A Perfect Vacuum

 

A Perfect Vacuum by Stanisław Lem
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is, admittedly, the first time I have read a work by Stanislaw Lem. I'll be reading more, after this. Much more, in all likelihood. Of course, Lem has been lauded for decades by critics and colleagues alike, so he was always on my list of authors I ought to read. But, stubbornness being what it is, it wasn't until I listened to an episode featuring Lem's work on Weird Studies a couple years ago that I felt I needed to read his work. As usual, Weird Studies pushed me again into uncharted territories. More on that later.

I've been a fan of Science Fiction for many decades now, a habit I picked up from my father, who also read a lot of Science Fiction (I have to note that one of my proudest moments as a son was when I was able to call Dad up and let him know I had been published in Asimov's Science Fiction magazine). I don't recall seeing a Lem book on his shelf or his bedside stand, but then again he worked for the US military, so I'm not sure how it would look for him to read Lem's work, given the Cold War and all that rot. All that aside, I have to credit Lem with causing me to question, yet again, the definition of Science Fiction. These are not works of spaceships and laser-blasters. It's not even about aliens, per se, though there are times where the humans in these pages act or at least think in truly alien ways. These stories are, first off, not stories: They are imaginary reviews of imaginary pieces of literature. Fictional reviews of fictional books. The "science" comes in through the imaginary books themselves, in large part, and one might even say that the science involved is actually the philosophy of science and the philosophical implications of science itself.

We start, though, with a purely literary focus. Well, not purely literary, I suppose, if you view comedy as "unliterary". If you're seeking a laugh-out-loud (at times) story rife with self-deprecation and a surprising depth of philosophical thinking, you want to read "Les Robinsonades". It is absolutely brilliant. Right from the get-go of this collection, I could why so many people love (and hate) Lem. He has a cutting wit, which he combines with a sometimes laser-focused logic to create a sardonic, but philosophically-sound critique of a variety of "sciences" that may or may not live up to their "scientific" claims.

One of the funnier notions of "Les Robinsonades" (or the critique thereof) is that the titular Robinson has dismissed his servant Snibbins, a corollary to "Friday" of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, only to find his thoughts haunted by the servant and completely unable to escape the need to avoid Snibbins at all costs.

Poor Robinson, who wanted so to avoid shoddiness, who intended to surround himself with chosen ones, has befouled his nest, for he has ensnibbined the entire island.

Later, upon encountering Snibbins again (unavoidable on the island, one supposes):

Why does Snibbins, who previously only spat at the whales, turn out to be their ardent admirer, even to the point of requesting metamorphosis (Robinson says of him, to Wendy May, "He wants whaling")?

"Gigamesh," which Lem opines in the first introductory essay of this book "was to the least of my taste," is a labyrinthine chain of literary analytic drivel so abstruse as to drive even the most seasoned of academics mad. Reading it drove me through a safari of emotion, from respect to fascination to skepticism to anger to fury to hilarity. It felt a lot like being in graduate school again. In the end, it's so intentionally bad as to be comical. "So bad it's good"!

"Sexplosion" is, as the title implies, a view of what society might become if all the stops were pulled on the intersection of capitalism and sex. Want all the sex you can have? Be careful what you wish for. And what happens if a catastrophic event suddenly makes sex not only undesirable, but downright anathema to happy living? Well, let me tell you about the intersection of rampant capital and the vice of food . . .

"Gruppenführer Louis XVI" is every bit as crazy as it sounds: a cadre of SS officers flee to South America after WW II and create a kingdom based on bad third-hand history. Yes, the whole story is a fake review of a book never written, but I would read it, for sure. The premise is a fascinating social train-wreck and I can't peel my eyes away. Calvino and Sarban smashing into each other, face-to-face at 100 MPH!

Lem tries to out-beckett Beckett by taking the central conceit of the Irishman's imploding narrative in his famous trilogy and pushing it (or pulling it like a black hole) even further. "Rein du tout, ou la Conséquence" is a review of a book that not only was not written, but indeed cannot be written: a literary perpetual negation machine in which language itself utterly collapses.

"Pericalypsis" is science-fictional prophecy at its worst. Lem essentially foresees the proliferation of bad information that buries all good, meaningful information by its sheer mass (internet and A.I., I'm looking at you) along with the mountains of trash choking the landscape and seas. The solution presented by the fictional narrator is the worst possible solution. I'd leave it to your imagination. But you can't imagine just how bad it is.

"Idiota" is a side-wise examination of Dostoevsky's similarly-titled work. It is at times a condemnation of the Russian's work, and at times laudatory; Lem, tell me you're trying to critique The Idiot without critiquing The Idiot.

What happens when the "sanctity" of classics is besmirched by a tool that allows the easy disassembly and reassembly of great pieces of literature into penny-dreadful, even pornographic content? Ladies and gentlemen, I present "U-Write-It". Lem lambasts the uneducated and the academic elite all in one fell swoop! My, oh my, would he have hated US politics in the 21st-century.

"Odysseus of Ithaca" follows dungeoneers of the trash stratum (note another Weird Studies reference) in a quest for hidden genius, the type of intellect so profound that it is completely unrecognized by geniuses of the second order. You can probably see where this is going . . . or isn't going. Come read a tale of genius eternally undiscovered.

"Toi" outlines the logical impossibility of writing a book about the reader and an author's (failed) attempt to write the impossible. It is the weakest piece in this collection and yet, compelling.

"Being, Inc." presents the impossibility of each person on Earth selecting their fate, down to the fine details, from a catalog administered by corporations that arrange events such that everyone, eventually, has their desires arranged for and met. Of course, things get complicated when one considers capitalist competition in such an economy. One wonders where Lem, who lived through communism and the Solidarity movement in Poland, might fall in his preferences of economic systems. I suspect it was a bit of a sliding scale for him.

I think, in "Die Kultur als Fehler," the critic convinces himself, over the course of the review, that the author of the book is completely correct, which is the exact opposite of what the reviewer implies at the beginning. We see what seems to start as the opening of a Hegelian dialectic, but straightaway jumps to the opposite conclusion, leaving Hegel (and all supporters of "Civilization") behind. I'm reminded of a skeptic on youtube recently flipping his opinion about whether or not the moon was . . . brace for it . . . an artificially-constructed celestial object.

Right at the crossroads of philosophy and physics, "De Impossibilitate Vitae and De Impossibilitate Prognoscendi" examines the intersection and collision of probability theory and existentialism. What is the likelihood that you, as an individual different from all other individuals, exist at all? It's a rich question and Lem tackles it with a great deal of understated humor. You really are amazing!

. . . and so, but for the diarrhea of the mammoths, Professor Benedykt Kouska also would have not come into the world.

I can't understand why people were giving me weird looks for laughing out loud while I was reading this.

In "Non Serviam" Lem asks "the big questions" about life, morality, faith, existence, and God. He does this by positing what would happen, in terms of philosophical discourse, among virtual beings created by humans wielding computers with sufficient programming ability that the programmers become, effectively, gods. It's a compelling read, to say the least. I strongly suspect that the Brothers Quay were influenced by this story (they began their careers in Lem's native Poland, after all), and one cannot avoid comparing this work with the works of Philip K. Dick.

As for the concluding review/story, "The New Cosmogeny," I'll leave you to the Weird Studies examination of the same story. They explore it in much more depth and with more erudite insights than I can provide. Hopefully their analysis will also drive you to read A Perfect Vacuum.

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Waiting for the Dog to Sleep

 

Waiting for the Dog to Sleep by Jerzy Ficowski
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It should come as no surprise that Jerzy Ficowski is possibly the world's leading biographer of the great Bruno Schulz. Not only did Ficowski write the definitive Schulz biography, Regions of the Great Heresy, but one can hear echoes of Schulz's distinctive voice bordering the edges of Ficowski's short fiction, collected here in Waiting for the Dog to Sleep. Throughout my reading of the 28(!) stories in this volume, I found myself drawing frequent comparisons to Schulz, Kafka, and Calvino, and some of these stories should be spoken in the same breath as these greats.

