foolish_m0rtal | This Week: Zotz!

Feeling pretty good- just had lunch and watched Spaced with

hilandahalf. Also ate the Ben and Jerry's ice cream she brought over (one tub of a creamy berry and another with marzipan. Mmm) while scrolling through TV Tropes/My Life is Average and talking about Star Trek. I told her about the Malcolm Reed fanfiction fests like Drown Malcolm Month and the I Am Fine prompt. Oh, Malcolm Reed fans- you are sick minded and beautiful.

(So awesome! I think it's neat when people on LJ know other LJ users in real life and spend time with them. I will be reading the above sentence and giggling to myself eight or nine times)

Zotz! is a 1947 novel by Walter Karig and a 1962 movie, produced and directed by William Castle, about a man obtaining magical powers from a god of an ancient civilization.

Ancient Eastern languages professor Jonathan Jones finds a magic amulet. Jones obtains powers to cause pain or slow movement, and even kill. He immediately suffers the consequences of his discovery: Jones realizes that when he points at another living creature, it causes a great pain. (Crucio!) It is a metaphor of the age of nuclear weapons (the novel was written 2 years after atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

In the movie, Jones tries to warn Department of Defense and get rid of the amulet. But he is taken as a madman. Then the Soviet Union gets interested and the adventures begin. Because the Russians make everything better!

In other uses, to add to your repertoire of useless information

Amongst science fiction fandom, the word refers to a useless, unwanted gift.

It's also the name of a fizzy hard candy developed in Italy. (yeah! Fizzy candy is awesome!)