* (restored)
“When you once believed something that now strikes you as absurd, even unhinged, it can be almost impossible to summon that feeling of credulity again. Maybe that is why it is easier for most of us to forget, rather than to try and explain, the Satanic-abuse scare that gripped this country in the early 80’s — the myth that Devil-worshipers had set up shop in our day-care centers, where their clever adepts were raping and sodomizing children, practicing ritual sacrifice, shedding their clothes, drinking blood and eating feces, all unnoticed by parents, neighbors and the authorities.
Of course, if you were one of the dozens of people prosecuted in these cases, one of those who spent years in jails and prisons on wildly implausible charges, one of those separated from your own children, forgetting would not be an option. You would spend the rest of your life wondering what hit you, what cleaved your life into the before and the after, the daylight and the nightmare.”
— Margaret Talbot, The Devil in the Nursery
*
1) Michelle Remembers by Michele Smith and Lawrence Pazder, M.D.
The pitch:
“For over one year, [Dr. Lawrence] Pazder listened as…Michele [Smith] painfully divulged the incredible story. Her mother had been forced by a group of prosperous Satanists to yield Michelle for use in their most important ritual. They tried in vain to convert her to evil, using both torture and cruel psychological manipulation.”
About:
“What if one book had the power to plunge the world into a terrifying obsession with satanic cults? Michelle Remembers, a 1980 memoir by a young Canadian woman and her psychiatrist, Dr. Lawrence Pazder, did just that. Marketed as the true story of Michelle Smith’s experiences in a satanic cult in Victoria in the 1950s, this bestseller helped spark a global panic that sent law enforcement and mental health professionals on a scrambling to find secret Satanists hiding in our midst. It’s also the subject of a feature documentary, Satan Wants You.
“[After publication of Michelle Remembers] Pazder was considered to be an expert in the area of satanic ritual abuse. …In 1984, Pazder acted as a consultant in the McMartin preschool trial which featured allegations of satanic ritual abuse.” — Wikipedia
Sample passage:
“The others started doing this funny dance, and the nurse was doing it with them. She would bend down and walk in a slinky way, as if she were a cat, and then she would jump up and turn around, and then she would walk like a cat again, holding her kitten in her arms. Then Michelle got very scared, because they bent and took the kittens in their teeth, holding the cats by the napes of their necks. And then Michelle started screaming, because now they were biting the kittens in their teeth, chewing at their paws to make them come free, stopping only spit out the hair. Then they rubbed themselves with the cats’ blood, slowly, as they continued their catlike dance.”
*
2) The Satan Seller by Mike Warnke
The pitch:
“A former Satanist high priest reveals the demonic forces behind the fastest-growing and most deadly occult religion in the world.”
About:
“After he got famous, I always wanted to write him a letter and say, ‘Mike, remember me? The one you gave the silver cross to? When were you able to have this coven of fifteen hundred people? Don’t you remember, about the most exciting thing we used to do was play croquet in Greg’s backyard?’ ” — Dyana Cridelich, friend of Mike Warnke
“A generation of Christians learned its basic concepts of Satanism and the occult from Mike Warnke’s testimony in The Satan Seller… We believe The Satan Seller has been responsible, more than any other single volume in the Christian market, for promoting the current nationwide ‘Satanism scare.’
“After our lengthy investigation into his background, we found discrepancies that raise serious doubts about the trustworthiness of [Warnke’s] testimony.” — Selling Satan: The Tragic History of Mike Warnke
Sample passage:
Background: Drug use and moral conflict over his actions as a Satanic high priest have led formerly mild-mannered college student Mike Warnke to become increasingly paranoid. Here he takes out his stress on his church-provided sex slaves.
“‘Where’s my fix?’
‘We’re still looking for it,’ Carmen answered. ‘Where did you put the speed?’
‘Speed? I don’t want speed. The H.’
‘H?’ They looked at each other grimly. ‘You don’t have any–‘
‘The hell I don’t. I picked some up yesterday. It’s stashed in the sugar can in the kitchen cabinet. Why don’t you chicks use your damn heads?’ I jumped out of bed and grabbed them by the hair and knocked their heads together. ‘You just need some sense knocked into you.’ I laughed. ‘Now, split.’
They rushed off, crying, to the kitchen.”
*
3) Jay’s Journal by Anonymous (Edited by Dr. Beatrice Sparks)
The pitch:
“Jay was a nice, bright high school kid who cared about good grades, good friends, and good times… When a charismatic friend lured him into a nightmare world of the occult, Jay couldn’t handle it… Only in the pages of his journal could Jay express the dark forces that led to his suicide.”
About:
“Beatrice Sparks…is known for producing books purporting to be the ‘real diaries’ of troubled teenagers [most famously Go Ask Alice]. Although Sparks always presents herself as merely the discoverer and editor of the diaries, records at the U.S. Copyright Office show that in fact she is listed as the sole author for all but two of them.
