The world’s biggest wave ever surfed was caught on camera. It’s big the guy needed a jet-ski to get on it. Here’s the video.
But this morning, someone surfed a wave that was almost as big. Or maybe it’s bigger; I can’t tell. But it’s an amazing picture from Nazaré, Portugal. It looks like that surfer is going to crash into the that sea wall!
Take a gander at this…
Before everyone goes nuts, it’s fake. Completely. Here is the original, which is basically an add for wall decorations.
I love this inventive little short about the end of the world. Great special effects (which were probably done with on someone laptop with open source software), and with an amusingly insulting view towards boring apocalyptica, of which there is far too much. And no, that towel never come off.
Just a two novels I’ve read recently. One was a very pleasant surprise.
1. Those Across the River – Christopher Buehlman
This novel was an enormous surprise. It’s hard to find beautifully written horror, but Buehlman has done it. Before he was a novelist (or a successful novelist at least) he was a noted poet and a actor who specialized in renaissance theatre.
It’s 1935. Frank Nichols, failed academic, married to a women he stole from a colleague, has fled to the small town of Whitbrow to recover from his mistakes, his post-traumatic stress disorder from the war, and ostensibly write a novel on a long-lost relative who died in a plantation slave rebellion.
But Whitbrow is an odd place. Strange religions rituals, a part of the woods no one ever goes, a strange naked boy in the woods. The town has a deep secret of which it might not even be aware.
This is a well-made novel with fabulous, terse dialogue, fine historical detail, and the atmosphere of post-war, racist America feels natural and real. I won’t get into the plot too much, but it almost takes a back seat to the inner life of the protagonist, and the finely-woven tapestry of a small Southern town. That isn’t to say it’s not scary – there’s a scene in the woods which is equal to anything by Stephen King. Think Hemingway mixed with a little Stephen King.
Get this book now and support great writing. The genre needs it.
2. The House of Skin – Jonathan Janz
Paul Carver has inherited a fabulous estate from a long-lost relative. Of course, it’s haunted by the world’s most shrewish and murderous dead wife, who has no intention of staying dead.
Carver meets a beautiful young woman named Julia, who has already murdered a would-be rapist, and together they have to face the frightening spector of Annabel Carver, wife of Myles Carver.
Many people compare this novel to the works of late and lamented goremeister Richard Laymon. I think it’s closer to John Farris, most notably his novel Disturb Not the Dream, with the backstories and the looming sense of repeating history, although without the Farris’s creepy sexiness.
It’s a fine novel, easy-to-read, with generous slatherings of tasty pulp. A welcome addition.
Notice that’s he’s browner?
I don’t think Mitt Romney is a bad person. Or maybe I don’t know whether he is or is not a bad person. But I don’t think Mitt Romney knows either.
In 1994, during his campaign for the senate, he wrote an infamous letter to The Log Cabin Republican, a group of gay fiscal conservatives. While he didn’t outright state that he was for marriage, he did write that he wanted full equality for gays and lesbians. When that letter was brought up as a weapon against his social conservative bona fides, he could only say that he was tailoring the letter to its recipients. In other words, he was telling them what he wanted to hear.
Earlier this week, he was caught insulting half his country’s population. He was secretly videoed at a $50,000 a plate fundraiser, where many of the guests were doubtlessly rich republicans. Did the ‘Massachusetts Moderate’ really believe all that stuff about moochers and freeloaders? I don’t know, and perhaps Mitt doesn’t know either. I think he may have been telling the rich folks what he wanted to hear.
And last, but not least. Here is a picture of him on Univision, a spanish-language TV station. He appears to be wearing brown toner on his face, which makes his skin look… darker. More like the audience that might be watching the show. The mind boggles.
Barring Obama making a colossal mistake, Romney is going to lose. He will disappear, and go back to ripping the guts out of companies and sending work overseas. We’ll forget about him, and maybe by then he’ll have figured out who he is. I sure as hell don’t know who he is.
Cats are ubiquitous in the internet, and I’m not sure why. So this is the ultimate cat video. Even if you hate cats, you will love this video. There are some clips you’ve seen before, and some new ones. But never all at the same time! Feast your eyes on the Ultimate Meow Compilation.
This is a fabulous, witty, and self-deprecating video called No One Survives, by the death metal band Nekrogoblikon. What a pleasant surprise! It reminds me of something The Beasty Boys might do if the Beasty Boys were a metal band.
Here is a the story of a nerdy, single, milquetoast goblin – a day in the life of a put-upon wage slave. The lovely twist of this whole video is…. well, just watch it. And watch how it finally heads into genre territory at the end.
And since I’m in a very strange mood ( a very good mood actually – some very fine family-related news came my way and I am as pleased as punch), here is a picture of a hairy teenage girl cuddling a hybrid between a baby and a foot.
