Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Real Time UFO Map

Courtesy of MUFON, the UFO Stalker updates with events, with descriptions and links to full reports.

http://www.ufostalker.com/?mufon=true

Friday, February 06, 2009

Cthulhu Expeditionary Equipment Kit and Other NeoVictorian Curiosities

Artist Alex CF produces intricately detailed impossibilities, including specimens from dragons, gray aliens recovered from Roswell, and scientific equipment for all sorts of Lovecraftian exploits.

http://alexcf.com/blog/?page_id=6


These should look familiar. Because they have as an inspiration the vampire hunting kits that were produced starting in the nineteenth century after vampires, and particularly Dracula, became widely popularized. Now of course, many have come to believe such kits were made in seriousness, and not as a luxurious equivalent of geeky replicas and toys today, and some have sold for exorbitant sums in auctions.

I am fascinated by the transition from "real" folklore to fictional folklore going on here. Does the transition help to mark all of it as fiction, or will it increase the credibility of things that started as stated fiction, but have been embraced by later generations?

EDIT (7/31/10): It's amazing how many vampire kits there are out there, and how much people have paid for some of them. Ripley's Entertainment, the company which owns the Ripley's Believe it or not attractions in various tourist spots, brags in this post that they have the world's largest collection.