Arachnophobia

Arachnophobia (1990) has the tagline, “Eight legs, two fangs and an attitude,” although it’s safe to say that really doesn’t sum up the sheer terror this film creates.

Deep in the Venezuelan rainforest, a group of researchers discover a breed of spider never seen before.

One of the arachnids decides to tag along back to the researchers’ camp and kills photographer Jerry Manley (Mark L. Taylor) with a toxic bite.

Hitch-hiking in the make-shift coffin of the dead photographer, the spider arrives in small village Canaima, in California.

Mating with a normal house spider, the two create a deadly batch of killer arachnids that start terrorising Canaima’s inhabitants.

It takes new doctor in town, Ross Jennings (Jeff Daniels) – who suffers from severe arachnophobia – and resident insect terminator Delbert McClintock (John Goodman) to annihilate the creatures before they kill everybody and take over the town.

Directed by Frank Marshall, this film will make you itch and jump even if you aren’t afraid of spiders.

A bit of an oldie, but the special effects and the acting doesn’t date the film at all, and with the infusion of comedy consistent throughout, Arachnophobia is a classic thriller that feels so real it’s almost too close to home.

We already know about eco-disaster movies, eco-friendly movies for children or simply documentaries about the environment and ecology.

However has anyone ever heard of green horror movies?

In the following extract taken from Mother Nature Network website, eco-blogger, Matt Hickman, Talks about “eco-horror films out there that hopefully won’t make your stomach churn or leave you too scared to take out the recycling after 10 p.m.” :

A warning: You won’t find any deep environmental messages aside from “be nice to Mother Nature or else …” in these movies although some are more serious than others. I’m a bit of a scary movie nut myself so I’m glad to make a few recommendations.

“Animals gone bad” films may be a good place to start if you’re weary of anything involving the supernatural or serial killers. Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds is a staple in the genre and still flat-out terrifying. I saw it at a young age and it stayed with me. So long in fact, that last year when I was on a road trip along the California coast with friends, we stopped at a gas station for a bathroom break in Bodega Bay and I refused to get out of the car in fear of an avian attack.Arachnophobia is also a classic sure to make your skin crawl and we mustn’t forget Jaws although a more recent scary shark flick, Open Water, gave me an in-theater panic attack. One of the better murderous animal films I’ve seen recently was Rogue about a bloodthirsty Aussie croc, but if you’re looking for old-school camp, try Day of the Animals. And if you’re curious about the dangers of genetic engineering, watch Jurassic Park.

Moving on from fauna to flora, murderous, possessed trees always give me the chills because, well, I don’t really expect it. Watch The Evil Dead or Poltergeist if you want to have nightmares about Douglas firs. And while we’re on the homicidal plant tip, two films, The Ruins and The Happening, will have you keeping a distance from your houseplants for at least a week.

On the more-creepy-than-scary list is one of my favorite cult flicks, The Wicker Man (the original, not the so-bad-it’s-funny Nic Cage remake). In short, it’s about what happens when a group of sexed-up Scottish pagans are let down by Mother Nature. What happens? Well, I’ll let you find out.

To continue reading the article follow this link

WHAT’S IN A SYMBOL: spider « The Crocus Chronicles.

Obviously the caretaker of this building is not doing too great a job. If you think the outside is bad you should have seen inside the building. It was like a scene from arachnophobia, webs everywhere, with dried husks of flies, bees, moths, butterflies and humans ensnared in them. Not a nice place!!

Arachnophobia is a 1990 American horror-comedy film directed by Frank Marshall and starring Jeff Daniels and John Goodman. It is about deadly spiders infesting a small California town, with the title referring to the fear of spiders. It was the very first film released by Hollywood Pictures, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company.

Directed by Frank Marshall
Produced by Don Jakoby
Richard Vane
Steven Spielberg (executive producer)
Written by Story:
Don Jakoby
Al Williams
Screenplay:
Don Jakoby
Wesley Strick
Starring Jeff Daniels
Harley Jane Kozak
Julian Sands
Brian McNamara
John Goodman
Music by Trevor Jones
Cinematography Mikael Salomon
Editing by Michael Kahn
Studio Amblin Entertainment
Distributed by Hollywood Pictures
Release date(s) July 18, 1990
Running time 105 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $31,000,000 USD

This hypnotherapy article over at the Telegraph is promoting some wonderful work being done to overcome arachnophobia. The Zoological Society of London’s Friendly Spider Programme is a four-hour course that claims to free 80 per cent of participants from their phobia. The article states:

It’s a combination of natural history lecture and hypnotherapy, designed firstly to dispel myths and misconceptions about spider motivation (ie, they haven’t been sent from Mars to suck our blood) and then to strengthen our subconscious resolve not to scream each time something scuttles out from under the sofa.

“The first important fact we try to get across is that, out of the 40,000 types of spider in the world, only four are poisonous and none of them live in this country,” says Dave Clarke, team leader of the zoo’s Bugs! exhibition. “Actually, people tend to be less scared by the actual danger that spiders present than by the mere thought of them: the way they seem to move in unpredictable and irrational ways.

“What they particularly dislike is the way in which spiders seem to come deliberately towards them. The truth is, though, that the spider isn’t targeting them, but running away from something else, like a television set that’s blaring light and sound.”

But surely it’s not just the spider’s wonky walking style that makes us want to jump up on chairs and scream? Is there not some deeper, primeval repulsion at work?

“It’s possible that the fear goes back to the days when we lived in caves, when it was sensible to be afraid of small, black things running around the ground in the dark,” says Dave Naish, who runs a similar course at Bristol Zoo Gardens. “No one really knows. A lot of people just pick up the fear from seeing how other family members react, particularly their parents.

“One thing we have noticed, though, is that there are 10 times more women than men on our course. What we don’t know is if men aren’t so badly affected by spiders, or are just more reluctant to admit it.”

The article gives examples and quotes from people who have successfully used the programme to overcome their fear, including England Rubgy star Lewis Moody.

Lots of things scare me.  Lots of different things cause me many different kinds of fear.  My deepest fears make sense to me and seem perfectly logical — I’m scared America will never realize just how bad it makes us look that more people get better health care in almost all the other “first world” nations.  I’m embarrassed by it on one level, but mostly I’m just scared that it’s not going to be fixed.  That’s a reasonable fear, and it’s not the visceral, leap-out-of-my-skin kind of fear that some of the other fears I’ll discuss here are, but more a creeping, claustrophobic (I’m getting to that), what if they NEVER figure it out? kind of fear.  It’s very similar to my fear of global warming.  These are sensible fears here, though, and not very much fun to talk about.  Instead, I’m gonna talk about. . . .

SPIDERS!!!

CLOWNS!!!!

MOTHS!!!!

ENCLOSED SPACES!!!

STRIPPERS!!!!

(No, really!  STRIPPERS!!!!  Fret not your pretty heads, all will be revealed in good time.  Er, you know what I mean.)

So, why spiders?  Normally when someone asks me this, I answer back with what seems to me a perfectly reasonable question of my own:  ARE YOU NUTS???  I mean, have you ever really LOOKED at a spider?  My screaming scarlet jalopies, they’re just so CREEPY!!  First of all, they have WAY too many legs, which they use to CRAWL around looking CREEPY!!!  They’re just SO wrong, on SO many levels!  So, to recap:  CREEPY!!!  No, I can’t explain it any better than that.  Intellectually, of course, I’m completely aware of all the reasons my fear of spiders (and, really, just about ALL arachnids) is completely unreasonable.  I’m okay with that.  I know that most spiders’ bites aren’t much more than irritating.  Further, I’m aware that the vast majority of spiders wouldn’t bite me even if they were on my skin.

Sorry for the break, just had to run to the bathroom, as typing that last part made me vomit just a tiny little bit.

Anyway, spiders — in reality, almost completely harmless.  In my mind?  They’re ALL out to GET me!!  I wish I had a really amusing story to explain where this fear came from, because I haven’t always had it.  When I was younger, I used to actually pick them up and play with them.  But I know the phobia was firmly in place by the time I was about twelve because I was walking to school one day and saw what I thought for all the world was a spider with wings.  It flew right past my face and landed on a bush and I almost burst into tears at the unfairness of it all.  Bad enough they exist at all, but now they got WINGS???!!??!???  You’d be an atheist too if God kept pulling this kind of shit on you.  My relief when I realized it had only been a particular leggy flying insect and not an actual spider was almost enough to make me pass out.  So me and spiders?  Not really all that tight, is the point I’m trying to get across.

Next.  Clowns.  No, I’m not one of those weird people who never had a problem with clowns until reading Stephen King’s It.  I’ve been scared of clowns for all of my conscious memory, which just enhanced the “scat-factor” when reading It.  There’s also a scene in the animated movie (yes, brothers and sisters, I’m here to tell you a cartoon has the power to make me wet myself, just a little tiny bit) Brave Little Toaster where the toaster is having a nightmare.  In the nightmare, some firemen are called and one of them turns out to be a clown who, wicked evil grin fixed firmly in place, whispers to Toaster, “RUN!!”  Yikes!  Again, though, no real memory of why they scare me so badly.  And it’s not just scary clowns like the examples I’ve given.  Ronald McDonald.  I can’t really breathe right when he’s around. 

So, the boy and I went to the local amusement park a couple weekends ago for their annual Halloween offering, and they had a few “scary walk-throughs” — I guess “haunted house” is no longer en vogue.  One had, lucky and yay for me, a clown theme.  Have  you ever been SO scared by a situation that you find it almost physically impossible to force your legs to carry you forward?  What’s even worse is that I actually like to be scared.  But not like this.  Almost forty, and screaming more than my eleven-year-old son. 

When I was a kid, my great-grandfather, with whom I shared a birthday (which one?  All of them, ha ha), made a needlepoint clown for me, which he framed and my parents hung in my bedroom, because I guess they figured boing-boing, boing-boing, boing-boing wasn’t enough fear for one child.  It hung right where, I swear, even though I know this isn’t astronomically possible, the moon would shine right on it all night every night.  I eventually moved my own bed so that I wouldn’t be able to see it in the dead of night when I’d wake from that other nightmare into the one with the cheerful clown (that obviously wanted to EAT ME!!!) was hanging in the moonlight.

Moths.  ‘Nuff said.

Okay, that’s kind of a cheat, but only because I have absolutely no intelligent ideas as to why I’d be scared of moths.  My theory has always been that, unlike butterflies, they have a very visible body, so they’re far more “buglike”.  A few years ago, though, the boy told me he’d found a ginormous moth on a tree in the back yard and wanted to show it to me.  So, sure, how likely am I to say to him, “Sorry, Sweety, but Daddy’s scared of moths”?  Not very.  He takes me back to the locust tree (oh, man, don’t even get me started on locusts!!) and points.  “See it?”  No, quite frankly, I didn’t see it.  It finally got to the point that my face was less than six inches from the bark when one corner of this monster’s wing twitched and suddenly, like in one of those particularly good hidden pictures things, the whole moth was made plain to me, and I literally fell backwards, pinwheeling my arms, nearly knocking my son unconscious. . . with LAUGHTER!!  Yeah, dig the support, huh?  This thing wasn’t a moth, it was MOTHRA!!  Eight inches from wingtip to wingtip, and so perfectly camouflaged against the bark of the tree that, after my acrobatics and a moment to calm down, I lost sight of it again and had to have my son find it for me.

Enclosed spaces.  This one developed relatively recently.  When I was a child, we used to play in some caves on the mountains next to my neighborhood.  One of these caves had a space underneath it which we called The Cellar.  It was essentially a giant slab of rock resting on some smaller slabs to form a space about twenty feet square and maybe two feet high.  As an eleven-year-old kid, I couldn’t roll over in there.  No, this never scared me in the least.  However, thinking about it now is making it hard for me to breathe.

I know there’s a very specific type of claustrophobia that I think runs in my family.  Certainly my mom is afflicted with it, and I’m pretty sure my older sister (and she is WAY older — has been since we were little kids) is too.  If I’m lying under blankets and my legs get tangled up such that I can’t move them, or worse, someone sits on my legs, I can’t breathe.  This one I’ve had forever, but the enclosed spaces thing popped up from nowhere maybe fifteen years ago or so.

Okay, here goes, the payoff for your patience for all the silly fears.  Yes, call me an extreme coward, but strippers (i.e., women who take their clothes off, slowly, with music, for money, not that stuff you use to remove paint) scare me pretty badly.  Again, though, it’s an entirely different kind of fear.  They don’t make me run and hide, I never scream like a ninny and jump up on a table at the sight of one, I’m not at ALL likely to take my shoe off and throw it at one, but they make me just incredibly uncomfortable.  What’s worse is, I was completely unaware of this phobia until my childhood best friend got married and I attended his bachelor party.  Two strippers found me completely unable to look at them, even when they were completely clothed — [What's that?  Oh, I'm getting a message from the strippers' union that I'm technically supposed to refer to them as exotic dancers.  Poppycock, says I -- my dancing is VERY exotic, and no one would ever mistake me for a stripper. . .] — we’re talking a few steps beyond mortified.  If mortified actually meant what it sounds like it should mean, that’s close to how I feel around strippers. 

This also extends to really any woman who dances with little or no clothing on.  My son and I went to a local Greek restaurant one Thursday night a few years ago, and I had completely forgotten Thursday is belly dancer night.  So, no one was dancing when we walked in, but as we stood at the counter waiting for our food to be ready, suddenly half-a-dozen scantily-clad bare-bellied beauties started throwing their hips around hither and yon.  This was okay, because I could just stand and stare at the wall behind the counter.  Unfortunately, when we were leaving, one dancer singled me out and wouldn’t let me leave.  Okay, I can already hear you all saying, “Wouldn’t let you leave?”  Yes, that’s EXACTLY what I mean to say.  I tried to go around her, she stepped into my path, gyrating and gambolling and shimmying.  I stepped right, she stepped with me.  Step, wiggle-wiggle-wiggle; step again, wiggle-wiggle-wiggle again.  This whole time, of course, I’m staring down into the huge box of food in my arms (what can I say?  The missus and I can eat a whole lotta Greek), turning purple and trying to figure out a way to get to my car without bursting into flames.  Finally, I near-shouted at her, “Look, I don’t have any dollars, so could you please move??”  She did, and I nearly ran to the car.  When we got there, the boy asked, “Daddy, what did she want?”

