For years now, I've held out hope that one day I'd turn into a regular blogger. Alas, it never happened, nor do I think it is likely to happen at this point. I'm a slow writer. It takes me months, sometimes years, to write even a brief essay, and the spontaneity required for steady blogging is just not part of my programming. When I finally have a solid piece of writing, I tend to look for an established channel in fear it may be the last thing I ever write. Such is life.
This site still gets a lot of traffic, though, so I thought I'd post a quick update on what's going on these days in Martel Land. The Weird Studies podcast, which Phil Ford and I launched in February, is doing quite well. Apparently there was a niche, and those who dwell therein seem to really dig what we are doing. We just put out a two-part conversation on Andrei Tarkovsky's film Stalker. Previous episodes include a long discussion on the weird with Erik Davis; dialogues on the work of Philip K. Dick, Aleister Crowley, Arthur Machen, David Lynch, Rodney Ascher and Lisa Ruddick; explorations of such cultural phenomena as blood sports and Dungeons & Dragons; and a lot of other things. Upcoming episodes will take on Zen Master Dogen's classic fascicle Genjokoan, William James' wonderful essay, "Does 'Consciousness' Exist?" (it doesn't), and that curious phenomenon Erik Davis once referred to as the "alchemy of trash." We also have some great guests lined up, including Joshua Ramey and Lionel Snell (a.k.a. Ramsey Dukes).
Last fall, the great Michael Garfield (another guest in the wings) kindly invited me to reappear on his podcast Future Fossils, and the episode, which deals with Bladerunner 2049 and Stranger Things 2, was released just a couple of weeks ago. More recently, I had the pleasure of taking part in a group discussion on Darren Aronofsky's film mother! with the bright folks at Cosmos Co-Op, headed by co-conspirator Marco Morelli. That should be available soon; I'll provide a link when it is.
The very same Marco Morelli was awesome enough to edit and publish my extensive correspondence with philosopher Christopher Yates (yet another future WS guest) in the web journal, Metapsychosis. This is something we're very proud of: an in-depth exploration of how movies (and other forms of art) open up new worlds even as they connect us to the one world that binds them all. It's a #longread, but one which many readers have found rewarding.
At the end of last year, I wrote a piece on Thomas Ligotti for an anthology that writer and artist Jamie Curcio of Mythos Media is editing (and writing an awesome introduction for). The book is titled Masks: Bowie and the Artists of Artifice. We're hoping it will come out some time next year. My current writing projects include a long-form (i.e., book-length) essay on the concept of the Real as well as monographs on Decadent aesthetics and the figure of the nerd. I'm also starting to research an essay on brutalism which will combine modern architectural theory with the theological ideas of Tertullian and the work of French philosopher Quentin Meillassoux. That should be cool.
Finally, I deleted my Facebook account earlier this spring and have no intention of revisiting that bright abyss any time soon. You can, however, find me on Twitter most days.
This site still gets a lot of traffic, though, so I thought I'd post a quick update on what's going on these days in Martel Land. The Weird Studies podcast, which Phil Ford and I launched in February, is doing quite well. Apparently there was a niche, and those who dwell therein seem to really dig what we are doing. We just put out a two-part conversation on Andrei Tarkovsky's film Stalker. Previous episodes include a long discussion on the weird with Erik Davis; dialogues on the work of Philip K. Dick, Aleister Crowley, Arthur Machen, David Lynch, Rodney Ascher and Lisa Ruddick; explorations of such cultural phenomena as blood sports and Dungeons & Dragons; and a lot of other things. Upcoming episodes will take on Zen Master Dogen's classic fascicle Genjokoan, William James' wonderful essay, "Does 'Consciousness' Exist?" (it doesn't), and that curious phenomenon Erik Davis once referred to as the "alchemy of trash." We also have some great guests lined up, including Joshua Ramey and Lionel Snell (a.k.a. Ramsey Dukes).
Last fall, the great Michael Garfield (another guest in the wings) kindly invited me to reappear on his podcast Future Fossils, and the episode, which deals with Bladerunner 2049 and Stranger Things 2, was released just a couple of weeks ago. More recently, I had the pleasure of taking part in a group discussion on Darren Aronofsky's film mother! with the bright folks at Cosmos Co-Op, headed by co-conspirator Marco Morelli. That should be available soon; I'll provide a link when it is.
The very same Marco Morelli was awesome enough to edit and publish my extensive correspondence with philosopher Christopher Yates (yet another future WS guest) in the web journal, Metapsychosis. This is something we're very proud of: an in-depth exploration of how movies (and other forms of art) open up new worlds even as they connect us to the one world that binds them all. It's a #longread, but one which many readers have found rewarding.
At the end of last year, I wrote a piece on Thomas Ligotti for an anthology that writer and artist Jamie Curcio of Mythos Media is editing (and writing an awesome introduction for). The book is titled Masks: Bowie and the Artists of Artifice. We're hoping it will come out some time next year. My current writing projects include a long-form (i.e., book-length) essay on the concept of the Real as well as monographs on Decadent aesthetics and the figure of the nerd. I'm also starting to research an essay on brutalism which will combine modern architectural theory with the theological ideas of Tertullian and the work of French philosopher Quentin Meillassoux. That should be cool.
Finally, I deleted my Facebook account earlier this spring and have no intention of revisiting that bright abyss any time soon. You can, however, find me on Twitter most days.
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