Dark, strange and fantastic fiction
We’ve all got to go.
But do it on your terms.
The latest episode of Sleepytime Supervillain Theatre gives you the skinny on how to deal with Ol’ Bony himself.
Would you know what to do if Death turned up with an “Everybody Pays: Gas; Grass; or Ass” bumper sticker?
Exactly!
1. In 1773, Bailey Jackson from Knuckle, Oregon, was mocked by his neighbours after climbing a tree and refusing to come down. He had been there three days when everyone in Knuckle was killed by bears.
The bears were too full to climb the tree after Bailey, having already eaten well.
2. Tax collector Kim Nguyen narrowly avoided death after dropping her iPhone while crossing a busy road in the resort town of Nha Trang.
Before she could stop to pick it up, a voice in her head reminded her it was already two years old.
She left it there to go buy a new one, avoiding the truck which would have flattened her if she had stopped to pick it up.
3. Irish farmer Ted Driscoll liked to pretend it was his cows talking when he heard voices in his head.
When one day the cows stopped making sense, he called in a vet who to confirm his suspicions.
It was an outbreak of Mad Cow Disease, and the early warning meant they were in time to confine the spread of the disease to the Driscoll farm.
4. The voice in her head told Meg Rodriguez not to open the bottle she found on the beach.
There was a note inside, and the voice told her it would contain bad news.
So she didn’t, and is still alive and happy today.
What would have happened if she had opened it?
Nobody knows, but you can’t argue with alive and happy.
5. When a voice in her head warned Texas mother Kari Olbrecht that her child was in danger at school, she dropped everything and raced to Don Townsend Elementary.
The voice had been right: the teacher was just sitting down to read a book to the class!*
6. Tom Bowles kept being woken up by a voice in the dark telling him he was buried alive every time he turned off the light off to sleep.
He soon learned to sleep with the light on.
Unless the voice was right, and he was just imagining he was asleep in his bed with the light on…
7. A trip to a local winery could have led to disaster for Martina Morrow if she hadn’t heeded the voice in her head.
It warned her that the vineyard’s owner, who also crushed the grapes with his feet as part of the “experience”, would reveal cloven hooves.
She made her excuses and left before he took his shoes off, saving herself a battle with the devil.
The last one hadn’t gone so well, and she wasn’t in the mood for a repeat.
8. Peering into the cloudy blue eyes of the newborn in her arms, Patricia Keyes knew he wasn’t her baby.
She had seen the nurse help him out of her body and hand him straight to her.
But the voice in her head insisted that her child had been swapped for this one while still in her womb.
9. Dave Weston was saved from a nasty bite when the voice in his head warned him the burger he was about to eat looked “mean.”
Using his knife and fork to examine the beef patty, he found several half-crushed, sharp-edged teeth poking out of the meat.
10. The voice in his head told Karl Weizenmüller not to eat the basil he had planted because it was already flowering.
He didn’t listen, however, and it’s always possible to smell when Karl is around, because of the
scent of basil.
A more unfortunate side-effect is that he can no longer go to Italian restaurants as seeing people eat pesto makes him cry.
*possibly this one: I Need a New Butt!
(Excerpted from my newsletter dated 26th November, 2022. Sign up for the full, up-to-date experience!)
I’m trying to keep these newsletters as short as possible while I power through NaNoWriMo, but this edition is still packed with cheese and mad hair (above), mad science in the main feature, and mad ads, dolls and music in the roundup at the end.
1. We all know that, according to chaos theory, if a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, it can cause a tornado in Texas, right?
Not quite. It turns out it was Bolsonaro chopping down the Amazon which was destroying weather around the world.
2. Time travel favourite: is it even possible to travel back in time without sleeping with your mother, and accidentally becoming your own father?
It turns out it is! Everything was better in those days, including the men.
You don’t stand a chance with your mom, snowflake!
3. Travelling to distant galaxies sounds great. Hibernating (sleeping!) until you arrive sounds brilliant. But robots still haven’t learned how to pour coffee between the lips of a sleeping human, so how are you going to wake up?
4. So how about zipping down a handy wormhole to go straight where you need to be?
You could do that, but it turns out wormholes will also send you back in time. This means you are now irresistibly attracted to your mother and therefore unable to concentrate on the important task the government selected you to do.
You pine away on a distance star and humanity goes extinct.
5. Bringing the dead back to life with a jolt of electricity?
Yes, you absolutely can do this.
The only problem is that the electricity will also fry you, meaning you’ll smell like bacon for as long as you continue to “live.”
In real life, Frankenstein’s monster would have been eaten by the villagers. Everyone loves bacon!
6. Live forever!
Sure, just listen to Aubrey de Grey on the subject.
Science fiction authors—a gloomy bunch—will try to convince you that you will get bored after the first few hundred years.
Empirical research, however, suggests this is simply not true: the 100th time you eat a bucket of KFC fried chicken is just as delicious as the first time.
Assuming, of course, that you are not eating only KFC fried chicken. If you are, even mad science cannot help you live forever.
7. Going forward in time?
Yes, but take another look at number 2 on this list.
That boy who finds you inexplicably irresistible?
Yep, that’s your son/grandson/ great grandson. Don’t do it!
8. The quantum Zeno effect says that measuring the state of a system (for example, whether a particle has a charge) frequently enough can prevent the system from changing state.
Almost! What’s actually happening here is a function of Zeno’s arrow paradox.
Let us examine this paradox by substituting a thirsty author for the arrow, and a cup of tea as the arrow’s destination.
In order for the author to get from their computer to the kettle where their tea is waiting (bag in), the author must first cross a distance equal to half the distance between the computer to the kettle.
After this, they cross the other half. So much so obvious.
But wait!
Before the author can reach the point halfway to the kettle, they must logically cross a distance equal to half the distance to the halfway point (a quarter of the way to the kettle), but first they need to cross a distance equal to half the distance of the halfway point of the first half of the (increasingly tedious) journey to the kettle, and so on.
Logically, every distance comprises two “half-distances”, and that includes each “half-distance”, so there are an infinite number of them.
Obviously, it takes a certain amount of time for the author to cross each and every distance, so it must therefore take the author an infinite amount of time to get to the kettle.
By which time the tea will have gone cold.
Bearing this in mind, it’s now obvious what is happening when quantum physicists attempt to “freeze” states through constant measurement.
All they’ve really done is foolishly lock themselves into a cycle of observing “halfway” measurement points.
The system will change… as soon as the last of the infinite measurements has been completed.
Don’t wait up!
*Quantum physicists like to call particles “systems”, and charges “states” because it sounds more impressive.
9. Nothing can go faster than the speed of light… except for light!
Think about it. Light is the fastest thing in the universe. But it still takes light from the sun a certain amount of time to reach the Earth, for example (roughly 8 minutes and 19 seconds). That’s how long it took last year and the year before that, too.
Yet the universe keeps expanding. Therefore, this year’s light must be moving faster than last year’s light.
Take that, fundamental law of physics!
10. Evil clones.
No. You use up finite resources with every breath. You burp, fart, and your armpits smell.
Plus, remember that time you said something that you knew would hurt people’s feelings?
So, if you’re now thinking “this world needs more of me!” then don’t blame the clone.
You’re the evil one.
Watch!
Jim Henson made ads in the 1950s. There’s almost 15 minutes of them collected here. I guarantee you will not want to try Wilkins Coffee after watching these! Weirdly brutal.
Read!
About the girl who adopted a terrifying creepy doll! This will make you go “aww!” and then wonder if she’s going to be okay…
Listen!
Leeds noise terrorists, Thank, have just brought out a live album! If you thought they made a shocking amount of irritating noise when they went into the studio, check out the live version here!
(Excerpted from my newsletter dated 19th November, 2022. Sign up for the full, up-to-date experience!)
I’ve written 12,817 of the 50,000 words I need to complete NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month. Actually NoWriMo for non-Americans, as the “National” refers to the US), and I’ll be going in again as soon as I finish this newsletter.
So let’s quickly answer that question you want to ask me.
“Have you any tips for me about how to not sound like a tourist when I visit Georgia. My Georgian is not as good as I’d like it to be!”
