eldritchhobbit

khorazir: Working on a @fandomtrumpshate artwork – a watercolour of Smaug on his hoard – for @angiefsutton while listening to Dr. Amy H. Sturgis talk about Tolkien and ACD Sherlock and how their fandoms both encourage participation during #PPPMoot. View the full post.

Vernon Press - Call for Book Chapters: Edited volume on Star Trek and Star Wars: Call for Abstracts Edited volume on Star Trek and Star Wars Edited by Emily Strand, MA and Amy H. Sturgis, PhD Vernon Press The generations-spanning, multimedia franchises Star Trek and Star Wars will form the focus for this edited collection of scholarly essays. As venerable and evolving repositories of science fiction and fantasy storytelling, and as towering pillars of popular culture, both Star Trek and Star Wars inspire, transform, and even at times inflame their often overlapping fan bases. Together with the publisher, the editors seek proposals for essays exploring these franchises’ themes, narratives, characters, treatment of moral and philosophical dilemmas, religious or spiritual notions, and other aspects. (Abstracts for essays which compare or contrast the two franchises are also welcome.) Collected essays will offer insight — from a variety of disciplines and perspectives — on how these franchises contribute to popular culture and the tradition of speculative storytelling. Abstracts and subsequent essays should be academically rigorous yet accessible to the informed (even non-academic) reader. Abstracts of 300-500 words in length should be submitted, along with a brief biographical statement, by August 2, 2021. Authors of accepted papers will be notified by September 1, 2021, and paper drafts should be submitted by January 10, 2022. More information is here. View the full post.

The Handheld Book Club: Women's Weird: Tickets are free for this online event. I hope you’ll join us! View the full post.

I love — with the power of a thousand burning suns — the fact that Amy Richau ends her beautiful Star Wars book I LOVE YOU. I KNOW. with Baze and Chirrut. View the full post.

dramyhsturgis: Happy Valentine’s Day to all! Hail Bishop Valentine, whose day this is, All the air is thy Diocese, And all the chirping choristers And other birds are thy parishioners, Thou marryest ever year The lyric Lark, and the grave whispering Dove, The Sparrow that neglects his life for love, The household bird, with the red stomacher; Thou maks’t the black bird speed as soon, As doth the Goldfinch, or the Halycon; The husband cock looks out, and straight is sped, And meets his wife, which brings her feather-bed. This day more cheerfully than ever shine, This day, which might enflame thy self, old Valentine. Till now, thou warmd'st with mutiplying loves Two larks, two sparrows, or two doves, All that is nothing unto this, For thou this day couplest two Phoenixes; Thou mak'st a Taper see What the sun never saw, and what the Ark (Which was of fowls, and beasts, the cage and park,) Did not contain, one bed contains, through thee, Two Phoenixes, whose joined breasts Are unto one another mutual nests, Where motion kindles such fires, as shall give Young Phoenixes, and yet the old shall love. Whose love and courage never shall decline, But make the whole year through, thy day, O Valentine…. - from John Donne, “An Epithalamion, Or Marriage Song, On the Lady Elizabeth and Count Palatine Being Married on St. Valentine’s Day” View the full post.

Babu Frik and snow. Hey HEEEEY! ❄️ View the full post.

This music mix is inspired by The Magic Ring by Baron de la Motte-Fouqué (1813, translated into English in 1825). Roughly half of the songs are authentic to the era in which the story is set, and two were written by historical figures who actually appear in the novel. I made this mix while editing this edition of the novel for Valancourt Books. View the full post.

I’m using my new Owlcrate pin banner to display my Chirrut and Baze pins. View the full post.

Thanks to all of you for your friendship throughout this past year. Here’s to making the new year a much better one! Happy 2021! Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light; The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more, Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. - Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Ring Out, Wild Bells” View the full post.

Wishing everyone a safe holiday season full of warmth and love! View the full post.

The Christmas Ghost Story Is Much Older Than You Think It Is View the full post.

rewfoe: Check out my kitbashed K2SO! This one was a lot of fun to make! I started with the Star Wars Black Series K2SO toy, painted it with a few layers to make him look weathered, then wrapped his hands in tape, painted those too, added reflective stickers to his eyes, added the belt, leather cloak, and a hat made of sculpey and there you have it! Reblog it! Share with pals! Love, Rewfoe View the full post.

