Link Proliferation: "His complex mathematical proof indicates that the complete destruction of vampires would not be socially optimal."

Worst. Hangover. Ever.

Via the Mind Hacks blog, the Emergency Medicine Journal has a case study about a guy who rolled into a French hospital for alcohol poisoning. Normally, they take such cases, catheter them, hydrate them, give them a stern talking to, offer them access to an AA group, and send them off with a monster hangover.

In this case, the monster hangover wasn't going away. The reason is revealed in the case study's abstract:

Massive alcohol intake usually resolves in a banal headache. We report a case of a patient presenting with acute alcohol intoxication in which the ensuing “hangover” was due to a knife blade deeply retained in the brain parenchyma. This case underlines the unpredictability of retained foreign bodies without a high level of suspicion and a detailed description of the circumstances of admission.

Later in the study, we get this gem:

The foreign body was surgically withdrawn, and postoperative recovery was uneventful. After awakening from surgery, the patient could not remember involvement in an altercation, but witnesses retrospectively confirmed that he was attacked with a knife after drinking with his assailant.

Incroyable!

Pics above. The magic of clicking makes things bigger.

"There is something implacably and sadly malign about this world."

Popmatters has a nicely discursive review of Ivan Vartanian and Tiffany Godoy's Japanese Gothic

With its distinctive looks, links to Japanese popular music, and intense marketability, it would be easy to consider Gothic Lolita another clothing trend. There’s no lack of websites devoted to explaining exactly how to dress in Gothic Lolita style, with Tokyopop’s quarterly magazine Gothic & Lolita Bible being one of the most definitive. Among its typical influences are Victorian, Edwardian and Rococo fashions (think Edward Gorey). Other common elements include knee-length skirts with petticoats; shirts and blouses edged in frills and lace; bonnets and parasols.

But don’t come to this book expecting instructions on how to dress. Japanese Goth doesn’t delve into the minutiae of proper ensembles and accessories. It also avoids getting into the Gothic Lolita subcultures such as “Elegant Gothic Lolita”, or “Sweet Gothic Lolita”. Readers interested in the latest variation on the theme probably have their own sources for finding out what’s new. As Takemoto [Japanese novelist and "bard of the Lolitas," Novala Takemoto - CRwM] writes in his introduction:

“Let’s say punk rock was described to you as ‘three chords of rock music played roughly.’ Would that be sufficient? If you looked up surrealism in the dictionary and it was described as a style of art that uses unrealistic depiction, would you understand? In Japan, even now, people ask me ‘What is Gothic Lolita fashion?’ I tell them I don’t know.”

Bloodsucker Population Dynamics, Revisited

Several months ago, I posted a link to a paper by two physicists claiming that geometric progression (a sequence of numbers where each term after the first is found by multiplying the previous one by a fixed non-zero number called the common ratio) proves that vampires could not exist.

The short form of the argument: Vamp feeding produces new vamps, so every time a vamp feeds there are more feeding vamps produced, which means the number of feeding vamps quickly passes the number of available humans. The way the number crunchers worked it out, it would take just two years to turn the whole human population into vampires.

On posting this, ANTSS regular and generally perspicacious fellow Screamin' Sassy noted that the eggheads made some pretty broad assumptions about vampires. Does everybody a vampire bites instantly become a vampire? How often do vampires really need to feed?

Turns out that Sassy wasn't alone. At io9, Mark Strauss, senior editor of Smithsonian magazine, takes a tour of alternative vampire population spread models.

From the article:

Here, Sejdinovic cites the pioneering research conducted by Austrian mathematicians Richard Hartl and Alexander Mehlmann, who published the landmark 1992 paper, "The Transylvanian Problem of Renewable Resources," later followed up by "Cycles of Fear: Periodic Bloodsucking Rates for Vampires" (Journal of Optimization Theory and Application, December 1992). Hartl and Mehlmann argue that vampires would never be stupid enough to deplete their entire food supply, and by applying the Hopf-Bifurcation Theorem (don't ask), they demonstrate how vampires can adopt an optimal "cyclical bloodsucking strategy."

However, there is a serious flaw in the Hartl and Mehlmann model: The assumption that human beings would be docile prey. Their research provoked an outraged response from economist Dennis Snower, who in his article "Macroeconomic Policy and the Optimal Destruction of Vampires" (The Journal of Political Economy, June 1982), declared:

"One wonders what conceivable interest the authors could have had in helping vampires solve their intertemporal consumption problem. The implicit assumption of the Invisible Hand (or Fang)-whereby vampires, in pursuing their own interests, pursue those of human beings as well-is of questionable validity. The study by Hartl and Mehlmann is not concerned with the macroeconomic implications of blood-sucking behavior modes. Nor does it consider the policy instruments whereby human beings can protect themselves from vampires. Instead, humans are modeled as passive receptacles of blood whose cultivation and harvest are left to vampire discretion."

The whole thing is silly fun for the geekier among the horror fancy.

Beach Reading Season Begins

The Pop Crunch mass-cult news site has released its 10 Most Disturbing Books of All Time list.

