Prisms of the Oneiroi

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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Dhalgren

 

Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The older I grow, the more I realize that my childhood might have been exceptional. Not exceptionally good, mind you, just an exception to what the "normal" American child experiences. I was raised as an Air Force brat. Born in Germany, lived in The Philippines, Italy, England, and all over the US (Texas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wyoming). Since the commencement of "adulting," I've lived in Pennsylvania, California, Utah, and Wisconsin. This shiftiness, especially in the first eighteen years of life, led to forming and cutting friendships and love in rapid order. I have no idea what it's like to have a "hometown". That just doesn't exist for me. I keep contact with a select few people I knew as a child. And even though I've lived in Wisconsin for nearly thirty years now, I still feel like a wanderer on this planet.

In all these journeyings, I've come to appreciate places for their unique mood, style, atmosphere, amusements, and shortcomings. When I visit a new place, I like to soak up the ambience and get to know the place. Cities, in particular, have personalities, I've found. My favorites are Oxford (UK), Vienna (Austria), and Madison, Wisconsin (US).

I've also met some strange characters in my life's wanderings. When I was young, I had more time and freedom to get to know individuals who lived out of the mainstream of society. Freaks, geeks, punks, goths, metalheads, gangsters, ex-soldiers, mystics, chronic alcoholics and drug abusers, the chronically mentaly ill, the homeless, other wanderers. The list can go on and on. I find humans endlessly fascinating and endlessly frustrating. I have a love/hate relationship with the human race. For the record: mostly, I love 'em!

I find that my experiences have everything to do with Dhalgren. Everything.

I'll be honest, I was shocked at how much I related to many of the characters in this book. Because I knew them. Some I still know. I won't name names, but the carnival of personalities in this work are almost all people I've met. It's an ugly bunch, with a lot of deviance from social norms. These are "my people".

But the real main character in this story is not the protagonist, who has forgotten his name and is simply called Kid throughout. The main charachter in this story is the city, Bellona.

Like any city, this work of psychogeographical semi-apocalyptic fiction is not particularly "linear". In fact, the last section's typeset is intentionally non-linear, with "asides" that contrast sharply with the other text in its immediate vicinity, a choppy fluidity between space and time-lines, and an aggressively experimental layout. Much like a city. In fact, I'd say this is one of the greatest works of psychogeography I've read to date.

And why "semi-apocalyptic"? Before I answer, let me point out that my Dad, an avid and voracious reader of science fiction (I owe that addiction to him), had this book on his bedside shelf for many months. I don't know if he ever finished it, but it eventually disappeared some time in the early '80s. So when I began the book, I was expecting all the regular tropes of science fiction, but something of a higher intellectual train than the pulps. Well, I was altogether wrong. Dhalgren is a semi-apocalyptic work, a story set in a city that has become a sort of pocket dimension, it's own entity, while still existing in a decidedly non-apocalyptic America. It's a place that time and space didn't forget, really, but a place that time and space set aside for its own little apocalypse. Something like "The Zone" in Roadside Picnic, or like what happened to the planet of Tekumel in the Empire of the Petal Throne universe.

In Bellona, things have become . . . disordered. Imagine that the late '60s and early '70s never ended, but that law and order were simply absent. It's not utter chaos - people still gather in groups, some in communes, some in gangs, some in ultra-luxurious compounds, some in . . . utter denial of the situation they are in (they try to maintain a "normal" lifestyle, despite the crumbling city and social order). Yes, there is violence, but there is also love and loyalty. As Depeche Mode used to say "People are People". And so it is in Bellona.

But Bellona is a jealous city. It doesn't let go so easily that one just walks away. Something undefined and strange compels many people to stay, though some do "escape" . . . if they avoid the forces that have been put in place to contain the decay of the city from escaping into the rest of the world. Well, it's not so mystical as it sounds, but as in many cities, people find it difficult, sometimes impossible (because of ideology, economics, or relationships) to leave.

Is the city alive? Maybe, maybe not.

Are the people who enter it under some kind of geas that doesn't allow them to leave? Possibly.

Will everyon who reads this work enjoy it? I doubt it.

Is Dhalgren a great work of experimental science fiction? Absolutely.

I'm glad I journeyed there. Though it was rough going, at times. Very rough going. I myself was, for a time, trapped against my will. But, as with many of the places I've seen in my life, I would return, if only for a visit.

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The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain

 

The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain by Maria J. Pérez Cuervo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Next time I'm in the UK, this book is coming with. The unstoppable crew at Hellebore have created a mostly (though not completely) comprehensive guide to magical places in teh British Isles. Sections are divided geographically, so you can pull this Baedeker of the bizzare wherever the ley lines have taken you and have a Virgil to your Dante.

The book itself is a handy size and seems well-constructed, which you'll want if you're taking it with you. Most of the place entries have a postal code listed, so if you can interpret that (or ask a local postmaster), you'll be good to go. Entries range from megalithic tombs to occult bookstores to locales tied to famous practitioners of magic (though one should take any location related to Aleister Crowley as questionable because, you know, Crowley).

