I have struggled recently to take in and understand what is happening in the United States right now. Not because it seems out of line or out of nowhere, but because I'm on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean when my country is tearing itself apart in the quest for change and for justice … Continue reading “Do the Right Thing” **
Author: despina durand
A Geometry of Chaos
Athens is a funny place, architecturally speaking. In the U.S., the boom in funding of development projects, particularly in the area of public works, in the 1960s and 1970s in such places as Massachusetts, led to the blooming of Brutalist Modernism in government buildings and educational facilities (see: the University of Massachusetts, especially UMass Amherst … Continue reading A Geometry of Chaos
Magical Thinking: The Hermit in quarantine
I've been discussing tarot interpretations with a friend who had decided to pull a card a day and then re-create it with items in her house during quarantine. The very first card she pulled was The Hermit. "Just pulled a tarot card that hit a bit close to home," she messaged me. Indeed, pulling the … Continue reading Magical Thinking: The Hermit in quarantine
Zelda, Calamity, and Living Beyond The End
Once you get beyond the area given over to a state of nature, overshadowed, as it is, by the swirling malignancy of Calamity Ganon where he-it teems around Hyrule Castle, you quickly realize that you are far from alone. Beyond that immediate desolation and its ghosts, the rest of the world is populated with entrepreneurial spirits, adventurers, travelers, inventors, villagers, and fanatics.
Rationality and Superstition, some thoughts on reckoning in Weird Fiction
But Lovecraft often seems to walk on the knife's edge separating an annihilating Truth (accessible through rational scientific inquiry) and the safety of a recognizable supernatural reality (manageable through superstition and mystical belief).