Aetherwing
02-28-2010, 08:20 AM
INTRODUCTION
Some time has passed since I conducted the very first of these interviews with our membership. I was quite pleased with the outcome, and was glad that the tradition lived on for quite a while in the capable hands of G. S. Carnivals. There was, however, one interview that I greatly wanted to do, that I felt needed to be done. That interview was with Jon Padgett (aka Dr. Locrian), the fellow who originated what is now TLO.{br}{br}I have the great fortune of being able to say that Jon is my best friend. We’ve been friends since late 1987, and happily remain close despite the distance and the years that have separated us. When I started giving these interviews, I asked him participate, and he agreed, but has had many distractions and took a bit longer than anticipated. No worries: better late than never. I felt that having an interview with Jon was vital to the entire project. After all, it was his love for Ligotti’s work that led him to create the original version of TLO. From when he first discovered Tom, he has been the most steadfast supporter and truest fan a writer could wish for. I know for a fact that Jon bought at least 5 or six paperback copies of SoaDD—he loaned them to various people, encouraging them to experience Ligotti’s visions, and therefore would have to get a new copy!{br}{br}Left to my own devices, I could sing Jon’s praises at great length. He is a true gentleman, a scholar, and an outstanding human being. On with the interview: enjoy!
1. Obviously, you are an admirer of Thomas Ligotti's works. So, how did you first come across his writing?
It's a fairly pedestrian anecdote actually. Back in the Spring of 1991, I was browsing the horror stacks at a local BOOKS-A-MILLION in Hoover, Alabama when I came across the paperback version of Ligotti's Songs of a Dead Dreamer. I was immediately struck by the evocative, despairing title and—honestly—the cover art (which, as you may recall, featured a despondent girl merging into a mountain landscape). Once I turned the book over and read the Washington Post blurb, "Put this on the bookshelf between Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft where it belongs," I was instantly sold. I was and am an avid Lovecraft and Poe reader and admirer, so Ligotti's collection had a lot to live up to. I'm glad to state that it did—and more. I had at once found in Ligotti my favorite prose writer, living or dead.
I remember reading "The Frolic," arguably Ligotti's most conventional tale, and being absolutely mesmerized by Jon Doe's cosmic, scummy, blissful visions. The tales in SoaDD were so filled, to one degree or another, with this kind of bleak, numinous ecstasy coupled with a rich, sardonic and self-effacing humor. It was like nothing else I had experienced as a reader. As I continued Songs, I noticed that my hands were occasionally tingling as if they had a moderate but definitely noticeable electrical current running through them (a peculiar sensation I had never experienced hitherto). By the time I finished "The Chymist" I knew that I had found my writer—the one fiction writer, more than any other before or since, that absolutely spoke to me. It was as if Ligotti intimately shared all of my most private fears and obsessions—even the ones of which I wasn’t consciously aware—and was able to artistically project them via a precise yet perfectly elegant prose. In short, way back in ‘91, I felt like the stories in Songs had been extracted from my sleeping mind and set to paper—as if I was the protagonist of "The Bungalow House," coming across the dream monologues for the first time. Immediately, I recognized that were I a prolific fiction writer (and I'm not), I'd strive to write fiction identical to Thomas Ligotti's work.
Ligotti’s stories nearly always transport my imagination and—paradoxically considering the subject matter—produce a great sense of well-being, relief and calm in me. To quote Ligotti's "The Cocoons," when I read Tom's stories I felt (and feel) a "...great sense of escape from the poles of fear and madness ...as if I could exist serenely outside the grotesque ultimatums of creation, an entranced spectator casting a clinical gaze at the chaotic tumult both around and within him." I invariably leave those tales feeling calm and aware and even ecstatic. Ligotti's stories have been like Transcendental Meditation for my imagination.
Anyway, in ’91, I didn't put that first Ligotti collection down till I was done with the last story, and I immediately began rereading it all again (which at the time I had never done with any other book). I am embarrassed and amused to be recently reminded (by you) that I in fact proceeded to read Songs and was so unable to put the book down that I managed to continue reading it even while driving from the bookstore parking lot to my dorm room at college. Had I died in a fatal accident, it would have certainly been ironic.
Incidentally, though I owe discovering Ligotti to a huge, corporate monster of a bookstore (even if it is a bit of a has been in that department), I should mention that I think the merging of books and big business to be—in retrospect—simply hellish. I'm a great lover of small, independent bookstores and feel pangs of regret any time I gave (or—honestly—still sometimes give) the likes of Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com my business. There are many terrific, struggling, small bookstores out there, and I hate to see them slowly being eliminated from our lives merely because it's more convenient and (sometimes) cheaper to purchase their wares at the virtual bookstore equivalent of Walmart. Support your local, independent bookstore (if you still have one where you live)!
2. How long have you been a fan of weird fiction? Also, how were you first introduced to this genre?
I've always had an obsession with the macabre in its various forms as far back as I can remember. I read E.A. Poe's "The Telltale Heart" when I was eight. That was probably the first really weird story I'd read, though I do have an early memory of reading and being fascinated by James Whitcomb Riley's "Little Orphant Annie." Here's the most memorable (and most Ligottian) stanza:An' one time a little girl 'ud allus laugh an' grin,
An' make fun of ever' one, an' all her blood-an'-kin;
An' wunst, when they was "company," an' ole folks wuz there,
She mocked 'em an' shocked 'em, an' said she didn't care!
An' thist as she kicked her heels, an' turn't to run an' hide,
They wuz two great big Black Things a-standin' by her side,
An' they snatched her through the ceilin' 'fore she knowed what she's about!
An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!
For some reason I never focused on the insipid, moral warning behind these lines. It was the idea of another world running parallel to ours out of which "big Black Things" might snatch children "through the ceiling" that simultaneously excited me and filled me full of dread.
As a young teenager, I was an avid King reader but cast him aside with disdain at the age of sixteen or so for H.P. Lovecraft, whose prose—both fiction and nonfiction—completely possessed me for well over a decade and still engages, delights and disturbs me from time to time.
I was a loner and a weird teen and young adult, but I was truly a ghoulish child—rail thin with a large, square face that was always capable (and still is) of making the most hideous expressions (usually only for my own amusement in the bathroom mirror). I'm sure my warped psyche is due in no small part to an older brother who delighted in making up scary stories to tell me almost every night of my early childhood, most notably about the disembodied hand (predictably called "The Hand") which lived under my bed. This isn't as whimsically quirky as you may think—my brother pathologically despised me when we were children and actively (and creatively) fed my fears and doubts whenever possible when he wasn't physically seeking to damage me. My earliest memories are filled with his creepy lies and weird, improvised stories. I know this all sounds like hyperbole, but note the following anecdote:
When I was little more than a toddler, my brother—six years my elder—would often tell me that before I was born my parents had had another child by the name of Sam. Now according to my brother, dear little Sam died at a young age. After Sam's mysterious and tragic death, my parents decided to have me, which was—and my brother was emphatic on this point—a terrible mistake. My brother told me that Sam talked to him all the time, whispering that if I were to die Sam would be able to possess my dead body. With me undead (animated by the envious shade of Sam) my big brother would finally have the little brother he should have had all that time.
I remember my brother talking about Sam constantly whenever we were alone, discussing which of the many various ways Sam suggested my brother kill me (and when to do it). One morning in the upstairs bathroom as I was washing my hands, my brother opened and closed the door. My parents were safely out of hearing if not out of the house. Suddenly, my brother put me in a one-armed, tight chokehold from behind so that I was forced to look at myself and him in the bathroom mirror.
"This is poison," he said tonelessly as he held out a handful of bright red pills in his free hand. At that, he completely overpowered me (not difficult) and pushed every one of the pills into my mouth.
"Look," he said pointing at my image in the mirror. "That's your blood. You're dying."
Sure enough, almost instantly a tremendous amount of red, frothy foam was pouring out of my mouth and down my face.
Turns out, of course, that the scary looking pills were mere dental, foaming pills folks used at one time. Completely harmless.
Yeah, my brother was a real card. And his bad behavior is one of the several reasons that I have always paradoxically been sensitive to the morbid and the twisted and have always been drawn to horror stories.
Oh, and as for my brother? I got him back but good years later for my pains. But that's another story.
3. If you were to choose, which Ligotti story is your absolute favorite, and why?
"The Bungalow House." At the risk of sounding like a stalker, this is the Ligotti story that has the most deep, personal significance to me. Don't get me wrong—I'm not delusional. I know this story has literally nothing to do with me. But I do always feel a unique sense of being inside the story whenever I've read it.
"The Bungalow House" librarian-narrator became obsessed with an unknown artist's work, in which a "...feeling of being in a trance in the most vile and pathetic surroundings was communicated to [the librarian] in the most powerful way, by the voice on the tape, which described a silent and secluded world where one existed in a state of abject hypnosis." This communication between librarian and artist was uncanny; he was taken with awe that "...another person shared [his] love for the icy bleakness of things. "
For me, Ligotti’s story was specifically and explicitly invoking the artistic relationship/connection between an author and a reader. Here was a cautionary tale regarding the limits of artistic kinship and shared obsessions, explicitly pointing out that any such connection between two separate beings is illusory. Ironically, the illusion of such a connection is as potent as the day I first read the remarkable story.
"The Bungalow House" simply gave me the biggest meta-fictional jolt of my life and could have—imaginatively speaking—been written about my own obsession with Ligotti's work. Coincidentally, the first time I read "The Bungalow House" I actually was working as a reference librarian—specializing in language and arts no less. To make things even weirder, I would often read and reread Ligotti’s work (and, admittedly some other literature) on my sometimes overlong lunch breaks. It was, in fact, an incredibly lonesome and alienating and unstable period in my life. I was single, depressed (and given to periods of panic) and completely obsessed with the terrible, wonderful world which this mysterious author had presented to me. Ligotti, it seemed, could have been writing from inside my own head (albeit a head with his greatly enhanced brain power and creativity).
“The Bungalow House" is a brilliant, melancholy, psychological narrative that explores the depths of an internal, dramatic monologue while simultaneously telling an engaging story of existential yearning and despair that I—and many Ligotti readers like me—understand all too well. And, creepy personal context aside, "The Bungalow House" objectively ranks very near the top of his list of his best written short stories.
Incidentally, it was a real thrill to produce and record this story aloud a while back (available on TLO here [THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE - Downloads - Readings (http://www.ligotti.net/local_links.php?catid=2&linkid=6])), and it was by far the most demanding, difficult recording of its type I've ever done. I recall Ligotti himself reviewing part of an audio draft I did of the first dream monologue and observing that I sounded "like Henry Kissinger after he's been a three-day bender." Fortunately, thanks in large measure to the kind notes of Tom, yourself, Matt Cardin (who also provided a haunting musical intro and coda) and the inimitable Brian Poe, I was able to eventually live up to the story and am pretty happy with the results.
4. Ligotti aside, what are some of your other favorite authors in this genre?
I mentioned the old, indispensable standards—Poe and Lovecraft—above. William Hope Hodgson is a legend of weird fiction, especially for The House on the Borderland, which (as you know) is THE most depressing novel ever written. Speaking of which, Shirley Jackson is a real favorite of mine, particularly for The Haunting of Hill House (far and away the best haunted house novel I've ever read). I'm also a big fan of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, mostly for her twisted short story masterpiece, "The Yellow Wallpaper."
I admit the old fogies of horror literature (the work of M.R. James for instance) typically do little for me and never really have. There are notable exceptions (like Oliver Onion's "The Beckoning Fair One" or a handful of Machen tales), but for the most part I could live with or without pre-Lovecraft (or his contemporaries') horror stories, Poe's work being one notable exception.
For contemporary work, I've got to say that—aside from Ligotti's work—I find Matt Cardin's weird fiction to be the best out there. That stated, there's a ton of contemporary horror that I need to catch up on.
5. And which stories most influenced you? At a young age and as your tastes changed with age?
Even though it didn’t occur until I was 16 or 17 years old, I’ve got to say that the worldview communicated via H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction as a whole influenced me more profoundly than any individual story or group of stories had before. Previously, my head was filled with religious—specifically Pentecostal Christian—nonsense.
Funny related side note: I can remember the year before I talked to you (Jimmy) as a junior in high school. I recall derisively thinking of you as a pagan, which in retrospect seems so odd to me as you were hardly alternative or “witchy” in word or appearance. Of course, my girlfriend at the time had dumped me to pursue your romantic favors so I was grasping for anything negative I could think about you. Still, I was intuiting from something in your manner that you were different from the vast majority of our fellow students.
Less than a year later, you and I became best friends after a chance conversation in which I asked you a fateful question (which I was asking everyone I knew or met at the time): “who is your favorite author?” I was, of course, hoping someone would answer, “H.P. Lovecraft.” You did, and the rest is history. Turns out I was a “pagan” too (if being pagan meant not conforming to the standardized, judeo-christian belief system typically adopted in the good old US of A’s deep south region).
Back to the point, Lovecraft’s cosmic materialism—communicated via his tremendous, imaginative prose both in his fiction and his prodigious correspondence—was simply transformative to my teenage psyche and worldview. Here was a man who, while having all the other trappings of an extremely conservative (if eccentric) gentleman, had nothing but rational disdain for organized religion.
But on to the meat of the question, in retrospect Lovecraft’s “Whisperer in the Darkness” probably was the single story that haunted me more than any other story had till that point.
6. As far as horror television shows over the years go, do you have any favorites? Any that had a lasting influence on you?
Was there a horror-based television that had a lasting influence on me? Oh, yes.
My mom and dad made one of those “what-were-they-thinking?” mistakes one night when I was four years old by letting me stay up past my bedtime to watch Rod Serling’s The Night Gallery—specifically, a nasty little bit called “The Doll,” based on the Algernon Blackwood short story of the same name.
The Doll had a rather square, fat face (not unlike my own) with matted, blonde hair and smeared black circles under her serenely closed eyes. In my nightmares, trouble would always begin when this Doll’s lids popped open by themselves to reveal large, glassy blue, pitiless eyes. Immediately, her closed mouth would break into a fixed grin revealing… teeth. Activated by an utterly unknown power, the Doll would then sit up and glare, grinning.
The Doll “lived” only to exact revenge on a predetermined target. She was literally unstoppable once she had her prey in sight (she could be temporarily destroyed but would always return as good as new to complete her work). In the case of the TV short, the Doll’s target was a well-off, British colonel who had been responsible for the execution of an indigenous, insurgent leader a few weeks before in Brit occupied India.
"Best remain awake, colonel,” the dead Indian’s brother warned him during an unwelcome visit to the colonel’s home, “The Doll has teeth . . . and there is no medicine on earth to save you."
Those sneering words haunted me throughout my childhood. Like our unfortunate colonel, I had reason to fear sleep because just about every dream I had nearly each and every night for the next five years revolved around the Doll. She was more terrifying than any run of the mill horror of my former nightmares because of her unchangeable, static glee—baring her teeth and hunting me with a kind of mechanical joy. The Doll never made a sound, and often I couldn’t actually see her during my nightmares. But even when she was invisible, I could feel that unstoppable, heated presence focused like a magnifying glass on my dream self.
I knew the Doll had only to bite me once with her fatal venom to finish the job, but the Doll seemed content to extend my torment indefinitely by sparing my life time and again. She was indescribably patient. In the Doll’s unwavering glass eyes and manic, fixed grin, I felt an unquenchable greed directed at me—as if she wanted nothing more than to absorb me into her Dollness not once, but continuously—forever.
Many nights I would awake screaming after a Doll dream, unsure whether I was really awake or not. And on the worst nights I wouldn’t be awake when I thought I was (then the frenzied race would resume as, impossibly, the Doll’s tiny, fat face appeared with teeth grinning cruelly at the foot of my bed). I can recall countless nights of begging celestial forces to protect me. My prayers were simple: don’t let me dream of Her tonight.
One night after years of my recurring nightmares, the Doll was chasing me as usual through a dream version of my attic when I realized (suddenly and for the first time in my experience) that I was dreaming—that this nightmare, so like all the other ones, was only taking place in my own head.
And then something astonishing and unprecedented happened. First, I stopped running and turned on this thing that had terrorized me for the better part of my childhood. In the dream, I could now visually perceive myself as if watching a movie, and as the Doll’s wicked grin faded into a grimace of doubt, I could see my own face transforming into the Doll’s own bloodthirsty, fixed grin! Soon I was chasing the Doll, grabbing her by one of her tiny, filthy legs, and ripping her limb from limb.
I awoke suddenly from my lucid dream, giggling with relief and joy as I awoke from my last Doll nightmare. I’ve dreamed of Her since—most recently over the past year—but she no longer has any power over me.
Not long after that last dream it’s little wonder I became shackled to obsessive thoughts of puppets and ventriloquist dummies (and, to one degree or another, from then on).
7. And what about movies?
I’d have to say that Kubrick’s The Shining had the most profound effect on me. I was a pre-teen upon seeing the film for the first time on a snowy Showtime (which my family wasn’t supposed to be receiving). The film terrified me chiefly for one reason: those damned twin girls, the slaughtered daughters of the departed Delbert Grady.
I remember, in fact, having a recurring dream that night in which I would awake, turning toward the slowly opening folding doors of my closet. The twins, holding hands and blankly staring at me, would be standing just inside. At a certain point, I had no idea whether I was asleep or awake, and when I did realize that I was finally awake (though none too sure all the same) I was horrified to realize that it was only 10:30 pm.
All that stated, Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness genuinely frightened me more than any films have before or since in my adult life.
8. Okay, departing from this genre, what else do you like to read? Favorite literary piece from other genres, and why is it so?
I'm a big fan of William Faulkner's novels, particularly Absalom, Absalom, The Sound and the Fury, and Light in August. In the latter work, the paragraphs in which Joe Christmas is riding his adopted father's horse, whipping it harder and harder as it runs slower and slower, is some of the finest, most scintillating, haunting prose in any genre I've ever had the pleasure to read. More than any other writer I've encountered, Faulkner is a master of creating characters on a seemingly subconscious level. He really gets into their heads. And he weaves this creative stream of consciousness into his plots and themes. Also, Faulkner wrote one of the most chilling and perfectly rendered short stories ever written, "A Rose for Emily," which is one of two tales I am aware of that is successfully written in the difficult First Person Plural person (the other being Ligotti's equally masterful "The Shadow at the Bottom of the World").
Gabriel García Márquez, the famous Columbian novelist—who is more than a little influenced by Faulkner's work—is a tremendous, living talent, particularly for the quintessential magic realism novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Flannery O'Connor is a favorite as well—particularly for The Violent Bear It Away. Her short stories, like "Good Country People," are uniformly astounding in their surprising depth and complexity and unforgettable imagery. (All three cited novelists have voices that are peculiarly distinctive from any other writer alive or dead. I truly love that strong sense of voice in any writer.)
