society

A Letter to America

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Maybe it’s time for a little reminder, America before you march cross the 49th parallel. I’ll say one thing for trump, he’s brought this country together like never before. Even the Quebecois are championing Canada.  Do you know how hard that is? We’ve  been trying to get the French onboard for 157 years. Here’s a a little reminder from Margaret Atwood, a Canadian treasure.

Dear America: This is a difficult letter to write, because I’m no longer sure who you are. Some of you may be having the same trouble. I thought I knew you: We’d become well acquainted over the past 55 years. You were the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comic books I read in the late 1940s. You were the radio shows — Jack Benny, Our Miss Brooks.You were the music I sang and danced to: the Andrews Sisters, Ella Fitzgerald, the Platters, Elvis. You were a ton of fun.

You wrote some of my favourite books. You created Huckleberry Finn, and Hawkeye, and Beth and Jo in Little Women, courageous in their different ways. Later, you were my beloved Thoreau, father of environmentalism, witness to individual conscience; and Walt Whitman, singer of the great Republic; and Emily Dickinson, keeper of the private soul. You were Hammett and Chandler, heroic walkers of mean streets; even later, you were the amazing trio, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner, who traced the dark labyrinths of your hidden heart. You were Sinclair Lewis and Arthur Miller, who, with their own American idealism, went after the sham in you, because they thought you could do better. You were Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront, you were Humphrey Bogart in Key Largo, you were Lillian Gish in Night of the Hunter. You stood up for freedom, honesty and justice; you protected the innocent. I believed most of that. I think you did, too. It seemed true at the time.

You put God on the money, though, even then. You had a way of thinking that the things of Caesar were the same as the things of God: that gave you self-confidence. You have always wanted to be a city upon a hill, a light to all nations, and for a while you were. Give me your tired, your poor, you sang, and for a while you meant it. We’ve always been close, you and us. History, that old entangler, has twisted us together since the early 17th century. Some of us used to be you; some of us want to be you; some of you used to be us. You are not only our neighbours: In many cases — mine, for instance — you are also our blood relations, our colleagues, and our personal friends. But although we’ve had a ringside seat, we’ve never understood you completely, up here north of the 49th parallel.

We’re like Romanized Gauls — look like Romans, dress like Romans, but aren’t Romans —  peering over the wall at the real Romans. What are they doing? Why? What are they doing now? Why is the haruspex eyeballing the sheep’s liver? Why is the soothsayer wholesaling the Bewares?

Perhaps that’s been my difficulty in writing you this letter: I’m not sure I know what’s really going on. Anyway, you have a huge posse of experienced entrail-sifters who do nothing but analyze your every vein and lobe. What can I tell you about yourself that you don’t already know?

This might be the reason for my hesitation: embarrassment, brought on by a becoming modesty. But it is more likely to be embarrassment of another sort. When my grandmother — from a New England background — was confronted with an unsavoury topic, she would change the subject and gaze out the window. And that is my own inclination: Mind your own business.

But I’ll take the plunge, because your business is no longer merely your business. To paraphrase Marley’s Ghost, who figured it out too late, mankind is your business. And vice versa: When the Jolly Green Giant goes on the rampage, many lesser plants and animals get trampled underfoot. As for us, you’re our biggest trading partner: We know perfectly well that if you go down the plug-hole, we’re going with you. We have every reason to wish you well.

You’re gutting the Constitution. Already your home can be entered without your knowledge or permission, you can be snatched away and incarcerated without cause, your mail can be spied on, your private records searched. Why isn’t this a recipe for widespread business theft, political intimidation, and fraud? I know you’ve been told all this is for your own safety and protection, but think about it for a minute. Anyway, when did you get so scared? You didn’t used to be easily frightened.

You’re running up a record level of debt. Keep spending at this rate and pretty soon you won’t be able to afford any big military adventures. Either that or you’ll go the way of the USSR: lots of tanks, but no air conditioning. That will make folks very cross. They’ll be even crosser when they can’t take a shower because your short-sighted bulldozing of environmental protections has dirtied most of the water and dried up the rest. Then things will get hot and dirty indeed.

You’re torching the American economy. How soon before the answer to that will be, not to produce anything yourselves, but to grab stuff other people produce, at gunboat-diplomacy prices? Is the world going to consist of a few megarich King Midases, with the rest being serfs, both inside and outside your country? Will the biggest business sector in the United States be the prison system? Let’s hope not.

