Author's e-books - art book. Page - 1
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die.” Map the unmappable. Everyone is an explorer when it comes to mapping the end... life's end... your end. Everyone alive is a tourist when it comes to traveling to the lands of the dead. Get this graphic novel guide to death and dying. No life plan is complete without it. No illusion of completeness is as satisfying as this one.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die,” the new graphic novel by Joy Rip, is the ghostly story of one desperate artist's graphic blueprint for dying with the illusion of grace.
Some say life begins without fear. Some say life begins with fear. We are born. We experience pain. We become fearful. We experience fear. We learn fear. We are ruled by fear. All the rules that govern the art world are rules crafted by fear and pain. The rules governing any living world... any conscious world... any human world, are rules crafted by our perceived limitations in the face of fear and pain. So why not cut to the chase and create a work of art that simply deals head on with the one most obvious pain and limitation ruling our lives: Our fear of death.
Joy Rip smiles. “This is the poor man's guide to dying. It's designed for the poor only because it aims to be a viable plan for anyone, even those with the fewest financial options, on how best to leave this world (with your head up). But everyone is welcome to use it.” Take a look. A bad plan might be better than no plan at all. Just remember, it's only art.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die.” Map the unmappable. Everyone is an explorer when it comes to mapping the end... life's end... your end. Everyone alive is a tourist when it comes to traveling to the lands of the dead. Get this graphic novel guide to death and dying. No life plan is complete without it. No illusion of completeness is as satisfying as this one.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die,” the new graphic novel by Joy Rip, is the ghostly story of one desperate artist's graphic blueprint for dying with the illusion of grace.
Some say life begins without fear. Some say life begins with fear. We are born. We experience pain. We become fearful. We experience fear. We learn fear. We are ruled by fear. All the rules that govern the art world are rules crafted by fear and pain. The rules governing any living world... any conscious world... any human world, are rules crafted by our perceived limitations in the face of fear and pain. So why not cut to the chase and create a work of art that simply deals head on with the one most obvious pain and limitation ruling our lives: Our fear of death.
Joy Rip smiles. “This is the poor man's guide to dying. It's designed for the poor only because it aims to be a viable plan for anyone, even those with the fewest financial options, on how best to leave this world (with your head up). But everyone is welcome to use it.” Take a look. A bad plan might be better than no plan at all. Just remember, it's only art.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die.” Map the unmappable. Everyone is an explorer when it comes to mapping the end... life's end... your end. Everyone alive is a tourist when it comes to traveling to the lands of the dead. Get this graphic novel guide to death and dying. No life plan is complete without it. No illusion of completeness is as satisfying as this one.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die,” the new graphic novel by Joy Rip, is the ghostly story of one desperate artist's graphic blueprint for dying with the illusion of grace.
Some say life begins without fear. Some say life begins with fear. We are born. We experience pain. We become fearful. We experience fear. We learn fear. We are ruled by fear. All the rules that govern the art world are rules crafted by fear and pain. The rules governing any living world... any conscious world... any human world, are rules crafted by our perceived limitations in the face of fear and pain. So why not cut to the chase and create a work of art that simply deals head on with the one most obvious pain and limitation ruling our lives: Our fear of death.
Joy Rip smiles. “This is the poor man's guide to dying. It's designed for the poor only because it aims to be a viable plan for anyone, even those with the fewest financial options, on how best to leave this world (with your head up). But everyone is welcome to use it.” Take a look. A bad plan might be better than no plan at all. Just remember, it's only art.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die.” Map the unmappable. Everyone is an explorer when it comes to mapping the end... life's end... your end. Everyone alive is a tourist when it comes to traveling to the lands of the dead. Get this graphic novel guide to death and dying. No life plan is complete without it. No illusion of completeness is as satisfying as this one.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die,” the new graphic novel by Joy Rip, is the ghostly story of one desperate artist's graphic blueprint for dying with the illusion of grace.
Some say life begins without fear. Some say life begins with fear. We are born. We experience pain. We become fearful. We experience fear. We learn fear. We are ruled by fear. All the rules that govern the art world are rules crafted by fear and pain. The rules governing any living world... any conscious world... any human world, are rules crafted by our perceived limitations in the face of fear and pain. So why not cut to the chase and create a work of art that simply deals head on with the one most obvious pain and limitation ruling our lives: Our fear of death.
