Ascension through Sterility

Deteriorating Substance,
by Brendan McCarthy

"To have committed every crime, but that of being a father." 

Emil Cioran, The Trouble with Being Born 

As I walked down the street with a spring in my step, 

hands deep in pockets full of sticky, dead seeds, 

a glorious, sunny lightness unfurled behind my smiling eyes. 

Bloated rats scurried through the downtown landfill, 

trapped in the 9 to 5 maze. 

I wiped the crusted time from my eyes 

with the secret, white manna of my fingers,

and looked up at the bright blue 

above the gray mounds of concrete, steel, and glass. 

The sudden buoyancy reminded me of skipping school, 

but it was much better,

as if I had whited out my name from the class roster altogether,

saving myself from the teachers’ wooden mouths, 

those holes filled with pubic hair soaked in flat coffee,

and drizzled with chalk dust. 

It was as if I only had to go to school during recess 

To smoke with my buddies and plan the weekend debauchery. 

As if I had snaked the wormy tail of a sperm 

though the eyes of my slingshot,

knotted the ends tightly, 

and stoned the school’s windows, 

smashed the teachers’ thick myopia glasses, 

and broke the chalk of their teeth. 

The anonymous, ghostly rebellion lifted me, 

my sneakers stopped touching the pavement,

and I found myself pedaling through the air 

toward the infinite sky

and the dark waters beyond. 

A beatific smile split my lips, 

Why not go all the way? 

Isn’t the one whose steps leave no trace, free to go anywhere? 

I remembered when I was but a wriggling proof of my dad’s fall from grace, 

digging in the shell of the egg, 

only this time I puked inside,

A violent, black jet 

that smashed the egg, and filled the womb, 

oozing from the lips,

and sealing them into a pious silence.

Splatterpunk, not Cancelpunk

As a black metal fan, I had to learn to distinguish between art and artist pretty quickly. As many of you may know from the best-selling book Lords of Chaos, turned into a movie several years ago, the beginnings of black metal in the early ‘90s were marred in criminality. Varg Vikernes a.k.a. “Count Grishnack”, one of the pioneers of the genre, the creative force behind Burzum, did jail time for murder and burning old Christian churches. Bard “Faust” Eithun of Mayhem stabbed a gay guy to death. Jon Nodtveidt of Dissection was also convicted of a homophobic hate crime. Given their anti-modernist and, at times, openly fascist stance, a few black metal bands, most notably Graveland and Marduk, were targeted by Antifa, resulting in canceled shows and overall chaos. More recently, Jason Weirbach a.k.a. “Dagon,” the frontman of Inquisition, was outed as a kiddie porn fan.

Since I’m not a neo-nazi, a homophobe, an arsonist, or a pedophile, I decided to make a strict distinction between the art and the artist, or, better put, between the art and the public citizen creating the art. That is, as citizens -- Varg Vikernes of Norway, Jon Nodtveidt of Sweden, Jason Weirbach of the US -- these people are criminals, and I don’t condone their crimes; I sit back and let the justice system do its work. No one is above the law of the land. I am, however, a fan of their music and I value these people as artists, such as Count Grishnack or Dagon and so on. Many black metal fans embrace this straightforward distinction. As Dayal Patterson, a scholar of black metal, puts it, “There’s no doubt that Varg’s statements in magazines (and on his website, which even relatively recently mentions “negros and other inferior races”) have long been politically charged, yet they have never found their way into his music. Burzum’s huge popularity suggests that Varg has managed to tap into something truly universal. Though his post-prison albums have not proven quite as significant as those recorded prior to his incarceration, Burzum remains hugely popular with a wide array of listeners, including those who completely disregard Varg’s politics and worldview.”  What would black metal be if Burzum and Mayhem were canceled? Would there even be such a thing as black metal?

