Commentary – M.A. Kleen

What I Look For in a Book of Ghost Stories

Outstanding collections of folklore and ghost stories are rare, but doing these simple things will greatly improve future publications.

In the past several decades, interest in the paranormal has grown, and every year we see more books coming out on the subject. Sometimes it seems like nothing new could be written about it, especially in my home state of Illinois, where there are more than two dozen books on Illinois ghost stories (literally hundreds if you count everything Troy Taylor has written).

Many of these books fall short of satisfying, let alone come close to what I would consider to be a decent book on the subject. There are some gems to be sure, but they are rare. I don’t feel that my standards are too high–what I think is going on is that authors are rushing to meet the demand for these books and they are not putting very much thought into them.

Some authors, under pressure to produce, have taken the low road and plagiarized much of their content. Some authors (like one mentioned above) cannibalize their own work in order to produce book after book with basically the same content rearranged in a different way.

So what would I consider to be a “Class A” book on folklore and ghost stories? In an ideal world, what standards would a book have to meet to be truly excellent? Here they are in no particular order. Keep in mind, I don’t consider this list to be unachievable. Every author out there can produce a book to these standards, it just requires time and effort. These are the standards, by the way, to which I try to hold my own work.

The Importance of Citing Sources in Folklore

In a properly cited book, the reader is able to check source material if he or she suspects the author is coming to false conclusions, using sloppy research, or simply inventing things.

Over the course of my lifetime, I have read dozens, if not hundreds, of books on folklore and ghost stories from all over the United States and the world. One problem that comes up again and again is the failure of many authors in this genre to properly cite their sources. Otherwise excellent books are tarnished by this simple oversight.

It is an oversight that not only does a disservice to the individual authors and hinders research, but also prevents the study of folklore and ghost stories from being taken seriously. Simply learning to cite sources would go a long way to solving a lot of the problems that plague books and articles in this genre.

Citing sources helps keep authors honest and promotes accuracy. Without naming names, one author in particular comes to mind that perfectly illustrates why this is so important. He has written dozens of books on haunted places in Illinois. While some of his books include a bibliography, his research is sloppy and difficult to verify. I have been frustrated by discovering numerous inaccuracies, errors, and instances of plagiarism in his work.

The only reason I was able to discover these things is because I have read so many other books and articles, and happened to speak with individuals who had firsthand knowledge of the mistakes. Because this author fails to cite his sources, however, the casual reader is forced to simply take his word at face value. There is no way for them to independently verify any of the information in his books. Consequently, no academic or serious researcher will ever use his books as source material. There is just too high of a chance the information will be inaccurate.

Trump Support Led to Show’s Cancellation: Roseanne

ABC execs fired Roseanne and canceled her comeback because they were afraid she would humanize Trump voters, she recently told Joe Rogan.

A few days ago, actress and comedian Roseanne Barr appeared on episode #1359 of The Joe Rogan Experience. Amidst an often incoherent and meandering interview, Roseanne and Rogan had an insightful exchange regarding the canceling of the popular continuation of her sitcom Roseanne in March of last year.

Roseanne, in which she played the titular character, Roseanne Conner, originally aired on ABC from 1988 to 1997. Roseanne was a sharp, take-no-prisoners working class mother who appealed to a wide audience in Middle America. The show’s realistic portrayal of blue collar life won a legion of fans, and when it returned to TV in 2018, its two-part premier drew over 25 million viewers. There was only one problem, Roseanne Barr was an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump, and so was her character on the show.

Roseanne, who has publicly struggled with mental illness and substance abuse her entire adult life, is no conservative. She grew up with gay siblings, and was one of the first television personalities to feature openly gay characters on her show. She was a member of the Green Party, and in 2012 ran for President as the Peace and Freedom Party candidate. Founded in 1967, the Peace and Freedom Party is dedicated to “feminism, socialism, democracy, ecology, and racial equality.”

Positive Interests Stem from Folklore and Ghost Stories

An interest in folklore and ghost stories encourages reading, travel, interest in history and historical preservation, and tourism.

We often hear of negativity surrounding places associated with legends and lore: vandalism, trespassing, breaking and entering, drug use and underage drinking. The media loves to associate criminal activity with amateur ghost hunting, such as the break in at Ness Church in Litchfield, Minnesota.

