The just-released October 2011 issue of Waco Today magazine features an interview with me titled “Tapping into darkness: MCC instructor finds niche in horror fiction.”
Heaven of the Mind
Each bud flowers but once and each flower has but its minute of perfect beauty; so, in the garden of the soul each feeling has, as it were, its flowering instant, its one and only moment of expansive grace and radiant kingship. Each star passes but once in the night through the meridian over our…
The new gothic horror: Madness and mystery in celebrity tabloid culture
It wasn’t one of my subscribed RSS feeds, Google alerts, or Twitter streams that alerted me to a recent and really interesting essay at The New York Times about the uncanny parallels between classic gothic literature and modern tabloid culture. Rather, it was my sister, who, appropriately enough, is a journalist based out of witch-haunted…
My interview for the Genre Traveler podcast
A few weeks ago I was interviewed for the Genre Traveler podcast, created and hosted by Carma Spence. It’s now live and available, and Carma has created a cool page full of notes to go with the audio. Here’s the episode description: This week I chat with Matt Cardin about religion and horror. Along the…
Ideas are alive. We are their hosts.
I’ve long thought the Marxist view of ideas — which says, in a nutshell, that ideas are basically fake, that they don’t have any real impact or influence, that any ideology (system of ideas) is actually just a mask for the true moving powers of society, which are purely material and economic — is ridiculous,…
Science fiction, cultural myths, and the doubtful future of space flight
It appears we’re in the midst of a mini-explosion of reflection about the status of the science fictional dreams that, according to some observers and thinkers, fueled our 20th-century race into space. Basically, the space program in its original conception or incarnation — which in addition to its obvious nature as a geopolitically motivated Cold…
Report warns of society-wide increase in mental illness due to climate change and severe weather
I grew up an hour from Joplin, Missouri, and spent a lot of my formative years heading over there for high school debate-and-drama contests, martial arts lessons, and more. I know people in Joplin and the surrounding small towns. My wife and I still drive through Joplin when traveling home for the holidays. So this…
Education research exposes the theory of multiple intelligences as singularly stupid
Oh, the delicious irony. Or rather the sweet savor of vindication. When I went through the Missouri teacher certification program from 2000 to 2001, the famous “theory of multiple intelligences” was all the rage. It was one of the philosophical and practical touchstones for training new teachers how to achieve maximum success in educating their…
UFOs over China and fireballs over Peru: What the Lovecraft is going on?
So, you know, sometimes we really do need to ask ourselves whether and to what extent our new Internet-created ability to piece together all kinds of events and news reports instantaneously from across space and time is encouraging us to read false patterns of meaning into things. More pointedly, is that what I’m doing below…
Guillermo del Toro on art, religion, and the primal power of darkness
With the recent round of interviews he’s given in support of the newly released horror film (August 26) Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, which he co-wrote and produced, Guillermo del Toro has reinforced my already-established impression that of all the “major” horror and fantasy filmmakers working today, he’s easily the most reflective and vocally…