If you proceed much further down the slippery slope, people around the world will stop admiring the good things about you. They’ll decide that your city upon the hill is a slum and your democracy is a sham, and therefore you have no business trying to impose your sullied vision on them. They’ll think you’ve abandoned the rule of law. They’ll think you’ve fouled your own nest.

The British used to have a myth about King Arthur. He wasn’t dead, but sleeping in a cave, it was said; in the country’s hour of greatest peril, he would return. You, too, have great spirits of the past you may call upon: men and women of courage, of conscience, of prescience. Summon them now, to stand with you, to inspire you, to defend the best in you. You need them.

The letter was posted in The Globe and Mail on, 28 March 2003.  The letter was penned while  George W Bush as president. Man he looks good now, eh? I removed the paragraph about the Iraqi war, but we’re in another war, n’est-ce pas?

Government Man

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Free Images : aircraft, army, vehicle, aviation, fire, explosion, war, dramatic, chopper ...Not much happening today, but last night I was at home lounging, when I heard a very loud noise above me.  My foundations started rocking like crêpe paper in a hurricane. The world is ending right now. The windows rattled and popped as if a tornado were ripping through town. The sound thunderous as a large machine dropped into my space.  I ran to the boom and inspected my front yard. The view easy because our picture window gone. A petrol breeze flew through the portal.  I put my hand to mouth and gasped for air.

A large military helicopter crashed into our once manicured green space. The cadet grey blades were still moving, digging a large ditch into the earth metres from what was moments ago, my front window. The rotors stopped. I had no front yard – my planted daisies and roses now mulch.  The front of my house was nothing more than a giant gap in the universe. All that was left was space.  I was thankful for my crêpe soled shoes because shattered glass littered the living room carpet like tiny diamonds scattered on a jeweller’s felt.

I was still in shock when a man jumped through the open window. He wore a dark pin-striped suit with sock inserted sandals. He gripped a metallic clipboard in his hands as though swaddling a baby. He plucked his lanyard from under the suit and flipped it in my face. I saw a golden government logo. No name. No department. Just a smiling government man with a fake tan. He could’ve been from the ministry of pills and elixirs for all I knew. The flash brief. He put the credentials back with such quick movement I thought his side hustle was a card shark or fake billionaire. Don’t worry sir, the government is in control. We’ve got you covered. I rolled my eyes. Trust was not coming.

Two other men quickly darted from behind the government man and within two minutes they removed the entire front of my house. Studs and debris removed. A clean cut. Clipboard man made notes and then jumped through the open gap and examined the broken whirly bird. He didn’t take long. He jumped up into my living room with a metal chunk in his grip. It looked like the lock mechanism for a door – where the bolt slides into. He thrust it in my face.  I squinted. Here’s the problem, said the official. Not standard issue. He jumped through the broken window, giggling like a teenager who knows they got away with murder.

He spoke reassuring words a month ago. Compensation in hand. I wait. I sit in my living room in a lawn chair waving to the awe-struck people who walk by. I lounge here twenty-four seven for security reasons, wrapped in a mummy style sleeping bag, zipped to the hilt. I am my own reward.

Two Novels, a post

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Right now, I am reading two novels. The first is “Yellowface” by Rebecca Kuang. Holy shit. My first reaction is I will never publish a book on the traditional road. What a nasty, horrible process. How does one keep their sanity? As a theme in the book, it’s not always possible. If I were ever to publish, it will be self-published. I will be my own team.  I never want to go through all that shit. What a horror story.

And social media, my goodness, the novel makes we want to delete  all my socials (again).   Professional online people are packs of blood thirsty  animals dedicated to destroying the lives of others. Who  would want to deal with that crap?  How do these predators wake up and look in the mirror every morning.

Ethnic quotas?   Only one Asian story a year, please. And do not criticize the white  authors, so says the right wing cancel culture groups. Holy limiting Batman. So much for writing about whomever and whatever.  However,  I find it ironic that an Asian girl is writing about a white girl who stole a book from an Asian girl. But that’s the point,  right? It gets across very well. 

I know the book is a satire,  but at one point we find out for many authors themain reason for writing is immortality? Are you serious?  The need to live forever through your art.  A lasting impression should be through the people you love not through some nasty assholes on the internet. Is this where we are as a society? 

A great eye-opener. A shocking read. However,  whenever I feel the need to publish,  I’m going to pull out this book – motivation indeed. Thank goodness Faulkner or Woolf or any early twentieth century writer were never around to experience this mess. Or maybe they were, but we never heard about it.

