Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

The wasp of time

John Crowley's "Snow" is an underrated Gothic cyberspace story.  It's a melancholy yet familiar short tale about automating memory.  

It also describes lifestreaming very well - remarkably for being written in 1985.

A podcast reading just appeared from Starship Sofa, very well read by Stefan Rudnicki.  tarts at 5:00 on, 47:25 or so.

Don't translate this program

The BBC shares a radio theater version of Pontypool.  Very nicely done, using the medium powerfully.

(via Ichor Falls)

Halloween musics

What music should you play this season?  Now that we've covered reading and watching, it's only fitting Infocult points to listening.

Artist Jon Coulthart offers a nice set of acoustic pleasures.  He starts with Rachmaninov and Bartók, then moves on to Xenakis, Ligeti, and Crumb.  I'm listening to Zorn's Necronomicon now.

(thanks to Tim Pendry via Facebook)

Infocult Halloween: Poe/Walken

Happy Halloween morning! You may start with Christopher Walken and Poe:

Open Culture also has another fine Poe item.

(thanks to Scott Hamlin via Twitter)

The ultimate audience

Audio horror in a single cartoon:

Lovecraft on stage

If Lovecraft tends to fail on the big screen, how about on stage?  Jason Zinoman describes some fine-sounding theatrical productions of HPL tales.

[F]our actors [spoke] into microphones in solitary spotlights. Creepy music, a few light cues and a burst of smoke are the only design...

Clay McLeod Chapman, a playwright and performer, delivered an evocative Lovecraftian monologue in his annual macabre series “The Pumpkin Pie Show”, which took place in a small black box off-off Broadway in October. And when Mike Daisey performed a spooky meditation on H.P. Lovecraft’s “Barring the Unforseen” last year in New York, ushers led audience members one by one to their seats in a pitch-black room. 

I like the way these draw on two scary story traditions: oral (think campfire) and radio.

Zinoman doesn't mention the huge boom in Lovecraft via podcasts, which is odd.  But given his recent book's subject, I'll assume this was due to word count limitations.

(thanks to Jesse Walker)

Some Vincent Price tidbits for you

Here's a fun thing: Vincent Price telling you short-short stories. These minitales are from an album (vinyl recording, children) called Odyssey, dating back to around 1970, and lovingly digitized by the teeming cultural brain that is WFMU.

The stories' topics are varied, from local history (California, Oregon, the Dakotas) to Ripley's-style horror.  Price is often a character.  Some are adverts.  All end with a cheerful "so long!"

(thanks to involuntary informationalist Hugh Blackmer)

Winter horror: The Nimble Men

Is it time for winter Gothic already?

One fine example is Glen Hirshberg's recent short story "The Nimble Men", well read and podcasted over at Pseudopod.  It's a finely creepy story, understated, set in cold, cold Canadian forests.  

No, it's not about Wendigo.  It's about airplanes and de-icing, and an awful way not to get devoured by monsters.  And Canadian food.

(photo from Jökull Másson)

Messing with the heads of strangers for stories and fun

A fine audio program concerns stories of playing mind games with strangers. This American Life does a splendid job with this one, where some people intervene creatively in the lives of others. Reasons and actors vary, from romantic inspiration to an Improv Everywhere project to a famous criminal case.

Fine fodder for storytelling, ARGists, and performance art consideration.

The excellent Earideas site has a direct download link.

A brace of horrendous deaths

Five horrible, historical deaths are narrated by the first Memory Palace podcast.  While others may dwell on later podcasts, for steampunk appeal, say, the first one hits the real-life Gothic nerve with an energetic, mordant dose of arsenic.  Prepare yourself for cringing, and listen well.

My wife reflects that these stories make good arguments for OSHA.