Incubus

In 1965, Leslie Stevens directed a movie called Incubus which starred William Shatner. This art/horror movie was the first of its kind. Well, hell; it's (to date) the only one of its kind.

Incubus was made entirely in the artificial language Esperanto, even in the opening credits.

The movie takes place in a sort of medieval world centered around a village called "Nomen Tuum," which is famous throughout the land for its Deer Well, containing waters that have healing powers. The waters can also make people more beautiful, which attracts evil in the form of Succubi (demons) disguised as young, beautiful women who stalk the land around the well to seduce and kill people wishing for beauty, in order to capture souls. All in all, it has the weird look of a Swedish movie made in California.

Why would someone do something like this? Why would William Shatner continue, to this day, claim to be an avid devotee of Esperanto?

I, for one, think that this is the real reason Art Bell is giving up his radio show. He can answer this question, but good luck on getting him on the phone.

A user who appears to be devoted to the concept of Esperanto says that Shatner knows nothing about the language, and neither did this moviemaker. S/he says you'd have to have a copy of the script in order to make sense of it. I'll take the user's word for it.

As mentioned above, a movie from 1965; the only full-length movie to date (that I know of) entirely in Esperanto. It stars the one, the only, William Shatner, in pre-Star Trek days, and no, he couldn't act then either. Nor can he pronounce Esperanto worth a damn. The movie was apparently lost for a number of years, until a print was found in some basement somewhere. It's on video now, see http://www.incubusthefilm.com/ if you're a glutton for punishment.

The movie is in black and white, in Esperanto with English subtitles. It's about a war hero (Shatner) who is convalescing in a village whose waters are reputed to have healing powers. Because of this reputation, many decrepit old sinners have been known to frequent the place, and because of that, it has attracted a coven of succubi to prey on their souls. Enter Shatner, the war-hero saint, and his sister, and a succubus who is dissatisfied with preying on the flabby souls of the sinners who come to the town, and you have the makings of a... weird story.

OK, I didn't really enjoy the movie much, but it probably has all kinds of positive artsy qualities.

incubus (plural, incubi): an evil spirit or demon that assumes the form of a male and is supposed to lie upon sleeping people, chiefly women, and to have sexual intercourse with them; a nightmare. See also succubus.

Dictionary of Sexology Project: Main Index

...is a band borne out of Calabasas, Ca. Incidentally, not far at all from where I was born. It seems to me that most of the bands I find myself connecting with and truly understanding wind up being from my surrounding area. However, being from Los Angeles, I realize the odds for this are probably on my side.

These high school buddies decided to form their band in 1994 because, well, they liked playing music. A very good reason indeed.

I am still familiarizing myself with their earlier works, but it was their 1999 c.d. release, "Make Yourself" that catapulted them into stardom. Some people may think they are merely another one of the whiny, emergent bands that so overpopulate the alternative music scene these days, but I find something soulful and inspiring in and amongst their music. Their song "Pardon Me" is, i think, the most well known and with lyrics like, "A decade ago I never thought i would be at twenty three on the verge of spontaneous combustion, woe is me..." and "...so pardon me, while I burst into flames..." they have a certain politeness to their angst lacking in bands like "Korn" and "System of a Down" . I respect this.

Vocalist, Brandon Boyd, has that rare lilting and passionate yet rough edge to his voice that makes me absolutely swoon. It's as if he has the ability to reach into your chest and pluck at the strings in your heart. This is the sign of a true artist.

My favorite song off the "Make Yourself" LP is "I Miss You". It really strikes a chord with me and i just love it. It is short and sweet and like a thirteen year old girl I listen to it over and over...

To see you when I wake up

Is a gift that I didnt think could be real

To know that you feel the same as i do

Is a three fold utopian dream

You do something to me that i can't explain

So would I be out of line if I said

I miss you

I see your picture

I smell your skin on the empty pillow next to mine

You have only been gone ten days

But already I'm wasting away

I know I'll see you again

Wether far or soon

But I need you to know

That I care

And I miss you

Incubus started with the childhood friendship of singer Brandon Boyd and Jose Pasillas III. As school-aged kids, they hung out all the time and listened to crazy So-Cal music like Primus and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, which would later influence their sound. Later on, during middle school, the Jose met guitarist Mike Enzinger. In high school, the two met bassist Alex Kaunich (Dirk Lance, nowadays) and formed a small party band that played for their friends and such. Soon after, they found that Jose's friend Brandon could sing, and so 4/5 of the modern-day lineup were born.

