Enjoy this fine, fine television programming from the golden days of the Seventies: so much to mock, so much to adore. Charlie’s Angels. Watergate. Jethro Tull. Fat Ties. Fat Lapels. Fat Elvis.
Arthur C. Clarke.
Chariots of the Gods.
Sea Monsters!
Enjoy this fine, fine television programming from the golden days of the Seventies: so much to mock, so much to adore. Charlie’s Angels. Watergate. Jethro Tull. Fat Ties. Fat Lapels. Fat Elvis.
Arthur C. Clarke.
Chariots of the Gods.
Sea Monsters!
Of the many and varied delightful creatures which enliven the drear, dark depths, there are perhaps more mysteries than certainties. From time to time a trawler will snag something huge, something strange, something unspeakable; briefly it surfaces on Ananova or Reuters, only to be tossed back into the void, too disturbing for true contemplation.
We live on a placid isle of ignorance, amidst black seas of chaos,
and it is not meant that we should voyage far.
Giant sea creatures, including sea spiders the size of dinner plates and
jellyfish with six-metre long tentacles, have been found by Australian scientists in the deep waters around Antarctica.Huge worms and giant crustaceans have been filmed during an expedition which trawled the floor of the Southern Ocean almost a mile below the surface. Many of the animals could not be identified and are to be sent to labs, possibly to be classed as newly discovered species…
So it is with these strange creatures recently spotted in the subsurface valley depths of the great Antarctic Mountains of Madness. Where shoggoths breed, man was never meant to tread. I wouldn’t want to be this videographer once they find out their secrets have been exposed. Philipa passed the footage along to me, and I put it out to the public as a way of saying, “Look. See what wonders, what horrific marvels our world contains. These living anomalies share our planet, dwelling beneath the deceptively peaceful surface of the Antarctic Ocean, crawling and thrashing, killing and breeding all unsuspected in the Stygian, turbid void beneath us…”
We live in Fortean times indeed.
Zeta Male theory or no, I continue to wish this rotten old computer would let me play in Second Life. And from Metro comes just another reason for me to sit here, eating my heart out.
Squid-O-Grams. Kissing Squid-O-Grams.
Cuddlefish Junction Kissing Squidogram! You set up what you want the squid to say and send it off to your unsuspecting friends. What they see is a bucket. A harmless little bucket that asks them to click it. Then a squid jumps out into their face and the hilarity ensues. Get them at the main store.
Seriously, would your heart not warm to anyone, no matter how zeta, who sent you one of these? Let’s face it, this isn’t the High Renaissance: we ain’t got sonnets, but we’ve got Squid!
In-demand international businessman Abdul Nyarlathotep and his charming wife Shub Niggurath had never seen a challenge like the old Gloaming homestead, but, having once seen it, they knew they had to have it. Putting to good use all their famed persuasiveness, the duo finally convinced the eccentric recluse to let them take possession.
“Yes,” chuckles the dryly avuncular Nyarlathotep, “you could say we made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”
The couple have previously given our readers tantalizing glimpses of the gardens and furnishings, but are now ready to reveal their elegant and eldritch abode to our eager cameras. As I liveblog this, my tummy is rumbling, for there is to be a buffet dinner party later, doubtless some marvelously exotic recipes they’ve picked up in their travels, and Mrs. Nyarlathotep has promised that, as her highly esteemed guests from Unspeakable Homes and Gardens, we will be eating first.
Stylist Walter Gilman describes the remarkable chapeau for us:
I sometimes compare the hat to prisms, labyrinths, clusters of cubes and planes, and Cyclopean buildings; and the organic things strike me variously as groups of bubbles, octopi, centipedes, living Hindoo idols, and intricate arabesques roused into a kind of ophidian animation. Also, I believe you can see a congeries of globes in there somewhere.
Quite so.
Mrs. Nyarlathotep, or Shub as she prefers to be called (“You can’t use the N-word, my dears, not in this country,” she explains, laughingly. “It’s considered unspeakable. I’ve always been unspeakable, really!”) leads us to the mansion’s ornate entrance. There will be a special service in the family chapel later, one to which we’ve wrangled a very exclusive invite.
“The ceremony is something very special, something we introduce to only a select few. You have been extremely helpful to us. Your articles have brought us many curious and innocent seekers after forbidden knowledge. You will be eating first,” Nyarlathotep reminds us, with just a hint of … is it a Texan accent we detect in the last sentence?
And now for some more photos:
The lovely exterior of the palatial Nyarlathotep residence. They’ve booked a choir to entertain their star-struck guests, most of whom shuffle forward in silence, jostling for position in the velvety darkness of the tropical night. It must be remarked that, from the flabby softness of the crushing bodies, this crowd can hardly be said to be fashionably fit. They are, however, wearing what appear to be carefully distressed and oddly bunched robes of earthy colours, perhaps Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano, or late Helmut Lang.
Well, wasn’t that…remarkable. If one were to hazard a guess, one would suggest that the distinctively dissonant melody had been composed by Diamanda Galas.
The interior of the house is beautifully accessorised, with throw rugs of amusingly faux alien hides and a wall of similarly ironic stuffed trophy heads, among them a very lifelike effigy of Andy Warhol.
“He was close to us, and we like to keep him there,” says Shub, reading over my shoulder. “‘Ironic.’ My dear, you have no idea. But you’ll see later…” she teases.
Got to go. It’s time for the service and then, the feast!