That is not to say that Ficowski does not have his own voice; he does. But in order to entice readers to this book, I can't avoid the comparison. This work will sit comfortably - on its own - amidst works by the authors heretofore mentioned. Alas, this comprises all of the short fiction Ficowski ever wrote. He is much more well-known as a poet, and his poetic stance is reflected quite strongly in a few of these stories. At other times, his work is extremely straightforward and unadorned, which suits the stories in which ornamentation was not only un-necessary, but inimical to the goals of the narrative. Ficowski allows the form to follow the story, not allowing his own predilections to smother the necessary work that his words perform.

There is a wide variety here ("Something for everyone to hate," as Stepan Chapman used to say), and a lot to love. These pieces are all short and easily digestible, but some of them leave a long-lasting aftereffect, a lingering literary flavor that "sits well on the tongue," as they say. Here are my thoughts on each of the morsels:

The first story, "The Artificial Hen, or the Gravedigger's Lover" hovers somewhere between magic realism and surrealism. It's a strange, uncomfortable space. Most of the stories in this volume, I've found, fall into this strange liminal space between strange liminal spaces. Sometimes hewing toward more stark surrealism and at other times toward a warm magic realism a'la Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

"The Passing Settlement" is about what's right there in the title. But what's there is not quite what you think. A charming little bit about one of those "blink and you'll miss it" places in the middle of nowhere (which may well be the middle of everywhere).

"Old-World Entomology" is a short, concise gut-punch about moths, ancestors, memory, and futility. A three page long existential masterstroke.

Daydream? Ghost story? Liminal magic realism? It doesn't matter. "Recreation with the Paralytics" is a numinous tale, in any case. It will lull you into its own sacral reality, chestnuts, wheelchairs, and all.

"Proof of the Existence of Saint Eulalia" is, as the academics are wont to say "transgressive". Equal parts wicked and clever, this tiny tale packs a lot. Almost a prose poem, though without so much filigree. The sort of story about which a writer (this writer in particular) would say "I wish I had written it myself". And I do.

"The Pink House, or the Desert Sentries" is the sort of story that sends literature majors scrambling for hidden meanings and symbolism when maybe, just maybe, the author was simply telling a story with no meaning . . . which, of course, carries hidden meanings. It is, in this way, a tricksterish story. Ficowski channels Kafka herein, and the academics start sprinting for their podiums . . .

It's funny, when I read the next tale, I had just had a conversation with my wife about the traces we do and don't leave behind when we die. This story, "Chorzeluk," is about making a memory mountain out of a molehill and the proposition that it's sometimes best to let silence speak for itself.

"Before the Wall Collapses" is a small slice of a small slice of the world, an urban trap, of sorts, as much psychological as physical, inhabited by the narrator's grandfather.

Ever wonder what it might feel like to be a victim of the Dungeons & Dragons spell "Otto's Irresistible Dance"? I have. The answer might be found in "Tango Milonga," a tale of magic realism that evokes Italy Calvino in all the best ways. That really is the highest praise I can give to a story. I am hoping there are more like this in Ficowski's collection, but this could carry the whole book! The price of admission is worth it for this story alone.

"Window to the World" is a window on frozen hope and the helplessness one faces in the face of cold, strong winters, and the inevitability of death. This could easily be a short Brothers Quay film. I might add that the Quays (my favorite directors) are, not surprisingly, mentioned in the translator's notes.

"The Sweet Smell of Wild Animals" is magical realism par excellence. This story would rank up among Millhauser and Calvino's best. A fantastic fantastical story (replete with obligatory clown) of an unexpected train ride to a zone of liminality between city and circus, mechanics and magic. An amazing tale of tails.

I keep using referents to magic realists most readers know. It can't be helped. "An Escape" brushes against Kafka's territory or that of a very, very restrained Solzhenitsyn. I wasn't as enamored of this story as others, but it is still well-realized, with a Rod Serling-esque cliffhanger ending.

Existentialism by way of an attempt to fade into non-existence is the theme of "Mimesis". Where best to hide? Or, rather, best to hide as what? What happens when one disappears into . . . a piece of architecture, for example? And what of the pull of such an act on others. One must be strong or dissolve.

"An Attempt at a Dialogue" is a psychogeographical dreamscape of a story with a strange hauntological twist that teases the edges of time-travel, questioning both past and present and the (false?) notion of selfhood. It leaves philosophical quandaries far beyond the limits of the ink on the page and even beyond the strangeness that the story infers.

To call "The Joy of Dead Things" a "nice" story gives the wrong connotation. Maybe "comfortable" is the word I'm looking for, but only to those of us who love to walk through sleepy, dilapidated towns, unkempt ruins, dirty side streets, and ancient overgrown cemeteries, physically-realized dreamscapes. If that's you, then you, like me, will feel comfortable with this story, "soothed" even.

In "Outskirts on the Sands," we find a narrator who constantly, stubbornly, thrusts himself into the past, intentionally avoiding the present until a girl, an amalgam of all his pasts, gently compels him into the present. But the pull of nostalgia is too powerful, and he loses his present, ironically, to a new future. Another strongly psychogeographic work.

A weirdly- beautiful story, the imagery of "My Forest" is going to stay in my head for a long, long time, particularly the fantastically gorgeous apocalyptic closing scene. I would love to quote it, but I don't want to spoil the dark beauty of it all, one of the most simultaneously moving and disturbing images I've seen painted with words. So many hints and implications . . . I can't get over how "ripe" this little tale is. I think I'm in love with it.

"Aunt Fruzia" can be killed off by a salacious story involving a nun, we learn. A domestic dinner story gone wrong (because the narrator just can't help himself from provoking his aunt). The analogies of dinner were so good, I'd prefer to take them literally. But that's cannibalism, and cannibalism is a no-no, kids.

The one disappointing story in the collection for me was "An Alliance". Is the alliance in "An Alliance" really an alliance at all? Or is it just spousal spitefulness? There's probably an analogy in this story, but I'm not seeing it.

"Gorissia" (as the Romans named it) is a village in which the people embrace the final embrace, that of the grave. It's a story as old as time, as discovered by the narrator, an archeologist noted for his previous Neolithic discoveries. And the story will continue on in perpetuity. The archeologist is, in essence, robbed of the fruits of his profession.

"Intermission" is a story of war, during which the line demarcation living and dead is all but erased and only fear can save you. It is an autobiographical tale of Ficowski's participation in the Warsaw uprising.

By the end of "They Don't Ring at the Bernadines'," Ficowski slips into, or rather ascends into full surrealist mode. This story of religious figures versus their adherents approaches, but doesn't quite cross the threshold into all-out absurdity. The restraint is apropos, given the story itself.

I was waiting for a story that would touch directly on the holocaust, and in "'Cause He's Stupid and 'Cause He's Abram," I begrudgingly found it. As you can imagine, it doesn't end well. In this sad case, ignorance truly is bliss. The story begins with the following paragraph, just to give you a taste of Ficowski's writing ability:

He had a molting beard the color of hempen harl, his frayed canvas clothes were made up of holes and cracks painstakingly sewn together. Niemira from Lesne claimed that Abram had stolen those rags from his field scarecrow and was now parading about in them. Possible, but if so, Stupid Abram hadn't taken them to make himself frightening only so that he would have something to wear: without them he was already fairly frightening, though more naked.

You can probably gather that Ficowski shows a wry humor, even in his portrayal of the most horrific of circumstances. I thought of the masks of comedy and tragedy strapped to each other often as I read this book. Sometimes the wires get crossed, and it makes for a heady mixture of emotions.