Now, I have two slight complaints. First, and this one is small . . . too small . . . the print is too small! This is the case especially in some longer, colored text blocks. Pardon the old guy with eyes that are going bad who are interested in this subject matter. There are thousands of us, I'm sure. Might want to consider bumping those fonts up a point and doing a slightly longer book.

Earlier, I said that this book was mostly comprehensive. Of course, not everything can be covered in an almanac such as this, but I noted two glaring ommissions of which I am personally very aware. I won't go over details in this review, but if you read my blog post on The Priory at RAF Chicksands and The Devils Quoits, you'll see exactly what I mean. The weird thing is that Clophill Church, which I mention in my blog post, and which is DIRECTLY tied to the Chicksands Priory (albeit by an undergroudn tunnel - I kid you not; I've been in that tunnel myself) is mentioned, while the priory is not. I don't get it. The very reason that people went to Clophill Church to put up satanic graffitti and sacrifice animals was because the church was physically tied to the alegedly haunted priory. So why no Chicksands Priory? It's not about accessibility. You can arrange a tour of the Priory with the non-profit that cares for it. I don't get the ommission.

I won't spend much time on the other one, The Devil's Quoits, in Oxfordshire. Sure, it's hard to find (my wife and I got lost looking for it at first), but it's a beautiful megalithic structure that has been researched rather well. maybe it's because the archaeological dig that revealed the full scale of the Quoits was only done in 1945, so it doesn't have the old magical associations that, say, the Rollright Stones do? Again, I don't fully understand.

Perhaps one can slip index cards in with one's own entries where the Hellebore guide is missing them?

Still, it is enough. Not complete, but enough. If you are lucky enough to live in the UK, you really should buy a copy. And if you're visiting and looking for the magic of the isles, you definitely need to take this with you to read on the plane flight over. It's a long flight, trust me. Be prepared.



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Asterix und die Goten

 

Asterix und die Goten by René Goscinny
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As a kid, I grew up with Asterix, having discovered him when we moved to Italy in 1975. Asterix and the Goths was one of my absolute favorites. They're all great, but there was something about all the factional infighting among the various tribes of Goths that I found hilarious.

Fast forward to 2019, when my wife and I take a long-anticipated trip to Europe. A large part of that time was spent in Austria, with a couple of days in Germany (Frankfurt and Munich). We stopped in multiple bookstores, including a comic book store in Vienna and a used bookstore in Munich. I was specifically looking for this Asterix book auf Deutsch, but I could not for the life of me find it. Several stores had ALL of the Asterix books in German, except this one. Then I remembered that one of the speech bubbles had a Goth chieftain, who had just been thumped on the head with a club, swearing up a long string of explicatives (I thought of my German-swearing grandmother when I saw this). The swear words were represented by lots of different symbols, including (gasp) a swastika.

Then it dawned on me: the book had been banned because it has a Nazi symbol in it.

Germany, Austria, I love you, but . . . seriously? I'm all about punching nazis, but really?

Anyway, I eventually found a copy . . . on Ebay. I bought it right up because who knows how many of these will survive?

It's kind of strange how things turn. Banning books, in particular . . .

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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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Interzone

 Call me a punk, if you must. I love Zines. I recall the days way before the internet was public, when it was only used by the military (my father confirmed to me once that he was using it, in a more primitive form, as far back as the early '80s), when Zines were a primary form, no THE primary form of communication amongst the punk underground. They'd spring up at record stores and sometimes at concerts, usually given away for free, though I'm sure some enterprising young capitalists (i.e., not punks or were they so not punk that they were punk?) sold some for cash. Or Dead Kennedy's patches. Or something.

The thing about Zines is that they were (and can still be) inherently subversive. From the Samizdat of the Soviet Union to the backstreet record store Zines of Omaha, Nebraska, there was also a subtext of "screw the establishment" in these little handmade, stapled books of cardboard and paper. Remember, this was before photoshop, so you literally had to cut and paste and copy real photos (or copies of such) by hand. This was production outside of the publishing industry, and intentionally so. Distribution was likely by some kid carrying a few copies in the inside pocket of a trenchcoat asking the record store if they could leave a few copies. Communication between fans was facilitated by either snail mail or phone numbers typed or written in the back. Again, this was meant to avoid the scrutiny of "the man".

If our imaginary distributor was anything like me, this kid hopped fences, walked through piss-drenched back alleys, crossed abandoned lots on the edge of town, and generally ambled where others would not go. This sort of walking the seams of society was not limited to urban settings. I took great delight in wandering those areas of suburbia and even on the edge of the country where no one wanted to be. Where the sprawl of capitalism smashed up against the wilds of the country, where weeds grew up between old asphalt and tin roofs caved in on crumbling cinderblock buildings covered in graffiti, where Bad Things happened. 