And if the publishing industry wasn’t horrible enough, the other book on  my night table is “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy. I’ve read many of his works and if one idea threads through his work, it’s the belief humans are horrible, blood thirsty creatures (see above article).  If destructive social media isn’t bad enough, how about storing people in a basement so you can eat them later. Or is there a relationship here? Isn’t this what the internet is all about – eating people alive.

The dystopian novel takes place after some horrible catastrophe. A boy and his father are travelling across a landscape filled with ash and destruction. All life destroyed except for a few dogs and travelling bands of nasty people who are ready to kill, steal or eat you. The pair are attempting to make their way to the coast where it’s warm and hope possibly lives.

The dad is dying and the boy was born into this decaying world. He knows about birds, but he’s never seen one. The journey leaves you  feeling cold and damp.  They camp, eat food from tins when they can, pull a shopping card filled with their few life possessions (I love the mirror on the cart – not a bad idea for all shopping malls). Not a happy novel,  but one that makes harsh comments on the nature of society and where we are heading.

Even though hope runs through the novel – the boy is hope. The major question is, who wants to live in a world where we are afraid to help people and human creatures are ready to devour us?  Why are we so horrible to one another?

 Ok, I gotta go and plant a tree or hang a decoration on one. 

Oh strange food

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Food, Food, Fooood, wonderful food, wonderful food. Food. Food. Food. I love food. Making food. Ordering food. Going out for food. I don’t care how it comes. I’ve even had dreams about food like the time I was chased by a giant purple lobster. As a result, I am not afraid of food. I’ve had many strange experiences with food. But I’ve never spat out anything – how rude.

A while back, I was working for the Cosmo-Demonic-Telecommunication company when they sent me on a trip to Thailand. When you travel to Asian countries on business, the company hires a guide to show you around town. The first night we went out and had traditional Thai food. I can’t remember everything we ate, but I do remember rice cooked in pineapple and giant lobsters without claws. I also learnt that Thais do not use chopsticks.  I’m not sure why, but the next time you order Pad Thai … 

However, the next night, the guide asked if we wanted to try some more dangerous food. I was travelling in a group with five or six other dudes. When we got to the restaurant, the first thing I saw was a giant snake dangling from a hook. An employee was running a knife down its belly, guts slopping on the floor. But not to waste, he gathered the innards and threw them in a pail. Ok, this looks promising (not).

Inside, we gathered around a table. Menus, of course were useless. I’m not sure if they were written in Thai or Chinese. The restaurant was the latter, I think. The guide ordered for the table. We had ant eggs – giant white pill looking objects. Then we had snake (not sure if it was hanging buddy downstairs).  Not too bad – tasted like dry pork ribs. However, the weird thing was the wine glass of blood brought to the table. The guide got angry when the waiter brought the drink, but we said don’t worry. Down the hatch. Warm and thick like a metallic milk shake. Apparently good for men. I felt my bicep increase. The food wasn’t too bad, but I don’t think I’d eat it daily and I don’t think the locals did. 

My next interesting delicacy was in New Zealand. We were invited on to the Marae (a meeting place for social and religious celebrations), a great privilege. Every day, behind the meeting house, We had a wonderful “happy” hour. We were talking and drinking excellent wine when this dude brings out these spiny looking creatures, cuts one open and the guts fall in his hand. He threw it down his gullet as though he were kicking off a jandle at the front door.  Sea urchin or Tuhinga o mua in Māori.  He looked at me, you want some, brother? I sure do. It tasted like swallowing a giant hoark left over from a bad cold. But I’d defiantly do it again. Yep, I’d eat just about anything. Once. Scorpion pizza. Sheep eye-ball soup. However, my only rule is it can’t be moving. Dipping my spoon into a bowl of crawling baby snakes, just isn’t my cup of tea. 

Ok, I gotta run upstairs and cook some grub. I’m thinking pineapple pork ribs, rice and cucumber.

Handy Man – haha

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I was asked, are you handy? I just laughed. Oh my, no. I am the most “unhandy” person in the world. When I look around my house I think, man I should’ve hired a professional. When we bought our house, it was a fixer upper. The basement became a swimming pool every June, our rainy month. The carpet in the living room smelt like a cat litter box. The hot water tank was hours away from an explosion. Our entire backyard was exposed because the fence collapsed like a broken teenager on tic-tok. I said, no problem, we can fix it.

