Serial Novel, Part Three

It starts to snow, and the world retreats. The light becomes spectral, indistinct will-o-the-wisps, and the buildings lose their geometric definitions. The road vanishes beneath a layer of white paste, and the cab's headlights make the snowfall glitter as if we were plunging into a rain of needles.

The cabbie leans forward and peers up at the blank sky. "Here it comes," he whispers. He sits back in his seat and shakes his head at the radio. "Just like you said . . ."

The woman's voice doesn't react. She continues, unabated, with her recitation. "2 12 5 1 11 26 5 18 15 . . ."

He nods once, and slows the cab to a stop. He twists his head to fully look at me, and I see the broken edge of his left cheek. Beneath the craggy surface of his skin, he seems to be jeweled. Rhinestones and diamonds, emeralds and pearls. "We're here," he says, nodding to the world outside the cab.

Part Three of The Oneiromantic Mosiac of Harry Potemkin is now available.

« « 03.01.2007 @ 09:07 AM

Serial Novel, Part Two available

"It's an opiate distilled from Blackleaf 23," he says. "The hallucinogenic side effects are quite fortuitous. A paralysis rooted in the patient's own psychosis is a much more effective method of population control." He smiles, and I see that his teeth are silver-plated. "The human mind is quite willing and able to fuck itself. We just have to nudge it a bit."

"Nudge it how?" I was familiar with Blackleaf, but not the 23rd expression. The earlier distillations were classified as psychotropics, but they were innocent of implied purpose. They were receptor drugs, not influencers.

"The twist of that strand is the key to UR-Gnosis," the physician says. "And it is a trade secret. Part of our intellectual property." He nods to the woman holding my wrist. "I have to give you a double dose now because you asked."

Part Two of The Oneiromantic Mosaic of Harry Potemkin is now available.

« « 02.02.2007 @ 07:10 AM

Hypertext Novel @ Farrago's in 2007

Farrago's Wainscot -- an exhibition of weirds, an almanac of experimentation and decay -- is exhibiting The Oneiromantic Mosaic of Harry Potemkin, a novel-length hypertext experiment. Broken into twelve parts, it will run through 2007. Here's a teaser from "The Explanation," the argument of the book.

"My name is Harry Potemkin, and I am a black market oneirologist. The field of study--oneirology--is just a tiny stub on the tree of psychiatry, which suits us just fine. Our work is too sublime and too strange for mainstream journal publication. Not to mention the outrage our psychopharmacological methods would incite.

I used to be a licensed therapist, not a full Doctor of Psychiatry, but licensed enough to have an office, a couch, and be able to tell my patients that their time was up just as they were about to reach a critical psychological breakthrough. That was part of my frustration too, by the way: the intrusion of time and society into the healing process.

I wanted to help people, and I started by helping myself. Do you know the difference between a psychonaut and an oneironaut? The psychonaut studies himself. The oneironaut . . . well, it wouldn't do to admit to you that I experiment with the dreams of others, would it? Such an admission would certainly stain my credibility. "

Read it here: Harry's Journal

« « 12.31.2006 @ 09:49 PM

New Fiction

During Wiscon 30, the second volume of the Scribe Agency Revolution Series came out. Called Virology, the chapbook included my story "Upon Drinking a Half Glass of the Old Saturnine Toade." Here's a teaser:

"A picture, of course, will inadequately capture the chocolate color of the beer or the caramel texture of its foam." The Metaphysical Detective leans over the glass. "And, being a visual record, it will most certainly fail to note the scent--" he inhales, "--that lascivious aroma of wheat, slightly soured by the sun, and the faint, lingering spice of warm pudding. It is the travesty of our profession that we rely upon photographic records. That we allow such still lifes to be our sole record of a scene."

Detective Constable Thomas Merriweather scratches the side of his nose. "We really should wait outside for the crime lab. Let them do their job." He shifts nervously. The dead man, chin and chest ribboned with crimson streaks of dried vomit, appears to be staring at him as he fidgets, watching him with dulled sapphire eyes. "You know, leave the scene unperturbed."

"Has Death not perturbed this scene already?" Using a tiny penlight, the Metaphysical Detective examines the dead man's eyes.

I have a few extra copies of the chapbook. If you'd like a copy, drop me a note.

« « 05.30.2006 @ 11:00 PM

I am a beer label

My agents are doing guerilla marketing. I am now a beer label.

Scribe Agency Beer at World Fantasy Convention

I will be swilling myself tomorrow, and we'll be pitching SOULS this weekend. There's a PDF linked off the above for you to make your own labels. This is your chance to make a little chaos magick for me. Make your own label and hoist one in my name this weekend. Speak nicely of me as you imbibe.

I will be on the red eye tonight, flying over your heads while you sleep. I will not be dreaming; I will be scheming.

« « 11.03.2005 @ 08:32 AM

New Misfitedness: The Stranger

the MISFIT LIBRARY, volume 2

It's still there, this lost town. And the old men talk of the time when the Stranger was supposed to have come with his vitriol and his worn .38. They sit on broken porches and drink homespun moonshine that is strong enough to blind a dog. After a couple of passes of the communal Mason jar, they start talking. And the 'shine helps the words come out.

They don't talk about the failure of the mills, or the shops closing downtown, or the screaming bands of leather-clad teenagers which roam the eastern streets after nightfall. They talk about the Stranger and how the world would have been if he had come. They talk about memory and how it fails them; how they can no longer remember the cold fire of sunrise on their worn faces. The moonshine keeps their thin blood moving, keeps their weak hearts pumping, keeps the dull bulbs firing in their brains. They're all grey ghosts trapped by the broken bridge and the shattered roads and the rusted trains that no longer run. They're trapped by the dying hope that the Stranger may still yet arrive.

