Happy to see obfuscate turn up in the blog today. Our pod was the last under the Winter Palace name, before it regenerated into the O for Obfuscate Podcast (my tip of the hat to Orson). Same pod, just new name after 10 years.
Happy holidays to all in the GM household, be they human, feline or other.
“I think horror obfuscates death by having it happen to other people while we watch!“
Darn good point!
I was thinking that a masked lunatic chasing you with an ax is scary, but the reason why it’s scary is more about what happens after the ax splits your head.
The sudden irrevocable loss of identity, relationships, attachments, and of course, at long last, confronting the ignorabimus!
And that maybe by focusing on the ax we avoid dealing with the decathexis part of death?
Though that’s the kind of stuff your work is especially good at, a recurring major theme probably, so I doubt that’s particularly revelatory to you!
The L Vs. K ending has stuck with me all week, very affecting! And I think I figured out what made it so potent for me. It created a simulation of culpability.
As a reader I inhabited the point of view characters, who in turn possessed the victims, which caused them gruesome harm, and so like by the transitive property, it kinda felt like I caused the harm, or at least participated in it.
Even though, obviously, no real harm was caused! I'd say proper horror was indeed achieved.
And this Monday December 22nd is the first annual INVISIBLE COLLEGE REUNION!
A perfect day to make and/or post Invisibles art, read some comics, exchange some esoteric ideas, take some magical actions, and try to remember: It's just a game :)))
“The Tower was just the Wallace Monument in Stirling, Scotland, except bigger. without no attempt to make up something new, for instance.”
That, to me, seemed to be entirely The Point —
It’s A Myth stitched together from Parts sourced from MANY Bodies.
Therefore, it’s deliberate — You are SUPPOSED to Recognise The Parts.
And Frankenstein stories are always cannibalising the previous generation’s failed attempts at bringing it to life — They moved it forward 70 odd years in time DELIBERATELY from 17– to mid-19th Century. Why? He needed fresh battlefields from a European LAND War to Harvest.
And probably ALSO to bridge The Two Bookends of The 19th Century,
Because there are Two Species of HyperAdapter : The Vampire and The Cyborg.
The Cyborg is A Survivor that grafts new and/or replacement parts —
including Technology — on its very Being;
The Vampire is an Ex-Person who survives by
killing Other People, and taking Their Stuff.
It’s a consent issue : so The Borg is A Vampire, NOT A Cyborg.
I haven’t checked the precise dates (yet), but it’s
probably MEANT to be The Franco-Prussian War.
Because Neitchze is there.
They stitched him in — WITH his Syphilis.
Neitchze is IN The Film, AS A Character, and active participant.
Neitchze, it seems, had sexual intercourse ONCE in his life,
with a Commercial Sex Worker, while he was serving as a Medic
and non-combatant during the Franco-Prussian War —
Had he encountered Dracula, it MIGHT have saved His Life;
it might even have saved His Sanity.
Being UnDead, Dracula could have stopped The Disease from killing him;
but The Question is, would Dracula have cared that his blood was DISEASED?
Well, let’s quote Final Crisis, shall We ?
“Mortococus, The God-Bacterium had NO EFFECT on a Living DEAD-Man;
and The Supervillains had been INOCULATED.”
And that, Children, is How I came to meet Frankenstein.
It couldn’t have infected Dracula (because he’s UnDead),
but it certainly wouldn’t have TASTED very nice —
But then neither does Caviar.
“Even in Death, he retains The Discrimination [Taste] of An Aristocrat.”
Dracula would almost certainly have found Neitchze’s Mind worth preserving,
like Winston Churchill’s in The 1930s — he is worth keeping alive.
But Frankenstein is the arch-materialist — he CAN’T preserve Neitchze’s Mind
because Neitchze’s BRAIN is *riddled* with Disease.
And that whole aspect of The Plot (I recognised) is taken from the third and fourth entries in The Universal Frankenstein Cycle, Son of — and Ghost of —
After the destruction of The Tower at the end of Bride, The Creature is reduced to a mute, pre-sentient state and falls under the malign influence of A Murderer in a broken body named “Igor”, played by Bela Lugosi, who brings him in turn to both of Victor Frankenstein’s sons in order to make him Well — in Son of Frankenstein, he has to do a Live Dissection/Vivisection on The Creature to figure out HOW He Works, WHY He Lives and Why He DOESN’T DIE — turns out that he needs recharging with an infusion of Electricity in order to regenerate, in order to heal himself —
Next, in Ghost of — The Ghost of Victor Frankenstein appears to the OTHER son (long story, don’t ask) to explain that the reason He went wrong was because he received a Bad Brain; and if you just put a GOOD brain into his head — shades of Robocop II — he will be a perfectly alright, noble superbeing; Igor, learning of this, conspires to have the replacement brain swapped over for his own (don’t ask), but his interference results in a botched transplant, whereby The Creature now has an evil brain, but is completely BLIND — hence the famous arms-out “Frankenstein-Walk”
All of which of course is EXTREMELY reminiscent of The Trial of A Time Lord Episodes 5-8, aka MindWarp, which explores The NeXUs between Mind Control, Behaviour Modification, Brain Transplantation and Body-Swapping — The Time Lords take The Doctor out of Time to put him on Trial for His Life in order to safeguard both their OWN privilege and their deepest darkest Deep State secrets —
In ALIEN:EARTH we learn that a prototype full-consciousness imprinted Synthetic Hybrid unit costs $5,000,000,000 a go; in Dollhouse, we learn that a permanent Full-Consciousness imprint into a Doll host is “A Service We offer now, to our elite clients, for a nine-figure sum.”
…..once They cracked The Technology of course, iron out all of The Bugs & Kinnks.
In MindWarp, Lord Kiev of The Mentors of Thoros-Beta (mid-1980s capitalist Sea-slugs supported by A Slave Society (the transplanted population of Thoros-Alpha) has been trying to grow his brain within a rigid and non-elastic skull — presumably to give him a greater edge in his business acumen — so he needs a new body.
To that end, he has on retainer the grossly amoral (and Suave as Fuck) Human neurologist and brain surgeon, Crozier, to come up with a solution for him — as a temporary fix, he managers to transplant Kiv’s brain into a “Donor” body of his own species — a dead fisherman found floating in The Sea of Sorrows. But this fix barely offers a day’s respite, he is straight back to where he was was in UNDER two episodes — with the added problem that either/or/AND the lingering Trauma of the “Donor’s” Death AND the few remaining brain cells that escaped the laserisation of the inside of his skull have now begun to infect Kiv’s own brain, who keeps on being distraction during crucial trade negotiations by the smell of Fish —
Fortunately for Lord Kiv but UNfortunately for all other Life in The Universe, emboldened by His Success, His Own Private Frankenstein now feels ready to attempt DIRECT consciousness transference into a recipient host brain (of ANY Species) WITHOUT bothering to transplant The Wetware from skull to skull — a discovery that will alter the course of Natural Evolution across the ENTIRE Universe : “He NEED Never DIE…..!!”
He is A Lord, after all, is he not?
He has cracked Functional-Immortality.
Crozier can now imprint ANY Mind into ANY Brain of ANY Species
— for the right Price, of course : it WAS 1986, after all.
At which point The Time Lords intervene,
use Samurai Brian Blessed as their Murder-Puppet
and massacre EVERYBODY in The Operating Theatre.
Because above and beyond stamping out
unlicensed Time Travel which threatens the
whole fabric of Reality, the one thing which
They CANNOT allow, EVER, is for those with
The Means, The Cash and access to The Technology
to all GIVE themselves Time Lord-like length LIFESPANS —
Thanks for the run down re Flex. Fascinating that you were holding it in your head. I suspected the Singing Detective was an influence. Such a great show. From the first Golden Age of televsion, before the latest Golden Age of televsion! Being in NZ, we got most of benefit of this, since most programming was from the UK. To my mind it seemed to go from the seventies through to the early ninetie
Seamus was very pleased with the Tarot rundown and after saying, "What? The guy tht wrote The Invisibles?" He returned to his phone to follow up on your thoughts. I talked with him after and he seems to have consolidated the ideas and incorporated them into his understanding. Thanks Grant, as they say, it takes a village to raise a child!
I thought about Gnomon after mentioning it. For me the Invisibles influences stood out from the start. The main theme or idea Harkaway is looking at is survillence society and resistance against it, prodominatly in the minds of indepdeant or contrarian citizens. There is a conspriracy against the status quo of the and it plays out against a number of different strylines. On top of that the various narratives that run through the book and intertwine with one another are possibily part of nested identities within someones mind. Very remincent of the Boy storyline (and King Mob). There is also a master assassin who is way cool. There is also the fact that it seems like a narrative sigal of sorts that spills out into the world from the page and into the readers reality. Its minor compared to The Invisibkes, because, I guess, I'm not reading and rereading and reading again across years, but its there. Apparently Harkway had quite the 'murder wall' up when he was writing it. I'm imagining all sort of pieces of string and pictures and scibbled notes he could not read two week later.
Enjoyed your interview on Off Panel. Hearing about you and Davids respective experinces in Aotearoa was great.
Merry Christmas. Hope you guys and the cats have a relaxed and enjoyable time.
