Gothic Synchronicity

The past few weeks I have been subsumed by all things Frankensteinian. Here at Villa Tappenburg I`ve had to fight the urge to deck the halls with boughs of lightning blasted fir, draped with tarantula web and glistening gobbets of crushed snail. The weather hasn`t helped, being early darkness, gale force winds, lashings of heavy rain. Nor the fact that the master of our creekside abode is named Victor.


During the dreary evenings, I`ve read Mary Shelley`s 1818 Frankenstein, plus Peter Ackroyd`s 2008 Casebook of Victor Frankenstein, which seemed quite hung up on electrified phalluses and couldnt decide if it were Dickens, what with the improbably named Fred Shoeberry running about with dishes of chops and gravy. I also watched Francis Ford Coppola`s 1994 Mary Shelley`s Frankenstein, which comprises many scenes starring Kenneth Branagh`s chest, and a strange arrrangement of what appear to be writhing scrotal sacks suspended over a copper bath. The creature, otherwise known as Robert de Niro, had his lip stitched up in a permanent sneer, but that`s not too far out of the way, I guess. I think choosing John Cleese, however, as Ingoldstat University`s Dr Waldman was extremely risky, because even with him barely disguised by false teeth it`s deuced hard to hear his voice and not expect a comedy routine.


The final straw came when a cd of Philip Glass arrived in the post, ( I mean this came to my house - it wasnt part of the film) and listening to Changing Opinions I found I was also aware of `an electrical hum in the room`. Yes, so much so that when a man called by to do a Mori poll and I agreed to let him in , as otherwise I`d have no excuse not to do my essay, he sat at the table becoming ever more disctracted, until he could contain himself no longer, and asked if I too could smell burning? I could. I have no idea where it was coming from, and can offer no explanation. My neighbour is still alive; the fire brigade didnt turn up later the same afternoon, and the smell faded after the Mori poll man left. Was it him? He was soaked through with rain; could it have been his own bodily electricity making the house stink of fritzing wiring? I may never know.


Another Gothic moment came back to me recently, on a wave of Kate Bush :
My eldest daughter, at a table spread with pencils and paper, deeply involved in a gloomy storm of creativity, her arm vibrating wildly as she hatches everything round with black ... Suddenly
Sat in Your Lap is playing. I`m at the other end of the room, typing equally manically, and hear myself saying aloud, "I bet you dont get many requests for this one at the local karaoke...." We laughed for O at least a minute. Now click on the title of this post for a YouTube treat.