#wolf in the white van

[theoutcastrogue]

[From a 2014 article by John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats. He's talking about how a random spam email ended up inspiring a part of his book Wolf in White Van. Later, in 2020, the album Getting Into Knives came out, and I think it inspired its artwork too.]

"It took years for me to be able to just reflexively delete spam, or filter it so that I never see it at all. I blame the spammers for this; the quality of their work took a sharp nosedive at some point. But during whatever period of the internet’s growth you’d call the early 2000s, it seemed like you’d still get some winners: things that had been typed up by a person, sent out to a bunch of email addresses they’d bought or rented for 5 or 10 bucks from the only guy who was ever going to make any money in this particular exchange. Most of them went directly, if manually, into the trash; but once in a while, there’d be one that seemed to earn, at the very least, the minute it’d take me to read it.

The one I’m remembering here was subject-lined SUPPLY OF KNIVES. [...] The subject line opened on an all-caps email that boasted, in ornate, antiquated English appealing to the reader’s more refined sensibilities, about the high quality of the knives on offer at an external website. You shouldn’t click on links in spam email. I live my life on the razor’s edge! I clicked the link.

I want to tell you about these knives: They were beautiful. They were weird. They had elaborate designs in the handles, moons or stars of wolf heads, and special grips, and a variety of points. They were made from metals whose pedigrees were described lovingly, and had been struck — smithed? wrought? — via processes I knew absolutely nothing about, but that sounded fantastic, difficult, arcane. It’s the joy of specialized language: When you’re an outsider to it, it can’t help but sound cool.

Of course this is the whole idea of any operation like this. SUPPLY OF KNIVES could well have been, and probably was, a company in Ohio who’d stumbled across an old warehouse full of knives, and knew enough about sales to describe these things in the most exotic terms they could find. I’m pretty immune to pitches: Who likes to feel like he’s being pitched? But somebody involved with SUPPLY OF KNIVES had had just enough authorial flair — that, or true faith — to caption each knife’s mysterious, blurry accompanying JPEG with a description whose constant recourse to specialized vocabularies seemed to say, “You’re not even reading this unless you already know about this sort of thing. Let us therefore speak like the fellow travelers we are.”

It was like a trade catalog for roadside bandits in need of knives.

I can’t speak for everybody, but I know that when I was a child the life of the roadside bandit seemed like a pretty romantic way to go. I looked at all these knives and read the descriptions and was just generally delighted about the whole thing, so I saved the email in a “memorable spam” folder I used to keep that had maybe two other emails in it. A few years later, Apple came out with this robotic-arm-screen iMac you never see any more, and we were long overdue for a new computer so we got that; and then, after a while, I got myself a laptop, because I was traveling all the time, and eventually both the old iMacs ended up in the basement, and they were both asleep but alive until fairly recently, as far as I knew.

But when I went to check for the email, it was gone. The old blue iMac is dead, bricked, lifeless. Searches on the term “supply of knives” on this laptop and on good old robot-arm-screen find nothing. The backup CD for the blue iMac drive is probably in a drawer around here somewhere, but that’s like saying, “The coin I had in my swim trunks’ pocket is probably somewhere in the ocean.” There is no SUPPLY OF KNIVES. There’s only the memory."

[source]

And this is the wonderful cover art of Getting Into Knives. Back cover and promo material below. Note that "Knives International" and "Knives Wordwide" are not real companies, they appear to be a callback to that elusive spam email.

[isbergillustration]

Head North

[cosmickoshi]

WHO GAVE THEM THE RIGHT TO POST THESE ON THE SAME DAY AS IF MY HEART CAN HANDLE IT

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[spiderwebx]

Clueless (1995)

Gossip Girl (2007 - 2012)

Scarface (1983)

White Chicks (2004)

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Legally Blonde (2001)

Pretty Little Liars (2010 - 2017)

H2O: Just Add Water (2006 - 2010)

[womenofwrestlingfashion]

Our Story Pierce Hoodie & Dual Wolf Everson Seamless Valencourt Shorts in Vintage Blossom Woodland Camo from Darc Sport (sold out), Classic Crew Socks (3 pack - $15) & Classic Slip On Shoe ($55) in White from Vans

[bechdxl]

lead singer of the mountain goats just accepted my goodreads friend request??

