Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

A sudden appearance of the puppet

The Atlantic offers a superb and surprising Gothic metaphor in an article this week.  A discussion of a slang term's decline (the word is bae) offers this imaginative comparison:

At that point, the term bae had already been used by the official social-media accounts of Olive Garden, Jamba Juice, Pizza Hut, Whole Foods, Mountain Dew, AT&T, Wal-Mart, Burger King and, not surprisingly, the notoriously idiosyncratic Internet personas of Arby’s and Denny’s. Each time, the word was delivered with magnificently forceful offhandedness, the calculated ease of the doll that comes to life and tries to pass herself off as a real girl but fails to fully conceal the hinges in her knees. (“What hinges? Oh, these?”) (emphases added)

We're back in Kleist land, suddenly, with the term lurching into semihuman, uncanny life.  Well done, James Hamblin.

"Grace appears most purely in that human form which either has no consciousness or an infinite consciousness. That is, in the puppet or in the god."

"Does that mean", I said in some bewilderment, "that we must eat again of the tree of knowledge in order to return to the state of innocence?"

"Of course", he said, "but that's the final chapter in the history of the world."

(photo by Boudewijn Berends)

Werewolves versus presidents

Argentina's presidents have been following an unusual custom for decades.  It seems that every year the current presidente adopts a child in order to prevent them from becoming a werewolf.

The specific lycanthrope type is the lobison or luison:

According to Argentinian folklore, the seventh son born to a family turns into the feared “el lobison”.

The werewolf-like creature shows its true nature on the first Friday after boy’s 13th birthday, the legend says, turning the boy into a demon at midnight during every full moon, doomed to hunt and kill before returning to human form.

As well as feeding on excrement, unbaptized babies, and the flesh of the recently dead, the lobison was said to be unnaturally strong and able to spread its curse with a bite.

Enter the country's president:

Fear of the lobison was so rife in 19th Century Argentina that some families abandoned or even murdered baby boys – an atrocity that sparked the unusual Presidential practice of adoption, aimed at stopping the deadly stigma.

How many other national leaders perform a similar ritual?  The American president's Thanksgiving turkey pardon really shouldn't count... unless it's an unusual bird.

A nice lobison post is here.

(thanks to Steven Kaye for the link, and Dan Century for the photo)

Fearing the car of the future

Two people were trapped in their keyless car for half a day, thanks to their not being able to understand the door locking mechanism.

When they were freed by neighbours about 7.45am the next day, Mrs Smith was unconscious and her husband was struggling to breathe.

She said they were told by emergency services if they had spent another half hour in the car and they could have died.

Note that this was a design issue, and also perhaps a demographic one.

(thanks to Ton Zilstra)

The Aztecs had a death whistle

Apparently the Aztecs, that classically Gothic people, had a unique musical instrument for war.  It was called the death whistle, appropriately.  Listen:

(thanks to Randy McCall)

Take your life into your own hands, or "Unedited Footage of a Bear"

Adult Swim has been producing some very weird and interesting video of late.  "Unedited Footage of a Bear" is a fine example.  It starts off as what the title says - then becomes a drug ad, complete with supporting website.  Then the video becomes something else, then something horrific.  The site follows suit, if you dig in a little.

Some great surreal stuff on the Claridyl site:

Claridryl opens doors and is not responsible donna for what lies inside. Consult your doctor before stopping, starting, continuing, or never taking Claridryl. You may be at risk of bloodening if you combine Claridryl with other selves. Claridryl is not for pregnant, nursing, expectant, waiting, bereaved, or sleeping mothers. What kind of person were you trying to be?

Claridryl will not guarantee that you will become that person, but a person or persons will result from sustained use of Claridryl.Appropriate dosage of Claridryl varies widely depending on (but not limited to) some of the following factors: eyes, medical history, blood volume, organ weight, presence or absence of bows, piano lessons, phone color, lawn color, number of children, zip code, myrrh, regrets, lessons learned, and diet.

The video offers some classic Gothic features, including the doppelganger, medical horror, and American family horror, not to mention fears of big companies.

(thanks to Clyde)

Death by widow

Japanese police arrested a woman for murdering her husband.

The thing is, this wasn't her first.  Her previous five husbands and/or boyfriends all died as well.

Kakehi reportedly married at least three times and had relationships with three other men who died. All died within a few years of starting relationships with her, all in western Japan...

Other cases are still under investigation. Cyanide was also found in the blood of a 71-year-old partner who died in 2012 - a death initially attributed to heart failure. 

This is fine fodder for horror tales.  Mysteries, too.

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

Gothic on Capitol Hill

A horror writer moonlights as a Congressman's speechwriter.  Brett Talley creates texts for Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio), when he's not writing about the Necronomico.

“He’s been great,” Lehman says. “He’s very creative. He’s also dogged about expanding the senator’s vocabulary.”

Case in point: Talley says he keeps trying to get the word “hobgoblin” into a speech.

The speechwriter is also into the ghost detective scene.

Talley began going out with the Tuscaloosa Paranormal Research Group while clerking for a judge after law school. The group would explore old plantation homes or abandoned insane asylums armed with thermal cameras, electromagnetic field meters and digital voice recorders to search for signs of the supernatural...

On a foggy evening in early December, Talley takes me to the Holy Rood Cemetery in Northwest Washington to show me how to hunt for ghosts. He has come from the Hill, and his black trench coat and suit combination makes him look like he was a lobbyist for the undead.

Infocult has not yet perused Talley's work.

Infocult: describing the world as it falls into the Gothic, one shadow at a time.

Demonic toys, giraffe edition

Today's scary toy is a cute little giraffe.  It's very sweet, until it comes to life:

(via Jesse Walker on the Twitters)

Underground monster gnaws at Los Angeles

Here's your real-like Gothic headline of the day:

"The Fiery Underground Oil Pit Eating L.A."

Even better is the text tag that follows:

Formless and ancient things from the depths of our planet move beneath Los Angeles, unexpectedly setting fire to sidewalks and burning whole businesses to the ground.

This splendidly Gothic language is aimed at the body of petroleum slopping under the city of the angels. Or:

Sliding around beneath the surface of Los Angeles is something dark, primordial, and without form. It seeps up into the city from below, through even the smallest cracks and drains. Infernal, it can cause fires and explosions; toxic, it can debilitate, poison, and kill.

The article really enjoys itself.

The city ‘is really just a giant scab of petroleum-fueled activities,’ an impermanently sealed cap atop this buried monstrosity.

Death in Google News

Google News does a decent job of aggregating and categorizing it. But today GN turned a bit Gothic, offering this category for our grim delectation:

 

Yes, Death itself.  No celebrity deaths or anniversaries (cf Nelson Mandela), but The End.

Follow Death!  Pin it!  Share it around!  Google News will fill your Death box with algorithmically-curated fresh content.

(thanks to Todd Bryant)