18-Sep-2004
I HEAR AMERICA SCREAMING
David J. Skal�s Official, Though Maddeningly Irregular, Online Newsletter
September 2004
Dear Friends, Fiends and Fans,
Halloween falls so close to Election Day that there�s always been a significant overlap between political hoopla and trick or treating. Remember those editorial cartoons of Ross Perot as Dracula, his already bat-like ears made all the more flapping and literal? And what about those holiday troopers Al and Tipper Gore, who twice during their White House tenure publicly embraced monster garb subtly lampooning traditional sex roles: first in a star-turn as the Frankenstein monster and his bride, followed up by the Beauty and the Beast? George Bush, unfortunately, strikes me as a smirking laboratoiry assistant to master monster maker Karl Rove (who would have been so, so much better than Laurence Olivier as the death-villain in SKY CAPTAIN.) Rush Limbaugh has been repeatedly comparing John Kerry to Herman Munster, though to my mind (alas) Kerry has been coming across more and more like a stern New England witch-burner., a la Vincent Price or Peter Cushing.
Which brings me to Salem, Massachusetts. Despite my decidedly cheeky treatment of the town�s head-over-heels infatuation with Halloween in my book DEATH MAKES A HOLIDAY, the city has nonetheless invited me to help kick off their month-long Halloween celebration with a slide lecture on the history of our oddest holiday on Saturday, October 2 at the National Park Service Auditorium, followed by a book signing at the historic Salem Witch House, once the home of a judge who sent 19 innocent people to the gallows (and another one to be crushed under stones) for their supposed trafficking in the diabolic.
Fortunately, the present officials of Salem are instead perversely rewarding me for my own demonic interests with a stay at a very pleasant and historic bed and breakfast, no gallows in sight. I very much look forward to meeting Boston-area readers. The same week, I�ll also be helping out Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, putting their modern theme-park experience in the context of more traditional Halloween celebrations with a series of media interviews.
Though details are not quite finalized, it looks like I�ll be doing a HOLLYWOOD GOTHIC signing at Coldwater Books, Tuscumbia, Alabama on October 27 (a truly fabulous and inviting independent bookstore(, followed by a lecture based on DEATH MAKES A HOLIDAY on October 28 at the Ritz Theatre, Sheffield Alabama. (one of the most lovingly restored small-town Art Deco movie theatres I�ve ever seen. Looking forward to many future events here regarding 30s pop culture�why do all you convention types always go for the bland corporate auditoria? )
Two Los Angeles area book signings for the new, revised edition of HOLLYWOOD GOTHIC are scheduled: the first at Dark Delicacies, Burbank, on Saturday October 23, followed by a special event at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum on Saturday, October 30.
Please check the EVENTS page at my web site, monstershow.net , for updated details on all these events.
One last item: The revised edition of HOLLYWOOD GOTHIC will not be officially published until October 18, but I have the first printed copy in hand and have decided to auction it on eBay with an appropriate �first autograph� inscription as a benefit for the Authors League Fund, a worthy charity founded in 1917 providing emergency housing and medical assistance to writers and dramatists in need. My eBay seller�s name is hollygoth1931 Thanks for considering a bid; it�s a very good casue.
Another newsletter will follow in a few weeks, with additional updates about Halloween.
Please feel free to pass this newsletter on to other interested parties. Readers can subscribe/unsubscribe by visitng the website NEWSLETTER page.
Happy Haunting,
David
