"The Stranger in the Woods"

 (The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit)

-by michael finkel

2017

Be prepared to not believe.

Then be prepared to not be able to stop reading.

In 1986, twenty year-old chris knight drove his car through central Maine past the point of no return, then walked into the woods...and didn't come out for twenty-seven years. By "come out", i mean dragged out by the authorities who finally found him after more than a thousand petty larcenies. He would emerge from the woods in the dead of night, to burgle books, batteries, and food from empty vacation homes.

In all those years, he had but one accidental conversation with another person, a two-word exchange with an unknowing hiker.

He survived all those Maine winters without a fire for heat...coming close to death from freezing or starvation numerous times.

He wasn't writing a best-seller. He left a job and functioning childhood family behind, without a word. He intended to live in his hermit's camp, until he died.

The story of chris knight may upend your beliefs about modern society, companionship, and sanity. It may shake you to your core, with both horror AND envy.

Much of the credit for that goes to finkel, whose narrative is little short of perfect. After chris's capture, michael was the only journalist he allowed in his presence. The depth of research is breathtaking, from interviews to analyses of the history and psychology of "solitaries". The hermits of America actually have a dues-paying organization (with website)...and i'm sure chris would have just as much disregard for them as he does for relative dilettantes such as thoreau. When America became fascinated with the chris mccandless saga, knight had already lived utterly alone for a decade...and would continue so for almost two more.

As the story unfolds, HOW and WHY will clang inside your head...though perhaps not everyone will feel resonances of themself in knight's story. And that's just one more facet of the modern humyn tragedy.

CEO

(a redirection of john lennon's "How Do You Sleep?")

Your capitalism so predatory

So now our babies live in poverty
Polluted skies and poisoned riverbeds
Pretty soon the oceans all be dead
CEO, how do you sleep?
CEO, how do you sleep at night?

Your underlings always kiss your ass
They'll knife you fast for a ring of brass
For sweat shops and sex rings you pave the way
But in your mansion it's just another day
CEO, how do you sleep?
CEO, how do you sleep at night?

You spread your crumbs with a charity or two 
But the world is wise to the crap you do
You're fading fast from history

One more crime against humanity

CEO, how do you sleep?
CEO, how do you sleep at night?

barbaria

Water is acid
The Earth ain't flat
Glass is liquid
and that is that

There ain't nine planets
and Russia wasn't commie
Who's your REAL dad?
Go ask mommy

You have no clue
what people think of you
Your knowledge of life
further still from true
Your greatest ignorance by far
(and where worldly discontent breeds)
is seeing WHO you are
and heeding your own needs

3 billion

Three billion years past we surpassed the muck muck muck

My ancestor said to yours "We need to fuck fuck fuck"

bagpipe

Of this mindfucking morass
never again will i gripe
if i but locate a lass
who cums like a wounded bagpipe

whiff

Universally interpersonally void of clue
Insecure neuroses sabotage me and you
Of rhyme there's naught in aught we do
Our reasons well-seasoned with the whiff of poo

MST3K!

(Compiling a best-of for MST is like seeking a sailing squirrel in a stupendously subjective sea. The one quantifiable criterion to which i tried to adhere is quality of riffing...but it's so easy to get lost in how agonizingly unwatchable, or wretchedly charming, the source film is.)

MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000's GREATEST EPISODES
-WEREWOLF
Arizona archaeologists uncover mysterious skeletal remains...and soon lycanthropes are everywhere! Starring joe estevez and richard lynch. Serial burst-out-loud chuckles are capped by an end-credits music riff that sparks the longest sustained MST-laughter ever.
-RED ZONE CUBA
Mike and the bots are treated to coleman francis' magnum opus, about three drifters who bounce from prison barrack to prison barrack, invading a sovereign nation along the way. A john carradine cameo starts things off with a whimper! Seamless mirth-making (especially of note in the host segments). The badness of RZC is not life-sucking, as you'd be laughing and riffing along, even without prompting. I have an oily cuba zone.
-THIS ISLAND EARTH
Tell the truth...did anyone expect this to stand with MST's best? With no joel, the crew find themselves on unfamiliar ground (onscreen and off), as they try to transplant a seat-of-your-pants cable show into big budget Hollywood. But this 50s sci-fi semi-classic (with russell johnson and bug-eyed, big-brained aliens) is too juicy a target to fail. Ruth!
-HORROR AT PARTY BEACH
On the strength of riffing alone this might only merit honorable mention, but the source material is so bizarrely bad that it's worth watching on its own. This film tries to be a million things: teen beach flick, atomic mutant frightfest, biker film, foster brooks comedy. It utterly fails at all, yet the sum is so much greater (or worse) than the parts. Look Polish?
-CAVE DWELLERS
Just beautifully wretched. The producers commit to a nonsensical, awful concept, and run run run! The mind-numbing flashback exposition is the cinematic equivalent of LSD. But the riffing remains light and loaded. How much o'keefe is in this movie? So many miles.
-MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE
I resisted the hype, but eventually had to agree - the product is bizarro, beyond-the-pale bad, and the riffing above average (even though they commit the offense of making the badness of the movie an in-joke, destabilizing the conceit that they hadn't seen it before). It's hard to appreciate just how awful this film is, if your first experience is the cuddly MST treatment. It's a true cinematic unicorn, a film so appallingly, stunningly strange that you would make your friends watch it, just to see their faces.

MITCHELL

The riffing (like MANOS) dives from great to listless, but mitchell's romancing is just not-to-be-believed, and the saucy skateboarder may be the most hysterically bad moment of cinema ever. Joe don baker is the abe vigoda of joe don bakers (no, i don't know what that means, but it's true).

AGENT FOR H.A.R.M.

Bond wannabe peter mark richman is off to the tricycle races. Ever imagine mr. rogers as a smarmy ass-kicker? Drive!
-SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL
This one makes the cut despite zero charm or weirdness in the source film, a relentlessly formulaic TV movie...yet the riffing falls into a relaxed, laugh-out-loud groove, and never strays.

-I ACCUSE MY PARENTS
The standard against which all riffing is measured? A too-stupid-to-live youth from an alcoholically dysfunctional home progresses from essay contest winner to shoe salesperson to unwitting bag man. He wins the womyn but must go on the lam, where he finds sanctuary with a bible-beating chef. Plus...show tunes! Are joel and the bots happy in their work? It's difficult.

SHORTS
-THE  HOME ECONOMICS STORY, JOHNNY AT THE FAIR, THE TRUCK FARMER, CHEATING, ARE YOU READY FOR MARRIAGE?

HONORABLE MENTION
-SANTA CLAUS, SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS (MST and Cinematic Titanic), MOON ZERO TWO, THE ATOMIC BRAIN, 12 TO THE MOON, ROCKET ATTACK USA, THE WILD WORLD OF BATWOMAN (jaw-dropping, irresistible badness), GIRLS TOWN, IT CONQUERED THE WORLD (greatest awful movie ending ever), THE SHE-CREATURE, SPACE MUTINY, FINAL JUSTICE, STARCRASH (Cinematic Titanic's poke at the most riffable sci fi ever?)

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