Who Are You?

[NealJansons]

Quote Originally Posted by Dr. Locrian

Welcome, Neal. Believe me, you are more like Ligotti than you think. He's simply one of the funniest people I've ever known, with a keen sense of the absurd.

I would like to enter into correspondence with him, but I am sure he is sick of depressives with delusions of the literary pestering him.

And thank you for your welcome.

[MoeShinola1]

For anyone who dosen't look at the Welcome thread, I'll reprint it here:

I am a musician and poet, and I'd like to share a few links to introduce myself: Proctosophy My book review blog, with random detritus thrown in here and there. Moe Shinola My first and so far only completed album, the hippie protest record "Radio Caroline". https://soundcloud.com/moe_shinola Here is electronic music and other detritus that I've created. There's an audiobook reading of Lovecraft's "Dagon" on here. https://soundcloud.com/one-deep-breath This is a songwriting collaboration I'm part of, with my friend KaiZen. https://soundcloud.com/potlickers-possum-run This is an old-timey folk band I'm in. That's me singing "Whiskey You're The Devil". The Mind Keep | High brow subjects, low brow talk. Here's a podcast I co-host intermittently, with my friend Dr. Buddha VonStrangehate.

I truncated it a bit, so I could add a few things. I am a denizen of the 'Midtown/Westport Area', home of most things that pass for cool in KC. For those who have not been here, Kansas City is actually several cities, or large towns, really. KC proper extends from State Line Rd(it really is the state line separating MO and KS), east to I-435, where you enter the eastern suburbs, which go from dingy blue collar outward into higher income and status. West, you have Wyandotte County, the poor part of KCKS, and, to the south, Johnson County, the rich part. North, you have the nice-but-distinctly-blue-collar North Kansas City and Gladstone, shading into richer suburbs farther north. South, which used to be almost as rich as Johnson County, is becoming the dingiest of all, with Grandview deteriorating shockingly from what it was two decades ago.

I'm off into the weeds, sorry. I work from home, doing mostly data entry for an insurance company. On weekends I'm either practicing with my old-timey folk band at Steel's Used Books in North KC, hanging with friends, working on poetry, reading a book or helping my parents in their garden.

[Arthur Staaz]

Well, let's start with the fact that I am a pseudonym. If I belonged to Alcoholics Pseudonymous, I would open by saying, "Hi, I'm Arthur." I choose pseudonymity for various reasons, personal and professional.

My alter ego is a lawyer by day. He lives in southern New Hampshire. He first came across Ligotti by chance (Is there really such a thing?) in a Barnes and Noble in the mid-90s. It was The Nightmare Factory. Ligotti's writing was unlike anything he had ever come across. It was addictive, insidious, perception-altering. Early favorites included "The Night School" and "The Shadow at the Bottom of the World." Favorite writers include Ligotti, Borges, Kafka, Houellebecq, Poe, Lovecraft, Cioran, Nietsche, Hesse, Cormac McCarthy. He's also a sucker for John Crowley's "Little, Big." Musical favorites include Leonard Cohen, the Who, the Moody Blues, Pearl Jam, the Police, the Doors, Neil Young. He also likes to slip into spontaneous dreamstates while listening to Renaissance music and sometimes neofolk. He has been a son, husband, father, and grandfather. His worst nightmares usually involve a sense of being completely cut off from every other person or thing in a world that is cold, dark, and empty. He has a hole in his soul the size of . . . well, the shadow at the bottom of the world. He'd kill himself, but his therapist is a strict Freudian. If you don't get the allusion, you really ought to see Woody Allen's "Annie Hall."

I, Arthur Staaz, write. I aspire to Ligottian depths salted with Kafka and Borges. I suspect my alter ego may have plans to kill me one day.

[Mr.Plores]

Since I am a new member and I find this community extremely fascinating, I will proceed to present myself.

I am 29 years old. Male. I am in a relationship with my girlfriend of 4 years.
I was born in a small, thin country called Chile. I lived there til I was 14. As a child, the only thing I did was read. I lived in a big old house with a gigantic garden. My entire extended family lived there, uncles, cousins, grandparents and so forth. Given the fact that we were poor I never had a computer as a child or a gaming console. Fortunately there was a huge library with plenty of books. Everything from children's books to political treatises. Fantasy and Facts.

My fondest literary memories from childhood were the works of Jules Verne. I read everything with incredible passion. I was also fascinated by the novel "Kon-Tiki" and the poem "The Iliad". I liked drawing and was a good student.

When I moved to Norway at the age of 14 my life changed completely. Fortunately I had the opportunity to learn English and Norwegian. It was around that age that I started delving into sci-fi. I read Asimov mostly. At around 18 I started reading Marx and that type of stuff. That is when I discovered Lovecraft, around that time. After High School I took a major in Economics which was at that time my passion. I became an idealistic Libertarian but I guess that now I am mostly apolitical. Unfortunately the math skills required to obtain a Master's degree were beyond hat I could give so I did not go beyond the first three years.

I started working as an IT-support guy and that is what I am doing now. I will start a History degree in August which will probably give me the opportunity to obtain a Master's degree later. Perhaps I will become a teacher. Not sure yet.

I started writing 8 months ago. I have always been an an avid reader, but it was a specific bad spell of depression around Christmas time that really got my motivation up for writing. I have written about 14 short stories of what I assume to be of lower quality, but I firmly believe I am improving each day and each time I write. English is the language I prefer to write in. I guess eventually I will write in Spanish. I doubt I will ever write any fiction in Norwegian as I don't find the language very pretty or adequate for the feelings I want to evoke.

I will not deny it, I would like to get a short story printed somewhere one day.

It was Ligotti's work that opened the door for modern Weird Fiction and specially pessimism. I believe someone put it somewhere in the forums perfectly. I paraphrase, but it was something like: "living in a border between normal life and complete darkness, always glancing over your shoulder towards the darkness with horror, awe and fascination". I believe that is the perfect place to be at. It is a specially fertile ground for people with over-active imaginations like me.

[njhorror]

I've been asking myself this question every day for years, and considering my age I figure I'll never get around to answering it.

"A man in baggy pants, a lonely face, a crazy grin"

I am a 26 year old pale male who has scarcely left his house for years due to acute anxiety, which has come to characterise my very existence. I see malign suggestion in everything, whether it be the microwave's beeping, the texture of a towel, the scowl of a ceiling or the clangour of the letterbox's heartbeat.

I write anxious weird fiction stories about the banal apprehensions which haunt me continually, but have no faith in my ability to succeed in this realm so do not submit my work to anywhere as the idea of being published is at this point unfathomable. I have shown my tales to my scant few friends I made in university, whose reactions are of incredulity or fake enjoyment. I can say with absolute certainty that nobody has ever enjoyed what I have written, and I see a sad purity in that.

I have been lost by society, and have fallen through the cracks. The abyss I find myself in is a bedroom brightly burdened by its lack of curtains, so I've recently found it hard to read the Clark Ashton Smith stories from the Eldritch Dark website, which alone have helped get me through these last few days. A lack of furnishing seems to be bullying me in to living a nocturnal existence, which is perhaps where I belong.

[Revenant]

My real name is unimportant. As is everything else about me, actually. I am 48, that's almost 7 in dog years. I hold a bachelors degree in social studies education (I wanted a way to put my history studies to work). Then I got a masters degree in library science and I should have stopped there. But I did not. Next I went massively in student loan debt to become I lawyer, still believing foolishly in the brass ring.
As I have become more observant of myself and the mistakes I have made I have grown to understand myself better and have stopped pretending to be who I am not, even if I keep that truth to myself. I have come to wear two face so: the one that gets me through the day and my true face that comes out in my hovel. I have grown to despise the former and embrace the latter. A sudden and abrupt end is coming to my public face soon. I can feel it.
Books? History and more history. Books of the odd and eccentric, especially misers. They are a favorite. Fiction? No surprises. Ligotti, Lovecraft, Poe. Branch out from there.
Music? Ambient, classical. Bach and Penderecki are my favorites.
Ambition? To become that strange old hermit who lives in the ruins by the cliff.
May we find contentment in our lives, as happiness is, at its best, a temporary illusion.

[Patrick G.P]

Hello everyone, I thought I would introduce myself, being a new member.
My name is Patrick, I'm 30, I live in Norway with my wife and two cats in a strange old house filled with books, records and movies. I've been a fan of H.P. Lovecraft since high school and been obsessed with the Cthulhu mythos and weird fiction since then. I discovered Thomas Ligotti a couple of years ago and immediately he resonated with my own bleak ideas concerning humanity and the world around me.
I just recently read L. Sprague De Camp's biography on Lovecraft and that sparked an intense urge to discuss weird literature and its authors, hence I'm here. Looking forward to some great discussions with you guys.

[Kevin]

Hey Patrick, welcome! Good to see this thread resurrected.

Your house sounds tres cool.

[miguel1984]

Quote Originally Posted by Patrick G.P

In a strange old house filled with books, records and movies.

I really envy you. Other than that, welcome.