Since discovering Richard Laymon in 2007, I’ve become interested in Splatterpunk and extreme horror and got to know many writers and readers in this community. In a nutshell, Splatterpunk is to mainstream horror what Cannibal Corpse is to Metallica, or, in movies, what Dead Alive or Bad Taste are to The Shining or The Exorcist. More brutal, more gory, more depraved, more disgusting. Compared to the extreme metal community, most artists and fans of extreme horror are peaceful and laid back, but, now and again, some perceived moral indignity would ruffle the feathers of the SJWs infecting their ranks. Most recently, Otis Bateman and Stephen Cooper have been on the receiving end of a public outcry. Did they kill anyone? No. Did they set buildings on fire? Not even. What they did is not so much criminal as it is in bad taste. They shared private nudes of a woman (gasp!) Now, in my view, the backlash to this indiscretion was completely out of proportion, barbarous, and cringeworthy, proving Nietzsche’s claim that madness is rare in individuals, but in groups, it is the rule. Incited by the outrage squad in their midst, the extreme horror community reacted with a feigned outrage and bogus solidarity that would have given Stalin a bulging erection. These rebellious creatives fighting societal taboos through their transgressive works, these fearless outlaws of imagination and conventional thinking, they all fell in line like a bunch of NPCs applauding a Kim Jong Un speech.

Soon, there was talk of rape, sexual abuse, sexual predators, psychological trauma, manipulation, suicide, and so on; the usual insults hurled by loving and tolerant internet mobs on the daily. Most extreme horror writers, afraid their sales would dip and they’d be unable to pay their bills, promptly joined the resentful mob and posted vaguely ethical and accusatory mumbo-jumbo. “Readers” ripped the books of Bateman and Cooper on deranged Tiktoks and threatened to burn them with Nazi fervor. A sex-starved pansexual fatty decided to steal the show and made a TikTok with her and her mom in a hospital room -- the poor old woman visibly confused and uncomfortable -- in which they ripped up the books of the disgraced authors while pick me Chubbs, caught in a cancel culture demented frenzy, busted some “dance” moves reminiscent of Sumo wrestling. 

Authors who collaborated with the two culprits speedily withdrew their support and threw them to the curb. This occurred soon after Otis Bateman and Judith Sonnet had released a novel together, No One Rides For Free (Absolute Chaos). Initially, the collab got stellar reviews and I was looking forward to reading it. But Judith Sonnet decided to pull the novel and have a characteristic mental breakdown. No surprise there. 

As I was dying inside following this cheap performance of deluded virtue-signalers, I remembered that Wrath James White, critically acclaimed splatterpunk writer, had mentioned Otis Bateman as one of the writers spearheading the fourth-wave of splatterpunk: “It might even be time to start discussing a 4-th wave that includes writers that began after 2020, like Otis Bateman, Rowland Bercey Jr., Bridgett Nelson, and Mique Watson.” In addition, the two were gearing up for a collaboration. Now, meekly following the outrage squad, Wrath James White did a one-eighty and, in an unexpected TikTok worthy of the Spanish Inquisition, began speaking of a “moral code” that extreme horror writers supposedly must follow. This move gave me pause. What happened? Did Otis Bateman’s work lose all its artistic value overnight? Did his books suddenly become garbage just because of a moral blunder? What’s with this deep asymmetry between the extreme horror community and the extreme metal community? Unfortunately, extreme horror writers are not critical thinkers and they can become victims of deep-seated prejudices like the best of us. These questions and bitter revelations made me revisit my argument for distinguishing art from the public citizen producing the art.

 

One widespread logical fallacy is the ad hominem argument. This means attacking the person instead of proving the falsity of their claim. When one makes a claim one puts something forward as being true. It’s beside the point to attack the person instead of the claim itself. As the saying goes, when the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser. A similar fallacy occurs when someone attacks the character of an artist. When an author publishes a work of fiction, they put it forward as something that has artistic value, something they think is unique and worth reading. In the context of horror, aesthetic value means something terrifying, disgusting, unsettling, or dreadful, according to the norms of the specific genre or subgenre. It’s up to critics and lucid reviewers to judge whether that work has artistic merit, whether it elicits the emotions it’s supposed to. The author’s character has no bearing on this judgment. Otherwise, it’s like saying the theory of relativity is false because Einstein was a commie. Book reviews that make references to the public life of an author are just cheap gossip masquerading as aesthetic judgment.

Why should we support an author who is abusive toward women? Why should we give our hard-earned money to them? These questions are the product of murky thinking. We support artists, not moral values. Supporting an author is an artistic statement, not a moral statement. Supporting an artist is different from supporting a political party. It is well known, for instance, that Bukowsky was an alcoholic and a wife-beater. Now, when I buy a Bukowsky book, that’s not a vote for alcoholism or violence toward women, that purchase only shows an appreciation for his gritty, dirty realist style of writing, for his poetic vision. The same goes for William Faulkner, William S. Burroughs, Neil Gaiman, J.K. Rowling, or other classic or contemporary writers accused of questionable behaviors and political stances in their personal lives. Was Lovecraft racist? Who cares? 

