News of the Weird

Not exactly off topic, but the types of articles that might have interested the Weird Tales circle, had they been able to gaze into the future...

I'll start things off with a bit of weird biology (imagine this thing with TEETH):



http://tinyurl.com/6fb7xzm

And, courtesy of Paradoxosalpha:

"On the cryptozoological front, there's been a lot of yeti business lately!"

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,789776,00.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15167866
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/224723/20111004/yeti-abominable-snowman-sasquatc...

Scientists speculate that astronomical gamma rays may come from dark matter clouds.

ETA: And Azathoth

Today's top news story sounds like it could have been the result of a revelation to the animal "farmer" about the return of the Old Gods and imminent extinction of humanity.

>3 paradoxosalpha:

It was gamma rays that caused 'ol man Thompson to crack!

Sad about the animals, though. Latest reports have only a monkey and a wolf remaining at large.

paradoxosalpha: Thinks for the dark mater tip. Yeah, I check physorg.org regular like too. Indication besides its gravitational influence is very cool.

Now about that mutant cyclops shark: Thanks for bringing up a bad memory. Several of those things chased me around the pool at the Super-8 motel in New Orleans when I was little. ...okay not really, but my mind just went there...it seems to do that more and more these days...

Rapidly Inflating Volcano Creates Growing Mystery

http://news.yahoo.com/rapidly-inflating-volcano-creates-growing-mystery-14280596...

>7 paradoxosalpha:

4-inch xenophyophores! Amoebae are not supposed to be 4 inches! Dreadful thought - these pseudo-shoggoths are not limited to the Marianas trench and do grow even BIGGER in the Peru-Chile Trench of the Nazca Plate, just off the coast of Bolivia, home of Uturuncu. Guess what is actually filling up that "rapidly inflating volcano"? Lava and poisonous gases may be the least of humankind's troubles if that volcano erupts!

"The identification of these gigantic cells in one of the deepest marine environments on the planet opens up a whole new habitat for further study of biodiversity, biotechnological potential and extreme environment adaptation," said Doug Bartlett, the Scripps marine microbiologist who organized the expedition.

Yeah, that's what the Old Ones thought, too. Good little slave shoggoths.

Note also the remarks about super-deep jellyfish. After reading a number of articles like this one, I've started to wonder if the Dreaming God's beard of tentacles is really of the cephalopod sort.

>9 paradoxosalpha:

Good god, man! The glaring lack of "Uturuncu Lives!" t-shirts and bumper stickers leads me to suspect that we are the only humans who know about this! I feel f-f-f-funny....

This story has a bit of a Robert Bloch-type feel:

Police: Russian man kept 29 dead bodies at home

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's Interior Ministry says police have arrested a man who kept 29 mummified bodies at his apartment and dressed them up like dolls.

Ministry spokesman Valery Gribakin said Monday that the suspect from the Volga River city of Nizhny Novgorod dug up the bodies at several cemeteries in the region. The man, whose identity was withheld, dressed them in clothes dug up from the graves.

Gribakin said that the suspect is a historian who has authored several books. He said the arrest followed a police probe into the desecration of graves in the region, which was initially blamed on extremist groups. Nizhny Novgorod is located about 250 miles (400 kilometers) east of Moscow.

Russian media reports quoted police as saying that the man only had selected the remains of young women for his grisly collection.

http://tinyurl.com/cung7kk

Less "news" and more "the more things change, the more they stay the same", but nevertheless an all-time favorite H.P. Lovecraft quote:

"As for the Republicans — how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical 'American heritage'…) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead."

Letter to C.L. Moore (August 1936), quoted in H.P. Lovecraft, a Life by S.T. Joshi, p. 574

>12 artturnerjr:

A while back, someone asked here if that was a real HPL quote. In actuality, the so-called "Republicans" and "Democrats" we have today are light-years removed from those of Lovecraft's time.

>13 semdetenebre:

Do you really think so, Kenton? Certainly the Dems have moved to the right since HPL's time (at least in terms of their relationship to corporate interests), but I don't really see a radical change in the Republicans since then.

>14 artturnerjr:

I know better than to go too deeply into this, but I'll say that from a neutral vantage point, both political parties now seem truly meaningless the moment you go beyond surface differences, as they are both owned and controlled by the same corporations and special interest groups.

HPL's attack is wonderfully vicious, though, isn't it?

>15 semdetenebre:

Agreed and agreed. I would love to see Moore's response to that; I wonder if it includes the phrase, "Yes, but tell me how you REALLY feel about Republicans, Howard." :D

Latest discoveries regarding the Mountains of Madness!

