Glacial Errata, No. 7

One: It’s Been Growing for the Last Few Days

Someone posted this to the upstate NY NextDoor I still subscribe to over the weekend, and while all the comments at first suggested it had to do with a septic tank or its sewer lines, or an underground well, the poster maintained that neither his septic tank nor his well was anywhere near this part of his backyard.

I’m watching the comments to see if a satisfactory answer can be found.

Two: The Eerie

For Mark Fisher, the “eerie” is different from the “uncanny” in crucial ways: the uncanny is the familiar made strange (a haunted house, a creepy doll, a dead-eyed CGI figure), whereas the eerie is “constituted by a failure of absence or by a failure of presence. The sensation of the eerie occurs either when there is something present where there should be nothing, or if there is nothing present when there should be something.” Like a ghost ship, its crew mysteriously missing without an explanation, or an inexplicable line in the snow, one that’s growing….

(Fisher’s definition is also the inspiration for my column at Atlas Obscura, “Eerie Feeling,” which I’ve recently relaunched after a hiatus)

Three: Out of Place Artifacts

Another great Wikipedia rabbit-hole: “Out-of-Place Artifacts.”

Four: Drones Over New Jersey

Someone asked me over the weekend my thoughts on the drones over New Jersey—which at the time, of course, were headline news, absolute iron-clad evidence of either a foreign government penetrating our air space, illegal shenanigans of our own government, or proof of extraterrestrials. Now no one mentions them at all. It’s strange, isn’t it, that these things come and go, and there’s never any self-reflection on the fact that we’re able to drop such earth-shattering news as soon as the next thing comes along. Anyway, in answer to the question, I mentioned the Great Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic, as I often do…

Five: Tisa Bryant, Unexplained Presence

One of my favorite books; in addition to my own copy, I’ve bought a handful of copies by now to give away from friends. Recently re-issued by Wave Books; absolutely worth picking up a copy.