Book Reports.
Below are five book reports. Well, sort of.
They’re books I care about, or at least books with personal stories attached to them. If you were expecting me to write serious critiques, I should remind you that I’m poorly educated and pretty lazy.
Dracula, by Bram Stoker (1897)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (the film, I mean) came out in November of ’92, signaling an interest boost in All Things Dracula. I was in the eighth grade at the time, and I picked this baby up from my junior high’s book fair.
I was going through my “depression phase,” phoning it in with all-black outfits and a bad haircut. It had as much to do with fashion as feelings, but it’s also true that I felt like a goofy nobody. Going “mock goth” at least made it seem intentional.
I didn’t buy this book to read it. I bought it as an accessory. Something to casually leave on my desk during class. Hey, only the deepest kid in school would carry around a Dracula book! Yes, I imagined my fellow students viewing me with great intrigue! Dracula cost $4.50 at that book fair, and it seemed like a small price to pay to be fucking interesting for once.
I can laugh about this now, because even if I never outgrew misfitdom, it’s not like I really wish I had. At the same time, those memories mean that I’ll never stop having empathy for dorks. I believe we can find the best opportunities to build ourselves when we’re at our most hopeless, but you can only appreciate that kind of silver lining in retrospect.
So, if Dino Drac has any especially young readers on the fringe: You’re reading a guy who once believed he’d become popular by pretending to read Dracula. In the end, you’ll be fine.
You’ll be almost fine. Read More…
Spooky Saturday Survey.
There’s a new feature up, covering four random Pokemon foodstuffs from thirteen years ago. I admit that I’m not the Pokefan I once was, and that it’s become something I admire more from afar. Still, the featured snacks come from a time when I was all about Pokemon, and if you were into the franchise at that time, the sight of these gloriously tacky Pop-Tarts and Eggo waffles should thrill and excite you.
My pal Judson sent me a care package of assorted trading cards, and I nearly died when I saw this one. It’s from Topps’ 1988 Dinosaurs Attack series, where each card presented a new vision of gory torment, with violent dinosaurs warping to present day to tear us to shreds.
The cards held nothing back, and they were damn creative in their brutality. Aside from the expected visuals of dinosaurs eating people, you had stuff like prehistoric bugs devouring our scalps, and even a card where a dinosaur blipped into present day directly over a human being, with merging fleshes and all. Jesus!
But this is the card that really affected me. Good old #52. “The Ultimate Sacrifice.”
To save civilization, some guy sacrifices himself to the “Supreme Evil” – essentially an enormous MUTANT LEADER DINOSAUR, which was Topps’ way of bringing Satan into the mix without actually saying it. Adding the sick story to the fact that they used a photo of a real guy on the back of the card, #52 haunted me for years.
I collected the cards when they were still new, which, by my math, made me much too young for something this twisted. It wasn’t as if I expected a multi-eyed mutant dinosaur to zap into existence and eat me, but between the hellish themes and the melting skin, #52 opened my mind to all sorts of previously inconceivable horrors. When it was dark and quiet enough, bad thoughts took over.
And it’s those memories that inspired tonight’s survey:
What are some of the weirdly creepy things that gave you pause? I’m not simply talking about moments in horror movies that scared you only in that instant. I mean, things that affected you and stuck with you. Things that got in your head, stayed there, and directed brain traffic for far longer than they had any right to. Maybe it was a movie moment. Maybe it was a scene from a video game. Maybe it was the “Tallman’s Ghost” episode of Unsolved Mysteries.
It’s time to confess. Perhaps you’ll exorcise a few demons. Go!
Topps Bubble Gum Juice Cartons!
Oh yes. These things. Staples of my childhood diet! No kid could resist bubble gum rocks that poured from tiny juice cartons! Made by Topps in the early ‘80s, “juice gum” survived until long after I’d stopped paying attention. For all I know, they’re still out there somewhere. Let us pray. Read More…
What’s the weirdest thing in your wallet?
I’ll never turn down the chance to go through someone’s wallet. It doesn’t matter if I like the person, hate the person or even really know the person. I just want to see what’s in there, and make a totally unfair analysis of the wallet’s owner based on its contents.
I don’t think this is exclusive to me. We’re all voyeurs.
A few nights ago on Dino Drac’s Facebook page, I asked everyone to describe the weirdest things in their wallets. Satisfied with the answers but really wanting to see the goods, I then made a formal request for photos and explanations.
Twenty-two of you complied, with a barrage of oddities ranging from flattened souvenir pennies to what looks like drugs but are actually beans. Below are the results. (I won’t be participating, as I’ve already described my wallet contents in this post.)
Just a note: I blocked out some names/photos even if I wasn’t directed to, imagining that there may come a time when someone might not wish to be immortalized so publicly. If you see a big red rectangle on your photo, I only did it out of love.
A big thanks to our 22 guinea pigs! Let’s see what makes them tick… Read More…