Mists and Megaliths is Welsh dark fiction author Catherine McCarthy’s second short story collection after her 2019 collection, Door and Other Twisted Tales. Released in the Spring of 2021, Mists and Megaliths contains ten stories of McCarthy’s distinctive voice that draws from personal anecdotes and Welsh folklore. This is a unified, singular collection, with stories featuring coastal and maritime settings, with nods to mountains, mining, and rock formations, and a reoccurring theme of dealing with loss, be it personal or abstract. McCarthy eases readers into her stories by providing introductory commentaries along with definitions for Welsh vocabulary that appear in the text.
Many of the stories in Mists and Megaliths pair well with each other, with overlapping themes and settings. For example, “Cragen” and “The Ice House” are complimentary stories that deals with the abductions of ones daughter by malevolent forces. “Cragen” takes a patriarchal perspective that is sorrow in tone while “The Ice House” is from the matriarch perspective and has a vengeful element. Two different perspectives on similar subject matter, and both executed marvelously.
“Jagged Edges” and “Coblynau” are another set of stories that pair well thematically. Both are from the perspective of an old man, reliving or remembering signifiant moments of their past. Of the two “Coblynau” inches out as the superior story, and that is because of how multifaceted and finely crafted it is. “Coblynau” contextualizes itself within a historic event: the Aberfan avalanche disaster of 1966 where a landslide from a pile of mining remnants (a spoil) flooded the town, destroying a school, and killing many folks, mostly children. The story’s perspective is from a venerable former miner who is committed to a retirement home. “Coblynau” has shades of Joe R. Lansdale’s Bubba Ho-tep in that both stories are critiques on how society treats their elderly by not recognizing their voice and putting them in an institution to keep them out of sight. As in both stories, the main character knows bad things are going on (a mummy vs. another spoil that threatens the town) while the employees of the retirement home refuse to listen. Both stories also have a creature-feature aspect as well, Bubba Ho-tep with its mummy and “Coblynau” with its titular impish creatures that help out miners when left some food. “Coblynau” is the most ambitious and complex story of Mists and Megaliths.
“Retribution” is perhaps the most “Lovecraftian” story in the anthology. A tentacled monster is imprisoned under a church in a mining town that starts to become corrupt. The town’s church is overtaken by the mine’s operators, who rapidly grow prosperous and more malevolent, their power possibly linked to the shackled creature, who like the character in “Coblynau,” is kept out of sight. Cinematically, the story has folk-horror aspects as found in the Dan Stevens film Apostle which is also about a town with an entity lurking within.
“Lure” is the most experimental story in Mists and Megaliths in that it is told through the second-person perspective. As you, the reader, an intrepid fisher-person, read the story/fish in a lake, a horrible backstory unfolds as you, yes you, did something unspeakable to a younger lady. The story is interesting in that it is, theoretically, a gender neutral tale, so it breaks down expectations of what type of person commits (sexual-assault) crimes.
Mists and Megaliths is not all doom-n-gloom, however, with “Two’s Company, Three’s a Shroud” being a lighthouse of comedy in the darkness. An older husband finds himself dead after eating a cholesterol-laden breakfast and discovers that his afterlife is mainly confined to his coffin, atop another dead soul’s coffin. Embracing an indifferent, matter-of-factly, perspective to the afterlife as found in movies such as Beetlejuice and An American Werewolf in London, “Two’s Company..” brings on the chuckles as the story’s protagonist attempts to make friends with his ghostly neighbor, but his boisterous personality is at odds with his neighbor’s more refined demeanor. Of course, the story ends on a note that there are things much worse than death when you have to spend eternity with someone that drives you crazy. “Two’s Company..” gets special mention for also dropping cameo mentions of older darkwave and gothic music acts, such as Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins. A reminder that the cool kids who listened to cool kid music eventually get old.
Sporting a fun alliterative title and containing distinct, focused stories, Mists and Megaliths is an excellent representation of McCarthy’s style and author-auteur elements. For American readers, the Welsh voice present in the stories adds an aura to the stories, given them a charm not readily seen in stories written stateside. Fans of L. T. C. Rolt and Arthur Machen will definitely be intrigued by this collection.
Notes
Michele Brittany and I interviewed McCarthy on our HP Lovecast Podcast, specifically on episode 2 of our Transmissions show, which aired May 31, 2021. The episode can be streamed at the HP Lovecast Buzzsprout website or your podcast app of preference.
