In This lssue: it FM Interview : Larry Rickels — Page 3A

rip Craig Weinberg’s Halloween — Page2A it The Return of Mystic Comics — Page 2A I

An F.T. Resident Encounters a ‘Spirit’1 Brenda Plummer Contributor

Note: The following story is one of the odder I've seen in my days at the Nexus. A disclaimer, however We don’t know if the sources are telling the truth, and probably never will. Friday Magazine does not intend to imply that F.T.'s B North is haunted by any kind of apparition.) is roommates called it a "kind of H erotic episode of 'The Twilight Zone.'" Alex (he requested his real name not be used) lived at Francisco Torres’ 8 North, and believes he had some rather strange encounters with a rather sexual ghost for about two weeks last year, right around Halloween. Farfetched as it seems, he insists it happened. "I know better. There's a spiritual presence walking the dorm," he said Monday over sandwiches at Subway. Let's return to October 1986, late on a Monday night, when the "ghost" made her presence, shall we say, felt. Alex, a self-described borderline insomniac, drifted off to sleep. Then he felt a pressure on his chest. Drifting in and out of sleep, he didn't think much of the ever-increasing force that he said felt like a hand pushing down on him. A few seconds later, he felt pressure on his lips. He was being kissed by this presence. Alex tried to explain. "Nothing was there but yet there was a pressure against my face," he said as he pushed his hand up against his lips, pausing as he selected the right words. "There was no temperature to it.... It was unlike anything I've ever felt." The morning after, Alex tried to explain to his roommates what had happened. "I was not asleep. I was awake," he insisted. Mark, his room­ mate of less than a month, laughed upon hearing the story, as did Jim, a suite-mate and friend of six years. It didn't matter that he could tell the story with a completely straight face and (See GHOST GUEST?, p.2A)

Mjj$ 2A Friday, October 30,1967 D aily N exi

According to Mark, Alex looked might have been from 8 North," one composing songs for fun. They began shaken in the morning, but couldn't help recalled. joking about the ghost. Alex warned Ghost Guest? but laugh as he tried to make Mark look Rumors, all rumors. I couldn't find them that "the ghost is gonna come and (Continued from p.1 A) at the sheets in his laundry bag. any evidence of a suicide. However, one get one of you!" in all sincerity. People listened to him Jim heard about the incident before woman supposedly jumped off and Just then the front door slammed with looks of disbelief. breakfast. "He cornered me in the broke her leg a few years ago, according shut of its own accord, Mark recalled. The night of the first "visit," Alex to a former R. A. at the residence hall. made a pact with his roommates. He But the jokes began. Graffiti appeared made them swear that if anything on the wall of their bathroom in the happened to any of them while they shape of a hand, labeled "Alex's slept, they would tell each other in the Ghost." morning. He went through the suite That week Mark and Jim planned an daring the ghost to show herself to one elaborate practical joke. They convinced of them. "All right! If there's a ghost out their friend Kathy to come in the middle there ... show yourself tonight! Come of the night with white pancake makeup and get us!" he said. bathroom and was shaking me, saying, and pretend she was Alex's ghost. But There were no windows open, no draft, Apparently, she did. 'Jim, remember what I said last night? even the best of plans go awry. nothing that would have made it shut — This time the ghost was more sexually Remember what I said? You're never "W e all got drunk and passed out," except an angry ghost, he added. They aggressive in her actions. He awoke at 2 going to believe this." Jim didn't, and Mark explained. were all a little spooked. a.m. with semen on his sheets, which he told him, "Aw, shut up Alex. Your ghost The jokes continued throughout the But that was the last Alex heard from attributes to the actions of the friendly is just your hand." year. Anytime something went wrong, his spiritual femme fatale. It wasn't, ghost. A few people on Ipis hall listened to anytime the toothpaste was missing, however, the last-he heard from 'his Mark was the first to hear of the visit. the story of the kiss and tried to add they would blame* it on Alex's ghost. roommates. Even now, someone can One of the first things he said in our some spice to it. "Well, gosh, Alex, you One night, about a week later, Alex, innocently wave goodbye and one of interview was, "I believe him. I was know a couple of years ago a girl did Mark, Jim and some friends were sitting them will yell, "It's the ghost!" as they there the morning after." jump off a balcony to commit suicide. It in their room, playing guitar and go into convulsions of laughter. Cheer Up! I.V. Halloween Could be Worse ... Nah

