Scary Urban Legends

Photo Credit:  Wikipedia

We all know 'em, don't we?  The friend of a friend of my cousin who....they all start out that way and always end badly for that sort-of person we kinda know. They even made a movie (or three) about it, then there was that television series that acted them out (badly) for you.

Let's talk about a few of these, shall we?  And remember to leave the light on....

The Clown Statue Murderer: An Urban Legend

The story of the clown statue murderer is an urban legend. It is not a true story but can spark fear in anyone who reads it. It has been passed around as a chain letter online since 2004.

Here is the story:

"A girl in her teens is babysitting for a family in Newport Beach, Ca. The family is wealthy and has a very large house - you know the sort, with a ridiculous amount of rooms. Anyways, the parents are going out for a late dinner/movie. The father tells the babysitter that once the children are in bed she should go into this specific room (he doesn't really want her wandering around the house) and watch TV there.

The parents take off and soon she gets the kids into bed and goes to the room to watch TV. She tries watching TV, but she is disturbed by a clown statue in the corner of the room. She tries to ignore it for as long as possible, but it starts freaking her out so much that she can't handle it.

She resorts to calling the father and asks, "Hey, the kids are in bed, but is it okay if I switch rooms? This clown statue is really creeping me out."

The father says seriously, "Get the kids, go next door and call 911."

She asks, "What's going on?"

He responds, "Just go next door and once you call the police, call me back."

She gets the kids, goes next door, and calls the police. When the police are on the way, she calls the father back and asks, "So, really, what's going on?"

He responds, "We don't HAVE a clown statue." He then further explains that the children have been complaining about a clown watching them as they sleep. He and his wife had just blown it off, assuming that they were having nightmares.

The police arrive and apprehend the "clown," who turns out to be a midget. A midget clown! I guess he was some homeless person dressed as a clown, who somehow got into the house and had been living there for several weeks. He would come into the kids' rooms at nights and watch them while they slept. As the house was so large, he was able to avoid detection, surviving off their food, etc. He had been in the TV room right before the babysitter right came in there. When she entered he didn't have enough time to hide, so he just froze in place and pretended to be a statue.

Yeah.  As I said earlier on a discussion group, between IT and John Wayne Gacy, I don't have any time for clowns.

And another to make your hair stand on end.  This is an oldie but a still a goodie:

The Killer in the Backseat....

One night a woman went out for drinks with her girlfriends. She left the bar fairly late at night, got in her car and onto the deserted highway. After a few minutes she noticed a lone pair of headlights in her rear-view mirror, approaching at a pace just slightly quicker than hers. As the car pulled up behind her she glanced and saw the turn signal on — the car was going to pass — when suddenly it swerved back behind her, pulled up dangerously close to her tailgate and the brights flashed.

Now she was getting nervous. The lights dimmed for a moment and then the brights came back on and the car behind her surged forward. The frightened woman struggled to keep her eyes on the road and fought the urge to look at the car behind her. Finally, her exit approached but the car continued to follow, flashing the brights periodically.

Through every stoplight and turn, it followed her until she pulled into her driveway. She figured her only hope was to make a mad dash into the house and call the police. As she flew from the car, so did the driver of the car behind her — and he screamed, "Lock the door and call the police! Call 911!"

When the police arrived the horrible truth was finally revealed to the woman. The man in the car had been trying to save her. As he pulled up behind her and his headlights illuminated her car, he saw the silhouette of a man with a butcher knife rising up from the back seat to stab her, so he flashed his brights and the figure crouched back down.

The moral of the story: Always check the back seat!

Yes, they're (mostly) not true, but don't they give you a shiver?

Pleasant Dreams!

Dahlia

The Sultry Scribe

Movie Quotes

I am an unabashed movie queen.  Let me correct that.  I am an unabashed classic movie queen.  Perhaps I'm

 bit too old to appreciate the newer movies of today, but the movies that really MOVE me are the ones that have juicy, meaty stories that stay with me long after. I am not ashamed that I spend way too much time on the imdb.com message boards.

Certainly, however, I am no movie snob.  I'm not above screening The Expendables 1 AND 2.  I mean, a girl's got to have her fun, right? I couldn't possibly turn down the chance to see most of the major action stars of the 80s and 90s.

But I digress.  Movie quotes.  Let's take a look a look at some of my favorites and add some of your own in the comments, if you've a mind to.  Do it, it'll be fun!


"I am big! It's the pictures that got small." Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) Sunset Boulevard, 1950  (One of the original divas.)

"You're gonna need a bigger boat." Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) Jaws, 1975 (This was an ad-lib, not in the orginal script)

"We rob banks." Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) Bonnie and Clyde, 1967

"Here's Johnny!" Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) The Shining, 1980 (This was an ad-lib, not in the original script.)

"You talkin' to me?"  Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro) Taxi Driver, 1976 (This was an ad-lib, not in the original script.)

"Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night." Margo Channing (Bette Davis) All About Eve, 1950

"They call me Mister Tibbs!" Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) In the Heat of the Night, 1967

"Is it safe?" Dr. Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier) Marathon Man, 1976 (This scene can really turn you off dentists.)

"Open the pod bay doors please, HAL." Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968

"Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!" Mame Dennis (Rosalind Russell) Auntie Mame, 1958 (This is so true!)

"Go ahead, make my day." Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) Sudden Impact, 1983 (Didn't care for the movie, but between the dog and this quote, it's barely tolerable.)


Don't be shy, put yours in the comments.

Dahlia
http:/thesultryscribe.com

Five Ways to Change Your Life...Right Now

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"C'mon turn, turn this thing around

Right now

It's your tomorrow

Right now."

 - Van Halen, Right Now

Everyone gets stuck in a rut.  You might be in a rut right now.  Though I may not know your specific situation, I know that moaning and groaning about it isn't going to help anything change.  Change comes from you. 

It's easy to change your life...and you can do it anytime, anywhere.

1.        Eat the dirt cake - in small bites. 

If I were a superhero, my nemesis would be a messy house.  With three little ones and a dog, who are all totally cool, the house is never, ever clean.  There's spills, there's dog hair, there's ...something on the kitchen floor.

By the time I bundle them off to school, all I want to do is have a cup of coffee and write.  But I can't do that or else I'd be sledding out of the kitchen on dishes.  So, I promise myself five minutes in the kitchen.

 Not as fun as seven minutes in the closet, but it's amazing what I can accomplish in that small window of time.  Sometimes (only sometimes) I set the timer for another five minutes to see if I can top what I did in the first five minutes.  By doing this, I'm not overwhelmed by a dirty kitchen  and it's a bit of a challenge. 

2.        Appreciate the small things in life.

Too many times we look for large "things" to make us happy.  How about appreciating that great cup of coffee, a fragrant breeze or just the time to sit and hear your own thoughts.  Don't be too busy to take the time to smell the roses, or dark roast.  I'm fortunate enough to have birds hang out around my deck, and many times I'll spot a lovely bluejay or a robin.  One time I saw a beautiful red headed woodpecker!

3.        Stop reliving the past.

See what Van Halen says? (Because I always turn to them for advice.)   It's YOUR tomorrow.  Grab it, make use of it.  Turn your face toward the future, stop mulling over  "what could have been".  All of us have something to let go of.  Let it go.

4.        Raise your Awareness

After you finish reading this blog post (smile) sit back and close your eyes .  What do you hear?  How do your clothes feel against your body?  How does it feel to breathe deep, really deep?  What do you smell? 

Take sixty seconds to be fully aware.  Feel, hear, smell, look outside (if you can).  Really sense what is going on in the world around you.  You might be surprised at what you experience.

5.        See yourself in others.

We are all human and have faults.  We're not perfect.  So when we see something we don't like or agree with, we do tend to point fingers and judge.  Having been a teacher for years and seeing parents come and go, I know how easy it is to do.  But before you point those fingers, can you see yourself in this person?  If so, step away, keep the bitter, blaming words back.  Give someone a break.  They may have the occasion to do the same for you in the future.