To find a name, Mike looked in a thesaurus after a discussion about what they should call themselves (for awhile they had no name). He came across the word "Incubus," and as described by Webster 1913 above, is a monster that sleeps with women in their dreams, basically. Needless to say, the guys thought it was cool and stuck with it, even though as of now the name really doesn't fit the neo-hippy personna they now possess with their more laid-back (but, confusingly, still rockin') style.

In high school, these guys did everything together (the three besides Boyd recently confirmed circle-jerking to porn in a Rolling Stone article). The band played parties with a style defined by Boyd's flowing, energetic, and trippy poetry, Enzinger's sound effects that came right out of "Jerry Was A Racecar Driver" by Primus, Pasilla's rock beats with a bit of jazz, and Lance laid down funky funky shit every damn time, like a stone-cold bassist. Word.

Brandon and Jose went to community college while Mike tried out for Alanis Morrisette's band. He didn't make it, and shortly thereafter Incubus recorded a demo, Closet Cultivation. Soon after, Mark Shoffner cut them a deal and let them record in his studio (they had been using a regular tape recorder at first). In late 1995, the band had their first full-length release, Fungus Amongus. A DJ, DJ Lyfe, that is, heard the record and approached the band to join it. Thus, the lineup for the next two releases, Enjoy Incubus in January 1997 and S.C.I.E.N.C.E. in September 1997 were complete.

Incubus enjoyed moderate success as an opening act for bands like Korn during 1996-97. At the core and from the beginning, Incubus has been a touring band, and those years proved to be critical in gaining a fanbase by extensive touring.

In early 1998, amid a tour with 311 and Sugar Ray, Incubus asked DJ Lyfe to leave the band. Soon after, they met DJ Chris Kilmore, their current DJ, and the lineup that everyone now sees today was complete.

The band toured like crazy in 1998: Warped Tour, Ozzfest, Family Values Tour, as well as Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach, Orgy, and Korn were just some of the shows they played on. In 1999, they opened for Black Sabbath and then took time off to record "Make Yourself," their breakthrough album that has sold 2 million copies to date.

Here's how: The success of the acoustic version of "Pardon Me" rocketed the album off at first, but after "Stellar" hit TRL in the summer of 2000, the world knew of the power of Incubus. All the while, Incubus kept touring, across the Atlantic and with 311 in the US. The acoustical effort of "Pardon Me" made the EP "When Incubus Attacks Volume 1" a success, showing up in the top 50 in its first week of release (the printing was limited to 500,000 copies, and is now rare to find brand new).

In 2001, Incubus released "Drive" as the last single from Make Yourself and it boomed in popularity. It reached #1 on the Modern Rock chart on Billboard, received heavy airplay with its innovative video on MTV, and created a sensation. For the first time, teenaged girls actually liked Incubus AND pop groups like N'Sync, giving them an edge (but unfortunately, losing their old metal roots in the process).

In October 2001, Incubus released their current album, Morning View. It showed a newer, softer side to the band, while still, oddly, rocking out. So far, it has spawned four radio hits: "I Wish You Were Here" (the largest one, released a month and a half before the album created the buzz about it), "Nice to Know You," "Warning," and the current track in heavy airplay, "Are You In?". Over the course of 11 years, the band has grown from a couple of teens with funk and metal on their minds, to a touring metal act, to a major band in the US and the world, as well as world-class musicians.

---

For even better info, check out www.incubusonline.com

In medieval times, incubi were thought to be angels that had fallen from heaven because of their insatiable lust for females, and who roamed the earth in search of humans to satisfy their lust. An incubus would often rape a woman in her sleep, but if she woke, he could inflame her with desire, causing her to comply willingly. Others thought that incubi were not fallen angels themselves, but the unholy offspring of fallen angels and humans.

The offspring of an incubus and a human was a deformed creature of some sort: deformed children, witches, demons, and half-human, half-animal creatures. Merlin, the magician, is a possible example*. Twins were also sometimes considered to be evidence of a visit from an incubus.

Since some interpretations took incubi to be non-corporeal beings, it was thought that they must enter and animate the body of a human, either dead or alive, before they could do anything. (There is at least one case of a man, Bishop Sylvanus, successfully defending himself against rape charges on the grounds that he was possessed by an incubus at the time). This also implied that the incubi could not fertilize women with their own seed, only with that of human men. It was believed that this seed might come from succubi who had seduced men; perhaps demons could even change sex at will, and the succubi and incubi were all one type of demon.

There were a few clues that could tell you if a 'person' was an incubus. They had magical powers, the most common being the inducing of lust and causing other people in the house to fall into a deep sleep. They also often had unusual genitalia; unusually large, icily cold, made of iron, or double-shafted.

