Scary story.

Sometimes, a story scares you without warning. I'm reading one just now. It's called The Anderson Boy. Joseph Hansen wrote it. Hansen's chief claim to fame is that he created a gay private eye character, Dave Brandstetter. I have not read a single one of the 12-book series. Apparently, they are very good. This is the first time I'm reading his work. The story line he uses in it is to confront the perpetrator of a past crime with its victim who is suffering from amnesia. The anticipation of what will happen any moment is what raises the fear quotient. Also, there is a seeming similarity in the circumstance of the past event with the circumstances of the present. It's very like what Hitchcock used to do. Raise the anticipation of the shape of something dire coming soon. The reader's mind does the rest.

Whatever happened (in alphabetical order) to Alton, Babs, Estelle, Frank, Helen, Morty and Uncle Leo?

They all appeared briefly on Seinfeld, "the show about nothing" http://digbig.com/4xqyq, sometimes as briefly as in one or two episodes and got their share of 15 minutes of fame. Alton Benes, war veteran and celebrated author in the Hemingway mold was the father of Elaine Benes http://digbig.com/4xqyp. Elaine appropriately enough worked as a manuscript reader and editor with various New York publishers. Alton terrorised Jerry, "the funny guy", and "gay" George, in the lobby of a venerable downtown hotel "for people who like leather couches and leather patches on their elbows". He also contributed to the utter ruin of Jerry's new and horrendously expensive soft suede jacket by refusing to take a cab to reach the Pakistani restaurant five blocks away from his hotel although it had started to snow by the time Elaine joined them. Babs, Kramer's mom, finally revealed to us his first name, Cosmo, which he had been refusing to divulge all along. She, an ex-alcoholic, was also caught in a heavy petting session with Jerry's nemesis, Newman. Estelle and Frank made the life of their son, George, a living hell. Estelle read his mail routinely because "I'm curious" and castigated him for "treating his body like an amusement park". Frank could never get over the perversity of a rooster having sex with all the chickens in the roost. Helen, Jerry's adoring mom, was always wondering how anybody could not like her son. She was also a severe critic of the dress sense of her husband, Morty. He was something of a wimp and a damp squib although he was into the Florida condo politics in a big way. He was the only parent who called Kramer "Mr Kramer" while Kramer slapped him on the back and called him Morty. Finally, an honourable mention for Uncle Leo who held Jerry's elbow every time he could corner him and waxed eloquent about the newest achievements of his son Jeffrey who worked for the Parks Department "like he split the atom" in Jerry's own words.
Take a bow, Larry Richards and Jerry Seinfeld.

Not even a startle.

When I was in Guam http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/06/stinkeroo.html for a couple of months in 1991-92, I met a jovial American architect, a friend of my son Abhijeet. Apart from a body odour sharper than his wit and a stunning Scandinavian live-in girl friend, his most unforgettable characteristic was his love for and intimate knowledge of the sci-fi movie genre. I remember going with him for a sci-fi movie (most likely The Terminator – I seem to have forgotten the movie’s name as well as the avid movie goer’s) and listening to his almost non-stop commentary about the lore and the treatment as if it was a matter of life and death. I almost cited to him Ashok Kumar’s “It’s only a film” comment borrowed from Hitch. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/06/its-only-film.html. I was reminded of the incidence while watching Batman Begins Friday night on HBO. That the movie did not dazzle me, did not get a startle response from me means nothing at all, really. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startle_response. The original intention of the movie maker was to undo the damage done to the Batman myth and lore by the spectacular box office and critical flop of the expensively mounted trio preceding it, I guess. According to all indications, Batman Begins marked the beginning of the success of the Batman franchise in moviedom. The gamble to make the Batman myth as preached by the Batman Comics more credible and more human has apparently paid off. For instance, how Batman became so adept at combative skills. (Ans: By joining the League of Shadows.) How and from where he got his costume, his weapons, his armoured vehicle, his hang glider cum cape and so forth. (Ans: From Wayne Enterprises’ experimental lab.) Central to the tale, though, is the theme of Brue Wayne’s fear of bats. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_bats. He got it when he fell into a well as a lad of eight and was startled by the drove of bats. He overcame it under the hallucinogenic influence of a mountainside blue flower during his spell as a League of Shadows rookie. The introduction of Bruce’s childhood girl friend Rachel Dawes early on and her continuing presence in the narrative may be interpreted as a ploy to lay to rest once for all the lurking suspicion that he is gay. (It seems George Clooney wittingly, unwittingly, or maybe even mischieviously, resurrected the gay ghost by telling Barbara Walters that in Batman & Robin he played Batman as gay. "I was in a rubber suit and I had rubber nipples. I could have played Batman straight, but I made him gay." Barbara Walters laughed, then asked, "George, is Batman gay?" To which he responded, "No, but I made him gay." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Wayne) Emulating the excellent Hitchcock and equally admirable Ashok Kumar, I would like to remind all those who take such matters seriously: “It’s only a comics character, for Pete’s sake.” P.S.: A couple of months ago, I resisted the temptation to buy an expensively produced paperback about the movie. Bully for me.