Speaking of which, I dearly love most of Samuel Beckett's work—my favorite being his bleak, moving and hilarious one act play, Endgame. Beckett and fellow absurdist writer Eugène Ionesco are two of my favorite 20th century playwrights. Shakespeare, unsurprisingly, is very near the top of my all-time favorite playwright list along with the aforementioned authors.
Some of my favorite poets: John Donne, Andrew Marvell, William Blake, Samuel Coleridge, John Keats, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, Ezra Pound, Sylvia Plath, Carolyn Hembree, Jon Anderson, Barbara Cully and Jane Miller. I love good poetry—a rarity in any time period—and am an avid reader of journals which contain contemporary poetry. For a non-poet, I'm pretty knowledgeable in that field and worked very hard to get an M.A. in English Literature with a concentration on the Neoclassical and Romantic English poets.
9. And aside from reading, what sort of activities do you enjoy?
If you'd asked me the same question three years ago, my list would've been pretty short. However, due to a shocking turn of events (precipitated by my family's flight and exile from our home in New Orleans in 2005), I've become very active and enjoy meditating, practicing Tai Chi, yoga, and general cardio and strength building exercises. I was always the scrawny loner growing up, and I never thought I'd ever do anything physical on a regular basis, but exercise has really increased my general sense of well being. Particularly with Tai Chi, yoga and meditation there is a sense of physical and mental presence in the Now that is unlike anything I've ever experienced and these practices have helped me ward off depression, anxiety and stress.
And—I have to say—my (almost) five-month-old daughter—along with my wonderful spouse—is the most incredible thing to ever happen to me. She is a riot and generates endless activities day and night!
Almost forgot: I'm absolutely obsessed with genealogical research which I find to be tremendously fascinating and seemingly (and happily) a never-ending pursuit.
10. Do you have a personal philosophy, an outlook on life, as it were?
It’s a given that anyone reading these words is alive now. The less we can dwell on the past and the future, the more harmonious our internal condition will be and the more effective we can be in the time we have. We all will die, and when we're dead our consciousness, I believe, does not continue beyond the organisms we are. I guess I'm an existentialist. I think we all have one shot here on earth with no do-overs and no reward or judgment to come. Why not be as kind and as helpful as we can to each other while we mutually exist with one another? I don't want to "do right" or be "good" because I'm following some thousands-of-years-old dogma in fear of a petty sky god's punishment or shaming. I'm a big boy now. I don't need a god (or gods) to motivate me to do the right thing.
Also, I’m a vegetarian—for purely personal and ethical reasons. I have always been crazy about non-human animals and (as an adult) try to treat them with kindness and respect. Seriously, some of the best folks I’ve known have been non-human animals.
I'm not a Buddhist, but I do think that some forms of Buddhism contain the least bull#### of all the major religions. And I do see the value in some basic precepts that many organized religions share in common (e.g., don't kill; be nice to one another, etc). Personally, though, I believe there's little doubt that the world would be a much better place without organized religion, which I increasingly look at with disdain.
As someone who has struggled to find religious meaning or belief of any type throughout my childhood, teenage years and adult life, I've recently come to peace with the notion that there are no gods of any sort—at least not in the way humankind has typically defined them heretofore. I always thought the surrender of my lifelong struggle with belief would be followed by a period of stereotypically nauseating, existential dread. On the contrary, since I've stopped trying to force myself to “believe in something,” the most typical emotion I've felt is a profound sense of relief, confidence and even happiness. I feel like I've finally grown up.
11. Would you describe yourself as a believer in the possibility of the supernatural, or a skeptic?
Great follow up question! As you know, I used to be a tremendous believer in the supernatural which undoubtedly is why I was so fearful as a child. If you believe in angels or kindly spirits, it makes it so much easier to believe in devils and demons. I've experienced some pretty weird things in my time, but in retrospect I feel like these experiences were mutated by my terrible desire for such things to be. Strangely enough, it was actually this desire that—wrapped up as it is in my struggle to believe in god(s)—helped to make me a generally anxious and miserable kid and young adult.
Life as we know it, especially with the assistance of the sciences, is considered by many as terrible and wondrous and generally awe-inspiring. Yet human imagination can be so much more awe-inspiring. To quote the great metaphysical poet Andrew Marvell's "The Garden": The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find ;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas ;
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.
To me, the supernatural exists in two ways:
inside concepts of Nature that we don't yet (or can't ever) comprehend
or
distinctly inside the vast, unfathomable halls of human imagination.
I certainly don't need—or want—the supernatural events which occur in many Ligotti stories to take place in our collective, conventional "reality." I'm more than happy for those transcendent supernatural forces to play out only in the creative genius of the artist's mind.
12. What is your Great Fear?
As is most typical, I do fear the loss of all who I love more than anything. But I know it is inevitable, whether—for instance—I die first or my wife dies first. I guess I most fear the eventual loss of identity and stability and passion that Change with a capital "C" always brings, whether we're talking about death of a loved one or losing a home, belongings or a livelihood. Change is scary.
Which brings me to my death specifically. Any time I try to wrap my head around it (which is fairly often), it scares the hell out of me.
For years my biggest fear was in discovering that existence really is pointless, but now that I don't have religion hanging from my neck I've realized with relief that this fear was generated more from the friction between what I knew and what I tried to make myself believe than it was from any intrinsic terror of life's pointlessness. I am still scared of dying, but I was scared of that anyway.
13. Are you a writer yourself, either amateur or professional?
I’ve always wanted to be a professional writer (as I stated at the beginning of the interview, just like Ligotti). Unfortunately, I have neither the skill, the talent nor the drive to be one. I like to think that I’m a fairly decent writer of nonfiction, amateur though I am, but I certainly don’t have a knack for it.
Case in point, when Ligotti and I began corresponding more than twelve years ago now, I sent him a story that I had penned (dedicated to he and David Tibet of Current 93) entitled “The Eyes of the Master.” I cringe even now thinking back. Tom somehow communicated to me in the gentlest, most polite possible manner that the subject matter in my story was cliché, though he was very gracious about the whole thing. That didn’t stop me from publishing it on my new TLO site or giving this wretched tale to David Tibet, who greeted it with awkward thanks. I can’t tell you how bad, how horribly overwritten my story was. Like the poetry I wrote as a teenager, “The Eyes of the Master” is one I really need to dredge out of my past and reread every so often just to keep me humble.
Anyway, I’ve been working on retooling this story ever since. That’s actually deceptive. Every year or two I’ve given it some weeks (occasionally months) of solid work before I give up. It thankfully doesn’t resemble its original form in any way, though it’s still not complete. Fortunately, thanks to a few astute readers’ help, I’ve made great strides on my tale over the past year. It is almost done (assuming one reader in particular gives it a thumbs up).
I want to write this one story—just one, good story. Then I believe I’ll be done. Incidentally, the title of the story is now “The Secret of Ventriloquism.”
14. Writers aside, any other heroes/idols, so to speak, be they fictional (Gandalf the Grey, for instance) or actual?
Funny you should mention Tolkien’s famous steward of Middle Earth. Gandalf is definitely one of my most favorite fictional characters, and one I’ve always adored. Thanks to my sister reading me The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings to me throughout my early childhood, I have an immense love for the Professor’s intricately created fictional world.
On a separate note, I particularly love anti-heroes like Frank Dominio from MWINYD and Thomas Covenant from Stephen R. Donaldson’s Covenant books.
15. Do you have any interesting folks hiding in your family tree? If so, what did they do, what are they known for?
I have been absolutely obsessed with genealogy for a couple of years now, and I have discovered many disturbing and wonderful things such as:
my grandfather murdered a man in a bar brawl, was imprisoned for the deed, and was sprung by his wealthy parents who in fact blew just about their whole fortune paying off the corrupt local officials. My grandfather got off scott free, as they say.
I am almost certainly related to H.P. Lovecraft—specifically we share a great (x9 for me) grandfather by the name of Mikel Phillips from Lovecraft’s maternal line who lived in Newport, RI in the 17th century.
16. You are the Founder of this whole TLO maelstrom that is allowing us these interviews. What inspired you to bring the original TLO into being?
After discovering, Ligotti’s work, I was the only reader I knew who felt a profound connection (which I described earlier) with his fiction. Sure, I had successfully recruited a Ligotti reader here and there over the years, but for the longest time I felt like my enthusiasm (sometimes fanatical enthusiasm) for his work wasn’t widely shared, and I longed to discuss Ligotti’s prose with other like-minded folks. As a research and later a law librarian—in the days before Netscape—I was utilizing the World Wide Web using an early version of a text only browser called lynx (link: Sucuri Web Integrity Monitoring (http://sucuri.net/index.php?page=tools&title=text-browser)). From the beginning of my web use and for years of solid web presence thereafter, I tried to spread the word about Ligotti’s work as I was able but became increasingly frustrated at the relative lack of awareness about Thomas Ligotti and his fiction throughout cyberspace.
