tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66241018079494957882024-02-06T22:23:11.630-08:00M.Christian's Meine Kleine FabrikM.Christian's Non-Fiction ... and Other Fun Stuff Blogmchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.comBlogger1936125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-56982742895704229272015-12-09T12:26:00.000-08:002015-12-09T12:26:05.244-08:00My Intro To TERRORS: REEL MONSTERS!Here's a fun little treat: the introduction to my book <b><i><a href="http://amzn.com/B010CCE664" target="_blank">Terrors: Reel Monsters - The Original Short Stories That Became 8 Classic Horror Films</a></i></b>. Enjoy!<div>
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<br />I like monster movies. ...No, wait, that's not completely true. I love monster movies. <br /><br />Aside from sweet memories of laying on the carpeted floor, a sanctuary of Creature Features and Saturday Afternoon Marathons from the dreaded hours of elementary school, these films have always spoken to me: the carefully constructed stories dovetailing with direction, nuances of acting, the beauty of a perfect screenplay...or even the ones with cruddy plots, sloppy cinematography, laughable performances, or horrible dialogue... there's always something, somewhere in both the best and the worst, that I've enjoyed. <br /><br />Suffice it to say, I'm not a snob. Sure, I admire directors like Wim Wenders, Cronenberg, Kurosawa, Mamuro Oshii, and Frankenheimer, but I have a particular fondness for movies made in a hurry with a zero-dollar budget—yet still managing to create something truly memorable. <br /><br />This book is a kind of celebration of those bootstrap classics of horror and science fiction: Stuart Gordon's playful gorefest, Re-Animator; Browning's shuddering nightmare, Freaks; Robert Florey's atmospheric The Beast with Five Fingers; even the playfully ridiculous Invasion of the Saucer Men; Robert Wise's steadily creepy The Body Snatcher; The Twilight Zone's “It's A Good Life,” and so many others. Take it from a true fan: get some popcorn, a soda, and settle in for a fantastic afternoon of amazingly creepy cinema—or at least the stories that inspired some of its biggest classics. <br /><br />And if there's one thing I actually like more than the movies, it’s the stories behind the movies. <br /><br />It's a sad fact that while a lot of people—who aren't cinema junkies—don’t know that the movies they know and love had their origins in some equally (if not more) incredible works of fiction. They don't realize that behind so many of their favorite—or just guilty—pleasures on film or TV, there isn't just a director and producer, actors and the crew, but an author whose novel or story was the true creative force behind it all. <br /><br />Re-Animator? It came from the one and only H.P. Lovecraft's story of the same name. “One of us...one of us,” (of course I'm talking about Freaks) was taken from “Spurs” by Tod Robbins. The Beast with Five Fingers came from the same-titled story by W. F. Harvey. Invasion of the Saucer Men started as “The Cosmic Frame” by Paul Fairman. “Wish him into the cornfield,” (from, naturally, “It's a Good Life“) was originally from the famous Jerome Bixby story of the same name. Black Sabbath was from “The Curse of the Vourdalak” by Alexis Tolstoy; The Monkey's Paw came from a story by W. W. Jacobs, and The Body Snatcher came from Robert Louis Stevenson. <br /><br />There are, of course, other authors whose work has been adapted into horror movies—but the stories in this anthology were picked because the ideas and stories behind these playful cinematic treats have nearly disappeared into obscurity. Lots of people, for instance, know the origins of Soylent Green (Make Room, Make Room by Harry Harrison or 2001: A Space Odyssey (The Sentinel by Arthur C. Clarke); Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick), but very few know the origins of the films listed on our Table of Contents...even if their authors are extremely well known. Aleksey Tolstoy, Robert Louis Stevenson, Lovecraft anyone? <br /><br />Fame aside, these writers deserve some recognition not just for the works that have been turned into silver screen horror classics, but for all the other great novels and short stories they created. Consider this, then, not just a celebration of the stories herein, but a gateway to the wider world of these authors’ literary creations. <br /><br />Take Jerome Bixby (1923–1998) to start. It's truly tragic that far too few people know of Bixby's work and wide-ranging contributions to science fiction. Putting aside some of his more famous short stories—like “It's a Wonderful Life,” featured here—he also wrote the story that became the 1970's SF classic Fantastic Voyage as well as the screenplays for some of the most well-received, and fan-favorite, Star Trek episodes: “By Any Other Name,” “Day of the Dove,” “Requiem for Methuselah” and “Mirror, Mirror.” By the way, Digital Parchment Services recently released the definitive Jerome Bixby collection, Mirror Mirror: Classic SF by the Famed Star Trek and Fantastic Voyage Writer. <br /><br />Paul W. Fairman (1916–1977) is similarly a tremendously respected author and editor of 14 novels and some dozens of short stories. Fairman wrote under quite a few pseudonyms, establishing himself as a well-respected author of both science fiction and detective tales. Like Bixby, he also saw his work being adapted many times for both the big and the small screens: “People are Alike All Over” (Twilight Zone) came from his story “Brothers Beyond the Void” and—of course—his tale “The Cosmic Frame” became Invasion of the Saucer Men (and later, painfully, remade as The Eye Creatures). <br /><br />Tod Robbins (1888–1949) is the author of seven novels, including The Unholy Three, The Master of Murders, Close Their Eyes Tenderly and the sadly unreleased To Hell and Home Again. Robbins is viewed by many as a master of the truly strange tale. After remaining in France during the Second World War he served time in a concentration camp—passing away a few years after the war had ended. <br /><br />William Fryer Harvey (W.F. Harvey, 1885–1937) was another brilliant short story author, penning The Beast with Five Fingers as well as 15 separate volumes' worth of other work. In the First World War, Harvey was awarded the Albert Medal for Lifesaving, though the injuries he sustained during the rescue affected him for the rest of his life. <br /><br />William Wymark Jacobs (W. W. Jacobs, 1863–1943) is one of those authors whose work has become a true landmark. “The Monkey's Paw” (which has been adapted numerous times) first appeared in his collection, The Lady of the Barge (1902). Jacobs was also the author of many other very well received short stories, though most of them were much less...terrifying, and in a much lighter and more humorous tone. <br /><br />Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy (1817–1875), aside from being Leo Tolstoy's second cousin, is a literary genius in his own right, having written the classics The Death of Ivan the Terrible, Don Juan, Tsar Boris, and—of course—“The Curse of the Vourdalak” (which first appeared in 1839). <br /><br />As for H.P. Lovecraft and Robert Louis Stevenson ... come on, who doesn’t know about them? But then this is, after all, a book celebrating the stories that became films, so maybe a little introduction is due, for those who were totally napping during English Lit. <br /><br />H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) is still, years after his passing, the master of unnamable dread and madness. Hell, even the word “Lovecraftian” has entered our vocabulary. His books and stories—many featuring his nightmarish cosmic entities such as Cthulhu—have been turned into to film, TV shows, video games, and even plush toys. His tale, “Herbert West—Reanimator,” first appeared in Weird Tales in 1922. The film adaption, directed by Stuart Gordon (1985), and starring the delightful Jeffrey Combs, has become a modern horror classic. <br /><br />Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) is, of course, is a pure and absolute legend. The author of classics such as Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Treasure Island (both staples of film and stage adaption), Kidnapped, and The Wrong Box—and many others. Stevenson had the fortune of being a celebrity author during his lifetime and, according to the Index Translationum (UNESCO's authority of book translations), is the 26th most translated author in the world. <br /><br />There they are—at least in capsule form. But I hope these brief biographical sketches serve as an introduction to a group of authors whose terrifying work was transformed into amazing pieces of film and television history. <br /><br />So, absolutely, make some popcorn—and be sure and put lots of butter and salt on it—get some soda, make up a pillow fort, and settle in to read the stories behind the great monster movies. Notice which parts of the original story were kept, which weren’t, what worked better on the printed page and what was more fun on the big or small screen. <br /><br />And the next time you watch a horror flick, remember that behind those reel monsters there may very well lurk even more terrifying creatures: the original beasts, ghouls and eldritch beings from the stories at the heart of each film. <br /><br />—M.Christianmchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-82295801797913391092015-10-12T14:43:00.003-07:002015-10-12T14:43:59.546-07:00A DARK DOINGS AT MISKATONIC U Special: Made In DNA<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Continuing the celebration of the release of <b><i><a href="http://amzn.com/B010ODM61I" target="_blank">Dark Doings at Miskatonic U</a></i></b> (that I had the extreme honor of editing) here's a quickie interview with the author of one of the new Miskatonic tales in the book - the wonderful <a href="http://amzn.to/madeindna" target="_blank">Made In DNA:</a></div>
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<b>Q: What's your favorite part of the Lovecraft mythos</b><br /><br />The creeping darkness the work introduces into your soul. There isn't any particular "monster" in the series I really dig as they all create this overwhelming sense of foreboding. It's the whole package.<br /><br /><b>Q: What do you think is the lasting "allure" of Lovecraft's work?</b><br /><br />Though steeped in monster culture, the work never stops playing with your mind. It's the moonlit shadows and the inexplicable noises that lurk around the other side of a door or turn of a hallway.<br /><b><br />Q: What's the scariest thing, for you, in Lovecraft's work?</b><br /><br />The monsters.<br /><br /><b>Q: What's your area of study at Miskatonic University?</b><br /><br />Sex Magicks.mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-36278442572245835682015-09-14T09:46:00.003-07:002015-09-14T09:51:52.861-07:00A DARK DOINGS AT MISKATONIC U Special: Jason Rubis<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
As part of a celebration of the release of <b><i><a href="http://amzn.com/B010ODM61I" target="_blank">Dark Doings at Miskatonic U</a></i></b> (that I had the extreme honor of editing) here's a quickie interview with the author of one of the new Miskatonic tales in the book - the fabulous <a href="http://jason-rubis.livejournal.com/">Jason Rubis</a>:</div>
