A Forest with its Mouth Open Wide & Other Stories

 

A Forest with its Mouth Open Wide & Other Stories by Adam S. Cantwell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Full disclosure: Adam Cantwell and I are what was historically-termed "pen pals". Or at least we've written a few letters to each other. If you can't handle the fact that this review is likely biased by our correspondence, then maybe you should just bugger off. I like Adam. And I like his writing. There, I said it.

In my miserable berth I grew deathly ill. The cold and torpor drew what was left of me to my low-lying parts; here my pain and ennui sloshed and settled and was distilled. The whispering proximity of the lethal sea called these dregs down ever further, and day after day my spirit seeped through tar and pitch and blackly down.

My liquid remains decanted through desert voids of seawater. It was an alien medium, primal, its essence was not the tang that clings to the red flesh of salmon or the morning chill borne on the fog but the dead-cold and salt of bones and freezing stars. My nothing-substance popped and dispersed, particles radiant from the dumb core, shreds of lost desire given over to huge black currents.

This quote, from the opening story "Orphans on Granite Tides" should give you a notion of the solace and comfort you'll find within the pages of A Forest with its Mouth Open Wide & Other Stories, i.e., none. I've earlier reviewed this story (I have the original publication from Les Editions de L'Oubli (aka Mount Abraxas Press), though this is the revised text as it originally appeared in Bastards of the Absolute , which I have not read. I don't know what the exact revisions are, but this version seems a hint darker than the Mount Abraxas version. Maybe I'll ask him in my next letter. I seem to owe him one, especially since his last mailing was a short stack of vinyl records from his musical projects Spaceboy and Villains.

The second story, "Black Chroma," is set in what seems to be a post-apocalypse, though it may be the structure of the narrator's mind that is collapsing (this may be the case with many of the narrators in this volume), rather than civilization. Paranoia and agoraphobia combine to expose (him?) to the bright pinpoint lights of the cosmos, a nakedness only occulted by self-burial.

Profoundly existential, yet hopelessly defiant (I am reminded of one of my favorite poems, William Ernest Henley's Invictus ), "The Chamber in the Universe" examines monuments, devotion, power, hope, and death. The temple representing as empty vessel exposing the hollowness of existence, while being the instrument by which the common-builder nudges the cosmos, even a particle's-width; one of the most human of desires: to matter, even when nothing matters. To make one's mark forever in the void.

"The European Monster Part Two" is dark and obtuse, much like the philosophy of Emil Cioran, the inferred inspiration for the story (first published in a volume of stories dedicated to the Romanian philosopher). Here the narrator finds himself in a labyrinthine situation, becoming a part of a (political? criminal?) machine at the heart of which is the titular monster, perhaps a modern Minotaur.

"Torso in Shadow" puts the baffled and baffling narrator in the subways beneath NYC, which may or may not be disintegrating above. Surely it is convulsing, socially or physically. Amidst these convulsions, in the underground, the narrator meets a woman. Perhaps this is Adam and Eve witnessing the birthing pains of a new world. Difficult to tell. But the attempt must be made. An ouroboros of a story, eating itself.

Originally written for a tribute anthology to Borges, "The Bow, the Arm, the Arrow" echoes the Argentine writer's sometimes-journalistic style, but with a tonal nod to Millhauser, as well. The story reminds me of a long-form vlog I recently watched about the composer Penderecki (a favorite of mine), but with the narrator experimenting with literature, rather than music. Sometimes experiments go wrong.

The titular story in the volume actually appeared alongside one of my own stories in the Mount Abraxas anthology Frostsigils , an homage to Paysage d'Hiver. As one would expect, it is dark, downright Gothic, and one can feel the cold sink into one's bones while reading. It's all about atmosphere, and it delivers that in shadowed robes with the deep moaning toll of an immense black iron bell.

With "Vod the Wrecker," I again find myself as "TOC mates" with Adam in the Raphus Press anthology Ghost Trains. But where I treated the train in question as a haunting presence, here, Vod is the brooding master, a near-god, over the twisted metal entrails of what was once the most powerful force in America. Vod destroys, remakes, and rides the bones of the ur-train like a pyrrhic steed, into oblivion.


In the amber-filtered urine-gray aged-out green glass of insulators, crystallizing dumbly over centuries, he saw an enviable solitude and immobility. The enamel of insignia and livery, some burned to peacock craquelure; the bent-blue of sulking steel glazed over with a million dullnesses of black and charcoal.

Transformation of the individual and of the world are the subject of "The Oligomancer". Here a migrant child of an itinerant oil-platform worker watches the world turn inside out from a privileged (so to speak) observation point on the derelict platform. A slowly unfolding apocalypse gives indicators from the horizon about the collapse of the outside world, which can't help but affect his own inner world. Again, the line between psychic and physical reality is not only blurred, it is completely shattered.

And, finally, "The Hag, the Cutthroat, the Amputee" is the musing of a being who, like Charon of Greek myth, ferries the dead across to their final destination, particularly those whose demise is caused by war. He(?) is very adamant to note that he is not Charon, and his thoughts regarding the dead make it clear that he does not share the detached observations of his more famous counterpart.

Those are the stories and my skewed observations of them. You want objectivity? Good luck finding it in this universe. But I will end by deferring to one of the great nihilists of our age, Thomas Ligotti, who stated, quite correctly:

The stories of Adam Cantwell's . . . could be fairly equated with the works of Kafka or Borges if their prose were not so luxuriant and surprising at every turn.

I have nothing more to add.


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The Silver Surfer: Parable

 

The Silver Surfer #1 "Parable" Part 1 of 2 by Stan Lee and Moebius by Stan Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

[This review is for both volumes of the mini-series combined]

I've been a Silver Surfer stan (pun intended) since the early '70s when I first encountered the character on the news-stan(d) - okay, I'll stop.

I had spotted "Parable" when it was first published, but I was out of high school and trying to be "cool" by ignoring comics at the time. What an idiot I was. A few years later, I realized the error of my ways and got back into comics but had lost track of this mini-series until a few years ago. I'm not quite sure how that happened. Moebius is one of my favorite artists and The Silver Surfer is one of my favorite Marvel characters.

In this treatment, the art, as one would expect, is absolutely amazing. Moebius' Galactus, sans-crackle, would still warm Jack Kirby's heart, I would think. I wonder if anyone interviewed him about this miniseries before he passed away? One is quite curious what his thoughts would be. And Moebius' style lends itself to the sleek action sequences one would expect in such a tale.

But the action only catches the eye. It's the philosophy and psychology underneath it all that holds the reader's attention. The writing is not perfect, by any means - at times it sounds like it's trying too hard to be "wise" and "insightful," which lends a sort of hokeyness to some of the dialogue, sometimes to the point where it is downright painful. But if one can look beyond the treacle, there are some solid pearls of wisdom and insights into human psychology that would explain the current socio-political mess we are in. This miniseries was so prescient it could have been written today, this very hour, without skipping a beat. And I fear that it will always be applicable, no matter what happens in the political landscape. It is a parable that sees beyond its years, a sort of cosmic-action scripture, if you will. It is so accurate that it's scary. I'm afraid that Norrin Radd's near-nihilism is very, very close to a bigger truth, and we can't handle that truth.