• Two camps (N & S) were established deep in the Antarctic interior around the plateau region known as Dome A
• Aircraft used radar to detect ice thickness and layering, and mapped the shape of the deeply buried bedrock
• The planes also conducted gravity and magnetic surveys to glean more information about the mountains' structure
• By listening to seismic waves passing through the range, scientists could probe rock properties deep in the Earth
• The Gamburtsev range is totally hidden by ice. In some places that ice covering is more than 4,000m thick
• A key quest was to find a location to drill ancient ice - ice made from snow that has accumulated over a million years
• The oldest ice drilled so far comes from a location known as Dome C. It records climate conditions 800,000 years into the past

How could those mountains be over one billion years old when the Earth is only 6,000 years old. :-)

That's a great picture of the camp. It really makes the area look bleak.

New "soft" robots modeled on squid and starfish: Where's my flying car shoggoth servitor, dammit? We were promised flying cars shoggoth servitors!

ETA: technical specs, video!

"Pretend to act shocked that the development of this robot has been funded by DARPA, and then start exercising your imagination as to what could be done with an indestructible, unstoppable, squishably soft little robot."

>19 paradoxosalpha:

Please, do not let a shady government agency weaponize those things and then "accidentally" let them loose!

#20 Don't worry. They were obviously designed for the sex industry. Make love; not war!

>21 pgmcc:

Sure to be a hit among the ever-growing base of tentacle erotica fans:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tentacle_erotica

(I provide the link for those of you who think this is a put-on, which is what I thought it was when I first heard about it.)

I'm happy to say I managed to grab a few issues of Cthulhu Sex magazine before it folded went under.

But seriously (?) ... "Don't worry"? Do you really suppose that the erotic capacities of shoggoths make them less formidable?

I have no doubt that the profoundly asexual HPL would be completely mortified by the turn this thread has taken. :D

More related weirdness:

Eldritch Blue: Love & Sex In The Cthulhu Mythos
Cthulhurotica

Ancient and creepy.

There's a great Cambrian room in the paleontology exhibit at the Field Museum, where they have rear-projection video animation playing on screens that surround the room. It's like being on the deck of a spaceship that's landed on a planet teeming with alien life. I particularly recall the Anomalocaris, and they were scary even without the eyes.

>26 paradoxosalpha:

That exhibit sounds great. Here's the likeness of the "super predator" Anomalocaris:

Hey, looks like we could bring all these lovely things back to life.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16068581

Gosh, it'd be refreshing if the Saudi Arabian government stopped living in the 17th century and came to join us in the 21st, wouldn't it?

http://news.yahoo.com/amnesty-says-saudi-beheading-sorcery-shocking-091838743.ht...

"Nightmarish ‘supersoldier’ ants with huge heads and jaws have been created by activating ancient genes."

http://tinyurl.com/6rctaaq

What's next, THEM!?!?!?

>32 semdetenebre:

"Supersoldier", eh? Will they be wearing tiny Captain America uniforms as well? :D

>33 artturnerjr:

Art, even scarier- a bobble-army of tiny Captain Americas with giant heads!

Mysterious undersea objects discovered, with video.

#35 paradoxosalpha

Fascinating. I have a poster of the Wasa over my desk. My wife brought it back from Sweden as a gift in the 1980s.

I'm intrigued to see what the discover when the go back later in the year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/science/space/seti-research-is-revived-life-ou...

Ladies? Gentlemen? This really isn't a good idea. The real reason the government discontinued SETI wasn't due to a lack of funding. In front of each of you is a packet of papers you'll want to familiarize yourselves with. The first document you'll see is authored by a Mr. Francis Thurston of Boston, first published in a periodical known as Weird Tales
in 1928. It concerns his discovery of notes left behind by his granduncle, a Prof. George Angell of Brown University. I think you'll find the piece... very interesting...

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/02/07/russian-scientists-may-have-drilled-into-pre...

My Other Reader expressed concern about Silurians, but I expect Vostok to be the abode of things altogether less anthropoid.

Fugates of Kentucky: Skin Bluer than Lake Louise

http://tinyurl.com/753wy93

> 39

I once knew a fellow who had been using colloidal silver as some sort of quack health treatment and made himself seriously blue-hued.

> 40

Evangeline Walton was blue from the same treatment, but it was involuntary in her case. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangeline_Walton

I won't say "Blue Fugates of Kentucky"! Arrgh - sorry!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZWXpmbu4Z4

The explanation in the article reminded me just a bit of one of the backwoods clans found in some of HPL's fiction. I think he would have been fascinated.

