“The Art of the Sailor”
My Modern Met has a diagram by Lucy Bellwood describing the meanings of Western nautical tattoos. (See Bellwood’s “100 Demon Dialogues” here).
Theodora Goss’ Big Idea
“[T]here’s almost always a female monster, and she’s almost always destroyed.” More from Theodora Goss on the big idea of her book, The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, at Scalzi.com. (Thanks, James!)
“Have a Creepy Little Christmas”
Hyperallergic has an intriguing gallery of Victorian Christmas cards ranging from the charming to the disturbing. (Some are both)
The British Raj, Quantum Physics, and Some Super Cool Snake Rings: Roland Joffé’s The Lovers
In the “making of” feature on the DVD of The Lovers, director Roland Joffé (The Killing Fields, Fat Man and Little Boy, City of Joy) describes his film as an exploration of the concept of time split across two eras, represented by “quantum physics” in the near future […]
Old Timey Christmas Cards
The BBC and Atlas Obscura have galleries of intriguing Nineteenth Century Christmas cards. “The Victorians had a different idea to what Christmas was about – not particularly Christian, but a time of good humour. You may find a mouse riding a lobster strange – I find it funny. […]
Strange Men and Magic
This week’s Guest Star Kate Laity writes about the television adaptation of Jonathan Strange And Mr. Norrell. Laity is an author, Medieval Studies scholar and History Witch. At Edge-Lit 4, my publisher, Adele Wearing of Fox Spirit Books, was on a panel about Grimdark. What is ‘grim dark?’ […]
The Cultural Gutter 