“[Jay’s Journal] is based on ‘true’ events of 16-year-old Alden Barrett from Pleasant Grove, Utah, who committed suicide in 1971. According to a book written by Barrett’s brother Scott … Sparks used roughly 25 entries of 212 total from Barrett’s actual journal. The other entries were fictional…” — Wikipedia
Sample passage:
“When I found out Tina was having our wedding in the cemetery, by the big tomb, I about died. It was like making a mockery of the whole thing. I knew we’d invited only the kids connected with O and it was to be part of the sacred ancient sacrament but… Anyway, it was fantastic! …we each cut our tongues and let the blood pour into each other’s mouths. It was Nirvana. We were one! One blood, one toucla, one being!
When the chanting started Martin brought in a teensy mewing kitten. With one twist he wrung its little neck. Instantly we all put forth every gram of power at our command to bring it back to life again, that being the supreme taloa.
I don’t know how the others felt but I concentrated until I thought my whole being was going to detonate, then I relaxed … calling the cat’s karma … magnetizing its karma…but in vain, we had not yet advanced to that plane.
In a way the stilled kitten ruined the evening.”
*
4) Satan’s Underground by Lauren Stratford
The pitch:
“As a child, Lauren Stratford lived the agony of being trapped between two worlds – the outside world of school, church, and friends, where everything appeared normal, and the inner world of a twisted, satanic nightmare, where mind control, fear, and ritualistic child abuse were her constant companions.”
@bizarreevil Lauren Stratford authored a book about her horrific abuse at the hands of Satanists. It was all a product of her imagination 🤷♂️ #Horror #TrueCrime #Halloween #Hoax ♬ original sound – EvilBizarre
About:
“Lauren Stratford’s story…became one of the key sources for promoting, perpetuating, and validating the satanic ritual abuse (SRA), ‘adult survivor,’ and ‘repressed memories’ hysteria that peaked in the early 1990s.
“In the years since the discrediting of Satan’s Underground, Lauren developed a new story. …Lauren Stratford became Laura Grabowski, child survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, a Polish Jew who was experimented on by the infamous Dr. Joseph Mengele, liberated to a Krakow orphanage at the end of the war, brought to the United States, and adopted by a Gentile couple at age nine or ten.” — Lauren Stratford: From Satanic Ritual Abuse to Jewish Holocaust Survivor
Sample Passage:
“It was a Saturday night. Sometimes around midnight, I was rudely awakened. Before me was a large barrel, like an oil drum. I was lifted up and dropped into the barrel, and a lid was closed over my head. The darkness was total. And the silence.
A few minutes later, the lid was opened and something was dropped on top of me. As it slid down my skin, another something was dropped on me…and another…maybe three or four. The last object was positioned directly in front of me, on top of my stomach. Then the lid was slammed shut. Again, there was only darkness…and silence.
There was a smell. A horrible smell. What could it be? With so little room in my small prison, I slowly maneuvered my arms and hands above my knees so I could grasp the last object that was put in…
Slowly, fearfully I touched the object that was pressing against my stomach. It took only a few seconds to realize it was a small body. A baby’s body. It was lifeless, but not stiff. It had probably been sacrificed that evening, just a short time before.”
*
5) The Haunted by Robert Curren with Jack & Janet Smurl and Ed & Lorraine Warren
The pitch:
“You are holding in your hands perhaps the most shocking, terrifying, unforgettable story of demonic infestation ever told. And it’s true.”
About:
“[Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine] Warrens’ most famous case, the Amityville Horror, has been thoroughly investigated by other researchers and revealed to have most likely been a complete hoax.
“Renowned horror author Ray Garton gave an interview … discussing his experience with Ed and Lorraine Warren while he wrote a reputedly ‘non-fiction’ book titled Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting. The book is an account of the alleged haunting of the Snedeker family in Southington, Connecticut. Ray Garton discussed how during the process of developing the book he became increasingly frustrated, as the family could not keep their story straight, when he confronted Ed Warren about his frustrations Ed told him ‘not to worry,’ that the family was ‘crazy’ and that ‘all the people who come to us are crazy. You think sane people would come to us?’ Ed Warren also advised Ray to ‘just make the story up using whatever details [he] could incorporate into the book, and make it scary.’” — Wikipedia
Sample passage:
“Q. How would you describe her?
A. [Pause on tape.] To be honest, I even hate to think about her. [Pause again.] Her skin was paper white, but it was covered in some places with the scaly surface I mentioned, and then in other places with open sores, the kind you’d think a leper would have or something. And these sores were running with pus.
Q. How old was she?
A. I would estimate around sixty-five or seventy. I can’t be sure. …She had long, white, scraggly hair and her eyes were all red and the inside of her mouth and her gums were green…
Q. What about her body?
A. That was the weird thing. Her body itself was firm, you know, like that of a younger woman.
Q. What did she do?
A. [Long pause.] She paralyzed me in some way. I saw her walking out of the shadows to our bed and I sensed what she was going to do but I couldn’t stop her.
