DailyNightmareYou’ve heard this advice before but it bears repeating: double check before sending someone to the morgue. This goes for family members, “private undertakers” and heck, probably especially for the folks who work at the morgue.
Sometimes folks are just unconscious, not fully deceased.
http://www.capetimes.co.za/man-wakes-up-in-morgue-1.1104810
They don’t make souvenirs like they used to.
The BBC reports (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-13522546)that up for auction this week is a human skull complete with hand-crafted display box. It likely came to the British Isles from Europe under the arm of some young landed gentry during a Grand Tour of the continent. “Grand Tour” was their loftier version of “Spring Break.”
There are rumors that it’s the head of a saint, perhaps Saint Vitalis of Assisi, the “Saint of Venereal Diseases” but that’s not the key part of the story, for me at least. I believe the auctioneer said it best himself “….it’s certainly the head of someone.” Indeed. It’s a HUMAN HEAD and it’s FOR SALE. Oh and the box looks cool as hell. It would look perfect atop the antique spinet I inherited from Aunt Gertrude.
I can’t bid on this item-a bit short on cash. But I take some comfort in a classic line from The Big Lebowski “You want a toe? I can get you a toe.” When I have the money, likely there’ll be a dessicated relic on the market somewhere in this wonderful, global economy.
When I was a kid, everyone I knew thought “The Exorcist” was the scariest movie they’d ever seen. Me? When I watched it, I had the overwhelmed sensation “Damn, that looks cool.” Forget fireman or doctor or lawyer, I wanted to be an EXORCIST!
Trouble was, the high school guidance counselor didn’t really have much advice for that career path. Things might be changing though, following this report:
Catholic Bishops: “More Exorcists Needed”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40151974/ns/us_news
The most recent guidelines appear to have been updated in 1999 – so they won’t be able to address any juicy new demons that the 21st century has spawned. And of course, they’re written in Latin, which wasn’t exactly one of my strongest classes. I suppose the most damning blow to my demon-evicting job search is that I’m not Catholic must less a priest nor am I likely to become one in the near future… like this life-time.
Maybe I’ll have to fall back on my other childhood dream job: astronaut who leaves earth never to return.
In 1941, a group of folks assembled to put a “hex” on Hitler. Life Magazine – the internet of those times – was on hand to record the event with some snappy photojournalism. Godwin’s Law be damned: this is a hoot, that is, using the “forces of Darkness” to combat “Evil incarnate.”
http://www.life.com/image/ugc1017252/in-gallery/36172/putting-a-hex-on-hitler-1941
Your position on the utility of hexes or the authenticity of these particular would-be pagans is not the point. We humans need to feel as if we are doing something that is meaningful, that our actions have an effect especially during times of distress. During WWII, we had collections for scrap metal. We grew “victory gardens.” Contemporary reflection somewhat pessimistically notes that these activities didn’t really help the war effort as much as they bolstered the moral of those on the home front. So why not “hexes?”
There was great recent controversy when someone planned to burn multiple copies of the Qu’ran. It prompted folks across the Muslim world to burn effigies of just about everyone they didn’t like… even though, as I read it, it’s a cultural proscription, if not cardinal no-no to make graven images of humans. This emphasis on non-representative art is a contributing factor to the splendor of Islamic geometric mosaics, I’m told. Would there have been such an outrage if the American protest only burned – or put a hex – on representations of Bin Laden?
If you’re getting hung up on the whole black magic thing, perhaps because of christian baggage, then call it an “imprecatory prayer.” Lord knows there are enough bible-belters using such language as veiled threats against the president. You’ve maybe seen the bumper stickers that say “Pray for Obama – Psalm 108 8 & 9” Look those lines up, will ya? They’re not the cuddly Loving Shepherd. They say “May the days of his reign be few; let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.” Ah, explain to me how that’s NOT outright sedition?
“…A particularly rich signifier here, right?…”
Subtle political commentary, it’s not.
I’ve heard it said that two heads are better than one but honestly who wants to drag around yet another hairy brain-cage the size of a football?
