In recent years there have been many disasters, but what about the general disaster? “Before the alternative of facing the anarchic growth and total arbitrariness of decay or bowing down before the most rigid, fantastically fictitious consistency of an ideology, the masses probably will always choose the latter and be ready to pay for it with individual sacrifices — and this not because they are stupid or wicked, but because in the general disaster this escape grants them a minimum of self-respect,” (Hannah Arendt; The Origins of Totalitarianism, page 352). This is the quote found on the opening page of Quotilator, C. Cooper’s remarkable game of computational free association, in which various hyper-linked words lead to other quotes, with blue hyper-links being scored at the bottom. You can click the winner button at any time and type your number in to see if you’re a winner, but the answer will always be, “You may be a winner.”
This is Not a Review: of BJ Thug Life
Gabriel Boyer
I wanted to know what’s the deal with BJ Thug Life, and so recently I went to a metal show in Beijing with thirty-thousand Chinese stuffed down my pants. By which I mean the currency, not the people. Why I was carrying this brick of cash next to my penis is my own business, but what happened that night is everyone’s business.
Now, I want to be clear about something right from the start. I know nothing about metal. Everything I know about metal, I learned from Wikipedia or overheard in the bars of Oregon. And really, the only reason why I was there that night is because my brother wanted to see some metal, and BJ Thug Life is all I could find.
We were at Yugong Yishan. One of those really swanky really dingy joints, housed inside one of Beijing’s many historic walls. With the classic Chinese lion statue by the door and just a few feet from the gate of the mammoth and presumably ancient estate housed behind that wall. And the room was full of what appeared to be the Chinese version of nerdy seriously overweight ipad-obsessed auteurs, scrawny undergrads, and beefy jocks. (I did catch sight of one or two other actual honest-to-god foreigners. The one near us seemed to be genuinely-ironically getting down with the locals over some serious shredding in downtown Beijing, and the other one I only caught sight of for a moment in a long line of banging heads. He looked malnourished and prone to violence, a scrawny good old boy getting his kicks the only way he knows how, but I’m sure he was a very nice man.) And that sock full of cash was weighing down my crotch. And neither of us had any idea what BJ Thug Life really was or where this brotherhood of hoodlums could be found.
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Operation Garden Plot
Manifesto of the Month
The United States Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2
The following information was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The original printing was of June 1, 1984. The information herein is UNCLASSIFIED and does not come within the scope of directions governing the protection of information affecting the national security.
In this document signed by the Secretary of the Army, is hereby assigned as DOD Executive Agent for civil disturbance control operations. Under Plan 55-2 he is to use airlift and logistical support, in assisting appropriate military commanders in the 50 states, District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and US possessions and territories, or any political subdivision thereof.
The official name of this project is called “Operation Garden Plot.”
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Click on Wes to see all our letters to him.
The Wes Letters: Intro
in Excerpt, Story, The Wes Letters, Series
Feliz Lucia Molina, Brett Zehner, & Ben Segal
January 25, 2012 2:00pm
Dear Wes Anderson, I heard you took the train from Chicago to southern California. I thought it was kind of cute to hear you don’t like airplanes. They scare me too, somewhat, but not enough so that I can’t ride them. The other night, Brett told us the story. He’d been gone for Christmas to Columbus, Ohio. He didn’t mention the train story until after a couple beers at the kitchen table. I showed him I Love Dick by Chris Kraus—a series of billet-doux glitter bombs from a married couple to a man named Dick.
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Ziggurat!
Mutable Sound of the Month
The first track of Jonah—of Devil Music Ensemble and Debo Band fame—Rapino’s aptly named and under-appreciated album, High, is a ten-minute meditation that revolves around a reading of Ovid’s Metamorphosis. It has the driving power of Crystal Method—although a Crystal Method that has matured to a more Brian Eno level, a more spiritually complete vision of the musical workings of the universe. This is a music built on the foundation of a JRR-Tolkien-level logic and with a serious psychedelic overbite, and it is a powerful piece of music. It stands out on the album and is a current favorite of mine!
Mutable is pleased to present a unique musical experience every month or so by ourselves or someone we’ve been introduced to. These are from the reel-to-reels and tascams of the garages and basements of the world. Send tracks to mail@mutablesound.com along with credits and a brief description.
A young scholar off to her new life at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies
Episode 1
The year is 1903, and it’s time we played the laughing game. The Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies has hedges that release poisonous fumes cause those who sniff them to swoon. Oh, and Gundrun’s brother has a tumor in his brain among other things.
A new episode of Twilight at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies aired on a semi-weekly basis.
