eldritchhobbit

Just a quick note to say that my essay "In Search of Fringe's Literary Ancestors" from the book Fringe Science is the spotlight essay today at the Smart Pop Books website. You can read it for free here!

These count as cool things:

- Here's a Call for Papers of potential interest: CFP: What Can We Expect from Joss Whedon?

- J. Michael Straczynski will be adapting Kim Stanley Robinson: "Babylon 5 creator heads back to TV to write the Red Mars series."

- Speaking of adaptations, has anyone watched the new Amazon Originals pilot of The Man in the High Castle, adapted from Philip K. Dick's novel? We give it two enthusiastic thumbs up! So does The Independent: "The Man in the High Castle: From the makers of The X-Files and Blade Runner, the Amazon pilot all sci-fi fans should watch."

I have a spooky tale for you today, straight from my own backyard!

Brown Mountain, which is found in the county next to ours in the Blue Ridge Mountains, has long been the home of ghostly lights. Called the "Brown Mountain Lights," these mysterious glowing lights - most prevalent in September, October, and November - have been the source of government and private investigations, news reports, folklore, and music, television, and film. The first documented sighting took place on September 24, 1913, as reported in the Charlotte Daily Observer, but anecdotal accounts and oral history predate this report by many years.

The lights remain unexplained.



Here are some sources about the Brown Mountain Lights:

* Faculty and students from Appalachia State University maintain this website about the Brown Mountain Lights.

* This YouTube clip includes footage from Charlotte TV and National Geographic TV of and about the lights.

* This YouTube clip includes footage of the lights shot with night vision for the National Geographic TV program Paranatural.



Here are some of the fictional works inspired by the Brown Mountain Lights:

* The X-Files episode "Field Trip" has Mulder and Scully investigating the case of missing hikers who were found dead in the vicinity of Brown Mountain. Mulder, of course, immediately makes the connection to the Brown Mountain Lights.
ETA: The two-part story "Night Lights" by John Rozum in issues 18 and 19 of The X-Files comics is also about the Brown Mountain Lights.

* Scotty Wiseman's song "Brown Mountain Lights" attributes the lights to the lantern of a ghostly slave searching for his long-lost owner. Hear it performed by Tony Rice on YouTube. (Note: Another local folktale claims the lights are a Cherokee woman searching for her dead lover.)

* ETA: travels_in_time pointed out that the 1968 novel Escape to Witch Mountain by Alexander H. Key (which has inspired several movie adaptations) mentions the Blue Ridge Mountains specifically and tells of mysterious lights and music coming from a particular mountain. Further research confirms that Key did, in fact, base Witch Mountain on Brown Mountain! How cool is that?

* The 2014 film Alien Abduction - which is very much worth watching if you like such movies - credits aliens with the lights. It was filmed in and around this area. Here's a Dread Central interview with director Matty Beckerman, who claims to have seen the lights himself.

* RIP, John Neville, OBE (1925-2011). He was Sherlock Holmes in A Study in Terror, Baron Munchausen in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and the Well-Manicured Man in The X-Files, to name but a few of his many roles.
Read more here: Former Stratford Director, John Neville, Dies and Slice of SciFi Remembers John Neville.

* RIP, Hugo and Nebula Award winner Anne McCaffrey (1926-2011), Science Fiction Writers of America Grand Master, inductee into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, and author of one of the first science fiction novels to appear on the New York Times Best Seller List.
Read more here: Announcement from Locus and Slice of SciFi Remembers Anne McCaffrey.


* In happier news, Smart Pop Books is running a new promotion: Sign up for Smart Pop's mailing list, and get free excerpts from Smart Pop books! Two of the books from which you can get excerpts are collections that include essays of mine, namely Nyx in the House of Night and Fringe Science.


Last but not least, given the season, this seemed appropriate!


see more Historic LOL


Besides the autumn poets sing,
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the haze.

A few incisive mornings,
A few ascetic eves, -
Gone Mr. Bryant's golden-rod,
And Mr. Thomson's sheaves.
- Emily Dickinson, "Nature: XLIX"

I'm back from a terrific experience in Washington, D.C. Everything was right where I left it last time, although I was disappointed not to find Fox Mulder and Deep Throat sitting on a bench and gazing at the Potomac. (On a related note, we just rewatched the "Duane Barry" and "Ascension" episodes of The X-Files, and I was struck by how much a young Alex Krycek resembles Captain Jack Harkness. That explains a lot, actually.)

Happy birthday to astromachy and manonlechat, and happy early birthday to shalna. I hope all of you enjoy many happy returns of the day!

I'm still catching up. More soon!


For those who haven't seen it yet, a new favorite from xkcd:

Happy Wednesday! I have a few quick notes today...

* In Television News:
Tomorrow at 7pm EST the SciFi Channel begins showing the outstanding second season of Jeremiah, which introduces one of my very favorite TV characters, Mister Smith. If you missed the first season (which was good, but not in the same category as the second, in my opinion), you can catch up with this quick and handy summary from belleferret. I highly recommend catching this season!

