Everyone has their quirks and aesthetic preferences, and I always strive not to, as they say, "yuck someone else's yum" -- but I must admit to a recurrent artistic theme in fan art that unsettles me. This is not to assert that artists and fans should avoid this theme, but, rather, to excuse myself in advance if my absence, lack of response, or ( Read more... )

A week or so ago, I finally got a proper eBook reader: a waterproofed Kindle Paperwhite from WaterFi.

Being an aficionado of older literature ... and cheap ... one of the first things I did was to download a number of things from Project Gutenberg, including several by Robert W. Chambers, author of The King in Yellow.

I am currently reading In ( Read more... )

paka made an interesting post about elements of the horror genre turning up in an otherwise ISO Standard Fantasy Setting.

This is a subject with which Your Obedient Serpent has some experience.

More often than not, if a group sits down to play a horror game, it doesn't quite click.

It's when horror elements crop up in other genres that you get that ( Read more... )

Snappy Answers To Cryptic Questions

athelind: HAVE YOU SEEN THE YELLOW SIGN?
jdarkwulf: Yield?

Yeah, I know, "Yield" signs aren't yellow anymore, but I still laughed.

The Spirit of Radio
I've been having increasing trouble keeping my little stereo tuned to my preferred radio station of late. It's an analogue-dial physical tuner rather than a nice digital gizmo, ( Read more... )

Still not as creepy as Lifegems.

Last night, Your Obedient Serpent and his family had yummy, yummy BLTs for dinner.

During the night, this combined alchemically in my stomach with my acid reflux.

I am now having Bacon Reflux. This was my alarm clock, awakening me after five hours of sleep.

Bacon does not make everything better.

Oorlp.

Remember my post about the Real-Life Arkham Asylum, in Danvers, Massachusetts, which was being turned into luxury condominiums?

Well, last week's issue of Batman Confidential was the final chapter in Yet Another Retelling of the Dark Knight's first encounter with the Joker -- or rather, in this case, what happened after the Joker was in police ( Read more... )

Archaeologists Find Mayan Hell; Provide Plot of Mummy IV

It's like some kind of pulp adventure tale: deep in the Yucatan jungles, there's a flooded cave complex that the Mayans believed was the entrance to the Afterlife, Xibalba. Scuba divers have, slowly and carefully, explored the caverns and found vast, air-filled chambers filled with temples. ( Read more... )

Okay, now, this is one for the list of Places To Go Because Of Their Literary Connections:

The Avalon Danvers Apartments in Danvers, MA.

What the Avalon web site doesn't mention is that this lovely, mid-19th Century "castle" used to be Danvers State Hospital, a mental institution. Originally built to be a pleasant, peaceful setting to help treat ( Read more... )