Q. Then what?
A. Then she mounted me in the dominant position and she started riding me. That’s the only way I can describe it.”
The movie:
*
p.s. Hey. ** jay, Oh, cool. Nothing beats secret rooms and passages. Or, well, very little does. I do remember ‘Panic Room’ and people actually building them into their abodes. Maybe they still do but reporting on them just isn’t trendy anymore. I think having a partner who believes in gay love is definitely a plus. Where would we be without them? ** Lucas, Hi. Foolproof is such a nice idea. I wish things could actually be foolproof. Well, I guess sticking your fork in food and lifting it to your mouth is a foolproof way to eat. But even then you have to have working arms and a normal mouth. There are always qualifiers. Really nice about the good, warm visit and day with your relative. That’s so good to hear. Ah, wish I could see the Roni Horn, but thank you for a peek at it. Getting out and away from your work and, well, yourself in a way, is pretty important. Even just for short periods. The outdoors can be strangely altering. ‘Twisters’ got delayed until today but, yeah, I need it. Have a lovely one. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Me too. The house I grew up in had a giant basement, and I descended into it frequently. The festivals rejected the film, always with a lot of praise, but a fat lot of good that does us. Those rejections are not helping with the film misery to put it mildly. We’re figuring out another way to get the film out. ‘Twisters’ got delayed until today, but I watched the film assigned to me for this Saturday’s biweekly book/film zoom club — Lynne Ramsay’s ‘You Were Never Really Here’, which I thought was very blah. Is it okay if I hang out with love in the unreal world today? Love bringing Satanic Panic back into fashion because that sounds refreshing, G. ** _Black_Acrylic, No, never been to that club, but it does sound very charismatic. Your mum’s new dude gets major Brownie points, obviously. Hm, that sounds promising. I’ll steel myself for a few weeks without PT. There’s always reruns! I’m sure you’ll be constructive, that’s for sure. ** Diesel Clementine, Nice. There’s a tour you can take of the Paris metro tunnels that shows you all the dead stations and tracks and stuff, but it’s at 4 am, and I don’t do the kind of drugs that would make 4 am doable anymore. I found ‘120 Days’ on the shelf of a friend who claimed his high school assigned it to him in their lit class. Likely story. I’ll give a look at the snip of ‘False Wife’, thanks. Oh, no, so I sent poor Oscar off on a wild goose chase. Eek. I got your email. Thank you!!!! ** tomk, You made it! Oh, god, the jet lag, oh, god. I think I read Volodine’s ‘Bardo or not Bardo’. I think I remember quite liking it. Awesome if ‘PGL’ can help you even a teeny little bit. Have so much fun, pal! And write! And check in when you can! xo, me. ** Nika Mavrody, But I’m already grown. I want to de-grow. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Yes, I was in a total panic as a child because my parents wouldn’t build us a bomb shelter. ** Joseph, Nice. That underground house. It must be a swimming pool by now. Oh, okay, yes, your current work is an ass kicker. That part sucks. Back when I used to write my novels by hand and then type them up on a typewriter with Liquid Paper constantly at the ready. I remember that part making me question my profession. Ugh. Nose to the grindstone and all of that, I guess. I don’t remember what I said about a Citizen Kane style popper training video. Maybe I’ll use that as the basis for prose poem and pass it on to you? ** Prze, Okay, later. ** Steve, Weirder things have happened. Lucky you on the Eno doc. What’s it like? The reputation of the festival (not Cannes) that rejected our film for that reason would lead you to think that would never be a reason why they would reject a film, so it was kind of an ugly revelation. I think Araki has done stuff, maybe a series, for Netflix, hasn’t he? ** Uday, We are of like minds. I too had one of those boxes, and it was ridiculously exciting to have. ‘Eligible multihundredaire’: wow, nice, I think I would kill to be called that. Yes, I do like Bunraku. I think I did a post about it ages ago. Hm, or I will, if I didn’t. Because of my allergy to non-organic fabrics and dyes and the paucity of jeans that are non-organic, I am forced to wear baggy regular jeans in order to make my allergic reaction less extreme, but I really appreciate the thought. Wear yours twice as tight for me. ** Thomas H, Hey. The giant rock is still there. I visited it once, but the lodging underneath caved in ages ago, so it’s just a big rock now. Yeah, the piano scene especially. I really like Korine, but, yeah, the early ones are the best. I love fireworks, so I’m hugely envious of your jaunt to witness them. I’m glad there’s a movie called ‘Cooties’, even if it’s shit. Today I’m going to try to walk down to the Seine to see the Olympics opening ceremony, but I suspect it will be in vain since it’s a war zone down there, so, even though it’s 2 minutes walk from me, I’ll probably watch it on TV like the rest of the world. ** Justin D, Hi. No, it was just a random post idea. Although, now that you mention it, it might be something to film. ‘Twisters’ got delayed to today, so I’ll tell you tomorrow. Sadly my fucked up ear also put your MixTape on temporary hold, hopefully very temporary. ** Charlie, Hi, C. Okay, I’m going to have to read that review once I’m outta here, but thank you. It seems to have sold me even at a quick glance. I’ve never played a Pokémon game. I didn’t realise you could do stuff like that. Ooh. ** Harper, Hey, Yeah, that stuff won’t matter the tiniest bit ere long. I know about Crystal Palace and have daydreamed about a time machine-occasioned visit. It’s been in a couple posts here