It's a wonder that, in all my wanderings, I was not once mugged or murdered or worse. I had my fair share of confronting feral dogs (twice), stepping on rusty nails (took one right through my left foot, bloodying my bobos on the top), drinking water I shouldn't have (that hand-pump in Italy that had me hallucinating with a 108 degree fever - I will never forget those hallucinations . . . terrifying!), and generally just exploring these waysides where no one sane (or sanitary) went.

I love those places. I still do. I was on foot a lot more back then as I was too young to drive. But even now, if I make some time (and it has to be made, I don't just "have" the time anymore), I will take the circuitous route on foot to a destination, cutting through the abandoned parking lots and over the tracks (sometimes over the train's hitch itself) to get where I'm going. I prefer to live my life this way. I don't routinely trespass in places marked as private property. Notice that I use the word "routinely". Sometimes, I can hardly help myself.

Which brings us to this little Zine: Interzone:

Yeah, you'll have to pay for it. But you're a grownup now, you can probably afford it. But besides the start up cost, this little beaut has an incredibly punk aesthetic and it's philosophically as punk as it gets.

Was it all done on photocopiers? I doubt it. I mean, take advantage of technology if you can, says I. There's no shame in this. But it looks like it was done using the old cut and paste methods, replete with polaroid borders around the photos. Maybe it was all done with a polaroid and photostat, who's to know?

"What is this?" you're asking. It's an essay by Cormac Pentecost about what these areas between civilization and the wilds symbolize. I don't want to spoil it, but capitalism and its failures are at the center of the discussion, even as the places themselves are on the edges of throwaway society. Marion Shoard and Mark Fisher are quoted at length, which should be enough of a draw for those even mildly interested in hauntology and psychogeography. This essay straddles the tripartate line between history, philosophy, and activist politics. I am reminded of the later work of Michel Foucault, but with a decidedly less academic tone. In ways, it is a sort of elegy to times past, when such "edgelands" were more common, where late-stage capitalism hadn't quite subsumed everything in its path. But it's more than just a mawkish look backwards. Many of the insights hint at a ways forward, not just looking back at the loss, but providing a way through the loss via an examination of these edgelands and their features.

For those much younger than I (there are many more of you every day), if you want a glimpse into what life was like in the '70s and '80s for those of us who liked to adventure in these in-between spaces or if you're simply trying to get into why Generation X is the way it is, you might want to give this a spin. 

For everyone, I think that Interzone is a great reminder that those liminal spaces can be appreciated for what they are, where they are, and what they symbolize. They can be a motivator to do your little thing to make society a little bit better . . . and a lot weirder. Weird on!

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Vienna Part I

 After our visit to the UK, which ended on a wonderful, exhausting day hike, we were off to Heathrow the next day to fly into Munich. After a very pleasant talk with the Munich police (no, really, they were super nice) we entered Germany and drove our rental car to an outlying hotel where we spent the night before heading to Vienna the next day.

And by "rental car," I mean the Mercedes that I splurged on. It was almost my 50th birthday, and . . . you know . . . the Autobahn!!! Now for some, a Mercedes is pretty run-of-the-mill, but not to this guy, whose fanciest car ever is the Camry sitting in my driveway.

I should note, also, that I was almost born on the Autobahn. My Dad had to drive my Mom from Frankfurt to Wiesbaden, where the hospital was, when she was in labor with me. There was a traffic jam and my Dad, being a brash American, decided to drive up the shoulder to bypass traffic. Mom was apparently about to pop! And, of course, he was pulled over by the Polizei. However, like a scene out of a bad movie, when the officer saw my mom's condition, he turned on his siren and led my Dad up the shoulder of the Autobahn all the way to the hospital. I waited until we were inside to make my entry into the world.

So, I had a sort of affinity to the Autobahn. I made sure to watch a LOT of youtube videos on Autobahn etiquette, because I was certain (and correct) that driving like an American there would land me in handcuffs explaining myself to some US diplomat. 

I'll be honest: Germans (and Austrians) are some of the best drivers I've ever encountered. Granted, that's comparing them to drivers in Italy, the Philippines, and Utah (ugh, Utah drivers - UGH!!!!), but the combination of courtesy, a strict adherence to the rules of the road, and a certain confidence in their driving ability made driving the Autobahn a pure pleasure.

I'll anticipate your next question: How fast did you go? Well, I topped out at 225 KMH or so, or around 140 MPH. Yeah. That was good stuff. Would definitely do it again, in a heartbeat. Natalie got some really bad pics of me approaching that speed, but she was a little freaked out that she might bump my arm and make this our last drive ever, so she only got the following shot. To be honest, I was really worried about her bumping me, too. What is the quote from Mario Andretti? "If you're in total control of your car, you're not racing." Or something like that:

After checking in to our Air B-n-B (thank you, Vera, you were wonderful!) we got passes for the U-bahn and headed to Figlmüller, which is, from what I understand, fairly famous for its schnitzel. You can see the extensive "specials" menu in the background behind Natalie here. We chose . . . um, let's see . . . uh . . . oh, yeah . . . schnitzel!

