The Art of Darkness

Alas, A Link Dump

February 24th, 2017 by Cobwebs

Ann Arbor’s Fairy Doors – Ann Arbor, MI is home to a collection of fairy doors.

Light + Paper – Site which sells intricate, delicate paper cutouts, many in the shape of human organs.

LirikasByLirika – Etsy shop specializing in tights, gloves, and other accessories embellished with jewels and applique patches. Dark Forest and Wild Cherries are particularly appealing.

British Retro – Reproduction vintage clothing with fantastic style.

The Scariest Animal That Will Never Hurt You – Yay, whipscorpions! I especially like the photo of the mother carrying around its young. (Hat tip to DeVries)

Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies – Nebula Award Finalist Brooke Bolander’s short story is available online for free.

Useless Creatures (and Why They Matter) – Screwworm flies and cuttlefish are just as worthy of saving as polar bears.

Pet Flytrap – Sells a variety of carnivorous plants (including rare and unusual cultivars), terrarium kits, and supplies. Their sampler pack is a nice way to get started.

Animatronic Cat Ears – Instructions for making moveable cat ears. The same idea could easily be used for horns, antennae, or tentacles.

Fantasy Novel Title Generator – Stumped for a title for that big, fat, derivative fantasy novel you just extruded? Have no fear! This generator pumps out surprisingly plausible titles.

Posted in Link Dump | 4 Comments »

The Link Dump of Shalott

February 17th, 2017 by Cobwebs

#RejectedSpells – Amusing Twitter hashtag. I like, “Detect Magic Johnson” and “Comprehend Difference Between Your and You’re.”

Geeky Sex Toys – Unicorn horn dildos, Green Lantern cock rings, and much else. NSFW. Duh.

Beauty and Lord Voldemort – A mashup trailer of greatness.

How Fleetwood Mac Invented Goth – Uhm?

Crazy Yearbook Quotes From Students Back in 1911 – Smartasses are eternal. Also Alice Winslow is my spirit animal.

Wisconsin Death Trip – This account of the misfortunes surrounding the town of Black River Falls is a horror movie waiting to happen, although they’ll have to change the town name to something a little less obvious-sounding. (via Beans)

Gregorian Voices – Online Gregorian chant generator. Also available as a free app.

Lore – Podcast about true-life scary stories.

Coexisting With The Fair Folk Who Have Taken Up Residence In/Around/Beneath Your University: A How-To Guide – This ‘toon (and the accompanying notes) are splendid. (Update: Someone was inspired to create a university newsletter.)

The Midnight Screecher – Despite sounding like a sex act, this is a suggested “entertainment” from an 1873 book entitled What Shall We Do To-Night?. I don’t know what that head piece is made out of.

Posted in Link Dump | 2 Comments »

Somebody Write This

February 15th, 2017 by Cobwebs

There was a recent thread on AskReddit: Night shift workers of Reddit, what are some creepy things you’ve experienced in the middle of the night?

Redditor xelle24 told this creepy story:

My brother moved in with me a few months ago and got a job doing night shift custodial work at a nearby high school. His “workday” starts at 10 pm, and fortunately for him, it’s close enough to walk, because he gets off shift about 20 minutes after I have to leave for work in the morning, and he doesn’t have a car.

One night, a little after midnight, he calls me in a panic asking me to come down and pick him up, because there’s some kind of ‘weird shit’ happening (his exact words) and there’s no way he’s sticking around by himself. My brother isn’t the sort to freak out over nothing, so I hop in the car (in my jammies) and head down to the high school.

A little background is needed here: as children, my brother was apparently “sensitive”. He often talked about various seemingly supernatural encounters. In one very old house we lived in, he told our parents that a man would come to his room at night and tell him bedtime stories. It wasn’t until we were grown up that our father told us that a distant relative had committed suicide in the same room that was my brother’s bedroom, years before either of us was born, and that my brother’s description of the man matched the deceased relative.

I’m the exact opposite. Nothing creepy or supernatural ever happens to me or around me. If it happened there before, it doesn’t happen when I’m there, and often doesn’t return after I leave. I’ve had enough perplexed people tell me that their ghost went away after I visited their house, or that a particular place stopped being creepy after I was there, or had someone acting crazy calm down when I talked to them, to be pretty sure that I’m some kind of natural repellent for creepy shit.

So I get to the high school, and my brother is standing by the front doors. He runs over to the car and tells me that I have to come and make “it” stop.

“It” was the sound of lockers opening and closing just out of sight. He would turn a corner of a hallway and hear a locker open and slam closed behind him, or around the corner of the next hallway.

We go into the school, my brother practically hanging on my arm (which probably looked hilarious, as I’m shorter and plump, and he’s tall and super skinny – like a modern version of Laurel and Hardy). We walk up and down all the halls. Nothing happens. No sounds, no movement, no lockers opening or closing. No cold spots, no inexplicable drafts, no creepy noises or feelings.