over the years. Fascinating story, definitely. When I first moved to Paris I lived in an artist residency that’s housed in an ancient monastery, and underneath it are secret tunnels that stretch for miles all over Paris, and cults used to live in them and sacrifice animals to Satan and so on, and the woman who ran the artists residency said there was a secret entrance to them in the building, and I spent months trying to find it but never could. That’s spooky (or sexy or both or neither?): the death while on the bottom story. ** Don Waters, Hi, Don. That sounds so nice. I miss mountains. I love ‘Carpenter’s Gothic’ and ‘Morvern Callar’, which I guess you probably know. Curious what you’ll think. Mm, I’ve certainly had strange remote buildings in posts, but I can’t remember if I’ve dedicated a whole post to them. Hm. There are a few curious ones in New Mexico particularly, I don’t know why. Thanks, things here still deeply suck, but it can’t last forever, can it? Take care: you. ** seb 🦠, Hi, there. Welcome back from the cage. I’d prefer Halloween cheer, but Xmas cheer will do, thanks. No, I don’t know the tiktok tunnel lady, but, thanks to you, I will! Ace! Things suck in Dennisville. I can tell you about ‘Twisters’ after today ‘cos it got bumped. Ugh: your wallet. I seem to lose my wallet or get it swiped a lot. And when you’re in Paris and your bank is in LA, it is a massive hassle, let me tell you. I like couscous, and the Catacombs have their charms, but the combo? I’m willing to give it a nibble. So thank you. ** Darbyy (●’◡’●), I like smoke blown on me. I like the word suture, but I’m sorry the actual act that accrued that name was inflicted on you. Uh, I like matcha pocky, chocolate in any combo, the banana ones, charred butter, Kuchidoke … I live near the ‘Japanese’ district, so I buy them at one of the markets there. I didn’t know people still took benzos. They seem very early 70s to me. Shows you what I know. No, I haven’t read your thing yet, I’m sorry, life’s a little taxing and hard on my brain right now. I took piano lessons as a kid, but my piano teacher tried to molest me, so I stopped. ** nat, Hi, nat. A dom into Stefan Zweig … I’m sure there’s a downside, but I’m impressed. I’m going to have to investigate to believe that Europeans use red cups because of America. And I can do that. Interesting: your abstract America thoughts. I’m going to dwell on that when the p.s. isn’t locking me in. It’s an LA thing, yeah, but LA so influences the rest of the US that it’s hard to tell the difference. ** Malik, Hi! Oh, cool that you’re working on stories and poetry. I’ll probably always hold those mediums the highest. All the luck on the personal story. Did the commission come with very specific narrative or character requests? I have wishes galore, and a bunch of them are now yours. ** Right. I brought back this very old, still charming and effective guest-post for you today, so … heads up. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
*
Hi Dennis
Today it seems to be letting me comment! Sorry to read that the festivals turned down the film.. What happens now?
I emailed you a link for stuff for the Hellman post, let me know you got it and can download with no issues. Hope your health is better.
J x
Hi. Oh wow at this residence storyline. I wish I could get into an artist residency in the future where I have some books out hopefully and I am starting doing painting now so when I am more far in Are these things possible? But I am very strange so either I will bail or not ever do it if it does not fit I just will do my thing so why do I feel incomplete
Was it when you started working with Gisele? was it related?
I wonder if you felt things weird being there inside you
I told you before about the Lyon story of me feeling possessed over the Fishbones tunnels and thinking of Knights Templar and the Baphomet
Yesterday Bruce Labruce posted about Brad Renfro birthday. What is your favourite film with him? I was thinking about how the films Tart and Happy campers are so deep cut and unknown
Anyway Hi from me and hope things with the film pick up and resolve but I don’t know details so I just send good vibes and
Hi from me trying to win the game Scratch it and get money so I hit the streets but of course failing but meanwhile doing mental divination exercises towards winning that are very interesting on their own and if I win I will blame it all on them and feel even more witch
Hey Dennis, really interesting stuff today! This isn’t really a period in cultural history I know much about, so this is sort of fascinating, I think I basically only know about the satanic panic from the X Files episodes that revolved around it.
I do have a distant relation who became convinced he was targeted by Satanists in the 80s in order to “make him gay”, which is pretty bizarre. The most bizarre part is that he actually has a pretty lovely relationship/healthy idea of sexuality. I do actually think one of my early sexual fantasies revolved around me being sacrificed in some bizarre coven bachannal too, so maybe Satanic stuff runs in the family.
Yeah, I think safe rooms aren’t really big anymore, I don’t think people really keep cash or valuables in their homes anymore so the fear of hiding from a burglar maybe isn’t as present. And the people who can afford panic rooms normally just have much more normal security now, like electric fences or bodyguards. Anyway, interesting stuff.
Yes, you’re definitely right about that gay love thing, and enjoy Twisters!
Hi!!
It must’ve been so much fun to write these books. Especially “Jay’s Journal” and “Go Ask Alice” (both of which I have somewhere and should finally read). Also, the name Bacteriaburger is so great. Thank you for reviving this post!
Shit, I’m really sorry about the festivals. Fuck. What other options are you considering to get the film out?
