Destroy Your Sight With a New Gorgon: “Don’t Look Now” and Macbeth Originally written for Episode 61 on Don’t Look Now (1973) and C.H.U.D. (1984). “Do you fear/ things that sound so fair?”~ The Tragedy of Macbeth, William Shakespeare “Just chance, a flick of a coin.”~ “Don’t Look Now,” Daphne du Maurier In all my viewings … Continue reading From the Archives: The Terror Test: Test Prep #16
We talk about her book, Known by Salt, over at The Drunken Odyssey. (Photo courtesy of Bang Images.) Continue reading An Interview with Poet Tina Mozelle Braziel
A short survey of recent horror-related fiction and nonfiction is at The Terror Test. Continue reading Recent Reading Over at Lost in Arkham
I’m happy to have a short essay co-written with a former student over at The Drunken Odyssey. Sometimes resolutions take a decade. Continue reading More on The Outsiders
Known by Salt: Tina Mozelle BrazielA fantastic debut by an Alabama writer. I won’t say much here as I’m in the process of getting my thoughts in order for an interview with the author. She’s really busy these days. If you like poetry of place, then I think you’ll like this book. It’s about growing up, … Continue reading A Kiss Risks a Prince: Recent Reading
In one of the Shakespeare courses I took, we discussed The Great Chain of Being, a hierarchical organization of all life and matter that started with God at the top and went down through social classes to minerals. In many of the plays, particularly the tragedies, a disturbance to the order of things–which must be … Continue reading Cannot be ill, cannot be good: Bad Omens in Plutarch and Shakespeare
With my current job I travel more than I ever have. One way I stave off homesickness is by reading books my wife has given me (and rereading poems we’ve written for each other). The one I keep picking up for now is Letters to Véra, Vladimir Nabokov’s letters to Véra Slonim from their first … Continue reading Good night. The day seems to be breaking. The sky is green.–Friday Love Letters
In the ancient world, being a fierce warrior wasn’t enough. Nicias was known as a strong soldier, but a careful general, which was not smiled upon at the time. In fact, it earned him scorn. Aristophanes, who also famously lampooned Socrates, made him a verb. It’s awkwardly translated sometimes as “shilly-shally-niciasize” and more simply as … Continue reading Verbing Nicias and Other Sundry from Plutarch’s Lives
I wrote earlier about Sertorius and his white fawn. Another aspect of Plutarch’s Sertorius that I find striking is the introduction that has correspondences to both Jung’s synchronicity and Freud’s uncanny. With Jung’s notion we get meaningful coincidence and pattern detection which are here in Plutarch’s opening. With Freud’s uncanny, we get doubling and doppelgängers, … Continue reading The Land of One-Eyed Men: More of Plutarch’s Life of Sertorius
