Category Archives: Weirdness

Warning: Exposure to Cthulhu Causes OCD

Monster Monday: I’m going to attempt to post about monsters (my favorite topic) each Monday. Today we’re talking the mac daddy of all monsters, Cthulhu. Not familiar? It’s hard to sum up in a few lines. He’s a mythical god, older than the pantheons of Greece or the Vikings, that lives in another dimension. He’s part of the Old Ones that ruled Earth aeons ago. They sleep now, but continually seek a way into our world again. To rule and to feed.

The brainchild of author H. P. Lovecraft, Cthulhu and other creepy netherworld critters attempted to scare the life out of various folk in his stories. A recurring theme in his work is that of madness. Imagine actually seeing a god. Coming face to face with one. Not Zeus with his fluffy white beard and lightning bolt. I mean a literal force of nature. Awe inspiring doesn’t cut it. Lovecraft felt that the human mind couldn’t handle such an experience. The typical result was madness.

As a fan of Stephen King, I’ve read two of the stories he’s written that touch on Lovecraftian ideas. One is Crouch End from Nightmares & Dreamscapes. It’s a tremendously creepy tale about a couple of Yanks getting lost on the deserted streets of London. Only one makes it back, though she has lost her sanity.

A more recent story I’ve read is N from Just After Sunset. N refers to the name of an accountant who visits a shrink. The poor fellow developed a crippling case of obsessive compulsive disorder after witnessing a thin spot in the world. Stephen King has written about this sort of thing before. Other worlds border our own and sometimes the fabric that separates the two wears thing. The character N found such a place and was infected by OCD.

Insanity has always been associated with Lovecraft, but this was the first time I’ve read about the madness manifesting as a compulsive disorder. N must count things, and the numbers must always be even. Six is a fix. Eight makes it straight. He also arranges objects in diagonals and circles. He says it’s to save the world. And in this story, he isn’t being metaphorical. Can you imagine, compelled to count and arrange to keep monstrous slimy things out of our world? This story is well worth a read. It has a surprise ending that I won’t spoil, but it’s good enough that I sought it out again to read.

I had forgotten the name and had to listen to nearly all my King audio books until finding it. That’s an obsession. Uh oh. Perhaps I’ve caught N’s compulsion. I better start counting.

(There are 458 words in this post. That’s even. A good number.)

Tim Kane

The Physics of Bad Hair Days

Why is it some days your hair turns out fine and others it looks like a hurricane set up on your head? I think some scientist somewhere needs to research this phenomenon. For anyone with even a decent mop of hair, you often wake up with it swirled in bizarre ways. And those swirls are damn stubborn. Water and a comb are not enough. Typically I need to slop on some hair gel or pomade.

Which gets me thinking about Ulysses Everett McGill from O Brother, Where Art Thou. He’s a tried and true Dapper Dan Man.

I poked about on the internet. It turns out that the first pomade came about in the early 1800s when people slathered a pomade with bear fat into their hair. Now I ask you, who was the first person to decide to throw some smelly bear fat up in their do? Eventually, the fat gave way to lard (pig fat), beeswax (impossible to get out of your hair) and petroleum jelly.

Then there’s Macassar oil. I’ve never heard of this stuff, but it does explain why airplane seats look the way they do. This oil is whipped up with coconut or palm oil combined with ylang-ylang oil (from a fragrant flower). This was used in the late 1800s and the stuff dribbled down the back of your hair and onto any seat you sat in. Thus the development of the “antimacassar”. This is a small cloth (usually crocheted) that sat at the top of the chair to catch the oily grease and protect the upholstery. Wow, this has got to be one of the only inventions to mask the ill effects of another.

So the next time you’re having a bad hair day, just slip on your hair net and remember the words of one Ulysses Everett McGill: “I don’t want Fop, goddammit. I’m a Dapper Dan man.”

Tim Kane

Historical Gotham was a Town Filled with Madmen

I can’t say I’m a Batman fanatic, but I do enjoy the vigilante crusader. Little did I know the sordid history behind Gotham’s name.

It turns out that Gotham was a village in England known to be populated by madmen. The villagers feigned insanity to prevent King John from building a royal road near them (at the time, villages would have to pay for the upkeep of the road). When the king’s herald arrived, the townsfolk were engaged in all manner of madness. Needless to say, they rerouted the road.

Twenty of these tales were bound together as The Merry Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham in 1540. Over time, the “mad” part was replaced with “wise.” Makes you wonder just where madness ends and wisdom begins.

One tale, called “Of Drowning Eels,” concerns the fishermen of the village. It seems that all the fish vanished from the local pond. Only a great eel remained. They presumed that the eel must have eaten all the fish, so the folk of Gotham put the eel on trial. Finding him guilty, they sentenced the eel to death by drowning. (Yes, drowning). They cast him back into the pond, saying: “Lie there and shift for yourself, for no help thou shalt have from us.”

A nursery rhyme concerning the loony Gothamites survives. It first appeared in Mother Goose’s Melody in 1765.

Three wise men of Gotham,
They went to sea in a bowl,
And if the bowl had been stronger
My song had been longer.

Washington Irving borrowed the legend of the town filled with crazies and used it as a label for New York city. In a letter printed in his magazine, Salmagundi, on February 13, 1807, he writes:

One of the most tickling, dear, mischievous pleasures of this life is to laugh in one’s sleeve – to sit snug in a corner unnoticed and unknown and hear the wise men of Gotham, who are profound judges (of horseflesh) pronounce from the style of our work, who are the authors. This listening incognito and receiving a hearty praising over another man’s back is a situation so celestially whimsical that we have done little else than laugh in our sleeves ever since our first number was publisht.

So Gotham was filled with mad men long before Batman appeared on the scene.

Tim Kane

Rube Goldberg Devices

I’ve always adored Rube Goldberg devices. It may stem from watching too much Tom and Jerry or Wile E Coyote as a young tot. Each of those fellas built some outlandish contraptions.

Another great product from Acme

The origin of these machines dates back a century to Ruben Lucius Goldberg. At a young age, he obsessed with tracing from books, newspapers, and calendars. After a failed career as an engineer, he began drawing cartoons for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Perhaps the best device I’ve seen to date is “Page Turner”. Watch and enjoy.

Tim Kane

When Will Apple Build a Car?

I recently took my vehicle down to the shop for maintenance. Well, it wasn’t voluntary, the battery died. I mean died. It took a tow truck to jump it and even then, when I stopped at the service department, they couldn’t restart it again.

As always, there were plenty of other nifty (and expensive) repairs on the docket. One had me scratching my head. My car needed a software update. I get this all the time for my iPhone or laptop. But a car? Plus I had to shell out a c-note for the update (no wireless download for me, thank you).

Then I thought: when will Apple build a car? The idea isn’t so far fetched. Google has created a driverless car. So why can’t Apple join the fray? People thought Apple was nuts when it teamed with AT&T to make a cell phone. Look what happened there.

An Italian designer, Liviu Tudoran, created a car prototype inspired by Macintosh and iPod products. Check out all the specs here. For a look at a Microsoft developed car, check this out.

Imagine it. The new Ford powered by Apple. It could happen. At least then I could get my software downloaded off the cloud. Hey, I’d probably be able to get all the schematics on my vehicle’s performance sent to my phone. That’d put all those specialized mechanics out of work. Plus, think of the apps you could download.

Food for thought.

Tim Kane