Another great writer, whose works populated my coming of age, has died
Richard Matheson, who has died aged 87, was an American writer whose many short stories, novels, screenplays and television scripts were among the most significant and original works of horror and fantasy of the last century.
His two best-known novels, I am Legend (1954) and The Shrinking Man (1956), were both filmed – the first three times – and more than a dozen other films, including What Dreams May Come, The Legend of Hell House, Somewhere in Time, Stir of Echoes, The Box, Real Steel and Steven Spielberg’s directorial debut, Duel, were based on his fiction.
Matheson was also a prolific writer of both original screenplays and adaptations, and was responsible for 14 episodes of the television series The Twilight Zone, as well as writing for Star Trek. Stephen King acknowledged him as “the author who influenced me the most as a writer”, and Ray Bradbury described him as “one of the most important writers of the 20th century”.
Like Bradbury’s, Matheson’s work was often described, and marketed, as science fiction and (again like Bradbury’s) occasionally provided superficial pseudoscientific set-dressing for excursions into the fantastic. But though both writers shared an interest in the Gothic, the primary impulse of Bradbury’s fiction was towards the pastoral; the characteristic theme of Matheson’s work was undoubtedly paranoia.
I followed the link to see he wrote “The Enemy Within,” one of the better ST-TOS episodes in my opinion.
yep, and he wrote “The Night Stalker”, Tons of Twilight Zone episodes (including “Terror at 20,000 feet” starring William Shatner)
“Terror at 20,000 Feet” is another classic.
Another good writer down. #RIP
Well, we’ve still got Harlan Ellison.
Here is an interesting eulogy from a publisher, a unique source of special publications from this and other interesting authors I have enjoyed:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/gauntlet-press/gauntlet-publisher-barry-hoffmans-tribute-to-richard-matheson/423696797727720
Hollywood likes their stuff “edgy”, as they say, but not TOO edgy. Which is what Harlan always was – besides being unafraid of telling big-wigs to go fuck themselves. So, y’know, two strikes right there.
Matheson was good, he even did a couple of books worth of horror shorts, Cthulhuish and very scary.
We gots to talk about SCOTUS stuff, yeah? New thread?
I like how they just granted state executives a veto over over the voters’ will as expressed via ballot amendments. What could go wrong there?
Ballot initiatives/referendums, that is.
Rush was just pointing out that DOMA was struck down not on the basis that it was unconstitutional but because its proponents were h8rs.
I mean, that was in the opinion; it wasn’t Rush projecting SCOTUS motives (unlike what SCOTUS totally did).
Reverse the polarity, proponents: DOMA is upheld because SCOTUS deems the motives of DOMA opponents to be suspect, on account of they’re trying to make the baby Jesus cry.
Also, a lefty called Rush and tried to persuade him that socons could totally have won the argument on SSM if they’d just shut up about religion, because hey, atheists such as himself are married, and are the Xtians saying that his marriage doesn’t count because he doesn’t believe in God, because even before Christ, marriage was sanctioned by the state to ensure that the population was robust through the making of bebes, and THAT argument would have won them over.
Rush hardly knew where to start.
Hey pikachu!
Will you be all vocal and staunch and in-your-face to your fancy friends when the following begins to happen?
1. Churches that don’t sanction SSM
(a) lose their tax-exempt status
(b) are mysteriously unable to buy property
(c) get fire-bombed
(d) are sued into oblivion for crimes “real” and imagined?
2. BYU and other religion-sponsored universities
(a) lose their accreditation
(b) cannot participate in the NCAA and other intramural sports
(c) cannot get their papers published in scholarly journals
3. People who belong to churches that don’t sanction SSM
(a) get fired or are not hired
(b) have crosses burned on their lawns or worse
(c) are serially harassed by the FBI, IRS, EPA, OSHA, etc.
(d) cannot get loans
(e) lose their businesses from boycotts or arson
(f) have their highly personal communications posted on the Internet, thus to humiliate them
(g) are spat upon literally and figuratively as the new KKK
Will you defend us to the people in your life?
Or will you remain silent, because you know that if you utter so much as one word in our support, they’ll rip you to pieces before throwing you in the same pile as we’re on?
BTW, the purpose of pushing SSM is not to be fair to the historically disadvantaged: it’s to provide a pretext to engage in the actions listed above. The Left wants us God-botherers discredited and humiliated and as silent as the tomb. Pushing SSM is about the niftiest way to do that.
Today’s big winners? Mustapha Mond and the other World Controllers.
Praise Ford!
Oh Di, everything will be just fine –like grilled peaches and vanilla bean ice cream with that cinammony rum buter sauce they put on the Bananas Foster– you wait and see.
Well, that, and to finish the job of atomizing the individual by eradicating what remains of the intermediating bonds that shelter individuals from the all encompassing state.
But mostly to finish the job of atomizing the individual by eradicating what remains of the intermediating bonds that shelter individuals from the all encompassing state.
Praise Ford and pass the Soma!
Matheson was one of the earliest names I learned to recognize to indicate “Oh, I’ll probably like this”.
Well, that, and to finish the job of atomizing the individual by eradicating what remains of the intermediating bonds that shelter individuals from the all encompassing state.
And to deprive us of our herteronormativity and (cis)sexual identity. As the floodgates open to SSM, watch for social shaming of those who present as distinctly male or female.
Stay-cation: Day 2
Not doing a very good job of keeping up with yesterday’s productivity. Also, I discovered that the “sunset” settings on my camera stop down the aperture quite nicely and emphasize reds and yellows like nobody’s bidness.
(cis)sexual Di? Really?
Shame on you for using that bit of politicized neological cant.
I’ve been reading and re-reading Paul Johnson during my convalescence.
Cant is my new favorite word.
THe skelemans,
They don’t complain
The sekelemans
Don’t use their brain
The skelemans
Got no reason to lie
The skelemans
Ain’t afraid to die
The skelemans
They don’t get mad
The skelemans
They don’t steal bread
The skelemans
Don’t take you court
The skelemans
Are quick to forget
Can’t get sad…
‘Yeah they’re dead.
That’s my shitty reggae lyrics for the day.
Also, my “Shorter Short” says you’re using cis- wrong connotatively, and the gay/feminazi lobby is using it wrong denotatively.
As the floodgates open to SSM, watch for social shaming of those who present as distinctly male or female.
Maybe. Politics can bend culture and human nature only so far. I offer as evidence that helpful husbands who do most of that helping in areas of traditionally “masculine” pursuit (fixing cars, being handy, mowing grass) get more sweet, sweet, lovin’ from their wives, than those more beta types who cook and clean.
Why would you think that there will still be such quaint, old-fashioned things as husbands and wives in the Brave New post-Constitutional
RepublicAmeritopia?That’s the kind of blatant, bigotry and hate that the Court just struck down.
for your own good!
Heterosexualist. I bet your patriarchical too.
My lousy grammah prove how righteous my indignation is.
I’m a be very vigilant for to make sure we don’t have us no firebombings
so far we seem to have nipped the firebombings in the bud
but for reals I think you’re hyperventilating a lil bit di
everything will be ok you have my word
Why would you think that there will still be such quaint, old-fashioned things as husbands and wives
Because there always have been. See “politics can only bend” clause above.
I see this more as a harbinger of doom for our current government and possibly our entire culture, than a major social/political realignment. Hopefully only the former (government).
Praise Ford!
Shame on you for using that bit of politicized neological cant.
Looks like WordPress doesn’t accept <irony> tags.
Politics can bend culture and human nature only so far.
The housework conundrum is effected in the privacy of the home. Tough to shame a man for not washing the dishes if nobody actually sees him not do it.
Not tough to shame men for wearing beards or women for showing cleavage or wearing frills.
I’m a be very vigilant for to make sure we don’t have us no firebombings
I’m looking forward to your armed, simultaneous presence at all of the Christian chapels in the country.
but for reals I think you’re hyperventilating a lil bit di
You always say that. But when the crazy social engineering comes to pass, you go with the flow and call the rest of us biggits.
