The Moon Zine #14 - Spooky (Oct 2016)

Issue

#14

/ spooky

oct

2016

Dear Readers and Moon Luvers,

BOO! It’s time for Fall, so get ready to start seeing those leaf bags that look like jack-o-lanterns. Scary movie marathons on television with some popcorn and friends are a definite 10 out of 10. Get into the season with a mix of silly and serious spooky submissions.

Last month, we celebrated one year of The Moon Zine! Thanks to all our friends and supporters who came out and partied with us! Also, huge thank you to the bands that played at our bday show: Paper Ceilings, Whsky Gngr, 3 of 5, and Wizrd Lizrd. And triple thanks with a cherry on top to Foam for letting us have our party in their great space!

For future themes, submission deadlines, and anything else, be sure to check in with us online. (See last page.)

Like our previous issues, the numbered pages are original submitted content. Other pages are altered by yours truly and unique to each edition of the issue. Thank you for taking a chance and picking up our zine. Hold on to it, or pass it on to the most haunted zinester you know, as The Moon Zine is one of a kind.

Trick or Treat, The Moon

the moon zine staff bios:

Julie Davis - And if you wanna find hell with me, I can show you what it's like.

Josh Saboorizadeh - The monster mashed potatoes.

Allison Sissom - Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?

Lauren Kellett - halloween #1 fan Wes Harbison - My spooky hero: Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud staff picks: halloween joke

Julie - The Rams Josh - How do you make a tissue dance?

Put a little boogie in it.

Allison - Why didn’t the skeleton cross the road?

Because it didn’t have any GUTS. Lauren - Why couldn't the ghost get the witch pregnant?

He had a hollow-weenie.

Wes - I'm not from St. Louis and I don’t understand this.

1

halloween

by Matt Hall **********

List found under a table at Foam Coffee & Beer, Sept. 1, 2016, 11:33 p.m., just after The Moon Zine's 1st Birthday Show

by Wes Harbison *************

2

"window"

by B.B. Nothing as the light comes in my window i wonder what's happening inside my head, whether it's registering emotion like i am. the blinds get to decide what i think about and what i dwell on through the night and into the next sometimes for days on end. until it does end... and it's as if nothing was even wrong in the first place. was it? i'm not even sure anymore. but that light keeps coming through and i shut my blinds for another time, sinking into the candlelight

5

Not Another Moon Song

by Trista Sullivan

I parked my car at the stop sign At the corner of Normal St and Cottage Grove, the one right

By Brashear Park. I kept my foot On the brake anyway.

I noticed that the moon that night Was crescent and the sun hadn't quite Fallen, so I said to the moon, I think it's pretty cool how frequently you change.

Noticing that cars began to line up Behind me, some honking, some drivers Calling loved ones maybe, I listened to Her response.

I am stuck in a rut.

Ah, I see. I replied.

The air was stiff for a moment, as We both waited for the other to speak.

You and I have more in common than You think. I broke it, and she sighed in relief.

I looked up and she was gone, and I smiled.

It's nice to have friends.

I thought to myself.

6

Review of Basements in D-Level Slasher Films by Jeffy Denight

All reviews by Richard “Knifey” McAndrews.

Texarkana Chain-sas Massacre (1987)

Overall, the aesthetics in Jean-Bob Philippe's Texarcana Chain-sas Massacre are about as well crafted as this film’s premise. In this knock-off of Hooper’s ‘74 classic, Philippe’s relocates Leatherface and his kin to Texarckana, Texas / Texarkana, Arkansas. Due to a legal loophole (re: plothole) that you could drive a VW Bus through, Leatherface lives in the basement under both cities, unable to be charged for crimes in committed in the neighboring state. As lines cross in this slasher flickcourtroom drama clusterfrick, the audience is left with little more than jump gags in this jumbled plot.

While structurally this film is flimsy, one redeeming element remains buried deep in the Texarkana soil. The homebase of Ol’ Leathers is meticulously crafted-- from Grandpa’s Remington hung or’ the mantel to the animal carcases strung through the hell cellar, scenic designer Mat Lofton clearly paid attention to the fine details. The carcases even match the local 9

Texarkana wildlife, which is different than the original locale of central Texas! Amazing to consider when you remember this was filmed outside of Fargo.

As is signature of Lofton, the best design elements comes out in the subtleties.

Geologists and soilenthusiasts will quickly remind you of the acute differences between Texas and Arkansas goundsoil-- I mean, how could you confuse a ultisol with an alfisol?

I can assure that Lofton took mind, as his keen design delineates the basement’s transition from Texan to Arkansasan. With that level of detail, Philippe’s directorial decision to mark the stateline with swine entrails

falls heavy-handed, an unconscious reminder that he believes his audience less intelligent than we actually are.