I’ve been reflecting on how you talk about putting story ideas together, and whether I could even do that at all. I think I might be doing something similar, now, just differently. With my current work I didn’t start with a single “thing” to say, but a whole hoodie-pocket of ideas I loved. At this point the characters and events are starting to move on their own, and I’m discovering what I actually care about as I go.
That’s both freeing and a little unsettling. As I edit, it feels like I’m rewriting the past; as I draft, it feels like I’m rehearsing futures, but so far only for the characters. The work sometimes feels like it wants to tip forward, not just change me as a writer, but start foreshadowing something for me as well. I’m still listening for how that happens without forcing it.l, but coincidences come as often as they don't and it can feel like bundering, a lot.
I’ve also been thinking more about my Constantine idea, in reflection of your last few weeks writing. One of the things I loved most was how he aged with the comic, and how human he felt because of it. The cancer story especially felt like the moment he really crystallised in my mind. Someone grounded, lived-in, with just enough supernatural pressure to make it sing (even if, actually, my very favourite story was the first person one where you join him for his birthday). An older, burned-out John, teaching in a school for reasons he refuses to explain, feels both funny and deeply right.
Anyway, just to add - thanks again! Hearing you articulate the process so clearly has been genuinely clarifying at exactly the right moment!
I hope you and Kristan are well and enjoying the holidays. I've been steady at work on my novel, about 80% through my current draft. Been listening to a whole bunch of Brazilian Tropicalia from the 60s-70s, rebel geniuses like Gilberto Gil + Caetano Veloso + Gal Costa. Highly recommend their work, their cannibal music that devours pop phantasmagoria to make something multiplex.
Your take on Literary Fiction is delightful iconoclasm! There is always a quality in the hegemonic intellectualism that LF provides within its own un-genre, but to break the rules and make word-magic with no regard for analysis-gulag is much more fun. Your work succeeds in the reward of an inside joke, a satisfaction that is not commonly achieved with the rigorous annotation of academia.
I will plug some work that fits the style you find more interesting. The first is a schizo-essay-prose-poem short on the mythology of Andy Warhol (and his attempted assassination via Valerie Solanas and her Gun).
It was part of a bigger project called SUMMER OF BABEL, with more poetry and prose shorts that formed a diary/triptych fiction on my experiences during the summer of 2024. Check the other pieces out if you have the time or are interested at all!
Some questions to stimulate/entertain:
1. Are you a fan of Ray Bradbury? If so, what stories of his do you enjoy?
2. I've been getting into the original Twilight Zone periodical and absolutely loved it. Have you any favorite episodes?
3. Again with your take on literary fiction: which great novels do you find 'overrated', which writers have you avoided or have no interest in?
TWATBLAST-as the uncool kids call it was sillyserious in the most perfect way.
I think they are going to have a water baby that will solve world peace. It did make me hate myself for asking the question where's the earthbound David Tennant? Like asking why is Superman not in every Batman comic.
“It barely occurred to me to realise that traditional decks have Knights, Pages, Kings and Queens in place of Princes and Princesses, Knights and Queens. This arrangement appears to have been an innovation of the Golden Dawn, which Crowley maintained for his Thoth deck.”
Well, that negates The Class Division inherent in the traditional deck, doesn’t it?
Yates was Irish, after all.
A Knight can be of ANY Social Class or Background;
A Lord cannot — what Crowley’s Deck DOES therefore,
is to make EVERYONE Royalty.
There are Waiters on Asgard. If we dig into the deleted scenes, we find the CRIMINALLY removed material that contains the whole essence of The Plot to the first movie —
There are three Gods of Asgard, standing in a row;
Loki to The Left (full horns),
Thor to The Right (Hammer in Hand)
and a Cup-Bearer holding out for them
a cup of wine off to The Side —
They are off-stage, awaiting their cue
at Thor’s Coronation to enter the grand arena —
To amuse himself, Loki conjures serpents around
The Waiter’s wrist which makes him scream in terror,
fall to The Floor and DROP The Cup —
Thor, in full on Lost-The Mission Prideful Arrogance
and Boastfulness, fails to stick up for the victimised Waiter;
he admonishes Loki for wasting perfectly Good Wine.
Loki, meanwhile, pulls The Classic,
“It was only A Bit of Fun —“ whilst
failing to apologise to the terrified Servant.
There are no class distinctions between The Gods :
If he is A Waiter, serving Cups of Wine to The Princes
it’s because he WANTS to Serve The Princes.
So Don’t Mess with Alfred.