Unfortunately, the cancer of cancel culture spreads fast. Just the other day, this guy working for a minor horror publisher was bragging that they have fifty people blacklisted. This was cringe for so many reasons. Firstly, they already publish garbage and no self-respecting author would want to work with them in the first place. Plus, the hypocrisy. Suppose one of those blacklisted authors sends them something with real market value, something up there with the works of Bryan Keene or Bryan Smith. Do you think they’d stick to their guns? I’d bet they’d swiftly forget their moral posturing and go for the cash. But let’s consider for a moment the absurdities implicit in these oppressive attitudes. Should an author be subject to a background check when submitting a manuscript? After all, the publisher needs to make sure they don’t support the work of an outlaw. Should the police accompany them when they receive a literary award to confirm they are upstanding citizens? Shouldn’t a publisher have people infiltrate an author’s personal life to make sure they don’t commit any crimes? Make sure they don’t abuse their spouse or watch objectionable pornography. Shouldn’t we have artists under strict surveillance 24/7? Is this beginning to sound like Big Brother? What’s to stop the publishing world from becoming a police state? Having grown up in communist Romania, I can assure you police states are not fun, unless you’re a moral validation junkie or feminazi. Also, have you heard of the effervescent artistic life in North Korea? Their new fiction trends? Yeah, me neither.    

We need to step back and acknowledge a general fact about creatives, talent, and even genius. Artistic talent doesn’t come neatly paired with an angelic character in a nice package ready for mass consumption. Great art erupts from deep psychological conflicts in individuals who are fighting their own demons at the edges of sanity. These are deeply troubled psychological types, each unique in their extreme rebellion. That’s why so many are suicides: Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Wolf, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, and so on. The impulse to create comes from a place of illness and war, not from a place of health, peace, and harmony. Also, as the famous movie Amadeus shows, God doesn’t necessarily bestow genius on the most pious but on, to quote Salieri, some “little creature, an animal. A gross and vulgar little man.” Thus, by canceling those with deviant behaviors and attitudes, we risk transforming a lush artistic landscape into a barren terrain populated with plastic smiles, neutered, sedated “artists” promoting derivative works to a crowd of neurotic Karens and ultrasensitive PC gender-benders. 

Review of Mason Marks' The Serpent's Call

Richard Ramirez: “I am beyond your experience. I am beyond good and evil. I will be avenged.”

I really enjoyed this character-driven novel, The Serpent’s Call, especially since it explores the same territory -- supernatural horror where the protagonist is in league with Satan -- as my work in progress, Brass Knuckles Black Magick. Marks and I have a penchant for fanatical, elitist, anti-heroes, proud bearers of the black flame of chaos. Dalton Asher, the main character in The Serpent’s Call, reminded me, among others, of Richard Ramirez and Charles Manson. As a Satanic serial killer, Asher is connected to the nefarious force that feeds on people’s deepest fears, and this force gives him power and control over his victims, revealing their weak, hypocritical, pathetic natures. Predators sense the fear and trembling of the prey, an anxiety that makes their attacks precise, fast, and lethal. Prolific serial killers exist on another plane, a dimension that transcends the tiny world of the sheep, a realm fraught with danger as well as the promise of immortality.

As in his earlier two novels, The Militant and The Malcontents, Marks’ action scenes are graphic and immersive, a result, no doubt, of his experience in military combat. Like any real Satanist, Dalton Asher is a complete misanthrope, and the writing is steeped in disgust for average, normal humans. Loneliness and isolation are the other sides of misanthropy, and Dalton has no choice but to take the solitary left-hand path of the Adversary. The novel's pace is exquisite, and the character of Detective Amara Cruz is well-used to balance out Dalton’s bleak nihilism and create suspense.

A few things have kept me from giving this novel a full five stars. At times, the author switches from first-person to third-person narrative and these changes are a bit confusing. There are a lot of twists and turns at the end of the novel that seem a bit rushed and could have used more stage-setting. The author could have explored more the relationship between Dalton and Satan, as well as the one between Dalton and Amanda Cruz to give his protagonist more depth and create more inner conflict. That being said, this is a great, thought-provoking, supernatural thriller I highly recommend and I look forward to Mason Marks’ future releases!

