October 25, 2014

From “The Three Juliets” by Calvin Higgins Joachimthal

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Les trois Juliets (1970)
Director: Auguste Des Jardins
Producer: Jens Dardis
Writer: Auguste Des Jardins & Jens Dardis
Cast:
Juliet Delacroix
Marguerite Delacroix
Géraldine Delacroix
Sid Jendras (voice)
Music: Georges Delerue
Editing: Auguste Des Jardins
Distributor: Union Générale Cinématographique

Long considered the masterpiece of French auteur Auguste Des Jardins and overshadowing the other projects he completed before his death in 1976, Les trois Juliets reportedly came about as part of a dinner conversation about the minimum number of actors that would be required for a fantasy film. Des Jardins’ longtime paramour Nadeau Struggs argued that a large cast was necessary, while the filmmaker himself insisted that it could be made with as few as two people, which he later revised to one and a half (with the half person being a voice-only role).

The resulting film follows a lonely woman named Juliet (spelled in the English fashion rather than the more Gallic Juliette) who lives in a Montmartre hovel working an unfulfilling job after the collapse of her dream to move to Paris to become an actress. Through an inventive use of ambient sound, camera angles, and deep focus techniques, Juliet is the only person ever seen onscreen despite the bustling inner city setting. She speaks only to herself or in telephone conversations to her father (Des Jardins’ frequent leading man Sid Jendras in the aforementioned voice-only role).

Only when Juliet spies another young woman in her neighborhood who looks exactly like her does another human being appear on screen, and the meat of the film revolves around her discovery of not one but two young women who seem to share her appearance, background, and even memories (albeit with some key differences). The film plays out as an extended metaphysical meditation with the occasional moments of levity as the three young ladies, each presided over by a father on the telephone that may or may not be the same man and is evasive in his answers. The ambiguous ending, which can be interpreted as a suicide, a merger of the three Juliets into one, or a belated agreement to live their lives as if they had never met, is still cited as an influence by filmmakers to this day.

One noteworthy piece of trivia revolves around the casting. While Jendras is clearly and unmistakably the telephone voice, the situation with the three credited actresses (Juliet, Marguerite, and Géraldine Delacroix) is much murkier. Des Jardins himself claimed that he had happened upon a set of triplets of the proper age and appearance purely by chance (and counted the three as one as a “clever trick” vis-a-vis the original wager). Nadeau Struggs and many critics disagree, insisting that it was a single person filmed with camera tricks, with the reason for the farce cited as a liaison between the star and the director with a triple credit for triple pay (Struggs, for her part, did concede the wager). No triplets Delacroix have ever been located, and Des Jardins’ insistence that the girl or girls weren’t professional actors has made the topic an occasional cause of friction among cineastes. None of the three girls have been seen in public since accepting various awards in 1971.

That point aside, the film is and remains widely popular among devotees of minimalist and fantasy cinema; Kubrick and Tarkovsky both lavished the film with praise and an English language remakes were released to lukewarm reviews in 1977 (Three Juliettes) and 2003 (The Three Juliettes), both notably using the French spelling of “Juliette” rather than Des Jardins’ preferred “Juliet.”

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September 17, 2014

From “The Last Journal of T. Braven” by Juan Stollar

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We found another cavern today, the same as the previous two. It appeared to have been hollowed out by water action, and indeed a small flowing pool appeared at the far end, fed from a spring seeping through the porous limestone from up above. It had been our hope to follow the sound of water back to the surface, but it’s clear that without heavy equipment we can’t make it through.

I’ve taken to calling the three caverns “The Pearls” as they are strung out along a series of linear tunnels. We’ve noticed that the spring water is warm; that and a smell of sulfur occasionally in the air tells me that we’re near some kind of geothermal spring or magma chamber. The danger there is twofold: first that we stumble into a steam geyser or other hazard, and second…

I haven’t mentioned this to any of the group, but the geological survey didn’t indicate any geothermal activity in the area. Surely they all read the report as thoroughly as I did before the cave-in; surely they are all thinking the same thing that I am.

