Category:
Literature

Veronica in Wonderland

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[Click to enlarge.]

I presume that Archie is not hallucinating here, and that Veronica's Alice-like abilities are canonical, part of the Riverdale continuity. And I look forward to her future exploits.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Mar 04, 2011 - Comments (2)
Category: Costumes and Masks, Literature, Fantasy, Comics, Teenagers

The Stuffed Owl

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I'm reading a Mark Twain book currently, Following the Equator. In it, he mentions a notoriously bad poet, Julia Moore, a name I had not thought of in ages. Moore's fabled lack of talent produced scads of bad poetry. You can read about her career here.

Google has digitized at least one of her books, which you can read here. Be prepared to encounter such excruciating verse as this sample to the right.




Moore is included in The Stuffed Owl, a volume of the world's worst poetry. Wouldn't that make a swell Xmas gift for the literary type in your life?

Posted By: Paul - Fri Nov 27, 2009 - Comments (9)
Category: Eccentrics, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Literature, Nineteenth Century

Towel Day: May 25

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For those of you who are not already aware, May 25 is Towel Day, a celebration of the life and literature of Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
If you want to see some pictures of froods in the know, they have their own group on Flickr

Posted By: fyshstyxx - Sun May 24, 2009 - Comments (2)
Category: Aliens, Armageddon and Apocalypses, Holidays, Literature, Science Fiction, Writers

Jonathan Bayliss, RIP

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The Boston Globe reports the death of one Jonathan Bayliss, an eccentric self-published writer of enormous tomes.
















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Here's a sample from one of his novels. (Click on text to enlarge.) There's plenty more here, if you want it!

Posted By: Paul - Sat Apr 25, 2009 - Comments (3)
Category: Eccentrics, Literature, Books, Writers, Obituaries

Alice Redux

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The cover from this collection of re-imagined ALICE IN WONDERLAND stories certainly seemed to me to be a WU-worthy image.


Posted By: Paul - Tue Apr 14, 2009 - Comments (8)
Category: Animals, Death, Literature, Books, Fantasy, Parody, Weapons

Latin Mottoes

You've probably been looking for a list of Latin mottoes from 16th-century sources. Well, here it is. Most of them made sense to me, but these three I couldn't quite figure out:

Simul astu et dentibus utor.
I use my cunning and my teeth simultaneously.

Scribit in marmore læsus.
The injured man writes in marble.

Quod huic deest me torquet.
What this creature lacks torments me.

This one should be the motto for the government bailout of the banks:

Ei, qui semel sua prodegerit, aliena credi non oportere.
He who has once squandered his own, ought not to be trusted with another's.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Apr 08, 2009 - Comments (3)
Category: Literature

Herrings Workers on Romance Covers

I don't think anyone will accuse Jane Liffen's article, published in a recent issue of Social Semiotics, of being overly broad in its focus. It's title is: “A very glamorized picture, that”: images of Scottish female herring workers on romance novel covers. Here's the abstract:
This article analyses portrayals of Scottish female herring workers on the covers of romance novels and investigates how far these representations conform to, or subvert, the genre of romantic fiction. Covers are analysed to establish whether they accurately portray Scottish female herring workers at their labour. If romanticisation of the women's working role is evident, the ways in which this manifests itself and the possible reasons for this romanticisation are examined. Composition of images and the mise-en-scene of covers are analysed, as well as aspects concerning the narratives of the novels, and elements of herring processing work that are noticeably absent in the depictions are also considered. These elements excluded from the covers are examined through theory relating to the abject in an attempt to ascertain whether the covers potentially provide models of female empowerment for the reader.

And here are some of the romance novel covers in question.



I'll spare you the trouble of reading the article by summarizing its findings. Gutting herrings is smelly, dirty work. This is not accurately portrayed on romance covers. (Thanks to Dave Monroe!)

Posted By: Alex - Tue Apr 07, 2009 - Comments (7)
Category: Literature, Gender

The Westermarck Effect

The Westermarck Effect is a psychological phenomena named after Finnish anthropologist Edvard Westermarck. The effect is that (according to
Wikipedia): "when two people live in close domestic proximity during the first few years in the life of either one, both are desensitized to later close sexual attraction." Which is why most people don't get the hots for their sibling.

However, if siblings don't grow up together and only meet for the first time later in life, they may be intensely sexually attracted to each other. This is known as genetic sexual attraction, or GSA. Again, from Wikipedia:

Several factors may contribute to GSA. People commonly rank faces similar to their own as more attractive, trustworthy, etc. than average... Shared interests and personality traits are commonly considered desirable in a mate... In cases of parent-child attraction, the parent may recognize traits of their sometime mate in the child. Such reunions typically produce complex emotions in all involved.

Finally, there is the phenomena known as the Westermarck Trap, which occurs when two people who have grown up together (and thus are sexually desensitized to each other) are expected to marry each other, because of an arranged marriage. According to one theory, this is what the novel Frankenstein depicts:

Students of the Westermarck effect may be interested to know that this trap is depicted in the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, in which Victor Frankenstein is expected to marry a cousin reared with him. Instead, he creates a monster that persecutes him and murders his prospective bride before the marriage can be consummated. It is suggested that the plot owes something to Mary Shelley's own experience of the Westermarck effect, following a childhood in which she was reared with a stepbrother. Her own personal solution was not to create a monster but to elope with a married man (Percy Bysshe Shelley) at the age of 16.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Mar 30, 2009 - Comments (5)
Category: Literature, Books, Sexuality, Psychology

Fishmen

Posted By: Paul - Fri Feb 27, 2009 - Comments (7)
Category: Gods, Holidays, Horror, Humor, Parody, Literature, Music, Regionalism, Video, Body Fluids

Read with Discernment

If you decide to shop for books at LifeWay Christian Stores, you may notice that some of the books are marked Read with Discernment. This label is to warn you that these books "may have espoused thoughts, ideas, or concepts that could be considered inconsistent with historical evangelical theology."

Presumably, if a book hasn't been so tagged, everything in it can be accepted blindly without discernment.

Some of the books marked Read with Discernment include Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith, Searching for God Knows What, and Sex God. They sound pretty heretical to me! (via Friendly Atheist)

Posted By: Alex - Wed Feb 04, 2009 - Comments (6)
Category: Literature, Religion

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Alex Boese
Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

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Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.

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