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Brother Theodore's Chamber of Horrors
CONTENTS
Introduction by Marvin Kaye
Professor Lubermayer's Final Lecture by Eugene D. Goodman
The Celery Stalks in the Basement by Saralee Terry
Last Respects by Dick Baldwin
The Strange Island Of Doctor Nork by Robert Bloch
Unsigned Original by Parke Godwin
A Predicament by Edgar Allan Poe
Moon-Face by Jack London
The Philosophy of Sebastian Trump or The Art of Outrage by William E. Kotzwinkle & Robert Shiarella
Oil of Dog by Ambrose Bierce
The Demon of the Gibbet by Fitz-James O'Brien
The Pale Criminal by C. Hall Thompson
The Day of the Lynx by Steve Knickmeyer
Our Late Visitor by Joseph Lavinson
Night and Silence by Maurcie Level
The Possession Of Immanuel Wolf by Brother Theodore & Marvin Kaye
Introduction by Marvin Kaye
Professor Lubermayer's Final Lecture by Eugene D. Goodman
The Celery Stalks in the Basement by Saralee Terry
Last Respects by Dick Baldwin
The Strange Island Of Doctor Nork by Robert Bloch
Unsigned Original by Parke Godwin
A Predicament by Edgar Allan Poe
Moon-Face by Jack London
The Philosophy of Sebastian Trump or The Art of Outrage by William E. Kotzwinkle & Robert Shiarella
Oil of Dog by Ambrose Bierce
The Demon of the Gibbet by Fitz-James O'Brien
The Pale Criminal by C. Hall Thompson
The Day of the Lynx by Steve Knickmeyer
Our Late Visitor by Joseph Lavinson
Night and Silence by Maurcie Level
The Possession Of Immanuel Wolf by Brother Theodore & Marvin Kaye
- GenresHorrorAnthologies
237 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1975
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September 28, 2021
Much like Zacherley's Vulture Stew, this book was an attempt to tie a popular figure associated with the horror genre into an anthology fiction collection, with hopes of some crossover synergy. Presumably, said figure had a hand in selecting the stories and composing the story introductions. But Zacherley was a television horror host character with no literary resonances, whereas Brother Theodore was something far stranger - a simple collection of classic horror stories would just not be "Theodorian" enough (and the far ranging Decadent German fiction out of reach through translation and budget issues), and it is to co-editor Marvin Kaye's credit that the selections here are chosen to deliberately resonate with the notorious Black Comedy monologist's work and worldview. So while all of these stories could be called "macabre" in some sense, many are also darkly humorous (more of the sinister chuckle than the belly laugh).
If you have never heard of Brother Theodore before, you might want to check out my review of an excellent documentary about him, TO MY GREAT CHAGRIN: THE UNBELIEVABLE STORY OF BROTHER THEODORE (here) and if you have a spare $15, I would seriously suggest you order a copy of that small-run dvd (found here with Paypal link and a trailer!). Or watch it on Vimeo for $10! Reductively, he's Arthur Schopenhauer as stage showman, E.M. Cioran as stand-up comedian. What's most interesting about this anthology however is that while Theodore himself was never a "horror host" (which is quite surprising, he would have slotted easily into the role), this book probably brings him the closest he had ever been to that position. Theodore would often perform dramatizations of some classic pieces and at least one appears here ("Oil Of Dog", which he often presented as "Tears From A Glass Eye"), as well as some fellow travelers, and stories by contemporary writers that fit his sardonic tone. But the most intriguing story here is the novella "The Possession of Immanuel Wolf" which caps the collection, as it is co-written by Theodore himself (one imagines, perhaps, that Marvin Kaye took cues, directions and notes while doing the actual writing - Kaye also wrote the succinct introduction which does a good job summarizing Theodore and his worldview). To my knowledge, the only thing close to "Possession" is Richard Matheson's piece "The Distributor" (which was inspired by attendance at a Theodore show and not included here) but, we'll get to the story in due time....
