RIP Ray Bradbury

Scan via: http://bearalley.blogspot.com

I'm late to throw out my appreciation for Ray Bradbury's work, but since he passed away this week I wanted to acknowledge how much I enjoyed his work, and how much it influenced me as a reader.

In my opinion Bradbury was one of the best American short story authors, but there is a specific kind of story that he wrote better than anyone else. He had a way to spin a tale about youthful innocence endangered which was nostalgic without being overly sentimental, scary but not grotesque. These stories captured a kind of Midwestern ethos that found magic and wonder not only in the overtly fantastic, but also in the shimmer of a sky full of stars, and the trials faced by children straddling adolescent politics and the adult world around them.

In addition to these, he wrote about things that moved me when I was a kid: dinosaurs, Mars, sneaking out of the house at night. As an adult, Bradbury managed to never lose his  memory of the magic such things could have for a child. As a child reading his work, I felt like he understood my world, and that these stories were little gifts made specially for me. 

Wherever he is, I hope that he knows how much I appreciate his work, and that he's smiling.

Spider Goats protested in Ottawa

Photo Credit: Ashley Burke/CBC

One of my favorite topics-- Spider Goats-- popped up in the news again recently.

According to this CBC article two of the Spider Goats rescued from the collapse of Nexia Biotechnologies spider silk program ended up on display at the Canada Agriculture Museum.  Apparently the two goats have been there for two years, pleasantly munching on snacks and being viewed by families and school expeditions. But this March a complaint was lodged by a part time anthropology professor. I'm not entirely sure what additional gravitas this is supposed to impart, but it seems to be the key reason that the article was written.

Pictured above, the goats are named Sugar and Spice (which is more family-friendly than my suggestions of Lady Arachnae and Web Spinner Gruff).  They are still on exhibit, if you'd like to go see them, and there are calls to protest by the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, should they seem protest-worthy to you.

MonsterQuest episode about Giant Spiders

I've caught a couple episodes of the History Channel's MonsterQuest. It's a fun show with a casual, and usually intelligent, overview of various "mysterious creature" stories. They do a good job of preserving the fun and mystery of these tales while not straying completely into theoretical territory.

But somehow I had completely missed out on the episode about Giant Spiders. (I know, crazy, right?)

They mention several classic tales, including a reported 1938  encounter with a J'ba Fofi on a Congolese  road, and the widely-emailed image of a pair of camel spiders from Iraq. These stories are then used as a jumping off point for an investigation of whether giant spiders can be found, and a reality check about the urban legends surrounding camel spiders.

Of course, as I've mentioned previously, there is strong evidence that in order to grow to the kind of monstrous size described in this episode, a spider's physiology would have to be so altered that we would barely recognize it. Still, I can't help but love a good giant spider story.  

Recommended.

Review: A Special Place, by Peter Straub

A Special Place: The Heart of a Dark Matter by Peter Straub
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

From the jacket:

"A rumination on the nature of evil, the story centers on a boy, Keith Hayward, who is drawn by his nature to an irresistible fascination with death and the taking of life. His father's brother, the good-looking suave Uncle Till - the infamous ladykiller, who has led a shadowy career as a local celebrity - recognizes his nephew's innermost nature and gleefully tutors him in the art of doing ill without getting caught. Even a cold-blooded sociopath must learn some lessons in survival, it seems and Uncle Till is only too happy to provide a tutorial..."

An extremely well written, truly horrific book, "A Special Place" is compelling enough (and short enough) to be read in one sitting, but the disturbing after-images will linger for much longer.

Though this book is filled with violence -- physical, sexual, and psychological -- the majority of it is implied, as Straub describes its aftermath and lets his readers fill in the gaps.

The story he delivers is something of the Anti-Dexter, as budding sociopath Keith is encouraged in his interests by his magnetic uncle Till. Keith is presented as thoroughly dislikeable and corrupted from the start, but there are moments of shocking sympathy as he loses his last tenuous connections to humanity. There may not be any world in which Keith Hayward could have been a GOOD man, but Straub still conveys a sense of loss as Keith becomes a monster.

As a piece of horror fiction this is masterful, but I would hesitate to recommend it to anyone who wasn't committed to taking a very dark ride.

Hail Cthulhu!! Hail Morphine!!

Just a random concert poster that I'd like to share:

 Morphine Cthulhu poster

Dumb Criminals and People With My Name

Like most people, I'm a fan of "dumb criminal" stories, in which someone gets busted for being criminally stupid as much as their actual crime. When I came across this story from the Muskegon Chronicle, I found not only stupid criminals, but someone with a surprisingly familiar name...

By Heather Lynn Peters, The Muskegon Chronicle:

MUSKEGON COUNTY — Location, location, location.

One would think two Muskegon-area men might have thought of a better location to smoke dope Monday evening than in the corridor outside the Muskegon County Sheriff's Office Oak Campus, said Undersheriff Dan Stout.

The men were busted around 6:30 p.m. by a deputy who arrived to the Oak Avenue campus, 1611 Oak, Muskegon, to begin his shift, Stout said.

The deputy noticed the two men sitting on the floor “inside the cement corridor leading to our office door,” the deputy stated in a sheriff's office report.

“I walked up to them and asked them what they were doing. The taller, skinny one...stated, 'Smoking weed' and ...handed me some plastic Ziploc baggies that were open and contained a green, leafy substance that appeared and smelled like marijuana,” the deputy stated in the report.