On The Other Hand (Pluribus fans),
Everyone appreciates it when Thor makes them breakfast.
in case we all turn to metal before we speak again- were wishing you and your family a happy holidays! may Yule blessings find their way~
re: Don hertzfelt and last back-and-forth post— You have no idea how much joy it brings me that you found and enjoyed his work!! I was introduced to his shorts in 2013/14 and immediately downloaded his absurdist films with a particular BBC Sherlockian obsession. parts of It’s Such A Beautiful Day were referential injokes between me and my at the time best friend (RiP)— highly recommend his longer stuff but specifically that one if you ever are interested in the foundation of our relationship with creation in this reality.
as always, love the care taken to put so much Meaning into the Art with such minute and referencial details!
alright, since you’re okay with it, how would you interpret all of this?
ive always viewed and felt dreams are extensions of the spirit either acting through current or past experiences (future is a wobbly understanding when taking into consideration the extra dimensional reality we’ve grown to talk about off forum…)
so with that context in mind, how would you interpret these dream experiences?
in the simplest form of dream analysis, i can conclude this much: for all intents and purposes we have been accepted by Them/Their group on some level. All the while there is an influence on the physical experience, not just physical death but repeated spiritual death, possibly mimicking either of our shared experiences with fracturing and recovering within the scope of this reality. Then dying by their hand several times could reflect the experience that all of this has been, what all of this has led up to, the metamorphosis of trying to be the best version of onesself, and dissecting every iteration on what that means, and learning from that experience each time, coming back with even more fire than before. (is this sounding like the thesis of a certain timeloop performance? probably…)
You've mentioned in the past that in the 90s, you basically tried every drug under the sun. (I might be misremembering the quote.) As such, I'm curious: what's Cocaine like?
For a definition of Literary Fiction, I kind of err towards what you talked about. Very much defined by academia and the subsequent tastes therein. Not simply well liked or critically acclaimed, but Canonized. Works that the Literary come back to again and again, regardless of source. It might just be a case of them only loving you when you're dead.
Will probably give Luvkraft a read before the Holiday Season. Was waiting for the full work to be completed. Are there any works of serialized prose you kept up with over the years?
Also, on a lark, are you interested in any manga recommendations, either from myself or anyone else in the comments?
Happy to see obfuscate turn up in the blog today. Our pod was the last under the Winter Palace name, before it regenerated into the O for Obfuscate Podcast (my tip of the hat to Orson). Same pod, just new name after 10 years.
Happy holidays to all in the GM household, be they human, feline or other.
“I think horror obfuscates death by having it happen to other people while we watch!“
Darn good point!
I was thinking that a masked lunatic chasing you with an ax is scary, but the reason why it’s scary is more about what happens after the ax splits your head.
The sudden irrevocable loss of identity, relationships, attachments, and of course, at long last, confronting the ignorabimus!
And that maybe by focusing on the ax we avoid dealing with the decathexis part of death?
Though that’s the kind of stuff your work is especially good at, a recurring major theme probably, so I doubt that’s particularly revelatory to you!
The L Vs. K ending has stuck with me all week, very affecting! And I think I figured out what made it so potent for me. It created a simulation of culpability.
As a reader I inhabited the point of view characters, who in turn possessed the victims, which caused them gruesome harm, and so like by the transitive property, it kinda felt like I caused the harm, or at least participated in it.
Even though, obviously, no real harm was caused! I'd say proper horror was indeed achieved.
This Sunday is Maybe Night! https://maybeday.net/night/
And this Monday December 22nd is the first annual INVISIBLE COLLEGE REUNION!
A perfect day to make and/or post Invisibles art, read some comics, exchange some esoteric ideas, take some magical actions, and try to remember: It's just a game :)))
More here: invisible-college-reunion.neocities.org
“We could all be Cybermen by Christmas Eve!”
December 1986 — See what Ya Did, there….
“Planet Earth is about to wage its first Interplanetary War!”
“The Tower was just the Wallace Monument in Stirling, Scotland, except bigger. without no attempt to make up something new, for instance.”
That, to me, seemed to be entirely The Point —
It’s A Myth stitched together from Parts sourced from MANY Bodies.
Therefore, it’s deliberate — You are SUPPOSED to Recognise The Parts.
And Frankenstein stories are always cannibalising the previous generation’s failed attempts at bringing it to life — They moved it forward 70 odd years in time DELIBERATELY from 17– to mid-19th Century. Why? He needed fresh battlefields from a European LAND War to Harvest.
And probably ALSO to bridge The Two Bookends of The 19th Century,
Because there are Two Species of HyperAdapter : The Vampire and The Cyborg.
The Cyborg is A Survivor that grafts new and/or replacement parts —
including Technology — on its very Being;
The Vampire is an Ex-Person who survives by
killing Other People, and taking Their Stuff.
