Episode 145: Waiting for the Miracle: On Vanessa Onwuemezi's "Dark Neighbourhood"

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 26 April 2023

⏱️ 90 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, Phil and JF discuss Vanessa Onwuemezi's, "Dark Neighbourhood," a tale of scintillant darkness from her debut collection of the same name. This strangest of strange stories is set in a vast encampment of destitute yet hopeful people whose lives consist entirely of waiting for their turn to step through the iron gates of the Beyond. Living off the dregs of civilization, they seem the last of our kind. They are the ones who, having made it to the front of the line, have the dubious honour of contemplating directly the mystery that awaits us all. Unlike anything we've covered on the show, "Dark Neighbourhood" is a chilling and moving story that elicits interpretation as elegantly as it resists it. Pierre-Yves Martel's album Mer bleue drops on May 1st, 2023! Support us on Patreon and gain access to Phil's ongoing podcast on Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle. Listen to volume 1 and volume 2 of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop REFERENCES Show Notes.docx Vanessa Omwuemezi, Dark Neighbourhood Peter Breugel, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus Weird Studies, Episode 140 on “Spirited Away” Karl Marx, Capital Phil Ford, Dig Murray Bookchin, Post-Scarcity Anarchism Weird Studies, Episode 98 on “Taboo” Michael Wadleigh (dir.), Woodstock Samuel R. Delaney, Dahlgren Leonard Cohen, “Waiting for the Miracle Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd One red paperclip, story of guy who traded a paper clip for a house Weird Studies, Episode 101 on Tanizaki James Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld George Steiner, Real Presences H. P. Lovecraft, “Nyarlothotep” Alexander Wendt and Raymond Duvall, “Sovereignty and the UFO” Weird Studies, Episode 144 on Hellraiser Weird Studies, Episode 29 on Lovecraft Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Spectrevision Radio
0:03.3	Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.
0:20.8	For more episodes or to support the podcast,
0:23.3	go to weirdstudies.com. Welcome to Weird Studies. This is Jaffe.
0:52.9	First, a quick announcement.
0:56.8	The musical cue in this episode is an excerpt from Pierre Rive Martez's upcoming collection of viola de Gamba compositions, Merbleu.
1:03.1	Pierre Rive writes all the music for Weird Studies, so we're proud to get the word out on this
1:07.4	amazing new project. Merbleu comes out May 1st.
1:11.3	Please visit Pierre Rieu's bankamp page to download it.
1:14.6	The link is in the show notes.
1:17.4	Vanessa Anwamesey's debut collection, Dark Neighborhood,
1:20.5	contains seven short works of poetic fiction that are unlike any I've read before.
1:25.4	In these stories, On Womesey off a rare feat. By embracing a hard,
1:30.6	unflinching realism, cold as the Medusa's gaze, she opens the reader to the phantasmal,
1:37.1	often nightmarish depths of human existence. At the same time, her stories contain scenes of such
1:43.4	humanity and tenderness that I felt powerfully,
1:46.8	the true indomitability of hope and love.
1:50.7	Rarely have the human and the inhuman dance so intimately with one another as they do in these strange tales,
1:56.8	to use Robert Aikman's appellation.
1:59.2	For this episode, we chose to focus on the title story.
2:02.8	Dark neighborhood is set in a vast encampment.
2:06.1	One might say a refugee camp.
	...

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