SFUltra

"Sometimes when I get up and emerge from the mists of slumber, my whole room hurts, my whole bedroom, the view from the window hurts, kids go to school, people go shopping, everybody knows where to go, only I don't know where I want to go..." - Bohumil Hrabal, Total Fears: Selected Letters to Dubenka

"Death's meaning I cannot read. To me death is above all things a smell, a very bad smell, and that, like the skeletons which terrify children, is not death at all. If I had to smell it more often, if I had to work in the catacombs, I would think nothing of it. And a few years or decades from now, I will think nothing about everything." - William T. Vollmann, Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means

Christopher Zeischegg, a magician, discusses the dark and disturbing side of the pornography industry, the dynamics of power and control in relationships, and his experiences leaving the porn industry. The podcast also explores the boundary between science fiction and intense fiction, the author's descriptive style, and book appreciation.

"All alone at the '64 World's Fair Eighty dolls yelling "Small girl after all" Who was at the DuPont Pavilion? Why was the bench still warm? Who had been there?" - They Might Be Giants, Ana Ng

"Being empty, not being a complete, separate being, having no self to groove on and needing to be constantly in female company, he sees nothing at all wrong in intruding himself on any woman's thoughts, even a total stranger's, anywhere at any time, but rather feels indignant and insulted when put down for doing so, as well as confused -- he can't, for the life of him, understand why anyone would prefer so much as one minute of solitude to the company of any creep around." - Valerie Solanas, The Scum Manifesto

There's something they aren't telling us. Something we don't know about. There's more to it. There's always more to it. This is what history consists of. It's the sum total of all the things they aren't telling us. –David Ferrie in Don DeLillo's Libra (1988)

I'm happy to welcome Astrid Rose on this fifth episode of Murder House Sold, a Perfect Taste Forever miniseries about True Crime. We talk about Gordon Burn's Happy Like Murderers, a book about Fred and Rose West. Annoyingly, Astrid is an amazing writer of both horror fiction and criticism. She is also the co-host of Live At The Death Factory, the only perfect podcast ever to exist. Most recently, she was one of the writers of this video game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2231460/Roman_Sands_REBuild/ You can find her horror fiction here: https://astridannerose.gumroad.com/ Murder House Sold is Perfect Taste Forever miniseries, a show usually only available to SFUltra patrons. The other episodes are solo, like SFUltra itself, and cover the more esoteric end of long form, largely literary, cultural criticism.

"Art is creation in response to lack. Quite different from a stand-in for the archetype, which must be there, somewhere, the art object is a kind of fetish, a replacement for some real thing that is missing." - Mike Kelley

"Rattled by and by As if someone was right Drawn and downed Indifference stands But a light from deep It glows They must have seen it too Rattled" - Scald Scar of Water, Altar of Plagues

I'm happy to welcome Mark O'Connell on this second episode of Murder House Sold, a Perfect Taste Forever miniseries about True Crime, to talk about his new book A Thread Of Violence. Mark's a fantastic author and journalist whose previous books To Be a Machine and Notes From The Apocalypse are both remarkable examinations of grim insistence entropy can be defied. Ultimately along the same lines, his new work A Thread Of Violence is recounts extended conversations Mark had with one of Ireland's most famous living murders in order to write a book about him that doubles as a meditation on what it means to write true crime. It's one of the best true crime books I've ever read, though I think neither author nor subject would be totally comfortable that description. I know Mark so decided to ask him loads of annoying questions, and even a few "more of a comment than a question"s, about it. He kindly agreed. Murder House Sold is Perfect Taste Forever miniseries, a show usually only available to SF Ultra patrons. The other episodes are solo, like SFUltra itself, and cover the more esoteric end of long form, largely literary, cultural criticism.