Finally, in 1997—upon receiving a job in New York City which paid me very little but gave me tons of free time to mess about on the Internet—I truly became a Ligotti advocate (some would say an annoying advocate) on the old alt.horror.cthulhu Usenet newsgroup. After some argument and semantical wrangling (see this [http://tinyurl.com/yg6tras] rather hilarious proposal thread featuring a much more uptight version of myself), I managed to get the alt.books.thomas-ligotti newsgroup created. A website, cobbled together using stolen HTML from a William Faulkner fan website, wasn’t far behind. Version 1 of TLO is—sadly—lost to the cyber-void as far as I know. Version 2 came out in 1999 and an archive can be found here (Horror - Thomas Ligotti Online Stories and FAQ (http://tinyurl.com/ybpf6cf)).
In retrospect, I’m proud of these difficult, initial efforts (by me) and the even greater efforts others (e.g., Matt Cardin; Brian Poe) have made throughout the years. In version 1 and 2 of TLO, we published a number of Ligotti stories, some for the first time. TLO—for instance—was the first publisher of the Ligotti and Brandon Trenz penned, original X-Files screenplay, Crampton, and was the original home for Ligotti’s masterful novella, My Work Is Not Yet Done. It has also been—for over 12 years now—the source for (more or less) updated Ligotti-related news, a place for Ligotti readers to chat and share thoughts and ideas with each other, and—notably—a place in which Ligotti-inspired work may be shared. I’m proud to state that TLO published Cardin’s remarkable short story, “Teeth,” for the first time anywhere (which led to a successful and well-deserved writing career [Matt Cardin (http://tinyurl.com/ybwbmrd])).
About halfway through TLO’s long Internet life to date, the website had fallen into quiescence—mainly due to my challenging job and active home life in New Orleans. Fortunately, back in 2004, Brian Poe contacted me with a plan to revive the site. And, boy, did he ever revive it. Now, thanks to my good friend Brian (and the daily care of the inestimable Phil aka G.S. Carnivals) TLO is a thriving, vigorous community of Ligotti readers, which is what I originally intended but didn't have the know-how or time to pull off. I can never repay Brian for what he’s accomplished in the past six years. The level of talent and intelligence on the site is sky high, and I couldn’t be happier with the state of TLO since Brian took over development and day to day operation of the site. Back in 2005, Tom wrote of TLO, “what I like the most about the site is the idea of people who appreciate my horror stories talking about stuff that has nothing to do with my horror stories and, as we used to say in the sixties, just doing their own thing.” Seriously, does any other author have a more excellent online community than this one?
Forgive my verbosity. I know this is becoming more of a history lesson than anything, but the question about inspiration induced me to look back and reflect a little on what has passed. In fact, I’ve spent the better part of an afternoon walking down memory lane thanks to your straightforward question.
Is anyone still reading this interview?
17. I know you as a multi-talented person. Discuss some of your many skills for our members, if you would.
I have been and on again, off again professional ventriloquist for almost 25 years. And—no—my TLO avatar is not my ventriloquist dummy. But I’d be delighted/forever disturbed if it was.
I am a fairly well trained, fairly talented actor who has starred as Bottom in an off-Broadway production of Midsummer’s Night Dream in addition to many other less prestigious production over the last 33 years or so. The off-Broadway credit sounds better than it was. In truth, the production was a disaster.
I have my Master’s degree in English Literature and act as the Information Systems & Technology Director of a nonprofit agency in New Orleans (a position which I love and which I’ve held for the better part of a decade).
18. Musically speaking, what are your tastes? A few of your favorite performers?
I have a pretty eclectic taste in music: anything from old, classic country to classical to hip hop to blues to hard rock. Some of my favorite artists/bands include Mark Knopfler, Blue Oyster Cult, Anthony & the Johnsons, and John Lee Hooker. A special mention must be made of Current 93—especially what I consider their masterwork: All the Pretty Little Horses. Opening for Current 93 in NYC over a decade ago was one of the biggest, most surreal thrills of my life.
19. Do you have a vivid recall of your dreams? Are your dreams astounding, or pedestrian?
Usually, they’re pedestrian. I have many dreams about traveling, oftentimes to beachfront areas. These dreams routinely contain the threat of a hurricane or other natural disaster (and these dreams long pre-date my experience with Hurricane Katrina or the other hurricanes I’ve either ridden out or escaped). Like Matt Cardin, I often have dreams which include lights in the sky—specifically alien in origin. I’m glad to say I don’t—like Matt and Ligotti—have recurring sleep paralysis.
Occasionally, though, I have very vivid nightmares. Here’s a sample:
The dream started off like an interactive movie. I (and it was a dream "I" with some similarities to me and some differences) was driving a group of people down a highway towards Loxley and Foley and Gulf Shores in south Alabama. It was twilight, and I was not going on a vacation.
My dream-self had memories of being compelled some years before by an impulse beyond my control. At some point at the time, I had driven the wrong way on the super highway until all the traffic started going the same direction I was going. When I got off of a certain exit to a certain "hidden" town, a truck going the "wrong way" down the exit turn almost hit me. In the past, the truck contained the family that I would ultimately save from this Nyarlathotep-like horror in the form of Angus Scrimm, the actor who played the Tall Man from the Phantasm series. Seems the family's house was somehow "dreaming" this menace (or so I thought), and through a variety of foul misadventures, I exorcised him by making the house "wake up" somehow.
That was the dream-past which I remembered distinctly. In the present, I was driving with a small group of investigators like myself down the same "path" towards this same house, as I somehow knew that the Angus horror was back. I began driving the wrong way on the superhighway (which was pretty frightening at first) until twilight fell at which time everything changed, and the traffic started going my direction. The highway had become more like a country road, and I turned off on the exit I had turned down before (notably, this time the exit sign had the name of a town whose name I can't remember). I was fully expecting to almost run into the family I saved before. That didn't happen (much to my dismay). So I was forced to keep going down a road that became progressively more run down and more alien looking. I could not find the house that had been there before at all—only a crummy court in a rundown park.
Anyway, we all got out of my car (including my real-world dog, Earle), and moved through the brush only to find, over a ridge, a whole town that had not apparently been there before. Quite a beautiful town as well—quiet but... disturbed somehow. All the houses were dark colored and placed on small hills and small cliffs (so different from the flatlands of south Alabama). I noticed then that twilight had never become night. In fact, it was marginally lighter than it had been but in the most unsettling way.
I then became aware of the overwhelmingly oppressive atmosphere. The presence of the Tall Man, if not his actual shape, was everywhere in and around the town (which seemed devoid of people). We sought shelter in a house that lay on the border of the town—a trailer really, and I knew the Tall Man (or Nyarlathotep more precisely) was seeking to enter and consume the domicile. At one point, we had to hold the front door closed and lock it as the inexorable force attempted to gain entry. The Foulness, I realized, was only toying with us—as was its nature—and it began whispering really terrible things to me through the crack (and through that crack I could see It in the form of the Tall Man, looming wight-like just outside).
The gist of what the voice told me: I had had it all wrong before. The house that he was "haunting" was indeed dreaming before my previous arrival—just as all houses and towns and landscapes of the world have for aeons. As he intended, however, his haunting of that one house had led me (through some unknown insane insight) to *wake the house up* into *reality*—a grim reality indeed.
That one act unwittingly made by me had—in effect—woken Cthulhu, who (the Tall Man mockingly explained) was merely a metaphor for a much fouler truth: the world—and in fact the universe—is Azathoth: the gibbering primal chaos having a brief and random dream (of some human aeons) that order exists. The Idiot's dream was now coming to an end, thanks to the Tall Man's efforts in manipulating me originally into waking that one "haunted" house. Now a whole town, formerly woods in the "dream," had awoken—soon the entire world would similarly awake, becoming infected with the "new reality" in which everything would eventually change in the "most wonderful ways." At the end of the nightmare, I felt a crushing sense of cosmic terror, dread, and guilt as I realized that the Tall Man-—-not some benevolent force—had been guiding me from the very beginning. "Thank you, Jonathan," the Tall Man—Nyarlathotep—sneered as I awoke with a yell, soaked in sweat.
It took me nearly ten minutes to be confident that the "dream" I had awoken from wasn't a prelude to the foul "reality" of my dream.
20. Anything you would like to add, perhaps something I didn't think to ask that you feel I should have?
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you (Jimmy) for conducting so many of these great interviews and for remaining the best friend I’ve ever had through some incredibly trying times. You are the (good) brother I never had.
I’d also like to thank my good friend Brian Poe for transforming a cobbled-together, amateur author fan website into a thriving community—hands down the best author site I’ve encountered online. Your hard work, ingenuity and incredible creativity never cease to amaze me, Brian.
I'd be remiss, also, if I didn't thank my dear friend Matt Cardin. Without Matt's early (primal-TLO) encouragement and enthusiasm (and time), I doubt that the original alt.books.thomas-ligotti or TLO itself would've gotten off the ground (as I would have been literally typing to the void in those early days). Matt's exceptional mind and talent lent both the newsgroup and website an academic (and creative) authority that it wouldn't have otherwise had.
I’d also like to thank each of you TLO members. TLO’s original mission was to share a love and enthusiasm for Thomas Ligotti’s work with a community of fellow (and occasionally like-minded) readers. You have all made this simple wish into a cyber-reality. And some of you have truly made this cyber-reality into a home of sorts. You are the heart and backbone of the site, and I thank you.
Finally, I’d like to humbly thank Thomas Ligotti for his friendship, his wit, his patience, his tutelage and his singular skill/talent/vision. As funny as it sounds, Tom's writing has brought me and continues to bring me unique moments of joy and consolation time and again. And I know I'm not alone.
