Paranormal Activities

I work in a building that some people think is haunted.  It's an old building, was a Masonic meeting place at one point, and it sits on top of underground tunnels that have an unsavoury (but super lucrative) 'history.'  I always thought I would NEVER ever do something like that -- make a "haunted" place a daily part of my life -- but most of the time I actually forget about it.  I don't think anyone's actually confirmed it to be "haunted." It's not like there's crazy poltergeist activity going on.  Or anything much really.  One time when I was alone late at night I heard a guy laugh behind me, and another night thought I could hear a girl talking from a spot that other people have said they heard/felt weird things when alone.  A different night I was listening to a song called A Vespertine Haunting, and twice, when the lyric that said "ghost" played, the whole sound system would shut itself down and restart -- on that same song.  Oh and then there was the time that I had to get something out of the basement (aka: part of the tunnels) before the staff down there was in for the day...had no idea where the lightswitch was...so literally it was like opening a maintenance hatch to the CATACOMBs and having to run in in the pitch black to get to the one light switch I knew was in the other room -- probably one of the worst feelings ever hahah -- luckily nothing happened.  That I noticed.  

I used to looove scary movies, and scaring people who were watching them with me.  If you know me and haven't heard the tales of "The Pants" or "The Balcony," ask for a re-enactment sometime, they're GREAT.  I also recently basked in the nostalgia that was the Scream reboot and a Halloween viewing of Halloween alongside my pal Hannah, who was just as stoked as I on these pieces of pop culture.  But I haven't really been on board much with scary movies for the past decade or so -- the turn "horror" and "suspense" took after the Freddie Prinze Junior-supersaturation of the early 2000's was just waaaay too gory and offensive (tips hat to Eli Roth & James Wan).  I mean, I'll watch an episode of Criminal Minds...and even be interested in the psychological/sociological drive behind a film -- but I think there's something just straightup sociopathic about voluntarily watching a movie that indulges in the perspective of someone who makes people rip themselves/each other apart.   But as the era of the Saw franchise has come to a close (according to me and the current limits of a viable fad, anyways), a clever new kid in town showed up at the theatre.

The new kid kinda turned up in second hand clothes, and was pretty unconventional, and even made an impression that would have you either loving or hating him.  That kid was Cloverfield.  I know, you thought I was going to say Paranormal Activity, right?  Well I am going to -- but I had to give a nod to its predecessor first, a movie that I really liked but that a load of people hated.  I super loved the perspective though, and the experience of watching that movie "in first person."  It, alongside Universal Studios' 4D experience movies (which are like..cute Shrek ones) inspired the idea in me of one-upping 3D movies (*rubs eyes*) with 4D movies -- how creepy would it be to be "walking" with the cast through a dank drippy tunnel and have drops of water falling from the roof of the theatre on you...to have surround sound speaker seats so when someone whispers suddenly over your shoulder...they are actually whispering over your shoulder...(it was at the point of considering mechanical hands waiting under seats to grab people's ankles that I admitted it would be a foolish investment, as people would have to sign waivers on their lives and anticipate potential heart attacks or leg injuries).   I have not seen any of the Paranormal Activity movies, but I feel like they probably achieve a lot of these same effect on a waaaay lower budget.

My Facebook was blowing up with all the kids from my past posting about going to it a couple weeks ago -- and I was cringeing every time.  Not because I'm a stodgy old person or a weiner, I'm sure if I was 18 year old me I would be ALL over that.  But because I have friends who have had experiences with this stuff in real life.  I've had a creepy nighttime incident or two myself -- not fun!  Not something I want to hand a personal invitation to in the form of opening a theatre-screen-sized front door for.  And not to say simply watching a fictional depiction of supernatural/demonic activity is a sure way to lay out a welcome mat for unseen forces that may be out trick-or-treating during the witching hour or something -- but I mean it's kind of basic science -- open a door, things find their way in.  

