A Kitchen Is A Research Lab For New Ways To Say I Love You

Ready to pounce an unseen victim or victims, the tiger draws our attention to it first before our minds wander to the raging storm and billowing vegetation in the background and foreground. It is an inspirational, haunting piece on the powers of desperation or determination, where our subject drags us in its devotion to the point of ignoring everything else that's happening elsewhere.

Perhaps that was the mind-state that Henri Rousseau was experiencing at the time of the painting's creation. A late bloomer in the art scene, he could have been desperate or determined enough to make a breakthrough into the art world. And that desperation or determination is poured into the painting where despite the dangers of the raging storm, our tiger is either very desperate or very hungry for food. Either way, it is a very dangerous mix to have that state of mind.

Perhaps, it was a good thing that his artwork was accepted at the Salon des Independants. Wonder what would have happened if the painting was rejected again, in that state of his?

Henri Rousseau, Tiger in a Tropical Storm, 1891.

Science News

Water beetles can live on after being eaten and excreted by a frog

After being eaten by a frog, some water beetles can scurry through the digestive tract and emerge on the other side, alive and well.

Imagine yourself as an insect, a water beetle to be exact, swimming around searching for food when all of a sudden, a giant frog swallows you whole! What would you do then?

For Regimbartia attenuata, the only option besides accepting your fate and dissolving quietly is to search for the rear-end exit. Shinji Sugiura, an ecologist at Japan's Kobe University, discovered that these amazing beetles actively escape death by swimming through a predator's digestive tract and exiting from its butt, intact with no observable damage.

Regimbartia attenuata escaping from the vents of Pelophylax nigromaculatus and Hyla japonica (4× speed). Video credit to Current Biology

While rare, the phenomenon is not unheard of as certain snail species are known to seal their shells shut and await excretion to survive being eaten by birds or fish. However, what makes this particular research fascinating is that the prey (water beetle) is actively escaping the predator (frog) rather than passively waiting for the digestion process to be complete.

Hypothetical escape route of Regimbartia attenuata through the frog digestive system. Photo credit to Kobe University.

For further reading, you can click on the following link for the research article published in Current Biology on August 3, 2020.

Book Review: Informania: Ghosts by Christopher Maynard (2000)

Title: Informania: Ghosts

Author: Christopher Maynard

ISBN13: 9780744577105

Informania: Ghosts offers a brief introduction to everything ghost-related from ghost hunting to films about ghosts. Suitable for young readers and enthusiastic adults alike, the book is divided into five sections:

An abridged version of Algernon Blackwood’s “The Empty House”. Short but suspenseful nevertheless.

A scrapbook by famed ghost hunter Dee Bunker detailing her findings and favorite cases. Dee talks about her experience, her golden rules of ghost hunting, and more.

A tour booklet through the National Museum of Phoney Ghosts. Led by Sir Ghastlie Mones, visitors will see how some of the best ghost sightings can also be the worst scams imaginable.

A Fright Night film guide for all ghost-related movies. Not necessarily horror, but the listing is quite interesting no less, with line-ups like The Cat and the Canary (1927), The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), and A Chinese Ghost Story (1987).

A handy reference guide to all things ghost-related such as a timeline of hauntings, a map detailing different variants of spooks, and even an internet listing for further reading.

The book itself is quite entertaining and good for early exposure to the world of the paranormal. However, since it was published in 2000, some of the information present within the book may be outdated.

Happy Hauntings!

Imagine you're a writer, and there are people scribbling in the margins of your books, underlining their favorite passages, leaving makeshift bookmarks between the pages (subway tickets, library receipts, handwritten notes), reading excerpts out loud to their friends and lovers or to themselves just to feel the words on their tongue, memorizing quotes and then copying them in their notebooks, daydreaming about your characters and excitingly speculating about what's going to happen to them in the sequel, writing reviews in their school newspaper.

do you ever just accidentally stumble across the most delicious sentence in the middle of a book and are forced to stop just to revel in its beauty??

Book Review: Strange and Paranormal Tales of Malacca by Dennis de Witt

Title: Strange and Paranormal Tales from Malacca

Author: Dennis de Witt

ISBN: 9789671668610

For locals and interested international readers, De Witt's compilation offers a unique insight into the type of magical fantasy and monstrous wonders that exists in Malacca and its surrounding areas. From rock-throwing poltergeists to sea monsters and even mystical old men with the power to stop vehicles from working, De Witt weaves short tales around each subject, enough to inspire awe and curiosity in the readers. The entire book is broken down into three categories:

1421 - 1824 (Malacca Malay Sultanate and the Portuguese and Dutch Colonization Era)

1825 - 1956 (British Colonization Era)

1957 - 2019 (Post-Independent Malacca and the Modern Era)

I will admit that some entries looked much too short and a question kept nagging at the back of my mind: Where's the rest?! Fortunately, as a historian, De Witt keeps a meticulous record of his findings and supplicates each entry with a list of references for further reading. Most of it is newspaper clippings but a few of them are interesting for future reads like Malay Magic by Walter Skeat and The Were-Tiger by Sir Hugh Cliffords.

Overall, this book is a good stepping stone into the world of Malay folklore, particularly Malaccan folktales. Some stories are strange, others have a dash of the paranormal, and some just make you want to find out more.

Happy Hauntings!

Mango & Sticky Rice by Khristina Cruz

My favorite piece from Will Draw For Good 2020. You can check out her Insta here

“If the coffin hits anything at all, Death will come back for more.”

That’s what old people say.

In the Philippines, whenever someone dies, we hold a wake for 5-7 days. During this time, friends and family visit the deceased to pay their respects. There are prayers, feasting, singing and games. A celebration of a life that once was.

And the most critical moment? The last one on the last day. Pallbearers must ensure that when moving the coffin from the family home into the funeral hearse… it never hits a corner, a wall or anything at all.

Because according to superstition, if it does, Death considers it an invitation to return to the home and fetch more souls.

I’ve heard numerous anecdotes about this being true. Told over and over again. Stories passed down for generations. A family of five that all died within a week. Friends who passed away within days of each other. An entire village that was felled by what seemed like a plague. All because a coffin hit a wall.

But none of it is true.

My ancestors made it up.

To keep the truth hidden.

They were seven siblings in all. Four girls and three boys. The first six were supernaturally blessed. The youngest was not.

Today, we don’t care if this happens. So what if little Johnny can’t tell the future or cast a spell? He could be a successful lawyer, doctor, entrepreneur. He’s not missing out on the chance to become fulfilled in this incarnation.

But back then, being a “Squib” in a witching family meant you were worthless.

And so Teofilo and Saturnina — the eldest two — asked the rest, “Should we share our powers with our youngest?” And they all said yes.

A ritual was performed. Orisons were chanted. Blood magic was invoked. And so their powers flowed, from one sibling to another. Which means they now shared one life. If one dies, the rest would follow.

Then and until very recently, traditional witches in my country pretended to be Catholics. The truth would have made them outcasts. Labelled as evil. 

And so to hide the supernatural way they would die in the future, and prevent their children being branded as witches, the siblings made up a superstition and spread it: “If the coffin hits anything at all, Death will come back for more.”

Many decades after they planted the seed, it fully bloomed. So when Crisanta, the third sibling, died of an illness, and the other six followed within a matter of minutes… nobody suspected they were witches.

Instead, all the neighbors said, “Alas. The pallbearers must have hit a wall, inviting Death to come back for more.”