The Mysterious Fu Manchu Mysteries: Episode 6: Kuleshov’s Monkey (With Live Soundtrack By Hikikomori)

The Mysterious Fu Manchu Mysteries (1923) were a series of silent shorts based on the Sax Rohmer-penned novels featuring the mystery man of the show’s title, starring Harry Agar Lyons as Fu Manchu, Joan Clarkson as Karamenah, Fred Paul as Nayland Smith, Humberston Wright as Dr. Petrie, and Julie Sudo as Zarmi.

As part of the Barbican’s ongoing Silent Nights retrospective, on December 5th, 2024 there was a special showing of the 6th episode of The Mysterious Fu Manchu Mysteries, Kuleshov’s Monkey, with a live soundtrack by Hikikomori.

In this episode, the intrepid Dr. Petrie follows a monkey…

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Notes:

1. I made the original of this on September 30th, 2023
2. And then made this re-edit on December 5th, 2024
3. The music is by Hikikomori and can be found here
4. If you’d like to buy it

Words And Pictures Of Words

When I was young I used to have close to perfect spelling.

Whenever I spoke I would see the word in my head as I said it, in nice clean large print, as if it was one of those cards we used to use at primary school to learn key words, or the highlighted text in a Ladybird book which for some reason contained every word I ever needed to say, no matter how obscure and arcane. If there was a word I couldn’t spell, I tried my best not to have to say it, warping sentences simply to cover my discomfort, disquiet, outright shame.

I don’t do this any more. When I speak my mind shows me nothing.

And I can’t spell a fucking thing.

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Notes:

1. Written on November 12th, 2024