Dominium Irrealis

The Vanishing Life and Films of Emmanuel Escobada... by Mark Z. Danielewski?

2010-09-27T13:14:00.000-07:00

(Note that what follows is just a speculation and that I am far from claiming that I am right, let alone consider this to be any proof. Everyone should judge for themselves.)

This year readers of one of the greatest magazines of speculative/weird fiction ever published, Nemonymous, edited by DF Lewis, could read its last issue. Those who are familiar with all of the contents of Nemonymous will certainly remember the magazine's most enigmatic story that appeared in the second issue: ‘The Vanishing Life and Films of Emmanuel Escobada’. Never by-lined (its author decided to remain anonymous), this story centers around a forgotten Brazilian film-maker who disappeared while making a film entitled ‘Nos Olvidamos?’ The piece is written as a non-fiction article and approaches Escobada as a real person. It examines his films by discussing influences, innovative casting methods and experimental filming techniques. Unfortunately, we learn from the story, after Escobada’s unexplained disappearance all of his films vanished without a trace and people forgot about the existence of the director and his works.

While Emmanuel Escobada is sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss of oblivion, the author of the piece published in Nemonymous remains unidentified, and now with Null Immortalis (Nemonymous’ last issue) published, it doesn’t seem very likely that the author will be willing to reveal his identity.

There were several attempts at guessing who might have penned TVLAFOEE. However, none of them have successfully prompted the author to step out from behind the curtain.

As a fan of the story I also have my own guess as to who this mysterious writer might be and for me his name is: Mark Z. Danielewski.

THE WEBSITE

“The film marked the first use of a frequent theme he would return to again and again, the misunderstandings that result from language barriers”

Excerpt from TVLAFOEE

The idea first came to me in 2006 when, after reading the story, I turned my attention to the website devoted to Emmanuel Escobada by following the link provided at the end of the story. The site is no longer there, but back when it still existed it pointed to another site on Escobada (http://www.members.tripod.com/scott_warrick/), both of which have most probably been created and maintained by the author. The latter site has gone through a series of changes, each of them making it less and less comprehensible by erasing, adding, hiding or (google-)translating chunks of text into German, Portuguese, Russian and Italian.

This is not for you.

What immediately struck me in the 2006 version of the site was the single sentence repeated throughout the confusing text (in various languages): “This is not for you”. The sentence sounded very familiar, but at first I couldn’t nail its source. Then my thoughts became fixed upon one of my all-time favourite novels resting on my shelves: ‘House of Leaves’ by Mark Z. Danielewski. I opened it on its dedication page and there it was just as expected.

Regrettably, you won’t see the English version of this sentence on the site any more. It has been replaced now with other sentences, clearly messages to those who might have noticed the clue: ‘You will never understand’ and ‘Youwillneverunderstand’ and ‘Reaching beyond your means’. I guess, it looks like all of this is reaching beyond my means as I’m writing this down now and it might seem that I have no proof that this sentence was ever there, but if you look carefully you can still see the message in French and German left unchanged: ‘Ce n'est pas pour vous’ ‘Dieses ist nicht für Sie’.

But there is more to it than a simple sentence, for, doesn’t the structure and the layout of the site with its seemingly dead-end clues in the form of links, chunks of text in different languages etc. remind one of the many experimental methods used by Danielewski in his enigmatic first novel? If you use wayback machine to exhume the site from 2002, even the colours seem to indicate that this might be more than just a coincidence: http://bit.ly/ciP1Hz.

But can the website really indicate anything? After all, it is the author of the story and not the creator of the website that we are after.

THE STORY

"REFERENCES

The Endnotes below were compiled by the consensus of fifteen different Escobada fans that have been painstakingly documenting all the knowledge that is left."

Excerpt from TVLAFOEE

Is there anything that TVLF and HoL have in common? I don't think that any deeper analysis is needed to notice the following similarities shared by these works of fiction:

Both are written in the form of academic studies (article on Escobada vs. Zampanò’s manuscript) from the pov of researchers (anonymous author vs. Zampanò)
Both center around a person making films/recordings (Escobada vs. Navidson)
Both contain footnotes to sources that do not exist.

However, there may perhaps be an even more important element that connects the two works: a person... a film-maker who is much less forgotten than Escobada himself and whose identity could provide us with yet another clue:

TAD DANIELEWSKI

“My father was a filmmaker. In the 50s, live television. Later avant-garde. Eventually he got into documentaries.”

Mark Z. Danielewski interviewed by Sophie Cottrell for www.randomhouse.com

It is worth noting that HoL originally began as a short story, titled Redwood. In the interview available on chuckpalahniuk.net Danielewski reveals that he wrote it to his hospitalized father.

A Wikipedia article confirms that Mark Z. Danielewski’s father, Tad Danielewski was a Polish avant-garde film director and on IMDB we learn that his last film was shot in Spanish.

Danielewski frequently mentions his father as a source of inspiration, for instance in this interview for www.randomhouse.com:

“Anyway no matter what he was doing, whether shooting a film in Africa or directing a soap opera in New York, he constantly spoke about movies. And when my sister and I were young, he always brought 16mm films home. Back then we had on hand an old projector and an assortment of screens.
"The screen matters most," he would say and go on to discuss size and reflective levels and all sorts of other stuff. Most families spend money on cars, vacations and clothes--even if they're broke and at that time we were broke. Very broke. It was an important lesson. Shoes didn't matter. Dad spent money on the screens.

And it was a beautiful gift. My sister and I didn't know it then, but what a magnificent and strange education. Every week Kubrick, Reed, Chaplin, Fellini, Bergman, Ford, Welles, Lean came into our living room. All their light, all their wonder, their genius and misconceptions, flung up on the wall like some magical hallway stretching into far away places. My father always in the back, in his chair, still in his shadows.

Of course just because we had a nice screen didn't mean we a had a nice projector. And we sure as hell didn't have two. That meant every thirty-forty minutes, the reel would run out and a new one would have to be threaded. You can guess who got that job.

Well during this first break, my father would start asking the first questions: "What are we really watching children?" "Why that color?" "Why that name?" "What about the sound? The music? The performance?" "Is this truly just about cowboys?" None of which compared to what followed the film--long discussions, hours long, sometimes inspiring, sometimes raw with the words of battle; and yes, of course fear. We covered everything. Structure, political content, aesthetic (or not) achievement.

When friends came over, they expected the usual movie experience. You know, two hours of entertainment, end of story. Boy were they in for a shock. The film was just the starting point. I don't think they left the same. I bet you if you spoke with some of my grade school and high school buddies, they'd tell you just that. The movie was fine, but it was the talk that mattered most.
My father will be remembered for a lot of things but by some, TZD--as some of my friends called him--will be forever known for his passionate consideration of the art of cinema.”

Could it be possible that Danielewski’s father served as inspiration for TVLAFOEE or that the story is a tribute to him?

THE MYSTERY REMAINS

However, maybe it's all just a setup? What if the author of the story is somebody wishing to draw our attention away from himself by pointing to Danielewski, just like the author of "Double Zero for Emptiness" from Nemonymous #1, who might have prompted readers to think of Stephen King as the possible author of the piece by describing in it an event referring to a biographical detail from King‘s life? But then, of course why would anyone go into all the trouble?

Or perhaps...
Perhaps, the blog post you are reading is nothing more but a proof of the exceptional power of TVLAFOEE and that those who try reading too deep into the story or stare for far too long at the labyrinthine website devoted to Escobada attempting to decipher its contents, may start seeing things that are not there, like watching Escobada's films that seem no longer true. Maybe it would be better for their own sake to stop trying to make sense ...

Because it is all

~~Reaching beyond their means~~

e

Ce n’est pas pour eux

y

Sie werden es nie verstehen?

