Fans and admirers of Arthur Machen and his literary universe of mystical terror take note: one week ago BBC Radio 4 broadcast a delicious half-hour exploration of Machen’s life, work, and literary legacy, presented in the form of a tour of various sites in Wales that are relevant to his biography and major themes. It’s…
Category: Arts & Entertainment
Lovecraft, Tolkien, and the nightmare as “a necessary drug for the mass consciousness”
Here’s a description of the book Nightmare: From Literary Experiments to Cultural Project (Brill, 2013) by Russian-born literary and cultural scholar Dina Khapaeva, who is currently serving as chair of the School of Modern Languages at Georgia Tech: What is a nightmare as a psychological experience, a literary experiment and a cultural project? Why has…
Glen Campbell and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Country Weekly recently ran a cover story about my old employer Glen Campbell and his ongoing battle with Alzheimer’s. It sounds like the disease is really starting to take an emotional toll. As some of you know, I was Glen’s video director when he had his own music theater in Branson, Missouri in the 1990s….
A “shattering” musical experience, courtesy of Elew (Eric Lewis)
The Teeming Brain has been dormant for the past week-plus because of a change in my living circumstances — specifically, a move to a new town — that currently has me involved in a three-and-a-half hour daily commute to and from my regular job. I’m also searching for a new permanent house. I’m also searching…
Eldritch landscapes: The real places behind Lovecraft’s fictions
In 2009 science journalist Joahua Foer and his friend Dylan Thuras launched Atlas Obscura, a Website intended to be “the definitive guide to the world’s wondrous and curious places.” As Foer said in an article for Boing Boing, “The Atlas is a collaborative project whose purpose is to catalog all of the ‘wondrous, curious, and…
How to read Lovecraft: A practical beginner’s guide
NOTE: When you’re finished with this article, be advised that it has a sequel. After reading “Lovecraft: Invading the ego with shadows from the id,” a friend and coworker asked if I could “give a first-time Lovecraft reader a title to start with!” The answer to such a request is of course a resounding yes,…
It’s reading vs. screen culture — and screens are winning
Yesterday I posted some excerpts from and commentary on last weekend’s interview with Stephen King in Parade magazine, in which King says he’s uneasy about the future of reading in an increasingly screen-oriented culture. The main data point he cites in this regard is his experience of teaching a couple of writing seminars to Canadian…
Stephen King on writing, inner dictation, and his fears for the future of reading
There’s a nifty interview with Stephen King in last weekend’s edition of that bastion of substantive journalism, Parade magazine. It’s actually the cover feature, which knocks the usually fluff-filled magazine up a notch in my (probably immaterial) estimation. Among the highlights are the following points of interest: King explains why he’s not a horror writer:…
Billy Joel on Beethoven, the Beatles, Mozart, and creativity
I grew up listening to Billy Joel. I still enjoy playing the wonderful opening to his “New York State of Mind” during my private practice time at the piano. I have also become deeply involved in studying and writing about the nature and cultivation of artistic creativity over the past decade and a half. And…
Lovecraft: Invading the ego with shadows from the id
Recently published at the online Trebuchet Magazine, which “champions contemporary art, activist politics, and ecstatic music” and strives to be “A creative magazine minus the lifestyle upsell,” this brief and astute analysis of Lovecraft cuts right to the heart of his deep and enduring appeal as a visionary supernatural horror writer whose works resonate with an…