America's Secret Bunny Culture

The thing about being an outsider to a culture is you don't know everything. You might think you can research it all on the internet, but there are some things so dark and terrible that people don't discuss them on the internet.

America's bunny culture is one of those.

I thought I knew about American Easter habits. I'd seen children with baskets of little chocolate eggs* in American films. But then the Sketchy Bunny site appeared. The core of this site is photographs of children sitting with an adult dressed in a creepy bunny costume. It's like having your picture taken with Father Christmas, except the children are terrified. Bunny-phobia-inducing terrified.

At first, I assumed this was a new thing. Until my critique partner admitted he had a photo of himself with a scary Easter bunny**. Apparently, this has been going on for decades, but no one's been talking about it. I have a few theories about why...

• Americans assume everyone traumatises their children with scary Easter bunnies, so it wasn't worth mentioning.
• The trauma was so great, people have blanked it from their memories.
• It's like fight club. You're not allowed to have your picture taken with the bunny unless you agree not to talk about the bunny.
• Secretly, people are worried the bunnies are watching them. Talk about the bunnies and they'll find you. And they'll be angry, angry bunnies.

Either way, this is definitely an Americanism I hope doesn't catch on in the UK. Americans can keep their scary bunnies. I'll take the cute fluffy ones.

Happy Easter!

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* It's possible other people in the UK did this when I was a child, but my family didn't. We had big eggs, not a collection of little ones in a basket. Now that I'm an adult, we have collections of little eggs, because I like little eggs. But it wasn't part of my childhood Easter culture.

** I've demanded that he find it and scan it!

# Pictures are from Sketchy Bunnies and Daily Squee

Writing Diary: By the Sea

Even when I'm mostly doing novel stuff, things keep happening. Things of note since my last update:

1) My poem "Recipe for Eternal Youth" got an honourable mention from Ellen Datlow for the year's best horror. It's funny in a way. The poem was first published in Star*Line, but not in their dark themed issue (it was an unthemed issue). I wondered at the time if my dark wasn't dark enough to get in the dark issue. But I think I can safely call the poem horror now, without anyone saying it isn't dark enough.

2) World Fantasy Convention 2013 is in Brighton, UK. I haven't been to a convention before. They're generally too expensive, but I'll save money on the localness (I could commute each day, though if I can get sleeping space in Brighton, I'll go for it). It's also likely to be a bit loud for my comfort, but I can escape in Brighton if I need to (and another reason for seeing if I can get sleeping space there... it'll give me somewhere to go).

This is probably much further ahead than most people are planning. I will post reminders nearer the time for anyone wanting to find me there. But the early bird gets a discounted membership rate! I'm all for making savings.

3) My contributor's copy of Crossed Genres: Year 2 arrived. If I had a cat, I'd take funny pictures of it with my cat. But I don't.

There have been a couple of reviews at Innsmouth Free Press and The Portal.

Music Videos: Steampunk

It's time for more music videos with speculative stuff*. This time, I'm dedicating it to steampunk taking over the world! The ones I've selected range from classic steampunk to modern. It'll make sense once you see the videos (hopefully).

'Eye of the Storm' - Lovett

Music Genre: Alternative / Rock

Video Genre: Fantasy Steampunk

About the Band: Lovett is an independent band, fronted by Ben Lovett. Ben also works as a film score composer.

About the Video: A mysterious man goes on a journey in his steampunk airship. The cinematic feel is most likely due to how it was created: Ben had friends in the film industry, who worked on the project for free.

The mix of computer animation and live action creates a unique effect. Also, a dragon! Well worth watching.

YouTube Links:

Eye of the Storm
The Making of the Video

'Westward Backwards' - [ME]

Music Genre: Alternative

Video Genre: Steampunk

About the Band: [ME] (also listed as ME) is a new band.

About the Video: A classic steampunk tale of a mad scientist. No steampunk collection is complete without a mad scientist. The video has a jerky style, which gives the impression of old film.

YouTube Links:

Westward Backwards

'Airship Pirate' - Abney Park

Music Genre: Pop / Sea Shanty

Video Genre: Steampunk Subculture

About the Band: Abney Park is a steampunk band, featuring steampunky lyrics and steampunk subculture costumes. These are the sort of people you'd find wandering around steampunk conventions.

