Naycha

[smokingboot]

When you walk from here to the distinctly unpicturesque hamlet of Royton (for which exercise you could have no purpose save to visit the quack or to buy excellent fish and chips) you pass a lot of land that is covered with rosebay willowherb, which looks like this:



http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.british-wild-flowers.co.uk/040628%2520Carrington%2520Moss/Willowherb,-Rosebay-1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.british-wild-flowers.co.uk/W-Flowers/Willowherb,%2520Rosebay.htm&h=432&w=360&sz=54&hl=en&start=4&tbnid=aP3jH-Yn6miErM:&tbnh=126&tbnw=105&prev=/images%3Fq%3Drosebay%252Bwillowherb%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG



One particular dip in the land, presumably bombed into nada in WWII, is full of the stuff and nothing else. It stands there like a vegetable army, ready to take over when no-one is looking. Why it would want Royton is anyone's guess, but I, for one, am prepared to hand it over to its plant masters as long as they leave the chippy.

Repetition of any one object becomes sinister. Consider; one baby = cute (or so mothers tell me) many babies = weird, especially if they are all blue haired and blonde-eyed. Some billiard balls on a billiard table = expected, a table crammed with them = weird, especially if they are all the same colour and number. It's just trippy.

The national wildflower centre in Liverpool, ready to help me in my attempts to create a natural wildflower garden, rather than the grassy wasteland out the back,tutted when I mentioned its presence at the side of the house. 'Ooh,' they said, 'That'll have to go.' However, Plantlife International, a charity I joined courtesy of gift membership from velvet_the_cat and Dan sans lj, told me to let it be because an increasingly rare moth known as the Elephant Hawks-moth (who names these things?) lays its eggs in rosebay willowherb and very few other places. I don't know, these endangered species, sometimes I swear they don't make the effort. The moth itself is a beautiful creature:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4683129.stm

So ok, the rosebay willowherb is safe. Now I have to sort out the rest of the garden. I may be gone some time...

Comments

[hybridartifacts.livejournal.com]

"Repetition of any one object becomes sinister. Consider; one baby = cute (or so mothers tell me) many babies = weird, especially if they are all blue haired and blonde-eyed. Some billiard balls on a billiard table = expected, a table crammed with them = weird, especially if they are all the same colour and number. It's just trippy."

I so agree-its a little suprising to me how infrequently this is used in horror stories/films (though Hitchcocks 'The Birds' is a notable exception since it is entirely based on this). I once refereed a Call of Cthulhu adventure where I mentioned there was acat sitting outside one of the characters bedroom window-she looked a little worried, so I decided to mention a second cat-and then a third-and as more and more cats appeared the player got more distressed. I know-very cruel-but suprisingly effective. The odd and bizarre often has a lot of power (hence a lot of Surrealist paintings with items in odd places, or at odd sizes).

I wonder if this a factor of how our minds process inofrmation-that we look for patterns that are frequent/expected-things that break those patterns can be dismissed-but if they break them too strongly they are hard to simply reject and cause stress?

[semyaza.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that an introduced species could have some ecological value. And it amuses me unduly that when we were sending you willowherb, you were sending us the very similar purple loosestrife. Turn and turn about....

I need to seek my bed.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

I didn't know the elephant hawk moth was introduced here - Can't find much info on its origins. And I am trying to remember quotations about loosestrife, thought it had been in Britain forever!

I know nothing of the history of these things.

Hope you enjoyed your sleep:-)

[semyaza.livejournal.com]

The elephant hawk moth wasn't introduced to the UK, so one wonders what it was eating before it found willowherb (which came to the UK from the US in the 18th century). Bedstraw, if memory serves. Loosestrife is a European native that was introduced here and has become quite a pest. The hawk moth has also been found here, although it's not native either. It's hard to keep up, with all these species pinging back and forth.

Yes, I did, but I always feel like death warmed over in the morning.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

You're right about bedstraw - I've been trying to find out about this moth all day.