Diaries of a Garish Amateur: The Prize Peacock
John Wilmes
As I’m going through this awful break-up, I feel that the animals should only be in the zoos so to watch the humans. My crying, in public—as the pain invades the numb shock—is present only in short, cacophonous bursts; my decades of socialization have cause it to cut off before it becomes the blubbery mess it could be, in front of Chicago. The sensation is entirely involuntary. And it’s wordless like the break-up conversation might as well have been; words are said, plenty of them, but they’re ultimately just the texture of mine and her’s confused, angsty horse-wails.
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Spiny Retinas
in Product
SPINY RETINAS is an epic poem, or if you prefer, a narrative poem, or perhaps still if you prefer, a “hybrid text piece” that was compiled slowly over the course of six years (2006–2012). It was constructed using automatic writing technique and addresses and/or speaks to war, politics, and religion (stereotypes and cultural myths explored through use of military and theological hierarchical titles); rape culture, gender roles, and sexism; and pop culture in general. The following books, films, and/or television shows were used as reference points to create SPINY RETINAS: I Dream of Jeanie episodes, John Ashbery’s Girls on the Run, David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Jennifer Chambers Lynch’s Boxing Helena, and Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America. It was created using aleatoric method/approach and poetic language was used carelessly, unabashedly, often with such extreme force the author found herself shaking simultaneously with utter pleasure and despair. It was a freeing exercise, like running around nude in a random suburban neighborhood at 2 a.m. with a clear squirt gun or picking the first cucumber of the season or even hanging upside down on the monkey bars.
Paperback Book
8" x 5.25"
60 Pages
$12.00
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Strange Relations
Space Canon
This book is about alien sex.
Not imperialist, colonial sex, with human male astronauts dominating winsome green-skinned babes à la Captain Kirk. Nor is it bestial. This is real mutual discovery and understanding between sentient beings. It’s not something you see much in science fiction — in Tiptree’s short stories, admittedly, and to a lesser extent with Heinlein and Delany, although that’s mostly human-on-human stuff. Not that I’m a connoisseur.
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Rock Albany!
A D Jameson
Rock Albany laughed. He stood naked at the edge of a cliff. His windswept hair was neither blond nor red, but black, as black as a melon. His face was like a law of nature, like the call of the herd. He had the mouth of an executed saint.
Rock laughed and shook his head, then dove into the lake far below. He swam easily to the far shore, where he dressed, then strolled down a path. He walked swiftly, with a loose, lazy expertness of motion. He walked down the long road on the sun, the sun’s only road. The sun was his home. He had lived there for seventeen years. Most men would die if they tried to live on the sun. They would burn up at once. Rock laughed at this thought. He found the sun charming. The sun, he thought, has been waiting here just for me. Waiting to be ripped apart by my dynamite and drill. Waiting for the new shape my hands will give it. He would paint it pigeon blue. He would install a Pekinese buttress. He would hand-raise pudgy canaries. Rock liked canaries. Their eyes never missed a thing. They made a man feel as though he did not exist. They stared with a sudden resentment. They knew that they were naked in their cage. They suffered in this world. Rock knew that the canaries would suffer to live inside cages on the sun. He didn’t know how long they would hold out, staring at him with their damned eyes, before they burned up. He would go through a lot of canaries. He’d have to skimp and slave to afford so many. He would need them at once. He resolved to call his best friend and supplier, the Duke. But then he forgot. He didn’t give a damn.
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“But whose mind was it?” They are the terror of all domesticated pets!
Episode 2
It’s the year 1903 and Grammar Instructor Gundrun was asking the Professor of Arcane Knowledge a point concerning gerunds, while Jack must have his fleet of porcelain miniature hot air balloons complete for the Saint Louis World Fair, while all manner of fantastical beings twinkle in the candle light. Much laughter ensues. There are things that can move from rooms to the very idea of rooms.
A new episode of Twilight at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies aired on a semi-weekly basis.
Trinity: A Review of Colin Winnette's Revelation
herocious
Originally published in The Open End
For some reason three is a good number. There’s a balance to three, a symmetry that seems to establish an axis. Three is triptych, three is trinity. With a title like REVELATION I feel like trinity is the more applicable to Colin Winnette’s first novel.
It’s a good book. There’s a weight to it that sits heavy and savory, like the first book you ever read.
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Still from the Turin Horse by Béla Tarr (2011)
Remodernist Film Manifesto
Jesse Richards
1. Art manifestos, despite the good intentions of the writer should always “be taken with a grain of salt” as the cliché goes, because they are subject to the ego, pretensions, and plain old ignorance and stupidity of their authors. This goes all the way back to the Die Brücke manifesto of 1906, and continues through time to this one that you’re reading now. A healthy wariness of manifestos is understood and encouraged. However, the ideas put forth here are meant sincerely and with the hope of bringing inspiration and change to others, as well as to myself.
