How much horror can YOU face?

You may remember that I love me some horror.

So I was delighted to discover this weekend that my favorite Mycroft, Mark Gatiss, wrote and produced a horror doc for BBC a few years ago (which I found while looking up stuff about John Carpenter, you know, as you do) called A History of Horror.  I poked around and found it where most online videos are to be found, and let me tell you, friends, it is absolutely great.

Gatiss also does some poking around himself into movie archives, and shows off stuff like Lon Chaney's makeup kit, and documents from a censor board's opinion of all that dirty sexy Christopher Lee vampirin' going on in Horror of Dracula. I spent most of the episode exclaiming things like, "Oh, that movie? Yeah, it's my favorite, too, Mark! Let's be best friends!" Ah, but that's a horror of a different color.

The second installment is fantastic, if you're a Hammer and/or Peter Cushing fan like I am. There's an especially great moment at or near the 50 minute mark, where a brief interview bit is shown with Cushing and Vincent Price on the set of Madhouse. As an aside, if you haven't seen it, Madhouse is wonderful, a great combination of horror, mystery and send-up of Hollywood/movie biz.

I'm saving the third installment for tomorrow. So far I can't find it anywhere to purchase online, but who knows? Maybe it'll pop up somewhere soon.  It's a nice companion piece to books like Danse Macabre and Projected Fears, and I'd recommend it to any horror fan.

Also: needless to say! But if something's needless, you can count on me to spell it out. Between this and Tank Riot's Zombies! episode, my to-watch horror movie list has ballooned to freakish, atomic-influenced proportions.

Crons, Crones, Chrons, Cronhs, etc.

Radiolab has a new podcast up!

Guts

Yep, it's all about our glorious bowels. When one of my old college buds linked to it I clicked over to the site, thinking, damn, they might just do a story on IBD. And I wasn't disappointed: part 3 of the podcast is all about a dude who has Crohn's disease.

It never fails to amaze me how many people misspell Crohn's disease, but even as a self-professed lifelong spelling-and-grammar freak (yes, I WAS that annoying kid who won a lot of class spelling bees. It was all for the fame, glory, and whores, you understand) I must admit it's a strange, unintuitive word. But then, it was named after a person, so.

I get a range of responses when I tell someone I have ulcerative colitis. Usually I have to preface "ulcerative colitis" with "a chronic disease" so that people don't think I'm talking about a class or current events, but after that I get some knowing nods, some pretend-knowing nods, and some What's that, exactly?s. Occasionally I get a JFK buff who tells me all about Kennedy's intestines and steroid use and whatnot. But I think both diseases have a ways to go before they're household names. I'd rather UC/CD/IBD didn't become such common diseases just so everyone knows what the hell I'm talking about.

Really I just want more attention for ulcerative colitis. Crohn's, Crohn's, Crohn's, big deal.

In any case, the Crohn's part of the podcast reminds me a lot of how I felt during my surprise 2010 flare. I'm fist-bumping (fistula-bumping?) you through the computer, guy.


In other news A. and I are watching Breaking Bad. We're finishing up season three, and Bob Odenkirk is KILLING me.

Back to the basics: another IBD webinar from CCFA

cc by flickr user jurvetson

Yeah, that's right. I'm mooning you.

I guess it's time I got back to posting about Ulcerative Colitis and its buddies. Today I listened to a podcast/webinar from CCFA that's about a month old, but still worth a listen:

Managing IBD: Taking charge of your disease

The above link takes you straight to the podcast link, but CCFA also kindly included a link to the presentation/webinar slides, which can be viewed here:


SLIDES - Managing IBD

It's a very good presentation, but I have to admit, I feel I'm getting a little long in the tooth for IBD management information after having lived with UC for almost ten years now. And it really was an IBD-for-beginners type of webinar, which isn't me. I have my meds pretty well straightened out, I see my doctor regularly, I try to eat healthily.* I've become acquainted with the needs and crankiness of my body on a far more intimate level than I ever planned on doing, and after almost ten years, I'm okay with that.

So with that in mind, almost all of the information was familiar or even old-hat to me; although it was gratifying to hear Dr. Regueiro mention that the IBD and gastro community are currently investigating parasites (aka hookworms, I take it?) and their viability as an IBD treatment. Which to some folks might be considered old news. He also very briefly touched on the smoking thing early on in the webinar, albeit briefly.

In a way, I'm kind of glad I'm a senior UC member, or whatever having it for ten years makes me. (Toilet Queen? La Conquistadora del colon? Super Pooper? Feel free to chime in.) I like having enough knowledge about something to be considered a mini-expert in...well, in my own mind. But I think I'll keep listening to these podcasts.You never know what might pop up, or what might replace my oh-so-abundant knowledge. This is what happened when I listened to the IBD & She podcast last April. It was an eye-opener, and one that made me feel more like a normal lady: not something that usually happens when I'm getting my UC knowledge on. I recommend both podcasts.







*Shut UP. I DO.