in attendance. Barring the possibility of I'm sure The Duke's wacky warriors will authoritative-looking heads stuck on rain, earthquake, economic collapse, be unfashionably prompt to this spears in the distance, with the caption nuclear war or police efforts, the influx weekend bash. "University of California's Satanically s the pumpkin season is upon us, of Halloween '87 will certainly be scary, I hope it's in poor taste to mention Brutal Halloween Party 1987." A I am getting ready to go down to if not terrifying. that the hottest costumes for this Most kidding aside, the way to avoid my local grocery store to stock up for An added bonus unique to this year: a Halloween may be a post-mastectomy problems this Hallow's Eve is to leave the trick-or-treaters. No, not candy ... a new, easy-to-enforce alcohol policy. Nancy accompanied by a post-Wall D.P. to the tourists. This is especially 30-pound bag of fresh apples and a 50- This year, the police are required to cite important if you are planning on con­ pack of double-edged razor blades. everyone carrying an open container of suming any ancient Mayan Halloween I'm just kidding, Halloween evokes alcohol. Gee, do you think that any of treats (psilocybin cubensis). A drug- too many tender memories for me — the the 60,000— visitors will attempt to induced inflammation of the soul is pillow cases full of candy, the spooky violate this policy? Do you think any tricky enough without an extra 60 billion jack-o'-lanterns, the vomit-encrusted hostility may arise when a bunch of cops watts of human confusion coursing gutter gratings, the skull-cracking who don't live here meet up with a through the icy waters of your national guardsmen citing half-naked bunch of equally foreign Lager- emotional environment. Since most will girls for minor in possession, the stench enlightened yuppie maggots? Why have difficulty in retaining any kind of of 60,000 alcohol-saturated bodies ... it should we bother with any Palm sanity this Saturday night, do exercise warms the cockles of my liver just Springs-style mayhem? With this many some party precautions (i.e., do not thinking about it. people, we might have a coup d'etat. Street Ron, or else maybe a blood- snort an eight-ball of crystal meth, do It's always jolly when our little Have you picked out your costume drenched Merrill Lynch bull. It's a little not operate any heavy machinery after community (already the most densely yet? I hope you chose a comfy one hard to deal with our own slice of taking throat-scorching gravity bongs of populated area west of the Mississippi, 'cause this year, Isla Vista is disguised as Halloween when the real pagan blood- neon-green skunk and definitely don't so I've heard) gets to enjoy the company a heap of burning ruins and you don't feast is happening daily. rape and loot on an empty stomach). of a few tens of thousands of our fun- want to be caught out in the cold ... cold With all the festive T-shirts for sale, I I'm sorry if I've painted a grim picture loving neighbors for the weekend. Being chemical spray, that is. When our pals was hoping to find a morning-after- of this weekend's festivities, but I think that this is the first time Halloween has from the Irrational Guard bust out the Halloween shirt. Maybe a picture of a it's only fitting that in these times of safe arrived on a Saturday in six years, there industrial strength tear gas, I want to be contorted, writhing body recovering on and effective parent-approved fun, a is sure to be the largest crowd on record wearing my Halloween mask real snug. a bottle-strewn beach with* truly frightening Halloween party can still be found. It's just like when you were little, only the zombies and goblins COAAICS (OCT8-? AteeR*) CWUCr UJ64/0B are real. This is a one-of-a-kind, human- stampede type party where the cuts and bruises don't come out of a supermarket makeup kit. There's even a chance that after many years of experience, the local law will pull off a nicely supervised event. I'm all for having a good time, but I'll have to admit I'd be perversely let down if I don't see this one make national news ... unfortunately, a bunch of college-age students having a good time and cooperating with local authorities is unlikely to make any headlines. ily Nexus Friday, October 30,1987 3A ST ------of the 19th century became so DougArellaneft § prominent, the interest in the occult H bm Editor, Friday Magazine- ^ increases. Interview There's always been something t's 2 p.m. Tuesday, and Phelps 1440 is lit by uncanny about the beginning of every i candlelight Ethereal music plays in the W i t h t new technical medium, it always has background, and four students sit silently at a table in called for comparison with the occult. In the front of the room, waiting to begin an oral fact, some were even first used in occult presentation. settings. Right now, if vampirology is The mood is expectant as the class waits for Or. taken seriously or conducted seriously, Larry Rickels to walk into the room. He walks in, V ampire the research in this area would always have to be within a certain theoretical removes his stylish brown topcoat and sits down. SS With a smirk, he teds the class, "I suppose this is the frame. In my case it would be right atmosphere to tell you about your midterm happens then in the case of anything pirism. But surely the way we're psychoanalysis. grades." that is discarded, the discarded god­ receiving AIDS, for example ... is This rapport between the occult and Another typical day for Rickels' German 182, desses necessarily return, and according phantasmic, these new radical measures the technical media, which begins with "Vampirism and Beyond," which analyzes classic to the logic of the repressed, they return that people want to take in order to keep the end of the 19th century continues to horror fiction such as Bram Stoker's Dracula, Mary in garbled form and hence, Freud AIDS in some other place. I think in­ this day. The terms shift. Obviously the Shelley's Frankenstein, and more recent works concludes, all these demons and creasingly, and one has to watch