Today’s spookytacular video is a compilation of what is very probably pareidolias, clever fakes, and de-humanizings of homeless people with untreated mental diseases, but may include some authentic Things What Science Hain’t Grappled With Properly. There’s also some pleasant shudders generated, which is the point.
I hope that you, as I did, took an unpleasant shudder from the examples of commodification of some homeless people for the algorithms of YouTube. That’s not entertainment.
† I understand that people in the US think this is a month early– that’s how we know it’s a harvest festival. Also, I’ve heard that the people of the republic south of me celebrated Colobus Day on the 11th, although I’ve no idea why they devote a whole day to recognizing a genus of Old World monkeys.
It is often said that there are only {a relatively small whole number} of stories in the world, and that complete originality is not possible.
This comes into horror entertainment with extra force, since there is so often a cycle of fashionable frights (see 1980s Slashers for a fine illustration) that can quickly descend in to tropes and formulae.
The answer to objects based on this observation is this: we take pleasure from the skill of the execution.
Also, as Alasdair Stuart often reminds us in the outros over at Pseudopod, horror is watching something approach.
Thinking too hard about my province’s Florida-inspired, Texas-spiced COVID response;
The start of my roof.
I have a call out for estimates on the latter, and I’m sure it will be terrifying.
So, let’s start off with some mild chills:
For those with more time to spare and a willingness to wait through a slow build-up, here’s one of my favourite Clark Ashton Smith stories, produced by the wonderful voice of Ian Gordon:
While I haven’t been doing as much of it as I would like, I still call myself a writer. And as a member of that self-torturing happy breed, I spend a lot of time weaving whole new worlds out of the cobwebs and bits of moss that lurk in my head. One of the tricks to worldbuilding is coming up with something which doesn’t knock someone’s disbelief off the hook, because then it will get all fractious and start asking uncomfortable questions.
With that in mind, here’s an interesting explanation of why you can’t have suns of a particular colour if you’re writing a world with extant physics:
I’ll freely admit this was not a thing I had known until this week. So, there’s me learning new things and (hopefully) staving off dementia for another few days.
Hey, my site is working again! You may imagine a look of happiness upon my face.
That look, though, is nothing compared to the delight you’ll see in this video (CW: a well-healed amputation).
As I’ve said previously, while living in the eerie future of the 21st century (yes, in know some of you have lived in no other century) is frequently disappointing when compared to the non-dystopian fictional version presented in the 20th… sometimes it really does live up to expectations.
The host is being pestered. If you have a pressing pen question, my slow frequency of updates means that this Wayback Machine capture from January isn’t missing too much.
