Let's Get Weird With It
Breathe it in, party people. This is what unemployment looks like.
Thank you for joining me on the maiden voyage of my brand-spankin’ new newsletter Skeletons & Whatnot: A weekly periodical lovingly handcrafted by me, Andrew, to explore the worlds of writing, horror, and nostalgia. Think of me as your own personal Ms. Frizzle, but instead of shrinking us down and exploring the innards of elementary school children, we’re going to do some research, have a few laughs, and learn a little about ourselves and how we relate to the world around us.
There’s no actual magic, but that whole thing where they went into that kid’s body never sat right with me, so I’m at peace with that. I don’t think many of us could be trusted with a bus that powerful. I don’t even really feel Ms. Frizzle should have had it. She once took a kid into space and he took off his helmet! The SAME kid, even! How was she not sued? What’s Arnold’s mental state looking like today?
Okay. Deep Breaths. Regrouping.
So, who is this newsletter for? If you…
Sigh deeply when you think about the patterned carpet at the roller rink
Have contingency plans for multiple apocalypses
Have thrown a boomerang that never returned
Keep buying books even though it’s hard to find time to read
Are perpetually chasing the high of the gym class parachute
Have strong opinions about semicolon usage
Are mentally ill
Have ever told a friend, “We should start a band/buy some land/rob a bank”
…Then it’s for you, babe.
Ultimately, I want this newsletter to be a nice, safe place you can go in your email inbox that doesn’t cause you psychic damage. I want it to be a break from ChatGPT-generated marketing ploys pretending to be human beings and Amazon order confirmations. Not everything I write is going to be warm and fuzzy all the time, but I can promise it’ll be authentic and coming from a good place.
Every week, I’ll treat you to movie/book/other media recommendations, little essays about things that I find interesting, jokey-jokes, and updates about the projects I’m working on. This puppy isn’t gonna win a Pulitzer, but who needs awards to feel validated these days, anyway? Jamie Lee Curtis beat out Stephanie Hsu for Best Supporting Actress, so who fucking cares anymore?
All said and done, I’m glad that you’re here. I hope you stick around, but I won’t hold it against you if you don’t.
Let’s get started.
Things That Go “Bump” on the ‘Tube
I love me a ghost. Spooky lil scamps, lurking around corners causing all kinds of mischief? Primo stuff. I’m sorry your soul is bound to this property, but thank for you for adding a little spice to the lives of the pre-deceased. Being a ghost is honestly my dream profession, which is a timely thing to realize since I was recently fired from my job, but since you need to be dead to properly haunt, I decided to start this newsletter so I could wax poetic about phantoms and specters instead.
We all want to know there’s something that comes next. Not just so we’re less afraid of what’s coming, but because it allows us to celebrate the continued existence of those who shuffled off before us. My mom isn’t nowhere, she’s somewhere! I can’t access wherever that is, but maybe that’s not for me just yet.
In any case, if you’ve hung out with me for longer than an hour, I’ve probably made you watch a YouTube Ghost Compilation: A collection of short, firsthand videos uploaded to the internet supposedly depicting paranormal activity. I show people these videos all the time because
A) I like it when people are slightly creeped out, and
B) It’s fun to spot the videos that are obviously bullshit and yell at them.
First thing’s first: I have nothing against the people that make fake ghost videos. I hold them in the same regard as horror movie creators. They’re trying to elicit a response, and when their micromovies pop up in these videos, it heightens the experience. Even if you can tell they’re fake, it provides a contrast by which the real unexplained videos can stand out, terrifying us even further, and deepening our curiosity about the other side. Some of these are easier to spot, but some fly under the radar, so I wanted to use my very first newsletter essay to give you a crash course on spotting faux ghosts… fauxsts, if you will.
I’m Just Chillin’
I really hope you get this joke and don’t think I just put her in here for no reason
No, you’re not “just chillin”. I know that we’re in a new era where people record everything they do, but this is the first red flag that the video you’re about to see features a counterfeit ghost. If there’s a narrator of any kind rattling off the names of people in the room before a wonky shadow runs through the background or a Ouija board says some wild shit, it ain’t real. People don’t do that. You’re giving me a sitcom intro sequence to your paranormal forgery, and I’m not buying it. Now you won't either.