We concluded our King in Yellow month on the HP Lovecast Podcast. This past Tuesday our monthly transmissions episode went up which contained interviews with James Chambers, Carol Gyzander, and Meghan Arcuri about Under Twin Suns: Alternate Histories of the Yellow Sign. This episode can be streamed at our Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.
Candyman Essay
Taking advantage of the renewed interest on Candyman ’92 because of the new Candyman ’21, I’ve written an article about bands and music projects that sample the original Candyman. This was a fun article to do and it continues one of my interests to explore the world of sampling.
General Neo-Peplum News
Essay on Antiquity and Far-Right in French Heavy Metal
Fascist Receptions of Antiquity in Metal Music Presentation
Dr. Swist will also be giving a presentation called “Fascist Receptions of Antiquity in Metal Music” at Brandeis University on October 19, 5pm via Zoom.
In sword and planet news, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. is publishing a new Carson of Venus novel, Skies of Venus: A Novel of Actor.
The new novel is written by Neal Romanek with cover art by Richard Hescox. The book is available for pre-order at the ERB website and is expected to be released in the upcoming Winter.
On August 27th, Nia DaCosta’s sequel to the original 1992 Candyman, also titled Candyman, was released to commercial and critical fanfare. Opening with $22.4 million at the box office1, Candyman succeeded where many larger budgeted films could not during the COVID-19 Pandemic with its performance. Candyman also set a new milestone by becoming the first black female directed film to top the box office.2
As Candyman ‘21 continues be profitable at the box office, attention can be turned to the original Bernard Rode directed film. Fans of the original will perhaps want to revisit Candyman ‘92 or those only familiar with the new film may want to watch the original for the first time. For those lacking physical releases, Candyman ‘92 can be found on Peacock TV and other VOD services such as iTunes, Google Play, and RedBox.3
Hopefully with renewed interest, Candyman ‘92 will see a flux of such revisitation and even more positive reassessment. There’s a variety of ways to take in and appreciate the original film: essays, fan art, and even homage in other media. The original Candyman no doubt left its mark in cinema canon, but it also left an impression on other content creators (writers, directors, artists, etc.). One curious example of such inspiration is the world of sampling wherein a music group takes samples of dialogue (and other sounds and noises) from a source (such as a film, TV show, radio broadcast, video game, etc.) and incorporates them into their own compositions.
Candyman ‘92 has had the honour of being sampled numerous times by various underground musical acts that hail from a variety of genres: hiphop, death metal, industrial, and so on. These bands use Candyman samples in a variety of ways. Same incorporate Candyman’s (Tony Todd) opening narration of the film into the beginning of their songs, trying to replicate an ominous introduction to set a specific tone and mood. Some instances are used as outright homage in order to broadcast the music act’s appreciation to the film.
What follows is a list of music acts and their songs that sample dialogue from Candyman ‘92. In order to illustrate how each artist uses the sample, YouTube links are provided for each song along with (when available) a clip from the movie that contains the original dialogue. This way the song and the source text and be compared side by side.
Aborted
Belgian death metal act Aborted pulls double duty with the Clive Barker references in their song “Cenobites” which is the last track from their 2014 album The Necrotic Manifesto.
The title is, of course, a reference to the Cenobites that populate the Hellraiser films that are adaptations of Barker’s The Hellbound Heart. In addition to the Hellraiser connection, the song is also tethered to Barker’s Candyman via usage of sample dialogue. “Cenobites” begins immediately with a quote of Candyman saying “They will say that I have shed innocent blood. What’s blood for if not for shedding?”4
These lines are also the very first lines spoken in the film.5
By beginning “Cenobites” with this sample, Aborted accomplishes two things. First, it mimics the original film by settingthe tone that something unsettling is going to happen in the narrative . Second, it takes the acts described in the sample (shedding innocent blood) and relocates it from the Candyman character to the sadistic villain in the band’s official music video who kidnaps a young woman and proceeds to mutilate her.
Da Boy Tommy
Tommy Debie, better known as Da Boy Tommy, was a jumpstyle Belgian DJ who sadly passed away in 2013.
