Come! Eat from the Salmon of Knowledge!
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Jason Murphy is a novelist, screenwriter, and content creator. Read this newsletter. Let’s have a very nice time together.
This Week on The Strangerous Shorts
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The Gross Truth About Anointment Oils
Listen, we here in the United States are in no position to poke fun at anyone. Things are fundamentally broken over here in many, many ways. But what in the hell is going on with this whole King Charles coronation thing? I didn’t watch any of it. Not really. The royals and all of their royal goings on are quite frankly just none of my business. You do you, England.
But then I see pictures. Pictures of men in robes with scepters and jewels. Ornate gowns. Ancient ceremonies. And anointments.
Let me take a step back - there was a guy wearing a crown and a crazy robe. Some other guys in crazy robes had a secret part of this really intense ceremony where they poured magic oil on his head, because he was chosen by God.
There’s a lot going on in 2023 and I feel like asking me to just go along with this whole thing is a bit much. I have so many questions.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/what-holy-oil-used-kings-26827078
I’m not a complicated man. If you put a wizard or some sort of spellcasting in your story, I’ll probably give it a go. There are so many angles to examine this from if you’re mining ideas for your own writing. Is it the coronation of an elevated being, one who has tapped into the power of God and will use it to lead his country?
Or is it much more ‘House of Usher’, with a decaying family clinging to old and rotten traditions?
Maybe it’s a collection of incest-addled brains, locked away from society by their own obscene wealth, participating in bizarre rituals they no longer understand?
Or I guess it could be a wholesome story about a benevolent king or something, but that sounds boring.
Why does natural gas smell like rotten eggs?
This is one of those weird bits of knowledge that is simultaneously so simple, but also upends your world when you discover it. I spent most of my life thinking that smell was the aroma of natural gas.
But it’s not! They started adding mercaptan to natural gas after an unbelievable tragedy in New London, TX. In 1937, as a cost cutting measure, the New London school system started taking some shortcuts. This lead to an undetectable gas leak that obliterated a school and killed 295 people. This pushed the industry to start using mercaptan as an additive in natural gas products.
https://www.thisoldhouse.com/plumbing/reviews/what-does-a-gas-leak-smell-like/
/https://www.odorizationbymrr.com/what-exactly-is-mercaptan/
This one is oddly nostalgic for me. In a bad way. Like when you hear a song and it reminds you of a girl that broke your heart. I grew up in West Texas and that area of the country is driven by oilfield money. That infinitely flat horizon is peppered with pump jacks and drilling rigs that groan late into the night. And they stink. Whenever you drive into Odessa, Texas, it’s putrid. Die-hards will tell you it’s the smell of money.
But it’s farts. The air is choked with that rotten egg smell, no matter where you go.
Ahhh, childhood.
The Great Molasses Flood
Sometimes history is both horrifying and absurd. Like a fight at a Waffle House or someone using Ivermectin to cure cancer, you’re mortified by what you’re seeing, but it’s just so incredibly ridiculous. A little over a hundred years ago, that’s what happened in Boston.
Molasses was in demand. It was a sweetener cheaper than granulated sugar, but could be distilled into other useful things like rum and industrial alcohol. Because of the war in Europe, that industrial alcohol was in high demand.
There was a gigantic vat of it in Boston. 2.3 million gallons. And who built it? An accountant. The company was cutting corners. They put this one guy in charge. He rushed the build and tried to save money here and there.
And one day the thing exploded. A tsunami of sludge - 40% thicker than water - raced through the streets. The wall was 25 feet high and moved at 35 mph.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood
I love disaster movies. The Poseidon Adventure. The Towering Inferno. Cats. It’s such a simple storytelling formula. Something larger than any of your character’s problems suddenly shifts the focus of literally every other character in your story. Unlike say the subtle schism of something like the Banshees of Inisherin or the personal passion and obsession of Killing Eve, a disaster movie is without nuance. It’s a sledgehammer that forces all of your characters to respond in kind. Survive. That’s it.
Alice Roosevelt was a bad ass!
