News of the Hatchers:  We are all hanging in there. Baby Katie had some nasty burns on her little hands from touching the front of the oven. It took a few weeks, and several trips to the special burn unit in Augusta, Ga, but she has healed up well. My OCD has calmed down a bit (hope mentioning that doesn’t jinx it!) and we are all in the middle of Advent, preparing for Christmas. I’m not exactly sure how we are preparing, but we are preparing. Meanwhile, I have a new podcast to recommend:  The Flicks That Church Forgot. It is helmed by a Baptist Minister in England and features reviews of horror films of various stripes, including a special Bigfoot episode that features three — count em — three Bigfoot movies. Lots of fun and it ain’t often you get to hear a review of The Howling from a Christian perspective. You can tune in via iTunes or head over to the podcast website at theflicksthatchurchforgot.podomatic.com.

“Religion has never made me happy; its no use shutting your eyes to the fact that the deeper you go, the more alone you will find yourself… Religion has never made me comfy. I have been in the deserts ten years. All deepened life is deepened suffering, deepened dreariness, deepened joy. Suffering and joy. The final note of religion is joy.”

“Christianity is a heroism. People seem sometimes to think it is a dear darling, not-to-be-grumpy, not-to-be-impatient, not-to-be-violent life; a sort of wishy-washy sentimental affair. Stuff and nonsense!”

Welcome to part two of our tribute to Mystery Science Theater 3000 in happy acknowledgement of the show’s 20th anniversary (sorry for this week’s delay). The great debate continues between those who feel the show is cynical and those who feel the show is perhaps only slightly cynical and those who believe the show is just plain fun and those who… well, you get the idea. As a very distant girlfriend once said to me, “You LIKE to think, don’t you?” Boy, she had me pegged, didn’t she? So join me, your loyal servant and ever lovin’ pop-culture maven, as I LIKE to think about MST3K.

Ahem! Well, then! Welcome to a new edition of excuse me, ghidorah in which we pause from our busy schedules to talk about Jack Kirby, the New Gods, DC Comic’s maxi-series Final Crisis, and, in particular, the Anti-Life Equation. If you have any thoughts to share about this episode, please feel free to post a reply to this here blog entry! Perhaps you can come up with your own attempt at a Pro-Life Equation! If that sounds confusing, listen to the podcast and all will be one in Darkseid!

At any rate, Yaniger has nailed a certain style of effervescent lowbrow cartooning and his work is well worth a look. I find the “horny businessman with martini in hand” stuff only mildly amusing, but there’s plenty of monsters, hillbillies, tiki gods and Beatniks, as well. You can find his book on Amazon or at Mister Retro. A selection of his illustrations can be found here, as well.

This is the famous Patterson film footage of an alleged Sasquatch marching thru a section of forest. Well, come to think of it, a rather blasted, barren section of forest. Anyhow, the footage has been stabilized. The effect is very interesting. Doesn’t really clear things up any better, in my opinion. But it sure is interesting to watch. On my computer, it took a while for the series of images to download, but once they did it replays again and again with greater fluidity, as it were.

This episode perplexes me. My intention was to try and explore Christian perspectives on suffering using The Mist as a sounding board — The Mist being a recent film adaptation of a Stephen King novella. Instead, I end up unpacking the religious “spin” to be found in the film, given religious weirdo Mrs. Carmody and humanist everyman hero David Drayton. I guess it’s difficult for me to talk about suffering when my family is having a tough time. Sort of like a sick man talking about nausea, or a man on a sailboat expounding on seasickness. Hmmmmm…. Anyhow, I’ll keep trying. CORRECTION: I said Nick Andros, a leader among the good guys in The Stand, was deaf and blind. That is incorrect. He is deaf and mute. He is blinded in one eye in the revised version of the book. My apologies - poor research on my part.

Anyhow, those of you who were introduced in the Seventies to writers like Manley Wade Wellman, Karl Edward Wagner, Hugh Cave, Frank Belknap Long, Russell Kirk, and artists like Steve Fabian and Lee Brown Coye will get a nostalgic kick out of this episode — while others will find new wonders to explore. I promise a more specifically King oriented finale next time with a bit of Flannery O’Connor thrown in the mix as well as specific reference to King’s recent film version of The Mist.

This episode is dedicated to Stuart David Schiff and Lee Brown Coye.

SHOW NOTES

1. Intro - Celebrate suffering!

2. Stephen King bio

3. Was it timing?

4. Predecessors

4. “Encroachment”

5. Our brothers and sisters in pain

A new episode - only a few weeks since the previous new episode! What gives?

Another three parter, that’s what! This time we take a look at Stephen King, focusing in particular on the question which seems to haunt the pages of his novels, supernatural or otherwise.

The question is simply this: How bad can it get?

In our attempt to sneak past the dragon and reach the Father of Souls, surely the reality of suffering is the greatest stumbling block for many, many people. The horrors of the previous century alone were truly apocalyptic, worthy of an End Times scenario. How could anything be worse than Nazi Germany and its “final solution”? And yet, as society mulls over such advances as “therapeutic cloning” new horrors loom just over the horizon. Never heard of it? Well, let’s just say that therapeutic cloning is not therapeutic for the clone. In fact, he or she is grown, God knows where or how, so that his or her organs may be harvested systematically as ready-made transplants for those lucky people, the non-clones. So here you have genocide-of-the-future which involves creating the people targeted for mass murder.