The Primal Exile

Picture by Brendan McCarthy

I’m slapping band-aids on the cracks in the pavement,         
and gluing my dead skin mask
but the tremors already spread too far, too close,
and I have to reach inside my head,
and stitch the eyelids of the foggy eye.

The neighborhood hobos sense my fear
and burst into my apartment.
I stand tall and tell them I live here,
but the “I” is faded,
it comes unglued like old wallpaper.
The intruders push me aside,
Defacing my silence with
growls, groans, moans, and grunts.
While some collapse on my bed
like exhausted zombies,
others stuff my food
into toothless, ashen mouths.
I curl up in a corner, a sick dog,
Squeeze my eyes shut,
And summon dreams.
 

The bus is full of kids,
Chattering, chanting, pointing to the woods outside,
The nauseating green rushes by,
And then I see the distant top of a mountain,
chocked by swirling fog.
I sit at the back,
Small and ashamed,
Toxic exhaust fumes thick in my nostrils,
The puke bag I clutch in my lap
as white as my skin.

The beach is cold and empty,
the closed umbrellas like frozen ghosts
stuck between the gunmetal sea and the leaden sky,
the sand as heavy as my hangover.
It starts raining,
and I grab my vodka with a distant waxy hand
and run for shelter on wobbly legs.
Squinting through the torrent of spit,
I step toward the entryway to a seedy motel
but my approach alerts a mangy-looking yellow cur,
and its frenzied barking calls the whole pack
and they’re on my heels
as I run cursing this metal morning
of rabid teeth and celestial spit.

The train picks up speed
chugging in the rhythm of my galloping heart,
its whistle mocking.
I get hammered at the redneck tavern near the tracks.
I’m broke and the owner asks me to dig a hole in the backyard
to cover my tab.
The yard is choked by blood-splattered weeds;
I dig the pit next to the rusted carcass of a car
And fill it with shards of broken beer bottles,
as the boss said.
The sweaty labor sobers me up
And I hear the whistle of an incoming train.
I run again through the gravel toward the trucks
But my legs feel heavy, scraping against the rocks.
I gaze down in terror:
the stumps of my upper legs were stuck to sand hourglasses,
the heavy sand gathered in the lower bulbs.
I fall head-first
and fists of stones shatter the windshield of my face,
and the glass of my legs.
A bitter axiom occurs to me:
strewn glass trash can never catch a train.

The seedy motel room reeks of stale guests,
cheap bug repellent and cigarette smoke.
The wallpaper is vomit hardened on plastic flowers,
and the bed is a brick of moldy lasagna.
An anemic, insectile buzz comes from the nightstand.
I pick up the receiver with a waxy hand. “Hello?”
“Hey, sweetie,” my mom said, “we were looking for you everywhere,
dad and I.
How are you?”
I put on the broken mask of words, “Not good. I….I want to come home.”
A hesitating break followed by fake enthusiasm, “Of course, what a great idea, honey!
We’re here, waiting for you.
We moved from the last place, now that it’s only the two of us,”
strained laughter,
“We’re right across from the cancer in your uncle’s eyes
on the street with sinking houses
we rent a roomy basement just under another basement.
I’m here knitting blankets of dirt
while your dad is racing roaches on the bricked windows.
He’s petting his tumor while we watch the news on the cracked screen,
he likes how the stomach growth is purring.
Just follow the chatter of dentures, my angel,
and the buzz of pacemakers,
right by the dumpster with a broken couch on the side,
crawling with stray dogs ripped in half,
you’ll be sure to find us, sweetie.

We’re here holding our breaths, missing you deeply.”  

Not All There (poem)

I’ve never touched anything hard enough to leave a fingerprint, 
my blood is too stale for DNA,
and my seed is the rusted urine
darkening the foul corners
of underground train stations.

 
I dwell in the crawlspaces beneath being.
One time, a woman pushed me in a stroller,
And then sat on a curb by my side
And began eating apples from me
Biting into the red and green skin with her loose, yellow teeth
And then shrouding her tears in cigarette smoke.
Hurting as if disemboweled,
I crumbled over the last bruised apples
Heard the cigarette butt hiss in the rotten juice,
And the clap of a dumpster cover,
As loud as a gun but not as final.
Another time, I was there in a pile of clothes
On a bench in a frozen bus station,
Near a cart filled with empty bottles.
I was there for a few seconds,
If someone looked inside at that moment,
They would have seen me I think,
But it was a gray day heavy with absence.
I almost stood up,
But the clothes were too many, too thick,
Intertwined with my muscles and organs,
heavy like corpses.
My knees crumpled.
Defeated, I glimpsed myself in a broken mirror
sitting by a flattened can of Monster drink.
I was almost there, a cataract eye like a glob of phlegm
a few lethargic thoughts trapped in it
like bugs in a glue trap.

I see they’ve built new suicide barriers on the bridge.
But who has the stamina to jump in the first place?
I can’t even stand up in my dreams.
What I’m good at is falling through the cracks of the pavement
and dissolve into the pale, angry scratches of a pen out of ink,
or those of a razor on dead scars.
Last I heard,
my partial baptism has been postponed
until after my tentative funeral. 

Review of Curtis M. Lawson's "Couch Surfing through the 12 Chambers of Hell"

I guess I’m becoming familiar with Curtis M. Lawson’s exquisite work because I can trace the origins of this novella, Couch Surfing through the 12 Chambers of Hell, to two short stories the author previously published: “Through Hell For One Kiss,” in his collection Devil’s Night and “Orphan,” in The Envious Nothing. The novella incorporates elements of the two previous stories into an honest and personal narrative about loss, grief, and guilt that is bound to tear at the heartstrings of any reader. 

The main character, Nathan Pharaoh, is a famous musician who is not there for his family when they need him the most. As a result of his neglect his daughter Cloe becomes estranged and kills her mother Dalia and then herself. Nathan is incapacitated by self-hatred and loss. This book is a metaphysical exploration of grief and its stages of anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These emotions blend into each other and can assault the mourner almost at the same time. What Lawson manages to capture accurately and vividly is that the battle against loss, or the struggle to accept loss, takes place mainly at an unconscious level. At the conscious level, depression weighs heavily and reduces the mourner to a zombielike state. Gravity sags all muscles like a constant underground call to surrender to darkness and oblivion, a call that plagues Nathan Pharaoh throughout his journey. The most minor tasks require herculean force. But while the conscious mind is paralyzed, the unconscious self seeks a key to salvation in a journey through mythological dreamscapes. As we learned from Carl Gustav Jung, dreams are mythological battlefields and realms of magic and sacred alchemy. Pharaoh embarks on a journey to find the pieces of himself left in the wake of a personal apocalypse and try to breathe new life into the ashes.

The part I enjoyed most in the story is when Pharaoh enters a pyramid and the walls of the tomb are covered with reliefs depicting stages in his life. When he touches them they replay the scenes in his mind: his first date with Dalia, going on the first tour, and so on. Pharaoh is on the brink of chaos and oblivion and needs to find the key, just like a musician plays the opening keys to a song to get inspiration for ending it or the way a writer might read the opening chapters of a book to figure out how to move on. The reason why I love this scene is because I see the self as a narrative, in a broad sense. Or, to use a metaphor, I think of how we construct our identities as similar to the way a spider spins its web. Now, in a self fractured by loss, the web is mostly destroyed, and he needs to start the process anew building on the strands of silk that weren’t damaged.  

I wasn’t a fan of some aspects of the book, but they didn’t take away from the immersive read. While I’m no expert in mythology, I felt that the symbolism behind the story was a bit cut and dry. The image of the snake as a symbol of chaos, evil or oblivion was overused. The dichotomies had the starkness of Abrahamic religions rather than pagan myths: good vs. evil, dark vs. light, chaos/entropy vs. order, and creation vs. destruction. Ancient mythology usually comes with a mix of these opposites, with deities that incorporate elements of creation and destruction, order and chaos. For example, let’s take one of Nathan’s lamentations: “I was the void in my daughter’s childhood--a ghost, rarely found outside of records and music videos. I was the degradation of something into nothing and now I am nothing given form.”

As paradoxical as it may sound, this passage paints nothingness in an unfavorable light.