>42 semdetenebre:

That's a rockin' tune, man. 8)

And, because someone had to post it:

http://youtu.be/Uzae_SqbmDE

> 43

If only that kid was tinted blue! :P

Another on the theme, this time from the Velvet Frog:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6Xt-u6ptWA

I wonder if those Fugates are any relation to Caril Fugate, girlfriend/accomplice of the infamous Charles Starkweather?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Starkweather

>41 bertilak:

Interesting!

>45 paradoxosalpha:

Blue Zazz for Mel!



>46 artturnerjr:

That would be something, wouldn't it! Did you ever see the 1973 film BADLANDS, with Martin Sheen as Starkweather and Sissy Spacek as his underage girlfriend?

And lastly (after Ghoulardi, of course!):

Did you ever see the 1973 film BADLANDS, with Martin Sheen as Starkweather and Sissy Spacek as his underage girlfriend?

Oh, yeah. I'm a little in awe of Terrence Malick, actually, although somewhat less for BADLANDS than for his magnificent THE THIN RED LINE. (I really wanna see THE TREE OF LIFE, too.) I also number Nebraska (the title track of which is about Starkweather) as my favorite Bruce Springsteen album and The Stand: Expanded Edition: For the First Time Complete and Uncut (in which Starkweather, thinly disguised as "The Kid", makes a memorable appearance) as my favorite Stephen King novel, so you might say that Starkweather looms pretty large in my imagination.

> 49

There's a new stage musical out there on the same subject called Love Kills. I saw a production of it (perhaps only the second ever) here in Richmond, VA. I do not recommend it.

"Thousands of spiders blanket Australian farm after escaping flood" - YIKES! SPIDER FLOOD!

http://tinyurl.com/89pesq4



The white stuff is actually spider webs

I learned a handy term while working the other day. What we nowadays call accounts of "Forteana" or "strange phenomena" was also a genre of writing in antiquity, denominated paradoxography.

>50 semdetenebre:

I like spiders and this creeps me out. :O

#50 I like spiders

Fried or boiled?

>53 pgmcc:

Raw, with just a smidge of Tabasco sauce. :D

#54
The great thing about spiders is that each one has eight drumsticks.

While I was at the Computers in Libraries conference in D.C this week, I ran into Library Thing founder and über-guru Tim Spalding. Of course I had to brag that The Weird Tradition was at #18 on the top 100 active groups this week. Tim hinted that there might have been a somewhat Lovecraftian intent behind the naming of LT way back when. You can't tell from the picture, but I'm wearing my Cthulhu cap! Greetings, everyone!

>56 semdetenebre:

Awesome, Kenton. I see Tim has joined our little group as well, so, if you're reading, welcome, Tim!

Better acre-wide carpets of spiderwebs than GIGANTIC HORROR FLEAS.

>58 paradoxosalpha:

Would never have guessed that I would come across the word "proboscis" twice in two days. Only in the WT, folks, only in the WT. :D

GIGANTIC HORROR FLEAS VS. SHARKTOPUS. Are you hearing this, SYFY?

Weird, and incredibly gruesome: Naked man shot, killed by Miami police after chewing another man’s face off: cop

caution: rather graphic

http://tinyurl.com/8y9qc2s

>61 semdetenebre:

Nude cannibalism - it doesn't get much weirder than that, folks. :P

ETA: "The nudity? We're pretty sure that was related to cocaine psychosis. The part where the one dude was eating the other dude's face off? Yeah, well... we really don't know what the f*** that was all about." :D

>62 artturnerjr:

It also took six shots to put the creature down!

>63 semdetenebre:

*Church Lady voice* "Could it be... A ZOMBIE?" :O

>61 semdetenebre:

We were talking about this story at my work scheduling meeting this morning. Ironically, I was not the one who brought it up!

>65 artturnerjr:

Someone sent me photographs of the damage that was done to the gentleman's face. It is truly, unimaginably horrifying. Hard to think that the creature would even consider going that far, bath salts or not.

And then there's this:

Hackensack Man Stabs Self, Throws Bits of Flesh: Police

http://tinyurl.com/72xqp5l

Night of the Living Bath Salt Zombies?

The Revenge of Herbert West, Reanimator?

This one's going out to William Hope Hodgson:

http://tinyurl.com/6o9efhp

‘Tarantulas’ Invade Assam Town, ‘Kill’ Two

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-06-03/flora-fauna/32005485_1_sp...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgheDrfNkRk

A highly aggressive "new" species?

