All The Same Old Haunts

All right, so how this will work is that every evening for the whole of October, you will find one fake ghost story that I have completely made up. Even the ones that seem based on actual hauntings have been embellished and fictionalized. I think it will be good fun. I got a kick out of writing them and though they are not all great, you’re getting them for free, so what more can you ask for?

At the end, I’m hoping to link each post containing a story to the appropriate location on this map, but I can’t promise now that I’ll get around to it. Still, that would be cool, so I’m going to try. Look for each story at 9 p.m. every day in October. We start with a famous ghost, but after that, we’ll get to a lot of ghosts you’ve never heard of.  There are a few non-ghost stories, too, but I hope they’re spooky enough for you.

Ha. Whew, I’m a little nervous, but I think it’ll still be fun.

Random Things, Because I’m Vaguely Incoherent Today

Honestly, it’s only been a day and a half, but I don’t understand why anyone would take steroids recreationally. First of all, yesterday, I sweated all day like a motherfucker, they taste like shit, and I’ve been vaguely nauseous since I started them.  Everything is improving, but seriously, who needs butt-sweat when just sitting at her desk? And I don’t yet feel like a professional wrestler or a pro football player.

But I have found you some cool things.

1. A story about heirloom apples. I don’t know if this means we in Middle Tennessee can go around looking for antique apples or if we need to send Casey out on an expedition farther east. But I am just tickled by this whole story. And also sad that these varieties are all endangered.

2. Speaking of football players, I have to agree with the folks over at Shakesville. Once even NFL players start talking like this openly, we’re now just waiting for public policy to catch up with where America’s heart is.

3. I want to tell you my favorite line in this post, but I also don’t want to spoil it for you before you get to it. But I laughed out loud right there in the middle of it.

4. I went to see Roger Abramson and wrote about it for Pith.

5. There’s a kind of cheesy genre of country song in which some pop culture reference is turned into some kind of pun or just touch-point for the song.  These are always popular but they are virtually impossible to do well.  It’s no surprise that one of the only artists who can actually pull it off, and turn cheese into gold (or something) is George Jones. The first time through this song, I think you’ll think it’s funny. I invite you to listen to it a second time, to let the real heartbreak sink in. There’s something nicely tragic about how he only has this cheesy shit to use as touchstones for his grief.

On “Not Rape-Rape”

On Twitter this morning, folks were talking about all the Hollywood folks who have come out in support of Polanski.  Even Whoopi Goldberg trying to claim this wasn’t a “rape-rape.”  Even, allegedly, Sharon Tate’s sister trying to draw some distinction between rape and rape.

Dude drugged and raped a crying thirteen year old girl who begged him not to. Then, when he thought his plea bargain might be reneged on after he couldn’t even be bothered to show remorse, he fled.

None of these facts are in dispute.  This isn’t one of these pseudo-gray areas where she seemed like she wanted it and then she “changed her mind.”  Or she was “seduced” out of her “no” by his persistence.

She was drugged by him (indicating that he knew she wouldn’t be even remotely compliant otherwise), and raped repeatedly as she said no over and over.

So, how is this not a rape-rape, even if we were to accept the idea that there is any such distinction between rape and rape?

Why would these Hollywood folks jump to his defense?

This morning, I realized something so gross I had to float it by y’all to see what you think.

I think they think that no only shouldn’t he be punished because he’s the great artist Roman Polanski, but that it wasn’t rape-rape because it wasn’t some gross, disgusting guy who raped her, which of course would be terrible, but the great artist Roman Polanski.

It wasn’t rape-rape because it was a great man, way out of her league, deigning to pay her some attention.

Rape as flattery.

It wasn’t rape-rape because she doesn’t have to be ashamed of who raped her.

(I hope by now y’all have seen Kate Harding’s great piece at Salon about this.)