Quicksand is deeper than I knew

August 24, 2010 8:43 AM

Quicksand is deeper than I knew.

"For those with "the interest," the guide serves as an enormous Netflix queue, a sort of collector's catalog or a fetish to-do list. For everyone else, it's a sui generis chronicle of America's preoccupation with quicksand. If Carlton Cuse of Lost is right that adventure gags must evolve, then Crypto's List is the nearest we have to a fossil record."

The inevitable Wikipedia article about quicksand.

posted by everichon (26 comments total)

"Send a wire to the main office and tell them I said OWWW."
posted by griphus at 8:48 AM on August 24, 2010 [4 favorites]

The National Geographic clip from the Slate article (first link) is one of the creepier things I've seen on the internet. Those people and quicksand need to get a room. *shudder*
posted by availablelight at 8:48 AM on August 24, 2010

I'm torn between fascination at the fetishists, and then fascination at the fading away of the adventure-film trope.
posted by everichon at 9:06 AM on August 24, 2010

I agree that quicksand is schlocky. I disagree that timer bombs are not schlocky.
posted by DU at 9:12 AM on August 24, 2010

I always sort of assumed that it fell from favor because it became more commonly known that you wouldn't actually get sucked under they way the movies had always depicted it.

Of course, there is the real possibility that I only noticed that it wasn't being used any more shortly after I found out about the density issues. So this could be a confirmation bias thing on my part.
posted by quin at 9:19 AM on August 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

The David Bowie version.

I'm closer to the Golden Dawn
Immersed in Crowley's uniform
Of imagery
I'm living in a silent film
Portraying
Himmler's sacred realm
Of dream reality
I'm frightened by the total goal
Drawing to the ragged hole
And I ain't got the power anymore

Serious shit, that quicksand.
posted by philip-random at 9:39 AM on August 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

Whoa, how did you get mouse-over text on there?
posted by lohmannn at 9:41 AM on August 24, 2010

The Five Stages of Quicksand Grief
posted by Rhaomi at 9:45 AM on August 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

I have a sinking feeling about this.
posted by localroger at 9:45 AM on August 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Hearing about this makes me think of that photo of Omayra Sanchez, who unfortunately got trapped in a mudslide instead of quicksand...
posted by genekelly'srollerskates at 9:49 AM on August 24, 2010

Jesus, I did not know about Sanchez. That is a terrible way to go. Argh.
posted by everichon at 9:52 AM on August 24, 2010

Is there a mirror of Crypto's List anywhere out there? I'd rather not register another account on a message board if I can avoid it.
posted by LSK at 9:52 AM on August 24, 2010

As an intellectual matter, I understand rule 34 is all-inclusive. That said, I'm more disturbed than I thought I would be by the concept of quicksand fetishists.
posted by Mooski at 10:01 AM on August 24, 2010

Whoa, how did you get mouse-over text on there?

Add "title =" in your link like this

<a href="http://foo.com" title="Booyah!">Foo</a>
posted by quin at 10:02 AM on August 24, 2010 [2 favorites]

lohmannn, like this.
posted by MrMoonPie at 10:02 AM on August 24, 2010

Quicksand.
posted by Eideteker at 10:17 AM on August 24, 2010

My husband's family has a cabin on the Turnagain Arm in Alaska. It has quicksand-like mudflats and a bore tide. In the 1980s a woman drowned after she was stuck in the mudflats and the tide came in. Thankfully, there haven't been any other drownings (but plenty of people rescued from the mudflats.) Still, I am totally paranoid and stay off of the mudflats!
posted by vespabelle at 11:00 AM on August 24, 2010

Still used in video games.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:02 AM on August 24, 2010

Am I mistaken or was there a quicksand scene in the latest Indiana Jones film? And if there was, was this horribly cheesy, or was it a fond and knowing homage to an earlier era of filmmaking? Or both?
posted by .kobayashi. at 11:17 AM on August 24, 2010

From a Slate article linked in the Wikipedia page:

In the 1960s, quicksand was everywhere. It turned up in B-grade cinema and television—the Monkees once ran afoul of it—but also in legitimate, mainstream work. ... In total, nearly 3 percent of the films in that era—one in 35—showed someone sinking in mud or sand or oozing clay. Compared with every decade before or since, quicksand ruled the screen.

Nearly three percent!
posted by incomple at 11:43 AM on August 24, 2010

The Slate article (in the first link) is just terrific - as a surprisingly gripping study of something you can't be sure you were ever obsessed with, but now that you think about it, you decide you probably were. (It reminded me a bit of that epic internet essay tracing the real history of that stupid hat worn by Jughead in the Archie comics!)


It was my impression that quicksand was in virtually all the cowboy movies I loved as a kid.
But, from the article, it doesn't appear to be a predominantly cowboy cliche at all.

[My fave cowboy cartoon: a puffed, hesitant-looking cowboy is thrusting out a cat to his chum, who is crouching down behind a rock - with a fierce mob of armed Red Indians charging towards them across the plain.

The crouching cowboy is glaring at the cat and yelling at the first cowboy: "Damn it, man! I said: 'Hurry up and fetch us a posse...!!!'"]
posted by Jody Tresidder at 12:09 PM on August 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

Fantastic article. (For some reason, I knew it would be (mostly) about fetishists before I even clicked. Huh ...)

Those people and quicksand need to get a room. *shudder*

I'm more disturbed than I thought I would be by the concept of quicksand fetishists.

Oh, c'mon. Everybody thought your kinks were creepy too, when you first told us.
posted by mrgrimm at 2:14 PM on August 24, 2010

Great post.

However, I'll take that La Roux and raise you, from one of my favorite albums of all time, The Youngbloods.
posted by kosem at 3:13 PM on August 24, 2010

this video was kind of freaky.
posted by delmoi at 4:42 PM on August 24, 2010

I've wondered for years whether it's true, as T.C. scoffs in that episode of Magnum PI where the helicopter crashes and they have to make along trek through the jungle and then Rick is sinking in a swamp and screaming for help: "there ain't no quicksand in Hawaii."
I know it's Rick and all, but how could he be so sure?
posted by Flashman at 8:08 PM on August 24, 2010

this video was kind of freaky.

and then the tide came in and they all drowned.
posted by philip-random at 9:21 PM on August 24, 2010