(unfortunately, comments are not working at the moment. Please, see the following threads at
Thomas Ligotti Online for discussion: here and here
or at Mark Z Danielewski forums here)

Weird Fiction News

2010-05-24T11:54:00.000-07:00

I have just recently joined Twitter and found it an incredibly useful tool for assembling information and news (and I do not only mean "what are you up to" kind of tweets). Since I visit dozens of pages related to one of my deepest interests, i.e. Weird Fiction, on a daily basis (mostly in search of news related to the genre), I thought I could put it into some use and keep track of news and links to sites on this subject by means of Twitter on this blog. I primarily see this new Twitter account as forming part of Dominium Irrealis (displayed in a widget in the column on the right) and as a way of listing sites and events I come across that I could later use for my own purposes, but at the same time that others might be keen on following.

I would like to keep the scope of Weird Fiction News as broad as possible, but it might reflect and concentrate on aspects of the genre that I find particularly appealing with sources found on a limited number of sites I keep in my bookmarks. Those who feel like I'm imposing my own tastes, e.g. by paying more attention to particular authors, or simply don't care about the amount of weird news inundating their Twitter accounts might be more comfortable not following WFN on Twitter, but instead, considering they find any of this information worthwhile, simply popping into Dominium whenever they wish.
Tweets will focus on:
- New and upcoming publications
- Recent Discussions and articles
- Reviews and interviews

and more.

Antique Stereoviews (introduction)

2010-05-23T03:48:00.000-07:00

It is a wonder that stereo cards are no longer popular. I first had the opportunity of seeing a presentation of antique cards some 4 years ago, just at the time I got interested in anaglyphs and stereo photography. One thing I absolutely adore about Warsaw (and there are not many of them) is that it remains one of the few European cities with its own device for viewing stereographs. Similar to Kaiser-Panorama, Fotoplatikon allows 24 people (if i'm not mistaken) to view a series of stereo cards that slide in front of their eyes in a circular wooden device.
Here is more about it: http://tinylink.pl/mkyp

After my purchase of pokescope (mentioned 3 entries below) I could finally contemplate the stereoscopic effect of scans of such stereo cards on my computer screen. If separation of the two adjacent images is small enough, they could be viewed by parallel-viewing, but they can be only appreciated in their full splendor when viewed properly through a stereoscope.

There is now plenty of sites throughout the Internet hosting scans of these images, which is a treat to those who know how to properly use them. Probably most who come across them just think they have seen a curious pair of the same old photograph, without even realizing how much they miss.

Here are some sites where good quality scans of stereo cards can be found:
http://tiny.cc/sot12 (fantastic eBay auctions from Dianegor)
http://tiny.cc/8z9ic - (Wikimedia)
http://tiny.cc/vm5l3 - (Online Archive of California)
http://tiny.cc/801xi - (Rose Stereoviews)
http://tiny.cc/7hu6j - (Great War Stereoviews)

The Frozen Horses from Winnipeg

2010-05-21T07:26:00.001-07:00

Here is a fascinating clip from Guy Maddin's docu-fantasy "My Winnipeg" - an intimate journey into the dreamy Canadian city that often borders on the fantastic. Spiritual séances, sleepwalking citizens, forgotten streets are just a few of city's attractions experienced through the warped reminiscences of the dreaming narrator. And the horses, the frozen horses from Winnipeg, the frozen horses' heads sticking out from the icy waters that are now never bound to be forgotten.

A citizen's dreams become part of city's secret history.

See trailer here:

Back to my Daimon

2010-05-20T13:02:00.000-07:00

Yikes! Quite a lot of time has elapsed since my last post. I admit that I haven't been much creative throughout. However, I do hope to change this now. Here are some updates on some recent events:

1) In Autumn last year I submitted several of my anaglyphs to a contest organized by rdevil and knifeofdreams on deviantArt. I'm happy to say that although I didn't make it to the first 3 places (justly, considering how good were works of some other submitters), two of my anaglyphs have been selected and were later this year presented in Teto Gallery in Budapest!

Here is a 360 panoramic picture of the exhibition:

Stereo Exhibition at Teto Galeria in Budapest

Click on "play" and explore the image to find two of my anaglyphs that have been selected:

Autumn 10 3D Anaglyph by ~yellowishhaze on deviant ART

Lviv_45 2006 3D anaglyph by ~yellowishhaze on deviant ART

2) I decided I will not be creating anaglyphs any more. There are several reasons for this decision. First of all, I have become tired of the red/cyan glasses and the overall effect of anaglyphs. Having now at least two stereoscopes + pokescope, I came to realize the superiority of other methods of viewing stereo photos. Oh, I know I'm not alone in this and that many would simply prepare stereo pairs for cross-eye viewing, but this is just another method that does not satisfy me - yes, original colours are preserved but this doesn't help the fact that the images seem to look like previews, so small they appear to be when eye-crossing on them. Stereoscope seems to remain the best method: no distortions, no loss of colours, no images with tiny landscapes; you just step into another world. And the shadows! I know it's my own fixation, but shadows just look perfect on 3D pictures when using a sterescope. It used to be one of my rules to avoid scenes with too much contrast, especially brightly illuminated scenes with lots of shadows that produce lots of ghosting in anaglyphs. What a relief to skip this rule, I tell you!

3) I will now concentrate my efforts on another project related to old stereoviews. Stay tuned.

Pokescope

2009-01-10T07:05:00.000-08:00

Coming back to the topic of stereo photography, a few months ago I realized how tired I have become of anaglyphic images. What I’ve always found lacking in anaglyphs is the diversity of colours one can find in 2D photography. It is a fact after all that the method of applying cyan and red shades to the image has a tendency of degrading or even taking away certain colours and making the whole picture look dimmer. I am among persons who enjoy monochrome photography, but when it comes to colour photography, I prefer to be able to enjoy the whole spectrum of colours.

Several weeks ago the postman delivered to me this strange box you can see above. I ordered it from a Polish online shop with stereoscopic equipment (Stereos).

In Stereo World Magazine, Vol 27, No 4. you can find the following words about this curious 3D viewer:

"... for the quick fusion of nearly any format pair --or several pairs at once-- the PokeScope is one of the best designed and crafted devices ever to reach the market."

What possible effect can you achieve with a small black box with two glass prisms, which measures 2" x 2" x 1.3"? Someone must be a bit overenthusiastic. But why not open it and see how this thing works.

Hmmm, looks rather cool, uh? Now not only it is a strange black box, but one hell of a gimmick! Rather fishy, I remember telling myself. But, imagine how impressed I was when I viewed a few of my old stereo pairs in their full glory, the whole spectrum of colours just the way it is in real life!

And this is not the end. The most stunning feature of Pokecope is that it can be used for pictures much bigger than your computer screen. You can, for instance, project your stereo pair onto your wall and adjust Pokescope to these larger dimensions. Someone who came up with the idea of constructing this device has done a great favour to the art of stereo photography and, perhaps it is only a dream, but it would be wonderful to see it receive as much attention as it’s stereoscopic predecessors.

I will now have to be careful not to get too distracted. Apart from undertaking the task of reproducing all of my “double shots” into vertical stereo pairs (the best result you can get from using this method is with vertical images) - a task quite time-consuming, which will take me a year or so to complete – I have started collecting antique stereo views scattered throughout the internet (I will say more about them in my next post). What a terrible compulsion! I sometimes feel like screaming: Eureka! Pokescope!

Getting Noticed!

2009-01-09T12:13:00.000-08:00

People devoting their time to creating things related with art frequently derive their pleasure from fulfilling their passions entirely for themselves. (this rule of course doesn't apply to everyone). Nevertheless, it is always rewarding to see oneself getting noticed by others. It was a real pleasure for me to accidentally find, while surfing on the net, the following page:

http://www.swell3d.com/2008/08/3d-photographs-by-slawek-wielh.html

I am really grateful to Sean Gleeson for taking his time to describe my gallery on his webpage. What a surprise! Those who read my words and are interested in anaglyphs should stop at Sean Gleeson's website for longer.