Here's to a fine breakfast for you now, or brunch later (don't know about you, but I can never eat first thing)

[semyaza.livejournal.com]

I did some moth research a couple of years ago for one of my stories. I used to grow bedstraw in the garden but never noticed any moths about.

I can't eat first thing if first thing is 7am, but if first thing is noonish, I start with fruit and work up gradually to yoghourt and brown rice. :D

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Conroy Maddox used to tell me that the essence of surrealism was juxtaposition of objects/subjects to create incongruity; it was his reason for being so into collage.
The ordinary made sinister really works for me in horror. Recognition of a pattern and repetition of it is how the higher primates learn, apparently, A pattern breaks, we freak. I am more interested in what happens when a pattern warps slowly, as in your CoC game. Sounds like great reffing!

[hybridartifacts.livejournal.com]

You knew Conroy Maddox? What a great window into British Surrealism that must have been! Thats always how I have seen Surrealism-and also why I work in Montage now myself-you can play with juxtapositions and use them to unlock subconscious layers of meaning-playing with archetypes and oppositions-the familiar and the strange. Its very much a dream thing-how our minds work in sleep, but it also underlies how we end up perceiving the world around us-building networks of familiarity and the incongruous that help determine our understanding of things. Disturbing that by pushing the more bizarre or threatening juxtapositions can be very powerful. I come to it more from a Jungian than a Freudian perpsective, but I grew up on the Surrealists as a great inspiration.

I so agree about the slow warp of patterns-a good horror story should do that-rather than shock you it should slowly lure you into the realisation that everything is wrong. M.R.James is a great one for that-you end up profoundly disturbed and unsettled without ever quite knowing exactly why-he leaves enough mystery and uncertainty, blends the familiar and the strange, and lets it all creep up on you. I think with my artwork I tend to avoid the more startling or obvious preferring to create something that changes depending on how you approach it-things that are more open to the viewer discovering their own meanings and awakening their own dreamscapes.

Im hoping to get back into reffing Cthulhu-I used to play a lot, but after a while the composistion of the gaming group changed through people moving and I was left with several that scared to easily-so Cthulhu went on a back burner for a while when we played d&d and then more recently Vampire. The gamers who were a bit *ahem* chicken are not in the group now...so my great rpg love beckons. I have a ace in the sleeve with reffing that works well with Cthulhu-I studied film and drama for my first degree, so I just slowly pull out all the stops... I also started playing rpgs back in the mid 70s when they first hit the UK so I have a lot of experience. In the end though, it always comes down to chemistry in game between everyone playing though-and in that particular game it just worked wonderfully. Those were the days when we also played really late night on some weekends, and would all get spooked by the game (we had a standing bet that nobody could walk home through the nearby woods after a game-nobody ever had the nerve to take it up).

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Oh so much to talk about here! We must all get together at some point to talk...and then, with sly impudence, coax you into running Coc for us:-D I didn't know Conroy well, I had the pleasure of meeting him on various occasions at Talking Stick, a venue for pagan and alternative lectures in the 90s. He was an extraordinary man. And certainly the dream under life (or the dream underlife) has always resonated with me. I find real fear in the details; big horrors never frighten me - in such stories I am going to die if I don't fight so fighting is second nature. I couldn't care less about poor old Lovecraft's horror of an uncaring universe because it's too big. If it really makes no difference, I might as well believe in Narnia, just in case my thoughts bring it into being. But little, insidious things...brrr! MR James frightens me to bits!

[hybridartifacts.livejournal.com]

hmmm-its actually not hard to coax me into running CoC...not hard at all.

I am with you about Lovecraftian horror-when I do CoC its far more about building tension, exploring the unknown and the strange-odd things building up. Much more M.R.James. Vastness and emptiness are just too vast and empty to resonate-you really have to have a phobia about that to be hit by it at all.