duskblood

Abuse of Reason Art Officially in the Urban Arts Festival!

Thu, 16 May 2013 16:53:33 -0600

It’s official: AOR has been accepted into the Urban Arts Festival this year! The festival is expanding and will be held at the Gateway Mall this year on Saturday, July 20th. We really hope to see all you SLC natives there; it’s free and should be a fantastic time. Now more than ever, we need your help to make our presentation at this and Craft Lake City the best we can possibly deliver. Please check out our Indiegogo campaign and share the link on your Facebook. Every little bit helps!

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/festival-upgrades-for-abuse-of-reason-art-and-photography/x/2133726

hometown-unicorn: My eye caught a dark form lying on the river...

Mon, 13 May 2013 15:16:40 -0600

hometown-unicorn:

My eye caught a dark form lying on the river bottom. It took me a few moments to comprehend what I had stumbled upon. Lying peacefully in the shallow waters of the river, only a few meters from shore, was a full-grown cougar. The contrast between the serenity of the scene I was witnessing and what must have played out here in the cougar’s final moments made me shiver. It was the first shiver of many, as I stripped down and waded out into the icy water to get this shot. x

ENTER TO WIN an 18x20 print of “Rapture” by...

Thu, 09 May 2013 08:54:24 -0600

ENTER TO WIN an 18x20 print of “Rapture” by contributing $1 to Abuse of Reason Art’s Indiegogo Campaign!

Help AOR Fund Festival Upgrades!

Wed, 08 May 2013 10:46:17 -0600

Help AOR Fund Festival Upgrades!:

AOR has begun an Indiegogo campaign to raise $1500 for upgrades to festival presentation for this season. Check out the page and spread the word! Perks include prints and professional cover work done, so if you or someone you know is in a band or is an author about to finish a book, send them to the campaign!

ASIDEFROMADAY Interview

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 09:35:54 -0600

ASIDEFROMADAY Interview:

Check out my latest interview with amazing French post-metal group ASIDEFROMADAY! And check out their new album “Chasing Shadows”, and video for “Wolf’s Tears Are Falling Stars”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftwZdfq27A0

dimitriishere: A selection of incredible portraits from...

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 11:54:17 -0600

dimitriishere:

A selection of incredible portraits from photographer Charles Fréger’s collection and book Wilder Mann, documenting the ancient pagan rites still being practiced throughout Europe today.

From the New York Times Lens blog:

About 10,000 years ago, humans began domesticating wild animals for both food and companionship. Over the course of centuries, animal species were bred for traits that made them docile and more useful to their masters. But as humans changed and fenced in animals, they were also domesticating themselves. The skills needed to survive in the wild were different than those needed to succeed in more complex social arrangements.

Mr Fréger was intrigued by the transformations of human being to beast that he witnessed in 18 European countries. They were, he said, celebrations of fertility, life and death and symbolized the complicated relationship between mankind and nature.

AOR on Facebook is doing a print giveaway to celebrate the...

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 13:19:43 -0600

AOR on Facebook is doing a print giveaway to celebrate the return of GAME OF THRONES! Head over to Facebook and Like or Share the photo of “Wildling” to be entered to win an 8x10 copy!

http://www.facebook.com/abuseofreason

Confession

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 19:30:28 -0600

Sometimes I can’t see my own progress, because I still haven’t arrived at “perfect”.

"It is okay to want your own happiness. It’s okay to care about yourself the most. You are not..."

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 19:27:26 -0600

“It is okay to want your own happiness. It’s okay to care about yourself the most. You are not obligated to sit there and smile and swallow every bit of shit everyone heaps on you. You are more than furniture, you’re more than window dressing, you’re not their shiny toy. You’re human, and you have the right to say “That was shitty of you”. You have a right to protest your own mistreatment and set boundaries for respectful interactions. The rest of the world doesn’t realize you have this right, and they will act offended and appalled when you exercise it, but it is yours.”

- (via belle-de-nuit)

Book Reviews

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 09:09:35 -0700

Added two new book reviews to the “Read My Work” section, including “Lame Ducks” by Isaac Black and “What Are You Doing Here?: A Black Woman’s Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal” by Laina Dawes. Some more SLUG coverage will be coming soon as well!

Abuse of Reason Art on ETSY

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 12:18:41 -0700

Abuse of Reason Art on ETSY:

Happy Presidents Day! AOR just posted a metric ton of new listings in honor of… a day off work and school, quite frankly. Come check them out!

Interview with Dan Briggs of Between The Buried And Me

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:52:33 -0700

Interview with Dan Briggs of Between The Buried And Me:

I had the pleasure of chatting with Dan before the beginning of their latest tour supporting Coheed and Cambria and hearing the story of his musical upbringing, his numerous and diverse side projects, and what made the writing of this newest record different from all their past efforts.

"The truths are contradictory. It can be argued, for instance, that war is grotesque. But in truth..."