I Don’t Know What To Do With My Hands
It’s a bit rare, but occasionally, you’re going to have someone holding their cellphone camera in front of them—exploring an abandoned mental asylum or sewer tunnel, no doubt—and something is coming at them. It might be just a sound or something with a physical body, but either way, there’s a menace approaching the lens. If you see their free hand fly up in front of them in some sort of misguided effort to block the foul beast, they’re full of shit. I don’t buy it.
If someone is coming at me in an abandoned mental asylum, I’m not going to stand there. Neither are you. We’re not going to put our hands up, because we’re already 38 yards in the opposite direction. If we are blocking what I can only assume is a monster of some kind, I’m not only blocking it with one hand. You wanna do shit like that, clip a GoPro to your chest. Hand goes up, we questioning everything.
Someone’s In The Kitchen With Dinah
Babe, I just don’t trust kitchen videos—especially the ones with poltergeist activity. I don’t know what it is about the kitchen that makes ghost-fakers particularly brazen, but they really pop off in there. They’ll tie everything to a string and not give a fuck; yanking knives out of blocks and opening the fridge because they feel that’s the move. There’s probably some psychology at work here. Something to do with the kitchen being a space of peace and and the heart of the home, which makes us more willing to believe when something is amiss. Maybe the fakers sense this on some primal, fraudulent level, and that’s why they go so hard in there. We can only speculate. In any case, regardless of motive, if there are things flying around a kitchen, just assume it’s fake. Believe if you want, but if a ghost throws a steak knife anywhere in my vicinity, you’re getting a dogshit video from me because I’m outta there. These people will upload multiple times with videos after the knife video saying things like, “The ghost is rambunctious today! I named her ‘Rebecca’!”
Couldn’t be me.
I’m Not An Ambiturner
Ghosts love peeking around corners and I can’t blame them. It’s a spooky little move that’s super effective when it comes to sending a well-deserved shiver down the spine of the living people who have invaded your space. When someone catches this game of peek-a-boo on camera, we get excited! So excited, in fact, that we find ourselves cheering for the cameraman to chase the elusive figure down.
This isn’t like the steak knife thing. This isn’t an entity that’s threatening you in any way (that we know of), so it’s fine to run it down. You’re into it, the ghost is into it, everyone wins. The cameraperson then takes off, swings around the corner, and BAM! Nothing there! Cue applause!
But pay careful attention when the camera-wielder pulls this move, because more often than not, they’ll round that corner and point the camera in the direction opposite of where common sense says the creature would be. Sure, they’ll swing it ‘round a second later, but that’s all the time you need for an accomplice to dart out of view. They think they’re being clever. They believe they’ve built up enough atmosphere during this 30-45 second clip that you won’t notice, or that you’ll chalk their mistake up to some kind of adrenaline-fueled lapse in judgement. Reader, do not be deceived. Watch for that flick in the wrong direction and then yell at your screen. They won’t be able to hear it, but maybe if we yell loud enough, they’ll be able to feel it.
Again, these rules apply to ghost videos that are being faked on purpose, and you shouldn't confuse those videos with the ones that people believe are real. Sometimes things fall off shelves. Sometimes surveillance videos have artifacts from being recorded over. Sometimes a doll is placed in such a position that it’s arm moves a little bit. Sometimes a ghost is literally just a guy squatting somewhere because they have nowhere else to go. These things can still be scary to the person experiencing them and can feel very real because they don’t understand them. We like to inject fantasy into our lives, even if—in the case of my last example—it can be somewhat harmful to marginalized people like the unhoused or people in mental distress.
We can learn from this.
These videos are not wasted space. They force us to examine the world around us with a more critical eye, and they highlight the videos that we have no explanation for. For every 10 videos that are easily explained, there’s one that isn’t. No strings, no accomplices in costume, no trickery detected. For some people, this is an unnerving conclusion to arrive at, but I find it to be a hopeful one.
There’s a lot we don’t understand, and it’s okay to admit that. We like to think that we can put the world in little boxes—giving every creature a name and classification—but we rarely think about it from an animal’s point of view. To a lizard, we are something that is difficult to understand. We are a nameless force that exists around them and we can be frightening. We’re not better than a lizard. Those forces exist around us.
To wrap this up, I just want to say that I believe in ghosts. More than that, I like believing in ghosts. If you don’t, that’s fine! I still think you can find enjoyment from something like a Youtube Ghost Compilation.