Huh. I know I saw “You Were Never Really Here,” but, for the life of me, I can’t remember anything about it, except that Joaquin Phoenix was the lead actor. I guess the fact that nothing else stayed with me means that I must’ve also put it in the blah box.
Definitely – love’s happy to see you in the unreal world whenever you feel like joining him! I agree with love. We could collect – I mean, offer shelter to – all the pretty Satanist guys whose parents freak out and throw them out. Love also bringing emo back into fashion while he’s at it, Od.
Such a great post! Back in the early 90s there was this contemporaneous Satanic abuse scandal on the Scottish island of Orkney. That one never inspired such a wealth of literature, sadly.
For me there’s one thing that “Satanic Panic” brings most to mind
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=let%27s+do+the+time+warp+again&mid=08B2BA4A8619730D6E8108B2BA4A8619730D6E81&FORM=VIRE
o o me the “Ask Alice” nonsense is most remindful of a far more famous literary faud, Little Jerry Salinger (as the great Carol Matthau called him.
Hey Dennis – Really enjoyed yesterday’s post about underground houses and secret rooms. Still thinking about the guy finding that room under the metal plate in his driveway. Feels like the opening scene of a film or something. Enjoyed today’s Satanic Panic post, too. Feels like that sort of niche mass hysteria has gone mainstream.
Are you a fan of Keith Waldrop’s poetry? A poet friend with generally excellent taste recommended his ‘Transcendental Studies’ which is all collaged from other texts. It’s new to me.
I sent you an email with some possible days for Zooming next week. Let me know what looks possible on your end.
hi! really interesting stuff today — I used to listen to this one podcast that had a bunch of episodes on go ask alice and the satanic panic / stranger danger panic in general so this is slightly familiar to me. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to live through that era, although people’s paranoia has been ramping up, I guess, from what I can tell what’s happening in the US, but it’s not like there’s been another mcmartin daycare scandal or like any super notorious child abductions to make it into a ‘real thing’ in people’s eyes, thankfully ofc. hmm this is something that I used to be weirdly fascinated by — like you I used to be kind of fixated on murderers but it didn’t really stick with me — and I haven’t thought about it in a long time, so thank you for this post. I’m trying to think and I guess we got the whole ‘don’t talk to strangers’ and ‘yell out ‘stop!’ if you’re uncomfortable with someone’ bit in elementary school here but people were generally very trusting of strangers in the part of spain where I grew up in, which is interesting in contrast to today’s topic, I guess. I’m with you that I wish things could actually be foolproof but the fact that they’re not is what makes life not totally boring if you wanna see it differently. getting away from myself is something I need to do often haha so I know what you mean. but I’m feeling a bit better today, and I hope the same is true for you.
So the time has come to talk of many things, like shoes and ships and ceiling wax or cabbages and kings: “Rice, Anne. Interview with a Vampire. Ballantine, 1976.”
something weird happened in junior high school. we are asked to renounce our first-amendment rights in Language Arts every day but Thursday (until the teacher was reassigned to Social Studies) and a strapping posse performed “possum” at the attendant open mic.
There was a copy of “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” in my fifth-grade classroom, which no one from the posse had known, and Tom Eliot – a childhood reader of Lewis Carroll – had signed letters as “possum” too.
One of them told his mom on me for complimenting his behind and she mentioned it on stage in the auditorium during an assembly. Then, in sophomore geometry, someone hit mine in front of the teacher and he did nothing. That’s when I quit STEM.
Though I was able to eventually persuade him (the teacher) to sponsor my submission to the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, as well as an independent study in Art History, but had to read his Bachelor’s thesis on Giacometti after facing charges of academic dishonesty from the online portion of my independent study.
I recently visited his new school in Minnesota, where he still teaches geometry and has never heard of an LLM.
Somewhat related to today’s post but a colourised and restored version of Reefer Madness is free to watch on Tubi. I can’t find a Bunraku post, but I could also just be bad at looking. Perhaps when I visit I’ll get you a nice vegetable dyed fabric. I’m always thinking of the perfect gift for people I know. But now that my birthday is around the corner and my friends are asking me what I want, I really have no clue. It used to be all books till I got access to a good library and now it’s kinda nothing. I appreciate your wishes but I can’t wear super tight jeans I find them rather squeezy, which I suppose is the point. Heard about the arson attacks, hope you’re safe/ok/unperturbed.
I well remember the hysteria over the McMartin Day School. The motor wasawoman claiming to be a “Satanic Expert” and her boyfriend who was a local TV news reporter. When the school building was rrazaed and the netwrok of tunnel supposedly undermeath shown to be nonexistent it was all over, Don’t know what happened to the perps. I expect they’ve taken their dog and pony show somewhere else.
Hey, Dennis! Reefer madness, red scare, satanic panic, book bans… One thing’s for certain; Paranoia is a hell of a drug. Just read a bit about the Paris railway arson attacks. Scary. Hopefully that didn’t ruin your day. This post made me think of a rather compelling documentary I watched a few years ago: ‘Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hill’. Did you ever watch that? Satanic panic played quite a big part in that case. Hoping your ear is getting better. 👹
Araki has done more work recently than I remembered, but Starz canceled his TV series NOW EXPLOSION in 2019 after one season. (He did one episode of Netflix’s Jeffrey Dahmer series.)
