If you grew up in the 80’s or 90’s you probably remember author Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark trilogy, a collection of creepy folklore tales for kids. If you don’t remember the stories themselves, there’s a good chance you still have an occasional nightmare inspired by the accompanying artwork by acclaimed children’s illustrator, Stephen Gammell. Even if you’ve never read the books, just accidentally seeing the cover of one of them while you were innocently perusing the book store or library was enough to induce long-term psychological effects.

And if you got over the initial trauma of viewing the cover and dared to open up one of those books and read it? Well, let’s just say that some things can’t be unseen.

Gammell has illustrated countless “normal” children’s books over the course of his vast career, even earning himself a Caldecott Award for his work on the lighthearted Song and Dance Man by Karen Ackerman. But it is his work on the Scary Stories books for which he is most fondly (or not so fondly depending on much sleep you lost because of him over the years) remembered.

“Macabre”, “surreal”, “haunting”, these are the words that come to mind when you look at Gammells work. But it is also grotesquely beautiful and extremely powerful. Even out of the context of the books the pictures create an inescapable  sense of dread. 

These are the kind of images that work their way insidiously into the darkest corners of your psyche where they wait patiently, sometimes years, for just the right time. When you’re home alone on a blustery Autumn night, the house creaking and moanijng, and you find yourself jumping at shadows, only then do the ghouls and ghosts that inhabit Gammell’s grim landscapes come creeping back into your mind’s eye.

Considering the terror-inducing content, it is no surprise that the Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark series are some of most challenged books in recent memory. According to the ALA, they were the #1 most frequently challenged books for 1990-1999 and stayed in the top ten for 2000-2009 at #7. The most frequently cited reasons being “insensitivity, occult/Satanism, violence, (and being) unsuited to age group".

Gammell’s illustrations no doubt contributed as much as, if not more than, the text to garnering the books this dubious honor.

Harper Collins re-issued the books for their 30th anniversary in 2011, sadly replacing Stephen Gammell’s eerie illustrations with “safer” work by Brett Helquist of A Series of Unfortunately Events fame. Thus saving the next generation of kids from a lifetime of nightmares and their parents a lifetime of therapy expenses. 

(Little do my sweet, unsuspecting children know that I still have copies featuring Gammell's original artwork to spring on them when the time is right. Moooohahahahahaha!)

So as we near the end of Banned Books Week and the beginning of the Halloween season let’s take a moment to remember (and then immediately try to forget) the immortal artwork of Stephen Gammell.

But only if you dare…

(Seriously, don't say I didn't warn you.)

Bonus Track: Listen to the complete audiobook of 1981's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Collected from folklore and retold by Alvin Schwartz, accompanied by chilling illustrations from Stephen Gammell and narrated by actor George S. Irving.

The Single File is regular feature where I explore this history of  the promotional single by taking a look them one by one. Each installment will feature an individual release, the only criteria being that it was officially released as a single, and that I like it, or at least find it interesting. Expect to see some hits, some rarities and of course some oddities from any and all genres.

First in line is David Bowie’s “1984”, a song inspired by George Orwell’s 1948 novel of the same name. Commonly challenged and banned for its social and political critiques as well as some sexual references, the book has ranked as high as #5 on the most banned books of all time. Since I’m kicking off this new column during Banned Books Week, I figured I would I discuss a single relevant to the topic.

Only released in three countries, “1984” was the third single off of Bowie’s Diamond Dogs album. Put out by RCA/Victor in July 1974, the U.S. and New Zealand versions featured Hunky Dory rocker, "Queen Bitch" as the B-side. In Japan, it was the Aladdin Sane ballad, "Lady Grinning Soul".

Although it never charted, the song is notable in the Bowie for catalog for a number reasons, not the least of which being that it’s really good. It helped bridge the gap between Bowie’s glam rock phase which ended with Diamond Dogs, and the so-called “plastic-soul” of 1975’s Young Americans album. In addition, it sheds some light onto Bowie’s creative process as it is one of only a few songs salvaged from an otherwise abandoned project.

Dystopian lyrics carried along by a driving cinematic funk score, the song sounds like it could be the theme to a 70’s Blaxploitation adaption of Orwell’s novel.  Not surprising since musically, it was heavily influenced by the work of soul legend Isaac Hayes, specifically his work on “Theme from Shaft” from 1971. This trend towards R&B would foreshadow Bowie’s attempt to capture the “Philly Soul” sound in the coming months. The tumultuous year in which this transition took place is chronicled nicely in this NPR article from 2014.

"1984” is not the only song on Diamond Dogs to cite Orwell’s seminal work. In fact, many of the songs on the album loosely form a concept that shares a similar theme, and a few, such as “Big Brother” and “We Are the Dead”, reference the book directly. This is because the album began life as what Bowie original intended to be a musical adaption of Orwell’s novel produced for television. Ultimately, that project fell apart but some of the songs survived and made their way onto the album as we know it. If you’d like to learn more about this lost project, Open Culture did a great piece on it earlier this year.

