This is one of those situations where I’m teetering between, “This is a really neat idea!” and “This would make me incredibly stabby.”

Call in the Night is an experimental radio show and quasi-research project which aims to document “the nighttime experience.” Participants register their phone number and then once a week they get a call in the middle of the night, hear a short prompt, and then are connected to another random registrant to discuss “your night, your dreams, or whatever comes to mind.”

The calls are recorded and may be selected to use in the CitN podcast. Here’s a sample:

The site notes that the calls are anonymous, so I’m assuming that callers are connected through a central unit that hides their number from the other party. There’s also an area where you can review and share your recordings.

Comments on the SoundCloud page seem to indicate that the participants have fairly positive experiences, so if you don’t mind the occasional middle-of-the-night call this might be an interesting experiment.

(via BoingBoing)

This fan-made video done for Lambchop’s cover of “This Corrosion” isn’t half bad.

The song, incidentally, appeared as a bonus track on their “Is a Woman” album. For some peculiar reason it’s not available at the U.S. version of Amazon, but you can get it at Amazon UK or Amazon DE

Someone in the comments over at BoingBoing also pointed to this “folk metal” version by German band In Extremo.

Eric Calderone does metal covers of all kinds of interesting things on his YouTube channel, including lots of TV themes: Game of Thrones, Dexter, The Walking Dead, and Sherlock. Here he is doing the Doctor Who Theme/I Am the Doctor:

(Hat tip to Spooky Seamstress)

I’m feeling silly today, so I’m declaring a reader interaction day.

I see a lot of posts about tattoos in my Facebook feed,* from friends either showing off their latest acquisition or planning their next piece of art. If you have tats, tell us about them in the comments: What are they, and why did you choose them? If you’re planning a new one, what do you want to get? Feel free to post links to photos (although a “NSFW” warning, if appropriate, is appreciated).

I’ll go first: I currently have none, because although my husband has many wonderful qualities an appreciation of tattoos is not amongst them. Someday, however, I shall have bats; either a flock of the friendly little creatures as shown above, or a nature scene like this one. (I can’t find an attribution for the flock; the sleeve is by Matthew Amey.)

Now it’s your turn: Tell us about your inky aspirations!

*Are you on Facebook? Wanna be my friend? Find me here.

Intrepid commenter Kaitlin Michelle recently emailed me with an interesting proposal:

So I had this idea about a gothic-y pen pal service thing, because traditional letters are awesome…and the closest thing I found so far was geek girl international pen pal, which I did sign up for, but it isn’t the same type of people. I was wondering if I could scrounge up some rules/make a flyer/blog post or something if you would be interested in it, and if you would want to put something on your blog about it.

This struck me as a splendid idea, because traditional letters are awesome. Be honest: When was the last time you took the time to sit down and physically write a letter to somebody? When was the last time you found something in your mailbox besides bills and junk mail? Far too long, right? Time to change that!

Kaitlin’s idea of matching gothy people is especially great, not only because it’ll be fun to make new like-minded friends, but also because we’re just the sort to come over all Edgar Allan Poe with the handwritten missives and the thoughtful prose and, for all I know, the quill pen and sealing wax.

I told her I’d be happy to help spread the word, so she sent me the copy below. Note that I am not involved in this venture other than as a messenger, so questions and comments should be directed to her sivleyk@gmail.com address. (I expect she’d probably answer questions in this post’s comment section as well.)

Love the night? Into The Cure, or Joy Division? Can’t stop re-reading Edgar Allen Poe or Dracula? Wish everyday was Halloween? Wish you had more friends that felt like you? Then it’s time to dust off those quills and bottles of ink, because we are going back to the lost art of letter writing (snail mail!), and we would like you to join in. All people of the night (13+) who love to send and receive letters in the old fashioned mail box are welcome to participate in our pen pal program.

All you need to do to sign up is email sivleyk@gmail.com with the subject header Pen Pal and a small description of yourself (including age & gender) and a small list of your Goth-y loves, and you will be paired with a pen pal match. We will then send you an email letting you know who your match is, and where you can write to them.