"Post-patrimony" is a deep dive into psychogeography, how the inhabitant is tied to the habitation and the fragile relationship between the two. When one dies, the other decays, and yet there is something irreducable at the heart of place, a kernel of immortal being that persists, a Genius loci that may take a familiar form.

"Stumps" is one of those strange stories whose strangeness resides, coiled up like a snake waiting to strike, in its utter banality. An ordinary day with one out of the ordinary element (in this case a beggar) that sends everything sideways, forcing the narrator to look at the world in an even more strange way: loaded with meaning amidst the ordinariness of living.

"Signs of the Times, or Diction" is too slight. While I can appreciate stories that only hint and infer, I'd like at least a thread to follow. Yes, this narrator has no thread, that's the point of it all. So, while clever, this story only pans out as average because it's too brief to take full hold.

"Spinning Circles" may be close to perfect, the fabled perfect circle sought after by the Greeks. A wanderer who hopes to reach The City, despite the entries awaiting him, follows his spinning hoop, the last holdover from his distant childhood, only to learn that the circle, which has a mind of its own, will never take him back to where he wants to go. Or will it? Where does the circle end, if it ends at all?

And here the collection ends. I must note that Twisted Spoon Press is starting to impress me. I only have two data points at this time, but what I see is very promising, indeed. I strongly recommend picking up this collection as a start, especially if you are partial to Central and Eastern European authors in translation. I am becoming more and more enamored of this niche, and Ficowski's collection is a very strong example of the sort of writing I've been finding from that corner of the world. Go get yourself a copy!



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Decasia: The State of Decay. A film by Bill Morrison.

 

My first forays into "experimental" film were courtesy of the International Cinema at BYU when I was an undergrad. Though not as highly-experimental as Morrison's Decasia, my early exposure to such films as Svankmajer's Faust and Wender's Wings of Desire whetted my appetite for more. When a friend of mine, who shared a shift as a security worker at night on campus, invited me and a few others over to watch Lynch's Eraserhead, I was hooked. 

I stumbled on Morrison's work while searching for clips from my favorite directors, The Brothers Quay (if you don't know how much of a Quay fanboy I am, you obviously have not been reading my blog for long). Morrison's Light is Calling came up in my search, and my interest was piqued. I watched it and was entirely blown away. 

Now, while Light is Calling is done in a warm sepia-tone, Decasia is purely black-and-white, which suits my (very mild) hue blindness just fine. Like any experimental cinematic work, this one takes patience and, in places, pure endurance. I admit to nearly shutting the whole thing off during a sequence in which an anonymous diver is climbing a ladder up to a high diving board (at least that's what I think was happening). Everything is in fairly slow-motion. Not super slowmo, but slow nonetheless. Morrison is willing to make you work for your insights. 

What we're given is a series of black-and-white films damaged by time either by smeared development fluid or outright disintegration of the cellulose acetate medium. The images are often difficult to discern, sometimes inscrutable. At other times, there are moments of relative clarity - the many cuts of whirling dervishes that seem to thread the sparse motifs together are decidedly old and far from perfect, but they offer the eyes a bit of a rest from the more challenging segments. 

I find it interesting that so much of Decasia is set in, well, Asia, whether Asia Minor or the Far East. Though Morrison has said nothing of colonialism that I can find in his interviews, a fair amount of footage is taken from documentary film of the middle east and Japan, among other locales. One of the more haunting segments is that of a pair of Catholic nuns standing as sentinels as a group of young uniformed schoolgirls, likely Vietnamese, if I am correct in my surmisings, marching past into what I presume must be a Catholic mission-school, probably in French Indochina. In one particularly attention-grabbing moment, one of the girls looks back at the camera and we see her full face for the first time. There is a strong look of suspicion in her eyes. It's probably just childhood curiosity for seeing a film camera for the first time, but I like to think of her as telepathically saying "I will be freed from this. If not me, then my children, or my children's children. We won't tolerate this forever."

Other segments are mostly banal documentary pieces, with a few bits from dramatized silent movies scattered throughout. I didn't recognize any of them, but my silent movie mental catalog is quite minimal. When such dramatized performances were presented, there was, for me, a mixed tale of the wonder of acting with th tragedy that, while these images survive, the actors clearly did not. It didn't help that there were, in close proximity to these sections, film of underground miners' bodies being dragged out from mines. A strange contrast. 

The music for the film was originally the film for the music. The initial performance of Michael Gordon's composition was the occasion for which the film was initially created. The music came first, then the film came as a reaction to that music. It's obvious that Gordon and Morrison played off of each other, though, to produce the "final" version that appears in Decasia. Gordon's atonal, intentionally de-tuned avant-classical orchestral piece and Morrison's abstract, surreal imagery play well of of each other.

A PRI interview on the DVD provides some insight into both Morrison's motivations for creating the movie and Gordon's thought process behind the music. Though the interview claims that you can't have one without the other, I'm willing to accept that as a challenge and watch Decasia muted with, let's say SunnO))) playing as musical accompanyment. Actually, I can think of a number of bands whose work would compliment the visuals. The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble jumps right out front. Much of Wagner Ӧdegard's work would work, as well.

Morrison claims that the work is both existential and life-affirming. There is no doubt about the former. The film throughout evokes an existential dread through a two-fold process of obscuring and revealing, forming a sort of pulsating rhythm between the eerie and the weird. The viewer often feels trapped between several worlds at once: The world from which they are viewing the movie, the world in which the film was initially captured, and the world that some of the captured film is trying to portray (this is particularly true of pieces that show actors from the 1920s or '30s portraying scenes in historical costume).  Decasia is not only a film, it is a place, its own strange world of mixed up timelines bubbling in and out of perception. Needless to say, it is a very strange place to inhabit, even if only momentarily, a discomfiting space that reminds one of one's mortality in the strongest of ways. 

On the flipside, there is a strange element of hope throughout, as well, that maybe something of us can survive that change called death and still affect the world. It's not an overtly spiritual plea by Morrison, but a little whisper of what might possibly be. Just maybe. Time will truly tell, right?

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Strange Attractor Journal Five

 

Strange Attractor Journal Five by Mark Pilkington
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Eclectic" does not begin to describe the wide-ranging forays of Strange Attractor. The fifth installment is no exception. With such disparate essays, there's no place to begin but the start, so . . .

Being crucified is not on my list to do. It is pretty impressive, though, if that's your thing. Could crucifixion be done as performance art? Maybe, maybe not. An "event" in 1968 is even more shrouded in mystery now than it was at the time the news made headlines, as explored in William Fowler's "Fact or Crucifixion? The Story of the Hampstead Heath Messiah". The world may never know what truly happened there, but do we really want to know anyway. This is the sort of happening that myths are made of.

Hmm. E. H. Wormwood (is that a real name?) examines the use of toads in witchcraft in "the Green Crucible: Speculations on the Cult of the Natterjack Toad". And now we know why witches often had toads as familiars. Hint: it has to do with the witch's ability to fly. Can you connect the dots?

"Haus Atlantis," by Karen Russo, is an intriguing ride through mythmaking, ultra-nationalism, and Nazi aesthetics (yes, there was such a thing, apparently), along with competing notions of the place of art and myth in society. A fascinating read.

Musician and writer Phil Legard's essay "Tree Spirits and Celestial Brothers" is a brief biographical sketch of the magus known as Charubel. I would like to have known a bit more about Charubel's connection with Gustav Meyrink, as Legard opens the essay with an anecdote about this relationship. Nevertheless, this is an excellent overview of what one might refer to as a working man's cunning man. While I'm praising Legard, you should definitely check out his musical forays as half of the duo Hawthonn. I strongly recommend giving their album Red Goddess (of this men shall know nothing) many, many listens.

