Last Plane to Jakarta is an interesting music review site (at least, what I've checked out so far are music reviews.) His take on death metal has won me over, now I must read further.
(Link found at another new site on my list, Rake's Progress.)
There's a new toy company launching in Japan with a whole selection of new Godzilla figures. At that site is a large picture of some of the test figures, one of which is the Smog Monster! And he looks awesome! I rarely buy imported toys, but wow, these are tempting.
A page has been set up for the Fresh Air Fund for Charles L. Grant. That page is part of a Grant's Web site.
Also, here is Grant's story Temperature Days on Hawthorne Street at SciFiction, if you want to get a taste of his writing.
Step by step lessons on how to be a ninja.
Step 7
Find yourself an interesting yet threatening ninja pose. As a ninja you obtain certain responsibilities such as kicking asses and looking cool and tough.
Ramsey Campbell lists his 10 "crucial" horror stories. I reprint them here (but you really should check out his Web site anyway):
"Ten that I think are crucial:
"The Fall of the House of Usher" (Edgar Allan Poe)
"Carmilla" (J. Sheridan Le Fanu)
"The White People" (Arthur Machen)
"The Monkey's Paw" (W. W. Jacobs)
"The Willows" (Algernon Blackwood)
"The Colour out of Space" (H. P. Lovecraft)
"A Warning to the Curious" (M. R. James)
"Smoke Ghost" (Fritz Leiber)
"Running Down" (M. John Harrison)
"The Hospice" (Robert Aickman)
Whether these are the most terrifying is a moot point. Some certainly deserve the adjective, but I don't think it covers all the qualities of any of them. "
It's an excellent list. I've added hyperlinks to the stories that can be easily found on the Internet. (Harrison, Lieber and Lovecraft are all still under copyright.) I haven't read the Aickman story. I've been trying to find more of his works lately, but I don't think much is in print. "Smoke Ghost" is one of my favorite ghost stories ever.
Apparently there was a discussion of this list at The Third Alternative message boards, but I couldn't find it.
(Link found at The Write Hemisphere.)
Harvey Pekar has made a deal with Ballantine to publish three new graphic novels. The first will be about his experiences making the movie "American Splendor." The next two will be biographies of other people he met during the making of the film. (Maybe Pekar will start updating that blog now.)
(News found at Return of the Reluctant.)
Nazi raccoons conquer Europe. What more needs to be said?
(This and other links from Fortean Times.)
One Norway family got real lucky. Two giant stones came down on either side of their house, one flattening the garage. Story includes pictures.
Man killed during a Masonic initiation. The event must have been unusual:
Carl Fitje, grand master of the New York State Freemasons, said in a statement Tuesday that guns do not play a role in any officially sanctioned lodge ceremonies.
I haven't read this long, long article, but just its existence is fun. It's a report on winged cats. (For added fun, there's some bizarre pics at the bottom of the page of "abnormal elasticity of the skin.")
(Found at Undiscovered.)
Many people in Mexico City's El Tepito slum are looking for help and mercy from Santa Muerte, or St. Death:
Swathed in a cloak and equipped with a long scythe, Mexico's Santa Muerte, or St. Death, is a dead ringer for the Grim Reaper.
But devotees like those in Mexico City's notorious El Tepito slum insist she is a motherly angel of mercy, and they make sure to attend to her like a queen.
Her larger-than-life statue, kept in a glass box at a street-side sanctuary, is draped in lace-trimmed satin. Her hooded, grinning skull is crowned with a rhinestone tiara, and every bony finger protruding from beneath her cloak boasts a glittering ring.
"She's not frightening. She's beautiful," insisted welder Isiel Alvarado, 27, flipping up his T-shirt to expose a tattoo of St. Death on his tummy. Genuflecting and crossing himself repeatedly before the shrine, Alvarado said he believes in St. Death because she delivered his brother safely from prison.
Comb jellyfish, the world's most dangerous alien species, is invading the Caspian Sea after having run wild on the Black Sea. It's killed anchovies, decimitated the kilka population and is threatening caviar:
A self-fertilising hermaphrodite, Mnemiopsis breeds as fast as it eats. It reaches maturity within two weeks and then produces 8,000 eggs daily. Its appetite is so great that it can double its size in a day. By 1990, its total biomass in the Black Sea had reached an estimate 900 million tonnes, 10 times the annual fish catch from all the world's oceans.
One snorkelling marine biologist from the Ukraine, Yu Zaitsev, calculated that there were 500 of the beasts in a single cubic metre of water in Odessa Bay. There was almost more jellyfish than water. Meanwhile, fish catches across the Black Sea had declined by 90 per cent. The valuable anchovy virtually disappeared.
