EPISODE CHASER: The Jar
Man, where do I begin with Ray?
Probably with Something Wicked This Way Comes, seeing as how we’re dealing with a carnival here?
NOTE: I got a little obsessed by carnivals myself at one point. Then I read “Gopher in the Gilly” by Harlan Ellison. Annd… yeah… that killed that.
But you see, Something Wicked was not my first Bradbury book. No, that honor goes to this one:
Christ O’Malley, no one sells writing the way Ray sells writing.
After reading this, I sat down and made my Bradbury nouns lists. (Great article on that here.) Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn’t. But they were a helluva lot of fun and… yeah, often revealing.
After that, I read Something Wicked. Then The October Country. And I was hooked, I tells ya. And I’ve been hooked ever since. I’d read Ray Bradbury’s instructions on a box of suppositories if I came across one.
He doesn’t have too many legit horror stories to choose from, but dayyy-yum, the ones he’s got are bona-fide Duesenbergs, man! Even subtle ones like “The Cistern”. I defy you to walk away from that one without feeling some measure of peach fuzz coursing through your arteries afterward. And there’s not a jot of the supernatural or a monster anywhere in sight. There’s not even any violence. Just… horror.
After much back and forth, “The Jar” won out.
I mean, how could it not?
The References
We’re two Gen-Xers whose minds are everywhere all at once, sub-referencing ourselves into the boundless depths, thus warranting a deeper dive into some of the passing remarks we make on the show.
1. Blue Gingham
I think JG woulda made a good Thedy, no?
I mean the older JG. The one that looked like a martini olive.
2. Aragorn in shadow
The scene Alec referenced to illustrate the awesome technique of introducing a character in shadow. Most effective indeed.
Hey, it’s Kurtz! 👆👆
3. Homer and the sandwich
Classic.
4. Contemplation of the dust
Perhaps this ought to go under ‘Errata’, but I left out a key component of the dustsceawung philosophy: It is the contemplation of mortality—the way of all things—by way of contemplating what has come before. Think the remains of buildings, the eroded statues of heroes, etc.
In other words, it is an examination of entropy to the fullest.
What must follow, therefore, is to examine why it is that entropy unnerves us so.
HOT TIP: To find out why, visit your local cemetery.
5. The Dreamcatcher memory warehouse
This, of course, puts me in mind of Sherlock’s mind palace👇👇👇
Which, in turn, brings me to the Method of Loci 👇
6. What’s He Building In There?
Tom Waits’s hilarious and haunting piece.
I was introduced to Waits first through Beavis and Butthead 👇👇👇
I fell in love with this song, instantly recognizing Waits’s homage to Louis Armstrong in the form of that VI minor to III minor chord change and its corresponding melody.
A couple of years later, a friend of mine lent me a CD of Nighthawks at the Diner. I miss those days of exchanging music hand to hand. They were like living fish in water baggies that you couldn’t wait to get home and tend to and take your time with.
7. Mr. Electrico!
Ray’s superhero origin story.
Sidenote: It’s been established that my young Ray impression needs work, therefore my old Ray is completely out to lunch. I’ll hone it in due time. Stay tuned.
8. Gene Wolfe on literature, verbatim this time
“My definition of good literature is that which can be read by an educated reader, and reread with increased pleasure.”
Erratum
We speak off the cuff, and often under the influence of a particular fermented beverage. It's only natural our mouths run ahead of our brains and we muck up some of the details.
I called my beer Hazy Little “Things”. It was/is Hazy Little “Thing”, singular. I must be more careful. Through such errors do kingdoms fall.
And that’s all I got.
Catch you next time for Episode Five!