Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

Intensive Care

Here's a fun discovery from 2011: "Intensive Care", a podcast audio drama Gothic.  

It's beautifully produced.  Many voices, lots of good sound effects, and a nice score combine to establish a rich environment: a hospital, wherein an unreliable narrative is trapped.

The plot - ah, I'll leave you to it.  A fine bit of psychological and medical horror.

New Bierce story readings

Some classic Ambrose Bierce stories have new, free readings for your downloading and listening pleasure.  Libribox has unleased two:

• Can Such Things Be? has some classic stories, like early robot tale "Moxon's Master".  Plus there's "The Damned Thing," "An Inhabitant of Carcosa", and more dark, sarcastic goodies.  Roger Melin offers a solid reading, with a solid, deep voice.

• In The Midst of Life focuses on the American Civil War, with horror favorites like "An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge" and "Chickamauga".  David Wales reads quietly, thoughtfully, with care.
• I wish I had a better sense of why people don't love these stories more. Perhaps southerners prefer less horrific tales about their Lost Cause, and yanks really never cared that deeply after 1875 or so.

If you don't know Librivox, it's a superb thing.  Free, volunteer-read podcasts, sans advertising.

(painting via Wikipedia)

Werewolf noir

"Loup Noir" is a very nicely done werewolf story.  WWII-era small town story, including crime and curses.

19 Nocturne has been doing a terrific job of Gothic audio drama.  Check out their archives.

From horror radio to horror comics

A dark current of productive influence ran from American radio to horror comics.  Classic audio theater from the 30s and 40s fed the rising comic industry.

Examples:

Lights Out, May 18, 1943, "The Spider": Two men discover and try to capture a giant spider the size of a dog, with grim results. The same plot occurs in "Sucker for a Spider", EC's Tales from the Crypt 29, 1952.

Lights Out, December 1, 1942, "The Story of Mr. Maggs": A haunted chest murders the occupants of a house one at a time. Also "The Visiting Corpse" (from Mysterious Traveler, August 10, 1948): A man kills his wife and hides her dismembered corpse in a trunk before being forced to hid the trunk and getting crushed to death by it when he falls down a flight of stairs dragging it down to the basement. Those two stories are echoed in "Tight Grip", EC's Tales from the Crypt 38, 1953.

The Strange Dr. Weird, December 19, 1944, "White Pearls of Terror": A ruthless criminal takes refuge on a remote island only to realize too late that he has disembarked on a leper colony. The same plot is recycled in "A Rottin' Trick" EC's Tales from the Crypt 29, April 1952.

Gothic media circulation is a terrific subject.  It's important to investigate how creepy stories and memes migrated across platforms: movies, radio, newspaper, magazines, urban legends, books, games, music.

(via SFFAudio)

Tales to Terrify, new horror podcast

A new horror podcast has launched.  Tales to Terrify springs from the Starship Sofa, that great sf podcast.

One show so far, which I'm looking forward to.

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: