Turns out my poor dog has arthritis and/or bursitis in his shoulder... and a bit of gravel wedged between the pads of his paw. The doctor's advice for the aches brought on by cold weather? "Get him a sweater." I am totally going to ask the Lovely Emily to knit him a giant muffler that I can wrap all around his neck and front legs (because God knows I'd never get sleeves on the boy).
Those messages from yesterday? Farsi.
More seasonal reading!
"The Dionaea House," from last year. (Note: "An online Halloween story was based on the 'dionaea' concept. It was called the "Dionaea House", and the writer has reported the concept has been optioned for a movie.")
If you want more (and are prepared for an extremely intellectual, multimedia/print book approach), check out Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves, which seemed to inspire the Dionaea story, and his sister Poe's (Ann Danielewski) album Haunted. (The Idiot's Guide to House of Leaves. Be prepared to spoiler-swipe the entire page, because the white text blocks aren't marked very clearly, and you may miss a lot.)
Algernon Blackwood: "The Man Whom the Trees Loved," "The Willows," and "The Empty House."
F. Marion Crawford: "The Screaming Skull." I seem to remember another story of his, "The Upper Berth," that was in an oversized picture-book anthology called Mostly Ghostly. Mostly a showcase for the illustrations, but fun nonetheless.
E.F. Benson: "The Room in the Tower." I really like this one for some reason.
Louisa May Alcott: "Behind a Mask." I love the stuff she wrote for adults--neither "Gothic" nor "thriller" really cover it. Maybe "scheming and intrigue" is the best way to put it, although some of the stories do have a supernatural bent. Not this one, though--the Jean Muir character just completely pwns, is all.
From the site where I got the Alcott story: Gothic Tales from the Past. and Some Weird & Horror Tales. Seriously, I'm just bookmarking this here because if I start reading I'll be here all week.
The works of H.P. Lovecraft. I promised to post links to a few of his, ahem, less-tentacled works, so... well, okay, there are some tentacles. But I wanted to put up stories that didn't depend on the Cthulhu Mythos per se--a scary story about a wax museum is, at the end of the day, just that.
"The Picture in the House." " I thought of the rain and of a leaky roof, but rain is not red."There are others I have printed from a site no longer in existence--sadly, the wax museum story seems to be one of them.
"The Rats in the Walls." Try to ignore the cat's name if you can. It bothered me like hell, but it was published in 1924. Sigh.
"The Strange High House in the Mist." It makes me think a little of a Lovecraftian Tom Bombadil.
"The Thing on the Doorstep." One of my favorites.
"The Shunned House." This is one of the stories that reminds me of Bierce--only a lot wordier, a lot more baroque, and with more ooze.
"Herbert West: Reanimator." Yes, that Reanimator.
"The Whisperer in Darkness." BPAL fans will get a kick out of this one--to say why would give the twist away, but you'll know it when you see it.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
shoiryu recommends The House of Leaves if you'd like to see this kind of thing done in book form. I read a few reviews of it, and it bears some really, really striking resemblances to the Dionaea site. Like, "I wonder if that site was inspired by the book" striking.) redscorner left a link in the comments on the last entry to an ARG forum, where I noticed an interesting comment--a lot of people are trying to mount their own ARGs, apparently, and they're looking for writers to help. Man. I'm crap with the technological elements, which is why I wouldn't be able to start my own, but writing one would be so much fun. quizzicalsphinx and elynrae managed to dig up a similar story from a few years ago about spelunkers getting trapped in a cave. The URL: http://www.holyshiite.com/caver/index.html. Heh. The first few pages are a little slow going, as the author seems to be an actual spelunker who talks A LOT about caving itself. It starts to pick up when the cavers bring their dog.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
branchandroot