October 31, 2019
Can I Ass You a Question?
"for the road [the mgr] chose an adventurous lavender and blue combo."
Threads Of Our Game is a visual almanac of 19th-century baseball uniforms, hand-drawn (based on historical images and research) by Craig Brown. [more inside]
Return of the Archons
Ingesting that Charged Sigil
Witch (Craft) Beer — How a New Wave of Brewers are Incorporating Magic into Beer - Beth Demmon at Good Beer Hunting
“People are just craving connection,” says Moses. “[But] I had a lot of trouble getting people into their own ritual.” Her clients’ desires to add spiritual healing to their schedules were complicated by today’s fast-paced world. She wondered: “How do I get these plants into their rituals if their ritual is to have a beer with their partner when they get home from work?”[more inside]
"aimed to protect children from dangerous strangers"
Halloween and Stranger Danger Bizarre restrictions are levied against people on the sex offense registry on Halloween. But do they actually make children safer or simply reveal what we fear? [Boston Review] [more inside]
the point is to impress fellow partygoers with a copious display of leg
Bernadette Banner is here to straighten us out on 500 Years of “Historical” Halloween Costumes. (SLYT)
They can do that?
Meet helvetica's evil twin: HELLVETICA
Kern in hell. “Sweet Jesus, this is unsettling,” someone wrote on Twitter. Another called it “a short-form horror story for graphic designers.” Hellvetica is free to download (may heaven have mercy on your soul).
"I'm haunting yooouuu..."
When Patti Lupone Haunted A Laundromat: "It was the pilot for a series called 'Hip Pocket Musicals,' which was pitched to PBS but never aired. Each episode would have been a different half-hour mini-musical with the same group of actors. The first one was called 'Love Cycle: A Soap Operetta,' and it starred LuPone as a vengeful ghost who haunts a laundromat." Direct link to the full video. The full "Love Cycle"script (pdf) via writer-producer David Misch's website, and a 2014 interview with "Love Cycle" creator Bill Burnett. David Misch previously.
⚔️ BATHTUB GERALT IS HERE!!! 🛀🏽
The Witcher [YouTube][Official Trailer] Netflix’s take on The Witcher is officially coming on Dec. 20. The series takes all of its inspiration from Andrzej Sapkowski’s book series instead of the incredibly popular RPG series from CD Projekt Red. [more inside]
Thinking like a mountain
"We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes," writes Aldo Leopold in "Thinking Like a Mountain" (pdf link), a short essay published posthumously in A Sand County Almanac. [more inside]
Ivar's and the Serial Killer
We were having lunch because I wanted information about Ivar Haglund, the kooky restaurateur behind the seafood empire that bears his name....Ivar's life was once closely intertwined with Linda "the Starvation Doctor" Hazzard, who killed at least 18 people in the Seattle area a century ago. Hazzard's first known kill in Washington was Daisy Haglund, Ivar's mother.
By Lester Black for The Stranger
Seriously, ITMFA
As the House gets serious about the next phase of the impeachment inquiry, confirmation of the Ukraine quid pro quo allegations keep piling up, and
two volatile meetings at the White House have become central to the impeachment inquiry. [more inside]
It’s the End of California as We Know It
"The fires and the blackouts aren’t like the earthquakes, a natural threat we’ve all chosen to ignore. They are more like California’s other problems, like housing affordability and homelessness and traffic — human-made catastrophes we’ve all chosen to ignore, connected to the larger dysfunction at the heart of our state’s rot: a failure to live sustainably." [more inside]
Stories of things that go bump in the night, and steal your televisions
Are you afraid of the dark? You will be! It's time for Jezebel's Annual Scary Story Contest, where Jezebel readers submit their own real stories as comments. Bonus from Jezebel: scary story videos
The Search For The Ultimate Video Game Play
Jon Bois and Kofie Yeboah invite us back to the Fumble Dimension, where they, along with other compatriots, abuse NFL Head Coach 09 to see who can create the greatest offensive play in part 1 of a two part episode. (SLYT) [more inside]
doppelgängers, ghosts, déjà vu, familiar faces in ancient portraits...
"A woman with great hair is fleeing a gothic house. This is a signal to the reader that this is one of ‘those’ books – not a historical romance or a ghost story, but a modern gothic.
It was one of the most successful genres in pulp, now sadly neglected.
Let's change that..." [Twitter thread from @PulpLibrarian] [more inside]
Every Coven A Union, Every Spell Direct Action
“Capital,” Marx tells us, “is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks. The time during which the labourer works, is the time during which the capitalist consumes the labour-power he has purchased of him.” Reading Marx On Halloween (Jacobin) “ The emerging proletariat had to be trained to defer gratification; to stifle desire; to value accumulation over expenditure. A belief in magic, instead, centered desires—and their fulfillment—communal and personal, for care and sustenance and protection. It is no surprise, then, that magic is in vogue again just as the old bargains around work are breaking down.“ All Organizing Is Magic: Verso's Caliban and the Witch Roundtable with Sarah Jaffe. Trump's Presidency Has Spawned a New Generation of Witches. (Wired)
Where’s the cygnet combo-meal? Where’s my swan McNuggets?
Why Don't We Eat Swans? We’re not so squeamish about chicken, turkey, pigeon, or goose, but these long-necked beauties have long been off-limits. (The Outline)
Totes Mah Goats
Scary Stories to Read in the Office
A woman rents a cabin to finish out her book in Sarah Pinsker's A Blur in the Corner of Your Eye. A folklorist investigates ghost stories in Naomi Kritzer's The Thing About Ghost Stories. There is something that is not a dog in Kathleen Kayembe's You Will Always Have a Family: A Triptych. [more inside]
The House of Lost Souls
When a down-and-out doctor finds his rundown mansion is haunted, he pulls the quintessentially American move: opening the house to the public for a fee. Everything goes wrong from there. [more inside]
Could it be a Poultrygeist?
Strange things are afoot at TheMERL, and all is not well; I doubt some fowl play, would the night were come.
Afrofuturism and Solarpunk
In Search of Afro-Solarpunk - Part 1: Elements of Afrofuturism.
Part 2: Social Justice is Survival Technology.
On Tor.com Rob Cameron writes about the intersecting interests of Afrofuturism and solarpunk, and how they might integrate further and more fruitfully. [more inside]
Obviously, you're not a golfer
Did you know that (allegedly) golf courses change the location of the little holes daily? Here's how.
Extra bonus: A fantastic list of other Specialized Tools.
(Obligatory)
Extra bonus: A fantastic list of other Specialized Tools.
(Obligatory)
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