Acquire Weird U.S.: Your Travel Guide To Americas Local Legends And Best Kept Secrets Presented By Mark Moran Rendered As Manuscript
incredible guide to all the strange things that go down in the American land, This book contains so many weird stories that have been told and it
makes you think about going to all these places to find out for yourself whats going on.
I have actually been to so many of the locations listed in the book but never seen these things because I did not know about it , but now I do and will gladly go back to check them out ! I finished reading this book aboutweeks ago.
This is a very good book full of supposibly supernatural places in the US, Each location has a clearly explained myth or story behind it, and each tale is unique and interesting, I could not put this book down! Now I even want to visit some of these places!
If you are into ghost hunting or just like myths and the supernatural, then this book is for you.
The places cover a range of subjects, such as ghosts, aliens, science, mysteries, and just plain weird, Actual visitors of these odd places wrote about their experiences, which I think is really awesome, What! Waste of time. Once again the Kings of Weird have pulled together an entertaining and chilling collection of stories, Sort of a "Best of" collection, Although no other state can beat New Jersey for Weirdness, Before reading this, I assumed per a South Park episode that Al Gore was the only person who believed in the notorious ManBearPig chimera.
Now I know otherwise. Reveling in a collage of myths and neurosis, this tome is chockfull of supposed oddities that have somehow escaped the lens of a camera in a society where seemingly every postinfant pratfall or freaking dog chasing a squirrel is filmed and aired on my damn TV each Sunday!.
This is the underbelly of Americanaand I love this crap!
As a compilation of weirdness, this book includes the surrealreal Rodias Towers, Lizzy Borden and the surrealgottabefake.
of the rest of the content, In format, the authors noncritically expose the innumerable overlaps of stories, sightings, and BS across the nation, Crybaby bridges and “Melonheads” are seemingly in every county, It makes me think theres some sort of returnpostage, storyspinning template mailed to everyone who lives more thanmiles from a video rental store, Its the equivalent of a Mr, Potato Head doll where you just plug in prescripted elements to make a freakish thing, I wanna play:
“So me and some buds were driving along routein North Carolina, It was a hazy evening so we decided to turn off on Devils Foot Road, Down the road there used to be an asylum where a disenfranchised Rumanian chemist was turning orphans into Melon Heads in either the earlys or.
The fearless leader of the Melon Heads incited an uprising and burned the stone building down with the deranged scientist trapped inside the attic with his collection of Peruvian voodoo dolls.
The lead Melon Head also happened to be a woman, and had a couple babies, She/it was seeking the love of a nonMelon Head man from a higher station in life, Assuming the man would only court her/it if she/it didnt have babies, she threw her babies off of Crybaby Bridge right there on Devils Elbow Road in Broken Whistle, Oklahoma.
Nonetheless, the man still screened her phone calls so the scorned lady/thing can now be seen, dressed like a bunny, wandering in a perfectmile radius within South Jersey.
She hits one Wawa store in each Township at alarmingly regular intervals, Nowadays, if you listen close enough you can hear the tossed Melon children singing along to frightening Neil Diamond songs as gaseous red balls dance around near the removed Union Pacific tracks down by the river bed.
These multicolored balls seem to emanate from a tree whose roots resemble a skull and/or the cloven hooves of the Devil himself! According to early colonists in Northern California, the Native Americans of the region used to call it the “cracker tree,” and as youre straining to look for it as well as the bloodred water, your car will suddenly defy gravity and roll up hill did I mention the wooden bridge slopes.
If you put baby powder on the hood, little melonbrat handprints will appear on the bumper! The melon kid apparitions are pulling your car up towards the hilltop where CreoleHessian Jackson Whites have built an albino midget village complete with aliter soda bottle Stonehenge dedicated to the New Testament! Freaked out, we started the engine and drove off, picking up some nonMelon Head hitchhiking chick in a hoop skirt on the way.
Charming at first, she became noticeably frigid as the conversation turned towards March Madness, Then she suddenly disappeared from the back seat as we passed the pet cemetery, Definitely the creepiest place in central Florida dont drink the water, ” M. Grogan
My favorite quote from one of the authors was:
“is it possible that there really is a strange subhuman beast lurking in the backwoods of Arkansas”
Having lived there for a while, Ill withhold commentary.
Looooooove this series so much, A collection of the some the strangest, most unexplained, haunted, and fabled places in the United States, Authors Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman have personally visited many of the places that they write about in "Weird US", but also included are stories from "locals" who have inside knowledge or experience with these strange sites and places.
