this incident was very creepy indeed. More creepy than when I had to see a big IMAX spider from the Amazon crawling across the screen. More creepy than the time we had a scorpion in our house. More creepy than finding black widows in your shed. Yuck!! Icky Icky Icky!!!!

anyway,

How is Trevor Jones' score to the movie Arachnophobia? I've seen a used CD that has songs and a few cuts of the score.

Like JJH, I had a run-in with one in my bed. Laying on my side, I woke up in the middle of the night to see a large spider silhouetted by a large digital clock running across my pillow. At least there weren't two.

The other memorable one was when I was putting my shoes on and thought I felt a leaf with my foot. Of course, I reached in to grab the "leaf" only to discover a large tarantula scurrying up my arm.

Whenever I see a spider anywhere near me:

1. I search for the nearest smashing tool.(sandle, box etc.)
2. Line up the smash
3. WABAM!!!!!!!!

As for the score: I've seen the movie once, and found the score really good. The main motif sounded like a part of a 12-tone-row. Except that the motif had only 8 notes - one for each leg of a spider. I found that quite fascinating! Oh yeah, and for the last 30 minutes or so of the film, the score's tone changes to something quite similar to Poltergeist (that's a compliment).

NE: Chocolate Chip Ice Cream (mmmmmmm..yummy!)

He told me about the only time his spider bit him: he'd named her Lucretia (cute, yes?), and he didn't know what he did to irritate her, but there she suddenly was, fanging poison into his arm (hey, whatcha YOU wanna do this weekend?) -- but he didn't knock her away until she was finished. If he had, he'd have risked ripping her jaws out, and she'd die sooner than later after that. He couldn't do that to her. "She was a GOOD spider," he still insists. And he knew that the venom of a tarantula couldn't kill a grown man (especially one as PARTICULARLY HEAVY as he happens to be). So he let nature take its proverbial course. He's a teddy bear, that boy (and no, he doesn't post here. I can't get him interested in much of any film music at all. He seems responsive to Masaru Sato, but I thought that in turn he'd like Goldsmith's 100 RIFLES. No dice.)

Actually, I visited a scorpion farm in Malaysia, and it was absolutely fascinating.

(When I saw ARACHNOPHOBIA in the theater, during the opening sequences when they're shaking things down from the trees and turn up an arachnid, a little kid in the front row yelled "A SPIDER! I *KNEW* IT!" I found that cute.)

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Originally posted by H Rocco:
I wonder why these crawlies frighten us so much.

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I can only say that I'm similarly frightened by anything that looks enough like a spider. Last week, when watching The Third Man on TV, some sort of fly got into my room, the size of a daddy longleg (yeah, I know they aren't spiders, but they're the most terrifying), with equally long legs. Luckily, the movie was nearly over, so I managed to watch the remaning 15 minutes before getting the vacuum cleaner.

I'm proud to say that I've no problem at all with small spiders. But from a certain size on, they're probably the worst torture I can remember.

There's the concept of de-sensibilazation, of course (at least, that's a direct translation of the German term): To cure a phobia, simply expose yourself to it long enough. After a certain amount of time, you're body won't be able to produce any more adrenaline, and from that point on, you won't be afraid. Sure, nothing easier than that...

Unfortunatly most Spiders in My house get sent to 'Spider Heaven' via My Cat 'Gomez' who just loves 'chompin' on them little mothers!!

Hey, Your H'ness, I keep a Tarantula too!, 'his' original name was Jonny Cake until I found out 'He' was a 'Her', now it's Joni Cake! ....Cute thing too,Not too big.....about the size of a CD case !

In 1997, while staying at a charming brick house in the French countryside, I had a close encounter of the 3rd kind. I went to bed, threw my eyes to the ceiling only in time to have a hunting spider the size my palm dump down onto my face (covering parts of my mouth). Screaming, I leapt up and threw myself out of the door. With the aid of some non-arachnophobic friends, I entered again, but there was no sight of it. Suffice it to say that the room looked like a bombed wh*rehouse after that, having turned everything upside-down. The hunter had become the hunted. We eventually found it, and threw it out. But I did not sleep that night.

I live in a desert area where Brown Recluse killer spiders
and black widows ABOUND! When I see one, I play my
Conan CD, strap on my Dirty Harry 44 Magnum, stalk them
striding like John Wayne, and blow the buggers, walls, floors,
and ceilings into infinitesimal dust particles.

Now about the snakes (mainly rattlers) that also frequent
the local terrain. When I see one of those, I try to book
a fast jet to Antarctica. Any snake phobics post here too?

spiders do. Don't they just look like the embodiment of evil?

The really tiny ones don't upset me -- once in Los Angeles, I had one dangle on its thread from the ceiling -- in front of my TV, no less. But I just pinched off the top part of the thread and carried it out to the bathroom. As my arachnophile (spider-loving) friend observed, it's not necessarily bad having them around, they're worse on the bugs than on you, and the bugs are worse on you than the spiders could be, except for the fact that they MAKE YOU WANT TO PUKE.

