Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

The Leaning Tree has been slowly tilting over the years as the sandy soil to its northwest subsides. It has but a decade or less left in its long life, and it knows this. It puts desperate seeds to the winds, hoping to compensate for a life cut short with many strong and upright children.

The Twisted Tree came from a bad seed, warped as it grew both by the poor soil and a stillborn twin that died when it was but a twig. One would expect this to breed a most bitter wood, wormy and weak, but in fact the Twisted Tree has the strongest flesh of all its compatriots. It must, for a consequence of its nature is that its seeds are infertile and will never bloom, and it has quietly resolved to live forever as a result.

It is remarkable that the Twins, seperated by 100 yards, both tilt into the wind at exactly the same angle. What’s more remarkable is that they are actually the same tree: born of different seeds from different parents, their root systems have found each other and merged deep in the topsoil. They share nitrogen, nutrients, memories. Their children are a perfect mix of the two.

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Pallafor, Yodis. The Great Unmaking: How Mississippi Will Fare in the Doomtimes. Jackson: Universal Press of Alternate Mississippi, 1206 ACE.

Mr. Pallafor has a firm vision of what he calls the Doomtimes, the end of all life in Mississippi (and Mississippi alone); he sets these ideas forth in this screed, due out from UPAM soon and available for preorder.

The overall thesis of Pallafor’s Doomtimes is that an 11.0 earthquake will occur along the New Madrid fault, causing the Mississippi River to change direction once again and sucking up vast quantities of seawater to inundate the Delta and most low-lying areas of the state with brackish water. This will, he writes, then lead a race of crawdads, mutated and given intelligence by the BP oil spill of 2010, to enter the state and dominate the surviving humans.

As support for his claims, Mr. Pallafor offers up verbatim transcripts of conversations he had with the archangel Metamucil after suffering a series of blows to the head as part of the confirmation process for his former position on the Mississippi IHL. These, serving as a lengthy appendix, are exhaustively indexed and cross-referenced.

While this title is probably not suitable for school, public, university, or special libraries, it certainly belongs in any Mississippi Doombrary worth its salt, and indeed the first inscribed copy was donated to the Delta Doombrary after publication.

Isola Playford
Underlibrarian
Mississippi Delta Doombrary

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Poydras, Fiallo. A Guide to Mississippi Fanfiction. R’lyeh: Great Auk, 2016.

As readers of Fifty Shades of Grey can attest, fanfiction—works written by fans based on existing universes but not authorized or condoned by rightsholders—has never been hotter. However, the existing treatment of fanfiction tends to dwell on the phenomenon at a macro level for very popular milieus. Twilight, Harry Potter, Star Trek…all of these have been well-covered by other authors at length.

However, Mr. Poydras—an amateur working out of Biloxi—has undertaken to write the first guide to fanfiction written by Mississippians about Mississippians. His encyclopedic volume, complete through August of 2010, features extensive treatment of the Faulkner fanfics that are so popular in Mississippi circles. Special attention is paid to the Yoknapatawpha Wars cycle, an epic tale in 27 volumes that brings characters and situations from As I Lay Dying and Sanctuary into a 31st-century setting dominated by space zombies.

Poydras also treats Eudora Welty fanfiction—so-called Weltfic—at some length, though it is clear that his interests lie more with Faulkfic and the intense subculture of Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote slashfics, which re-imagines the characters and situations of those writers in intense and often lurid heterosexual relationships.

That weakness aside, this volume is recommended for all libraries, especially those with large numbers of circulating vampire movies.

Floro Alpis
Director
Yoknapatawpha County Public Library

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It’s no secret that today’s library patron is exposed to more sorcery than any of us in the profession right now. And it’s also no secret that they are exposed to sorcery from a much earlier age, with many of today’s youth, high schoolers, and incoming college students never knowing a world without sorcery and getting their first spellbooks as young as age 5.

Clearly, these patrons are expecting a library experience that is compatible with their cantrips and incantations, one that offers storage space for spell books and physical ingredients and has mana potions available for when the sorcerous ichor within runs low. Sadly, due to lack of centralized state funding, Mississippi is currently 49 out of 51 states in sorcery resources offered to all segments of the population; only the state of Denial and the state of Confusion have lower uptake rates.

It has become something of a cliché that librarians are slow to embrace sorcery, preferring tried and true methods of magic that rely on augury, interpreting the flights of birds, and of course Magic the Gathering card catalogs. But as useful as these once may have been, and may continue to be for some older patrons, the time has come to use sorcery in public programming and outreach to show—at no significant cost to the institution—the patrons of the future that libraries are still relevant.

An easy way to incorporate sorcery is to move your library’s arcana collection from your archives into the main circulation collections. While in the past it was traditional for bestiaries and books of forbidden knowledge to be library use only, those days are fading in the era of Wikibestiary and Glitter shamantags like #forbidden and #cthulhu. Even if they are offered only as exhibits, these older materials have the potential to excite patrons.

Make use of your staff as well; chances are that a few of them know a spell or two or have an Apple SpellBook Pro sitting around. Ask them to develop events and displays, to keep your Glitter account and Witchterest page up-to-date, to try and find new and novel spells to cast and ways to make existing library collections spell-friendly. Do your books support enchantments that allow them to float into users’ hands? Can they be used as prisons for demons, or portals to fantastic worlds of the imagination? It may take some work, but adding these features will pay off in the long run.

Perhaps the best resource is education: the more we learn about sorcery and spellcasting, the more we can help our patrons. Be on the lookout for low-cost séances, astral projections, and other means of networking and learning with peer and the Great Old Ones. Either way, remember that for our patrons, ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn is not a new thing: for them, Cthulhu has always wgah’nagl fhtagn.

Isola Playford
Underlibrarian
Mississippi Delta Doombrary

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The University of Northern Mississippi (UNM), in partnership with the Yoknapatawpha County Public Library (YCPL), recently announced an initiative to increase library access to two particularly underserved populations: sparrows and squirrels. “To my knowledge,” said YCPL director Floro Alpis, “this is the first such program in the country, which is a shame. Prior to 2015, there was no known record of sparrows or squirrels being issued UNM or YCPL library cards, and walk-ins were few and far between.

With Alpis and UNM library science professor Dr. Rolf S. Paoli spearheading the initiative, both libraries launched an intensive program to issue library cards to sparrows and squirrels in January 2015 and to step up outreach efforts to those populations. YCPL staff actually began their preparatory work in fall 2014, standing in the same place every day on the library patio with a handful of seed to acclimate sparrows—who are not traditional library users and require additional support—to their presence.

Eventually, YCPL was able to start mixing scraps of paper in with the birdseed, and by February they were ready to begin issuing their first library cards to sparrows. “We had an excellent first day,” said Alips. “Our volunteers actually ran out of library cards after the morning seed rush, and we have anecdotal evidence that many of the cards were actually brought back to the sparrows’ nests.”

For its part, UNM focused on outreach for squirrels, who are often on campus to make use of the free garbage resources it provides to the local community. Initial efforts at putting library cards on small fishing poles and lowering them to potential squirrel patrons failed due to, as Dr. Paoli put it, “lack of angling skills” on the part of UNM library staff. Further experiments in December 2014 and January 2014 with hiding library cards under piles of nuts and twigs and a direct marketing campaign to scale trees and place the cards directly in squirrel dreys failed due to opposition from local mice and privacy concerns that information about individual squirrel dreys might make it to the National Nesting Agency.

Ultimately, UNM was able to get 75% squirrel uptake on offered cards by smearing them with peanut butter, though Dr. Paoli is quick to note that this is not a permanent solution given the danger posed to squirrels with nut allergies. Nevertheless, squirrels that did not bring the library cards to their dreys did at least bury them, leading Paoli to confidently predict a surge of squirrel patrons next spring when the library cards are dug up.

As shown in the chart, card issuance numbers are up significantly but not the actual number of sparrow and squirrel patrons. Alpis and Paoli have announced initiatives to remedy this with a variety of in-library features friendly to sparrows and squirrels: seed bells in the stacks, dried corn-on-the-cob in reading and study areas, and staff that mask their scent and make no sudden movements.

Floro Alpis
Director
Yoknapatawpha County Public Library

Rolf S. Paoli
Dean of Libraries
University of Northern Mississippi

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The director of the Mississippi Delta Doombrary has retired, nearly 60 years after dying at his post. “While we have enjoyed our director’s tireless efforts, literally tireless since the undead sleep not nor tire, he has decided to retire to spend more time in his grave and visiting his great-great-grandchildren as an apparition in a mirror,” the Doombrary said in a statement.

The University of Northern Mississippi is hiring for a Defense Against the Dark Arts librarian. “We’ve had an awful lot of trouble keeping this position filled,” said the Dean of Libraries. “We never seem to have any new hire last longer than one year.”

Requirements for the position include an MLIS, at least two years’ experience in a library, three letters of recommendation, and a blood sigil that is binding in states bordering on Mississippi.

The Yoknapatawpha County Public Library is holding its first annual public book burning on May 1. Anyone with a tome that is on the Black List that has been posted in local newspapers and in social media is welcome to attend the event, which is dedicated to General Secretary Joseph Stalin. While the book burning is an optional family fun event, with weenie roasts and s’mores for the children, the Yoknapatawpha County Public Library does remind all participants that possession of a title on the Black List after May 2 will carry the punishment of penal transportation to a local gulag for a period of not less than 20 years.

The Sparrow and Squirrel Bookmobile had its inaugural run in March, doing its pest to spread literacy and love of reading to the wildlife of the state. For a list of scheduled visits, see the official bookmobile tracker app available from the sponsoring library.

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When it was all over, when the last screams died down, the Karkovsky Bros. Bear Circus had been liberated. The bears now rode their unicycles and wore their costumes for no master, as every last carnie had been mauled to death. As the revolution had occurred just after the tents had been pitched but just before posters went up in town, the locals left the rebellious ursids to their own devices, ignorant of their presence.

But all was not well within the circus now that the worker bears had risen up and seized the means of production. As they rode their unicycles and performed tricks for their own amusement, the bears well remembered the sting of the whip and the claustrophobia of the cage. The ringmaster loomed large over them even in death, and the bears took steps to placate him lest he return to take up the whip once more.

This is why wise travelers will give the old Karkovsky Bros. tent a wide berth. The bears will seize unwary travelers and smear them with greasepaint, dressing them as clowns before sacrificing them before the ringmaster. Mouldering in his throne where he was slain, the ringmaster is still feared enough by the bears that they make him regular offerings lest he return.

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Everyone knows that when you have mail, the postman raises the little flag on your mailbox. When there’s no mail, the flag is horizontal.

But what about when the flag is really lowered, vertical but in the inverse of its “you’ve got mail” position?

Most people would assume that means the mailbox is broken. But nothing could be further from the truth! It simply means that you have nega-mail. And, as alarming as it sounds, nega-mail is nothing to be worried about as long as you take the proper precautions.

First and most importantly, you must not let nega-mail and ordinary mail (or posi-mail) come into contact under any circumstances. They will annihilate each other in a flash of smoke and postal adhesives. Some people advocate disposing of nega-mail by sacrificing posi-mail of little value (like advertising circulars or old newspapers), but this is highly dangerous as the annihilation can leave harmful postal residues and will temporarily affect the postal rates of nearby areas. Unfortunates have been invoiced for postal rates anywhere from 5% to 500% of normal as a result of such careless disposal.

Second, nega-mail does in fact demand a response. It is sent by someone who desires a piece of posi-postage in return, after all, and the cost of a negi-stamp is usually equal to the postage for a corresponding reply, leaving the operation at a net cost of $0 to the postal customer. So while you must be very careful not to let the two touch, posi-mail is the only possible response to nega-mail.

What should your response be? Carefully read the nega-mail to find out. Usually the construction will give you a clue as to what sort of response is expected. For instance, a nega-letter reading “Thank you so much for not telling me about your trip to Socotra” would be an obvious indication that a letter about your trip is an appropriate response.

Once a piece of posi-mail that is the opposite of the nega-mail you recieved is sent, the nega-mail will disappear naturally. You may give the letter to a postal worker when they come by, or a nega-post worker when they do not come by. Replies may be mailed at the post office and not mailed at the nega-post office, as well.

Tune in next week for the first in a series of how to write a nega-letter or send a nega-package, starting with the most pressing difficulties most people face: finding antimatter without a particle accelerator, and how much money not to bring when you don’t go to the nega-post office.

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The strange diminishing of honeybees in the summertime, desperate measures were called for. Apiaries throughout the USA were willing to pay top dollar for live bees, especially vital queens and viable sections of comb. Most wound up coming from India, where the beekeeping practices might not have been up to snuff but the bugs were cheap and plentiful.

That’s where I come in. Bees, live bees especially, are considered to be dangerous animals. They need to be escorted by a courier at every step of the way. That doesn’t necessarily mean cuddling up to them, but you have to keep the box in sight.

I boarded Eastern Airlines Flight 887 from Delhi to London with the courier case, all wrapped in bright orange quarantine tape, bumping against my leg as I limped to my seat and stowed my cane.

“Did you need a hand, hun?” a stewardess said.

“What I need is a leg,” I joked. “I’ve tried everything from surgery to magnets, but it still gimps out on me.”

“You were injured by…magnets?”

I set the case of bees down on the seat I’d bought for it–the profit was more than enough to pay for their own seat. “I took an arrow to the knee,” I said.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, clearly getting neither that joke or its predecessor.

“It was a work accident,” I said, deciding to level with the lady who’d be bringing me my booze over the course of the next sixteen hours. “The bees got out once, and I’m allergic.”

What can I say? I like to live on the edge.

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“Rise, my friends,” said Richard, in a gracious tone, looking on them with a countenance in which his habitual good-humour had already conquered the blaze of hasty resentment, and whose features retained no mark of the late desperate conflict, excepting the flush arising from exertion,—”Arise,” he said, “my friends!—Your misdemeanours, whether in forest or field, have been atoned by the loyal services you rendered my distressed subjects before the walls of Torquilstone, and the rescue you have this day afforded to your sovereign. Arise, my liegemen, and be good subjects in future.—And thou, brave Locksley—”

“Call me no longer Locksley, my Liege, but know me under the name, which, I fear, fame hath blown too widely not to have reached even your royal ears—I am Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest.” 561

“King of Outlaws, and Prince of good fellows!” said the King, “who hath not heard a name that has been borne as far as Palestine? But be assured, brave Outlaw, that no deed done in our absence, and in the turbulent times to which it hath given rise, shall be remembered to thy disadvantage.”

“True says the proverb,” said Wamba, interposing his word, but with some abatement of his usual petulance,—

“‘When the cat is away, The mice will play.'”

“What, Wamba, art thou there?” said Richard; “I have been so long of hearing thy voice, I thought thou hadst taken flight.”

“I take flight!” said Wamba; “when do you ever find Folly separated from Valour? There lies the trophy of my sword, that good grey gelding, whom I heartily wish upon his legs again, conditioning his master lay there houghed in his place. It is true, I gave a little ground at first, for a motley jacket does not brook lance-heads, as a steel doublet will. But if I fought not at sword’s point, you will grant me that I sounded the onset.”

“And to good purpose, honest Wamba,” replied the King. “Thy good service shall not be forgotten.”

“‘Confiteor! Confiteor!'”—exclaimed, in a submissive tone, a voice near the King’s side—”my Latin will carry me no farther—but I confess my deadly treason, and pray leave to have absolution before I am led to execution!”

Richard looked around, and beheld the jovial Friar on his knees, telling his rosary, while his quarter-staff, which had not been idle during the skirmish, lay on the grass beside him. His countenance was gathered so as he thought might best express the most profound contrition, his eyes being turned up, and the corners of his mouth drawn down, as Wamba expressed it, like the tassels at the mouth of a purse. Yet this demure affectation of extreme penitence was whimsically belied by a ludicrous meaning which lurked in his huge features, and seemed to pronounce his fear and repentance alike hypocritical.