In 2000 he released a song called “Candyman” which appeared on its own CD-single as well as various compilation albums.6
The song begins with a sample of someone whispering “Candyman.” At the one minute mark of the song, a sample of Clara (Marianna Elliott) explaining who Candyman is to Billy (Ted Raimi) while repeating his name can be heard, interspersed with samples of Carol Anne Freeling (Heather O’Rourke) from Poltergeist saying “They’re here.” This combining of samples from two different sources and merging them together to create new textual play is a hallmark of the cut-up technique pioneered by William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin.
Darling Kandie
Darling Kandie is a side project of sorts of Groovie Man of My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, a foundational industrial-disco act that long ago established themselves as auteurs of incorporating samples from exploitation and pornographic films into their music.
“People Next Door” from Darling Kandie’s debut self titled album is a song that is made entirely of collaged samples (constructed in the same fashion as the aforementioned cut-up technique), including “We need a new unity” which is from George Lucas’ THX-1138 (the sample also makes an appearance in the Laibach song “Regime of Coincidence State of Gravity” from their seminal Kapital album) and “Open your mind to me” which is said by the stomach mutant Kuato in the 1990 film Total Recall.
At the 2:00 mark of the song a sample of Candyman saying “I came for you” can be heard.7
The line comes from the scene where Candyman confronts Helen (Virginia Madsen) in a parking garage and hypnotizes her.8
The line appears once, briefly, before being lost in the sea of other samples in the song.
Deutsch Nepal
Deutsch Nepal is a Swedish industrial project spearheaded by Peter Andersson.
Their eighth album, ¡Comprendido!… Time Stop! …And World Ending contains the track “Gouge Free Market” which has the dialogue “I am rumor. It is a blessed condition believe me, to be whispered about in street corners, to live in other people’s dreams, but not to have to be. Do you understand?” repeated multiple times.9
The lines are spoken by Candyman inside Helen’s mind.10
This is unique usage of the sample, as the song dislocates the dialogue from its slasher-horror roots and, if going by the name of the song’s title of “Gouge Free Market,” applies it to the horrors of capitalism. Much like Candyman, rampant commercialism and capitalism can be inferred as an unseen, yet omnipresent, boogeyman.
Freakin’ Inglish
Freakin’ Inglish was a short-lived UK hip hop group that had only one release, The Rhyme Wrecka E.P.
The cassette contains a song called “Victim” that opens with a sample of Candyman saying “Be my victim.”11
The sample is form the same scene Darling Kandie sampled (see above) and is used to compliment the rapped lyrics “Be my victim” and “Look out, I’m coming to get you.”
Internal Error
Gabber/hardcore techno act Internal Error, operating under the alias Nyeṫ, took their homage of the Candyman movie to the next level by composing a track called “Candy Man” that appeared on their EP Party Madness as well as the compilations TrAUMa 2 (Nightmare On AUM Street) and Napalm Rave.12
The song contains multiple samples of dialogue taken from the film, such as “If you look in the mirror, and say his name five times, he’ll appear behind you, breathing down your neck,” “Be my victim,” and “Where they proceeded to saw of his right hand with a rusty blade.” As with Da Boy Tommy, Internal Error looks to be using these samples to show adoration to the original film.
JNyce
Canadian hip hop artist J Nyce’s 2008 debut Vaults of Horror has a song called “Satanic Rites” that contains a Candyman sample.13
As with Aborted’s “Cenobites”, JNyce uses the “shed innocent blood” opening lines from Candyman as the opening to this song in order to establish a horror-film mood. The dialogue also gets dissociated from Candyman and instead applied to Satanism, which of course conjures up imagery of sacrifices.
Mortician
Deathgrind metal band Mortician wears their affection for the horror genre literally on their sleeves – album sleeves that is. Their last produced album, 2004’s Re-Animated Dead Flesh has a cover reminiscent of the Re-Animator film, and songs that reference numerous horror films, such as An American Werewolf in London, Silent Night, Deadly Night, and The Hills Have Eyes.
The final track on the album, “Be My Victim,” is, of course, an homage to Candyman.14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN4QXAw-B-4
The track begins with a sample of Candyman saying “They’ll say that I’ve shed innocent blood. What’s blood for, if not for shedding. With my hook for a hand, I’ll split you from your groin to your gullet.” which is, of course, the opening lines of the film, and seek to replicate that opening much the same way Aborted and JNyce did. The song ends with a sample of Helen calling out to Candyman who suddenly appears and kills her psychiarist. These samples, coupled with the song’s title “Be My Victim” can be taken as another horror homage to the cult classic film.
