On the Apocalypse

The obvious apocalypse to talk about - this year - is the Mayan blahblahblahblah. I've seen that terrible movie "2012" (my excuse was a 10 hour transatlantic flight), and a dozen other natural disaster movies, and there's actually a certain thrill in seeing national monuments get squished or exploded or vaporized or flooded. They're action movies, they don't want you to seriously contemplate your family dying or the earth being destroyed. Likewise, zombie movies are distant and gory and quite fun.

I'm currently reading Stephen King's The Stand (1320 pages long, according to my Kindle) which contemplates a government-sponsored disease that accidentally wipes out 99.5% (ish) of humanity. Knowing King, it's going to turn extremely paranormal, but so far it's a normal apocalypse story.

Except, other visions of the apocalypse are more final than a disease. Everything is blown up, everybody dies. Or the hero's family pull through and rebuild. A disease is random, inescapable, but significantly, it leaves people behind. One person per town. A handful per city.
And the bodies don't disappear in a fireball. They decay. They stink. They fill the houses, the cars.

It's a typically violent and nasty story, where skulls are egg-shells, brains splatter like oatmeal and someone catches their guts in their hands. Reading it, though, I am reminded of a BBC drama series from 2008 called Survivors. (Which is a remake of a series from the 70s). Survivors is the same story of a disease that wipes out millions with terrifying suddenness, leaving a few behind.

Except to me, anyway, it's disturbingly normal and familiar. King's novel is epic and brutal and totally American. The distances are huge, guns are wreaking havoc everywhere. Survivors is disturbingly close and real. There's no shots of Vegas exploding.

I lay awake for so many nights when I watched those six episodes. I tortured my mind by imagining the discovery of my family. The empty expressions - or worse, pained ones - and the flies and the stench. Then burying them in the family garden, under the lawn with the child's football net.

We enjoy extravagant destruction, but desolation is something else. The same houses, the same streets hideously and permanently changed, and yet the world keeps turning. It keeps me up at night.

The Woman in Black

I went to see The Woman in Black while in Toronto, which is now the highest-grossing UK horror film ever, and I have to admit: it was scary. There was plenty of screaming during the showing, followed by delighted laughter. Cinema is all about horror movies, and The Woman in Black is a fun experience, and part of it is the unbearable, terrifying tension.

We sat near the front of the room, and as the movie started, I could hear lively muzak piped in from the lobby - to save the atmosphere of the film I went and shut the open door (normal practice, don't you think?) even if it made me look weird.

I had been looking forward to the movie ever since this spine-chilling teaser trailer:

**SPOILER ALERT** (Scroll past if desired)

I have read the original novel, and seen the long-running stage play, and in comparison the movie is totally ridiculous.
For a start, the nine hostile and unfortunate villagers are heavily exaggerated in comparison to the lively, quite friendly - and much larger - market town in the novel.
The history of the ghost - the Woman's young son is sucked into a mud swamp in a carriage and she goes mad and dies of a 'broken heart' - is pretty overstated.
I could not believe my eyes when they used a motorcar to drag the carriage from out of the causeway, find the decomposing body of the boy, and place him in the house to 'reunite' him with the ghost and stop the hauntings.

Needless to say, it fails, but the original sad and understated, creepy story is somewhat flogged to death.


**SPOILERS END**

Still, if you don't know the story and just want a well-shot and scary horror movie, go see it. Personally, I think reading the short novel leaves a more lasting chill than the movie, despite the bloody good "jumps."

Finally, today I treated myself to an American approximation of the classic British dish, beans on toast. The beans tasted kinda sweet which was disappointing, but it suited my craving just about.
I got a very strange look from a person on the next table. They were clearly just jealous.

Spring Already?

5 months on, I'll have to give a hasty catch-up of what's happened since October. Halloween I was up in New Hampshire (crossed another State off my mental list) and there was a crazy amount of snow for late October. Sadly, I have no pictures.

After that, winter has been really mild for New England- barely two more snowfalls. I'm glad though, it still seemed freezing to me!

I spent my first ever Thanksgiving in Boston with a uni friend and some of her German exchange friends from up-state NY. We had a fabulous Thanksgiving meal at Legal Sea Foods, but during the day eeeeveeerryyything was shut.

We did wander round the city's Freedom Trail, (museums all closed, of course) and saw this 17th century graveyard with weird winged-skull motifs.

Moving on, I got through finals unscathed, and just before I headed home for Christmas, I met the same friend, plus another shorter English friend, in New York city! Here we are shopping on 5th Avenue, near the obnoxious Apple cube.

We stayed on the upper east side in a really nice area, using www.airbnb.com.

I used the same website to find a room in Boston, and ordinary people become hosts by putting up their apartments, houses, rooms and boats for travellers. Go check it out next time you need a hotel! It's way cheaper.

Since Christmas - well, I came back in mid-January and I've been going to class and willing Spring to arrive. Tomorrow is forecast to be 17C/63F so things are looking up!

I spent last weekend in Toronto, visiting a sister, and as nice as the city is, it was bloody freezing. I enjoyed seeing my lovely older sister though. 

In just a few more weeks the semester will end, and I'm looking forward to being back on English soil. First though, I'm going on further travels with the two Brits mentioned above, and I know it will be incredible.