Daily Yomiuri On-Line gives a look back on the original Godzilla film. The reporter manages to talk with a few of the people that actually worked on the movie.
""Both Honda and Tsuburaya strongly wanted Godzilla to land in Shinagawa," after they visited coastal locations in the Tokyo and Kawasaki areas, he said. "They both wanted Godzilla to knock trains over because they thought destroying something moving would make a good spectacle. Shinagawa was the perfect location because the Tokaido Line trains run along the coastline there." "
Scriptwriter Charlie Kaufman talks a little about "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Recently, la gringa talked about getting an early view of the film. She says it's brilliant:
"It's an extraordinary film. It's genuinely funny, and -- in places -- heartbreakingly sad. But the overall feeling you walk away with is that this is a very human film. I can't describe it better than that."
I can't wait for this movie to come out. It's being released March 19.
In better horror writer news, there are interviews with Ramsey Campbell at SuicideGirls and Science Fiction Weekly.
I'm going to quote Nick Mamatas' Journal because this is for a good cause and he's explained it well:
"Charles L. Grant, the acclaimed horror author, has been diagnosed with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). As a result, and probably for the rest of his life, he will rely on bottled oxygen to live. Alas, Charles and his wife, Kathryn Ptacek, are without health insurance and their need is great.
"A 'Fresh Air' fund has been set up to accept donations which will be used to pay the staggering expenses of oxygen and other durable medical equipment required for his care and sustenance. If you can spare ANY amount, the donation would be appreciated.
"There are two ways to contribute. Mail a check in any amount, made out to Kathryn Ptacek, to:
"Fresh Air Fund
c/o Kathryn Ptacek
P. O. Box 97
Newton, NJ 07860-0097
"or Paypal: katptacek@yahoo.com
"Grant has published over 100 books in various genres, with a number of his novels appearing on the bestseller lists of USA Today, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and London Times. His nearly two hundred short stories have been published in anthologies and magazines worldwide. He also edited the award-winning anthology series, Shadows.
"In 1987 he received the British Fantasy Society's Special Award, for life achievement. In addition, he has received two Nebula Awards and three World Fantasy Awards for his writing and editing. In 2000 he was given the Horror Writers Association's Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2002 he was honored with the Grandmaster Award of the World Horror Convention." "
So send some money!
Humorous article on Funyuns at Flak magazine.
"It is crucial, however, to momentarily reserve judgment when evaluating Funyuns; there is more to them than first meets the tongue. Soon, their special brand of sinister black magic manifests itself in the form of a profoundly unpleasant, multi-tonal crescendo of bad aftertaste. After swallowing, the oppressive post-Funyun funk rapidly grows in strength, overwhelming the senses of taste and smell and leaving blistering, breath-mint-resistant halitosis in its wake. Disgusted, you find yourself blindly reaching for the nearest thing to pop in your mouth, just to make it stop. "
(Link found at Cylindrical Primate Storage Unit.)
"No one knows for sure what caused this signal. There is a slight possibility that it just might originate from an extraterrestrial intelligence. The bright colors on the blue background indicate that an anomalous signal was received here on Earth by a radio telescope involved in a Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). A search for these signals is ongoing by several groups including volunteer members of the SETI League. "
More news on Godzilla: Final Wars at Monster Zero News.
Wal-Mart employee fired for his "non-discriminatory" view toward any religions and more specifically his attire:
"He says he was fired last week upon reporting for duty in his priest's shirt with Roman collar, an Arab headdress and six crosses."
Also:
"But Lorenz, 20, ignored requests to shed the shirt and collar — the main bones of contention — claiming they reflect his unique spiritual beliefs.
" "I told them that would be like turning my back on God, and I couldn't do that," said the Pipe Creek man whose religious fervor was fueled by a 2001 trip to Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Egypt.
"There, Lorenz first donned a kaffiyeh, an Arab headdress of folded cloth that's held on by a cord. Rounding out his unorthodox look are patches on his hip pack bearing the anarchy symbol and the words "vampire" and "ninja." "
Lorenz apparently taped all the conversations with his bosses and he's now preparing to sue them over discrimination.
I like the idea of unified religion, but this guy sounds a bit whacky:
" "I don't believe in any one religion," Lorenz said in his EEOC complaint. "I do believe in God, but I don't attend any one church. There is no title to my religion other than a universal belief system."
"Lorenz's ponytail and fuzzy chin reflect his belief that hair should not be cut because he is only "borrowing" his body. He won't date or marry, because all humans are family, he said, and that would make it incest."