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<b>Q: What's your favorite part of the Lovecraft mythos</b><br />
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The monsters! No writer ever created such memorably "indescribable" abominations! The nightgaunts, the shoggoths, Great Cthulhu himself ... they all feel as real as sharks or tigers, and twice as menacing!<br />
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<b>Q: What do you think is the lasting "allure" of Lovecraft's work?</b><br />
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The man was simply a great storyteller. You can talk about existentialism and the insignificance of man against the unfeeling cosmos and such, but Lovecraft's fiction has that strange note of conviction you see in all great fantasists (and not a few other genres as well). When you start reading a really great HPL story like "Whisperer in Darkness" (one of my personal favorites), there's that oddly comforting feeling, of sitting down to hear a story, told by someone who knows what they're talking about. You imagine this someone--a very tall, gaunt someone from Rhode Island, let's say--sitting down with you, looking you in the eye and saying: "Listen ... there were these terrible floods in Vermont, way in the back country, and they found some bodies in the river afterward ... very *strange* bodies..." That may not be what initially brings people to Lovecraft, but it's the reason they keep reading him and remember him as one of the greats. <br />
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<b>Q: What's the scariest thing, for you, in Lovecraft's work?</b><br />
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The way his stories--the later stories, in particular--are told as a series of hints and allusions, through invented bits of lore, newspaper clippings, journal entries, etc. You only see what's happening very obliquely, but there's a sense of some awful truth slowly coming into focus. And then suddenly--WHAM! It all comes together. Even today, after having read and re-read the stories many times, it works for me.<br />
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<b> Q: Tell us a bit about how you came to write your story for DARK DOINGS AT MISKATONIC U?</b><br />
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Like the hero of "Signed First Edition," I spent way too many hours of my freshman year digging through the stacks at my university library. I found one very odd book full of very graphic pictures of people being tortured by people in skull masks and like that. Today my guess is that it was about Grand Guignol or European exploitation films, but the text was in French, so I had no idea at the time what the hell this thing was about, which made it even more disturbing. I carried that book around in my head for a long time, and when the opportunity came to submit to DARK DOINGS I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.<br />
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<b> Q: What's your area of study at Miskatonic University?</b><br />
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I'm currently "virtually auditing" several classes in cryptoarchaeology at the Misk. I do hold a master's in Unspeakable Blasphemies from the Eldritch Studies department, but it's not on my resume. ;)mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-35821054217260043422015-07-22T18:43:00.002-07:002015-08-31T11:39:53.350-07:00Out Now: Reel Monsters: Eight World Famous Stories That Inspired Legendary Horror FilmsThis is a blast! Check out this brand new book:<b style="font-style: italic;"> </b><a href="http://amzn.com/B010CCE664" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Reel Monsters: Eight World Famous Stories That Inspired Legendary Horror Films</a>.<br />
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Featuring fantastic stories that became some truly amazing films ... a fun read for film buffs as well as fans of classic horror tales!<br />
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<i>Eight world famous stories that inspired legendary horror films. With filmographies and new Introduction!<br /><br />Includes: the original stories for Freaks (Spurs), It's A Good Life, The Beast With Five Fingers, Invasion Of The Saucer Men (The Cosmic Frame), The Body Snatchers, The Monkey's Paw, and more.</i>mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-15538038508167693452015-07-14T16:40:00.000-07:002015-07-14T16:44:35.291-07:00Out Now: Dark Doings at Miskatonic U!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Here's a <i>real</i> treat! We all love HP Lovecraft stories ... well, <a href="http://amzn.com/B010ODM61I" target="_blank">here's a book (edited by Jean Marie Stine and myself) featuring all of his special Miskatonic University stories plus brand new, never-before-seen works by some kick-ass writers</a> also starring Lovecraft's famed (or infamous) college. <br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://amzn.com/B010ODM61I" target="_blank"><i>Dark Doings at Miskatonic U!</i></a></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">12 Chilling New and Classic Tales of that Haunted University's Ill-fated Students and Faculty</span></b></div>
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<i>Just check out this nightmarish table of contents:</i><br />
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PART I: THE GOLDEN AGE – The Early 20TH Century<br />
HERBERT WEST: REANIMATOR<br />
H. P. Lovecraft<br />
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THE DUNWICH HORROR<br />
H. P. Lovecraft<br />
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THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS<br />
H. P. Lovecraft<br />
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THE DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE<br />
H. P. Lovecraft<br />
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AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS<br />
SHADOW OUT OF TIME<br />
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PART II: NEW HORRORS – The Early 21ST Century<br />
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RED SKY AT MORNING<br />
Made in DNA<br />
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SO, WE NEVER LEAVE<br />
Ralph Greco<br />
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SHALLOW FATHOMS<br />
M. Christian<br />
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TOUCH<br />
Lukas Scott<br />
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ELSAUS APP<br />
Patrick Whitehurst<br />
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SIGNED FIRST EDITION<br />
Jason Rubis</div>
mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-41041409032579946662015-07-02T10:19:00.000-07:002015-07-02T10:19:03.722-07:00Medieval Suits of Armor - Dark Roasted Blend And Me<div class="tr_bq">
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Very cool: the great Avi Abrams of <a href="http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2015/06/medieval-suits-of-armor.html" target="_blank">Dark Roasted Blend just reposted one of my favorite pieces</a> ... and be sure to check out my collection of fun history, weird art, and more: <b><i><a href="http://amzn.com/B007TXXMC4" target="_blank">Welcome To Weirdsville!</a></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">Metal Body Suits vs. Weapons of Medieval Destruction</span></i></b></div>
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Back in the good old days -- which everyone pretty much agrees were pretty damned rotten -- what you wore was a matter of life and death: simple rotting cloth was common, leather was rare, but for the gentleman of standing, it was armor or nothing.</blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtlQ58QcjXbquIDnjK0B6hVpRaBk3gaMH-aDbrxMfltZqE06q-k05VNlnBL4mC9wvjiiFreWXMvlGA3-KFrWnx7X5Iwt1wjyckswufs6B4rn9R7bVyiEvH6X0j9llwwHSlGda_OaYoS35S/s1600/ethrwethewdgr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtlQ58QcjXbquIDnjK0B6hVpRaBk3gaMH-aDbrxMfltZqE06q-k05VNlnBL4mC9wvjiiFreWXMvlGA3-KFrWnx7X5Iwt1wjyckswufs6B4rn9R7bVyiEvH6X0j9llwwHSlGda_OaYoS35S/s320/ethrwethewdgr.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The first appearance of armor is a matter of much debate. Some say forged metal is key, in which case the toga-wearing crowd would be the first. Others insist that even wood worn as protection could count, in which case you'd have to go as far back as the sticks and stones brigade. But most everyone agrees that back in those rotten times, when men were knights and women were damsels in distress, armor was at its height. </blockquote>
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[<a href="http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2015/06/medieval-suits-of-armor.html" target="_blank">MORE</a>]</blockquote>
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mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-35820074735582083812015-07-01T12:13:00.000-07:002015-07-01T12:13:05.485-07:00Read The Story That Inspired The Horror Classic FREAKS - In Reel Monsters, Out Now!<div style="text-align: center;">
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Freaks is a film that still gives goosebumps - and here's an opportunity to read the incredible story that inspired it ... it's in the book that the great folks at PageTurner Editions/Renaissance E Books just released (and edited by myself):<br />
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<b><i><a href="http://amzn.com/B010CCE664">Reel Monsters: Eight World Famous Stories That Inspired Legendary Horror Films</a></i></b> features fantastic stories that became some truly amazing films ... a fun read for film buffs as well as fans of classic horror tales!<br />
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<a href="http://amzn.com/B010CCE664"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLSATzVfnMjSGrx9MQpPIdfRpbgi5vdo84ii4WoCmyWcjtGiVLqXtnpatoSL8Mmvcp0mUsxr10Gyuq7Bxu6WoqGOD9cEVLYtCh-gbGrm82Smk_10Z0xuRtlYZee5PscKUj6n497MXbftKb/s640/Monsters.jpeg" width="424" /></a></div>
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<i>Eight world famous stories that inspired legendary horror films. With filmographies and new Introduction!<br /><br />Includes: the original stories for Freaks (Spurs), It's A Good Life, The Beast With Five Fingers, Invasion Of The Saucer Men (The Cosmic Frame), The Body Snatchers, The Monkey's Paw, and more.</i>mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-10437765987757162932015-06-17T10:26:00.002-07:002015-06-17T10:26:49.518-07:00Welcome To Weirdsville Celebration<i>As part of my wonderful <a href="http://amzn.com/B007TXXMC4" target="_blank"><b>Welcome To Weirdsville</b></a> sale, here's a fan-favorite piece from the book. <b>Enjoy!</b></i><br />
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So far you lucky readers -- if that’s really what you are -- have been treated to lost nuclear hardware, misplaced biological weapons, an18th century spiritualist and his clockwork ‘God,’ and recently, creatures great and small (mostly small) that can kill you faster than you can read this sentence -- even if you’re a slow reader.<br />
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But there’s an even more terrifying, creepy, freaky, disturbing subject we haven’t talked about yet: one that can make even the heartiest, stone-stomached of you clutch your tail-wagging doggies and purring kitties while rocking back and forth mumbling “nature is good, nature is good, nature is good …”<br />