Interest in folklore, ghost stories, and legend tripping, however, can have many positive effects. Those subjects can be (and usually are) a gateway to developing interests in other areas. These areas include, but are not limited to:

Reading
Travel
History
Preservation
Tourism

Reading: Reading was my first introduction to ghost stories. When I was a kid, I devoured every book I could find on the subject and spent countless hours at the library as a result. While there are plenty of reality TV shows devoted to the paranormal these days, literature is still the primary means of preserving and transmitting ghost stories. A child should be encouraged to pursue his or her interest in legends and lore through reading.

Mattis Scolds America

Jim Mattis’ restrained criticism of President Trump, and American politics generally, is more devastating than a hundred MSNBC polemics.

President Donald Trump has had a rough week. The top story this weekend was the departure of his longtime executive assistant, Madeleine Westerhout, after she revealed personal details about the President’s family to the press. Then there was his spat with FOX News, which employs Trump allies like Sean Hannity and reports from a center-right perspective but also doesn’t shy away from criticism.

Neil Cavuto excoriated him, saying, “First of all, Mr. President, we don’t work for you. I don’t work for you. My job is to cover you, not fawn over you or rip you, just report on you. Call balls and strikes on you. My job, Mr. President, our job here, is to keep the scores, not settle scores.”

But for me, the most devastating criticism Trump faced was from his former Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis. Mattis resigned in December 2018 over a disagreement about troop withdrawals from Syria. He’s also releasing a new book, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead, which while critical of Trump’s foreign policy and leadership style, apparently isn’t openly critical enough for the left.

One Vanity Fair headline even read “Mattis Says He Loves America Too Much to Call Trump a Moron”. Sorry, Vanity Fair, not everyone is a partisan hack who views everything as a political litmus test.

Nicolas Cage’s H.P. Lovecraft Adaptation Looks Promising

The first promo shots from a new H.P. Lovecraft adaptation written and directed by Richard Stanley starring Nicolas Cage has been released. Color Out of Space will be an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s 1927 short story “The Colour Out of Space”, about a family corrupted by a strange meteor.

“The Colour Out of Space” is one of my favorite Lovecraft tales. H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction has been notoriously difficult to translate into film, though the initial concept art from this project looks promising. This short story has been loosely adapted into film numerous times, most recently in the 2010 German film Die Farbe (re-titled The Color Out of Space), which I haven’t seen.

According to Comingsoon.net, “The Color Out of Space is described as a story of cosmic terror about The Gardners, a family who moves to a remote farmstead in rural New England to escape the hustle of the 21st century. They are busy adapting to their new life when a meteorite crashes into their front yard. The mysterious aerolite seems to melt into the earth, infecting both the land and the properties of space-time with a strange, otherworldly color. To their horror, the Gardner family discover that this alien force is gradually mutating every life form that it touches … including them.”

Writer-director Richard Stanley is notoriously known for being unceremoniously fired from The Island of Doctor Moreau (1996) and subsequently hiding out in the jungle and working as an extra. He never made another Hollywood film. Perhaps this makes him ideal for adapting H.P. Lovecraft? It’ll be interesting to see what he can accomplish after all these years.

Of course, Nicolas Cage will bring his own unique brand of acting to the project. I’m looking forward to seeing this one in theaters!

Fact-Checking POLITIFACT

The political fact-checking website can’t help giving a boost to Bernie Sanders

I often read websites like POLITIFACT, Snopes, and FactCheck.org to help sort through the news and lend a more critical eye to what I read on the Internet. After all, every news site is loaded with bias and misrepresentation these days. So I was surprised when I read this article at POLITIFACT rating a recent statement by 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as “Mostly True”. The POLITIFACT writers couldn’t help doing their own editorializing to give a boost to the candidate.

Sanders’ statement concerned the gap in average life expectancy in McDowell County, West Virginia vs Fairfax County, Virginia, implying the disparity in wealth was to blame for the disparity in health. In a speech at George Washington University on June 12, he said:

“In 2014, for example, in McDowell County, W.Va., one of the poorest counties in the nation, life expectancy for men was 64 years. In Fairfax County, Va., a wealthy county, just 350 miles away, life expectancy was nearly 82 years, an 18-year differential. The life expectancy gap for women in the two counties was 12 years.”
Bernie Sanders at George Washington University

POLITIFACT pointed out that the two counties were on opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to income. McDowell County has a median household income of $25,595 and Fairfax County has a median household income of $117,515. The median household income is the point at which half of households earn less than that amount and half earn more.