And, oh my, if you're in Vienna, make the time to get a meal here. Oh my, oh my, oh my. I ate mine like any good Wisconsinite would:

Okay, so Door County isn't exactly accurate here, but we had been in Europe for a week. I just forgot the correct proportions. Besides, I like abstract art.

There was also a potato salad that was to die for, but pictures of potato salad are so blasé, I will pass. The chocolate cake at the end, however . . . you know, I'm typing this while fasting. Sometimes I really hate myself:

Then there was this apple-soda sort of thing that I absolutely fell in love with: Almdüdler. I had it a couple more times while we were over there. I need to find a US source for this. NEED . . .

Why do all the best things in German-speaking countries have "ü" in them? I don't know.

After dinner (Tip: You'll DEFINITELY want to get reservations ahead of time!), we headed to Stephansdom to check out that beautiful cathedral. 

And, lest we forget: Gargoyles are everywhere in Vienna:

Yes, it is as gorgeous in person as in the pictures. No, actually, it's better!

One bit of advice: If you visit Vienna, LOOK UP!!! There is so much gorgeous architecture there, from gothic to art nouveau to modern and everything in-between. It's an architectural historian's dream. For example, there's this building (I never did get the ID on this one, as with many buildings there, since I was too busy gawking to worry about names), which is right on Stephansdom Platz.

Or, there was this very cool modern building that faced Stephansdom. Note the thinned reflection of Stephansdom in the photo I took here.

Also note that in that upper window area was a statue that looked down (probably with great condescension) on the Platz. I couldn't tell what the statue was, but I got the impression that some power broker of some type had his office in there:

Most people just went about their business, completely ignorant of this inanimate onlooker. I had about a dozen story ideas flash through my brain when I saw this. I'll need to work on those.

And we saw this beautiful art-deco cornerpiece on our way to the Secession building:

I had visions of Wim Wender's "Wings of Desire" here. No, it's not Berlin, but this style would have fit right into the movie. Or maybe "Blade Runner"?

On to the Vienna Secession building, which was absolutely stunning. Here, try pictures, not words:

Again: more beautiful in person, but you get the idea. I'd say this was my favorite building that we saw on our entire Europe trip. I was absolutely gobsmacked.

After waking up from that architectural dream, we took the U-Bahn (the transportation system that makes Vienna one of the most "livable" cities I've visited) to Marien Theresa Platz. I'll skip the history lesson (you can look up Maria Theresa on the interwebs) and show our first impression of the old Empress:

Yep, she had her back to us, the old snob. So we favored her by going around front:

As you can see, night was falling, so we turned our backsides to her (turnabout's fair play, as they say) and headed for Hofburg Palace and the surrounding buildings. 

The palace was all nice and such, but I had really come to see . . . Orcs?

Isn't that some fine, fine Orcitechture? And don't try to tell me it's not an orc, it totally is, and you are wrong!

There was an interesting building that was obviously made for grand entrances and exits to the palace grounds that we quite liked:

Hercules beats people up, absconds with women, you know, his typical schtick. What I love the most about this, though is this lion "hiding" atop the gate (#rollforinitiative):

And these decked out battle maidens:

I would totally want these paladin-ladies (Paladiens?) in my adventuring party. They are ready to rumble!

Lastly, there was this super-cool piece of statuary of an aquatic nature, though I'm not sure which myth it represents. Anyone? Bueller?

When we approached this statue, some guy was taking a picture of someone who was either his sister or his girlfriend and she looked EXACTLY like the woman at the top of the statue. I mean EXACTLY (well, except for the clothing). I didn't get a picture of her, unfortunately. But somehow, even though I tried hard to protect people's privacy, I caught some girl who had weaseled her way in just as I was taking my shot. She most definitely did not look like the statue and was, I am hoping, cursed by the goddess of the statue to be . . . I don't know, infested by eels or sea urchins or something?

On the way back to our place, we did some window shopping. We spotted the following in a window and were sad that we didn't have hundreds of Euros to just blow on an outfit for our grandson that he'd outgrow in a few months.

Is that not the kyooootest little boy outfit you've ever seen? Oh that I had money to throw around like that. *sigh*.

Then, of course, I spotted the following jacket in a window (the first of many such jackets I would lust after and not be able to justify buying):

So, our sartorial ambitions crushed by financial reality, we went back to our Air BnB to rest up for the next day and our visit to the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien.

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Weird Walk #4

 

I was not born in England. Though I have Welsh (thanks, Mom) and Irish (thanks, Dad) ancestry, I was born in Germany. But I am not German (well, Mom's mom was German through and through, I suppose). I'm an American, a mongrel, and my Dad's service as a United States Air Force veteran is what brought me to England, back in spring of 1985. I was 15 when we arrived and 18 when I left in 1987. To say my time in England was a formative experience is a pithy understatement. Everything I've done and everything I am since then was profoundly affected by my time there. My wife and I visited in summer of 2019, and I got to see some of my old haunts again (as well as some new ones). I may never be able to afford to go back again, but I hope to. I sincerely hope to. I'd be quite happy to die in the Cotswolds or Wales, out on a day hike. Quite content to lie down on a hill for a nap and never wake up. For now, though, I have to forego my death wish and "travel" from afar. Even if I did have the spare change to take a trip there: coronapocalypse says "no"!