The selections are a little odd. The Turner Diaries makes it on the strength of its connection to the militia movement and its alleged role as an inspiration to Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh, but Mein Kampf, with its connection to a considerably more destructive and widespread right-wing political movement, was not considered infamous enough to make the list.

Also, reading 120 Days of Sodom is about as emotionally involving as reading the phonebook. I have no doubt that the masochistic souls who trudge through the entire work put down de Sade's tome feeling drained – though it isn't the soul scourging emptiness one feels after you've stared into the abyss; it's the hollow tiredness one feels after an excruciatingly long ordeal at the DMV.

Stuff: Torture couture.

I visited NYC's Fashion Institute of Technology yesterday. Their museum is currently hosting a wonderful exhibit on goth fashion: Gothic: Dark Glamour. At first, I was a little hesitant to go. I was worried that I was basically going to walk into a slightly upmarket showcase for Hot Topic-grade junk, but I was honestly blown away. The exhibit's relevance as a historical overview is secured by its scope and depth, while the artistic merit of the show rests on the fact that the designs and items collected are truly beautiful and fascinating.

The show tracks the development of the gothic look back to Victorian mourning clothing – notably the fashionable widow's weeds worn by young women: a look Victorians wittily referred to as "the trap rebaited." From there, you get a flowering of "dark" looks from the 1980s, with a second boom at the dawn of the Twenty-first Century. The exhibit's focus is on high couture designers and their works, but some room is made for examples of youth streetwear and a couple of examples of the "elegant gothic Lolita" look the developed in Japan.

There's a ton to discuss about the exhibit. The show covers the role of Japanese designers in redefining the gothic with a distinctly non-Western flare (interestingly, despite the gothic's Euro origins, the show is dominated by brilliant work from American and Japanese designers), the figure of the dandy, the role of the French Revolution in the development of the gothic novel, proto-vampiric imagery in fashion discourse prior to the publication of Dracula, and so much more that is really is a must see for anybody interested in what horror tropes do once they leave the confines of literature and film.

Given the scope of the show, I'll focus on a single element – the work of Japanese designer Kei Kagami.

Let's start with a comparison.

First, a movie poster:

Second, a fashion photo:

The former is, of course, a poster for Saw. The latter is a picture of a dress designer by Kei Kagami. Kagami's first solo runway show and the premiere of Saw both occurred in 2004. Apparently, while the folks behind Saw were developing their film's look, Kagami was developing a similar look based on his training at the Bunka Fashion College of Tokyo, Central St. Martin's College of Art & Design in London, and a stint as a studio assistant for John Galliano (one of the few non-Japanese or American designers heavily represented in the goth exhibit).

Here's more Kagami.

Interesting, despite the general tendency of horror bloggers – including myself - to go to great lengths to distinguish the nakedly industrial aesthetic of works like Saw and Hostel from the more Romantic look of traditional gothic fare, Kagami firmly places his work within the gothic tradition and sees no contradiction. He has referred to his look as "neo-gothic" and, more entertainingly, spins gothic tales about himself and his work. When singer and fashion reporter Diane Pernet asked Kagami about the inspiration behind a particular line of shoe designs, the designer gave the following story, with Kagami's caps-free writing style preserved:

let me tell you the story of ' a ghost rider that took me to a cemetery in North London '. this ghost story is not scary at all but what happened was true .

let me tell you the story of ' a ghost rider that took me to a cemetery in North London '.
this ghost story is not scary at all but what happened was true .

one day i went to a biker's cafe called ' Ace Cafe' in north London .
on the way home i found a beautiful vintage bike , maybe it was one called ' Vincent black shadow '( sounds already spooky ) , so i decided to chase it. it was a fast bike , i could not really catch up with it but i kept chasing it as long as i could see it .

but when i turned at the last corner , i could not see it anymore , it just disappeared .
i stopped my bike and what i could see was only the entrance of Highgate cemetery .
so i visited this cemetery in the weekend .
there was not the Vincent black shadow there but a beautiful world in shade of Highgate.

Kagami currently operates out of Milan. He has showrooms in London, Milan, and Hiroshima.

Music: Show the Goths some love.

First formed as a trio in 1994 out of the remains of Crayons and Wimp Factor 14, the Seattle-based low-fi indie power-pop band Tullycraft pushed a style at odds with the sonic sludge assault that would, by the end of the '90s, become the Seattle-Olympia Axis's official sound.

But, more than ten years later, when most of the grunge titans have imploded, become self-parodies, or simply called it a day, Tullycraft is still making music. They're a testament to the sticking power of talented, committed folks doing what they know they do best.

"Georgette Plays a Goth" is a sweet ode to everybody's favorite youth subculture. This little summer-friendly jam is laced with clever lyric writing, uses '60s bubblegum pop touches like they never went out of style, drops some classic indie rock guitar hooks, and a features a central heroine – the Georgette of the title – who is so appealing that you might find yourself regretting any crap you ever gave Goths.

Enjoy.



GOTH CHICK WORSHIP BONUS:

Here's a live clip of nerdcore rap pioneer MC Frontalot doing his lust-besotted, epically cock-blocked tribute to "every sister with wrist scars and black eye goo." The second song costs you nuffin'. You get it for free, just because I love you all.



Have a good Friday, my dearest Screamers and Screamettes.