Treats for the Specter

by Alexis Faulkner

ghost is chasing me

I jump in a bush real quick

Hide and go seek, freak

by Chris Alarie

help help help a ghost
know what
no what
help help help a ghost

where is a skull
where is your skeleton
no not the one you are
but the one you have
where is it

somebody found
a body in the creek
behind the church
on the courthouse steps
a long black veil
a sleepy hollow
a good god damn story
a spooky fucking ghost

by Douglas Slayton

when the weather changes
the children become unruly

when the sun sets
they have their weight in sweets

when they get to my door
they are in for a treat

when the headline reads
"thirty missing."


Alexis Faulkner is Executive Skeleton-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine. 
Chris Alarie is Senior Spook-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.
Doug Slayton is a pumpkin.

Halloween Penguins

by Chris Alarie

Chris Alarie is Senior Ghoul-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

Some Oakland Ghost Stories

by Chris Alarie

Ten years ago, while I was a student at California College of the Arts, I lived in the Webster Hall dormitory, which was housed in the top two floors of the Oakland YWCA building. The building itself was beautiful—designed by Julia Morgan and built in 1915. But the building was also home to some supernatural residents. During the year that I lived there, I gathered a number of ghost stories and legends about the building at 1515 Webster Street in Oakland. In honor of the spooky holiday, I thought I'd share a few.

The Basement

The basement of the building was definitely one of the creepier places I've ever been and, unsurprisingly, there are a number of stories about that part of the building. One of my dorm mates worked part time for the YWCA and told me that the employees had frequent problems with the gym located down there. She said that she would close everything down and lock it at night, only to find the doors wide open, the lights turned on, and the radio blaring in the morning. In fact, this was such a consistent problem that the YWCA had invested in a series of increasingly complex locks, as they assumed that a person was sneaking down and opening the gym. Of course, those locks do no good against a ghost and the employees would continue to find the gym open in the mornings.

Similarly mysterious late night happenings would occur elsewhere in the basement. A number of my classmates reported hearing the showers running and seeing steam coming from the locker rooms late at night, long after the building had been closed to the public and at a time of night when it would have made no sense for any of us residents to be using those showers (we had showers of our own up on the 4th and 5th floors).

The laundry room was also located in the basement and became a rather creepy place late at night. There was a locked door in the back of the room that seemed to lead to the back of the elevator shaft. Periodically, a large, blood-like stain would appear from underneath the door. The YWCA employees would clean it but it would reappear within a few days. A friend of mine told me that when she was doing laundry late one night, the handle of the door started shaking and turning violently, as if someone inside was trying to get out. She tried to ignore it and focus on her laundry but the shaking wouldn't stop and she became so disconcerted that she had to leave.

The Upper Floors

I lived up on the fifth floor, in a room that faced inward toward the atrium. I learned that a despondent young woman had hanged herself in the room next to mine in the 1940s. Accordingly, the resident of the room while I lived there told me that a number of strange occurences would happen, including a disembodied voice and a tendency for her windows to unlock and fly open on their own (the windows opened outward, making it unlikely that the wind was the cause).

Windows seemed to be a frequent target of the building's ghosts' activities. Another friend who lived elsewhere on the fifth floor told me that she was alone in her room one night when her window unlocked itself and started opening and closing on its own. This was particular unusual as it was a window that opened and closed by sliding up and down. Like my friend in the laundry room, she tried to ignore it until it became too overwhelming and she left.

There was a ballroom on the second floor that also seemed to be home to some vague but decidedly creepy energy. There was a beautiful grand piano in the back of the room and occasionally students would go in there to play it. A friend of mine once entered the room with that intention but he noticed that the lights would dim the closer that he got to the piano. This was particularly disconcerting as the room's lights were not equipped with a dimmer switch. My friend, who is not particularly likely to believe in ghosts or invent supernatural stories, said he felt an undefinable, threatening energy and left the room in a haste. I heard of another student who had a similar experience where he bolted up from the piano and ran out of the room when he noticed a figure looming over him from behind the room's curtains.

The Pool

Without question, the creepiest place in the building was the abandoned pool in the basement. The pool was visible through windows along the building's main staircase and I would often find myself peeking out at it while walking up to my room. The room was always dark and foreboding, with the pool itself a dark, empty hole in the middle of the room. The story that I heard was that the pool had been closed some three decades earlier when two young boys—in some versions of the story, they were brothers—drowned and the YWCA had to close the pool when they could not afford the raised insurance premiums. 

