Now let’s get down to what makes a Dark Acadamia setting truly dark: the secret societies! There are for students, and in the Ivy League schools, for the elitist of the elite. Dartmouth has its Sphinx Society, Princeton its 21 Club, and Yale, the most notorious one of all: The Skull and Bones, thrust into …
1959 by Fred Kaplan John Wilwy & Sons, Inc., 2009 [ #14 — Article free in ’23: Read a book whose title doesn’t contain “a” “an” or “the.” ] 1959 by Fred Kaplan is a sociopolitical history book about various events of that year that “broke the barriers” and opened up new frontiers in …
For some reason, there aren’t as many fictional colleges around as there are cities, states, and countries. Of them, Miskatonic University, H. P. Lovecraft’s creation and the setting for many of his stories, is the best known and detailed, even having a map. (I’d call those stories Dark Academia before the term existed, even though …
Dark Academia is one of those -punk subgenres/aesthetic styles, but without the punk in its name. It deals with, basically, anything you’d see at the site of a old, respectable university in Europe or the U.S. — a library full of weighty tomes and classic literature, old money, gothic architecture, dark wood, leather seats, well-kept …
On to the second part of the Western states! As promised, I am puncturing some cowboy myths. Cowboys didn’t always ride horses. They likely weren’t white. It was a career that attracted the outcasts of society, so many were black, Hispanic, mestizo, Native American, or of mixed race. It was not considered a fun or …
Ties that Bind Stories of Love & Gratitude from the First Ten Years of Story Corps by Dave Isay Penguin Books, 2013 [ #27 — Bits and pieces: An anthology (poetry, short stories, whatever). ] Ties That Bind, edited by David Isay is a collection of personal anecdotes from people who participated in the …
Cults can be amusing, or terrifying. The quintet of fellows above date from the early 1970s, members of a West Coast cult called The Source that even had its own rock group, of which they might be the members (or perhaps Doug Henning wannabees?) Note their similarity in costume to pictures of Aleister Crowley done …
Most people think of the U.S. states of Nevada, New Mexico, and Arizona as cowboy country, the Wild West. Originally, I wanted to do these three states as a post puncturing the cowboy myth, and how these rough-and-tumble men were nothing at all like those on TV and in the movies. But then I realized …
New York City is famous for its Jewish delicatessens, with Katz’s still being the oldest and the best known. This particular kind of eatery sprang up in the late 1800s when German immigrants began to settle in lower Manhattan. The food was decidedly Teutonic: sauerkraut, pickles, cold cuts, sausages. Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe later …
In the opening chapter, prologue really, of The Snow Queen the reader is treated to a humdinger of a setup for the rest of the book. During the planet Tiamat’s masked festival/ball, a couple sneak away to have sex in one of the side rooms, where they fall asleep from drugged wine. Arienrhod, the Winter …