"That's ... quite impressive, actually," when cooked squid inseminates a woman's mouth, generating organisms embedded in her mucous membranes.

Following the source links leads to a blogger for those who can't get enough squid.

Because nothing says "weird" like a surreal polar landscape:

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/arctic-circle-transformed-into-ghostly-world-slides...

Those photographs are great. They reminded me of the planet in Solaris.

>70 artturnerjr:

Amazing! Looks like lumbering giants. Reminds me a bit of the gods lurking out in the mist in Moorcock's The Chronicles of Corum. Hmmmm... now what were they called....?

> 72

Weren't they Formorians?

>73 paradoxosalpha:

Very possibly, although I don't recall the exact term Fomorians. It's been a while since I read the story, though. These were the gods laying siege to the castle (?) Corum was in, as I recall. They would lumber about, half-glimpsed in the cold mist that enshrouded everything, occasionally doing something godlike and nasty.

Japan Nuclear Accident: 'Abnormalities' in Butterflies Traced to Fukushima Plant

ABC News By Akiko Fujita | ABC News 8/13/12

Japanese scientists say "abnormalities" detected in the country's butterflies may be a result of radioactive fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year. In a study published in Scientific Reports, an online journal, researchers say "artificial radionuclides" from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant caused "physiological and genetic damage" to pale grass blue butterflies.

Scientists first began tracking common butterflies around the nuclear plant two months after the disaster. They collected 121 insects, and found 12 percent of them had unusually small wings. That number jumped more than 5 percent when butterflies collected from the plant site had offspring of their own.

In another group of butterflies collected six months after the disaster, scientists found 28 percent had "abnormal" traits. That number nearly doubled among the second generation born.

"At the time of the accident, the populations of this species were overwintering as larvae and were externally exposed to artificial radiation," the researchers wrote in their study. "It is possible that they ate contaminated leaves during the spring and were thus also exposed to internal radiation."

It has been 17 months after the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, and its effects on human health have largely been considered minimal, with no radiation-related deaths or illnesses reported so far. But traces of radioactive cesium exceeding government safety levels have been detected in seafood off the Fukushima coast, limiting the catch for fisherman there.

Tiny amounts of cesium of 137 and cesium 134 were detected in more than a dozen bluefin tuna caught near San Diego in August last year. The levels were 10 times higher than tuna found in previous years, but well below those the Japanese and US governments considered harmful to human health.

http://tinyurl.com/9ewa2br

Sure, these are butterflies - but can moths be far behind!?

Nazi-recovered idol made from 15,000-year-old meteorite. Hey!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19735959#TWEET242829

>77 paradoxosalpha:

"The story of this priceless object owes more perhaps to an Indiana Jones film script than sober scientific research."

No kidding! Hello! Mr. Spielberg! :D

"The things these eyes have seen..."

It makes you wonder.

Hey! Grandpa gets mentioned in this article!

Spooky Science: Unexplained Sounds from the Deep

http://news.yahoo.com/spooky-science-unexplained-sounds-deep-103626964.html

But neither Cthulhu nor shoggoths appear in the linked "favorite monsters" article, alas.

A bit off topic, but have you guys noticed the latest Legacy Library : http://www.librarything.com/profile/FrankensteinsMonster

Those "reviews" are great. I wish there were more volumes in the collection. Are there other Legacy Libraries for fictional characters? Des Essientes seems like an excellent candidate.

As far as I remember this is a first. Here's a complete list of all Legacy Libraries complete / in progress / proposed / etc. : https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTpSu8Af2124PhLjFuQnIkuHJRi...

And yes, I agree: Des Essientes would be an interesting project.

>83 Nicole_VanK:

This is a great idea, presented very well. Thanks for posting the link!

Bigfoot.. or perhaps the Wendigo?

http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/39929/hikers+take+flight+when+what+they+thou...

In second thought, maybe it is just a bear.

Mummy Mystery Solved
By Megan Gannon, News Editor | LiveScience.com

http://news.yahoo.com/mummy-murder-mystery-solved-231644422.html



Solving a centuries-old murder mystery, researchers say Egyptian king Ramesses III likely had his throat slit by conspirators in his harem.

Moreover, the body of the pharaoh's traitorous son, Prince Pentawere, may have finally been found.

Scholars have long been puzzled about the death of Ramesses III, believed to have ruled from about 1186 B.C. to 1155 B.C. during Egypt's 20th dynasty. While ancient papyrus court documents show that members of the king's harem plotted to kill him as part of a palace coup, it has remained unclear whether the assassination scheme was successful.

