Monday, April 9, 2012

Graveyard Shift, Eldritch Tales

Today, I have the pleasure of working the graveyard shift. It's quiet... just myself and the cats holding down the fort. Graveyards aren't so bad- I have a chance to catch up with the news, and I'll be driving home when most people are on their way to work. I do, however, miss the back-and-forth with the commentariat here **sniff**.

After catching up on some reading, I tracked down a video for Tomb of Ligeia, which I alluded to in a post last month. At 4:40, Vincent Price throws a head of cabbage at a cat, and he delivers his wonderful lines about it starting at 7:19:





I wonder if Eccentric Uncle Robyn was inspired by the film to write this song:





I also got around to arranging the Clark Ashton Smith tales I copied off The Eldritch Dark into folders. I have all of the Averoigne tales, the whole of the Zothique stories which inspired Jack Vance's "Dying Earth", and the whole Commoriom Myth Cycle preserved by the Atlantean high-priest Klarkash-Ton. It's been a good day for some serious weirdness, and it's not even dawn. As much as I love Clark Ashton Smith's work, he's probably not everybody's cup of tea. I'd probably suggest The Return of the Sorceror as a good, gruesome introduction to CAS, but my favorite tale of his might be The Seven Geases.

As luck would have it, I found an adaptation of The Return of the Sorceror from Rod Serling's Night Gallery starring Vincent Price, but it's dubbed in Portuguese:





Before I wrap this post up, I just want to engage in a bit of speculation... how much cooler would Star Wars have been if Vincent Price had played Obi-Wan Kenobi? Hell, I'm not knocking Alec Guinness, but we're talking Vincent Price here!

UPDATE: I found an English language version of the "Night Gallery" episode. I also found another episode based on H.P. Lovecraft's Pickman's Model.
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9 comments:

  1. ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®©April 9, 2012 at 9:47 AM

    I remember Night Gallery: it was one of the scariest (and thus best) shows on TV back in the day. (That day being when we had tv, ;-)
    ~

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  2. LauraApril 9, 2012 at 2:25 PM

    I'll have to check out those stories later. I'm still too jacked up on sugar to calm down long enough to read anything.

    We love Star Wars here.... Vincent Price was really good in everything he did so... I'm digging what you're saying. ;)
    Mass has just discovered Star Wars and is totally obsessed with it. It's ALL he is talking about.....

    ((Hugs))
    Laura

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  3. Big Bad Bald BastardApril 9, 2012 at 6:05 PM

    I remember Night Gallery: it was one of the scariest (and thus best) shows on TV back in the day.

    It's even scarier in Portuguese! It never seemed to make it into syndication, so I'm not really familiar with it.

    I'll have to check out those stories later. I'm still too jacked up on sugar to calm down long enough to read anything.

    He's an acquired taste- his works are pretty gruesome, with a sly, dry gallows humor to them.

    Mass has just discovered Star Wars and is totally obsessed with it. It's ALL he is talking about.....

    I thought he was still into Italian Spiderman.

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  4. bbkfApril 9, 2012 at 6:42 PM

    uh, it would have been a lot fucking cooler...

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  5. Big Bad Bald BastardApril 9, 2012 at 7:45 PM

    Damn straight!

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  6. fishApril 9, 2012 at 7:56 PM

    I preferred Night Stalker although NG was pretty good too.

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  7. zombie rotten mcdonaldApril 10, 2012 at 10:01 AM

    One for the VP scholar here....what is the track record on zombie movies?

    I don't want to have to deduct points.

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  8. Big Bad Bald BastardApril 10, 2012 at 5:46 PM

    I preferred Night Stalker although NG was pretty good too.

    I'm going to have to track those down- I've never seen an episode.

    One for the VP scholar here....what is the track record on zombie movies?

    I'm no scholar, just a fan- I'm not aware of any Vincent Price zombie movies.

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  9. M. BouffantApril 11, 2012 at 6:32 AM

    Try this one. Not strictly, exactly zombies, depending on your definition.

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