The site is full of interesting information on the art of anaglyphic photography.
http://www.swell3d.com/

Well-worth reading!
____________________________________________________

Abenberg 2 3D Anaglyph by ~yellowishhaze on deviant ART

During the following weeks I will be uploading my photos from my trip to Germany. Prepare for some stereo from Stuttgart, Nurnberg, Abenberg and Bamberg! These anaglyphs would have never been created, if not thanks to Christian Moths' incredible hospitality. Thank you Christian for that New Year's Eve madness!

Interview

2008-09-08T01:25:00.000-07:00

There is an interview with me at Thomas Ligotti Online.
Thank you once again Jimmy for the wonderful opportunity.

Jean Ray (the Belgian Poe)

2008-06-18T08:29:00.000-07:00

I have just ordered the first two volumes of collected works of Jean Ray, the Belgian master of weird fiction, frequently referred to as the “Belgian Poe”. I’ve been trying to purchase any of his works for some time now. There are two collections of his stories in English, both of them very rare and pricey: My Own Private Specters from Midnight House (1999) and Ghouls in my Grave from Berkley Publishing Corporation (1965). After futile attempts at locating reasonably priced copies of these titles I decided to try buying Ray’s collections in the original language: French. Œuvres complètes de Jean RAY, tome 1 et 2, collects majority of his weird fiction (6 collections) except for his novel Malpertuis (which I’ll try to locate later) and his adventure/detective Harry Dickinson stories (in which I’m less interested). The order will come from France, and due to sheer weight of these volumes (over 2 kilograms) I had to involve my aunt in Orlean to provide me with her address. The book will be later recollected by my father who is currently returning from his yacht travel from Cuba and will be stopping at his sister’s house. Yes, it is a bit complicated. Sometimes it takes an international adventure to get some of the titles I’m interested in. Too much reading makes my tastes increasingly capricious. :(

Here is a video with Jean Ray (in French):

The Spectacles in the Drawer

2008-03-11T10:20:00.000-07:00

A curious wooden box. Nothing special and yet...

Just open the drawer...

That's right, go on. Don't be scared...

and take out its contents...

Very well, now look through the viewer...

After the Sunset 2 3D Anaglyph by ~yellowishhaze on deviant ART

" Your eyes are now fused with those fantastic lenses, and your sight is one with its object. And what exactly is that object? Obviously, it is everything that fascinates, everything that has power over your gaze and your dreams. You can not even conceive the wish to look away. And even if there are no simple images to see, nonetheless there is a vision of some kind, an infinite and overwhelming scene expanding before you. And the vastness of this scene is such that even the dazzling diffusion of all the known universes cannot convey its wonder. Everything is so brilliant, so great, and so alive: landscapes without end that are rolling with life, landscapes that are themselves alive. Unimaginable diversity of form and motion, design and dimension. And each detail is perfectly crystalline, from the mammoth shapes lurching in the outline against endless horizons to the minutest cilia wriggling in an obscure oceanic niche. Even this is only a mere fragment of all that there is to see and to know. There are labyrinthine astronomies, discrete systems of living mass which yet are woven together by a complex of intersections, at points mingling in a way that mutually affects those systems involved, yielding instantaneous evolutions, constant transformations of both appearance and essence. You are witness to all that exists or ever could exist. And yet, somehow concealed in the shadows of all that you can see is something that is not yet visible, something that is beating like a thunderous pulse and promises still greater visions: all else is simply its membrane enclosing the ultimate thing waiting to be born, preparing for the cataclysm which will be both the beginning and the end. To behold the prelude to this event must be an experience of unbearable anticipation, so that hope and dread merge into a new emotion, one corresponding perfectly to the absolute and the wholly unknown. The next instant, it seems, will bring with it a revolution of all matter and energy. But the seconds keep passing, the experience grows more fascinating without fulfilling its portents, without extinguishing itself in revelation. And although the visions remain active inside you, deep in your blood - you now awake." (Thomas Ligotti, "The Spectacles in the Drawer")

SOON THIS WONDERFUL ARTEFACT SHALL BE MINE! ;)

70 New Anaglyphs from Rome, Venice and Florence

2008-03-08T04:30:00.001-08:00

Florence 10 3D Anaglyph by ~yellowishhaze on deviant ART
Hello, everyone. I'm finally back from a long trip throughout Italy and I'm very glad to present my new anaglyphs from three of the most beautiful cities of that country.
I'm particularly satisfied with the ones from Venice. It was a helluva job to succeed in producing a good anaglyph on a winter day in a city that is permanently "floating" on water. Not only does water spoil the effect, but the passing boats and gondolas plus people crowding in the narrow passages simply make it nearly impossible. Oh, and those darn birds...

Venice 19 3D Anaglyph by ~yellowishhaze on deviant ART
Enjoy!
http://yellowishhaze.deviantart.com/gallery/

The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness

2008-01-22T03:48:00.000-08:00

The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness is a book by Jeff Warren that saw its publication in December 2007. It explains the twelve different states of consciousness accessible to everyone throughout the day. I still haven't managed to get a copy of this, so I can't tell anyone if it is a good read or not, but considering the amount of enthusiasm with which the author approaches this subject, the book must be fascinating. I though I could embed some videos in which Jeff Strand talks about his work:

And here is a Montreal Sleep & Nightmare laboratory footage of author Jeff Warren describing one of 8 hypnagogic wake-ups;

The Puppet Masters of Białystok

2008-01-22T03:25:00.000-08:00

Here is my review of Baldanders:
(photography by Paweł Chomczyk/BTL)

The lights are on, the curtain has already fallen, but the audience won’t leave. Spectators keep applauding and won’t stop unless the artists reappear on stage for what later seems to be an endless series of curtain calls – such exaltation ensued after the first performance of “Bandanders” in the Teatr Wielki (Polish National Opera) in Warsaw last September. This short, but surprisingly original play was prepared by two Theatre Academy graduates in the Białystok Puppet Theatre, which reunites some of Poland’s most skillful puppeteers and specializes in different forms of visual theatre, object theatre, mask theatre and drama theatre.

One of the most stunning aspects of “Baldanders” lies in the simplicity of execution. The project was wholly conceived by two artists: the 29-year-old Marcin Bartnikowski, responsible for the play and the five-year younger Marcin Bikowski, who manufactured the grotesque puppets, dolls and manikins. Both of them incorporate the many characters and their alter egos from the script. In comparison with their previous project entitled “Głupcy” (“The Fools”), “Banldanders”, according to many critics, stands as a great improvement. The number of elements included in the set has been reduced and instead more stress was put on movement and action. Such a solution renders the attention of spectators much more acute. As a dramatic work that is primarily intended for small audiences, “Baldanders” has an immediate effect on people. This may be also due to its use of meta-reference techniques. Once we are engulfed in the darkness, we realize that we are watching a show within a show, with two characters addressing us directly, and we end up surrendering to the idea of “having broken the fourth wall” only to fuse with the imaginary world.

