No I haven't.
That's the thing, I don't have a definition. It's rural - a farmer in the outback even though that's very different to English countryside, it's part of modern Australian folklore (backpackers do go missing) and the landscape is very much part of the story as well themes of isolation.
Something to do with like traditions? I mean, idk what folk horror really is beyond Wicker Man, which I've seen, and Midsommar, which I haven't. But I think they're both to do with like traditions and that, right?I was pointing to the fact that they’re both “one lone mad guy” films too. Not sure that gels with what I have in mind (which is also a bit vague and impressionistic).
Have you seen And Soon The Darkness? I remember that as being a really effective example of outdoors/daylight/pastoral horror. Might be a bit uncomfortable watching it in light of recent events, though. I've only seen the original, no idea how the remake compares.Yes Midsommar even more than Wicker Man if anything. I think folk horror often means "films that are roughly inspired by or similar to the Wicker Man". So Midsommar, Children of the Corn, Black Death, Kill List etc.. So rural cults, rituals, human sacrifice and entrapment. But that doesn't cover films like A Field in England, The Witch or indeed The Witchfinder General.
Edit: I suppose a unifying factor is that they are all mainly outdoors and mainly daylight (ramped up to 11 in Midsommar). The terror is hiding in plain sight and the films are about building an oppressive atmosphere.
This twitter thread collects some choice paragraphs from Burchill's book Unchosen: The Memoirs of a Philo-Semite and oh my goodness. Click through for the full horror.
This twitter thread collects some choice paragraphs from Burchill's book Unchosen: The Memoirs of a Philo-Semite and oh my goodness. Click through for the full horror.
no, she cannot be outdoneOh my days. I absolutely fucking lost it at this one:
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I know saying "satire is dead" is a bit of a cliche and that, but I genuinely can't imagine how anyone could write a parody of Julie Burchill that'd be funnier than the real thing.
Can she be done in?no, she cannot be outdone
Loving Judaism so much that you want to convert but then give up on the idea because actual Jews don't hate Muslims enough is... quite something.Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah had been warned that welcoming one of Britain’s most controversial writers into her synagogue might have its pitfalls.
But when Julie Burchill, who lists “spite” among her hobbies, showed an interest in the Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue in spring 2009, the rabbi was keen to give her a chance. “I thought she was a very good writer and I knew she was interested in Jews,” Rabbi Sarah recalls. “I also knew that she was a bit of a loose cannon but… we don’t try to label people.”
Things began well. Burchill attended the Saturday shul regularly and was talking about converting. After a few weeks Rabbi Sarah and her civil partner, Jess Woods, even had the journalist and a friend over for a Shabbat dinner at their home.
But a couple of months later the rabbi got a sharp insight into her new congregant’s views. An email had gone round asking whether people would help with the synagogue’s 75th anniversary celebrations. Burchill replied: “No, because your rabbi respects PIG ISLAM”.
“I could have done a big public exposure,” Rabbi Sarah told The Independent this week. “But what I did was email her and said: ‘Julie, firstly this is deeply, deeply offensive. Both Jews and Muslims don’t eat pig. I don’t know what you’re doing but this is really unacceptable and offensive. I was incredibly polite.”
When this newspaper asked Burchill about the email, she replied: “PIGS AND APES are what some Muslims call Christians and Jews, by the way. Even in school textbooks! Google it.”
Burchill is not Jewish but describes herself as a Philo-Semite, and has become a vociferous defender of Israel. In a book out next month, The Unchosen, she charts her love affair with Judaism – but ends with an acerbic 23-page rant against Rabbi Sarah, whom she dubs “Call-Me-Elli” for her informal style.
Wrong sort of Jew, obvs.Good lord, there's more: What did this lesbian rabbi do to make Julie Burchill mad?
Loving Judaism so much that you want to convert but then give up on the idea because actual Jews don't hate Muslims enough is... quite something.
I think it's more that it was never really in print - from the Will Self review:A small mercy. I just looked up Unchosen and it is already out of print. So it largely lived up to its name.
I think it's more that it was never really in print - from the Will Self review:
There isn’t a shred of reason in this text, which – one hopes because all the publishers it was offered to turned it down – has been produced by an imprint funded by subscribers including such beacons of enlightenment as Richard Littlejohn.
the crowdfunding page for this book has some interesting numbers - I reckon i could probably raise this kind of interest for a book myself:
Crowdfund a book: Unbound
Unbound is a crowdfunding publisher that gives people the tools, support and freedom to bring their ideas to life.unbound.com
Burchill’s deconstruction of the meal extends to the drinks the hosts did (and did not) serve, after Burchill brought bottles of champagne. “Surely I started to dislike Call-Me-Elli at the moment she substituted her homebrew for my Veuve Clicquot,” she writes.
For Rabbi Sarah, the critique epitomises the writer’s betrayal of their hospitality. “It’s such an invasion… We served the elderflower [wine] that my partner had actually made,” she says. Burchill is unrepentant, telling The Independent: “I don’t call giving someone home-brewed elderflower filth when they’ve brought two bottles of Bolly ‘hospitality’.”