Researchers revisited the mummy of Ramesses III looking for answers. Their computed tomography (CT) scans revealed a serious wound in his throat. (Horus was the patron god of kings in ancient Egypt.)

"The large and deep cut wound in his neck must have been caused by a sharp knife or other blade," the team wrote in a paper on their findings, published in the British Medical Journal on Monday (Dec. 17). They added that the cut, which severed his trachea, esophagus and large blood vessels, would have killed him instantly. See Images of Ramesses III Mummy & Scans

The researchers also found an amulet bearing the eye of Horus lodged in the mummy's throat and think it served as a lucky charm.

"Most probably, the ancient Egyptian embalmers tried to restore the wound during mummification by inserting the amulet (generally used for healing purposes) and by covering the neck with a collar of thick linen layers," the researchers wrote.

The conspiracy against Ramesses III is believed to have been led by one of his wives, secondary queen Tiye, and Prince Pentawere, their son. Ancient texts suggest Pentawere was found guilty at trial, and then took his own life, but his body has never been definitively identified.

The researchers of the new study also examined a mummy suspected to be Pentawere, dubbed "unknown man E."

A genetic analysis of this mummy showed he shared the same paternal lineage as Ramesses III, "strongly suggesting that they were father and son," noted the researchers.

Because of his contorted expression, some scientists have speculated that unknown man E was poisoned or buried alive. The new analysis did not provide a more conclusive cause of death, but they did find that his lungs were overinflated, which could be a sign of death by suffocation or strangulation, perhaps consistent with a suicide.

Man E was also buried in goat skin, a material regarded as ritually impure in ancient Egypt. This might be interpreted as evidence for a punishment in the form of a non-royal burial procedure, the researchers said, concluding that man E is a "good candidate" for Pentawere.

Not weird so much as exciting, but with lots of fanciful possibilities for the imaginatively inclined. 11 ton meteor! Hundreds hurt! Pre-Asteroid DA14 debris or total coincidence? You decide! What fell into the frozen lake? War of the Worlds scenarios, anyone?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/02/15/stunning-amateur-vi...

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/15/16966984-watch-asteroid-2012-da14-...

re legacy libraries http://www.librarything.com/profile/crucifer

A Croatoan connection, perhaps, or merely hunger pangs?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/02/science/evidence-of-cannibalism-found-at-james...

Azathoth in Oklahoma?

http://io9.com/why-an-oklahoman-restaurant-has-a-monument-to-the-dark-1223993407

"When art and science collide 11 kilometers below the surface of the sea... things get odd."

http://mobile.pcauthority.com.au/Article.aspx?CIID=341810&type=News



Thanks, LT member Dannelke!

This doesn't seem to have been mentioned, I read about it in the current new scientist:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

I'll be re-reading the article properly on the train tomorrow, and will report back again. The key point I picked up was that as more and more "spontaneous consciousnesses" are generated (during the passage of time and expansion of the universe) they end up outnumbering those that arose from simpler life forms. It almost begs the question "are we a "spontaneous" intelligence?" (certainly, even in the context of even our immediate geologic timescale...) but I think the Boltzmann brain raises this neat (frightening?) idea that it's possible for the universe to, in an instant, spit out a highly organised form of life. Like the thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters...

So what happens when we're outnumbered? ;)

edit: according to the article in #93 the pacific is located between Australia and New Zealand. I don't think we'd get so many kiwis migrating to the west island if that were the case...

Didn't Conan fight one of these?



http://news.yahoo.com/a-snake-the-size-of-a-school-bus--it-happened-before--and-...

The Horrifying Necropants of Iceland

http://disinfo.com/2013/10/horrifying-necropants-iceland/

Thanks to my pal dkgarton for this one!

I once knew an ex-con who claimed to practice traditional Icelandic sorcery. He never mentioned the pants, though.

Happy 70th to everyone's favorite necromancer, Keith Richards!

"Comes first" ... before you can get a drink of water? We'll all be mighty thirsty.

What an exotic piece of propaganda, Richards's detournement aside!

Volumes on loan from Miskatonic University, presumably.

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/harvard-discovers-old-library-books-bound-i...

(Thanks to John Coulthart for the heads-up.)

The link to the original article in The Harvard Crimson yields the technical name for binding books in human skin: "anthropodermic bibliopegy".

> 101

Thanks for citing 'anthropodermic bibliopegy': I'm always looking to add useful phrases to my vocabulary.

A brief search of some book sites with this phrase uncovered Perfect-Binding: How To Make Professionally Made Books From Your Home which I hope was only a hit on 'bibliopegy'. Then there is Human Trophy Collecting : American Mutilation of Japanese War Dead, Headhunting, Scalping, Mimizuka, Skull Cup, Anthropodermic Bibliopegy.

