The Hand of Glory, made from the preserved hand of a man hanged for murder, was a potent magical item. Coated in the deceased’s body fat, with a wick made of his hair, it was said to unlock all doors.
Tag: History
To Sleep with the Angels
[Reading Challenge 2020]
To Sleep with the Angels by David Cowan and John Kuenster Ivan R. Dee, 1996 [Challenge # 47 : Nonfiction on any subject.] The 1958 Our Lady of the Angels Catholic school fire traumatized a generation of Catholic schoolchildren. To Sleep with the Angels: The Story of a Fire, by David Cowan and John Kuenster, …
King Death
Classic.
Silly Centaur
Because he’s talking out his ass, that’s why.
Worldbuilding Wednesday 1/22/20: Malls
In the recent hit Netflix Stranger Things the high school students hang out at Starcourt Mall to alleviate the boredom of their small-town lives. Though treated as an exotic element in the show, hanging out at the mall was, once, very common in the 1970s and 1980s. There was an element of snobbishness in it …
Persepolis [Reading Challenge 2020]
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi Pantheon Books, 2003 [Challenge # 29 : A graphic novel or comic book.] I finally got around to reading Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis which served as the graphic novel for this year’s reading challenge. It retread a lot of the ground I had just visited when I read Reading Lolita …
The Years of Rice and Salt
[Reading Challenge 2019]
The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson Random House, 2004 [Challenge # 6: An alternate history] Kim Stanley Robinson’s alternate history novel The Years of Rice and Salt caused a sensation in the SF world when it came out in 2004. In this timeline, the Black Plague kills off the entire population …
Reading Lolita in Tehran
[Reading Challenge 2019]
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi Random House, 2004 [Challenge # 48: A book mentioned or discussed inside another book.] Reading Lolita in Tehran is a book I remember seeing heavily promoted in past years, but I never thought to read it myself. It’s not often that I read a …
Worldbuilding Wednesday 11/27/19: Let’s Talk About
xxxxAphrodite
In Greek mythology Aphrodite was the goddess of love, but she had a surprisingly macabre beginning. Legend says she was born of the sea-spume cast up on shore after the Greek god Cronus cut off his father Uranus’s genitals and tossed them into the waves. Also strangely for a goddess of love, her own lovers …