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The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality

 

The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality by William Egginton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Anti-nomy: 1. a contradiction between two beliefs or conclusions that are in themselves reasonable; a paradox. 2. William Egginton's favorite word.

A work on logical brilliance requires a text that is logically brilliant. While most would agree that Jorge Luis Borges, Werner Heisenberg, and Immanuel Kant were among the most beautiful minds the human race has expressed, putting their works to the general public in a clear manner is a fool's quest. Or, at least I'm too foolish to try such a feat.

Egginton does. And while he excels in examining the biography of each of these thinkers, the explication of their insights becomes long-winded to the point of confusion. There is a reason the words "clear and concise" often appear together. Meandering about in such already-troubled waters as quantum physics, late-stage philosophy, and high-concept literature only causes paths to cross so many times that the reader can become lost. They recognize the path's they've already crossed, but approaching them from so many different angles in rapid succession is dizzying (for us dumb people).

Perhaps this is why I appreciate works such as Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid or Hierarchy Theory: A Vision, Vocabulary, and Epistemology so much. They are as long as they need to be. No longer. And while I admittedly do not fully grasp those works, I could always sense the thrust of their arguments - their beginning, progression, and goals - even if I didn't fully grasp the final product. There is a certain . . . pardon the pun . . rigor in these works that I found, not absent, but muddied in this book.

This is not to say that I didn't enjoy reading the work. On the contrary, I greatly enjoyed the biographical sections on each of these men, in particular. I've always loved Borges' fiction, for example, but knowing what I know now (from reading this book) about his biography, I think I've found a kindred soul in many ways. I won't go into details because I don't want to impugn anyone I might inadvertently "expose" (past or present). Let's just say that when you're in a foxhole "together," you become friends fast, and Borges feels like a friend now.

The sections on Heisenberg and the Nazi question are also insightful about the human desire to live and survive under a regime that is so far out of the norm of human decency; the ways that one "makes do" and subverts such regimes by subversion and careful deflection. While never excusing facism or its adherents, Egginton provides a nuanced analysis of Heisenberg's choices as a scientist and a human vis-a-vis the Nazi regime.

And Kant is presented as a man on borrowed time performing a philosophical race against the clock before death inevitably takes him. While somewhat speculative, the author does an admirable job of getting inside the philosopher's head and heart, turning one man's quest for the ultimate answers to being into a bit of a thriller.

In essence, though, the thesis of the book can be boiled down to Heisenber's quote: "We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning". This is repeated in many ways throughout the book, but the essence remains the same. We are only as smart and observant as our observational tools. We do not see reality, we see our sight of reality. I am reminded of the argument that in order to prove there is or is not a God, one must see everything, but one must do it all at once, in all times and all places, in order to prove, once and for all, that there is or is not a God. In other words, one must become God to prove or disprove God.

And that, my friends, is an antinomy.


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Death In Spring

 

Death in Spring by Mercè Rodoreda
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Two threads tied me up in this book. 1) the cover: Yes, I am a sucker for good covers. And for some reason this one had echoes for me of Brian Evenson's The Wavering Knife (possibly my favorite short story collection of all time) and A Collapse of Horses , as well as my own Heraclix & Pomp, and 2) the recommendation by the always spot-on Sam Pulham of Sherdstube, the single best book-tuber out there.

Upon cracking the cover and peeling it open (I use this phrase quite intentionally - those who have read the book will understand the grim reference), I found that the surface impression of an affinity with Brian Evenson's work was something that ran much deeper. Surreal, bleak, and inexplicably violent, with a tone of Magic Realism gone horribly wrong, this book precedes Evenson's presentation of the same by a good many decades and makes me wonder if Brian hadn't read Rodoreda's text early in his career. If not, they both came to the same place, stylistically speaking, or at least in that signature tone. The book crosses the line between fable and memoir, but the memoir of a young (later older) man living in a village that is full of violent rites like the sewing up of the dying in the Dead Wood . . . after filling their throats with concrete so their souls cannot escape (like many of the bizarre traditions carried out here, it's never explained why the soul's escape is a bad thing).

The cycle of violence goes through many manifestations and rituals, all of them unexplained, just cultural "givens" that one lives with. I suppose this has something to do with the genesis of the work in Franco's Spain. Populations under dictatorships tend to merely accept the violence imposed upon them with that familiar phrase (which I hate) "it is what it is". The inhabitants of Rodoreda's Death in Spring are no different. Imagine an entire society of Kafka's antagonists, all in on the game, but no one knowing why the rules are what they are.

This vortex of ritual violence also takes what, in other hands, would have been a simple "coming of age" story and twists it back in on itself in such a way that the antagonist "grows up" to become his father (whom we witnessed sewing himself up in a tree in an act of self-annihilation before being "rescued" by the villagers, if only long enough to pour cement down his throat and inter him in the tree again). Even the "boy's" step-mother becomes his wife (so far as I can tell) who abandons him when their child is killed by other children in the village - by this time, the boy has become a man resembling his father in most every way, most notably by the disfigurement of his face from being forced to swim the river that runs beneath the village (to ensure it will remain stable) and having his forehead torn off on the sharp rocks in the dark tunnels under the village.

This one is not for the faint of heart. Nor for the overly empathetic. If you are currently struggling with depression, this is NOT the book for you.

If you are ready to dive in, though (pun intended), to a book that will move you in strange ways and that contains some beautiful poesis. Perhaps it's time. And time. Again. And again. And again.

I'll leave you with a beautiful bright spot (there are a few, despite the overall angst of the work), something wistful and sweet (n.b., "Mourners" are a kind of bird, named for reasons that you can gather from your reading):

I jumped back into the river. The water that enveloped my legs still seemed to hold her. We had been in this water together. Mourners were flying above the blue and purple river, beneath the branches, searching for mosquitoes and soft grass. Night arrived, and suddenly I scarcely knew my way back to the village: from Pedres Baixes to the slaughterhouse and from the slaughterhouse to the Pont de Fusta, where the river beneath the bridge transported stars and pieces of moon.





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The Shub-Niggurath Cycle: Tales of the Black Goat with a Thousand Young

 

The Shub-Niggurath Cycle: Tales of the Black Goat with a Thousand Young by Robert M. Price
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this years ago, about twenty years ago, in fact, when I was finishing graduate school. I'll be honest, I don't remember if I owned the book and got rid of it or if I got it from the library, but, in any case, I didn't have my own copy for a long, long time. So, when I spotted this at a local antique store for a pittance, I just sprang for it. The question is, would it live up to my now-higher expectations of writing craftsmanship?

Lewis Spence's "The Horn of Vipula" was pulp as they come, with everything that implies: predictability, a not-so-surprise ending, plot "reaches" like miniature deus-ex-machina, and language that strives to be better than it really is. Meh. Not a great start to the anthology.

M.P. Dare tries to channel M.R. James in "The Demoniac Goat". He's largely successful but lacks the full gravitas of the master of the ghost story. Still, a decent enough story about an ostensibly dead priest and his pet goat. Well, who was the pet, really?