2. Remodernism seeks a new spirituality in art. Therefore, remodernist film seeks a new spirituality in cinema. Spiritual film does not mean films about Jesus or the Buddha. Spiritual film is not about religion. It is cinema concerned with humanity and an understanding of the simple truths and moments of humanity. Spiritual film is really ALL about these moments.
Read MoreAmazing Adult Fantasy
Paul Kincaid
Originally published on The SF Site
To begin with, these short fictions are funny.
They are also experimental, wayward and surreal, any of which might make them seem far more serious and “worthy” than they actually are.
They are not stories in the conventional sense. Some of them may offer a narrative, but if you try to follow them too closely you will find characters change, chronologies wander all over the place, and an obsessive interest in something mundane and irrelevant will suddenly intrude into the text. They take risks with what we expect of our fiction, which is a good thing, but not all the risks pay off, of course. This means it is all too easy to linger over phrase-making or ponder construction, or otherwise consider the success or failure of the individual pieces in some drily academic way. But that would be to miss the simple joie de vivre, the devil-may-care insouciance of the pieces.
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What horrors are occurring in the office of Headmistress Ursula at this very moment?
Episode 3
The year is 1903, and several young scholars are throwing stones at ducks, while boys from the preparatory school down the lane teeter about under the influence of the strong narcotic released when they set fire to the bushes, and all this under the beady gaze of the Headmistress, soon to be joined by Handyman Jack. But what of the Professor of Arcane Knowledge and the monkey on his gurney?
A new episode of Twilight at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies aired on a semi-weekly basis.
Three Poems
Kristina Marie Darling
Noctuary (i)
The brass locket, which contained only an empty frame, was the first in a series of ominous love tokens that appeared beneath her window.
*
When he fastened the clasp on her necklace, every nightingale seemed to sing. Their swollen throats and colorless eyes.
*
He reminded her of Petrarch, driven by the necessity of pursuit. The beloved as interchangeable, a vessel. A bird heaving under the weight of an otherworldly song.
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Video: Paplib Live
in Podcast
Below is video taken of a rare live performance by Mutable’s mysterious french pop underground sensation, Paplib. The verdict by the e-zine, Subjective: “Paplib : substance extraterrestre dont l’absorption a des effets bénéfiques variés selon le moment de la prise.” [Trans. “Paplib: alien substance whose absorption has beneficial effects varied by time of dosing.”] Paplib’s full album can be found here.
1. Camera Behind the Cameraman
2. Xylocaine
3. Coco Smile
4. Flying Lezard
5. Het (Icy Drops)
6. Eyom Nod
7. Slimy Smile
8. Voodoo Politics
9. Cast and Costumes
Digital album available to stream or download now!
Diaries of a Garish Amateur: My Friend Bradshaw, Fodder for the Giraffes
John Wilmes
My friend Bradshaw’s been out of a home for some weeks now. A year or so ago, the owner of the building Bradshaw rented in, in Chicago, was foreclosed upon—and not just in Bradshaw’s building. The owner was held up to a debt in the range of thirty million dollars, spread across many foreclosed-upon properties, and he thus fled to his native Ukraine.
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What is Archibald doing to that monkey?
Episode 4
The year is 1903, and Grammar Instructor Gundrun is remembering a time she smoked tobacco products. But what about the monkey? Did Gundrun really squish jellyfish between her toes when she was younger? What is she getting at?
A new episode of Twilight at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies aired on a semi-weekly basis.
Welcome to Weltschmerz
in Product
“I want to fall on my face and be done with it, go screeching into an extensive fall, like a car on the outbound direction, the motor on fire and the axle cracked. I want to be so gone that there is nothing anymore to salvage, an old hack at a new game, playing starlings in your direction, while shuddering at myself in the mirror. I want to be the one that they drag from the river in the evening papers and the one that finds you at the gazebo with my tie swaying in the breeze. That’s who I want to be.”
In the summer of 2003, Gabriel Boyer toured America in a 1971 VW Minibus with a woman named Jill. The plan was to perform plays in the bedrooms of strangers from Boston to New Orleans to LA to Seattle and back again—casting these strangers and their friends in an impromptu performance as a deranged neurosurgeon, say, or in an anarchist musical. The plan did not go according to plan.
This book is a journey into the America of a decade ago, and the mind of a single neurotic man and a single unfortunate love affair that never went anywhere even though it went all over America. It was a summer that began beautifully, but what could have been perfect was destined to end in tears. Welcome to Weltschmerz.