Pills, pills, pills

Act One on this week's podcast from This American Life features a story (from 2009) about pharmaceutical drug discount cards.

Fine Print 2011

You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. (Or does it?)

Hey, Definitely Not the Opera, a CBC podcast I highly enjoy and unreservedly recommend, mentioned ulcerative colitis in a recent episode! It's here:

DNTO tackles The Big Decision

The mention is around the 34-minute mark: Sook-Yin says her boyfriend has ulcerative colitis, which means that "his body reacts very poorly to some foods." They end up checking out an alternative route, but when that doesn't cut it, he goes on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, something I investigated early on in my UC career. I hope it's working for him.

I think it's interesting, though, how differently I define ulcerative colitis. If someone asks me what it is, I say that A) it's an autoimmune disorder, that B) while certain foods can set it off into a flare-up of blood and cramping and all-around sad times for everyone within ten feet of me (apologies to A. and the dog) those foods aren't causing the UC or making it worse, and finally that C) I take maintenance, immune system-suppressing meds to control the disease.

That's so completely different in so many ways, and I've gotta say, I'm a little envious of her description. It implies a lot more control - while her guy can't eat everything he'd like to (and if you look at the SCD, it's almost certainly a radical departure from your normal eating habits, although I'm saying that as a beer-swilling, pasta-and-chocolate-hoovering white American and Minnesotan woman. So I may be a little biased on the exact definition of "normal eating") he can control the disease. It's in his hands.*

With my definition, I'm at the mercy of my pills. (This is especially apparent when I forget to take them or attempt to lessen my dosages out of that silly concern for the long-term side effects.) It's a genetic, autoimmune thing. My body's attacking me and all I can do is hold on for the ride. Not exactly empowering, huh?

On a tangent, sometimes I do want to try the SCD. It'd be nice to live life without the worry of pills and side effects and pain, but it's hard to imagine not having that kind of detached, smoothly operating automaton, the medication, taking control of my disease for me while I go on scarfing whatever I want to scarf. It's hard to imagine not flaring the instant I stop taking them and change my diet. It's also been against all my doctors' orders and/or suggestions. So. As usual, Peppery, meet impasse.

How do you define your disease? I'm talking literally here: how do you define the actual thing that's happening in your body? Do you let your doctors do it? Or have you come up with your own specialized explanation that fits your case more neatly? Have any of my fellow UCers out there tried the Gottschall diet?

^{*Literally, at one point in the podcast. Ha!}

Are you by chance a vicious criminal?

Follow this link to listen to This American Life's archived episode, Poultry Slam 2003. They ran it on the podcast last week. Why am I linking to this?

A) It has a bit of Chickenman. (Bockbockbockbaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwck)
B) I UNEXPECTEDLY get to hear Ira Glass say my maiden name. Dude! I had to rewind/reverse/whatever it is we call going backwards in digital media these days.
C) Sorry, the above reasons are it. Pretty sad, I know.

Today it's my sweetie A.'s birthday. He started the celebration early by not coming to bed last night in order to finish a paper. What a crazy guy. However, because he is very lucky he got some presents and he will also be getting this later:


(A fresh one. This one is a couple years old.)

Mmmm, delicious. Happy December, everyone. Can you believe it's December already?

Wackety wack

Recently I got a holiday circular email from AbeBooks:

Discover Literary Oddities in the Weird Book Room on AbeBooks

(The email subject line was simply "Give A Weird Book for the Holidays.")

Some of these look great. On the whole, the promotion reminded me of a This American Life podcast I listened to yesterday:

Death to Wacky

I definitely agree there is a time and place for wackiness, although I'm a fan of constant weirdness. However, I was listening to the above while cataloging a photo/art book by Nobuyoshi Araki, so henceforth for me wacky is inextricably linked with bondage, hot wax, and sexy photographs. Oh, and Ira Glass's voice. I assure you, it's really special.





^{Also I imagine this blog will disappoint hardworking searchers of Araki's work and/or b0ndage and/or h0t wax and/or sexy photographs and/or Ira Glass for the next few days. Sorry, folks.}

Stuff you may not know, either

The Stuff You Missed in History Class folks had a fun podcast recently:

Napoleon in Egypt: the Savants

I never knew Napoleon went to Egypt, nor did I ever know anything about the huge set of volumes produced by his little science-and-culture squad:

Description de L'Egypte

Look at that thing! The plate volumes are held at the NEW Bibliotheca Alexandrina - another thing I didn't know existed. Really, I'm quite an ignorant lady.

I first heard about the SYMIHC podcasts from this handy little list at Yes and Yes, and it was such a nice surprise. Obviously I can also second her recommendations for This American Life and Radiolab (hey, both shows did segments on the hookworms guy, that practically requires me to get out their vote) but I'll also take this opportunity to tout The WRVO Playhouse podcast of old time radio out of Syracuse. That, along with the Old Time Radio shows at the Internet Archive and the current stuff on our local NPR station, really gives me my scratchy airwaves fix.

What are some of your favorite podcasts or radio shows?