At any rate, the stumbling block is obvious: how could you possibly trust a Father of Souls who permits such horrors? Why go to him at all?

Certainly, Stephen King is asking this question. Certainly, anyone who has seen the film The Mist has this question in mind as he clicks Stop on the remote. The film goes further down the road to nihilism than King did in the original novella, but it’s a logical progression based on all that came before — especially given the role religion plays in both film and novella. But I won’t spoil it for you. Except to say not since the original Night of the Living Dead has life been portrayed in such a stark, horrific light — the film is utterly tone deaf to the hope many of us have in God. But then The Mist is also somewhat tone deaf when it comes to humor. Perhaps there is a connection.

At any rate, we don’t get so heavy-handed in this first episode of our Stephen King retrospective. Instead, we sprint through his biography and touch a bit on the origins of King’s particular brand of spookiness and horror. Dig in!

Also, I am using this post to update some settings at iTunes — so that the website link will take you to linthatcher.podbean.com. This will involve changing the upload settings, so those of you who are longtime listeners should update your iTunes subscription.

• Antiques Roadshow commentary

• Origins of excuse me, ghidorah

• Presuppositions and temptation

• Whose side is the chess board on?

• Star Wars saves us from the ’70s

• Getting past the dragon

A new episode has arrived!

After many ups and downs, challenges and crises, I managed to pull off another scintillating hour or so of rambling, earnest, pseudo-philosophical monologue. This time it’s back to the origins of the podcast — long ago, in a time of magic, etc. You can download the episode by right-clicking (PC) or control-clicking (Mac) the title “Whither Ghidorah?” above or, of course, visiting iTunes or Podcast Alley.

Actually, my wife, Susan, was very ill for a while there and podcasting took a back seat to sheer panic and constant prayer. Things are better, although there is still adjusting to meds and, oh yeah, a brand new baby on the way. That’s right, Hatcher critter number 4 is in the works. The fourth child is a strange, mystical intrusion — throwing off the back seat sitting order in the car, for example. Where does the fourth kid go? If we let kid number 3 get away with anything, what will we do with number 4? All that’s left is criminal activity — and that is out of the question, unless, of course, it involves smuggling Bibles into atheistic totalitarian countries. Or hopping swimming pools at Disney World.

If one of this podcast’s loyal listeners happens to be a publisher or agent and happens to feel one of the various trilogies is bookworthy, please get in touch with me at borderlinevoodoo@mac.com. I particularly think the Commodification trilogy and the Kitsch trilogy combined would make a great book, examining the wreckage of commodification and how graces still manage to shine through.

Finally, this here podcast blog is moving over to podbean.com. For a preview, take a look at http://linthatcher.podbean.com/

Just click on the download button below or use one of the links on the right to listen via your favorite podcast delivery thingee. Don’t forget to swing over to my odd little site: ChristianHalloweenFan.com. It’s a Halloween Hub for people who love dried leaves skittering across the sidewalk in a chill Autumn breeze and kids running around in spooky costumes. Much content to peruse. And don’t forget that you can really dive in to the Halloween controversy by purchasing my book, The Magic Eightball Test: A Christian Defense of Halloween and All Things Spooky. With all that money you’re not spending on gas. I hope you will find this episode amusing. It’s not the usual thing and is rather goofy. But I am worn to a frazzle and have to take a break from the usual Sturm und Drang. (The image by the way is by Howard Finster.)

Do you get high on low culture? Do you love the cheesy, the tacky, the schmaltzy, the whimsical, the goony? Bad movies, roadside attractions, miniature golf, vintage high school instructional films, black velvet paintings, underoos? Then give a listen!

Oh, the pain! Pt 2 of OCD Tips & Tricks.

“Tonight…on a very special…excuse me, ghidorah…” Lint shares his experience with OCD, including Stupid OCD Tricks like adding “with Ethel Merman” to the end of each intrusive thought. If you don’t get help from excuse me, ghidorah, please - get help somewhere. Sniff.

Our Halloween spooktacular commences with an excerpt from a new book, The Magic Eightball Test: A Christian Defense of Halloween and All Things Spooky (read by the author)! Also, details on the Fundamentalist Christian backlash against the book. Sounds too scary? What a wuss! (No, we didn’t forget about part 3 of Infinite Crisis. Just hang in there!)

It’s 1986. Do you know where your multiverse is?

Pt 1 Origins of the DC Comics Multiverse & other Infinite Crisis factoids.

If you are interested in Dr. Kreeft’s books, here is an Amazon search that includes titles like Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death wtih John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis & Aldous Huxley, Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal’s Pensees, A Shorter Summa: The Essential Philosophical Passages of Saint Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, Socrates Meets Jesus: History’s Greatest Questioner Confronts the Claims of Christ, The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind The Lord of the Rings, and Shadows of Imagination, Revised: The Fantasies of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams.

Interview with Peter Kreeft about C. S. Lewis and all things Inklings, Narnia, and/or Middle Earth. Please pardon the somewhat lackluster sound quality. This was salvaged from a 15 year old cassette tape.