The REBIRTH of THE AUTHOR “There was no one in him; behind his face (which even in the poor paintings of the period is unlike any other) and his words, which were copious, imaginative, and emotional, there was nothing but a little chill, a dream not dreamed by anyone.” Jorge Luis Borges, in his ultra-short […]
The Simulation Theory of Jean Baudrillard “Abstraction today is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. The territory no longer […]
When Dawan was born, Great Aunt Kung looked at her and said, ‘She is my successor. She has the gift.’ In her mother’s Cambodian culture, there must always be a ghost-keeper in the family. Blessed or cursed with second sight, the ghost keeper’s role was to perform rituals and exorcisms, appease spirits and tell fortunes […]
CATHY O’BRIEN AND THE GHOST OF DE SADE If a lethal text is one which destroys the mind of its reader, making it impossible to communicate the content of the text to others, The Trance-Formation of America by Cathy O’Brien and Mark Phillips comes as close as anything I’ve read. Such a controversial and widely-known […]