As said, the editor does a very good job at choosing pieces that mesh with Theodore's pitch-black, sardonic tone, with only one exception: I found Saralee Terry's "The Celery Stalks In The Basement" to be a cute but disposable poem. A number of stories are just "fine": Eugene D. Goodwin's "Professor Lubermayer's Final Lecture", which opens the book, has two philosophical doctorate candidates meet with the garrulous, titular figure before he retires. One is a non-entity, while the other clashes with the professor over metaphysical beliefs and makes a bizarre wager based on his own terminal illness. A wryly sardonic tale of academia and the afterlife. "The Strange Island Of Dr. Nork" by Robert Bloch is a full blown self-aware satire - not just of ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU-styled isolated mad scientists but of our popular culture's fixation on melodrama and comic books and an unnatural need for "realism" in thrilling scenarios. A story whose point has only become more pointed in the 68 years since it was written. It all ends in "The Faceless Fiend", disaster, and of course the selling of comic books. Parke Godwin's "Unsigned Original" is a droll little thing in the mold of ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS "sophisticated murder" fictions. Two erudite and wealthy authors of mystery stories share a drink and one announces he's going to cap his career by committing a series of unsolvable murders that will mystify the country. Events do not go as planned in this bitterly humorous tale of artistic ambition. A short poem, "The Demon of The Gibbet" by Fitz-James O'Brien, illustrates the dangers of passing lonely gallows late at night, while "The Day of The Lynx" offers a broad satire of dirty local politics, hired assassins and the bloody murder of a beloved Disney character. Funny and slight, Steve Knickmeyer's work here has just enough cartoonish bile to see it through. Similarly, Joseph Lavinson's "Our Late Visitor", in which a couple are surprised by a visit from a friend recently reported to have died, is droll and slim but does not overstay its punchline.
The two solid stories here offer a nice example of the range the book features. "Moon Face" by Jack London tells of a man who obsessively loathes another, resenting his joie de vivre and eternal optimism. After financial chicanery and arson cannot break the hated one's spirit, the man conceives of a hideous plan involving a specially trained dog. I liked this one - the murder plan is both obsessive and sly, oddly American in its neatness, simplicity, and reliance on trust and servitude. On the other hand, C. Hall Thompson's "The Pale Criminal" is a full-blown, latter-day Gothic (with touches of Poe). Wealthy surgeon Luther Markheim, blinded in a lab accident, broods in his ancestral castle at the foot of the Black Forest with his drunken protegé, wary of his family's tragic history of dissolution, decadence and scandal while obsessed with restoring his sight. But when a waylaid traveler (a jeweler with superb eyes) is trapped by a storm, a midnight murder and desperate surgery are put into motion. But what of the haunting visions that follow? This story follows a fairly old horror trope ("the eyes of the dead" routine) but does so in a pleasing way which lays on the Gothic gloom while cutting it nicely with a police procedural frame and peremptory resonances with the "mad doctor" European horror film genre (EYES WITHOUT A FACE, Dr. Orloff et. al.).
"Last Respects" by Dick Baldwin is a good example of how choosing to reread this book years later, now with a better grasp of its intent, pays off. Most likely the story went over my head at the time - I then likely conceived it as a failed horror story (in which two medical orderlies dicker over the correct treatment of a recently deceased corpse, only to find it passively recalcitrant) but can see it now as a razor-sharp piece of morbid fun and a delight of ghoulish relish. Years ago, I happened across an excellent performance of Edgar Allan Poe's (to me then unknown) "A Predicament" done by KPFA's BLACK MASS show in the 1960s (and available to hear at this link). BLACK MASS was very like Theodore's own stage show (featuring texts of weird tales slightly altered for dramatic performances) and I could easily see him doing this story, if its main character were not a woman (For Poe, he opted instead for "Telltale Heart" or "Berenice"). Poe's original was intended as a satire of a particular type of story, and a particular type of reader, of BLACKWOOD'S magazine at the time - all flowery, overwrought Romantic dialogue, pseudo-stupid Classical references intended to make dull Society woman sound more learned than they were, and unrepentant snobbery - combined with his dark and macabre wit. So here we have the (in a high, swooning, operatic voice) traaaagic tale of what happens one day when Signora Psyche Zenobia chooses to climb a clock tower accompanied by her pet dog and pet Negro servant and what occurs when she sticks her head through a hole. While the specific targets of the satire may now be recondite, the piece still retains its - pardon the pun - edge. Maurice Level, French author of many Grand Guignol pieces, is represented here by the distressing and oddly resonant "Night And Silence" in which the wretched life of two aging beggars (one blind, the other a deaf mute - see title) is upended by the death of their crippled sister. And now, in the dark of night, noises come from her coffin...a coldly symbolic and morbid piece about miscommunication and the inevitability of death.