The spectacle provides a reflection on humanity in the context of our multiple identities and their transience. This is presented in a series of disturbing dialogues and monologues carried in a sideshow by a double-headed jailor (Marcin Bartnikowski), his captured freak and the creature’s many incarnations. The eponymous demon, inspired from Jorge Luis Borges’ The Book of Imaginary Beings constantly remains in a cage, but this doesn’t seem to restrain him from using his supernatural powers, for Baldanders can posses the body of anyone he wishes. The phantasmagorical transformations of Marcin Bikowski, who plays this role, emphasize the central theme of this endeavor. The actor has to perform a vast range of acrobatics in order to incorporate – sometimes simultaneously - the ominous fiend, a female dancer, a stranger whose body is incomplete and to animate a row of silicon heads. If it weren’t enough, Bikowski, when personifying these schizophrenic avatars, manages to alternate between voices so dexterously that a distorted mask bundled in a jagged cloth appears to be really conversing with others of its kin. Music by Anna Świętochowska together with scarce lighting is another component which sets the right mood and hypnotizes the public. The brooding atmosphere is now and then interrupted by jocular comments of a worm Glist, which keeps crawling out of Bladanders’ pocket to mock his words and which stands here as a metaphor for death. Although the main idea is grim and confusing, the cynical utterances and absurd relationships between the crippled characters paradoxically help to relieve the haunting esthetics of the play and frequently result in hysterical laughs among the audience.

The text of Bartnikowski’s play is very ambiguous: a sociologist will find here a discourse on social roles, a psychiatrist a profound study of psychiatric disorders, whilst others will see it as collection of dark truths about ourselves. The ending lines tell us: “No one is ever himself for more than a split second”.

Critics hailed “Bandanders” as ingenious and sensational and it didn’t take long after its premiere in Fall 2006 that it started winning prizes at various festivals, most notably the 20th edition of International Theatre Festival “Walizka” in Łomża. “Baldanders” is something new on polish stages. Surreal, inventive and thoroughly entertaining, it will surely appeal to aficionados of such writers as Edgar Allan Poe, Roland Topor, Charles Baudelaire or Thomas Ligotti. The increasingly popular duo after a warm reception in Moscow in November this year, is now preparing a tour through Russia. Hopefully, one day we will be able to see their masterpiece in other parts of Europe.

For details please check BTL's official website:
http://www.btl.bialystok.pl/index.php?lang=en

The Polish Poe

2007-12-11T13:17:00.001-08:00

The Mysterious Mr. Haze?

2007-12-11T12:43:00.001-08:00

Zencore! Competition

2007-12-06T17:10:00.000-08:00

So here I’m back to report that I’m taking part in another contest. This time it’s about… Zencore – an unusual anthology where stories are published anonymously.

About Zencore!

I think it’s about time I mentioned Zencore at my blog. This is something aficionados of weird fiction simply should not miss.

Zencore is in fact the seventh issue of Nemonymous – the world’s first series of anonymous anthologies. It is published by DF Lewis, who is also one of my favorite writers. I could go on and tell you a lot about DFL’s wonderful surreal horror fiction, but for this he deserves a separate entry.

The main idea behind Nemonymous is to demonstrate how a piece of fiction is read differently when not having any name attached to it, and that we might be losing a lot due to any preconceptions or expectations related to those names.

The by-lines of the stories are revealed within six months since the publication date of a given issue and included in the next one. The previous issues of Nemonymous didn’t contain any names at all; however the rules have changed now and on the back of Cover of Zencore! the reader can check the list of authors who contributed to this mysterious volume. And here lies quite a challenge for the reader – how to match the right name to the right title.

To tell the truth, this task isn’t easy at all. One has to be familiar with many authors whose names usually are quite common in the small press or don’t ring a bell at all. Considering the latter, one frequently has to rely on intuition and luck to arrange the names correctly.

When I look at the list of authors the only names that sound familiar are: Dominy Clemens, Reggie Oliver, Mark Valentine and… and… oops that’s it. And so far - that is up to my encounter with Zencore - I haven’t read any pieces of fiction by any of these! I’m afraid this will look more like a lottery, and I will have to be really lucky if I succeed in any guesses. But let’s try:

How about finding the fist random thing that could point the name to a given story?

A small google search reveals that:

Scott Edelman an American science fiction, fantasy and horror writer and editor. I suppose his story might be a bit sci-fi.

Charles Black is the editor of The Black Book of Horror, which is inspired by Pan and Fontana similar anthologies from the 60s, '70s and '80s. He says “The Black Book of Horror is a ghoulish celebration of the macabre.” So I presume that if he were to write a horror story it would contain some macabre elements

Daniel Ausema is the author of “The People of the Growing Moon”. Yes that tells me a lot.

Nick Jackson in message board discussion claims he is not the author of "Mary's Gift, the Stars and Frank's Pisser", but if he were he wouldn’t tell.

M. P. Johnson is the author of Ass Chapbook, which is composed of “Three bizarre tales about unfortunate eyeball meals, misplanted tulips and the repurcussions of throwing hamsters off of parking ramps. Not only is it exceedingly cheap at only $2, but it is limited to 50 copies.” Hmm, Upset Stomach?

Kek-w - no idea

Tim Nickels in an interview, when asked about his nouvellette, “Fight Music” he says: Stories were submitted anonymously and this brought a great sense of freedom. I fondly fancy that Gary really thought the story had been written by a 15-year-old shrapnel-gathering schoolgirl.” This means that it is not safe to presume that a female story must be written by a woman and only brings more confusion!!!

Ursula Pflug is the author of the magic realist novel, Green Music, was published in 2002 by Tesseract Books. And… still no idea.

Ok, enough. I think this doesn’t help much. The more I read, the more confused I become with many of these names competing for the same title and others not matching any. I think the best order I can get so far is this:

Torsion S.D. Tullis

MMM – Delicious Reggie Oliver

Undergrowth Mark Valentine

Fugly Patricia Russo

The Nightmare Reader Scott Edelman

The Secret Life of the Panda Dominy Clemens

Upset Stomach M. P. Johnson

The Awful truth about the Circus Tim Nickels

Red Velvet Dust Ursula Pflug

The Coughing Coffin Steven Pirie

Terminus Daniel Ausema

Mary’s Gift, the Stars and Frank’s Pisser Nick Jackson

Blue Raspberries Anonymous

Berian Winslow and the Stream of Consciousness Storyteller E. Sedia

The Plunge Charles Black

England and Nowhere Kek-W

Word Doctor Brian Rappatta

I may be making some obvious mistakes here, but let’s leave it all to luck.

BTW, Zencore can be purchased from here:

http://weirdmonger.livejournal.com/2007/07/26/

Those of you who read this but still didn't obtain this fantastic book, I strongly encourage them to get it... before it's too late.

Halloween

2007-10-30T14:04:00.000-07:00

Jack'O'Lantern 2 3D Anaglyph by ~yellowishhaze on deviant ART

Let me wish all the readers of Dominium Irrealis a happy Halloween and treat you to this tricky anaglyph and a presentation of my Jack-'o'-Lantern. ;)

Beyond the imaginable

2007-10-21T06:09:00.000-07:00

So how can one become proficient in transforming the dreamscape in one’s lucid dreams? Stephen LaBerge suggest the spinning method, probably all of us have heard of, others will say that it all depends on your attitude - the way you perceive and respond to the dream world that surrounds you. To tell the truth I myself still haven’t quite come up with the idea for the best method. For a long time I’ve been inspired by dark surrealist and fantasy writers whose stories abound with extraordinary imagery and who could acutely describe landscapes nearly unimaginable. One of the writers whom I greatly admire is Clark Ashton Smith. His poetic sensitivity can render even ordinary landscapes strange and wonderful. This is precisely what I want to do in my dreams: I would love to be transferred to those otherworldly places where color, shape, texture and distance blend into something that an average person can barely grasp and to become the creator of such grotesque kingdom.

Yeah, sounds awesome but how to do it?

This is a question that bothers all oneironauts when trying to do something they've never done in real life. Some time ago I announced that will be experimenting with the dreamscape by trying to liquify it, if you know what I mean. This was a way of finding out whether I will be able to reshape the environment and make out of it something wholly new. I have to admit that in one of the dreams I have become quite successful in doing this but I still find this method very tedious and difficult.

