THE TRIAL OF SAMANTHA STEPHENS
Take the McCarthy hearings and make their “witch hunts” literal rather than figurative, then inject “Bewitched” into the proceedings, and you’ve got Kim Newman’s fanciful short story “The McCarthy Witch Hunt”.
It’s no “Ubermensch!”, but still entertaining. It could have used appearances by Endora and Uncle Arthur, though — perhaps as naming-names informants.
ZERMATISM: CREATION MYTH — WITH YETIS
The “Pretty Ugly” art exhibit in the West Village apparently revels in the eyecandy of the weird.
But such visuals alone can’t possibly match the backstory behind one of its featured artists, the late Polish sculptor Stanislaw Szukalski.
I dunno. Based on what I see of his work, I’d say the Komorowski piece is less sad-Vader-like than the “Ancestral Helmet”.
More on that Zermatism, to which Szukalski devoted a detailed 39 volumes.
As if the other aspects weren’t enough, the interbreeding with “malevolent Yetis” caps it wonderfully. I think I’ve located one of the apocryphal inspirations for the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster…