The Cat With Hands by Robert Morgan
Maybe you wouldn’t call this a cartoon, but I don’t care, because you need to see this. The Cat with Hands (2001) is an awesome short film by award-winning British filmmaker Robert Morgan, mixing live action and animated wax in a very uncanny and disturbing way. Film Threat magazine called it “mandatory viewing for anyone who wants to write a horror movie. Not because of what Robert Morgan does, but because of what he doesn’t do.” True. But I’d say what he does accomplish in this film is also just as brilliant.
Morgan’s latest film is Bobby Yeah (see review in Fangoria), and you can learn more about his excellent, perfectly creepy cinematic experiments on his website.
Arnzen Coming to Neumann University on 10.26.12
“The Popular Uncanny” — Event Poster by Julie Smith
[As announced on The Popular Uncanny webpage:]
I will be giving a talk about “The Popular Uncanny”, free and open to the public, at Neumann University (near Philadelphia, PA) on Oct 26th. Come join us at 4:30 p.m. in the Bruder Life Center. In the spirit of Halloween, there will be weirdness, laughter, and intriguing conversation, followed by a book signing for my new, massive poetry collection, The Gorelets Omnibus and other Arnzen titles.
Read more details from Neumann University.
Or check the event information on Facebook.
Fall 2012 Appearances for Michael Arnzen
OCT 13 11a-4p | Frostburg, MD
Western Maryland Indie Lit Festival
Downtown Frostburg
Arnzen will attend with several Raw Dog Screaming Press authors, including Jennifer Barnes, John Edward Lawson, Heidi Ruby Miller, Jason Jack Miller, and K. Ceres Wright. The event, sponsored by the Frostburg State University Center for Creative Writing, brings together editors and publishers with writers and educators of the local community, and features panel discussions on various creative genres, DIY publishing, self-publishing, promotion and marketing, writing local, and reading and writing online. The event is free and open to the public, with sessions and book sales available throughout buildings in downtown Frostburg. Just follow the signs.
OCT 20 | Bowie, MD / Online
DogCon, Online Reading
Arnzen will make a ghostly appearance (via FaceTime streaming) at this exclusive party hosted by Raw Dog Screaming Press in launching their 10th Anniversary as a publisher. Some online access to the event will be available via Google+ hangouts. Details.
OCT 26, 4:30pm | Philadelphia, PA
Bruder Life Center, Neumann University, Guest Lecture on “The Popular Uncanny”,
Michael Arnzen visits the campus of Neumann University to host a discussion of his work on The Popular Uncanny. FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Books will be available for a signing after the event. Details.
Nov 10, 7pm | Greensburg, PA
DV8 Gallery and Cafe, 208 S. Pennsylvania Avenue, Greensburg, PA
Horror poetry reading with Arnzen and Stephanie Wytovich. Musical interludes expected. Details forthcoming.
Upcoming Arnzen Events – Spring 2012
MARCH 21-25, 2012 | Orlando, FL | ICFA-33
DIVERSE READINGS & PANELS
“The Monstrous Fantastic”: The 33rd International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts will be held at the Orlando Airport Marriott. I will be respondent to a roundtable discussion about my article on horror pedagogy, “The Unlearning: Horror and Transformative Theory.” I’m also scheduled to read from my new book, The Gorelets Omnibus, and moderate a panel on contemporary horror film directors. Other writers in attendance include featured guests China Mieville and Kelly Link, Bruce Boston, Marge Simon, Andy Duncan, Bryan Dietrich and many more.
MARCH 29-31, 2012 | Lafayette, LA | Media Technology and the Imagination
GUEST AUTHOR READING & PANEL
The Louisiana Conference on Literature, Language & Culture presents: Media, Technology and the Imagination. I’ll be moderating a panel discussion, and giving a reading presentation at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s annual literary conference.
More visits and events are in planning stages. I’ll update this page as things develop!
Uncanny Elements in The Freakiest Ads of 2011
Over on my weblog for The Popular Uncanny, I briefly discuss the 30 Freakiest Ads of 2011 from a great article in AdWeek magazine. Lots of nutty and disturbing ads in this batch. It truly was a weird year.
“Eyebombing” – when the uncanny is cute
Here’s the latest entry posted to my Popular Uncanny weblog, musing over the cutely weird meme known as “Eyebombing” (eyebombing.com) — affixing googly eyes to inanimate objects in the public square — and how it taps into feelings of strange familiarity.
“Eyebombing is the Fozzie-Bearification of the community property — the Jim Hensoning of the public square. There is a return of the repressed invoked here, but it very well may a repressed belief in the power of folk art, which has been increasingly “surmounted” by technology…”
The Freud Snowglobe – New Post to The Popular Uncanny
Just posted “The Freud Snowglobe and Others” — to my weblog on “The Popular Uncanny” that muses over the freaky nature of kitschy snowglobes, and includes a link to a phenomenally weird collection of original snowball art. [Pictured: a rare Sigmund Freud snowglobe, a gift from my friend Bill Hamilton.]
Veinz 57
Spotted in the grocer’s the other day: the ketchup critter vampire: http://www.evriholder.com/Ketchup-Kritter-Mustard-Monster.asp
Look for future faux squeeze bottles of blood in the lineup, like The Bulbous Tick Head and The Happy Funtime IV Needle.
Transhumanism and the Second Uncanny Valley — posted to The Popular Uncanny
Here’s a new post in my weblog on The Popular Uncanny in response to futurist Jamais Cascio’s article (from 2008) that posits a theory of a “Second Uncanny Valley”.
New Post to The Popular Uncanny blog on “The Uncanny Valley and Intellectual Uncertainty”
Just added a new essay to my theory blog on The Popular Uncanny: “The Uncanny Valley and Intellectual Uncertainty” — a review and reaction to an interesting cognitive study just published on the brain’s response to the uncanny valley.
If you don’t know what the Uncanny Valley is, then see Wikipedia. Or watch this video from Popular Science online:
Eternal Moments and Smoking Billboards
New posting to my weblog on The Popular Uncanny:
“Eternal Moments and Smoking Billboards” — a reflection on cinemagraphs.
Winter Chills: Arnzen Interview with Non-Horror Reader Survey
Like reading, but don’t really like horror fiction? WD Prescott, is running an interesting website bluntly called The Non-Horror Reader Survey that is studying what today’s readers think about the modern horror genre. It features interviews with various readers, writers, and scholars, along with a research questionnaire you can fill out, if you want to participate. It’s an interesting idea and you should chime in and get the discussion going.
Prescott interviewed me this week. See “Winter Chills with Mike Arnzen”. I talk about The Popular Uncanny, teaching horror in college, horror’s relationship with humor and poetry, and all sorts of scholarly things you wouldn’t expect the creator of “Dear Santa” to talk about. And I make confessions like this:
I simply like to get a reaction out of readers, and myself, whenever I write. And as a horror fan, I simply enjoy laughing, gagging, and chortling with wicked glee. It’s all clownery, even if the facepaint is black. You should see me in a movie theater. I’m usually the only one cackling from somewhere in the back row, while everyone else is cowering and biting their nails.
Read the rest at Non-Horror Reader Survey.
06/18/2013 at 8:43 am 
06/11/2013 at 2:11 pm 
