hauntology

As a ghost story of sorts for the season, we take a look at the interesting if not inattentive trials of one parapsychologist in the 1960s who tried to induce psychical experiences by dressing up as a moaning, menacing apparition in various locations, including a cemetery and the (captive) audience of an adult film cinema.
Of the dozens the passed by or saw the spirit manifest itself in the theatre, disappointingly hardly any registered his presence, with just one or two recalling something that didn’t quite fit—an errant polar bear or an error with the projector perhaps—and one individual purposefully avoiding a man in a sheet. I always found it rather incredulous that not everyone screening the same clip noticed the walk on role of the gorilla (on a unicycle, with pom-poms or what have you) as cited, but never thought seeing that and not calling it out was anywhere near household pets detecting ghosts or the pre-tremors of an earthquake (given I owe that I miss a lot of other obvious, glaring things), and I’m sure that going without acknowledgement after all that effort must have been frustrating. Perhaps that’s why the scary clowns of today have gotten so aggressively hammy. The conclusions of this study held that an experimental, simulated haunting could not elicit the psychic contagion of a genuine one, which sounds pretty reasonable to me.

geomancy

A very clever artist and architect in Tokyo is being honoured the country’s most prestigious design award for his world map—which, through some geometric transformations, finally corrects to a great extent for the distortions of Mercator-projection on a flat surface, the so called polar flair that makes Greenland look bigger than Africa. Find out more about the Authagraph map at the link up top.

log lady

It was some weeks before I saw and greeted our new upstairs neighbour. She advertised on the letterbox that she was an Aruvedic masseuse, although I don’t think she has sessions in her apartment and has in any case been quiet and largely unseen.
Recently, just before I encountered her for the first time, she decorated the landing in front of our door and by the steps leading up to her apartment with a zen frog figurine and a few pieces of driftwood. That made me think, fondly, of the Margaret Lanterman (better known as the Log Lady) character on Twin Peaks—played by Catherine Coulson†, who was very protective of her familiar. Finally meeting the new neighbour, I realised that they bore more than a passing resemblance, in looks and demeanour.

block chain

Rather inscrutably, the Swiss railway announced that the public, travelling or otherwise, will be able to purchase the virtual currency bitcoin at all ticket kiosks of their extensive network. Valued currently at nearly seven hundred francs per coin, customers will be able to purchase in fractional denominations as well, but not with absolutely anonymity as an electronic wallet would need to be set up—though cash can still flow with a much higher degree of liquidity since no banks are involved. Though some cities in Switzerland, notable the public services of Zug, accept bitcoin for payments, train passengers won’t be able to pay for their fare with this particular tender.