[:SITD:]
German-based industrial act [:SITD:] (which stands for Shadows in the Dark) has an EP titled Snuff that contains a track called “Mortal.”
The remix of “Mortal” by Solitary Experiments is unique in that it contains Candyman samples from the German dub of the film.15
The track opens with “Fürchtest du den Schmerz oder das, was danach kommt? Der Schmerz wird von erlesener Qualität sein. Was unseren Tod angeht, vor ihm brauchst du dich nicht zu fürchten.” which is a translation of Candyman saying “The pain, I can assure you, will be exquisite. As for our deaths, there is nothing to fear.”
Near the end of the song the sample continues with “Lass uns unserem Leben ein Ende setzen vor ihren Augen und ihnen damit etwas geben, was sie für alle Zeiten verfolgt. Werde unsterblich! Komm mit mir.” which is a continuation of the above with “We shall die together in front of their very eyes and give them something to be haunted by. Come with me and be immortal.”
The song ends with “Man wird sagen, ich habe unschuldiges Blut vergossen” which is an interpretation of “They will say that I have shed innocent blood.”
All of these instances of bands and music projects sampling Candyman ‘92 not only solidify the original film’s legacy, but illustrate innovative instances of artists performing textual play to create a new texts with new meanings, or even pastiches in a post-modern sense.
Hercules Invictus started a new program of sorts on his Voice of Olympus show called Hercules and the Planetary Powers, which has a focus on space stuff. Because of this, for the next few episodes, Scholars from the Edge of Time will be doing more sword and planet oriented programming. Our first episode kicked off with a talk about the cult film The Ice Pirates. Check it out on the Voice of Olympus BlogTalkRadio website.
HP Lovecast News
We’ve finished recording and editing the August episode of Transmissions. This episode will feature interviews with James Chambers, Carol Gyzander, and Meghan Arcuri and will conclude our King in Yellow month for August. This episode will post Tuesday the 31st.
The Podcast Appearance page has been updated with dates and programming until the end of the year. These are subject to change, of course, but should give you a general idea of what we are covering and when for the remainder of the year.
Horror Writers Association Cook Book
The Horror Writers Association did a cover reveal of their upcoming cook book.
Cover by Robert Payne Cabeen
The book is edited by Marge Simon, Robert Payne Cabeen, and Kate Jonez, with Cabeen also doing the spooky cover art. Currently unknown publish date. Also, I am not sure, but I may be in this book? Long ago the editors were collecting recipes and I did some sort of vegetarian dish. But that was way back in 2016. So, maybe 50-50 chance I got a recipe in this book or not. We will find out together!
General Neo-Peplum News
Bible Films Blog and Cover Reveal
Matt Page has added a new review to his Bible Films Blog: the silent film Absalon (1912).
Also, Page’s upcoming debut, 100 Bible Films, has a cover reveal!
More info and pre-ordering options can be found at the Bloomsbury product page for the book.
Ancient World in Media
Helicon Storytelling has a new article up called “Classical Reception Studies: The Ancient World in Media.” They cover movies Gladiator and Troy, the Hades video game, the 2000s Battlestar Galactica iteration, and the books Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and the Cicero Trilogy by Robert Harris.
Sons of Chaos at UCLA
Sons of Chaos author Chris Jaymes will be speaking at the UCLA SNF Hellenic Center about his graphic novel. Zoom registration details are here. The event is September 18th.
Ancient Greeks on the Human Condition
My publisher, McFarland Books, has just published a new book by Matthew Sims called Ancient Greeks on the Human Condition.
Starting another series of articles at this website called “Dark Libations” where I look at the usage of cocktails in horror and dark fiction. My first article is online and it is on the Jungle Bird in Nisi Shawl’s short story “Street Worm.”
King in Yellow Month Continues on H. P. Lovecast Podcast
New episode of the H. P. Lovecast Podcast is now online!
Thumbnail by Michele Brittany
In this episode Michele and I discuss the graphic novel adaptation of The King in Yellow done by I. N. J. Culbard. The episode can be streamed at our Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.
