Monday, November 21, 2011

Zombie Daze


















North Country
S. Shawcross / Oil on hardboard /22 x 28 / SOLD

This weeks feature video: Thoughts on Cheese. I've just discovered these youtube clips from British show QI. We may be seeing alot of them here. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=OYGDPbzljvI

The Louis Saga Continues: Bidding on the 1,500 word essay "Tell Me about the Rabbit George." Signed, hand-bound limited edition of 1 continues: $93.17 G.R. Chelsea Monday, October 31, 2011 Bidding closes midnight Friday, December 2, 2011 To bid send an e-mail to nevermind07@sympatico.ca To follow the initial story see my July post on the right ----------->



This week's column was published in the West Quebec Post Autumn 2011.

Zombie Daze

Every Sunday night it’s the same thing. Every Sunday night I find myself watching the TV series “The Walking Dead.” I regret every single second that I watch it even though I don’t see much of it because I’m always covering my eyes at the gruesome bits (of which there are many). Every Sunday night I ask myself, “What kind of a person would watch a show like this?” as if me, myself and I had nothing to do with the fact that me, myself and I are sitting there in the comfy chair watching it. It’s not what I intended. I bought the comfy chair with visions of cuddle snuggling down to read a Jane Austen novel or an Agatha Christie mystery maybe. Perhaps even Tolstoy. Yet there I am every Sunday night in my comfy chair watching ghastly green, grey and red zombies devour people in Technicolor.

I figure this is all being done completely against my will. I absolutely know I do not wake up in the morning thinking I need to see severed bodies hanging from trees or being dragged across the lawn with that scrabbly rasping howl noise the filmmakers invented to make it all so much worse. I know this and yet, there I am.

At first I thought watching this show highlighted my idiosyncratic limitations as a human being, who can only plumb so far into my inner reasons for ‘doing what I do’ before going into happy denial where everybody else lives. This realization has led me to believe that I do not know what on earth I’m watching this show for, but delving into the personal reasons “why” I’m watching it would be more horrifying than “actually” watching it. That’s what I thought at first.

But the question really is, why are these things so popular? It can’t just be me. This growing popularity of gruesome vampire, zombie, monster movies out there hell-bent on realism is undeniable. Of course you can argue it’s always been that way. We need to be scared now and then for some reason because it makes us feel better. Back in the fifties and sixties horror shows were great fun, full of popcorn and nervous laughter. First you screamed then you laughed at yourself for screaming. Life, we used to say to ourselves, can’t be that bad because at least there is no black and white funny zombie out there somewhere ready to jump on us.

Now we say to ourselves, at least there is no flock of rasping bleeding grey green zombies smearing themselves with trailing entrails on the front lawn while munching on cats and raccoons and threatening to come through the picture window by the comfy chair. Apparently this is what it takes now to make us feel better about life in this day and age. This just can’t be good no matter what way you look at it. And to add insult to injury, you can’t even eat popcorn with all that blood and guts going on. It’s just not right.

I figure it’s only a matter of time before they make a 3D version of a zombie movie whereupon I will very likely promptly have a heart attack and die… because me, myself and I, like half the population, “will” go see it. It’s just inevitable. If they make it, I will probably watch it: completely against my will of course.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi to all butnevermindallthat.blogspot.comers this is my first post and thought i would say hello to you all -
regards speak again soon
garry moore

syl said...

Hi Garry. Pleased to see you here.

:)
Syl