Joy Rip smiles. “This is the poor man's guide to dying. It's designed for the poor only because it aims to be a viable plan for anyone, even those with the fewest financial options, on how best to leave this world (with your head up). But everyone is welcome to use it.” Take a look. A bad plan might be better than no plan at all. Just remember, it's only art.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die.” Map the unmappable. Everyone is an explorer when it comes to mapping the end... life's end... your end. Everyone alive is a tourist when it comes to traveling to the lands of the dead. Get this graphic novel guide to death and dying. No life plan is complete without it. No illusion of completeness is as satisfying as this one.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die,” the new graphic novel by Joy Rip, is the ghostly story of one desperate artist's graphic blueprint for dying with the illusion of grace.
Some say life begins without fear. Some say life begins with fear. We are born. We experience pain. We become fearful. We experience fear. We learn fear. We are ruled by fear. All the rules that govern the art world are rules crafted by fear and pain. The rules governing any living world... any conscious world... any human world, are rules crafted by our perceived limitations in the face of fear and pain. So why not cut to the chase and create a work of art that simply deals head on with the one most obvious pain and limitation ruling our lives: Our fear of death.
Joy Rip smiles. “This is the poor man's guide to dying. It's designed for the poor only because it aims to be a viable plan for anyone, even those with the fewest financial options, on how best to leave this world (with your head up). But everyone is welcome to use it.” Take a look. A bad plan might be better than no plan at all. Just remember, it's only art.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die.” Map the unmappable. Everyone is an explorer when it comes to mapping the end... life's end... your end. Everyone alive is a tourist when it comes to traveling to the lands of the dead. Get this graphic novel guide to death and dying. No life plan is complete without it. No illusion of completeness is as satisfying as this one.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die,” the new graphic novel by Joy Rip, is the ghostly story of one desperate artist's graphic blueprint for dying with the illusion of grace.
Some say life begins without fear. Some say life begins with fear. We are born. We experience pain. We become fearful. We experience fear. We learn fear. We are ruled by fear. All the rules that govern the art world are rules crafted by fear and pain. The rules governing any living world... any conscious world... any human world, are rules crafted by our perceived limitations in the face of fear and pain. So why not cut to the chase and create a work of art that simply deals head on with the one most obvious pain and limitation ruling our lives: Our fear of death.
Joy Rip smiles. “This is the poor man's guide to dying. It's designed for the poor only because it aims to be a viable plan for anyone, even those with the fewest financial options, on how best to leave this world (with your head up). But everyone is welcome to use it.” Take a look. A bad plan might be better than no plan at all. Just remember, it's only art.
"HAPPY ENDING" is the story of a girl named Hope, a young runaway, roped into a life of prostitution. Narrated first by a houseboy of the brothel where they both live and work. Then later narrated by Hope herself, who has big dreams. A simple story told in the not so simple form of a 528-page experimental graphic novel by author and artist Joy Rip.
The book is divided into three parts. PART 1 is the Foreword and contains the first Dream. PART 2 contains the Chapters 1-10 of the main story. PART 3 is the Afterword and contains the final Dream. Enjoy! Dream with us.
Though Joy Rip's stories are haunting, they are not typical ghost stories in that they do not draw on the supernatural (in the ordinary sense) for their power. Instead, the so-called natural world's unfathomable super-reality is exposed in all its natural otherness and unnatural otherworldliness. Joy Rip redefines the ghost story by exposing the unnaturalness of the natural. The unnaturalness of how we take everything about the singular phenomenon of being alive for granted. How the day-to-day rarely reveals ordinary life to be extraordinary. How amazing, how extraordinary is our natural blindness that allows us to carry on like everything is all right. These books are an effort to reverse that natural order and rediscover the hauntingly magical in the impossibly mundane. And nothing is more magical than stumbling across the unexpectedly real and important in the inexplicable unreality and unimportance that dominates the day-to-day. There is no greater treasure hunt. No greater supernatural.
