memoir

Into the Mouth of American Kitsch: Wisconsin’s House on the Rock

The author contemplating another round of phantasmagorical excess at the House on the Rock, Spring Green, Wisconsin. Photo by Rachel...

To Catch a Catoblepas by the Tail

Detail of Sludge, the Catoblepas, a wall-mounted sculpture by author, paper mache and mixed media, inspired by an illustration by David...

The Endless Hunger; Confronting Grief With Gilgamesh

Statue of Gilgamesh at the University of Sydney (based on an ancient bas-relief at the Louvre) and Herbert Mason's Epic of Gilgamesh. If...

Noodling through Norse Myths; Folklorist's Notebook

Some of the books I've been moving to and from various end tables, usually not as neat as this. It has been a week of Norse myth study...

Dracula Revisited: On my long-ago journey to Romania

My original article, published in the Eagle Tribune about my search for the historical Dracula, and the author, twenty years ago this...

Orpheus and Eurydice Go Shopping

(She really didn't want to go in the first place). Edward Poynter's 1862 "Orpheus and Eurydice" altered by the author's brilliant wife....

A Lesson from the Mahabharata for a New Homeowner

The Khandava forest fire, from the 10th century Cambodian temple Banteay Srei, in Angkor. As I plot the destruction of the rodents...

The Parable of the Stink Bug and the Urinal

I want to share with you a story about an encounter I had at a urinal, but stick with me, because this is also a story about life and...

PRACTICAL MYTHOLOGY

Benjamin Hellman's Blog