Explain why we won’t continue on the current trajectory? What’s to stop social elites from “realizing” how bigoted it is for us to expect hermaphrodites and the transgendered to choose one or the other? What’s to stop Hollywood from going all unisex in their casting, hairstyles, clothing, and language?
They’re never satisfied with winning any of their battles: they always move on to the next radical thing — the more radical the better, and the more shocking to the middle class, the harder they push it.
Yeah. They’ll stop now. Now that they got what they wanted.
The Brave New World had its relics of a by-gone age too.
Wouldn’t have helped anyways. The anodyne I’m self-medicating with blocks the irony receptors.
You mean like Justin Cyrus and Miley Bieber? Or like Davie Lennox and Annid Bowie back in the 80s?
Because there always have been. See “politics can only bend” clause above.
Marriage has always been heterosexual, and yet what did they just do???
Already in the Eurozone and Canada the terms “mother” and “father” are being replaced by “parent 1” and “parent 2” on birth certificates and other official documents. “Husband” and “wife” are being replaced with “spouse.”
Do NOT underestimate the zeal of the activists. Please consider Bookworm’s arguments in Sex and State Power. This isn’t about being fair to historically disadvantaged people, it’s about acquiring as much power over the individual as possible, and effacing sexual identity is one of the more delicious elements because of the humiliation. We’ll all be that poor guy whose male member was accidentally severed in a circumcision and was forced to grow up as a girl.
No, you’re NOT a boy or a girl! STOP THAT! You’re a person. We don’t say “she” or “he” anymore: we say “they,” to be fair to everyone. You have a parent named Sylvia and another parent named Bob. Don’t talk about “my mom” or “my dad” because how does that make the other kids feel if their parents are named Sue and Annie?
Now let’s go picket that doll factory and Tonka trucks for their unforgivably insensitive genderist toymaking. Blocks! Paper and crayons! Those are the only toys that are suited for enlightened children!
Unless something happens to stop the trend, this is where we’re headed. And it’s not just me: Dennis Prager gets it and has for a long, long time.
Are we seeing pushback on this or capitulation?
Hyperventilating, indeed. I’m just watching where the trend lines point.
It’s all just sexplay and orgy-porgy anyways, Di. Geez. Take your soma like a good Beta-minus.
Ernst Schreiber says June 26, 2013 at 1:12 pm
As in, “Yes We Cant?”
I learned a new word yesterday. Heterosexism.
Apparently being accused of it is a bad thing.
At some point, future historians will look at last night’s events in Texas (warning: Auto-play video) and today’s Supreme Court decision as the point where the United States officially became a third-world nation.
That won’t be official until the Zimmerman is convicted.
More like acquitted – Followed by nation-wide
urban riotingpassionate civil-rights demonstrations.Bear in mind that all the culture-war “transgressive” political battles are what the kids call “First World problems.” We’re rapidly approaching the point where Real Problems become everybody’s primary concern, at which point these “because we can” demonstrations of force will seem a quaint relic.
Another nice side effect is that Real Problems will make people discover a new appreciation for things like good neighbors, churches, and families. (Probably also guns, though it’s fairly Hobbitty to mention as much.)
By all that’s right and just, he ought to be acquitted.
Which is why I’m betting the other way.
I’m betting he’s found guilty this time around — to prevent the ‘Rodney King effect’ — which is overturned in the appeal (hoping that by then, the Revr’nds will have found a new racial chew-toy).
By all that’s right and just, he ought to be acquitted.
I think rather, never brought to trial. But that’s my bias as to justice.
hermaphrodites are not on my radar really
Hermaphrodites mating, mucus aplenty — helical wonders abound.
They probably don’t go out much.
“hermaphrodites are not on my radar really”
did you check your sonar?
shoulder to shoulder I will stand with all of you against the hermaphrodite menace
this is a promise
good happyfeet, I have banana slugs all around my house.
oh it’s on
Saltshakers at the ready.
‘feets, you have no idea how hollow your pledges of fidelity ring.
You’re in thrall to the good opinion of the enemies of the Republic. First sign of trouble and you’ll fold like a cheap tent.