How's that for irony?
Some time has passed since I conducted the very first of these interviews with our membership. I was quite pleased with the outcome, and was glad that the tradition lived on for quite a while in the capable hands of G. S. Carnivals. There was, however, one interview that I greatly wanted to do, that I felt needed to be done. That interview was with Jon Padgett (aka Dr. Locrian), the fellow who originated what is now TLO.{br}{br}I have the great fortune of being able to say that Jon is my best friend. We’ve been friends since late 1987, and happily remain close despite the distance and the years that have separated us. When I started giving these interviews, I asked him participate, and he agreed, but has had many distractions and took a bit longer than anticipated. No worries: better late than never. I felt that having an interview with Jon was vital to the entire project. After all, it was his love for Ligotti’s work that led him to create the original version of TLO. From when he first discovered Tom, he has been the most steadfast supporter and truest fan a writer could wish for. I know for a fact that Jon bought at least 5 or six paperback copies of SoaDD—he loaned them to various people, encouraging them to experience Ligotti’s visions, and therefore would have to get a new copy!{br}{br}Left to my own devices, I could sing Jon’s praises at great length. He is a true gentleman, a scholar, and an outstanding human being. On with the interview: enjoy!
1. Obviously, you are an admirer of Thomas Ligotti's works. So, how did you first come across his writing?
It's a fairly pedestrian anecdote actually. Back in the Spring of 1991, I was browsing the horror stacks at a local BOOKS-A-MILLION in Hoover, Alabama when I came across the paperback version of Ligotti's Songs of a Dead Dreamer. I was immediately struck by the evocative, despairing title and—honestly—the cover art (which, as you may recall, featured a despondent girl merging into a mountain landscape). Once I turned the book over and read the Washington Post blurb, "Put this on the bookshelf between Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft where it belongs," I was instantly sold. I was and am an avid Lovecraft and Poe reader and admirer, so Ligotti's collection had a lot to live up to. I'm glad to state that it did—and more. I had at once found in Ligotti my favorite prose writer, living or dead.
I remember reading "The Frolic," arguably Ligotti's most conventional tale, and being absolutely mesmerized by Jon Doe's cosmic, scummy, blissful visions. The tales in SoaDD were so filled, to one degree or another, with this kind of bleak, numinous ecstasy coupled with a rich, sardonic and self-effacing humor. It was like nothing else I had experienced as a reader. As I continued Songs, I noticed that my hands were occasionally tingling as if they had a moderate but definitely noticeable electrical current running through them (a peculiar sensation I had never experienced hitherto). By the time I finished "The Chymist" I knew that I had found my writer—the one fiction writer, more than any other before or since, that absolutely spoke to me. It was as if Ligotti intimately shared all of my most private fears and obsessions—even the ones of which I wasn’t consciously aware—and was able to artistically project them via a precise yet perfectly elegant prose. In short, way back in ‘91, I felt like the stories in Songs had been extracted from my sleeping mind and set to paper—as if I was the protagonist of "The Bungalow House," coming across the dream monologues for the first time. Immediately, I recognized that were I a prolific fiction writer (and I'm not), I'd strive to write fiction identical to Thomas Ligotti's work.
Ligotti’s stories nearly always transport my imagination and—paradoxically considering the subject matter—produce a great sense of well-being, relief and calm in me. To quote Ligotti's "The Cocoons," when I read Tom's stories I felt (and feel) a "...great sense of escape from the poles of fear and madness ...as if I could exist serenely outside the grotesque ultimatums of creation, an entranced spectator casting a clinical gaze at the chaotic tumult both around and within him." I invariably leave those tales feeling calm and aware and even ecstatic. Ligotti's stories have been like Transcendental Meditation for my imagination.
Anyway, in ’91, I didn't put that first Ligotti collection down till I was done with the last story, and I immediately began rereading it all again (which at the time I had never done with any other book). I am embarrassed and amused to be recently reminded (by you) that I in fact proceeded to read Songs and was so unable to put the book down that I managed to continue reading it even while driving from the bookstore parking lot to my dorm room at college. Had I died in a fatal accident, it would have certainly been ironic.
Incidentally, though I owe discovering Ligotti to a huge, corporate monster of a bookstore (even if it is a bit of a has been in that department), I should mention that I think the merging of books and big business to be—in retrospect—simply hellish. I'm a great lover of small, independent bookstores and feel pangs of regret any time I gave (or—honestly—still sometimes give) the likes of Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com my business. There are many terrific, struggling, small bookstores out there, and I hate to see them slowly being eliminated from our lives merely because it's more convenient and (sometimes) cheaper to purchase their wares at the virtual bookstore equivalent of Walmart. Support your local, independent bookstore (if you still have one where you live)!
2. How long have you been a fan of weird fiction? Also, how were you first introduced to this genre?
I've always had an obsession with the macabre in its various forms as far back as I can remember. I read E.A. Poe's "The Telltale Heart" when I was eight. That was probably the first really weird story I'd read, though I do have an early memory of reading and being fascinated by James Whitcomb Riley's "Little Orphant Annie." Here's the most memorable (and most Ligottian) stanza:An' one time a little girl 'ud allus laugh an' grin,
An' make fun of ever' one, an' all her blood-an'-kin;
An' wunst, when they was "company," an' ole folks wuz there,
She mocked 'em an' shocked 'em, an' said she didn't care!
An' thist as she kicked her heels, an' turn't to run an' hide,
They wuz two great big Black Things a-standin' by her side,
An' they snatched her through the ceilin' 'fore she knowed what she's about!
An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!
For some reason I never focused on the insipid, moral warning behind these lines. It was the idea of another world running parallel to ours out of which "big Black Things" might snatch children "through the ceiling" that simultaneously excited me and filled me full of dread.
As a young teenager, I was an avid King reader but cast him aside with disdain at the age of sixteen or so for H.P. Lovecraft, whose prose—both fiction and nonfiction—completely possessed me for well over a decade and still engages, delights and disturbs me from time to time.
I was a loner and a weird teen and young adult, but I was truly a ghoulish child—rail thin with a large, square face that was always capable (and still is) of making the most hideous expressions (usually only for my own amusement in the bathroom mirror). I'm sure my warped psyche is due in no small part to an older brother who delighted in making up scary stories to tell me almost every night of my early childhood, most notably about the disembodied hand (predictably called "The Hand") which lived under my bed. This isn't as whimsically quirky as you may think—my brother pathologically despised me when we were children and actively (and creatively) fed my fears and doubts whenever possible when he wasn't physically seeking to damage me. My earliest memories are filled with his creepy lies and weird, improvised stories. I know this all sounds like hyperbole, but note the following anecdote:
When I was little more than a toddler, my brother—six years my elder—would often tell me that before I was born my parents had had another child by the name of Sam. Now according to my brother, dear little Sam died at a young age. After Sam's mysterious and tragic death, my parents decided to have me, which was—and my brother was emphatic on this point—a terrible mistake. My brother told me that Sam talked to him all the time, whispering that if I were to die Sam would be able to possess my dead body. With me undead (animated by the envious shade of Sam) my big brother would finally have the little brother he should have had all that time.
I remember my brother talking about Sam constantly whenever we were alone, discussing which of the many various ways Sam suggested my brother kill me (and when to do it). One morning in the upstairs bathroom as I was washing my hands, my brother opened and closed the door. My parents were safely out of hearing if not out of the house. Suddenly, my brother put me in a one-armed, tight chokehold from behind so that I was forced to look at myself and him in the bathroom mirror.
"This is poison," he said tonelessly as he held out a handful of bright red pills in his free hand. At that, he completely overpowered me (not difficult) and pushed every one of the pills into my mouth.
"Look," he said pointing at my image in the mirror. "That's your blood. You're dying."
Sure enough, almost instantly a tremendous amount of red, frothy foam was pouring out of my mouth and down my face.
Turns out, of course, that the scary looking pills were mere dental, foaming pills folks used at one time. Completely harmless.
Yeah, my brother was a real card. And his bad behavior is one of the several reasons that I have always paradoxically been sensitive to the morbid and the twisted and have always been drawn to horror stories.
Oh, and as for my brother? I got him back but good years later for my pains. But that's another story.
3. If you were to choose, which Ligotti story is your absolute favorite, and why?
"The Bungalow House." At the risk of sounding like a stalker, this is the Ligotti story that has the most deep, personal significance to me. Don't get me wrong—I'm not delusional. I know this story has literally nothing to do with me. But I do always feel a unique sense of being inside the story whenever I've read it.
"The Bungalow House" librarian-narrator became obsessed with an unknown artist's work, in which a "...feeling of being in a trance in the most vile and pathetic surroundings was communicated to [the librarian] in the most powerful way, by the voice on the tape, which described a silent and secluded world where one existed in a state of abject hypnosis." This communication between librarian and artist was uncanny; he was taken with awe that "...another person shared [his] love for the icy bleakness of things. "
For me, Ligotti’s story was specifically and explicitly invoking the artistic relationship/connection between an author and a reader. Here was a cautionary tale regarding the limits of artistic kinship and shared obsessions, explicitly pointing out that any such connection between two separate beings is illusory. Ironically, the illusion of such a connection is as potent as the day I first read the remarkable story.