“The Pearls” shouldn’t exist. No system on earth, and certainly not in the area we surveyed before descending, could carve the natural formations we’ve stumbled upon. With food running low and not sign of daylight for nearly a week…I can only hope that someone finds my scribblings here useful in determining the what, and the where, and the why.

For I simply cannot.

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September 8, 2014

From “A Humble Ant” by Ethan L. Baum

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Excerpt from the WHPL interview of J. Sturgis Tarboski on August 17, 1985.

INTERVIEWER: Tell me a little bit about your latest book, The Othering of Deerton, out this month from Giraudoux & Strauss of New York. It’s the story of strange object infiltrating a fictional small town with unpredictable and often horrifying effects.

TARBOSKI: Horror is in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it? Perhaps from another perspective it’s not horrifying at all.

INTERVIEWER: How do you mean?

TARBOSKI: Imagine some of your better ant poisons. It tastes delicious, so the worker ants carry it back to the nest to share. And it poisons them all, poking holes in their exoskeletons so they die of dehydration or causing them to leak hemolymph–their blood–from their joints. To the ants, that is a catastrophe, a horror. To us, it’s cause for celebration. No more ants.

INTERVIEWER: Are you saying that’s he central thrust of The Othering of Deerton? Something trying to eliminate people in the same way that one would eliminate ants?

TARBOSKI: Not at all. The ants could be carrying food contaminated by a nuclear test back to their nest. They die in the same way but there’s no agency there–we don’t care that they die, but we weren’t trying to kill them. My point was only that in The Othering of Deerton we are the ants, and that–to me–is the real horror of the piece. We’re not used to being the ants.

INTERVIEWER: Could you talk a little bit about your influences in this latest work?

TARBOSKI: Of course. A lot of my peers are cagey about influences; I think they like to seem themselves as fonts of universal genius. Me, I think that it’s disingenuous. If nothing else, influences serve as a nice reading list for people that liked the book.

INTERVIEWER: So what’s your reading list for The Othering of Deerton?

TARBOSKI: Well, anyone can probably see the influence of the Strugatskys, whose Roadside Picnic came out from MacMillan about a year before I started writing, and which I can’t recommend highly enough. It’s to them I owe the central conceit, the effect of the utterly alien on the familiar, though they dwell much more on the aftermath while I am much more in the moment.

INTERVIEWER: They are Soviet authors?

TARBOSKI: That’s right. There’s something wonderful about Soviet science fiction. Ants working for a different queen, if you will. I count a lot of foreign influences on this latest book…lots of different queens, if you will.

INTERVIEWER: What are some others?

TARBOSKI: Well, Borges of course, but he’s in everything I write. I’m trying to learn Spanish so that I can read his works in the original Spanish and perhaps send him a letter. But I think the biggest influence on The Othering of Deerton is probably the late French filmmaker Auguste Des Jardins. I met him in 1975 in New York at a press junket, and I had the opportunity to speak with him at length about his masterpiece, Les trois Juliets. Are you familiar with it?

INTERVIEWER: I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never seen it.

TARBOSKI: You’re missing out. It’s a brilliant, brilliant movie. A French woman finds that there are two other women with the same name, same family, same history, and same face living near her in Montmartre. You might have heard about how Des Jardins supposedly found triplets to play the Juliets; some people still think he did the whole thing with trick photography. In any case, like any fan I asked Des Jardins point-blank what the truth was: why were there three Juliets? Were any of the theories about the film true?

INTERVIEWER: What did he say?

TARBOSKI: He said that he didn’t know.

INTERVIEWER: How could he not know if it was his own film?

TARBOSKI: I asked the same question, and he said that it was the most liberating part of creativity. In the real world, there is cause and effect. But in fiction, in fantasy, you can have effect without cause. Your audience will always find a cause, and their cause will be better than any you could ever dream up; by making your effects compelling, you incite them to find ever more beautiful causes.

INTERVIEWER: Interesting. So if I were to ask you where all the strange items in The Othering of Deerton come from, and what their purpose is, what would you say?

TARBOSKI: I don’t know, I’m just a humble ant.

