Meet The Last Man!
In March 2024, I will be offering the module “Meet The Last Man” with SPACE (Signum Portals for Adult Continuing Education) online via Signum University.
Mary Shelley’s novel The Last Man is one of the most relevant books we can read right now, and I’m really looking forward to exploring it with students!
Here is more information.
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Song: “Bluestone Mountain”
Quote:
Sometimes I wonder if God watches. And sometimes life can turn in cruel ways ‘Cause on a cold autumn day in late October Little Jacob wandered in Scott Hollow Cave.
Now the caves of West Virginia run forever Like a maze of black ribbon through the ground. Cora went to search for little Jacob, But neither Jake nor Cora would be found.
Read the complete lyrics.
Listen to the performance of Bluestone County Bluegrass…
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Song: “Little Omie Wise”
Quote:
Little Omie, little Omie, I’ll tell you my mind: My mind is to drown you and leave you behind.
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Listen to Doc Watson’s performance…
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Song: “Willie Moore”
Quote:
She threw herself in Willie Moore’s arms, As oft time had done before, But little did he think when they parted that night Sweet Anna he would see no more.
It was about the tenth of May, The time I remember well, That very same night her body disappeared In a way that no one could tell.
Read the complete lyrics.
Listen to the performance of the Kossoy Sisters…
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Song: “Old Tom’s Restless Bones”
Quote:
Old Tom on the front porch smoked his cigarette,
And when he was done, another one he lit.
“Hey, now,” Old Tom said,
“You’re the reason that I’m dead.”
Listen to the performance of David Norris…
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Song: “Long Black Veil”
Quote:
Oh, the scaffold is high and eternity’s near.
She stood in the crowd and shed not a tear.
But late at night, when the north wind blows,
In a long black veil, she cries o'er my bones.
She walks these hills in a long black veil.
She visits my grave when the night winds wail.
Nobody knows. Nobody sees.
Nobody knows but me.
Read the complete lyrics.
Listen to Gillian Welch’s performance…
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Current mood: listening to Shirley Jackson’s daughter sing the murder ballad “The Grattan Murders,” which appears in Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House, as her mother sang it to her.
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Song: “Wind and Rain”
Quote:
So she pushed her into the river to drown. Oh, the wind and rain! And watched her as she floated down… Oh, the dreadful wind and rain!
Read the complete lyrics.
Listen to Crooked Still’s performance…
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Song: “Pretty Polly”
Quote:
Polly, Pretty Polly, your guess is about right:
I dug on your grave the biggest part of last night.
Read the complete lyrics.
Listen to the performance of Ralph Stanley & Patty Loveless:
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Song: “Little Margaret”
Quote:
Is Little Margaret in her room Or is she in the hall? Little Margaret’s in her coal-black coffin With her face turned toward the wall.
Listen to the performance of Sheila Kay Adams…
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Dark Academia novel: The Other Lives of Miss Emily White by A. J. Elwood (2023)
Quote:
It’s a ghost… a ghost of her.
I saw her again, standing in the entrance hall, dripping to the parquet; her hair a damp rope, her face pale, her eyes cast into darkness. I pushed my blanket away as if it were a shroud, smothering and heavy, weighting me into a grave. I felt cold right through. Emily was young and vibrant and alive. She was here. She’d touched my arm. She’d smiled at me and I had lived in that smile, just for a time. She couldn’t simply stop, couldn’t vanish…
I peered into the corners of the room, where the shadows lay deepest. I half expected a figure to be standing there, darkness spooling from its heart, like paint spiralling from a brush in a jar of water. I fervently wished it away.
ALT
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ALT
Book mood. These novels were inspired by the 1924 Leopold and Loeb case.
From bottom to top, they are These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever (2020), Compulsion by Meyer Levin (1956), Little Brother Fate by Mary-Carter Roberts (1957), and Nothing but the Night by James Yaffe (1957).
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Song: “Down in the Willow Garden”
Quote:
My father often told me That money would set me free, If I’d but murder that dear little girl Whose name was Rose Connolly.
Read the complete lyrics.
Listen to the performance of Tim O'Brien & Paul Brady…
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ICYMI, my talk “Whitechapel ‘What Ifs’: Evolving Perspectives on the Autumn of Terror in Science Fiction” is now on Rippercast.
Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Podcast - Dr. Amy Sturgis -Whitechapel What Ifs- Evolving Perspectives on the Autumn of Terror in Science Fictio
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Song: “Ghost”
Quote:
In the wind, there’s a lonesome sound. In the night, there’s a cry from the hill country ground. It’s a hum from an ancient tone. It’s a presence. I can feel it in my bones. Somethin’ I can’t see has been surroundin’ me, There’s a ghost trying to talk through me.
Read the complete lyrics.
Listen to South Austin Jug Band’s performance…
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Dark Academia novel: Fraternity by Andy Mientus (2022)
From the cover:
Be careful what you pledge.
Quote:
How to make a Perfect Storm:
1. Allow terrible, unholy powers to find their way into the hands of children. See that those children only half-translate their conjurations, missing key protective details.
2. Have them perform those conjurations at the very height of autumn, the dying of the year, when the veil between worlds is at its thinnest. Make sure they are coming to the work not soberly but at an emotional breaking point, dripping blood, hungry for violence. Aim their violence at another child.
3. Pray for those children.
Terrible consequences await them.
ALT
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Vernon Press - Call for Book Chapter Proposals: “Second Star to the Right: Essays on Leadership in Star Trek”
FYI, here’s a new call for papers for the academic anthology Second Star to the Right: Essays on Leadership in Star Trek. 🖖
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