Surely, our society is corrupt beyond redemption and the Lord will have vengeance upon us

Through fire, flood, lack of good skiing and other global warming side-effects

For I have seen the last sign of the apocalypse, and its name is

The Swan.

I caught a portion of this televised abomination while flipping through the channels checking for a Buffy rerun that I had seen once in that same time slot (yes, I'm pathetic, but we're not going to talk about that now.). I had read about it and was familiar with the premise -- ordinary people are transformed into "beauty queens" via the miracle of modern plastic surgery -- and thought it sounded distasteful and stupid. I assumed I would never see it, since I manage to avoid most television. But now that The Swan seemed to be on, and Buffy wasn't, morbid curiosity got me to stop and watch a bit, horrified fascination kept me there long enough to see the parts I'm going to talk about now. Did I see the whole thing? God no. Did I have to? I really don't think so.

I see a woman, identified as a "swan coach," lecturing another woman whose face is covered in bruises and bandages about whether or not she is sticking to her diet. Both women appear to be adults, and yet, the "swan coach" talks to the other woman as if she is a toddler who can't keep out of the cookie jar. "Don't you want to fit into this little black dress? Don't you? Look at me." "Yes." "Well what do you have to do? You have to stick to your diet, don't you. Don't you?" And the bruised woman, looking just exactly like somebody who has been in a horrible accident, meekly looks at the floor and whispers about how she's going to do better.

Then, there's a kind of recap for a different bandaged woman. The host -- who seems a bit like a generic Catherine Zeta Jones knockoff -- cheerily interviews a phalanx of "experts" about what they have chosen to do for this woman. A blonde. We'll call her -- Barbie. So there are about six different plastic surgeons, a fitness guy, a counselor, and that inexplicable "swan coach." What seems like a dozen people altogether, standing in two rows to make an aisle that Barbie is going to walk down.

They talk about all the procedures they have chosen for Barbie, so glib and pleased with themselves, as they describe the new and improved eyes, nose, lips, chin, cheeks, stomach, breasts thighs and attitude they have given her. It doesn't sound like they're talking about an actual person most of the time. Phrases like "I worked on the body" jump out at me. It doesn't sound like Barbie had any input about what she was going to end up looking like. The experts' attitude has a cold, clinical sadism that seems more and more surreal the longer it goes on. I start to wonder if it's all a hoax, if I'm watching The Twilight Zone instead. (There is a TZ episode -- Number 12 Looks Just Like You -- which has exactly the same plot as The Spawn, pretty much. )

We see flashes of Barbie under the knife, and it looks, weirdly, like they carried out all of these many surgeries at the same time. Then there's a shot of her all bandaged and puffy and talking about how she's in so much pain she wants to die. The utter depravity is making my head spin. The counselor talks about how, now that she can forgive her husband for cheating on her and she has the self confidence that only a million dollars' worth of plastic surgery can bring, she is now "one very empowered young lady." (um. Barf?)

Then Barbie walks out in an evening dress. The experts applaud. I have got to be watching The Twilight Zone. She looks like...I guess she looks like a beauty contestant. They show a "before" picture. She looks like a person. Room for improvement? Yeah, sure. She has an unflattering hairstyle, dumpy clothes, and bad posture. But...

But...

They do something they call "the reveal," where Barbie stands in front of some curtains that are drawn up to reveal a full-length mirror. She has not seen her transformation before now. And she has that reaction, the oh my god let me cover my mouth with my hands and say "I don't believe it!" reaction, the one that can mean either that you're pleased, or that you're horrified and don't want to let on in public.

Right about then, Paul comes home. I turn it off. Then I turn it back on again. Paul? You have to see this. Can you believe it?

He talks about Romans. Feeding people to lions for entertainment.

I'm not sure I've never seen anything that seemed more perverse, more fundamentally contemptuous of humanity, than this show.

So, anyway, I thought all the Goth House characters deserved their own nightmare, and this seemed like the right one for Terra (long term readers might recognize the "makeover" theme from the first mall story.

For those of you who keep track of such things, they are watching television on the couch at Shandi's place, where the household has cable. Everybody claims it is just so they can watch The Discovery Channel and classic movies, plus a few people have owned up to an addiction to The Daily Show.

Goth House has a television, which is hooked up to a VCR and DVD player, but it has never ever gotten any reception. Goth House residents are even cheaper and more stubborn in their dislkike of cable companies than the hippies that Shandi lives with.

The images this time were captured on the digital camera that my parents gave me for Christmas. I'd been meaning to do a Goth House that way for some time, just to see what happened. I was on a plane coming home from Phoenix when I came up with this idea. Planes are boring.

If you look closely you can see the places where I Photoshopped out my left hand where it was holding Princess.

Actually, you don't have to look all that closely.