I met a number of students from over the years who insisted that they had either seen or heard the boys' ghosts running around in and around the pool. One student had even come face to face with them after she had gone into the pool, with the YWCA's permission, to take some photos for a project. Needless to say, she did not stay in the pool to finish the project as intended.

Ultimately, these may not be the most exciting or frightening ghost stories. But having lived in the Oakland YWCA building and having heard many of these stories directly from the people who experienced them, I can say that the building is hella haunted. I'm sure other students who have lived there in the ten years since I moved out could add stories of their own. Happy Halloween.

Chris Alarie is Senior Ghost-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

A Halloween Song

by Chris Alarie

As part of the Uncanny Valley Magazine Halloween Extravaganza, we've got our own original, brand new Halloween song in the tradition of "The Monster Mash" and "Mind Playing Tricks on Me". Check it out! (You should be able to download it for fre, as well, by clicking the ⬇️ icon in the upper right corner).

Chris Alarie promises that he is not a ghost. Yet.

Three Memory Poems

by the Editorial Staff of Uncanny Valley Magazine

Memory Tantrum and I'm Not Lost

by Alexis Faulkner

All of the facts

The equation, it adds up

When the sultan is discovered deep in the mind’s storage facility

Entertain the oldest thoughts about the ghost

That’s right, I found the ghost and it told me

A story in the East Village

Or perhaps it was Washington Square Park

These translucent spirits are always thugs

Watch your wallet

BLESS
by Chris Alarie

GOD BLESS FALSE MEMORIES

REVEAL UNTO US THE FALLACIES

AT THE SWEETENED, BEATING HEART OF

   PERCEPTION

   TIME

   EXPERIENCE

   EXISTENCE

ALL THE TIME

THAT WE ARE WRONG
WE ARE THANKFUL

open windows
by Douglas Slayton

i carried it around
for most of a year

i still think sometimes
of the nights i walked
through crowded streets
thinking of what might be

no ride was alone
there were no cold nights

when everything crashed
i sat on that street for hours
messing up traffic

Alexis Faulkner is Executive Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine. 
Chris Alarie is Senior Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.
Doug Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

Lymphoma

by Chris Alarie

Chris Alarie is Senior Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

My Important Podcast with Chris Alarie: Episode 11

by Chris Alarie

This week we bring in a new guest to the podcast.



Chris Alarie is Senior Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.
Steve Alarie estimates that 80% of the pennies he finds on the ground are tails up.

Three Experience Poems

by the Editorial Staff of Uncanny Valley Magazine

How

by Chris Alarie


To be present

   in any one moment

To inhabit

   the spectre of the self

To live within

   the concept of linear time

To traverse the

   vast ocean of doubt

To accept the

   brute fact at the heart of existence

To know that

   anything is

To be present




Dream Trails

by Alexis Faulkner

Two feet touch the ground: awake

Snap around, peel off a piece of the night fuzz

Where I was, how ever it all fit together,

Sun-striped flag of beach weather or

The flakes of the snow peeling away from the sky

Floating into squint slice of my eye

Arms folded overhead and being cleaned

Take to patience and adjust, clear list, no fuss

A cloud of dust, the being was a cloud of moving pieces

Truth, in dreams, rare to reach them

This nightmare echoes, released in my shower

Fleece freaks within the hour

Dodging foreign objects at ground level, stuck in this hell

Faith writ final and reached not easy

Be walking around in the daytime, be slack

Movements patterned against black, though hardly as darkness

Still sleeping, not sparked yet

Watching neighbors, envied as zoetic  

Which thoughts have they to reach sudden presence


sentimentality is the best part of nostalgia

by Douglas Slayton


i only go so far

without looking back.

collecting all the years

as lines, up and down me.

there are small rocks

that rattle in my shoes

but start with planters

or construction work.

my movements slow,

when i wave from side

to side

like the sea at your feet

the day you realize

your own size.

i can't fill that space

that was my shape before.

