Some generally good news, for a change.
The United Nations military commander, General Martin Agwai, says that although the area will likely continue to see things like banditry and skirmishes of local violence, the ?
Awesome post by weird fiction author Jeff VanderMeer on British crime novelist Derek Raymond (also known as Robin Cook), one of my favorite writers.
Jeff reviews Raymond’s autobiography, which is apparently even harder to find than the rest of his books. From Raymond’s introduction:
I have said a lot about writing in these memoirs, with particular reference to the black novel. I could not have described my life in any depth without almost constant reference to the work that has given it meaning?
I was lucky enough to be in Austin, Texas during the Summer on three occasions and each time I saw hundreds of thousands of these bats waking up for the night and going out to look for a bite. During the day they slept under a bridge and at dusk they would start streaming out. It was an incredible sight. The sky would literally turn black with bats.
Obviously Texas is a great place to study bats and researchers at Texas A&M and the University of Texas, Austin have released the results of a new study that indicates bats sing “love songs”—a sort bat version of free jazz scat singing—to woo potential mates:
In the musical city of Austin, Texas, a group of smelly, pug-faced crooners is hoping to woo some females with surprisingly complex tunes.
That’s the finding of a new study of Brazilian free-tailed bats, which now join songbirds and whales as some of the only animals known to use a kind of musical language during courtship.
Also known as the Mexican free-tailed bat, the species is quite numerous in Austin and around the Texas A&M University football stadium in College Park.
Based on recordings of the animals from both locations, the researchers found that the bats’ songs contain definite phrases made up of birdlike chirps, buzzes, and trills.
Males sing their ballads as they hang upside down or sideways, sometimes flapping their wings and dripping a foul-smelling liquid that further attracts females.
Thanks Steve Silberman!
Trailer for one of the campier Hammer films of the seventies (and that is saying a lot), Dracula A.D. 1972. Starring Christopher Lee as Dracula, Peter Cushing as a Van Helsing descendant and pre-Dynasty Stephanie Beacham (she played Sable) and scream queen supreme Caroline Munro as the requisite Carnaby Street dolly birds.
“He’ll freak you out! Right out of this world!”
Wow! How did I miss this wild performance when I was last posting here about Italian megastar Renato Zero. This Christo (?) inspired showstopper is a gender-bending treat.
Recently got a look at the gigantic coffee table book A Lovecraft Retrospective: Artists Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. 400 pages, 400 dollars (though discounted everywhere), and honking huge hardback containing big renditions of Lovecraft-inspired art from H. P.‘s day until now. A truly terrifying and awe-inspiring thing to behold…!
Millipede Press is pleased to announce A Lovecraft Retrospective: Artists Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. This huge tome is four hundred pages long and features the work of over forty artists, including J.K. Potter, H.R. Giger, Raymond Bayless, Ian Miller, Virgil Finlay, Lee Brown Coye, Rowena Morrill, Bob Eggleton, Allen Koszowski, Mike Mignola, Michael Whelan, John Coulthart, Harry O. Morris, John Jude Palencar, and dozens of others, as well as twenty thousand words of original essays.
This is an art book unlike anything ever published. Many works have never before seen publication, many are printed as special multi-page fold-outs, and several have detail views. A thumbnail gallery allows you an overview of the entire contents of the book and provides notations on each artist, work title, publication information, size, and location.
Because of its sheer size and scope, A Lovecraft Retrospective will never be reprinted and will sell out very quickly. Twenty years down the road, people will be paying huge prices for this book because of its range and the quality of reproductions. This is the H.P. Lovecraft fan’s dream come true.
I’ve made the pilgrimage to Philadelphia that Duchamp lovers have to do if they want to see his “hidden” masterpiece ?ɂ
I drove past this place the other day and wondered “Could it be?” It can!
There has been an abandoned Kentucky Fried Chicken in Palms, slumping sadly these past few months on the corner of Exposition Blvd. and Hughes Ave. What, locals wondered, would replace it? A new burger joint? A Peruvian rotisserie chicken stand? It turns out that the KFC has been replaced by… a KFC. In this instance, though, the KFC stands for “Kind For Cures”, and while they do sell things that are edible, you can’t buy them, or even ask about them, without a prescription.New KFC Opens In Palms? Sort of…(Instead of Fried Chicken, They Sell Marijuana)
Thank you Wilson Smith!
For those of us who are immune to religion, it will come as no surprise that America’s homegrown Josef Fritzl, that psychotic son of a bitch named Phillip Garrido who kept Jaycee Dugard prisoner in his backyard and impregnated her twice, is a God-fearing Christian fanatic who speaks in tongues, can control things with his mind and who keeps a blog that makes about as much sense as MN Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R).
Garrido’s “Voices Revealed” blog.
Jaycee Dugard Found After 18 Years, Thanks To Abductor’s Idiocy