Stephen VanDyke analyzes how news travels on the Internet. He uses a nifty graphic that resembles a kabbalah diagram. (In the process of doing this, VanDyke's post becomes a textbook example of how news travel. He posted it (source), Fark posted a link (metanews), and then I, and probably many others, link to it (lesser blogosphere). He gets to test his theory instantly!)
Forager dissects The Funny Problem. He uses Broken Lizard's two movies for comparison: Super Troopers (funny) vs. Club Dread (not funny).
Since I've been stealing so many links from them today, I want to remind readers to check out The Anomalist. They've got great weird links updated everyday.
Feeling magickal and social? Maybe you need to join an esoteric group. Luckily, Llewellyn Journal is there for you.
"An esoteric group is any gathering of people working toward a goal of mastering techniques that will raise the consciousness of individual group members. Groups provide collective security for people walking the esoteric path. People in the esoteric world are mostly what writer Colin Wilson dubbed “outsiders,” meaning that they are not in the mainstream of society. They are unusual people with extraordinary belief patterns. By coming together, they are reassured by the fact there are others like them. They feel this proves that they are not as weird as they thought. "
Consider the possibility: UFOs aren't alien machines, they're animals living in our atmosphere.
A skull found in Gastineau Channel in Juneau, Alaska, is bringing back stories of a man who may or may not have been killed by a giant squid.
Scientists reveals the myth of people only using 10 percent of their brains.
"The look of disappointment that usually follows when I say it isn't so strongly suggests that the 10-percent myth is one of those hopeful shibboleths that refuses to die simply because it would be so darn nice if it were true."
Scientists are examining a photo of the Beagle 2 Mars Lander, which crashed to Mars back in December. The image seems to show four bright spots, dubbed the "string of pearls." Scientists are wondering if these objects might hold the answers to what happened.
I just finished three very different books this weekend: Harvey Pekar's "American Splendor" collection, Roger Zelazny's "Damnation Alley," and Nicholson Baker's "Vox."
Pekar's graphic novel was released as part of the publicity for the "American Splendor" movie. For $16, it's a great bargain. And it's a great book. Pekar captures the details of everyday life, yet is never boring. It helps that he knows interesting people. The only problem I have with the book is that Pekar sometimes lets words run away with him. He will have pages where images of his face are buried under huge word balloons. It makes me wonder why he doesn't write prose. In his best stuff, he lets the pictures tell the story and he concentrates on the dialogue.
The Zelazny book was a lot of fun. It was recently rereleased by iBooks in mass market paperback. It's about a post-holocaust future in which the plague has stricken the nation of Boston. The nation of California offers Hell Tanner, a former Hell's Angel, a pardon for his crimes if he can cross Damnation Alley (the bombed out center of the country) to bring a vaccine to Boston. As an adventure novel, it works great. There's giant monsters, cataclysmic weather, biker gangs and all kinds of other problems Tanner must face. Plus, he has the coolest "car" ever. It's a mini-tank covered in weapons, a flame thrower and grenade launcher among them. It's strange because the novel wasn't what I was expecting. Zelazny is known as one of the New Wave science fiction writers of the '60s. So I was expecting a deep thinking, incredibly inventive experimental novel. Nope. It was a fun, pulpy adventure novel (outside of a couple of wild chapters near the end). And there's nothing wrong with that.
By the way, "Damnation Alley" was made into a TV movie. I've never seen it, but the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls it a "travesty" and says they've changed all the characters and didn't come through with many of the scenes from the book. So beware of that.
"American Splendor," the movie, however, was terrific. Rent at soon as you can.
The third book, "Vox," is about a conversation between two people on a phone sex line. The whole book is told in dialogue. It's sexy and it's smart.
It looks like China Mieville's next novel, "Iron Council" is coming out in July. It's set in New Crobuzon, the city of "Perdido Street Station" and "The Scar."
(Link found at Goblindegook.)
Scientist says its possible to reverse aging, allowing people to live for centuries. Kind of weird. I'm reading a science fiction story right now, "Dio" by Damon Knight, in which people are immortal, but they remain in a perpetual state of adolescence. In the real world, we're already in a perpetual state of adolescence, so bring on the eternal life! It's kind of strange the way this guy talks about "resetting" cells. Makes us all sound like machines.
Three-headed frog found in England. It's got three perfectly formed frog heads and six legs. (There's a pic at that link.) It might be a sign of environmental problems. Or it's protecting a lesser gate of Hades
New branch of human ancestors discovered. The ardipithecus ramidus kadabba was thought to be an ape species, but scientists now believe it is the earliest version of human beings.