So, I dutifully bought a copy of Weird Walk issue 4. It's the first issue I've bought, and maybe an admittance that I might not make it back there, I don't know. After reading this issue, though, I am sure to continue buying more, forward and backward through the issues. Though I don't want to get too spoilery, I'd like to introduce you to the different essays and reminisces here, as they are well worth your five quid fifty (plus shipping). 

First, the zine itself and the layout evoke the old '70s and '80s childrens' shows that Americans were mostly spared, but I had the "pleasure" of seeing (as reruns, by the time I got there). Something about the fonts, the polaroid-quality photos, and the colour-which-I-cannot-quite-identify on which the articles are printed (or in which the words are printed against a black background) makes me think of Children of the Stones. Of course, the seemingly running commentary on megaliths might have something to do with it, too. 

We start with Zakia Sewell's outstanding "Questing for Albion," a reminisce about an idealized childhood in the wilds of Wales, before the realization fully set in of what it meant to be a person of mixed-descent in a country founded on colonial exploitation. Moody and poignant, yet hopeful. Cynicism isn't swept entirely aside, but it is kept at bay.

In "Boundary Sounds," Archer Sanderson gives  us "The solo rambler's edgelands primer" to music from the edge, beneath the buzzing pylons, on the periphery of town and country. Good recommendations, though I found the absence of any mention of The Soulless Party to be a profound oversight. Perhaps they are mentioned in another issue and I've just missed it? Glad to see a small shout-out to Pye Corner Audio (another one of my favorites), however. It's difficult to go wrong with the recommendations here - something for everybody. 

Stewart Lee takes us on a ramble through Lamorna, in Cornwall, a guided tour of the erstwhile (is it still current? I don't know.) artists colony on the very tippy tip of southwestern England. I've never been to Cornwall, though I have been just north of there. Given Lee's little Baedeker here, I think I shall have to visit there sometime. I do love their pastries!

Apparently a regularly-recurring section of the zine is "Dolmania". It's about, you know, dolmens. If you can't figure that out, you're not allowed to be my friend. The particular dolmen in this issue is the re-jiggered "Hellstone" in Dorsetshire. Peter Jackson missed out by not having this be the barrow-mound (I know, I know, it's not the same thing, but Americans don't know/won't care) where Frodo and his companions find their swords. Oh, that wasn't in the movies? Well then read the freaking book!!! Sorry, I'm still bitter about that. And Tom Bombadil. But I digress.

The next section, an interview with Nick Hayes, is about something near and dear to my heart. It's entitled "How to Trespass". And it is, at least in part, about trespassing. But, really, it's about the activists who are fighting for the legal right to cross another's land. Many countries have laws that state a citizen's right to walk across land owned by another person. England is not one of those countries (hint: neither is America). Hayes and company mean to change that by trespassing - leaving the place better and tidier than it was when they came on the land, but crossing the forbidden boundaries nonetheless. My wife and I found ourselves inadvertently doing this when we got lost off the King's Way in the Cotswolds . . .let's see . . . on four different occasions? After a while, we said "screw it," picked a landmark (the town hall of Morerton-In-Marsh) and just walked toward it. I'm pretty sure we were all sorts of places we weren't supposed to be. And you know what? It felt good! It felt right! So, tread on, I say! Of course, easy for me to say, we had the excuse of being tourists and we were honestly lost. I kept having visions of stumbling into Wakewood. 

This issue wraps up with an educational and fascinating look at the Neolithic of the island, a piece about the London Stone that I admittedly hardly understood, and a final piece on a walk through Glastonbury and its environs (another pilgrimage that I must make). 

All-in-all, it's quite the excursion. No, it's not the same as wandering the hills, stumbling across ancient stone circles and ruined churches, and finding sweet solace at a pub in the middle of a day-long hike in the heat of summer (trust me on this one), but you know what? This might be the next best thing. I'm looking forward to more excursions this way. They're way easier on the pocketbook.

Now, I'm off to bed . . . after watching a few episodes of Cruising the Cut. Some day . . . some day . . .

