Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Wes Craven at TEDx Chicago

Seeking Wonderland trumpet maestro and Friend of WildClaw, Kevin Richey attended a TEDx Chicago event earlier this month. He hit a seminar given by some dude named Wes Craven.



Kevin had offered to follow Mr. Craven into the men's room and lay the WildClaw elevator pitch on him, but alas, the opportunity did not present itself. Kevin did say he had a dandy time -- the event was based loosely on "the nature of evil". Here are some bullet points from Wes Craven's seminar:

• People don't pay to be scared because they're weird. They pay to have the fear that is in all of us brought to the surface. When it's brought the surface it can be dealt with. Fear can be very freeing when it is shared.

• Horror audiences tend to be very smart, brave, inquisitive, able to deal with complex issues, well adjusted

• Despite all our thousands of years of evolution, the human species still has nightmares. It's evidence that we have a biological need to deal with fear that our conscious mind doesn't want to deal with

• Horror is especially important for young people - it's a way for them to deal with complex issues as they are just beginning to understand how the world works in the midst of great personal change (i.e. puberty)

• The standard horror narrative is universal. That is, the car that breaks down in the middle of nowhere on a moonless night is a perfect metaphor for the shared truth - we are on a tiny planet in the middle of a mostly empty universe that is little understood, and anything can happen to us at anytime.


Come see Kevin wail with Seeking Wonderland on December 5th at the Mayne Stage for DEATHSCRIBE 2011

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