"The Bungalow House" simply gave me the biggest meta-fictional jolt of my life and could have—imaginatively speaking—been written about my own obsession with Ligotti's work. Coincidentally, the first time I read "The Bungalow House" I actually was working as a reference librarian—specializing in language and arts no less. To make things even weirder, I would often read and reread Ligotti’s work (and, admittedly some other literature) on my sometimes overlong lunch breaks. It was, in fact, an incredibly lonesome and alienating and unstable period in my life. I was single, depressed (and given to periods of panic) and completely obsessed with the terrible, wonderful world which this mysterious author had presented to me. Ligotti, it seemed, could have been writing from inside my own head (albeit a head with his greatly enhanced brain power and creativity).
“The Bungalow House" is a brilliant, melancholy, psychological narrative that explores the depths of an internal, dramatic monologue while simultaneously telling an engaging story of existential yearning and despair that I—and many Ligotti readers like me—understand all too well. And, creepy personal context aside, "The Bungalow House" objectively ranks very near the top of his list of his best written short stories.
Incidentally, it was a real thrill to produce and record this story aloud a while back (available on TLO here [THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE - Downloads - Readings (http://www.ligotti.net/local_links.php?catid=2&linkid=6])), and it was by far the most demanding, difficult recording of its type I've ever done. I recall Ligotti himself reviewing part of an audio draft I did of the first dream monologue and observing that I sounded "like Henry Kissinger after he's been a three-day bender." Fortunately, thanks in large measure to the kind notes of Tom, yourself, Matt Cardin (who also provided a haunting musical intro and coda) and the inimitable Brian Poe, I was able to eventually live up to the story and am pretty happy with the results.
4. Ligotti aside, what are some of your other favorite authors in this genre?
I mentioned the old, indispensable standards—Poe and Lovecraft—above. William Hope Hodgson is a legend of weird fiction, especially for The House on the Borderland, which (as you know) is THE most depressing novel ever written. Speaking of which, Shirley Jackson is a real favorite of mine, particularly for The Haunting of Hill House (far and away the best haunted house novel I've ever read). I'm also a big fan of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, mostly for her twisted short story masterpiece, "The Yellow Wallpaper."
I admit the old fogies of horror literature (the work of M.R. James for instance) typically do little for me and never really have. There are notable exceptions (like Oliver Onion's "The Beckoning Fair One" or a handful of Machen tales), but for the most part I could live with or without pre-Lovecraft (or his contemporaries') horror stories, Poe's work being one notable exception.
For contemporary work, I've got to say that—aside from Ligotti's work—I find Matt Cardin's weird fiction to be the best out there. That stated, there's a ton of contemporary horror that I need to catch up on.
5. And which stories most influenced you? At a young age and as your tastes changed with age?
Even though it didn’t occur until I was 16 or 17 years old, I’ve got to say that the worldview communicated via H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction as a whole influenced me more profoundly than any individual story or group of stories had before. Previously, my head was filled with religious—specifically Pentecostal Christian—nonsense.
Funny related side note: I can remember the year before I talked to you (Jimmy) as a junior in high school. I recall derisively thinking of you as a pagan, which in retrospect seems so odd to me as you were hardly alternative or “witchy” in word or appearance. Of course, my girlfriend at the time had dumped me to pursue your romantic favors so I was grasping for anything negative I could think about you. Still, I was intuiting from something in your manner that you were different from the vast majority of our fellow students.
Less than a year later, you and I became best friends after a chance conversation in which I asked you a fateful question (which I was asking everyone I knew or met at the time): “who is your favorite author?” I was, of course, hoping someone would answer, “H.P. Lovecraft.” You did, and the rest is history. Turns out I was a “pagan” too (if being pagan meant not conforming to the standardized, judeo-christian belief system typically adopted in the good old US of A’s deep south region).
Back to the point, Lovecraft’s cosmic materialism—communicated via his tremendous, imaginative prose both in his fiction and his prodigious correspondence—was simply transformative to my teenage psyche and worldview. Here was a man who, while having all the other trappings of an extremely conservative (if eccentric) gentleman, had nothing but rational disdain for organized religion.
But on to the meat of the question, in retrospect Lovecraft’s “Whisperer in the Darkness” probably was the single story that haunted me more than any other story had till that point.
6. As far as horror television shows over the years go, do you have any favorites? Any that had a lasting influence on you?
Was there a horror-based television that had a lasting influence on me? Oh, yes.
My mom and dad made one of those “what-were-they-thinking?” mistakes one night when I was four years old by letting me stay up past my bedtime to watch Rod Serling’s The Night Gallery—specifically, a nasty little bit called “The Doll,” based on the Algernon Blackwood short story of the same name.
The Doll had a rather square, fat face (not unlike my own) with matted, blonde hair and smeared black circles under her serenely closed eyes. In my nightmares, trouble would always begin when this Doll’s lids popped open by themselves to reveal large, glassy blue, pitiless eyes. Immediately, her closed mouth would break into a fixed grin revealing… teeth. Activated by an utterly unknown power, the Doll would then sit up and glare, grinning.
The Doll “lived” only to exact revenge on a predetermined target. She was literally unstoppable once she had her prey in sight (she could be temporarily destroyed but would always return as good as new to complete her work). In the case of the TV short, the Doll’s target was a well-off, British colonel who had been responsible for the execution of an indigenous, insurgent leader a few weeks before in Brit occupied India.
"Best remain awake, colonel,” the dead Indian’s brother warned him during an unwelcome visit to the colonel’s home, “The Doll has teeth . . . and there is no medicine on earth to save you."
Those sneering words haunted me throughout my childhood. Like our unfortunate colonel, I had reason to fear sleep because just about every dream I had nearly each and every night for the next five years revolved around the Doll. She was more terrifying than any run of the mill horror of my former nightmares because of her unchangeable, static glee—baring her teeth and hunting me with a kind of mechanical joy. The Doll never made a sound, and often I couldn’t actually see her during my nightmares. But even when she was invisible, I could feel that unstoppable, heated presence focused like a magnifying glass on my dream self.
I knew the Doll had only to bite me once with her fatal venom to finish the job, but the Doll seemed content to extend my torment indefinitely by sparing my life time and again. She was indescribably patient. In the Doll’s unwavering glass eyes and manic, fixed grin, I felt an unquenchable greed directed at me—as if she wanted nothing more than to absorb me into her Dollness not once, but continuously—forever.
Many nights I would awake screaming after a Doll dream, unsure whether I was really awake or not. And on the worst nights I wouldn’t be awake when I thought I was (then the frenzied race would resume as, impossibly, the Doll’s tiny, fat face appeared with teeth grinning cruelly at the foot of my bed). I can recall countless nights of begging celestial forces to protect me. My prayers were simple: don’t let me dream of Her tonight.
One night after years of my recurring nightmares, the Doll was chasing me as usual through a dream version of my attic when I realized (suddenly and for the first time in my experience) that I was dreaming—that this nightmare, so like all the other ones, was only taking place in my own head.
And then something astonishing and unprecedented happened. First, I stopped running and turned on this thing that had terrorized me for the better part of my childhood. In the dream, I could now visually perceive myself as if watching a movie, and as the Doll’s wicked grin faded into a grimace of doubt, I could see my own face transforming into the Doll’s own bloodthirsty, fixed grin! Soon I was chasing the Doll, grabbing her by one of her tiny, filthy legs, and ripping her limb from limb.
I awoke suddenly from my lucid dream, giggling with relief and joy as I awoke from my last Doll nightmare. I’ve dreamed of Her since—most recently over the past year—but she no longer has any power over me.
Not long after that last dream it’s little wonder I became shackled to obsessive thoughts of puppets and ventriloquist dummies (and, to one degree or another, from then on).
7. And what about movies?
I’d have to say that Kubrick’s The Shining had the most profound effect on me. I was a pre-teen upon seeing the film for the first time on a snowy Showtime (which my family wasn’t supposed to be receiving). The film terrified me chiefly for one reason: those damned twin girls, the slaughtered daughters of the departed Delbert Grady.
I remember, in fact, having a recurring dream that night in which I would awake, turning toward the slowly opening folding doors of my closet. The twins, holding hands and blankly staring at me, would be standing just inside. At a certain point, I had no idea whether I was asleep or awake, and when I did realize that I was finally awake (though none too sure all the same) I was horrified to realize that it was only 10:30 pm.
All that stated, Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness genuinely frightened me more than any films have before or since in my adult life.
8. Okay, departing from this genre, what else do you like to read? Favorite literary piece from other genres, and why is it so?
I'm a big fan of William Faulkner's novels, particularly Absalom, Absalom, The Sound and the Fury, and Light in August. In the latter work, the paragraphs in which Joe Christmas is riding his adopted father's horse, whipping it harder and harder as it runs slower and slower, is some of the finest, most scintillating, haunting prose in any genre I've ever had the pleasure to read. More than any other writer I've encountered, Faulkner is a master of creating characters on a seemingly subconscious level. He really gets into their heads. And he weaves this creative stream of consciousness into his plots and themes. Also, Faulkner wrote one of the most chilling and perfectly rendered short stories ever written, "A Rose for Emily," which is one of two tales I am aware of that is successfully written in the difficult First Person Plural person (the other being Ligotti's equally masterful "The Shadow at the Bottom of the World").
Gabriel García Márquez, the famous Columbian novelist—who is more than a little influenced by Faulkner's work—is a tremendous, living talent, particularly for the quintessential magic realism novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Flannery O'Connor is a favorite as well—particularly for The Violent Bear It Away. Her short stories, like "Good Country People," are uniformly astounding in their surprising depth and complexity and unforgettable imagery. (All three cited novelists have voices that are peculiarly distinctive from any other writer alive or dead. I truly love that strong sense of voice in any writer.)
