Dawsferatu's House of Horrors

1. Meiji Japan Emperor Kōmei succumbed to smallpox on January 30th, 1867. The Edo period died with him. His fourteen year old son Prince Mutsuhito assumed the Chrysanthemum Throne on October 23, 1868 and was re-christened “Emperor Meiji.” Too young to govern at the time of his ascension, the child emperor’s advisors assumed control of Japan and quickly set about modernizing the island nation: old systems of feudal hierarchy were abolished, the so-called “evil customs” of the past were broken off, and thus were the foundations of imperial rule laid. Emperor Meiji Early Meiji reformers believed such reforms were necessary for achieving diplomatic equality and military strength. The motto of the era was “Enrich the Country and Strengthen the Military.” Emperor Meiji embodied these efforts. He wore Western-style military clothing, styled his hair after the Western fashion, and grew a kaiser mustache all in an effort to appear more “civilized” to the outside world. 2. Lady Snowblood Toshiya...

The name Jackson Pollock is synonymous with drip painting, a technique that involves flinging and dripping thinned enamel paint onto an outstretched canvas laid on the floor of a studio. His body of work is less about the ultimate product than it is about the process . Number 17A is the record of a performance. This was a revelation for the coastal gallerists of 1950-whatever. Number 17A was art as artifact: it was bold; it was daring; it was, they thought, new . But, as is often the case, roadside hucksters were ahead of the art world by a good ten or fifteen years. Number 17A On May 23, 1934, a cadre of brave policemen ambushed Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut Barrow as the couple drove down a back road somewhere in rural Louisiana. Bonnie was eating a sandwich in the passenger seat when a Texan rifleman appeared and shot Clyde in the head. Clyde’s mind was blown into the back seat. He died instantly. Bonnie had just enough time to get off one last bone-chilling scream b...

     Magic relies on misdirection. Watch my left hand as my right adds another ace to the deck. Focus on my voice while I stuff this rabbit into my hat. Look at this buxom blonde “assistant” I picked up outside as I sneak off backstage and “disappear.” Etc., etc.. James Cameron achieves a similar effect in this iconic scene from Terminator .      The insert shots of the cop filling out paperwork are there to distract you until it’s too late and Schwarzenegger’s driving a car through the front window--a pyrotechnic prelude to the massacre to come. Cameron deprives the audience of crucial information, making it nearly impossible for you, the viewer, to accurately anticipate what is going to happen next.      The nearly five minute long nurse station scene from The Exorcist III operates on the exact opposite principle. William Peter Blatty provides you with altogether too much information. Will the Gemini Killer jump out from behind that desk...

     Long before I became a Z-list internet personality, I had it in my head I was gonna be a paleontologist. I was the quintessential dinosaur kid. I spent hours of my childhood leafing through Gurney’s Dinotopia books, The Ultimate Dinosaur , and later, as my childhood obsession grew into something slightly more scholarly, Greg Paul’s The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs and Anthony J. Martin’s Dinosaurs Without Bones . So of course I’ve seen Jurassic Park more times than I can count.      It would probably be more dramatic if I said I remember the first time I saw Jurassic Park like it was yesterday, but the simple truth is I don’t. In all honesty, I can’t remember a time when I hadn’t seen it--images from the film are so embedded in my psyche it’s like they were there before me, waiting. When I’m on my deathbed and my life is flashing before my eyes, the chances that stills from Jurassic Park will be interspersed between memories of my beloved w...

     Some time ago Jack Guignol made a post applying Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Philosophy of Composition” to tabletop role playing game source books in which he emphasizes the importance of concision, method, and clarity or “unity of effect.” I find myself in agreement with most of his conclusions, though I will readily admit my weakness for overwrought (and overly long) flavor text in RPGs. But I digress.      While listening to the Weird Studies episode “On Lovecraft” it occurred to me that certain insights from H. P. Lovecraft’s “Notes on Writing Weird Fiction” could be applied to the process of writing scenarios and campaigns for Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu in much the same way. Around the half hour mark of the podcast, Phil Ford comments that what he finds most interesting about the methodology Lovecraft outlines in the short essay is “his insistence that the heart of the story is a basically atemporal thing--is basically just this flash of image or...

     Published to great controversy in 1969, Anton Szandor LaVey’s grimoire The Satanic Bible is a collection of essays and observations extolling the virtues of selfishness and instinct. The text is foundational to LaVeyan Satanism, containing, as it does, the central tenets and dogma of his philosophical project. But despite The Satanic Bible ’s sordid reputation, it reads more like a Twitter PUA’s guide to tricking a weird goth girl into bed than it does a sequel to the Kitab al-Azif . Anton Szandor LaVey, the high priest of Satanism himself      Nevertheless, LaVey does manage to include some interesting anthropological insights regarding the persistence of the religious instinct, even in the face of psychoanalysis. From pages 52-53 of The Satanic Bible : Modern man has come a long way; he has become disenchanted with the nonsensical dogmas of past religions. We are living in an enlightened age. Psychiatry has made great strides in enlightening man abo...

    Following the release of Ryan Coogler’s 2018 blockbuster Black Panther , many publications--popular and academic alike--heralded it as a decade defining film. From Time : “The Revolutionary Power of Black Panther ”; from Esquire : “Why Black Panther Is History in the Making”; from The New York Times : “Why Black Panther Is a Defining Moment for Black America”; the list goes on. Indeed, Black Panther ’s cultural impact was quite impressive. In the months that followed its debut, dozens of celebrities were seen flashing the “Wakanda Forever” salute popularized by the film up and down Sunset Boulevard, Walmarts the world over struggled to keep T’Challa action figures in stock, and children and manchildren alike were united in their collective worship of a man in black polyester catsuit. Black Panther mania came to a head at that year’s Oscar’s, where the film was nominated for Best Original Score, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Sound Mixing, Best So...