Quick! What’s that behind you?? Haha sorry. Just a prank. Made you look! It’s actually rushing at you from the side.
— NightValeRadio
A good reality show would be if we woke up all our coma patients in the ruins of a hospital in an abandoned city.
— rolldiggity
Spiders crawl into sleeping people’s mouths. People are too busy to go to the dentist. This is when I introduce my new idea: Dentist spiders
— bridger_w
Science fiction movies, why do you think any one-syllable word can be a street drug. Blip. Crust. Ham. Stork. Greg.
— KenJennings
sometimes i cry when i chop vegetables other than onions, just so the onions don’t think they’re ugly or something
— Hella_Rad
If you pull a lizard’s tail off, it will grow back. If you pull it off again, the lizard will be like “dude.”
— briangaar
I’ve woken up looking like the imaginary friend of a particularly disturbed child.
— sixthformpoet
Pretty unfair that sharks get a whole week and vampires only get a weekend.
— KevinFarzad
A ghost walks into a bar. The bartender says “I feel cold.” The ghost lingers for years. The bartender grows despondent, lost.
— NightValeRadio
Quite a number of authors blog and/or use Twitter, and long ago I put together a list of SF authors’ blogs and Twitter feeds. Because I am rather slow on the uptake, it only recently occurred to me that it might be a good idea to do the same for the fantasy/horror genre. Duh.
Anyway, for your following enjoyment, here are some blogs and feeds to, um, follow. (Note that lots more authors have an “official site” or some other minimal web presence; this list only includes those with actual blogs.)
It’s a pretty long list, so I’ve put it below the fold. If I’ve missed any of your favorites, let me know in the comments!
London After Midnight was a famous 1927 silent film staring Lon Chaney. Based on the short story “The Hypnotist” by Tod Browning, who also directed the film (and also directed the 1931 version of Dracula and the horrifying 1932 cult classic Freaks), the last known copy of the film was destroyed in an MGM fire in 1967.
The film is one of the most sought-after “lost movies.” In 2002, Turner Classic Movies aired a reconstructed version using the original script and film stills. Barring an unexpected discovery in somebody’s aunt’s attic, this is probably the closest we’ll get to the experience moviegoers in 1927 enjoyed.
I recall reading about Chaney’s self-applied makeup for the film. He used wires to give him pop eyes, and they caused him injuries which plagued him the rest of his life. He was definitely a “suffering for his craft” kind of guy.
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The other day I was telling Shadow Jack about some of the accounts I follow on Twitter. I mentioned that one of them was Warren Ellis, and he asked why I followed him. Because here is an example of a typical Ellis tweet:
Good morning, fluorescent sex weasels of the internet. It’s a new day, and fresh victims are everywhere.
How could you not follow that?
It appears that I am not alone in my appreciation of his turn of phrase, in that Six-Sided Space Ninja has created a site that will randomly generate phrases based on his Twitter greetings.
They sound very authentic.
Posted in Funny Peculiar|Comments Off on Talk Like Warren Ellis
Netflix has recently branched out from its video rental/streaming services into creating original content. One of its new offerings is Hemlock Grove, a supernatural thriller based on the novel by Brian McGreevy. The 13-episode first season recently finished up and it’s been renewed for a second season. Reviews for both the book and series have been somewhat mixed, but if you like lycanthropic goings-on in a small town setting then this might be worth a look.
Quirk Books recently posted a collection of humorous ice cream flavors inspired by books: Things like “Clockwork Orange Creamsicle” and “War and Peach.” Each flavor includes advertising copy describing its ingredients, and a few of them sound pretty darn good. These could be replicated at home, either as regular mixed ice cream or as individual sundaes.
In particular, “Berry Potter and the Container of Secrets” is described as “a magical blend of butter beer, Bertie Bott’s Strawberry Flavour Beans and chocolate frogs.” That sounds like butterscotch ice cream, strawberry jellybeans (Jelly Belly has two varieites: Strawberry Jam and Strawberry Cheesecake), and chocolate frogs: If you’re making a batch of ice cream with mix-ins, it’d be easiest to just use chocolate chips or chocolate chunks; for individual desserts, you could use a frog-shaped candy mold to make real chocolate frogs and perch a few atop each sundae.
“Whirled War Z” is another flavor that sounds yummy: “Gummy worms crawl through a swirl of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream. Beware of the random splattering of cherries.” To make a large batch–which would work particularly well as an ice cream cake–soften equal amounts of strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate ice cream. Line a cake pan with plastic wrap and spread the ice creams in layers, scattering gummy worms and cherries (fresh, frozen, dried, or candied, according to your whim) between the layers. Freeze until firm, then unmold on a serving platter and slice. For sundaes, sprinkle scoops of neapolitan ice cream with the worms and cherries.
I’m sure there are plenty of other literary combinations possible: Dracula-inspired “Vein-illa:” Vanilla ice cream with dark chocolate hearts and a coil of pureed raspberry “blood;” Poe’s “Night in the Toothsome October:” Pumpkin ice cream swirled with sherry-caramel sauce and pecan shortbread bits; and Oscar Wilde’s “Pleasure of Dorian Gray:” Bourbon ice cream with candied orange peel and a licorice ripple.
Have suggestions for other combinations? Leave ’em in the comments!
This is old, but Shadowboy recently discovered it and has been playing incessantly at me, so I’m going to share it with you. It’s somewhat more geeky than gothy, but it does have Neil Gaiman.
Olga Nunes and Elaine Doyle were so inspired by this xkcd comic that they set it to music, and they managed to talk a bunch of famous geeks into singing along. Neil Gaiman, Wil Wheaton, Cory Doctorow (in cape and goggles), Patrick & Teresa Nielsen Hayden, and loads of others are featured.
(And to get even more meta, the reason Cory Doctorow is wearing a cape and goggles is because of this cartoon. It is an immutable law of the universe that whatever the subject, there is an xkcd cartoon that’s relevant.)
Intrepid commenter Sisifo sent me a note about this recently, along with the comment, “Not sure whether to be excited or facepalm.” I am similarly torn.
The series premieres next month on Fox. They’re touting it as a “modern-day retelling” of Washington Irving’s short story, but their official synopsis is, quote, “Ichabod Crane wakes up from the throes of death 250 years in the future to find the world on the brink of destruction and learn he is humanity’s only hope…forcing him to team up with a contemporary police officer to unravel a mystery that dates back to the founding fathers.” I am having a spot of trouble reconciling that plotline with “Superstitious schoolmaster gets pranked by a guy with a pumpkin.”
London After Midnight was a famous 1927 silent film staring Lon Chaney. Based on the short story “The Hypnotist” by Tod Browning, who also directed the film (and also directed the 1931 version of Dracula and the horrifying 1932 cult classic Freaks), the last known copy of the film was destroyed in an MGM fire in 1967.
Quirk Books recently posted a collection of