Even the editor notes the hackneyed subject matter of J.S. Leatherbarrow's "The Ghostly Goat of Glaramara". I agree with the editor's assessment. Ostensibly, he put it in the anthology for historical reasons. But some history is best forgotten.

I've read and enjoyed Ramsey Campbell's "The Moon-Lens" before, and while many consider it something akin to juvenalia, with a structure that pastiche's Lovecraft's own, I still find something intriguing here. It bridges the gap between folk horror and cosmic horror in a way that highlights the strong points of each. Maybe I just have a soft spot for it, as I would likely rate it more highly than others.

Careful restraint is not the watchword in John Glasby's "The Ring of the Hyades". Lovecraft's greatest folly: naming the un-nameable, describing the indescribable, leaks into Glasby's writing like a Rorschach test of purple prose. The story is alright, but rather predictable for anyone even vaguely familiar with the Mythos. I suppose that makes it a safe read for fans, but it would be jarring for newcomers.

During my years as an editor, I had an unbreakable rule that I would never publish my own work in an anthology I was editing. Price, in his . . . uh, work(?) "A Thousand Young" provides a shining example of why every editor should take this ethical stance. I hated this story. It was a twelve-year old's darkest sexual fantasy. Oh, and trigger warning: R**E. Yeah, no. No stars, not even one. Just . . .don't.

Odd that a story so poor as Price's should be followed by a sandal and sorcery story so nearly perfect as Richard L. Tierney's "The Seed of the Star God". Price can't write them, but he can pick them! Now I'm wondering if there is a full collection of Simon of Gitta's tales. I would read that! Sword, sorcery, and sacrifice in the decadence of the Roman Empire. SPQR!

It's not the story that sang to me. Glen Singer's "Harold's Blues" is an old tale, a very tried and true tale, about selling one's soul for music. You already know the story, from start to finish. But the register in which this was sung . . .well, that's where the magic lies. That old, dark magic that brings songs and storms and screams in the night. Familiar, but unsettling.

Lin Carter may have been a better writer of Lovecraftian tales than Lovecraft himself. "Dreams in the House of Weir," a story steeped in the mythos, but with just a modicum more of restraint than HPL lacked, teases the horror out instead of bashing readers over the head with it. There's a slow pull on the thread of cosmic horror here that unwinds one's sanity. If your dreams become wondrous, you should start to fear.

. . . and Carter further demonstrates his skilled pen by way of the poem "Visions from Yaddith," which is quoted in the previous story. I'm rather curious which came first? The story? Or the poem? Each path carries some interesting implications about the writing process that I need to ponder on a while. I could see each having its benefits, and I've done both, but without much intentionality. I must think on this. It's been a while since I've tried my hand at poetry.

I wavered on M.L. Carter's "Prey of the Goat". It swung from interesting to hackneyed, back to good, then to trite, wallowing in mediocrity. In the end, I'm in the "meh" camp, with a slight twinge of "interesting," but not interesting enough to take me beyond a bland assessment. Could-have-beens and all that rot.

"Sabbath of the Black Goat" carried a not-so-surprising ending. Add to this the hyper-compressed, yet somehow thin info dump by Stephen M. Rainey and you have a rushed, middling story. I suspect there was some word count restriction on the story, but whether the story should have been longer or shorter is difficult to say. It's clear, though, that the pulp suit just doesn’t quite fit right.

Another Price story, but this one co-authored with Peter H. Cannon, "The Curate of Temphill" reads somewhere between M.R. James and Umberto Eco; meaning I quite liked it. I have to attribute this to the co-authorship(?), something I've done myself with good results (with author Brendan Connell, whose work I continue to greatly admire). This tale of Templars and heretical prophecies is an unexpected and welcome find in such an anthology. No Old Ones here, but they are not needed.

David Kaufman's "Grossie" might be the most effective story of this anthology (and also has the worst title, though it fits). It's as subtle as Lovecraft is unsubtle. There is a menace of place here and the faint aroma of ancestral evil, just enough to pique the imagination, just enough for the reader to really feel the underlying horror without facing it directly, an underlying genius loci with inimical intent. Don't be fooled by the puerile title. Another tale where the Old Ones don't make a direct appearance, and they don't have to. In fact, having an "unspeakable" horror show its face would have destroyed this beautiful (but dark) story.

"To Clear the Earth" is a story lost and found to me. I remember, in the mid-90s, reading a mythos story that made a deep impression on me. It was cosmic horror writ-large, on an Earth-ending scale, but in more of a science fiction paradigm than horror. The setting was Antarctica (which makes me wonder why it wasn't in the Antarktos Cycle). And here it is, by Will Murray (also the author of the Doc Savage and Destroyer series). It doesn't resonate as much now. I was surprised by the ending (which I had forgotten), so that wasn't the problem. I think it might be the pulp-adventure tone of the second half of the story, or maybe it was the info-dumping that took place throughout. I guess it was needed back in the day, but nowadays the Mythos lore is so common as to be trite. Or maybe I've just played so much Call of Cthulhu that I recoil at explanatory passages, especially ones about the Necronomicon. In any case, the story, while good, didn't have the same magic (nefarious or otherwise), as it did last century.

So, alas, the me of twenty years ago enjoyed this anthology far more than the me of now does. Age happens. Experience happens. Nostalgia happens. And sometimes, nostalgia is deceptive. Live and learn.

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The Slithering Shadow

 Pardon my indulgence while I wax autobiographical. But I think I've puzzled out something about myself that was hidden under the skin for many, many decades. In childhood, one tries to figure out who they are. Later in life, middle age, to be specific, one starts to ask: Well, how did I get here? And since I'm re-analoging my life, I have more time and headspace to think about such things. 

As I've stated many times before, I lived a part of my childhood in Brindisi, Italy. I lived there from 1976 to 1979. It was there that my passion for fantasy and science fiction was born. My father read a lot of science fiction and introduced me to many authors whose work I learned to love. But as far as fantasy, that was mostly something I discovered myself . . . on the magazine shelf of the Stars and Stripes Bookstore at San Vito AFB. 

It will strike the canny reader that it is extremely odd that a child of my age at that time was exposed to something as salacious as The Savage Sword of Conan. Those who are familiar with military life, though, will not be surprised when I say that I first discovered the magazine in a pile of comics at the base childcare facility one night when my parents left me there so they could go on a date to see Superman. 

As a child, I was an avid comic book reader. From Thor to Metal Men to Archie and Richie Rich, but Savage Sword of Conan was a shock to the system, a revelation. I won't go over what that magazine did to stir my young soul, but in hindsight, with many decades between then and now, I think I've finally discovered exactly why this horrifying, over-eroticized, violent "comic" resonated with me to the point that it set me on a wholly-new intellectual track that led to a lifelong obsession with roleplaying games, fantasy fiction, writing, visual art, and heavy metal, among other things. These obsessions are the reason this blog exists, after all.

