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| Wednesday, May 4, 2016 12:59 PM |
| Book Report - Lovecraft Country |
 by Fëanor |
This audio book I just listened to was so great I thought I'd swipe the mothballs off the old blog to write it up.
The popularity of weird fiction author H.P. Lovecraft only seems to increase as the years go by. But so does scrutiny of his racist politics and beliefs, which were so often given such lurid life in his writing. One of the things Lovecraft found most horrifying, for instance, was miscegenation. For many years a bust of Lovecraft was presented to the winner of the World Fantasy Award, but just last year the bust was retired due to Lovecraft's history of racism.
I love Lovecraft's work, but had of course always been deeply uncomfortable with his racism. I hadn't heard of a modern interpretation of Lovecraft's horror universe that dealt in any meaningful way with this topic - until I read about Matt Ruff's novel Lovecraft Country. Lovecraft Country not only deals with the topic, but makes it its central theme. The book's purpose, in fact, is to wrest ownership of Lovecraft's universe away from its racist beginnings and place it firmly in the hands of people of color. (I'm a little disappointed, therefore, to have discovered after the fact that the author, Matt Ruff, is white. It seems like this story was for a person of color to tell. But there you are.)
The novel is set in America in 1954, and is told as a series of short stories, each an episode in a larger, over-arching story, each with a different narrator, with the final chapter bringing all the narrators and stories together in an exciting climax. All the narrators are members of, or close friends with, the Turner family. The novel opens with the story of Atticus Turner, a young black man still trying to find his place in American society after returning from serving in the Korean War. He receives an odd letter from his estranged father, Montrose, about a secret birthright that he's entitled to, and he decides to head home to Chicago to see what it's all about.
If you're expecting magic and monsters in the first few pages, you'll be disappointed. Ruff takes his time getting to that, first introducing you to the surreal insanity and horror that is the Jim Crow South. On his way home, Atticus is assaulted, harassed, and stolen from by a policeman for the crime of being black. As the story goes on, and incidents like this are repeated again and again, we come to realize that threats to your life and property from white men with power are just a part of everyday life for black people in America. And yes, sure, we should all already know that. But being a white guy, I need constant reminders, and Ruff forces you to really examine and internalize what it must be like to live like that: in constant fear, in constant danger of death, with little or no recourse to the law, the whole world against you, hating you and suspecting you on sight.
And that's just the baseline of horror in Atticus' world! As his story progresses, things get even more dangerous, and way more weird. A mysterious, untouchable, silver car with tinted windows seems to follow him everywhere as his search for his father takes him through a maze-like forest - where unseen things lurk in the shadows - to a tiny, insular town called Ardham. Ardham isn't Lovecraft's Arkham - not quite - but it is in "Lovecraft Country" (New England). And it is the home of a Manor House on a hill, where the Braithwhite family lives, leaders of a sect of a secret cult called The Order of the Ancient Dawn.
I won't tell you any more about the plot, because experiencing it for yourself will be fun as hell. But it includes intrigue, theft, espionage, double-dealing, murder, magic, devil dolls, ghosts, potions, curses, body-switching, and man-eating aliens. And still, even among all this weirdness and horror, we never lose sight of the novel's real focus: the real-life horror of being black in America. So not only is it a rollicking read - a brilliant, thrilling, enthralling, bone-chilling story - it's also a very important and powerful book. I cannot recommend it highly enough. |
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| Monday, September 12, 2011 12:26 PM |
| Recyclotron |
 by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- Egon 4-evah!
- Yep, been there, done that.
- This styrofoam cup art is pretty awesome.
- Mr. Hipp does it again with a couple of amazing Lord of the Rings pieces.
- A huge timeline infographic reveals what the future will be like, according to films. (Via)
- io9 offers you the chance to vote for the greatest use of pop music in all of sci-fi and fantasy. IIRC, I picked "You Could Be Mine" from T2, "Mad World" from Donnie Darko, "Johnny B. Goode" from Back to the Future, and "Day-O" from Beetlejuice.
- io9 has also collected for you the most amazing space pictures of 2011.
- Doctor Who My Little Ponies!
- What if Darth Vader's infamous "Nooooo!" were edited into other classic movies? In that same vein, here's Star Wars before and after blu-ray-ification.
- The first two episodes of a new Fringe web series.
- The trailer for Luke Cage! (OK, not really. Sorry to disappoint you there.)
- I usually avoid reposting Blastr's top ten lists, because that's all they ever post and it's kind of sad (although I don't have much room to talk...), but this one is rather fun: fake TV shows inside of real TV shows. Itchy & Scratchy is a classic, of course, and All My Circuits is always hilarious.
- Apparently carrots are only orange for political reasons.
- More of Sucklord's fantastic custom action figures.
- Cool piece of art created with tape. Also, Olly Moss' scary/funny Pikachu, and Kate Beaton's more accurate version of the Cheesecake Factory's logo.
- Lovecraftian lollipops! They're unspeakably delicious!
- Huh. Threadless is doing a pretty cool new thing.
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| Tagged (?): Art (Not), Books (Not), Business (Not), Clothes (Not), Comedy (Not), Comic books (Not), Craft (Not), Doctor Who (Not), Food (Not), Fringe (Not), Ghostbusters (Not), Links (Not), Lists (Not), Lovecraft (Not), Movies (Not), Music (Not), Parenthood (Not), Photography (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Shirts (Not), Space (Not), Star Wars (Not), Tolkien (Not), Toys (Not), TV (Not), Video (Not) |
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| Monday, August 22, 2011 12:24 PM |
| (Last updated on Monday, August 22, 2011 12:28 PM) | | Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
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| Tagged (?): Aliens (Not), Art (Not), Avengers (Not), Cartoons (Not), Comedy (Not), Comic books (Not), Craft (Not), Fast food (Not), Links (Not), Lovecraft (Not), Monsters (Not), Movies (Not), Music (Not), News (Not), Pixar (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Robots (Not), Star Wars (Not), Tolkien (Not) |
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| Thursday, August 11, 2011 03:28 PM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- Some people are doing it right!
- A book of nursery rhymes in comic form by a bunch of famous cartoonists.
- Jaws as a Peanuts-style comic strip.
- What to expect from season 4 of Fringe. Exciting stuff!
- The Mars rover Opportunity is still running, finally arriving at its original destination, and getting ready to search for life.
- The School Board of Republic High School in Missouri banned Slaughterhouse-Five from the library, so the Vonnegut Memorial Library offered to provide a free copy to any of the 150 students who were originally supposed to read it.
- Along with the already existing nine (9!) film versions in development, there is now also a TV version of Frankenstein in the works. Naturally it is a "modern-day take" on the story. Oy.
- The Radiohead remix album is coming in September.
- Sam Bosma shows off a great commission piece featuring Lady Macbeth.
- Neat piece of Lovecraft-inspired art.
- SETI had to shut down its search for alien life back in April, but it's starting up again next month thanks to generous donations.
- It's nice to hear that J.J. Abrams would like to add a gay character to Star Trek.
- Apparently Disney announced it would be releasing two more Marvel movies in 2014 - one on May 16, 2014, and another on June 27, 2014 - but it's unclear who or what they'll be about.
- Blastr collects 24 wild and crazy newspaper headlines from sci-fi TV and films.
- 10 fictional games recreated in real life. I can't believe anybody really tried to play Kosho from The Prisoner. That crap was crazy, yo.
- T. Rex dressed as Batman.
- Scientists say spoilers don't really detract from your enjoyment of entertainment. Also, Rosebud was the name of his sled.
- The trailer for a modern-day update of Shakespeare's Coriolanus. Looks good!
- The descendants of snakes that escaped from the set of Raiders of the Lost Ark still roam Elstree Studios. That might be my favorite story of the week.
- An infographic of everyone killed by Jason in the Friday the 13th movies, including the method of their murders. Note that these are only the people killed by Jason, so the first movie is not included.
- Exhumed Films is doing their 24-hour Horror-thon at the iHouse again this year. Maybe someday when the kid is old enough I'll go to this with him. Assuming it's still happening then, and the kid likes horror movies, and doesn't mind being seen with me, and I'm still capable of sitting in a movie theater chair for that long without permanently injuring myself.
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| Tagged (?): Animals (Not), Art (Not), Batman (Not), Books (Not), Comic books (Not), Dinosaurs (Not), Frankenstein (Not), Fringe (Not), Homosexuality (Not), Indiana Jones (Not), Links (Not), Lovecraft (Not), Mashups (Not), Movies (Not), Music (Not), News (Not), Parenthood (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Science (Not), Shakespeare (Not), Space (Not), Star Trek (Not), The Prisoner (Not), TV (Not) |
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| Friday, August 5, 2011 11:16 AM |
| (Last updated on Friday, August 5, 2011 12:22 PM) | | Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- The ultimate "Spock is not impressed" image. (Definitely check out the Tumblr if you've never seen it.)
- Creepy-cool illustration of Wilbur Whateley.
- Very cool good-bye tribute to Harry Potter in the form of a poster.
- These illustrations make a very pointy point about gender in comic books.
- Hee hee.
- A lovely piece of Hobbit art by the always delightful Mr. Hipp.
- Scientists have found evidence of flowing salt water on Mars! Neat!
- I posted this video to Twitter/Facebook a while back, but it's so wonderful I'm posting it here again: a mariachi band serenades a beluga whale.
- The first official photo of Henry Cavill as Superman, the first official photo of Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, and a very unofficial, Game of Thrones-mashed-up 'shop of the Catwoman photo (that was quick).