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September 4, 2014

From “Mystery at Iron Point Light” by Smitty Poyner

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“You’ll be responsible for basic upkeep for two weeks–nothing complicated, mostly buttoning the lighthouse down for winter. The list of chores and instructions is in the kitchen.”

That suited me just fine; I’d volunteered to live and work at the old decommissioned Iron Point Light to be free from distractions, after all, to unplug and disconnect and do a digital purge. “What about tourists?” I asked.

“It’s past the end of the tourist season, so you likely won’t get anyone coming by. But if they do, you’re to show them around, take them out to the rockpiles, and try to solicit a donation or sell them a t-shirt.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “The rockpiles?”

“You’ve never heard of ’em? They’re the biggest draw for the Iron Point Light aside from the lighthouse itself.” Oscar rubbed at his nose. “You can see them from here.”

I looked through one of the front windows. The gentle sandy slope to the beach was full of small shrubs and gently bent grass, but at various points in the water and on the beach there were standing piles of lake-smoothed rocks.

“Do the tourists make those?” I said.

“What does this look like, Mission Point?” Oscar scoffed. “We don’t get enough tourists for that, and the water’s ice cold. No, the piles are one of the mysteries of the lake. they just appear and disappear as they will.”

“Has…anyone ever tried to investigate it?” I said eagerly.

Oscar fixed me with a harsh glare. “That’s a hole you don’t want to be going down, kid. Best stick to your duties.”

I knew at that moment what I’d be spending my two weeks doing: shedding a little light on that very mystery.

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November 28, 2013

From “The Inadvertently Purloined Letter” by Armand M. Arkema

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“Addressed to Bianca Lattimer, no return address.” I said, examining the envelope critically. “How’d it come? I don’t know any Bianca Lattimer.”

The student shrugged. “It was in your pile, I put your pile in your office.”

I shot him a poison arrow look–that’s what happens when you aren’t in charge of hiring your own office staff. “Wow, so very helpful. Take it back.”

“There’s no return address,” he said. “It’ll just end up at the dead letter office. Open it and see what’s inside.”

Ignoring him, I marched to my office, the size of a monastic cell but crammed with far more books and Chinese takeout containers. The letter sat on the corner of my desk as I graded papers for about two hours; in time, though, curiosity got the better of me and I groped for my letter opener.

The message that fell out was typed in bog-standard Times New Roman and dated midnight yesterday:

Bianca Lattimore,
We have your daughter. Bring the package to us within 48 hours of the marked date and time, or she dies. We are monitoring police scanner frequencies; any attempts to contact the authorities would be most unwise.
-SD

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November 25, 2013

From “The Disorganized Scribe” by “Wild Ivory” Finch

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Ravenna, 1421:

“I would speak with you, my lord, of Ovidius Amello,” said the Chamberlain.

Obizzo da Polenta, Lord of Ravenna, gave a disinterested sigh. “Do you think,” he said, “that the affairs of a court scribe even merit a mention? I am balancing on a knife’s edge between Venice and Ferrara, seeking to placate them both and secure the seigniory of Ravenna for my son. What do I care of Amello, so long as he continues to write what I command him to write?”

“That is just the issue, my lord,” the Chamberlain said. “Amello has become…disturbed. He claims that he is writing what he has been commanded to, but the parchments are covered in gibberish that only vaguely resemble what you or I would call language. His illustrations, too, have taken on strange forms, though when I can understand him he says that they are the same portraits of men and kings that he has always painted.”

“When you can understand him?” snorted da Polenta. “Speak not in riddles.”

“Amello’s habit of speech has become…disorganized…of late, my lord. He will often slip into and out of speaking in tongues in the midst of his speech, and seems to note no distinction therebetween. I fear he may be possessed.”

“Possessed? Bah, what use have I for the useless meddling of the Church that accusation brings? Trump up a charge against Amello, have him executed, and be done with it.”

