July, 2021

tech, pkm

Maintaining a #digitalgarden

Since the mid-1990s, I’ve maintained a personal web site of some sort. Originally my sites were constructed using Frontpage and Dreamweaver, then I used Blogger for a period until around 2010 when I moved over to keeping self-hosted WordPress sites. There was a period when I used it as a form of online diary and then Twitter and Instagram came along and I became confused about where to post and everything became a mess. At least twice I’ve had catastrophic losses of everything I’d written. More recently, I tried to use Micro.blog for about a year before I realised I…

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books

Robert Aickman’s Introduction to The 5th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories (1969)

Aickman’s fifth introduction is brief. He summarises his previous views: that ghost stories are separate from both horror and SF and that its “true affinity” is with poetry as it is “a projection and symbolisation of thoughts and feelings” that are excluded from usual written discourse. Ghost stories, he believes, began as tales of the dead returned but have widened to include Romantic notions involving the Imagination. Aickman asserts that “Ghost stories are exercises of the imagination.” Ghost stories are works of art and “the good ghost story offers the freedom of a lyric poem.” Aickman goes on to discuss…

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microblog

UK-Krakoa relations

Love how the UK is the country that breaks off relations with Krakoa in X-men #1. It’s the sort of thing the UK would do after booing during the Hellfire Gala.

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microblog

Buscema & Roussos

Been looking at some early 80s covers for Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian by John Buscema. Hit by nostalgia which more than anything is down to George Roussos’ colouring. I have vivid memories of picking up these comics at newsagents on the way to school as a boy. Just delightful and lifted me after tough – seemingly endless – day!

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