Inflatables have taken over Halloween. These are all in my east-end Toronto neighbourhood.
Halloween 2022
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Pumpkins
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Tag: ghosts
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The Haunted
The Haunted
there is this theory
that unfinished business
keeps spirits on earth
but we had no unfinished business
so I don’t know why
I’m haunting him
<>
it wasn’t my intention
to haunt anybody
when death fit me like a glove
I thought
this is it
I can take it easy
let myself relax
so this new dimension
can give me whatever shape I need
I don’t have to think
of who I am
what to do
I can be nothing
<>
I welcomed the loss of self
only to discover
him
he was holding
onto more than a memory of me
we were merely familiar
with each other
as far as I knew
affectionate
not emotionally invested
to the point
where I would haunt him
<>
showing up hovering
behind him
in a shower steamed mirror
gone before he could turn around
<>
I didn’t want to be there
he’s not the one
I’d pick to haunt either
it would be you
I love this piece. I love a good ghost story too. The ‘rules’ of the ghost world tie them to places, tie them the particular people (or their relatives), tie them to some sort of emotional connection. I’ve written a couple of ghost pieces where I try to find a different angle on the trope.
I’ve read stories where objects are haunted – i.e. the dead man’s shoes that give the wearer visions of his murderer. One author has written a series about the spirit of a dead detective that solves cases for the living. I have one I wrote where a guy hooks up with another guy whose dick is haunted by a deceased boyfriend.
The best ghosts are the ones the reader/viewer doesn’t realize are ghosts until the very end as in The Sixth Sense. Also enjoy ones where you are never sure if their is a ghost as in The Haunting. Was it a ghost or was it a trick of an unbalanced mind?
Ghosts always seem to want something – to warn you, revenge, completion so they can move on, your energy so they can remain on this plane. Rarely have I come across ghosts who don’t want express some sense of purpose. So this piece is about a ghost looking for a purpose.
Spiders and Their Fiends
Blowing Up Halloween
Out of Control
Out of Control
I am a man
in a man’s body
there was a brief time
when I doubted this
a time when gender was fixed
by cultural controls
<>
to explain
variations in object desire
people were reduced
to data
that data was used to explain
what didn’t fit
so that men
in men’s bodies
who desired other men’s bodies
were actual women in men’s bodies
genders misplaced
trapped and looking for release
that a man would desire another man
was explained
in terms of heterosexual norms
because only a woman
could would should
have sexual desire for a man
<>
when I realized I desired men
I almost accepted the theory
that I was a woman
trapped in a man’s body
though it never made sense
but it was deemed more acceptable
than man to man attraction
the data proved that
yet my human experience
refused to conform to that data
<>
facts spun to conform
not inform
a pervasive compulsion to control
what
at least in my pants
in out of control
One of the things that Hot Damn! It’s A Queer Slam encouraged me to do was examine, in even greater detail, how our sense of sexual self is ‘created.’ Much of it comes from pop culture. Rampant heterosexuality dominated & even as the lgbtqia community was coming into the mainstream it often remained caught in those heterosexual behaviour constraints such as marriage for acceptance, being a good homo by adopting children to create the typical family.
Even sexual interactions were caught up in this coding – top, bottom, fem, butch, masc, whatever. This piece looks at some of the theories I read about in exploring sexuality – the wrong body has recently morphed into trans body diaspora, which, to me, it logical. But back in the day it was considered a fringe rationalization to make non-het sexuality acceptable.
Similar is the theory that one is haunted/possessed by the spirit of the opposite sex- so its really not me that likes men but the ghost of the woman that has taken over my body.
Both theories that I find amusing as opposed to informative or definitive. I still live in a culture that is sex-a-phobic period. As much as there appears to be an appreciation, say, for women owning their own sexuality it’s still seen through the male gaze of acceptance. It’s also a culture in which suffering is deemed authentic & while pleasure is deemed intellectually shallow.
So I’ve stopped wondering about the puzzle of my sexuality & have opted to ignore any data, any attempt to explain it & choose to enjoy because I am fine with being intellectually shallow.
Recorporated
Recorporated
I was on the subway. Standing & avoiding those crowding close me. Breathing slowly into my mask, head down to keep as from contact as possible. The new reality.
People got on & off at each stop. Each negotiating space around them & between others. Some apologizing for brushing up against someone when it was impossible to avoid brushing up against someone. The old reality.