Whether you view “1984” as a glimpse into the future of what Bowie would soon become, or as a relic of his past ambitions, one thing is for certain, it’s a great song.

Bonus Track: Check out Bowie's legendary live performance of "1984" from The Dick Cavett Show on December 5, 1974.
 
Banned Books Week 2016: Celebrating our Freedom to Read (September 29th – October 1st)

I discovered J.D. Salinger’s seminal novel of teenage angst when I was in eighth grade. At the time I didn’t know anything about it other than the fact that it was widely considered to be a “literary classic”.

The cover provided no clues as to the book’s contents. It was simply a blank, maroon cover with the title and author’s name in gold Times New Roman capitalized. And the same on the back. There was no synopsis, no blurbs hailing it as a masterpiece, nothing except the author’s credit and that title.

Catcher in the Rye. What did that lousy title even mean anyway?

Even without really knowing anything about the novel, I felt compelled to read it. Not because I had to for school, because I wanted to. So I did. I don’t know exactly what it was about the mysterious little book that drew me in. It was probably that title.

I just had to know what the hell it meant. 

By this point in my life I already had a lot of books under my belt, but almost all of them were fantastical in one way or another. It was a lot of sci-fi, sword & sorcery, and, like most horror-obsessed kids of my generation, the complete works of Stephen King.

Catcher in The Rye was to be my first foray into “serious” adult literature. 

As a middle-schooler looking to expand my literary horizons, the idea of reading many of the so-called “classics” was a daunting one. Most of them were great, thick, books with impossibly small print in order to cram as many words on each page as possible. And although written in English, they seemed foreign to me. The language they used was somehow even more dense than the physical book in which held it. Many of these works were still intimidating to me when I had to read them in college years later, let alone as a thirteen year-old looking to read for pleasure.

But this book was different. It was short, especially when compared to the massive books I had recently tackled including, It and The Stand by the aforementioned Mr. King. Not to mention the print was normal sized. This was book I could easily digest, and I knew I could get through it, even it was a complete bore.

(Did I mention I have this thing about finishing a book once I start?)

Like I said, I had no idea what to expect when I started reading it. I certainly didn’t anticipate that it would completely change my life.

But it did. Like in a big way…

From the first paragraph my mind was blown wide open. It not only changed my whole perspective on what literature could be, it changed the way I looked at myself in relation to the world.

This was heavy stuff.

Of the countless books I had read up to this point, even the ones written in first person, none of them felt like they were speaking directly to me. Not really anyway.

They spoke to me in general sense. I was merely a passive witness to the narrator telling their story. This was different. I felt like Holden Caulfield was speaking directly to me personally, in a language I could understand and relate to. In fact, it was pretty much the same language my friends and I used when we were alone together, cuss words and all.

​It is ironic that the main reason this book is one of the most frequently challenged and banned of all time is the language. Because without it, this book wouldn’t have had nearly the same impact on me. The fact that Holden spoke so bluntly and realistically is exactly why his words resonated so much.

​One of the most heartbreaking things about adolescence is realizing that your idealized childhood perception of the world doesn’t really exist. For the first time you realize that there are a lot of Phonies, and life doesn’t always have a happy ending. It’s like a breath of fresh air for a young person dealing with this new sense of uncertainty to hear a voice that echoes their own, processing similar things in the same way. That language is part of what makes this book uniquely qualified as gateway to literature for disaffected youth.

Holden didn’t just talk like me, he felt like me. He was lost and confused, disillusioned with the looming idea of adulthood as the candy-colored façade of his childhood slowly eroded.

Suddenly I didn’t feel so alone in the world.

But I think the thing about Holden that connected with me most was the fact that in spite of being so heavy-hearted, he was consistently hilarious. I mean really funny. I found myself laughing out loud throughout pretty much the entire book and I immediately locked in on the idea that despair could be tempered with humor. It most certainly informed my own artistic endeavors later in life when I pursued my own writing and embarked on the journey of becoming a stand-up comic.

In addition to providing me with a new perspective on myself and the world at large, reading Catcher in the Rye for the first time also made me realize that fiction doesn’t have to be fantasy in order to be engrossing. In fact, sometimes realism can be even more compelling. Nor does it have to fit neatly into one box. It can be humorous and sad, nihilistic and inspiring, heartwarming and gut-wrenching, or all of the above at the same time.

Plus, I finally learned what the hell that lousy title was all about…

Neil Young explored similar themes of teenage disillusionment in the song, "Sugar Mountain", written on his nineteenth birthday. Here's a performance of it from the 1979 concert movie, Rust Never Sleeps.

Banned Books Week 2016: Celebrating our Freedom to Read (September 29th – October 1st)

http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/