Thumbnail by Michele Brittany
This episode, along with all of our other programming this month, is all themed on Robert W. Chambers’ influential collection, the King in Yellow. The first episode that dropped this month was on the Hippocampus Press release of Under Twin Suns: Alternate Histories of the Yellow Sign, in which we talked about “The Yellow Crown” by Carol Gyzander and “Found and Lost” by Meghan Arcuri. This episode can be listened to at our Buzzsprout website.
The final day of the month on our Transmissions episode we will be publishing interviews with James Chambers, Gyzander, and Arcuri about their work with Under Twin Suns.
In addition, I’d like to highlight that the Horror Writers Association released their own version the The King in the Yellow via their Haunted Library of Horror Classics series. Consider plucking up a copy (Amazon link), being supportive of the organization, and following along our podcast this month.
Nisi Shawl’s “Street Worm” is the first in a series of stories starring Brit Williams, a young Seattleite who has physic powers. “Street Worm” details the first interaction between Brit and Elias Crofutt, who becomes a mentor to her in subsequent stories. Their initial encounter together does not go well, with Crofutt trying to explain Brit’s powers to her and Brit being rightfully defensive about the stranger. It’s a familiar scene that has played out in a variety of films and books (“You have powers!” “Leave me alone!”) but Shawl inserts in a subtle, unexpected bit of world and character building in the scene.
She has Crofutt drink a cocktail. Specifically, a Jungle Bird, which is a tiki libation.
In the world of dark fiction and horror, mixed drinks, let alone a tiki drink, make rare appearances. The dark literary genre typically adheres to the basics when it comes to drinkables: beer, wine, and blood (though an author may throw in the occasional whisky, but it must always be followed by a description of how it “burns going down”). The rarity of cocktails in dark fiction (and probably fiction as a whole) is fairly easy to comprehend: not all writers and their readers are mixologists and not all writers and their readers consume mixed drinks. Most writers and readers know what beer and wine tastes like, thus a “stick with what you know” rule of thumb is applied.
When a cocktail makes a literary appearance, it is something to take notice. A reader not familiar with cocktails may simply read past the reference and pay it no heed, but a reader versed in cocktails will begin asking questions. What kind of character orders this drink (character building)? What kind of setting serves this drink (world building)?
In “Street Worm” the Jungle Bird is first mentioned as follows:
One of the man’s bushy eyebrows lifted. “Don’t look so surprised! Didn’t you get our message? Aunt Eliza came down with the flu and sent me by myself.” He turned to the waiter as if just noticing him. “I’d like a Jungle Bird, if the bar’s open.”
“Yes, sir!” The waiter left, looking reassured.1
A few paragraphs later, the tiki cocktail arrives:
Fair enough,” he said again. The waiter returned carrying a glass round as the man’s belly, full of ice and an orangey liquid. A section of a pineapple ring gripped its rim. He left again after taking their orders: lasagna for Brit, which was what she usually had at lunch, and quail for her supposed uncle.2
A cocktail or a tiki enthusiast will instantly know what a Jungle Bird is, but to readers not familiar with it, the drink’s appearance comes off as an exotic libation, a proper noun that stands out in the sentence. Per Shawl:
I have never drunk a Jungle Bird. I don’t consume alcohol much because it gives me migraines. To be honest, I chose the cocktail because the name sounded good with the rest of the words I was using. I’m very picky about that sort of thing.3
For Shawl, the appearance of the Jungle Bird was purely for poetic and aesthetic reasons, and readers not familiar with tiki culture will certainly appreciate this aspect. On the other hand, those versed in tiki history will no doubt experience a different reading, as if reading a coded language exclusively for them.
They’ll no doubt recall the taste of the drink, prior instances of making the drink themselves, and even perhaps the history of the cocktail: it was created at the Aviary Bar at the Kuala Lumpur Hilton in Malaysia toward the end of the 70s.
Postcard of the Kuala Lumpur Hilton from the author’s collection.
The Jungle Bird is seen as the last cocktail of the classic tiki period, as the late 70s would see the tiki bar replaced with discotheques and hard drugs, and the 80s a low point in mixology with a move toward prepackaged and blended drinks. While tiki culture has certainly going through a resurgence in the past decade or so, the popularity of the Jungle Bird no doubt trails behind more iconic tiki drinks: the Mai Tai, the Zombie, the Painkiller, and the Navy Grog.
