Images of Paganism: Grotesque Sensationalism, Premonitions of Death, Surreal License, and mal du pays for the Irrational

Agostino Veneziano (fl. 1509–1536), The Witches’ Rout (The Carcass). Engraving, c. 1520.

Happy Halloween

It is an unfortunate fact that the bulk of humanity is too limited in its mental vision to weigh with patience and intelligence those isolated phenomena, seen and felt only by a psychologically sensitive few, which lie outside its common experience. Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal; that all things appear as they do only by virtue of the delicate individual physical and mental media through which we are made conscious of them; but the prosaic materialism of the majority condemns as madness the flashes of super-sight which penetrate the common veil of obvious empiricism.

                             — H. P. Lovecraft, The Tomb

More Announcements: Emanations: 2 + 2 = 5

Vitasta Raina and Michael G. Chivers offer exuberant descriptions of Emanations: 2 + 2 = 5.  Click their names and view their impressions.

Trafika Europe 5: Slovenian Interlude

Trafika Europe 5: Slovenian Interlude is now available as a free download.  The latest edition of the quarterly, edited by Andrew Singer, features new Slovenian literature from Maja Haderlap, Aleš Steger, Goran Vojnović, Tone Skrjanec, and Barbara Pogačnik – plus writing from Gøhril Gabrielsen, Tomas Tranströmer, Aylin Graves and Gábor Schein.

Please click HERE to view the new issue.  Click HERE to view the Trafika Europe website.

An Epistle to the Miltonists

This afternoon I posted the following message to Milton-L, a "listserve" hosted by the University of Richmond.

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of International Authors, I am happy to announce that the anthology Emanations: 2 + 2 = 5 has been published.  Of interest to Miltonists is twelve pages from a new scholarly translation of Torquato Tasso's Creation of the World (Il mondo creato). Entitled "The Poem of the Phoenix", this selection is from Day Five of Tasso's long poem.  The translation is rendered in modern language, and great pains have been taken to include every "jot and tittle" of Tasso's original.  The translation and editorial committee--consisting of Salwa Khoddam, Dario Rivorossa, and myself--have taken extraordinary care in representing both Tasso's text and texture.  We think it will be of especial interest to people in this group who wish to gain an immediate sense of how Tasso's technique, philosophy, and sensibility could have influenced Milton.  It is a joy to read.

Please view the new anthology on Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Emanations-2-5-Carter-Kaplan/dp/1514336693/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1444654663&sr=1-1

In Spring of 2016 the International Authors translation of Creation of the World, complete with illustrations, will be published in its entirety. 

Respectfully submitted,

Carter Kaplan

International Authors Website Update

The IA website has been updated to reflect the publication of Emanations: 2 + 2 = 5.  Please click HERE.
 

Emantions 2 + 2 = 5 is now available

Please click HERE to visit the printer's sales link (slightly faster delivery).

Amazon sales page, please click  HERE.

Midwestern Traveler: wherever you go, there you are

This week watch for an announcement regarding the  publication of Emanations: 2 + 2 = 5.  In the meantime, Philip Murray-Lawson has posted an interview with American travel writer Christina Ammon.  As I also have Midwestern origins, I find that her description of breaking from the Midwest strikes a sympathetic chord.  Perhaps there is something about leaving the Midwest that is itself Midwestern, unique among the experiences of all those the world over who choose to leave their homes.  Perhaps the effect of the landscape is such that you can never really escape. Wherever you go, you take it with you. The flatness, the distant clouds, the sense that there is no where else to go--it stays with you.  Indeed, leaving the Midwest is psychologically impossible. Compare a figure in a Salvador Dali painting walking off that boundless plane.  Beyond the horizon there is nothing but another empty horizon, filled by different poetic metaphors, perhaps, but that broad horizon remains the defining characteristic of the place, and of the experience.  Our first fictitious Midwestern sister, Dorothy, is only half right when she says, "There is no place like home."  Oz is really just a figment of localized atoms swirling through an immense vacuum, and the truth of the matter is a Midwesterner is home everywhere.

Please click HERE to read the interview.

Dali, The Apothecary of Ampurden in Search of Absolutely Nothing, 1936

Emanations 5: the witching hour approacheth

That look not like th' inhabitants o' th' Earth
And yet are on 't?—Live you? Or are you aught
That man may question?

        - Macbeth, Act I

A Happy Ending

Miracles Can Happen!
When kindhearted people unselfishly give of their time and resources to help an animal in distress...Miracles Happen!This is a story of a young fox that was left for dead on the side of the road. It's a story of hope and compassion and the amazing will of an animal to survive.It took a village to save her life, and she forever touched the hearts of...Jennifer who found her; fellow rehabber Diane in Stayner; volunteer drivers Elizabeth and Anne; Dr. Sherri Cox; Pawz 'N Clawz and Kelsey who donated foods for her; our supporters who help us make ends meet; and all our dedicated volunteers at WWS. So pat yourself on the back when you lend a helping hand and become an integral part of the bigger picture, because animals like Tammy wouldn't be here today if it weren't for you :-)<3 If you appreciate the work we do, please show your support here... https://www.gofundme.com/Tammy-ToddMiracle <3 This video is also available to share on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMykQDJ90kI
Posted by Woodlands Wildlife Sanctuary on Friday, August 28, 2015

Project Apollo Photo Archive

Please click HERE to visit the Apollo image gallery on flickr.

The Square and Stationary Earth

Click for larger view

Orlando Ferguson's map of the "Square and Stationary Earth" was meant to refute those arguing the Earth was an orb. Read about it HERE.

Meanwhile, Emanations: 2 + 2 = 5, which has nothing to do with flat earth theories, is coming out very soon.  Stay tuned.

Once Upon a Time...

Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Harvard University Commencment Address, June 8, 1978

If humanism were right in declaring that man is born only to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot be unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it.

Read the full text HERE.

Advisory

Truth burns but lies consume.

Optative

Gravity is a Cinematic Construction

Kubrick, engineering the illusion of artificial gravity, etc.

Editing continues, nearly there...

The good work moves ahead.  If you need a Highbrow refresher, I suggest you look HERE.

The City in Imagination

Vitasta Raina's novella Writer's Block (International Authors, 2011) has received some attention on RamblingInTheCity, a website that explores urban planning issues in India.  Please click HERE.

Poetry, Medecine and Mensa in Kosovo: Philip Murray-Lawson interviews Dr. Aziz Mustafa

Philip Murray-Lawson has published an interview with Aziz Mustafa of Kosovo. Dr. Mustafa is a physician and poet whose work has appeared in Emanations. In the interview, he describes his origins, the challenges of being an intellectual in modern Kosovo-Albania, and gives an account of the Balkan poetic tradition. He also explains the influence of the medical profession on his own poetry.

Please click HERE.