Absolutely! To sound like a Georgian, you just have to learn the word “ara” and say it as much as you can. It’s written არა, and means “no”.
Everybody says it here all the time. I have seen Georgians walk up to other Georgians on the street and start a conversations with “Ara…”
And you can find out more about other cultures in this week’s Main Feature!
Enjoy!
Read!
I finished Hydra, the second book in Matt Wesolowski’s Six Stories series. The series is about a true-crime podcast, raking up old murders and trying to get a better idea of what really happened by piecing together the stories of six of the people involved. It’s very well-written and hard to put down if you’re in the mood for a true-crime style mystery.
Read!
I also finished re-reading Dorothy L. Sayers’ Whose Body? which is 99 years old this year, and still great fun. If you don’t know it, it’s like if Bertie Wooster was pretending to be Sherlock Holmes. FREE via Project Gutenberg.
Listen!
Find of the week has to be this band with a very rude name, and weird music video. This is exactly what I like: a band playing music like nothing I’ve ever heard before, but it just sounds right.
Erm, if you want more from them, then use the links under the video. Depending on your search engine settings you might get difficult to explain search results if you just type the band name in and hit “search”
#askthemanwhofoundoutthehardway
(Excerpted from my newsletter dated 05th November, 2022. Sign up for the full, up-to-date experience!)
We’re back from a week in Georgia! The thing about Georgia is the food…or the wine… or the wine and the food. Mmmmmm.
So, inspired by a week’s gluttony, this week’s post is a killer list of things you shouldn’t eat.
As my mother always used to say: just ’cause it looks nice, doesn’t mean you should put it in your mouth!
Bon appetit!
1. The Pharyngeal Trumpet is a tall, annual flowering plant with a vivid yellow trumpet-shaped bloom and creamy white leaves. Its taste is of peppered beetroot, and the leaves are rich in both antioxidants and curcumin.
Unfortunately, they are also rich in the parasitic spores that the plant uses for reproduction.
The fine spores line its host’s throat until an opportunity presents itself—for example, when the throat dries out during sleep—to detach themselves and be inhaled into the lungs. Once there, the plant grows rapidly, expanding and crushing the host’s lungs.
2. Chipmunk spine. Long regarded as a delicacy in parts of Florida, they have since fallen out of favour, as the spine only retains its flavour (milk and earth) as long as the chipmunk is alive.
3. Dog milk. No further explanation required*.
4. Butterfly spice. Butterfly spice is nothing more than prepared and dried butterfly wings. The iridescent “spice” is tasteless and was used rather to sprinkle over dishes for its blue shimmering appearance. The link between consuming butterfly spice and a tendency to elephantiasis and incest is now well established.
5. Le concombre d’escalier. A type of cucumber native to French Polynesia. While it tastes delicious, the taste is impossible to describe afterwards until the person who wanted to know has gone away.
For this reason, it is a leading cause of fatally high blood pressure among frustrated food bloggers and chefs who continue to eat it, determined to have the perfect description ready the next time someone asks.
6. Celery. Their outward resemblance to rippled potato crisps is misleading.
7. Merscale sushi. Highly prized, these rolls consist of pure green-gold fish scale and sushi rice. These days, the fish scale is most likely to have been sourced from battery-farmed merfolk as it is no longer economic to meet the increasing demand any other way.
8. Sugar and spice and everything nice. Bad news for anyone with a sweet tooth, but you are basically eating the raw ingredients of little girls.
Expecting Roe v. Wade to be overthrown, several US states have now drafted trigger laws which will require any woman caught carrying sugar or spice on her person to continue carrying it, until such time as it is capable of looking after itself.
9. Raw fish of any kind. Scientists still don’t know where human dreams “go” after being experienced, but evidence continues to mount that fish store theirs in adipose pockets in their flesh. Cooking dissolves this fatty residue. Eating fish raw means the dream is ingested too.
A sure sign that you are consuming too much raw fish is a dream where you need to do something or go somewhere, but cannot move faster no matter how hard you try, as if wading through molasses.
This is caused by the disconnect between your subconscious mind, which accepts that the dreamer is “still” underwater, and the conscious mind, which expects the dreamer to move at its usual pace.