We walk down the last hallway, at which point it getting on for 1 am and I’m tired and just want to go back home. There’s one locker standing ajar, and as we approach it, my brother reaches out to close it, pulls his hand back, and says, “You do it.”

I close the locker. Nothing happens.

Finally my brother says I can go, as long as I promise to come back the next night if there are any more problems.

A week later, he comes home and hands me a thank you note and a $50 Amazon gift card from the head of the custodial department for “services rendered”.

Easiest 50 bucks I’ve ever made.

And necropoli followed up with this reply:

You guys sound like sibling ghost hunter team but you have to work together to exorcise ghosts. Only one of you can see them and only one can dispel them. The tension comes from your brother seeing your dead wife as a ghost but you know you can never see her lest you exorcise her by being in the room. The burgeoning relationship between your brother and your ex-wife you can’t bring yourself to destroy drives a wedge in between your well-oiled ghost hunting operation. On the eve of Halloween, no less!

It’ll be a heartwrenching instaclassic with Oscar written all over it. I want 20% of the box office KTHX

I need this movie immediately. And then spin it off into a TV series. It would be spectacular.

Posted in Whatever | 2 Comments »

Pretty Link Dumps All in a Row

February 10th, 2017 by Cobwebs

Sarah Duyer – Artist who creates ceramic works like teapots with spider legs.

Banana Slug Mask – Who doesn’t need a banana slug mask?

Lovecraftian Letters – Huge set of magnetic words featuring H.P. Lovecraft’s unique vocabulary.

Arctic Ambience – Ten hours of sounds including frozen ocean, ice cracking, snow falling, icebreaker idling and distant howling wind, recorded on a polar icebreaking vessel.

That time we looked at buying an empty town where a massacre happened – The Bloggess shares a Twitter Moment.

Halloween Wine Charms – Set of Halloween-themed magnetic drink markers. There are a couple of other styles available too: 1, 2.

Dinosaur Park – “the dinosaur park is like a dog park, but cooler” I love the image of the guy feeding the “birds.”

The Mesmerist – Interesting-sounding YA novel about a teenage sham spiritualist who discovers she actually has the ability to speak with the dead. The same author also wrote Hoodoo, about a boy trying to learn to conjure.

Vintage Gothic Dessert Table – Stunning setup for a wedding reception dessert table; it’d be appropriate for any fancy party.

Ronit Baranga – Sculptor who creates weirdly cute demonic babies, dishware with fingers and mouths, and other mildly unsettling stuff. I think Time for Tea is my favorite.

Posted in Link Dump | 2 Comments »

Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace

February 8th, 2017 by Cobwebs

Sometimes British humor is a little bit meta. And sometimes British humor is a whoooooole bunch meta. And then there’s Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. It’s a horror parody series about a television show that never ran in the 1980s. The AV Club reviews it, saying:

Purporting to be the lost TV effort of “author, dream weaver, visionary, plus actor” Garth Marenghi (Matthew Holness), the series doesn’t just parody blowhard literary types like the one played by co-creator Holness—it riffs on the entire “brilliant but canceled” myth. The show-within-a-show structure of Darkplace presents a loser’s history of a lost “classic” that was lost for a reason.

It is glorious, and the whole season (plus DVD “extras”) is available on YouTube. Here’s the first episode:

(Hat tip to Pixel Pixie)

Posted in Funny Peculiar | 1 Comment »

The League of Extraordinary Link Dumps

February 3rd, 2017 by Cobwebs

23 Things Tumblr Has Thought About The Weasley Family – It’s clickbait, but it’s amusing clickbait.

Werewolf Licorice – I can’t vouch for the taste, but the packaging is pretty nifty. The company has a Witch Licorice too. (via Pixel Pixie)

Knitted Brain Hat – Pattern and tutorial for making a brainy hat. Perfect for attending the upcoming Science March in DC.

Is This the Most Awesome Library in the World? – The library at Mafra National Palace in Portugal keeps insects under control with a flock of bats.

Hyrax – I’ve talked about the hyrax–and its adorable li’l vampire fangs–previously, but I like this roundup of photos.

Agnieszka Osipa – Artist who makes gorgeous fairytale-inspired costumes. Marginally NSFW if your boss is uptight.

Beetle House NYC – There’s a Tim Burton-themed bar opening in New York.

Dial-a-Grue – This project to port Zork to work via rotary phone is delightfully bonkers.

Bat Robot Takes Wing – Bat bot!

Flick Candles – Offers scents like “Nicotine Pumpkin Patch,” “Freshly Signed Divorce Papers,” and “Grandma’s Last Christmas Tree.”

Posted in Whatever | 3 Comments »

R.I.P. Arbroath

February 1st, 2017 by Cobwebs

The long-running blog Nothing To Do With Arbroath has always been a source of amusement and WTF-ery. Its owner, Kev, went on short hiatus last November complaining of health issues, then returned to post occasional updates about his battle with cancer. Today, Joanne from I Have Seen The Whole Of The Internet announced that Kev had passed. If you enjoyed Kev’s blog, tributes can be left here.

Posted in Whatever | 1 Comment »