Tuesday, May 29, 2012

arROOO!

Slobbering press materials say Game of Werewolves [Lobos de Arga] will do for werewolves "what Shaun of the Dead did for zombies."

We respectfully reserve our hyperbole until we've seen the goods. Regardless, the trailer indiates that writer/director Joan Martinez Moreno's horror-comedy is at least a stupid good time. You can't ask for more of a horror-comedy.

Sure it would be nice if they were all smart, funny and genuinely scary. (E.g. An American Werewolf in London, The Evil Dead) But keeping expectations in check is just good thinking. That said, we're fully on board with the Lon Chaney Jr./Oliver Reed-style lycanthropes.

Here's a trailer for Game of Werewolves. If you require subtitles, the movie's Website launches a subtitled version of the trailer immediately.


[courtesy of TodoElTerrorDelMundo]

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Q: What do you want to do with your life?

A: I wanna rawk! (And then tidy up the place and steam-clean the carpets after I'm finished.)

Goblin Attack: A Snake With Shoes

"[S]ome neighbours confirmed that strange things were taking place at the Sithole homestead. Others went on to claim that snake-like creatures wearing sunglasses, a suit and a pair of shoes had been seen at the homestead."

A family from a village in Chipinge South, a costituency in southeastern Zimbabwe, belives they're being targeted by goblins. This was reported in the Zimbabwean news site Zimdiaspora on May 22, and brought to our attention by The Fortean Times.

Whatever is happening to this family, at least some of them believe it is supernatural in origin. In North America, would we blame the same series of events on ghosts or extra terrestrials? Demons?

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Ladies of Sport and a Love Letter to Disco

The real story here is that Typing Monkey publisher S.L. Kreighton has joined Twitter. Please, just ... you don't know what the past week has been like. He reads and chuckles all day, mumbling about Drunk Hulk and Snake & Bacon.
However, he has shared a few items of value with us and we would bebad friends if we didnt' share the following link with you:
 

It's U.S. Library of Congress photos of Victorian era (and just beyond) women who played sports -- in full Victorian dress. You'll see the Bennett Sisters and many others.

***

In the interest of variety, we also highly recommend reading Dorian Lynksey's convincing argument from The Guardian, asserting that disco lives on in the form of most modern pop music. "Long Live Disco" will either make you nod in agreement or hassle the person sitting next to you with your counter argument. You will lose.



[Photo: Detail from "Miss Isabel Tennant"]

Monday, May 21, 2012

We'll be right back after these messages

We've all been quite busy working on our annual reviews and preparing PowerPoint decks to present to the board of trustees in hopes of securing a budget to keep this thing going for another fiscal year.

As is often the case, while we're locked in a conference room arguing for our very existence, news is breaking. Farewell Duck Dunn. Au revoir Chuck Brown. Good bye  Donna Summer. We'll miss you, Robin Gibb. There are likely others we're forgetting.

Instead of barraging you with links and YouTube clips of the dearly departed -- we trust you've been inundated with such things already -- The Typing Monkey will post this vintage clip of singer/songwriter Roger Whittaker performing his tune "New World in the Morning."

If you don't know Mr. Whittaker's work, it's not hard to find him. He's an under-appreciated gem from the era of Judy Collins and Cat Stevens.


[courtesy of geralddonais]

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

No Crime Too Small

Flavorwire has a terrific gallery of miniature pulp/noir/crime scenes constructed by artist Jonah Samson. Go look at it.

[Detail from a portentious scene in Mr. Samson's gallery.]

Friday, May 4, 2012

Wise to the Demise

Adam "MCA" Yauch is still our favorite Beastie Boy.

Tracing the influence of King Adrock and Mike D in terms of vocals is pretty easy. Rappers from Eminem to MC Paul Barman and beyond employ the nasal delivery of those two. And Adrock especially, whose punkish, puckish delivery defines the Beastie Boys for most listeners, despite Mike D's deadpan delivery of hilarious lines.

But few emulate or approach MCA's dry howl. Even as he's helping create a false origin story for the band in "Paul Revere" his voice has a the crispness of an elder statesman. He could get at both the winking comedy of early career Beasties -- drawling as if he'd been up all night pounding brewskis and bumming smokes from your girlfriend -- and the conscious rapping/positivity of the trio's later material.

He's gone, it sucks, and he'll be missed. We're not sure how long this eulogy will be up on the landing page of the Beastie Boys site, but you should read it. That's how you spend major label money and influence.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Many Kinds of Close Encounters, Apparently

The sordid tale of former U.S. Senator and vice-presidential candidate John Edwards' affair with a videographer named Rielle Hunter has provided miles of column inches for newspapers, magazines, tabloids and Websites since the story broke.

Old and often repeated, the story of infidelity and apparent cracks in the moral character of a public official (gasp, faint, etc.) is far less interesting than a detail of the scandal brought to light via the court testimony.

That detail being that Rielle Hunter, the videographer with whom Edwards fathered a child out of wedlock, wanted to claim she had been abducted by aliens. This was part of an effort to deny that Hunter and Edwards had been romantically involved.

The Typing Monkey wants to make it clear to any politicians, celebrities, spin doctors, historical revisionists and public relations flacks that we think this is a marvelous idea.

Have a starlet who needs to lay low in rehab for a few weeks? Tell us she is taking time off to document sightings of the chupacabra.

Grassy knoll and second shooter theories are no more provable or easy to deny than, say, a coven of Satanists eager to assassinate the first Catholic president. See? You really can't handle the truth. [You're mixing up your Oliver Stone films. -- ed.]

We'd like to posit that William H. Seward got such a deal on Alaska when he purchased it from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million because Russia agreed to evacuate all of the Yetis residing there, hoping to bring them all back to Siberia so they could create an army of abominable snowmen. The U.S. got a gold rush untroubled by Yetis, Russia gained an army of cryptids.

The Loch Ness Monster attacked and sank Nazi U-Boats during the war? Why not?

Take any historical controversy or even minor event and make it more exciting by adding paranormal explanations and interference. Our tabloid political climate could use some actual tabloid fodder instead of this banal baby-mama drama.

Many believe the famous Patterson-Gimlin footage, taken in 1967, is definitive proof of the existence of Sasquatch. What they fail to realize is that Bigfoot is, in fact, a courier on his way to pick up The Pentagon Papers from then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

No Take Aways

It's Beltane sweethearts. Let's listen to Bow Wow Wow and practice whistling with a blade of grass.


[Courtesy of HOLLYwoodgoesFRANKIE]