Three pieces here are sharply excellent and interesting. For the classicists, we have Ambrose Bierce's acerbic and shockingly (especially in 1890) droll "Oil Of Dog" (as mentioned, frequently performed by Theodore). A boy relates a tale of his father (who boils down stray dogs into the titular tincture) and mother (the town abortionist), the accident which initiates their entrepreneurial rise to fame, and their inevitable fall from grace. There's some sly commentary by Bierce on America's Capitalist drives (in reducto ad absurdum form), as well as our propensity for reinvention through violence and flight. Following that is the bizarrely singular "The Philosophy of Sebastian Trump, or The Art Of Outrage" by William Kotzwinkle & Robert Shiarella. Framed almost like a style-guide, this superbly funny piece lays out how Master Trump (please, no jokes....although....) lives his life as a calculated Dandy of Outrage, leaving a string of scandals, offenses, blackmailings, immoral acts and pregnancies in his wake as he burns through life intending to never be forgotten by those who meet him. Such brilliant flames do not end their lives in retirement, you can be assured. Something like a self-aware Decadent text, I really enjoyed this and its black, black humor.
The third excellent tale here is the aforementioned "The Possession of Immanuel Wolf", written by Marvin Kaye and Brother Theodore. Kaye does an crackerjack job of setting up a very Theodorian character in Wolf, a bitter, lonely, aging man living in precarious circumstances, disgusted by the ugly, stupid world around him but afraid of advancing senility and the tomb as well. Pinned by this existential dilemma, Wolf cracks and seems to suffer some kind of psychotic break or "possession" by a darker spirit inside of him, The Leader, unleashing repressed energy in a flood of bloody-minded plotting and the organizing of a terrorist group of forgotten, elderly cast-offs who rise up and slaughter the young and stupid (oddly resonant with the obscure black comedy/horror film HOMEBODIES from 1974). This Family-like group of vicious Gray Panthers reorganize in an abandoned cemetery and plot further atrocities under the visionary tutelage of their Manson-esque Leader, who expands the campaign to psychic attack and media assault. I can only imagine that Theodore and Kaye plotted out the story together, with Theodore supplying the manic rants in authentic style (as well as the coldly ironic touches of demi-Nazi folkloric imagery in the Leader's symbolic philosophy of Fire and Frost) while Kaye stitched the whole into a prose narrative. The story is by turns disturbing, scabrous, unnerving, grotesque, distressing and thrilling and I was especially surprised at the bluntness shown in illustrating the sadist/masochist drives that underlay the Wolf/Leader split. The story is like a bright burning sun of blackness, unrelenting in its bleakness and lacking any specifically obvious humorous content (except in the abstract). The final image nicely sums up the whole affair and I'm seriously considering purchasing the tale for a special, future episode of the Pseudopod podcast to focus on Brother Theodore.
If you have never heard of Brother Theodore before, you might want to check out my review of an excellent documentary about him, TO MY GREAT CHAGRIN: THE UNBELIEVABLE STORY OF BROTHER THEODORE (here) and if you have a spare $15, I would seriously suggest you order a copy of that small-run dvd (found here with Paypal link and a trailer!). Or watch it on Vimeo for $10! Reductively, he's Arthur Schopenhauer as stage showman, E.M. Cioran as stand-up comedian. What's most interesting about this anthology however is that while Theodore himself was never a "horror host" (which is quite surprising, he would have slotted easily into the role), this book probably brings him the closest he had ever been to that position. Theodore would often perform dramatizations of some classic pieces and at least one appears here ("Oil Of Dog", which he often presented as "Tears From A Glass Eye"), as well as some fellow travelers, and stories by contemporary writers that fit his sardonic tone. But the most intriguing story here is the novella "The Possession of Immanuel Wolf" which caps the collection, as it is co-written by Theodore himself (one imagines, perhaps, that Marvin Kaye took cues, directions and notes while doing the actual writing - Kaye also wrote the succinct introduction which does a good job summarizing Theodore and his worldview). To my knowledge, the only thing close to "Possession" is Richard Matheson's piece "The Distributor" (which was inspired by attendance at a Theodore show and not included here) but, we'll get to the story in due time....
