{"id":134504333,"date":"2023-07-12T12:30:09","date_gmt":"2023-07-12T12:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=134504333"},"modified":"2023-07-12T12:30:09","modified_gmt":"2023-07-12T12:30:09","slug":"ekphrasis-haunted-house-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=134504333","title":{"rendered":"Ekphrasis: Haunted House Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The old man \/ hunched over \/ at the front door \/ will be prepared \/ to give you a tour, \/ but first he’ll ask \/ Scary, or no scary? \/\/ You should say \/ No scary.” – Zach Schomburg, “Scary, No Scary”<\/h2>

The kind folks over at Whisk(e)y Tit Journal<\/em> published a haunted house story this week, \u201cRemodeling<\/a>,\u201d and wouldn\u2019t you know it, that\u2019s my name on the byline! Look, I\u2019m not very good or courageous about submitting my work yet, here\u2019s my only other published fiction<\/a> (before I was on staff at CX). So I\u2019m taking a victory lap. <\/p>

Besides, blogging\u2019s fun, but fiction and poetry are the point. I\u2019m not someone who paid for Twitter and is wondering why people still don\u2019t like me as much as they like Mark Hamill. If you never read this blog again, but you obsessively follow my fiction and poetry? Well, that\u2019d be weird, but I would be grateful. <\/p>

So! Let\u2019s look at some haunted houses. On Wikimedia Commons. For previous entries in this series, check out Ekphrasis<\/a>, Ekphrasis: Ghosts Edition<\/a>, and Ekphrasis: Crabs Edition<\/a>. <\/p>

\"File:The<\/figure>

Honestly, killer image to have as the very first<\/em> image when you type \u201chaunted house\u201d into Wikimedia Commons. The machines don\u2019t get much right, but credit where the banshees have screamed for it. <\/p>

Also, if you type \u201cbrownie (\u201d into Google search, the word FOLKLORE fills that open parenthesis with a quickness we haven\u2019t seen since De\u2019Aaron Fox\u2019s rookie season. <\/p>

\"File:Lawry<\/figure>

THIS is the haunted house of the internet. Wikimedia Commons cannibalized Flickr and other places\u2014I don\u2019t really know what or how it went down, I don\u2019t know anything beyond these are legally usable images if you cite the file\u2014so now this photo exists, with its haunting composition, ghost of a human (I am not Googling Lawry Joseph Tilbury, I hope he\u2019s enjoying a nice day at the beach somewhere), ghost of a 404-ed Flickr account, and strangely specific yet oddly low-information description. What are haunted houses numbers one through six? Is there a number eight? Is some photo of me floating around out there like this? Probably! <\/p>

\"File:Korean<\/figure>

Does it give you 2020 flashbacks if I say \u201cnature is healing?\u201d<\/p>

\"File:Casa<\/figure>

How did my actual house get in the Wikimedia Commons files. This is not supposed to be on the internet, this is where I am able to take my nightly technical dives. Chat with the Sea People. Takedown notice SENT. <\/p>

\"File:Residence<\/figure>

Cut this house in half\u2014but lengthen in by a third\u2014and it\u2019s akin to the house I was picturing when writing \u201cRemodeling.\u201d Not that the story is based on a true story or anything, I would be an awful candidate to help you with home repair. But this kind of remoteness, the way there\u2019s a depressing voice in the back of my head\u2014one that is completely out of step with my actual thinking or politics\u2014that says \u201cthat land\u2019s just waiting for a developer,\u201d the way the fence just screams<\/em> \u201cthere used to not<\/em> be a house here, and it was not<\/em> that long ago.\u201d Shit. Just realized my whole manuscript might be pretty sad. <\/p>

Sorry you got an email, <\/p>

Chris<\/p>

Thanks for reading shipwrecked sailor! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.<\/p><\/div>

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“The old man \/ hunched over \/ at the front door \/ will be prepared \/ to give you a tour, \/ but first he’ll ask \/ Scary, or no scary? \/\/ You should say \/ No scary.” – Zach Schomburg, “Scary, No Scary”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134504333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134504333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=134504333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134504333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=134504333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=134504333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=134504333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}