(Puts Dissection hoodie on. Turns up Watain’s Lawless Darkness)

In Sumero-Babylonyan mythology, it is creation that is a degradation of nothingness, as goddess Tiamat was in the slumber of uncreation before before lower gods decided to wake her. As a feminine principle, nothingness contains everything in virtual form, blackness is pregnant with everything, and the birth of something is a degradation of the pristine nothingness. Just like sound may be the degradation of a beautiful silence. Or like form may be the degradation of a wordless revelation.

Now, if I remember Jung correctly, the unconscious itself is feminine while the conscious mind is masculine. The conscious mind is rationality and order whereas the unconscious is irrationality and chaos. Nathan Pharaoh’s journey is a quest through the unconscious mind, through chaos, and the solution or the key to his ascension will come from chaos. So, chaos is good, darkness is good, and blackness holds the answers. Not the light of the conscious, ordered rational mind, but the pregnant darkness of the unconscious. The snake will give Nathan knowledge and wisdom. So, to sum up, pagan thinking features a mix of the opposites which Christian thought sets in stark contrast. And, as a reader, I didn’t get the pagan vibe from this text, but it seemed that the narrative flowed from a Christian matrix.

I could wax philosophical for hours about this book, and I’m sure each reader can come up with their own interpretation of this story just like movie lovers have different takes on a David Lynch movie. My point is just this is a work of art that engages the reader both on an emotional and an intellectual level, as all true art should. Go check it out! And check Lawson’s other books while at it!

Interview with author Christopher Zeischegg

Christopher Zeischegg’s Creation: On Art and Unbecoming is a unique, experimental, transgressive book. Zeischegg uses a blend of fiction and non-fiction to describe and convey his deepest hopes and fears as he highlights the role of art as a sacred space for his journey of self-invention and self-discovery. Zeischegg uses different writing formats (essays, memoirs, autofiction, interviews, reviews, and playwriting) and manages to mix them perfectly. The author writes with disarming honesty, making it easy for the reader to identify with the characters and join the intimate dialogue sparked by the text, both on a cerebral and an emotional level. 

Zeischegg has a minimalist yet striking style, elegant yet merciless. The dialogue is witty and incisive. The prose packs so much emotion that, at times, it reads like poetry. Just a couple of my highlights to illustrate: “All my recent life, I’d looked at tasks as pools of quicksand. To dress myself, I dreaded to be drowned beneath my collar,” “My pillow at my cheek, I thought of starting over. But I was weary from the fight I’d lost against my beating heart.”

Although Zeischegg depicts a lot of graphic horror and violence, his message is not reduced to shock value as in some splatterpunk writings, but the gore appears as an external accompaniment to a deep existentialist dread and sense of loss and alienation. In this sense, Zeischegg’s style evokes Thomas Ligotti’s darkest visions. Violence appears like a temporary distraction from an inner, all-consuming agony.

Axl: Hi Chris, thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions. In the book, you mention Dennis Cooper as one of your literary heroes. What other influences do you have? Also, what gave you the idea for the structure of the book, the collage of different writing formats? 

Chris: Of course! I appreciate you reaching out. 

Regarding my influences: In high school, I got into Bret Easton Ellis, probably because of the American Psycho movie and the fact that Ellis is one of the more commercial authors to delve into subject matter that seemed taboo to me at the time--some combination of extreme sex and violence. I think it's pretty common for young people to be interested in that material. I sought out all the most obvious stuff that was available to me at the time, like Gaspar Noe and Takashi Miike films, black metal, etc. 

Then, as you pointed out, I discovered Dennis Cooper in my early twenties. That was exciting to me because he seemed to push those themes beyond anything I'd seen prior. But I think he was also the first writer to make me consciously aware of style. Dennis has this clean, cinematic way of writing that makes me feel like I'm reading an emotional puzzle. I'd never experienced anything that so closely articulated that youthful state of both feeling and being unable to fully express ecstasy, sexual desire, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and so on. 

These days, my influences are more diffuse. At any given time, I have a stack of books I'm reading from authors who inhabit the same small, contemporary press I've become a part of--books published by Amphetamine Sulphate, Apocalypse Party, Rose Books; the list goes on. And I typically have one book I'm reading from a literary juggernaut, like Michel Houellebecq or Laszlo Krasznahorkai, or a lesser-known but equally prolific prose stylist like Dodie Bellamy. 