"The reality of consciousness is captured best as a ghost story... An endless ghost story. Consciousness is a veil. We are all haunted by an absence of presence. Conscious reality is never fleshed out to its full depth. Everyone is a silhouette accented by shadows. Everything is unsatisfyingly fragmented, fleeting, shallow. Everything is a partial truth at best. Everyone is a great unknown. Nothing is truly substantial in our knowledge of ourselves and one another. We sleep, glide through life. Dreaming we are awake. We are ghosts." ~ Joy Rip
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die.” Map the unmappable. Everyone is an explorer when it comes to mapping the end... life's end... your end. Everyone alive is a tourist when it comes to traveling to the lands of the dead. Get this graphic novel guide to death and dying. No life plan is complete without it. No illusion of completeness is as satisfying as this one.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die,” the new graphic novel by Joy Rip, is the ghostly story of one desperate artist's graphic blueprint for dying with the illusion of grace.
Some say life begins without fear. Some say life begins with fear. We are born. We experience pain. We become fearful. We experience fear. We learn fear. We are ruled by fear. All the rules that govern the art world are rules crafted by fear and pain. The rules governing any living world... any conscious world... any human world, are rules crafted by our perceived limitations in the face of fear and pain. So why not cut to the chase and create a work of art that simply deals head on with the one most obvious pain and limitation ruling our lives: Our fear of death.
Joy Rip smiles. “This is the poor man's guide to dying. It's designed for the poor only because it aims to be a viable plan for anyone, even those with the fewest financial options, on how best to leave this world (with your head up). But everyone is welcome to use it.” Take a look. A bad plan might be better than no plan at all. Just remember, it's only art.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die.” Map the unmappable. Everyone is an explorer when it comes to mapping the end... life's end... your end. Everyone alive is a tourist when it comes to traveling to the lands of the dead. Get this graphic novel guide to death and dying. No life plan is complete without it. No illusion of completeness is as satisfying as this one.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die,” the new graphic novel by Joy Rip, is the ghostly story of one desperate artist's graphic blueprint for dying with the illusion of grace.
Some say life begins without fear. Some say life begins with fear. We are born. We experience pain. We become fearful. We experience fear. We learn fear. We are ruled by fear. All the rules that govern the art world are rules crafted by fear and pain. The rules governing any living world... any conscious world... any human world, are rules crafted by our perceived limitations in the face of fear and pain. So why not cut to the chase and create a work of art that simply deals head on with the one most obvious pain and limitation ruling our lives: Our fear of death.
Joy Rip smiles. “This is the poor man's guide to dying. It's designed for the poor only because it aims to be a viable plan for anyone, even those with the fewest financial options, on how best to leave this world (with your head up). But everyone is welcome to use it.” Take a look. A bad plan might be better than no plan at all. Just remember, it's only art.
"HAPPY ENDING" is the story of a girl named Hope, a young runaway, roped into a life of prostitution. Narrated first by a houseboy of the brothel where they both live and work. Then later narrated by Hope herself, who has big dreams. A simple story told in the not so simple form of a 528-page experimental graphic novel by author and artist Joy Rip.
The book is divided into three parts. PART 1 is the Foreword and contains the first Dream. PART 2 contains the Chapters 1-10 of the main story. PART 3 is the Afterword and contains the final Dream. Enjoy! Come dream with us.
Though Joy Rip's stories are haunting, they are not typical ghost stories in that they do not draw on the supernatural (in the ordinary sense) for their power. Instead, the so-called natural world's unfathomable super-reality is exposed in all its natural otherness and unnatural otherworldliness. Joy Rip redefines the ghost story by exposing the unnaturalness of the natural. The unnaturalness of how we take everything about the singular phenomenon of being alive for granted. How the day-to-day rarely reveals ordinary life to be extraordinary. How amazing, how extraordinary is our natural blindness that allows us to carry on like everything is all right. These books are an effort to reverse that natural order and rediscover the hauntingly magical in the impossibly mundane. And nothing is more magical than stumbling across the unexpectedly real and important in the inexplicable unreality and unimportance that dominates the day-to-day. There is no greater treasure hunt. No greater supernatural.
"The reality of consciousness is captured best as a ghost story... An endless ghost story. Consciousness is a veil. We are all haunted by an absence of presence. Conscious reality is never fleshed out to its full depth. Everyone is a silhouette accented by shadows. Everything is unsatisfyingly fragmented, fleeting, shallow. Everything is a partial truth at best. Everyone is a great unknown. Nothing is truly substantial in our knowledge of ourselves and one another. We sleep, glide through life. Dreaming we are awake. We are ghosts." ~ Joy Rip
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die.” Map the unmappable. Everyone is an explorer when it comes to mapping the end... life's end... your end. Everyone alive is a tourist when it comes to traveling to the lands of the dead. Get this graphic novel guide to death and dying. No life plan is complete without it. No illusion of completeness is as satisfying as this one.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die,” the new graphic novel by Joy Rip, is the ghostly story of one desperate artist's graphic blueprint for dying with the illusion of grace.
