Ursula Vernon is a writer of magical realism; the author and illustrator of the Hugo Award–winning graphic novel Digger and the Dragonbreath series of children’s books. She’s got a lovely short story up at Apex: Jackalope Wives plays with the age-old idea of skin-changers, and of humans who occasionally marry them. Here’s the beginning:

The moon came up and the sun went down. The moonbeams went shattering down to the ground and the jackalope wives took off their skins and danced.

They danced like young deer pawing the ground, they danced like devils let out of hell for the evening. They swung their hips and pranced and drank their fill of cactus–fruit wine.

They were shy creatures, the jackalope wives, though there was nothing shy about the way they danced. You could go your whole life and see no more of them than the flash of a tail vanishing around the backside of a boulder. If you were lucky, you might catch a whole line of them outlined against the sky, on the top of a bluff, the shadow of horns rising off their brows.

And on the half–moon, when new and full were balanced across the saguaro’s thorns, they’d come down to the desert and dance.

The young men used to get together and whisper, saying they were gonna catch them a jackalope wife. They’d lay belly down at the edge of the bluff and look down on the fire and the dancing shapes — and they’d go away aching, for all the good it did them.

For the jackalope wives were shy of humans. Their lovers were jackrabbits and antelope bucks, not human men. You couldn’t even get too close or they’d take fright and run away. One minute you’d see them kicking their heels up and hear them laugh, then the music would freeze and they’d all look at you with their eyes wide and their ears upswept.

The next second, they’d snatch up their skins and there’d be nothing left but a dozen skinny she–rabbits running off in all directions, and a campfire left that wouldn’t burn out ’til morning.

It was uncanny, sure, but they never did anybody any harm. Grandma Harken, who lived down past the well, said that the jackalopes were the daughters of the rain and driving them off would bring on the drought. People said they didn’t believe a word of it, but when you live in a desert, you don’t take chances.

When the wild music came through town, a couple of notes skittering on the sand, then people knew the jackalope wives were out. They kept the dogs tied up and their brash sons occupied. The town got into the habit of having a dance that night, to keep the boys firmly fixed on human girls and to drown out the notes of the wild music.

(via io9)

As in previous editions, here’s a bunch of images I’ve run across which I want to share but might not be able to hang a whole post on. Some of them have no attribution, so if you happen to know the source for any of these please leave a note in the comments. (Click to view larger.)

	Casket Grill This is a barbecue grill housed in a coffin, it’s awesome, and I have no idea where it came from because all roads lead either to Pinterest or 404s. From the table it’s sitting on and the cups stacked to the right in the photo it appears to be the centerpiece at some sort of picnic or other outdoor gathering, possibly for funeral directors. Anyway, it’d be reasonably easy to DIY if you’ve got a steel casket that you don’t know what to do with.
	Heart Brooch I am so very sorry that this is just digital art and not a real piece of jewelry. It’s by Giovanni Bortolani, whose gallery is loaded with disturbingly visceral imagery (possibly NSFW). If you’re handy with polymer clay, it might be possible to create something similar in real life. (Hat tip to Beans)
	Coffin Lollipops The sole place a reverse image search turned up was a Pinterest pin which cited Conjurer’s Kitchen (whom I’ve featured previously). But I don’t see these anywhere on the site, so I dunno. They’re lovely, though, with lots of detail, and would certainly be an interesting departure from regular cake pops.
	Jack the Ripper Tattoo This gorgeous piece is by Pavel Roch. It looks more like a painting than a tattoo, and is wonderfully evocative.
	Carpet Moth This is by Mister Finch, who creates marvelous creatures from textiles. I desperately want to make a moth like this just to sort of have around the house.
	“Halloween” Shoe This was part of Prada’s Spring 2011 collection, and I’m sure it wasn’t meant to have anything to do with Halloween (although darned if there weren’t a number of other Halloween-friendly shoes in the same collection). A knockoff striped effect could be done with tape and spraypaint.
	Petal Pillows Found at Build-a-DIY although I don’t think they originated there. I like how these look like poppy seedpods. They could be made in a variety of sizes, as throw pillows or bean-bag chairs (teensy ones would make nice pincushions), and would be pretty in black or scarlet.
	“WaterDance” Bathtub A “soaking art” tub by Jetta. This is definitely a fixture in the bathroom of my dreams.

What happens after medicine finds a way to fight the zombie outbreak?

David Freyne’s The First Wave is the prequel to feature film The Third Wave, currently in development. It explores the deep psychological trauma that a zombie apocalypse would inflict survivors.

Following the outbreak of an aggressive virus, a young woman awakes in a hospital bed. As the horrifying events that led her there are revealed, it becomes clear that the cure is just the beginning.

Every so often, amongst the one-off projects I do for my own amusement, I actually bestir myself to put together more elaborate pieces and sell ’em. I’ve got just such a thing up on eBay right now, a nice fresh Vampire Hunting Kit with all the trimmings.

If you buy it, mention this blog in your buyer comments and I’ll send ya something special.