out for telephone is not uncanny as it has been such as Anne Rice's Interview With The hobgoblins and so on ... are in fact the this of course, it will take on forms that before, and the various contours of the Vampire. In i t Rickels discusses the works using return of these ancient mother- will be comparable in status and feel and death cult shared by the occult and the Freudian psychoanalysis, which may sound like goddesses. character, to vampirism and allegations technical media are always shifted. We overkill, but actually turns out to be quite useful in FM: When you talked about the blood of vampirism in the past. * always refer to people in seances as understanding not only why the stories are frightening, bond, I couldn't help but think about FM: Has the study of vampirism been 'mediums,' and now in California how but also the authors' often tragic lives. AIDS. taken seriously by the academic do we refer to mediums? We call them Larry Rickels was bom Dec. 2, 1954 in Cherokee, Rickels: Well, you know the vampire has community? Are writings on these 'channels.' We're still tuning in both Iowa, and spent most of his childhood in Philadelphia. telecommunications and com­ He did undergraduete work at the University of munications with the dead. Pennsylvania and the Free University of Berlin, and FM: So the New Age movement is graduate work at Princeton. another manifestation of the same kind Rickels taught for a year in West Germany before of thing? coming to UCSB seven years ago. This is the first year Rickels: You know, I'm not that familiar he has taught the vampirism course, which has its with the New Age movement. You roots in another course on German fNm he teaches would have to explain it to me. I know I entitled "Loving the Dead." sometimes have people from that His book. Aberrations of Mourning, coming movement in my classes, but I don't in December from Wayne State University Press, quite get it. argues that impedance to the mourning process is the FM: I'm sort of unclear on it myself, but condition of becoming a writer, and analyzes several Shirley MacLaine talks about rebirth and literary works from the German Enlightenment to the past lives, being able to get in touch modem era. with her past beings through various With his background, Rickels seemed to me to be means, including channelers. She the ideal interview subject for this Halloween issue. believes that she at one time was some kind of French royalty, I think. There's After talking with him for about an hour Wednesday, I Prof. Larry Rickels discusses vampires with students after class. was quite convinced, as I am sure readers will be. another woman who believes she is-the What follows is a transcript of that interview. always been announced by the plague, topics taken seriously? reincarnation of an Egyptian warrior in fact it was often assumed in 17th Rickels: I'm pretty well acquainted with prince. FM: What started you on this journey of century accounts, that a vampire's bite that literature, and I would say no. There Rickels: Obviously the range of haunting, sorts towards a topic of study that had been the beginning of a plague. is a history to the academy's relationship the range of our rapport with the dead, would seem to many to be rather There was always some vampire corpse, to vampirism. In the 18th century, when and there's always been a rapport with morbid? some undead corpse that would have to vampirism was first coming to be the afterlife, is going to reach as far as Rickels:, I guess it begins with an in­ be staked before the (plague would defined, and vampire epidemics were our senses extend. What are technical terest in Freudian psychoanalysis, and end). So, yes, what was called the being sighted and chronicled in eastern media if not extensions of our senses? the impression I have, which is the basis vampire's bite is now called a virus, and Europe. In western Europe, countless Whenever the senses are extended for all my research, that the issue of we're still finding words for something treatises were being written on vam­ again, they invite another kind of mourning is the most vulnerable point of that is uncontrollable. It has everything pirism, in German and French univer­ phantom rebound. These figures Shirley articulation in psychoanalytic theory. So to do with blood. sities. Their main focus was not only the MacLaine talks to are, you know, as old this is what I've pursued throughout, FM: Do you see authors coming to grips vampirism as such erupting in the east, as the hills. There's no new develop­ and vampirism, haunting, all these with this? I haven't read Anne Rice's but also the journalistic coverage of it in ment there, but they come from newer morbid manifestations are frequent books yet, does she deal with fears of the west. These stories of outbreaks of parts of our sensorium, which is always analogies for mourning and aberrant AIDS? vampirism were being constantly printed being expanded. mourning in psychoanalysis. Rickels: I don't think so yet. Anne Rice's and reprinted at the journalistic level. The other thing is, why is California On the sidelines of that proper pur­ third piece in the (vampire) trilogy is And so, the university was kind of called the site of most of these manifestations? suit, I necessarily acquired all this coming out. Maybe she will address it. in, in the usual ghostbusting mode, to For one thing, this is the place where the marginal knowledge, and I figured, It's perhaps addressed by implication in determine the validity