- This trailer for the upcoming animated series Tron: Uprising features lots of cool concept art, an exciting video clip, and bits of the Tron: Legacy soundtrack in the background - a soundtrack which, I may have already mentioned here, I am obsessed with to the point of mania.
- The new Ultimate Spider-Man is half-black and half-Hispanic. For some people, this poses a problem. Those people are wrong.
- Wondermark is very strange, and I love it.
- Steampunk Samus Aran arm cannon!
- NASA is sending LEGO minifigs representing Jupiter, Juno, and Galileo to Jupiter.
- Game of Thrones as a (NSFW) 8-bit (or is that 16-bit?) RPG.
- John "Walter Bishop" Noble is hosting a new show for the Science Channel investigating true stories of fringe science. It's called Dark Matters.
- Joe Quesada's Twitter feed isn't always all that interesting, but the other day he went through his process for creating a piece of art for the 50th anniversary of the Fantastic Four, and it was really cool. Plus, the piece came out great. Luckily, Comics Alliance collected the entire sequence of tweets.
UPDATE:
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| Tagged (?): Animals (Not), Art (Not), Batman (Not), Celebrities (Not), Comedy (Not), Comic books (Not), Cosplay (Not), Costumes (Not), Craft (Not), Fantastic Four (Not), Fringe (Not), Game of Thrones (Not), Harry Potter (Not), LEGO (Not), Links (Not), Lovecraft (Not), Metroid (Not), Movies (Not), Music (Not), Photoshop (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Science (Not), Sherlock Holmes (Not), Space (Not), Spider-Man (Not), Star Trek (Not), Steampunk (Not), Superman (Not), The Hobbit (Not), Tolkien (Not), Toys (Not), Tron (Not), TV (Not), Video (Not), Video games (Not), Web comics (Not) |
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| Friday, June 24, 2011 12:55 PM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- Shirt irony!
- A nice piece depicting a tense moment from Aliens.
- Dan Hipp knows how to push my buttons.
- The latest Awesome Hospital amused me. "That'll get you thirty CCs of Ripitupazine, braff." Heh.
- io9 talks about some legendary cryptids that turned out to be real. Yay, platypus! Also, dream on, bigfoot believers! Btw, send your cryptid photos to io9 - they're offering a $2,000 bounty!
- Wizard World was in town recently - right near where I work, in fact - but I still didn't make it over there, because it's super expensive and I just would have wanted to buy everything I saw. Also, kinda busy here. Get off my case! Ahem. Anyway, I can simulate a visit to Wizard World by clicking here and looking at these pictures! And so can you!
- Have I posted about Yog-Blogsoth yet? I should have if I didn't. It's a dude trying to draw every creature in every H.P. Lovecraft story. Love the title, the concept, and the art! But beware - some of the images are NSFW. (Via)
- A camera that lets you adjust the focus after the picture has been taken?? Wow. The future is cool.
- Turns out the Red Skull started life as the cherry on an ice cream sundae.
- I'm not convinced Steven Spielberg's dinosaur show, Terra Nova, is going to be any good, but these posters are fun.
- Click through for links to many beautiful photos of a wedding at a museum.
- Emergency stakes.
- I would like to have this cookies n' cream cake, please. (Via)
- Enjoying this nostalgic Zelda comic and this NSFW Tyrion fan art from this Super Punch link roundup.
- Check out a bunch of cool posters for Immortals, the mythological epic from Tarsem Singh that I continue to be very excited about.
- If you haven't seen the new Captain America trailer yet, you really should. It looks like they got Cap's character just right. So many scenes and lines of dialog in here are so perfect. Really looking forward to this one!
- A six-foot LEGO model of Sauron's Dark Tower. Sweet!
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| Tagged (?): Advertising (Not), Aliens (Not), Art (Not), Captain America (Not), Clothing (Not), Comedy (Not), Comic books (Not), Cosplay (Not), Costumes (Not), Craft (Not), Dinosaurs (Not), Food (Not), Gadgets (Not), Game of Thrones (Not), LEGO (Not), Links (Not), Lovecraft (Not), Movies (Not), Mythology (Not), Photography (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Shirts (Not), Star Wars (Not), Steven Spielberg (Not), Technology (Not), Tolkien (Not), Toys (Not), TV (Not), Vampires (Not), Video (Not), Video games (Not), Web comics (Not), Zelda (Not) |
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| Monday, March 21, 2011 03:39 PM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- Dude! Official pics from the set of The Hobbit! It's Bag End!
- Awesome poster for a Lovecraft-inspired exhibition and art book called Dead and Dreaming.
- Let's Be Friends Again unveils the newest member of the Endless.
- Now we know who Joseph Gordon-Levitt is playing in The Dark Knight Rises, and it's not really anybody I would have expected. A very obscure character! But it does fit in very well with the story Nolan has been telling throughout his Batman films, so okay.
