A Hole in the Mouth

I have spent a good deal of time wondering uselessly about how to approach writing for this blog. Not in the trivial "how does one sit down and type words?" sense (although such things are indeed both difficult and unintuitive to ADHD-bearers such as myself), but in the stylistic, artistic sense. One thing that the internet oft obscures, due to its now over-a-decade-long traditional subculture of repackaging other people's art under the guise of a "review" that amounts to nothing more than a summary and some jokes at the expense of minorities and artists, is that reviewing can feel as aimless as it feels purposeless, both on the reviewer's end and (more importantly) on the audience's end. Reviews are rarely art in themselves , which is to say, their content is rarely expressive, and only adds anything to the experience of the original art being commented on once every geological aeon. As an artist, I am mildly repulsed by this, and generaly feel constrai...

 This is a poem-cycle I composed concerning a story concept I have been working on for a while. In my mind, each (minus the first) should precede a major arc in the overarching narrative, but also foreshadow some of the central themes, motifs, and ideas of the coming text. The central characters are an automatist boy, his loyal friend, and the vampire mistress he yearns to serve. NTB1 A solemn moon above the skyline Gentle rainfall in my ears — I am hope, I see the ever-distant dreamlands I course through the City Blood, that effervescent ichor The amber roses in my veins I hear it calling, I feel the urge Fangs descend into my prey I raise a flag of intervention Within the night a roaring cry I am war, rebellion of the ancients I shall break the chains that bind Ancient leeches rise against me Threatening to end it all I call them, those familiars We shall bring justice, We shall bring victory, We shall answer the City’s call NTB2 - Midnight Prank I seek but do not find Always tre...

(Originally posted on Goodreads around September 15, 2023) De Profundis is a wonderful book. Half epistolary novel, half experimental roleplaying "game", it is a beautiful piece of metafiction and psychodrama that seeks to bring innovation, psychological depth, empathy, and -- real -- paranoia to gaming circles. As an appreciator of postmodern literature writ large, I am a great enjoyer of Michał Oracz's choice to deliberately blur the line between his fiction and instructions; and as a fan of method acting and certified mental illness haver™, I absolutely adore his feverish, bizarre, and almost certainly maddening advice on how to conjure, through sheer willpower and immersion into collective emergent fiction, the weird and horrible into the corners of your IRL perception as a tool to enrich that fiction. I think this "game" is a powerful tool even (and perhaps especially) for those who: a) hate the rote, descriptive, instructive style of traditional TRPG books...

( Reposted from Goodreads. Originally posted on Feb. 29, 2024. This is a spoiler-free review. ) This book might be the definition of "middle of the road." Bakemonogatari ("monstory," as it were) Pt. 1 is an anthology containing the two short stories "Hitagi Crab" (about a weightless, acerbic girl) and "Mayoi Snail" (about a little girl trying to visit her divorced mother). The series this novel is a part of is lauded by many anime, manga, and light novel fans the world over for its literary aspirations, experimental style, and emotional resonance, as well as its mysterious and mythologically-rich setting. However, my impression of Bakemonogatari Pt. 1 is that it fumbles many of its attempts at literary quality and resonance, oftentimes due to the ways in which it attempts to be experimental. Eschewing traditional formats, Nishio Ishin writes the anthology more in the style of an audiovisual or theatrical script, comprised primarily of long exchan...

(Reposted from Goodreads. Originally posted on Feb. 29, 2024.) This is, in a word, a "gross" book. It is gross in every sense of the word: it's overlong, bloated, and preachy; it is guilty of extreme generalizations, of hyperbolic claims, and of grave delusions; and it is repulsive, exuding offense from every line. The one star I give to this book are given because it is technically competent in organization and citation, and because it is at least internally coherent; its content, in itself, is worthy of no such praise. One might forget that Savitri Devi is a furiously fanatical Nazi if she weren't so obsessed with demonstrating her whole-hearted, body-and-soul religious devotion to Adolf Hitler and his National Socialism at least once in every paragraph of this book. Indeed, much of her language is a somewhat less obscurantist pastiche of classical New Age esoterica and Hindu jargon, and it is evident to the reader that she has real conviction in and knowledge of bo...

How can I describe the experience of finding Envy's The Fallen Crimson ?  It is currently night-time in Lawrence, Kansas. I have spent something like 17-and-a-half hours awake, divided between going to class, reviewing statistics for an exam on Thursday, and getting shit done for grad school applications. My energy is at a low; the tiredness is melding with the natural decline in Adderall density in my bloodstream, and the math-induced headache is making thinking difficult. There's a guy behind me, in my scholarship hall's study room, that has been playing ARK: Survival Evolved  (by himself, but very loudly) for some two hours, now. This confounding variable does not facilitate my work. I have taken breaks, but they were limited. One time, earlier today, I worked on some ideas for my short story anthology project; the other time, I got three BUCK-TICK albums queued up on Apple Music to try to find some favorite tracks to add to a "BUCK-TICK Bangers" playlist. Late...

Rain and storm, dark night. Herculean winds crashed against the shabby windows of an apartment in a seedy complex, whose painted walls were damp and chipped. Each time thunder struck, the whole place shook under the vibrations; it was a terrible home, abandoned-like and decrepit. Every other week, some new critter would show up — a rat, a roach, ants, or flies, didn’t matter. Vermin, in a word.  And her. She was a small girl, and poor. Her parents had passed in an accident soon after she got into college, and the money had been slim since then. Getting her degree — a BS in computer engineering — was a tough ride: although her performance was good enough to earn her a couple scholarships, she still was only barely able to sustain herself in one of the world’s most expensive megalopoleis. Still, that time came and went; now, she was a software engineer for a “unique” gaming company, so to say. Pay wasn’t good, and working conditions were tough. Her most common dinner was ten-dollar p...