I’m excited to say that in Summer 2021, I will boldly go where no Signum University prof has gone before! I will be offering the 12-week online class “Exploring Star Trek” for M.A. students and non-degree-seeking auditors alike. I’m delighted at this opportunity! I’m pleased to announce that we will have a very special guest at one meeting of the “Exploring Star Trek” Signum University class in Summer 2021: New York Times bestselling author Una McCormack! What a delight this will be! The catalog page for the “Exploring Star Trek” class is now available. See the link below! Exploring Star Trek View the full post.

In my latest “Looking Back on Genre History” segment on the new episode of the StarShipSofa podcast, I talk about Ray Bradbury’s concept of science fiction as a “reflecting shield” by discussing The House of Night, Watchmen, and the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. You can listen here. View the full post.

dramyhsturgis: Happy birthday to Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (11 November, 1922 – 11 April, 2007)! View the full post.

Just a reminder that these great dystopian works were meant to be warnings, not suggestions. View the full post.

The day is here, my friends! We made it! Happy Halloween, Happy Samhain, Happy soon-to-be Día de los Muertos, and Happy…. Anything that Makes You Happy! Thank you for joining me in my month-long holiday celebration. I truly hope you’ve enjoyed it. I have! (Source is “A Halloween Party! 1907″ by Yesterdays-Paper.) Everyone, please stop by here, grab a virtual latte or cider or hot cocoa, a candied apple or some roasted pumpkin seeds, or even a goblet of blood and a plate of brains, and say hello! Since many of us are at home due to the pandemic this Halloween, here is a way for us to enjoy some truly spooky and fascinating destinations safely (from Cult of Weird): “10 Strange Places You Can Explore Virtually.” Check this out! (Source is “Hope Owl’s Well On Halloween" by Yesterdays-Paper.) Let’s close with an excerpt from “Hallowe’en” by John Kendricks Bangs (1919). You can read the complete poem here. (Source is “Halloween Greeting” by Yesterdays-Paper.) View the full post.

(Photos above by Yours Truly. Plaster castings by Pumpkintown Primitives. The above are “1730s Lamson Death Head Plaster Casting” on top and “Plaster Casting Poole Stone 1754″ on bottom.) Look no more for some perfect streaming music for this Halloween season! Celebrating its 22nd year, “Out ov the Coffin” is hosted by the fabulous DJ Ichabod. What was born as a means of spreading dark and esoteric music to the Nashville area via WRVU, broadcasting from my graduate alma mater, Vanderbilt University (Go ‘Dores!), is now an spine-tingling and atmospheric podcast. Check it out for some perfect seasonal music! You won’t be sorry. Here is the official description of the show: “’Out ov the Coffin’ is a specialty dark-music radio program, hosted by DJ Ichabod, designed to celebrate dark and interesting styles of music, from the goth perspective. Brand new entries are featured each episode, alongside older favorites and cult classics. Oft-featured sub-genres include: Goth, Gothic rock, deathrock, post-punk, darkwave, ebm, industrial, damnbient / dark ambient, dark metal, neoclassical, ethereal works, film scores, and theatrical experimentation.” The time has come: The 2020 “Out ov the Coffin” Halloween Special is now available! Here is the official description of the episode: Having spent the bulk of 2020 locked in my crypt, hiding from the Red Death, I’ve set stockpiled a great deal of material for this year’s Halloween episode – a GREAT, great deal. So, buckle up, boils and ghouls. We may not be able to party like we want to, but in an attempt to make up for that, we’re driving this hearse into FOUR blood-soaked hours of Halloween Hymns this year! That’s right, it’s (quite possibly) the biggest coffin ever to be crammed through the internet and into your ears: It’s The 2020 ‘Out ov the Coffin’ HALLOWEEN SPECIAL!!!! Featuring: NEW, current, classic, and obscure FULL-SIZE songs from the most morbid realms of goth, post-punk, deathrock, horror punk, darkwave, damnbient, metal, and MORE, riddled with hundreds of fun-sized bites of cvlt movie dialogue, sound effects, trailers, TV spots, novelties, and, of corpse, horror film and television soundtracks, all assembled in ritual formation, and (g)hosted by yours truly, DJ Ichabod. Listen to or download the special here! Pssst! Scroll through earlier shows to find past Halloween specials. Last year’s was brilliant! If you really want to party on (or like it’s) Halloween, you can play several Halloween specials back to back! DJ Ichabod’s regular shows also make for perfectly splendid spooky listening. View the full post.

