Fear the Flora
So I'm reading this trashy (good trashy, mind you) book by Scott Smith, same dude who wrote A Simple Plan. It's called The Ruins, and Stephen King blurbs the front of the paperback with this: "The best horror novel of the new century." The story actually reminds me of King's early work, when he'd take unlikely things -- a car, a dog, a kid's army toy -- and turn them into demonic monsters.
Smith's monsters just happen to be...vines.
That's right: A handful of young nubiles wander into a Mexican jungle and get trapped on an archaeological dig overrun with blood-thirsty weeds. Sound stoopid, right? Well, it works. It's totally freaking me out. Here's a disgusting excerpt: "Somehow the vine had pushed itself into his wound, opening it, widening it, thrusting a tendril into his body. Stacy could see it beneath his skin, the ridged rise of it, three inches long, like a thick finger, probing."
Yeah, it gets worse (good worse, mind you).
Anyway, my entire backyard has been covered by vines for awhile now, and I've been planning to go out there and weed-whack a bit. But forget it now. I can't have weeds in my wounds. That's not gonna happen. So in tribute to my topiary terror, here's...
Sean Needs to Hire a Landscaper Pronto Mix:
Feed the Tree -- Belly
(Nothing But) Flowers -- Talking Heads
Jungle Love -- the Time
Green Green Grass of Home -- Tom Jones
Weed With Willie -- Toby Keith
Autumn Cannibalist -- Die Mannequin
On the Greener Side -- Michelle
Dumpweed -- blink-182
You Don't Bring Me Flowers -- Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand
Fake Plastic Trees -- Radiohead
Sean Daly is the pop music critic for the St. Petersburg Times. His CD collection -- from Journey to Dylan, Prince to U2, Public Enemy to Stan Getz -- is much bigger and better than yours.
Shaking the Tree by Peter Gabriel
Trees by Rush
That's all I can think of. Good luck Sean, I hedged the lawn yesterday and some rocks were in the way of the weedwhacker. Ow!
Posted by: Al | August 13, 2007 at 01:24 PM
Gardening At Night -- REM
Life Is Good In The Greenhouse -- XTC
Garden of Earthly Delights -- XTC
Grass -- XTC
Wildwood Weed -- Jim Stafford
Vine Street -- Randy Newman
Posted by: GlennS. | August 13, 2007 at 04:06 PM
Damn, GlennS., those are good. Terrifying, but good.
Posted by: Sean Daly | August 13, 2007 at 04:46 PM
Flowers in the Window - Travis
Posted by: Guy | August 13, 2007 at 08:29 PM
Suppertime - Little Shop of Horrors
Posted by: Max | August 14, 2007 at 12:58 AM