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As you’ll soon read, however, even your loving pets can save you from the nightmare that is, more than likely, with you already.<br />
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Or, to be precise, living inside you already: parasites.<br />
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YouTube has far too many clips of botflies, tapeworms, or pinworms in all their disgusting glory: squirming and writhing from puss-glistening holes in their victims, squirming in the bellies of those unfortunate enough to have become part of their life cycle. But that’s not the worst.<br />
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We like to think we’re the masters of our destiny, that “I think I shall do (fill in the blank)” comes only from our minds and wills. But in some cases that’s just not true -- or, perhaps, that’s what the creature living inside me is telling me to say.<br />
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Welcome to the wonderful world of not just parasites, but parasites that directly influence or flat-out control their hosts.<br />
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Beginning big or at least not microscopic, the emerald cockroach wasp has a very unique, and rather frightening, method of supplying its pupal young with a meal. Like some other insects, the wasp feeds its young living prey: paralyzing the snack and then laying an egg on its still-living body. But the emerald isn’t a very big bug, unlike the monstrous tarantula wasp, so it can’t drag its prey back to its burrow. Instead, the emerald performs a type of on-the-go brain surgery, carefully stinging a roach in a few selected parts of its brain, disabling its escape reflex. The wasp then chews off the roach’s antenna, effectively blinding it. Hijacking the roach’s remaining stub of an antenna, it then leads the still-living and -- if roaches have a form of consciousness -- aware bug back to its burrow where it will be a still-living dinner for its offspring.<br />
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Yes, you may shudder. But it gets worse.<br />
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You’re just lucky you’re not a snail, especially one that happens to become part of a leucochloridium paradoxum ’s elaborate lifecycle. Beginning as eggs in bird droppings, leucochloridium enters the snail’s body and then proceeds into its digestive tract. After a bit of time there, it develops into a larva – and then things get interesting.<br />
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How, you might ask, does leucochloridium go from snails to birds? Well, we know how -- but you might not want to know the answer.<br />
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What leucochloridium does is make its way from the snail’s gut to one of its eyestalks. There it causes the stalk to become red and inflamed. But that’s not all. The parasite also distorts the snail’s light perception so that it doesn’t hide from light anymore. So, out in the broad daylight, one eyestalk brightly colored, it becomes a something very much like a grub or caterpillar -- which birds love to eat. So the whole cycle begins again.<br />
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Then there’s sacculina, a type of barnacle. It loves crabs, but not in a healthy kind of way. What sacculina does, while in the barnacle’s larval phase, is find a nice, juicy crab and land on it. Then it walks around the unlucky crustacean until it finds an unarmored joint, and injects itself into the crab’s tasty meat. But sacculina doesn’t eat the crab. Oh, no – it’s not as simple as that. After a time in the crab’s body, the barnacle reproduces and reproduces and reproduces some more until it emerges as something a lot like a female’s egg sac.<br />
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That’s important, because it’s not just the female crab this happens to. If you should happen to be a male crab then transvestitism is in your future. Sacculina messes with the hormones in the male crab, making it basically a female -- especially appealing to other male crabs. It even goes as far as adjust the male’s behavior so it actually begins to act like a female crab, all to attract a male crab that may or may not have other sacculina parasites to fertilize and keep the cycle going. Once sacculina has you, if you’re a crab that is, then you belong to it. Sterilized, you become nothing but a mother to its eggs. Until you die.<br />
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We’re not finished yet -- far from it. Just be lucky you’re not a grasshopper or a cricket. Spinochordodes tellinii (the hairworm) larva finds its way into an unlucky hoppity by being eaten. Once in the bug it grows -- but don’t think the worm just gets bigger. It gets so big that when the adult worm comes out of the cricket it can be four times longer than the bug. It’s how it comes out that’s going to give you the shivers. When it simply has had enough of the bug, having pretty much eaten all of it from the inside, the worm takes possession of the insect’s brain, causing it to single-mindedly hunt out water. When it does, the bug jumps in -- and that’s when the worm erupts out of the host and swims away.<br />
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Okay, so it’s not fun to be a snail, or a crab, or a cricket. But what about poor homo sapiens? Please don’t tell me you think we don’t have our own, completely unwelcome passengers. I’ve already mentioned botflies, pinworms and tapeworms. But they are just freeloaders. They aren’t driving the bus that is us like these other manipulative parasites do.<br />
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Hold that puppy close, cuddle that kitten -- but maybe not that close. Ever heard of toxoplasma gondii? No? Well you might have but it’s certainly heard of you. In fact I’ll bet dollars to donuts that it’s paying a lot of attention to these words right now. Feel like doing something else? Anything else but reading this?<br />
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Maybe that isn’t you. Maybe it’s toxoplasma gondii.<br />
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I love kitties. But after reading about toxoplasma gondii I think I’m going to become a dog person. Primarily a cat parasite, gondii’s a protozoa that enters the feline system when the animal eats an infected animal. Once in the system, the protozoa can then reproduce asexually, making life pretty damned easy for itself.<br />
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But not for its hosts. Although the protozoa is mostly a cat fancier, it also can infect rats and mice. When it does, it does something rather creepy: it directly screws with the infected animal’s brain, taking out Mickey’s fear of cats. Think about that for a second: not open spaces, not water, not something big and general. Gondii only takes out a mouse’s fear of cats -- making sure it’ll get eaten by one, its host of preference.<br />
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Like I said, I really like kitties. But is that really ‘me’ who likes cats? Rats and mice and other warm-blooded creatures can carry gondii. You and I and every other homo sapien are also warm-blooded. I think you see where this is going.<br />
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Here’s a number for you: 25%. That’s a rather benign amount until you think of 25% of humans. Especially when I add that it’s been theorized that 25% of human beings may be infected by gondii – a parasite that affects the behavior of its hosts.<br />
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Some researchers have suggested that men who have gondii in their systems have lower IQs, are more prone to ‘novelty seek,’ and more masculine. Weirdly, infected women come out with higher IQs.<br />
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Then there’s reproduction. Not only do some think gondii changes what we are personality-wise, but its also been suggested that women who are infected have a tendency to give birth to more sons -- and males are more likely to spread the infection.<br />
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We’ve lost nuclear weapons, contaminated whole islands with biological devices, created mechanical Gods, and have been killed by very small critters with very nasty venoms. But when you think about parasites, especially certain kinds of parasites, the question then becomes:<br />
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Who are ‘we’? And who are you?mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-26321289468384027462015-06-10T09:34:00.003-07:002015-06-10T09:34:40.270-07:00M.Christian Reads His Science Fiction Story "Some Assembly Required" from LOVE WITHOUT GUN CONTROL(from <a href="http://mchristian-technorotica.blogspot.com/2012/12/mchristian-reads-his-science-fiction.html">M.Christian's Technorotica</a>)<br />
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It might be a tad rough around-the-edges but here's my first - and rather fun, if I do say so myself, reading "Some Assembly Required" from my collection of science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories <b><i><a href="http://amzn.com/B002LEI6RM">Love Without Gun Control</a></i></b> (out in ebook and a special paper edition) from the great Renaissance E Books/PageTurner Editions:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/00TdX7iGxVQ" width="560"></iframe>mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-83254068389797875172015-04-09T11:06:00.002-07:002015-04-09T11:06:55.472-07:00Amazingly Enough: Lost And Found – The Town That Doesn’t Exist<span style="font-family: inherit;">Check it out: a brand new <a href="http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2015/04/amazingly-enough-lost-found-town-doesnt-exist/" target="_blank">Amazingly Enough: Lost And Found</a> column just went live at <a href="http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2015/04/amazingly-enough-lost-found-town-doesnt-exist/" target="_blank">Amazing Stories</a> ... about a town that may, nor may not, exist!</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iF2frKDtPBI/VSa_m_vbwgI/AAAAAAAAOJE/eoBZ6Yt5LjM/s1600/Silhouette-question-mark.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iF2frKDtPBI/VSa_m_vbwgI/AAAAAAAAOJE/eoBZ6Yt5LjM/s1600/Silhouette-question-mark.jpeg" height="200" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i><b>Amazingly Enough: </b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i><b>Lost And Found – The Town That Doesn’t Exist</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Our battle against the forces of the Illuminati must never cease! Their hands … er, ‘claws’ are everywhere: politics, entertainment, science, soft drinks, there’s nothing they won’t corrupt for their own nefarious ends.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For example, one of their branches – a despicable agency revealed, at no doubt great personal cost to those seeking to expose the TRUTH, as T.H.E.M. – was fairly recently been exposed as having perpetrated a nightmarish deception that has shaken the very fabric of humanity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Especially for those in Germany.