of these reports. culture industry has replaced all culture, 'Why not switch perspectives a little bit, the second novel, but I don't know of an Later on, I guess in the early part of where culture is only the envelope in the usual move of seeing the marginal all-out treatment. this century, Montague Summers, for around a technical medium. as somehow more central than it had FM: With a new plague coming upon us, example, and other figures began to FM: Culture industry meaning... seemed to be, and address vampirism do you think fears of vampirism will rise chronicle vampirism. I don't know to Rickels: Film, television and so on. within psychoanalysis more directly?' In as well? what extent they were within the California is the primal habitat of the the course we're doing right now I allow Rickels: I don't know if it will take the form university, but I would say that as the technical media. So of course, we vampirism and the technical media and of another, clearly discernible vam- technical media beginning with the end would be in the best position to receive psychoanalysis to occupy in­ phantoms. Good phantoms, like Shirley terchangeable places; one isn't MacLaine's, but also the bad ones. necessarily marginal with respect to the Prowling? That is where this issue of child abuse other; they converge in one thought comes in.... This is really how we're experiment. I better-time to prowl the darkness; than being haunted now, all over America, FM: Why do people find these stories of From the Weekly World News Halloween night. where their stark white but particularly in California. These vampirism, of ghosts, of the undead, so ■ worried professor says desperate faces and yellow fangs will go unnoticed images on milk cartons, on postcards frightening? I vampires will go trick or treating among the throngs of trick or treaters“" and so on, these shadowy images, already ghostly images of missing Rickels: When there's an element of dread in the United States and Europe this Professor Ferenc, whose book, A ■ children, where do these ghosts come that they provoke, that dread always Halloween. Treatise on Eastern European Vampirism from 1818 to from? Childhood appears to be in a state holds the place of a fascination as well. ■'They could knock on any door, 1890, is still the most respected work on We have a double relation to these maybe even yours," warned vam- vampirism, continued "I will be in] of ghostly disappearance. stories: We're attracted to them at the pnoiogist Protessor Vasily Ferenc “ This Austria this Halloween where I know the FM: Let's talk about Halloween for a bit. same (we are) repelled. If that strong an threat is real and should be taken exact location of a vampire attack, and 1 For a lot of people around here it has a attraction or reaction is really there, then seriously by the Iocs! police authorities ' will have assistants in several -Other definitely scary aspect to it, in terms of I think psychoanalysis would explain it in ^Professor Ferenc, 74. has spent the countne|ifi| sexual assault. terms of the blood bond that is being Iasi 50 years of his life trying to find a -afraid* the United States recycled here. The vampiric blood bond cure for the dread virus that causes [ must go unprotected. Rickels: Right. Throughout the country doubles as our first relationship, the vampirism, so far without success. the abuse of children haunts Halloween. blood relationship with mother, which is | My sources tell me that there are "Please make sure your children trick There's this fear that in the middle of it, then replaced in our own development 6,000 active vamp-res in North America or treat with adult supervision. Please there will be a razor blade in the apple by the more abstract relationship to the and twice that number in Europe," the ; make sure your house is well lighted and the child will eat. That's what's scary, I father and to the name of the father and silver-haired expert said if possible tie some garlic to your front think. The missing child. all that represents. Now, thanks to the AIDS crisis, they door Please keep looking over your Here in I.V. I think, this whole thing Thus in A Footnote to Civilization and its have entirely changed their habits It shoulder in dark, tree-lined streets." has sort of revved up according to a Discontents, Chapter 4, Freud suggests used to be they preyed on prostitutes "And finally, please don't open your; scheme of immaturity that allows even that in the same way the first deities had and helpless bums, but AIDS has ended ; door; unless the trick or treaters are somewhat older people to engage in been mother-goddesses, who had been all that The vampires saw too many of known to you. If you are in any doubt at fantastic morbid celebrations that have central figures in fertility and death [their brethren die from the disease " ail about, the ; identity of your trick or really to do with childhood and the fears cults. These mother-goddesses and | Now they seek a wholesome blood treaters, keep your door locked; If you associated with childhood. But it's very cults were replaced at every turn, as supply, from the veins of decent families M | pale stranger into, your home, be unusual that older children should civilizations progressed, by the like yours and mine where the risk of] I He could be one o f the dn- engage in Halloween. I didn't encounter monotheisms, or the father-gods. What this on the East Coast. 4A Friday, October 30,1987 Daily Nexus ‘Hell to Live With’ Will Continue Next Issue Q3nNI±NOO 18 0 1