If only the Satanic panic had gone away with the end of the ’80s instead of evolving into QAnon and Pizzagate! (Ironically, Satanism is probably more popular now than it’s ever been.)
The Eno documentary is more conventional than I expected given how it was constructed, but it avoids the chronological time line of most musician profiles. It accepts that a 90-minute film about Eno can only be a partial view: I saw the 357th version, in which he talks about listening to AM talk radio in late ’70s New York and recording the samples that became MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS. He also plays two of his favorite songs, by Little Richard and Fela Kuti, on YouTube. I’m jealous of his synthesizer/computer/software setup!
Have things calmed down to the point where you’ll be able to relax this weekend? I’m seeing a ’50s Mexican comedy with Cantinflas at Lincoln Center tomorrow.
The Satanic Panic was a wild and strange time, and it seems the moral panic encompassed everything from “literal child-murdering cults” to “your six-year-old is being corrupted by Pokémon”. In the UK there was a similar moral panic about “ritual satanic abuse” where it later came out that a lot of children (who had been targeted by familial abuse) were convinved by police/psychiatrists that they were victims of satanic rituals. A lot of lives were destroyed by that paranoia, and there were stories about devil-worshipping child abusers well into the 2000s.
A lot of the fearmongering about Satan, I think, stems from that patriarchal evangelical need to be in total control of the family, especially children. That’s why queer and trans people are such a good scapegoat: our existence shows people that there are other ways of living and being, and that threatens the dominant reliigous orders. The appeal of a grand conspiracy seems to come from an unwillingness to grapple with the fact that otherwise ordinary human beings can behave in abhorrent ways without some great demonic influence. It’s all very nasty, even if there are amusing ephemera about Dungeons and Dragons making teens go insane, etc.
I’m excited for fireworks too! Local friends can be a nightmare to organise so I don’t know how many others will join me, but I’m looking forward to it.
I was living in London for the 2012 Olympics and it was enormously busy and tourist-packed, so I can kind of relate to your travails, although it feels like Paris is even more intense. My family got tickets to see some of the Paralympic events (since the regular Olympics tickets went basically immediately (mostly to friends of the government and organising committee, fancy that!)) and I remember it being a great evening out, with a wonderful atmosphere in the stadium and some really impressive feats of sportsmanship. Also a very overpriced curry that I managed to slop onto my shirt.
It’s been a while since I recommended you something, so: this short photo-essay by China Miéville, ‘London’s Overthrow’, is a snapshot of the city a few months before the Olympics, in the grip of a newly cruel and bleak conservative government, exploring the greyness of everyday life and the legacy of London’s long history. http://www.londonsoverthrow.org/index.html
I’m sorry your film keeps getting fucked around; I really hope something good breaks through the gloom. <3
Oh wow, speaking of conspiracy paranoia, it turns out the Olympic Opening Ceremonies are setting off far-right weirdos across social media because it’s “satanism and lgbt filth being rubbed in our faces”…plus ça change, n’est-ce pas?
If you find that prose poem in you, it’d totally make whatever day on which you chose to share it.
From what I’ve seen, everybody over there is safe from whatever happened there this morning on the metro, so trust you and friends over there are good.
I do love me a good Satanic Panic. Also love the exemplary humanitarian work of the Satanic Temple.
Got a bunch of bullshit going on this weekend, hope you have an excellent one and were able to spy some opening ceremony if you wanted to.
For me the Olympics means Leni Riefenstahl
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=Olympia+diving+sequence&qpvt=Olympia+diving+sequence&mid=EDFC4A8494B8410D8F44EDFC4A8494B8410D8F44&&FORM=VRDGAR
“Pages From Cold PoinT by Paul Bowles https://www.ebay.com/itm/335471747953?chn=ps&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3A1N5wlg9qRQNOZA6A2IzY5GQ12&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-213727-13078-0&mkcid=2&itemid=335471747953&targetid=4580702895644393&device=c&mktype=&googleloc=&poi=&campaignid=604202272&mkgroupid=1233653099424984&rlsatarget=pla-4580702895644393&abcId=9427716&merchantid=51291&msclkid=801c3817dfe71e3d20445eb3f281c644
is a novella about a gay man who comes out to his father by seducing him. For many years my friend Mark Rappaport had the rights and tried to make a screen adaptation. He wanted Jack Nicholson to star.
This is one of my favourite stories of all time! I remember reading somewhere about the Poe influence of the narrator building an entire philosophy that he has so much conviction in that he sounds insane. His collection ‘The Delicate Prey’ has a lot of interesting highlights.
Hey. RE: Underground spaces. My family currently live in a town with ancient caves that the general public are occasionally allowed access to. The local bookstore’s basement is actually part of the caves and they keep excess stock there. When I was a kid I was always trying to find abandoned buildings and things to explore. I did get in trouble quite a few times.