* In Music News:
Thanks to a friend's recommendation, I've discovered the band Nuclear Bubble Wrap (former neighbors of mine from Germantown, Tennessee). Their music is quite fun. Check out the free downloads for "Dumbledore Died" and the wicked Harry Potter-centric parody of "Bad Touch" by Bloodhound Gang, "Bad Spell."

* In Personal, X-Files, and Podcasting News:
My tribute to The X-Files is featured today on the main page of StarShipSofa. The latest episode of the podcast features my "whirlwind tour" of the genre ancestors of Agents Mulder and Scully of The X-Files -- in other words, a discussion of the history of science fiction investigators in literature and television. It begins about 13 minutes into the podcast. You can download it here, listen to it streaming here, or get it via iTunes under "StarShipSofa."

* In Personal and Convention News:
I now have confirmed my appearance as a guest at two cons in 2009: ConCarolinas and RavenCon.

* In Lovecraftian News:
I adore this new Miskatonic University class ring. Badali Jewelry rules!


Kurdy: What's it all for, Smith? You one of those guys likes to spy on people for kicks?
Mister Smith: Not for kicks. For history.
- "The Mysterious Mister Smith," Jeremiah

My baby sister Margret (see these posts for more about her) is getting married this weekend, so I'm off to Oklahoma to be the matron of honor in her wedding.

I will be online while I'm away, but I want to go ahead and wish all of you who celebrate it a happy Fourth of July. Also, happy early birthday to archaic_angel; may you have a fantastic day and wonderful year to come!

A few quick notes before I go:

* AMC has announced casting news for the six-part mini-series remake of The Prisoner (with ITV Productions and Granada International) slated for 2009.

* R.I.P. Don S. Davis (1942-2008), veteran of such genre series as Stargate SG-1 and Twin Peaks, who will always be Captain William Scully from The X-Files to me.

* The livelongnmarry fandom-sponsored auction starts today and closes on July 15. Items up for auction include autographed books by marthawells, Peg Kerr, Pamela Dean, and Steve Berman, fan fiction, original stories, handmade custom jewelry, knitted clothing, baked goods, original art, fan art, and story critique services, among other things.

* Thanks to new suggestions and discoveries, I have updated my working list of recommended young adult dystopias. (Please let me know if you know of other titles or series that I have missed that were written specifically for YA readers. Many thanks!) Those with asterisks I've already read and highly recommend. FYI!

( Recommended Young Adult Dystopias )

"Live in each season as it passes: breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit."
– Henry David Thoreau

Floyd Red Crow Westerman has died at the age of 71.

Westerman is best known as a musician and an actor who appeared in over 50 films and series, including Dances with Wolves, Hidalgo, DreamKeeper, and The Doors. He appeared in some important genre television programs, as well, including Millennium, The Pretender, Poltergeist: The Legacy, and multiple episodes of The X-Files, in which he portrayed the character Albert Holsteen. In 2006, he won a NAMMY Award for his third music album.

Beyond being an entertainer, the Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Westerman was an activist, a member of the American Indian Movement and a spokesman for the International Indian Treaty Council. His first album, Custer Died for Your Sins, provided a soundtrack and slogan for the Red Power Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Read his obituary at Native American Times.

Happy birthday wishes to vonjuntz! I hope you have a wonderful day today and many more to come.

Aside from my two freshmen seminars next semester (Fall 2007), I will be teaching one upper-division seminar. This course will be online, thanks to the success of my online seminar this semester. I will post the list of texts once I've made my final decisions. I'm excited about it:
( History and the Gothic Imagination (description under cut) )

* The Locus Index to Science Fiction Awards is now updated with all awards results through the end of 2006, as well as 2007 nomination lists so far announced.

* And R.I.P. to two science fiction authors:
-- Charles L. Fontenay (1917-January 27, 2007), author of three dozen stories in the 1950s, three novels from 1958 to 1964 including The Day the Oceans Overflowed, and numerous children's books after his retirement in 1978, one of which won a special Golden Duck Award (for its strong female character) in 1998.

-- Lee Hoffman (1932-February 6, 2007), publisher of SF fanzines Quandry and Science-Fiction Five-Yearly beginning in the early '50s, and four SF novels from 1967 to 1972, including The Caves of Karst. He was best known for numerous Western novels, including Spur Award-winner The Valdez Horses (1967), which was made into a film starring Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland.


...at times I almost dream
I, too, have spent a life the sages' way,
And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance
I perished in an arrogant self-reliance
Ages ago; and in that act, a prayer
For one more chance went up so earnest, so
Instinct with better light let in by death,
That life was blotted out-not so completely
But scattered wrecks enough of it remain,
Dim memories, as now, when once more seems
The goal in sight again...
from "Paracelsus" by Robert Browning, quoted in "The Field Where I Died" (The X-Files)

I am in the process of compiling a list of post-colonization/post-apocalyptic X-Files and Lone Gunmen fan fiction stories that feature all or at least one of the Lone Gunmen characters (Melvin Frohike, John F. Byers, Richard "Ringo" Langly). My current list is quite incomplete, so any suggestions or recommendations would be welcome. Many thanks!

( My list thus far, in alphabetical order )

And just because:

"Watching X-Files with no lights on,
We're dans la maison,
I hope the smoking man's in this one."

from "One Week," Barenaked Ladies