The Willard Asylum for the Insane in New York was built in 1869 and closed in 1995 (to reopen as a drug rehabilitation facility). At its peak it housed 4000 patients, and more than half of the 50,000 people who called it their home died there: Although attempts were made to integrate later patients back into society, in its early days “people didn’t leave unless it was in a box.”

Asylum inmates were allowed to bring one case of possessions with them, and between 1910 and 1960 many of these suitcases were stored upon their deaths. When the facility was closed, the New York State Museum was given the opportunity to remove some historic items and one of the workers found the cases. After a small selection was displayed at the museum, photographer Jon Krispin launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to document the suitcases and their contents. The results are fascinating and heartbreaking.

Earlier today I uploaded Agnes J’s case to the willardsuitcases.com site….She is important for many reasons, not the least of which is that her satchel contained a wealth of correspondence that revealed so much about her life. Hers was the first case that I shot with so much personal information.

There is a line in the letter below that explains so much about her being sent to Willard.

“But don’t come back to the Y.W. and threaten to kill that girl again–that’s what put you where you are now.” Chilling and so sad.

You can see the photos at Krispin’s blog and at the Willard Asylum Suitcases site. It’s a unique glimpse into the lives of these people, and the things they found important enough to bring with them on their (often one-way) trip to the asylum.

This BBC clip is wonderful.

I’m trying to decide if this is a glimpse of the future of video games or just a really silly idea.

Nevermind is touted as a biofeedback-enhanced immersive video game that “knows when you’re afraid.” Players are hooked to heart monitors which measure their anxiety, and the game becomes more difficult as their fear increases.

Developer Erin Reynolds was heavily influenced by the movie The Cell, which features a psychologist using virtual reality to enter the mind of her patient.

In Nevermind, players take on the role of “neuroprobers,” sci-fi psychologists who help trauma patients uncover their most disturbing memories. The goal is to plumb these memories without getting sucked into them yourself. If you begin to feel afraid, the screen becomes hazy and shaky, making navigation difficult. Then, frightening events begin to impede your progress. In a very creepy kitchen, you’re asked to solve an anagram. But if you can’t, and start to stress out, the room fills with milk. At first, the milk makes it difficult to walk, then it rises to your eye level, so you can’t see. “And if you still can’t calm down, it will drown you,” says Reynolds.

Reynolds claims that playing the game helped her learn to manage her fears in real life. She uses the same deep-breathing exercises and other techniques which allowed her to succeed in the game when she’s faced with everyday anxiety.

This is a really interesting concept, with some resemblance to Star Trek holodecks; I quite like the idea of a game which tailors itself to your behavior. On the other hand, the heart-monitor thing seems a bit crude; unless there’s some way to train the monitors to your particular stress levels, one person’s terror is another person’s mild excitement. I can envision a lot of circumstances where excitement about reaching a new level is interpreted as fear.

Additionally, the responses to perceived fear appear to have a fairly cut-and-dried progression: The amount of fear simply ups the amount of impediment (so a little fear results in milk to your knees, and a lot of it gives you milk to your eyeballs). A more responsive game which presented different obstacles–perhaps different puzzles to solve–would be more interesting and would also enhance re-playability; as your familiarity with the game increased, and therefore the fear associated with it decreased, you’d have the reward of different game content.

Regardless, the idea of a game which tailors itself to the individual user is pretty cool. It would certainly enhance games where your response was important: Imagine a scenario where you’re being chased by werewolves…and they can hear you breathing.

(via Beth)

Erutan, aka KatetheGreat19, does lovely covers of all sorts of interesting songs. Here’s her version of “Come Little Children” from the movie Hocus Pocus, transposed with footage from Pan’s Labyrinth.

(via Cult of the Great Pumpkin)

A couple of years ago I suggested that, in addition to the necessary-but-boring resolutions that people tend to make on New Year’s Day, everyone should also make a silly, fun, unnecessary one: Something that you’ve thought about doing but could never quite muster the motivation for one reason or another.*

This seems like an excellent idea to dust off and revisit. What’s a fun goal, within your time and budget constraints, that you’d like to accomplish this year? Make it a formal resolution, and at the end of next year you’ll be able to state truthfully that you achieved one of your goals.

For me, I think that this is the year I add all of the poisonous plants back to my herb garden: I rooted out all of the henbane and nightshade and monkshood when Shadowboy was a toddler and liable to put random things in his mouth, and it’s high time I put them back.

What silly, fun resolution do you want to make? Share ’em in the comments!

*Mine was to learn to play the ukelele, which I did, despite sucking at it. The point was to have fun, and at that I succeeded.

Anna Von Hausswolff is “a small Swedish woman who sings about death,” and she does it magnificently. Her music often includes big, soaring pipe organs which make her sound Gothic in the more traditional sense of the word. Here’s a track from her album “Ceremony:”

There are several others available on her site. You can also buy a CD or vinyl(!) album of “Ceremony” through the site; it’s also available for download on Amazon, along with her two previous sold-out releases, Singing from the Grave and Track of Time. Great stuff.

(Hat tip to Burning Prairie)