It’s a consent issue : so The Borg is A Vampire, NOT A Cyborg.
I haven’t checked the precise dates (yet), but it’s
probably MEANT to be The Franco-Prussian War.
Because Neitchze is there.
They stitched him in — WITH his Syphilis.
Neitchze is IN The Film, AS A Character, and active participant.
Neitchze, it seems, had sexual intercourse ONCE in his life,
with a Commercial Sex Worker, while he was serving as a Medic
and non-combatant during the Franco-Prussian War —
Had he encountered Dracula, it MIGHT have saved His Life;
it might even have saved His Sanity.
Being UnDead, Dracula could have stopped The Disease from killing him;
but The Question is, would Dracula have cared that his blood was DISEASED?
Well, let’s quote Final Crisis, shall We ?
“Mortococus, The God-Bacterium had NO EFFECT on a Living DEAD-Man;
and The Supervillains had been INOCULATED.”
And that, Children, is How I came to meet Frankenstein.
It couldn’t have infected Dracula (because he’s UnDead),
but it certainly wouldn’t have TASTED very nice —
But then neither does Caviar.
“Even in Death, he retains The Discrimination [Taste] of An Aristocrat.”
Dracula would almost certainly have found Neitchze’s Mind worth preserving,
like Winston Churchill’s in The 1930s — he is worth keeping alive.
But Frankenstein is the arch-materialist — he CAN’T preserve Neitchze’s Mind
because Neitchze’s BRAIN is *riddled* with Disease.
And that whole aspect of The Plot (I recognised) is taken from the third and fourth entries in The Universal Frankenstein Cycle, Son of — and Ghost of —
After the destruction of The Tower at the end of Bride, The Creature is reduced to a mute, pre-sentient state and falls under the malign influence of A Murderer in a broken body named “Igor”, played by Bela Lugosi, who brings him in turn to both of Victor Frankenstein’s sons in order to make him Well — in Son of Frankenstein, he has to do a Live Dissection/Vivisection on The Creature to figure out HOW He Works, WHY He Lives and Why He DOESN’T DIE — turns out that he needs recharging with an infusion of Electricity in order to regenerate, in order to heal himself —
Next, in Ghost of — The Ghost of Victor Frankenstein appears to the OTHER son (long story, don’t ask) to explain that the reason He went wrong was because he received a Bad Brain; and if you just put a GOOD brain into his head — shades of Robocop II — he will be a perfectly alright, noble superbeing; Igor, learning of this, conspires to have the replacement brain swapped over for his own (don’t ask), but his interference results in a botched transplant, whereby The Creature now has an evil brain, but is completely BLIND — hence the famous arms-out “Frankenstein-Walk”
All of which of course is EXTREMELY reminiscent of The Trial of A Time Lord Episodes 5-8, aka MindWarp, which explores The NeXUs between Mind Control, Behaviour Modification, Brain Transplantation and Body-Swapping — The Time Lords take The Doctor out of Time to put him on Trial for His Life in order to safeguard both their OWN privilege and their deepest darkest Deep State secrets —
In ALIEN:EARTH we learn that a prototype full-consciousness imprinted Synthetic Hybrid unit costs $5,000,000,000 a go; in Dollhouse, we learn that a permanent Full-Consciousness imprint into a Doll host is “A Service We offer now, to our elite clients, for a nine-figure sum.”
…..once They cracked The Technology of course, iron out all of The Bugs & Kinnks.
In MindWarp, Lord Kiev of The Mentors of Thoros-Beta (mid-1980s capitalist Sea-slugs supported by A Slave Society (the transplanted population of Thoros-Alpha) has been trying to grow his brain within a rigid and non-elastic skull — presumably to give him a greater edge in his business acumen — so he needs a new body.
To that end, he has on retainer the grossly amoral (and Suave as Fuck) Human neurologist and brain surgeon, Crozier, to come up with a solution for him — as a temporary fix, he managers to transplant Kiv’s brain into a “Donor” body of his own species — a dead fisherman found floating in The Sea of Sorrows. But this fix barely offers a day’s respite, he is straight back to where he was was in UNDER two episodes — with the added problem that either/or/AND the lingering Trauma of the “Donor’s” Death AND the few remaining brain cells that escaped the laserisation of the inside of his skull have now begun to infect Kiv’s own brain, who keeps on being distraction during crucial trade negotiations by the smell of Fish —
Fortunately for Lord Kiv but UNfortunately for all other Life in The Universe, emboldened by His Success, His Own Private Frankenstein now feels ready to attempt DIRECT consciousness transference into a recipient host brain (of ANY Species) WITHOUT bothering to transplant The Wetware from skull to skull — a discovery that will alter the course of Natural Evolution across the ENTIRE Universe : “He NEED Never DIE…..!!”
He is A Lord, after all, is he not?
He has cracked Functional-Immortality.
Crozier can now imprint ANY Mind into ANY Brain of ANY Species
— for the right Price, of course : it WAS 1986, after all.
At which point The Time Lords intervene,
use Samurai Brian Blessed as their Murder-Puppet
and massacre EVERYBODY in The Operating Theatre.
Because above and beyond stamping out
unlicensed Time Travel which threatens the
whole fabric of Reality, the one thing which
They CANNOT allow, EVER, is for those with
The Means, The Cash and access to The Technology
to all GIVE themselves Time Lord-like length LIFESPANS —
Information Control.
Here Endeth The Lesson.
“When is Salt going to turn into a man again though?
That seemed like a significant development that has yet to be readdressed.”
When you make her angry. Obviously.
I had a debate with this about someone after I referred to her as “S(h)e”
Other Guy : I’m not up on current pronouns, but surely it should be (S)he
Me : Well, no, because —
The ANGRY AS FUCK Warrior Fish-Person is on The INSIDE;
The ANGRY AS FUCK bereaved Mother come to Negotiate a
peaceful future for ALL children is on The OUTSIDE —
Remember, Aquaman doesn’t Talk to Fish;
he LISTENS to Them — The WATER does The Talking.
Me, at the end of Episode 1 : I bet You S(h)e really likes His Ears.
Me at the end of Episode 4 : Told You So.
Also Me at the end of Episode 2,
Channelling Colonel Masters — :
The People I represent, Mister Farrell, can *never* HAVE Too Much Plastic.
What Happens in Vegas occurs in A State of Temporal Grace.
The Inside of The TARDIS is Baby-proofed against both Energy Weapons and Psi-Powers.
Method & Practical Technique for A Peaceful Family Christmas :
(Eldrad's eyes light up.)
Tom: Your Weapons won't WORK in Here —
We're in a State of Temporal Grace.
We're multi-dimensional.
ELDRAD: What do you mean?
Tom : Well, in a sense, you see,
We don't •exist• while We're in here —
So YOU can't Hurt Us,
and We can't Hurt YOU.
#TheWarBetweenTheLand&TheSea
https://youtu.be/c0uNwJhCj-s?si=pjNHJEVF6GQqng5p
[ As ever, there is A Third Force at play, here —
not The Master however, not this time :
It’s The Moon — The War Between
The Land and The Sea is actuated by The Moon.
And The Earth-Reptiles and Homo Aqua originate from
The Time BEFORE The Moon : that’s why they went into
hibernation in Deep-Level Survival Chambers in the FIRST place;
Their scientists projected that the approaching rogue Dwarf-planet
would draw off The Earth’s atmosphere and devastate the surface
of The Earth with Gravitational flux in a When Worlds Collide scenario —
“But don’t you see, that small planet
went into orbit around The Earth and became
A Moon — Your Catastrophe NEVER Happened!”
#WhatHappensInVegasStaysInVegas
Actually, I have been meaning to ask this for a while, now —
(Calling Him ain’t Controlling Him —)
GRANT! WAKE UP!
(…… Yes, I can Hear You, Clem Fandango — )
I was wondering,
Are You conscious of the fact that
that you invented The Psychic Paper —
Because that is DEFINITELY
How Jack and Jolly Roger
(in their Men in Black Suits)
get into The Enemy facility
to Hack The CypherMen incubators.
Hah! I just realised!
Roger must look like Nick Fury to them!
Which reminds me — I have A Gift for You :
It’s Nick’s World, everybody —
And incidentally :
A Merry Christmas to ALL of You at Home!
(run End Credits)
“We could all be Cybermen by Christmas Eve!”
Nope couldn’t happen. It’s an impossibility.
It just Doesn’t HAPPEN that way. Or, that quickly.
I can now report, however, that just having survived another
“Birthday”, this Christmas Eve-last, that I AM now identifying as Voord.
Bah-Dum TSH!
I shall Sing for You now,
The Song of My People —
[ All Those interested on coming
on That particular niche Pilgrimage with Me,
re-convene in The Comment below for The Lock-in —]
Thanks for the run down re Flex. Fascinating that you were holding it in your head. I suspected the Singing Detective was an influence. Such a great show. From the first Golden Age of televsion, before the latest Golden Age of televsion! Being in NZ, we got most of benefit of this, since most programming was from the UK. To my mind it seemed to go from the seventies through to the early ninetie
Seamus was very pleased with the Tarot rundown and after saying, "What? The guy tht wrote The Invisibles?" He returned to his phone to follow up on your thoughts. I talked with him after and he seems to have consolidated the ideas and incorporated them into his understanding. Thanks Grant, as they say, it takes a village to raise a child!