To make me wish I was trapped in a coffin full of spiders made up as clowns and riding around on the backs of moths, that’s what.

In honor of the day I figured I’d offer my take on the movies that scare me the most. Most of these have terrified me so much that I refuse to watch them. I’m not much for scary movies. I just don’t like that feeling of having to be afraid of something. Life is scary enough. I have also included an honorable mention that doesn’t fall into the genre of a scary Halloween movie but it still scared the willies out of me.

Honorable Mention
Sleeping with the Enemy
The classic Julia Roberts tale of boy meets girl, boy beats girl, girl escapes…maybe. The monster in this movie knows everything. I mean everything. His wife cuts her hair to escape his abuse and control and flushes it down the toilet and HE STILL FINDS IT. Just when she thinks she’s safe she notices the towels in her new kitchen are organized just like he liked them, and she didn’t do it….

5. Arachnophobia
I have always been terrified of spiders. And seeing this movie as a child didn’t make things any better. To this day if I try to rewatch it, I don’t get far and I just give up. Although, John Goodman’s character is always a good draw to sit through it anyway.
A rare South American spider hitches a ride in a coffin and infects an entire town. The only problem is that this spider seems to hunt humans and its bite kills you instantly. Even the spider expert isn’t safe.

4. The Shining
This is one of those movies that scared me the first time I watched it, but I can still watch it over and over. It’s just so ingenious. I’ve got to visit the Stanley Hotel (Stephen King’s inspiration for the book).
A dysfunctional family moves to a mountain hotel to watch over it for the winter season and finds out they’re not the only ones there. The classic moment is when Shelley Duvall, in a fit of fear, finds a man and a person dressed as some kind of animal in one of the hotel rooms.

3. The Wicker Man
This isn’t the Nicholas Cage version, let’s just get that out of the way. After watching this movie late one night on a whim, the only thing I could think at the end of it was “that was messed up.”
A police officer visits an island after receiving a letter asking for help in finding a missing girl. As soon as he steps off his floating plane he realizes this is no normal island. And the people are definitely hiding something. Needless to say he doesn’t discover what this is until the end.

2. Candyman
This movie kept me from being able to really look in a mirror for two weeks. And if I think about the scene in the public bathroom for too long I can’t sleep.
You’ll have to watch the movie to find out the story, I’m too traumatized by it. Moving On.

1. Funny Games
I had no idea what I was in for when I sat down to watch this movie. It’s just realistic enough to happen and it’ll sure make you think twice about opening your door.
From the very first time that blaring music turns on, you know you’re in for a horrifying and nightmare-inducing time. Anyway, meet your movie monsters: two greasy boys who wear white gloves constantly. Trust me, that’s terrifying enough. A family arrives at their vacation home to see their neighbors standing with these boys, who eventually come calling for eggs. What starts next is a huge, horrifying ball rolling down a hill that no one is going to be able to stop.

New image in the fear factor photography contest

quickly run away while he does not see uuuuuuu …
arachnophobia photography picture

By: Liam McGowan

Date: 22/10/09

Spiders and insects have been reported in their multitudes in homes and gardens all over the UK this Autumn.

As forecast by entomologists earlier in the year, wildlife enthusiasts and arachnophobes alike have remarked on the notable increase of home-invading arachnids and arthropods. One arachnophobe  who has observed the creepy-crawly phenomenon commented, ” it has been absolutely horrific. Every day there are about half-a-dozen spiders on the walls and ceilings.I have also seen abnormally high numbers of other insects in my home- I can’t relax because of it”.

Spider experts are however urging the public not to kill these eight-legged home invaders: despite their ghastly reputation, it has been stressed that spiders are a friend as opposed to a foe. Of Britain’s many species, none are harmful and virtually all of them are helpful in preventing insect numbers from spiralling out of control.

Experts have confirmed conjectures by the public that these events can be largely attributed to the UK’s ever-changing climate- we have experienced unusually temperate conditions since winter ended, with temperatures fluctuating very little and rainfall uncharacteristically scarce.

Wildlife conservationists are expected to respond positively to this dramatic surge in certain species’ populations, as insect numbers are integral to Britain’s biodiversity.

There is, unfortunately, a negative flipside for the species that do not fare well in warm, dry conditions- climate change has proved devastating to some species which were once considered common in the UK. The ladybird and the bumble bee, which were once considered as symbols of the British outdoors, have now all but disappeared across many parts of the country, much to the dismay of nostalgic ramblers and enthusiasts- some claim that the character of the British countryside is dying- literally- along with these amicable insects.

Depleted bumble bee numbers is also a cause of concern for botanists, who are alarmed that its diminishing presence is likely to be exceedingly detrimental to the plants that it has pollinated for thousands of years. The survival of plants and insects, they claim, is inextricably linked.

Wildlife experts in Scotland have in recent years have reported changes in Highland Scotland’s holarctic winter climate, with warmer temperatures threatening to jeopardise the future of many of the country’s arctic species. The mountain hare, which dons a white coat in winter in order to take refuge from predators in the snow, is an easy target if the snow melts or fails to come. Alpine moths and butterflies are also diminishing as mountain temperatures rise and snowcaps melt.

In addition to the damage being done by climate change within our shores, migrating wildlife from overseas threatens to tamper further with the balance of plants and animals in the British ecosystem. Hornets from the far-east threaten to cause havoc in the UK as they have in europe, wiping out and destroying many species.

In addition to the detriment of climate change to our wildlife, arachnophobes, and entomophobes also have cause for concern. And before long we might be seeing a mosquito invasion… and we had the cheek to complain about our weather!

I had to put this post in, as to me it is a beautiful little story – not to mention expensive, (and some might say creepy). So, as we approach Hallowe’en, here we have a lovely story of silken spiders and weaving.
A wee bit on the expensive side for anyone thinking of getting some of this yarn, but it’s definately a renewable, natural fibre!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113223398

[Click to Enlarge]

[Click to enlarge]

I once spoke at a tarantula’s funeral.  Her name was Rosie.  She belonged to my friend Tim.  We babysat her one summer while Tim was away  in Minnesota directing a boys’ camp, and I have to say, I kind of fell in love with her.  She was quiet, she was fuzzy, and she did the cutest little happy dance when we fed her soft green grasshoppers.

Alas, one sad day one of Tim’s students dropped her.  Her abdomen was punctured and the blood — there was just so much blood.  (Ok, so technically spider blood is called hemolymph, but that doesn’t sound nearly as dramatic.)  There was no way she could recover from such an injury, so Tim sadly said goodbye to her as he put her in the freezer to help speed her passing.  Several staff members gathered around to pay our respects.  Another friend and I actually cried.  She was just that lovable.

We held her funeral the next day.

A few months later my brother gave me a baby tarantula for Christmas.  She was ADORABLE.  All fluffy and pink and teeny tiny.  We put her in an aquarium decorated with a miniature Christmas tree and named her Sabrina.  That was almost five years ago.  She’s been sitting on my kitchen counter ever since, and she is no longer teeny tiny.  And every year around the beginning of October, she sheds.

Shedding is a VERY stressful time in the life of a tarantula.  And in the life of the tarantula’s mommy.  Here is how the process works:

First, the tarantula grows new tarantula skin under the old tarantula skin.  This makes it very difficult for the tarantula to see and move, thus resulting in a very grumpy arachnid.

When everything is ready, the tarantula spins a “molting mat” that looks just like a little spider spider picnic blanket.  Then the back of the spider’s abdomen opens up like a hatch on a jet, and the spider flips over on her back on top of the mat.

Then the scary part begins.  The poor little tarantula has to force off the old skin before the new skin hardens.  It’s just like trying to take off a very tight fitting glove without using your other hand (or teeth, or anything else).  It’s an exhausting process for the poor little critter.  During the shed and for several days thereafter the spider is completely helpless.  COMPLETELY HELPLESS.  Again I say, it’s terrifying.

(The spider pictured above is not Sabrina, but it looks just like her.)

So every time Sabrina sheds, our entire family goes on “Sabrina alert” mode.  We turn off all the lights in the kitchen (darkness makes Sabrina feel more secure), no one is allowed to bang any cupboards (again so as not to stress her out), and I start boiling water (to increase humidity, Silly, although I do know of some people who had to operate on their tarantulas when shedding went wrong).  And then, we wait.  And wait.  And wait some more.  Sabrina is a very slow shedder.

Last Tuesday right after lunch I found Sabrina on her back.  Lights off, cupboards quiet, water boiling – I have it down to a science now.  At 11:00 that night she still hadn’t made any visible progress.  I was WORRIED.  I stayed up for an extra 45 minutes, carefully analyzing every tiny twitch of her fuzzy legs.  I paced the floor.  I looked up “tarantula first aid” in my Tarantula Keeper’s Guide.  I started to develop an ulcer.  Eventually Elisabeth’s cry called me to bed, but I couldn’t sleep.