The chamberlain tented his fingers nervously. “As you recall, my lord, though Amello be officially of low birth, he is actually the illegitimate bastard of-”

Da Polenta rolled his eyes. “A pox on that old wretch! May his signet ring saw his bony finger from his lecherous old hand. Very well, take Amello out of the scribal pool and quietly isolate him. See to it that he is supplied with parchment, vellum, and ink, and let him scribe and babble what he will.”

“By your command, my lord,” said the chamberlain.

And so it was that the scribe Ovidius Amello’s disorganized schizophrenia, which would not even be named (let alone understood) for 500 years, was allowed to develop unchecked. Though the scribe himself thought that the volumes he prepared were routine pharmacopoeias, bestiaries, and astrological treatises of the sort that most scribes of his station wrote, instead be produced and lovingly bound volumes of bizarre symbols and illustrations. The disorganized nature of his schizophrenia meant that none but Amello himself could link his scratchings to any meaningful concepts, as the internal links between language, concept, and expression had broken down.

On Amello’s death in 1431–ironically, not long after that of Obizzo da Polenta–all but one of his books were burned, that last volume being saved as a curiosity by Ostasio III, Obizzo’s son and successor. When Venice took Ravenna in 1441, the book was looted along with the entire da Polenta library. The Holy Wars that followed saw that library sold to Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II for 600 gold ducats; perplexed, he gave Amello’s book to his botanist to try and decipher the many plantlike illustrations therein.

Finding its way from that botanist to an alchemist, a university rector, a Jesuit scholar, a religious library, and finally a book collector. That collector’s name would become affixed to the text and the mystery of its contents–described by one owner as a “sphynx taking up space uselessly in my library.” That last owner’s name?

Wilfrid Michael Voynich.

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June 9, 2013

From “The Timearrow Window” by Wilfred Mendicant

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During the Anarchy and the splintering of the Old Empire, the rugged and reliable Westchester repeaters had been the weapons of choice for many of the combatants in the bitter internecine combat that had followed. Easily repaired and operable with low-pressure handloaded rounds or high-pressure military grade cartridges, a Westchester was often one’s best bet to remain armed as supply chains and distribution networks collapsed. Through guile, adroit manipulation, and outright force, the Westchester plants were able to remain open; accepting payment only in precious metal or barter, profits were staggering.

Inspired by an old legend of a long-demolished edifice, the heir of the Westchester Repeating Arms company commissioned a mansion designed to protect him from the vengeful specters of those killed by his family’s guns. He had it built on a vein of wild magic near the primary Westchester factory in New Attica and employed every type of shaman, conjurer, hedge knacker, and cantrip-spinner to enchant it. None can say if he succeeded; he was killed by a falling beam three days after moving in, and the company was dispersed among shareholders.

But it remains a tourist attraction to this day thanks to the many oddities its location and enchantments conferred. And none is so popular among visitors as the Timearrow Window.

Due to its location and the way the light hits it, the Window is more like a mirror than anything, and everything reflected therein is cast through a curious filter of time reversal. People appear younger (or absent), technology is replaced with an earlier equivalent, writing replaced with earlier drafts or editions. The New Attica Marshals are known to occasionally use the Window to check to see whether documents or evidence have been tampered with, and tourists generally react with glee to seeing their younger selves in the glass.

One bright April morning, a student from the New Attica Athenaeum visited the Westchester House and the Timearrow Window. She carried with her a copy of New Attica Order Number One, as all students were all but required to do. It was New Attica’s founding document, issued by General Rynearson during the initial stages of the Anarchy, laying out the Attican government of “military-guided democracy” in response to the wholesale slaughter of the Southrons that the populace had engaged in. It cast the government, which had now lasted over 100 years, as an unfortunate and temporary necessity in the face of the Old Empire’s inability to protect the Southrons against the depredations of an angry and xenophobic populace.

The student opened her copy of Order Number One into the Window on a lark and took a photograph of it with her cell phone. Much later, she mirrored the text on her computer, and to her surprise saw an earlier version of the Order–perhaps the original version–mirrored therein.