Speaking of which, I dearly love most of Samuel Beckett's work—my favorite being his bleak, moving and hilarious one act play, Endgame. Beckett and fellow absurdist writer Eugène Ionesco are two of my favorite 20th century playwrights. Shakespeare, unsurprisingly, is very near the top of my all-time favorite playwright list along with the aforementioned authors.
Some of my favorite poets: John Donne, Andrew Marvell, William Blake, Samuel Coleridge, John Keats, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, Ezra Pound, Sylvia Plath, Carolyn Hembree, Jon Anderson, Barbara Cully and Jane Miller. I love good poetry—a rarity in any time period—and am an avid reader of journals which contain contemporary poetry. For a non-poet, I'm pretty knowledgeable in that field and worked very hard to get an M.A. in English Literature with a concentration on the Neoclassical and Romantic English poets.
9. And aside from reading, what sort of activities do you enjoy?
If you'd asked me the same question three years ago, my list would've been pretty short. However, due to a shocking turn of events (precipitated by my family's flight and exile from our home in New Orleans in 2005), I've become very active and enjoy meditating, practicing Tai Chi, yoga, and general cardio and strength building exercises. I was always the scrawny loner growing up, and I never thought I'd ever do anything physical on a regular basis, but exercise has really increased my general sense of well being. Particularly with Tai Chi, yoga and meditation there is a sense of physical and mental presence in the Now that is unlike anything I've ever experienced and these practices have helped me ward off depression, anxiety and stress.
And—I have to say—my (almost) five-month-old daughter—along with my wonderful spouse—is the most incredible thing to ever happen to me. She is a riot and generates endless activities day and night!
Almost forgot: I'm absolutely obsessed with genealogical research which I find to be tremendously fascinating and seemingly (and happily) a never-ending pursuit.
10. Do you have a personal philosophy, an outlook on life, as it were?
It’s a given that anyone reading these words is alive now. The less we can dwell on the past and the future, the more harmonious our internal condition will be and the more effective we can be in the time we have. We all will die, and when we're dead our consciousness, I believe, does not continue beyond the organisms we are. I guess I'm an existentialist. I think we all have one shot here on earth with no do-overs and no reward or judgment to come. Why not be as kind and as helpful as we can to each other while we mutually exist with one another? I don't want to "do right" or be "good" because I'm following some thousands-of-years-old dogma in fear of a petty sky god's punishment or shaming. I'm a big boy now. I don't need a god (or gods) to motivate me to do the right thing.
Also, I’m a vegetarian—for purely personal and ethical reasons. I have always been crazy about non-human animals and (as an adult) try to treat them with kindness and respect. Seriously, some of the best folks I’ve known have been non-human animals.
I'm not a Buddhist, but I do think that some forms of Buddhism contain the least bull#### of all the major religions. And I do see the value in some basic precepts that many organized religions share in common (e.g., don't kill; be nice to one another, etc). Personally, though, I believe there's little doubt that the world would be a much better place without organized religion, which I increasingly look at with disdain.
As someone who has struggled to find religious meaning or belief of any type throughout my childhood, teenage years and adult life, I've recently come to peace with the notion that there are no gods of any sort—at least not in the way humankind has typically defined them heretofore. I always thought the surrender of my lifelong struggle with belief would be followed by a period of stereotypically nauseating, existential dread. On the contrary, since I've stopped trying to force myself to “believe in something,” the most typical emotion I've felt is a profound sense of relief, confidence and even happiness. I feel like I've finally grown up.
11. Would you describe yourself as a believer in the possibility of the supernatural, or a skeptic?
Great follow up question! As you know, I used to be a tremendous believer in the supernatural which undoubtedly is why I was so fearful as a child. If you believe in angels or kindly spirits, it makes it so much easier to believe in devils and demons. I've experienced some pretty weird things in my time, but in retrospect I feel like these experiences were mutated by my terrible desire for such things to be. Strangely enough, it was actually this desire that—wrapped up as it is in my struggle to believe in god(s)—helped to make me a generally anxious and miserable kid and young adult.
Life as we know it, especially with the assistance of the sciences, is considered by many as terrible and wondrous and generally awe-inspiring. Yet human imagination can be so much more awe-inspiring. To quote the great metaphysical poet Andrew Marvell's "The Garden": The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find ;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas ;
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.
To me, the supernatural exists in two ways:
inside concepts of Nature that we don't yet (or can't ever) comprehend
or
distinctly inside the vast, unfathomable halls of human imagination.
I certainly don't need—or want—the supernatural events which occur in many Ligotti stories to take place in our collective, conventional "reality." I'm more than happy for those transcendent supernatural forces to play out only in the creative genius of the artist's mind.
12. What is your Great Fear?
As is most typical, I do fear the loss of all who I love more than anything. But I know it is inevitable, whether—for instance—I die first or my wife dies first. I guess I most fear the eventual loss of identity and stability and passion that Change with a capital "C" always brings, whether we're talking about death of a loved one or losing a home, belongings or a livelihood. Change is scary.
Which brings me to my death specifically. Any time I try to wrap my head around it (which is fairly often), it scares the hell out of me.
For years my biggest fear was in discovering that existence really is pointless, but now that I don't have religion hanging from my neck I've realized with relief that this fear was generated more from the friction between what I knew and what I tried to make myself believe than it was from any intrinsic terror of life's pointlessness. I am still scared of dying, but I was scared of that anyway.
13. Are you a writer yourself, either amateur or professional?
I’ve always wanted to be a professional writer (as I stated at the beginning of the interview, just like Ligotti). Unfortunately, I have neither the skill, the talent nor the drive to be one. I like to think that I’m a fairly decent writer of nonfiction, amateur though I am, but I certainly don’t have a knack for it.
Case in point, when Ligotti and I began corresponding more than twelve years ago now, I sent him a story that I had penned (dedicated to he and David Tibet of Current 93) entitled “The Eyes of the Master.” I cringe even now thinking back. Tom somehow communicated to me in the gentlest, most polite possible manner that the subject matter in my story was cliché, though he was very gracious about the whole thing. That didn’t stop me from publishing it on my new TLO site or giving this wretched tale to David Tibet, who greeted it with awkward thanks. I can’t tell you how bad, how horribly overwritten my story was. Like the poetry I wrote as a teenager, “The Eyes of the Master” is one I really need to dredge out of my past and reread every so often just to keep me humble.
Anyway, I’ve been working on retooling this story ever since. That’s actually deceptive. Every year or two I’ve given it some weeks (occasionally months) of solid work before I give up. It thankfully doesn’t resemble its original form in any way, though it’s still not complete. Fortunately, thanks to a few astute readers’ help, I’ve made great strides on my tale over the past year. It is almost done (assuming one reader in particular gives it a thumbs up).
I want to write this one story—just one, good story. Then I believe I’ll be done. Incidentally, the title of the story is now “The Secret of Ventriloquism.”
14. Writers aside, any other heroes/idols, so to speak, be they fictional (Gandalf the Grey, for instance) or actual?
Funny you should mention Tolkien’s famous steward of Middle Earth. Gandalf is definitely one of my most favorite fictional characters, and one I’ve always adored. Thanks to my sister reading me The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings to me throughout my early childhood, I have an immense love for the Professor’s intricately created fictional world.
On a separate note, I particularly love anti-heroes like Frank Dominio from MWINYD and Thomas Covenant from Stephen R. Donaldson’s Covenant books.
15. Do you have any interesting folks hiding in your family tree? If so, what did they do, what are they known for?
I have been absolutely obsessed with genealogy for a couple of years now, and I have discovered many disturbing and wonderful things such as:
my grandfather murdered a man in a bar brawl, was imprisoned for the deed, and was sprung by his wealthy parents who in fact blew just about their whole fortune paying off the corrupt local officials. My grandfather got off scott free, as they say.
I am almost certainly related to H.P. Lovecraft—specifically we share a great (x9 for me) grandfather by the name of Mikel Phillips from Lovecraft’s maternal line who lived in Newport, RI in the 17th century.
16. You are the Founder of this whole TLO maelstrom that is allowing us these interviews. What inspired you to bring the original TLO into being?
After discovering, Ligotti’s work, I was the only reader I knew who felt a profound connection (which I described earlier) with his fiction. Sure, I had successfully recruited a Ligotti reader here and there over the years, but for the longest time I felt like my enthusiasm (sometimes fanatical enthusiasm) for his work wasn’t widely shared, and I longed to discuss Ligotti’s prose with other like-minded folks. As a research and later a law librarian—in the days before Netscape—I was utilizing the World Wide Web using an early version of a text only browser called lynx (link: Sucuri Web Integrity Monitoring (http://sucuri.net/index.php?page=tools&title=text-browser)). From the beginning of my web use and for years of solid web presence thereafter, I tried to spread the word about Ligotti’s work as I was able but became increasingly frustrated at the relative lack of awareness about Thomas Ligotti and his fiction throughout cyberspace.
