards have gone through significant changes. The Riverdale gang is almost unrecognisable. They’re more snazzy and colourful. Some years ago, Archie Comics released a six-part series about Archie’s marriage (to either Betty or Veronica) that wasn’t entirely convincing. Today, the Archies look as if they are caught in a time warp, somewhere between Little Archie and Teenage Archie. Obviously, Archie Comics is catering to a new and young readership.

A couple of days ago, the family picked up some old Archie double digests (classified as magazines) and it felt nice to read the original adventures of freckle face and his friends. When was the last time you read an Archie comic?

AN.AL—The Origins by Athul DeMarco, 2013

Insanity, like misery, never walks alone.

I was more than a little sceptical when Bharti Taneja of Fingerprint Publishing, New Delhi, wrote to me saying that she was sending a review copy of their latest release based on splatterpunk genre. The reason was that splatterpunk, a term attributed to American author of horror fiction David J. Schow, is horror without limits. It refers to graphic depiction of violence, sex, cannibalism, bloodshed and the kind. Examples are Jack Ketchum's Off Season and Edward Lee's The Bighead. However, Bharti assured me that the book was very interesting and not as violent as I thought.

And so I read Indian writer Athul DeMarco’s debut novel AN.AL—The Origins and got acquainted with horror within horror for the first time. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be. In fact, I quite liked the story. It was weird and unconventional and like nothing I’d read before.

The main character is a man with two heads, Andy (AN) and Alfie (AL), who investigate the bizarre and macabre deaths of a backpacking wayward tourist, the young son of a wealthy and influential couple, and a stray dog stuffed inside a gunnysack and found in their home. All three bodies are mutilated. The killer is Anita, a young and attractive girl, whose staple diet is human flesh and bones. She has sworn to destroy the two-headed monster but the twins don’t know it.

Andy and Alfie are conjoined, their heads attached to a single body, but they are as different as night and day. Andy is the silent one who likes to read and think before he does anything while Alfie is the spirited type who likes to sleep, drink, and smoke. Both have a keen intelligence and a rare understanding. They argue and quarrel like normal siblings but they are clear about their work as amateur detectives. The adventurous twins are hired as consultants by The Department with No Name (The Department of Weird) to investigate peculiar cases that defy explanation. They report to Eugene Francois, a good-natured cop who works under Superintendent Roth, a wife-beating ambitious and crooked police officer.

Anita owes her cannibalistic nature to her circumstances–she was alone and bullied in school, sexually abused by a doting father, ran away from her dysfunctional family, and was adopted by a clown couple, Peter and Rita, the only survivors of the Human Cannibal Project of the Third Reich. The Pollacks, who have been preying on humans for more than thirty years, train their “daughter” to become a predator, just like them.

“It’s okay, love… But you know what we really want. We want the man with two heads. Kill him and you get back everything you loved.”

The characters
There are very few characters in the story apart from the twins, Anita, and the two cops. There is Dominic McManus, the owner of the McManus Pub and the only friend Andy and Alfie have, and Mr. Robbins, their landlord, both of whom, in return for favours, offer the boys a lifetime of free food and accommodation. There is also Manny, the superintendent’s resourceful assistant.

The story centres on Andy and Alfie and their seemingly difficult life. They manage quite well in spite of their abnormality. The twins are enterprising, sharp, enthusiastic, and witty. You can’t help warming towards them. At the same time you can’t help wondering about the more personal aspects of their life, their inner desires and feelings. After all, they are two heads, two minds, and two personalities. The author skims over this issue. A case in point is when Andy has an intense dream that Alfie is hugging and kissing him on his lips or when Alfie feels romantically inclined towards a hospital nurse. Of course, these mean nothing in the story.

Anita, on the other hand, is a closed book. Just as you feel sorry for her abused and unwanted character, she transforms into a man-eater without heart and soul. Unlike the twins, I thought she lacked depth and goes through the motions of hunting down her prey.

Final Word
Author Athul DeMarco has come up with an original story idea. AN.AL—The Origins is well-written, absorbing, and quite fast paced. There is a dark quality to the storytelling. It has suspense but it is not scary. The setting is interesting but ambiguous with names of places (or titles of chapters) like 201 Swann Street, McManus Pub, Costa Le Roux, Bellingham County Hospital, Vansdoor, and Summerfields. Likewise, the characters could be from anywhere.