As said, the editor does a very good job at choosing pieces that mesh with Theodore's pitch-black, sardonic tone, with only one exception: I found Saralee Terry's "The Celery Stalks In The Basement" to be a cute but disposable poem. A number of stories are just "fine": Eugene D. Goodwin's "Professor Lubermayer's Final Lecture", which opens the book, has two philosophical doctorate candidates meet with the garrulous, titular figure before he retires. One is a non-entity, while the other clashes with the professor over metaphysical beliefs and makes a bizarre wager based on his own terminal illness. A wryly sardonic tale of academia and the afterlife. "The Strange Island Of Dr. Nork" by Robert Bloch is a full blown self-aware satire - not just of ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU-styled isolated mad scientists but of our popular culture's fixation on melodrama and comic books and an unnatural need for "realism" in thrilling scenarios. A story whose point has only become more pointed in the 68 years since it was written. It all ends in "The Faceless Fiend", disaster, and of course the selling of comic books. Parke Godwin's "Unsigned Original" is a droll little thing in the mold of ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS "sophisticated murder" fictions. Two erudite and wealthy authors of mystery stories share a drink and one announces he's going to cap his career by committing a series of unsolvable murders that will mystify the country. Events do not go as planned in this bitterly humorous tale of artistic ambition. A short poem, "The Demon of The Gibbet" by Fitz-James O'Brien, illustrates the dangers of passing lonely gallows late at night, while "The Day of The Lynx" offers a broad satire of dirty local politics, hired assassins and the bloody murder of a beloved Disney character. Funny and slight, Steve Knickmeyer's work here has just enough cartoonish bile to see it through. Similarly, Joseph Lavinson's "Our Late Visitor", in which a couple are surprised by a visit from a friend recently reported to have died, is droll and slim but does not overstay its punchline.
The two solid stories here offer a nice example of the range the book features. "Moon Face" by Jack London tells of a man who obsessively loathes another, resenting his joie de vivre and eternal optimism. After financial chicanery and arson cannot break the hated one's spirit, the man conceives of a hideous plan involving a specially trained dog. I liked this one - the murder plan is both obsessive and sly, oddly American in its neatness, simplicity, and reliance on trust and servitude. On the other hand, C. Hall Thompson's "The Pale Criminal" is a full-blown, latter-day Gothic (with touches of Poe). Wealthy surgeon Luther Markheim, blinded in a lab accident, broods in his ancestral castle at the foot of the Black Forest with his drunken protegé, wary of his family's tragic history of dissolution, decadence and scandal while obsessed with restoring his sight. But when a waylaid traveler (a jeweler with superb eyes) is trapped by a storm, a midnight murder and desperate surgery are put into motion. But what of the haunting visions that follow? This story follows a fairly old horror trope ("the eyes of the dead" routine) but does so in a pleasing way which lays on the Gothic gloom while cutting it nicely with a police procedural frame and peremptory resonances with the "mad doctor" European horror film genre (EYES WITHOUT A FACE, Dr. Orloff et. al.).