This year I took part in the Ladies of Horror Fiction anniversary mini-readathon, and one of the titles I read may be the best book I’ve read in… well, ages and ages: the Shirley Jackson Award-winning novella Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand (2015). A key word there is novella; if you’re looking for a wonderfully chilling read for the season that won’t take days to digest, there’s still time to devour this atmospheric, Gothic, folk-horror beauty. (My 2021 plans now include reading lots and lots of books by Elizabeth Hand!) Here is the official description: “When the young members of a British acid-folk band are compelled by their manager to record their unique music, they hole up at Wylding Hall, an ancient country house with dark secrets. There they create the album that will make their reputation, but at a terrifying cost: Julian Blake, the group’s lead singer, disappears within the mansion and is never seen or heard from again. Now, years later, the surviving musicians, along with their friends and lovers—including a psychic, a photographer, and the band’s manager—meet with a young documentary filmmaker to tell their own versions of what happened that summer. But whose story is true? And what really happened to Julian Blake? ” And here is a brief excerpt, to give you a sense of the atmosphere. Lesley I have no clue what went on between Julian and Nancy, but something did. I know that. He was different after that weekend, not just different towards me but … changed, somehow. Back then you’d meet people who got involved with cults. Jesus freaks or swami so-and-so. Julian never joined a cult that I knew of, but he had that same glittery look in the eye, like he’d seen something amazing but was going to keep it secret because, you know, the rest of us weren’t worthy. Nancy wasn’t exactly like that, but she was a self-professed witch. And she does have a gift. She sees things others can’t. I don’t think she’s making it up, either. She may be slightly deluded, but she’s not lying. That weekend she stayed with us, I think she inadvertently encouraged Julian in whatever fixation he’d developed. Wylding Hall didn’t help, either. The whole time we were there, it was like being in a dream. Everything conspired to keep us from waking up. The weather and drugs and alcohol, the occult talk and crazy books and sexual tensions. And that house — you could just get lost in it. Whenever I explored the old Tudor wing by myself, I’d find locked doors that wouldn’t open; then the next time, they would. No one had a key. One of the rooms had been a ballroom — shredded tapestries on the walls, floor covered with dust. Overlooking it was a minstrel gallery with an amazing oak screen, carved with all kinds of strange things. Birds with human faces. People with wings like dragonflies or wasps. I used to stare up at the minstrel gallery, but no matter how hard I looked, I could never find the way in. No stairs, no ladder. There must’ve been a secret passage somewhere, but I never found it. - from Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand (2015) I discuss this novella in my recent Halloween-themed “Looking Back on Genre History” segment on the StarShipSofa podcast, October 2020′s Episode 645, which you can listen to here. View the full post.