Instruct your units to continue the execution of Southrons. Do so in civilian garb using non-military weapons. The seizure of power cannot proceed until they are all but eliminated; this will destroy them as a source of possible opposition while allowing us to cast ourselves as protectors rather than usurpers. Don’t fail me in this or I’ll have you up against a wall along with them.
-Rynearson

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March 9, 2013

From “Smoke from Up Above” by Joseph “Door” Dorrington

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“Smoke’s been hanging over town for days now. You’ve noticed it: like something from a bad cigar.”

Ransom didn’t move. “And like a bad cigar, it’ll eventually smoke itself out,” he said. “No need to concern yourself with it unless you’re the fellow who paid a dollar for it and was expecting a Cuban.”

The deputy reached into his pocket and produced a coin, which he dropped on the table. At once, Ransom sat up, pulling his worn boots off the saloon table. He bit the piece and slipped it into an interior pocket.

“I’ve seen this thing every now and then on the trail,” he said. “Most likely a forest fire up in the hills kindled by lightning. Probably no threat, but I’d cut a fire-break along the windward side of town if I was really scared. A posse of men with good backs and good axes can do it in a day or two. Any woodsman worth his salt can show you how it’s done, and you’ve likely got more than a few kicking around.”

Deputy Gautreaux nodded. “I thought that’s what you’d say. But I’m not in the business of hunches and likelihoods, Mr. Ransom. I deal in facts, as does the Sheriff.”

“Then you must not deal very much,” Ransom said, resuming his former posture with a yawn. “Out here, it’s more happenstance and hearsay than anything, with the Devil as likely to be blamed for something as a mean son-of-a-bitch with a shooting iron.”

“I’m not some rarified dandy from back east who came out here to play at being a shootist, Mr. Ransom,” said Gautreaux. “I know a forest fire, and I know the wind, and this smoke is too thick and too long in tarrying to be the usual sort of conflagration. You know these parts, and you’re the man the Sheriff wants to sniff out the trouble.”

“Well that’s a mighty fine vote of confidence from a man who didn’t care to tell me so himself,” Ransom sniffed. “If it’s all the same to you, Deputy, I’ll stick to my own business.”

A bag landed on the table, the burlap distorted by coins within. “From the municipal coffers,” said Gautreaux. “Half now and half later to lead a scouting party up into the hills for more information.”

Ransom had the bag opened and the coins spilled blindingly fast. “Now you’ve gone and made it my business, haven’t you?”

“The Sherriff has, not me,” said Gautreaux. “If it were up to me, it would be me and my men going up there. A snake’s always safer in the dust behind you than in your saddlebag.”

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March 4, 2013

From “Over the Rainbow Speakeasy” by Jordan Iverson Peers

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This post is part of the March 2013 Blog Chain at Absolute Write. This month’s prompt is “What the Leprechaun Said,” your generic St. Patrick’s Day sort of thing.

Our last thrilling episode!

“The Leprechaun took it.”

It didn’t surprise me that the trail led back to the Leprechaun. Every piece of gold in Halftown, everything that could possibly be converted into a piece of gold in Halftown seemed to wind up in his pot eventually. Many a gumshoe had gotten a good working over from his goons, provided that they were small or sloppy enough to be overpowered by halflings. So I suppose you could say not that many gumshoes had been worked over, since it was mainly me and Marlow the Low in the Halftown PI gig.

I found the Leprechaun at his usual watering hole, The End of the Rainbow Club, a little speakeasy under the city’s main sewer line. He was at the head of a sumptuous banquet, a fine old halfling tradition that had been driven (literally) underground by banquet prohibition. The guard at the door let me in for some reason when I said I had business with the Leprechaun, probably because I’d come out black and blue every time I went (or was dragged) in.

“Word on the street is that you have a Gorgon’s head-snake in your pot,” I said, cutting straight to the head of the feast with a causal lope. “Just so happens I’m in the market for one.” I casually took out a pack, shook a cigarette into my hand, and then bit the end off. Candy cigarettes kill more halflings than real ones; we like our sweets early and often.

“That so, Tuesday?” said the Leprechaun. He slid off his chair, which put him at about eye level for me. He’s a halfling, of course, not a real leprechaun–that’s just a silly idea. Everyone knows leprechauns are extinct. But if you’re a halfling redhead named Mungle Snuh, the name has a certain cachet.