"Last Respects" by Dick Baldwin is a good example of how choosing to reread this book years later, now with a better grasp of its intent, pays off. Most likely the story went over my head at the time - I then likely conceived it as a failed horror story (in which two medical orderlies dicker over the correct treatment of a recently deceased corpse, only to find it passively recalcitrant) but can see it now as a razor-sharp piece of morbid fun and a delight of ghoulish relish. Years ago, I happened across an excellent performance of Edgar Allan Poe's (to me then unknown) "A Predicament" done by KPFA's BLACK MASS show in the 1960s (and available to hear at this link). BLACK MASS was very like Theodore's own stage show (featuring texts of weird tales slightly altered for dramatic performances) and I could easily see him doing this story, if its main character were not a woman (For Poe, he opted instead for "Telltale Heart" or "Berenice"). Poe's original was intended as a satire of a particular type of story, and a particular type of reader, of BLACKWOOD'S magazine at the time - all flowery, overwrought Romantic dialogue, pseudo-stupid Classical references intended to make dull Society woman sound more learned than they were, and unrepentant snobbery - combined with his dark and macabre wit. So here we have the (in a high, swooning, operatic voice) traaaagic tale of what happens one day when Signora Psyche Zenobia chooses to climb a clock tower accompanied by her pet dog and pet Negro servant and what occurs when she sticks her head through a hole. While the specific targets of the satire may now be recondite, the piece still retains its - pardon the pun - edge. Maurice Level, French author of many Grand Guignol pieces, is represented here by the distressing and oddly resonant "Night And Silence" in which the wretched life of two aging beggars (one blind, the other a deaf mute - see title) is upended by the death of their crippled sister. And now, in the dark of night, noises come from her coffin...a coldly symbolic and morbid piece about miscommunication and the inevitability of death.
Three pieces here are sharply excellent and interesting. For the classicists, we have Ambrose Bierce's acerbic and shockingly (especially in 1890) droll "Oil Of Dog" (as mentioned, frequently performed by Theodore). A boy relates a tale of his father (who boils down stray dogs into the titular tincture) and mother (the town abortionist), the accident which initiates their entrepreneurial rise to fame, and their inevitable fall from grace. There's some sly commentary by Bierce on America's Capitalist drives (in reducto ad absurdum form), as well as our propensity for reinvention through violence and flight. Following that is the bizarrely singular "The Philosophy of Sebastian Trump, or The Art Of Outrage" by William Kotzwinkle & Robert Shiarella. Framed almost like a style-guide, this superbly funny piece lays out how Master Trump (please, no jokes....although....) lives his life as a calculated Dandy of Outrage, leaving a string of scandals, offenses, blackmailings, immoral acts and pregnancies in his wake as he burns through life intending to never be forgotten by those who meet him. Such brilliant flames do not end their lives in retirement, you can be assured. Something like a self-aware Decadent text, I really enjoyed this and its black, black humor.
The third excellent tale here is the aforementioned "The Possession of Immanuel Wolf", written by Marvin Kaye and Brother Theodore. Kaye does an crackerjack job of setting up a very Theodorian character in Wolf, a bitter, lonely, aging man living in precarious circumstances, disgusted by the ugly, stupid world around him but afraid of advancing senility and the tomb as well. Pinned by this existential dilemma, Wolf cracks and seems to suffer some kind of psychotic break or "possession" by a darker spirit inside of him, The Leader, unleashing repressed energy in a flood of bloody-minded plotting and the organizing of a terrorist group of forgotten, elderly cast-offs who rise up and slaughter the young and stupid (oddly resonant with the obscure black comedy/horror film HOMEBODIES from 1974). This Family-like group of vicious Gray Panthers reorganize in an abandoned cemetery and plot further atrocities under the visionary tutelage of their Manson-esque Leader, who expands the campaign to psychic attack and media assault. I can only imagine that Theodore and Kaye plotted out the story together, with Theodore supplying the manic rants in authentic style (as well as the coldly ironic touches of demi-Nazi folkloric imagery in the Leader's symbolic philosophy of Fire and Frost) while Kaye stitched the whole into a prose narrative. The story is by turns disturbing, scabrous, unnerving, grotesque, distressing and thrilling and I was especially surprised at the bluntness shown in illustrating the sadist/masochist drives that underlay the Wolf/Leader split. The story is like a bright burning sun of blackness, unrelenting in its bleakness and lacking any specifically obvious humorous content (except in the abstract). The final image nicely sums up the whole affair and I'm seriously considering purchasing the tale for a special, future episode of the Pseudopod podcast to focus on Brother Theodore.
June 18, 2024
Brother Theodore
presents uneasy tales
of unstable minds.
presents uneasy tales
of unstable minds.
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