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Post by dem bones on Aug 12, 2021 18:13:36 GMT
Adrian Reynolds Dino Buzzati - The Bewitched Jacket (La giacca stregata): ( Restless Nights: Selected Stories of Dino Buzzati, 1983: Helen Cresswell [ed], Mystery Stories, 1996). On the advise of a friend, the author visits the Milan premises of Alphonso Corticello. bespoke tailor, to commission a suit in grey wool. The titular jacket is indeed bewitched. Each time Buzatti reaches inside the top pocket, he extracts multiple banknotes. In next to no time he is rich, but soon discovers that the unearned fortune comes at the dire expense of others. Finally, conscience stricken that so many have died horribly to keep him in luxury, he burns the suit, but it's much too late. Even in poverty he can never relax, knowing one day a gloating Satan, nee Mr. Corticello, will arrive to demand his fee. Real tortured/ lapsed Roman Catholic stuff, this one.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 14, 2021 8:34:27 GMT
Fred Humiston Roger S. Vreeland - The Robe of Forgetfulness: ( Weird Tales, July 1947). Each moment has an urgent importance until relegated to its proper place in the past by the future. The stranger in black offers solace to those bitterly disappointed in love. "I can help you. There is no need to let a woman make you miserable." The crestfallen drinker feels compelled to follow him to a woodland cemetery. Stopping beneath a tree, the stranger insists he strip naked ... Stephen Grendon [August Derleth] - Dead Man's Shoes: ( Weird Tales, March 1946). Those who are stricken with that curious and terrible hallucination should be thankful — for it warns of something far more terrible. Howard Sherman wants Helen, but Helen marries his brother Jack. The two men enlist. Jack dies at Aleutians, shot by a Jap, according to Howard, who brings home the dead man's paratrooper boots, selling them to office colleague, Doug Lynn, who wears them for weekend mushroom picking jaunts. Howard makes his move on Jack's widow. Meanwhile, Doug experiences nightmare flashbacks to a battle he didn't fight and the cold blooded murder of a parachutist ...
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Post by dem bones on Oct 3, 2021 8:37:37 GMT
M. W. Craven - The Moss-Trooper: (Paul Finch [ed.], Terror Tales of the Scottish Lowlands, 2021). Unlikely for consideration as our joyless 'Story-teller' would at first appear, check out his footwear. Stefan R. Dziemianowicz - Coat Carrier: What's causing that unsightly bulge in the lining? Stay Away From Wilson Drive!: Never lend a hitcher your sweater. Yule Love Him: Sandy and her to-die-for Christmas party dress. All from ( Bloody Mary & Other Tales for a Dark Night, 2000). Charlotte McDermott - The Red Mittens: (L. H. Maynard [ed.], Chills, 2019). Sad little ghost leaves them behind to comfort a grieving woman whose baby was stillborn. As it sounds.
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Post by Swampirella on Oct 24, 2021 1:29:51 GMT
F. Paul Wilson - Foet (Mammoth Book of New Terror 2011 reprinted from Borderlands 2: The Anthology of Imaginative Fiction 1991)
Denise bumps into old friend Helene while shopping in midtown. They "grab a bite" at the Waldorf, where Denise admires Helene's exquisite handbag. She notices that several other well-dressed women at nearby tables have versions of the same thing. Pro-Life Denise is shocked to learn it's made from fetal skin. But she still can't stop herself wanting one. Helene sends her to Blume's where "Rolf" shows her a selection of handbags, belts and even watch bands. She leaves happily with a foet, however husband Brian is not happy when he hears of Helene's foet. Thank goodness Denise didn't tell him she'd bought one too. Somewhat lame ending, but then the concept itself is more than enough.
There's a (free) 12min video version here:
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Post by Swampirella on Oct 29, 2021 2:06:03 GMT
From fiction to reality:
Blurb:
"The clothes we wear every day keep us comfortable, protect us from the elements, and express our unique style—but could fashion also be fatal? As it turns out, history is full of fashions that have harmed or even killed people. From silhouette-cinching corsets and combustible combs to lethal hair dyes and flammable flannel, this nonfiction book looks back at the times people have suffered pain, injury, and worse, all in the name of style. Historical examples like the tragic “Radium Girl” watchmakers and mercury-poisoned “Mad Hatters,” along with more recent factory accidents, raise discussion of unsafe workplaces—where those who make the clothes are often fashion’s first victims."
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Post by dem bones on Nov 29, 2021 19:58:48 GMT
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Post by dem bones on Dec 20, 2021 11:29:39 GMT
John Leech, The Arsenic Waltz ( Punch, 8 Feb 1862). "The new Dance of Death (Dedicated to the Green Wreath and Dress-Mongers)." F. Tennyson Jesse - The Mask: ( English Review, Jan 1912: Jane Passey [ed.] Cornish Horrors, 2021). Qualified on two counts. The titular mask, as worn by James Glasson to conceal his hideously ruined Phantom of the Opera face, and scheming wife, Vashti's lovingly crafted black silk gown. Mary Williams - The Coat: ( Chill Company, 1976). Fay Lester is demonically possessed by evil spirit of Sheba, her beloved, very murdered cat whenever she pulls on her white fur coat. From same collection: The Blue Wig: Bigamist hairdresser receives poetic comeuppance from beyond the grave. Blackly comic, etc. Mary Williams - The Toupée: ( The Haunted Garden, 1986). Companion piece to above. Melia is haunted by her late husband's wig.