From "When Maps Get Old, Towns Fade" to be found in Volume 2 of the Misfit Library Journal. Available now.

« « 09.13.2005 @ 10:51 PM

The Naked City Initiation

"Now I'm an adventurous fellow, easily seduced by the rape of electrons and the demiurgery of circuit-bending as an assault on the norms of musical expression. I am not frightened by the idea of hearing Dvorak's New World Symphony arranged and executed by twenty-two monkeys attacking a stage full of power tools. However, I've never heard Zorn's Naked City records. Late to the party, I suppose. But, as a wanderer of the fringe, there are some keys to understanding the roads that have been carved in these wastelands. Zorn is one of those keys. So, after attaching a pair of tweeters to my nipples, I turned The Complete Naked City Studio Recordings loose on my nervous system."

Read the complete survey and nipple clamping exercise here at MungBeing.

« « 06.01.2005 @ 09:32 PM

Crash Nietzsche's Manifesto

"There is disease in the inkwell; there is venom in the water. Our tracts are written in blood; there is poison on our pages. We write to love, we write to kill. We write. We transcribe. We read. We speak. We sing. We pontificate. Is anyone listening?"

"The Nihil Nation Manifesto" at MungBeing. A thousand word excerpt from Instrument, a longer piece that might actually want to be a novel. So, while that percolates, I offer you this bit of the headspace wherein Instrument lives.

« « 04.05.2005 @ 08:23 AM

The Cracks in Nickolas' Armor

the MISFIT LIBRARY, volume 1

"I went away for a little while, drifting in and out of the tiny happy place we all harbor inside ourselves. With the fiery stone of magma smoldering in my left eye socket, however, my fortress of solitude wasn't a real haven. Thin tracers of crimson chased me. Tiny rivulets of lava ran across the untextured floor, the smooth surface offering no impediment to the narrow streams.

There were other things that came with the red streams, dark blots of shadow which moved of their own volition. I wasn't alone in my secret fortress and every time I turned my back on them, they shifted, moving into different positions.

I knew this place -- I knew all the blind corners and secret holes -- and yet, wherever I fled, there was darkness waiting for me. There were cracks in the walls and floors, scarlet tracery that oozed black blood.

At some point you have to stop running, you have to stop and realize that there isn't anywhere you can go where you'll be completely safe. You may think you've gone away to a mental sanctuary that is safe from physical turmoil, but it is just a shell, a hard blanket that you've thrown over your head so that you can pretend that you are secure. It just takes time, that's all, for whatever is pounding against your shell. Sooner or later, a crack forms."

From "The Transformation of Nickolas Caspian," found in Volume 1 of the Misfit Library quarterly journal. You can purchase the book here for $13.00 (and shipping, of course, they always get you with the shipping!).

« « 03.07.2005 @ 10:23 PM

The Opiate Suite

The Opiate Suite @ opiate.com

She knows the pharmacology, knows the exact combination of chemicals that will induce paralysis along with the psychotropic hallucinations. Delivery of the cocktail is best achieved through the carotid artery -- rapid access to the sensory chambers and control centers of the brain. She feels the rounded shape of his head, her delicate fingers exploring the faint seams of the plates of the skull. She finds the shallow divot just above the ear and places the sharp tip of the 1/2" drill bit against his head.

She knows the anatomy, knows just how far to drill and, just as the resistance against the spinning bit changes, she backs it off. He doesn't move -- he couldn't if he wanted -- but she can tell by his eyes that he knows what she has done. She puts the drill aside as the round hole in his head slowly leaks. She shows him the gold-plated audio jack, shows him what she is going to do, and then, with the easy motion of a practiced junkie, she shoves the headphone jack into his brain. "This is my opiate," she says as she places the headphone cups around her ears. "I want to hear what you are dreaming."

The Opiate Suite: A Deconstructed Symphony in Four Parts is curated by our Minister of Sound, Mark Teppo. The OPi8.com mascot, SOMA, was illustrated by Neal Von Flue.

« « 03.03.2005 @ 04:49 PM

Recent Publications

Two recent additions to the Bibliography.

"The Surgery of Self" -- short story at Opi8.com with art by the fantastic Neal Von Flue.

Ad Noiseam profile at Igloo, including a Q & A with label head Nicolas Chevreux and reviews of the last six releases on the label.

« « 01.18.2005 @ 09:25 PM

writing

- Publications -

BIBLIOGRAPHY
This is a reasonably comprehensive list of my published work, both virtual and physical.

THE MISFIT LIBRARY
I am Nine of Thirteen, one of the members of the Misfit Library, a writing collective which puts out a quarterly journal of our respective work. We are scattered across the globe and determined to change the face of the planet one story at a time. The link above will take you to Misfit Central where you can acquire copies of the journal as well as read exclusive online material.

SYMBOLIC
I wrote a column for OPi8.com's Transmit blogs: journals of the new dark underground. SYMBOLIC tracked the novel I was working on, referencing the process and the research materials which mad up the backbone of the work. In addition, SYMBOLIC busied itself with ruminations and considerations on the nature of language and communication. And a wee bit of mythology. The first 100 entries of SYMBOLIC can be found here on this site as well as at OPi8.com.

LITERARY REPRESENTATION
I am represented by Scribe Agency as my literary agents. Please contact these gentleman if you have any queries about my work.