Remember our old blog days, when we gave each other homework and set strange little challenges just to see what we’d do with them? When comment threads felt like hidden corridors where the real conversations lived? The Very Curious Dr. Z, I know you remember. In that spirit, I’m summoning the circle again.
She gave us a tale of creation and rejection, a nameless creature both intelligent and unloved, wandering alone through storm and silence. He has always felt like a companion to me, misunderstood, but still alive with longing. Which is why my own celebration will be solitary.
"The monster was the best friend I ever had." - Boris Karloff
This year, my celebration will look a lot like my usual gothy routines, only charged with the spark of the occasion. I’ll be reading the Kolaj version of Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus that features seventy-six illustrations by International Collage Artists. I'll write poetry under flickering black candles (or most likely the sun), verses stitched from loneliness and lightning. I’ll probably wander into a cemetery. And, I’ll mix myself a cocktail to toast Mary Shelley and her nameless creation.
Frankenstein Cocktail
• 1 ounce Dry Vermouth for smooth, herbaceous gloom
• 1 ounce Gin for sharp botanical clarity
• 1/2 ounce Apricot Brandy for sweetness in the shadows
• 1/2 ounce Triple Sec for citrus lightning
• Garnish with a cherry, red as a borrowed heart
Shaken, strained, and consumed like a pact.
I’m challenging you to take part in your own way. Read a passage from Frankenstein. Watch an old black-and-white horror film. Write something, stitch something, light a candle, pour a drink, summon the storm. Report back. Tell me how you kept the day.
Let’s make it feel like it used to: a secret society scattered across the map, bound together by shared ritual and words. On August 30th, I’ll be celebrating alone, just like the creature. But maybe, just maybe, we won’t be so alone if we do it together.
When you share your ritual, your poem, your candlelit toast, begin or end with these words, as though we are all whispering them into the same night:
“We are the children of Shelley, keepers of the storm. [Okay, I'm feeling a bit dramatic.] We gather though apart, stitched together by ink and shadow. On this night of Frankenstein, we honor the nameless and the misunderstood. Alone, yet not alone, we light the dark with words, with memory, with creation.”
Write it, speak it, or leave it hidden like a charm at the end of your message. Consider it our oath, our flicker of connection in the storm.