Only a letter or postcard is required, but want to do more than just write? Why not! Add some Goth flair to your mail, and throw in some bat doodles, provide a playlist of your favorite dark songs, add a little Halloween decoupage, or chunk in some Edward Gorey stickers. The list of things you could do to nighten up your mail is endless! Have fun and create something fantastic!

Try to mail your pen pal within 2 weeks of being matched, but if life gets in the way, send them an email letting them know they will get your letter soon.

If you don’t feel comfortable giving out your address right away, get to know each other first by emailing/chatting/or facebooking.

Aside from anything you aren’t allowed to mail normally, (like liquids, live animals or hazardous materials) we also ask that you not send religious or political propaganda, business solicitations, and offensive or pornographic material.

We cannot be held responsible for the outcome of any contact of any kind made between you. We do hope you use common sense, and if you decide you feel uncomfortable giving your address out, don’t.

This short documentary about Charles Addams reveals, to nobody’s surprise, that he had a lifelong fascination with cemeteries and ramshackle houses.

(via BoingBoing)

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.)

	“Poison” Tea Set This was a set called Treacherous Tea Party from Etsy shop BurkeHareCo. The set has sold, but it’d be possible to DIY something similar with ceramic paint.
	Cthulhu Cross Stitch I tracked this back to Reddit, but no information on where the original pattern came from; a few comments indicate that it might be a digital image instead of real cross-stitch. Regardless, the pattern is simple enough that it should be easy to replicate. Update: In the comments, Jay says that his wife made this for him, without a pattern. Most awesome.
	Ouija Tattoo This is the work of Emmanuel Hele from Martian Arts Tattoo Studio in Portland, OR.
	Pentacle Braids This is a scan from a book on Wicca that an acquaintance posted. It’s an interesting hairstyle.
	Caution Sign I can’t find an original source for this, but it’s certainly good advice.
	Norman’s Ghost Show This vintage sideshow attraction was the work of Orton and Spooner, major 19th century ride-builders and decorators.
	In Case of Zombies If you don’t enlarge, it’s hard to see that on the end it says, “or yard work.” I don’t have an original source for this, but it’s an amusing idea for a garage or garden shed.
	The Power of Books This photo series by Mladen Penev is wonderfully evocative.
	Lovecraft’s Secret Cute little tentacular treasure box. This is by Trolladriel’s Creations on Etsy. You can see more photos (and buy the original if you so desire) here. Something reasonably similar might be DIY-able with polymer clay and an inexpensive wooden box.
	Vampire Emergency Sign The sign actually says, “Break Off In Case of Sparkly Vampires,” but I think it would be infinitely more amusing to simply have it read, “In Case of Vampires” and let the broken-off stake speak for itself. It’d be reasonably easy to DIY this using a dremel tool on balsa wood (or even styrofoam).

This Midnight Archive episode features Evan Michelson, owner of the New York shop Obscura, discussing “why some of us are so drawn to certain objects, the dark, and the disturbing.”

(Hat tip to Bonni)

Netflix coughed up this movie from the depths of my queue the other day, and since it wasn’t particularly successful at the box office it occurred to me that most people probably haven’t even heard of it, let alone seen it. This is a pity, because it’s a lot of fun.

It’s also got some surprisingly high-powered talent. It was written and directed by Peter Jackson, produced by Robert Zemeckis, and scored by Danny Elfman. (Also John Astin plays one of the ghosts.)

The film is a horror-comedy, starring Michael J. Fox as an architect who finds himself able to see ghosts after an accident. He’s befriended three of them, and they haunt houses in the area to drum up clients for his ghost-hunting business; he “exorcises” them for a fee. And then…something a lot darker comes to town.

Here’s the trailer:

It’s a fun, lightweight movie, reasonably family-friendly (for older kids). If you have a chance to rent it, give it a try.

In the midst of a zombie apocalpyse, an infected man struggles to save his infant daughter. This was one of the finalists in Tropfest Australia 2013.

In the comments on io9, there’s this note:

For those who don’t know, one of the conditions of entering a film in Tropfest is that is must contain ‘the signature item’, which is announced at the previous year’s festival. This year’s was ‘Balloon’.
When shown next to the other films, it was this use of the balloon that made the film all the more heart-wrenching.