I’ve been reading ‘The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard’ today, I don’t think I’ve ever read diary entries before that do what he was doing with his. So spontaneous. He must have written faster than he could think to get everything down so precisely. His stories or whatever you want to call them are so captivating in how unfocused they are. I was reading little bits of the book every now and again but now I’m reading it cover to cover and it’s really got me hooked. I have to stop myself from reading. When a lot of the supposed great writers of the 20th century go down the toilet I’m certain Brainard will remain.
A couple of days ago you were talking about your ‘120 days’ inspired high school book and I remembered that I did a similar thing, more embarrassing than yours. I didn’t make it to 1000+ pages like you did, I’m assuming you just kept writing and didn’t ever make it to the ‘end’? Every day after school I wrote this stupid fucking thing entirely in verse where I was placing people I knew and hated into the most depraved scenarios I could think of. The whole thing is a nauseating exercise in verbal diarrhoea. I still have it in a box with other juvenilia because I can’t bring myself to throw it away. I can’t even bring myself to tell you the title because I’ll cringe so hard that my fingers won’t be able to type. When I think about it though, I was probably fourteen when I wrote that and had already been writing for some time, and people who are the same age as me now are making the same mistakes I made when I was a teenager, so I’m glad I got a lot of the typical early mistakes out of the way.
hi dennis! spreading a little halloween cheer instead. lots of pumpkins, lots of ghosts, maybe even some bright red fake blood. have seen bits & pieces of what’s been going on for you, and i’m sorry your week’s been so bad. i really hope stuff manages to get better quickly. how are you finding all this olympic stuff? i hate whenever any large sporting event happens, even if the sport itself is interesting. i used to live very, very close to a major stadium, and whenever a game was happening i’d sit very angrily in the dark and think about throwing eggs at passerby and/or myself out of the window. hoping all that train arson hasn’t affected things for you too much.
satanic panic stuff! another one of my weird little obsessions. i have a lot of them, can you tell? i almost bought myself a first edition of michelle remembers off of ebay a couple of years ago, and i probably still might. have you ever heard of dark dungeons? the film, that is, not the chick tract itself. it’s an officially licensed adaptation, but they’re very obviously poking fun at the source material and i think that’s brilliant. i think it’s interesting how so many of these very odd conspiracies we get these days are so transparently linked to all of this nonsense, but nobody seems to talk about it.
honestly, it’s a shame we don’t have evil satanic cults running around and doing sacrifice in the shadows. it’d make things a lot more interesting. i think i’d join one, but as, like, an IT guy. site caretaker, maybe. something that lets me be a nosy little bastard without being sacrificed or having to sacrifice someone else.
hope you found the tunnel woman interesting! if i were her neighbour, i’d be terrified of my house collapsing in some sort of sinkhole thing, but the tunnel looks sort of cool. i wonder how long it’ll take before she disturbs some ancient grave and things go all poltergeist.
couscous! i like couscous, but i have that weird autistic thing where i hate having specific foods touch. sometimes i end up using like five plates for one meal. whenever i eat couscous with anything, i have to put it in a tiny bowl away from everything else because the texture can turn evil super quick. i can handle couscous salad sometimes, though.
okay, i think that’s it for my rambling, godspeed and happy halloween, i suppose! perhaps next time i’ll spread kwanzaa cheer instead.
Hi Dennis, good luck with the hordes, hope you catch some of the Games. Were you able to see something of the ceremonies today? I just realized that the 2028 games are scheduled for LA, so you’re contending for the gold medal of Most Inconvenienced by Olympics.
I’m totally convinced by the way Janet and the twins posed for their photos. They had to be possessed by Satan to pose like that.
The Israeli linguist Ruvik Rosenthal claims that according to his research of Semitic languages “Satan” was originally some guy’s name.
I just stumbled across some music by John Duncan. He’s your contemporary and did out-there performance art in LA in the 70s. Did you cross paths at some point?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Duncan_(artist)
I was still lethargic earlier in the week from COVID recovery, but then regained energy. It’s very hot here so I try not to go out much in the middle of the day. My new love interest has been out of town every since I started feeling better, so our next rendezvous is much anticipated. I started writing today in English about Tel Aviv, the kinds of things I’d tell a friend who’s visiting for the first time. I found a surprising flow in the writing, could just keep going for hours. I take this as a good sign that I found a good topic. There are different possible directions to go with this, could combine well with audio/video/photography.
Well, the last couple days with my parents turned out rough. Several big arguments in which they tried to convert me to their brand of evangelical Christianity. Funnily enough this post is kind of relevant, since they claimed the punk and metal records in my house are demonic, lol. The Satanic Panic never left the Deep South.