Here’s the First Look at the New Satanic Monument Being Built for Oklahoma’s Statehouse

http://www.vice.com/read/heres-the-first-look-at-the-new-satanic-monument-being-...

From the article: "{Satanic Temple spokesperson Lucien} Greaves told me he has received numerous threats from people who want to attack the sculpture, but that he 'wouldn’t expect these outraged and nearly insensible reactionaries to actually know how to assault a bronze monument without severely hurting themselves in the process.' Still, he’s not taking any chances. The Temple is building a mold of the sculpture so they can pop these things out like evil, terribly expensive action figures whenever they need a new one."

>103 artturnerjr:

Hilarious! Those pesky satanists do know how to make a point.

The latest issue (spring 2014) of The Book Collector gives a brief notice of a Bonhams (Los Angeles) sale on 16 October last year. What's described as an "all but complete set of Arkham House publications" went for $24,000.

Waiting now to see what lurches up into view....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2693105/Giant-hole-appears...

>106 rtttt01:

"'There is agreement that soil around the hole was thrown out of the crater, large enough for several Mi-8 helicopters to fly into it,' The Siberian Times reported - before adding 'not that they have.'"

Very funny, Siberian Times!

Obviously a Russian species of daikaiju is on the loose!

Stephen Colbert's Midterm Mountains of Madness! (courtesy Scott Connors)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/05/colbert-midterm-election-coverage_n_610...

The video below has just been brought to my attention. It is a slowed down version of the theme from the children's cartoon, SpongeBob Square Pants. Listen to it. I think you will agree it belongs on this thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oyo4Bcy1Sc

Wow. That's pretty scary.

But the Youtube comment thread is scarier, predictably enough.

Not exactly news, but last night I was presented with a Tcho chocolate bar. It was yummy, but afterwards the strangest images raced through my mind:

http://tinyurl.com/orfvgps

>111 semdetenebre: Wow! What do they put in that stuff?

>113 paradoxosalpha:

That's great. When I was a kid I had one of those Time/Life books about the oceans. There was one paragraph that mentioned something deep in the Mariana Trench that took hold of and bent a huge iron anchor. I used to scare the heck out of myself imagining what that might have been.

A different take on the Jolly Corner?

Dear NASA,

Are you sure it was wise to get so close to Yuggoth... er... Pluto?

http://nyti.ms/1HrYIDq

Found in a NY Times article describing names for some of the new features on Pluto

A large splotch that resembles a whale was named Cthulu, a deity from a H. P. Lovecraft story. Other splotch names included Meng-Po, the goddess of forgetfulness in Chinese mythology; Balrog, a creature in J. R. R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” books; and Vucub Came and Hun Came, death gods of Mayan myth.

>117 drneutron:

Fantastic!

>116 artturnerjr:, >117 drneutron:

Thanks!

An additional rundown on the names:

http://space.io9.com/places-on-pluto-are-being-named-for-your-darkest-imagin-171...

You can now use Google street view to pay a virtual visit to the British Museum. I thought this might be of interest, given its appearance in any number of weird stories and films (admittedly, usually of an older vintage and rather tweedy...)

Of course, in those stories it's the British Library that's actually being visited, and that moved out to a separate, purpose-built location back in 1997.

I find links to some weird phenomena stoies on this page http://mystery-sciencefiction.com/fortean.html

It seems to update randomly, maybe just when they fine something worth adding.

Per the Wikipedia article on "The Colour Out of Space": Although the author himself claimed that his inspiration was the newly constructed Scituate Reservoir in Rhode Island, Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi believes that the planned Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts must have influenced him as well.

Regarding the latter, it is now a destination for snakes from Providence.

Here's a weird tale waiting to be written...

Mummified captain found in 'ghost ship' he sailed in for seven years after death.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/648441/Mummified-captain-found-in-ghost-ship...

>123 semdetenebre:

That is incredible, that the boat doesn't sink in all that time.

Heeding the call of great Cthulhu, Inky makes good his escape to sunken R'lyeh:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2016/04/13/octopus-slips-out-of-...

Ancient petroglyphys on a Hawiaan beach showing humanoid figures crawling out of the surf? It's a long way from Y'ha-nthle, but who knows?

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/32713728/ancient-petroglyphs-discovered-on-ha...

It appears Dracula took an unexpected turn when traveling to Iceland ....