Classified ad for a snakehead fish scares Omaha anglers. They're worried the fish will be passed on to the local ponds and lakes. And they're right to worry. This is the fish that kills everything in a body of water, then walks on land to the next body of water where it kills everything there.
Judge finds a typo-prone lawyer guilty of bad writing. I'm glad to see a judge do this. Legalese is bad enough, lawyers should be able to use correctly what little English they do use.
Neil Gaiman sets the record straight as to what's going on with "Constantine" as it pertains to Alan Moore. It's interesting to find out that Moore was really upset over Larry Cohen's ridiculous suit, which basically said that Moore created the comic book "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" so Fox could rip Cohen off. But Moore's response to this is rather odd, but typical of him. Rather than coming back against Cohen, he just gives up all credit and money for movies based on his work.
As for "Constantine," a movie based on the comic book "Hellblazer," it's going to be royally screwed up. Well, there's a chance it might be good, but the weather still looks pretty hot in Hades to me. "Hellblazer" is a comic book about a Brit sorceror of sorts. Being British is not just a small detail, a little character background, it's essential to his character. He's also blond. So what does Hollywood do in its infinite wisdom? Cast Keanu Reeves. If that's the starting point of this movie, where can it go from there? Unless it gets screamingly good reviews, I'm going to stay far away from the movie.
Why is it Godzilla has to go away to get mainstream coverage? It's probably a silly question, but just wait and see what coverage another James Bond film would get (the only other film series that has a history as long as Godzilla's.) Still, I can't wait to see the new film. Any day now Godzilla X Mechagodzilla should be out on DVD, with the sequel following soon after. There's a wealth of Godzilla stuff coming out for the 50th anniversary of Godzilla. It's like 1998 all over again (except without a bad American movie to top it off.) I find this comment funny:
"'Unlike the early Godzilla films, most of the remakes only draw either fanatics or children,' said Risaku Kiridoshi, an essayist on Japanese pop culture."
More proof that I'm some kind of freak. Thanks to Charles for the link.
Well, I've made a few template changes around here. Tell me what you think and if there's anything missing, different or just plain wrong.
Alan David Doane interviews Alan Moore:
"So, I launched on a career as a writer and, from the very beginning, I had a couple of simple precepts, if you like...I decided that I was never going to write a story that I, personally, wasn't interested in. I figured that this would be a helpful dividing line to prevent me from sliding into hack-work, which is always a danger in an industry where the deadlines come fast and furious. So, I kind of developed a method by which I would take...even on promising material, and then make it into something that was fun for me, that was either amusing or intellectually stimulating or, you know, that my use of language or storytelling or something like that...there some element in the story that would provide me with sufficient motivation to do a good job on it. "
They talk about Moore's novel Voice of the Fire, which I didn't know was released. Something else to spend my money on.
Thanks to pullquote I now know that today is Dominique Pinon's birthday. Pinon is the star of Caro-Jeunet films. My favorite: City of Lost Children. I think it's one of the best fantasy movies ever.
Man buys painting for $5 at a garage sale then sells it to a gallery for $1 million.
Patent approved for a breakable airplane.
"The proposal, which received a patent last month, calls for aircraft to be built in separate parts, then sealed together. In an emergency -- anything from mechanical failure to a missile attack -- the pilot could push a button to sever the parts with controlled explosions or by using a 'laser cutting' device.
"Each section would be equipped with parachutes, shock absorbers, inflatable rafts, and propulsion jets that would guide it to the ground, the patent said."
Of course, there's always a skeptic (or a few hundred):
"James DeLaurier, who teaches aircraft design at the University of Toronto, said his initial reaction to reading the patent was 'holy cow.'
"'This would be a maintenance nightmare,' he said. 'How could you make sure that all these systems are ready to go? The consequences of them not working, or working prematurely, would be dreadful.'"
Huge hailstones fell from the cloudless sky all over Spain in January 2000. Upon further study, scientists find occurences of what they call megacryometeors in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Canada, Colombia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United States.
"There have been detractors. Some meteorologists and hail experts have denounced the theories posed by Martinez-Frias, stating that formation of hail without thick highly-visible clouds is an impossibility."
There's always some scientist looking to help.
A team of scientists is criticizing a DNA report that claimed it had confirmed the deaths of Russian Czar Nicholas II and his family.
"In a newly released report, the scientists declare that the testing of remains found in the Ural Mountains was shoddy and flawed. They add that their own tests on the preserved finger of the sister of the czar's wife raise even more questions about the original findings."
Police report further sightings of the "bunny girl." Police say the situation is 'not funny.'
Scientist claims proof of afterlife. He's testing spiritual medium's hits and misses about people she just meets. They claim her accuracy is 80 to 90 percent of the time, way too high for guessing.
"'When you look at the totality of the data from our laboratory, the simplest explanation is actually that survival of consciousness is real,' said Schwartz."
In the 1950s, people were scared. The possibility of the atom bomb was fresh in everyone's mind. Kids had to do duck and cover drills at school. The Sputnik had been launched into the skies by the Russians. The Cold War was heating up. Demagogues were saying communists may be hiding in our own government.
In this atmosphere, Jack Finney wrote a book about escape. In "The Third Level," a collection of short stories, Finney writes about people who are upset with the world they live in, they seek some idyllic place in the country's recent past. In the story "The Third Level," it's a mysterious level of Grand Central Station that leads to a town in Ohio in 1894; in "Second Chance" a restored car brings a man back to the 1920s; and in "Of Missing Persons" offers an escape into 'romantic Verna' a planet of paradise.
In most of the stories, Finney indulges in the pleasures of escape. Everyone wants out and many people find it. In a couple of stories, he views escape in a different way. In "I'm Scared" the collective wish to escape has fractured Time and strange things begin to happen. In the final story of the book, "Contents of a Dead Man's Pocket," Finney turns the concept of escape around. A man loses a piece of paper on a ledge high above a New York City street. Dedicated to his work, he goes out there, only to succumb to fear after the window of his apartment closes. From then on, he's desperately trying to escape into his own life.
The stories do suffer a bit in that all the themes have been used time and again since then. The "The Twilight Zone" used some of these same ideas in a couple of episodes. Stephen King upped the tension a bit and rewrote "Contents of a Dead Man's Pocket" as "The Ledge." (By the way, in "Danse Macabre," King talks a lot about Finney, including a comparison with "Twilight Zone" in which Finney comes out on top.) And time travel has become a cliche in so many stories.
Nevertheless, it's a charming book and well worth your time. I don't think "The Third Level" is in print anymore, but the collection "About Time" includes most of his time travel stories. It's a shame "Contents of a Dead Man's Pocket" isn't in print, however.
In this Washington Post article, (requires free registration) we get not only fun squid facts, but recipes too! Here's an interesting factoid: "Then there is the "vampire" squid whose tentacles are covered with sharp fangs, but it is rarely seen, since it can live at depths up to 3,000 feet."
Speaking of Mars, Robert Rodriguez has signed on to direct "Princess of Mars," the novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This, I think, is a better match for Rodriguez than "Sin City" (though I'm looking forward to that too). The story is all action and filled with all kinds of cool stuff. Rampaging white gorillas, four armed insect like people and beautiful red-skinned Dejah Thoris. Something for everybody.
With evidence of water found on Mars, bookies have stopped taking bets on whether life will be found.
More proof that cigarette smoking is bad for you. 73-year-old takes more jail time so he can be in a prison that allows smoking.
Do not mess with this guy's car. After it was hit by tomatoes, he came back to the spot with his shotgun and killed one of the alleged tomator throwers. Anger management problems?
New dig hopes to find out more about the Lost Colony at Roanoke. This was the group of settlers in the late 1500s who were plagued by hostile Indians and a lack of supplies. When English ships returned to find them, the colony was gone and the only clue was the word "Croatoan," which may or may not have been a reference to a friendly group of Indians on the island. The colony members were never heard from again.
In Boston, the Photographic Resource Center is putting on an exhibition called Concerning the Spiritual in Photography. It's a collection of "spirit photographs," pictures of ghosts in other words.
In Bahrain, dolphins are being used to patrol boats and to find mines. It reminds me of the science fiction story "A Deeper Sea" by Alexander Jablokov, in which dolphins were inadvertently tortured into doing what the military wanted.
Remember "Chippy," the sea lion who was found wandering miles away from the sea? After removing a bullet from his head and weeks of rehab, Chippy is being put back into the wild today.
Ancient crustacean is smarter than scientists originally thought. Actually, the only reason I'm linking to this is because the creature's scientific name is Godzilliognomus frondosus. Godzilla reference?
Only about 7 percent of adult Internet users have a blog. (Note: adult users.) And of those, only about 10 percent update them daily. So apparently, I'm a rarity among rarities (others might say I'm a freak). Cool.
(Link found at Shaken and Stirred.)
Charlize Theron may play the lead in 'Aeon Flux,' the movie based on the animated character. Aeon Flux was a cool looking, but somewhat incoherent, story of a female assassin in a future world. I always liked her better during the days of "Liquid Television" than later when she got her own series. The early vignettes had no voice acting, so the bizarre twisty plots didn't seem to matter much.