Last month I happened to discover something that may be the key to success. Having noticed through my experiments with lucid dreaming that that telekinetic powers in dreams are relatively easy to master (at least to me) I started to experiment with the sky. In one of the dreams the first thing that occurred to me upon becoming lucid was to change the position of the sun (previously I've done the same with the clouds and was very successful in producing thunderstorms or tornadoes). At the time I was looking from my bedroom window at the vast fields and forests outside. As soon as I started to lower the sun the landscape would automatically change to imitate what I usually could see at twilight. The more I manipulated with the sun the more colors and shades became very unusual, totally departing from anything I’ve every seen in my life. Here and there the bushes became white with morning frost which would soon shine with fiery-violet luminescence whilst ominous shadows would stretch into infinity. I think this is the best way I can describe it, for simply no words were conceived to do so. So beautiful all of it looked! At that point I felt that I was convinced that I’ve finally become independent from any preconceptions related to physical reality and could do whatever I wanted. Soon afterwards I started to turn the world beyond my window upside down and do some really weird things.

If you still haven’t tried moving the sun in your dreams then I encourage you to start tweaking with your dream sky. Some other ideas: trying to make ring/total eclipse, zooming on and out of the planets or sun, making astral bodies collide. Moreover, if you finally learn to attract/pull and push the sun, how about slipping into Copernicus’ mind and trying to do the opposite i.e. moving the Earth out of the Solar System or the Milky Way? That would be quite a treat!

"In the Grand Scheme of Things" (post-production phase)

2007-09-26T08:36:00.000-07:00

Update
"In the Grand Scheme of Things" has now gone through a post-production phase. The film's final version can be watched here:

And here is some additional info concerning the film
Cast:
Flaneur ...........................Left hand
Spectators ......................Right Hand

Camera: ..........................Left/right Hand

Sound Effects: .................Left Elbow

Lighting: ...........................Right Foot

Story-Line: ........................Brain (Left hemisphere)

In the Grand Scheme of Things

2007-09-25T06:45:00.000-07:00

The puppet play presented below (in the previous post) has been produced especially for the Nightmare Factory Graphic Novel Contest (details here: http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=1314) and was submitted today under the Best Theatrical Themed Submission category.

Details:
Title: In the Grand Scheme of Things

Runtime: approx. 2:50 min.

Plot Outline: A lonely flaneur roaming through deserted streets discovers a disturbing truth about the universe... behind the walls of a shunned cul-de-sac the secrets of his existence are about to be unraveled.

And here is a screenshot from "The Making of..." depicting the whole set:

TNF Contest #4 - "Teatro Grottesco" Submission

2007-09-24T14:26:00.000-07:00

In the Grand Scheme of Things (part 1)

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In the Grand Scheme of Things (part 2)

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In the Grand Scheme of Things (part3)

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Stephen Berlin on Lucid Dreaming (continued)

2007-09-14T00:39:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I’ve mentioned Stephen Berlin’s fantastic discourses on the subject of lucid dreaming which appear on You Tube every other week or so. Once again I would like to encourage everyone to watch these videos. I think they are very informative and entertaining and believe that not only the beginners but also advanced oneironauts should find them captivating. The topics addressed in the last six discourses are:

LDD.06 Day Residue in Dreams

LDD.07 Faulty Logic in Dreams

LDD.08 False Remembrance in Dreams

LDD.09 Dynamics of Dream Emergence

LDD.10 Navigation in Dreams

LDD.11 Lucid Dream Induction Devices

Magic Spilling out of Dreams

2007-09-13T00:57:00.000-07:00

Now and then I find myself amazed at how lucid dreams can change the way we perceive the world and how we behave in our everyday routine. I am quite sure all lucid dreamers after having explored their psychic powers on the dreamside want to incorporate their omnipotent dream alter-egos into their real lives. Even I sometimes have these moments when paranormal temptations cross my mind, whether I'm just jumping over a puddle wondering if I'll suddenly take off or telepathically suggesting a lecturer to stop talking during a lecture. To many this will sound totally childish on my part, but one thing which justifies these actions is that they prove to be great reality checks. As a matter of fact I'm afraid that my skepticism is too strong at this stage of my life to actually believe in the possibility of any of these psychic powers being executed in the real world.

Nevertheless, this summer there was one incident which really made me doubt whether I wasn't actually dreaming, up to the point where I kept doing really checks all the time, trying not to succumb to the dirty tricks of the dreamcreator. On a sunny day I sat in my garden by a small pool of water reading a story by William Hope Hodgson when a blue dragonfly flew by me and sat on a nearby flower. Its huge dimensions and magnificent allure kept distracting me and all I could do was to put my copy of ‘The House on Borderland” away for a moment. I decided that it was a good time to do some mental exercise for a dream incubation but first I decided to perform a reality check to see whether I wasn’t dreaming all this in the first place. When I really want to have a lucid dream soon I keep trying to do reality checks of all sorts, otherwise if I were to perform the same check it would become too repetitive to have any effect. It occurred to me to extend my right hand with my index finger sticking out like an antenna and see if I could make the dragonfly fly towards me. After a few seconds I was about to draw my hand back (and subsequently compose my mind by telling myself: “ok, don’t worry that was only a really check and you are a totally sane person”) when in absolute wonder I watched the dragonfly fulfill my wish. After having done a few roundabout circles above my head the insect started to land down and I soon felt its tiny feet clinging to my finger. Well, perhaps this will sounds absolutely absurd if I tell you that I quite couldn’t believe it possible when I’ve managed to repeat the same procedure throughout the whole day (always with the same blue dragonfly) but I still find this serendipity as quite unusual – the dragon fly would literally immediately fly in my direction, no matter where I stood (even away from the pool) as soon as I provided it with the fingerpoint landing. At one point I decided to grab a camera and make a few shots and recordings of the tamed creature. Here they are:

And here is an anaglyph:

Dragonfly 3 3D by ~yellowishhaze on deviant ART

Łeba + Clouds + Insects 3D Gallery

2007-09-12T07:14:00.000-07:00

Morning rays 3D Aanglyph by ~yellowishhaze on deviant ART
It's been a while since the last time I wrote here but summer vacation is a time which I prefer to spend outdoors. Sorry to everyone who visited the blog throughout the period of the last two months and found no new posts. I hope I will soon catch up with everything that I found worth writing about. Please, stay tuned.
Since this summer was not an accomplished one at all when it comes to weather I decided it would be a good thing make a few photos of clouds in 3D. Now trying to make a nice anaglyph depicting a cloud is not an easy practice at all. Since the clouds are several (sometimes even a dozen or more) kilometers away from us and are constantly stirred, twisted and reshaped by the winds, the best method is to have two cameras situated within a distance of about 100 meters from each other and to take one shot of one spot of the sky simultaneously on both of them. Unfortunately I didn't have an additional camera and running like a fool as quick as possible to take the double shot without having a single cloud shifting would do no good. However I came up with the idea of using a train. This way I could take a shot every other second traveling meanwhile over longer distances. Of course it wasn't the best approach either: now and then the trees, metal posts, cables and other unwelcome objects would dart into view spoiling the shots. However, I have managed to create a few anaglyphs of which I am very proud - you can find them in the gallery.

Deadlands 3D Anaglyph by ~yellowishhaze on deviant ART
The gallery combines some other anaglyphs of places situated near Łeba (a town located by the Baltic Sea in northern Poland), where I spent the last week. The shifting dunes provided some nice landcapes of surreal quality.

The Moth 2 3D by ~yellowishhaze on deviant ART
Some time ago I've also uploaded some insects in 3D but forgot to mention it here (more about one of these bugs in the next post). Enjoy!

Dolls, Puppets and Mannikins 3D Gallery

2007-06-01T13:41:00.000-07:00

Dream of A Mannikin 3D by ~yellowishhaze on deviant ART

Some of my favorite horror/weird fiction writers frequently use puppets, dolls and mannikins to conjure up the feeling of anthropomorphobical horror. One author who is a real (puppet-) master in weaving this theme into his fascinating stories of philosophical horror is Thomas Ligotti.