>127 elenchus:

Intriguing! An Icelandic Dracula written by Stoker & Ásmundsson! I like the idea of the Ripper being referenced. The sexy vampire harem also pushes the story more toward the Hammer Films end of the spectrum.

>127 elenchus:

The end of the article says the story is now available to readers from all over the world - but apparently still only if they read Icelandic? There seems to be no mention of a (re)translation into English or something of the sort?

>127 elenchus: >128 semdetenebre: >129 AndreasJ:

Apparently Icelandic was the first foreign language version of Dracula and it came about through Hommy-Beg, Stoker's friend to whom he dedicated Dracula. Hommy-Beg (Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine) had a friend staying with him at his home on the Isle of Man. This friend was a publisher from Iceland. Sir Thomas recommended that he get the Icelandic language rights to Dracula as it was a superb book.

I was uncertain about current translation, but left thinking this publicity would raise the interest in a translation into various languages.

>129 AndreasJ:, >131 elenchus:

Click on the Overlook Press link at the head of the article. English publication should be available today.

>132 semdetenebre:

Ha! I'd overlooked that -- and really, no pun intended: literally did not "see" that link. Pretty incredible that such a thing is found over 100 years afterward.

>132 semdetenebre:

Thanks!

New Lovecraftian fiction out this month, apparently featuring Joshi (among others) as a side character.

>135 elenchus: "Charlie, who’s biracial, fears what racial epithets Lovecraft fans might sling at him during readings"

That seems misplaced. I've never seen evidence that Lovecraft's bigotry was a common attribute of his readers.

The Storybundle site is currently offering a set of Lovecraftian books. Not sure I'm buying, myself, but thought people might be interested. Nick Mamatas is curating, and it has a couple of his books, a couple of anthologies, and some novels by people I'm unfamiliar with.

>136 paradoxosalpha:

It is a silly idea.

>136 paradoxosalpha: >138 semdetenebre:

I tend to agree, though all my evidence is anecdotal and of course, there could be other reasons why my experience is skewed.

So maybe an imaginative way of converting Lovecraft's well-known bigotry into a part of the plot. I'd actually assume anyone biracial would have that fear, no matter which American audience they faced, so the device falters on a number of fronts.

>137 dukedom_enough:

That is a solid bundle, and a fabulous price. I'm going to skip because (a) I'm not reading that much on tablets / etc, and (b) I have so much in print editions waiting to be read, it realistically wouldn't be touched for a long time at best. But some of those titles look enticing. The Mamatas is one of them, certainly.

Did anyone else notice that a full version of the obscure film adaptation of Manly Wade Wellman's John the Balladeer/Silver John had been uploaded to YouTube?

Legend of Hillbilly John AKA Who Fears the Devil"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwS46mr2kHc

Pictures of some truly Deep Ones (approximately 15,000 years old, under Antarctica).

>137 dukedom_enough:

That is a pretty amazing deal (still going on until the end of today, too). However, like >140 elenchus:, I have no idea when I'd get to it, so I probably won't purchase it. Appreciate the heads-up, though.

I think Move Under Ground is still available for free on the Net, too.

ETA: Yup:

http://manybooks.net/titles/mamatasnother07mug.html

A real-life Rappaccini's Garden (sort of - naturally poisonous plants, not specially-bred new varieties).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGo9gYypQc8

>144 housefulofpaper:

Good thing it isn't a real-life Rappacini's daughter.

Writer and editor Johnny Mains has posted some interesting things on his Twitter {(@ohsinnerman)} in the last few days: a still (or more likely a post publicity photo) for the lost BBC TV adaptation of Robert Aickman's "Ringing the Changes", The Bells of Hell; a newspaper report with photos of Arthur Machen's 80th birthday celebration (Algernon Blackwood also present); and illustrations for the original magazine publication (I assume) of three Aickman stories.

That's a fun feed. I don't follow Twitter except sporadically, but that's got a nice range of things I like.

Scientists declare octopi life from another world

Er, not a joke?

The actual paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079610718300798

>148 paradoxosalpha:

I like the theorising, it reminds me of the recent hypothetical raised when aperiodic transit signals were detected in a distant star system (Tabby's Star). A plausible if far-fetched scenario describes megastructures built by an alien civilisation. These structures would account for the aperiodicity and other characteristics of the signals. This wasn't an argument that scenario was likely, merely it was plausible. I'll have to read the main paper and see if that's how they're proposing the comet-seeding scenario.

>148 paradoxosalpha:

My 8-year-old daughter loves the idea. So do I.

My Other Reader found this one:
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-am-part-of-the-resistance-inside-nyarlatho...