The area I lived in while living in Italy is known for its aridity. It's basically an extension of the north African clime, separated from Algeria, Libya, et al, by a mere 87 miles at their closest points (Southern Sicily to Tunisia). Here the days are hot and dry and prickly pear cactus can easily be found along roads both in and out of the city. Near the apartments where we lived, a fig tree spontaneously grew in a ditch, and olive trees were everywhere. The area is known for its olive oil, in fact. There are also artichoke fields like corn fields in the US, spreading through vast expanses. I recall wandering through these fields and stumbling on small, stunted remains of Roman pillars - the artichoke farmers simply worked around them, the fields conforming to the contours of imperial architecture, an unavoidable echo from the time when Cesars ruled the land. 

When I opened the pages of The Slithering Shadow, I was immediately struck by the visuals of the desert. Conan and a buxom woman (they were always buxom, though I had no idea what that word meant at the time) are stranded in the desert and have just run out of water. They set out across the desert looking for water and stumble upon a seemingly-abandoned city.

One of the more commendable cultural norms in Italy is the siesta. Everyone, and I mean almost everyone, sits down and takes a nap in the afternoon. I learned this the hard way when I went across the street to buy candy (a cadbury chocolate egg with a metal soldier inside the egg) one hot afternoon. I approached the shop and saw the proprietor, an ancient lich of a lady, sitting in a wooden chair, back to the wall of the establishement, just to the left of the door. She was sound asleep. So, being young and reckless, I started to walk in, but then her arm shot out like a bolt of lightning, blocking the way. I was stunned, paralyzed, really. I looked at her and she opened one bloodshot eye to look at me and said, simply, but very firmly "NO!". What could I do but back down? I was defeated, and retreated. When I returned, about an hour later, she was quite nice and pleased to sell me a couple of those eggs. But I learned that Italians take their siestas very seriously! If you ever want to rob a bank in Italy, just do it during the siesta, and no one will stop you, I swear.

Given this history, when I progressed through The Slithering Shadow, what did I encounter, but an entire ancient city full of sleepers? 

I will forego spoiling the plot for you from that point. I outlined the plot in more detail in my review of the collected Savage Sword of Conan Volume 2, if you're interested. But I would suggest just getting yourself a copy and reading it yourself. 

These elements alone gave me very personal reasons to be drawn into the story. Again, I didn't realize the causal connections until very recently. I can link the reading of this magazine to the subsequent buying of more Savage Swords, to my later fascination with Dungeons and Dragons, Heavy Metal Magazine (along with the movie and the music), and Epic Illustrated. 

Also, with hindsight, I look back on that more-or-less innocent child and am grateful for who he was, as well as who he became. Like Conan in the story, I've come up battered and bruised by life, but I've replaced that innocence with stubbornness in hope. 

As Conan states: "You can't fight a devil out of hell . . . and come off with a whole skin . . .!"

But you keep on keeping on. Thanks, Conan!

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Dark Arts

 

Dark Arts by Eric Stener Carlson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Let me start by saying that I absolutely love Tartarus Press. In fact, I just had Mark Valentine's most recent collection from them show up in my mail this past week. My first Tartarus book was a copy of Meyrink's The Golem, which a good friend of mine gifted me many, many years ago. I think I own about twelve volumes from Tartarus, most of them hardcovers (though I'd have to verify that number). I've never been disappointed by a Tartarus publication. Unfortunately, that streak may have come to an end with the current volume. Carlson's Dark Arts isn't bad, it's just not up to par with the other Tartarus books I've read. I suppose not every volume can be outstanding. I also just encountered what I would consider Wakefield Press's weakest volume that I've read so far. Maybe it's a bad batch. Maybe it's just me, who knows? But I have to call them like I see them. And here is how I see each of the stories in this volume:

Can a story in which not one, but four deaths occur (one being an alleyway murder) be considered . . . comforting? Soft? Even loving? Carlson tells just such a tale in "Golden Book," in which an Ikiryo meets a young girl destined for her first encounter with death. This story is more of a blessing than a curse, as dark as it is.

"Coffee Shop" was ripe with dazzling poetics. Unfortunately, the incredible potential of the plot and language was unrealized. I wanted so much more than what the ending had to offer, but then again, that might have been the point of this story of trapped desperation?

I feel the same way about "Divining Rod" as I did about the last story. So much poetic potential, so little punch. This tale seemed to meander, directionless, like a series of disjunct writing exercises strung together on a frayed, insubstantial plot line. But again, maybe that was the point? I'll never know. Or maybe that is the point and I'm just too shallow of a reader to realize it?

I thought that maybe I would warm up to Carlson with the next tale. "Leopard-Spotted Scarf" is a touching (if tinged by horror) tale of a woman daring to become her childhood self, yet again. It's a bittersweet tale that doesn't telegraph the surprise ending, though one can likely figure out what's happening beforehand from the subtle cues left by the narrator. It's a Twilight-Zone-esque tale, which is one of the highest compliments I can give a story

Alas, the relative highs of "Leopard-Spotted Scarf" weren't reached again over the next few stories. "Corridor" is full of anticipatory horror past and present. Two journalists wait for the terrorists who are about to take them hostage. One has suffered throughout his life from an extreme neurosis about what will happen to him in the future. The other is terrified by the prospect of capture and death. But in this case, one's terrors can atone for the terror of another. A good (not great) tale of strange redemptions.

Somewhere along the way, I lost the thread of "Bradycardia". The heady mixture of dream and waking life, along with what might be psychosis, goaded along by a manipulative lover(?) gets almost too convoluted. There's a fine line between complex and incomprehensible, and I wavered over both sides of that line throughout.

The premise of "Stray," a story told by a dog about his many previous lives, was, to be honest, not to my liking. But Carlson handled that premise with tenderness and an ongoing emotional charge that won me over. I didn't like the idea, but the execution was handled by such a deft hand that I couldn't help but love the story.

Mood and atmosphere dominate "Strasse 60, Berlin". This story has a heightened sense of tension that gives it a higher ceiling of dread and eeriness than other stories thus far in the collection. The press of confusion is palpable. Chronology is shuffled and the narrator is misdirected by the phantoms of his own memories. A disconcerting, very effective story. This was more of what I had hoped for.

"Salt" is an excellent story of gaslighting by an authoritarian regime. It's a twisted narrative of unraveling untruth and an emotional gut punch to a narrator that may or may not be insane, but is absolutely in a lot of trouble.

Despite a baldly-telegraphed "twist" and some pushy histrionics, I rather liked "Monsieur Machine". Delivery aside, this was an excellent tale of love and ambition coming into stark contrast, then resolution of the dialectic. Given its mechanistic themes, there is an evocation of emotion that moves the reader while horrifying at the same time. Here love and loss combine to create awe and the awful.

I liked "I Loved You at Your Darkest," but didn't love it. Pardon the horrid attempt at a pun. Yes, the story twisted in an unexpected way, but resolved too quickly, in my mind, with the narrator able to make logical leaps using clues that shouldn't have evoked his conclusions. Another good, but not great tale, straining my belief a touch too much, which was the kiss of death (another horrible pun, given the plot).

I heard hinted echoes of Dhalgren in "The Atelier," a dystopian post-disaster (and pre-even-bigger-disaster) tale set in a fractured Europe held together by authoritarianism. But Delaney's novel was far superior to this tale, which is only a faint, thin shadow of the former. I found rays of hope in the hopelessness, but, again, this story just wasn't really "for" me.

Again, it's not a bad collection, just not up to my expectations of Tartarus' usual work. Do I regret buying it? No. I don't think I can ever regret buying a Tartarus title - they are, to me, the height of craftsmanship and elegant design. Would I buy it again, knowing what I know now? Also no. Like I said: maybe it's just me. High expectations + more experience over time = jadedness, I suppose. Then again, maybe it's not just me. You'll have to decide for yourself.

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The Mill: A Cosmos

 

The Mill: A Cosmos by Bess Brenck Kalischer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I believe this is the lowest rating I've given to a Wakefield Press title yet. It makes me sad, because I love what Wakefield does: bring fantastic obscure works in translation to light in the English-reading world. They've done some fantastic work in the past (including the amazing work of Marcel Schwob, Marcel Bealu, Otto Julius Bierbaum, and, most remarkably, Jean Ray). So, you'll excuse me if my expectations are sky high . . . but they are.

My unrealistic expectations were met with the introduction to this volume. As with every other Wakefield Press book I've read, the translator's introduction, this time by W.C. Bamberg, is worth the ticket price alone. It's an extremely evocative piece about this essentially unknown author: well-researched (with a hint of the historiography involved, even), captivating, sympathetic, and enlightening. This is the fine scholarship I've come to (unfairly?) expect from Wakefield. At times, the writing in the introduction out-paced the writing in the actual story.

It didn't take long after reading the introduction to become somewhat disenchanted. What seemed to start out as a staccato poesis descended into pure Dada. I understand that makes the work "of its time," but that doesn't excuse near-incoherence. Yes, the story is about a woman holed up in a sanitorium, but the experimental form . . . well, the experiment just didn't work for me.

The section "The Island of Destiny, or Encounter with the Caliph" was the first truly coherent narrative of this work. It started on page 25 and sustained through page 32, but I have to admit that making it to this section was a feat in and of itself. I've read plenty of stories with insane (or at least highly neurotic) and unreliable narrators, plowed my way through some notoriously difficult prose (Proust, Joyce, and Beckett, I'm looking at you), and read more than my share of stories about madness. But the first 25 pages of Kalischer's work here had me nearly leming the book, but I decided to press ahead. It is a short work, after all, and I'd bested tougher (though better-written) material.

After that the narrative gets wobbly, teetering on the edge of coherence, threatening to fall into Dada at any moment. It's sometimes difficult to discern between playful intellectual brilliance and an utter collapse of reason. It's almost as if Kalischer weaves in and out of each, with no warning about what direction she is turning; blind curves ahead. Sure, the narrator is struggling with mental illness, but a reader needs some kind of compass, even a weak one. Still, I pressed on.

Lest you think this ship has utterly sunk, that all was lost, that's not true. Later, near the end, I uncovered "On Sirius". It is by far the best section of the book. It's a gentle, smoothly flowing prose poem, not entirely lacking disjuncture, but not as chaotic as some earlier sections of the book. It is a piece that is of a piece, well-put-together, but not stodgy. I can (and have) wrap(ped) myself up in it. It is comfortable, but not so cosy as to be uninteresting. If the entire book was written this way, it would be at least a four-star book for me. Alas, that can't be. The neurotic narrator, like most humans, had a long string of near-coherence which, of course, wouldn't last.

However, I didn't mind the ending being disjointed. In fact, I think it worked quite well, given that we had a comfortable baseline in "On Sirius" from which we could jump off. The tragedy of this last section felt real and poignant. A good ending, given what came immediately before it. But the first part of the story started off in such a stark, jarring manner that I just couldn't make the connection with the narrator until halfway through the book. In fact, I wonder what the book would have read like had it begun with "On Sirius" and the erstwhile early material was tagged on to the back of the story (after the sanitorium episodes)? Possibly a stronger narrative? Unfortunately, Kalischer isn't around to ask for a rewrite.

Still, kudos yet again to Wakefield for presenting a work obscured by history and doing so with all the reverence and academic rigor it deserves. Yes, it fell short for me, but that's not stopping me from continuing to dip in the stream of Wakefield works. In fact, there's another waiting on my shelf right now that I am eager to read. I'm still on the Wakefield train and won't be getting off any time soon!



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Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

 

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This may be my favorite Philip K. Dick novel to date. It's got all the "typical" trappings of a Dick novel: Dystopian setting, drugs that really do alter reality, flying cars, synthetic humans - but the sappy title isn't just treacle. There is some real emotional depth to this story. Even more so than The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. This is one of his later novels and one wonders, after this foray, what emotional depths he might have plumbed had he lived longer.

This work is, as one would expect from Dick, complicated, mystifying, even misleading, at times. But here, I'm not just referring to the plot, I'm referring more specifically to the characters. All of them evoke sympathy, pity, and annoyance, at the least, downright loathing, at worst. There really is not one "stock" character here; even the most "vanilla" of the bunch, Herb Maime, shows an underlying depth of psychological complexity burbling under his seeming obsequiousness. And though the action largely follows along with the actions (and inactions and reactions) of Jason Taverner, one might argue that the real central character is Police General Felix Buckman. Or perhaps it is Buckman's sister-wife, Alys, who we learn has perhaps inadvertently caused the reality-shift that Taverner suffers. Honestly, it's difficult to tell who the "main" characters are, as all have a level of complexity and plot-involvement that might argue for their position as protagonist.

If this seems like a hopelessly-twisted story of hopelessly-twisted people . . . it is! And the strangest thing of all: Dick claimed that most of this book was non-fiction. Yes, you read that correctly. Now, Dick's psychosis is well-known, as is his chronic drug use. So, you might just blow this statement off as crazy-talk. And maybe it is. But if you are one of the many people who suspect that there just might be something to the Mandela Effect, well, you can see how the author could have viewed this book as largely non-fiction. Of course, the Mandela Effect had not been named as such when Dick wrote the book (Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island at the time the book was written), but the idea of multiple universes laying one on top of the other, or side by side, with the possibility of a cosmic slip in-between realities and timelines, is one of the foremost features of Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. In essence, it is the plot.

Furthermore, the emotional depth and complexity of these characters were not created at an intellectual remove from the pen. They seem to emerge as organic, living beings, people, or at least reflective of people, who Dick knew and loved (and lost). Really, the science fiction here is merely a (multidimensional) doorway into a world of love, pain, guilt, self-doubt, and forgiveness, with spaces of emotional numbness in-between. Here, the inner world is what matters, and the outer world, or, more appropriately, outer worlds (and the slippages between them) is merely a catalyst for human emotion, a window into the soul.

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Urx Quonox

 

Urx Quonox by Adam S. Cantwell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm reading the Occult Press version, gifted to me and signed by Adam, 37/120 limited edition. Thanks, Adam!

I'm a big sword and sorcery fan, have been since the mid-70s, reading Savage Sword of Conan and the old Howard paperbacks. Here, with Grasm the Barbarian, Cantwell has taken S&S to a higher literary level, the inevitable evolution out of pulp and into thinking-man's writing, and I'm here for it.

