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Your mashup for the day is a classic H.P. Lovecraft story retold as if by Dr. Seuss. Behold The Call of Cthulhu for Beginning Readers.
We first noted the creator's project way back in 2011.
A short Gothic event in Mexico:
A macrabe discovery was made last Saturday in a vacant lot in the colonia Amparo Sánchez, in the city of Tijuana, B.C.
Inside a black toolbox, was found a decapitated human head, the body was not at the scene, and is yet to be found. A cartulina (poster board) narco message was left with the tool box.
The message translates to say; Sir Mencho and his people are cleaning Baja, this will happen to all the people of Aquiles and La Rana. Signed, CNGT (Tijuana)
Narco Gothic.
Two H.P. Lovecraft stories receive splendid audio treatment in a recent production. The Duke St Workshop and Laurence R. Harvey perform "From Beyond" and "The Hound", combining spoken word, electronica, and fine soundscaping.
These aren't full readings, but impressionistic mixes, using excerpts from the stories to anchor audio brooding.
Get into your isolation tanks, at Matt Howarth used to say, and listen:
Madness rides the star-wind . . . claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses . . . dripping death astride a Bacchanale of bats from night-black ruins of buried temples of Belial. . . . Now, as the baying of that dead, fleshless monstrosity grows louder and louder, and the stealthy whirring and flapping of those accursed web-wings circles closer and closer, I shall seek with my revolver the oblivion which is my only refuge from the unnamed and unnamable.
(thanks to Mark Wardecker!)
A San Francisco Globe article updates us on the very creepy story of people hacking into baby monitors.
How is this disturbing, beyond the idea of violating a family's privacy through their children's spaces? First, there's the audio aspect:
[T]he boy had previously told his parents that he was scared at night because he could hear someone talking to him over the phone. Jay and Sarah were confused as to what he meant until the hair-raising moment Sarah walked into her son's room to hear a voice say, "wake up little boy, daddy's looking for you."
Then there's the camera:
Jay heard the voice from the monitor continue to speak, saying, "look someone's coming or someone's coming into view," as Sarah walked into the room. The couple also noted that the night-vision lens was being controlled to follow their movements.
Let us pause to enjoy the photo attached to the article:
(thanks to Colin Howells on Twitter)
The Gothic always makes for powerful communication beyond scary stories. Case in point: late nineteenth- and early-twentieth century ads, as nicely captured in this Guardian gallery.
Consider this one, urging viewers to shun the demon drink:
Or this poster urging Belgian soldiers to avoid sexual diseases:
Gorgeous, powerful stuff.
Los Angeles art gallery Century Guild has a collection of peculiar and macabre prints from Germany, Austria, France and Italy dating back to 1880-1890. “What I find most striking is the modernity of the visual message,” says the gallery’s founder, Thomas Negovan. “We tend to view the turn of the century through a sepia-toned lens of quaintness, when the truth is that the world then was just as dynamic and thrilling as our lives are today.”
Found on Facebook:
It begins with a Reddit thread, asking "What is the weirdest or creepiest thing you have found while hiking?" Some of these short-short tales are very effective.
For example,
Took my young children to a cave not far from the house. Popular spot, but we had the place to ourselves. You can walk through it in about 30 minutes without too much difficulty. It has a tiny exit at the opposite end. It was pretty muddy, so we decided to turn around and head back to the entrance. Halfway back, there was a lit candle sitting about eight feet up one side. It was definitely not there on the first trip. I went into full-on protective-dad-mode knowing there was likely someone hiding in the dark while we walked the rest of the way out.
That thread led to a much larger strand, a marvelous sequence of campfire spooky stories. The conceit is a search and rescue veteran sharing the creepiest experiences s/he has had or heard. Pore through these in a brightly lit, warm house, without stairs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
The author has now launched a Tumblr site.
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