Alexis Faulkner is Executive Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine. 
Chris Alarie is Senior Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.
Doug Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

A Handsome Tastemaker

by Chris Alarie

Chris Alarie is Senior Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

Three Wine Poems

by the Editorial Staff of Uncanny Valley Magazine

In Wine Country

by Alexis Faulkner

Dead field in a land flash
Wine-beaten and weathered in the late season’s sun
Who begs most for the water cast
From the clouds on the one

Wish of these golden hills
Globe glass waiting for deep, rich liquid
Pride of the fair skinned and faith-filled
Hard to remember what last night we all did

Most of all the earth demands waiting
Manicure the offerings to be rows upon rows
Ask for peace from labor and with it patience bring
To me the wealth and then land once more to sew

One time a prayer for the worker
Seen waiting only for the work

Tele-(communications)-machus
by Chris Alarie

As Odysseus looked
Out at the wine dark sea
He checked his phone & sighed
It seems the one challenge
He could not overcome
Was simple loneliness
What a fucking loser

The Flat of the Knife
by Douglas Slayton

it was the view
i didn't appreciate
but watched everyone
revel near that cliff

there have been walks since
they are always longer

i have been standing in the mirror
still finding evidence

i sit still sometimes
when the air is cool
and the light is obscured

i reconsider constantly
the way it tasted sweet
it must have been thick
in your blood

it lingered
on my fingers for days
sticky and inconsistent
leading me to misconceptions

Alexis Faulkner is Executive Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine. 
Chris Alarie is Senior Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.
Doug Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

Sicario: a Subtle Yet Brutal Thriller

by Alexis Faulkner

Sicario is a disturbingly realistic depiction of a complicated CIA mission involving a Mexican drug cartel and a few FBI agents from Arizona. Emily Blunt stars as Kate, Mercer, a strikingly tough, intelligent and tactically talented leader of a kidnap-rescue FBI task force who struggles with the morality of the CIA’s actions and her own involvement in their plans. The movie is well cast; the varied intensity of the actors adds to the realistic portrayal of law enforcement. Benicio del Toro is both menacing and stoic as the titular character, a hit man with transient loyalties and no particular adherence to any moral code or legal jurisdiction. The leader of CIA special task force, played by Josh Brolin, contrasts del Toro sharply with his smug, gum-chewing, flip-flop wearing, almost overdone air of nonchalance. Blunt is particularly strong as she gives a character with few lines plenty of depth. Her mix of confidence and confusion shows just how disorienting it is to live in a world filled with violent criminals like Manuel Diaz, played by Bernardo Saracino, and mysterious enforcers like Alejandro (del Toro).

Dialogue is sparse throughout the movie; the director focuses on movement and imagery, and we can be thankful for this, as some of lines are cheesy and lack the subtly present in the other elements of the film. Before Kate knows much about their mission, Alejandro says to Kate, “Nothing will make sense to your American ears, and you will doubt everything that we do, but in the end you will understand.” Perhaps if there were more dialogue between characters, this line wouldn’t stand out. However, because Alejandro says very little in the movie, it sounds overly dramatic and cartoonish. This detracts from the film’s overall realism, however, Alejandro warns the audience, along with Kate, of the grisly action ahead.

My favorite aspect of the movie is the way the director builds suspense by allowing the audience to see only what Kate sees. She doesn’t discover the purpose of her involvement in a mysterious mission until well after she participates in the violence it precipitates. Minimal dialogue paired with constant visual action keeps the audience guessing as to where the mission will take the team next and what the consequences will be. The cinematography is striking and captures much of the brutal landscape from first person perspective: shots from a car crossing the border back into Texas from Mexico, shots of the cities most recent victims of violence hanging from the highway in Juarez as seem from a car, shots of the surrounding desert in Mexico and Texas. Director of photography Roger Deakins contrasts these immersive angles with direct aerial shots of vehicles moving back and forth across the border. In a most transcendent scene, the audience is seemingly sent into battle themselves when Deakins uses a night vision effect, and we see through the eyes of the agents searching the desert and heading into an underground tunnel. This mix of film techniques gives us a credible look into life in Juárez and adds to the intensity of the film.

Overall, the movie survives not on story but on feeling— the plot is interesting enough to keep us guessing, but even after the hero has his final moment, there is no sense of absolute resolution. This makes the movie’s realism more impactful. The characters can move on to their next objective, but the audience is left to wonder just how long drug related violence on the Mexico-Texas border will continue. 

Alexis Faulkner is Executive Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine and in-house film critic. 

Water Haiku

RIVER WEST

By Kristopher Nope

I don't know water

Palm at the top, slip hand out

So it's not stained glass

Wonder Ocean 

By Alexis Faulkner

Peace being offered

In waves, the moon’s dearest friend
A blanket for Earth 

Alexis Faulkner is Executive Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine. 

