(source: Paramount Pictures) Greetings, Manor Hors! Periodically, "The Roving Pecker" presents urgent missives from filthy esteemed guest writers. Today's is from GlamourDoll! What exactly is "camp"? Wikipedia defines it as: "an aesthetic and sensibility that regards something as appealing or amusing because of its heightened level of artifice, affectation and exaggeration, especially when there is also a playful or ironic element." In other words: too much... but in the best possible way. The term itself dates back to late 1800s Victorian times. Fanny Park (Frederick) and Stella Boulton (Ernest), both born male, performed in drag and lived as women both on and off stage. They were arrested in 1870 for "conspiring and inciting persons to commit an unnatural offence" (Victorians were, unsurprisingly, no fun), but were ultimately acquitted. In a letter, Fanny described her “campish undertakings,” giving us one of the earliest recorded uses of ...

Greetings, Manor Hors! Periodically, "The Roving Pecker" presents urgent missives from filthy esteemed guest writers. Today's is from Darkside! Pour out a glass of Herb Ertlinger's Fruit Wine . The entire world is still shuddering with the shock at the news that actress, comedienne, and Canadian icon Catherine O'Hara has left us at the age of 71. Born in Toronto in 1954, she began her career after college by joining the acclaimed Second City comedy troupe, where she honed her skills into becoming one of the funniest comic actors in recent history. Eventually, she and a small group of colleagues banded together to create "SCTV" ("Second City Television"), one of the most acclaimed and influential comedy shows in the history of TV. Perhaps inevitably, "Saturday Night Live" came calling in 1981, but O'Hara declined the invitation. Long-standing rumor states it was because she was scared off by writer Michael O'Donoghue s...

Greetings, Manor Hors! Today "The Roving Pecker" presents two boxed gifts for Boxing Day from our own Raincoaster. Dare you open them? Bwahahahahaha! Who is it? Smee. But the question is: is that good news or not? A jolly country house Christmas party. All the food, all the comforts, all the jollity of the season due the prosperous English gentry. A happy bachelor guest, excited for a grand holiday. A posh game of hide-and-seek. “Every player is given a sheet of paper. All the sheets except one are blank. On the last sheet of paper is written...Smee. Nobody knows who Smee is except Smee himself – or herself. You turn out the lights, and Smee goes quietly out of the room and hides. After a time the others go off to search for Smee – but of course they don’t know who they are looking for. When one player meets another he challenges him by saying, Smee. “The other player answers, Smee, and they continue searching. “But the real Smee doesn’t answer when someone challenges. The se...

Greetings, Manor Hors! Periodically, "The Roving Pecker" presents urgent missives from filthy esteemed guest writers. Today's entry is from Raincoaster! If there's one thing we know about Jerome K. Jerome , it's that his parents were people of remarkably little imagination. That said, it's a flaw their son did not share. One of the most famous and popular humourists of his time, Jerome K. Jerome had a talent that hasn't become stale with age, unlike many of his peers. For that reason, today we're posting his explanation of why, exactly, ghost stories are traditional at this time of year.  It's the old pagan idea,  evolved over centuries,  that the powers of evil grew stronger with the darkness; with Christianity, it's the idea of evil becoming more powerful until the birth of Jesus, who beat them all back, leaving them to flee until Halloween. But there, I'm getting ahead of my betters. Let's learn from the very best - and the funniest ...

Greetings, Manor Hors! Periodically, "The Roving Pecker" presents urgent missives from filthy esteemed guest writers. Today's blood-cirdling entry is from Raincoaster! You won't thank me for this one. If Tarnhelm was creepy, this seasonal story is next-level terrifying. Ready your night light; you'll need it. A jarring mashup of an anticipated jolly holiday for a joyful young man, and a terrifying, yet morally understandable haunting by the most horrific of criminals, this tale shows the true mastery of the short story form by Anglo-Canadian author Algernon Blackwood . He wrote several seasonal stories, and his catalogue is rich, even if he never was. Blackwood had the kind of resume to which modern writers can only aspire: dairy farmer, theosophical society founder, yellow press reporter, proto-pulp author who skillfully wove indigenous legends into contemporary fiction, whether the setting were the French marshes (The Willows) or the northern Canadian woodland...

  Greetings, Manor Hors! Periodically, "The Roving Pecker" presents urgent missives from filthy esteemed guest writers. Today's seasonal entry is from Glamour Doll! I unabashedly love it when local radio stations start playing Christmas music in November. I even have a Christmas playlist I start playing while cooking for Thanksgiving. Recently, I was groovin' in my car to the Christmas station when "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" by Martina McBride came on, I immediately - Grinchly - frowned and changed the station to protect my sanity. See, I despise that song because it's dreadfully slow and boring. I grew up watching "Meet Me in St. Louis", where the song was debuted by Judy Garland herself. And yes, literally every time I watched that movie, I fast-forwarded through that song (remember doing that?). I have never heard a rendition of it I can tolerate. Judy's is about 2.5 minutes, Martina's drags on for over 4 minutes. Who ...

Greetings, Manor Hors! Periodically, "The Roving Pecker" presents urgent missives from filthy esteemed guest writers. Today's chilling entry is from Raincoaster! It's your lucky day...but maybe not Toby Crooke's. He's dead, you see. Although inert from the opening of the story, he's the central and titular character of J. Sheridan Le Fanu 's complex, charming, and chilling Christmas ghost story, "The Dead Sexton." Le Fanu's lesbian vampire tale, "Carmilla," helped inspire Bram Stoker's "Dracula," and is certainly responsible for the great lashings of sex appeal in most of the Dracula legacy. His style is what people think of as the "classical" ghost story, because he is one of the foundational authors of modern horror. The reason it feels familiar is that every horror author you've ever read has been influenced by him. Naturally, there's a sexy, supernatural, and mesmerizing character in this sto...

Greetings, Manor Hors! Periodically, "The Roving Pecker" presents urgent missives from filthy esteemed guest writers. Today's chilling entry is from Raincoaster! The snow. The pure, driven snow. The beautiful snow. The sparkling, seductive snow. The deadly snow. We in Canada know that the snow, the gorgeous and mystical messenger of Winter, can be as fatal as it is stunning. But Hugh Walpole, the largely-forgotten but once-popular writer, was born in New Zealand. Nonetheless, he was educated in England from early childhood, in a series of schools which terrorized the delicate lad, so much so that he expunged all but the most prestigious from his entry in Who's Who. His style nods to Horace Walpole (no relation except in the Gothic and psychological nature of their writing), Nathaniel Hawthorne (particularly in this story), and to his dear (perhaps intimate) friend Henry James. Mannered, tense, subtly building to a climax that seems inexorable but may also be nothing ...

Greetings, Manor Hors! Periodically, "The Roving Pecker" presents urgent missives from filthy esteemed guest writers. Today's is from Caza86! Let's take a trip down memory lane with one of the most beloved sitcoms of all time, "The Golden Girls." Airing for seven seasons (not nearly enough) from 1985 to 1992, "The Golden Girls" featured a superstar cast of the stage, television and silver screen. First, there was Bea Arthur as Dorothy Zbornak, a divorced, part time teacher with acerbic wit. Rue McClanahan as Blanche Devereaux, the oversexed widow from the south who enjoyed many, many, many late nights with gentleman callers. Estelle Getty as Dorothy's mother Sophia Petrillo, who comes to live with the girls after a fire at her retirement home, "Shady Pines," and is very proud of her Sicilian heritage. And Betty White as Rose Nylund. Hailing from Saint Olaf, Minnesota, she's a simple farm girl with a lot of stories. The show was ...

Greetings, Manor Hors! Periodically, "The Roving Pecker" presents urgent reports from filthy esteemed guest writers. Today's report is by Caza86! What is "Fake or Fortune?" It's a wonderful series produced by those unfortunately jagged-toothed British folk starring Fiona Bruce (an elegant, come-to-life Nancy Drew) and art expert, Phillip Mould (yeah, he's kinda sexy). They basically take your memaw's old yard-sale paintings and find out if they're the real thing or done by a slightly soused artist who maybe did a better job. We're talking Renoir, Picasso, Michelangelo, comics, animation, graffiti, even Cindy with the fake eye from your junior high. It's all there. The show gives a mini history lesson in art, as well as an appreciation for the artist. Not just in terms of the squillion-dollar price tags that are used to launder money nowadays, either. I love art, whether it be anime, video games, paintings, drawing, etc. Give me an outle...