Monstrous Empathy (To Not Getting Burnt)

Monsters do not seek the shriveled empathy grown in the moral philosopher's over-weeded garden. Monsters ask to be met in the space where we are most human: where we hope against hope to be loved.

Magical Thinking:

Despite what my place of employment might inspire in the popular imagination, I'm a Gemini therefore I am an Air sign. This means that my suit, in the tarot, is Swords. It is the suit of the intellect, logic, empirical exploration. Just as I regard my ruling planet -- Mercury, the planet of communication-- I … Continue reading Magical Thinking: →

No detours, a review of Cemetery Beach

Maybe Warren Ellis is in my head, or maybe what he and Jason Howard achieved with Cemetery Beach is just genius, wrapped in subtlety (a shocking claim, given the number of explosions it contains) wreathed and garlanded in weirdness. If you want to know what’s going on, if you need answers, if you enjoy carefully … Continue reading No detours, a review of Cemetery Beach →

Trials of Communication and Triumphs of Empathy, a review of Avi Silver’s Two Dark Moons

DISCLAIMER: I do have a personal connection with Avi Silver, the author of this work. We met in freshman year of college and roomed together the following year. It is up to the reader to decide if that kind of intimacy and co-habitation makes a critic more or less likely to extend unreasonable courtesy towards … Continue reading Trials of Communication and Triumphs of Empathy, a review of Avi Silver’s Two Dark Moons →

Future Imaginary and the role of Horror

When considering the “failure of the imagination” which traps people within capitalist realism, the potential in invoking an incoherent – though not necessarily unreal – alternative mode of thought or existence is crucial to breaking out of the bind of capitalist realism. Being able to posit an incoherent alterity is the first step towards being able to move towards a coherent alternate reality. But trying to pull away from the familiar and towards a new paradigm inevitably produces an encounter with Horror.