Here’s the thing:  I am TERRIFIED of spiders.  You should have seen our internet repair man laughing at us yesterday when a spider followed him into our house.  There was screaming, there was stomping, Jakob almost lost a foot.  I can’t even look at a picture of a spider without shuddering.  And yet every year there I am, pacing the kitchen and worrying about my very large pet spider.  I know, I don’t understand me either.

When I woke up the next morning, I anxiously rushed to her cage.

She made it!  There she was, all beautiful and pink again, stretched out next to her old skin.  (Cue Halelujah Chorus.)

She’s recovering quite nicely.  She should be able to eat again in a few days, after her new stomach has hardened.   And I can sleep peacefully again at night.

Isn’t she pretty?

No, I’m not talking about that fear of the dreaded jacket with the hood, that’s “anoraknophobia”. No I mean fear of spiders, not that I’m frightened of spiders but my house is like the one in the movie of the same name. And no, I don’t have a big house in the country, like the one in the movie but I think mine has an equivalent number of spiders residing in it. Most mornings we find some humungous house spider trying to get out of the bath and I do what any Papa would do, I send my 7 year old son to catch it and throw it outside.

A few nights ago I had just went to bed (Gillian wasn’t in bed yet) and I moved Gillian’s pillow and this mutant spider ran out from underneath it. Well I let out a MANLY scream, not because I was frightened but because the spiders sudden appearance startled me. Gillian came to my resc…, I mean Gillian got to the spider first and threw it out side. But why does my house have more spiders than the average street? Last night I went for a bath and there were four huge spiders at various locations on the walls and ceiling, I kept expecting to hear a splash as one of them ended up in beside me. Later on I had toyed with the idea of watching the movie “Arachnophobia” because of all the spiders I’d seen lately – I watched something else instead, but while watching, another huge spider ran out from under my chair (I’m glad I wasn’t watching Arachnophobia) and scurried across the carpet and under the couch. Then five minutes later another one appeared from the opposite side of the room and headed for the door. I think I need to listen to The WHO and use their solution to the problem of spiders (see clip below).

De angst die mensen voor spinnen hebben, blijft interessant. In Nederland bestaan er immers geen ‘gevaarlijke’ spinnen, of deze moet uit een terrarium zijn ontsnapt. Iemand zei laatst tegen mij dat we in Nederland twee angsten hebben betreffende dieren in onze leefomgeving. De ene is de spin. De andere is de muis. Nu vertelde deze persoon mij ook dat de ervaring vaak leert dat wanneer iemand bang is voor spinnen, niet bang is voor muizen en vice versa. Ik kan mij vinden in deze stelling.

Vies he?

Tot voor kort heb ik nooit geweten zo’n intense angst voor spinnen te bezitten. Muizen doen mij daarentegen niets. Ik moet zeggen dat als ik een spin buiten zie, ik minder schrik dan wanneer ik ze in mijn huis tegen kom. Neem vorige week. Net als nu zat ik rustig achter de computer totdat er een spin (voor grootte zie: foto) achter mijn bureau via de muur omhoog liep. De rillingen liepen over mijn lijf! Gelukkig durfde mijn huisgenoot de spin te vangen in een doorzichtig bakje.Vaker vind ik spinnen in mijn huis, maar deze zijn meestal al vermoord door mijn twee katten. De hemel zij geprezen!

Uiteindelijk heb ik de spin twee dagen in het bakje bewaard. Mijn angst was intussen overgegaan in iets wat je fascinatie zou kunnen noemen. Na door meerdere personen het advies te hebben gekregen hem over mijn balkon te gooien en ik toch ook een lichtelijk medelijden begon te voelen voor de gevangen spin, was het moment daar. Ik liep met het bakje naar mijn balkon en verwijderde de deksel. Maar ondanks hevig geschud, bleef hij zitten op zijn plek. Om na enkele seconden uiteraard ineens in sneltreinvaart richting mijn hand te rennen. U begrijpt het al… Ik heb de spin met bakje en al in de tuin twee verdiepingen lager gegooid.  Een korte ‘ieeh’ schreeuwde ik uit waarna ik gauw keek of de overburen het trieste voorval was opgevallen. Snel liep ik weer naar binnen.

Bijna dezelfde

Ik kwam op het idee om dit bericht te schrijven omdat ongeveer een kwartier geleden eenzelfde soort spin via dezelfde plek op de muur een weg naar een kartonnen doos baande. Eenmaal op de doos was dat blijkbaar toch niet zijn eindbestemming en probeerde terug op de muur te klimmen. Met in mijn achterhoofd de gedachte: ‘Esther, het is maar een spin, hij doet niks‘, bleef ik kijken wat zijn volgende stap was. Ik moet toegeven dat ik best trots was op mijzelf. Ik was immers niet eens paniekerig opgestaan en had niet om hulp geroepen. Daar kwam snel een einde aan. De spin viel van de kartonnen doos en verdween achter mijn bureau op de grond. Hij was uit mijn zicht. Automatisch sprong ik uit mijn stoel, maar ik kon er niks meer aan doen. Nu kijk ik om de tien seconden of hij misschien richting mijn stoel aan het wandelen is. Wat een anti-climax. Daar ik dacht mijn spinnen angst te kunnen overwinnen, ben ik in luttele seconden weer terug bij af. Plus dat de gedachte van een spinnennest vlak bij mijn bureau, ook niet echt meehielp.