Regarding world building, what does the Jungle Bird have to say? Usually a Jungle Bird will be found in a tiki bar or a restaurant that specializes in Polynesian cuisine. The establishment Brit and Crofutt are meeting at is certainly not either: they are in the restaurant of the Hotel Monaco in Downtown Seattle, a venue that serves lasagne and quail. Crofutt ordering a Jungle Bird in this bar raises a lot of hypotheticals: is the Jungle Bird on the cocktail menu and perhaps a signature variation for this hotel’s restaurant? Is it an off menu cocktail that Crofutt really likes and he is crossing his fingers that the bartender knows how to make one? Is the bartender familiar with the Jungle Bird, or are they going to consult a resource before making it? The usage of the Jungle Bird in this scene sets off a chain reaction of hypotheticals that certainly shape the scene more so than if the characters simply had a wine, beer, or even a traditional cocktail such as a martini.
What does the Jungle Bird say about Crofutt? Is he into tiki culture, or perhaps was this a drink he stumbled upon and likes? Does he know how to make one? Has he built his own tiki bar? Is he ordering an offbeat drink in order to give an impression to Brit? What other cocktails does he like? Just as the Vesper Martini, shaken not stirred, says much about super spy James Bond, so too does the Jungle Bird says much about Crofutt. Shawl has graciously expanded on this particular character trait of Crofutt:
“I like the idea of Crofutt as a tiki-lover. It fits with my overall concept of his personality, as a delver into the unknown and a fan of nonwhite cultures. I will probably pursue this further.”4
The Jungle Bird says/asks much about the setting and the characters, but what does the text say about the cocktail proper? The way it looks and is garnished leads to another round of hypotheticals, specifically how the drink is made. Is it true to the original? Is it a variation? Is it an incorrect cocktail altogether that has had the Jungle Bird moniker slapped onto it by a novice bartender?
Prior, Shawl described the cocktail as “orangey,” served in a large, round glass, and garnished with a pineapple wheel. More questions are raised: where is the mint? Why a large, round glass instead of, say, a tiki mug or double rocks glass? What makes it orangey? Bottled pineapple juice or freshly squeezed? Again, these questions lead to more setting building and establishing.
Though Shawl does not partake in alcoholic libations, her description of the Jungle Bird is pretty spot on. The color of the Jungle Bird ranges from different shades of red due to the presence of Campari, a vibrant red and extremely bitter apéritif. The colors of the other ingredients used in the Jungle Bird (the syrups, rums, juices, etc.) will lighten or darken the drink.
The are a variety of ways to make a Jungle Bird. The traditional recipe is as follows:
0.75 oz Campari 0.50 oz fresh lime juice 0.50 oz sugar syrup 4.0 oz unsweetened pineapple juice 1.50 oz dark Jamaican rum
This original 1978 version, documented by Beachbum Berry in Intoxica!, is shaken with ice, open poured into a double old-fashioned glass or tiki mug and garnished with an orchid and a cocktail pick with a maraschino cherry, lemon, and orange wheels.5
Four ounces of pineapple juice is a lot of pineapple juice. Martin and Rebecca Cate rectify this imbalance in their Smugglers Cove book:
2.0 oz pineapple juice 0.50 oz fresh lime juice 0.50 oz Demerara sugar syrup 0.75 oz Campari 1.50 oz black blended rum
This incarnation is blended with crushed ice and opened poured into a tall glass like a highball or a Collins and garnished with pineapple fronds.6
Shannon Mustipher embraces the bitterness of the Jungle Bird in Tiki: Modern Tropical Cocktails by eliminating the sugar syrup:
2.0 oz pot still Jamaican rum 0.75 oz Campari 1.50 oz pineapple juice 0.50 oz fresh lime juice
This Jungle Bird is shaken with ice, strained into a Collins glass full of ice, and garnished with pineapple fronds and a scored lime wheel.7
There are, of course, even more variations of the Jungle Bird out there, specially among the YouTube cocktail channel crowd. These examples, however, demonstrate the foundational and core elements of what constitutes the legacy cocktail.
Knowing what ingredients constitute a Jungle Bird combined with Shawl’s descriptors and assumptions made from the variety of hypotheticals, a Jungle Bird as Crofutt orders can be approximated.
