Fractionals

Wow. Mark K-Punk has, in one post, turned "Hauntology" from something I'd dimly heard and wondered about to something I feel I might get obsessed with fairly quickly. His work over the past few days has been generally exemplary, but in this one he sets out what it actually is ("all recordings are ghosts" isn't a bad starting point), some resonances and references, and enough fascinating material to last anyone for a career or a life. The posts he links to through images are particularly interesting, especially the two on Sapphire & Steel - although I've read enough about The Stone Tape to never, ever watch it, and I recall in connection with it reading about some BBC fake-real ghost "documentary" whose name I can't place but that reading about alone shook me so badly I couldn't bear to be alone for hours.

I'm particularly susceptible to that sort of ghost story, which explains part of my interest, but not all. When you look at the Weird* that I like, not all of it connects directly to hauntology (Dick, The Invisibles and thus Illuminatus!, The Prisoner), but even that stuff carries some of the feel of the stuff that does (Lovecraft, Dr. Who, the Sapphire & Steel stuff, Borges ("Borges & I" is all about the hauntology, and he was one of the best at bringing it explicitly to the page as opposed to screen or speaker), that Caretaker "record", even old doo wop). I can't explain why this stuff is so fascinating, at least not right now, but if you read the post complete with all of the picture links and at least some of the text, you'll hopefully agree with me.

*(placeholder term because I can't think of an actually accurate descriptor)