If Robert E. Howard had cast aside all prudery and collaborated with William Burroughs, this might start to approximate the style of "The Monarch in Disarray," but this tale is much more transgressive, visceral, and psychedelic than that. It's a decadent sword & sorcery tale, pushed to carnal extremes with an emphasis on the sorcery and its deeper effects on the psyche. Grasm > Conan, maybe. The writing is head and shoulders above Howard's.

Another story of Grasm the Barbarian, "Scream of the Bluejay," is a barnacle-encrusted sea-salt soaked rope of a tale about revenental vengeance. While the center of attention in the story isn't the barbarian, it says much about him and twists in such a way as to wring out more of his past. It's a clever tale of sword and sorcery, of regret, betrayal, and murder; a hideously glorious, horrifically beautiful tale.

The final entry in the Grasm trilogy, "Cities Below the Strand," again puts an emphasis on sorcery over swords. No swords are drawn in this tale, but there is a deep cut of nihilism here, particularly as regards both the past and the future of Grasm himself. This is a small window into what could be a large, inglorious panorama both for the barbarian himself and for his world as a whole. Hearts die, nations collapse, the world keeps spinning.

Three tales about the same person, but exploring different aspects of his past, present, and future. Grasm learns about Grasm even as we do. I want to continue this journey!

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Prisms of the Oneiroi

 

Prisms of the Oneiroi by Martin Locker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

While I've read bits and bobs of Martin Locker's work before, this is my first full-length foray into his work and I feel like I've struck gold in the Pyrenees. I paid for it (including shipping from Andorra), but this is worth ten times what I spent! There's a wonderful variety to the stories in this collection, all girded by Locker's own voice, or, more properly, voices, as his characters are distinctly-identifiable from one another. Each tale is a different facet of the same gem.

Ligotti has nothing on Locker when it comes to existential dread on a cosmic scale. This was the sort of suffocating fear of the universe that Lovecraft strove for, but Locker has found. "The Dreaming Plateau" is horror of a different order of magnitude, made all the more impactful by the elision of the most purple prose. The poetic heart is intact, but without un-necessary frills, with terrifying clarity. And for some reason, my mind kept flashing images from the Tibetan scenes in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus throughout, which is not a bad thing. I was waiting for Tom Waits to burst through a door at any moment.

"Corfdrager" examines one of my favorite enigmatic pieces of art, Bruegel's "The Beekeepers and the Birdnester" (and the art used on one of my favorite albums from one of my favorite bands, Sunn's White 2) as a catalyst for the narrator's encounter with his family's past and his own inheritance via a seemingly academic investigation. One wonders, by the end, if the academics aren't the most horrific aspect of the story. If you went to graduate school, you know what I'm talking about here. The dive into apiary lore is more sinister and more irresistible than one might imagine.

While reading Prisms of the Oneiroi, I am using a Winterthur Poison Book Project bookmark (you can get one, like I did, for free here). The irony of reading "The Temple Consumes the Rose," which features a green book by Sar Peladan, is not lost on me. I might also be tempted to consume such a book, if I was to be rewarded the visions of Latoure, even if it cost me my life. Such is the price of true art. A moving occult tale.

"The Secrets of Saxon Stone" was a delight to read, and I am not being facetious. Daimons abound, the psychogeography of the region portrayed is reflective of the spirits that not only dwell there, but are interwoven into its very fabric. This is like Dunsany, but without the pedantics that sometimes overween his work. This is mythical and approachable, lending familiarity to the representation of the divine.

Locker displays his acumen for ethnography and mythic studies in "Sea Salt and Asphodel," a story of dreams, prophecy, and the cycle of life and death. The depth of immersion here just has to be experienced - I can't describe it. Suffice it to say that this tale is told in such a way that one feels at one with the others presented in the story. You don't read this story, you live in it. The reader feels a part of the tale, such is the attention to detail.

"In Search of the Wild Staircase" is an epistolary story in the vein of Harper's magazine travelogues from the late-19th- and early-20th-centuries, albeit with a folk horror twist. That twist is set on its head, though, as it is implied, at least, that The Church itself is the source of the frisson. The story ended a bit too hurried for me, but it's still a very solid work. I'll never look at the little country of Liechtenstein the same again.

Locker, you clever, clever man. "The Jasmine Tear" is a story worthy of a Twilight Zone episode, which is one of the highest compliments I can give to a short story. The koummya, the djinn, the deal with a demon, and the treasures of the Maghreb - this is worthy of Musiqa al-Ala; a masterstroke of storytelling that will stick in my mind until the Last Day (or fifty years, whichever comes first)!

I found "A Dialogue of Innocence with the Hidden Parish" deeply moving. First, it created a deep psychogeography of a particular house seeping with sadness, longing for company. I thought of my parent's home and the sorrow I associate with it, but more of that at a later time. I also thought of my own childhood and the deep impressions of place I felt as a young world traveller. Moving every two or three years (Dad was in the military) forces one to latch on to the feeling of a place rather quickly, so I might be a little hypersensitive that way. Combine that with the death of my parents a few years back, and maybe I was destined to fall in love with this story.

Ever contemplated choosing homelessness? I have (when it's warm out). In fact, I was very strongly tempted at my last job to just give a try at homelessness, but fate, thankfully, intervened. In "What the Vagabond Sees or The Parish Coda," an entire society and cosmology is outlined for English Vagabonds, whose motto is "No Parish But Albion". If you know, you know. I immediately connected with this tale, due in part to a trip I took in 2019 that allowed a fair bit of rambling around the Cotswolds. I recalled the many carefree hikes that friends and I took in the English countryside, from Brighton and Eastbourne to the Midlands to the Cotswolds, when I lived in the UK as a teenager. As I understand it, after The Great War, many veterans, disillusioned from the horrors they saw during the war, became homeless wanderers in the 1920s. I think that the song "The Tin Man" by Grasscut is inspired by that phenomenon or, if it's not, I'm going to interpret it that way anyway. I've often dreamt of what it would be, in my dotage, to hike around England until I just drop dead. I know I'm going to sound borderline insane, but it's a very tempting prospect, in all seriousness. This story just unlocks that morbid longing in my heart all over again. Maybe. Someday. Maybe. But only if I'm alone. And it's warm. But I can't imagine a better way to go.


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To Those Gods Beyond

 

To Those Gods Beyond by Giorgio Manganelli
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have yet to read an Atlas Press title that hasn't surprised me and delighted me. Giorgio Manganelli's To Those Gods Beyond is no exception. Again, Atlas captures and presents the work of a heretofore-unknown-to-me master of literary expression with near perfection. I'll explain the "near" at the end. Even with that forthcoming caveat, this is an outstanding work that should be read more widely. I absolutely see why Italo Calvino praised Manganelli's work and why Atlas published this book. The first 50-ish pages alone are worth the price of entry. Far more, if you ask me. The book is divided into seven sections, which I've outlined below. Calvino remarked on the coherence of the work, which is seemingly all over the place. I agree, but I can't quite put my finger on exactly how it coheres. This bears more examination and thought.

Manganelli's essay "Literature as Deception" flatters the writer's vanity, crowning him buffoon, but in the sense of The Fool in the tarot. The foolishness is freedom and the buffoonery wisdom. The writer is, in essence, the trickster god of words and semantics. I wholeheartedly agree with his assessment. At least I flatter myself thusly. Call me a vain fool.

