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From The Desk Of The Green Pajamas: The Best Buck I Ever Spent

Like its Southern California influences in the Paisley Underground (Rain Parade, Three O’Clock), named as an homage to the psychedelic heyday of Jefferson Airplane and Strawberry Alarm Clock, the Green Pajamas must hold the world’s record for most albums (somewhere around 30) recorded by a band with the fewest number of live appearances (somewhere more than 30) over a career that has spanned almost 30 years. Jeff Kelly and Co. recently released longplayer Death By Misadventure via longtime Pajamas label Green Monkey. Kelly and bandmates Laura Weller and Eric Lichter will be guest editing magnet magazine.com all week. Read our recent feature on them.

Kelly: Best dollar I ever spent was on an old paperback copy of Bram Stoker‘s Dracula, found on a sale rack at Half Price Books. I had been interested in Gothic literature for a while but had always avoided Dracula. I grew up plagued with that insistent image of Bela Lugosi in the original silent film. Just as my children don’t have any interest in ancient movies from the ’60s and ’70s, I always thought Dracula looked corny and dated, campy and uninteresting. But I had been reading things like Carmilla by J.S. LeFanu, the ghost stories of M.R. James and even Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, which is, I was surprised to find, very sad. So I decided to try to read Dracula. And—surprise!—it was a masterpiece. I immediately went out and bought some English brandy and cigars. Well, maybe not cigars, but I thought about it a lot. The whole time I couldn’t stop thinking about what a romantic story this was and also truly spooky, as when Jonathan looks out of his castle window to see the count descending down the outside wall, head-first like an insect, on his way to prey upon the village babies. Sensationalism and the Gothic Revival were “what was happening” at the time, and Stoker really nailed it. Much later I finally watched the old Lugosi film and thought it was great.

A few other “gothic” favorites of mine after the jump.

The Monk by Matthew Lewis (1796): Mind blowing. I had no idea something like this existed, and in the 18th century!
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847): Just may be my favorite novel. It is as strange and untamed as its author. While reading this, I often find myself wondering, “What was she thinking when she wrote this shit!?”
In A Glass Darkly by J. S. LeFanu (1872): Features the very beautifully written Carmilla, one of the first classic vampire stories, written before Dracula.
Uncle Silas by J. S. LeFanu (1864)
Collected Ghost Stories by M.R. James (various publication dates)
Interview With The Vampire/The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice (1976/1985)
First Love: A Gothic Tale by Joyce Carol Oates (1996): As you approach the end of this novella, Oates sucks the breath right out of your lungs.
Lost Girls by Andrew Pyper (1999)
Grange House: A Novel by Sarah Blake (2001): Her prose is like poetry. Beautiful.