Speaking of music, for those who think that electronic music has it's roots in the Forbidden Planet soundtrack (which is excellent, by the way), you'll have to dig a little further back for the truly earliest Electronica. This is exactly what Daniel Wilson does in his essay "Electromania: The Victorian Electro-Musical Experience".

The essay "On Losing One's Head: Musings from a Labyrinth: Acéphale, Bataille, Crowley and Seth-Typhon" is fantastic. This is the sort of thing I was hoping for from SA5. The other stuff so far has been good, too, but this is off the charts amazing. Christopher Jossife's "musings" on Acéphale provide a glimpse into Bataille's headless, godless religion. It was taken, in all seriousness, by (most) of it's members, not a mere surrealist bon mot. There was even talk and the offer of human sacrifice (Bataille offering himself as the victim) which, thankfully, didn't culminate in the actual act. Interesting that the dawn of WW II was a harbinger of the Acéphale's eve. One wonders if they helped unleash darker forces than even they know how to reckon with?

I minored in anthropology (with a primary emphasis on archaeology) as an undergrad and have a particular penchant for ice age art. So, I enjoyed Robert J. Wallis's essay "Cave Art, Sex and Death: An Archaeology of the Lascaux 'Shaft Scene'." The analysis is sound, from the viewpoint of comparative anthropology, and well-reasoned, with the usual academic ambiguities (which is not a bad thing, in this case).

I really need to watch Donald Cammell's Performance after reading Nadia Choucha's essay "Scottish Fairlyore, Occult Dulity and Donal Cammell's Performance". I'm intrigued. So intrigued by Choucha's analysis, in fact, that I might be sorely disappointed by the movie itself. Maybe I'll just imagine it for myself. "Aguirre's Performance," sort of like Jodorowsky's Dune, but only in my head.

Ghosts and shapeshifters have an ambiguous relationship with each other and the living in "Humans With Animal Faces: Kows, Tuts, Barguests and Other Shape-shifting Spirits" by Jeremy Harte. The vagaries are the interesting part, where hauntings are, perhaps, not hauntings at all. Or maybe so. Who can tell?

Chris Hill introduces us to an obscure (outside of Italy, that is) mystic in "'Gustavo Who?' - Notes Towards the Life and Times of Gustavo Rol; Putative Mage and Cosmic 'Drainpipe'.". Rol was an intriguing figure, to say the least, enigmatic in his humility and purported miracle / psychic abilities. An interesting biographical exploration of an interesting man.

Elvis, James Dean, and Kaiju are not the major focus of the screenplay "LET ME DIE A MONSTER" by Ken Hollings and David McGillivray, but they all feature prominently. It never hit the actual screen, but it's surreal enough that one would be tempted to see it, should some enterprising director take a wild chance on it.

The Brothers Quay piece "The Flies of Orta San Giulio" is what originally pulled my attention toward this volume of Strange Attractor. It is a very minor piece in the Quay's oeuvre, but it drew me in to this excellent eclectic volume, and that can't be all bad, can it?

So, Strange Attractor Journal Five: how does it all "hang together"? Well, it doesn't. It doesn't have to. I appreciated the divergent subjects and styles throughout, all of them interesting. It reminds me of the Monsters of Rock concerts at Donnington, UK that I attended as a kid. Except that rather than being wildly uninhibited, these monsters are cunning and calculating. There's a certain bacchanalian sensibility to the Pilkington's brainchild here, but also a steady hand barely restraining the weirdness herein. Here, one is in a liminal zone, on the border of something indescribable, something one must experience in order to appreciate the fullness of its meaning. Strange Attractor pulls the reader to the edge of the precipice and allows them to hold academic distance, or take the plunge!


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Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life

 

Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life by Kenneth Gross
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Puppets and I go way back. I want to say that the Muppets and Sid and Marty Kroft shows (HR Pufnstuf, Far Out Space Nuts), though the latter was more costumed humans than puppets, I admit, introduced me to bodies animated by unseen humans. But, outside of television (and that P movie by that D company), I quite fondly recall my mother making little puppets out of felt and doing little puppet shows for me. She was a drama-girl all the way. Furthermore, I remember seeing street puppets when I lived in Italy as a boy and at least one Punch & Judy show in Brighton, England, when I lived in the UK as a teenager.

But it was later in life that I learned to appreciate the uncanny nature of puppets. In the early 90s I discovered the movies of Jan Svankmajer, which sometimes featured marionettes, then, in the early 2000s, I discovered the stop motion films of The Brothers Quay, which have become an obsession of mine. Back in 2003, I believe it was, I saw another Punch and Judy show (this one in Minneapolis, of all places), I took my kids to a live puppet show (with puppets more reminiscent of Frank Oz's early creations, than anything else) not many years after. Then, in 2019, while on vacation in Europe, my wife and I visited Salzburg, Austria and attended the Salzburg Marionetten Theatre. And just tonight, I signed up for a Domestika course on making wooden marionettes.

I think I'm becoming a little obsessed. Maybe I was obsessed all along and am just now admitting it.

Back in 2021 (it feels strange to say that - has it really been that long?), I read and reviewed Victoria Nelson's outstanding book The Secret Life of Puppets, which I had stumbled on at Goodreads, if I remember correctly. Then, my favorite podcast, Weird Studies, did an episode on this same book in November of 2022. They followed this with an episode about the movie Evil Dead II, which also dipped into the uncanny nature of puppets. This is where I first saw reference to the book being reviewed presently.

It is this uncanny aspect of puppets that Kenneth Gross examines in Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life. All the while I was reading, I felt as if I had the voice of Mark Fischer whispering in my ear. His book/essay on The Weird and the Eerie could have formed the skeleton for Gross's essay, though Gross's work preceded Fisher's by five years. So, perhaps it is the other way around? However, I find no reference to Gross's work in Fischer's bibliography. Maybe this is just another magical synergy that seems to happen so often with these sorts of confluences.

The movement and intelligence that are apparent in a puppet is "weird" (in Fisher's sense) because there should be no movement or intelligence or intention in unliving material, yet that intent seems to come through the unliving (perhaps undead?) material of the puppet. There is movement in what there ought not to be. This offends our logic while simultaneously spiking our curiosity, a morbid curiosity for that which is incapable of morbidity, strangely enough.

It feels quite natural for humans to view these artificial beings as artifacts with some connection to the past. I've seen countless cast off dolls in the mud, for example, and it piques my sense of wonder. How did this get here? Who lost it? Is there some latent connection with a past owner? This begs the further question: Are puppets, dolls, and marionettes some sort of mana batteries, storing energy from some past life force? Perhaps the mystery of these unseen lives that live behind the figures is what we hope to see through to, with the "little people" serving as scrying devices into past lives, their joys, and tragedies. But are our visions clouded and warped by looking through these anthropomorphic lenses? Could some malevolent spirit twist or visions of the past if we are not careful? Do we dare look into their eyes?

Puppets and the stages on which they come "alive" ae not like us. They are exaggerated and often missing many of the subtle and not-so-subtle things that make up life. This creates what Fisher termed "the eerie". Much that should be "there" is not, yet some law of puppetry seems to govern their universe, laws that do not apply in the same way to us. Nor do our laws apply to them. So which reality is real? Which laws actually inhere?

Just as the paradox of life seemingly manifest in dead things causes unease and fascination, the utter unknowability of what it feels, tastes, smells, or sounds like to be a dead thing that was once living simultaneously terrifies us and fills us with curiosity, longing, even, to know and, with much fear and uncertainty, to experience what the dead experience. It is the age old push and pull of existential dread, brought to life(?) by the infusion of seeming intent into dead matter. The puppeteer possesses the puppet with life-force, animating it, the living possessing the dead in a reverse-seance. Who is the medium here?

Puppeteers I have met indeed often speak of waiting for some impulse from the puppet they hold, a gesture or form of motion that they can then develop often being shocked by what emerges.

