Word: spiritualist
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...hands of underground-comic pioneer Spain Rodriguez, the 1946 William Lindsay Gresham novel (later a 1947 movie) gets the cartoon treatment its subjects--hustling and degradation in a 1930s carnival--beg for. Magician Stanton Carlisle hatches a plan to pose as a spiritualist to con rich marks, in the process revealing the family history that destroyed his faith in God and man. Nightmare Alley (Fantagraphics; 129 pages) is an existential novel wrapped in a noir chiller, and Rodriguez's lurid drawings strike just the right balance of sheen and sleaze. Step right...
...Coldy ambitious and hotly lustful, he learns the medium's secrets and begins a "two-a-day" mentalist vaudeville act with Molly, a virginal looker with a thing for daddy. Never satisfied, Stanton tricks up a house and puts on a minister's outfit, turning himself into a successful "spiritualist." Soon he meets a wealthy industrialist who's "overboard on the spook dodge. He's living on dream street," and willing shell out big bucks to square his conscience with a dead girl. But Stan's downfall comes when he meets Lilith, a comely shrink who's too smart...
...Thompson novel. As adapted by Spain, "Nightmare" pulls you into a secret world, with its own colorful language. "You can go back to carny and find another kootch show. But I want to have big dough," is a typical line, delivered when Molly hesitates on trying out the spiritualist "dodge." Throughout the book you get a privileged inside look at the tricks of the trade: the hand-offs, the cold-readings, the radio transmitters in the jacket. It's a rare treat to go behind the curtain, and it keeps you reading for more...
...19th century. The literary equivalent of melody is, of course, story, the engaging what-next of narrative prose. Hansen's tersely told tale hangs expectantly on the outcome of Mistress Blum's treatment, which unexpectedly includes the arcane input of the enchanting Madame Helena Barrett and her spiritualist friends...
...that Harvard students are just too dependent on their five senses: sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing. Most totally ignore their sixth sense, otherwise known as their "sixth sense." Those that don't fall into this trap see no shortage of Harvard haunts. Several years ago, Young recounts, a spiritualist was invited to speak in Massachusetts Hall. "Students had expressed an interest in that sort of thing, and this lady had worked with the FBI in locating missing persons." Before performing some appropriately mind-bending feats of ESP, the spiritualist warned students not to take pictures because...