“…we humans have been shooting each other in the back for a long time…”
“…it just doesn’t accomplish much to claim certain phenomena are “real” while others aren’t. The real task is to determine what kind of reality they possess and what kind of meaning that implies…”
Zombies eat our brains, right? So it’s only fair that we should get to nibble on them as well.
Ain’t pop culture grand? This blog is a loving collection of ephemera related to those monster-themed cereals of the 70’s. Remember them? They were just a bit too sugary for my taste but I remember tolerating “Frankenberry.” I *really* wanted the monsters themselves in their black and white murk and glory not these pastel pastiches, but honestly how horrifying can you really make breakfast? This blog allows you to relive the fun with none of the sugar crash.
Evidently, these little carbo-bombs are still available though not at the local mega-mart. I heard not too long ago on the Rue Morgue Radio podcast that one of the interns there will periodically buy a case off eBay and gorge himself into a diabetic coma.
Fun little article at Slate.com about how contemporary vampires suck, or more precisely, that they don’t. The once terrifying Other is now just a cuddly idealized boyfriend – who no longer sucks blood. The article nicely traces a line from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, to Anne Rice’s tortured immortals to Buffy’s beau Angel to the monster’s nadir in the paranormal romance genre a la the Twilight series.
( http://www.slate.com/id/2223486/ )
Makes me wonder if all objects of terror undergo a certain domestication, a processes of Disneyfication where anything that is truly terrifying is sanded flat, made safe and consumable. Happens with all attempts to depict the wholly Other, I suspect, making that “make no graven images” commandment a bit more sensible. After an experience of awe / wonder / terror / amazement it’s understandable to make some record of that encounter. But then there will be folks whose only experience of that Other is via the representation, through the vicarious thrill. At the risk of sounding like a neo-Platonist here, the continued repetition of representation pushes the Other farther and farther away from our actual experience. It’s how that piss-your-pants / fall-on-the-ground-numb / struck-blind-with-scales-on-your-eyes experience of true religion becomes gradually codified into something boring and mundane like ethics and orthodoxy.
Damn. Did I slip from talking about the Monstrous to talking about the Holy again?
File this under “All the Fun Stuff Happens in England:”
Just when I thought police budgets were being squandered on surveillance cameras that no one watched and tasers with lethal force, I at last hear of some police who are taking an active and more narratively direct approach to inciting paranoia and fear. These officers staged the crash landing of a spaceship and the abduction of a schoolteacher by aliens all for the benefit of a school children. The intention was to heighten the students’ power of observation and I’ve heard of stunts with a similar goal though nothing on this scale. I for one wish this story had detailed every glorious moment in photos… though I realize that sort of defeats the purpose.
Children (allegedly) traumatized by War of Worlds abduction of teacher
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5842324/Children-traumatised-by-War-of-Worlds-abduction-of-teacher.html?farkworthy
What else could the Grim Gnome do but grin when confronted with these statues of self-destructive garden gnomes? They depict scenes of grievous bodily harm, like an arrow skewering the head, a sword impaling the heart, swallowing the barrel of a handgun, all depicted with the maniacal glee one expects of a garden gnome. Collect ’em all!
( Or http://www.amazon.co.uk/s?ie=UTF8&x=0&ref_=nb_ss_lp&y=0&field-keywords=dead%20gnome&url=search-alias%3Doutdoor )
I saw these shoes a few days ago and they have haunted my imagination, literally, ever since.
They appear to be a pair of standard, somewhat boring men’s shoes that are caught in the middle of transforming into werewolf feet.
This demented little goodie is made available by the mad geniuses at ThinkGeek.com. It’s perfect for folks who think that it’s not enough fun to come to a potluck with a jello shaped like a human brain. This one looks like the torso of a zombie.
The culinary possibilities are nearly endless. My next birthday cake had better be decorated like a graveyard complete with green colored coconut shavings (grass) with one of these little beauties erupting from a tomb with my name on it.
And they say print media is dead! A new nine chapter novella by Koji Suzuki (author of Ring) has recently been published… on rolls of toilet paper. The novella is titled Drop and allegedly takes up about three feet of toilet paper in its entirety. What I found particularly interesting is that the AP story alleges that ghost in Japan traditionally hide in bathrooms.