It is within reason to assume that the Jungle Bird is not a signature item on the cocktail menu for this restaurant. Going by the fact that the restaurant serves lasagne and quail, it’s also a good guess that this restaurant and bar is going to be more European focused. It probably contains a nice variety of scotches, vermouths, and vodkas, but perhaps stocked only with the necessities for rum. This means, for a dark Jamaican rum, it’ll have stocked a rum that’s fairly easy to obtain with a low price: it will probably be Myers’s. The bar will probably use canned pineapple juice, but probably juice their own limes so that they can accommodate other cocktails, such as margaritas. They probably will not make their own simple syrup, instead opting to buy pre-made. Of course, Campari is Campari, there are no substitutions.
With the above in mind, it’s now a question of balancing these ingredients to get the right amount of orangeness over redness for the Jungle Bird depicted in the story. It can be accomplished by adding one more ounce of pineapple juice:
0.75 oz Campari 0.50 oz fresh lime juice 0.50 oz Rose’s simple syrup 5.0 oz pineapple juice 1.50 oz Myers’s Jamaican rum
Photo by Nicholas Diak
For this Jungle Bird iteration, shake all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker. Open pour into a large Brandy snifter (to give it that round appearance) and fill with more crushed or pebble ice. Garnish with a pineapple wheel.
Photo by Nicholas Diak
This Jungle Bird, like the original 1970s version, is extremely generous with the pineapple juice, but manages to taste quite nice and will likely be satisfactory for Crofutt as a tiki cocktail consumed at a non-tiki bar.
If Crofutt does venture down the path of becoming a tiki enthusiast as Shawl wants him to be, the final question would be: how will Crofutt make his Jungle Bird? He will probably mimic the Smuggler’s Cove version. It would be his choice of rum that would be unique to him. There is only one rum out there that contains the signature “funk” that dark Jamaican rums have, but would also fit perfectly with the poetry that Shawl is aiming for in her text by using “Jungle Bird.”
That would be Doctor Bird.
1.5 oz Doctor Bird Jamaican rum 0.75 oz Campari 0.5 oz Demerara simple syrup 0.5 oz lime juice (freshly squeezed) 2.0 oz pineapple juice (canned or fresh)
Photo by Nicholas Diak
Crofutt will likely add all in ingredients into a shaker with crushed or pebble ice. He’d then open pour into a tall Collins glass and lavishly garnish.
Photo by Nicholas Diak
This would create a balanced Jungle Bird with top shelf ingredients, one that Crofutt would no doubt enjoy immensely.
Endnotes
1. Nisi Shawl, “Street Worm,” in Exploring Dark Short Fiction – Modern Masters #3: A Primer to Nisi Shawl, ed. Eric J. Guignard (Los Angeles, CA: Dark Moon Books, 2018), 82.
2. Ibid., 82-82.
3. Nisi Shawl, email message to author, September 3, 2019.
4. Ibid.
5. Jeff Berry, Beachbum Berry’s Intoxica! (San Jose, CA: SLG Publishing, 2002), 44.
6. #. Martin Cate and Rebecca Cate, Smuggler’s Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki (Berkeley, CA: 10 Speed Press, 2016), 96.
7. Shannon Mustipher, Tiki: Modern Tropical Cocktails (New York, NY: Rizzoli, 2019), 36.
Cate, Martin and Rebecca Cate. Smuggler’s Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki. Berkeley, CA: 10 Speed Press, 2016.
Mustipher, Shannon. Tiki: Modern Tropical Cocktails. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 2019.
Shawl, Nisi. “Street Worm.” In Exploring Dark Short Fiction – Modern Masters #3: A Primer to Nisi Shawl. Edited by Eric J. Guignard. Los Angeles, CA: Dark Moon Books, 2018.
Michele and I were both interviewed on Brenda S. Tolian and Joy Yehle’sBurial Plot Podcast. We are both super honored and flattered to be invited onto their show were we talk horror academia, the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference, our H. P. Lovecast Podcast, and much more. The episode can be streamed at the Burial Plot Podcast Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.
Earlier this month, Writerpunk Press released their sixth anthology called Taught by Time: Myth Goes Punk.