My newest anglyphs are of a particularly Ligottian flavor:

http://yellowishhaze.deviantart.com/gallery/

Chasing Tornadoes

2007-05-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

As far as I can remember the first time I saw a tornado I was about 9 years old. My friend and I were playing hide-and-seek in a huge cornfield in the middle of the summer, when suddenly we turned around and saw a huge funnel of gustnado forming just behind our backs. It looked more or less like this:

It soon reached the black clouds - spilled like a puddle of black ink above our heads - and started swaying back and forth. It kept advancing in our direction as if it were a hand of some dark god that descended from the sky to grab us and take away from our careless lives.

We suddenly saw many of such gustnadoes circulating around us – a real gathering. We knew there seemed to be no way out from this pandemonium, and that we might never be able to go back home to see our loving parents… even if it was just a matter of crossing the field and a street to reach our village. We decided to keep playing… yes, this was the only way out: keep playing hide-and-seek. I still remember all the details of everything that occurred after we separated to run in opposite directions, believing we could fool the forces of nature so easily. I hid in a vastly overgrown cluster of bushes. So concealed I could only peek through the branches of the shivering weeds, observe the prying giants that towered above me and pray for salvation.

This was the first time I saw a tornado… and wasn’t the last one. It may sound crazy but so far I lived in three countries and I’ve seen more than a dozen of them. I really can’t tell why it is always me who happens to be at the right time in the right place.

The last time I saw one of them, it was just behind my house. It was about a week ago and it looked more or less like this:

I wish it were only an idea for a story, or my own musing, but all of this happened!

You don’t believe me?

Let’s make a test. What would you do if you saw a tornado (coming your way) near where you live?

a) get out of your house and start running as fast as you can

b) start screaming so that to warn everyone else

c) hide in your cellar, close your eyes, clasp your ears and keep telling yourself “everything’s going to be ok”

d) get your camera and start recording or taking pictures of the tornado

Well you see this is what I usually did until last year. Nowadays what I do is simply choosing:

e) perform a reality check, realize you’re dreaming, keep focused on the tornado and either keep standing on its way and see what happens or, in case it changes direction, start chasing it.

This is what lucid dreaming makes you do: find a solution you wouldn’t have thought of in a normal dream and have great fun. I hope one day I will succeed in not waking up before I get swallowed by a tornado!

P.S. Oh, sorry you must have thought I was talking about real life tornadoes! Well, at least you are now aware that the ones I was talking about occur in my dreams (and know what it feels like to become lucid in one of them). Tornado dreams are my most frequent recurring dreams and they contain a dreamsign with a guaranteed 100% reliability. I remember a whole dozen of them but there were many many more - I simply forgot them. They are and will always remain my favorite and most vivid dreams.

Well, I actually never saw a tornado in Poland, but am not sure if I would like to see one. In comparison with the tornadoes from my nightly adventures, the ones I see on the videos look sooo fake!

Rem-dreamer

2007-05-22T11:29:00.000-07:00

Just received this nice device: REM-Dreamer. This special apparatus will (i hope) increase my "lucidity frequency". I could go on and describe to you how it works but probably some of you already know more about it than I do and it is much better explained here:

http://www.remdreamer.com/

I still didn't have opportunity to test it, but I have to admit that so far, judging by what I can see, I'm rather satisfied. The whole device is very light and comfortable and it simply is the weirdest gadget I currently posses. However, I have to admit that fathoming how it works is another matter. To tell the truth, I feel like I'm testing something very SPECIAL and when I say this I feel like one of those mad scientists from those B&W B-horror and sci-fi movies. I'm still amazed by the fact that this thing is currently produced only in Poland...
... but then all of this makes the experience even more enigmatic!
;)

BTW, the nature of this sly instrument reminds me of the device used by the father of one the main characters from one of my favorite writer's (Graham Joyce) novel "The Tooth Fairy". The device was Nightmare Interceptor. Hmm, this might be useful too.

I'll let everyone know if I see any change in my lucid dreams!

Anaglyphs from Gory Stolowe

2007-05-14T09:44:00.000-07:00

Hanging Rock 3D by ~yellowishhaze on deviant ART
Last month I had the pleasure of visiting the mountain range Sudety, situated in southwestern part of Poland. These mountains provide unique landscapes of huge mushroom-like boulders decorating the paths and jagged rocks jutting out from the peaks. What immediately comes to mind is Picnic at Hanging Rock - and it's a very good comparison, for both of the cases emanate with a metaphysical feeling of mystery and wonder.
Of course it was also a unique opportunity for me to produce some new anaglyphs. To tell the truth the result is more than I would have expected.

Check them out*:

http://yellowishhaze.deviantart.com/gallery/

*you will need the red/cyan glasses, which can be ordered online.

The Big Question: 100 Lucid Dreams???

2007-04-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

How about such a challenge:

On the night 12/13 July 2006 I had my first lucid dream. Today I had my 71^st lucid dream. Will I score 100 lucid dreams before a year passes since I started to experience them?

Tick-tock…

Dreams and the unreal

2007-04-18T06:26:00.000-07:00

My solely purpose in inducing lucid dreams is the possibility for interaction with my own imagination. It is a journey into the unknown recesses of a fantastic world with which I can actively interact and “communicate” from the waking state – a bit like reading a book and suddenly becoming one of the characters. I also treat LDs as a fantastic source of inspiration which can help me develop an interesting perspective on life by extension/cultivation of my childhood imagination. I find some relief in the fact that when we explore the possibilities of dreaming consciously we confirm that by growing up we do not necessarily need to say farewell to the mysteries that surround us.

I’ve always held much more interest for the ‘unreal’ than the ‘real’ and simply see no point in rationalizing and explaining the lucid dream phenomenon. I love to perceive imagination as something boundless, something that tackles the most unpredictable/unexplainable aspects of our reality. Trying to prove that dream-world is a parallel universe which we explore after having left our bodies… in which we can speak to our ancestors and so on is simply as cliché and as unoriginal as yet another flick made in Hollywood. I do believe that lucid dreaming is an absolutely incredible experience and goes far beyond the mundane but subjecting it to the long-time existing parapsychological theories is equal to limiting its creative potential. Of course, it is stimulating to read an article that teases your imagination and tries to explain lucid dreaming through this branch of science but when you see the whole bunch of authors who are trying to tell you in unison that lucid dreaming must be connected to UFO, telepathy, afterlife etc etc then this hackneyed interpretation becomes very disappointing. In my case the more random, incomprehensible and illimitable the experience is the more of my attention it will receive. Another thing that worries is that many books on lucid dreaming are self-help books, which would imply that the reader must have some kind of problems or at least must want to overcome his life dilemmas with the help of lucid dreaming in the first place. The more I read such books, the more I feel like someone who really needs some help. To tell the truth, I like reading all books about lucid dreaming, because they all increase the “lucidity frequency”, but I think that several aspects of the way lucid dreaming is presented, mentioned in this paragraph, might dissuade many people from trying to delve into this subject. Just an opinion.

Ok, enough with this critique. Let’s get back to what lucid dreaming means for me. :)

I’ve been keener to analyze the influence of dreams on our every-day life from the fiction-invading-our-world perspective. Training ourselves to have LDs we simply obliterate “the oblivion threshold” that usually makes us forget the dream content or that urges us to dismiss it as something totally unimportant. We open the gates of the unknown allowing the residue of randomness and unreality spill into the blinding ocean of ubiquitous boring rationality. Take as an example the process of recording your own dreams. Regardless of how hard you try to tell yourself that the result is a work of fiction, the dreams you’ve recorded have managed take root and will grow on you and your life anyway- no matter whether they have materialized as a scribble on a page or a recording on a tape or have been firmly memorized in your heard, no matter if you do not pay any attention to any of their symbology and meaning or do not look for any hidden messages in your dream state. Dreams simply have already influenced the course of your life and have become part of what you consider to be real! This is precisely what interests me the most: a pure parthenogenesis of thoughts and ideas - when fiction becomes flesh!