On the flipside, the discovery of rotting and mutilated corpses and carcasses, while disturbing, does not evoke horrifying imagery. I also felt that the novel was long at 251 pages; there were parts that could have been left out. But then, length is a writer’s prerogative.

Bottom line: I was happy with my initiation into splatterpunk fiction with DeMarco’s debut novel. I would read his second book.

One thing I realised about splatterpunk is that it touches many genres like crime, horror, sf, and fantasy, and it would appeal to anyone who likes to read in one or more of these categories.

Recommended

Jim Kelly, and Enter the Dragon, 1973

A forgotten actor and his cameo in a cult movie is this week’s focus for Tuesday’s Overlooked Films at Todd Mason’s blog Sweet Freedom.

"I broke down the colour barrier. I was the first black martial artist to become a movie star."

One of the segments I look forward to watching at the Oscars and Golden Globe awards is ‘In Memoriam’ where pictorial tribute is paid to artists who have died over the past year. At the Academy Awards this year, many luminaries like Shirley Temple and Philip Seymour Hoffman were honoured. And, as so often happens, some were left out, notably writer Tom Clancy, which was odd since his senior contemporaries Elmore Leonard and Richard Matheson were part of the celebrity montage. However, there are bound to be hits and misses in an event of the scale of the Oscars.

Among the many entertainers who made it to the posthumous list was Jim Kelly, the American actor and martial arts exponent who died on June 29, 2013. He was 67. Not many would remember him.

Born James Milton Kelly, the actor brought his 6' 2" frame and beehive hairdo to bear upon one of the most popular martial arts movies of all time—Enter the Dragon. In doing so, Jim Kelly left a permanent imprint on the cult film whose most famous star was Bruce Lee. Kelly had his task cut out for him, for not only did he have to work in the shadow of the legendary martial artist but he also had to contend with the suave actor John Saxon. While both Lee and Saxon had already established themselves, this was only Kelly's second film and probably his most notable cinematic work.

In Enter the Dragon, director Robert Clouse brings Lee, Saxon, and Kelly together on an island off Hong Kong considered as the hotbed of vice, mainly opium and blood trade, run by Han, a master criminal with a claw hand. It is Bruce Lee's task, as an informal undercover agent, to investigate the suspicious happenings on the island and report to his agency. But Lee has an agenda of his own: avenging the death of his sister. The man responsible for it, O’harra (Robert Wall), is on the island and in Han's payroll. Old friends Roper (Saxon) and Williams (Kelly) accompany Lee to the island to escape from their own problems.

John Saxon and Jim Kelly in Enter the Dragon.

On the island the three men find the ideal cover in a do-or-die martial arts tournament organised by Han and refereed by his beefy henchman Bolo (Bolo Yeung) who requires no introduction. Men must fight men, sometimes until death. Lee, Saxon, and Kelly prove their worth as martial artists though Han never pits them against each other (in fact, I think he tries but they refuse). In one memorable scene, Lee faces O’harra. Before the start of the fight, O’harra picks up a board and smashes it to convey a point to Lee who retorts in his trademark clipped voice, “Boards don't hit back.” Lee has his revenge.

The film ends on a predictable note: Bruce Lee and John Saxon take on Han and his inexperienced men and liberate hundreds of innocent civilians held captive.

This was Jim Kelly's only well-known film and he was eliminated in the first half. Fans of martial arts films continue to ask why. He deserved to remain until the end.

There are many Bruce Lee takeaways from this film, like his "taming" of a venomous snake, his high-pitched shrieks during fights, his skill with nunchucks, his flying kick, and his final battle with Han inside the deceptive room of mirrors. The one thing Lee doesn't bring to this film, not that he was expected to, is humour. Director Robert Clouse leaves that to Jim Kelly who is the funny face of Enter the Dragon.

Although Clouse lays out the red carpet for Bruce Lee, and John Saxon to a lesser degree, Jim Kelly brings his own charm and style to the film, be it with his fists and arms, his wisecracks, betting on fights and making a neat pile, a toss of his head, or his ridiculing of Han.