- In case you haven't seen it yet, Warren Ellis started another redesign thread on his message board, this one for the cover of Fantastic Four #1. Some pretty great stuff in there.
- Super Punch presents another nice illustration roundup.
- Speaking of Super Punch, here are a couple more entries in the site's X-Men: First Class poster redesign contest.
- Cinematical picked out some fun bits from an interview with Billy Dee Williams, including the hilarious revelation that the guy has an Ewok head in his closet.
- There's going to be an Office Space Printer Smash in Philly on April 26th. Bring your tech rage!
- Voting has begun for the second round of io9's March Movie Madness poll. I am deeply upset that The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) is currently losing to District 9. District 9 isn't a terrible movie, but it's not as good as some people say it is, and it's certainly nowhere near as excellent as the original TDtESS. That movie's a classic! C'mon people! Respect!
- What the hell is with all the Peter Pan movies in development?
- Michael Chabon might write Disney's Magic Kingdom. Huh. That movie just became more interesting to me.
- True Lies is a pretty okay movie, excepting a lot of the incredibly creepy first half, in which Arnold is basically torturing and abusing his wife for almost cheating on him after ignoring her for years. But a sequel? No, we do not need that.
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| Tagged (?): Art (Not), Batman (Not), Books (Not), Celebrities (Not), Comic books (Not), Disney (Not), Fantastic Four (Not), Harry Potter (Not), Links (Not), Lovecraft (Not), Michael Chabon (Not), Movies (Not), News (Not), Peter Pan (Not), Photography (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Star Wars (Not), Tolkien (Not), X-Men (Not) |
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| Wednesday, March 9, 2011 12:15 PM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
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| Tagged (?): Aliens (Not), Art (Not), Battlestar Galactica (Not), Blade Runner (Not), Celebrities (Not), Clothing (Not), Comedy (Not), Comic books (Not), Craft (Not), Food (Not), History (Not), Indiana Jones (Not), Links (Not), Lovecraft (Not), Mashups (Not), Michael Chabon (Not), Movies (Not), Muppets (Not), News (Not), Photography (Not), Products (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Shirts (Not), Star Wars (Not), Toys (Not), TV (Not), Twitter (Not), Video games (Not), Zelda (Not) |
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| Monday, February 28, 2011 10:18 AM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- You can stream The Mountain Goats' new album, All Eternals Deck, in its entirety on NPR. Good stuff, but occasionally just depressing. So yeah, standard Mountain Goats.
- Another new preview for Game of Thrones. Longer! Still looking good!
- A very serious, dramatic, and action-packed ad for the new Thundercats show.
- A look at the swords of The Legend of Zelda.
- I've been trying to avoid posting casting rumors anymore, because they so often turn out to be BS, but man, I'd love to see Viggo Mortensen as General Zod.
- Here's a trailer for a Spanish film supposedly inspired by Lovecraft, although the only obviously Lovecraftian thing in it (and, coincidentally, the only interesting thing in it) is Cthulhu, who shows up at the end.
- Super Punch gives us a fun image roundup.
- Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery is a pretty intriguing-looking iPad game. For those of you with iPads. *sob*
- Alex Robinson draws Frank Miller's Batman from The Dark Knight Returns.
- Game|Life interprets the visual warnings in the instruction manual for Nintendo's new 3DS.
- Cinematical/Moviefone runs down the winners of the Razzies and the Oscars. I'm glad to see The Last Airbender (my review) was roundly excoriated, and that one of the few Best Picture nominees that I actually saw (and enjoyed very much) won the award (The King's Speech). I don't usually enjoy Natalie Portman's performances, but I have to admit she was really good in Black Swan and probably deserves her statue. Toy Story 3 (my review) was obviously going to win Best Animated Feature Film, but again, well deserved. I also love that Trent Reznor has an Oscar now (and for one of my favorite albums of 2010, no less!). Who would have guessed that was going to happen back in the '90s, huh?
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| Tagged (?): Animals (Not), Art (Not), Awards (Not), Batman (Not), Cartoons (Not), Celebrities (Not), Game of Thrones (Not), Links (Not), Lists (Not), Lovecraft (Not), Movies (Not), Music (Not), News (Not), Oscars (Not), Photography (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Song of Ice and Fire (Not), Superman (Not), TV (Not), Video (Not), Video games (Not), Zelda (Not) |
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| Wednesday, January 26, 2011 09:25 AM |
| (Last updated on Wednesday, January 26, 2011 10:28 AM) | | Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
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| Tagged (?): Art (Not), Cartoons (Not), Celebrities (Not), Craft (Not), Hayao Miyazaki (Not), Links (Not), Lovecraft (Not), Movies (Not), News (Not), Painting (Not), Products (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Science (Not), Star Wars (Not), Technology (Not) |
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