Ligotti recommendations

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droid

Well-known member
The thing about Patches the clown was the 'pointy' makeup, which is avoided like the plague by real clowns, specifically because it's so creepy. Gacy wore it even when he was doing fetes and various other community things for kids.

gacy350.jpg


you said:
Going back to my comment about the creepy horror of feeling a lack of knowledge... There is a Ligotti story that describes in detail a clown that never quite turns around to fully face the narrator. I thought that was one of his best.
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Ligotti has had a few beckett moments IIRC.

 
you

you

Well-known member
There must be, socio-neurologically, something disconcerting about obscured faces, something off-putting and as Tea said 'weird' about not being granted the neurological mirroring from the inter-facial affects of key emotions (like fear, happiness and disgust). But just because it feels odd doesn't mean it is. Opiates feel good. But that doesn't mean they are, unquestionably, good.

But expanding on this... isn't there a continuum of horror tropes that all pivot around obscured faces? Clowns are one. Masks (hockey, or Lecter style) are another. Similarly, female 'baddies' tend to obscure their expressions with long hair (thinking of The Ring).

Droid. I'd never noticed that. Pointy make-up does seem more sinister. I wonder why this is. Is there a cultured reason for this or do points and jagged edges just notch up the visual-facial dissonance?
 
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luka

luka

Well-known member
I'm one of Britain's hardest men. Dyer would have profiled me but he shit himself when he saw me.
 
you

you

Well-known member
Mr. Tea said:
Ooh look - an article on Ligotti and 'corporate horror'! Just stumbled across it, not read it yet but may try to absorb what I can via my desktop workstation during my allotted nutrient ingestion break.

https://thedarkartsjournal.wordpres...negation-in-thomas-ligottis-corporate-horror/
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Has some nice moments ('Ligotti remains somewhat obscured' lol so apt) and some cringey bits. The Land and Brassier connections are a bit over reaching imo. Not sure they are the best supports for his argument... more 'unpacking' of the Berardi bits would be nice. I like those, even though I disagree with their sentiment.
 
you

you

Well-known member
Charles Beaumont's 'The Vanishing American' is a nice corporate horror story.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
you said:
Has some nice moments ('Ligotti remains somewhat obscured' lol so apt) and some cringey bits. The Land and Brassier connections are a bit over reaching imo. Not sure they are the best supports for his argument... more 'unpacking' of the Berardi bits would be nice. I like those, even though I disagree with their sentiment.
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For decades, Ligotti’s fiction has avoided any sustained literary and critical attention for decades...
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...within an uncanny and imaginative and decaying literary world-view...
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...the likes of Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi, Bülent Diken, Ray Brassier and Eugene Thacker, for example...
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Yeesh, I actually feel kind of :eek: for the guy.

Edit: and that's not even a complete list of awful clangers in the first two paragraphs!
 
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you

you

Well-known member
There is one paragraph where 'this paper' is mentioned 4 times.

I think I'd like to see a Ligotteque tribute in this academic style.

The Last Feast of Harlequin is close: 'I had for some years been engaged in various anthropological projects with the primary ambition of articulating the significance of the clown figure in diverse cultural contexts.' LOL.

But perhaps something really overboard. All passive sentences, close to curatorial speech. Throwing around the words like 'speculative' etc...

Perhaps this will be my next story.
 
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