This is why I admire all artists who seek inspiration in dreams – those who manage to transfer the dream’s abstract messages/thoughts/ideas/feelings and turn them into something one can contemplate.

Lucid Dreaming and Horror Fiction

2007-04-08T04:54:00.000-07:00

Looks like I'm not the only oneironaut who reads Poe and Lovecraft:

In my case, I never become lucid when having an unpleasant dream. This is sort of weird because its during my nighmares when all the extremely illogical incidents take place. In a way they should at least make me think about their incomprehensible nature, but I guess I start panicking too quickly and succumb to the feeling of dispair to have any second thoughts about anything.
But I've experienced some unpleasant stuff when I was lucid and could effectively deal with them without waking up or getting too frightened.
The dark and mysterious places is where I always go in my LDs!

Stephen Berlin on Lucid Dreaming

2007-04-06T04:17:00.000-07:00

I listened to many people speak about lucid dreaming but not many of them impressed me with what they had to say about it. Many of them would eagerly try to impose on you their way of thinking and force their own fairy-tale-like interpretations on the ambiguous nature of lucid dreaming. Each of them would try to defend their own version of what lucid dreaming is all about according to their own preferences, beliefs and knowledge without taking into account the simple fact that those who listen may not care about their perspective. I think it is natural for all of us to see things the way we want to see but we also have to acknowledge the different points of view on each matter. The way we perceive dreams is as much subjective as the way each of us perceives reality and we always should bear this in mind when we evaluate each of the two.
Are there actually any truths about lucid dreaming? For me most of the smart people trying to convince me that LDs are some astral projections, parallel universes etc etc sound like self-deceiving liars who like to simplify things. I can't reject what they say, but, on the other hand how can they be so sure?
I admit that lucid dreaming is a profound, mysterious, personal (sometimes transcendental) experience, but let's stop talking about what is true and what isn't. The most important thing is that however LDs sound incredible THEY ARE REAL and we, as oneironauts, who have the ability to experience them should let everyone know about their existence without necessarily recurring to parapsychology and rationalization.
Here are a few videos on LDs from You Tube recorded by Stephen Berlin which I enjoyed listening to:

LDD.01 Dream Journal Jump Start

LDD.02 Love and Disgust (Transcendence)

LDD.03 Revelation Fire (Transcendence)

LDD.04 The Myth of Myths (Transcendence)

LDD.05 Beloved Lover (Transcendence)

The Silent Film Festiwal in Warsaw

2007-03-30T05:48:00.000-07:00

Święto Kina Niemego (The Silent Film Festival) for the fifth time in Warsaw! How could I miss such a festivity. It has already become a tradition in my life to go there every year. This time I saw only two of the films, Balancoires (Noel Renard) and La Glace a trois faces (Jean Epstein), both of them accompanied by electro-psychedelic music from Scratch Massive. The films represent French avant-garde movement of the 1920's and I found them absolutely brilliant. Both of them were filmed in a very innovative and experimental way. I was mesmerized by Balancoires, which I found quite Ligottian. A pair of lovers during a day spent at fair get hypnotized by a fakir. They discover that behind the facade of gliding merry-go-rounds, big wheels and grinning clowns waving to leisurely strolling people there is a dark hidden realm, which foretells destruction and death.

Experimenting with Anaglyph 3D Films

2007-03-26T10:09:00.001-07:00

I am slowly aiming at creating a 3D film of my own. The greatest constraint is of course the fact that one needs two cameras to record each scene simultaneously. With simple 3D photos one camera is enough because all you have to do is to take one shot then move a little bit to the right and take the second shot (providing that nothing has changed in the scene). I shot this video of my Nosferatu using only one camera, but as you can see a simple experiment on the depth is all I could achieve with such a poor (and singular!) equipment. What I did was to make a one-minute-long video of a figure standing still and then made another video starting from the same point and angle, but moving and titling the camera sideways. The result is a modest "actionless" short film of a dead (or undead !) Nosferatu - at the beginning it is 2D then becomes 3D and moves out of the screen and into it. Well, it's not phenomenal, you see... :)

Writer's block and the other constraints

2007-03-19T13:50:00.000-07:00

I've always felt that there is something deep inside me. This something would from time to time make me look at things from a strangely altered perspective, which is, as far as I know incomprehensible to others. For a long time I've been trying to find the means to express this weird feeling/perception, but whatever I did I later looked at it with contempt.
I am now planning to make a few experiments, which may to help me overcome this horrible condition. I will later examine the results and maybe one day if i find them successful I will present them here.
Consider this being the first in this series of experiments.
I wrote this 30 minutes after having taken a sleeping pill.

Grabinski

2007-03-19T13:44:00.000-07:00

Ouch. I forgot to report the appearance of Stefan Grabinski at MySpace, which coincided with author's 120 birthday:
http://www.myspace.com/stefangrabinski

I'll be adding some new stuff soon.

On Lucid Dreaming

2007-02-23T23:16:00.000-08:00

Here are a few threads from TLO, started by me on the subject on Lucid Dreaming:
Looking for Craig Lochawns (TLO Conspiracy Theory 2)
Lucidity Ligoddities
Horror writers having lucid dreams

In Search of Stefan Grabinski

2007-02-23T23:11:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to 'my' thread about Stefan Grabinski at TLO:
http://www.ligotti.net/viewtopic.php?p=6365#6365
(login needed to view the pics)

Winter in 3D

2007-02-02T02:46:00.000-08:00

Engulfed by Darkness by ~yellowishhaze on deviant ART

Having uploaded all of my anaglyphs from Lviv, I will now start uploading my winter photos. I think some of them are quite accomplished. At first I was afraid that the whiteness of the snow might somehow spoil the 3D effect, but I discovered that this was some groundless speculation of mine. I haven't seen many anaglyphs depicting winter before - maybe that's why I was a bit worried. Those of you still don't have red/cyan anaglyph glasses: please, get them as soon as possible. Anaglyph is a type photography which is completely neglected and which can be used to capture our world in a very unique way!

http://yellowishhaze.deviantart.com/gallery/

Lviv 3D

2007-01-21T10:47:00.000-08:00

Lviv 2006_1 3D anaglyph by ~yellowishhaze on deviant ART
Since I don't have time to write anything more interesting I decided to start uploading my anaglyphs from Lviv. This is gonna tgake a few days. You can see them over here:

http://yellowishhaze.deviantart.com/gallery/

Great Expectations

2007-01-12T06:33:00.000-08:00

Things I'm looking forward to in 2007 (list still incomplete) :

Books:
- The Conspiracy against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti
- Weirdtongue by D. F. Lewis
- The End of the Story: the Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith Volume 1
- Sides by Peter Straub
- Reassuring Tales by T. E. D. Klein
- The Complete Poetry and Translations of Clark Ashton Smith, Volume 1,2,3

Films (some of them already out but still unavailable in Poland):
- After... dir. David L. Cunningham (DVD release... maybe)
- Inland Empire dir. David Lynch
- The Prestige dir. Christopher Nolan
- Transsiberian dir. Brad Anderson
- The Abandoned dir. Nacho Cerda
- Sileni dir. Jan Svankmajer
- The Piano Tuner of Erthquakes dir. Quay Brothers

Events:
- April, Troum concert
- 18th July, my birthday :)
-

Experiencing the apocalyptical feeling of peaceful solitude

2007-01-05T09:07:00.000-08:00

After a cup of tea, I wandered up the heights behind. In these vast solitudes peace and joy came hand in hand to meet me. The extreme loneliness, especially when I was out of sight of the sea at last, and could hear no more the calling of the tide, and only the sough of the wind, was like balm. Ah, those eloquent silences: the deep pain-joy of the utter isolation: the shadowy glooms and darkness and mystery of night-fall among the mountains.