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 11:33:59 -0700

“The truths are contradictory. It can be argued, for instance, that war is grotesque. But in truth war is also beauty. For all its horror, you can’t help but gape at the awful majesty of combat. you stare out at tracer rounds unwinding through the dark like brilliant red ribbons. You crouch in ambush as a cool, impassive moon rises over the nighttime paddies. you admire the fluid symmetries of troops on the move, the harmonies of sound and shape and proportion, the great sheets of metal-fire streaming down from a gunship, the illumination rounds, the white phosphorus, the purply orange glow of napalm, the rocket’s red glare. It’s not pretty exactly. It’s astonishing. It fills the eye. It commands you. You hate it, yes, but your eyes do not. Like a killer forest fire, like cancer under a microscope, any battle or bombing raid or artillery barrage has the aesthetic purity of absolute moral indifference—a powerful, implacable beauty—and a true war story will tell the truth about this, though the truth is ugly.”

- Tim O’Brien, How to Tell a True War Story from The Things They Carried (via whitewasht)

Interview with Frankie Palmeri of Emmure

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 19:31:29 -0700

Interview with Frankie Palmeri of Emmure:

I sit down with frontman Frankie Palmeri of the ever-infamous Emmure to talk about expression, the industry, and how he feels about Slave To The Game a year out.

Hello, Sweetie! Podcast

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 11:55:00 -0700

Hello, Sweetie! Podcast:

Geekdom has new reigning queens: the ladies of the Hello, Sweetie! Podcast. Check out my write-up on their amazingness and give the show a listen here: http://hellosweetiepodcast.podomatic.com/

Brothers Of Brutality Tour Review at SLUGMag.com

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 23:30:42 -0700

Brothers Of Brutality Tour Review at SLUGMag.com:

Check out my review of the Brothers of Brutality Tour featuring Emmure, Whitechapel, Unearth, Obey the Brave, and The Plot In You

GRAB BAG SALE at the Etsy Store! Get any three 4x6 prints for...

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 13:09:00 -0700

GRAB BAG SALE at the Etsy Store! Get any three 4x6 prints for $15, or any three 5x7 prints for $20!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/121729603/grab-bag-sale-any-three-5x7-prints-for

Things are happening so fast and so differently than I expected. I’m uncovering new truths and...

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 14:00:55 -0700

Things are happening so fast and so differently than I expected. I’m uncovering new truths and forgetting old lies, but still I’m wrestling with myself and my existence and trying to measure exactly how many quarks and photons make up the will-power of a woman of 28 who was once dead but is now resurrected. If I can measure it, then I know what to shoot for. I know when I’ve failed.

I’m finding I’ve always been an anthropologist in teeny tiny ways, and so pursuit of this in academia is making my heart sing a song of belonging. I’m finding like minds and open hearts. I’m seeing possibilities I never thought I’d have.

The love of writing and of stories is still burning in me, an angry sun in the deep dark of space, screaming in solar flares the questions: what is happening to me? Where is my world to warm? Do the savages still lean back until their necks are sore to praise in awe and terror every sparkling twitch of my face? How did I ever come to have a name and tell a tale?

The more I learn, the less I know. I am overwhelmed with sensation, drowning in numbers and myths and the fucking endless parade of possibilities, grotesque in its gluttony, yet starving and stalking.

The truth is: nothing I do will ever be enough for me.

I will consume until I explode and then I will reform and consume again. I will always be in a state of graceless ache, stretching and hibernating, exploding and reforming.

Isn’t that all the universe is, really? A pulsing blob of reincarnation, scattering stars in patterns until, unsatisfied, it sweeps them off the table in selfish rebellion and starts again. No map will ever form to lead the way home. Home is the horizon, close enough to taste but never to catch.

I wasn't dreaming: Why I wrote The Crooked God Machine

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 18:12:58 -0700

I wasn't dreaming: Why I wrote The Crooked God Machine:

autumnrchristian:

I’d become friends with a newly-minted atheist, a recent graduate of Religious Studies from a Christian university. Schizophrenic, he said, I’m not chosen by God, I’m just a schizophrenic. He used to see God sitting in the corner of his room like the angry cloud that wrapped itself around the…

"With the exception of Ray Bradbury, I can’t honestly say I was influenced by anybody as much as I..."

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 19:50:28 -0700

“With the exception of Ray Bradbury, I can’t honestly say I was influenced by anybody as much as I just liked to read. People may say, “I was influenced by this writer and I was influenced by that writer,” but I believed horror writers are really influenced most of all by their childhoods. I wonder if things have happened that made us this way - it seems like we’re always trying to get back to our childhood. Trying to find something we lost, or correct something we missed. Or purge it. Perhaps you can purge something in a book, and it seems to come back to you. I don’t know what that is; perhaps that’s just our bent as horror writers.”

- Robert McCammon, “Dark Dreamers: Conversations with the Masters of Horror.” (via autumnrchristian)