My sister and I were going through old family stuff, and she found a story that was, amazingly enough, published in my summer-camp newspaper in July 1967, when I was ten:
“One day at Seneca, Bunk 14 went for a free swim. I was swimming right next to someone, and all of a sudden I heard a scream. I looked over, and I looked back again, because I saw an arm, a leg, and a nose floating in the water. I yelled and crawled out of the pool. Something was following me! I looked around for someone to tell, but the camp was deserted. I ran across the obstacle course. Luckily, the creature got stuck in the tires. I rushed to the equipment shack and picked up a bow and arrow. I ran out to the monster, unfortunately, I shot it in the shoulder. He yelled and shook so much that he got himself loose from the tires. I took the bow and cracked it over his head, and ran! It was chasing me, and all of a sudden I saw my Bunk coming out of the barn. I didn’t need them, though, the creature had strangled himself on the tether-ball court.”
Jesus Kee-rist! No wonder my parents sent me to a shrink.
The monster is communism. The first attack is in the water. This symbolizes the conflict overseas. The monster is not stopped but comes onto our shores. The heroine then entangles the monster in the symbols for America values - physical fitness and a symbol of capitalism, namely tires. She then looks to America’s cultural past and chooses a symbol of the American Indian to fight the monster of communism. But culture is not enough to stop this threat. Once all the Americans are rallied the monster self-destructs. Tethered to it’s own faults, it destroys itself.
I’m picturing this whole thing happening in Japan for some reason. Heh-heh. It’s poorly dubbed…the mouth movements don’t match the sound. The creature is crushing cardboard props and they keep running the same “scream” loop over and over…
Cheese Factor: 7
Originality: 6
Artistic Interpretation: 9 (I assume it was shot in B&W)
Overall Score: 7.3
Clearly, the monster is puberty. At summer camp, Eve got her first period. The girl in the water got hers first and Eve still wanted to avoid it. However, running into the obstacle course indicates her doubts. Maybe she would become entangled. Maybe she would escape. Her puberty is finally intertwined by the ball and string and the futility of the Bunk shows us that this emerging woman no longer needs the girls by her side.
[Kevin Arnold]and from that point on, we knew things would never be the same. . .[/Kevin]
So we’ve got a lot of liquid, a monster trying to crawl through a tire, someone getting shot with an arrow, a bed, and it all ends with the monster getting choked.
I guess I’m missing the political theme other people are seeing.
Zee young Eve, vhile schwimming at camp, turns to see disemobdied body parts floating near her. Vee can surmise from zee description that these are human body parts - she describes a “nose, arm and leg.” Clearly, this represents young Eve’s vision of herself that she vishes to escape - she vishes to escape this Eve and blossom into a new self.
The young Eve is alone in her dream - she recognizes that she vill have to make the journy of self-dicovery quite by herself - she must overcome life’s “obstacle course.” The “new” Eve then becomes caught up in zee opening of zee tires - a clear manifestation of Eve’s fear of zee vagina. Young Eve enrages herself, caught in zee vagina, but shooting it vith unt arrow - unt even clearer manifestation of zee ongoing battle between zee female unt male organs in young Eve’s psyche.
In the end, the “Eve” creature is strangled by zee balls.
It is all very zignificant."
Egscuse me now, for I must have my cigar and morphine.