Ok time to fix – her -up. I tried to put a fence in and I’m so glad it’s in an area that no one can see. Five years later and it’s leaning more than that tower in Italy. At least in Pisa they have the excuse that it’s a natural process. The only thing natural about the fence I built is natural incompetence. Then I tried to tile the floor in our downstairs bathroom (luckily only used by me). It looks like a pitcher’s mound. Then there’s the bedroom door. We took it off to paint, but it wouldn’t go back on correctly. We couldn’t close the door for a year. Then one morning I looked at the door, walked over, replaced the missing screws and voilà the door closes. We now have privacy. So many other dysfunctional projects. I’m surprised the house is still standing. 

However, I am glad I know people who know what they are doing. I have a great neighbour. She’s so good at handy-person things. We are renovating our kitchen, and she’s done a fantastic job patching and painting the kitchen walls. I can only stand by with my jaw dropping and pour more wine. I have another handyman friend. He’s European, so all projects are done with care and precision (me – measure once and cut again and again and again). More than once, he’s come over and repaired my horrible mistakes. He did great job with our bathroom. Now he’s going to help put with our kitchen renovations. We exchange dog-sitting for reno- skills although my Czech pal is on the losing end.

Another section of our privacy was falling down, but this time exposed to the world. Luckily another neighbour came to the rescue. I did very little (thankfully) except call the “Bobcat” dude to come and drill holes for the posts. But only after hours of a manual auger attempt that required a bathtub of Absorbine Junior the next day … and following week. Our privacy intact, I am very grateful for the assistance.

Yes, I have learnt after many years of attempted home improvement to call a professional. One may watch all the tv programs and youtube videos you want, but if the aptitude is not there you are screwed.  I have other qualities, like … well I dunno. I can write poetry, always a useful skill. 

Street Songs

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Last night I was in an unvisited room – white brick walls, very open, but warm with verdant carpets covering a cold floor. A blond dude stood on a small stage, with a guitar and microphone. He was releasing his only album.  I had no idea who he was. An invitation came in the mail. I responded with a presence.

The music was soothing and mellow,  reminding me of a golden California sunrise  –  yellow with so much hope and promise in the skies. I felt the sunrise in the words as they flowed through me like warm bath bubbles. Every song was great.  Folded cardboard sheets  were passed around. I saw them on a golf course. A sign-off was mandatory.  Beside every track was an approval box.  I put a check mark beside every song.  But not all the songs were present.  I heard more than I saw. I had to tell the producer. We need the warmth. Panic. Action.

 I got on my bike and headed down a street lined with dirty grey buildings and greasy round porthole windows, so thick light couldn’t escape. The air was cold as I glided down the unknown pavement. I passed a relic with a dome shaped roof covered in green metal.  So many poor people along the route –  leaning, squatting, and laying down on the cracked sidewalk The citizens starving with their skin peeling and falling off the bone.  Eyes so dark and sunken like buried seeds in winter.  I wanted to help, but I couldn’t stop. The producer calls.

I got to a shopping centre with a tall glass office tower. The windows were  shiny and mirrored. In the reflection were the starving people on the sidewalk,  behind me.  I turned right, but as I did a large dump truck pulled out in front of me. I was struck. I fell down and couldn’t move. More panic.  The music must get out. The road was blocked. I thought about the sidewalk, but it was covered in people. I sat on my bike, wondering what I should do. I shook. Rivers ran down my face.

A bearded man rose from the sidewalk and walked towards me. He held out his hand. I reached into my bag – slung over my shoulder and hanging on my right side – and took out a bundle of  scorecards. I gave it to the man. He took it and smiled. He went back to the sidewalk  and raised the scorecards with a holler. People rose, gained weight, and were covered in the most glorious gold clothing. They danced and sang the warm songs.

I turned my bike around and headed back down the street. The street people were gone. The green roof was now bronze and shining in the morning sun. The buildings were clean and new. A warm gust flew up the alleys and the streets. Lights glowed in windows and people moved inside, busy. The smell of rich and savoury food filled the street. I wasn’t hungry anymore. I sang.

Bookstore

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A couple of nights ago, I was in this bookstore. Slate grey roof and ceiling with dark mahogany shelves stacked with scattered tomes, big and small. I have a reading list, but I can’t see the titles on the page. I scan the shelves trying to find matching titles. Paper shaking in my wet fingers. I walk over to a table stacked with books like a three-D puzzle. I look under the table and resting on top of a broken wooden crate is a copy of Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch. The spine is broken. The book rests in two pieces.  I’m not sure the novel is on my list, but I’m glad I found it. I leave it hoping to come back.