Interesting consideration: Utah was admitted to the Union on the condition that its constitution outlaw polygamy forever.
If polygamy is forcibly legalized in Utah, does that mean we’ve automatically seceded?
Please God say yes.
From your keyboard to God’s ears, di.
Feel free to disagree with her prescription, but Elizabeth Scalia’s descriptionis spot-on.
The pagans sank beneath the tide, their pieties — for all intents and purposes from our vantage — vanished.
getting rid of that doma business is one of the best gifts our beleaguered Team R friends could’ve hoped for di
it’s serendipitous!
Scalia: ‘High-Handed’ Kennedy Has Declared Us ‘Enemies of the Human Race’
In the majority’s telling, this story is black-and-white: Hate your neighbor or come along with us. The truth is more complicated. It is hard to admit that one’s political opponents are not monsters, especially in a struggle like this one, and the challenge in the end proves more than today’s Court can handle. Too bad. A reminder that disagreement over something so fundamental as marriage can still be politically legitimate would have been a fit task for what in earlier times was called the judicial temperament. We might have covered ourselves with honor today, by promising all sides of this debate that it was theirs to settle and that we would respect their resolution. We might have let the People decide.
But that the majority will not do. Some will rejoice in today’s decision, and some will despair at it; that is the nature of a controversy that matters so much to so many. But the Court has cheated both sides, robbing the winners of an honest victory, and the losers of the peace that comes from a fair defeat. We owed both of them better. I dissent. – Justice Scalia.
– See you all in another decade of sliding down the slippery slope of government mixing in society. I fully expect the moral bar will then be pikachu’s marrying their right hands.
Now if only we could get on board with the amnestying of the shadow-dwellers and the pureeing of the parasitic womb-dwellers, then everybody’d love us like Raymond.
Fucking idiot.
They’re baaaaaack!
Or hadn’t you noticed?
should we have a “missing-pagans” milk carton campaign.
“getting rid of that doma business”
why you h8te billy clinton?
Oh I don’t think they’re back in the least. Some revival of the practice of human sacrifice seems to be on the wax, even if only metaphorically, but it isn’t apparent anyone is seriously doing obeisance and honor to Zeus, to Diana, to the Nereids, and so on. Else it would be impossible to account for Kevin Sorbo’s (very) modest film success.
Statement from the USCCB.
Some revival of the practice of human sacrifice seems to be on the wax,
child sacrifice has been legal since 1972
” Some revival of the practice of human sacrifice seems to be on the wax,”
“dr” gosnell’s babyfeets in a jar available on ebay soon
Sí, se puede
Petition Website Set Up to Recall Marco Rubio
[…] a comment left by Dicentra over at Protein […]
levin at close tonight ” it is time to go offense”
I was listening to Hewitt live, and he interviewed Hoeven, and made mincemeat of him. It was a beautiful thing to see.
” I think a neo-Platonic kind of gnosis has been especially popular for well over a century now. ”
saw this today
link
We should start worshiping the god of html if only it would cut us a little slack now and then.
The god of html might be like Crom, so calling upon him might bring only doom upon thee.
I couldn’t blog from work … so I just got home a bit ago and started a SCOTUS thread
i gauge the state of the republic by the status of the bird.
Right about now I’m considering an appeal to the Daphnaie to distract Scott Kazmir for a moment or two, that he might toss a fat one down the heart of the plate.
Bingo! Manny doubles (36!) again.
– There shall be many more unintended consequences than yet anticipated. They shall own their miseries.
– (Especially yellow rodents).
The miseries upon yellow rodents will be poetic justice.
On that one, shockingly, yes.
Well, let’s look back a quarter century to what Allan Bloom observed about the (then) twenty-odd year-old sexual revolution and feminist movement, and see if we can extrapolate by analogy, shall we?
(Bloom, Closing 98-106; bold emphasis mine except where otherwise indicated.)
If that was too long to read, I would summarize Bloom thusly:
Congratulations, ladies. You burned your bras so that Adam and Steve could get married. beore they raise your kid for you as the lawfully designated agents of the state.