10. Teeth. Although mustard and curry powders are no longer made with teeth, trace elements can still be found in factories with older equipment. The teeth of anorexics were long preferred for these and other yellow spices, because of the discolouring effect of stomach acid on them.
The recent photos from Catalan of the victim of internal biting provide a graphic reminder of the effects of consuming too much ground teeth.
*On the off-chance that you do require further explanation, here’s a relevant clip from Red Dwarf.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will be bouncing along to new ska punk by Random Hand and new Deutschpunk by Joseph Boys.
Newsletter subscribers can expect to get some exclusive deep cuts about life in Kazakhstan on Saturday, I’ll see the rest of you on Thursday!
We’ve had a grim couple of years, what with Boris Johnson’s ongoing Billy Bunter impression, then Covid, followed by Putain’s bloody, bungled war.
But things aren’t all bad.
And I can prove it with this week’s Killer List: 10 kinds of accident, once common, now practically extinct!
In chronological order!
(And a special offer at the bottom of the post.)
Enjoy!
1. (11th century, England) Rioting caused by gallant knights.
The knights’ paths have crossed in the middle of the village’s main thoroughfare (there is only one thoroughfare, so it is the main one). They are now stuck, as neither will move first, as both wish to prove that they are more gallant than the other.
The village’s peasants are unconstrained by the knight’s code and after several days of this mediaeval gridlock, they are also starving and dozens die in the ensuing riot.
(The knights have snacks in their saddle-bags.)
Once the riff-raff are dead, the king commissions a statue to the “perfect knights.”
2. (late 13th century, England) Being miraculously cured of leprosy by a travelling monk then dying of peritonitis, knocking over a display of oranges as you fall, because it was your appendix and not your leprosy you required help with. (There’s a reason some of these monks are forced to travel. Always ask to see references.)
3. (14th century, Europe) Getting into a fender-bender when the cart in front of you suddenly stops to watch a barrow of mostly dead bodies be dumped into a plague pit at the side of the road.
4. (15th century, Europe) Being crushed to death by a maddened horse fleeing the foul odour of its rider. The rider believes that a good stench keeps the demons of ill-health away, and the horse can no longer bear the thought of having the filthy, stinking man sitting on its back.
5. (16th century, England) Being brained by a loaded bedpan on a frosty morning as it slips out of the emptier’s hand onto your head as you pass underneath the window they are attempting to empty it from.
6. (16th century, France) Being burnt alive as you attempt to walk home from the pub. The court jester was trying out some edgy political stuff for his routine for which the king set him on fire. The fire quickly spread, destroying the entire village.
7. (Early 17th century, Germany) Sudden death caused by spontaneous lynching when you are overheard on a street corner musing whether to “poppe over to gette some Milke”, having forgotten that it is a Sunday. Only witches buy milk on a Sunday.
Milk from the Devil’s bottom, probably.
8. (17th century, America) Whistling and then being stoned to death for having “lippes possess’d bye Thee Deville”.
9. (18th century, Europe) A massive traffic pile-up caused by a gust of wind which blows the white face powder worn by fashionable lords and ladies across the street, blinding everyone.
10. (late 19th century, America) Your train being derailed because a moustache-twirling scoundrel has tied a lady to the tracks to convince her she should marry him.
(The thinking behind this type of situation still exists, but everyone has beards these days*. They are harder to twirl.)
Paul Tremblay’s Disappearance at Devil’s Rock is available for $1.99 for a limited time only, so grab it quickly!
I’ve included the link to HarperCollins, you can navigate to your preferred ebook store from the links down the right-hand side of the page there.
(I went to Kobo and grabbed Jonathan Sims Thirteen Storeys for $2.99 and Ryan Leslie’s The Between for $0.99 while I was there.)
*Everyone has beards?
That’s right.
We’re pretty sure that’s not true.
I said “everyone” and I meant everyone. You have beards.
That’s true. A repellent sound like young chickens being softly plucked can be heard as thickly curled beards are fingered covetously. But you don’t—
Look! A single-origin Latte Crappacini!
Where? Where?
