Say, if you’re looking for a few quick laughs to start your weekend, you could do worse that www.photobasement.com. It’s where I found this rather cunning “Doom” themed photo. All the more amusing because I’ve played the same game with my cats on countless occasions…although I’ve “leveled up” to a water gun.

Why is this church underground? See more via this series of pictures taken at Russian underground nuclear testing facilities, courtesy of my friend Avi Abrams at www.darkroastedblend.com!

I am a person of strange affinities and predilections. There are certain things that I remain ceaselessly fascinated by despite their apparent peculiarity. Some are more acceptable than others: sea creatures, insects, mythology, folklore and fable. Others decidedly less so. Like ghouls.

I’ve always been fascinated by these graveyard lurkers, particularly in their transformation from Arabic myth as demons that haunt the desert and other lonely places, to their current otherworldly incarnation seen in the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Brian McNaughton and Caitlin R. Kiernan.

(more…)

Here’s the text of a recent interview I did with Ann VanderMeer, just in case you missed it the first time:

Ann VanderMeer is the fiction editor at that venerable institution of fantastic fiction known as WEIRD TALES, as well as a veteran editor, publisher and former punk rocker. She and her husband, novelist Jeff VanderMeer are well-known in the fantasy and science fiction community for their jointly edited anthologies, including BEST AMERICAN FANTASY, THE NEW WEIRD and the soon-to-be-released STEAMPUNK collection from Tachyon Publications, just to name a few. Ann was kind enough to take some time out of her very busy day to sit down and answer a few questions.

Hi, Ann! Can you introduce yourself to our readers?

Hello readers. I’m Ann VanderMeer. In a previous life I was known as Ann Kennedy when I thought it would be fun to publish a magazine.

I know that you work with your husband Jeff on a number of different projects, editorially speaking. Does this change the way that you work? Do you find yourself approaching things differently when you’re working with Jeff than when you’re working by yourself?

Not really. Each project is different and requires something distinctive. That, more than anything else, changes how I approach each venture. We’ve done reprint anthologies and original anthologies, very different. One requires reading a slush pile, as well as querying writers. The reprint anthology projects find us doing tons and tons of research, spending hours in libraries and bookstores.

(more…)

From Orpheus to Duncan Shriek, the descent into the underworld has long been a recurrent motif in world literature. Passing the threshold, the hero undergoes a sort of transfiguration: facing the perils of the nightlands beneath the earth, the protagonist conquers the demons of his own dark half.

Joseph Campbell, in his seminal work The Hero With A Thousand Faces, wrote, “And so it happens that if anyone – in whatever society – undertakes for himself the perilous journey into darkness by descending, either intentionally or unintentionally, into the crooked lanes of his own spiritual labyrinth, he soon finds himself in a landscape of symbolical figures…In the vocabulary of the mystics, this is the second stage of the Way, that of the “purification of the self,” when the senses are “cleansed and humbled” and the energies and interests “concentrated upon transcendental things”; or in a vocabulary of more modern turn: this is the process of dissolving, transcending, or transmuting the infantile images of our own personal past.”

Ultimately, in most tales, the result of this transmutation is a reconciliation of opposites. Conquering his or her shadow side, it is absorbed and integrated into the psyche. The warrior is made whole; capable at last of crossing the final threshold, claiming the prize of his quest and returning to the land of everyday things.

I am fascinated by caves and the underworld – both in their more mundane incarnation and as symbols of transformation and rebirth. Where I live, there are no caves. A powerful statement, maybe, in this context.

I’d like very much to hear of your own favorite anecdotes, stories, thoughts and experiences involving the underworld, both literal and metaphorical. However, I would not expect for you to take this perilous journey into the deep unnecessarily: I am offering a prize: a small collection of books on caves, caving and other speleological pursuits.

I will select one winner from your comments on Monday, my final day here with you at Ecstatic Days, and contact this person to arrange shipping of the books. The winner will be the person who offers the most interesting, entertaining or enlightening entry on the underworld. I may ask Jeff to assist in selecting a winner.

