SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS: THE STAGE PLAY!

If you live anywhere near Southern California, I highly recommend visiting the Maverick Theater in Fullerton and seeing Brian Newell's adaptation of SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS, the infamous 1964 film directed by Nicholas Webster.

*SEE* Torg the Technical Wonder stride across the stage! 

*GASP IN AMAZEMENT* as realistic flying saucers whiz directly overhead! 

*MARVEL* at the unbelievably exotic sounds of the Martian "Pshhhhhh" Door! 

If you're persistent enough, you might even persuade Torg the Mechanical Wonder to pose for a photograph with you (see below).

In 2016, the Los Angeles Times wrote, "A Fullerton holiday tradition began as an incredibly bad movie. Not even that so-bad-it’s-good kind of thing. Just plain bad. Maybe it’s the spirit of Christmas, but decades later, one little community theater has embraced the awfulness of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and turned a lump of coal into a present that just keeps giving.

"'I don’t know how this became a success,' said [Brian] Newell. 'I had to beg actors to do it. They thought it was a suicide show.'"

And if you want to see this "suicide show" for yourself, you have until Monday, December 23rd. Tickets can be ordered right HERE. 

In the meantime, check out Nicholas Webster's original film (featuring Fritz Hansen's *Astounding* Martian Furniture) directly below....

Cryptoscatology's Essential JFK Assassination Books!

The Warren Commission Report (1964):

The Second Oswald by Richard H. Popkin (1966):

MacBird! by Barbara Garson (1966):

Were We Controlled? by Lincoln Lawrence (1967):

Winter Kills by Richard Condon (1974):

The Yankee and Cowboy War by Carl Oglesby (1977):

Operation Mind Control by Walter Bowart (1978/1994):

Conspiracy by Anthony Summers (1980):

Sherlock Holmes in Dallas by Edmund Aubrey (1980):

On the Trail of the Assassins by Jim Garrison (1988):

 

Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs (1989):

JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy by L. Fletcher Prouty (1992):

 

The Man Who Knew Too Much by Dick Russell (1992):

Deep Politics and the Death of JFK by Peter Dale Scott (1993):

Columbo: The Grassy Knoll by William Harrington (1993):

NASA, Nazis & JFK: The Torbitt Document & the Kennedy Assassination by Kenn Thomas and William Torbitt (1996):

Dr. Mary’s Monkey by Edward T. Haslam (2007):

 

The Essential Mae Brussell: Investigations of Fascism in America by Mae Brussell (2014):

"A Scarcity of Angels" in SELENE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE

The latest edition of SELENE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE (Volume 2, Issue 3) features Part One of my pulp-inspired short story "A Scarcity of Angels." Also included in this issue are stories and poems by the likes of Nick Sweeney, Tanya Warnakulasuriya, DJ Tyrer, and Annie Percik. If you want to buy this issue, simply click HERE!

 

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Harlan Ellison's "Pay the Writer" Rant & The Harlan Ellison Memorial Panel

In light of recent allegations regarding ChiZine Publications withholding royalty payments from writers (see previous post), perhaps this would be an appropriate time to resurrect Harlan Ellison's classic "Pay the Writer" rant from Erik Nelson's excellent 2008 documentary HARLAN ELLISON: DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH:

 

Speaking of Harlan Ellison... on November 16, 2019, the FANAC organization uploaded to YouTube the Harlan Ellison Memorial panel that was held at Worldcon 76 in August of 2018 (about two months after Harlan's death on June 28, 2018). What follows is the YouTube description of the panel: "This Memoriam panel (audio, with pictures) features memories and anecdotes from Tom Whitmore, Robert Silverberg (who was a friend of Harlan's for 65 years), Chris Barkley, David Gerrold, Christine Valada and Nat Segaloff (Harlan's biographer). Each of the panelists had a close relationship with Harlan, and these loving but clear-eyed reminiscences are a comfort to those that miss him, and hopefully to those readers who never had a chance to meet him. Harlan was an enormous presence in science fiction. His stories, his scripts, his kindnesses and his sometimes unbelievable missteps will be long remembered. Recording provided by Karen G. Anderson and Richard Lynch."

