In this podcast The Outer Dark presents the “Varieties of the Weird” panel from BizarroCon 2016 in Portland, OR. The moderator was G. Arthur Brown, and the panelists were Kirsten Alene, Garrett Cook, Rios de la Luz, Kevin L. Donihe, and Michael Griffin. It was recorded live on Saturday November 19, 2016. The broadcast also kicks off with an all-new News from the Weird with Michael Griffin and ends with a visit from special guest Scottish Weird fiction writer/poet/journalist Paul StJohn Mackintosh.
Show Notes
(00:35:37) “Varieties of the Weird” moderator G. Arthur Brown (Governor of the Homeless, editor, New Bizarro Author Series) and panelists Kirsten Alene (Rules of Appropriate Conduct), Garrett Cook (Archelon Ranch, editor, New Bizarro Author Series), Rios de la Luz (Wonderland Book Award-winning The Pulse Between Dimensions and the Desert), Kevin L. Donihe (Space Walrus), and Michael Griffin (The Lure of Devouring Light) examine the Weird as experienced through different literary modes. The conversation begins with Weirdness as seen through a cultural lens including geographic components in magical realism and the line when it crosses into the Weird, Kirsten Alene’s encounter with different cultural approaches to the Weird via Cameron Pierce’s writing seminar in South Africa, the “normal” supernatural experienced by Rios de la Luz as a little girl, tabloid Weirdness, Garrett Cook’s alternate-normal childhood in a haunted house, writing about the Weird as a response to feelings of Otherness, and editorial perspectives. Discussion also includes the influence of folklore, psychedelia and the Weird, breaking through the orderliness of the universe, seeing Jesus, authors/books that represent idiosyncratic examples of Weird, magical realism versus fantasy, problematic and positive aspects of the literary term of “magical realism,” genre as expressionism, Grimm’s Fairy Tales as early Bizarro, and how everyone is a washing machine.
Bonus Interview: Paul StJohn Mackintosh
(01:23:24) Special guest Scottish Weird fiction writer/poet/critic Paul StJohn Mackintosh visits from Budapest to talk about his debut collection, Blowback (formerly Black Propaganda), including why he changed the title, the Weird as “a uniquely diverse recipe book” to confront social issues in the time of Trump, and the transgressive stories themselves, including his influences from JG Ballard to Georges Bataille and what he loves the most about the Weird as a literary mode.
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Additional Links
“The Tired Sounds, Awake” by Michael Wehunt
“Les Xipehuz” by J.-H. Rosny aîné
“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Animal Man comics by Grant Morrison
Frank’s World by George Mangels
The Log of the SS the Mrs. Ungentine by Stanley Crawford
“Phantasmagoria” by Lewis Carroll
TODA27 Rios de la Luz: Magical Surrealism, Martian Gemstones and Guardian Abuelas
How my father, JG Ballard, foresaw our strange present
Show Credits
Host/Executive Producer: Scott Nicolay
Co-Host, News From the Weird: Justin Steele
Associate Producer/Show Notes: Anya Martin
Logo Design: Nick “The Hat” Gucker
Music: Michael Griffin
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[…] TOD 006 Varieties of the Weird: A Panel from BizarroCon 2016 […]
[…] Varieties of Weird (This is Horror: The Outer Dark) from BizarroCon: “In this podcast The Outer Dark presents the “Varieties of the Weird” panel from BizarroCon 2016 in Portland, OR. The moderator was G. Arthur Brown, and the panelists were Kirsten Alene, Garrett Cook, Rios de la Luz, Kevin L. Donihe, and Michael Griffin. It was recorded live on Saturday November 19, 2016. The broadcast also kicks off with an all-new News from the Weird with Michael Griffin and ends with a visit from special guest Scottish Weird fiction writer/poet/journalist Paul StJohn Mackintosh.” […]