"A King" may be an existentialist shudder from the whispering of death or it may be a eulogy to solipsism itself. But why not both? In any case it is as bold and majestic as the title.

"Simulations" takes the narrator from kingship to poverty to being a renegade and, finally, to nothing but a "child's hallucination". Manganelli, like Beckett in his famous trilogy, breaks down the character to the point of less than nothing, a mere figment of imagination. The last paragraph is a masterful paradigm shift from the observer to the observed; an existentialist epiphany.

"A Few Hypotheses Concerning My Previous Reincarnations" is exactly what it purports to be, which is a baffling thing for any reader. Suffice it to say that the "S" word (-uicide) figures prominently in the narrative as the author tries to piece together his past life. It's a whimsical and tragic examination of identity and the twisted roads one can go down when reflecting on the self.

"Ignominy" sees the (yet another) dead protagonist slowly reason themself into the state defined by the title. The self-awareness of The Dead leads them to disappear in the ever-diminishing (or, rather, spreading thin to near-infinity) of the self. Ignoring, it seems, is both ubiquitous and inevitable for those without a body and, hence without a firm place in space and time. All dissolves into near-nothing.

In hindsight, it's plain to see that the title of the book: To Those Gods Beyond derives, in tone and principal, at least, from the story "An Impossible Love". Here, Hamlet (deceased) finds means to communicate with the Princess of The Princess of Cleve (also deceased) by means of a verbal catapult that launches missives across realities. But what is between and behind those realities? The answer is rather distressing.

The lengthy and exhaustive essay "Disquisition on the Difficulty of Communicating With the Dead" is precisely what the title promises. Where does one begin searching to find the dead, seeing that we have no way to measure those who have no body? Where are they hiding? And what language would we or should we use when communicating with them, once found? More importantly, do they even care? Or are they just stupid?

Now, on to my only complaint. I understand why Alastair Brotchie's afterword was, well, after the rest of the book. Here Brotchie tries to provide a framework for the volume as a whole, attributing all the references to death to an ongoing metaphor about writers and literary work. The evidence feels very thin, with Brotchie admitting as much, and I was absolutely unconvinced. Besides, the afterword saps the work of its mystery - the speculation, often with a darkly humorous twist, about what the state of the dead actually is. All I can say is that I'm glad it wasn't at the beginning, as the tenuous, yet overwrought analysis of Manganelli's work wouldn't have spoiled the joy of To Those Gods Beyond so much as polluted it utterly. I'd rather it just not have been a part of this volume.

So, excising the weak afterword, this is a strong collection of . . . well, it's not exactly easy to find an appropriate genre category for this work. It's its own thing. Unique. A bit of an enigma. And I love it for that.

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2025: The Year of Simplification

 2024 was, for me, a year of change and renewal. The previous year, 2023, was one of ever-escalating stress at the workplace. In January of 2024, driving home from another long, depressing day of work, I hit a deer, which was the impetus for a major life change, namely: changing my place of employment. Another change was that, after having the car totaled, we decided to try and make it as a one-car family. My wife works from home and my new job is an 8 minute drive away, so we've made it work. She has three days off, so on her off day, when I have to work, she drops me off and picks me up. 

All that said, I've been taking time to assess 2024 using YearCompass. It's been a very valuable exercise to examine the previous year, acknowledge the successes and challenges and failures, and move on to the next year. If you're one who likes to do New Years resolutions, or if, instead, like me, you just want to process the previous year and prepare for the next, I strongly recommend it. 

Over the last couple of months, I've taken a significant amount of time to study Minimalism and Slow Living. I've found several Youtube channels to be of great help. The three most helpful and practical ones I've watched (and subscribed to) are Seve - Sunny Kind of Journey,  Gabe Bult, and The Swiss Simpleton. Honorable mentions go out to Olly Staniland, Poetry of Slow Life, and Helena Woods. There are others that have proven helpful, but they might only peripherally touch on these lifestyles, or some (and I find these the most insidious, if I'm being honest) use Minimalism as a leverage to productivity/Hustle. And I am not about the hustle life. I'm about simplicity.

This hasn't always been the case. My dad was in the military, an NCO for as long as I was being raised, so we led a fairly middle middle-class life. I was a child in the 70s, a teen in the 80s (yes, you did miss out, if you must know, they really were that great), the perfect receptacle for the decidedly American (at the time, though this has spread elsewhere like a disease) culture of buying and holding on to whatever you possible could. I've heard that the poorest people value, above all, relationships, the richest value connections, and the middle-class values . . . stuff. As I examine myself and those I come in contact with, I've found that to be a good thumbnail assessment, with many exceptions, of course, but generally speaking, I've found it accurate. So, I was firmly planted in the camp that values stuff. My parents did nothing to discourage that. In fact, my Mom was a bit of a hoarder, when it came to physical possessions and both of my parents ended up in financial counseling because of their indebtedness and addiction to gambling (which, thankfully, didn't really manifest until I was out of the house). My parents taught me many great life lessons, but how to manage one's wants was not one of them. 

Fast forward through life to today, with me firmly planted in middle age. My parents are gone, and I have unlearned many of the things I learned that I wish I had not and have benefitted from many of the things I learned for which I am eternally grateful. Mom and Dad did the best they knew how, and I am the beneficiary of the things they taught me, whether intentionally or not. Now, it's my opportunity to leverage the past and look to the future.

In the manner of Seve, I have dubbed 2025 The Year of Simplification. The changes of 2024 have set the stage for this year of simplification, wherein I am striving to take the best lessons I've learned over the course of life and stripping out the un-essential. I could not have done so back in 2023, simply because of the emotional duress and mental health challenges I was undergoing. I was not in a good place. Now, I am on a stable footing and ready to move on, to calve off the things that I have been burdened with and with which I have burdened myself. Here is the simple plan.