My first couple of weeks in college, my mind was drifting during a particularly dreary class, when I noticed a tiny, tiny wolf spider -- similar, probably, to the "hunting spider" Thor described (that particular experience would have KILLED ME -- now I'll never be able to visit France, either) -- this was a little grey spider, smaller than a dime, and I watched it scamper down a wall from the window, across the floor, out of sight a bit, then it was much closer -- I waved a pen at it to make it go away. I was more irritated than frightened by this one, but when it caught sight of my pen waving, it REARED and VISIBLY -- this took my breath away -- SHOWED ITS TEETH AT ME! "I'll kill you! I'll kill you!" It's smaller than a dime, this thing! Finally it went out of sight, and THEN was spotted crawling up the back of the girl in the seat IN FRONT OF ME! I couldn't believe its gall. I finally just whacked it off her shoulder with the same pen that had offended it in the first place, then had to lean forward and whisper "SPI-DER." She was appreciative. We were married three months later. Well, no, but weirder things have happened. Or not.

Marian, the word "de-sensibilization" you used -- that would be "desensitization" in English. Close enough, however, I'm sure we all got it.

A spider that "rears" and "shows teeth" while threatening to kill you....Ahh, there is a movie script in that (really), written by H'ness and direct by..Hmmm. Waters? No. Let me think about that one. Maybe Carpenter.

I still can't watch the original The Fly when the spider descends upon the fly with the human head, and he is SQUEALING. YUK! (If memory serves me correctly, there is some horrifying music playing during that scene.)

NP Nothing, going to bed to have nightmares.

As for cities -- I've never really felt comfortable anywhere else. There are cat people and dog people; there are claustrophobics and agoraphobics. I guess I fall more into the latter category (though fortunately not to a pathological extreme.)

As for "a movie in there somewhere," I wrote an outline in HIGH SCHOOL about a race of were-spiders, but I find the whole thing kind of forced and self-conscious now, rather than frightening. It COULD be made to work, I suppose -- I remember two sequences that still appeal to me -- the right visualist might be able to make something really interesting out of it. (Not Mr. Waters -- he'll only do his own material anyway -- and I wouldn't give it to Mr. Carpenter, either -- it should be someone like the young Ridley Scott. I couldn't bear to be on that set myself, with what I've got in mind. Strange, I'm distinctly more squeamish now than I was then. Don't know why. Hmm, I just realized, with the forward strides in computer animation, some of my more impossible sequences are now QUITE possible. It could be photorealistic after all ... maybe I'll give it to Hatfield. )

I must admit I wasn't too keen on a big red foot long Centipede on Koh Samui in Thailand. It was in my hut and I couldn't find it all night! brrrrr!

Anyway, I don't fear spiders so much these days after I learned that the big ones aren't so fatal as the small ones. Yeah, that spider that is on your foof now can kill you with one bite. Thanks God their sting isn't strong enough to penetrate our skin...

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Originally posted by Timmer:
Spiders just aren't scary!

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aHAHAHAHAhaha ha ha h...

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I even got My girlfriend (a confirmed arachnophobe) to handle my pet Turantula, she said it was like holding a mouse (awww!...c'mon,your not going to tell me your scared of mice!),If you were around my house,I could cure every one of you within 20 mins,No Problem!

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That's the way to keep uninvited guests away. I'll have to think again about those CD trades you mentioned - I don't want a spider to come out of the envelope!

Andre: There's no way that I could even have seen the dead spider in such a situation. If I suddenly see a spider, there's a reflex which would have made me throw the stone away before I could even think about it. I'm not kidding. I think I could even unintendedly hurt somebody in situations like that.

HAL: Cockroaches are pretty tough, too. After we finished school, our whole class went to Tenerife. In the evenings, real hordes of cockroaches used to come to our terrace. I couldn't have smashed them (I can't even smash flies because I don't want their remntants on my hands), but fortunately, I wasn't alone. We got one beatifully smahsed on the wall beneath the door. Interestingly, the more we killed, the less new cockroaches came.

quote:

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Originally posted by Marian Schedenig:
[b]Andre: There's no way that I could even have seen the dead spider in such a situation. If I suddenly see a spider, there's a reflex which would have made me throw the stone away before I could even think about it. I'm not kidding. I think I could even unintendedly hurt somebody in situations like that.[/B]

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Originally posted by Andre Lux:
Marian, my friend... and what do you think I did? I didn't throw the stone at the spider believe me... The stone just flied from my terrified hands!!!

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Yeah, I understood that. But while you simply dropped the stone, I would have thrown it away, so far that I couldn't have seen it kill any spider.

Roaches are vile as well. A vast one scampered up the back of a chair and onto my shoulder once, and I nearly had a heart attack. I kind of like ants, though, except all those vile face close-ups in PHASE IV (and yet there's that weirdly touching sequence of the worker ant, while dying, carrying some kind of info back to its queen.)

