fills a void
I was watching a Metallica interview this morning (this is my life, shut up), and Lars Ulrich was talking about how for him, that connection with bands he liked filled a void, and that was what he was looking for. And that hit, man--you know? I like a lot of music, it's not just metal (man, just look at my CD collection for that, I've got shit like 3OH!3 and... okay, mostly it's at least some subset of rock, but 3OH!3!), but it's metal that I can just give myself over to. It's rock music in general, but it's metal.
There's a scene in the movie Deathgasm where the main metal-y kid gives this nice-looking blonde girl a couple of metal CDs to listen to. Her reaction is how it feels. That's it. It's raw and it's fuckin heavy and it's great. I love it.
That's kind of the case with reading, too; I mean, I don't just read horror, I read all sorts of shit. But sometimes there are those books that just fill a void, authors like Clive Barker and Stephen King and Damien Echols, and while one of those authors is a nonfiction author (I am mostly talking about his second memoir, Life After Death, but honestly I would read his shopping list because his writing style just gets me), Barker and King write horror. And Barker's writing, man--Stephen King is technically my favorite author, I've read almost every single one of his books (and in fact am checking one of the six or seven unread ones off of the list right now--Blaze), but Barker is so good at writing. Barker's writing just gets right in and you're going "What the fuck" but also "this is beautifully written" but also "Dude what the FUCK."
And that's what art does. That's what art's supposed to do. I don't really give a shit about what's supposed to be high art or whatever, I mean, obviously not, my favorite author's Stephen King and my favorite band is Metallica. But I really don't give a shit. And that's something that's been kind of eye-roll-inducing as an English major, is the pretension that just soaks the department--like, I do like a lot of classic novels. I enjoy them. I goddam love Shakespeare. But a lot of that shit just doesn't fill the void. 100 boys walking themselves to death and Sanitarium do.
There's a scene in the movie Deathgasm where the main metal-y kid gives this nice-looking blonde girl a couple of metal CDs to listen to. Her reaction is how it feels. That's it. It's raw and it's fuckin heavy and it's great. I love it.
That's kind of the case with reading, too; I mean, I don't just read horror, I read all sorts of shit. But sometimes there are those books that just fill a void, authors like Clive Barker and Stephen King and Damien Echols, and while one of those authors is a nonfiction author (I am mostly talking about his second memoir, Life After Death, but honestly I would read his shopping list because his writing style just gets me), Barker and King write horror. And Barker's writing, man--Stephen King is technically my favorite author, I've read almost every single one of his books (and in fact am checking one of the six or seven unread ones off of the list right now--Blaze), but Barker is so good at writing. Barker's writing just gets right in and you're going "What the fuck" but also "this is beautifully written" but also "Dude what the FUCK."
And that's what art does. That's what art's supposed to do. I don't really give a shit about what's supposed to be high art or whatever, I mean, obviously not, my favorite author's Stephen King and my favorite band is Metallica. But I really don't give a shit. And that's something that's been kind of eye-roll-inducing as an English major, is the pretension that just soaks the department--like, I do like a lot of classic novels. I enjoy them. I goddam love Shakespeare. But a lot of that shit just doesn't fill the void. 100 boys walking themselves to death and Sanitarium do.
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