[vernalloy]

It’s disability pride month and that means it’s time for me to talk about Wolf In White Van again.

For all its storytelling, what really jumps out to me is the lack of proper endpoints. The people in the movies and books and rock albums are doomed. But for Sean, he didn’t end up where he was meant to. For the theme of being lost in violent fiction in childhood, to him, the only way forward is to repeat it— where fiction bleeds into reality, reality lies bleeding on the floor.

And then he survives.

Wolf in White Van is told in reverse chronological order, so when things end, we know how they end, and that sucks all the dramatic tension out of the story. Lance and Carrie’s trial leads to nothing for anyone. Sean’s suicide attempt doesn’t kill him, and there was no concrete rationale behind it. Not that Sean could see, looking back, anyway. Perfectly normal parents, perfectly normal life.

Nothing has a highest point of tension and then resolves to never have a significant problem again. In real life, people come out of the climax wounded, and the story keeps dragging on.

Try as you might to weave your loose ends into a coherent narrative with an appropriate end, an explanation for all your broken bits and a fate you find comfort in, you never will. You will never breach the Trace, only rest your hands against its cold inner walls.

[chicinsilk]

Harper's Bazaar November 1954

Jean Patchett in a luxurious Jasmine EMBA white mink coat by Ritter Bros., turquoise and diamond jewelry by Van Cleef & Arpels.

Jean Patchett dans un luxueux manteau de vison blanc Jasmine EMBA de Ritter Bros., bijoux turquoise et diamants de Van Cleef & Arpels.

Photo de Louise Dahl-Wolfe

[gamekids-firewolf]

pgs 131 - 150

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This was the most difficult chapter to draw by far. The fight scene on top of the White Forest... waugh. On the plus side, though, the space in-between is a lot of fun to draw. Even if it killed at least two of my pens.

[okarasusama]

been meeting a lot of nice normal people lately and when they ask about the music i like i have to restrain myself from allowing them to see the Mountain Goats Madness in my eyes

[sprnklersplashes]

"no fear"

the actor playing kuwei/tailored wylan being ignored at best and shit on at worst because he's getting in the way of the fandom's favourite white boy being on screen

"one fear"

[livenudebigfoot]

Maybe it's just because I'm mostly a fantasy and thriller reader with very little experience of books that are straight dramas, tragedies, and tearjerkers, but John Darnielle does heart-rending, unresolvable grief like nobody else. It's a genuine gift. And that gift is really clearing my sinuses rn.

[alicent-targaryen]

GERALT OF RIVIA ▸ Gothic Monster Hunter!AU aesthetic board

[seanastinhopeunquenchable]

The Man in the White Van starring Sean Astin, Ali Larter, Madison Wolfe, Skai Jackson and Brec Bassinger premieres at the Newport Beach Film Festival, October 14.

“In a quaint little town in 1974 Florida, an ominous white van stalks a young girl, while her parents’ skepticism leads to a terrifying Halloween nightmare.”

[vernalloy]

i know the people are going mad over the inevitability of movies line in wiwv but. the thing that really gets me about that book is the title drop scene. watch the late show enough times it's different than before but it's not you just need to say it is to yourself because there's meaning. there's meaning permeating everything. and you'll do these reckless impulsive teenage things for no reason other than you're destined to. retrieve the gun from the hall and take out everyone then run into the night. but there is no thread here you can pull, you can't go through with it no matter how much these stories you tell yourself bleed into your waking actions.

you are not doomed!!! it just feels that way because you're sick!!!