Some Thursday Readings

No, Taylor Swift is not Mary Shelley – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.  

Left in the Rain – poem by Renee Emerson at Story Warren.

 

Remember when Atlanta’s eastside was a battlefield? – Thomas Wheatley at Axios.

 

No Mystery: The Enduring Appeal of Inspector Maigret – Adam Hill at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Ranked: Average Working Hours by Country – Marcus Lu at Visual Capitalist.

 

Story Only God Could Write: One Church Transforms Lives of 77 Kids Without Families – Billy Hallowell at Faithwire.

 

The Wise Men – poem by G.K. Chesterton at Rabbit Room Poetry. 

Painting: Mary Shelley, oil on canvas (1840) by Richard Rothwell (1800-1868). 

The Origin of a Monster: Happy Birthday, Frankenstein!

I was seven years old when a late Saturday night television program called “House of Shock” began broadcasting in New Orleans. It was hosted by a character named Morgus the Magnificent, a mad scientist aided by his two assistants, Chopsley (tall, hooded, and never speaking) and Eric, the talking skull. Morgus showed old horror and science fiction movies in between clips of his crazy experiments, and – to a seven-year-old and his older brother – he was just as entertaining as the movies.

One of those movies was the 1931 version of Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff at the monster. That movie framed the Frankenstein legend in my head for more than 50 years. This year, I saw that it was the novel’s 200^thbirthday (officially on Jan. 1), and I decided to read the original Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

I was in for a shock.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Illustration: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus.