TLO Member Interview: Pegritz

TLO Member Interview: Pegritz
Conducted by Phillip Stecco


1) How did you first encounter the work of Thomas Ligotti?

Via Douglas Winter's Prime Evil anthology. I believe I was... fourteen at the time, and couldn't make heads or tails of "Alice's Last Adventure." It was too far beyond my then-limited reading capacity... but something about its surreal eeriness kept drawing me back to it. In later years, I discovered Songs of a Dead Dreamer, Grimscribe, and The Nightmare Factory after I'd read more Poe, Lovecraft, and Samuel Beckett. Beckett's absurd, dadaist influence really piqued my taste for Ligotti's seriously creepy approach to the absurdity of existence.


2) What are some of your favorite works by Mr. Ligotti?

My favourite Ligotti books are The Nightmare Factory and Songs of a Dead Dreamer. My favourite *stories* are--beyond any shadow of a doubt--"Dr. Locrian's Asylum" (I am literally obsessed with this story), "The Troubles of Dr. Thoss," and "The Sect of The Idiot."


3) What other writers do you enjoy reading?

As noted above, Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, and Samuel Beckett. I also adore Cormac McCarthy, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Greg Bear, Ian McDonald, Robert Reed, and a whole host of other sci-fi and horror authors. Honestly, too many to list.


4) Do you have any favorite singers or musicians?

Gary Numan, Devo, Skinny Puppy, Coil, Front Line Assembly, Emilie Autumn, Comateens, The Buggles, Pink Floyd, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Porcupine Tree, Dimmu Borgir, John Prine, 13th Floor Elevators, Erik Satie, Niccolò Paganini. The list goes on and on....


5) Do you have any favorite artists in the visual media?

H. R. Giger, Joel-Peter Witkin, The Brothers Quay, Jacek Yerka, Zdzislaw Beksinski.


6) What are some of your favorite movies?

Ghostbusters! (The Greatest Movie of All Time.) Also: John Carpenter's Halloween, The Thing, Christine, They Live, Prince of Darkness, and In the Mouth of Madness; Dark City; Hellraiser and Hellraiser II; City of Lost Children; Synechdoche, New York; Event Horizon; Solaris; The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; Nosferatu; Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow; Fire in the Sky; and more goofy comedies than I can remember.


7) Do you watch television?

Almost never. And when I do, all I watch these days are "Fringe "(once in a while), "The Event," and World War II documentaries on The History Channel.


8) What foods do you enjoy eating?

Anything Middle-Eastern, Asian, or Eastern European. I eat like a Mongol conqueror, basically.


9) Do you have any odd hobbies or collecting fetishes?

I collect antique medical equipment--especially equipment used in morgues, mental hospitals, and other creepy places--and all manner of medical books, especially those dealing in psychiatry. Hence the reasons most of my friends call me "Dr. Harkness Locrian" these days.


10) What recreational activities do you enjoy?

Writing music and fiction--proportionately more music than fiction, though. Playing with my cat. Sleeping. Growing pumpkins and watermelons.


11) What makes you laugh?

What *doesn't?* No, seriously--I can find humour in anything. Probably because I have the sense of humour of a five-year-old boy.


12) Life?

Something to be endured and, if possible, enjoyed to the fullest of your capabilities. Assorted psychoactive biochemicals make the latter considerably easier.


13) Death?

Something to be avoided at all costs/a disease just waiting to be cured by biotechnology.


14) Work?

A necessary evil. I've been, at various times, a freelance graphic designer, an ad designer at a ####ty backwoods newspaper, an adjunct instructor of English at several colleges (and lemme tell you, it is THE most thankless, worthless, fruitless job in existence), and an Apple tech support flunky. Now I'm a student at California University of Pennsylvania (again) studying commercial music technology.


15) Do you have any interesting work anecdotes to relate?

None that I can relate for fear of rendering myself utterly unemployable for the remainder of my days!


16) What is your earliest childhood memory?

Lying in my bed, late at night, facing the door to my bedroom and literally twitching in terror. Someone was standing behind me in the utter silence... just watching me. Eventually, I couldn't take the fear anymore, so I jumped out of bed and ran down the stairs to my parents' room. I remember climbing up onto the bed and trying to wake my mom, but nothing would budge her--so I curled up in a shivering ball at the foot of the bed, staring in terror at the door to her room. Then a circus train covered in clowns with huge black eyes came silently rolling down the hall outside. All the clowns just stared at me, never saying a word or making a sound....


17) What is your fondest childhood memory?

Hunting Bigfoot in the woods around my house with my childhood best friend Wes. We were obsessed with Sasquatch and UFOs and monsters of all sorts when we were kids.


18) Who has been the most influential person in your life?

My homeboy Joe Kendall. He really helped me break out of my shell and become the loud, ebullient, who-gives-a-crap berzerker I am today.


19) Do you have a special plan for this world?

Ohhhhhhh, yes. And it involves bringing to humanity the ultimate cure for its stupidity via contact with elder beings who live in the dark between the stars.


20) What else should we know about you?

I love spearmint.