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Post by dem bones on Dec 28, 2021 11:39:58 GMT
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Post by dem bones on Mar 5, 2022 18:07:09 GMT
Clara Elsene Peck Georgina Wood Pangborn - The Haunted Coat: ( Colliers, 10 Nov. 1906). "This was the sort of coat one wore to balls; had he loved to dance then as much as Betty did now? Had he been very sorry to die? Once that coat had been an unimportant part of him — now it was all that remained, stitches, shoulder-padding, a little spot that might have been wine, the buttonholes showing how they had been buttoned and unbuttoned - but he was quite unreal, who had once been as real as Betty herself. Did one stop being real? Would Betty's graduating gown outlast Betty?" On the eve of her graduation party, Betty is rooting through a leather trunk of old clothes in the attic, paying particular attention to the military uniform of her late uncle. As she examines its coat, said uncle's ghost appears beside her. They are transported back thirty years to the night of his own graduation ball. Uncle again gets to dance with the girl he loves and Betty comes to realise that, far from being ridiculous, the hoop dress is the only appropriate attire for the important occasion.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 18, 2022 9:21:47 GMT
David Grilla Benjamin Percy - The Long Black Coat: ( Cemetery Dance #64, 2010) "I don't normally do this kind of thing, but yesterday I grabbed a woman by the hair and shook her until she screamed. I don't really know how to explain it except that I felt compelled to do it, as if I didn't have a choice." Bend, Oregon. John Abbot, proprietor of a shop trading in pre-owned, high-quality designer clothing, takes a shine to a single-breasted, knee-length winter coat. John takes to wearing the best item of clothing he ever owned in all weathers. Wife Rachel says it suits him, daughter Amy, 11, reckons it sets off his pink bald head, makes him look like a vulture. John suspects the previous owner was this old guy he read about, came home one day to find the pet Labrador had torn off his wife's face and eaten her guts. Still, you know what the media are like. John can tell his coat must have been horrified at the dog's behaviour! Thank goodness he's here to look after it!
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Post by dem bones on Jan 17, 2023 12:21:12 GMT
Three more from Mary Williams, ( The Coat, The Toupée, The Blue Wig, Pink Knickers & Co), these from Where No Birds Sing (1978) Georgie's Hat: Scheming gold-digger Walter conspires with the ghosts of his first wife and her phantom headgear to lure current spouse to her doom. Ginny's Coat: It's instrumental in fitting up a career criminal who let a timid sweetheart take the rap for his villainy. Florrie's Long Johns: Bickering next-door neighbours reunited in death. Titular phantom undergarments - chief cause of their disharmony - glide over the cemetery wall to join them.
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Post by dem bones on May 27, 2023 16:14:07 GMT
Kurt Newton - Our Father's Underwear: (Tom English [ed.] Nightmare Abbey #2, 2022). Dead dad's spectral drawers keep the kids in check. David A. Sutton - Monkey Business: ( Clinically Dead & Other Tales of the Supernatural, 2006: The Evil Bones, 2023). Alas, for an American smuggler and his kinky Oriental girlfriend, wearing a ghoulish, monkey skull head-dress to bed does not enhance one's sex life after all.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 4, 2023 15:20:41 GMT
Kate Barlay - The Expert: (James Turner [ed.] - The Fourth Ghost Book, 1965). Nina is nagged to visit Switzerland by the ghost of Uncle Thomas. Stopping at a village hostel, she is transfixed by a hilariously inept landscape painting - badly drawn cows and wonky legged horses at pasture - framed on the wall. "Buy it," insists her spectre guardian, "That picture is a real Leonardo da Vinci!" Nina is not convinced. What if he's wrong, and she's wasted her money? How dare she question his expertise! Very well, in the 100% impossible event of his being wrong, he will buy her that fancy green hat trimmed with the birds of paradise! The bargain is struck. Nina buys the painting and, eventually, takes it to a dealer who confirms - it is most certainly not the work of Da Vinci. How can the ghost settle his debt?
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Post by humgoo on Aug 11, 2023 15:10:30 GMT
Sam Dawson - Shod: (Supernatural Tales#51, Winter 2022-23). Mr. Brooks, travelling in Bavaria with his valet, finds a pair of unfamiliar boots at the door of his hotel room. Is this just a mistake or prank, or did they belong to a former servant who suffered a most terrible fate during his lifetime due to his anatomically unusual feet and are now looking for a new owner? This being a Sam Dawson story, I'm fearing the worst.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 23, 2023 8:20:24 GMT
Vern Hansen - Come Hither, My Love: ( The Twisters, 1963). Enchanted hand-painted scarf reunites a suicide with the lover he erroneously throttled during a robbery gone tragically wrong.
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