LORD BYRON NIGHTS
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Skot Jones writes:
Mr. Murphy would throw a party from his gauntlet piercing Grand Midway Hotel corresponding to the dates that the Shelleys, Lord Byron, and Pollidori held their impromptu duende-laden bacchanal at Byron's Villa Diodati. Mary was horrified at the invoked archetype of the Faust or hubris in man to usurp the God of her dreams. Communally invoked fear was the catalyst. In Byron his sidereal fear of the vampire's voluptuous rotting animal length and piercing phallic teeth have become both excited and subverted in his Promethean athleticism.
I throw my black hat into the forum, my alien voice box resounds,
"Exceed, Exceed...Exalted is the Child of Fear..."
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(Riccardo of Die Dracula Die & The Cadillac Creeps)
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Suggested movie viewings:
Gothic
The Hunger
Interview with the Vampire
The Shining
The Red Violin
The Libertine
Eyes Wide Shut
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Skot Jones writes:
(Black hat in corner) Black Pearl for an Alien Voice Box
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. These facts few psychologists will dispute, and their admitted truth must establish for all time the genuineness and dignity of the weirdly horrible tales as a literary form. Against it are discharged all the shafts of a materialistic sophistication which clings to frequently felt emotions and external events, and of a naively inspired idealism which deprecates the aesthetic motive and calls for a didactic literature to "uplift" the reader toward a suitable degree of smirking optimism. But in spite of all this opossition the weird tale has survived, developed, and attained remarkable heights of perfection; founded as it is on a profound and elementary principle whose appeal, if not always universal, must necessarily be poignant and permanent to minds of the requisite sensitiveness.
-H.P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
The body is a temple, the body is a shrine, the body is a prison for the soul, the human body is merely one of many animals waiting to die, and only the human is conscious? What to do with the body? What to do with the consciousness that sees its jagged shape in the mirror?
The Ability
The ability to tear a flower and not eat,
to go without food and struggle against the atlas.
The remarkable ability to remove one's face,
to offer one's useless eyes to terrified children.
The ability to stay miserable in the house of dreams,
to destroy the semantic government of lips and words and sleep.
The ability to descend into the sky and remove the child,
to forget both skymind and cloudmind left in the furnace.
The ability, like time, to pass into oneself,
to absorb death like the monkey in the antediluvian cage.
The ability to pay the exact and final worth,
to leave your car keys on the nightstand and travel the equinox.
The ability to exceed the margins of the plane,
to cover the mark with the wicked prescience of a carnie.
The ability to remove one's veins and arteries,
the procedure is painless--one cup of blood is endless.
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Tom Leslie writes:
Looks like ill be missing some great parties...
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(Stef as a pirate)
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Sarah Ireland writes:
Excited for this one! I am super excited about this weekend. I wasn't able to become a summer installation, but I will not miss it. I fly in on the 12th... then the train. See you all soon. I can't wait!
(The great dining hall, perhaps the coolest private candlelit dinner event in 400 miles)
(David J of Bauhuas, Riccardo of Die Dracula Die, and hotel host Blair)
(Crystal of the TypewriterGirls and David J.)
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Blair writes:
A few months back during Damien Youth's last live show in Louisiana he announced that show would be his last live performance ever. So, it is a pretty cool inside treat that he is driving up here to sing for us at our private party.
Mark the Magician stopped by the hotel last night. He offically announced as well he will be here for our private gothic weekend to perform.
This is a costumes required event. Honore Young, who created the painting on Adam's door, is creating a special costume for the weekend. Her only hint? Her letter below:
"so i was grabbed by the throat last night by inspiration's tight unrelenting
grip...the costume always had a shape and color palette...but nothing that
yet made it unique...ahhh, but now, now it does indeed...i have been
painting away, so the real question becomes: can i pull it off in
time?...sorry to leave you with only questions, it must be a suprise...i
will leave you with the small morsell that this costume is a nod to that
original evening on which your party is based..." -honore
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Renee Angle writes:
I plan to make Zombie Quiche for the ball, so bring your appetites. It has red dots. That's what makes it zombie quiche. If that sounds unappetizing to you, you are wrong! What it actually is is salmon and egg with some veggies in pie crust. But for party purposes, we'll say it's chopped-up undead. Yummy!
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secret little note to Adam:
Adam, Rosemary just wrote me and she might attend. (Oh, ps, it is awesome that you are in Turkey, you turkey.)
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Special guest note to all:
It has been confirmed, Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits author Rosemary Ellen Guiley will be joining us. Rosemary investigated the hotel last summer. She got the EVP recording of the woman crying out in the Monkey Room. She will be bringing some of her books in case anyone would like to purchase a copy, so you might pack an extra $20.
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Skot Jones writes:
I am pleased to announce that Michael Dennison will be attending the Black Pearls Ball- The supreme vampire epicure will be here to help guide us through the decadent Byronic night- My brother, I await our meeting with baited breath-
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(chad)
(joey)
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Blair writes:
Post subject: finally Sunday Night
It was some weekend. Skot Jones had already been here for days. It seemed like Sarah Ireland was simply living here as well anymore. Within the 48 hours to follow just about everyone associated with the hotel was here. Betsy Black, the woman who first discovered the hotel for sale on EBay, was here up from New Orleans for the first time in years. Silent Cinema Bill screened his movie, Windber After Midnight. Mark the Magician performed card tricks. The inevitable local strangers invaded our private event looking for free beer, uncostumed they stood out. The windows had black sheets over them so the building had a kind of Halloween-in-the-summer feel. Endless black shirts and glasses of red wine. We all kept vampire hours.
Rosemary Ellen Guiley came and conducted another hotel investigation here with Adam Blai. There was a lot of talk of magic and ghosts and thoughts on what's happening here.
At one point about a dozen of us sat around the big table like King Arthur's knights discussing the landscape. As the host of the building and weekend and a child of God, my position, as always, was to take the firm stance of fearlessness. But the group had all kinds of different opinions, some even claiming to see evil and chaos. It was a really interesting mix between the paranormal investigators, university professors, occultists, demonologist for the Catholic Church, writers, entertainers, filmmakers, complete skeptics, and the folks who live here in the thick of it, all sharing their stories, fears, aspirations, and theories. Intellectually, this meeting was probably the highlight of the event, in retrospect, and the real reason for our gathering. Down the road, I imagine it will all be posted.
Famed researcher John Zaffis will be returning to further examine the building within the month from all the discussion.
Something is happening here anyway. The building is getting so much attention, good and bad, the energy is overwhelming.
Weird news flash: Ghosty Girl, the white hotel cat whose head icons are all over the hotel web page virtual tour, leapt out a window Saturday morning and was crushed by a car.
At midnight Michael Dennison announced the main night in the context of Lord Byron's home and the seeds that manifested Frankenstein, and The Vampyre. Damien's playing brought beautiful old memories. Thank you for bringing your mighty soul back to our stage, my brother. Honore's costume was the best (she's donating it here to the hotel if anyone has a mannequin we can stand it on!). Overall the weekend was full of creepy, cool, and interesting hours, with a healthy nod to the spirits (in more ways than one). Maybe this weekend was not just a party, but more a needed meeting of the different minds, talents, and souls of this delicious hotel.
Heavy moon energy it was this weekend for sure.
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Renee Angle writes:
Damien's SCREAMING! My God, I haven't felt as fantastically out of my mind in months as I did during Damien's hysterical, distortion-riddled finale to his performance Saturday night. The whole show was excellent - both Damien and Paul have great music and sound spectacular live (a pleasant contrast from most artists who may have more fame than them but actually sound rather shitty live, Evanescence being a prime example hehehe). But NOTHING could compare to Damien's closer! Before beginning he invited everyone to come up and get close to the stage so that we could all participate. Sensing that something deliciously loony was about to take place, I wrestled with Derek and managed to shove my way up so that he and I were both kneeling almost right at Damien's feet in our creepy Goth-wear. The song began as a spooky, haunting mantra of "remember me," but little by little Damien turned on the distortion and the lyrics changed to gibberish which soon morphed into screaming! The vibe was intense and insane and I couldn't contain myself. I was screaming right along with him, and looking around I saw others were doing the same. It was impossible to avoid getting into the release of energy. Damien was on the floor, the lights were low, the drums were crazy, and the sound of distortion from the microphone and frighteningly unfettered screaming was magnificent. Afterward, I felt like I'd just run a marathon, only better. Thanks Damien! I needed that.
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Aimee Kast writes:
I'm not really sure where to post this, but I thought that I should let everyone know, because Ghosty was a loved hotel resident.
On Saturday Ghosty got out of my apartment. She got hit by a car and passed away. She is buried at my parents' house in Fairview.
I miss her more than words can describe. -Aimee
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Skot Jones writes:
Evilfest.
What can one make of chaos of a week, of chaos as a thing?
We? order our exterior and interior impressions in a sympathetic fashion to the rationalization that there is a chaos we have emanated from, a formlessness become form, a something from nothing- This is the impetus for experiment and miracle, for thought and action-
What [can I call] is going on at the hotel?
Is it an awakened, manifested, evil? If it is, did it hitch a ride in someone's backpack? What's the antidote? Do we need one? Are we [everyone of us complicit by having apllied our brushstrokes to the Breathing Canvass] damned?
What does the structure of a plot or narrative appeal to in the brain? A sense of order or justice whose laws are immutable? That there is an order that is provided for us by_? A villain realized in the climax is punished; and that if negatively realized, the hero becomes a scapegoat by sympathy and lets us make sense of the human condition as an advanced? primate stalked by death- the tragedy.
Now it has been speculated by the skeptic that the villain need not be punished, or may be free from the immutable laws. Faust must always pay in the end?
What does this have to do with spirits, what are demons, where do ghosts reside? Does this distinction matter or affect certain criteria of phenomenon? Certainly there is no lack here for bizarre psychological phenomenon? Is that all there is to it? It may be enough to have a building invoke all the demons of antiquity, all the elementals born of hunter/gatherers become sedentary farmers now enclosed in a cave or some self-constructed building.
How do we classify magic, rituals, offhanded spells generated by madness of intent, individuals with mediumistic qualities as shells playing out some drama that is strong now, some archetype, which is a microcosm to other celestial plots of more intricate consciousnesses. There is a work in progress implicit in this post I have come thus to realize, but I must stop now and fill my belly and think fondly and sadly on this week.
But before I submit, I declare a magickal oath to exhaust my role at this otherworldly place, this magic theater whose anarchist evening entertainment is surely not for everyone, and as my motto I choose my favorite slogan posted inside the hotel: "Never, Never Give Up!"
(I believe the exclamation point is mine)
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A second list of movies is offered for leaving our enchanted group weekend of evenings, from our warm summer nights, to possibly swim into as additional scents and memory of our garden of man's artistry and delight, to enjoy. Until next time, take care...
Sleepy Hollow
The Bride
Quills
Amadeus
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Night of the Living Dead
Ghost Story
Perfume