Gather your friends around the digital campfire and have a laugh, a scream, and a good time. Just be sure to explore why you’re feeling the way you're feeling and remember to take out your phone and record every noise you hear at night because how fun would it be if you got something??
WEEKLY RECOMMENDATION: EXHUMA (2024, dir. Jang Jae-hyun)
The trailer for the 2023 film The Exorcist: Believer has a line in it that made me excited to see the film: “Exorcism is a ritual. Every culture, every religion, they all use different methods. It’s going to take all of them.”
Every time we get a movie about demon possession, the solution is always a Catholic one. We know alllll about the power of Christ and how compelling it is. It’s been drilled into the horror consciousness since the 70’s and we have yet to escape it. When I heard that line, I thought, “Finally! We’re going to move away from Catholicism and explore the vast spiritual world around us!”
Nah. They just did the Catholic stuff again and the movie was bad. Womp womp.
Exhuma scratches that itch for exorcism variety in a stylish, jarring, and frightening way. Starring Choi Min-sik, Kim Go-eun, Yoo Hae-jin and Lee Do-hyun, this South Korean horror film takes what you know about the nature of ritual, spirits, and evil, and turns it on its head, leading you down a fiendish path that will leave you both shaking in your boots and wanting to explore a broader world of spirituality.
Per Wikipedia: “Renowned Korean shaman Hwa-rim (Kim Go-eun) and her protégé, Bong-gil (Lee Do-hyun) are enlisted by a wealthy Korean American family to identify the mysterious illness of the family's newborn son. Hwa-rim uncovers the curse to be a "Grave's Call", a vengeful ancestor's spirit haunting them. The family's patriarch, Park Ji-Yong, entrusts them to relocate the grave to appease the ancestor, his grandfather. Hwa-rim enlists colleagues, a Feng Shui master Kim Sang-deok (Choi Min-sik), and a mortician Yeong-geun (Yoo Hae-jin).”
This spirit team is one you want to root for and one that teaches you a lot about South Korean culture. I personally found the Feng Shui to be downright fascinating, as there is a lot of thought that goes into grave placement when a person dies. This has never occurred to me, and to see what’s taken into account when it comes to the burial of a loved one led me down a few rewarding internet rabbit holes that may result in an essay in a future edition of this newsletter. Couple that with some brilliant dancing, drumming, acting, and direction, and you have a film that positively BEGS for a sequel.
I don’t want to give too much away (which is always going to be a problem for this section, I reckon), but I hope this little snippet convinces you to expand your horror horizons and learn that there’s more than one way to skin a demon. No more sleeping on South Korean horror!
Exhuma is available to stream on Shudder, which currently has a 7-day free trial period… Be kinda weird to not take advantage of that…
YOUR WEEKLY MISSION
Oops! Did I mention that this newsletter comes with homework? Well, it does, I’m (not) sorry to say. I think there are things that a lot of us want to do that would enrich our lives that we choose not to do unless prompted.
Consider this your prompt.
This week, I want you to write someone a letter. Not an email, not a text, a letter. Handwritten, if you’re feeling froggy.
I will maintain until the day I die that there are few joys in this world quite as potent as receiving a letter in the mail. It shows thoughtfulness in a way that we’ve lost in our digital age. To experience just how true that is, imagine that when you go to your mailbox today, you find a letter addressed to you. Your name and address are handwritten in purple gel pen. Maybe it’s sealed with a sticker (I know you hoard stickers because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be subscribed to this newsletter). How would you feel?
Send a letter. Pick a person and send it without them knowing it’s coming. Send it to an older family member or a friend you may have drifted away from but still love. Anything is on the table. Make it fun! It doesn’t have to be long, coherent, or even words. It just has to be.
Don’t send it to me though. A lot of you know me and know that I love letters, but that’s cheating this week (but feel free to tell me how writing your letter made you feel). <3
Snapshot of the Week
Finally, I leave you with this. I have been trying to get better when it comes to photography and I’m making an effort to take photos every week so I can improve my skills. I take a lot that I don’t like, but I have to celebrate the ones I do. So here’s my favorite photo I’ve taken recently because it’s my newsletter and I can do what I want.
You reached the bottom! I hope you enjoyed it. See you next week for more nonsense ;)
Good God I already love this newsletter