Courtesy of Boing Boing, whilst the Horror GIF Necronomicon may not have an exhaustive selection of every spooky animation that was circulating during the nineties and naughties, there’s certainly an impressive amount to be found and the site (an original Neocities property) seems to be still undead and kicking.
Friday 29 October 2021
Saturday 16 October 2021
7x7
pour homme, femme, et grenouille: Amphรญbฤซa, Kermit the Frog’s signature scent from 1995
hampsternomics: a look at how the attention economy has matured through the lens of a quarter-century old meme—see previously
a day without rain: Endless Enya (previously) from Mischief Magazine—via Web Curiosmemento mori: a treasury of macabre reminders of death’s inevitability
corvid catalogue: counting crows of literature
sneakernet: non-existent virtual trainers dreamed up by artificial intelligence (see also)—via ibฤซdem
pietra per pizza: a deep-dive into the history of the cooking accessory convinces one individual it isn’t just a trendy gimmick
Thursday 26 August 2021
apostles’ creed
Via the New Shelton wet / dry, we are referred to a study from the Annals of Improbable Research (previously, the group also behind the Ig Noble Awards) ranking the popularity of saints to pray to for protection and intercession against COVID. There’s methodology is the survey, though I suspect it might be rather self-selecting since respondents were polled on social media but we nonetheless appreciated the efforts and the occasion to revisit some of our holy helpers, like Saint Roch (number two), Saint Sebastian (number three, here pleading with Jesus for the life of the gravedigger during the Plague of Justinian), and coming in last at a tie, SS Expedit and Corona.
Wednesday 4 August 2021
dama de elche
Discovered just south of the eponymous private estate on this day in 1897, the intricate limestone bust known as the Lady of Elx is a fourth or fifth century BC Punic-Iberian artefact depicting the Carthage goddess Tanit, the equivalent of Astarte—Romanised as Juno Caelestis. Possibly used as a funerary urn, the originally sculpture would have been polychromed and the coils of her elaborate headdress are called rodetes and once featured on the one peseta bank note.
catagories: ⚰️, ๐ช๐ธ, ๐บ, libraries and museums
Monday 2 August 2021
your daily demon: ronovรฉ
Wednesday 28 July 2021
your daily demon: bunรฉ
Governing from today through the first of August, our twenty-sixth spirit, a powerful infernal duke commanding thirty legion, presents as a three-headed dragon, one visage like a dog, one like that of a griffon and the middle the face of a man. Able to rouse the dead and imbue eloquence of speech to the summoner, Bunรฉ—whose name may ultimately derive from Buto, a place sacred to the Mesopotamian goddess Isis and the Egyptian cobra goddess Wadjet (the Eye of Horus is called wedjat, ๐ )—is countered by the Shemhamphorasch guardian angel Haaiah.
Saturday 24 July 2021
8x8
yรคchtley crรซw: a cover band’s homage to the genre (previously)
sky mall: the inevitable fate of all platforms, selling botware to other bots in glossy format—via Things Magazine plus an update on the Metabolist capsule hotel of Kisho Kurokawa
๐ญ๐๐๐ต๐จ๐๐๐: assaying the Epic of Gilgamesh—previously here and herethis beach does not exist: using generative adversarial networks (previous snowclones) to create fantasy shorelines—via the New Shelton wet/dry
hearse: a concept Airstream funeral coach, circa 1981, which never caught on—also h/t to Things
not affiliated with project shield, loki or the world security council: an exclusive exposรฉ on cyber surveillance abuse on a global scale
transatlanticism: US withdraws objections to completion of Nord Stream 2—previously, now ninety-eight percent done—after negotiations with Germany
murphy’s law: an abcedarium of the maxims of management—see also
Wednesday 21 July 2021
bohus fรคstning
Sunday 18 July 2021
your daily demon: naberus
This twenty-fourth infernal marquis or field-marshal who governs from this day through 22 July and commands nineteen legion. With the office to imbue cunningness in rhetoric and the natural sciences, Naberus presents as a three-headed hound with the body of a raven and according to most Goetic sources is synonymous with the Cerberus of Greek mythology which guards the gates of the Underworld to prevent the dead from escaping. Naberus is opposed by the guardian angel called Chahoah.
catagories: ⚰️, ๐, myth and monsters
Thursday 15 July 2021
the stone ship of nรคssja
Sunday 11 July 2021
ales stenar
Thursday 8 July 2021
your daily demon: ipos
This twenty-second spirit governing from today through 12 July presents in the form of a chimera described as having the body of a lion with the head and talons of a vulture, the feet of a goose and the tail of a hare, a fearsome earl commanding thirty-six legion. Giving good counsel on things to come, he imbues wit and charisma, Ipos is sometimes conflated with the ancient Egyptian jackal-headed Anubis (originally Inpu), god of the dead, protector of tombs and ferryman conveying souls to the Underworld, and is countered by the guardian angel Yeyayel.
catagories: ⚰️, ๐ฆข, ๐, myth and monsters
Tuesday 6 July 2021
aconitum napellus
Encountering yet another highly toxic flower in the woods (previously), this example monk’s hood or wolfsbane (Blauer Eisenhut, I think this sort of buttercup is specifically the subspecies Aconitum tauricum, named after Alpine Gaul) is also now cultivated as a garden plant for its complex, scalloped inflorescences and general hardiness returning year after year. In ancient times, according to Avicenna and other sources, the sap of the plant was used to make poisoned-tipped arrows and spears, and has been used throughout the ages to the present day for dispatching enemies. Even handling the plant can led to organ failure and death—so despite the beauty of the blooms, I can’t understand the appeal of having it in one’s flowerbed (growing them outlawed from the early Middle Ages onward with transgressions subject to capital punishment), and who would have thought the deadliest things in the forest was the flora rather than the fauna.
Thursday 13 May 2021
glyceria
Meaning sweetness and sharing her feast day with the apparition of Our Lady of Fรกtima, the second century saint compelled to pray to a sculpture of Jupiter which turned to dust by her faith, for which she was sentenced to be torn asunder by wild animals. Glyceria expired, however, before she could be served. Interestingly, especially in light of the minor craze that erupted a few years ago over the chance to drink the mummy juice—sewage found in Egyptian sarcophagi, the relics of Glyceria are counted among the myroblytes, those whose remains (sometimes their icons as well as their coffins) exude the holy and healing Oil of the Saints.
Saturday 17 April 2021
7x7
cortรจge: the custom Land Rover hearse that will convey Prince Philip on his funeral procession
whiter-than-white: ultra-reflective coating (previously) could help cool the climate—via Slashdoteboracia: housing developer Keepmoat Holmes discovers sprawling Roman ruins in North Yorkshire
elenctic debate: honing one’s critical thinking with the Socratic method
emojinal rescue: the Unicode subcommittee reconvenes, heralding the coming of new glyphs
ramshackle: illustrations of antient structures that survived the Great Fire of London before they were ultimately demolished
pleurants: bright and bold floral urns for cremains
Wednesday 31 March 2021
6x6
berggeschrei: Saxon princes collected, modelled miniature mountains and enjoyed miner cos-play
#oddlysatisfying: the hypnotic and self-soothing qualities of visual ASMR
it’s not a cult thing: an interview with the real estate agent selling this ‘sexy funeral Goth house’ in Baltimore—via Super Punch
erard square action: a tool that measures a piano key’s up- and down-weight
slamilton: a basketball musical of Space Jam meshed with Hamilton—see previously—that works better than it should, via Waxy
den hรผgel hinauf: Amanda Gorman’s inspirational US presidential inaugural poem (see also) will be published in German
Thursday 18 March 2021
hodie mihi cras tibi
catagories: ⚰️, ๐ฌ๐ง, libraries and museums
Wednesday 17 March 2021
myrrhbearers
Patron of funeral directors, morticians and undertakers, Joseph of Arimathea was fรชted on this day according to the traditional Martyrologium Romanum but is now celebrated on 31 August along with his fellow secret disciple Nicodemus who helped prepare the body of Jesus for burial. Not much more is related about these wealthy (Joseph was appointed Nobilis Decurio, Minister of the Mines), covert followers in the Gospels who sought permission from Pontius Pilate to care for and prepare the corpse with spices that Nicodemus purchased after crucifixion and see to his entombment. The title refers to collective term given these two men and the Three Marys when they return to find the tomb empty. Further embellishment subsequently connects Joseph with the Arthurian cycle and the Matter of Britain, placing the saint among the first missionaries on the Isles (reportedly teaching the Cornish how to excavate tin) and of course guardian of the Holy Grail.
Sunday 7 February 2021
one-way ticket
Via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links (much more to explore here), we receive a lightly macabre update to the former dedicated rail-line in London that transported the departed and mourners from the overcrowded city out to a cemetery in Woking with news that the purpose-built Waterloo Necropolis station built in 1854 (expanded in 1901) will be transformed into a suite of flats. The seal is that of the company granted the charter to construct the grounds and arrange the logistics and transportation. Though large portions of the building were destroyed in World War II during a 1941 air raid, what remains is witness to the automation of the funerary arts with halls designed for private service and hydraulic lifts to bring the briers on to the loading docks below, a shift towards hygienic awareness (a dread cholera epidemic decades earlier had overwhelmed London’s graveyards) and separate entrances that showed that even the dead were expected to be class conscious.
Friday 22 January 2021
land of hope and gloria
Having set forth specific detailed instructions for a funeral with military honours befitting her status and having passed away rather inconsiderately a distance from London on the Isle of Wight, the death of Victoria (previously) would have been a logistically fraught affair if it were not for her careful planning. Surrounded by her son and successor King Edward VII and grandson Wilhelm (future Prussian king and last Kaiser) and her favourite Pomeranian called Turi (see also), Victoria expired on this day in 1901, heretofore, the longest reigning British monarch. The state cortรจge travelled to Gosport with a fleet of yachts transporting the new king and mourners and Victoria was placed in her coffin, son and grandson aided by Prince Arthur, with an array of mementos from family and domestics, including a dressing gown that belonged to her departed husband Albert and a plaster cast of his hand as well as a lock of John Brown’s hair and a photograph of him that was artfully hidden from those paying last respects by carefully placed bouquet of flowers. The state funeral and procession took place 2 February.