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Oneiric Adventures through Impossible Geography Part 4

 

To recap:

Oneiric Adventures through Impossible Geography Part 1

Oneiric Adventures through Impossible Geography Part 2

Oneiric Adventures through Impossible Geography Part 3

After having mapped things out for myself, quite literally, I can now see patterns, mostly of loss and regret. In my dream-wanderings I long to reconnect with those I have wronged and those I loved, with the places that I felt sank deep into my soul, as silly as that may seem. It isn't a case of lost innocence - that was happening way before I ever moved to Chicksands. But it is, I think, a case of misplaced magic, something that I feel I might pick up if I can connect again. Of course, that's a forlorn hope - I have change, others have changed (some, I am guessing are dead and gone anyway), the place and my previously-privileged ability to move about it freely are no longer the same. What's the analogy of entropy? A child let loose in a sandbox where half the sand is white and half is black. Let the child run in a clockwise direction for a while, until the sand is good and mixed. Then let him run counterclockwise. Sorry, but widdershins doesn't undo the initial chaos. In fact, it makes it worse. You can't step into the same river twice.

And yet, my dream self, my astral self wants to at least try, despite the heartache, he wants to try and will keep trying until . . .? What?

Now that I've been able to visit Chicksands, if only for half a day, I am curious to see if the tenor of my dreams change. They are sometimes very intense. It's been a year and a half since we visited, and I visited in a very different context (married, with children - though they weren't with us, drug and alcohol free for almost 34 years now) than when I lived there, so it wasn't exactly going widdershins against the past. But I can't recall having dreamed about Chix since that trip. Maybe once, but apparently it wasn't so intense that I can recall it. Some of those post-1987, pre-2019 dreams had me waking up crying, some had be waking in a panic, others had me so coddled that I didn't want to wake up at all. For once, I'd like to dream of . . . just a pleasant stay with friends there. That's all. But then I think, if my intent wasn't so intense, if I wasn't so driven in my dreams, could I recapture the magic? I simply don't know.

I've mentioned the non-existent barrow in the western woods. The dreams around that have had a particularly magical, un-real feeling, probably because it is the least real, or most un-real of locations in my dreams about Chicksands. It is purely imaginal. But then again, what is magic but activating and expressing the imagination in an un-expressible manner? In my barrow-dreams, I explore a lot, usually alone, but sometimes with an unseen companion(s) whom I think of as friends. Maybe some of my lost friends are alongside me, though I can't see them. Maybe they are looking, as well. How will I ever know? These dreams inevitably end on a note of ecstasy. Not sexual ecstasy, though the feelings in the body are enough to cause paroxysms. There is a sense of such utter happiness that I feel like I'm going to explode in a shower of light and, in fact, my body oftentimes shines so brightly in these dreams that I illuminate the vale of trees (the barrow dream always happens at night) and the round stone hill in white light that cascades from me. Perhaps it's because I'm unfettered by all the worries and loss and anguish that drives me to other parts of the dream-Chicksands, searching in vain for friends and familiar places. While I'm trying in vain to climb the hill to the bowling alley, or searching through a labyrinthine NCO club that holds more nooks and crannies than Pirenesi's world, I literally skip places, passing instantaneously "through" long stretches where my feet used to trod. But no matter how quickly I "teleport" I can't ever seem to find what I want.  Except in the barrow. It's a place of contentment, where I don't feel that I have to grind out this pilgrimage for lost friends and vanished (to me) places. It is my magic sanctuary, if you will.

It's really the only place I need.

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Oneiric Adventures through Impossible Geography Part 3

 

Now, to the crux of the matter. Above, you'll see my horribly inaccurate map that I posted in my last post, a map that does not reflect reality, except in that it is a hazy representation of the RAF Chicksands of my dreams. Keep in mind that I spent nearly three years here. And these were my late teenage years. I was 15 when I moved there and 18 when I (ignominiously) left. I did not have a car, so I walked everywhere there. If we wanted to go into the city of Bedford or down to London or to Donnington Park to catch the Monsters of Rock show, we got on a bus at the base gate, then hooked up with a train and, if going to London, bought a tube pass when we hit Kings Cross station. But on base, it was all by foot. I wish I knew how many steps I laid down on that base, but my best guesstimate is over 8 million steps. Probably more, when I really think about it. I mention this just to say that I have trod that ground so much that I am fully confident that I could walk from one end of the base to the other on complete autopilot, even in a blacked-out drunken stupor. I know because I did exactly that several times. My legs knew the way, even if the brain wasn't paying attention. And that had to have affected my dreams in some way. I don't think that dreams are a complete escape from reality. While I think there is some slippage in consciousness of space (reality? dimensions?) when one enters the dreamworld, there must also be some grounding in the waking world. Whether this is some sort of out-of-body experience, I don't fully know. But I have my suspicions that at least some of the time, when we dream, we actually travel. I can't account for the intensity of experience otherwise. Your willing suspension of disbelief may vary. 

In the map above, you'll see that I've highlighted some features in day-glo orange (correct me if I'm wrong - I have some degree of hue blindness and oranges and pinks and yellows sometimes all bleed together for me). These are:

1) The woods outside the barbed wire fence, to the west, including a barrow mound that did not exist.

2) The Stars & Stripes bookstore.

3) The trail north of the River Flit that led to some woods and farms to the east.

4) The NCO club.

5) The dorm where my lost friend Greg Bohler lived.

6) The road curving up hill from the NCO club to the bowling alley.

7) The forbidden area.

