Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

Ohio Gothic in an abandoned house

A boy experienced Ohio's Gothic terror last week.

It starts with a creepy house, like many American Gothic tales do, both fictional and those in real life:

Brunton bought the house in 2009, and reportedly died shortly after that -- but nobody in the community knew. Overgrowth had taken over the home, taxes had never been paid and nobody ever saw anyone entering or leaving.

Then, inside the house, things became unsettling:

Michelle McGrath says her 12-year-old son is adventurous.

When he saw an overgrown house in Dayton, he ventured inside.

However, what he saw may have scarred him for life.

“My son came home and said, he said to me that he had gone into an abandoned house and he found a body. And I said, ‘Wait, what?” said Michelle McGrath.

Authorities say he discovered the mummified body of a man, believed to be 53-year-old Edward Brunton.

“When he first came across it, he thought it was a dummy, or a mannequin or something,” she added.

Brunton had been hanging in a closet for five years.

Ohio: keeping the American Gothic alive.

Infocult: keeping an eye on things.

(thanks to Ceredwyn!)

Mommy murderblog

A blogger committed murder and covered it up, partially to boost readership.  She also did this for the sympathy, as the victim was her son, apparently.  It's another real-life Gothic horror tale.

The crime involved poisoning over a long period of time, sickening the little boy.  Descriptions of his suffering elicited expressions of emotional support and many server hits for the alleged murderer's mommyblog:

Investigators suspect the single mother may have poisoned her child at least twice, once before his seizures and again when his sodium spiked...

But they also suspect his medical abuse went back much further — fueled by the social media attention she gained on Facebook, Twitter and blogs, according to local news reports.

The murder took place in hospital and involved salt, that classic banisher:

In January, the boy was admitted to Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital in Valhalla, New York, when doctors noted that his sodium levels were shooting up in a way that was “metabolically impossible” for his body to do on its own. Assistant District Attorney Doreen Lloyd said in court on Tuesday that Lacey Spears would wait for hospital personnel to leave, then inject high doses of sodium into the Garnett’s gastric feeding tube.

This is a horrible story.  One aspect of the horror is the jarring antimaternal sense of mother murdering a child.  We might recall a similar, fictional story at the center of The Sixth Sense (1999).

There is also the Muchausen-by-proxy element, whereby a person creates a false (because inflicted, not organic) illness in order to win sympathy.

And, of course, the fearsome internet dimension.  This was done for a blog, after all, that hated and feared subfloor of the internet.  

(thanks to Laura Blankenship for the link; photo by Dubravko Sorić)

One Pynchonian glimpse of fearsome media

Here's a nice fearsome internet passage from Thomas Pynchon's most recent novel, Bleeding Edge.

The speaker is the heroine's father, and you could understand this as part of the venerable "old man shaking fist at sky" trope:

"[Y]our Internet... this magical convenience that creeps now like a smell through the smallest details of our lives, the shopping, the housework, the homework, the taxes, absorbing our energy, eating up our precious time.  And there's no innocence.  Anywhere.  Never was.  It was conceived in sin, the worst possible.  As it kept growing, it never stopped carrying in its heart a bitter-cold death wish for the planet, and don't think anything has changed, kid." (420)

But this is also a Cold War thing.  This passage stems from a rant about the 1950s:

"Everyone thinks now the Eisenhower years were so quaint and cute and boring, but all that had a price, just underneath was pure terror.  Midnight forever.  If you stopped even for a minute to think, there it was and you could fall into it so easily.  Some went nuts, some even took their own lives."

And those "some" are the ones who created the internet: "Yep, and your Internet was their invention..."

Opening Dracula's grave

A grad student has made an interesting discovery in Naples. It might be the tomb of Dracula.

Raffaello Glinni, a Medieval history scholar, noticed that that tomb is covered symbols representing the House of the Transylvanian “Carpathians,” something very out of place in a crypt full of Italian noblemen.

Like so, apparently:

[N]aturally, the researchers are appealing to the authorities for permission to open the grave, releasing Dracula from his ancient slumber where he'll reinstate his bloody reign of terror on an unsuspecting world. Or, you know, maybe just prove their hunch.

We at Infocult are pleased, and await further... developments.

(thanks to Steven Burnett)

 

A serious wax museum

La Specola holds many wax figures, some of which are splendidly disturbing.

La Specola is the oldest public museum in Europe, having started as the personal collection of the Medici family. It was opened to the public in 1775. Anyone could attend as long as they "looked clean." The wax anatomical models were a huge hit, and the museum was attended by luminaries such as Goethe (who later wrote The Sorrows of Young Werther, a book about wax models) and Emperor Leopold who funded the museum. 

Slate hosts some fine images:

Of special interest are the wax anatomical Venuses, wax models of naked women posed in old-fashioned semi-erotic poses, but with their rib cages and stomachs pulled open to the world. These gutted female forms were a favorite of the Marquis de Sade.

Cannibalism in South Africa

South Africa offers today's cannibalism tale.  And it's about romance, of course.

South African police have arrested a man they found using a knife and fork to eat the heart of his ex-girlfriend's new lover.

The victim, aged 62, had been stabbed in his chest and neck and had a bite mark on his face, the police told the BBC.

(thanks to Tomak for the link; photo by Daniel Carlbom)

News media shriek more Slenderfear

Here's a heaping of fresh new Slenderman panic from American news outlets, courtesy of Jesse Walker:

A fictional horror creature popularized by Internet memes is now linked to three violent crimes.

Note the powerful weasel language: the passive voice ("is now linked") removes all agency (as opposed to: "this writer links").  And the weakness of "linked", which can mean anything from "played a key role" to "I found a picture of it on the same coffee table".

Then relish this grandly gory picture + shrieking headline:

There's more:

A week after two 12-year-old Wisconsin girls allegedly stabbed their friend 19 times to honor Slender Man, more real-life connections to the spooky character are emerging.

"Connections"?  As with "links" we can imagine just about anything from this word, mostly not having anything to do with any actual crimes.

Perhaps we should expect more out of this media panic, like schools cracking down on Slenderman imagery on kids' laptops, or towns banning the sale of blank white masks.  Before the panic bubble bursts these professional, sober media outlets will run more of these stories, developing the background even further, and contributing to the Slenderman myth cycle.

PS: today's Slendy's fifth birthday, according to this nice source.  Happy birthday, Tall Man!

(thanks to Steven Burnett for the last link)

The dark beauty of Scooby-Doo backgrounds

This post does excellen work in showcasing the background paintings for Scooby-Doo's most Gothic scenes.

As the author notes, "The rich, painterly environment almost compensates for the clunky character animation..."

the background crew continued to churn out quality, creepy work throughout the following two seasons.

Hanna-Barbera may be known for their annoying use of repeated, looping backgrounds but, as you are about to see, in this case the sublime scenery is well worth another look.

Bestiary of the HPL universe

Here's a lovely, detailed bestiary of the Lovecraft/Cthulhu mythos universe.

Here's another sample:

One evil computer game

"Lie to the Devil" pushes the boundaries of fearsome computer gaming.  In it "a sinister MacBook... tries to con them into putting a bullet in their head."

First, the computer asks you: “Does the pain of others make you feel good or bad?”

Next, you create an avatar, and a cute little pet. Then, the computer tries to talk you into putting a revolver to your head, in effect holding your virtual creations ransom. The object is to win by deceiving the computer.

 

KillScreen's reviewer offers this splendid analogy: 

I’d describe it as Videodrome meets the Milgram obedience experiment meets a chatterbox

This might cross the border between game and performance art, or just be viewed as an interactive installation.

(thanks to Todd Bryant)