(Art is “ Monstrosity #16 / 2019” by boris-markevich.) Here are some folk horror viewing recommendations for your day. From Kieran Fisher for Film School Rejects: “10 Great Folk Horror Movies to Watch By Yourself in a Candle-Lit Woodland Cabin.” From William Wright for Alternative Press: “Here Are the Folk Horror Movies Every New Initiate Needs to Watch.” From Adam Scovell for the British Film Institute: “10 Great Lesser-Known Folk Horror Films.” From Shane Scott-Travis for Taste of Cinema: “The 10 Best Folk Horror Movies of All Time.” Today’s reading recommendation list is from Jo Furniss for Crime Reads: “10 Novels Based on Folk Horror.” This quote from the article above seems fitting for the spooky season: The resurgence of the genre shows that folk horror is apt for our times. Identities are fluid. No bad deed goes unpunished. The civilized world is only a heartbeat away from primal and uncanny threats. The genre is also nostalgic for a rural England that is as far from Downtown Abbey as you can get in a four-horse carriage. This England is afeared of change. In times of crisis, we return to the old ways, which offer a reassuring connection to a simple past. But at the cost of old evils. There is a sense that all progress is a chimera, that our modern sophistication is itself a form of naivety. Step into the forest (or the marshes or the moors) and I am no different to my ancestors. Alone. Vulnerable. Insignificant in the presence of something older, deeper, unknowable but unquestionably there. I may glimpse a movement in the trees and wonder if it’s real. Then I realize that of course it’s real; it’s me that is ephemeral. Only I am in doubt. It is deeply unsettling for modern people to encounter forces out of our control. We believe we control nature itself; fertility, aging, health. We have a choice over where and how we live. Via technology, we have all human knowledge at our fingertips, so we rarely need to wonder. And yet our biggest questions remain stubbornly unanswered. Why do bad things happen? How do I know who to trust? What makes someone evil? (Art is “Monstrosity #14_1 / 2017” by boris-markevich.) View the full post.

- from We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (1962) We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a novel that’s been following and haunting me ever since I first read it. It is included among these other great Halloween-relevant reading suggestions from James Pate at Sublime Horror: “Mid-century horror, a reading list.” And here are a few more atmospheric quotes for the day. There’s this: “I can’t help it when people are frightened,“ says Merricat. "I always want to frighten them more.” And this: “I was pretending that I did not speak their language; on the moon we spoke a soft, liquid tongue, and sang in the starlight, looking down on the dead dried world.” And this: I thought that we had somehow not found our way back correctly through the night, that we had somehow lost ourselves and come back through the wrong gap in time, or the wrong door, or the wrong fairy tale. - from We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (1962) View the full post.

I am so delighted and grateful that @OGOMProject put a vintage 1978 book on my radar this year: The Dracula Cookbook: Authentic Recipes from the Homeland of Count Dracula by Marina Polvay. I was able to find a copy in good shape, and it’s a treasure. If you’d like some festive and spooky mood reading, here is the introduction to the section on “Wines & Special Drinks”: And here are a couple of recipes, in case you like the warm, red stuff (but not in a vampiric kind of way): The Count and the Bride seem to enjoy it. View the full post.