I move around the bookstore checking my list with words I can’t see. Behind me I hear a famous voice, but I can’t see the face. The man is yelling at someone in the distance behind a closed door. He is upset the other person is closing the bookstore. It’s doing well, he says, so why close it. The female voice says, because it’s time. The raspy voice mutters incoherency as I hear his footsteps move away.  A door opens with the tinkle of a bell and then closes without a sound. No faces, only sounds.

I pull a book off the shelf. I can’t read the title, but on the cover is a dark woman, dressed in regal purple with gold trim. Her hair beehive style adorned with sparkling geometrical figures like a castle tower with golden windows. Her beautiful head crowned in gold and rubies.  I know her, but her name falters.  I look ahead. She is standing stair top between two dark wooden posts, carved with intricate male heads-  dark, shiny and bald. The Queen touches the figures and raises her eyes.

I am no longer in the bookstore. I follow dignity down the stairs. She glides. Her feet don’t touch wood. My bare feet feel the hard, slick wood as I move behind her. When she reaches the bottom, she turns and goes into a magnificent room, filled with ancient books.

The room is dark but  graceful – rich cherry wood, a piano covered in books.   Maps adorn the walls – yellow and crisp and ready to fall into pieces. I see a large golden globe in the centre of the library and a statue of a famous man.  The women turns and hands me a book. It’s very heavy, bound in leather and on the cover a map with river indentations and rising mountains. Both are cold to touch.

I take the book and walk out of the room. I go up the stairs and I walk until I’m back in the bookstore. I know exactly where the book goes. I put it on a shelf. The book glows golden. Anyone who enters will see the book and they will know.

Night by Elie Wiesel

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A student gave me a copy of “Night” and it sat on my book shelf for many years. I was scared to read it. Then my niece was assigned the book for her high school English course. I pulled the book off the shelf, blew the dust off  and pealed back the cover. I wish I had jotted the student’s name in the cover.

I have to say this is one of the hardest books I’ve ever read. Right now, I am sitting in my comfy chair with a cup of coffee, knowing I could go into the cupboard and grab a snack or I could put on my warm winter coat and  walk out the door anytime I want.  But  the pages show me a sixteen-year-old kid, running twenty kilometres in freezing temperatures with only a thin musty snow-covered blanket around him, fearful that if he steps out of line an SS solider will shoot him in the back. And if he falls, he will be trampled to death. We should be so thankful for all we have.

While reading the book, it is hard to imagine how a group of people could treat others so horribly. Packing them like cattle into train cars with no room to sit, standing for hours with no food or water. The train stops. Bodies are thrown out like garbage and then the train moves on – lives forgotten. It is hard to imagine the cruelty because I have never experienced anything close to the lack of humanity carried out by the Nazis. And I wish I could say that society has learnt, but we have not. One only needs to look at the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs to realize the lessons of the holocaust are silent to some governments.

The book follows the sixteen-year-old author from his home in Sighet (a part of Hungry in 1944), to Auschwitz in Poland then to Buna also in Poland and finally to Buchenwald in Germany where he is finally liberated by the Americans. So many horrors along the way. A major take away for me is I hadn’t realized that initially the Hungarian Jews were not worried about the Nazis. In 1944, news radio kept professing that the Red Army was close at hand. No need to worry, they thought, the Russians are on the doorstep. The Germans will be defeated. It’ll be all over before we are rounded up but it was not to be.  Soon the ghettos arrived and then the trains.  Once transported these degraded humans were starved and dying and then it was too late to fight back.

I am so glad the book is taught in high school. I am equally glad I’ve had the opportunity to read the book after so many years. It is an important reminder what can happen when an egomaniac takes power and uses the destruction of a group to obtain power. Wow sounds familiar even today. When will we learn?

And finally, Happy Hanukah

Baby Beetle Camping

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Yesterday, I loaded up the black Beetle with all my camping gear. I was with another person, but I can’t see her face. I never can. We got to an undisclosed location and pitched our tent  in a perfectly round crop circle.  The grass stomped down, but long on the outside. About thirty feet beyond the enclosure were tall spruce and pine trees, so thick you can’t see daylight. I pitched the lean-to style tent, open at the front, but sliding down at the back.  Standing up was impossible.