She doesn’t need a movie about her. I want a series. I want a series full of booze and partying and plenty of screen time with her pet snake, Emily Spinach. Over a hundred years later, this behavior isn’t particularly outrageous. Back then, however, it was scandalous. She was a rock star. Alice Roosevelt, daughter of Teddy, was a force of nature.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/alice-roosevelt-longworth
If I could ever write a character as compelling and fun as Alice Roosevelt, that would be a big win. Lots of male writers struggle with writing anyone other than a cis white guy. You see this in AAA blockbuster films all the time! Guys usually get all of the good lines, the character nuance, and the funny quips. It’s like men just don’t know how to write women or they’re actively trying to do it poorly. You don’t have to make a turn-of-the-century manic pixie dream girl, but … make them real.
And my dudes.
My bros.
My brothers of the quill - don’t introduce a female character by talking about what her breasts are doing or how thin her shirt is. Just … don’t.
The Salmon of Knowledge
A few weeks ago, I asked for some cryptids and mythological monsters to talk about. I wanted to know about your favorites, the weird ones that had flown beneath my radar. And boy, did you guys deliver. The Salmon of Knowledge? That’s a far cry from ‘Squatches or Slender fellows.
This tale is rich with mythic heroes, destiny, and druids! Celtic mythology is just as fascinating and strange as the legends of any other people. You can find more tales of magic fish threaded throughout it. The theme even appears in Welsh legends of King Arthur. It’s pretty easy to make a connection between the Salmon of Knowledge and the ichthys iconography of Christianity.
https://irishtraditionsonline.com/the-salmon-of-knowledge/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon_of_Knowledge
https://www.yourirish.com/folklore/salmon-of-wisdom
It’s these strange beliefs and tales that form the foundation of the myths of a people. And these myths define their culture. It represents their heroes and villains, ideas that not only looked into the past, but sketched out a roadmap for how things should move forward.
If you’re worldbuilding, particularly with a fantasy novel, TTRPG setting, or a video game, give some thought to the ancient myths that your characters were raised on. It doesn’t have to be part of the story. It’s part of them, which is every bit as important.
The Strangerous Channel Updates
We have a set! For the last few months, we’ve been utilizing some pretty standard green screen action for the long-form videos. But now we have an actual, tangible background and it’s soooo cool. I can’t wait to show you guys. This is turning into a legit studio.
One of the shows we’re working on is a weekly Strangerous recap/podcast. It will be edited video, along the lines of a RadioLab, in a way? What guests would you like to see?
BTW, we have a comment section below! We haven’t yet launched the Discord, but we’re working on turning the Strangerous into thriving community of the weird and fascinating. Comment at the bottom of this article! Let’s chat!
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Even More Strange and Dangerous!
Thanks for reading our online newsletter! Here’s just a bit of our favorite things we’ve found lately. See ya next week!
Our Favorite comments from the week:
Correction! I called this guy a civet. He’s not a civet. This is a bearcat/binturong. He looks simultaneously adorable and like he’s ready to start some shit.
“That's a binturoung ( which smells like popcorn), not a civet ( the jungle cat that eats coffee beans and then people collect the poop to make kopi luwak coffee).”
@run_rapunzel
And they smell like hot-buttered popcorn. Scientists haven’t figured out exactly why, but it has to do with bacteria and urine. So do with that what you will.
Strangerous News
I’m that guy. I won’t shut-up about AI. I feel like an evangelical crypto-bro, God help me. But I don’t think most of us are prepared for what’s coming. This weekend, I likened the development of AI to the Manhattan Project. I stand by that. Yes, it’s that big. I don’t just mean displacing artists or writing research papers. This is going to upend our entire civilization. Millions will be out of work. It’s going to shred the fabric of society. And no, I don’t think any of this is hyperbole. I’m both excited for what AI brings and terrified of the cost.
But the genie is out of the bottle. This is happening. And it’s happening quickly. If you’re reading this, I don’t know what you can do to prepare, really. I don’t think anyone does. Development is moving at a breakneck pace. It will be replacing jobs on a scale we’ve never seen. And if enough of us don’t have jobs to buy the things they’re selling, then … the system is going to break. Maybe that’s a good thing. I’m hopeful that we’ll one day be introduced to actual AGI or something that approximates it. Will it show us the path forward? Will we listen?
I used to know everything about Irish myth and legends like the salmon of knowledge, but all I remember these days is that because the hero sucked his thumb (before Shakespeare probably) after burning himself on the fish a druid had a hissy fit. Only one person could get the knowledge.
Great work on these. Can't wait for all the stuff coming!