Finally, in 1997—upon receiving a job in New York City which paid me very little but gave me tons of free time to mess about on the Internet—I truly became a Ligotti advocate (some would say an annoying advocate) on the old alt.horror.cthulhu Usenet newsgroup. After some argument and semantical wrangling (see this [http://tinyurl.com/yg6tras] rather hilarious proposal thread featuring a much more uptight version of myself), I managed to get the alt.books.thomas-ligotti newsgroup created. A website, cobbled together using stolen HTML from a William Faulkner fan website, wasn’t far behind. Version 1 of TLO is—sadly—lost to the cyber-void as far as I know. Version 2 came out in 1999 and an archive can be found here (Horror - Thomas Ligotti Online Stories and FAQ (http://tinyurl.com/ybpf6cf)).
In retrospect, I’m proud of these difficult, initial efforts (by me) and the even greater efforts others (e.g., Matt Cardin; Brian Poe) have made throughout the years. In version 1 and 2 of TLO, we published a number of Ligotti stories, some for the first time. TLO—for instance—was the first publisher of the Ligotti and Brandon Trenz penned, original X-Files screenplay, Crampton, and was the original home for Ligotti’s masterful novella, My Work Is Not Yet Done. It has also been—for over 12 years now—the source for (more or less) updated Ligotti-related news, a place for Ligotti readers to chat and share thoughts and ideas with each other, and—notably—a place in which Ligotti-inspired work may be shared. I’m proud to state that TLO published Cardin’s remarkable short story, “Teeth,” for the first time anywhere (which led to a successful and well-deserved writing career [Matt Cardin (http://tinyurl.com/ybwbmrd])).
About halfway through TLO’s long Internet life to date, the website had fallen into quiescence—mainly due to my challenging job and active home life in New Orleans. Fortunately, back in 2004, Brian Poe contacted me with a plan to revive the site. And, boy, did he ever revive it. Now, thanks to my good friend Brian (and the daily care of the inestimable Phil aka G.S. Carnivals) TLO is a thriving, vigorous community of Ligotti readers, which is what I originally intended but didn't have the know-how or time to pull off. I can never repay Brian for what he’s accomplished in the past six years. The level of talent and intelligence on the site is sky high, and I couldn’t be happier with the state of TLO since Brian took over development and day to day operation of the site. Back in 2005, Tom wrote of TLO, “what I like the most about the site is the idea of people who appreciate my horror stories talking about stuff that has nothing to do with my horror stories and, as we used to say in the sixties, just doing their own thing.” Seriously, does any other author have a more excellent online community than this one?
Forgive my verbosity. I know this is becoming more of a history lesson than anything, but the question about inspiration induced me to look back and reflect a little on what has passed. In fact, I’ve spent the better part of an afternoon walking down memory lane thanks to your straightforward question.
Is anyone still reading this interview?
17. I know you as a multi-talented person. Discuss some of your many skills for our members, if you would.
I have been and on again, off again professional ventriloquist for almost 25 years. And—no—my TLO avatar is not my ventriloquist dummy. But I’d be delighted/forever disturbed if it was.
I am a fairly well trained, fairly talented actor who has starred as Bottom in an off-Broadway production of Midsummer’s Night Dream in addition to many other less prestigious production over the last 33 years or so. The off-Broadway credit sounds better than it was. In truth, the production was a disaster.
I have my Master’s degree in English Literature and act as the Information Systems & Technology Director of a nonprofit agency in New Orleans (a position which I love and which I’ve held for the better part of a decade).
18. Musically speaking, what are your tastes? A few of your favorite performers?
I have a pretty eclectic taste in music: anything from old, classic country to classical to hip hop to blues to hard rock. Some of my favorite artists/bands include Mark Knopfler, Blue Oyster Cult, Anthony & the Johnsons, and John Lee Hooker. A special mention must be made of Current 93—especially what I consider their masterwork: All the Pretty Little Horses. Opening for Current 93 in NYC over a decade ago was one of the biggest, most surreal thrills of my life.
19. Do you have a vivid recall of your dreams? Are your dreams astounding, or pedestrian?
Usually, they’re pedestrian. I have many dreams about traveling, oftentimes to beachfront areas. These dreams routinely contain the threat of a hurricane or other natural disaster (and these dreams long pre-date my experience with Hurricane Katrina or the other hurricanes I’ve either ridden out or escaped). Like Matt Cardin, I often have dreams which include lights in the sky—specifically alien in origin. I’m glad to say I don’t—like Matt and Ligotti—have recurring sleep paralysis.
Occasionally, though, I have very vivid nightmares. Here’s a sample:
The dream started off like an interactive movie. I (and it was a dream "I" with some similarities to me and some differences) was driving a group of people down a highway towards Loxley and Foley and Gulf Shores in south Alabama. It was twilight, and I was not going on a vacation.
My dream-self had memories of being compelled some years before by an impulse beyond my control. At some point at the time, I had driven the wrong way on the super highway until all the traffic started going the same direction I was going. When I got off of a certain exit to a certain "hidden" town, a truck going the "wrong way" down the exit turn almost hit me. In the past, the truck contained the family that I would ultimately save from this Nyarlathotep-like horror in the form of Angus Scrimm, the actor who played the Tall Man from the Phantasm series. Seems the family's house was somehow "dreaming" this menace (or so I thought), and through a variety of foul misadventures, I exorcised him by making the house "wake up" somehow.
That was the dream-past which I remembered distinctly. In the present, I was driving with a small group of investigators like myself down the same "path" towards this same house, as I somehow knew that the Angus horror was back. I began driving the wrong way on the superhighway (which was pretty frightening at first) until twilight fell at which time everything changed, and the traffic started going my direction. The highway had become more like a country road, and I turned off on the exit I had turned down before (notably, this time the exit sign had the name of a town whose name I can't remember). I was fully expecting to almost run into the family I saved before. That didn't happen (much to my dismay). So I was forced to keep going down a road that became progressively more run down and more alien looking. I could not find the house that had been there before at all—only a crummy court in a rundown park.
Anyway, we all got out of my car (including my real-world dog, Earle), and moved through the brush only to find, over a ridge, a whole town that had not apparently been there before. Quite a beautiful town as well—quiet but... disturbed somehow. All the houses were dark colored and placed on small hills and small cliffs (so different from the flatlands of south Alabama). I noticed then that twilight had never become night. In fact, it was marginally lighter than it had been but in the most unsettling way.
I then became aware of the overwhelmingly oppressive atmosphere. The presence of the Tall Man, if not his actual shape, was everywhere in and around the town (which seemed devoid of people). We sought shelter in a house that lay on the border of the town—a trailer really, and I knew the Tall Man (or Nyarlathotep more precisely) was seeking to enter and consume the domicile. At one point, we had to hold the front door closed and lock it as the inexorable force attempted to gain entry. The Foulness, I realized, was only toying with us—as was its nature—and it began whispering really terrible things to me through the crack (and through that crack I could see It in the form of the Tall Man, looming wight-like just outside).
The gist of what the voice told me: I had had it all wrong before. The house that he was "haunting" was indeed dreaming before my previous arrival—just as all houses and towns and landscapes of the world have for aeons. As he intended, however, his haunting of that one house had led me (through some unknown insane insight) to *wake the house up* into *reality*—a grim reality indeed.
That one act unwittingly made by me had—in effect—woken Cthulhu, who (the Tall Man mockingly explained) was merely a metaphor for a much fouler truth: the world—and in fact the universe—is Azathoth: the gibbering primal chaos having a brief and random dream (of some human aeons) that order exists. The Idiot's dream was now coming to an end, thanks to the Tall Man's efforts in manipulating me originally into waking that one "haunted" house. Now a whole town, formerly woods in the "dream," had awoken—soon the entire world would similarly awake, becoming infected with the "new reality" in which everything would eventually change in the "most wonderful ways." At the end of the nightmare, I felt a crushing sense of cosmic terror, dread, and guilt as I realized that the Tall Man-—-not some benevolent force—had been guiding me from the very beginning. "Thank you, Jonathan," the Tall Man—Nyarlathotep—sneered as I awoke with a yell, soaked in sweat.
It took me nearly ten minutes to be confident that the "dream" I had awoken from wasn't a prelude to the foul "reality" of my dream.
20. Anything you would like to add, perhaps something I didn't think to ask that you feel I should have?
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you (Jimmy) for conducting so many of these great interviews and for remaining the best friend I’ve ever had through some incredibly trying times. You are the (good) brother I never had.
I’d also like to thank my good friend Brian Poe for transforming a cobbled-together, amateur author fan website into a thriving community—hands down the best author site I’ve encountered online. Your hard work, ingenuity and incredible creativity never cease to amaze me, Brian.
I'd be remiss, also, if I didn't thank my dear friend Matt Cardin. Without Matt's early (primal-TLO) encouragement and enthusiasm (and time), I doubt that the original alt.books.thomas-ligotti or TLO itself would've gotten off the ground (as I would have been literally typing to the void in those early days). Matt's exceptional mind and talent lent both the newsgroup and website an academic (and creative) authority that it wouldn't have otherwise had.
I’d also like to thank each of you TLO members. TLO’s original mission was to share a love and enthusiasm for Thomas Ligotti’s work with a community of fellow (and occasionally like-minded) readers. You have all made this simple wish into a cyber-reality. And some of you have truly made this cyber-reality into a home of sorts. You are the heart and backbone of the site, and I thank you.
Finally, I’d like to humbly thank Thomas Ligotti for his friendship, his wit, his patience, his tutelage and his singular skill/talent/vision. As funny as it sounds, Tom's writing has brought me and continues to bring me unique moments of joy and consolation time and again. And I know I'm not alone.
How's that for irony?