Someone named “Cynthia” just posted the most magnificent piece of comment spam I have ever seen. It might be an automated script that just blew a gasket, but I suspect it’s actually someone who accidentally copy-pasted their entire text file of vague commentary.

I’ve removed the comment, but I couldn’t bear to destroy something of such horrid beauty. Besides, there’s always the chance that it’s actually a semi-sentient memetic virus seeking to animate its way out of the ‘net. (And that kind of horrific creepiness seems seasonally appropriate.)

Thus, below the fold, you’ll find a complete and utter waste of your time which nevertheless holds all the fascination of the abyss.

CYNTHIA, HERALD OF NYARLATHOTEP

(more…)

Seeing the development of the whole “friend-zone” concept is, in fact, enlightening about the pervasive misogyny that’s still culturally foundational in America despite decades of progress.

It started as an observation that once someone had placed you in the “friend zone” of their mind, it was difficult for them to consider a romantic relationship with you.

It then picked up negative connotations when it was applied to women who flirtatiously imply the potential of a future relationship in order to have men perform favors for them that they would not do for normal friends. This sort of thing probably wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the pervasive cultural assumption that it’s the man’s role in society to earn money and, therefore, the way to woo a female mate is to throw money at her in the form of gifts and so forth. But up to this point the term was at least describing an actual thing that actually happens.

But then the wheels come off the bus, because in the lightning-fast memetic chamber of the internet the term continued to expand: Now it was any woman who politely said “no” when you asked her out on a date. But, of course, the negative ethical connotations stuck to the term — so now the entire concept of “friend-zoning” implies that any woman who says “no” to a man’s sexual advances is doing something ethically wrong.

This also simultaneously expands the other side of the term: It now applies to any man who is friends with a woman. But here, too, the negative connotations stuck to the term. As a result, it implies that “just” being friends with a woman is somehow a punishment or a failure.

This rapid progression from useful concept to misogynist ideology is all built around the lingering cultural scaffolding in which women are objects of desire which are pursued like treasure. Although this scaffolding is slowly being demolished, it’s both interesting and depressing to note (from the sufficiently safe distance of being a white male) that, like any construction site, this transitional period can actually be more vile and misogynistic in some ways than what came before: Leave intact the “pursuit of the virgin” but strip away the idea of “no sex before marriage” and you replace Lord Wessex from Shakespeare in Love with pick-up artists who treat women like Super Mario Bros. power-ups and their sexual resumes like a Call of Duty leaderboard. Leave intact the idea of “no sex before marriage” as a moral imperative, on the other hand, and you end up with all women being “whores”. The jagged edges of these half-forgotten cultural memes can be dangerous. (Which doesn’t mean, of course, that we shouldn’t be getting rid of them. That would be like arguing that the slaves shouldn’t have been emancipated because they were more vulnerable to lynchings without the protection of their owners. It just means that you have to anticipate that it will be hard work and a tough slog before the light at the end of the tunnel completely banishes the darkness behind.)

The challenge: Take three movies that aren’t actually related to each other and pretend that they’re a trilogy.

The outcome:

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off –> Fight Club –> Incredible Hulk

In the first movie, we see Cameron’s adolescent fantasies played out through his imaginary friend Ferris. In the second movie, Cameron is older and jaded and his new imaginary friend is a terrorist. In the third movie, Cameron is exposed to gamma radiation and periodically transforms into the “Other Guy” (who is, in fact, just the latest manifestation of his imaginary friend).

So in the realm of utterly bizarre realities, I offer you the Deep Storage Project. The simple gist is that someone is going to load up that crazy, multi-pronged modern art piece with tissue samples from thousands of volunteers and then lower it into the Marianas Trench so that if an apocalyptic disaster should occur the samples would be preserved and could be used to repopulate the species.

Nothing about this plan makes any sense: DNA samples that will decay into uselessness within mere years placed in a location that we would have difficulty retrieving them from now (let alone after an apocalypse).

But what I can’t help noticing is that this bizarre repository bears a truly uncanny resemblance to what an Elder Sign would look like if you extruded it into three dimensions. And that’s true whether you’re talking about the Lovecraftian original (on the left) or the Derlethian derivative you’re probably more familiar with (on the right):

So, hang on a second: They’re sculpting a dimensionally-extruded Elder Sign, filling it with offerings of human blood, and sending it to the deepest part of the ocean?

Are they trying to mitigate the Apocalypse… or start it?

As I posted last month, my mother died on February 4th, 2013. For several years before she passed, I was working closely with her to convert her extensive oeuvre to e-book formats. She wanted very much to share the wonderful world of St. Frideswide with as many readers as possible, and that’s work which I will be continuing to do on her behalf for as long as I live.

Toward that end, for the next five days (until March 7th), Margaret Frazer’s Sins of the Blood will be available FREE on Amazon.

This book collects three short stories (“The Witch’s Tale”, “The Midwife’s Tale”, and “The Stone-Worker’s Tale”), the Guided Tour of St. Frideswide, and a lengthy 10 chapter preview of The Novice’s Tale (the first book in the series).

If it looks like the sort of thing you might find interesting, please grab a copy. If it doesn’t, consider this: My mother was absolutely masterful at placing you inside the viewpoint of a truly medieval character; that’s a perspective that I’ve often found useful in fantasy gaming, and you might think so too. If not, take a couple seconds, see if you can think of any friends or family who might be interested in these books, and then send them a link.

THE WITCH’S TALE

Witchcraft has come to the peaceful village near St. Frideswide, and its foul touch is striking down those closest to the church. Can Dame Frevisse thwart the servants of the devil before the hellfire of hysteria sears the souls of the faithful? Or is there more to this magic than meets the eye?

THE MIDWIFE’S TALE

“Sisters! Come back! Please don’t leave us yet!”

Cisily Fisher has died in childbirth and now the village of Priors Byfield is held in a grip of fear. Can Dame Frevisse find the root of misery behind a murderer’s sin before the next lethal blow falls? Or will the village be lost in a hue and cry of terror? The gentling touch of the midwife may calm the tortured soul… or give birth to a bitter death.

THE STONE-WORKER’S TALE

When Frevisse is given bishop-pardoned leave to visit her cousin Alice at Ewelme, she is enchanted by the work of the sculptor Simon Maye. But Simon is enchanted by the beauty of Elyn, one of Alice’s ladies in waiting. Clandestine meetings have given way to sinful lust, and now the two lovers have disappeared. The servants whisper that the lovers have eloped, and secretly pine for the passion to do the same. Lady Alice believes her sculptor has been stolen away by jealous rivals and rages at the injustice. But Frevisse alone suspects there may be some darker truth behind the midnight vanishing…

A GUIDED TOUR OF ST. FRIDESWIDE

And so we turn to St. Frideswide’s in rural northern Oxfordshire. Imaginary, yes, but fully realized as an ordinary place much like many others common across England in both rural and urban settings by the 1400s. A wealthy widow founded it in the 1300s, saw to its beginning, and endowed it with lands and other income to sustain it – alas, not so fully as she intended to do before she died…

Kindle Edition