- William Sharp

Many times in my life, and in many different places, I have found myself walking at twilight down streets lined with gently stirring trees and old silent houses. On such lulling occasions things seem firmly situated, quietly settled and exceedingly present to the natural eye […]. But other realms are always capable of making their presence felt […].

- Thomas Ligotti

In the Shadow of Another World

Have you ever stopped for a while when walking through a lonely street deep in the middle of the night? Sometimes when there is no wind such a place can have its wonders. All the sounds are reduced to a deep remote moaning, barely audible or even hardly recognizable. Suddenly, you realize your eyes cannot detect even the slightest movement on the surrounding pavements or behind the black curtained window panes. There seems to be no one to help you in case anything happens, but since for a while the whole world has gone dead and no one seems to exist, it looks like no danger is lurking behind your back. Perhaps you would agree with me that, although such a stroll would be rather disquieting, there is some beauty in the way it affects you, but… then maybe, it’s only me who thinks of it this way.

The first time I have been transfixed by this uncanny, yet somehow liberating experience was some 5 years ago when I studied in Spain. After the long street parties (el botellon) on Friday nights I used to go back home on foot, because there was no other way to return in the early-morning hours. Seville, where I lived, is a very unique place. Being an Andalusian city it is characteristic for its hot windless summers and narrow winding streets roamed at weekend nights by open-minded whiskey-drinkers and hashish-smokers. These and many other of its special features may have a mesmerizing effect on such a nightly flaneur as me. ;)

The next time I happened to experience such an unforgettable sensation was this summer thanks to lucid dreaming. Whenever I realized I’m dreaming within a dream I would let myself get carried away by the dream’s random “plot”. Since the dreamer when dreaming lucidly thinks in a very logical way (in comparison with when in a normal dream) one is perfectly aware of the fact that in his dream he is momentarily a part of a world that is artificial – he is in a dream-maze fabricated by his own imagination where the only “residents” are mere dream characters. Everything becomes still and silent, the world is converted into a maze of numberless realities that are infinitely stretched in all possible dimensions. Sounds absurd? In short, what I wanted to tell you is that in your lucid dreams you know very well that you are perfectly alone, surrounded by something unimaginably huge and at the same time you know you are safe.

If you accept this temporal status quo, the sensation of the uncanny but peaceful solitude can become a transcendental experience.

Well, I also remember some other experiences in my life when I was unexpectedly struck by this deeply touching feeling, but let me tell you about it next time.

Meanwhile, leave a message and tell me if I’m mad. ;)

deaviantART account

2006-12-15T23:53:00.000-08:00

Yellowish Haze 3D by ~yellowishhaze on deviant ART

I'm not sure to what do I owe my recent urge of setting up newer and newer accounts everywhere on the internet. Perhaps, I'm so much affraid of non-existence that I try to leave any possible signs of my presence everywhere I can. :)

http://yellowishhaze.deviantart.com/gallery/

Thanks to deviantART I'm hoping to exhibit some of the anaglyphs I've been creating throughout the last 5 months. Please, see here if you would like to learn more about this way of "capturing time and space":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaglyph_image

Dreamers

2006-12-03T03:55:00.000-08:00

This summer, I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine about video games during which I expressed my disappointment with that fact that most of them, in spite of all the possibilities brought by the new millennium, have always seemed to be so cliché. I thought it would be quite cool to see a game which would take place in a totally surreal world ruled by alternative logics. Perhaps, describing an inner world of a deranged person or someone heavily intoxicated with drugs. An adventure game that would not be bound by any convention and would explore a totally new territory bringing new set of emotions and engaging the player in a totally different way. I remember that two years ago I quite enjoyed playing The Dark Eye, based on the writings of E. A. Poe. This is the kind of stuff I would like to see produced with modern graphics…

Today I stumbled across this game produced by Dreamgazers: Dreamers. Not only does it deal with one my favorite subjects - dreams – but the description sounds so tempting that I’m already paralyzed with a strong feeling of anticipation:

“Dreamers is a game about a young man in his 20's (Jorge) who suffers from a bizarre form of narcolepsy. He experiences sudden and uncontrollable attacks of deep sleep, sometimes accompanied by paralysis and hallucinations, which can occur at anytime and anywhere. More importantly, they cause him to dream...Lately, these attacks have started to occur more often, appear to last longer and somehow have become harder to wake up from - unless he is able to find a way out of the dreams they bring. Afraid for his life, Jorge begins a quest to discover the reasons why his illness is getting worse, which is a race against not only the mystery of his predicament, but also a race against time before his next, and unavoidable – and quite possibly his last - deep sleep attack.The game hopes to be an exhilarating adventure that has players race against time and face their own fears as they journey through a variety of levels spanning from dreams and nightmares, to vast beautiful mystical dream worlds and some real-life locations of beautiful Greece in which the game story is set.”
From here:
http://www.ps3land.com/article-777.php

...or:

“Developed by Dreamgazers, a new studio that began in 2004, the studio looks to bring you a game that separates itself from common game clichés and bring you something new, inspired by everyday life and people. Some of the dreams in which your character falls into are created from "Dreamers" fans.”
From here:
http://www.ps3land.com/preview-46.php

...while this page mentions some cthulhuoid entities, which will appear in the game:
Here

Well, this is gonna rock!!!

Check out their website:
http://www.dreamgazers.com/main.html

After... documentary

2006-11-26T12:54:00.000-08:00

What a cool documentary! If enyone would like to know what urban exploration really is then check this out:

AFTER... Documentary

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I myself am not sure whether such definition for UE as "going to places where you are not supposed to go" is suitable. I usually visit abandoned buildings for other reasons... more about it later.
BTW, this short is accompanied by a film After... which looks veeery tempting:
http://www.myspace.com/themovieafter
AFTER...TRAILER

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Horror Fiesta

2006-11-26T07:10:00.000-08:00

Here are some films (and teasers of films) which I've seen at the Horror Fiesta film festival in Warsaw two years ago. It was a special ocassion for me because I was planning to make a film for that festival myself. Unfortunately we've never finished "Pub Infinity", but I would like to thank everyone who was involved in the project!

From the festival:

From left to right: Uisdean Murray, unidentified, Joseph Alberti, unidentified, Frazer Lee, Dylan Keeling, David Gómez and me!

The opening sequence:

Two films by a rising star of horror Frazer Lee, who is currently working on his new feature film Urbane and with whom I had the pleasure to spend the three subsequent evenings of the festival in a nearby pub. First of them being the brilliant ON EDGE…

… and RED LINES, which is IMHO worse of the two but thrilling nonetheless.

What can I say about this wonderful adaptation of Poe’s The Raven? Definitely the best I’ve seen… and I’ve seen many.

Probably the most bizarre film at the festival. Andrei Iskanov’s surreal, thought-provoking orgy of violence NAILS is not for the squeamish and I’m afraid I fall into this category. However, this didn’t prevent me from enjoying the unique images and the intriguing plot. I would love to see something between this film and Tetsuo: the iron man.

Speaking of squeamish people, I congratulate those who have managed to sit through the next film without looking sideways from repulsion. I’m not sure what to think about a film which deals with death and violence… and goes beyond everything you’ve ever seen. Actually, I think it was an enlightening experience to see AFTERMATH directed by the talented Nacho Cerda… but only once.

And here is another film by the same director: THE AWAKENNING. Hopefully less graphic.

These are all of the videos I have managed to collect from Myspace. Will we see another Horror Fiesta? Heck, who knows – I’m looking forward to it.