As for the structure of the book: The stories and essays in the book were written over the course of ten years. Several years ago, I had the idea to throw together a collection of works I had written on themes of art and violence. I'd simply noticed the pattern and thought it would be a fun collection to release between novels. But while compiling the material, I rediscovered a couple of pieces I'd written about my friend, the multidisciplinary artist Luka Fisher. She and I met shortly before the end of my porn career. We went on to do a lot of video work and other strange art projects together. I realized that much of what I'd been putting into the collection was influenced by her in one way or another. In short, she helped to change my life in pretty drastic ways. So, this idea of transformation, of friendship, of some kind of hopeful path forward emerged; I wanted to explore that further. I just put in everything that seemed relevant, and wrote some new material to explain what this was all about; make it more cohesive. 

Axl: This question is about the title: Creation On Art and Unbecoming.  In the Preface you claim that Creation doesn’t refer to artists making art, but to the divine creation of the universe. Regarding the subtitle, On Art and Unbecoming,  you suggest that this book is the end of a cycle: “I’ve essentially been writing down the notion that all of these things I see out there, that I desperately want access to, are out of reach. Whether that’s love, or a relationship to God, or even something like financial stability or self-fulfillment. In my writing, and, in my brain, I feel like I’ve been solidifying that I can’t have any of it.” And later on, “I’m trying to find a revised sense of purpose. Maybe transform my writing into a vehicle to hopefully get more of what I want out of life.” So, why don’t you use Becoming instead of Unbecoming? And what is the connection between your desire for meaning and purpose and the act of divine creation?  

Chris: I may not be able to answer this question in a completely direct manner. If for no other reason, I believe there's some danger in "revealing your gold" too soon. In other words, if you stumble upon something spiritually or philosophically profound and you start to see your life transform in certain ways but you don't entirely understand the nature of what you're on to, it would be fucking stupid to proselytize this to the world. 

But I think a lot of this thought process started in early 2021. We'd all just come out of the COVID lockdowns. For the first time in my adult life, I'd had an entire year off from my interaction with the adult industry and sex work adjacent labor. I'd been retired from performing in porn, and from hustling and camming, for a number of years. But I'd still been working on adult films, as a videographer and editor, semi-regularly. For obvious reasons, that all paused during the pandemic. Then, in early 2021, the job offers came back in full swing.

I remember sitting in my office in early 2021, editing a porn scene. All of a sudden, I had this uncontrollable burst of emotion. I was shaking. Tears were pouring down my face. I also felt incredibly angry. For a week thereafter, I was a fucking mess. My wife said to me, "I've never seen you like this. You need to go to therapy."

So, I took her advice and ended up doing a lot of work on myself.

This is relevant because, prior to that specific emotional disruption, I was writing under the premise that the violence in my work was an affectation I picked up from being interested in aggressive music subculture or Dennis Cooper books, or whatever.

For example, I'd finish a short piece of auto-fiction, wherein I was the protagonist, and it had something to do with my experience in sex work, and it might even include a number of real-life experiences. And it would end with some fantastical violent scenario, and I'd say to myself, "This is all a joke. It has nothing to do with me."

As it turns out, I actually do have massive amounts of trauma associated with my experiences in sex work. And I no longer feel the need to pretend that's not true.

I could go on and on about my own bullshit. But to get back to the nature of your question... I'm 38 years old now. I'm interested in what I'm interested in, and I don't think the aesthetic qualities of horror films or 'transgressive' (for lack of a better word) fiction will ever not be what I'm into. At the same time, I'm now invested in the future, in creating a better life for myself and for my family. That has a lot of implications in terms of how I spend my time in relation to my career, wife, friends, and so on. On a personal level, that also has implications in regards to spirituality, to God.

I'm most hesitant talking about my spiritual life in public, because it's still complicated to me. I'm not sure I know how to define this internally.

When I say that Creation is not about artists making work, but rather a reference to divine creation, I mean that as a metaphor for transformation; my inability to comprehend how life can come from nothing. But I'll also go on record to say this is not just a metaphor to me. It's not bullshit. I surely don't have answers or direction for other people. But in my mind, there's no question as to whether or not God is real.

Axl: Your fiction is very personal and speaks of your private dreams and fears. On the other hand, all art, as your friend Luka Fisher points out, is an act of communication that involves an audience. Since the audience is not given, this involves the additional steps of marketing and “selling yourself.” How do you reconcile these two impulses? Do you think that the commercial aspects of art take away from the authenticity of the creative act?

