Bradbury's Book People and Eisenhower's Military-Industrial Complex: Dystopia Now

Thoughts on preserving cultural knowledge in a dark age

Welcome to The Living Dark. I’m Matt Cardin, and this is my blog/newsletter on waking up at the intersection of creativity, writing, religion, horror, nonduality, apocalypse, dystopia, consciousness, and culture. You can subscribe by clicking this button:

Ahead of the substantive text of today’s newsletter transmission, here are two pieces of book news:

First, I have signed a contract with Dilatando Mentes Editorial, the Spanish publisher of beautifully designed and illustrated books of weird and cosmic horror fiction, for a Spanish translation of my What the Daemon Said. In 2021 they published a translation of To Rouse Leviathan under the title Hizo de las tinieblas su escondite (“He Made Darkness His Hiding Place”). It proved to be a stunningly gorgeous piece of work, so I’m looking forward to seeing what they’ll do with Daemon.

Here’s their social media announcement:

Dilatando Mentes Editorial @dilatandomentes

Nos hace muy felices comunicaros que @_MattCardin volverá a formar parte de Dilatando Mentes Editorial. El próximo año publicaremos su ensayo "What the Daemon Said: Essays on Horror Fiction, Film, and Philosophy", una obra que consideramos imprescindible. mattcardin.com

(Translation: “It makes us very happy to inform you that @_MattCardin will once again be part of Dilatando Mentes Editorial. Next year we will publish his essay collection ‘What the Daemon Said: Essays on Horror Fiction, Film, and Philosophy,’ a work that we consider essential.”)

Second, Booklife from Publishers Weekly has given a positive review for volume 1 of my private journals, calling it “epic and intimate, a portrait of a mind and a milieu, with deep dives into the creative mind, the nature of the weird, and how to find one’s way in a world that’s sick.” In their estimation, “Lovers of weird fiction will relish Cardin’s insights, story ideas, unsettling dreams, and reports on his reading, game-playing, and his fascinating spiritual and philosophical development.”

Remember, you can read the introduction to my Journals, Volume 1: 1993-2001 right here.

Now on to the main feature:

Every time I revisit Dwight Eisenhower’s iconic farewell address from January 17, 1961, I’m struck again by A) how prophetic it was—in the same way that Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 was a warning that sadly emerged as prophecy, and B) how astounding it is that a US president—who was also one of the United States’ most celebrated military generals—ever uttered such words.