“Man, you come right out of a comic book.”

After Enter the Dragon, I never saw Jim Kelly again, in spite of being a gifted actor. But, after hearing his name and seeing his face at the Oscars, I looked up his filmography and found that, in 1974, Robert Clouse directed him in Black Belt Jones, described as an "American Blaxploitation action film," and in Golden Needles.

More than these two films, I hope to see Kelly in action film Three the Hard Way (1974) alongside Jim Brown and Fred Williamson; the western Take A Hard Ride (1975) with Jim Brown, Lee Van Cleef, and Fred Williamson; and another action movie called One Down, Two to go (1976), again opposite Brown and Williamson, and Richard Roundtree.

Jim Kelly has left behind a bigger legacy than I thought he'd.

Reading Habits #6: Reading on the railway

8.20 am: I miss the 8.15 local by a few minutes. I am on platform No.2 at Andheri station waiting to board the 8.23 local to Churchgate in the south. I remove my earphones and my tablet from my bag—do I listen to music or do I read? As I make up my mind the loudspeaker crackles to life and I hear a familiar but depressing voice: “The slow train arriving on platform No.2 at 23 minutes past eight has been cancelled. Inconvenience caused to passengers is highly regretted.”

The lifeline of Mumbai.

© Prashant C. Trikannad

8.25 am: The next local is at 8.36 am. Will it be on time? Is it even scheduled today? My fingers are crossed. I put away the earphones and open the tablet and tap on the book reader, to page 42 of A Noose for the Desperado by Clifton Adams. I read about 19-year old rebel gunman Talbert ‘Tall’ Cameron's daring takeover of a band of outlaws in Ocotillo, a shady town in Arizona, and his plan to ambush a train smuggling silver across the Mexican border. The loudspeaker crackles again, this time with a repetitive public warning—“Overhead wires are charged at 25,000 volts. Travelling on rooftop is highly dangerous. Passengers are requested not to travel on rooftop.”

8.41 am: The 8.36 enters the platform. Even as it comes to a halt, commuters rush into the train and occupy all the seats. When the dust settles the arriving passengers get off the local and rush to the staircase. I enter the coach and stand in the aisle with my back to the stainless steel partition. As the train pulls out at 8.45, nine minutes late but early for once, I hear the loudspeaker intone, "The slow train arriving on platform No.2 at 57 minutes past eight has been cancelled. Inconvenience caused to passengers is highly regretted."

8.48: I look around the compartment. I spot a couple of known faces and we nod at each other. A few commuters are dozing off. Some are reading newspapers. Still others are fiddling with their mobile phones. Two people are reading books, one Dan Brown's Inferno and the other the Indian epic Ramayana. I put away my tab and listen to music; I plug into Elvis Presley. It will be some other singer on the return journey in the evening.

Inside the first-class coach of the 9 am Bandra-Churchgate local.
© Prashant C. Trikannad 

8.57 am: Three stations later, the train pulls into Bandra. I alight and walk across to the other side of the same platform and hop into the 9 am Bandra local. It is almost empty. I find a window seat. I open a book, AN.AL – The Origins, by Indian writer Athul Demarco and read the last chapter so I can review it. Some people get in and I look up and acknowledge their greetings. Only two men are reading anything at all; the rest are doing nothing, looking nowhere, in particular.

9.09 am: At Dadar, a major station, scores of transit commuters with haversacks and shoulder bags crash into the first-class coach and stand in the aisle so they can get off at the next two stations, the city's new business districts. After just two pages of Demarco’s novel, I lose interest, not in the book but in reading further. I reopen the tab and play a game of chess with alien software; I lose badly. 

The local leaves Marines Lines.

© Prashant C. Trikannad

9.35 am: Marine Lines, the last station before Churchgate. Before I alight I put away my book and my tab safely. I step on to the platform, walk out of the station, and proceed to my office a few blocks away, with Losing My Religion by REM playing in my ears.

And I wonder why I don’t read enough books every month.

5 movies I didn’t know I had

Here’s another unconventional route to Overlooked Films at Todd Mason’s blog Sweet Freedom. Hop over and read some real reviews of classic films over there.