One of my favourite recent examples of this is hilarious to me, because it's probably way worse to watch than a fake movie about it, but there's a show called Ghost Adventures -- and it's these three guys who travel to super "haunted" places (eg: closed down mental hospitals, prisons, tunnel systems of vaults 4 stories below ground, all kinds of charming locales), literally have the owners of the places LOCK THEM IN overnight, and wander around in the pitch dark with handheld night vision cameras, telling off "ghosts" they think are being bullies to the living, PROVOKING and inviting the "malevolent ghosts" to prove themselves.   Seriously mental.  And they SPLIT UP too, and perch themselves in the most "active" spots where they sit alone in the dark waiting for scary crap to happen.  Again, describing this, I can't believe I participate in it.  One of the guys actually had the others lock him in the drawer thing in the morgue of the mental hospital alone for an hour.  Sooo not okay.  And they do catch creepy stuff that is undeniably there, some of it seriously shocking.  Since I know my mom is reading this, I'll spare her and let you look it up on your own if you're intersted in finding out exactly what (I recommend the episodes where they are at the abandoned psychiatric hospital, Bobby Mackey's Music World, the prison, the Riddle House, or vaults under Edinburgh for some creepy solid instances you will see on camera as they happen.)  

So speaking of my mom (hi mom, if you've made it this far hahah), she is not a fan of any of this stuff, even the super cheesy contrived versions of it such as the Halloween episode of CSI:Miami my dad and I watched when I was home visiting and there was utterly nothing else to watch and escape the horror that is Horatio.   It was an episode loosely mirroring the Twilight book franchise/vampire obsession, and at some point my dad put on my favourite face of his, where he looks kind of hassled and tired but also interested and curious about a social phenomenon, and said something along the lines of "so what is this obsession with vampires about?  what's making people get so into it?"  Which I thought was a fantastic question that I guess I'd considered on a semi-conscious or subconscious level as it's been swirling aroung more prominently  in pop culture the past few years.  (I had this same discussion the next day with Halloween Hannah, and I appreciated that she pointed out the whole Anne Rice league and the further annals of human intrigue with the undead -- the recent "influx" or "normalization" kind of reminds me of the similar road Hardcore music has taken over the past few decades -- I remember one summer being the weird one for listening to it and the next summer everyone and their little sister watching its grandchildren playing house on Much Music) ...

Anyways, I don't remember exactly what I answered dear ol' dad, but I think it had something to do with my generation and the next one, particularly here in North America, being so devoid of any supernatural integration into our identities/worldviews/experiences, that those who have had little or no instruction or encounter with the supernatural (be that God, prayer, demonic forces, supersensory experiences, infinite concepts, the "afterlife," etc) cannot help but crave and desire it, and are finding it in Pop Culture Sacraments.  An undeniable facet of the Human Condition is to be preoccupied with either one's mortality -- or immortality.  Those who do not subscribe to the possibility of immortality will inescapably serve mortal causes, and those who believe in it will serve both.  So everyone is susceptible in some way to a mortal urge to connect to the supernatural -- be it the temporal, mortal forces of morality and justice and health and death that none may escape and that mimic the non-temporal forces the immortals see as spanning beyond Time and Space, or the Named and revealed forces in their full form.  We are created to experience revelations of immortal love and to be bound in eternal relationship, so why wouldn't thousands of half-loved, if that, teenagers (and adults, let's face it) flock to a mysterious, ageless and neverending pillar of exclusively inclusive consuming love that promises them Forever?     Hmmmmm...

"This is why men need to become obsessed with things...We are able to study something that defines who we are; therefore, we are able to study ourselves," (p.102) 

I know -- you thought this was a sidetrack not tying into the Book Blog, didn't you?  Admittedly, I've pulled this from a bland chapter in Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs about team sports that I'll spare us all from.  But I think it's an interesting note on all of this.  And whether it's vampires or "ghosts" or even just a flickering conscience or peculiar feeling that can't be explained, I don't think any of us are exempt from the curiosities that dwell quietly in and around us. 

"[North] Americans have become conditioned to believe the world is a gray place without absolutes; this is because we're simultaneously cowardly and arrogant. We don't know the answers, so we assume they must not exist. But they do exist. They are unclear and/or unfathomable, but they're out there," (p.98). 


For better words than mine on some of these things, and a great expansion on pieces of the last quote here, check out C.S. Lewis' short science ficion story, The Great Divorce.   One of my faves.