It started to rain. Torrents. The tent started to move as the crop circle became a giant swirling hot tub. If we didn’t get to a dry spot or higher ground, we’d be swept down into the unknown. Panic flooded us. The rushing water sound so loud we were deaf.  We got out of the tent and ran to the Beetle, still fairly new with a yellow interior. It was parked outside the circle. Once inside, I looked through the sun roof, but only saw dark, angry skies.

It was very quiet inside the German bug . Amazing considering the torrent outside. Then I heard tiny lips smacking. Hunger.  I turned around and behind me was a baby firmly strapped into a bucket seat. We leaned back, so we could sleep. We didn’t have individual sleeping bags, so we covered ourselves with only one bag. It wasn’t very warm. But much better than outside in the cold swirling rain. The baby slept between our heads. Baby sounds. Gurgle. Giggle. Ga-Ga.

We had a fantastic sleep. The rain stopped. We got out of the car. The baby was gone. It took us some time to find our tent. It was wrapped around the base of a tree as if it were a blanket protecting the massive lumber’s roots. I gathered the tent. We were on our way to the bug when a woman walked out of the trees. She had thick curly black hair spun into two wispy spirals. Dark round sunglasses covered much real estate on her shiny white face. I swore I’d seen her in a cartoon.

She walked with heavy authoritative steps and stopped in front of me. She raised one leg and then the other and stomped them on the ground. I felt the vibrations. I’ll give you this gun for that tent. I hate guns, I said. It was a shiny silver gun with a black handle. I was afraid and felt I had no choice, so I said sure and took the pistol.  She took the tent, turned with her heavy steps and walked away. I had the horrible weapon shaking in my hand. She stopped, turned around and tossed a bullet clip at me. I caught it and gave her a direct line across my face. She said, just in case.

She walked into the forest and disappeared with my home. I took the gun and buried it in her footsteps, hopefully, never found.

The Fall of the House of Usher

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The only known picture of Poe

Netflix ‘s “The Fall of the House of Usher” is brilliant.   Creator Mike Flanagan takes on a Poe compendium –  six short stories (while touching on others) and one very famous poem.  Not only is the program great viewing, but it inspired me reread Poe. I haven’t read the Virginian since Uni and it’s interesting to get a “grown-up”  (haha nice try) interpretation many years and beers later.

Poe had a huge fear of being buried alive. In the TV version we have many burials. In one episode a nasty corporate bastard (Rufus Griswold – Poe’s real life nemesis and biggest critic) is tied up, buried behind a wall and left to die – “The Cask of Amontillado.” We also have Arthur Gordon Pym (buried in a dark ship hold), as the Usher’s nasty lawyer henchman, played brilliantly by Luke Skywalker. Bruce Greenwood another sci-fi marvel ( Capitan Christopher Pike) is also excellent.

The Masque of the Red Death is another Poe story brought to light. The vacant and run-down house where Perry (Prince Prospero in Poe’s story) holds a massive party is almost identical to the Prince’s palace – a black walled room with scarlet windows and a brasier fire. The original guy holds a masquerade ball inside the secure palace walls due to a devastating pestilence outside (oooh how pandemic). Carla Gugino – crafty, clever and very sexy in her Red Masque of Death brings about a nasty death inside secure walls just like the story.

The Black Cat episode is very closely related to the story. In Poe’s version a very malicious cat follows the narrator home after he hangs his pet cat in a drunken rage – just like the screen version . We do have a body buried behind a wall in both tales, but in the TV version buddy doesn’t bury an axe in his wife’s head and then bury her behind the fireplace.

The Tell Tale Heart has a nasty bleeding heart controlling the characters (as in Poe). However the modern heart is artificial but continually pumps terror, causing a bloody catastrophe. We do have a bathroom murder in both versions. In Poe’s version he chops up a body in a bathtub and then hides the body under the floorboards. No hidden body in this one. But in both versions the heart gives the murderer away.

The Gold-Bug episode is quite a distance from Poe’s story. In the small screen version we only see the shiny insect symbol representing a company. The original is all about logic and deductive reasoning leading to a buried pirate treasure. A method used by Poe’s detectives that  influenced Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Without Poe, Sherlock Holmes might never been born.

The entire series has Murder in the Rue Morgue’s detective C. Auguste Dupin listening to Roderick Usher tell about The Fall of the House of Usher. The end where all is revealed is a very clever twist that brings all the stories together. Poe was a master horror writer and the first detective fiction scriber. So many have followed in his foot steps.  Please Mike, can we have another series? I’d die if it was “Nevermore.”