Welcome to the latest of many incarnations of The Asylum Eclectica. When I originally started the site, back in 1996, it was under the name Typhoid Mary’s Asylum. Around 1998 or so, I changed it to The Asylum Eclectica because, amazingly enough, no one else had thought to use that name. Perhaps because only a select few can actually spell it?
In any event, after maintaining the website for so many years, focusing primarily on the Morbid Fact Du Jour newsletter and its tight format, I found myself stuck in a rut. Between work, life, and other hobbies, I found myself without the time necessary to invest in a daily newsletter, and it showed! The Morbid Fact Du Jour dwindled to a Morbid Fact Du Month, if I was lucky. I thought about quitting the website entirely, but on a daily basis, there was still that moment when I stumbled upon something that fascinated me, that I wanted to share with others. It wasn’t the subject matter that bored me – it was the format.
I found myself envious of friends who had blogs. Whereas once I had been dismissive of blogs because, after all, I didn’t need one (“I already have a website”), I started to realize the fun possibilities of a more freestyle, interactive format. So, after pondering upon it for awhile, I decided that a blog would be a much more entertaining and less restrictive format than a daily newsletter. It will allow me to focus on a wider range of topics, without the pressure of having to produce a daily update, while still allowing me to share morbid facts as I stumble upon them. I will also be able to include multimedia files and images with my posts, whereas the newsletter was restricted to links due to e-mail limitations. Those who wish to subscribe to the blog can still do so via the subscribe buttons on the right, and those who’d rather make occasional web visits can do that as well.
None of the original Asylum Eclectica content (such as Morbid Fact Du Jour, The Morbid Sightseer, Malady of the Month, etc.) is going away, and I will continue to update those pages with the information I present here in the blog. (Essentially, the blog will be the portal to updates to the archives.) I will also be working on a “prettier” version of the blog in the future, but I didn’t want to delay any longer in getting it up and running. I hope that this new format is as fun for you to read as it will be for me to write.
Yours In Morbidity,
The Comtesse DeSpair
Sundry