Some say life begins without fear. Some say life begins with fear. We are born. We experience pain. We become fearful. We experience fear. We learn fear. We are ruled by fear. All the rules that govern the art world are rules crafted by fear and pain. The rules governing any living world... any conscious world... any human world, are rules crafted by our perceived limitations in the face of fear and pain. So why not cut to the chase and create a work of art that simply deals head on with the one most obvious pain and limitation ruling our lives: Our fear of death.
Joy Rip smiles. “This is the poor man's guide to dying. It's designed for the poor only because it aims to be a viable plan for anyone, even those with the fewest financial options, on how best to leave this world (with your head up). But everyone is welcome to use it.” Take a look. A bad plan might be better than no plan at all. Just remember, it's only art.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die.” Map the unmappable. Everyone is an explorer when it comes to mapping the end... life's end... your end. Everyone alive is a tourist when it comes to traveling to the lands of the dead. Get this graphic novel guide to death and dying. No life plan is complete without it. No illusion of completeness is as satisfying as this one.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die,” the new graphic novel by Joy Rip, is the ghostly story of one desperate artist's graphic blueprint for dying with the illusion of grace.
Some say life begins without fear. Some say life begins with fear. We are born. We experience pain. We become fearful. We experience fear. We learn fear. We are ruled by fear. All the rules that govern the art world are rules crafted by fear and pain. The rules governing any living world... any conscious world... any human world, are rules crafted by our perceived limitations in the face of fear and pain. So why not cut to the chase and create a work of art that simply deals head on with the one most obvious pain and limitation ruling our lives: Our fear of death.
Joy Rip smiles. “This is the poor man's guide to dying. It's designed for the poor only because it aims to be a viable plan for anyone, even those with the fewest financial options, on how best to leave this world (with your head up). But everyone is welcome to use it.” Take a look. A bad plan might be better than no plan at all. Just remember, it's only art.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die.” Map the unmappable. Everyone is an explorer when it comes to mapping the end... life's end... your end. Everyone alive is a tourist when it comes to traveling to the lands of the dead. Get this graphic novel guide to death and dying. No life plan is complete without it. No illusion of completeness is as satisfying as this one.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die,” the new graphic novel by Joy Rip, is the ghostly story of one desperate artist's graphic blueprint for dying with the illusion of grace.
Some say life begins without fear. Some say life begins with fear. We are born. We experience pain. We become fearful. We experience fear. We learn fear. We are ruled by fear. All the rules that govern the art world are rules crafted by fear and pain. The rules governing any living world... any conscious world... any human world, are rules crafted by our perceived limitations in the face of fear and pain. So why not cut to the chase and create a work of art that simply deals head on with the one most obvious pain and limitation ruling our lives: Our fear of death.
Joy Rip smiles. “This is the poor man's guide to dying. It's designed for the poor only because it aims to be a viable plan for anyone, even those with the fewest financial options, on how best to leave this world (with your head up). But everyone is welcome to use it.” Take a look. A bad plan might be better than no plan at all. Just remember, it's only art.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die.” Map the unmappable. Everyone is an explorer when it comes to mapping the end... life's end... your end. Everyone alive is a tourist when it comes to traveling to the lands of the dead. Get this graphic novel guide to death and dying. No life plan is complete without it. No illusion of completeness is as satisfying as this one.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die,” the new graphic novel by Joy Rip, is the ghostly story of one desperate artist's graphic blueprint for dying with the illusion of grace.
Some say life begins without fear. Some say life begins with fear. We are born. We experience pain. We become fearful. We experience fear. We learn fear. We are ruled by fear. All the rules that govern the art world are rules crafted by fear and pain. The rules governing any living world... any conscious world... any human world, are rules crafted by our perceived limitations in the face of fear and pain. So why not cut to the chase and create a work of art that simply deals head on with the one most obvious pain and limitation ruling our lives: Our fear of death.