Much of the book is centered in the states of New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, so people from those states will really enjoy the book and will possible relate more to it.
For others who just like to read about some of the more unique places in our country, "Weird US" is for you, Plenty of pictures support the stories along with a solid index for referencing later, Weird U. S. was . . Well, weird!
If you're looking for weird, strange or haunted places to visit this is the book you want to read, Now not all the places in the book they recommend you visiting because some are private property, but others are open to the public,
There is so many stories in here from a Bunny Man to Phantom Clowns to Rehmeyer's Hollow and the Curse of The Witch, there is tons of interesting and crazy stories to read about in this book.
I would recommend it to anyone that's into weird or paranormal things, There is quite a few stories about haunted places as well so this book will interest those who are into ghost stories, One of, if not the best book in the Weird series! Not really a travel guide so much as a collection of weird American stories and places.
Crazy world we live in!
Visit my store at Cleowulf Studio LLC sitelinkwww, cleowulf. com/shop I couldn't even get through this book, It was like reading one National Inquirer story after another, The only redeeming thing was a factual article about the abandoned Danvers State Hospital, I originally picked up this book from the library and thought I'd just pick through and read an article here and there, First I read the articles about events and mysteries taking place in my home state, That led to noticing interesting places and pictures from across America, I turned out reading the whole thing cover to cover! This book is a lot of fun and I found a couple of places I will visit, no scary ones though.
A Good study in urban legends and how similar tales pop up hundreds of miles apart, Warning: a few chapters are a bit "unsettling" and do not, as I did, read before drifting off to sleep for the night! "Weird U.
S. " is an excellent read. I've owned it for years, and I still discover something new every time I open it, The whole book is rather lighthearted, even when discussing very heavy subject matter such as murders and disappearances, so it's not going to change the way anyone thinks about the universe or anything.
However, for anyone interested in the paranormal, mysteries, or just plain weirdness, this is the book for you, "Weird U. S. " is cleverly written and full of images depicting the sites, people, and events it mentions, Each section describes a different aspect of America's weirdness from the first and only Emperor of the U, S. to a ghost who loves beer, the book is full of delightful and bizarre topics, I highly recommend it for anyone who likes weirdness or humor! A nice survey of strange places, ghost stories, tall tales, urban legends, local flavor, roadside attractions, and other allAmerican weirdness.
A lot of the material will be familiar to Forteanleaning readers, but there's enough obscure stuff to make it worth a read, Some people might complain about the fact that the authors almost gleefully refuse to engage in any real factchecking or verifying, A lot of the stories were submitted by website readers, which means that in some cases there are multiple conflicting accounts about the same subject, and a few tales that have been debunked or explained are presented as if the debunking or explanation never happened or is in dispute.
However, it should be noted that the authors state right up front that they're more interested in collecting the stories themselves than worrying about whether or not the stories are true.
I can't decide whether that's admirable or lazy, but still found the book enjoyable, Reading some of the fantastical and bizarre stories in this book, you might ask “Whoa, really”
Well, no, Not really.
This coffee table book is an extension of the website sitelinkwww, weridus. com that documents local myths and urban legends throughout the states, including first, second or thirdhand accounts submitted to them on the site, The authors fully admit that the work is apocryphal, and that no story, regardless of how suspect, would be discounted as long as its a good story.
If you remind yourself that these stories are intended to be nothing more than that and you do need to remind yourself, due to the authors' lack of an objective voice, and since many of the submissions swear up and down to betrue, they can be a fun read.
So how could that be a problem in urban legends, which are already inherently misinformational By the inclusion of fakelore: stories that claim to be real oral history lore, but are in fact fabricated and perpetuated usually by an individual over the internet.
Perhaps the best example being Marylands Crybaby Bridge which is devoted a good deal of attention by the book,
The inclusion of “anyoldstorygoes” aside, a great many of these tales are just not the “good stories” they claim to be, Theres only so much obviously madeup hokum that begins with “there used to be a nearby insane asylum” or “theres this local Satanist cult” one can read before it all melts together into one labored campfire tale.
There are some good examples of classic American folklore like The Jersey Devil and La Llorona, questionably weird stories like The Beast of Bay Road and The Mothman, quirky reallife places like Gravity Hill or Coral Castle, but even these articles are letdown by intentionally vague writing that leaves the stories feeling incomplete.
I like a good spooky story as much as the next guy, but in an age where blogs pass editorial off as news and wikis create “common knowledge” out of misinformation, Weird US seems just to be another symptom of the information ages increasingly blurred line between fact and fantasy.
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