The act of puppeteering blurs the line between tool and wielder. yes, the human informs the dead material, but the dead material imposes its own limitations, resisting, even fighting back!

The unliving puppet is, of course, innocent, as it can only react to others' manipulations. Yet many puppet shows are transgressive and anything but innocent (go watch a Punch and Judy show, if you don't believe me). Here the inherent innocence of the puppet allows for a buffer to the audience. Hence the shocking nature of the horror trope of puppets and other artificially animated human stand-ins possessed of self-realized inimical animation.

Remember, though, that's it not always the humans facing the puppet that have need to fear that strange intersection of life and death, of immaterial energy and material existence. As Gross implies, this liminal zone is fraught with danger for all:

Then there was the marionette of Antigone who had hung herself with the very strings that had earlier given her life. That had its own kind of truth.

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Malpertuis

 

Malpertuis by Jean Ray
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Malpertuis is a brooding work of dark genius. It is a puzzlebox, a mystery . . . of sorts. A slow, grey carnival, solemn, but unholy, slowly unfolds. The setting, the house Malpertuis, is like a decaying body, with the inhabitants its organs, fitfully straining to beat, to move, to live. But the dolor that hangs over the place and its . . . people(?) is loden with malaise and despair that eventually stifles all attempts to escape the somber veil of thwarted history that is wrapped in the tangled skeins of fate to the point where the Sisters themselves are strangled by their own threads.

The pace is deliciously plodding. There is a strong sense of something that once was, but is no longer. A vitality that has been sapped and bled into a dry husk blown about by the slightest breeze.

It is beautiful and ugly at the same time. But there is little to hope for in Malpertuis. The cursed place was condemned to crumble by the ambitions of the sorcerer Cassave, whose misdeeds and perversities I will not recount here. Even the author (who may or may not have identified with the un-named thief/narrator) is loathe to approach Cassave's sins directly. If the reader is looking for direct explanations and so-called "plot," they will be hard pressed to find anything of the sort.

Ray's perambulations serve a higher (lower?) purpose: to bring the reader into the gothic labyrinthine walls of Malpertuis. Reading the book is, like walking a labyrinth, a meditation, a strange shelter from the outside world, an escape into an inner world both fascinating and excruciating.

At first, I thought I might be entering a Gormenghast-like space combined with Knives Out. It didn't take long before I realized that this was not the conceit that Ray was working with. In Malpertuis, we are not bound by contemporary notions of plotting and novel structure. This is a kaleidoscopic work, a shattered mirror of perspectives and prose. It is deeply fascinating, in this regard, with the "story" being revealed from different points of view, along with different attitudes toward the subject matter. I used the word "vortical" in my notes while reading, and I stand by that description. This is a whirlwind into which the reader is not merely drawn, but yanked with great force, to be buffeted about non-stop by strangeness and unwelcome revelations.

Now, I know I use this argument all the time, but one of my methodologies for evaluating a work is "would the Brothers Quay make a movie of this? Could they?" The answer here is a resounding "yes". The book has had a cinematic treatment, which is its own piece of art, but not nearly as sublime as this amazing opus.

Strongly, strongly recommended! I can see myself revisiting Malpertuis many, many times. But then, isn't that just the nature of the place itself? I am happily caught in its labyrinth!

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House of the Nine Devils

 

House of the Nine Devils by Johannes Urzidil
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As I write this review, I am listening to Lech Jankowski's "Pause in Shadows" from his album Street of Crocodiles . This is done with intent, as I want to set the proper mood for this review and felt that Jankowski, whose music has been used by the Brothers Quay, echoes the Central/Eastern European tradition in his music. Though Jankowski is Polish and author Johannes Urzidil was a German-Czech-Jewish writer born in Prague, I see some tenuous connections. Jankowski's music, as I have said previously, has been used by the Brothers Quay. The Brothers Quay filmed a short based on Bruno Schulz's The Street of Crocodiles, Schulz has been called "The Polish Kafka," and Kafka and Jankowski knew each other and spent time together (along with Gustav Meyrink). So pardon my syncretism as I create my own little artificial Central European world in my head. I live here, so I get to make the connections.

The artifact-qua-artifact of this Twisted Spoon Press book is solid. The hardcover is elegant, with a silk ribbon spilling from the headband for convenience in marking pages. It is just the exact right size for a book, in my opinion: 5.5" x 7.5" and about .75" thick. It really sits in the hand perfectly. The cover, a negative photo of what I presume to be the titular "House of the Nine Devils" is understated, but complex enough to draw one in. I will definitely be buying more Twisted Spoon books in the future, especially at the price point. That's a lot of great book for $23.00.

And what about what's inside? Let's explore. I should begin by saying that, while I bought the book thinking it was fiction, the autobiographical elements tell me that it's not. Or, if it is fiction, it is extremely well-realized. One feels immersed in Urzidil's life throughout. For those who despise non-fiction, I say give it a chance. You'll find that often, as they say, truth is stranger than fiction, and there is enough of a dose of strangeness throughout to whet the appetite of those who love "The Weird".

The title story, "House of the Nine Devils," tells the uncanny tale of a house that might have been the residence of both Faust and Tycho, or maybe neither. A mysterious visitor and his portrait appear and disappear, and the house itself may be the cause, but maybe not. We are never quite sure and this unsurety places the story somewhere between quaint mystery and unsettling frisson. I was reminded, ever so slightly, of the strangeness of Danielewski's House of Leaves. A fabulous start to this volume!

"Vacation in Flames" is far more beautiful than the title indicates; even sublime. Childhood innocence is somehow betrayed and upheld at the same time, with a profound and moving respect for beauty being the tie that binds. It is a haunting tale, but in a light, lovely way, a gentle haunting, if you will, with an ephemeral character who may or may not be a ghost. This story will stick with ne for some time to come.

It was with "New Years Commotion" that I began to suspect that the book was not fictional. I'm still not completely sure if "New Years Commotion" is autobiographical or not. The narrator claims so, but is the narrator a fictional entity or Urzidil himself? Regardless, the author has captured, quite effectively, something that has happened to most of us: being a child who has lost something and is desperately searching for it, along with the many little steps of experience that come with that.

"Porter Kubat" threads its way through Bohemian society among military officers, ballerinas, porter-messengers, and a young man who becomes entangled by his own guilty conscience in a labyrinthine societal maze of which he has little understanding. Like others in this volume, it is a tale of waning innocence, of the shocks of life, all enmeshed in Prague's streets, theaters, and barracks. A sublime story.

"We Stood Honor Guard" is not a story, but a powerful essay (clearly non-fiction) on the causes of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The relevant argument holds relevance to any historical or contemporary empire, including the one in which I now live: The United States of America. This is critical to "keeping things together". Simple, yet genius.

The question of why the Francisco-Josephinian era (including the brief reign of Charles) actually came to an end repeatedly elicits all manner of possible historical, political and other explanations, enough to fill up thick books and which, taken on their own, may ring true, but that nevertheless mean very little. For they are only symptoms of an overall attitude. And this overall attitude in the Austro-Hungarian Empire was characterized by utter lovelessness, by the absolute lack of kindness or the willingness to ever do anything for anyone except oneself, by the indescribable callousness and selfishness of everyone. It was the ignominy of an all-embracing mutual lovelessness that ultimately destroyed that era. And if one objects that selfishness is fundamental to being human, is a part of our individual social and political nature, the answer to this is simple: it's exactly what ruins human beings and empires, what has always ruined them, and what will keep on ruining them in the future, however rich or powerful they might happen to be at times. As Heinrich Mann once so magnificently expounded during the First World War, this was what ruined the Second French Empire, what ruined czarist Russia, Wilhelmine and Hitlerian Germany, Britain's world empire, the list could go on and on, backwards and forwards, as long as it is selfishness that underlies the political rationales ostensibly causing these collapses - ostensibly because empires do not fall apart due to external causes but begin to crumble from within. These may be truisms. But, as Goethe once remarked, we have to keep on repeating the truth, since the falsehoods all around us are constantly being repeated as well.

