This past weekend, I had a splendid time visiting the campus of Neumann University (near Philadelphia, PA), where I was kindly invited to give a talk on the Popular Uncanny. I was ushered around for all sorts of events by Dr. William Hamilton (the gentleman in the brown coat in many of the photos […]
Tag: exhibits
You Are What You Urn
England’s Telegraph is running a “Best Pictures of The Year” gallery to wrap up 2009…and with images like the above from the “Weird Inventions” gallery — or even from their other bizarre and weird and spectacular galleries — one can only marvel over what a strange year it’s been…and how remarkably stranger it is going […]
The Literal Coney Island of the Mind
“Dreamland” is an amazing concept for an amusement park attraction based on literal interpretations of Freud’s theories. I’m learning about this from Zoe Beloff‘s exhibition at Coney Island museum (running till July 2010): The Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society and Its Circle, 1926-72. I’m ordering the book that covers the history of this fascinating group, […]
Save Your Life: Clone It
While doing a little holiday shopping last Fall (on the occult-sounding ritual known as “Black Friday”), I spotted a bargain and caved in, buying something for myself. I purchased a gigantic external hard drive — with a Terabyte of space — to archive my files: a Maxtor OneTouch 4. Imagine my surprise when I opened […]
Pop Phantasmagoria
Neat find: Professor Heard’s Magic Latern Shows is a traveling act that nostalgically recreates the “phantasmagoria” of the 18th & 19th centuries for contemporary audiences. (I learned about Heard’s show via his article, “The Lantern of Fear” published by Grand Illusions, a fun online shop for offbeat science toys, uncanny gizmos, and illusionary devices.) As […]
Bread that Talks
Obviously, no one believes bread can talk. But Schwebel’s ‘taliano — “The Bread with the Foreign Accent” — would like us to believe its Italian bread has an identity so Italian that it can speak to us. I used this example in my recent lecture at the Alpha Science Fiction & Fantasy Workshop for Young […]
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