Tag: mystery

TBT: Mystery in the Blogosphere

The Portly Politico7 Comments

It was almost exactly a year ago that legendary Trinidadian blogger Renard, formerly of Renard’s World, disappeared—or, at least, his blog disappeared.  To my knowledge, no one knows anything about the once-ubiquitous blogger or his whereabouts.

In searching for his blog, I found two different blog titles from his site, which still shows up in search results even though the site has been deleted:  “Renard Is Not Overly Attached to His Blog,” dated 5 February 2024; and “Nothing Ever Gets Between Me and Blogging,” dated 12 April 2024.  It seems Renard was sending mixed messages in the final months of his blogging journey.

The blog Geek Mamas ran a post on 30 May 2024, “What Happened to Renard’s World?“; it asks all the questions we in the WordPress blogosphere were asking at the time, and noted many of the similar themes:  the change in Renard’s tone; the possible use of AI to generate images and/or to write his posts; the total and sudden disappearance of the blog.  I can’t find much more (although, to be honest, I didn’t dig that deeply), and this may simply remain one of the great unsolved mysteries of the Internet.

Why speculate?  Well, let’s be honest—it’s interesting.  To understand how huge Renard’s sudden disappearance was, this guy was everywhere—every blogger on WordPress followed Renard, even if we didn’t always read him, and he seemed to follow everyone else.  He even liked a few of my posts on occasion, which isn’t a brag so much as a kind of surprise, because the guy was all over the place.

Anyway, it seems the weeks of speculation died down, and I had not thought of old Renard until casting about for some old blog posts to repost for TBT.  Now I have to wonder again:  what happened to him and his site?  Does anyone have any additional information?

Perhaps one day we’ll know, but I suspect that the mystery will endure.

With that, here is 15 May 2024’s “Mystery in the Blogosphere“:

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Monday Morning Movie Review: House on Haunted Hill (1959)

The Portly Politico6 Comments

My blogger buddy photog at Orion’s Cold Fire posted last week about his favorite classic horror films, all of which are pre-1960.  It’s a great list, and one of his readers, War Pig, added in some more that go as late as the 1960s.  The black-and-white era was truly a golden age of horror, and many of the films on both lists holds up quite well.

The latest film chronologically on photog’s list is House on Haunted Hill (1959), a William Castle ghost story starring Vincent Price as a wealthy industrialist who offers cash-starved party guests $10,000 each if they can survive the night in the titular spook house.

I just happened to watch House on Haunted Hill last Wednesday night (24 July 2024) on Shudder, and while watching it, stumbled upon photog’s list.  I’ve seen the film before, but it really struck me this time how spooky it is, perfectly setting the tone and feel of a classic, almost Victorian, ghost story.

It also helped that it was a literal “dark and stormy night” while watching it.  The crisp black-and-white cinematography, coupled with the brooding atmosphere, made for perfect ghostly viewing.

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Mystery in the Blogosphere

The Portly Politico91 Comments

The big news rocking the blogosphere is the sudden disappearance and/or deletion of the blog Renard’s World.  For the uninitiated, Renard Moreau is to WordPress blogging as Tom was to MySpace; somehow, no matter who you were or how active your blog, Renard would follow you, and you’d follow Renard.

From what I could gather, Renard was (is?) from somewhere in the Caribbean (Trinidad and Tobago, I think), and would write mostly about blogging, as well as some stuff about blogging on Linux versus Windows or iOS.  He was a WordPress loyalist, but was also quick to point out the many, many bugs that seemed to creep in with each update (I’m still not sure if people can comment on my blog, and there’s no rhyme or reason as to which other WordPress blogs are commenting-friendly or not).  He also would always write, “the God/Goddess’s honest truth,” which seemed to fit into his quirky way of writing, which always featured short, terse sentences that usually double as paragraphs.

Renard was posting as usual just a few days ago—I received the typical e-mail updates as usual—but his blog vanished sometime earlier this week.  As of the time of writing (a little before 9 PM on Tuesday, 14 May 2024), here is what readers will see if they attempt to visit Renard’s World:

Renard's World

What’s gotten everyone abuzz is that Renard had given no warning or indication that he planned to delete his blog—well, perhaps not.

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Myersvision: Eye on Idaho

The Portly Politico32 Comments

I’ve been clamoring for some beefy Bigfoot footage c/o our very own Audre Myers, and she’s satiated my cravings for all things cryptozoological—for now.  If ever there were a better creature to represent manly, protein-rich snack foods, it would be Bigfoot—the perfect, hairy spokescritter for beef jerky.

Perhaps our insatiable lust for marketing is one reason why the great ape-man has been so aloof.  Why reveal yourself to the modern world, a world in which everything, including one’s own identity, is a commodity to be bought, sold, traded, collateralized, and mortgaged?  Better to pee naked and free in the forest than to put on a tie and punch in at eight o’clock for a shift in the cubiclized salt mines.

I imagine Bigfoot would be put to use doing more blue-collar work—lifting heavy objects, for example.  But perhaps Bigfoot is smarter than we realize, if he’s managed to conceal himself from us for so long.

The other, obvious alternative—that he does not exist—is one I’d rather not entertain.  Although dear Audre alleges that I like “to gently tease… and poke” her because of her “98% belief in bigfoot,” my interest in the topic—and my interest in her interest in the topic—is entirely sincere.  Audre is a fascinating individual; her nearly-complete belief in Bigfoot is one of the qualities I find to be the most interesting about her!

But I digress.  Audre’s shared up some tantalizing Bigfoot footage, straight outta Idaho.  Read on:

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Suspend…

The Portly Politico6 Comments

After putting out my appeal for contributors last week, Audre Myers immediately answered the call.  Within a couple of hours, I had a piece from her in my inbox—and what a fun piece it is!

Audre is a woman of many talents and interests; one of those interests, I’m happy to report, is Bigfoot.  While I’m not going to claim that Bigfoot exists, this site is pro-Bigfoot, in the sense that any musings about our aloof cryptozoological friend will always find a welcome home here at The Portly Politico.  I even floated the idea of Audre doing a regular post about the hairy beast, but she said he’s been quiet lately.

Until now, it seems!  Idaho has more than potatoes, Mormons, Californians, and Mariella Hunt—it might also have a muscular man-ape roaming about!

With that, here is Audre’s piece, in which she will ask you to “Suspend…”:

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Monsters

The Portly Politico3 Comments

Back in May I stumbled upon an online culture journal, The Hedgehog Review, a publication of the Institute for the Advanced Studies of Culture.  I don’t know much about either the publication or the IASC, other than they’re based out of the University of Virginia, so I can’t speak to their degree of implicit Leftist infiltration, but default position is that any organization in 2020 that isn’t explicitly conservative is probably Left-leaning.

It’s sad that I even have to make that disclaimer, because some part of me still clings to the old ideal of a broad, humanistic approach to knowledge—that we should examine ideas on their own merits, not on the politics of the entities espousing them.  I still believe that ideal is worth pursuing; I just also believe it is currently dead, or at least on life-support.

But I digress.  The then-current issue of The Hedgehog Review was dedicated entirely to the theme of “Monsters.”  It being the Halloween season, the time seemed ripe to revisit those pieces, and the idea of “monsters.”

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