Withersin’s Damned Interview with:
Kim Paffenroth
Lived my early years in
I used to write dark fiction of
one kind or another every minute of the day in middle and high school. Then
(probably for the best) I put it down and for the next couple decades and all I
did was read – philosophy, literature, theology, history. All that reading gave
me the raw material and the intellectual categories to go back and write
fiction that I think is more mature, complex, and interesting.
List published works:
“The Covenant” (short story). In Cross Genre Cthulhu. Permuted
Press (forthcoming).
Dying to Live 2: Life Sentence (novel). Permuted Press (forthcoming).
History Is Dead, ed. (anthology). Permuted Press
(forthcoming).
“Healing
Souls” (novelette). Magus Press (forthcoming).
“The
Dancers” (short story). In All Hallows (forthcoming).
Dying to Live (novel). Permuted
Press, 2007.
Gospel of the Living Dead: George
Romero’s Visions of Hell on Earth (nonfiction).
The Truth Is Out There: Christian
Faith and the Classics of TV Science Fiction (nonfiction).
List website: http://gotld.blogspot.com
How can we contact you? kimpaffenroth@msn.com
In your own words, define
Withersin.
Well,
it looks like it draws a lot of inspiration from a small, black bird, so I’m
going to say it’s dark, enigmatic, unpredictable, and ready to take flight.
Favorite
oddments and incongruities?
Stuckey’s. Loved that place. Oysters. Bats. Ugly things that are kind of
cute, or very good to eat.
If you were a sideshow act,
what would you be?
Lobster
Boy. Misunderstood. Alone.
What is your greatest
non-literary influence?
Heavy metal music and zombie films.
Describe your most
irrational fear.
Judging
from my dreams, they seem to have something to do with the house we were living
in when my mother died. She didn’t die in the house, and the dreams I have
don’t even involve obvious references to death, suffering, or mortality, but in
the dreams I’m always trapped in the house, or trying to get to it and unable
to do so.
How about your
most guilty pleasure?
Hair metal. WWE. Though I must admit I don’t really feel guilty for
either of those anymore. I just don’t try to explain or rationalize them to any
“normal” person.
Name the most disturbing
nursery rhyme/fairy tale you can recall.
The
Brave Little Soldier, definitely. When he gets thrown in the fire,
that is just wrong. What the heck was I supposed to learn from that?
“Life sucks, get used to it”?
Do you eat meat?
Yes.
It’d be nice, in theory, to cut down, but I do think all people crave some.
What were the skies like
when you were young?
I
remember a lot of storms.
Name your favorite garden
tool.
Rake
Name your least favorite
color, first job and worst job.
Yellow,
McDonald’s, Burger King
Favorite: Author,
Movie, Music Group, Song, and Quote.
Melville,
Escape from
If you were a loaf of bread
what kind would you be?
English muffins. Love
those.
Weirdest news you have read
in your local newspaper:
Man
refused to pay for his room at the local motel, barricaded himself in the room
so that police had to be called to get him out.
Why horror?
It’s
the genre that best lets me address the questions of human nature, sin, evil,
and mortality that fascinate me.
Here's a photo. (seen on Interview main
page)
“INEDIBLE NOT INTENDED FOR HUMAN FOOD”
You
have 112 words. Go.
I
believe it is in the apocryphal book of The Wisdom of Ben Sira
that the sage observes that it is very undesirable to be a farmer plowing his
field, because you have to look at a horse’s ass all day, every day. This
picture reminds me of that, and I hope my car has the HP to pass it.
* * EXPANDED INTERVIEW * *
According to Freud’s Structural
Theory, it would seem a zombie may be the result of the total demise of one’s
Super-Ego, leaving the individual id-ridden and prone to primal desires… Do you agree with this assessment? And, if so, how would one go about destroying
that specific aspect of self?
Excellent way to look at the zombie menace. I think that one can never get
rid of the id, one would cease to be human. But the
goal is to have a healthy ego mediating the normal constraints and demands of
the id and the super-ego. A zombie has lost that part of him/herself as well. I
think that in any psychological or religious perspective, the building of
loving relationships with other people is the best way to minimize our base
behaviors. The more we immerse ourselves in ourselves, or immerse ourselves in
diversions like shopping, TV, or PS2, the more the animal and mechanical part
of our selves starts to predominate and take over.
Do you believe that a zombie can
have a moral compass? If so, where do
you believe it is set?
Initially,
no, it would not appear so. It seems that upon reanimation, the compass is
firmly pointing to one’s gut and its gnawing, screaming demand for consumption.
As time passes, however, I do believe it likely that some zombies – perhaps
those with less brain damage – will begin to see the futility of consumption
(since their hunger never goes away regardless), and will begin to remember
other, better motives and desires.
Does acceptance and belief of
religion require one to sacrifice an element of Super-Ego driven control? Does it require blind faith?
I think
the phrase blind faith gets way overused, and exclusively used as a putdown, to
mean putting one’s unquestioning belief in something that is absurd and goes
against common sense, especially if it’s destructive, like suicide bombers or
people who stay in abusive relationships are said to have “blind faith” in this
bad sense. I do believe it is normal and even desirable to believe in some
things for which one does not have palpable, irrefutable proof. I believe that
some people love me and care for me, and I work under that assumption all the
time, even though I don’t know for sure how these people really feel inside,
and I have no guarantees that their feelings won’t change.
Zombie stories seem to be on the
upswing of modern popularity- do you feel that somehow zombie-ism is a
satirical look at the paradigm shift of man into pop-culture communal
thinking? “Coo-Coo for
Oh yes,
it pokes fun at us and hopefully alerts us to the danger we’re slipping into
when we shop or watch TV too much – we are losing our selves and being replaced
with mindless consumers and thralls of the society or government. “Pod people”
was another popular horror/sci-fi image for his
phenomenon and this fear.
Can you pinpoint the “genesis” of
zombie-ism in literature?
It’s too
much a hybrid, I think. They share a lot of characteristics with ghosts,
mummies, vampires, and werewolves, and then on top of that, new authors add
their own spin, so much that people get into endless arguments over whether “28
Days Later” or “I Am Legend” are REALLY zombie stories. I prefer to talk about
“zombie elements” or “zombie influences” in a given work.
Is Frankenstein’s Monster a
zombie?
As above,
there are definitely overlaps – he’s reanimated, dead flesh. But I’m going to
rule against it – he’s not infectious, and he seems way more cognizant of
himself than the average zombie (this is more important than simple skills or
intellect – the Monster is self-aware, he has a self-consciousness).
Do you feel that zombies have a
compulsive desire to consume the innocent, or are their desires non-exclusive?
Until
they unlearn their bad diet (which I believe they can), they are indiscriminate.
As in any disaster movie, it’s the most fun when the amoral eating-machine (be
it shark, scarab beetle, zombie or mutant mosquito) attacks bad, vicious people
(not deliberately, to punish the person, but that’s how we experience it, with all
the moral approval that goes along with the just punishment of the wicked).
Are zombies
individual thinkers or victims of a mass consciousness?
There’s
no evidence that they’re like the Borg (though Dave Wellington’s books do tend in
this direction). I’d say they’re very weak-willed individuals – they are free
to go wherever they want, but often end up “going with the flow” or following
the path of least resistance.
Who is today’s zombie messiah?
I am the
John the Baptist figure. When the time comes, I will consult with the other
apostles – especially Brothers Tom and George – and we will know who is the
True, Chosen One. I will not be worthy to latch his sandals.
I feel culturally, zombie-ism is
the universally feared construct- the great unifier. What are your thoughts on this?
Yes, the
fear is not just of being killed and eaten – lots of monsters or animals can do
that to a human body. The fear is to become one of THEM – mindless, soulless,
without an identity or individuality. Therefore zombie-ism stands in for a lot
of modern fears of alienation and loss of meaning, purpose, and self in our
modern world.
Animal Zombies: How do they differ from human zombies?
I don’t
think there could be animal zombies. I don’t think that kind of reanimation
would be possible with less developed brains. At the very least, I don’t think
we’d have to worry about creatures with very rudimentary nervous systems going
zombie – no zombie insects, worms, or lobsters, I don’t think.
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