VOICES FROM THE VOID: an essay

-


An Essay in Assignment Magazine:

"Any artist who is honest about the source of inspiration must contend with the power of the void, the abyss, the darkness, the thing that obeys no authority, the thing (which is no thing) that devours and destroys predictable patterns of behavior and pathological systems of thought. This is not to say the abyss is without its dangers. The adverse effects of this self-dissolution and terrifying emptiness include neuroticism, depression, suicidal impulses, insomnia, nightmares, anxiety, psychosis, dysphoria, even alien abductions. And can you think of a single artist who hasn’t experienced at least some (or in the unusual case of Philip K. Dick all) of these symptoms?"

 READ THE ESSAY HERE

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

EYES WIDE SHUT: Kubrick's Epic of Copulation

-
Image
From Issue #7 of Mad Hatter's Review : When director Stanley Kubrick’s final masterpiece Eyes Wide Shut was released posthumously in summer 1999 (shortly before rumors spread that Tom Cruise and a band of disgruntled Scientologists had him “silenced” for what they felt was an unflattering portrayal of their secret society) there was a public uproar over its paradoxically realistic and outlandishly stylized depictions of sexuality. Some critics brazenly dismissed it as “a sex movie made by a dirty old man,” though perhaps madman would have been more apropos, considering Kubrick seems to fit into that category of latter day prophet-philosopher-artist, not unlike Nietzsche and de Maupassant and Schubert, syphilitic geniuses one and all, ironic considering the psycho-sexual themes of the film. Of course there is no evidence that Kubrick contracted much less died of a venereal disease. Read the entire essay
Read more

MY FIRST TRIP TO LOS ANGELES: an essay

-
Image
The Quivering Pen : From Culver City in the northeast to Venice Beach in the southwest, the immense concrete slab of Venice Boulevard runs diagonally through some of the least scenic terrain in all of Los Angeles, passing under Interstate 405 and bisecting the Mar Vista neighborhood until it reaches, after seven interminable treeless miles, the freakiest beach in North America where middle-aged men wearing floral pattern Speedos do drug-induced dances on the boardwalk with their 1980s boomboxes pressed to their ears and where thickly muscled acrobats hopping around on pogo sticks mesmerize large crowds of weekend sun-worshipers.   As I boarded the number 33 bus near Culver City I asked the driver, “How long does it take to get to the beach from here?”  The driver was strangely evasive.   “Uh…maybe…oh…twenty minutes or so,” he said, and I knew he was lying.  “Really?  But it’s only seven miles away.”  Standing behind me, swaying back and fort...
Read more

"THE CAPTIVE CONDITION: A NOVEL" LAUNCHES AT COMIC-CON INTERNATIONAL

-
Image
THE CAPTIVE CONDITION launches at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con International on July 9! Kevin P. Keating  has received starred reviews for  THE CAPTIVE CONDITION   (Pantheon Books,  7/7/2015 ) , including this from  Library Journal:   “A weird and wonderfully rendered universe . . . . A highly literary look at the faces of evil in almost all of its guises . . . . Oh, and many characters here are constantly high on psychedelic carrot juice.”  Emulating a modern day Edgar Allan Poe, coupled with the creepy brilliance of HBO’s True Detective, THE CAPTIVE CONDITION is at once chilling, deliciously dark, and quirkily hilarious. As a boilermaker turned author, Kevin has a fascinating and unique take on thriller writing. Kevin appears on the  Horror/Thriller panel  on  Thursday, July 9 at 4 pm  ( Room 25ABC ). READ MORE HERE
Read more