The August 2026 Lurid Things
Hello!
How was our August? Did we take a pass on the Pillsbury™ glass biscuits? Did we watch, open-mouthed at defense attorney Kevin Reddington’s criminal-justice master class during the Lyndsay Clancy trial?
Or did we scream to the heavens why the Grim Reaper had missed the mark…YET AGAIN?!
If you’ve got four minutes to spare, feast your eyes on Tim Curry’s best moments in Clue (and if you haven’t seen it yet, what are you doing with your life?!):
Without further ado...
Merriam-Webster defines ‘lurid’ as:
Lurid: adjective (lu· rid) ˈlu̇r-əd1 a: causing horror or revolution b: melodramatic, sensational2 a: wan and ghastly pale in appearance b: of any of several light or medium grayish colors ranging from yellow to orange3 shining with the red glow of fire seen through smoke or clouds
The August Lurid Things
(Book) Pink Scare: The Felicity Complex
(Music) Hildegard von Blingin’s Tribute to Dolly Parton: “Jolene”
(Film) Aller en Bateau: Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
(Object) Blue Zebra-Stripes, Gin, and Tobacco Smoke: A Sensual Throwback to “El Morocco”
(Science) One Big Sunflower in the Sky: The Nancy Grace Roman Telescope Launches
*We’re down two lurids (Art, Sensation) this month! Sorrrrrrrrrrrrry
(Book) Pink Scare: The Felicity Complex
Not since Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? has an author asked such probing questions about artificial intelligence like: Who does an android have to jerk off for a Pop-Tart? I’m kidding, of course, because August Clarke’s The Felicity Complex is a dystopian satire. The novel’s focus is Specimen 679-b (Hallelujah, and later, Hal), a compulsively female android purchased along with her four other “sisters” (Anastasia, Oklahoma, Cleopatra, and Thumbelina) from Dr. Younghusband’s failed CIA lab by a billionaire showman named Mr. Pink. Mr. Pink has been given a vision by God, you see, to create a bunker for the coming Communist-driven apocalypse! The unexpected occurs, and what happens next is a fascinating examination of how a self can develop in the narrowest, (dare I say it?) most radioactive of environments.
You can purchase The Felicity Complex on Bookshop.org
(Music) Hildegard von Blingin’s Tribute to Dolly Parton: “Jolene”
I’ve been a fan of the Bardcore sensation Hildegarde von Blingin since 2020when they came onto the scene with their cover of “What is Love”:
Their reconfigured medieval lyrics are tongue-in-cheek and whimsical. Take, for instance, their version of Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” (another personal fave in my household):
I have these wicked dreams of leaving Annecy
Oh Saint Cecelia, I swear she calleth me
Shan’t make my mother proud, the thought is too obscene
To see her darling girl, I know that she shall scream
Lord, what hast thou done?
Thou’rt a pink pony maid
Thou shouldst be a nun
Oh mother, I just want to run
With the mummers and clowns
‘Tis where I belong, down at the
Pink Pony Inn
Far from just being a punchline, Blingin’ packs each of their covers with vocal punch-worthy arrangements. (I’m looking at you, “Paint it Black”.)
This month, my song selection from Hildegard’s library is “Jolene,” dedicated to the bona fide Earth Angel, the one and only Southern Appalachian Belle, a savior of the Literacy Crisis, Dolly Parton:
You can listen to Hildegard von Blingin’ on Youtube or Spotify
Support Hildegard von Blingin’ on Patreon
(Film) Aller en Bateau: Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard at the movies. Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma follows queer Sundance wunderkind Kris Williams (Hannah Einbinder), hired to revamp and revitalize the dead and problematic (“Okay, this part’s transphobic”) blockbuster franchise Camp Miasma.
She travels to meet with the film’s original Final Girl, Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson), whom she quickly discovers shares her sexual disconnect and insists that she drops the intellectualization of Camp Miasma, and see it as it is plainly: “Flesh and fluids.”
The film unravels into a surreal, aller en bateau (to get caught up in a story) à la Céline and Julie Go Boating, as the wintry background of Camp Miasma quickly dissolves into intricately painted screens and soundstage reproductions. The characters literally and metaphorically strip themselves down to play their newer, truer, more changed parts, making the colors of their surroundings more dreamlike, more hazy, more fantastical, and more unreal until we are left with the idea that maybe, just maybe, this is what cinema is all about: ourselves, what we bring to it, and what we take away.
As of today’s publication, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is still in theaters, but you can preorder it on Prime
You can watch Jacques Rivette’s Céline and Julie Go Boating on Criterion
(Object) Blue Zebra-Stripes, Gin, and Tobacco Smoke: A Sensual Throwback to “El Morocco”
Named after the famed New York City nightclub “El Morocco,” the El Morocco Travel Discovery Set is a decadent, sensuous delight.
A silver cigarette case holds not high-society cigarettes, but perfume: five unique fragrances that hint at smoky stories and illustrious patrons, clothed in the dim lights of a banquet booth, peering out onto the floor show.
My personal favorite was “Lulu’s Back in Town,” closely followed by “Two Cigarettes in the Dark.”
You can purchase the El Morocco Discovery Set here
(Science) One Big Sunflower in the Sky: The Nancy Grace Roman Telescope Launches
As of today’s publication, the Nancy Grace Telescope has launched! (To be exact, it launched yesterday, August 30, 2026, and is currently en route to its destination at the second Sun-Earth Lagrange Point, L2.) It’s roughly the size of the Hubble Space Telescope but with “an infrared view 200 times greater.”
“But Lauren,” you’re probably asking yourself, “didn’t we just launch the James Webb telescope? Why do we need another one? We have enough to think about as is!"
Okay, I hear you! The major difference between the two is that while the Webb captures sensitive, more detailed data on exoplanets, the Roman telescope has the capabilities to measure the big big stuff, a.k.a. “primordial galaxies, black holes, and planets beyond our solar system.” (This link from NASA gives a great overview.)
As for the purpose, NASA provided us with a cute little graphic for those amongst us who also don’t want to read sentences:
The purpose of the mission can be boiled down to three themes: exoplanets, dark matter, and dark energy. (A more detailed breakdown of the hopes for this mission can be read over at Scientific American.) All of which are things which affect our day-to-day life, whether or not we’re aware of it.
For a more comprehensive breakdown of just how the Nancy Grace Roman telescope will capture its images of the stars through its coronagraph, check out Phil Plait’s (author of Under Alien Skies) article over at Scientific American.
You can learn more about ESA’s Euclid here
Nerd out with a Nancy Grace Roman interactive diagram here
That’s It for Now!
If you need me, I’ll be on a beach in Scotland,
thinking about just how many steps it took to make my linen dress,
and thinking about how Dippin’ Dots was originally invented as cryogenic cow feed and then somehow became an astronaut-food urban legend…
See you next month,
XOXO Lurid Lauren
