Not-Twitter, and Yet More Crushed Penguins
I am not a Twitterer. Not yet, anyway, and probably not soon. Maybe not ever, since I seriously doubt I have the staying power to turn out a regular stream of tweets, or twits, or twitters or whatever they're called. But if I was on Twitter, things I might have Twittered in the last few days:
- Aren't staples brilliant? Man, I wish I'd invented staples. That would have been a life well spent.
- Finished Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft. Is good.
- Seen some old X-Files recently. Also some old Friends. Thought the latter has aged far better than the former. What does this say about me?
- Sunshine! Sunshine! I almost felt warm just now. Every winter, I forget how good that feels.
- How to tell something (i.e. Twitter) is about to head down the far side of the cool parabola: I start thinking 'Hmmm. Maybe I should get me some of that action.'
Me, I have other means than the 140 character outpourings of countless Twitter pros to amuse myself online. Amongst them is googling the phrase 'crushing the frantic penguins'. I've been doing it on and off ever since I first stumbled upon this means of trawling the depths of the internet for oddities last August. Strange behaviour, you say? Well, I'm not going to argue.
Anyway, I thought it was about time I shared my findings. Because I just know the world has been eagerly waiting to hear what new waymarkers have appeared on the virtual trail of once frantic, now flattened penguins since last we checked. And the answer is:
the complete text of the rather good HP Lovercraft story in which the noble phrase first appeared. (Specifically, it turns out, in Chapter 11 of said story).
a Lovecraftian monstrosity made of batteries. Like it.
an entire range of perfumes based on the works of HP Lovercraft. No, really. Call me unimaginative, but wouldn't have occurred to me as an obvious source of perfumey inspiration, but the one relating to crushed penguins - Shoggoth - does actually sound quite nice: peony, lemongrass, coconut, lime etc. If they'd included 'essence of dead flightless birds' as an ingredient, I might have been tempted.
- Aren't staples brilliant? Man, I wish I'd invented staples. That would have been a life well spent.
- Finished Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft. Is good.
- Seen some old X-Files recently. Also some old Friends. Thought the latter has aged far better than the former. What does this say about me?
- Sunshine! Sunshine! I almost felt warm just now. Every winter, I forget how good that feels.
- How to tell something (i.e. Twitter) is about to head down the far side of the cool parabola: I start thinking 'Hmmm. Maybe I should get me some of that action.'
Me, I have other means than the 140 character outpourings of countless Twitter pros to amuse myself online. Amongst them is googling the phrase 'crushing the frantic penguins'. I've been doing it on and off ever since I first stumbled upon this means of trawling the depths of the internet for oddities last August. Strange behaviour, you say? Well, I'm not going to argue.
Anyway, I thought it was about time I shared my findings. Because I just know the world has been eagerly waiting to hear what new waymarkers have appeared on the virtual trail of once frantic, now flattened penguins since last we checked. And the answer is:
the complete text of the rather good HP Lovercraft story in which the noble phrase first appeared. (Specifically, it turns out, in Chapter 11 of said story).
a Lovecraftian monstrosity made of batteries. Like it.
an entire range of perfumes based on the works of HP Lovercraft. No, really. Call me unimaginative, but wouldn't have occurred to me as an obvious source of perfumey inspiration, but the one relating to crushed penguins - Shoggoth - does actually sound quite nice: peony, lemongrass, coconut, lime etc. If they'd included 'essence of dead flightless birds' as an ingredient, I might have been tempted.
Labels: Comics, Crushed Penguins, TV
posted by Brian Ruckley at 3:46 PM :: Permalink ::
2 Comments:
Not to sitewhore my own crappy blog, but this is kind of funny to me since I wrote this about novels and Twitter awhile back: http://blog.dyerama.com/?p=23
The text:
In Brian Ruckley’s novels Winterbirth and Bloodheir, there exists something called the Shared. In this Scottish influenced world of clans at war over a religious doctrine of determinism, the Shared exists as a magical layer upon which the world floats. The world, in a sense, is a projection of the minds of those who exist in the Shared. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Metaphysics tends to be nebulous like that.
Regardless, the only people who can access the Shared (thus doing cool wizard stuff, as in all good fantasy) are racial halfbreeds. The children of two races are born sterile, but they have access to the Shared, perhaps because of their border-dweller status.
The neat thing about the Shared is this–everyone touches it at the same time. It’s an ocean, and even if people are tiny ships, they still make wakes. Need to talk to someone half a world away? Do it in their dreams, across the Shared.
Why do I think this is so neat? Because the idea of the Shared touches some very old beliefs about our connection to the world around us and those we share it with while also becoming a metaphor for modern social networking technologies, like Facebook and Twitter. It reminds us that social networking may be using new technology, it has always been a part of our collective mythology.
So much for fantasy and science fiction being different beasts. Speculative fiction is dead; long live speculative fiction.
I'd not thought of the Shared like that, but it's kind of a fun analogy. You can even use social networking to spread memes or campaigns or smears, which is a little bit like the mind-influencing tricks someone like Aeglyss can use the Shared for.
And I particularly like this, by the way: The world, in a sense, is a projection of the minds of those who exist in the Shared. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Metaphysics tends to be nebulous like that. Almost exactly(but not quite, of course, these things being nebulous) the sort of description I might offer of the Shared!
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