I thought about Gnomon after mentioning it. For me the Invisibles influences stood out from the start. The main theme or idea Harkaway is looking at is survillence society and resistance against it, prodominatly in the minds of indepdeant or contrarian citizens. There is a conspriracy against the status quo of the and it plays out against a number of different strylines. On top of that the various narratives that run through the book and intertwine with one another are possibily part of nested identities within someones mind. Very remincent of the Boy storyline (and King Mob). There is also a master assassin who is way cool. There is also the fact that it seems like a narrative sigal of sorts that spills out into the world from the page and into the readers reality. Its minor compared to The Invisibkes, because, I guess, I'm not reading and rereading and reading again across years, but its there. Apparently Harkway had quite the 'murder wall' up when he was writing it. I'm imagining all sort of pieces of string and pictures and scibbled notes he could not read two week later.
Enjoyed your interview on Off Panel. Hearing about you and Davids respective experinces in Aotearoa was great.
Merry Christmas. Hope you guys and the cats have a relaxed and enjoyable time.
I’ve been reflecting on how you talk about putting story ideas together, and whether I could even do that at all. I think I might be doing something similar, now, just differently. With my current work I didn’t start with a single “thing” to say, but a whole hoodie-pocket of ideas I loved. At this point the characters and events are starting to move on their own, and I’m discovering what I actually care about as I go.
That’s both freeing and a little unsettling. As I edit, it feels like I’m rewriting the past; as I draft, it feels like I’m rehearsing futures, but so far only for the characters. The work sometimes feels like it wants to tip forward, not just change me as a writer, but start foreshadowing something for me as well. I’m still listening for how that happens without forcing it.l, but coincidences come as often as they don't and it can feel like bundering, a lot.
I’ve also been thinking more about my Constantine idea, in reflection of your last few weeks writing. One of the things I loved most was how he aged with the comic, and how human he felt because of it. The cancer story especially felt like the moment he really crystallised in my mind. Someone grounded, lived-in, with just enough supernatural pressure to make it sing (even if, actually, my very favourite story was the first person one where you join him for his birthday). An older, burned-out John, teaching in a school for reasons he refuses to explain, feels both funny and deeply right.
Anyway, just to add - thanks again! Hearing you articulate the process so clearly has been genuinely clarifying at exactly the right moment!
Merry Christmas Grant!
I hope you and Kristan are well and enjoying the holidays. I've been steady at work on my novel, about 80% through my current draft. Been listening to a whole bunch of Brazilian Tropicalia from the 60s-70s, rebel geniuses like Gilberto Gil + Caetano Veloso + Gal Costa. Highly recommend their work, their cannibal music that devours pop phantasmagoria to make something multiplex.
Your take on Literary Fiction is delightful iconoclasm! There is always a quality in the hegemonic intellectualism that LF provides within its own un-genre, but to break the rules and make word-magic with no regard for analysis-gulag is much more fun. Your work succeeds in the reward of an inside joke, a satisfaction that is not commonly achieved with the rigorous annotation of academia.
I will plug some work that fits the style you find more interesting. The first is a schizo-essay-prose-poem short on the mythology of Andy Warhol (and his attempted assassination via Valerie Solanas and her Gun).
https://felipemedrado1.wixsite.com/mysite/waiting-for-madam-warhol
It was part of a bigger project called SUMMER OF BABEL, with more poetry and prose shorts that formed a diary/triptych fiction on my experiences during the summer of 2024. Check the other pieces out if you have the time or are interested at all!
Some questions to stimulate/entertain:
1. Are you a fan of Ray Bradbury? If so, what stories of his do you enjoy?
2. I've been getting into the original Twilight Zone periodical and absolutely loved it. Have you any favorite episodes?
3. Again with your take on literary fiction: which great novels do you find 'overrated', which writers have you avoided or have no interest in?
Happy holidays! God bless!
Actually, I have been meaning to ask this for a while, now —
(Calling Him ain’t Controlling Him —)
GRANT! WAKE UP!
(…… Yes, I can Hear You, Clem Fandango — )
I was wondering,
Are You *conscious* of the fact that
that you invented The Psychic Paper —
Because that is DEFINITELY
How Jack and Jolly Roger
(in their Men in Black Suits)
get into The Enemy facility
to Hack The CypherMen incubators.
Hah! I just realised!
Roger must look like Nick Fury to them!
Which reminds me — I have A Gift for You :
Merry Christmas, Grant Morrison.
And Glycon Bless Us, Every One.