I had that computer game SIM-ANT, and shortly learned I had to disable the close-up reaction function: whenever one of my ants got eaten by the resident spider, it turned up in excruciating close-up that seemed to go on for hours.

My buddy with the spider that bit him was thinking about moving to Mexico, and he told me, very deadpan, that if I visited, there were bound to be wild tarantulas in the house, they get in everywhere, and since they like to hide in dark spaces and then jump if feeling provoked, I'd probably find one just by opening the closet. So Mexico is one more place I cannot go. France is now out after Thor's story, and England's out because I know that the Timchanter is there with his menagerie (arachnerie?). And after Andre's story, I guess Brasil is out too -- sorry, pal. (Strange, I lived in Africa for a while, and never saw ANYTHING except flies -- THOSE were everywhere. Even in the bush country, I didn't see any particularly exotic awfuls.)

quote:

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Originally posted by H Rocco:
I had that computer game SIM-ANT, and shortly learned I had to disable the close-up reaction function: whenever one of my ants got eaten by the resident spider, it turned up in excruciating close-up that seemed to go on for hours.

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Luckily they never made a game focusing on spiders...

It's safe to come to Vienna. At least, as long as my vacuum cleaner is working, there's no spider at my home. Or at least not for long if it's so stupid not to hide.

Interestingly, I'm not afraid that a spider could crawl across my face while I'm asleep - if I don't notice it, I don't care.

Thinking about it, the Shelob sequence from The Two Towers (Part 2 of The Lord of the Rings) could be really frightening. In one and a half year, we'll all leave the cinemas screaming.

This made me remind another embarrasing story. One night (when I still lived with my parents) I was on the couch watching TV when I noticed something moving on the floor. It was a bird spider (similar to the Tarantula, but bigger).
My God!! I jumped so high that I destroyed the lamp shade and started to scream for help. The spider stoped there and didn't move.
My father apeared fast within his pajamas, very worried. "What's happening??" he shouted. I said "A spider!! A spider". Then he looked at the spider and back to me with that contempt look, just smashed the spider with his slipper and go back to bed...
It took some minutes for me to recover and be able to run away from the dead body of the spider!

Your H'ness, Have you read Colin Wilson's 'The Mind Parasites' or 'The Philosophers Stone',Both of which use some of H.P.Lovecraft's Cthulu mythology...and scary stuff it is too!,Or The Space Vampires (filmed as LIFEFORCE...and nothing like the novel,surprise,surprise).

I know from bird spiders, Andre, and I'm sorry pal, but once again, you have firmly talked me out of EVER going to Brasil. You've met two of the worst ones, rock spiders AND bird spiders ... at least bird spiders don't JUMP atcha ... (or do they? oh God, I wish I hadn't thought of that. I'll never forget the picture I saw of one consuming a seagull ...)

Timchanter, I haven't gotten around to other Colin Wilsons, but I've had them highly recommended. The simple fact is, I don't read much fiction. Being reminded of "Spider World," however, makes me want to hunt down the highly touted "Space Vampires," at the very least. I'll keep you posted on that.

I see no particular reason to KILL spiders -- they have a right to live too -- but I do FEAR them. More than I HATE them, I FEAR them. Well, I guess one hates what one fears, and vice versa, but as I also said above, they're necessary. And we're stuck with them. Let's just be glad that according to the laws of physics, there's only SO BIG they can GET.

turn on the TV tonight, and what's it on?
The Discovery Channel!

Know what they were showing?

A BIG BULBOUS female black widow, filling up my 20 inch TV screen, while she devours here male mate.

dammit!!

Conversely, The Learning Channel was showing a breast reduction surgery. As a male, I wasn't quite sure how to react. perhaps I'm insecure.

NP --Tuba Concerto, John Williams

H'ness, haven't ever heard of Phase IV. I guess I'll try it. I remember as a very small child watching The Naked Jungle with C. Heston. My brother had to go to the lobby because the ants scared him so badly.

Isn't there an Arachnophobia CD that doesn't have dialogue on it?

quote:

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Originally posted by Timmer:
If you can people,Try and capture the spider in a jar (or bucket in your case Andre) and gently let it go!....They do a lot of good stuff y'know!

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Hey Timchanter, how do you think I could close the jar? Without risking the spider to escape and touch me, I mean? I have tried. Once, I managed to catch the spider under a box. Of course, I couldn't lift the box - it would have escaped. So, not knowing what to do, I simply left it there and went to bed. The next day, when very, very, extremely carefully lifting the box, there was no spider. Frightening. But, as I said, I don't care if it ran across my face in the night. If it likes to do that, no problem. But please not while I'm awake.

As his H'ness already said: I don't particularly like killing spiders, either. But what can I do? It's the only way for me to get rid of them, I simply can't carry them out of the house.