I have highlighted these areas because they either 1) appeared more frequently in my dreams than other areas or 2) were the location of particularly meaningful or intense dreams that evoked more emotion in me than the others.

You would think that my home and the Chicksands Priory would be the center places of most of my Chicksands dreams, my home because that is where I lived and slept, and Chicksands Priory because it was such a unique and strange place (and may very well have been haunted, but I won't go into those stories now - suffice it to say that I saw and experienced some VERY strange things there, as have many others). But this is not the case. I've dreamed about both, or they wouldn't appear on my map. But not frequently or with any great intensity. This is in direct contradiction to my waking experience: of course I had some of my most intense emotional experiences in my home, we all do. And, as I've said, the Priory was a place of great spiritual intensity, partly because when we were sneaking about the Priory at night, we were almost always doing so illegally, so on top of the bizarre experiences I had there, there was always the possibility that we might run out of the Priory (this happened more than once) and right into the arms of a waiting Security Policeman. Truth is, though, and I learned this from an S.P., the cops never went into the Priory. If they thought someone was in there, they would wait for them to come out. They never, ever went inside. Yes, it was that spooky.

Returning to the list above, I wanted to outline the kinds of dreams I had regarding each place, to give you an idea of the dreamplace psychogeography as I mapped it. Let's go in reverse order:

The Forbidden Area:  As stated in my last post, this is the geographic position of the actual intelligence-gathering machinery of the base and the interpretation of said intel. I believe I had actually seen that area in person twice, though I can't recall why I was up there. I was never allowed through the fence, as only those with the correct clearance were allowed in there, and I was just a military dependent. I never saw my Dad's workplace there, though I had seen his workplace when we lived at Offutt AFB, Omaha, Nebraska, before deploying to Chicksands. In my dreams, I picture this area as being riddled with barbed wire fences topped with concertina wire. There are lots of people in military uniforms milling about, each bedecked with numerous lanyards from which hang different kinds of identity cards. Beyond the fences, men and woman cycle in and out of nondescript Quonset huts. Beyond the few Quonset huts I can see is a mist or fog into which uniformed personnel disappear and from which they emerge. The radar array, that I know was there in real life, is lost in the mist in my dreams. This is probably my brain's way of symbolizing the hidden nature of what really went on there at the base.  (note: years later, when my Dad's classified clearance ran out, I asked him. He told me some things, but others he took with him to the grave, intentionally. My Dad was an honorable man who kept his promises, even though I bugged the heck out of him to tell me more. Oh, and Area 51? It's not aliens. But it's not "normal" either. That's all he would tell me.). The feeling of my dreams here is one of being just on the tip of knowing something striking, maybe earth-shattering, but not being able to be fully let-in.

The Road: In waking hours, I rarely actually walked up this curve of road. There were sidewalks and steps that traversed the hill, south to north, and I most often walked up these or just ran up the hill itself. Honestly, there may not be a road there at all, though it seems like there would have to be. I'll be curious to look at satellite images later and see if there is a road curving up there like that. I honestly don't know. What I do know is that in my dreams, I will often be leaving the area near the NCO club and walking up this curve of road (real or imaginary), trying to get to the bowling alley. I never get there. Ever. I spent a good amount of time in that bowling alley; I even worked there for a few months. One of the very few jobs I had in high school. Now, I have to state that something happened there at the bowling alley near the end of my time at Chicksands, something that I won't relate. It's not something I'm proud of, and it is tied in closely with my departure from the base. Perhaps that is why my dreams won't let me get there. I try and try, but never, ever, can I get up that hill. One of three things happens: 1) I walk and walk and walk and don't move, 2) I make it partway up the hill and the bowling alley and the security fence there simply dissolve away and I am walking on farmer's fields toward the extensive woods to the north of the base, or 3) I wake up. I have an intense desire to make it up that hill every time, and every time, I am denied closure. It is here that I often feel the biggest sense of loss, that if I could just make it to the bowling alley, I'd find one or more of my lost friends. But it never happens.

The Dorm: In the dream world, this is a mixed bag. Sometimes I am there and there is an extensive party going on. This reflects reality. Some of the craziest parties I ever went to were in this dorm. I mean, really crazy! Military personnel know how to party, I'll give them that. Other times, my dreams are simple: I'm sitting in the day room watching TV with some other people there. In fact, this also reflects reality. Though I wasn't supposed to be there, I often was. They weren't very stringent in enforcing the rule that only military personnel who lived in the dorms were supposed to be in the dorms. I do recall one dream, however, where one of the Security Police sees me there and chases me out. I don't recall that ever happening in the waking world. Now, I have a really difficult time in parsing out one thing: Of course I saw Greg there - all the time, in fact. We'd be hanging out, listening to music or watching Robotech or playing Battletech or D&D. But I can't tell if I ever dreamt about Greg being in the dorm or not. I'm hard-pressed to separate my memories, registered in the real world, and my dreams. I think I remember talking with Greg or having some event happen, but are those real memories or dreams? Or some shading of both? I can't tell. It is one of the more confusing places in my dream world, in this regard.