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Thankfully, this horrible illusion <span style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">has</span> been revealed, the shadowy curtain pulled aside, and we now have a glimpse at the true horror that T.H.E.M. has commit to.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The daring of those who have made this brave discovery is only eclipsed by their genius: beginning with a post made to the German newsgroup de.talk.bizarre on May 16, 1994, the covert forces for TRUTH began to assemble the pieces that would prove the scope of this hideous deception.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">What makes the discovery of this deception so ingenuous is the simplicity of the tools used to expose it. Achim Held, one of the key investigators, began by merely asking a few basic questions about the so-called city of Bielefeld:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">1. Do you know anybody from Bielefeld?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">2. Have you ever been to Bielefeld?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">3. Do you know anybody who has ever been to Bielefeld?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">With a shuddering revelation, these intrepid battlers against the forces of darkness came to the conclusion that the answers to these three straightforward queries were <span style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">no</span>: not a single person they knew was from Bielefeld, no one had ever been to Bielefeld, and – the most chilling revelation of all – that they also weren’t aware of anyone, ever, who had been to this supposed town!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Word of their discovery spread like wildfire: soon the nascent internet was lit up with the exposure of this dark secret. Oh, sure, the authorities attempted to keep the deception intact but their motivation was transparent; no matter what ‘expert’ on, or ‘resident’ of, Bielefeld they trotted out they were obviously either agents of the Illuminati themselves or in their employ.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Even more damning is the fact that there is a common German phrase, the root of which points another damming finger at the illusion that is Bielefeld: <span style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Am Arsch der Welt in Bielefeld</span> means, basically, “at the end of the world in Bielefeld” evidence that there was – almost unconsciously – a feeling for quite a long time that the town of Bielefeld was nothing but an illusion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Still further verification of the Bielefeld deception came from one of the illuminati’s own political puppets! Though there was a massive campaign to dismiss this revealing slip as a ‘joke’ it is damming proof of this massive ruse. In November, 2012, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel claimed that she had actually visited the place but then added, with a sinister and chilling laugh, “…if it exists at all.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Finally, out of pure – and completely transparent – desperation, these forces of fiendish manipulation resorted to what they, no doubt, thought of as a clever means of reinforce the illusion of ‘Bielefeld’.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But, thankfully for free minds everywhere, this attempt was thwarted by two clear indicators of illuminati’s arrogance: the first was in their assumption that the medium of their message was one that would carry weight – when it was one that had long ago been exposed as a final resort of the desperate and the deceptive: the press release.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In 1999, this document was released – supposedly by the ‘City Council’ of the ‘town’ of ‘Bielefeld’ – to many of the conspiracy’s ‘official’ ‘channels’. Headlined <span style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Bielefeld gibt es doch! </span>this pathetic attempt to bolster the myth of the town that doesn’t exist was received – naturally – as ‘truth’ by the puppets of the Illuminati while “Bielefeld <span style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">does</span> exist” was viewed by dedicated opponents of these cruel reptilian would-be overlords as further evidence of their desperation in preserving this facet of their mind-controlling operations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But the second flaw in this attempt by the Illuminati to defeat the forces of truth and liberty was one that brought much needed mirth as well as uplifting satisfaction at the failure of these nightmarish manipulators.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For, in their false superiority, they had revealed themselves not just in the medium their message was delivered in but the very date it was transmitted: April 1st!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">While the deception that is Bielefeld has become pretty much common knowledge, seen by the forces of freedom and decency as overwhelming evidence not just of the illuminati’s existence but – far better for those fighting for the liberation of humanity – that they can actually be exposed and brought to light, there persists an almost cruel humor around the illusion of Bielefeld: a mocking final act by these lurkers in the shadows.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Just last year, on the supposed 800th anniversary of the Town That Doesn’t Exist, the Illuminati made one final cruel attempt to ridicule those who had risked so much to bring out of the shadows the actions of this vile conspiracy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Via all of their insidiously corrupt means of media manipulation, these despicable reptilian would-be overlords scorned the never-ending fight to preserve the precious freedom of thought and action by claiming the mythical town of Bielefeld’s anniversary celebration’s motto was <span style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Das gibt’s doch gar nicht.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Or, translated it into English:<span style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>“This does not actually exist!”</span></div>
mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-75090935261659850162015-01-21T13:31:00.001-08:002015-01-21T13:31:56.407-08:00Amazingly Enough: Lost And Found – Glub, Glub, Glub…Cool! Check out this brand new installment of my on-going series for <b><i>Amazing Stories</i></b> - <a href="http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2015/01/amazingly-enough-lost-found-glub-glub-glub/">this time on the tragic submergence of Mologa:</a><div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">The tale of Mologa is singularly odd … as well as tragic … even in the always odd and periodically tragic domain of</span><span style="line-height: 19px;"> </span><em style="border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">the lost.</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Things, as you are more than aware – especially if you’ve been following this little series – go missing. Paintings, books, films, people … just a little bit of research brings up a remarkable catalog of lost treasures. Some, like the legendary Amber Room, make a twisted kind of sense in their absence: an entire room covered in priceless amber and gold? Surprised it didn’t vanish long before World War 2.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Meanwhile those three novels by Philip K. Dick, <em style="border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">King Kong Appears In Edo</em> … and too many others like them … probably just got misplaced somewhere. While things, like Lake Peigneur in Louisiana, may have vanished but then reappeared totally transformed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then there’s Mologa. What makes this Russian city odd even among all these oddities is that it still exists: we know exactly where it is … in fact you can even visit it … but that doesn’t mean it’s actually <em style="border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">there</em>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But first, a bit of background: founded sometime in the 12th century in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, after a few hundred years – and a history as twisted and convoluted as only a Russian city can have – Mologa, eventually became a key destination on the all-important Asian trade routes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Even after the – and here’s an understatement – “Time of Troubles” (1598 to 1613) Mologa kept it’s trade importance and, by the 19th century, it had graduated to a valuable link between the Baltic and the Volga River.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then came Stalin. Uncle Joe had big plans for that region – including the creation of what would become the massive Rybinsk reservoir. How massive? Well, at the time of its creation in 1935 – with it being finally completed filling in 1947 – the Rybinsk reservoir was the largest artificial lake anywhere on Earth. <em style="border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">That big.</em></span></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2015/01/amazingly-enough-lost-found-glub-glub-glub/" target="_blank">[MORE]</a></span></span></div>
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mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-43910021536640870752014-12-03T13:21:00.002-08:002014-12-03T13:22:52.437-08:00Amazingly Enough: Lost And Found – Absence Makes The Heart…Check it out: a new kick-ass (if I say so myself) installment of my Amazing Stories column, <a href="http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2014/12/amazingly-enough-lost-found-absence-makes-heart/" target="_blank">Amazingly Enough</a>, just went live!<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2014/12/amazingly-enough-lost-found-absence-makes-heart/" target="_blank"><i>Amazingly Enough: Lost And Found – </i></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2014/12/amazingly-enough-lost-found-absence-makes-heart/" target="_blank"><i>Absence Makes The Heart…</i></a></span></div>
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LOST: Many novels, lots of paintings, quite a few films … and even a few cities…<br />
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Heartbreaking cat or dog stories get to some, others get teary when they think about passed loved ones … oh, sure, a sad lost kitten tale will get to me and there are far too many people who are no longer in my life (and are sorely missed) but what gets the waterworks really flowing is thinking about the movies, books, places, paintings, and music that are just … gone.<br />
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It’s becoming harder and harder to fathom the idea of anything really being totally missing: this is, after all, the age of the Internet and we are all far-too familiar with the maxim “the web never forgets.” But even a cursory glance at history will bring tears to the eyes of even the most cold-hearted.<br />
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For instance, you’ll never watch Lucien Hubbard’s The Mysterious Island; visit Itjtawy, an ancient Egyptian capital; or experience the legendary Amber Room…<br />
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Oh, sure, there’s still a chance that some of these treasures – and the thousands of others – might someday reappear, but for now they’ve just disappeared, vanished … gone.<br />
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Even cutting down the sob-story list of the missing to just films and a few special books – because, let’s face it, the catalog of paintings and music that can’t be found is simply staggering – leaves a pretty depressing catalog of absent features and tomes.<br />
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A few are not just absent but also damned alluring. Sure, more than few of the missing films were very small budget affairs (like some of Andy Warhol and Kenneth Anger’s) but more than a few of them were pretty lavish affairs.<br />
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And one is just plain weird. Most of you know kaiju (Japanese big monster movies, for the nerd-impaired). True aficionados of the genre gloat in knowing not just the first kaiji is the legendary Gojira but that it was made in 1954.<br />
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[<a href="http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2014/12/amazingly-enough-lost-found-absence-makes-heart/" target="_blank">MORE</a>]
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-J6aqorJ6N5Q/VFus7PZOERI/AAAAAAAANiU/G2-rtiusm3Q/s1600/balloon-edgar-allan-poe-001.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-J6aqorJ6N5Q/VFus7PZOERI/AAAAAAAANiU/G2-rtiusm3Q/s1600/balloon-edgar-allan-poe-001.jpg" /></a></div>
<br /><br />“This is unquestionably the most stupendous, the most interesting, and the most important undertaking, ever accomplished or even attempted by man…” <br /><br />The 1800’s — especially the middle to latter half — were a time when it seemed like everything either was happening or could happen any day: the photograph was coming into common use, the telegraph meant communication at the speed of light, anesthesia promised (for the first time) painless surgery, Babbage began work on his analytical engine, and the possibility of conquering the bounds of earth seemed just around the corner. <br /><br />However, according to a series of articles published by The Sun in 1944, that aforesaid conquering wasn’t a matter of years but had actually been phenomenally achieved by one Mr. Monck Mason. <br /><br />First appearing in April 13, 1844, a New York paper proclaimed – in LOUD and DRAMATIC type: ASTOUNDING NEWS! BY EXPRESS VIA NORFOLK: THE ATLANTIC CROSSED IN THREE DAYS! <br /><br />That initial article went on to announce that the machine in question was a STEERING BALLOON named VICTORIA, and that the trans-Atlantic voyage took an amazing SEVENTY-FIVE HOURS FROM LAND TO LAND. <br /><br />Okay, weird and wild claims were somewhat common back then – just take a look at the very fanciful “Great Moon Hoax” published only ten years before — but who could doubt the authenticity of such a detailed report? Each article was packed with immaculate details of how this incredible voyage was achieved. <br /><br />Take for instance, that the trip began on Saturday, April the 6th, 1844, at 11:00AM from Penstruthal, in North Wales. The participants being “Sir Everard Bringhurst; Mr. Osborne, a nephew of Lord Bentinck’s; Mr. Monck Mason and Mr. Robert Holland, the well-known aeronauts; Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, author of ‘Jack Sheppard,’ etc; and Mr. Henson, the projector of the late unsuccessful flying machine — with two seamen from Woolwich — in all, eight persons.”<br />
<br />
[<a href="http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2014/11/amazingly-enough-lost-found-triumph-mr-monck-masons-flying-machine/" target="_blank">MORE</a>]
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-S9Ea6HnS2M0/VC7IbLkmQCI/AAAAAAAANew/Op_K5Yc2HKA/s1600/Lake_Peigneur_Waterfall.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-S9Ea6HnS2M0/VC7IbLkmQCI/AAAAAAAANew/Op_K5Yc2HKA/s1600/Lake_Peigneur_Waterfall.png" /></a></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Amazingly Enough:</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Lost And Found – Down The Drain </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sunglasses, wallets, phone chargers … stuff goes missing all the
time. But misplacing a set of car keys is one thing but it’s quite
another to lose a body of water … and even stranger when it comes back,
and yet <em>doesn’t</em>.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">It’s not like vanishing lakes are rare – it actually happens more
often than you might expect. Sometimes their going bye-bye is just a
fact of life for their kind: feeding rivers or streams dry up, leading
to the same for the poor lake. In other situations the opposite is the
case: a river gets so frisky that it overwhelms and then completely
swallows one.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Then there are the bodies of water that disappear, sucked straight
down into the earth. Lake Beloye, in Russia, for example, back in 2005:
here one day, gone quite literally the next. The leading theory being
that the lake drained into a underground natural lake or cave system.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But what happened to Lake Peigneur, in Iberia Parish, Louisiana, is far from natural – but also incredibly, wonderfully, <em>bizarre</em>.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2014/10/amazingly-enough-lost-found-drain/" target="_blank">[MORE] </a></span></span>mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-1413574131940975542014-09-08T12:00:00.003-07:002014-09-08T12:00:52.903-07:00T. Lux Feininger. The House of Construction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://meinekleinefabrik.tumblr.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="http://meinekleinefabrik.tumblr.com/" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-P8zoiU8rYew/VA38wBK0t4I/AAAAAAAANb0/5s3IzKw2cx0/s1600/tumblr_nbkattDQsn1rtynt1o1_500.jpg" height="400" width="322" /></a></div>
<br />mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-49895726138291536042014-07-05T11:52:00.000-07:002014-07-05T11:52:00.710-07:00Terrance Aldon Shaw Likes Love Wthout Gun Control(<a href="http://mchristian-technorotica.blogspot.com/2014/07/terrance-aldon-shaw-likes-love-wthout.html">from M.Christian's Technorotica</a>)<br />
<br />
This is just plain wonderful: check out this kick-ass review of my sf/f/h collection, <a href="http://amzn.com/B002LEI6RM"><i><b>Love Without Gun Control</b></i></a> by the very-great Terrance Aldon Shaw <a href="http://amzn.com/B002LEI6RM">on the book's amazon page</a>.<br />
<br />
Btw, <a href="http://amzn.com/B002LEI6RM"><i><b>Love Without Gun Control </b></i></a>is currently <i><b>FREE </b></i>for a limited time!<i><b> </b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://amzn.com/B002LEI6RM"><img alt="http://amzn.com/B002LEI6RM" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TbCLK5ll8Iw/U7bvwifIwVI/AAAAAAAANNg/fXC6-ExbQQI/s1600/love-cover.jpg" height="400" width="282" /></a></div>
<br />
Is there any style or genre that M. Christian can’t (or won’t) write in?
After reading this very fine short story collection from one of today’s
most prolific professionals, I’m leaning heavily towards “no”. The ‘m’
in M. Christian seems to stand for “multi-faceted”, or possibly
“mega-multi-tasker”. The guy certainly is versatile, as well as daring,
imaginative, often funny, and seldom—if ever—unentertaining, one of
those writers who seems to be everywhere at once, though if he has, in
fact, cracked the saintly secret of bi-location, he’s not talking.<br />
<br />
Readers
get a broad sense of Christian’s incredible range in “Love Without Gun
Control”, the author’s 2009 self-compiled and –published collection of
short fiction, most of which originally appeared in genre anthologies,
now-defunct niche-specific literary magazines and long-since cached or
dead-linked websites. These fourteen stories run a dizzying—and
impressive—gamut of mood and style, each with its own carefully measured
ratio of light to shadow, buoyancy to seriousness, horror to humor, and
hope to despair.<br />
<br />
Christian has clearly learned from, and
distilled the essence of the best examples of twentieth-century American
fiction, everything from Ray Bradbury and Jack Kerouac to Cormac
McCarthy and Stephen King. He does not shy away from his influences, but
has wisely allowed them to sing through him as he delves the deep,
sometimes silly recesses of the American psyche. The title story is a
broad, campy social satire in addition to being a pitch-perfect sendup
of old Western movies and TV shows, while “Wanderlust” and “Orphans” pay
dark homage to the uniquely American mythos of “the road”—think
Steinbeck’s musings on Route 66 in “The Grapes of Wrath”, or the arid,
windswept, dread-haunted vistas of Stephen King’s “The Gunslinger” and
“The Stand”.<br />
<br />
In “Needle Taste”, Christian shows that he is no
less adept at horror of the decidedly psychological variety.
Techno-thriller melds seamlessly with High Fantasy in “The Rich Man’s
Ghost”; political satire meets The Zombie Apocalypse in “Buried with the
Dead”, while knotty existential drama and the classic Post-Apocalyptic
narrative come together in “1,000”, and “Nothing So Dangerous”, a story
of love and betrayal in a time of revolution. Perhaps my favorite
stories in this collection are the beautiful, elegiac, Bradbury-esque
“Some Assembly Required,” a narrative at once clever and poignant, and
the brilliantly breezy “Constantine in Love”:<br />
<br />
“It was called The
Love Shack, and it sold all kinds of obvious things: candy, flowers,
poetry books, jewelry, balloons, perfume, lingerie, and many other
sweet, frilly, and heart-shaped items. It stood alone, bracketed by two
vacant lots. Its busiest days were just before Valentine’s and
Christmas. It was described by many newspapers and tourist guides as “. .
. the place to go when love is on your mind.”<br />
<br />
The night was dark, the place was closed. The streets were quiet.<br />
<br />
Then
the Love Shack exploded—with a fantastic shower of fragmented
chotchkes, and flaming brick-a-brack, it went from a shop dedicated to
amore to a skyrocket of saccharine merchandise. Flaming unmentionables
drifted down to land in smoking heaps in the middle of the street, lava
flows of melted and burning chocolate crawled out for the front door,
teddy bears burned like napalm victims, and cubic zirconia mixed with
cheap window glass—both showering down the empty, smoldering hole that
used to be the store . . .”<br />
<br />
I do have a few complaints as well.
In several of these stories, I found myself wishing for a stronger
editorial hand. The text needs a good, personally-detached copyedit.
Several otherwise excellent stories (“Hush, Hush”; “1,000”; “Friday”)
are simply too long to effectively maintain the emotional impact for
which the author aims. I found them overly repetitive and rather dull,
with the narrative lines collapsing into nebulous incoherency. After
all, the “short” in short fiction should be a clue to the essence of the
form; all unnecessary baggage and ballast summarily jettisoned to
achieve an economy of language, and, with it, maximum expression.
Christian is an established and well-respected editor in his own right,
but no matter how skillful or perceptive an author may be as an editor
of other people’s work, when it comes to self-editing, even the best and
brightest have their blind spots.<br />
<br />
Still, there’s far more to
like and admire in this collection than to kvetch about or pan. Readers
will be well-rewarded for what is, in the end, a ridiculously modest
price of admission.mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-82294284737448087502014-07-01T12:59:00.003-07:002014-07-01T12:59:35.400-07:00Welcome To Weirdsville Celebration<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>As part of my wonderful <a href="http://amzn.com/B007TXXMC4" target="_blank"><b>Welcome To Weirdsville</b></a> sale, here's a fan-favorite piece from the book. <b>Enjoy!</b></i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://amzn.com/B007TXXMC4" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOWvhiu8Cjt4zKODsKg8by_HvMfQ3_BA6EtWq7Yf2PSgO3J3Aue4Py2hYFWNPrezG9K25wNvHjJw1yPO1hs0tR7yrT0NIue5a2BvP78pujQMRmUwoRZ9DF5AkctFwaD9IS8utJ8oRUb-Xo/s400/Weirdsville.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Things That Shouldn't - But Still Do - Go Boom!</b></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">There are rules about
such things ... or so we think. After all, apples don't fall up, lions don't
have feathers, and lakes don't explode. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sure enough, Macintoshes
don't fall skyward, and </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>panthera leo </i>doesn't have beautiful plumage. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But if you happened to
be living in Cameroon you'd know all too well that lakes can, and do, explode. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Take for example the
Lake Nyos in the Northwest Province of Cameroon. Part of the inactive Oku
volcano chain, it's an extremely deep, extremely high and, most importantly,
very calm, very still, lake. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But it hasn't always
been so calm or still. In 1986 something very weird happened to Lake Nyos, a
weirdness that unfortunately killed 3,500 head of livestock ... and 1,700
people. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">No jokes this time. No
clumsy 50's horror movie metaphors. What happened to the people in the three
villages near that lake isn't funny. Most of them luckily died in the sleep,
but the 4,000 others who escaped the region suffered from sores, repertory
problems and even paralysis. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">All because Lake Nyos </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>exploded. </i></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Before the why, here's
some more: what happened to the villages of Cha, Nyos, and Subum that time
isn't unique. The same thing happened to lake Monoun, also in Cameroon, in
1984. That time 37 people died, again not very pleasantly. What does sound like
a scene from some only horror flick is the story of a truck that had been
driving near the scene. Mysteriously, the truck's engine died, and then so did
the ten people who got out: suffocating within minutes of stepping down. Only
two people of the dozen survived, all because they happened to be sitting on
top of the truck. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The technical term for
what happened to Lake Nyos and Monoun is a limnic eruption. To get one you need
a few basic elements: one, a very deep volcanic lake; two, said lake has to be
over a slow source of volcanic gas; and three, it has to be very, very still. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">What happens is that
volcanic gas, mostly carbon dioxide but nasty carbon monoxide as well, super
saturates the lake. A clumsy way of thinking about it is a can of soda: shake
it up like crazy and the fluid in the can, held back by pressure, doesn't do
anything. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But pull the top, or in
the case of Nyos and Monoun, a small landslide or low magnitude earthquake, and
all that trapped gas rushes out in an immense explosion. That's bad enough, as
there are even some theories suggesting that the subsequent lake-tsunami from
the gassy blast has wiped out still more villages, but what's worse is that
those gasses trapped in the lake water are absolutely deadly. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Heavier than air, the
carbon dioxide flows down from the mountain lake, suffocating anything and
anyone in it's path – which explains how those two lucky passengers managed to
escape: they were simply above the toxic cloud. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Fortunately scientists
and engineers are working on ways to stop limnic blasts. Controlled taping of
the gasses, bubbling pipes to keep the water from becoming super saturated,
it's beginning to look like they might be able to keep what happened to the
1700 people of Nyos from happening again. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But what keeps other
scientists awake at night is that there are more than likely lots of other
lakes ready to explode, the question being ... when? </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Okay, so lakes can
explode. But fruit doesn't drop to the sky and feline African predators aren't
born with fluffy down, and frogs don't pop ... right? </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Not if you happened to
live in Germany a few years ago: for awhile there toads were doing just that.
And we're not talking a few here and there. Over 1,000 frogs were found burst
and blasted in a lake that was soon stuck with the pleasant name "the
death pool." </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Theories flew like parts
of an exploding frog: a virus? A crazy who had a thing for dynamite and toads?
A detonating mass suicide? What the hell (bang) was going (boom) on (kablam)? </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The cops checked out the
area and the local nut-houses but there wasn't anyone with that very weird and
very specific MO. Scientists check out the exploded remains but found no
suspicious viruses, parasites, or bacteria. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">They one veterinarian
came up with the most likely answer: crows. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">As anyone who has ever
watched a crow knows they do not fit the label </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>bird brain. </i>Extremely clever and
resourceful, crows are not only fast learners but they study, and learn from,
other crows. What Frank Mutschmann, one clever vet, hypothesized was that it
was happening was the meeting of smart crows and a frog's natural defenses –
plus the allure of livers. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Wanting that tasty part
of the toads, the crows had learned how to neatly extract it from their prey
with a quick stab of their very sharp bills. In response, the toads did what
they always go: puff themselves up. The problem – for the amphibians that is –
is that because they now had a hole where their livers were that defense then
became an explosive problem. Weasels might not literally go pop in that old
kid's song but that seems to be just what was happening to that lake of German
toads in 2005. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But that still doesn't
change that Pipins don't fall up, and lions don't have tails like a peacock's,
right? And what about ants? They don't explode, do they? </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But they do. Ladies and
Gentlemen allow me to present </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>camponotus saundersi. </i>Native to Malaysia, this
average looking ant has a unique structure giving it an even more unique
behavior when threatened. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Running the length of
its little body are two mandibular glands full of toxins. That's bad enough, as
any critter that decides to try a bite will get a mouthful of foul-tasting,
maybe even deadly, venom, but what sets this ant aside from others is what
happens when it gets pushed into a corner. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">By clamping down on a
special set of muscles these ants can commit violent and, yes, explosive
suicide: taking out any nearby threat with a hail of nasty poisons. It's
certainly a dramatic way to go but you can bet anything threatening it's colony
will get a shock it won't soon forget. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sure apples do not fall
up and lions don't have feathers – but what with exploding lakes, bursting
toads, and suicide-bombing ants it you might want to check that your
grandmother's homemade pie doesn't float away or that lions aren't about to
swoop down from the sky and carry you off.</span></span></div>
mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-10316663718247422562014-06-24T14:43:00.000-07:002014-06-24T14:43:00.083-07:00Lisa Lyon By Mapplethorpe<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGs7z83Lj1_7cKleXuVZWXq-t_6t256bRpmtVZJcJwYFFbkGaIbGFSENEru7DkPpCwCPL6wBhXWFF6RlWIgHZuboDQEAwrFghd1C7fRSw2pWyQrOBt4aBLtOqOhQYm0YpckCnZ2lQkASLr/s1600/tumblr_n6xa9xK8741spw6szo1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGs7z83Lj1_7cKleXuVZWXq-t_6t256bRpmtVZJcJwYFFbkGaIbGFSENEru7DkPpCwCPL6wBhXWFF6RlWIgHZuboDQEAwrFghd1C7fRSw2pWyQrOBt4aBLtOqOhQYm0YpckCnZ2lQkASLr/s1600/tumblr_n6xa9xK8741spw6szo1_500.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-44820737442234274662014-06-23T14:42:00.003-07:002014-06-23T14:42:56.215-07:00Robert Williams<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s7f2noy44o4/U6ifSE5j5nI/AAAAAAAANKk/10_fAa8IBlA/s1600/tumblr_n6vjm2aEhI1sy36u2o1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s7f2noy44o4/U6ifSE5j5nI/AAAAAAAANKk/10_fAa8IBlA/s1600/tumblr_n6vjm2aEhI1sy36u2o1_500.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-44469588186220932052014-06-16T14:56:00.000-07:002014-06-16T14:56:06.186-07:00Welcome To Weirdsville Celebration<i>As part of my wonderful <a href="http://amzn.com/B007TXXMC4" target="_blank"><b>Welcome To Weirdsville</b></a> sale, here's a fan-favorite piece from the book. <b>Enjoy!</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://amzn.com/B007TXXMC4" target="_blank"><img alt="http://amzn.com/B007TXXMC4" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-C7o14HnwKbg/UpzzNm-ht8I/AAAAAAAAMUc/Fj4k5kcDomo/s400/Weirdsville+2.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a></div>
<br />
So far you lucky readers -- if that’s really what you are -- have
been treated to lost nuclear hardware, misplaced biological weapons,
an18th century spiritualist and his clockwork ‘God,’ and recently,
creatures great and small (mostly small) that can kill you faster than
you can read this sentence -- even if you’re a slow reader. <br />
<br />
But
there’s an even more terrifying, creepy, freaky, disturbing subject we
haven’t talked about yet: one that can make even the heartiest,
stone-stomached of you clutch your tail-wagging doggies and purring
kitties while rocking back and forth mumbling “nature is good, nature is
good, nature is good …” <br />
<br />
As you’ll soon read, however,
even your loving pets can save you from the nightmare that is, more
than likely, with you already. <br />
<br />
Or, to be precise, living inside you already: parasites.<br />
<br />
YouTube
has far too many clips of botflies, tapeworms, or pinworms in all their
disgusting glory: squirming and writhing from puss-glistening holes in
their victims, squirming in the bellies of those unfortunate enough to
have become part of their life cycle. But that’s not the worst.<br />
<br />
We
like to think we’re the masters of our destiny, that “I think I shall
do (fill in the blank)” comes only from our minds and wills. But in
some cases that’s just not true -- or, perhaps, that’s what the
creature living inside me is telling me to say. <br />
<br />
Welcome to the wonderful world of not just parasites, but parasites that directly influence or flat-out control their hosts.<br />
<br />
Beginning
big or at least not microscopic, the emerald cockroach wasp has a very
unique, and rather frightening, method of supplying its pupal young with
a meal. Like some other insects, the wasp feeds its young living prey:
paralyzing the snack and then laying an egg on its still-living body.