The 50th anniversary Godzilla film has been announced. Godzilla will face off against 10 monsters including Mothra and something called Monster X (there was a Monster X in a Gamera film, but I don't think this will be the same monster.) The film is being directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, director of Versus. It looks like after this film, there will be a 5 to 10 year break before another Godzilla film appears.
Robert Silverberg is getting the 2004 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Silverberg deserves it. He's written about a gazillion books and more than half (what's half a gazillon?) are classics. A personal favorite: Dying Inside.
"Video games can make children fat and, in the case of violent games popular among teenage and younger boys, aggressive and even criminal, Swedish experts say."
You know, I don't see any proof of this in the article. This "expert" just seems to make the statement for a documentary (which I'm sure he has no financial involvement in.) Maybe there is something to the fat part, just as there would be if you studied kids who watched TV all day. But violence? You know, those kids who play sports are never violent, never hurt anybody. Sports has such a calming influence. Just ask Coach Bobby Knight.
Here's an interesting story asking the question: Are squid vicious? (Site may require registration.) Specifically, he's talking about the Humboldt squid, the "Arnold Schwarzenegger of the squids." Large numbers of these squid have taken over in the Sea of Cortes. Here's part of the story:
"At one point, as Kerstitch was underwater, a passenger stood on the deck fighting a 12-foot thresher shark with rod and reel. At about 30 feet, Kerstitch caught a glimpse of the shark -- and of a large squid flinging itself at the struggling predator.
"The squid quickly dashed away but not before removing 'an orange-sized chunk of flesh from the side of the shark's head with its powerful beak,' Kerstitch told me not long after the encounter. Other squid then turned on the diver. One latched onto his fin and pulled him down. Curious, Kerstitch let it pull, which may have provided this sense of opportunity.
"Kerstitch kicked and the first squid let go. But another attached itself just above his shoulders. 'It was like somebody was throwing a cactus on my neck,' he recalled.
"He struck the animal with his dive light and it let go, taking a gold chain he had been wearing. Another squid then wrapped its arms and tentacles around his face and chest. He buried his fingers into the body of the squid and began to pull. It slid to his waist and let go, taking his decompression meter.
"Kerstitch escaped and flopped back onto the boat, glad to be alive but burning with nasty lesions. 'These could eat one of us in a New York second, if that's what they wanted,' says Roger Hanlon, senior scientist at Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. 'Two gnashes of that beak and your wrist could be gone.'"
The tensions on the India-Pakistan border are bad enough, do we really need UFOs flying back and forth?
Archaeologists are looking into the Tuscan sword in the stone. This sword is associated with a vain knight who is given a vision and becomes an hermit. Here's part of the story:
"There, another vision told him to renounce material things. Galgano objected that it would be as difficult as splitting a rock with a sword. To prove his point, he struck a stone with his sword. Instead of breaking, the sword slid like butter into the rock. Galgano once again became a recluse, isolating himself by the sword's side. There he remained until he died in 1181."
Some believe the story is old enough to have influenced the King Arthur legends of Excalibur.
Isn't Bigfoot a northwestern USA phenomenon? So what's up with this hunter claiming he sees Bigfoot in Levittown, Pa.? There is a picture of a pair of really unconvincing Bigfoot prints at that link.
Virginia company banking on underwater robots. Which gets me thinking. We have robot ships that float through the solar system, taking pictures of Jupiter and Saturn and so on. Why don't we have any automated ships to search the bottom of the ocean, to get pictures of the Marinas Trench and all the weird animals down there? Is it because there's no national agency, like NASA, to take control of that?
Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Alien 4, will be writing X-Men comic books.
(Link found at Bookslut.)
An instant just became shorter.
"Researchers in Austria and Germany measured the smallest time interval recorded, and found it lasted a ten million billionth of a second.
"It's about ten times shorter than the previous shortest measured interval, which lasted about one femtosecond or a million billionth of a second."
Debate rages over whether the Vinland map, which predates Columbus and indicates a land to the west, is a fake or the real deal.
Newspapers in the late 1800s wrote about the Night Doctors. Mysterious men who desecrated graves and killed people for their bodies. Might there be a rational explanation:
"Folklorists believe that these stories of Night Doctors were spread and encouraged by whites to keep the ex-slaves under an informal curfew."
(Found through Cylindrical Primate Storage Unit.)
Many people believed in vampires in New England in the 1700s. Rhode Island and Connecticut were particularly prone to the problem. People would go dig up graves because they believed the dead person was sucking away the life of a living relative. More than likely, the problem was tuberculosis rather than vampirism.
I've been going to Books by the Falls in Derby since I was in high school. It's a used book store inside an old factory. There are about four rooms and each of them has books stacked high above, ready to topple at any moment. There's that great smell of musty old books. All the aisles are barely passable for one person. When there are two people in one aisle, it's a real project to pass by. In a back corner by the windows, there's a little desk where the owner sits. He has an old record player behind him. Through the years I've heard him play classical, opera, blues, jazz and light jazz.
I always head over to the science fiction section first. One huge wall covered in every old rocket-and-bug-eyed-monster book you can imagine. All the classic names are there -- Asimov, Heinlen, Sturgeon, Pohl, Anderson -- and every once in a while there are the classic novels that have gone out of print. Twice I've seen "Stand on Zanzibar" by John Brunner there.
I've seen a couple of references to Books by the Falls as disorganized. "They probably have some good things, but who knows where to find them?" says one reference site on the Web. But for me that has always been part of the joy. You start scrounging through big piles of books and see what attracts you. There's nothing like digging through a pile of books and catching a glimpse of an R.A. Lafferty book or an obscure sword and sorcery novel. It's not the kind of store you run into for something particular and then run out. It's a store meant for leisurely exploration.
I just went to Books by the Falls Saturday. The owner, who has gotten used to seeing me, said "hey you're into science fiction right?" Sure am. He directed me to two new book shelves full of science fiction books. He had dug up some amazing collection. It seemed like every classic science fiction book was there. I ended up picking up these books:
Hardcovers
The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner
The Third Level by Jack Finney
Bones of the Moon by Jonathan Carroll
Paperbacks
All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By by John Farris
Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze by Kenneth Robeson
Doc Savage: The Fortress of Solitude by Kenneth Robeson
I found all of those almost immediately. All those books cost a total of $12. But I ran out of money. There was a ton of other books I wanted. I'm going back soon to pick up more.
There's just something about being in a used book store that can't be beat.
So what about you? Do any of you have used book stores you love? Or book stores in general? Does anyone else find the pleasure in this that I do?
Robert Rodriguez is bringing the comic book "Sin City" to the movies. Frank Miller's comic book is an effective set of noir tales told with beautiful black and white drawings. Rodriguez says he will work directly with Miller to capture the look and feel of the stories.
Rodriguez has always been good with action films, I think he's a good choice. However, I don't think he has done any work quite as dark as "Sin City." The closest is "From Dusk till Dawn," but even that movie relied on a lot of humor. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens.
Two new dinosaur species found in Antartica. One is a small carnivore, the second is a herbivore similar to a brachiosaurus.
Testimony in a big murder case:
"Jose Sandoval, making his first sworn statement since he was convicted of the Sept. 26, 2002, Norfolk bank shootings, is asked why he jumped the counter.
'Because somebody was talking s--,' Sandoval replies.
Madison County Attorney Joe Smith asks who.
'A Smurf.'
'A smirk?'
'A Smurf,' Sandoval repeats, as in the blue TV cartoon character.
'I take it from your answer you don't want to answer that question,' Smith says. 'Or is it really your testimony that a blue Smurf was in the bank?'
'That's what I said.'
The prosecutor tries once more: 'Did you jump the counter because you wanted to make sure everybody was dead?'
'No, I jumped the counter because the Smurf was talking s--,' Sandoval says."
Asteroid gave world a close call. Until the sky cleared, astronomers thought there was a one in four chance that a 30-metre asteroid would hit Earth's atmosphere. After they found out we were all safe, they realized the asteroid was 500 metres across.
Police hunt "bunny girl." The bunny girl is a man "who is about six foot four tall and has been nicknamed 'bunny girl' by residents, wears high-heeled shoes, fishnet tights, a thong, a basque and a Lily Savage-style wig." He waits for unsuspecting women, then pretends to be tied to a tree. He asks the women to help. And that's all. He's a very strange criminal. (Although, I'm not sure he's broken any laws.)
Iran is looking to introduce a new jellyfish into its waters to fight off another jellyfish, Mnemiopsis or "The Monster." They hope the new jellyfish will eat the Monster.
Making Light, who normally writes about publishing, editing and writing, writes about dwarf mammoths. Tiny little prehistoric elephants, too cool.
You're The Sound and the Fury!
by William Faulkner
Strong-willed but deeply confused, you are trying to come to grips
with a major crisis in your life. You can see many different perspectives on the issue,
but you're mostly overwhelmed with despair at what you've lost. People often have a hard
time understanding you, but they have some vague sense that you must be brilliant
anyway. Ultimately, you signify nothing.
Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.
Two mummies that pre-date the Incas were found in Peru. They were so well preserved that an eyeball and intestines can still be seen.
At Undiscovered, a Fortean blog I recently discovered, the writer looks at the question of Shakespeare authorship:
"This is why, the topic of Shakespeare authorship studies (for want of a better phrase, is one peopled with assorted oddballs, lunatic theories and outlandish unsupported speculation. It doesn't however, automatically follow that there is no substance behind the speculation.
"The reality is that there is a problem, one that academia is addressing by denying it exists. But the facts speak for themselves."
Eight Arms to Hold You. Some amazing pictures of a giant squid as well as a long article I haven't read yet.
Neil Gaiman linked to a decent article on Will Eisner's new graphic novel. The novel takes a look at the famous racist propaganda piece "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and shows how they were created. The last Eisner book I picked up was Dropsie Avenue, which traces a New York street from the first American settlers to the current residents.
Eisner's is always looking to push the boundaries of comics. I'm sure his new book will be worth your time.
Just finished reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Somehow I managed to get through high school and college without reading Huxley's dystopian novel. I'm glad I finally did.
I think I find the novel scarier than George Orwell's 1984. In the novel, people brought this nightmare world on themselves. They accepted the premise of a happy society being the highest goal. People traded off freedom and thought for security and happiness, even if that happiness had to come in a pill.
I think people these days are all too ready to accept those kinds of solutions.
Along those lines, here's a bizarre argument for social engineering and soma creation: Aldous Huxley : Brave New World. Your Brave New World is right around the corner.
Here's a Web site that focuses on Huxley and his works. And here's an
online searchable version of the book.
In this review from the Guardian, an important question is asked: Huxley points out the problems of this scientific future and, through the Savage, points out the problems of romantic ways of thinking. But does he offer us any alternative? Any solution? Any better way of life?
In the version of the book I have, there is a special foreword by Huxley. He has this to say about the book:
"In the meantime, however, it seems worth while to mention the most serious defect in the story, which is this. The Savage is offered only two alternatives, an insane life in Utopia, or the life of a primitive in an Indian village, a life more human in some respects, but in others hardly less queer and abnormal. ... If I were now to rewrite the book, I would offer the Savage a third alternative. Between the utopian and the primitive horns of his dilemma would lie the possibility of sanity -- a possibility alreaady actualized, to some extent, in a community of exiles and refugees from the Brave New World, living within the borders of the Reservation. In this community economics would be decentralist and Henry-Georgian, politics Kropotkinesque and co-operative. Science, and technology would be used as though, like the Sabbath, they had been made for man, not (as at present and still more so in the Brave New World) as though man were to be adapted and enslaved to them. Religion would be the conscious and intelligent pursuit of man's Final End, the unitive knowledge of the immanent Tao or Logos, the transcendent Godhead or Brahman. And the prevailing philosophy of life would be a kind of Higher Utilitarianism, in which the Greatest Happiness principle would be secondary to the Final End principle -- the first question to be asked and answered in every contingency of life being: 'How will this thought or action contribute to, or interfere with, the achievement, by me and the greatest possible number of other individuals, of man's Final End?' ... Thus altered, Brave New World would possess an artistic and (if it is permissible to use so large a word in connection with a work of fiction) a philosophical completeness, which in its present form it evidently lacks."
The serial murders of Fred and Rose West are being linked to the occult by Irish author Jim Cairns.
The article refers to Cairns as "renowned," but I can only find two books under his name at Amazon.co.uk and neither seems to be in print or have any reviews.
Also, the article seems link these murders to ritual satanic abuse, which I'm very skeptical about. However, I don't think it would be that hard to show the occult ties of people who keep bodies under their house and cut off fingers as souvenirs.
A World War II B-24 Bomber has been found intact in the sea near Palau. The search was conducted to bring "closure" to the families of the crew.
Giant squid news is so sparse these days, I have to rely on little items like this: guy wins science grant, decides he will use it on giant squid: "Dr Ritchie plans to use the grant to carry out a feasibility study on the mysterious giant squid (Architeuthis dux) to determine how many there are and where they come from."
Thank you Dr. Ritchie, thank you.
Thanks to Giant Monster Movies, I've noticed this book: Giant Robot Warriors. It's one more thing to add to the list of stuff I want to buy.
I've been regularly adding new blogs over on the right, so be sure to keep checking it out. There's plenty of good stuff. The latest addition is Giant Monster Movies, which I should have added a long time ago.