One of the men told the deputy that he bought a gram of marijuana for $20 nearby and they “smoked most of it yesterday” and were planning on “smoking the rest of it today.”

“I asked him if they knew this was a police department, and they both looked at each other in surprise,” the deputy stated in the report, adding that the men told the deputy they “thought it was an old hospital.”

The sheriff's Oak Campus is just south of Mercy Health Partners General Campus — the former Muskegon General Hospital — and formerly housed the county health department. 

The building now houses sheriff's detective offices, as well as working space for other law enforcement officials, and Muskegon County Emergency Services.

The other man reluctantly admitted to paying half the cost of the marijuana and said they would have finished smoking the drug Monday “but they were interrupted by my presence,” the deputy said in the report.

The substance believed to be marijuana has been sent to a drug lab for testing, and the two subjects were free to go after they were questioned by the deputy.

However, arrest warrants for both men will be sought by authorities once the test results are back from the lab. An initial “field test” revealed that the substance appears to be marijuana, the report said.

The investigation is ongoing, so authorities declined to release the names of the two men involved.

Giant Salamanders? No, Seriously-- Giant Salamanders

So: imagine an amphibian, about 4 -6 feet in length, with beady eyes, tiny fetus-like fingers, and a gaping maw that opens far enough to wrap around the forearm of a full grown man. Sound a little nightmare-ish? Here's some photos...

Really, could it get any more evil parasite-looking?

Again, can't you just see those little hands grasping a laser pistol?

Both of the above are pulled off of Loren Coleman's Cryptomundo site, but there's nothing secretive about these guys. The Chinese and Japanese giant salamanders are well documented, if bizarre looking, inhabitants of Asian waterways. 

Mostly gentle giants, they do have some ferocious teeth, and will bite if handled improperly or if snatched out of a resting place, as seen in this still from the terrific show River Monsters:

And here's a close-up of the teeth of the North American Giant Salamander, maxes out around 2 feet in length. (Photo from the University of Washington Archive):

If you're interested in helping preserve the giant salamanders, check out The Cryptobranchid Interest Group or EDGE for donations or more info.

Strange Fruit -- Amazing Australian Dance Troupe (on a stick!)

Just came across these guys. Inspired by a field of wheat, the dancers perch on 16 foot tall flexible poles. This allows them to bend and sway over their audience. Seeing humans move in such unexpected ways is both mesmerizing and a little disorienting. I love it.

I'd really like to see them live, and I'll be keeping an eye on the Strange Fuit website to see if they'll be travelling near me. Until then, I'll just have to be content with the youtube videos. (The videos on yourtube are mostly shakey-cam, so I recommend checking out the Strange Fruit demo reel on their web-site for more variety and less nausea inducing wobblieness.)

Today I dug a grave for a Rubber Chicken

The Invite (click for full size) 

There was once a time when a small group of my friends never went to a bar without a rubber chicken in tow. In an attempt to amuse ourselves and confuse strangers, we would insist on taking pictures of our friends, bartenders, and wait staff posing with the chickens (Ralphonso and Giselle were their names, and a more distinguished pair of chickens you can't even imagine).  As the night went on, onlookers would invariably ask to also have their pictures taken with the plastic poultry. Those chickens were great ice-breakers, allowing us to easily identify other people who also had a sense of humor that was a little, well... you know.

Eventually we gave Giselle eyes and stuffed her with sand so that she could pose for her photo ops better. That might have killed her in the long term, as I recently found that her delicate plucked rubber skin had dried out, becoming brittle and cracked. I realized that it was time for her to move on to a better place. But she still had one last mission to amuse/befuddle.

At an somber, intimate gathering this afternoon, we interred Giselle. We said our good-byes, poured out a beer in her honor, and had some BBQ and cheesy potatoes.

But I take heart knowing that someday, someone will go to plant a tree or till the soil, and they will find the remnants of a once-proud fowl, along with a time-capsule containing photos of strangers in bars tongue-kissing a rubber chicken. And they will be confused.

RIP Giselle.

Perseverance, Rationalization, & Damn Hard Games

Just posted a quick blurb over at Ninja Camp about a game which thoroughly defeated me when I was younger: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

You really should click over to read it at Ninja Camp but for those too lazy, here it is:

Douglas Adams died about 10 years ago. In honor of that not-so-happy event, Rock, Paper, Shotgun has an excellent entry in their "Gaming Made Me" series dedicated to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game. Check it out here. Note how much the article's author enjoyed the difficulty of the game. To quote her briefly:

"The Hitchhiker’s game left me curious and perplexed in equal measure. Why wasn’t my Dad any better at extracting progress from the game than I was? Or my older brother? The game was truly difficult. You would play for a few hours, learning by trial and error what the correct responses were to get you past the earliest hurdles, actually not getting very far at all."

It's available to play online, for free. The game in its monochromatic text-only glory is here, and a version with graphics tacked on is here. I'll be playing it through, one of these days...

There are many games that I never finished because I lost interest or got busy doing other things. There are two games which I really enjoyed but stopped playing due to glitches. One is the original Fallout, which had a disagreement with my video card and got me so monumentally pissed that I didn't speak to it for 10 years. The other was Hitchhiker's, which came with a bad disk, and as a kid I couldn't figure out what to do about it.

That's how I remember it, though now I wonder if I just took advantage of the situation to quit. In fact, I think there's a chance that that the only "glitch" involved was that I kept dying, and 10 year old me was just so unprepared for that kind of resistance that I convinced myself that a disk must be bad. It really was a damn hard game.