Brian Evenson: A Thousand Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari I’ve occasionally taught a class just on this book, and when I do I suggest that students relax and read it almost like it’s fiction. Taken in those terms it’s a deeply imaginative book that poses all sorts of strange questions and then provides
There’s no doubt that weird fiction easily bears comparison to the folk tale. I imagine that many readers and writers of weird fiction developed their initial attraction to the more unsettling dimensions of literary creation by way of a particularly well-told folk tale. I vividly remember my own initial tinge of the uncanny gleaned from
Jonathan Raab: Shin Godzilla (2016) This film treats the ever-mutating Godzilla as a natural disaster, and follows the Japanese government’s response to his/her rampage. What should be a boring bureaucratic procedural is instead a comment on generational leadership and crisis management. Plus, Godzilla’s different forms are all unique and interesting. It’s far better than the
“Weird” cinema is a category in search of an essence. It is characteristically difficult to pin down and more-often-than-not transcends genres, blending elements of experimental film, horror, mystery, science fiction, and psychological thriller in equal measure. Films like Jacob’s Ladder (1990), Videodrome (1983), and Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (1965) might all be considered classics of “weird”
Brian Evenson: Stump, A Fierce Pancake (1988) It’s hard not to like an album which takes its name from a line in Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman. If you know any track from this album (the only full-length LP the band put out) it’s probably “Charlton Heston,” which repeats the line “When Charlton Heston put
Jonathan Raab: Trevor Henderson Trevor specializes in taking real photographs and inserting painted monsters, creating found-footage-style pieces that are iconic and haunting. Visit Trevor Henderson on Instagram. Brian Asman: Dano Brown You can find him on Instagram at @dano_brown. He makes really unique, groovy action figures. If you ever wanted a poseable Michael Douglas from Falling
Review by Ben Arzate Neva, often referred to as the people who know her as “the lesbian,” has a seemingly supernatural ability to make anyone around her love her on the condition that she loves them back. This results in her gathering an almost cult-like following at the Y Bar that she frequents. Her lovers
The Cinnamon-Coloured Suit (C.P. Cavafy 1863-1933) by Rhys Hughes The first time I heard of the poet Cavafy was in my initial aborted attempt to read Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet, a set of books that can’t be appreciated or understood by readers with insufficient life experience. I lacked that experience back then. Durrell mentions him
5 Poetry Collections Under My Fingernails by Michael Wehunt I write about strange things and bumps in the night and presences out at the periphery of the human experience. I have no choice. Though I intend more than horror in my stories, it is nonetheless the vehicle of most of my plots, the container for
There has never been a book like William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land (1912), and there probably never will be again. And I really need to explain what I mean by that… One of the most potent pieces of macabre imagination ever written. -H P Lovecraft William Hope Hodgson (1887-1918) was not one of the