Toch heeft deze escapade ook iets opgeleverd: ik weet waar mijn angst vandaan komt. Het is niet de spin zelf waar mijn angst door getriggerd wordt, maar het idee dat ik weet dat hij er is en ik hem niet kan zien! Dat je onbewuste gevoel je zegt dat je niet helemaal alleen bent. Dat hij elk moment kan opduiken op een moment dat je even net niet op je hoede bent of dat hij eerst stil zit en dan plotseling heel hard gaat rennen. Dat is de hele angst; het onbekende, het onverwachte, het controleverlies. Voila!

Whether or not you cultivate your probable arachnophobia you will think twice and probably enjoy something about the article entitled, waxing poetic, “Gossamer Silk, From Spiders Spun” by Randy Kennedy appearing in the Art and Design section of The New York Times, online.  Lovely photos of large spiders included at no extra cost!  Pleasant dreams nonetheless.

nothingisinvisible@live.fr

I had surgery on my big toe joint on Thursday, to remove a bone spur and carry out an arthroscopy. Something to do with cleaning out the joint basically and ensuring that it continues to function. I had suffered with inflammation over the last few years and during particulary evil attacks found it difficult to walk, so the surgery was a godsend. I was able to have it at a private hospital in St Johns Wood, which made for a very comfortable experience. Private room, menu, wine list, movies on demand, view over sculpted gardens, friendly staff (mainly Seth Efrican) and a jovial anestheologist.

I was nervous about going under a general anaesthetic but it was absolutely fine. One minute I was chatting happily about London life to the various staff in the operating theatre, and the next I woke up in my room with a kind person watching over me. Half an hour later I was wolfing down my lunch – no nausea for me! I went home the same night and am walking again, albeit slowly, like an old man.

4 days at home was relaxing and I read a book called The Standing Pool by Adam Thorpe. Very promising book, well written, darkly funnny, about a family renting a house in Languedoc and being beset by all kinds of evil under the sun… They are Cambridge intellectuals and deliciously naive about the real world and in particular the customs and history of the French village where they are staying. Old grudges from World War Two surface, mental illness, law-breaking hunters trespassing, an unfriendly village mayor etc. But the problem with the novel, which is common to so many novels I read these days, is that the ending leaves a lot to be desired. Writers, even the really good ones, often don’t know how to end their stories. After 400 pages of delicous prose, I put down the book with a bitter scowl.

** ** **

There were two huge spiders in the kitchen, one last night, and the other this morning. J removed last night’s one while I hid in the living room. This morning’s one was in the sink and I had to face it alone as J was fast asleep. I was half asleep myself but the spider still managed to completely freak me out – I am an arachnophobe. I turned the hot water on and watched it being sucked down the plug hole, but it was unfortunately too big to go into the holes and kept trying to heave itself up out of the swirling water. I grabbed a wooden spoon and smashed it down, no doubt breaking off legs and squashing bits of the spider as it finally got sucked into one of the holes and disappeared. I turned off the water and listened to my heart pounding in my ears, my ragged breathing. How I hate the spider season.

Spiders have gotten a bad rep over the many centuries of art and culture. I have to say that, besides snakes, they’re probably the most despised creature around. Everything about them is creepy and crawly, they have no real soft side to speak of, and in a few rare cases, they have actually killed a few people with their venom. Our relationship has been purely business; they get rid of insects, and we in return don’t spray them out of existence. It’s a strained relationship, but it works, although that relationship has never really been assuaged by our almost instinctual fear of them. And that fear was not assuaged by this veritable smear campaign movie that came out at the dawn of the 90s called, ironically, Arachnophobia. It’s an exploitation flick that features a lot of misinformation about spiders that is potentially harmful to the already tenuous relationship with our eight-legged friends. And if it weren’t so damn enjoyable, I’d probably be pissed.