The Horror Show: THE RISE AND FALL OF CHIZINE

In a series of articles posted on his FILE 770 website, Mike Glyer has been covering the recent allegations concerning ChiZine, the most prominent independent speculative fiction publisher in Canada. ChiZine, which is owned by Sandra Kasturi and Brett Savory, has won the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Bram Stoker Award. Their publications include books written (or edited) by the likes of Laird Barron, Ellen Datlow, Paul Di Filippo, Gemma Files, Christopher Golden, Stephen Graham Jones, Ed Kurtz, Geoff Ryman, and Paul Temblay. The recent public allegations against ChiZine include "slow payment and nonpayment" and "blackballing an author who complained" about the publisher's pattern of financial fraud. Such allegations (and others) are covered in the following FILE 770 articles:

"Authors Break Silence with Complaints About ChiZine Publications" (11-6-19).

"Writers and Staffers Share More Bad Experiences with ChiZine Publications" (11-7-19).

"As Authors Share More ChiZine Experiences, Others Part Ways with CZP" (11-10-19).

Novelist Brian Keene covers the controversy in great detail in the most recent episode of his podcast THE HORROR SHOW (11-14-19), which can be heard in its entirety below. It's well worth a listen:

THE RISE AND FALL OF CHIZINE - The Horror Show with Brian Keene - Ep 244

Invisibility Cloaking: Theory and Experiment

In January of 2019, investigative journalists George Knapp and Matt Adams (of KLAS-TV in Las Vegas, Nevada) obtained and published a Defense Intelligence Agency study entitled "Invisibility Cloaking: Theory and Experiment." According to Knapp and Adams' 1-31-19 8NewsNow article entitled "Former Sen. Reid Calls for Congressional Hearings into UFOs," the DIA study "explores invisibility cloaking — craft that are not only invisible to radar, but actually invisible. That research has reportedly been underway at Nevada’s Area 51 base in recent years."

The DIA study begins as follows:
 
"The idea of invisibility has fascinated people for millennia, inspiring many myths, novels, and films. Invisibility cloaking has recently become a subject of science and technology. This paper describes the important current theoretical and experimental developments and tries to project into the future."

To read the full DIA report, click HERE. 

To read Knapp and Adams' 1-31-19 8NewsNow article, click HERE.

THE REVELATION OF THE METHOD

What follows is the official trailer for the "remake" of Universal's THE INVISIBLE MAN, which hits theaters in February of 2020. CHAMELEO readers might find this preview of particular interest....

On pp. 36-37 of the 1995 edition of his book SECRET SOCIETIES AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE, Michael A. Hoffman writes that the multilayered phrase "Revelation of the Method" (first coined by James Shelby Downard, author of the excellent memoir THE CARNIVALS OF LIFE AND DEATH) refers to:

"...the process wherein murderous deeds and hair-raising conspiracies involving wars, revolutions, decapitations (secret archaeo-astronomic deity cult-worship), and every manner of horror show are first buried beneath a cloak of secrecy... and then, when finally accomplished and secured, slowly revealed to the unsuspecting populace who watch... deep-frozen... as the hidden history is unveiled [E]xposure itself does not defeat the cryptocracy because given the degraded and atrophied nature of modern man's perceptions and insight today, such revelations may only serve to strengthen the cryptocracy's mental hold.

"The record shows that the recent revelations of occult crime have almost never been accompanied by arrests, prosecutions, convictions and punishment of the initiates involved, hence the reputation of Academy invincibility is heightened by the revelations.

"Moreover, the spectacular nature of the crimes revealed carry a highly charged aura of the violent and the erotic and in the final analysis, when exposed to public attention, only become further grist for the seemingly limitless public appetite for shock-titillation and passive voyeurism."