Japanese Novella printed on Toilet Paper http://news.aol.com/article/scary-toilet-paper/496694#Comments
“We knew not a soul and frankly, didn’t know what to expect from such a convention but the other attendees made us feel right at home”
James Frederick Leach (the Grim Gnome’s alter-ego) says: Mrs Gnome and I are just back from MoConIV in Indianapolis. It was a friendly horror writer’s convention held in a church basement, jointly sponsored by the Indiana Horror Writers and The Dwelling Place, a local church. We knew not a soul and frankly, didn’t know what to expect from such a convention but the other attendees made us feel right at home. “Google-goggle one of us. We accept you. We accept you. One of us!” I read some of my shorter pieces at the Friday night poetry reading and no one booed me off the stage. I also got a chance to sip absinthe… from a Spongebob dixie cup! I left with an armful of books and a lot of good memories.
I wrote a 550-word article about the convention that appears over at Read The Spirit today if you’re curious.
These are the sites of as many of the folks I met at MoCon as I can remember:
• Tom Piccirilli (http://www.tompiccirilli.com/)
Tom’s work has been nominated for several Stoker awards and an Edgar. My favorite line from him this weekend was “Easy reading is damn hard writing.” Amen to that, brother. He inscribed my copy Welcome to Hell: A Working Guide for the Beginning Writer (Fairwood Press, 200) – his friendly but candid introduction to the writing life – with the immensely encouraging note “Your stories kick ass.” Another good book by him, this one fiction, is A Choir of Ill Children (Bantam, 2004)
Welcome to Hell : A Working Guide for the Beginning Writer
A Choir of Ill Children
• Linda Addison (http://www.cith.org/linda/)
Linda organized the poetry reading on Friday night and she most recently published Being Full of Light, Insubstantial (Space and Time, 2007) Her work has won the Stoker award.
Being Full of Light, Insubstantial
• Gerard Houarner (http://www.cith.org/gerard/)
In addition to being an accomplished fiction writer, Gerard also is the fiction editor for Space and Time Magazine (http://spaceandtimemagazine.com/wp/)
• Wrath James White (http://wordsofwrath.blogspot.com/)
Wrath is an unforgettable person from both his magnetic personality and formidable physical presence. Oh, and he’s quite a writer too. His most recent work Succulent Prey (Leisure, 2008) marks his mass market debut. Succulent Prey (Leisure Fiction)
• Maurice Broaddus (http://mauricebroaddus.com/)
Maurice put the “Mo” in MoCon. His most recent novella, The Devil’s Marionette (Shroud, 2009) debuted at the convention
Devil’s Marionette
• Steven Gilberts (http://stevengilberts.com/)
For a couple decades, Steven’s illustrations have graced the covers of various works of speculative fiction. I bought a very reasonably priced print of his that depicts a slightly open door with a mob of sharp toothed, swollen headed beasties swarming out. Seemed like a good metaphor for artistic inspiration cause when one of those little buggers bit into you, there’d be no getting it off until it’s finished.
Other folks I met include:
• Jason Sizemore (http://www.apexbookcompany.com/)
• Alethea Kontis (http://aletheakontis.com/)
• Kelli Dunlap (http://kellidunlap.com/)
• Bob Freeman (http://authorbobfreeman.wordpress.com/)
And wow, lots of other folks whose names are eluding me at this moment. Good times. Good people.
I bet this one slipped by the leftist media cultural elitists:
Man Bites and Chews Off Part of Another Man’s Arm!
Much of the commentary that’s appeared on the blogosphere surrounding this event assumes that the attacker was a zombie. OK, fine, fair enough. I see the resemblance at least to the early Romero-style zombies. Some nit-picking kill-joys were hung up on the fact that the attacker didn’t go for the guy’s brains.
But let’s back up for a moment. It’s it terrifying enough to think that this guy came up out of nowhere and bit a chunk out of someone’s arm? Isn’t it even a bit creepier in fact that the guy WASN’T a zombie?
