Happy Halloween Y'all. This Is My Low Budget Gravelord Nito Costume. Or, I’m “skeletons”.

A video I made on Nostalgia Culture and the representation of Millennials in film,  I’m quite proud of how this one turned out! If you like it, please do feel free to like, comment, share and subscribe. It’d mean a lot!

And, of course, check Brigsby Bear out if you’re interested! It’s a great little film, and I wish more people knew about it.

The tragic tale of why Movie Sonic ended up so Uncanny

We've all seen it. We all hate it. It was always going to turn out this way. Tumblr: https://infranaut.tumblr.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/The_Infranaut ...

I made a video about how stupid movie practices and product placement lead to nightmare sonic. Give me a like and sub you old so and so.

It’s here! 

In this video, I discuss The Tempest and it’s storied, weird history, whilst takin a close look at Julie Taymor’s 2010 adaptation of the play. In the video, I talk about the problem with adapting Shakespeare in general, and how film is by definition a transformative medium.

If you enjoy the video, please do like/share/subscribe! I know thats corny, but it really helps this early on.

Let me know what you all think!

The Cradle

We assumed we were in the box.

It was only natural, after all. It’s what anyone would have thought. We had been away for almost six years. A little silver glint in space; not even enough to catch the eye. The CAS system kept us asleep most of it, of course. If we’re talking waking hours, we had been away from Earth maybe eight months.

Space is full of radiation. There’s a reason so many old astronauts have cancer - it comes from everywhere. Our ship had a ridiculously simple monitor, a light really, that was meant to alert us when radiation levels were about to get too high. The trouble was, when we were under, something went wrong. No way of knowing what, but this little green light was on the fritz. We looked at it and no one could figure the thing out - our chief engineer, after some tinkering, told us that the thing was garbage. That there was a 50/50 chance it was accurately indicating high levels of radiation. When you’re in a little metal tube, surrounded on all sides by death, those odds really don’t sound so bad.

Still, it was enough to get to you. It turns out an even chance was the worst thing we could have heard. I would gladly have taken 90/10, or even 99/1 odds. The certainty of death would have been infinitely more comforting.

After a few days, someone brought up we were exactly like the cat in the box. I’m sure everyone is aware, but if you’re not, I can give my two cents. Schrödinger’s cat is a kind of tawdry metaphor that was never really meant to be taken seriously, but the basic premise is as follows; a cat is placed in a box with a Geiger counter containing a trace amount of some radioactive substance. In the space of an hour, it’s equally possible that the substance  remains unchanged as it is the substance decays. If the substance decays, a flask of poisonous shatters and kills the cat. In the hour before the box is opened, the contents of the box are a superposition, wherein the cat is both alive and dead. Upon observing the contents of the box, the superposition “chooses” an outcome. It was a metaphor that, to my foggy recollection, was meant to mock the idea of a contradictory harmonious state. However, it caught the public imagination and became accepted into the vast sea of pop-science.

What is interesting, however, is the notion that an action in the present, ie opening the box, can in fact change an event in the past, in this case whether the cat has been alive or dead the last hour.

We were currently the cat in the box; there was a 50/50 chance that we had been poisoned. The monitors on Earth would know for certain whether we were or not, but we were not due to communicate with them for another six months. It was funny, in a way. We joked about being zombies. That we were just waiting for the boys back open to crack open the lid.

After a month, it stopped being funny. I became unsure whether I was feeling the effects of radiation poisoning. Maybe it was a placebo, maybe it was all in my head, but I swear I could feel it. I could feel this looming dread, this decay deep in my bones. Examining the path the ship had taken, one of my peers figured out exactly where the radiation source must have been, if it indeed existed at all. After two months of uncertainty, we decided to open the box ourselves. 

It was not our decision to make.

We put ourselves to sleep and turned the ship around. We had a six month timer; that would put us in range of Earth.

In that sleep, you are meant to dream. I had nothing. When I think back to my time under, I recall nothing. Only the darkness and a strange anxiety.

We awoke, looked out the window, and realised we were wrong. We were wrong all along. 

We were never in the box.

A neutron star is the result of a collapsed star. While relatively tiny in size, their density is incredible. A neutron star with a radius of only 7 miles can have a mass of over twice our sun. They also give out enormous amounts of radiation. A tiny, blinding usher. A calamitous angel. The scroll, rolling up the night sky.

Swallowing whole the world entire.

Uncertainty was the curse. There was an even chance that there was no radiation source. There was an even chance the monitor was faulty. There was an even chance we were all fine.

But we had to know, and in our knowing, we became fate. We were the observers. We forced the choice. We changed the past and smashed the vial.

It wasn’t us in the box, it was the world. But we needed to look. We needed to.

“You couldn’t make Blazing Saddles today!” is an adage I am so sick and tired of hearing that I made a half hour video debunking it. It also goes into exactly why the film is considered one of history’s most disruptive classics, and if you have time, you should check it out!

My channel is tiny, so any subs/shares/likes/comments you have are highly appreciated. Thanks in advance, pardner. 

Looking around online, I found a LOT of people were left stumped by the ending of the film Personal Shopper. I get that - it’s a weird one! In this video, I examine the film as a whole, and try to find out what exactly we can gleam from those perplexing final seconds.

If you enjoy my video, please feel free to subscribe, or follow me on Twitter here https://twitter.com/The_Infranaut

What if the Camera Really Do Take Your Soul? Arcade Fire, Anthropology and Western Myth.

“Flashbulb Eyes” is not a particularly long song (especially compared to the others on the album), and lyrically speaking it... Well, it's eight different lines.

However, it is in this track where (I feel) the albums two strongest themes, fear or sociopathy and hatred of fame come together in the most succinct and straightforward way.

Though recently, this song has inspired me to think about something else; the idea that certain people once believe that “the camera can steal your soul”. It mostly seems to be colonial bullshit. 

What you're looking at here is a photograph from keen scientific writer and pioneer of Japanese photography, Ueno Hikoma. During Hikoma's life, he captured many iconic scenes of the Japanese countryside, as well as its inhabitants. His work was widely influential, and he maintained close relationships with and even taught many of the other great Japanese  photographers of the time (Uchida Kuichi, Noguchi Jōichi and Kameya Tokujirō to name just a few). At times, however, superstitions crept into his craft, and he had trouble taking the pictures of a number of his Japanese countrymen. You see; it was a belief in some areas that having your picture taken would also take your soul away.

Except, no, that's not really true at all, it's just how Western society seemed to interpret it. It's true, Hikoma had difficulty taking the pictures of some Japanese citizens, however it wasn't really for fear of a soul being stolen. It was in fact far closer to some of the Japanese believing that they could become sick from having their picture taken, possibly due to the bright flash – and even this belief does not necessarily come down to superstition as much as misunderstanding. The camera was still a relatively new contraption – especially if you were a farmer and had never seen anything remotely similar before – so general unease around it does not seem too absurd.

This example, by the way, happens to be one of the very few (documented, at least) examples of a people actually fearing the camera in this way.

Other instances of of civilisations fearing the camera seem to stem more from cultural misunderstandings. For instance, the Australian Aboriginal culture (much like the Iroquois) is an intrinsically oral one, containing no written language. History and stories pre-1788 were maintained through song and repeatedly told stories rather than through physical documentation (The Iroquois, conversely, would appoint “Sachem”, individuals tasked with remembering and teaching Historic events). As a result, the Aboriginal tradition has become a profoundly esoteric one. Due to this traditional, recording an Aboriginal ceremony, song or practise is a matter of extreme contention, and it is highly recommended (and really, just a mark of respect) you consult the host before taking pictures. The avoidance of the camera, for these people, is not a matter of fear, but of cultural preservation. 

In Janet Hoskins study of the myth, she theorises that the fear of the camera stealing blood is actually far more likely than the notion of a camera stealing a soul (Noting that the cameras “click” sounding similar to a sucking sound). This sounds a little odd, but makes sense – after all, the notion of a “soul” is not necessarily common to every culture, and even if a culture does posses a “soul equivalent”, who is to say their version is capable of being stolen? Is it not also possible that fear of the camera could also have begun out of fear of the power it represents – taking ones image forever, without their consent? Anthropologist Rodney Needham labelled the belief that the camera can steal the soul a “literary stereotype”.

In fact, the idea of a soul being stolen through a representative image is a distinctly European one.  During the Victorian era, it was common practise for all mirrors to be covered with sheets or rags at a funeral. This was due to the incredibly strong belief the Victorians had in “the soul” - notably that immortality was achieved through the resurrection of the soul. Mirrors were covered so that no reflection of the dead would be present at their funeral – the common superstition was that if any reflection were present, then the deceased soul could be trapped forever. It makes sense now, that many Westerners would have associated other culture's avoidance of the camera with the soul. This idea of the “reflection” representing the soul likely carried over to the introduction of the camera, where in stead of a “reflection” mirroring the soul, it was a photograph.

Ah yes, reflections. Reflektions.

Martingale Episode 1: Cold Open | RPG Roulette

The year is 1886, and the place is Montana. The Great, Mythic Frontier lets out one last stifled gasp before the cold sets in, and the final nail is hammered...

An actual-play podcast where we’re playing DEAD IN THE WEST, a game of my own creation! Please give a listen and tell me watcha think!

The year is 1886, and the place is Montana. The Great, Mythic Frontier lets out one last stifled gasp before the cold sets in, and the final nail is hammered down into the Old West's coffin. Join RPG Roulette and me for an acyual-play miniseries where Our intrepid players set out into a world of deceit, desperation, and unforgiving winter.

If you want to listen to the podcast elsewhere, check it out here (a rating or review would go a long way!): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rpg-roulette/id1403097671

Or here: https://rpg-roulette.simplecast.com/episodes/martingale-ep-1-cold-open

And also Spotify!

If you're interested in DEAD IN THE WEST, you can download or order a hardback copy here: https://deadinthewest.gumroad.com/

If you wanna support RPG Roulette, you can do so here (they’re good lads): https://www.patreon.com/rpgroulette

More episodes soon! Thanks for listening and lemme know your thoughts!

Castles in the Air, Episode Two: Jamais Vu

Castles in the Air is a bi-weekly horror anthology series in the vein of The Twilight Zone. The podcast is created and owned by Will Donelson.

A couple sit together in a diner, passing the time with cheap conversation. A car outside drives by one too many times, and the two sat behind them seem to be repeating themselves. Something is clearly wrong, and despite how much they want to leave, something is keeping them glued in place. As time itself unwinds, loops and rearranges around them, they find themselves questioning their very reasons for being.

Written, directed and edited by Will Donelson

Please Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/castles-in-the-air/id1191981068

Stream on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/castles-in-the-air/e/48846067?autoplay=true

Stream on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/will-donelson-1/castles-in-the-air-episdode-two-jamais-vu

RSS: http://castlesintheair.libsyn.com/rss

This episode features voicework by Jane Duncan and John Skaggs. This episode features additional voicework by David Milk and Paul Cipparone.

Music used:

"Humility" by Mangokitty, check them out at vickisigh.tumblr.com

Opening theme is "Consumed by Love" by Giles Appleton

Episode art by Will Donelson

If you like what you heard, please subscribe to us on iTunes! I would also appreciate any ratings/reviews on iTunes as it helps boost the shows visibility.

Once again, thank you to everyone for being so supportive and sending so many nice messages and the like. Next episode in two weeks!

Yo at this point I think I’ve seen enough desolate Russian landscapes in cinema to reconstruct the whole country from memory