Edited to add: more like it via the hyperlinks in the second paragraph

>151 paradoxosalpha:
And evidently this is not a one-off, Paul's been writing from within the Chaos since before the inauguration.

I just read the lot.

David Bunch's Prophetic Dystopia https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/09/12/david-bunchs-prophetic-dystopia/

Cthulhu Jellies?

"This is a big deal, because some scientists argue that these swimming carnivores were among the first animals to evolve on Earth, based on family trees analyses and genetic modeling of modern comb jellies. But now, this international team has possibly shown that comb jellies have a long lineage that precedes them."

At 518 million years ago, afraid this specimen doesn't touch HPL's Deep Time, however.

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/fossil-518-million-year-old-tentacled-sea-creature

"Jurassic Cthulhu"? We're closer in time to the Jurassic than what that critter was!

>156 AndreasJ:

Clearly SYFY was going for the Jurassic Park franchise hook with that headline, and not paying much attention to actual dates. That said, I have a difficult time keeping straight those geographic scales, too, never mind galactic timescales.

A new film adaptation of HPL's "The Colour Out of Space", with Nicolas Cage. I adore Cage's performances in Raising Arizona and Leaving Las Vegas, but more recent films not so much. Not enough to make an assessment here, but there's an image with, yes, colours.

(No word yet on how the residents of Arkham rid themselves of Granddad's "u" but it appears to have been missing at least since 2010.)

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/nicolas-cage-hp-lovecraft-scary-stories-army-of-th...

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1756479/

>158 elenchus:

The REALLY good news here is that Richard Stanley is directing it.

Nic was great in recent films like MANDY and JOE. If he's inspired and not just pulling in a paycheck to buy dinosaur skulls or legendary comic books, he's a good bet.

I didn't know there were more Lovecraft films, but then, I never really looked. I've only seen Dagon and parts of Re-Animator, before I had any idea what "Lovecraftian" actually meant.

I heard G.D.T. was also doing (or trying to do) At the Mountains of Madness as well. I hope it makes it to fruition.

Not the biggest Cage fan, but not really anti-Cage either. He just seems to be one of those types that plays the same guy in each film, except for The Rock. I liked him in that one.

>161 frahealee:

Nice psychedelic poster. I guess the color leans towards hot pink? :-D Thanks for those links. HPL spelled it "colour". Retaining that in the film's title might have been the coolest insider reference, but I can just imagine Stanley trying to sell it to the studio.

This thread lay dreaming ...

Another obligatory mention of Necronomicon following dig at Saqqara necropolis:
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/13-foot-long-book-of-the-dead-scroll-discovered-in...

There's been quite a lot of weird news since December 2019, if not the sort we usually look at.

Not exactly "news," although tangent to the topic of the recent Chinese space rocket debris:

I'm reading in Kiernan's Tindalos Asset, and they mention the "oceanic pole of inaccessibility" (90), so a couple of quick searches online taught me about Point Nemo and the spacecraft cemetery.

Somehow I'd never come across that term or concept, not recalling its reference in HPL's "Call of Cthulhu". Something about using the term pole in this context seems not quite right, but I neither have a preferable term nor a good rationale for opposing it.

I wasn't aware that exorcism was enjoying a moment, despite my Catholic upbringing.

Thanks for the link. Giordan's informant sounds like a pretty ideal practitioner of exorcism. I've got a short chapter on exorcism in Fire in the Reed where I basically discourage it among Thelemic clergy, owing to its historical abuses and peculiar hazards.

I'd hoped you would see the link, having a hunch you'd appreciate the academic paper behind the interview. Should you choose to read that article, I'd welcome your thoughts on that, too.

I also thought the practitioner sounded ideal, and kept thinking of Umberto Eco (who I know to be deceased, so not a literal candidate).

Being dead, maybe he’s an ideal exorcisee?

M. John Harrison's thoughts on The Weird. An extract from his "anti-memoir" Wish I Was Here:

https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/blog/2023/may/notes-on-the-weird-an-extra...

Sweet.

The Weird is not ‘Lovecraftian’: it does not belong to H. P. Lovecraft. Neither is it a subset of the Gothic. It is not the same as Freud’s uncanny. It does not belong to the set of ‘genre-adjacent sui generis’, and it is not, as some affirm, a wholly political position. In each and every case it should be a true idiolect. The Weird is not a genre in itself, it is a process. It is also an emergent quality which somehow precedes every combination of events, forms, genres and skills it can be said to emerge from. You can either do it or you can’t. Good luck with planning to be weird, see you at the ceremony.