Looking at the table of contents, there is a lot of neo-peplum stories dealing with mythology:
AR DeClerck: “Drag Me Down” (A cyber/biopunk story inspired by the Greek myths of Hades and Persephone)
Nils Visser: “The Skirring Dutchman: A Sussex Steampunk Tale” (A steampunk story inspired by De Vliegende Hollander [The Flying Dutchman] by Piet Visser, 1901)
Lee French: “Little Red Riding Hood” (A cyberpunk story inspired by the European folktale of Little Red Riding Hood)
Phoebe Darqueling: “Making Bones” (A noirpunk story inspired by the European folktale of Cinderella)
Jeffrey Cook and Katherine Perkins: “Lured” (A steampunk story inspired by Grimm’s fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel”)
Rachel Brune: “H-Bomb Over Paris” (An atompunk story inspired by the various Greek myths of Helen of Troy)
Teel James Glenn: “Black Sails” (A biopunk story inspired by the legend of Theseus in Ovid’s Metamorphoses)
Virginia Carraway: “The Lost Princess Returns” (A steampunk story inspired by George MacDonald’s 1875 fairy tale novel The Lost Princess)
Rachel Brune: “Bea Wolf” (A dieselpunk story inspired by the Old English epic poem Beowulf)
Bryce Raffle: “Threads” (A dreadpunk story inspired by the Homerian myth of Althaea, Meleager and the Three Fates)
Carol Gyzander: “Dust to Dust” (A biopunk story inspired by the legend of Echo and Narcissus in Ovid’s Metamorphoses)
H. J. Lopez: “Corporate G.O.D.S.” (A nano/biopunk story inspired by Homer’s Odyssey)
H. P. Lovecast Podcast kicks off its King in Yellow August with a brand new episode. Live now is our deep dive into two short stories from the brand new anthology from Hippocampus Press, Under Twin Suns: Alternate Histories of the Yellow Sign: “The Yellow Crown” by Carol Gyzander and “Found and Lost” by Meghan Arcuri. The episode can be streamed on our Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.
In other podcast news, Michele and I were interviewed by Brenda S. Tolian and Joy Yehle for their Burial Plot Horror Podcast. This episode will be published later on, but I strongly encourage a listen to their catalog of episodes which can be found at their Buzzspout website or via your podcast app of preference.
Exotica Moderne #12
The newest issue of Exotica Moderne is now out! This issue contains my write up of the video game The Touryst. So far, I have still be in all issues of Exotica Moderne, and I hope to keep it up.
The issue can be ordered from the House of Tabu website. The product page can be found here.
Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association Conference
I have been accepted to present a paper at the 2021 Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association conference in November. My paper is titled “Victory over Valhalla: Violence via Vikings Sampling in Acylum’s Kampf Dem Verderb” and continues my research of industrial bands that sample peplum/historic epic texts into their music. This will be the first time presenting at MAPACA, thought I have presented many years at the SWPACA. I’m excited for the opportunity. Time to get to work on that presentation!
Gladiator Book
On the subject of industrial bands that sample peplum films, the Gladiator book that contains my essay about industrial bands that sample Gladiator, is looking to be published in early 2022. Cross fingers!
Recorded a short segment on Hercules Invictus’ Sword and Sandal Special on his Voice of Olympus program. I talk about the indie Kickstarted Pandemic Peplum comics, Band of Warriors #1 and Teoatl #1. It can be listened or downloaded from BlogTalkRadio.
Brand new episode of HP Lovecast Podcast is also online. This is our monthly Transmissions episode. In this episode we interview S. T. Lakata and J. H. Moncrieff. The episode is on our Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.
Citation News
Just found out that my essay, “Permission to Kill: Exploring Italy’s 1960s Eurospy Phenomenon, Impact and Legacy” which appeared in Michele Brittany’s James Bond and Popular Culture: Essays on the Influence of the Fictional Superspy has been cited in Michael Guarneri’s book Vampires in Italian Cinema, 1956-1975.
Michele and I were on the Mythic Gaming special episode of Voice of Olympus. We discussed Minecraft Dungeons. The episode can be streamed/downloaded from BlogTalkRadio.
Next, for our monthly Scholars from the Edge of Time program, we discussed the film Hercules Against the Mongols. This, too, can be streamed/downloaded from BlogTalkRadio.
In HP Lovecast news, our news Fragments episode is online! In this episode we tackle Michael Mann’s The Keep. The episode is on our Buzzspout page and all major podcast applications.
Mike Mitchell has passed away at the age of 65. He was in Gladiator (2000), Braveheart (1995), Morning Star (2014), The Legend of Mordred (2019), and The Wilhelm Tell Saga (202x).