In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, everyone hated and no one loved. Everyone sought their own advantage, no one was willing to make a sacrifice. At best they made a deal and cheated their way around it. How was such an empire supposed to hold together?

A long, seemingly meandering coming-of-age story, "The Last Tombola" starts on the most banal of notes, a father's request to his 13-year-old son to deliver a letter to the father's superior. The story "jumps," then ends on an unexpected note that colors the entirety of the story, flipping a switch on that reveals highlights and shadows from the previous 29 pages. It's done naturally, as well, without artifice.

In "The Assassin," Urzidil's encounter with Gavrilo Princip, who changed world history by triggering the events that led to World War I and hence, World War 2, etc.) turns from a chance encounter of morbid curiosity to a rather erudite philosophical analysis of world events and those behind them. Frankly, his implications are horrifying when one thinks of Trumpism, not because of Trump himself, but because of the impetus behind him, the bleak social fuel for the Trump movement's engine.

Again, I don't know if Urzidil is writing fiction or memoir here. But "A Night of Terror" in which he and another soldier spend the night in a friend's apartment hiding from police will stick with me, either way. If it's a fictional story, I wish it was real. If it's truthful, then truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction. Perhaps it lies in that strange limnal zone in-between, much like the narrator.

"One Last Deed" takes place in a real-dystopia: Nazi-occupied Prague. It's a dark reminiscence punctuated by the light of laughter. Old enmity turns to new friendship and provides a gift from the past, a gift that Urzidil would have liked to forget, a gift that ultimately saves his life. This is a powerful, good story about being human.

"Step and Half" starts and spends most of its pages and energy in describing Urzidil's relationship with his step-mother, recounting her acidic personality and comical mannerisms. I won't say what "Half" represents, but I will say that the story takes a melancholy and poignant turn once this element is introduced. This has caused me deep introspection.

Resignation, melancholy, and triumph swirl around "Paternal Prague," and I am struck by the vision I have, while looking into that whirlpool, of my relationship with my own dead father. Though I haven't had Urzidil's self-same experience in life, I read about his relationship and feelings toward his father, and I understand him clearly, as if we had inhabited the same emotional space for a time.

The collection (translated into English for the first time, incidentally) is profoundly moving. I had bought the book largely because I am hungry for more work by Central and Eastern European authors in translation. I am being fed. Well fed.

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Reading Challenge 2023

 Since 2015, I've participated in the Goodreads reading challenge where one sets a goal for how many books they will read in a year. Your reading results are tabulated as you complete a book. In previous years, my totals have been:

2015  Goal: 25  Read: 68 (to be fair, I read a lot of graphic novels that year)

2016  Goal: 15  Read: 31

2017  Goal: 17  Read: 27

2018  Goal: 18  Read: 32

2019  Goal: 19  Read: 40 (starting to sense a pattern here . . .)

2020  Goal: 21  Read: 37

2021  Goal: 25  Read: 36

2022  Goal: 24  Read: 25

So my average goal was 20.5, average read was 37.

For 2023, I have set my goal at . . . 

10.

Yes, 10 measly books. "You must be getting old," I hear you say. While true, that's not the reason. "You must be busy with other things". That's . . . not true. Not really. I had a lot more going on in previous years, to be honest. 

So why only 10 books? 2 reasons.

1. I want to be writing more. I'm currently working on a novella, and, frankly, it feels good. I love the rush of writing. And while I've never fully stopped writing for an appreciable amount of time (three or four months, but that was before I started keeping track of reading goals), I don't write as quickly as I used to. At one point, I was cranking out a significant short story every couple of weeks. Now I tend to write longer stories (the novella is my favorite length to both read and write), so I need more time to write more material. Besides, I'm more careful about editing and crafting than I was, say, 20 years ago, and that editing and crafting takes, you guessed it, more time. 

2. I have some challenging works ahead of me. As I write this, I am in the middle of Heidegger's Being and Time. This is not a minor work. I also have, staring at me from the shelf, Joyce's Finnegans Wake. I've read excerpts from this before, but never the full work. And given how Ulysses was, I'm expecting this to be an uphill climb. Proust's Swann's Way is also on my shelf and, well, you likely know the reputation of that one. Meditations on the Tarot is another thick one squatting on my book pile. That brick is going to take a while to get through. Now, I'm not guaranteeing that I will read all (or any) of these books, but they are physically present on my shelf and I've been wanting and meaning to read some of them for a long time.

3. Most importantly: I am hoping to do some thematic readings this year, which means re-reading many works I've already gone through, as well as some I have not. For example, I have Kenneth Gross's Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life on my shelf, as yet unread. I am very excited to read this one alongside a re-read of Victoria Nelson's outstanding The Secret Life of Puppets, as well as a re-listening to an episode of my favorite podcast, Weird Studies, in which the hosts interview Nelson. With these two pieces, I will re-read The Quay Brothers' Universum, The Quay Brothers The Black Drawings, The Journal of the London School of Pataphysics, #21, and Quay Brothers: On Deciphering the Pharmacist's Prescription for Lip-Reading Puppets, and I will be sure to re-watch Phantom Museums: The Short Films of the Quay Brothers. I anticipate that I will revisit two RPG posts I've made here, as well: What's in the Quay's Wunderkamer? and Experimental RPGing: Help, Opinions, and Insights Needed! Part I and Part II. All of this work, then, will "count" as only 1 read book for the year. And you can see that this is a months' long endeavor, in all likelihood. I have another, similar deep-delve planned for Gaston Bachelard's On Poetic Imagination and Reverie (thanks go to my oldest son for gifting this one to me for Christmas), which is new to me, and Gary Lachman's Lost Knowledge of the Imagination, a re-read, with a potential sidestep into Fiddler's Green Our Bogeys, Our Shelves. Yet another set will center around Mark Fisher's The Weird and the Eerie and David Peak's The Spectacle of the Void, both of which I've read, though I've never reviewed Fisher's book fully, though I did riff off of it in one of my more . . . morbid posts. In any case, you can see the dilemma here: For every "new" book that "counts" toward my goal, there will be anywhere from one to five books (plus a podcast episode, a Blu-ray, and a lot of thinking and writing on things TTRPG) that I will need to complete.

Mind you, I'm not complaining. Not at all. But I suspect my book reviews and blogposts will be more spread out over the year than usual. On the other hand, I'm hoping they'll be more thorough, well-thought out, compelling, and useful to readers. This also means I probably won't be on social media nearly as much (that is also part of my goal here), so if you have a google account, follow me so you can be apprised of those times when I am posting something. I don't want to hide, and I love the interaction, so please, post comments and I'll be sure to respond!

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Waystations of the Deep Night

 

Waystations of the Deep Night by Marcel Brion
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I recall a night. It was probably 1982, if I've triangulated correctly. In Bellevue, Nebraska, a suburb of Omaha. My friend Ray and I were staying at our friend Shawn's house. Shawn's dad was kind of a celebrity to us. He had a killer conversion van (though, unfortunately, no barbarians painted on the side), a copy of Rush's 2112 in the tape deck, and he knew the guitar player from REO Speedwagon. Pretty cool to us 13 year olds!

Back then, young teenagers were pretty "free range". I recall Saturdays and summer days where I would ride my bike for hours, covering many miles, just sort of going from place to place, running into friends, creating adventures. There were no helicopter parents back then. At least I didn't know any. Needless to say, Shawn's dad was not a helicopter parent. We stayed out in the conversion van, listening to Rush while playing Tunnels & Trolls, with no adult influence whatsoever. It was bliss.