I tugged on the brim of my fedora. “That’s right. Girl likes her hair the way it is and hired me to bring it back.”

“Do you have any idea what a Gorgon’s snake is worth to the right people?” the Leprechaun continued. “It sees everything they see, hears everything they hear. It’s an easy ticket to blackmail or more, and it’s going to take more than the sayso of a shoer punk like you to make me give it up.”

Halflings don’t trust anybody that wears shoes, you see, least of all their own kind. Me, I kind of like mine–gum sticks to it a lot better than the alternative. Being called a “shoer,” a shoe-wearer, is one of the worst slurs you can sling at a halfling, right up there with “kid” and “dieter.” “Oh, you’re going to give me what I want, Mungle,” I said, hooking my thumbs under my suspenders. “And you’re going to do it for free.”

“Is that so?” The Leprechan’s feastgoers began to rise, looking rather put out and brandishing clubs and small-caliber mohaskas. “And how exactly are you going to do that?”

“That’s an excellent question, Mungle,” I said. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

The exciting continuation!

Check out this month’s other bloggers, all of whom have posted or will post their own responses:
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January 26, 2013

From “The Gorgon Evryali” by Jordan Iverson Peers

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It’s never a good sign when a client wants to meet you in an alleyway instead of your office. Granted, the average alleyway smells a bit better than my office and lets in less water when it rains. But the clients always want their suspicions to be alley’d, and I oblige; for my part, I think they’ve seen too many detective movies. I know I have; it’s where we both get our expectations for dress and the proper hardboiled tone for narration.

Evryali the Gorgon was waiting for me in the alley next to my office, her back turned, protected from the rain by a cheap paper parasol from Chinatown. “Your message said you had acquired it,” she hissed. “Let me see.”

I pulled out an old wooden crate–it’d held my last factory order of Lil’ Devil brand snack cakes– and dropped the small, wet packet on it, opening it to reveal the small but highly poisonous snake that had sent me to the emergency room three times and the toilet seventeen times since my halfling “brother” Mungle Snuh had surrendered it under duress of having his feast ruined by a torrent of sewage.

“I’m gonna bite you again, you know,” the snake said. “Even if you are bringing me back to my mistress. It’s just what I do.”

“You just do whatever you have to do,” I said. Sure enough, the tiny snake rose up and sank his teeth deeply into the iron knights’ gauntlet I was wearing, a late borrowing from Gilberte the Small, Knight Errant of 57th Street. The snake cried out in pain and recoiled.

“That’s him, all right.” Evryali turned and approached me, an envelope in her hands. “And here is our agreed-upon fee.”

I reached out to take it, but the snake interrupted my train of thought (money money money or something along those lines) with a startled squawk: “That’s not my mistress! What’re you trying to pull?”

I looked up, surprised. I should have known something was up; statistical analysis shows that 2/3 of my clients try to double-cross me (with the remaining third just settling for skipping out on the bill).

“Too bad you had to open your scaly mouth,” Evryali purred. She grasped her shades, ready to pull them down.

For my part, my anti-Gorgon shades were still with Chang’s Dry Cleaning and Pressing, so I pulled out my gun. I tried to, anyhow; it’s hard to handle a gun made for human hands, even human children’s hands, as a halfling. I dropped the gun instead, and it went off with a crack, with the .22 caliber bullet (hey, it’s the biggest round I can manage, recoilwise) ricocheted harmlessly off Evryali’s normal-looking but subtly armored skin. She laughed, and exposed her blood-red eyes.

Luckily for me, petrification isn’t instant death. As long as your ‘statue’ is intact, anyone with a little mandrake juice or harpy tear salve can being you back. In fact there are roving freelance gangs who do just that, picking up statues and holding them for “safekeeping” while relatives scrape together the cash for a de-petrification. That was the next thing I saw: a cigar-chomping satyr in suspenders and wifebeater, de-petrifying my face (and only my face) so I could arrange to buy my way into a full de-petrification.

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