But the emerald isn’t a very big bug, unlike the monstrous tarantula
wasp, so it can’t drag its prey back to its burrow. Instead, the
emerald performs a type of on-the-go brain surgery, carefully stinging a
roach in a few selected parts of its brain, disabling its escape
reflex. The wasp then chews off the roach’s antenna, effectively
blinding it. Hijacking the roach’s remaining stub of an antenna, it
then leads the still-living and -- if roaches have a form of
consciousness -- aware bug back to its burrow where it will be a
still-living dinner for its offspring.<br />
<br />
Yes, you may shudder. But it gets worse.<br />
<br />
You’re
just lucky you’re not a snail, especially one that happens to become
part of a leucochloridium paradoxum ’s elaborate lifecycle. Beginning
as eggs in bird droppings, leucochloridium enters the snail’s body and
then proceeds into its digestive tract. After a bit of time there, it
develops into a larva – and then things get interesting.<br />
<br />
How,
you might ask, does leucochloridium go from snails to birds? Well, we
know how -- but you might not want to know the answer.<br />
<br />
What
leucochloridium does is make its way from the snail’s gut to one of its
eyestalks. There it causes the stalk to become red and inflamed. But
that’s not all. The parasite also distorts the snail’s light perception
so that it doesn’t hide from light anymore. So, out in the broad
daylight, one eyestalk brightly colored, it becomes a something very
much like a grub or caterpillar -- which birds love to eat. So the
whole cycle begins again.<br />
<br />
Then there’s sacculina, a
type of barnacle. It loves crabs, but not in a healthy kind of way.
What sacculina does, while in the barnacle’s larval phase, is find a
nice, juicy crab and land on it. Then it walks around the unlucky
crustacean until it finds an unarmored joint, and injects itself into
the crab’s tasty meat. But sacculina doesn’t eat the crab. Oh, no –
it’s not as simple as that. After a time in the crab’s body, the
barnacle reproduces and reproduces and reproduces some more until it
emerges as something a lot like a female’s egg sac.<br />
<br />
That’s
important, because it’s not just the female crab this happens to. If
you should happen to be a male crab then transvestitism is in your
future. Sacculina messes with the hormones in the male crab, making it
basically a female -- especially appealing to other male crabs. It even
goes as far as adjust the male’s behavior so it actually begins to act
like a female crab, all to attract a male crab that may or may not have
other sacculina parasites to fertilize and keep the cycle going. Once
sacculina has you, if you’re a crab that is, then you belong to it.
Sterilized, you become nothing but a mother to its eggs. Until you die.<br />
<br />
We’re
not finished yet -- far from it. Just be lucky you’re not a
grasshopper or a cricket. Spinochordodes tellinii (the hairworm) larva
finds its way into an unlucky hoppity by being eaten. Once in the bug
it grows -- but don’t think the worm just gets bigger. It gets so big
that when the adult worm comes out of the cricket it can be four times
longer than the bug. It’s how it comes out that’s going to give you the
shivers. When it simply has had enough of the bug, having pretty much
eaten all of it from the inside, the worm takes possession of the
insect’s brain, causing it to single-mindedly hunt out water. When it
does, the bug jumps in -- and that’s when the worm erupts out of the
host and swims away.<br />
<br />
Okay, so it’s not fun to be a
snail, or a crab, or a cricket. But what about poor homo sapiens?
Please don’t tell me you think we don’t have our own, completely
unwelcome passengers. I’ve already mentioned botflies, pinworms and
tapeworms. But they are just freeloaders. They aren’t driving the bus
that is us like these other manipulative parasites do.<br />
<br />
Hold
that puppy close, cuddle that kitten -- but maybe not that close. Ever
heard of toxoplasma gondii? No? Well you might have but it’s
certainly heard of you. In fact I’ll bet dollars to donuts that it’s
paying a lot of attention to these words right now. Feel like doing
something else? Anything else but reading this?<br />
<br />
Maybe that isn’t you. Maybe it’s toxoplasma gondii. <br />
<br />
I
love kitties. But after reading about toxoplasma gondii I think I’m
going to become a dog person. Primarily a cat parasite, gondii’s a
protozoa that enters the feline system when the animal eats an infected
animal. Once in the system, the protozoa can then reproduce asexually,
making life pretty damned easy for itself.<br />
<br />
But not for
its hosts. Although the protozoa is mostly a cat fancier, it also can
infect rats and mice. When it does, it does something rather creepy: it
directly screws with the infected animal’s brain, taking out Mickey’s
fear of cats. Think about that for a second: not open spaces, not
water, not something big and general. Gondii only takes out a mouse’s
fear of cats -- making sure it’ll get eaten by one, its host of
preference.<br />
<br />
Like I said, I really like kitties. But is
that really ‘me’ who likes cats? Rats and mice and other warm-blooded
creatures can carry gondii. You and I and every other homo sapien are
also warm-blooded. I think you see where this is going.<br />
<br />
Here’s
a number for you: 25%. That’s a rather benign amount until you think
of 25% of humans. Especially when I add that it’s been theorized that
25% of human beings may be infected by gondii – a parasite that affects
the behavior of its hosts.<br />
<br />
Some researchers have
suggested that men who have gondii in their systems have lower IQs, are
more prone to ‘novelty seek,’ and more masculine. Weirdly, infected
women come out with higher IQs. <br />
<br />
Then there’s
reproduction. Not only do some think gondii changes what we are
personality-wise, but its also been suggested that women who are
infected have a tendency to give birth to more sons -- and males are
more likely to spread the infection.<br />
<br />
We’ve lost nuclear
weapons, contaminated whole islands with biological devices, created
mechanical Gods, and have been killed by very small critters with very
nasty venoms. But when you think about parasites, especially certain
kinds of parasites, the question then becomes:<br />
<br />
Who are ‘we’? And who are you?mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-73700208955661263942014-04-24T15:02:00.003-07:002014-04-24T15:02:49.944-07:00Welcome To Weirdsville Celebration!<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>As part of my wonderful <a href="http://amzn.com/B007TXXMC4" target="_blank"><b>Welcome To Weirdsville</b></a> sale, here's a fan-favorite piece from the book. <b>Enjoy!</b></i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://amzn.com/B007TXXMC4" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOWvhiu8Cjt4zKODsKg8by_HvMfQ3_BA6EtWq7Yf2PSgO3J3Aue4Py2hYFWNPrezG9K25wNvHjJw1yPO1hs0tR7yrT0NIue5a2BvP78pujQMRmUwoRZ9DF5AkctFwaD9IS8utJ8oRUb-Xo/s400/Weirdsville.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">NUCLEAR EVERYTHING</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Fans
of the old, but still wonderful, Road Runner cartoons might remember
Wile E. Coyote's favorite one-stop-shop for mayhem: The Acme Company. A
clever person – not one of us, alas – once said that Acme's slogan
should be "We Add Rockets To Everything."</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">This,
in a kind of round-about way, gets us to the 1950s and the
near-obsession that certain engineers had back then with a certain power
source. To put it another way, their slogan should have been: "We Add
Nuclear Power To Everything."</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">In
all fairness, reactors have proven – for the most part – to be pretty
reliable. Submarines, commercial power plants, and even monstrous
icebreakers have proven that nuclear power can be handy if not
essential. But back just a few decades ago there were plans, and even a
few terrifying prototypes, that would have made the Coyote green with
envy – and the rest of us shudder in terror.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Both
the US and the Soviet Union had engineers with lofty plans to keep
bombers in the air indefinitely by using nuclear power. Most folks, with
even a very basic knowledge of how reactors work, would think that was a
bit (ahem) risky, but what's even scarier is how far along some of
those plans got.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Take,
for example, the various projects the US undertook. In one case,
arguably the most advanced, they made plans to power a Convair B-36
bomber with a reactor. Scary? Sure, but what's even more so is that they
actually flew the plane, with an operational reactor, a total of 47
times.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">While
that the reactor never actually powered the plane itself, and that
there were huge problems to overcome, didn't stop the engineers from
drawing up plans for a whole plethora of atomic planes.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But
what was perhaps even crazier than just powered a plane with a nuclear
reactor was the idea to use that power source as a weapon. Here, for
example, is a beautiful representation of the Douglas 1186 system, which
was supposed to use a parasite fighter to guide the warhead to the
target – and keep the poor pilot from engine's radiation.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But
the craziest of the crazy was the "Flying Crowbar." Not only was the
Supersonic Low Altitude Missile (to be formal), aka SLAM (to be short),
supposed to be a nuclear bomb deployment system but was also to use a
nuclear ramjet drive as a weapon: roasting the ground under it to a
Geiger-clicking nightmare while leaving a mushroom-cloud parade of bombs
behind it. Shuddering, by the way, would be a perfectly appropriate
response. Luckily, the Crowbar never got off the drawing board.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Leaving
the air to the birds, other engineers had different nuclear dreams: In
1958 the Ford Motor Car Company, not satisfied with the success of the
Edsel, put forth the idea of bringing radiation into the American home
... or, at least, the garage, with the Nucleon: a family car with an
on-board reactor.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">While
some engineers played with the highways, a few looked to the rails.
