VASTARIEN – Magazin za Mračnjake

            U proleće 2018. izašao je u SAD prvi broj novog književnog magazina pod imenom VASTARIEN. Ova publikacija knjiškog formata, na oko 250 strana u mekom povezu, posvećena je najcrnjoj tami i nekonvencionalnom, nekomercijalnom, ligotijevskom filozofskom hororu i uopšte temama, nazorima i autorima srodnim Tomasu Ligotiju. Velika mi je čast, ali i zadovoljstvo što sam se i ja našao među njegovim saradnicima.

Naziv potiče od istoimene, vrhunske priče Tomasa Ligotija iz njegove prve zbirke, SONGS OF A DEAD DREAMER (čitaćete i nju na srpskom u narednim godinama, bez brige!). Odlomak koji sledi može vam dati bližu ideju i o magazinu nazvanom po njoj:

Vastarien.  The forbidden tome. The impossible otherworld. A textual entryway into a place where everything was transfixed in the order of the unreal. . . . Each passage he entered in the book both enchanted and appalled him with images and incidents so freakish and chaotic that his usual sense of these terms disintegrated along with everything else. Rampant oddity seemed to be the rule of the realm; imperfection became the source of the miraculous — wonders of deformity and marvels of miscreation. There was horror, undoubtedly. But it was a horror uncompromised by any feeling of lost joy or thwarted redemption; rather, it was a deliverance by damnation. And if Vastarien was a nightmare, it was a nightmare transformed in spirit by the utter absence of refuge: nightmare made normal.

            Urednici magazina su Džon Pedžet i Mat Kardin, a obojica su dobitnici Zlatnih Gulova; Pedžet za svoju izuzetnu debi zbirku The Secret of Ventriloquism (koja ima moj blurb!)

...a Kardin za non-fiction dvotomnu mega-enciklopediju Horror Literature through History (o kojoj sam pisao izdašan članak za RUE MORGUE).

            Ovaj magazin naročitu pažnju posvećuje sledećim temama:

Supernatural horror (both fiction and film)

Philosophical pessimism

Gnosticism

Buddhism

Nihilism

Surrealism

Decadent and fin de siècle literature

Pessimistic and morbid poetry (Trakl, Thomson, Brennan, Leopardi, Larkin, Wiloch, Barnitz, etc.)

Aberrant psychology (depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, anhedonia, depressive realism, etc.)

Euthanasia/Right to Die

Horror in the visual arts

Antinatalism

L’école Belge de l’étrange

Corporate degradation

The architecture and topography of Detroit and its suburbs

Horror and pessimism as it relates to most any field (geography, psychology, astronomy, music, film, etc.)

Any crossovers or hybrids of these categories/writers

            Pisci čija dela i nazori naročito zanimaju ovaj magazin su navedeni ispod (a ja sam stavio zvezdicu onima koje ja naročito volim):

Charles Baudelaire*

Thomas Bernhard*

Aloysius Bertrand

Jorge Luis Borges*

William S. Burroughs*

Angela Carter*

Louis Ferdinand Celine*

E. M. Cioran*

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Douglas Harding

Shirley Jackson*

U. G. Krishnamurti*

H. P. Lovecraft*

Vladimir Nabokov*

Emile Nelligan

Michael Persinger

Edgar Allan Poe*

Maurice Rollinat

Arthur Schopenhauer*

Bruno Schulz*

Paul Valery

Peter Wessel Zapffe

            Pa, lepo. A šta tačno ima u prvom broju? Evo sadržaja:

            Velika mi je čast što sam i ja bio u prilici da dam svoj skromni doprinos ovom broju, jer su urednici prihvatili dve moje umetnine nastale još u 1990-im, u vreme kada sam se intenzivno bavio crtanjem, za svoju dušu i bez ikakvih daljih ambicija, i ne pomišljajući na objavljivanje. Evo ih:

STONED

BLACK UNIVERSE

            Tomas Ligoti mi je, povodom ovih crteža, nedavno napisao:

„I agree with you that Vastarien was excellent in every way. I noticed that you had artwork in the journal and thought it enhanced the general atmosphere of the magazine. Since I first started reading small-press horrorzines in the 1970s it always seemed to me that their art was as important as their written works in establishing an overall tone.“ 

Da stvar bude još lepša, zahvaljujući neočekivano uspeloj kraudfanding kampanji, sakupljeno je sasvim dovoljno novca da ovo izdanje bude u prilici da pristojno plati svoje saradnike, na iznenađenje svih, pa i mene, koji se tome nisam nadao ni kada sam ovo crtao, pre 20-ak godina, a ni kada sam inicijalno slao za magazin krajem prošle godine.

            Eto, nije sve baš tako crno. Bar ne sve vreme.

            Dapače, ovih dana izlazi već i drugi broj – evo korice i spiska kontributora.

Ja nisam stigao da nešto pošaljem za ovaj, ali možda ću uspeti za treći, videćemo. Evo sadržaja:

Vastarien Vol. 1, Issue 2 – Contents

Commencement
Joanna Parypinski

Patent for an Artificial Uterus
Max D. Stanton

The Crafter of the World
Ashley Dioses

Bequeathing the World to Insects
Christopher Mountenay

Trigger
Julie Travis

The Master Gardener
Nicole Vasari

Parasitic Castration
Amelia Gorman

The November House
Charles Wilkinson

Lacan on Lynch: Viewing Twin Peaks through a Psychoanalytic Lens
Rob F. Martin

soul of a mannequin
Justyna Bendyk

Shirley Jackson and That Old Black Magic
Jill Hand

How to be a Horror Writer
Tim Waggoner

            U svakom slučaju, snažno preporučujem ovaj magazin koji je, u mnogo čemu, ostvarenje nekih mojih snova još od pre više od 20-ak godina, kada sam zamišljao časopis koji bi slavio dekadenciju, propadanje, mrak, nihilizam itsl. Potražite ga po Amazonima, Bukdepozitorijima i srodnim mestima i nabavite dok ima – jer imati ga vredi!

            Ako mislite da imate šta priložiti Vastarienu – proza, eseji, artwork – bacite pogled OVDE pa pratite kad raspišu potraživanja za treći broj! Ali prvo se upoznajte pomno sa onim što su objavili do sada...

PS: Svi vi koji ste se kasnije uključili, ili ste zaboravili, moje crteže i srodne umetnine možete videti na ovom blogu, ako kliknete na odrednicu ARTWORK.