Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

Art in disease

A new book finds beautiful visuals in the midst of horrible medical imagery.

The imagery is horrible because it usually stems from disease or trauma: Lou Gherig's Disease, ectopic pregnancy, testicular cancer.  There's something classically decadent about the project. 

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

"I was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the Castle Dracula"

3 May. Bistritz.-- Left Munich at 8:35 P.M., on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible.

Yes, it's time for the Count to ride again, as the Draculablog sets off!

Goodnight... Moon.

Watch out for the woman whispering hush:


Previously on Infocult: Goodnight Dune.

(thanks to Andy Havens)

Zombie books on the rise

Just spotted at the local airport snack stand, a zombies-only book display:

There's something perfectly appropriate about linking zombies to air travelers, as we shamble along through stupifying conduits of mindless transit.

 

Chas Addams doing Mother Goose

The Atlantic has a nice selection of Chas Addams' illustrations for Mother Goose stories.

(thanks to Jesse Walker)

An obscure Gothic is illuminated

Friend of Infocult Jesse Walker reports on reading a very rare Gothic novel.  It's Julia and the Illuminated Baron (Sally Sayward Wood, 1800), an early American tale about the Illuminati.

Let Jesse summarize:

Coming in the wake of the Illuminati panic of 1798, in which Federalists fretted that the secret society was aiming "to subvert and overturn our holy religion and our free and excellent government," Wood weds those anxieties to a Gothic melodrama set in pre-revolutionary France, featuring an Illuminatus who holds a young woman captive and plots against her virtue. Wood's Illuminati are a depraved band of nature-worshippers, seizing personal pleasures as they prepare for the Jacobin apocalypse. At one point Wood has a woman describe the order's initiation ceremony: "disrobed of all coverings except a vest of silver gauze, I am to be exposed to the homage of all the society present upon a marble pedestal placed behind which sacrifices are to be offered." The character adds, "This sect increases daily. They will in a few years overturn Europe and lay France in ruins."

Wood was the first woman American Gothic writer.

You can find a dim version of the book on Scribd, or snag a new edition in print.

(image via Maine Memory)

Killer Tapes and Shattered Screens

For an Infocult book club, a new tome: Killer Tapes and Shattered Screens.

The book

unearths a genealogy of post-cinematic spectatorship in horror movies, thrillers, and other exploitation genres. From Night of the Living Dead (1968) through Paranormal Activity (2009), these movies pursue their spectator from one platform to another, adapting to suit new exhibition norms and cultural concerns in the evolution of the video subject.

(thanks to Jesse Walker)

Gothic book covers upgraded

Better Book Titles turns its baleful gaze upon Gothic book covers, and suggests some changes.

One is neatly punful:

 

(thank you, Annette)

Aickman's ghostly tales

MetaFilter has a fine post for Robert Aickman resources.  I especially like the focus on anthologies Aickman edited.

Plus this short video adaptation of one tale:

Stepford at 40

Jesse Walker looks back at The Stepford Wives, 40 years after the novel appears.  It's a thoughtful, clever look at the book, the movie, and the times.

Then there were a bunch of TV sequels:

The story that resulted had enough staying power to spawn an entire franchise, with the Stepford Wives movie inspiring three made-for-TV follow-ups. Revenge of the Stepford Wives (1980) changed the scenario somewhat: The town’s women are drugged and brainwashed rather than replaced by robots. The story ends with two liberated women seizing the means of mind control and inducing a Stepford riot. In The Stepford Children (1987) the conspiracy is back to using androids, and with The Stepford Husbands (1996) we get the inevitable table turning.