It all takes place in delightful, sunny Canaima, which is located in delightful, sunny California. A body has come back from an expedition into the Amazon with some very dangerous cargo; the spider who killed the man. It’s a rare, never-before seen spider from the heart of South America, and it’s found the perfect home for itself and its babies in small, unassuming Canaima. At nearly the same time, a young doctor and his family has moved from the big city (i.e. San Francisco) to start their practice there. It’s a close-knit community, so it’s hard for him to break in at first. And it doesn’t help that many of his few new patients are dropping like flies from an unknown cause. He has a hunch, but it’ll take some convincing to get people to believe that a constantly rising number of people are being killed by what appears to be spider bites. As the doctor comes to realize the danger the town is in, the spiders begin to mount an assault that might be beyond anyone’s control. With the help of a few eccentric small-town characters and a researcher from South America that was on the original expedition, can he put an end to the spiders’ rampage across Canaima, or is it too late for the podunk paradise?

Jeff Daniels IS Dr. Jennings, the suave young doctor with a penchant for diagnosing spider bite deaths. He is a very likable character, even in the face of his indomitable yuppiness and his smart-ass mouth. He talks down to the residents of idiotic old Canaima, sure, and perhaps he lords his intelligence over them a little bit, but I really didn’t see a problem with it based on the sheer fact that Canaima is inhabited by knuckle-knobs! Fools! Idiotas! I actually enjoyed him looking down on these people, because if you saw them, you would look down on them too. Julian Sands (aka Warlock) plays the researcher who found the spider, and he is about as spacy as you can get. He almost seems like he belongs in a different movie, a British film about radioactive spiders looking for kicks. But I appreciate his strange Britishness, and enjoy seeing the guy from Warlock doing something other than being a bridge from Jeff Daniels to Kevin Bacon in Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon (a game in which I’m a local champion in).

The real star of this movie though is John Goodman, who gets his funny on for the role of Dilbert the Exterminator. He’s great!!! He’s quirky, he’s hysterical, he’s a small-town dude with a world-savvy philosophy that’s all his own. He’s hands-down the top reason to see this movie. He even has his own theme song for whenever he comes on screen, Torgo-style! It’s a head-bobbing little ditty that has a great harmonica whine on it that will make you say “Geez, the one thing I was missing in my day was this character and THIS song!”

As for the rest of the movie, it’s your standard animal-attack affair. There are a lot, and I mean a LOT of ridiculous deaths. It starts out realistic enough, with spiders crawling into shoes and lamp shades ready to pounce. But by the end, they go on a mindless blood-thirsty assault that seems more mailicious than is tyically plausible for something in the animal kingdom. It does a good job of exploiting our fear of something small and dangerous creeping its way into the nooks and crannies we never check to lay in wait and attack us. It’s a good concept, and one I begrudgingly admire, so it gets a good score from me there.

But Arachnophobia just gets a good score overall, in spite of its slanderous remarks against the arachnid. The feature debut of director Frank Marshall was far from a wash. It’s a horror/thriller/comedy/animal-attacking scenario that has you smiling one minute and checking the insides of your shoes the next. Jeff Daniels plays a good lead, the supporting cast is great, and what more can I say about the legendary Dilbert? It’s a good movie to usher in horror into the 90s, and I’m glad I got the chance to see it again after all these years. I give Arachnophobia 7 1/2 suave British gentlemen out of 10! Thanks again, John Goodman! And thanks to you, Julian Sands, for helping me out in Six Degrees!

Tomorrow I take a look at an NC-17 film again that actually refused to edit itself down! Tomorrow I’ll watch Frontiers! Until then!

We saw a spider when we went swimming yesterday – he was hanging around by the side of the pool and he was a big fella, too.

(no, I’ve never seen a spider hanging around a swimming pool before either…)

We decided not to point him out to AmberG in case she decided to try and eat him.  Or something.

Millie was a bit nervous about the big spider at first, but she was in the pool and we figured she was probably pretty safe from him.  Eventually we even managed to convince Millie of this and the big spider had disappeared anyway.

I figured he’d been swept down the drain by the splash of a particularly boisterous child jumping in (e.g., Millie, who loves jumping in).

He’d actually disappeared into Millie’s towel, which was hung on the side.  We discovered this back in the changing rooms when she SCREAMED, dropped her towel and ran.

As I say, he was a pretty beefy specimen, and even I would’ve been a bit taken aback if I’d been towelling myself off and suddenly come face to face with his beady little eyes.  Millie took a good couple of minutes to calm down even after I’d flipped the spider out the changing room door (he was still there when we came out, hanging around the changing cubicle opposite).

On the plus side, we tried AmberG with armbands for the first time, and after a few minutes of whingeing she had a really really good time in the pool.  She’s at that age where she loves following Millie about and copying whatever she does, so she was climbing out of the pool using the ladders and wandering dangerously around the edges of the pool until we’d lift her back into the water again.  She still has no idea about how to propel herself when floating in the centre of the pool, but at least she isn’t scared of it – in fact, her little face was split by a grin for just about the whole time she was in there.  Very different indeed from Millie, who was positively hydrophobic the first few times we took her.