Coincidence No.32

Two references to Napoleon's tomb in two consecutive books (different authors, different genres) in the space of seven hours.

Coincidence No. 23

Today after reading a particularly nasty story by Clark Ashton Smith called 'The Seed of the Sepulchre', it struck me that this type of horror is akin to a car crash; we know it's all going to end badly, but we can't look away. Indeed the 'enjoyment' is that almost 'pornographic' voyeurism 'enjoyed' by accident witnesses. Tired of this 'torture porn', but happy at my encapsulation of this subgenre with the term, 'car crash' horror, I picked up Jonathan Carroll's 'Child Across the Sky' and started to read it. To divert myself from Smith. A fifth of the way into the book (five minutes ago), I was reading a fictitious film maker's account of reading a friend's script, a screenplay for a horror film: "I called it car-crash art -- you don't want to look, but you have to...." Okay, my original idea wasn't so original (and neither was Carroll's), but really....

Coincidence No 787655

Years ago I took some creative writing classes while studying. There were two mentors. The one that wasn't mine has now become my boss in my new job.
Last Wednesday I was to meet with this boss at her office in town (I start the role in three weeks or so). Coming to the street the office is on brought back a lot of old memories. A good friend of mine, also a participant in my creative writing class, used to live on this street. I haven't seen her in over ten years as she left the house and took herself off to India. I wondered what had happened to her as I rounded the corner on to that street. And saw her there with her young daughter. These days she's doing a masters in creative writing.

The Book of Eye

Just watched 'The Book of Eli'. No amount of Leone references or even an appearance by Tom Waits can save this wannabe biblical western. Sadly junk.
Coincidence No.67544
Coming home from my parents Tom Waits came on the radio singing "God's Away on Business". Apt.
Watched "Eagle Eye" earlier. It's pretty obvious how a test audience response led to the weak tacked-on ending. Show some courage Hollywood! Anyhow no amount of 2001 references or Hitchcockian moments can save this wannabe sci-fi conspiracy theory. Preposterous.
What the hell's going on?

Coincidence No. 111119

Last week I recorded a documentary, 'The Beatles on Record', and enjoyed it immensely. So much so that when it came on again tonight I watched it all over again. Say what you want, but how one band did so much I'll never know. A happy social evolutionary accident. I mean one minute it's 'Please, Please Me', the next 'Tomorrow Never Knows'. Mind-boggling! That's not the coincidence. With a spare half hour at hand I turned to series four of a crumby horror series from the '80's, 'Tales from the Darkside'. Fun, it was, but so low-budget, it made 'Tales from the Crypt' look like a blockbuster. Anyhow first episode series four was 'Beetles'.

Coincidence No. 555,569,444

Last night in the pub one of the rookies professed ignorance of Kafka. Not sure how Kafka came up, but he doesn't come up too often in the conversations I get to have these days. Probably more likely to turn up in a Charlie Kaufman film, I'll admit, but hadn't done up until 'Synecdoche, New York' which I saw today and which had a character (Samantha Morton) profess ignorance of 'The Trial'. Kind of like the two days 'Cannibal Holocaust' came up in two separate conversations without any prompting from me (I swear). Now what are the chances?