Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

Jewelry of the dead

This excerpt from a new book on the Brontë sisters explores the world of mid-nineteenth century hair jewelry.  That's jewelry created with human hair.  Excellent stuff, interweaving material and literary history, with a focus on that Gothic masterpiece Wuthering Heights.

Some examples (which look like snakes):

There's a fascinating final note about hair jewelry being replaced by photography. Could "hair work" be early uncanny media?

(thanks to Chris Worden!)

 

Thomas Ligotti reviews Pizza Hut's hot dog pizza

What if Thomas Ligotti, horror writer extraordinaire, reviewed Pizza Hut's hot dog pizza monstrosity?  Let Zach Parsons (Something Awful) give it a try.

The more my unease grew, the more I became convinced that this was the place and this was the pizza I needed to finally satisfy my hunger. All along, I had needed this pizza. I trembled and blurted out, "The manager!"

The teenage employee slowly lifted an arm and pointed a finger at an unmarked door behind the counter. There was a loud click and something rumbled deep within the Pizza Hut, as though a tomb had been unsealed. The door swung open and I knew I was meant to go through it. I had to go through it. I felt closer than ever to some ill-defined truth.

(via MetaFilter)

Cat story or the rise of Cthulhu? "The Call of Tutu"

I'm gonna to open that door and let ol' Tutu in. Just to see what he does. Ayuh. 

"The Call of Tutu" is a story about a man, his cat, and his wife.  Or maybe a bit more than that.  A nice, quiet, 5-minute Lovecraftian video tale, from AaronV:

(via MetaFilter)

More ruins of American amusement parks

Here's a lovely, melancholy set of photographs of American amusement parks in ruins.  

Seph Lawless has a keen eye for fallen construction:

He also appreciates the melancholy of circuses, a la Bradbury:

Lawless also finds the - what the hell, clown machine?

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

Spooking a house and family in New Jersey

New Jersey Gothic: in Westfield, the same suburb where Charles Addams was born (!), a family has been receiving scary notes. The notes' author or authors identify themself/ves as "the Watcher."

Telling the new buyers that the property “has been the subject of my family for decades,” The Watcher allegedly claimed to have been “put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming.”

The plaintiffs say The Watcher also wrote that “I asked the [previous owners] to bring me young blood,” and said that “once I know their names, I will call to them and draw them too [sic] me.”

More:

The new owners have several children, and other letters asked, “Have they found out what’s in the walls yet?” and “I am pleased to know your names now, and the name of the young blood you have brought to me...”

And:

“Who has the bedrooms facing the street?  I’ll know as soon as you move in . . . then I can plan better,” the chilling message read...

“It is now my time . . . you don’t want to make 657 Boulevard unhappy,” The Watcher wrote, adding that his father and grandfather had watched the house before him.

More here and here. 

(thanks to help from Leslie Madsen-Brooks, Metafilter, and Rob Henderson)

Mad murder in London

An Enfield man went on a short but intense crime spree in London, culminating in a beheading.  The story's details have some Gothic flair.

It started small, but with the supernatural:

the defendant armed himself with a wooden pole and machete] and beheaded two of his hosts' cats, because he thought they were "demons", the court heard.

Then upgraded to homicide by reason of - well, read on:

Mr Salvador then leapt over a wall into Mrs Silva's garden where she was repeatedly stabbed before being beheaded, the court heard.

It was said Mr Salvador believed he was killing a supernatural entity in the guise of Hitler back from the dead, or a demon who had taken the form of a little old lady, Mr Rees said.

Next, more violence and visions:

the defendant ran off and was arrested in the front room of another house following a "violent and chaotic struggle" with police in which he was tasered multiple times and kicked and punched, but to little effect. He had shown signs of mental illness, repeating phrases such as "red is the colour" and "I am the king."

Now it's over to the courts, to mourning, and cleanup.

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

A new robot will scope your emotions

Pepper is a robot from Japan (of course), and is supposed to track human emotions, then react. “It is the world’s first robot with love.”

Scheduled to go on sale from June 20, the 121-centimeter tall, 29-kilogram robot... can recognize human emotions and respond accordingly.

It does so by using sensors and a microphone to recognize facial expressions and voices. The humanoid robot also expresses happiness and sadness by changing the tone of its voice or sighing.

Once again Japan takes us further into the uncanny valley.

(thanks to Randy McCall)

Using social media to find your own evil twin - and it's a good thing

“The internet is a wild and wondrous thing.” It is, as long as it doesn’t mix you up with a bad doppelgänger.

Doppelgangers are historically a sign of evil, but there's a growing movement online to see doubles in a positive light.  Some folks are eagerly seeking their mirror images around the world.

After deciding that this person probably wasn’t planning to murder me and take over my life, I emailed back about the uncanny likeness, and asked if she wanted to meet or videochat to see if we looked as much alike when our faces were moving.

The doubles meet and have a good time.  Call it the eucatastrophic doppelganger.

How far will this go?

[W]e live in a world in which we are far more likely to find one another, thanks to a proliferation of public digital photos and the ease of connecting with strangers through the Internet. With the rapid development in the field of facial recognition, it will soon be even easier for doppelgängers to meet one another. Rather than chance encounters in fast food restaurants and queries to Facebook friends to crowdsource the hunt, at some point — if privacy advocates lose their battle — you’ll be able to do a Google Search for people who look like you and get a list of the closest matches and where they live.

(thanks to Jesse Walker)

Accidental death by being buried alive

A religious leader died by misadventure in Zimbabwe.  Specifically, he was buried alive, but because Shamiso Kanyama asked to be:

Kanyama had ordered his followers to dig a grave and bury him alive because that was the way he summoned more healing powers to ward off evil spirits. However, the plan backfired on the prophet when instead of being resurrected as he supposed, the men dug up the grave again to find him dead.

There's more:

Kanyama helped to dig his own grave before praying and jumping inside, Father Zvidzai, who has turned State witness, told the High Court. He continued that after laying face down in the grave, he ordered his followers to start covering him with soil...

“He pegged a grave-shaped pit in front of my hut and asked for help to dig the pit,” Zvidzai continued.
“I warned the men about the danger of their actions, but my advice fell on deaf ears because Kanyama shouted, telling me that I am disturbing his angels, and urged them to continue filling the grave, saying that he would later come out alive,” Taderera said.

(thanks to Jason K)

Ancient Greek zombies

An article in Popular Archaeology describes popular belief in zombies among the ancient Greeks.

Greeks imagined scenarios in which reanimated corpses rose from their graves, prowled the streets and stalked unsuspecting victims, often to exact retribution denied to them in life.

Tantalizingly, that's all we can see from the open web.  The British Daily Mail has access to more, apparently:

[I]n two of the tombs, the skeletons found appear to have been buried in specific ways to keep them in the grave. 

One body, found in a tomb labelled 653, contained a person of unknown sex, who appears to have suffered from serious malnutrition and illness during the life. 

Their body, however, had been completely covered by large fragments of amphora.

For example,

A child aged between eight and 13 years old, shown in the sketch above, was also found in the Passo Marinaro cemetery with five rocks that had been placed on top of the body to trap it in the grave

(many thanks to Charles "more weight" Cameron)