Joy Rip smiles. “This is the poor man's guide to dying. It's designed for the poor only because it aims to be a viable plan for anyone, even those with the fewest financial options, on how best to leave this world (with your head up). But everyone is welcome to use it.” Take a look. A bad plan might be better than no plan at all. Just remember, it's only art.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die.” Map the unmappable. Everyone is an explorer when it comes to mapping the end... life's end... your end. Everyone alive is a tourist when it comes to traveling to the lands of the dead. Get this graphic novel guide to death and dying. No life plan is complete without it. No illusion of completeness is as satisfying as this one.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die,” the new graphic novel by Joy Rip, is the ghostly story of one desperate artist's graphic blueprint for dying with the illusion of grace.
Some say life begins without fear. Some say life begins with fear. We are born. We experience pain. We become fearful. We experience fear. We learn fear. We are ruled by fear. All the rules that govern the art world are rules crafted by fear and pain. The rules governing any living world... any conscious world... any human world, are rules crafted by our perceived limitations in the face of fear and pain. So why not cut to the chase and create a work of art that simply deals head on with the one most obvious pain and limitation ruling our lives: Our fear of death.
Joy Rip smiles. “This is the poor man's guide to dying. It's designed for the poor only because it aims to be a viable plan for anyone, even those with the fewest financial options, on how best to leave this world (with your head up). But everyone is welcome to use it.” Take a look. A bad plan might be better than no plan at all. Just remember, it's only art.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die.” Map the unmappable. Everyone is an explorer when it comes to mapping the end... life's end... your end. Everyone alive is a tourist when it comes to traveling to the lands of the dead. Get this graphic novel guide to death and dying. No life plan is complete without it. No illusion of completeness is as satisfying as this one.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die,” the new graphic novel by Joy Rip, is the ghostly story of one desperate artist's graphic blueprint for dying with the illusion of grace.
Some say life begins without fear. Some say life begins with fear. We are born. We experience pain. We become fearful. We experience fear. We learn fear. We are ruled by fear. All the rules that govern the art world are rules crafted by fear and pain. The rules governing any living world... any conscious world... any human world, are rules crafted by our perceived limitations in the face of fear and pain. So why not cut to the chase and create a work of art that simply deals head on with the one most obvious pain and limitation ruling our lives: Our fear of death.
Joy Rip smiles. “This is the poor man's guide to dying. It's designed for the poor only because it aims to be a viable plan for anyone, even those with the fewest financial options, on how best to leave this world (with your head up). But everyone is welcome to use it.” Take a look. A bad plan might be better than no plan at all. Just remember, it's only art.
"HAPPY ENDING" is the story of a girl named Hope, a young runaway, roped into a life of prostitution. Narrated first by a houseboy of the brothel where they both live and work. Then later narrated by Hope herself, who has big dreams. A simple story told in the not so simple form of a 528-page experimental graphic novel by author and artist Joy Rip.
The book is divided into three parts. PART 1 is the Foreword and contains the first Dream. PART 2 contains the Chapters 1-10 of the main story. PART 3 is the Afterword and contains the final Dream. Enjoy! Dream with us.
Though Joy Rip's stories are haunting, they are not typical ghost stories in that they do not draw on the supernatural (in the ordinary sense) for their power. Instead, the so-called natural world's unfathomable super-reality is exposed in all its natural otherness and unnatural otherworldliness. Joy Rip redefines the ghost story by exposing the unnaturalness of the natural. The unnaturalness of how we take everything about the singular phenomenon of being alive for granted. How the day-to-day rarely reveals ordinary life to be extraordinary. How amazing, how extraordinary is our natural blindness that allows us to carry on like everything is all right. These books are an effort to reverse that natural order and rediscover the hauntingly magical in the impossibly mundane. And nothing is more magical than stumbling across the unexpectedly real and important in the inexplicable unreality and unimportance that dominates the day-to-day. There is no greater treasure hunt. No greater supernatural.
"The reality of consciousness is captured best as a ghost story... An endless ghost story. Consciousness is a veil. We are all haunted by an absence of presence. Conscious reality is never fleshed out to its full depth. Everyone is a silhouette accented by shadows. Everything is unsatisfyingly fragmented, fleeting, shallow. Everything is a partial truth at best. Everyone is a great unknown. Nothing is truly substantial in our knowledge of ourselves and one another. We sleep, glide through life. Dreaming we are awake. We are ghosts." ~ Joy Rip
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die.” Map the unmappable. Everyone is an explorer when it comes to mapping the end... life's end... your end. Everyone alive is a tourist when it comes to traveling to the lands of the dead. Get this graphic novel guide to death and dying. No life plan is complete without it. No illusion of completeness is as satisfying as this one.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die,” the new graphic novel by Joy Rip, is the ghostly story of one desperate artist's graphic blueprint for dying with the illusion of grace.
Some say life begins without fear. Some say life begins with fear. We are born. We experience pain. We become fearful. We experience fear. We learn fear. We are ruled by fear. All the rules that govern the art world are rules crafted by fear and pain. The rules governing any living world... any conscious world... any human world, are rules crafted by our perceived limitations in the face of fear and pain. So why not cut to the chase and create a work of art that simply deals head on with the one most obvious pain and limitation ruling our lives: Our fear of death.
Joy Rip smiles. “This is the poor man's guide to dying. It's designed for the poor only because it aims to be a viable plan for anyone, even those with the fewest financial options, on how best to leave this world (with your head up). But everyone is welcome to use it.” Take a look. A bad plan might be better than no plan at all. Just remember, it's only art.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die.” Map the unmappable. Everyone is an explorer when it comes to mapping the end... life's end... your end. Everyone alive is a tourist when it comes to traveling to the lands of the dead. Get this graphic novel guide to death and dying. No life plan is complete without it. No illusion of completeness is as satisfying as this one.
“ART BUM: Guide to the Best Places to Die,” the new graphic novel by Joy Rip, is the ghostly story of one desperate artist's graphic blueprint for dying with the illusion of grace.
Some say life begins without fear. Some say life begins with fear. We are born. We experience pain. We become fearful. We experience fear. We learn fear. We are ruled by fear. All the rules that govern the art world are rules crafted by fear and pain. The rules governing any living world... any conscious world... any human world, are rules crafted by our perceived limitations in the face of fear and pain. So why not cut to the chase and create a work of art that simply deals head on with the one most obvious pain and limitation ruling our lives: Our fear of death.
Joy Rip smiles. “This is the poor man's guide to dying. It's designed for the poor only because it aims to be a viable plan for anyone, even those with the fewest financial options, on how best to leave this world (with your head up). But everyone is welcome to use it.” Take a look. A bad plan might be better than no plan at all. Just remember, it's only art.
"HAPPY ENDING" is the story of a girl named Hope, a young runaway, roped into a life of prostitution. Narrated first by a houseboy of the brothel where they both live and work. Then later narrated by Hope herself, who has big dreams. A simple story told in the not so simple form of a 528-page experimental graphic novel by author and artist Joy Rip.
The book is divided into three parts. PART 1 is the Foreword and contains the first Dream. PART 2 contains the Chapters 1-10 of the main story. PART 3 is the Afterword and contains the final Dream. Enjoy! Come dream with us.
Though Joy Rip's stories are haunting, they are not typical ghost stories in that they do not draw on the supernatural (in the ordinary sense) for their power. Instead, the so-called natural world's unfathomable super-reality is exposed in all its natural otherness and unnatural otherworldliness. Joy Rip redefines the ghost story by exposing the unnaturalness of the natural. The unnaturalness of how we take everything about the singular phenomenon of being alive for granted. How the day-to-day rarely reveals ordinary life to be extraordinary. How amazing, how extraordinary is our natural blindness that allows us to carry on like everything is all right. These books are an effort to reverse that natural order and rediscover the hauntingly magical in the impossibly mundane. And nothing is more magical than stumbling across the unexpectedly real and important in the inexplicable unreality and unimportance that dominates the day-to-day. There is no greater treasure hunt. No greater supernatural.
"The reality of consciousness is captured best as a ghost story... An endless ghost story. Consciousness is a veil. We are all haunted by an absence of presence. Conscious reality is never fleshed out to its full depth. Everyone is a silhouette accented by shadows. Everything is unsatisfyingly fragmented, fleeting, shallow. Everything is a partial truth at best. Everyone is a great unknown. Nothing is truly substantial in our knowledge of ourselves and one another. We sleep, glide through life. Dreaming we are awake. We are ghosts." ~ Joy Rip