Empocolypse

Posted on August 18, 2009 by Varg

In the trailor for the upcoming film “The Road” there is a familiar image…

“The Road”
empire

Empire, Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina

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There are supposedly some scenes filmed in the Lower Ninth Ward as well.

I read the book two years ago and even though I have always loved Cormac Mcarthy, I hated the novel. His books have always been filled with sorrow and despair but often they are painted against vast backdrops of the American West or South. In this one, he has covered the landscape in gray ash. The condition of humanity is at it’s base. It made for a lonesome, uninspired read.

Having seen videos, heard stories and viewed photos of lower Plaquemines after Katrina, I think the situation down there closely resembled Mcarthy’s post-apocalypse in “The Road.”

3 thoughts on “Empocolypse”

Pistolette says:

August 19, 2009 at 6:43 am

Another Nola friend actually pointed this out recently too: http://prostheticallyhip.com/2009/07/10/on-the-road-again/

I’ve been reading a lot of post-apocalypse/survivalist fiction lately, and I have The Road coming up next. I tried to read it while pregnant last year but I got so depressed I had to stop. I thought it was just me but I guess it really IS that depressing.
Varg says:

August 19, 2009 at 7:46 am

Daaaang, it’s almost the same post. Great minds think alike!

As for The Road, It really IS depressing. While most of McArthy’s work has this grandiose since of sorrow and tragedy, he always used the setting to portray this “Universe is unfolding as it should” quality. That was comforting. In this one, the Universe has unfolded and broke apart and the desperate characters are caught in the Godless nothingness.
celcus says:

August 19, 2009 at 12:15 pm

The Grand theater in Eastern NO makes an appearance.

http://some-came-running.blogspot.com/2009/05/until-end-of-world.html

And I liked The Road

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Rejoice!

I say that a lot. I sign many pieces with it. I do this because I believe our lives are a true happenstance. A brilliant occurence from nothingness. We are so rare. We are so unlikely. And simply being born isn’t enough. From there we must survive, endure. So each morning, after our Sun departs and is reborn again. Please, for the sake of your ancestors and the Universe in general, hoist that cup of joe up and say, “Rejoice.”

Ours is a soulful existence. No matter how many McMansions, polyester fabrics, auto-tunes, modified foods and social networks we surround ourselves with, we are all still native, passionate beings made of ancient matter. We are organic and we have soul.

Wood also has a warm, soulful quality. Wood has a memory. It retains smells, traumas, events. It even has a calendar. This is why I have chosen it as my medium, for its old soul. I like to think the wood in my work is in its third incarnation. First a tree, then a home and now art. If you have a room that needs a little soul, get a piece. A room can never have enough soul.

My inspiration and subject matter comes from many sources, among them: Humanism, old ballads, trickster tales, flora and fauna, science, myths and folklore, stringed instruments, brass bands, amber spirits, lady vocalists, general relativity and quantum mechanics. Some of my pieces are there just to make a short, simple statement about what’s important in life. Some are more diffuse and abstract in meaning. A personal drama, an enduring line from a poem or novel, a poignant song lyric, the legacy of an important person, a fleeting thought … these are the subjects of my art.

I use hearts often because they are a very abstract way of depicting the human soul without also employing the very subjective human form. The symbolic heart is an apt representation for a person’s experience and essence. A body can immediatly conjure happiness, sorrow, youth, age, anger, bliss. These emotions can get in the way. Sometimes it’s simply about the experience.

I am the son of a sailor and a social worker, the grandson of a gypsy, a dancer and a nurse. I spent my youth moving from port city to port city, watching a lot of road go by and reading World Book Encyclopedia. After my parents settled down on the Gulf Coast, I was a miscreant youth, destroying cars and taking the wrongs things too seriously and the right things not serious enough. Eventually I began replacing my imagination with experience.

I will use any salvaged wood but prefer swamp cypress and longleaf heartwood pine.

I despise waste. Particularly the waste of organic matter. Trees are magnificent. They were here before we arrived and they’ll be around after we are gone. I’m making an effort to save as much wood as possible. Creating art is fun too. But beyond communicating with folks, but beyond making money ad providing for myself, beyond rescuing flooded parts, beyond reveling in the ethereal aroma of heartpine that hasn’t seen the light of day in 400 years, beyond all that, I am trying to make a simple comment on waste.