The Minotaur & the Maze

"Night is another frontier that we’ve yet to truly tame. We may have mapped the entire landmass of the earth with GPS but controlling the hours after sunset eludes us. The nocturnal walk through the streets, familiar by day but changed utterly by night, can be a disconcerting experience. The dark brings out the undesirables that dare not show their faces in the cold light of day. “All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal” in the words of that gentle misunderstood soul Travis Bickle. That is its curse and its glory, when buoyed by the dutch courage of drink we choose to embrace it and join the ranks of the damned. “Most glorious night!” Byron wrote, himself no stranger to hedonism, “Thou wert not sent for slumber!”

Been putting my insomnia to good use (and curing other peoples') with a three-part series on the cultural history of night via Nikola Tesla, the Bible, Blind Willie Johnson and the extinction of the human race over on 3:AM.

The second part, on the magic of nocturnal life (featuring Kafka, Malevich, Hitchcock, James Joyce & Georges Méliès) and the third on the ghosts of night (Goya, Conrad, Plath, Georg Trakl and the Third Reich), to follow soon.