Michael Richard Lucas

Even More Lost Michael Richard Lucas

The second book of a series (Lost Fragments: pointless guidelines for the hopeless Sunstone Press 2018), it is comprised of an unknown narrator's (or narrators') anecdotes and aphorisms that range from existential philosophical musings to non sequitur punchlines to dark romantic humor to fake "news" updates: a millennial Jack Handey/Mitch Hedburg meets Kafka in an abstract art gallery on mild hallucinogens. The book's organized openness of thematic anecdotes work to provide more developed/humorous insights into the socio-political/economic follies and the psychological/philosophical dilemmas that haunt us on a daily basis. The anecdotes are intricately connected; however, they can simultaneously function as standalone paradoxical parables that put the reader in a philosophical bind: despite the reader's impulsive adherence to common sense, they might find it difficult to fully discount the narrator's outlandish theories. Each page is as visually stunning as the text is psychologically stunning. The backdrops of each page draw form the various professional mixed-media projects I've worked on over the years. For example, some of images humorously juxtapose scenes of epic futurism with images of dystopian decaying structures. These reoccurring image montages (often tied to specific reoccurring textual themes) offer extra depth: they explore places of journey and loss that are not recreations of an ideal past, but instead a sense of place that is a mystery derailing us from the problematic expectations generated by our own over-determined narratives. Through a deconstructed aesthetic, these illustrations invite the reader to re-perceive how the world around them is constructed.