Though neither the United States of the Soviet Union got very far with
powering a locomotive with a reactor, the USSR at least looked far
enough ahead to draw up some plans.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Soviets, in a literally sky-high dream, even envisioned a new approach to flying their reactors: use a Zeppelin!</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Still
other inventive types, determined to find a new use for the atom,
scratched their heads and came up with quite a few interesting, if not
dubious, ways of playing with nukes – but this time of the explosive
variety. Plowshare is one of the most commonly quoted of those
operations intended to put a smiley face in a mushroom cloud. A few of
their suggested uses include what they called the Pan- Atomic Canal: in
other words, using atomic bombs to widen the Panama Canal. They also
suggested using nukes for mining operations, though never really solved
the problem of dealing with then-radioactive ore.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">It's
ironic that – what with the need to urgently replace our finite and
global-warming fossil fuels – that many are suggesting a new look at the
power of the atom. We can only hope that we, today, can be as
imaginative about it as they used to be back in the 1950s ... and a lot
more responsible.</span></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
</div>
mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-47504340896373712412014-04-14T11:15:00.001-07:002014-04-14T11:15:27.962-07:00The Judge<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yaemqVzd71I/U0wlt96r2uI/AAAAAAAAM4M/NZjS2tbkH70/s1600/tumblr_n3mu5hX3C11sn6fiho1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yaemqVzd71I/U0wlt96r2uI/AAAAAAAAM4M/NZjS2tbkH70/s1600/tumblr_n3mu5hX3C11sn6fiho1_500.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-31056421017593019402014-04-11T11:56:00.000-07:002014-04-11T11:56:47.902-07:00Welcome To Weirdsville Celebration<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span><i>As part of my wonderful <a href="http://amzn.com/B007TXXMC4" target="_blank"><b>Welcome To Weirdsville</b></a> sale, here's a fan-favorite piece from the book. <b>Enjoy!</b></i></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://amzn.com/B007TXXMC4" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOWvhiu8Cjt4zKODsKg8by_HvMfQ3_BA6EtWq7Yf2PSgO3J3Aue4Py2hYFWNPrezG9K25wNvHjJw1yPO1hs0tR7yrT0NIue5a2BvP78pujQMRmUwoRZ9DF5AkctFwaD9IS8utJ8oRUb-Xo/s400/Weirdsville.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Things That Shouldn't - But Still Do - Go Boom!</b></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">There are rules about
such things ... or so we think. After all, apples don't fall up, lions don't
have feathers, and lakes don't explode. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sure enough, Macintoshes
don't fall skyward, and </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>panthera leo </i>doesn't have beautiful plumage. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But if you happened to
be living in Cameroon you'd know all too well that lakes can, and do, explode. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Take for example the
Lake Nyos in the Northwest Province of Cameroon. Part of the inactive Oku
volcano chain, it's an extremely deep, extremely high and, most importantly,
very calm, very still, lake. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But it hasn't always
been so calm or still. In 1986 something very weird happened to Lake Nyos, a
weirdness that unfortunately killed 3,500 head of livestock ... and 1,700
people. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">No jokes this time. No
clumsy 50's horror movie metaphors. What happened to the people in the three
villages near that lake isn't funny. Most of them luckily died in the sleep,
but the 4,000 others who escaped the region suffered from sores, repertory
problems and even paralysis. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">All because Lake Nyos </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>exploded. </i></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Before the why, here's
some more: what happened to the villages of Cha, Nyos, and Subum that time
isn't unique. The same thing happened to lake Monoun, also in Cameroon, in
1984. That time 37 people died, again not very pleasantly. What does sound like
a scene from some only horror flick is the story of a truck that had been
driving near the scene. Mysteriously, the truck's engine died, and then so did
the ten people who got out: suffocating within minutes of stepping down. Only
two people of the dozen survived, all because they happened to be sitting on
top of the truck. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The technical term for
what happened to Lake Nyos and Monoun is a limnic eruption. To get one you need
a few basic elements: one, a very deep volcanic lake; two, said lake has to be
over a slow source of volcanic gas; and three, it has to be very, very still. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">What happens is that
volcanic gas, mostly carbon dioxide but nasty carbon monoxide as well, super
saturates the lake. A clumsy way of thinking about it is a can of soda: shake
it up like crazy and the fluid in the can, held back by pressure, doesn't do
anything. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But pull the top, or in
the case of Nyos and Monoun, a small landslide or low magnitude earthquake, and
all that trapped gas rushes out in an immense explosion. That's bad enough, as
there are even some theories suggesting that the subsequent lake-tsunami from
the gassy blast has wiped out still more villages, but what's worse is that
those gasses trapped in the lake water are absolutely deadly. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Heavier than air, the
carbon dioxide flows down from the mountain lake, suffocating anything and
anyone in it's path – which explains how those two lucky passengers managed to
escape: they were simply above the toxic cloud. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Fortunately scientists
and engineers are working on ways to stop limnic blasts. Controlled taping of
the gasses, bubbling pipes to keep the water from becoming super saturated,
it's beginning to look like they might be able to keep what happened to the
1700 people of Nyos from happening again. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But what keeps other
scientists awake at night is that there are more than likely lots of other
lakes ready to explode, the question being ... when? </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Okay, so lakes can
explode. But fruit doesn't drop to the sky and feline African predators aren't
born with fluffy down, and frogs don't pop ... right? </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Not if you happened to
live in Germany a few years ago: for awhile there toads were doing just that.
And we're not talking a few here and there. Over 1,000 frogs were found burst
and blasted in a lake that was soon stuck with the pleasant name "the
death pool." </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Theories flew like parts
of an exploding frog: a virus? A crazy who had a thing for dynamite and toads?
A detonating mass suicide? What the hell (bang) was going (boom) on (kablam)? </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The cops checked out the
area and the local nut-houses but there wasn't anyone with that very weird and
very specific MO. Scientists check out the exploded remains but found no
suspicious viruses, parasites, or bacteria. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">They one veterinarian
came up with the most likely answer: crows. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">As anyone who has ever
watched a crow knows they do not fit the label </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>bird brain. </i>Extremely clever and
resourceful, crows are not only fast learners but they study, and learn from,
other crows. What Frank Mutschmann, one clever vet, hypothesized was that it
was happening was the meeting of smart crows and a frog's natural defenses –
plus the allure of livers. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Wanting that tasty part
of the toads, the crows had learned how to neatly extract it from their prey
with a quick stab of their very sharp bills. In response, the toads did what
they always go: puff themselves up. The problem – for the amphibians that is –
is that because they now had a hole where their livers were that defense then
became an explosive problem. Weasels might not literally go pop in that old
kid's song but that seems to be just what was happening to that lake of German
toads in 2005. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But that still doesn't
change that Pipins don't fall up, and lions don't have tails like a peacock's,
right? And what about ants? They don't explode, do they? </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But they do. Ladies and
Gentlemen allow me to present </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>camponotus saundersi. </i>Native to Malaysia, this
average looking ant has a unique structure giving it an even more unique
behavior when threatened. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Running the length of
its little body are two mandibular glands full of toxins. That's bad enough, as
any critter that decides to try a bite will get a mouthful of foul-tasting,
maybe even deadly, venom, but what sets this ant aside from others is what
happens when it gets pushed into a corner. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">By clamping down on a
special set of muscles these ants can commit violent and, yes, explosive
suicide: taking out any nearby threat with a hail of nasty poisons. It's
certainly a dramatic way to go but you can bet anything threatening it's colony
will get a shock it won't soon forget. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0.1pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sure apples do not fall
up and lions don't have feathers – but what with exploding lakes, bursting
toads, and suicide-bombing ants it you might want to check that your
grandmother's homemade pie doesn't float away or that lions aren't about to
swoop down from the sky and carry you off.</span></span></div>
mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-8490735020693136342014-04-10T11:02:00.002-07:002014-04-10T11:02:11.995-07:00Bauhaus Theater Mask<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih86GdIgBeb1iLlo7lNUgAJSH8WFd5DJfkqMSjkwpXFiuxhQrW0972hRmjRr_RJZjxqnJ2HXyO0w8YcbOgfJ37VcmRx-nMECrl5GbJoZgNbuD0VErizzFzxoU7Rni268wtD3K6bHuI7imB/s1600/tumblr_n3e5f2Ps8H1qmwcxto1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih86GdIgBeb1iLlo7lNUgAJSH8WFd5DJfkqMSjkwpXFiuxhQrW0972hRmjRr_RJZjxqnJ2HXyO0w8YcbOgfJ37VcmRx-nMECrl5GbJoZgNbuD0VErizzFzxoU7Rni268wtD3K6bHuI7imB/s1600/tumblr_n3e5f2Ps8H1qmwcxto1_500.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
T. Lux Feininger American (Berlin, Germany 1910 – 2011 Cambridge, Massachusetts)<br /> Bauhaus theater mask designed by T. Lux Feininger, c. 1928 (printed 1949)<br /> Gelatin silver print image, 18 x 23.7 cm.</blockquote>
mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6624101807949495788.post-30514370271386416962014-04-03T15:08:00.000-07:002014-04-03T15:08:06.897-07:00Ron Cobb<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BOsVUIUx0ls/Uz3bl7gB0VI/AAAAAAAAM0M/UPNNKoBfi_Q/s1600/tumblr_n11p1w3qJv1qzhoqfo1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BOsVUIUx0ls/Uz3bl7gB0VI/AAAAAAAAM0M/UPNNKoBfi_Q/s1600/tumblr_n11p1w3qJv1qzhoqfo1_500.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com0