1. I will simplify Technologically. I recently committed some money to buying a "dumb" phone, which I am planning on supplanting my "smart" phone when the Mudita Kompakt arrives sometime late next spring. I am also saving to buy the Boox Go 10.3, an E-ink reader with android capabilities. I won't be abandoning technology, but by adding some friction to the interchange, I am hoping to stall myself in order to divert to more analog activities (something I've been working on for some time now) when I am tempted to dwell too long in the digital sphere.
2. I will simplify Digitally. Yes, I will still keep my Instagram, Blusky, and Facebook accounts open, but they shall join the eerie ether-zone that my Twitter account is in, namely, full dormancy. Will I occasionally check these accounts? Probably. But by not having any of the apps on my phone or my tablet, I will have to make an intentional choice to go to my PC to engage in any of them, again, adding friction to the interchange, a moment to stop and think "is this really what I want to do with my time right now?" I will still be on Goodreads and, of course, here at the blog, but I am otherwise severely limiting my social media interactions. Part of this will involve writing more physical letters (something I actually love to do) to a limited number of friends. 
3. I will calm my mind. I'm not talking about a full-on meditative practice here, though that might come into play down the road. Here I will strive to further leverage my existing Bullet Journal practice I've read and re-read the Bullet Journal Method and have taken time on Youtube to see what others have done with their own bullet journals. Here, I must point out Jashii Corrin and Elsa Rhae and Barron for their wonderful guides to bullet journaling. Because of what I've learned, I will be making more time to be introspective and have an appropriate "space" (physically and mentally) as a receptacle for this introspection. Part of this will be a gratitude journal to help me to see the good in my days, in my circumstances, and in other people.
4. I will simplify Physically. I've already pointed out, above, some of the many Minimalism practitioners. Part of Minimalism is loving what you have, minimizing physical clutter, and putting the reins on consumerism. Yes, I have already outlined two pieces of technology that I'll be buying, but I am buying them intentionally and foregoing a lot of other things (meaning physical stuff) in order to purchase these tools. I have other "big ticket" items on my list: expensive, high quality tools for living, for example, or experiences that I hope to have that require more than just a bit of change. Of course, I won't stop buying books, but I am going to be very picky about getting new ones. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, I went through my books, tabletop games and supplements, clothes, and knick-knacks (I have a lot of these in my writing area) and ended up donating two huge bags of books and a garbage bag full of clothes and knick-knacks to a local charity shop, and selling some of my higher-end books and tabletop games and supplements for credit at the stores at which I sold them. Granted, the book money immediately went to a book I've been eyeing for some time now, but I shrank my book collection by about thirty books in exchange for one very nice signed edition of Centipede Press's edition of Quentin Crisp's I Reign in Hell. From what I understand, this may be one of the last signed copies "out there" available now. Crisp is a writer I love, and now I have what is sure to become an heirloom for my kids and grandkids, as well as providing me with hours of enjoyment. Win-win! And I have a large amount of credit waiting at one of my favorite places to buy RPG games and supplements online, just waiting for that perfect treasure to come through. 
5. I will prioritize Experience. Here, I mean a couple of things. First, I want to savor the moments. I'm only getting older, and when I think of the frantic pace that my life has been at times, I see a black hole of missed opportunities to enjoy the people and places that surround me. Did I say "screw Hustle culture" yet? I'm saying so now. I'm ready to live more slowly, whenever it is in my control, and take my time. I was thinking a lot lately about what I missed the most about my childhood, and it's the sense of time. Time seemed almost endless then. And while I'm glad to have learned the many lessons I've learned through the loss of innocence, I want to regain that sense of time as a friend to embrace, rather than an enemy to be run away from. With my new employment, I get an hour lunch break, and more often than not, I take the majority of that time to walk down the Ice Age Trail (which is conveniently less than a quarter mile from my work) and go for a languid walk, sometimes reading a book (a print book, not digital), sometimes not. This has helped me a great deal to decompress in what can sometimes be a very stressful job (though way less stressful than the place I fled). I've learned, during those walks, to pay attention to my surroundings and really absorb the experience. I've gained perspective on the shortness and fragility of life which has given me resolve to practice all the things I'm outlining here. One thing I noticed in my examination of the past year is that I only went to one live concert (outside of high school concerts we might have attended to see friends' kids perform). Usually, I try to hit a few shows. Now, I am picky about the shows I see, but I might have missed a couple of opportunities along the way. I'm going to keep my eyes open for more shows this year. Also in the realm of experience: we are going on a cruise to Alaska this summer. I'm guessing there are going to be some memorable experiences there! And, of course, I'll be going to Schimpkon, Garycon, and Gameholecon, as far as it is in my power. I can't live without gathering with my tribe frequently!

This is my blueprint. Are things going to go wrong? Absolutely. Will I hit all of my goals perfectly? I hope not, otherwise I'm not truly experiencing life. In any case, this is how I will strive to live my life this year: more simply, more intentionally, more meaningfully. A special thanks to all those who make this possible. 

I'll end with a poem which I first heard on one of the aforementioned Slow Living/Minimalism Youtube channels. It sums things up rather nicely:

My Symphony

To live content with small means.

To seek elegance rather than luxury,

    and refinement rather than fashion.

To be worthy, not respectable,

    and wealthy, not rich.

To study hard, think quietly, talk gently, 

    act frankly, to listen to stars, birds, babes, 

    and sages with open heart, to bear all cheerfully, 

    do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never.

In a word, to let the spiritual, 

    unbidden and unconscious, 

    grow up through the common

This is to be my symphony

William Henry Channing

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If you like my writing and want to help my creative endeavors, ko-fi me at https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!

Deadmau5 aut Mus Mortuus?

 My work allows me an hour lunch. I try to consume all my needed food (gotta get that protein in) before lunch, if at all possible. That way, I have an entire hour free to mentally decompress. My workplace is about a one minute drive from a beautiful branch of the Ice Age Trail on one hand, and, across the street, the Janesville Optimist Community Park. The Ice Age Trail is a paved, slowly-winding path through prairie (with restored prairie grasses) and wood (with deer that are so tame, they don't spook until you are very close to them - I've wondered if they might eat out of your hand, but haven't been brave enough to test this yet). The Optimist Community Park has dirt and grass trails that cover 35 square acres.

On my lunch breaks, I like to take a half hour or thereabouts (or even ten minutes, if I have errands to run) and read while I walk. That's how I read the book I most recently finished, Ad Infinitum. I'll also occasionally turn on the Derive App and see where it takes me. And sometimes, I just walk in, stand, and listen to the birds (it's a bird-watcher's paradise). Whatever it takes, I go there to reconnect with my inner self during the work day. I'm dreading winter, when temps and conditions will make this walk far less likely. Maybe I'll use some of that time for writing.

Recently, like within the last two weeks, I came across a dead mouse in the Optimist Community Park. I felt sorry for the little guy, laying there with flies buzzing around him. So I gave him a little private funeral. My Latin is not great, so I had to settle for the (probably incorrectly-structured) text: Mus mortuus non respirare. I then gathered a few prairie flowers and laid them by him. The next day, the flowers were still there, but Mr. Mus was gone, likely eaten by crows. Of course, I knew that he (honestly, I have no idea how to check for a mouse's gender, nor do I want to know) was going to be eaten, whether by bird, bug, or bacteria. But I wanted to celebrate his little life, really celebrate life itself, as I am closer to the end than the beginning of my own. 

Truth be told, I hike the Ice Age Trail more than the Optimist Community Park trails. So fast forward a couple of days and, lo and behold, I find another mouse dead on the trail, likely stricken by a bicycle. Well, that was odd, I thought. What are the chances that a mouse would be schmucked by a bike while crossing an eight-foot wide paved path?

Apparently VERY high.

Over the course of the last two weeks, I've found five dead mice on my short hikes. And I just happened to get there before the scavengers did. Five dead mice in two weeks on the same stretch of tales. This is how conspiracy theories start. It's like the beginning to an X-Files episode. 

So, in all, I held five very brief mouse funerals. I admit that I checked the trail both ways before plucking prairie flowers. I know how prairie flower aficionados are. Had I been caught by one of them, I likely would have ended up paralyzed, stuffed into a bearskin to be burned alive. But I was able to dodge the prairie flower inquisitors and gave my little bit of homage to these little guys:

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If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!