The NCO (Non-Commissioned Officers) Club: Before I turned 18, this was a place where I sometimes went for a meal. They actually had really good food! After 18, I drank myself into oblivion here. This was ground zero for my teenage alcoholism. I dreamt about this place from time to time, but I had a rather intense dream just a few months back about the club. There was a certain House of Leaves quality to the dream in that the building, as I made my way through it from room to room kept expanding, becoming larger and larger. Corridors would lengthen, new stairways would emerge where there weren't any stairs before, doorways would loop back into other rooms that were not the room you saw on the other side as you began walking through the doorway, halls folded in on themselves. In this dream, I know that there was some sort of renovation going on, and that it was transitioning from a place where military personnel and dependents went to relax with a drink, to a place where civilians were taking over the management of the place. This probably has to do with my knowledge that the base was decommissioned for US Air Force use back in the '90s. But it was never a civilian-managed place, so far as I know. British intelligence runs the base now, and I have to presume that if the old NCO club is used for anything like its prior purpose, it would be run by government employees. In any case, my dream world NCO club was a maze that continued to grow and grow, like it was trying to swallow me up in its labyrinth. At the end of the dream, I was able to make my escape, bewildered and winded.

The Trail: There is, or there was, a gap in the security fence in two places. One was right by my house. The other was near where the River Flit flowed off base. The gaps were there to allow for a bridle path, in case the Queen wanted to ride her horse through the base. Literally, that's what it was for. One of the most ridiculous manifestations of the cold war alliance between the UK and the USA, but there you have it. Sometimes the CND would march right through the middle of the base on that path, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop them. Surreal. Anyway, the exit to the east led to some pleasant rolling hills populated with sheep. There were woods and proper farms further out. In my dreams, this has become a sort of golden , idyllic pasture, almost a sort of . . . heaven. I have no idea why this would be the case. It was all rather banal, in the waking world. There was a certain quaintness to the area, but nothing so resplendent as in my dreams. Maybe it was an escape hatch into some paradise in the dream world. I shall have to try to explore that possibility next time I'm there. This sounds like the great beginning to a horror story . . . 

The Stars & Stripes Bookstore: Every Air Force Base used to have one of these. I don't know if they do any more. I used to spend a fair amount of time there usually reading Dragon magazine or other D&D books, or comic books. Once in a while I would browse and buy an actual book. My dreams about the bookstore are invariably ordinary. I'm just browsing books. The outside area around the bookstore always seems to change, though. At one point, it's a big concrete slab. At another time, the parking lot next to it has become larger. At yet another, the concrete slab is gone and there are well-pruned bushes and trees surrounding it. I honestly don't remember if any of these were actually "true" or not. I was there for the books, both in the waking world and in my dreams.

The Woods, the Barrow: The woods beyond the security fence were a reality. When you're a military brat who was prone to get into trouble as I was, you learned the fine art of hopping the security fence - not to get on base, but to get OFF, usually because you were being pursued by Security Police, but sometimes just because you couldn't be bothered to walk all the way to the base gate to go off exploring. The two bridges that cross the upper and lower Flit were very convenient in that they were high enough that you could climb up on the "walls" of the bridge and maneuver your way through the barbed wire and over the fence, if you were really careful. I didn't do that often, but I did a few times. The thing is, the woods on the opposite side of that fence were a marshy mess. Yes, you were suddenly "out in the country," but it was a country of disgusting-smelling mud and biting flies and gnats. Trudging through the trees, I think that we were always looking for something outre, something exciting. But we never found it . . . except in dream. The dream world beyond the fence is really something spectacular. The woods glow green (no matter what time of the day or night) and there are perfectly circular clearings in the trees, at the center of which grows a giant oak. Or the Barrow, an ancient Celtic structure people by bright, ankle-high faeries (one thinks of Machen's "White People") and the shimmering ghosts (never scary, oddly enough) of the long-departed. If I were an artist and architect, I could easily draw the structure for you. It is consistent in every dream, and the feeling of mystical wonderment and reverence that I feel there in my dreams is always the same. It is the most detailed, clear, and solid place in my dreams about Chicksands. And yet, it never existed. It is clearly a figment of my imagination. Oh, I forgot to mention, there is also a labyrinth inside of it, made of stacked stones atop which grows thick green grass. The labyrinth is never dark, always light, glowing faintly along the walls and brilliantly in the passage up ahead. It is a place of contentment for me, a place of belonging. Really, it feels like home. And yet, it never existed. This is the most enigmatic of places, when I'm trying to connect the waking world with the dream world. This is the place that feels the most real of all the places I've mentioned. And yet, it is not. I am at a loss to explain it. It just is. Maybe that's enough?

Oneiric Adventures through Impossible Geography Part 4

Oneiric Adventures through Impossible Geography Part 2

Oneiric Adventures through Impossible Geography Part 1

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