Unlike many creatures of the dark, incubi are largely immune to religious artifacts, prayer, and exorcism.

"Incubi do not obey the exorcists, have no dread of exorcisms, show no reverence for holy things, at the approach of which they are not in the least overawed... Sometimes they even laugh at exorcisms, strike at the exorcists themselves, and rend the sacred vestments."
        -- Ludovico Sinistrari*, 17th century Franciscan friar, Demoniality.

---

* Ludovico Sinistrari also claimed that Martin Luther was the offspring of an incubi (although he probably didn't mean it literally). Martin Luther himself believed that deformed children should be killed, as were the offspring of demons. Incubi, succubi, and other demons of all sorts were oft debated by most of your favourite theologians.

I'm at a conference at the Lodge at Edgerton Park, near where I'm living. Steve Jobs is speaking about electronics, the state of the art in computing, whatever. As usual, a reception with coffee and nibbles follows the lecture, out in the garden. It's late Spring, and the famous Olmsted landscapingis lush with leaf and flower, and everyone feels great.

Now. From what I know about academic and artistic life, there's always a crisis point at every gathering of this kind: the initial hello's being said to everyone in the room, you now have the options of having a real, as opposed to polite, conversation with whomever, walking off with or without company, or sticking around to scarf up the remaining consumables, without being especially noticed. I decide to talk with Jobs, and land a wonderfully insightful question that actually makes him think. I listen with bated breath, and just because I'd like to stay with him and gloat in my own cleverness, I ask another, slightly stupid question.

"I think," he says with a queerly knowing look,"if you really wanted that answered, we'd have to be over there." He nods in a general direction.

I look, I see tall grass, and a nice place to sit down. I realize he knows, and he knows that I now know that he knows...

Something like a strong shock happens. I wake up.

I'm awake and wet and ice-cold and shaking and acutely embarassed, though I can't figure out why. My whole body aches, as if I've been fucking, or been fucked, very hard for some time, in between my legs, I'm wet and sticky and most profuse, my vulva delicately fading like a wilting peony. You can almost imagine male ejaculate as a component -- the consistency is thicker, not unlike semen.

It's an incubus, a female wet dream. Due to the idiosyncrises of the perimenopause, tbey generally occur in women after 30, and increase as the testosterone flow increases. Sexual frequency has little or nothing to do with it: they occur in married ladies as much as spinsters, and are purely involuntary. Occurring without warning, and generally unpredictable, the content of the dream has no relation to probability of the dream turning orgasmic. (Walking in an Edwardian garden with a handsome man is romantic, but you'd think I could have come up with something more..explicit? and Steve Jobs?? I can think of better fantasies without trying!) I get them once or twice every year.

What's happened, is an orgasm. Or, to be more specific, that first paradise stroke of an orgasm, when your whole body screams YEEESS! like a cheap porno queen, and every gland in your withers tries to make a good showing for itself. Only, in this case, there's no follow-through, it's much more intense, and, well..The reason why it's much more like come than the dewy products of a woman's flower is because the Skene's glands and a few other vestigial players making an appearence.

Other than the initial shock, and the resulting whatthehellwasthat? reaction, they're fairly harmless, flushing out various secretions and systems that have to be kept in readiness to reproduce the species, whether they're going to be used immediately or not. Though I'd be concerned if they happened, say, a couple times a night, the worst thing that can happen is to get overly concerned or guilty about them: while they're acutely embarrassing, if only because you have to clean the sheets later, they're only problematic if you're under some religious or private discipline against sexual distractions. (In these cases, I've been told by my religious friends, the general advice seems to be to concentrate more fully on one's devotions -- and to count as a partial, if unenviable victory if the content of the dreams change to the object of your devotions, though you should still remain unattached to them.) Too fleeting to be savored, too unpredictable to be coveted, they remain a little-known, yet integral part of human sexuality.

---

In"cu*bus (?), n.; pl. E. Incubuses (#), L. Incubi (#). [L., the nightmare. Cf. Incubate.]

1.

A demon; a fiend; a lascivious spirit, supposed to have sexual intercourse with women by night.

Tylor.

The devils who appeared in the female form were generally called succubi; those who appeared like men incubi, though this distinction was not always preserved. Lecky.

2. Med.

The nightmare. See Nightmare.

Such as are troubled with incubus, or witch-ridden, as we call it. Burton.

3.

Any oppressive encumbrance or burden; anything that prevents the free use of the faculties.

Debt and usury is the incubus which weighs most heavily on the agricultural resources of Turkey. J. L. Farley.

 

© Webster 1913.