About the Video: This one doesn't tell a story. It's a performance video with the band singing in a club. Yay for airship pirates!

YouTube Links:

Airship Pirate

'Doncamatic' - Gorillaz featuring Daley

Music Genre: Pop

Video Genre: Modern Steampunkish

About the Band/Singer: Gorillaz are a band known for only appearing as cartoons. Daley is a British singer.

About the Video: Daley pilots a submarine through dangerous waters. He receives transmissions of the Gorillaz singing, shown on a screen in his sub.

Modernised steampunk is one of those debatable things. There aren't gears and steam here, but there is a focus on manual controls, do-it-yourself construction and a brass submarine. As far as I'm concerned, it has a steampunky vibe to it... and even if you disagree, it's still a fun video.

YouTube Links:

Doncamatic

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* The first post like this was back in 2008 (you can read it here: Music Mondays). I called it Music Mondays then, but Mashable has a feature called that apparently. And I didn't post on Monday anyway. So now, it's just music videos. Humbug on other people loving alliterations too!

Numbered Thoughts

1. I'm back from the Netherlands. I saw many flowers at Keukenhof gardens. I may inflict pictures of flowers on you at some point. Plus, the tulip bulb tentacle monsters I saw. They were hanging on the wall! Giant tulip bulbs with tentacles!

2. My own tulips are flowering at home. I planted them during the winter. Soon, I'll add in some black and blue ones I brought from the Netherlands.

3. Everywhere had apple pie and coffee in the Netherlands. You can substitute the coffee for other drinks (I had hot chocolate). The best I had was at Willem van Oranje (William of Orange) in Delft. Very cinnamony. Plus, the hot chocolate came with a biscuit (and sugar... you'd have to be more of a sugarholic than me to add sugar to sweet hot chocolate).

4. I picked up a surprising good fake My Little Pony on the ferry. I don't usually buy fakes, but this one was black with a rainbow mane. I resisted making any "I'm on a Boat!" jokes.

5. Rather disappointingly, My Little Pony decided to go all manifest destiny, with the ponies setting up a settler town in an area owned by buffalo. A pity as I was looking forward to seeing the new cartoon. I'll most likely still watch it, but that episode is going to be cringe-worthy. Details on the content has been discussed by Sanguinity.

6. I caught a cold while I was away. I'm alive and very coldy.

7. Ask me anything! I'm catching up slowly.

April Advertising

My views on April Fool's jokes are much like the laws governing adverts in the UK. I'm fine with factual things and with things so ridiculous no one would believe them. The inbetweeners, which are actually intended to deceive...not so much.

But it got me thinking about adverts which take the ludicrously silly approach to advertising. Here are a few of my favourite claims:

Orangey Tangs - Jaffa Cakes (McVities) have three layers. A sponge base, a little blob of orangey stuff, and a chocolate coating on top. McVities claimed Jaffa Cakes were at risk from creatures called orangey tangs. These fluffy creatures loved to steal the orangey bit of the Jaffa Cake, but could only get in through the sponge layer. Chocolate was an impenetrable shield. During this campaign, there were some limited edition Jaffa Cakes with chocolate all over them (to keep the orangey tangs out).

Oddly, I couldn't find an orangey tang video on the internet (despite a number of references to them existing), so you'll have to take my word for it!

Alien Comedy - Smash (Cadbury's) is an instant mashed potato product. Their '60s and '70s advert campaign showed aliens visiting Earth. The aliens loved to eat Smash and found people who peeled potatoes hilarious. Quite why potatoes were so hilarious was never explained. Other Smash predictions for the future included everything being replaced with food pills... except for Smash.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SAbJjktk7E - The first Smash aliens advert.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrer4vEY-1w - Alien baby advert.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCsLcWvIbdA - A collections of Smash adverts. Sound and picture quality is a little flaky, but includes the food pills advert.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gLCj9qXfp4 - This is one of the later adverts.

Knitted By Nanas - Shreddies (Nestle) are a breakfast cereal, made from strands of wheat in a lattice. Their current series of adverts claims Shreddies are 'knitted by nanas'. The nanas hang out in the factory with their knitting needles, making sure every one is knitted perfectly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRuiQrpXpG0