Spider Week: A Cooperation of Souls

The good sense, common decency, and base humanity I showed in not attempting a Scottish accent yesterday had necessarily left me. I sing in today's story, A Cooperation of Souls. Just one line. And I don't try anything remotely fancy. Not even carrying a tune, mostly an impression of an impression of bad singing.

Having a child means you're forced to sing, the way living in Japan forces you to start liking rice. The child will want songs, and the child does not yet know that what's coming out of your mouth pales in comparison to even the least talented people on CDs and the radio, aka the people who are professional singers. But forcing me to sing -- and, need it be said, sing the same three songs ad nauseum (I now know what it's like to be Don Ho) -- let me really that I might, with practice, be okay one day.

In the same way that if I started lifting weights seriously, I might one day look like Linc from Prison Break. Neither of these things will probably happen, so I'm content to be non-ripped and non-arianic. As opposed to nonarachnic, which brings me nicely back to the plot of today's story.

Spider Week: The New Tartan

The best words you will read this week: I have decided to not try for a Scottish accent for today's story. There was the weeist hint of a brogue that snuck in for a bit, but the recording does not reek of the boggy moors nor single-malt Glenlivet nor ginger-haired men throwing cabers end over end.

I did research kilts -- officially tartans -- for The New Tartan, so all the talk about underchecks and such is true. Or as true as my sources (cough, cough, Wikipedia) are.

For fun, though, imagine the soldiers in 300 being Scottish: The 300 Tartans. Or, if you're more into video game puns, there's this.

Spider Week: Arania's Web

I could have easily called this Nelly's Web or Joy's Web, but Arania is the most spidery of the three names. So, Arania's Web. And that's as much of a clue as you're going to get about the story. If you've guessed what it's about, good for you, and you probably have kids or have a younger sibling. If not, you will soon.

(As Twain said, today I had the time to write a short post. Usually I don't have the time,a nd have to write a long post. Acres of blather to continue unabated as of tomorrow.)

Spider Week: Moonstone Mania

Moonstone Mania is a horror story, but also a sci-fi story. I've got no problem setting events in the future, having new technologies go horribly wrong, or (in this case) using a tiny bit of atmospheric knowledge as the lit match for today's powderkeg. We'll probably be doing a whole sci-fi week in the future, along with other genres: crime, western, romance. None of these were attempts to write genre stories: they just were the stories that sprang to mind. - Sean

Spider Week: Boom Mike

The obsidian-black humor of yesterday gets a little lighter -- a lot lighter, actually, there's no way in h-e-double-hockey-sticks anyone over the age of seven will be scared at all by this story -- with Boom Mike.

Only once did I see a movie in theaters with a boom mike issue, and then it seemed to be in every other close-up shot. According to Roger Ebert, it's a mistake, but on the projectionist's part. ALL movies are (or at least were -- digital effects can probably paint them out relatively cheaply--) chock full of boom mikes littering the upper meniscus. The projectionist is supposed to crop it so that bit of film gets blocked off, or at worst projected against the curtain around the screen. The bleed makes sure there's never a white line, similar to the all-black bar one gets from photocopying a book too small for 8.5 x 11.

So if you see one, you know you're seeing a badly projected film. Others signs of a badly produced film: anything that read like one of these stories. Ba-dum-bum! I kid, I kid. Seriously, thanks for coming out tonight and supporting live comedy.

Spider Week: Camel Spiders

There are all different types of stories that can be called "horror." This one, Camel Spiders, fits into the black humor category. It's also the only story I think I've written actually about the Soldiers in Iraq. As Sean mentioned last week, it's damnably inappropriate to go make up terrible things to happen to these guys, when so many real-like terrible things are happening.

Check out Snopes.com for the skinny on real camel spiders. Which, sigh, are related to daddy long-legs, not actual spiders.

Spider Week: Silicon Spiders

Sean: I don't know if I've got my share of spider stories for spider week. Killer worms, sure, but for some reason I don't make many spiders terrorize people.

Jeff: Don't worry, I've got enough to fill it up.

Sean: For every week, there's four from one of us and three from the other. I feel bad that I've had so many fours. Your stories are just as good. I just have all my stories in one Word file, while yours are scattered like Horcruxes.

Jeff: Whenever you record four, it saves me the time of hunting down and recording and preparing a fourth. I do take care of a baby in my non-Daily Scares time.

Sean: OK, but this week you'll need four, possibly five. I've only got two spider stories, and neither one sounds like an Arachnophobia deleted scene. Silicon Spiders, for instance, has ... well, you remember.