Kristopher Nope was born on Catalina Island. Blue Ribbon Rowing Champion 2008, Crater Lake. SS Andrea Doria survivor. Accomplished essayist. 

 

Three Water Poems

by the Editorial Staff of Uncanny Valley Magazine

All of the Earth's Liquid

by Alexis Faulkner

 

Today South Carolina is

Submerged in the world’s greatest indicator of

Well-being

There is no greater pull on my conscience

Than the ocean

Large waves against earth walls

I dream about running

Sprinting down splintered piers

Wood breaks apart as my bare toes lift off each board

Falling away behind me

Leave me to a dark sea in the middle of nothing

Peace be the spirit that water dedicates

To the human body

Memory

Repetitive motion, please wake us when

The waves are coming on too strong

Water forces us to stay present

To look at the fortune consumed, the resources

We must stand near the ancient cycle of movement

Eyes open and waiting for our turn to swim

It is easy to feel large on the land

It is easy to be lost in the sea


Kill Van Kull
by Chris Alarie

The divide between where I am now
And where I would like to be
Doesn't seem to be as wide as the bay
Between Oakland & San Francisco
It's more like the Kill Van Kull
Or even the estuary
Between Oakland & Alameda
But the bridge is gone                      
And I can't swim                     
(That is a lie. I can swim.
I just can't swim very well.)

Oh sure, NASA can find
Evidence of water on Mars
But I can't find a god damn job

Open Container Ordinance

by Douglas Slayton 

i know i don't
but have been saying for so long
i need it to sleep
when i have slept every night regardless
if i lay here long enough
i just want all of this to be over
even if just for an hour

and in the morning
water pours over me
filling every empty space
left in the interim

for that moment i am fresh or new
or whole
even if just for a moment
again

Photo by Alexis Faulkner

Alexis Faulkner is Executive Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine. 
Chris Alarie is Senior Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.
Doug Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

Coastal California

 by Alexis Faulkner

Alexis Faulkner is Executive Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

My Important Podcast with Chris Alarie: Episode 10

by Chris Alarie

On this week's "My Important Podcast", a role reversal is afoot.




Chris Alarie is Senior Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.
Doug Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

Three Blood Poems

by the Editorial Staff of Uncanny Valley Magazine

Super Blood Moon photo by Benjamin Stark

Blood
by Alexis Faulkner

Humans are mostly liquid

Had I longer planted myself

In a familiar landscape

My blood might have hardened

And kept me quiet and still

Tomorrow

In the evening

The moon fills with blood

Only then to hide in the Earth’s shadow

In New York

The sky will be cool and clear

And the moon will be bright

Barely bright enough to be another light in the landscape

That can hold our attention just long enough

To read its meaning

And carry on with the counting of our kingdom’s gloried pieces

Days passed that tomorrow

A new sense of blood pain

Feeling woven into the feminine landscape

Feeling forgotten and feeling tiny but not without a home

Warmed by the shared responsibility to keep our blood contained

Lifted by the shared passion to show off our wounds

Remembering the blood moon and the newness shown afterwards

Showered in the light of that big moon

I saw a distant path

And suddenly it appeared underneath me

To bridge the unknown with bold spirit

Would be to map my own blood onto dreams

And to chase life with new, bright bliss

Blood
by Chris Alarie

Our life's blood that sustains us
Will someday portend our doom
In Revelations, John writes,
"And there came a great earthquake
The sun became black as sackcloth
The full moon became like blood"

Individual bodies
We will die, we will bleed out
Lividity will set in
Blood will pool, coagulate
Red and blue, black and purple
Blood tells us that life ends

But blood, like death, connects us
With each other and also
With the creatures great and small
That populate existence
Warm and cold blooded, even
The stupid, stupid horses

12:35pm, August 27th
by Douglas Slayton

there is more of you inside
than there is me.
racing from my chest
to my fingers
but i still can't feel a thing.

i have known more doubt
than anything else.
swallowing smoke
with the sugar metabolizing,
my head is swimming
but i am sinking.

touch my arm the way you did,
again, and feel me run cold.

Alexis Faulkner is Executive Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine. 
Chris Alarie is Senior Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.
Doug Slayton is Professor Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.

A Critical Reappraisal

by Chris Alarie

Chris Alarie is Senior Editor-in-Chief of Uncanny Valley Magazine.