In the window reflection I saw someone stand close beside me but when I glanced to them there was no one there. The reflection was unchanged though. There was clearly a person – I say a person because though the shape was clearly there, the face was distorted by the glass. I couldn’t tell if it was male or female. I couldn’t even see any race. I could feel them press against me as the subway stopped. When I looked to apologize there was no one there. No one.
They were only there in reflection. Wearing a mask much like mine.
The train stopped at my station. I moved to get off but stopped for a moment to glance at the figure by me. I saw it moving past me in reflection. I followed. It turned. I saw it full face. It was me. He exited. Stunned, I couldn’t follow.
The door closed. I had no reflection. I merge back into the crowd. Stood behind someone, willing them to look up. When they did I saw my refection.
East End Toronto Ghosts
More closed business, some thanks to covid, others thanks to rental increases
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Ghosts Toronto Stratford
Ghosts and Haunted Stumps Toronto
Pan on the Danforth – good Greek/Mediterranean food
tile entrance to Pan which is still there
Seduction on Yonge – sex no longer sells
Greek City on the Danforth – moved then vanished
corner of Sherbourne & Bloor – soon to be a covid ghost – Timothy’s gone & Starbucks took over – then pandemic
Danforth & Logan – the Tim’s stain refuses to be gone
tree on lawn of house next door
haunted stump & bones of tree
professionals came later in the year to remove the stump
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The Haunting
Today horror is equated with gore and photogenic stumps interacting with CGI. If the ‘entity’ isn’t shown readers, viewers are disappointed. This resulted in endless bad creature costumes (how hilarious is Mothra as a creature). All too often the ‘entity’ was more important than the actual story & dialogue. In so many horror films all that changed were the actors & the entity. The story & dialogue were basically the same.
A fact I didn’t realize until I was an adult. Some of those films, books, hold up, others well, haven’t dated so well. The original Frankenstein film hasn’t been improved upon with better effects, better monster make up. None of text have added any real depth to the film. The actual Shelly novel is as much a philosophical treatise as it is a thriller. The creature is more intellectual than allowed in most of the film variations.
I recently watched The Haunting – based on Shirley Jackson novel. I have seen this film several time but each time I see different elements. Also I watched it with a friend who has never seen it before. I also should add that I have read the novel more than once, read other work by Jackson & back in 1991 I directed a stage version – so I am familiar with it.
Horror, the supernatural, & to a degree gore, have been inspirations for me since I was a child. Having a cemetery, managed by my father, as a playground growing up certainly added to that interest. Oddly I never did become a goth. But I certainly loved monsters the Mummy, Wolfman, Dracula – these were the supernatural creatures. Creature from the Black Lagoon, Them, Godzilla – where environmental monsters thanks to toxic chemical, nuclear radiation.
The horror of The Haunting maybe man made: something that manifests from our personal inner turmoil, or from another’s inner turmoil seeking revenge, release, completion or to teach us a lesson as in A Christmas Carol. The Haunting sets the bar high & very few films have succeeded as it has. Jackson’s novel sketches in vague scientific speculation but leaves the rest up to us.
Later versions of movie parapsychology have added more equipment, better fx but no increase in the spook factor. I also find even Jackson relies too much on psychology to semi-explain things. Eleanor arrives already emotionally unbalance. The ambiguity of whether she looses touch with reality or has intact been absorbed by the spirits of the house is the spooky thrust of the story.
Without this film & this novel, we’d wouldn’t have an endless parade of novels about parapsychological investigators suffering for their research, or an endless parade of reality TV shows about parapsychologic investigators with bad hand-held cameras, whispering ‘did you hear that?’ in night vision lighting.
I would highly recommend both seeing the original The Haunting & reading Jackson’s novel ‘The Haunting Of Hill House.’ They complement each other. They also show how eerie chills can be created without monsters, cgi or dismemberment.
Maple Ridge Road
people told us
the abandoned Macintosh mansion
at the end of Maple Ridge Road
was haunted
but we didn’t believe them
so on the last full moon of October
Davey, Martin and me
we snuck into the house
and were never seen again
every Tuesday 2019
October
15 – Stratford Festival – The Crucible
November
Thursday 7 – Hot Damn It’s Queer Slam! – Buddies and Bad Times Theatre – 7 pm – featuring Wes Ryan.
December
The Secret Handshake Gallery – 
feature – date TBA
January
23 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Buddies and Bad Times Theatre
March
March 5 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Buddies and Bad Times Theatre
April
April 3 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Season 6 finales Buddies andBbad Times Theatre
June – Capturing Fire 2020 – Washington D.C. 
capfireslam.org
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