Choose change!

Ten Successful Authors Speak to You

You have to be a reader to be a writer, at least that's what I always thought. You have to read the styles of others, find out what you enjoy, find out what you don't enjoy and mold/craft your own style to showcase your unique voice.

It's also important to read in many different genres to see what other writers are doing with different subjects. Ed McBain, the author of the 87^th Precinct series, had a writing style that was short and to the point, but also delivered a lot of information in very few words. His word pictures were easy to imagine because he provided just enough detail. Same goes for Robert B. Parker, Raymond Chandler, and some of Octavia Butler's works.

C.S. Lewis has a markedly different style. Where as Ed McBain is quick and hard-bitten, I find that C.S. Lewis offers a softer, more descriptive style. He sets you firmly in his scene and continues to add nuances of smell, sight and sound even as you read. When you finish reading a scene in his books, its almost as if you've been there.

Alice Hoffman is the magical word spinner, the one who transports you with the unique juxtaposition of her words and usage. She puts two disparate things together, writes about words cutting your tongue and people smelling of burnt lemon sugar.

These authors wrote in whatever style spoke to them – and you should too.

Ten quotes from successful authors – some about writing and some not...

"Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. " — Raymond Chandler

"If your writing doesn’t keep you up at night, it won’t keep anyone else up either".— James M. Cain

"Writer's block? I've never heard of a plumber complain about plumber's block." — Robert B. Parker

"Avoid Prologues. They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword." — Elmore Leonard

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot." — Stephen King

“Books may well be the only true magic.” ― Alice Hoffman

"You can make anything by writing." — C.S. Lewis

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” ― Madeleine L'Engle

"First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice." — Octavia E. Butler
The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. --Anaïs Nin

Bonus:  Never be afraid to sit a while and think.--Lorraine Hansberry

Find me on the web.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett – Feminist Threat

Before you read this blog post, you need to know that I used to be a teacher. Well, I suppose I still am, given that I have children, I guess I'd better be a teacher. Now that the warning is out of the way, let me let you in on another secret: I don't believe in history months. History is the past from which we all have emerged, and it is of dire importance that all history is taught, in its appropriate context. Teaching science? Don't forget the contributions of all scientists, not just the “popular ones”. Dig deeper and learn something new.

This year was the 100^th anniversary of the March, 1913 suffrage parade in Washington that was

staged to coincide with Woodrow Wilson's inauguration. Many woman's groups gathered in Washington to recreate this parade and celebrate how far women have come since the original march. Nice, right? Did you know that the organizers of the march wanted the black women to march in the back?

Let's take a closer look, without the rose colored glasses. Woman's suffrage was not for all women. The National American Woman's Suffrage Association, in order to play nice with the southern women, requested that the black women march in the back of the parade rather than with their state delegations.

Mary Church Terrell, another leader of the black woman's suffrage, agreed to “make nice”. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, who bit a train conductor who tried to forcibly remove her from a train car after she refused to leave the ladies' car for a smoker car, refused. This was a woman who had written several pamphlets condemning the practice of lynching and lived under death threats. She was not going to pander to the wishes of a few southern women.

Refusing to conform, she “hid out” until her delegation had passed, then surged into the group of white women – some hostile, some not – and took her rightful place in the Illinois group. According to the timeline on the site http://idabwells.org, her actions began the integration of the movement. She also had to be protected from the other women in the delegation who were, ah, slightly peeved that a Negro woman dared  march among their ranks, after she had been explicitly told not to.

Now that's bravery.

It is unfortunate that Mrs. Wells-Barnett isn't a more prominent figure in history, especially in the context of women's suffrage and the civil rights movement. Mind you, many of the websites that give biographies of Mrs. Wells-Barnett either gloss over the march, or don't mention it at all. However, a bit of research can reveal how forward thinking and courageous this woman really was, to take on men (black and white) AND white women.

Further Reading:

Ida B. Wells: Civil Rights Activist
When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America

Ida B. Wells: Crusade for Justice
Ida B. Wells Memorial Foundation