You may comment as many times as you like.

Austin Osman Spare’s name may not be familiar to many people these days, but this visionary artist, writer and occultist created some of the most striking art that I’ve ever seen. Comparable in some ways to the work of Aubrey Beardsley, Spare’s work echoed the dark sexuality of the Decadents while incorporating new ideas inspired by the Spiritualist movement, psychology and early twentieth century occultists.

A colleague of Aleister Crowley and Kenneth Grant, Spare published his work in cryptic tomes with evocative titles like “Earth Inferno”and “The Anathema of Zos.” These books – equal parts grimoires and art objects – featured dozens of dark, lurid and sometimes inscrutable drawings that Spare clamed were of spirits and demons, alongside his magical philosophy, which was often written in an invented alphabet Spare referred to as “Sigils.”

Drafted in World War I, the English artist was commissioned as an official war artist, traveling to France to create works that today still hang in the Imperial War Museum. After the war, Spare became something of a recluse, selling his work for a pittance and eventually fading into obscurity.

Spare’s work is difficult to find in print, and is often limited to small print runs from even smaller publishing houses. To the extent that he is remembered, Spare is hailed as an influence on the “Chaos Magick” movement of the eighties and nineties. Sadly, the work of this major artist – a true Outsider in every sense of the word – has never received its fair due from the art community.

Fortunately, however, Spare’s work remains a presence on the internet, with a small number of sites (1, 2) devoted to sharing the creative output of this art pioneer.

I’ve uploaded a few plates from my own collection HERE. (Warning: some mildly NSFW).

I love books. Absolutely love them – maybe too much. I buy them whenever I can, sometimes in favor of other needed requisites, like food, gasoline or even – eek! – coffee.

But that’s okay. I feel like I can share that here. I imagine that many of you probably have the same habit that I do…that ink and paper monkey riding your back…just another hot fix of cool prose…just one more…

One of the biggest issues that booknuts like myself face is – well – what to do with all of those books once you’ve read them? I’m torn, myself. I tend to become extremely attached to my books, particularly those that have enlightened or entertained me to a greater degree. I find it extremely hard to part with them. Still, in order to get more books (without my wife kicking me out of the house) I have to do something with them.

Sometimes I box them up and store them in our attic, sometimes I give them away to friends or take them to the library for their collection. Sometimes I don’t do any of that. Sometimes they just stick around.

I was wondering today what you do with all of your books? Do you keep all of them? Do you give them away or sell them once you read them? Somewhere in between? What is your preferred method of thinning down your book flock? What criteria – if any – do you use to make these hard decisions….or is this a hard decision at all for you? Do you have any special exceptions? Books that you feel especially attached to?

Let me know.

UPDATE: I’ve uploaded some larger photos from one of my book cases for those of you who enjoy looking through other people’s collections. I know I do.  See one of my book cases here.

Just a quick post before I get the heck out of dodge. Nick Gevers has released the table of contents for his Extraordinary Engines steampunk antho out in August from Solaris. This is all original stories. I haven’t read it, obviously, but believe it should be a good companion volume to our Steampunk antho. (As predicted, though, Solaris really shouldn’t have jumped the gun re what writers would be in the antho, in their initial PR.) – Jeff

(more…)

(Matt in a reflective moment…)

Matt Staggs has become a good friend over the last year or so. We share similar tastes in books, he’s also creative about PR, and, frankly, we’ll always be fond of anyone who loves Belgian beer and good cigars. Matt also has some great illo skills, if you recall his penguins on Silence Without and some unidentified sea creature below.

Mat’ll be guest blogging while we’re on vacation. Please give him a warm welcome. And here’s a short interview with you about various and sundry to get started…

(more…)

Anne Sydenham has some cool comments on The Situation here. Honestly, the book is a surreal version of my office experiences over the years. In fact, the manager mentioned as Damager in The Situation has a real-world parallel to some extent. The letter Anne quotes from is an all-too-typical example of the strangeness of so-called reality. We’d like to think that businesses are rational, but the fact is…they aren’t.