2 Stabs of 5 Just Murdered (1993)

Each time I begin a Miri Li film, I wonder to myself through the title sequence how she will top (or, at the very least, match) her film prior.

And each time as I complete one, I apologize for ever questioning her capabilities. The same goes for Li’s ghost story, Just Murdered, her first attempt at the genre and instant classic. In this film, newlyweds Yung Pok and Juan-Yi’s lives are cut short the night before their honeymoon; to lay themselves to rest, they must avenge their grisly end.

Everything here is top notch, as you’d expect from a Li. From the storyline down to the costumes, Li leaves nothing untouched by her autor vision. While the plot takes us to a myriad of locales, Don Guar’s basement feels the pinnacle of set design.

While we only spend a mere 5 minutes of screentime in

the killer’s dungeon, the detail Li puts into this set demands acknowledgement. It’s easy to get caught up in the psychopath’s notebook wallpapering -- which, may I mention, was all hand scribed in blood -- or the mound of individually carved crucifixes. But, in my opinion, the backstory to many of these choices is far more interesting. Sources confirm that the candled altar, with it’s thousands of melted candles dripping off edges to form waxy stalactites, was hand-crafted by ex-Amish Satanists and each candle was lit individually as an effigy to a restless soul. And that’s just the beginning-- to delve into every aspect could cover an entire book, let alone this review. A set of this magnitude took an exceptional amount of work. And yet, all of it is destroyed in a fast-paced combat chase, proving once again that Li is not a sentimental director.

In my heart of hearts, I love this movie dearly-- possibly deeper than any such film of it’s kind. Though, as avid readers will know, I don’t give out 5 stabs. So, after no deliberation and great honor, I give this film: 4 Stabs out of 5

Director’s Cut (2015)

So. This is a review I’ve been avoiding for months. My brother, Arthur, made a movie and he’s been asking me to review it since. I kept telling him that he wouldn’t want my opinion; that we should leave family matters in the skeleton closet. Yet, he continues to beg for my opinion in a review-- So, with great pain, I’ve happily obliged to publishing my opinion on his work.

In short, Director’s Cut bites.

It’s a slapped together piece of utter hogwash. Had the private premere not shown in my living room, I would have never let my eyes cast upon a second of the footage reel.

In this fifty minute slog, Arthur McAndrews subjects ten slasher film creator icons--

Wes Craven, John Carpenter, Sean S. Cunningham, among others-- to brutal murders in the likes of their killer’s signature move-- i.e. Craven is murdered in a dream, Carpenter is stabbed while having premarital teenage sex, etc.

Worse, he’s assaulted these heroes with slapdash acting and a tasteless portrayal.

My feelings of the plot, the acting, and cinematography aside, the basements in this film are wretched.

For one, they’re all one basement; my basement. Any patsy would be able to tell at a glance that each location was one in the same. It’s like you didn’t even try! Dad’s golf clubs are propped in about half of the shots. In the final cut, you can see mom ogling proudly in the Chippendale mirror reflection. When Tom Holland is killed, blood splatters on a framed picture of me with my Cabbage Patch Doll-- was that supposed to be Tom as a child in a sorry attempt at reaching “depth” or was it an attack at me, because while you’re dishonoring my heroes, why not take a quick swipe at your older brother as well, huh? Huh? 0 Stabs out of 5.

10

"flipped up and flipped out poem" by Ollie They

fed up and filed out sign me up sign me up TONITE im redy to go when i was a little kid i remember being terrified when i was a little kid i remember finding a dead body and its eyes were still open so i pulled down its eyelids but it looked unnatural so i sat there for 1 hour trying to move its eyebrows so that it would look like it was closing its eyes on purpose and someone didnt force them closed i wasnt afraid of anything when i was a little kid a burnt spot (but only on the inside)

PUNCHING BAG

by Bob Boston ************

13

from the series Ded Weight

by Kyle Izded ***********

15

EDEN

by Xena Colby I dreamed-Education was a sham to keep the pupils dilating.

Keep attention, time-making.

Keep us moving, gyrating.

I dreamed-Consciousness could be awakened.

Life was an eternity, ever-changing.

Costumes & drama, multiple personas-We recreated Eden.

I don’t want to need heaven with you.

I don’t want to make you swallow the truth.

I dreamed-Nothing is ugly as it seems.

Everything that looks alike Just lost that link between.

There’s one thing that I still know-Electricity rules us all.

That precious volt inside my chest, To expel or to arrest, To obey & to pretend I am worth more than it says.

When I die I’ll be a bird Flying through your dreams.