When it comes to exact details of that night, I can only recall a couple. After finishing our T&T session, we went out for a nighttime stroll. It was one of those strangely surreal nights where the three of us seemed like the only people out on the streets. We went to Top Dog Hot Dog for the arcade games as much as for the hot dogs. I recall playing Moon Patrol, Zaxxon (I still suck at that game), and then playing the Centaur pinball game (still my favorite board) until they closed at about 11 PM.

Then, we wandered. I can't tell you where all we went and what all we did, though I am certain involved a lot of trespassing and maybe some breaking and entering.

What I can tell you about is the feeling I had. Did I mention that we had stayed awake the entire night before that night? No? It's true, we had been awake for close to 36 hours straight before the night began. For those of you who have done this, first of all, don't continue. I have first-hand experience of a loved one becoming temporarily psychotic and having to be hospitalized in the psych-clinic due to lack of sleep. It's terrifying to see from the outside. I wonder if I hadn't experienced something similar that night. How could I know? When you're in the middle of psychosis, your thoughts seem pretty logical (even hyper-logical, to coin a term) to you.

I want to say there was a dulling of the senses, but "dulling" doesn't describe what I felt. It was more a compartmentalizing of the senses. The "I" in "me" was one step removed. I heard things, but it was as if it was from a distance. Vision came as if from a television or movie screen. Even my own voice felt like it emanated from somewhere outside or "behind" me. It was summer, but my skin felt numbed. A high-pitched whining continually sounded from the back of my skull.

And I felt like anything was possible. Everything, though one step removed from my senses, was alive and full of potential. I wouldn't have been surprised by a miracle, and wouldn't have been taken aback by the end of the world.

Since then, I've had a few other experiences late, late at night that I won't detail here. There is some kind of physiological and psychological reaction to the deep night that makes each of those experiences to feel "of a piece," as they say. And the same is true of the stories in Marcel Brion's excellent Waystations of the Deep Night.

The title story is exactly what you would expect from such a title: an oneiric tale straight out of a de Chirico painting. I'm honestly shocked that the Brothers Quay haven't done a short film based on this story. It would be a perfect fit, as Brion's painterly prose is beautifully imagistic. Or is that magicistic? Borderline majestic. It's everything I hoped for, judging by the title. Dark and refulgent, at once.

"The Field Marshal of Fear" is a quiet, somber piece, but steady as marching feet. The short, simple sentences, however, do not fail to evoke a stupendous sadness, an eternal drudgery experienced by the dead veterans of wars long since won or lost. A graveside sleepwalk, full of night's heaviness.

In "The Fire Sonata," Brion's voice reminds me of Calvino, but with a sinister edge much sharper and darker than anything the Italian master wrote. I had to split this story into two readings, and I had high expectations for the concluding read. My expectations were met and then some! This could have been an episode of the Twilight Zone that Rod Serling would have been proud of. That's the highest praise, coming from me, as TZ is my favorite shoe of all time.

I would swear David Lynch had written "Incident on a Journey," had I not read it in this collection. The ending came as no surprise, but the inevitability of the tale made it all the more uncomfortable and awkward, like you know you're walking into a trap, but there is no way to avoid it, so you take in every excruciating detail and just watch in desperate silence as the void closes in on you, closer and closer.

Though it could be read merely as a fabulously well-written eerie tale (in the Fisherian sense), "Dead Waters" is, pardon the pun, much deeper than that. It's a story primarily about agency, manipulation, creation, and causality, with many of the characters being potentially marionettes or God Himself, or neither. There are no clear answers, but plenty of compelling questions about what transpires on dark streets. This was the most blatantly "dreamlike" story in the collection, and a deeply-intriguing read.

"La Capitana" is a child's long, slow fading into a dream-world of potential adventure beyond the seas. It is simultaneously happy and sad, bittersweet, full of hope and, yet, utterly hopeless. Imagine your eight-year-old self on a boring, sunny afternoon, given the power to disappear into mysterious dreams of exotic lands on a ship named "La Capitana," a name that you gave the ship, because it is yours, in dream.

"The Glass Organ" was every bit as ephemeral and strange as the object in the title implies. It is a multi-faceted story, but tenuous, images slipping onto one another, transforming into a world that may or may not exist.

"The Lost Street" is a more traditional ghost story. I use the word "more" intentionally, as it is not a fully-traditional ghost story. There are enough more surreal elements that take this beyond the realm of, say M.R. James and approach Bruno Schulz by way of Dali.

Overall, Brion's stories evoked a visceral familiarity within me, feelings I've felt mostly when I've had too little sleep (day or night) and some of the oddities of life in the deep night. Here's sampling of what I mean - Brion describes it much better than I do, from the story "The Glass Organ":

That nocturnal stroll through a park that merged imperceptibly with the forest - certain domestic trees having recovered their wild freedom - already contained within it the qualities of a labyrinth. I didn't choose paths. When several opened before me, I accepted now the darkest, with the childlike hope of encountering a marvelous creature, now the brightest, for the pleasing reward of a downpour of moonlight like a narrow stream between the serried darkness of the trees. Concerns about time or direction would have diminished the sense of the unreal that I received from the night. To let myself be carried along by it, to consent to the paths it offered me, ah! the sheer bliss of no longer choosing. What did it matter if dawn overtook me in the middle of the forest or at the first houses of a distant village? The joy of abandoning myself to the indefinite character that moonlight bestows on deeds and things ruled out any directed action on my part. There was nothing I sought, nothing I fled. For several hours I was at peace with myself, relinquishing both desire and regret, indifferent to wherever, in the end, I must inevitably arrive, not caring whether that place was one of fulfillment or one of oblivion.

This is how it feels to flee into the deep night.

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Anatomy of the Devil

 

Anatomy of the Devil by Walerian Borowczyk
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have to admit that I was brought to this book by three facts: 1) The Brothers Quay, my favorite movie directors, supplied a nifty postcard to go with the book, and I am just a sucker for all things Quay, 2) I like small presses and small bookstores, and 50 Watts Books, from whom I procured the book, is both, and 3) I have am slowly becoming enamored of work in translation (to English) by heretofore little known or unknown authors from Central and Eastern Europe.

Who is Walerian Borowczyk, you ask, and why have you never heard of him? Why had I never heard of him until I picked up this book?

"Boro" as he was affectionally known by those who worked with him, was a Polish movie director who later expatriated to Paris, whose work was highly influential on certain key movers in experimental cinema. Watch his short film Renaissance and tell me that this didn't have an influence on both Jan Svankmajer and The Brothers Quay. The imprint is unmistakeable. As far as Boro's personality and work with others, I'll refer you to the excellent interview with the translator of these tales, Michael Levy, in which he gives an insider's view of what it was like to work with Boro. It's an excellent little biographical window.

One of the things that Levy makes clear in his interview is that Boro didn't want to be known as a cinematographer who happened to write. He wanted to be know for his "art," as he terms his writing, on totally separate terms from that for which his films were known. So let's just the stories on their own merits.

We start with "Blessed Poverina, Patron of Wicked Little Girls," which walks us step-by-agonizing-step through what appears to be a seduction to engage in pedophilia. Spoiler: nothing of that sort happens, but two people die. However, you won't see it coming. The voice of the tale is meticulous, exacting, but with a good deal of soulfulness, too. A hint of cynical humor underlies it all.

The first word that comes to mind regarding "The Golden Room" is askance. The whole story, from title to history to plotline to resolution, feels like a look askance - with a dim glimmer of decadence - something barely seen, peeking out of the shadows. But all on the psychical plane, not the physical (though physicality plays a central role in this sidelong maze). A delicate story, construction-wise. Borowczyk does an excellent job of walking the swaying tightrope over what could have spiraled into full-fledged kitsch. He doesn't fall.