It was very early on the Monday morning following the 2004 World Horror Convention. Those of us still looking for fun had gathered on the hotel's outdoor deck, or, in Cat Grey's Morbid Tearoom for tea and gin. The prospect of packing to go home loomed ominously. Cat gifted us with posters, feathers, and Princess.

I was sorry to be missing Norwescon, but -- at a convention where so much groovy stuff was happening -- I didn't miss it too much. I had coffee with Adam Niswander, wine with Lisa Snellings Clark, and Stephen Jones gave me Jack Daniel's in honor or Karl Edward Wagner. Dee Snider (originally of Twisted Sister fame) turned out to be a charming and eloquent speaker on horror, selling out, and freedom of artistic expression, and it turns out Michael Slade (both halves) put the World Horror Convention in his latest thriller Bed of Nails.

Princess likes her new home.

The teaser at right is for a gallery image from my life drawing class. Some of you may have been to a life drawing class. A naked person poses in the center of a room, and a bunch of art students have to draw her, or him. This phenomenon has been mostly unchanged for a hundred years or more. I remember once seeing a rather charming picture where a bunch of women circa 1900, with their corsets and their hair in big poofy buns, sleeves rolled up, drawing a naked man. Well, naked except for a small item of clothing covering what is generally regarded as the naughty bits -- an item of clothing which Seth Green, in the commentary track for the Buffy Episode "Wild at Heart," described as a "man thong."

I talk about this because the issue of "decency" is swirling through the zeitgeist.

This is because of an interesting convergence. On the one hand, we have that whole Janet Jackson Super Bowl half time thing. Now, I didn't watch the Super Bowl. I never watch the Super Bowl. I've been in the same room with it, but I can't honestly say I've watched it. This year I wasn't even in the same room with it. But I've seen that clip of Justin Timberlake (whoever he is -- I mean, I know the name, but I couldn't tell you why) ripping off part of Janet Jackson's corset thingy over, and over, and over, and over. And apparently I've seen this little film clip (with digital blurring) so many times because it was Scandalous! Shocking! and Indecent!

I'm so outraged! Show me again!

And on the other hand, we have these same Guardians of Public Decency trying to prevent people from getting married because they happen to be the same sex. I don't know, maybe I'm hopelessly out of touch, but when exactly did it become MORE respectable for a couple to be living together without being married?

Actually, I fear that I AM hopelessly out of touch.

I have a prudish, neo-Victorian streak. I first noticed this as a child, when I thought the 70s were tacky. My view of appropriate public swimwear gets up to about 1950, and after that everything is much too revealing. I don't have a problem with "clothing optional" swimming situations (the Victorians, in spite of their infamous prudery, had many enthusiastic nudists. They thought it was "healthful.") but think it is inappropriate the instant anyone lets on that they've noticed other people are naked. I've been waiting for a good five or six years for the bottom of women's shirts to start meeting the top of their pants again. I'll wait forever if I have to.

I started to idolize Miss Manners in high school, when I wasn't coping very well with being an adolescent in the modern, sex-obsessed world. It wasn't that I didn't know about such things, or that I wanted the arts to be censored. Heaven forfend! I just didn't think what other people were doing was any of my business. And I didn't want to hear about it. No, really. And I don't think that joke is funny, either, and do you really think it's an appropriate topic in work setting? Hrrmph.

The worst offenders have always been these Guardians of Public Decency, though. They just won't stop talking about the things they find "indecent," which gives them the chance to wallow in their own prurient interest, while maintaining their holier-than-thou pose. Genuine prudes see right through that. We've noticed that one reason we know so much more than we really want to about what adult, mutually consenting people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms is because these Guardians of Public Decency bothered to make it illegal, then tried to enforce that illegality in the very public courts. Or because they thought it was so horrifying that the president engaged in a sexually compromising position with an intern that they had to make it the only topic of public discourse for a year. (For the last time! Unless she was an enemy spy and he was giving away national secrets, IT'S NONE OF MY BUSINESS! And I don't want to hear about it. No, really.)

So, if you're feeling the urge to live in a more decent and civilized society, read your Miss Manners. Stop poking your nose into other people's bedrooms. And, for Heaven's sake, pull up your pants.

Oh no! Is this the end of Goth House?

Well, maybe.

But, probably not.

I do, however, go through periods of...let's call it burnout, where I want to chuck the whole thing, just forget about it. It takes too much of my time, too much of my money, and brings nothing in return: a useless stinking albatross that I hung around my own stupid neck for reasons which I can't adequately explain.

This particular episode is not the end of Goth House, because it is the beginning of a series about the band going on tour.

Will the house, and more adventures, somehow be waiting for them at the end of it?

I don't know.

Or maybe I do know, and I'm just going to make the rest of you wait to find out.