(Photo source is “Witch Girl 2″ by HauntingVisionsStock.) Horror during a horrible pandemic? These links suggest that the one may help us cope with the other. I know my heart has been broken to pieces during this tragic time, and I’ve instinctively been seeking out horror to read. Ellie Marney at CrimeReads explains “Why We Read Scary Stories During Covid.” From Kayleigh Dray for Stylist: “Coronavirus: the psychological benefit of watching a traumatic horror film.” From Michael Marshall for New Scientist: “Horror Fans Are Better at Coping with the Coronavirus Pandemic.” From Corinne Sullivan for PopSugar “12 Sci-Fi Books About Pandemics That You Won’t Be Able to Put Down.” Earlier this year, I devoted one of my “Looking Back on Genre History” segments on the StarShipSofa podcast (Episode 613) to “Four Science Fiction Novels to Help Us Think about the Pandemic,” and you can listen to that here. Here’s a favorite quote from a favorite novel, one I reference in the podcast segment above: “I wanted to come, and if I hadn’t, they would have been all alone, and nobody would have ever known how frightened and brave and irreplaceable they were.” ― Connie Willis, Doomsday Book (1992) The entirety of Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague (1912) is available online at Project Gutenberg. Here is an excerpt: When he could eat no more, the old man sighed, wiped his hands on his naked legs, and gazed out over the sea. With the content of a full stomach, he waxed reminiscent. “To think of it! I’ve seen this beach alive with men, women, and children on a pleasant Sunday. And there weren’t any bears to eat them up, either. And right up there on the cliff was a big restaurant where you could get anything you wanted to eat. Four million people lived in San Francisco then. And now, in the whole city and county there aren’t forty all told. And out there on the sea were ships and ships always to be seen, going in for the Golden Gate or coming out. And airships in the air—dirigibles and flying machines. They could travel two hundred miles an hour. The mail contracts with the New York and San Francisco Limited demanded that for the minimum. There was a chap, a Frenchman, I forget his name, who succeeded in making three hundred; but the thing was risky, too risky for conservative persons. But he was on the right clew, and he would have managed it if it hadn’t been for the Great Plague. When I was a boy, there were men alive who remembered the coming of the first aeroplanes, and now I have lived to see the last of them, and that sixty years ago.” The old man babbled on, unheeded by the boys, who were long accustomed to his garrulousness, and whose vocabularies, besides, lacked the greater portion of the words he used. It was noticeable that in these rambling soliloquies his English seemed to recrudesce into better construction and phraseology. But when he talked directly with the boys it lapsed, largely, into their own uncouth and simpler forms. “But there weren’t many crabs in those days,” the old man wandered on. “They were fished out, and they were great delicacies. The open season was only a month long, too. And now crabs are accessible the whole year around. Think of it—catching all the crabs you want, any time you want, in the surf of the Cliff House beach!” A sudden commotion among the goats brought the boys to their feet. The dogs about the fire rushed to join their snarling fellow who guarded the goats, while the goats themselves stampeded in the direction of their human protectors. A half dozen forms, lean and gray, glided about on the sand hillocks and faced the bristling dogs. Edwin arched an arrow that fell short. But Hare-Lip, with a sling such as David carried into battle against Goliath, hurled a stone through the air that whistled from the speed of its flight. It fell squarely among the wolves and caused them to slink away toward the dark depths of the eucalyptus forest. The boys laughed and lay down again in the sand, while Granser sighed ponderously. He had eaten too much, and, with hands clasped on his paunch, the fingers interlaced, he resumed his maunderings. “The fleeting systems lapse like foam,” he mumbled what was evidently a quotation. “That’s it—foam, and fleeting. All man’s toil upon the planet was just so much foam. He domesticated the serviceable animals, destroyed the hostile ones, and cleared the land of its wild vegetation. And then he passed, and the flood of primordial life rolled back again, sweeping his handiwork away—the weeds and the forest inundated his fields, the beasts of prey swept over his flocks, and now there are wolves on the Cliff House beach.” He was appalled by the thought. “Where four million people disported themselves, the wild wolves roam today, and the savage progeny of our loins, with prehistoric weapons, defend themselves against the fanged despoilers. Think of it! And all because of the Scarlet Death—” - Jack London, The Scarlet Plague (1912) View the full post.