Chris: Personally, I don’t think marketing or selling yourself detracts you from this.

I’m not sure that starting a novel or any piece of art with the audience in mind is going to tell you something interesting. But I’m also not going to sit here and pretend that the feedback loop doesn’t matter.

One of the reasons Luka and I get along so well is that she’s constantly scheming up ways to get our work in front of people. We were both interested in the relationship our work has with the public. She’s a producer, but maybe in a way that's been frustrating to a lot of the other people she’s worked with, because I don’t believe she’s inherently interested in the financial ramifications of whatever she’s involved with. Plainly speaking, the films and other projects we’ve done together have cost us a lot of money relative to our incomes; none of it has been primed for commercial success. But without her deliberate ploys to get people involved, these ideals in our heads wouldn’t have made it into the world--at least not with the polish or finesse that requires collaboration with artists who are better than us at whatever we’ve asked them to do.

When I think of my literary output, I feel beholden to the publishers who’ve agreed to release my books. Ben DeVos at Apocalypse Party or Philip Best at Amphetamine Sulphate – they’ve put their time, energy, and money into my work. They’re essentially backing me, telling the world that my ideas are worth indulging. How fucking selfish and shitty of me would it be to then sit on my ass and do nothing once the book(s) comes out.

I see some authors complain about not getting enough recognition or money, or whatever, from publishing. People need to understand that there’s nothing inherently valuable about doing this. We’re not feeding people; we’re not saving lives. I believe it’s a privilege to be published, to have someone care enough to sit down and read your fucking book. It requires other people to believe in what you’re doing and contribute in all sorts of ways. I only think it’s fair that you then go out and do your best to make sure it wasn’t a complete waste of their time. Of course, that all depends on your means. I can’t afford a publicist or book tour; it wouldn’t make sense for a release like this. And at the end of the day, there’s always the likelihood that it won’t connect with anyone. 

Axl: There is a pessimistic or nihilistic outlook that permeates your writing, probably stemming from your struggles with depression. At the end of the story “Spell,” the character Whitney addresses the MC: “If you’re done your spell I would have asked if your dreams come true. And if so, whether they still seemed, somehow, out of reach.” So, I wonder if it’s the morbid lucidity associated with depression that makes us unable to enjoy the realization of our dreams. Do you think that someone can return to the innocent joy of assigning meaning and purpose to the world after going through the wringer of nihilism and depression? Thomas Ligotti speaks of consciousness as a disease and the fact that we need to narrow our consciousness to make life bearable. This is a complicated act of self-deception. Almost like a magick trick. Do you think it can work?

Chris: For most of my adult life I've subscribed to a kind of philosophical pessimism. And the depression you reference has been real, though I might describe my experience and indulgence of depression as similar to that of a binge alcoholic. When it's there, it's all-encompassing. But when I'm free of that depression, it seems as though it belonged to a different person. 

Whether or not Ligotti is right in that we need to narrow our consciousness to make life bearable, I don't think it ultimately matters. My current point of view is that I have two options. I can look at the world and say to myself, "The more I discover, the more I learn that none of this matters. It's all fucking meaningless." Or I can look at the world and say, "The more I discover, the more I find out that I don't know much of anything." These days I'm leaning toward the second option. That means that I'm basically a fucking idiot and still have much to learn. Well, I have to learn from somebody. Should I look to the same people I've been studying all my life, who are depressed and miserable? Should I say Emil Cioran is the pinnacle of human expression? Or should I find someone who seems to be experiencing some joy in life, some success, and get their point of view? In all likelihood, I'll do both. But perhaps these happier people are worth looking into. 

Axl: What’s your next writing project? 

Chris: My last novel, the Magician, is currently out of print. So, Apocalypse Party is publishing a 2nd edition later this year with a foreword by Chris Kelso. I believe Christopher Norris has also agreed to do the cover. I like that it's a bunch of Chrises involved. Makes me feel like we're the indie lit versions of Evans/Hemsworth/Pine. Hah. There's also a German translation coming out through Festa Verlag. I believe it should be out by the end of 2024, but I'm not 100% sure. 

Beyond that, I can't divulge too much, except to say I'm always working on a book. With any luck, I'll have another novel out in the next two-to-three years. 

Check out Chris' website at www.christopherzeischegg.com

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