Spring-cleaning unearths stuff you didn't know you had in the first place. It can be a tiresome task, but sometimes it pays off. Last weekend, on cleaning up the house, I found five movie CDs I had forgotten about. They were new and still wrapped in cellophane. The CDs are at least a few years old. I must have bought them on a whim, as I did books, films, and music in those days. Fortunately, these are the only CDs I haven't seen yet. By comparison, I have nearly a hundred unread books, mostly used paperbacks.

The five movies in question are...

1. South Pacific (1958)
2. Judgement at Nuremberg (1961)
3. How the West Was Won (1962)
4. Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
5. It Runs in the Family (2003).

It's likely that I have seen films 2 & 3 on cable, on the erstwhile TCM channel.

As I arranged and rearranged the other movie CDs into folders, most notably a precious collection of Laurel & Hardy and Charlie Chaplin, I thought about these films. Why did I buy them? Let me see.

I remember picking up South Pacific because a colleague strongly recommended it along with that other musical Oklahoma! (1955) which also I have yet to see. He had nice things to say about Mitzi Gaynor. I have enjoyed musical comedies ever since I first saw My Fair Lady (1964), The Sound of Music (1965), and Victor Victoria (1982). Julie Andrews was paired off well with Christopher Plummer and James Garner in the last two films.

I can think of at least three reasons why I must have bought Judgement at Nuremberg—multi-star cast, WWII film, and Maximilian Schell and Richard Widmark. People were in awe of these two fine actors. I haven't seen them in many films but I have read about them in film reviews on various blogs.

The epic scale of How the West Was Won probably got me interested in this multi-actor film. Besides, I'm curious about anything that is even remotely connected with the frontier.

I'm quite sure I purchased Everyone Says I Love You only because it was a Woody Allen film. I knew people who swore by his acting and direction. Personally, I have found his films to be rather boring. I can take only so much of dialogue. Considering the star lineup of Julia Roberts, Alan Alda, Edward Norton, Drew Barrymore, Tim Roth, Goldie Hawn, and Natalie Portman, this one might yet prove me wrong. Would you call his films esoteric?

I remember, the father-son duo of Kirk and Michael Douglas was the only reason why I picked up It Runs in the Family, a film said to be so-so.

Now there's my stack of films for the summer holidays. 

We talk about unread books and TBR piles all the time. What about the unseen and forgotten movie CDs and Blu-rays in your trunk?

Footpath libraries

On October 21, 2013, in a post titled Of old books and dying telegrams, I wrote about the famed secondhand bookstalls of south Mumbai, located about 2 km (1.25 miles) from my office and 20 km (12.40 miles) from where I live. The following pictures are of more of these bookstalls situated outside American Express Bank at Flora Fountain, or Hutatma Chowk (Martyrs' Square). So far the municipal corporation has left them alone. Dozens of others on opposite footpaths were not so lucky; they were evicted a few years ago. 

The booksellers don't read books but they know their books—ask for a title and they'll most likely have it. If they don't then they'll get it for you.

One of the good things about these footpath booksellers is that they also lend books on a library basis. For instance, you can borrow an Agatha Christie or a P.G. Wodehouse for Rs.100 ($1.60) and keep it for a month. Upon returning it, the bookseller will repay Rs.70 and pocket the balance Rs.30 as reading price. Prices vary depending on the book you borrow. However, before lending you the book, he makes a small notation on the last page, a sort of identification, so he knows you borrowed it from him. He will scribble 100 - 70 = 30 and put his initials next to it. There is no limit on the number of books you can borrow. In case you don't ever return the book, then he keeps Rs.100 as the actual price of the book. In fact, books are lent on the selling price on the assumption that you won't return them. 

The famous St. Thomas Cathedral Church located a few metres away. Built in 1718, it is the first Anglican church in Mumbai (then Bombay). The nearby Churchgate station, the beginning and end of journey for office-goers and local commuters, gets its name from this church.

I seldom buy books from these sellers. If they know their books well, they know their prices even better. I have found other places, especially in the suburbs where I live, where good used books can be found much cheaper. The two John Gardner's James Bond novels I wrote about in the previous post would have cost me at least Rs.50 each (nearly a dollar) as opposed to Rs.20 (less than half a dollar) that I paid in the suburbs. 

© All photographs by Prashant C. Trikannad