In the past I’ve suggested some terrific podcasts that are perfect for this spooky season, and I stand by those recommendations. Read my past list here! In addition, just a few days ago Emily Stein contributed this list to CrimeReads: “8 Great Horror Podcasts and Their Spookiest Episodes!” Happy listening! Now here are several podcasts that are either new or new to me in 2020, and I highly recommend them! 1. Monster, She Wrote: Scholars Lisa Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson are the authors of a book I thoroughly enjoyed, Monster, She Wrote, and now they are co-hosts of this wonderfully insightful and informative podcast about women in the horror genre. Don’t miss it! 2. The Goth Librarian: Goths and librarians are two of my favorite kinds of people, and here’s a host who’s both. What’s not to love? “The Goth Librarian Podcast is a weekly podcast covering true crime, oddities, urban legends, haunted places, and other dark peculiarities.” Episode 37 on the “Spanish Flu” is a timely and topical place to start. 3. Bone & Sickle: This podcast “is a celebration of the intersection of horror, folklore, and history. Every episode offers a bounty of frightful tales, fantastic legends, and macabre historical anecdotes harvested by eccentric artist, collector, and rogue folklorist Al Ridenour, author of The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas. Co-host to the show is Sarah Chavez of The Cabinet of Curiosities and Death in the Afternoon. With acerbic wit and a scholarly penchant for the grotesque, Ridenour delves into a wide but carefully curated range of topics that have included: Faust’s deal with the Devil, classical necromancy, murder ballads, ghosts ships, the Victorian obsession with Pan (and mummies), Basque witchcraft, the evolution of gothic vampire literature, and tales of saints carrying their heads after decapitation…” Thanks to Aaron for this excellent recommendation! 4. The Strange and Unusual Podcast: I’ve just started listening to this one, and I’m hooked: “The unknown, it lies at the root of all fear, and has inspired legends, folklore, superstition, mythology, and even murder throughout history. Still today we feel the shadowy presence of our ancestors’ struggles to explain the mysterious in our lives, as we continue to keep fighting to keep our monsters in the dark. Welcome to The Strange and Unusual Podcast, a podcast with a focus on dark history.” 5. The Tomb with a View: This is another recent discovery for me. The official description goes like this: “A podcast about the history, preservation, and culture of American cemeteries hosted by Liz Clappin.” If you’re looking for a good starting place, I recommend the recent, insightful, and timely Episode 54: “Constantly Looking Back: The Gallows Hill Project, the Salem Witch Trials Memorial, and Giving A Voice to Innocent Victims”: “Looking at how memorials can give a voice to innocent victims and how good historical research can help us to look back and understand what was previously unknown important facts about the past. The Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692 are still being learned about and interpreted today as we continue to come to terms with our difficult past.” And here are some of my favorite Halloween-appropriate podcasts that were new in 2019 and remain very much worth exploring! 1. Odd Things I’ve Seen: For years, I have recommended J.W. Ocker’s brilliant Odd Things I’ve Seen website, and now he has a podcast. As he explains, “I visit odd things, I tell their stories, and I tell you how to find them. It’s Odd Things I’ve Seen, but out loud.” Gothic, macabre, and spooky! 2. Ladies of Horror Fiction Podcast: “Ladies of Horror Fiction was created to bring about a multi-dimensional way to support women who either write in the horror genre or review in it.” Check out Episode 2 for “The History of Halloween, Vanishing Hitchhikers and Weeping Widows”! 3. The Full Price Podcast: “The Full Price is a podcast that takes a cultural journey, walking in the shoes of the legend of stage, screen and sound, Vincent Price.” Price is perfect for Halloween, and this podcast is perfect for Price fans! *** Parting thought for the day: “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” — L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables (1908) View the full post.

This year I took part in the Ladies of Horror Fiction anniversary mini-readathon, and one of the titles I read is going straight into my next class syllabus: Darkly: Black History and America’s Gothic Soul by Leila Taylor (2019). What a powerful, insightful, and beautifully written work this is! Highly recommended. Here is the official description: “Leila Taylor takes us into the dark heart of the American gothic, analysing the ways it relates to race in America in the twenty-first century. Haunted houses, bitter revenants and muffled heartbeats under floorboards — the American gothic is a macabre tale based on a true story. Part memoir and part cultural critique, Darkly: Blackness and America’s Gothic Soul explores American culture’s inevitable gothicity in the traces left from chattel slavery. The persistence of white supremacy and the ubiquity of Black death feeds a national culture of terror and a perpetual undercurrent of mourning. If the gothic narrative is metabolized fear, if the goth aesthetic is romanticized melancholy, what does that look and sound like in Black America?” And here is a sample of Taylor’s haunting prose: The sublimity of the modern ruin lies in its relative newness, the purpose and life of the former building are familiar and recognizable, creating the dichotomy between the attraction and repulsion of our world gone to dust. We see ourselves in a state of decay. We are watching our own death, and in the photographs, ruin-porn websites, documentaries, and horror movies, we become mourners at our own funeral. There is a dark pleasure in this glimpse of the end of civilization, a taste of life after the apocalypse. Eugene Thacker calls this nebulous zone the “world-without-us.” It is a glimpse at what our world would be like without people, a place in which human beings are inconsequential. It’s not that nature doesn’t care about us, or is purposely exhibiting its domination. The world doesn’t even know we’re here. In ruined spaces, nature, the original builder, takes over, defying gravity and eschewing structural integrity, reminding us of what we once were and how small we really are. I have an uneasy relationship with ruin porn. There is a guilty pleasure in these images (hence the “porn” connotation), but having grown up in Detroit, it’s uncomfortable seeing my hometown perceived as sociological experiment, an art project, or a bargain-basement real-estate deal. There is a dissonance between my fascination with these images and the circumstances of their making. - from Darkly: Black History and America’s Gothic Soul by Leila Taylor (2019) View the full post.