Don’t question me, I never speak.

I left you this poem, it’ll never break Like I do.

Costs more than you think to speak the truth.

17

18

by Lauren Kellett

**************

19

20

22

I have passed this for many days on the floor of my apartment.

I picked it up today.

--------------------------------------------------I think it is important

found in my apartment in 2014

by Julie Davis ***********

24

dogbrain

by Julie Davis ***********

26

Strange Gentlemen 1

by Patrick Weck *************

29

Strange Gentlemen 2

by Patrick Weck *************

30

spooky zine

by Ben Stegmann ***********

33

34

Three Funerals

by Katherine Beckner

37

I. You were made of buttermilk and nylon. I longed for your butterfly collection, the ivory, the black market vases.

Artifacts of you that I couldn’t understand.

I brought you tadpoles, lizard tails and was rewarded by a bit of fat to feed the herons.

You fed me carpaccio and other things my mother wouldn’t touch.

When you died, we found you three times before it was true.

On the night before your funeral, the cousins went to the beach and caught stone crabs for the last time, but I was still too young.

The funeral home was cold and heavy with the scent of apples and formaldehyde.

Your son kept taking pictures of your plastic face.

I was ashamed to be in my choir uniform, unveiled, in ill-fitting slacks.

And I didn’t learn how to cry until I heard my mother’s howls.

II. The nursing home smelled like piss, but you smelled like Pall Malls and grapefruit, even then.

My sandbar teacher of starfish anatomy and smoke rings.

The one who fed me wontons, slipped beer under the table.

Every time you sang to me, it was a different song.

It was the same song, Every time you sang to me.

You were murmuring Callooh! Callay!

When she died, and when you died too.

A year later and there are two urns with nothing in them.

We are at Arlington.

It is hot.

We finally put you or something in the ground.

III. Dead Cat sits in a small porcelain bowl, and washes off the ashes.

A dead man, who never taught me how to drive a tractor, is wearing bib overalls.

My father and I are the only ones in black.

It’s the most beautiful day of the summer, we are all eating watergate salad, fried chicken, and smiling.

We are all saying it’s been too long.

We are standing in a cemetery or a cornfield. Everything is bright.

Everything is blue and yellow.

My father with wet eyes. My grandmother with young tears, green and fast, the only sister.

I am watching a bird.

I mourn a man I do not know by rubbing my legs together.

38

Hi Print-Your-Own-Zine folks!

We want to take a second to say thanks! You could be doing anything else right now, but you’re doing this. Thanks for spending your time with The Moon Zine. If you have any questions, suggestions, or comments, let us know: themoonzine@gmail. com.

Some quick instruction: when you’re done reading this, cut the page right down the middle (hamburger style) and toss this half in the recycling. Take the other half and paste it on the very last inside page.

Or wherever you want! There are no rules!

Have a good day!!

-The Moon

Want to Submit to The Moon Zine?

Please do! Submissions are due by the 5th of each month for the

following month’s issue. See themoonzine.tumblr.com/HowtoSubmit for submission guidelines.

Contact The Moon Zine: themoonzine@gmail.com themoonzine.tumblr.com issuu.com/themoonzine

instagram.com/themoonzine twitter.com/themoonzine facebook.com/themoonzine

Credits & Notes front cover image: Bronson Murray by William H. Mumler (Object #: 84.XD.760.1.11)* back cover image: Mrs. Tinkham by William H. Mumler (Object #: 84.XD.760.1.7)* *Both cover images courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program. Look it up!

pop-ups: The Bats - ID: 003344033, The British Library; Soul with skeleton, pg 10 - “Image taken

from page 17 of 'The Lamentable Vision of the Devoted Hermit (written of a sadly deceived soul and its

body)...'”, ID: 000292125, The British Library; Skeleton doodle, seen above, by Brad Burger; Spooky image below - see "Soul with skeleton" above

textures: "texturefabrik-com-photocopies-vol-4_05.jpg" (pg 5-6), texturefabrik.com.

Other textures by The Moon Zine.

Thanks celebratorily to: Matt and Kelly at Foam, Jesse Markway, Chelsi Webster, Andrew Garces, Todd

Anderson, Syrhea Conway, Brad Burger, Neil Messmore, Matt Ziegler, Keenan Schott, Zach Looney for making our bday run smooth, sound good, and feel amazing!

eternally to: Everyone who has submitted content and/or helped us collage The Moon Zine

special thanks to: Maddie Smith, Jacque Davis, and Don Davis for additional printing assistance & The St. Louis Public Library for free printing services

made in saint louis, missouri, usa

“There

are

nights

when

the

wolves

are silent, and only the moon howls.�

- George Carlin

fREE