The title story is too clever, by far; meaning that by breaking the fourth wall it loses some of its savor. Still a clever story, but it would be even better, much better, near perfect, in fact, with the last line removed. The tail, in this instance, takes away from the body (and the tale).

Part surreal, part linguistic exercise, part absurdist, part history lesson; in the end, we learn in "The Beauty of the Disorient-Express" that absolutely none of it matters. Carpe diem is the appropriate action here, all pun-infused intellectual acrobatics aside. This very short story (if it can even be called that. "Anectdote,"perhaps?) contains everything and nothing, with full emotional vigor!

"Manuscript Found in a Briefcase" - Victor, you naughty, naughty boy. And such a clever way to invert the waking world into the world of dreams. Not a groundbreaking story, by any means, but that inversion - so very clever.

I obviously missed something important in "The Inheritance". Perhaps it was a well-regarded family name, a symbolic spiritual reference, or a famous event I am unaware of. Or maybe the story was just that banal. I don't have a clue.

I'm not sure who "Ralph Krutmann" is, but I did like this blasphemous, sordid little ditty (in the form of a three-act play) of cosmogical shenanigans among the powers that be.

Man's best friend might not be in "The Gold Washers," an intense, stress-inducing story, to say the least. It's a trifle of a story, but well-told.

"The Ear. Signed Vincent" is a very . . . erm . . . Stylish story. The sort of thing you'd read in The New Yorker. Here Van Gogh may or may not travel in time to a Tokyo art collector. It might be real, it might not. The difference in your "take" might reflect if you're subscribed to Asimov's or The New Yorker. It's a little too hyperbolic for my tastes, but I'm no great critic.

It's a mixed bag, if I'm being honest. I was hoping to be submerged in a marionette-infested darkness (did I mention I like The Brothers Quay?), and though some of Boro's stories approach the darkness, few of them actually dive in for any length of time. I guess not every Central and Eastern European author can be a Marcel Schwob, Géza Csáth, or Stefan Grabinski, eh?

But, hey, if you can recommend any other Central or Eastern European authors with a dark, weird bent, please do let me know in the comments!

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LP Review: Skáphe, Wagner Ӧdegård

 I've always had pretty diverse interests in music. In high school, I predominantly listened to heavy metal and punk, but I also listened intently to funk, classical music, and, of course, '80s pop. Since then, I've expanded my repertoire to include celtic music, synthwave, and, one of my favorites: "uncategorizable".

I only occasionally blog about music. I suppose it's easy to just let music be in the background of my life. This is contradictory to my life as a young man, when music was right at the forefront. It really was one of the most important things in my life, because I could afford it to be so. With crazy schedules, kids, work, and life trials in general, music has become something I turn on when I'm doing other things. 

Yes, I've attended live concerts for many years (especially pre-Covid) and always enjoy that release. But only recently have I really honed in on music like I used to as a kid. Maybe it's because of my discovery of my old record player after my parents died. It's a crappy little red and white job with a terrible little speaker. A real piece of junk. But it works still, and I love it. Finding it was like finding a piece of myself. For a number of years, vinyl LPs were passé, a relic of the past. Then people figured out that they liked the uncompressed sound of non-digital media. This has dovetailed nicely with my recent (within the past few years) desire to turn back to analog in my life. So I've started buying vinyl again. Not in any kind of big volume. I still buy digital albums and CDs because they are conveniently portable and easily accessible. But in a few rare cases, when the music is, in my eyes, worth it, I've bought vinyl. Again, this is rare, and I only reserve such buys for albums that I think are truly unique, something different than the rest, something that needs to be celebrated and admired in a different way. Because vinyl is more expensive and because it is such a more intentional media than digital forms, I am reserving LP buys for special items. I'd like to go through a few of these here. I don't know that this will become a regular thing on my blog, but who knows what the future holds? In the meantime, I need to briefly share three albums that I found "worthy" of buying on vinyl. 

Skáphe³ 

First up is the last one I bought, chronologically, Skáphe's third album, cleverly titled Skáphe(cubed) (sorry, I can't get the typefont to work with superscripts). 

Now, my picture, taken in low light up in my writing area, does not do the cover justice. It is a brilliant red cover, absolutely striking. If I didn't think it would scare my grandchildren, I'd put it on the wall as the cover art (by artist Karmazid) is stunning. To further cement that fact, here is the back cover:

But what about the music? Last night, I hearkened back to my childhood and listened. Just sat and listened with no distractions. I wasn't reading or writing or eating while I listened, I gave it 100% of my full attention. 

Of course, I had listened to the album digitally before I bought the analog version. Now, I am not normally one to like a whole lot of "Black Metal" or "Death Metal". For me, I can only take them in small doses. But I continue to search and sometimes find something I really, really like, something compellingly different than the others in these sub-genres. I'm open to have my mind blown by something out of the ordinary, something spectacular, and here I found it!

With raw, staccato drumming and vocals that blur the borders, such as they are, between Black Metal and Doom Metal (which I listen to quite a bit), this album rides in a liminal space that is rarely visited. The long slow glissando of harmonic guitar notes over pulsating drums and fairly complex rhythmic forms give a psychedelic edge to the songs, but do not slip into the realm of the quaint psychedelia that is ubiquitous in the metal scene. This retains a razor-sharp edge because of its uncompromising production values. Even short "melodic" episodes are loden with anguish, which explodes into outright howling despair. The contrast takes the music out of the muddy depths of much of today's Black Metal and transforms it into something like a dark ritual ecstasy. It's easy to lose yourself in the whirling abyss with this as your soundtrack.

Ur Törnedjupen and Nattslingor

Next up is a pair of albums by Death Metalist Wagner Ӧdegård, except neither of these are Death Metal albums. In a move reminiscent of Bohren & der Club of Gore, a German death metal outfit that turned to extreme downtempo "doom jazz", Ӧdegård here goes in a completely different direction. These are the sort of albums that would drive record store owners absolutely crazy because they don't fit into any neatly-marketable categories. Now, I have a special place for that sort of media (especially when it comes to books) as it is, again, in those liminal spaces where I find some of the greatest works of art, literary or aural.

 Ur Törnedjupen is evocative of a soundtrack to a lost folk horror film, newly re-discovered in some dusty archive in the basement of an obscure university library, which has been lurking in the stacks for decades, yearning to be found by some hapless student whose curiosity is about to unleash something sinister on the world. The instruments listed for this album are pump organ, accordion, Arturia Minibrute, voice samples and "lots of vinyl noise". The sheer atmosphere on this album is suffocating. But my words can't do it justice. It really has to be heard to be understood. Though I was careful not to let my visual focus wander to the art, book covers, and ephemera that fill my writing area, I had the films Begotten, The Seventh Seal, and particularly Nosferatu kicking around in my skull as I listened. The music has a sort of dreamlike ambiguity, for lack of a better term, that is unsettling. However, the closest analog to the mood I feel when listening to this is that which I feel when watching much of the work of The Brothers Quay (who are, incidentally, my favorite directors). The occasional admixture of vocals that mimic a muted and slightly twisted Gregorian chant give a pseudo-religious - or perhaps blasphemous - tone to the whole.

Nattslingor continues in the same vein, but with more of a Russian sepia-tone silent movie than black-and-white horror vibe. The instrumentation is nearly the same, but the first part of the record feels more documentary than artsy, if that makes any sense at all. 

Still, these albums are definitely cut from the same cloth and should be listened to in rapid succession, in an endless loop, if you can somehow manage it. This is an aural vortex you need to give yourself up to. To help that, the effect of the circular paper label on the center of the vinyl itself absolutely mesmerizes as it spins. Movement manifests as the silhouette of a devil "pulling" an Elder Furthark "*Ansuz" rune in a never-ending circle, lending a hint of something sinister which blooms into full-flowered demonic and ghastly mode on side B. My only regret is that it doesn't spin widdershins. But your brain will, believe me: it will!

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