It’s Nick’s World, everybody —
And incidentally :
A Merry Christmas to ALL of You at Home!
(run End Credits)
https://youtu.be/jNaz-M57w0s?si=kaFagv0jC7zFvC9j
TWATBLAST-as the uncool kids call it was sillyserious in the most perfect way.
I think they are going to have a water baby that will solve world peace. It did make me hate myself for asking the question where's the earthbound David Tennant? Like asking why is Superman not in every Batman comic.
“……not a good-hearted fishmonger.”
Is that a Polonius reference….?
#TheWarBetweenTheLand&TheSea
“It barely occurred to me to realise that traditional decks have Knights, Pages, Kings and Queens in place of Princes and Princesses, Knights and Queens. This arrangement appears to have been an innovation of the Golden Dawn, which Crowley maintained for his Thoth deck.”
Well, that negates The Class Division inherent in the traditional deck, doesn’t it?
Yates was Irish, after all.
A Knight can be of ANY Social Class or Background;
A Lord cannot — what Crowley’s Deck DOES therefore,
is to make EVERYONE Royalty.
There are Waiters on Asgard. If we dig into the deleted scenes, we find the CRIMINALLY removed material that contains the whole essence of The Plot to the first movie —
There are three Gods of Asgard, standing in a row;
Loki to The Left (full horns),
Thor to The Right (Hammer in Hand)
and a Cup-Bearer holding out for them
a cup of wine off to The Side —
They are off-stage, awaiting their cue
at Thor’s Coronation to enter the grand arena —
To amuse himself, Loki conjures serpents around
The Waiter’s wrist which makes him scream in terror,
fall to The Floor and DROP The Cup —
Thor, in full on Lost-The Mission Prideful Arrogance
and Boastfulness, fails to stick up for the victimised Waiter;
he admonishes Loki for wasting perfectly Good Wine.
Loki, meanwhile, pulls The Classic,
“It was only A Bit of Fun —“ whilst
failing to apologise to the terrified Servant.
There are no class distinctions between The Gods :
If he is A Waiter, serving Cups of Wine to The Princes
it’s because he WANTS to Serve The Princes.
So Don’t Mess with Alfred.
On The Other Hand (Pluribus fans),
Everyone appreciates it when Thor makes them breakfast.
SHIELD-Agent Observer :
“Negative, he’s just making Breakfast.
……their having Eggs.”
Tony Stark, Years Later :
……Go break some Eggs.
ULTRON, in The Years in Between :
CLEARLY, You’ve never made An Omelet —
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiIK_VIPAB0
in case we all turn to metal before we speak again- were wishing you and your family a happy holidays! may Yule blessings find their way~
re: Don hertzfelt and last back-and-forth post— You have no idea how much joy it brings me that you found and enjoyed his work!! I was introduced to his shorts in 2013/14 and immediately downloaded his absurdist films with a particular BBC Sherlockian obsession. parts of It’s Such A Beautiful Day were referential injokes between me and my at the time best friend (RiP)— highly recommend his longer stuff but specifically that one if you ever are interested in the foundation of our relationship with creation in this reality.
as always, love the care taken to put so much Meaning into the Art with such minute and referencial details!
alright, since you’re okay with it, how would you interpret all of this?
ive always viewed and felt dreams are extensions of the spirit either acting through current or past experiences (future is a wobbly understanding when taking into consideration the extra dimensional reality we’ve grown to talk about off forum…)
so with that context in mind, how would you interpret these dream experiences?
in the simplest form of dream analysis, i can conclude this much: for all intents and purposes we have been accepted by Them/Their group on some level. All the while there is an influence on the physical experience, not just physical death but repeated spiritual death, possibly mimicking either of our shared experiences with fracturing and recovering within the scope of this reality. Then dying by their hand several times could reflect the experience that all of this has been, what all of this has led up to, the metamorphosis of trying to be the best version of onesself, and dissecting every iteration on what that means, and learning from that experience each time, coming back with even more fire than before. (is this sounding like the thesis of a certain timeloop performance? probably…)
what do you make of all of this?
You've mentioned in the past that in the 90s, you basically tried every drug under the sun. (I might be misremembering the quote.) As such, I'm curious: what's Cocaine like?
For a definition of Literary Fiction, I kind of err towards what you talked about. Very much defined by academia and the subsequent tastes therein. Not simply well liked or critically acclaimed, but Canonized. Works that the Literary come back to again and again, regardless of source. It might just be a case of them only loving you when you're dead.
Will probably give Luvkraft a read before the Holiday Season. Was waiting for the full work to be completed. Are there any works of serialized prose you kept up with over the years?
Also, on a lark, are you interested in any manga recommendations, either from myself or anyone else in the comments?