Hey Dennis, Cue The Omen’s best-of album? Yours, not the film’s, of course. Weirdly enough, I was halfway through re-reading ‘Period’ when you posted this, so I decided to finish my reading today. Very appropriate timing! It occurred to me that more than a few of your books have seven sections, like ‘Period’ — coincidence; intentional? Anyway, just took note of that. Dude, this post so reminds me of that era, when ‘satanists’ were discussed with utter seriousness in many religious circles and heavy metal heads were viewed with suspicion. Back in the day, early 90s, when I was in high school, some dingdongs put Judas Priest on trial in my hometown for supposed subliminal messages in their music… remember that? These two kids shot themselves and the parents blamed their music. (One of them was my friend’s cousin!) Nothing happened with the trial. If I remember, the judge tossed it out. That was such a paranoid outgrowth of the satanic panic nonsense, which was so fully everywhere in the 80s… take care, Don
i dunno if there is a downside. well he did take my to read pile which had my copy of flunker, that beautiful bastard, so that’s a downside. he says the book is good, won’t go into detail until i’m finished with zweig.
having tested my instincts even more. it’s like an idea of a culture of found objects, which sounds a bit demeaning but it is what i am able to clarify where i’m coming from. the red cup – which for the record, is sold as ‘american cups’ in my local grocery store. – is that sense a symbol of that, i guess the satanic panic in some ways might also be in lines of it, but that in someways feel apparent. the red cup is not apparent, it’s a dark corner you have grown accustomed to ignore. i think i’m gonna keep testing them, i’m getting led somewhere good.
that being said, i’m as much obsessed with the satanic panic. i don’t think like other europeans (and also some americans) might that ‘hurr durr this only happens to those stupid americans’, i’m sure if i scrape hard i can find the satanic panic outrage of norway lying deep. — well other than the obvious black metal stuff, but that’s different. — there is an demented evil aura around these books to me at least, evil as the things they were saying they were protecting from, even if i have empathy for some of these writers and what led them down this path. it’s finger lickin good stuff, thank you for showing me.
uh not much other than that, my local bakery got baguettes, like really good ones. i’m sure when i finally come to paris i’ll eat those words as much i’m eating these slices. i dunno, read through the blog’s comments , sorry you had to be belittled like that. hope you have a nice day.
So, sadly, the fine establishment you mentioned is very much closed and shuttered, although I did go once while it was open! They had a big neon sign that said ‘WHO IS OSCAR?’ and it felt very sneaky to be in there knowing that I was Oscar. I’ve been hitting Duolingo like the gym in the run-up to going to Paris, and while I can’t confidently order a meal I can just about manage a “Il y a une souris sous la table, Dennis.”
Underground House 2 was like you’d taken a scan of my brain and posted it. I hadn’t heard of Shiey (the Russian bunker dude) but I’ve now spent a loooooong time watching his stuff. I love that kind of thing. I remember watching once ages ago with these two guys who did all sorts of urban exploration in all sorts of places, and while they were in the mountains of Georgia or Azerbaijan or something they came across this tiny, normal-looking, abandoned old house and both immediately went “nope, this is a bad place” and had to leave. Think about it a lot. I wonder what people are picking up on when they get weird feelings like that — vibes? Also! Hamtaro! I love Hamtaro. Especially Boss (the one in the last post).
Also I did eventually stop procrastinating and send that email — so it should be there somewhere! Sending you a non panicky weekend, the satanic aspect is purely up to you.
Hey, Dennis! Decided to follow my parting words to keep in touch, after having a dream wherein I went to read the blog and instead was greeted with a post explaining that you had died and there would be no more blog. Hundreds of eulogizing comments. The subsequent realization that I was dreaming hypnotized me to buy Flunker, like putting a $25 in the offering plate of the church of DC. I am now well back into the American South. Still processing Europe, though, of course. The Instants Chavirés show we went to, oh god, three weeks ago was real good—singular saxophonist wheezing and biting and improvising non-stop for 40 minutes. So thank you for that rec especially. Musee de la Chasse also brilliant; we didn’t have time to ask for Alexander, unforch.
I think I would be more interested in the Satanic panic stuff if it weren’t so childishly written about by its promulgators, since the idea seems to be, if not golden, at least silver! Murder and abuse at the hands of the acolytes of literal evil. Reminds me that I need to watch Eyes Wide Shut (happy birthday, Kubrick). But it’s just thousands of pages of the usual philistine, evangelical handwaving away of the gory details and masturbatory moralizing. Occasionally hilarious though, re: “In a way the stilled kitten ruined the evening.” It’s the same sort of the feebly self-assuring tone of ex-gay testimonials, no? Is trite didacticism a hallmark of this kind of paranoid writing? At least the Satanic stuff is a little more explicit and philandering, worthy of a blog post. On the other hand, the aforementioned testimonials are all pathetic and disheartening, kind of like the situation surrounding that film of yours. I’ll burn offerings to Beelzebub in y’all’s favor. Godspeed!
I remember Satanic Panic. Back in the 80s I was in a Catholic high school and I got paranoid about the band Def Leppard and Ozzy Osbourne. Also had to grapple with finding out I was gay and going through the Catholic Guilt thing, Some kook with a stereo system came to my church’s youth group three times just to spread that Satanic Panic crap, showed that the falling hat on the back of a Supertramp album (this is no joke, I know they’re overplayed on the radio at least in my town…) looked like ‘666’ when seen from a distance. Of course later my Catholic faith crashed and burned and I already realized that Satanic Panic crap was bunk, and then tried to ally myself to the Church of Satan at the beginning of the ’90s.