CRYPTOZOOLOGY ONLINE: Still on the Track: 12/04/12

WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

CFZ PEOPLE: Enfys Carney

Those of you who believe in a deity, please remember the Carney family in your prayers as the youngest member, 5-month-old Enfys, is currently very poorly in hospital. Enfys and her elder brother Leo are the neiflings of CFZ regular Liz Bitakaramire.

DALE DRINNON: Scott Mardis/Cedar & Willow/Benny's Blogs

New on the Frontiers of Zoology:
http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/12/another-article-posted-by-scott-mardis.html
New at Cedar and Willow:
http://cedar-and-willow.blogspot.com/2012/12/brown-family-part-2.html
http://cedar-and-will...

ow.blogspot.com/2012/12/why-snakes.html

And on Benny's Blog, the Ominous Octopus Omnibus:
http://bennypdrinnon.blogspot.com/2012/12/noel-neill-and-queen-neola.html
And another comic story find on the Thelma Todd blog:
http://benny-drinnon.blogspot.com/2012/12/paulette-goddard-fantasy.html

THIS CHRISTMAS FROM CFZ PUBLISHING GROUP: Hyaku-Monogatari (Tales of Japanese Horror) by Richard Freeman

In Edo Period Japan, the game of Hyakumonogatari - or one hundred stories - was a popular pastime. A hundred candles in blue lanterns were lit and placed on a table before a mirror. Each person would tell a story of a ghost, monster or strange occurrence, then blow out one of the candles. When the last candle was blown out it was said that a horned blue spirit, Aoandon, would manifest in the mirror.

Hyakumonogatari grew so popular that in 1908 the Japanese government forbade the telling of horror stories. Doubtless the gatherings carried on as a clandestine thrill, and what stories must have been told!

Japanese folklore is the strangest on earth. Its monsters and its ghosts (collectively known as yokai) outstrip any other culture in their sheer weirdness.

Here, in the first of a four-volume collection, is the beginning of a modern Hyakumonogatari. This menagerie of yokai includes hair-eating horrors, spawning dragon-gods, zombie whales, venomous rats, cannibal skeletons with slime-mould brains, ancient hominans, perverse water imps, devils of straw and monsters of cloth.

Sick of vampires and werewolves? This night parade of Japanese daemons will re-light your love of horror with a whole pantheon of new ghosts and monsters from the pen of Richard Freeman who brought you the acclaimed horror collection Green Unpleasant Land: 18 Tales of British Horror.

CRYPTOLINK: Bigfoot Genome?

When a company announced last week that they had sequenced the Bigfoot genome, it seemed too good to be true. And probably is.

In the press release, DNA Diagnostics claimed that Texas veterinarian Melba Ketchum had sequenced the DNA of Bigfoot (aka Sasquatch). The company stated that the sequencing results confirm that Bigfoot exists and is a “novel hominin hybrid species...a human relative that arose approximately 15,000 years ago as a hybrid cross of modern Homo sapiens with an unknown primate species.” So, do Bigfoot enthusiasts have reason to rejoice? Well, not just yet.

In response, the science blogosphere erupted with skepticism, and even ridicule, of Ketchum and her team. The press release is short on details and states that the study is still under peer review. So, no one can get a look at the actual data. Without that, it’s impossible to evaluate Ketchum’s claims.

Read on...

FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES (CFZ)

In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that - whereas the study of out of place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters - it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in. So, after about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo, Corinna has taken the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.

I'M YER GONZO BLOG DOO DAH MAN

So today lurches forward into the unknown. I am not over-fond of this time of year: it is cold, expensive and ever-so-slightly-tedious. I will be very glad in a month's time when the days are slowly getting longer and the first frogspawn is in the ditches....

We start off today with a visit to the incomparable Thom the World Poet
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/12/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_4.html

Harold has just sent me this updated 'Electric Man' trailer
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/12/uypdated-electric-man-trailer-now-with.html

Over on Barbara Dickson's website there is a competition going on
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-competition-at-barbara-dicksons.html

The other night I sat down to watch the GPS DVD. It really is jolly good
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/12/finding-my-way-to-gps.html

A few days back Helen and the Horns were at the Camden Eye. Martin Stephenson was there with a camera....
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/12/helen-and-horns-gig-at-camden-eye-by.html

A really rather groovy review of Liam Davison
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/12/link-liam-davison-review.html

The Gonzo Daily is a two-way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work, or even just say hello, please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow...

The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginitavely - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link:
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html

Jon Downes, the Editor of all these ventures, is an old hippy of 53 who - together with his orange cat - puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his mother-in-law, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus... did we mention the orange cat?