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About Stephen Lee Naish

Stephen Lee Naish is a writer on the subjects of film, politics, and popular culture. He is the author of four books, most notably, Create or Die: Essays on the Artistry of Dennis Hopper and Riffs and Meaning: Manic Street Preachers and Know Your Enemy. He lives in Ontario, Canada.

Four Paintings and a Poem by Stephen Lee Naish

Stephen Lee Naish

mixed media art (detail) by Stephen Lee Naish

Untitled a Coke machine a smile a casual "hi" a walk barefoot in cut grass a door a gas station a pencil a paperclip a desire to be anything you want a bed a … [Read more...]

Found and Restored: Search and Destroy Reevaluated

Stephen Lee Naish

I've been watching Dennis Hopper's more obscure and straight-to-DVD movies now for a number of few years; all in the name of 'research' you understand. I've seen some real clunkers (Space Truckers, … [Read more...]

The Middle Word in Life: Dennis Hopper and Rudyard Kipling’s “If”

Stephen Lee Naish

IF by Rudyard Kipling

Actor, director, and artist Dennis Hopper staged performances of British poet Rudyard Kipling's "If" throughout his career. In Kipling's original poem, the voice is that of a father offering prudent … [Read more...]

Dennis Hopper as Daniel Morgan in Mad Dog Morgan

Stephen Lee Naish

Dennis Hopper as Daniel Morgan

The film Easy Rider (1969) made its director and star Dennis Hopper, and the film's producer and co-star Peter Fonda, counter-cultural icons of the late 1960s. The film's minuscule budget, roaring box … [Read more...]

The Opening Line – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Stephen Lee Naish

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." And so begins the first sentence to Hunter S. Thompson's seminal 1971 book Fear and Loathing in Las … [Read more...]

How Dennis Hopper conquered the American century

Stephen Lee Naish

dennis hopper - cannes

Dennis Hopper’s extensive filmography is filled with an array of painfully bad films. His early career saw him appear in any number of B-Movies and exploitation flicks; his late eighties/early … [Read more...]

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Empty Mirror

Established in 2000 and edited by Denise Enck, Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine that publishes new work each Friday.

Each week EM features several poems each by one or two poets; reviews; critical essays; visual art; and personal essays.

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Recent features

  • My Father’s Map
  • On Waiting
  • Seeing Las Meninas in Madrid, 1994
  • Visual poems from 23 Bodhisattvas by Chris Stephenson
  • Historical Punctum: Reading Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia and Native Guard Through the Lens of Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida
  • Panic In The Rear-View Mirror: Exploring The Work of Richard Siken and Ann Gale
  • “Art has side effects,” I said.

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