“For what art thou cast down, mad Priest?” said Richard; “art thou afraid thy diocesan should learn how truly thou dost serve Our Lady and Saint Dunstan?—Tush, man! fear it not; Richard of England betrays no secrets that pass over the flagon.”

“Nay, most gracious sovereign,” answered the Hermit, (well known to the curious in penny-histories of Robin Hood, by the name of Friar Tuck,) “it is not the crosier I fear, but the sceptre.—Alas! that my sacrilegious fist should ever have been applied to the ear of the Lord’s anointed!”

“Ha! ha!” said Richard, “sits the wind there?—In truth I had forgotten the buffet, though mine ear sung after it for a whole day. But if the cuff was fairly given, I will be judged by the good men around, if it was not as well repaid—or, if thou thinkest I still owe thee aught, and will stand forth for another counterbuff—”

“By no means,” replied Friar Tuck, “I had mine own returned, and with usury—may your Majesty ever pay your debts as fully!”

“If I could do so with cuffs,” said the King, “my creditors should have little reason to complain of an empty exchequer.”

“And yet,” said the Friar, resuming his demure hypocritical countenance, “I know not what penance I ought to perform for that most sacrilegious blow!—-”

“Speak no more of it, brother,” said the King; “after having stood so many cuffs from Paynims and misbelievers, I were void of reason to quarrel with the buffet of a clerk so holy as he of Copmanhurst. Yet, mine honest Friar, I think it would be best both for the church and thyself, that I should procure a license to unfrock thee, and retain thee as a yeoman of our guard, serving in care of our person, as formerly in attendance upon the altar of Saint Dunstan.”

“My Liege,” said the Friar, “I humbly crave your pardon; and you would readily grant my excuse, did you but know how the sin of laziness has beset me. Saint Dunstan—may he be gracious to us!—stands quiet in his niche, though I should forget my orisons in killing a fat buck—I stay out of my cell sometimes a night, doing I wot not what—Saint Dunstan never complains—a quiet master he is, and a peaceful, as ever was made of wood.—But to be a yeoman in attendance on my sovereign the King—the honour is great, doubtless—yet, if I were but to step aside to comfort a widow in one corner, or to kill a deer in another, it would be, ‘where is the dog Priest?’ says one. ‘Who has seen the accursed Tuck?’ says another. ‘The unfrocked villain destroys more venison than half the country besides,’ says one keeper; ‘And is hunting after every shy doe in the country!’ quoth a second.—In fine, good my Liege, I pray you to leave me as you found me; or, if in aught you desire to extend your benevolence to me, that I may be considered as the poor Clerk of Saint Dunstan’s cell in Copmanhurst, to whom any small donation will be most thankfully acceptable.”

“I understand thee,” said the King, “and the Holy Clerk shall have a grant of vert and venison in my woods of Warncliffe. Mark, however, I will but assign thee three bucks every season; but if that do not prove an apology for thy slaying thirty, I am no Christian knight nor true king.”

“Your Grace may be well assured,” said the Friar, “that, with the grace of Saint Dunstan, I shall find the way of multiplying your most bounteous gift.”

“I nothing doubt it, good brother,” said the King; “and as venison is but dry food, our cellarer shall have orders to deliver to thee a butt of sack, a runlet of Malvoisie, and three hogsheads of ale of the first strike, yearly—If that will not quench thy thirst, thou must come to court, and become acquainted with my butler.”

“But for Saint Dunstan?” said the Friar—

“A cope, a stole, and an altar-cloth shalt thou also have,” continued the King, crossing himself—”But we may not turn our game into earnest, lest God punish us for thinking more on our follies than on his honour and worship.”

“I will answer for my patron,” said the Priest, joyously.

“Answer for thyself, Friar,” said King Richard, something sternly; but immediately stretching out his hand to the Hermit, the latter, somewhat abashed, bent his knee, and saluted it. “Thou dost less honour to my extended palm than to my clenched fist,” said the Monarch; “thou didst only kneel to the one, and to the other didst prostrate thyself.”

But the Friar, afraid perhaps of again giving offence by continuing the conversation in too jocose a style—a false step to be particularly guarded against by those who converse with monarchs—bowed profoundly, and fell into the rear.

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