Do I love the artist
Paroxysms of creativity
Ideas and desire fleshmade
Do I love the art
Sparks against the void
Monuments of graphite
We are our natural selves
In a way few others can be
But is it the cosmos in her
Or the fingerward one
Excerpt
Archived Posts from this Category
September 28, 2014
From “The Unmade Multitudes, Pt. 1” by Chadwick Thaddeus Harris
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: fiction, poetry, story |Leave a Comment
September 27, 2014
From “Technicult Difficulties” by Cindi Sutcliffe Luchetti
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: American football, fiction, humor, Southern Michigan University, sports, story |Leave a Comment
The Omnidome, GA: In an official statement this afternoon, NBS Television blamed the interruption of its live coverage of the Southern Michigan University-University of Northern Mississippi on “technicult problems.” The SMU Fighting Grizzlies and the UNM Fighting Abolitionists were in the second quarter of the GesteCo Bowl in Westchester Repeating Arms stadium when the transmission was suddenly cut to digital television subscribers and live online feeds, with only local radio commentary by WREK radio remaining uninterrupted.
“Is is our great regret that the much-anticipated GesteCo Bowl was interrupted by technicult difficulties,” said an NBS executive as part of the statement. “Members of the Church of the Anti-Machine, a radical technicult that rejects and believes any technology invented after 1800 to be sinful and mind-controlling, attacked our primary relay station with swords, torches, and flintlock muskets. Our defenses were designed around a direct, large-scale assault, and their small one-man groups were able to penetrate the outer defense. We sincerely apologize to anyone who felt offended or inconvenienced.”
At press time, NBS Television and its parent corporation Lucky 777 Dragon Industries of Shanghai, had not commented on whether losses to advertisers and fans would be compensated monetarily or simply though apologizing with nice cheap words.
September 26, 2014
From “Within/Without” by Chadwick Thaddeus Harris
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: fiction, poetry, story |Leave a Comment
September 25, 2014
From “The Call of the Twist-Wings” by Lis Fawcett-Dowling
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: fiction, horror, insects, parasites, story, Strepsiptera, twist-winged parasites |1 Comment
They are the most enigmatic order of insects, and yet in many ways the most beautiful, the most devoted. It’s a measure of how little we know of them that they have only such cold and impersonal names as Strepsiptera or “twist-winged flies.” I have devoted my life to their study.
I am sure that at some stage in their evolution they were something else, but in our era they are parasites, living inside creatures as varied and pestilent as wasps, silverfish, cockroaches. The young are scuttling planidium, almost microscopic in the wild, that burrow into the larger insects they parasitize. Once inside, they undergo hypermetamorphosis, losing their legs and their eyes in favor of a wormlike form that has a variety of effects on its host in addition to living off it as a parasite. They can alter the host’s behavior in a much more complex way than Cordyceps fungi to suit their needs; causing it to go where they want and to congregate with more it its kind.
Females remain wormlike parasitic grubs their whole lives, but the males eventually metamorphose again into tiny fly-like organisms with beautiful gossamer wings. They have only a few hours to find and mate with a female before their energy reserves are exhausted, and cannot eat…what used to be their mouth has been modified into a sensory structure of unparallelled power for something so tiny. There’s a certain purity about Strepsiptera that’s not found in any other creature; they never eat when they are mobile, and they do not typically kill their hosts.
My sponsors in the military hoped to use Strepsiptera’s ability to alter the behavior of its hosts for strategic purposes, and that was the source of our experimental breeding program, trying to create a Strepsiptera large enough to affect a mammalian host and one that will alter behavior in the way that would be useful for killing and maiming, even though that is not at all in keeping with the nature of these gentle parasites. The largest males of our new strain were the size of butterflies, their wings a thousand times more delicate and beautiful, and their heads aquiver with complex sense organs and the most basal compound eyes in the insect world. The females were much larger, and gave birth to young who could secrete enzymes to break down not only skin but also clothing to enter.
They said that the experiments were ultimately a failure, that the behavior induced in the test animals was simply limited to congregating with other parasitized specimens and becoming deeply protective of the living monuments to maternity within and the fleeting, selfless masculine gossamer flutterlings without. They said that the funding was to be pulled before we could engage on field trials and human subjects. They are peaceful parasites, it is true, but that does not mean they do not know a modicum of defense.
We are all huddled together now in the laboratory on the base, deriving the most serene comfort from each others’ presence, the sort of feeling that would have precluded all human conflict had we but discovered it earlier. The ones outside are dead; having refused the gift, we were forced to act in the name of the greater good. They are peaceful parasites, it is true, but that does not mean they do not know a modicum of defense.
I can see them protruding from my abdomen now, a dozen or more gently quivering with peace and life. Some destined to reside in me forever, to bring forth brood upon brood of peace and brotherhood to release upon the world; some destined to soon burst forth in fleeting gossamer life to mate with others and bring still more broods about.
Strepsiptera. Twist-winged flies. Parasites. Love, in its purest and most selfless form. I cannot wait to see where they will take us in their purity.
September 24, 2014
From “The Identicality Gambit” by George Primus
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: fiction, identical twins, story |Leave a Comment
“Your father…is James. I had hoped that you would never find out.”
The news struck Cole like a thunderbolt. “What? How…how could you, mother?”
“But, you see, as I told myself at the time, it didn’t make any difference. What does it matter which of a set of identical twins is the true father? They’re he same, after all, aren’t they?”
Uncle James…intemperate, foul-mouthed, always in the drink and letting what little money he earned as a delivery driver slip through his fingers. He’d been a terrible figure in Cole’s childhood, a bitter presence always ready with a swat. To think that he, rather than his mild and kind brother Jacob, was his father…Cole reeled at the thought.
“No,” he said firmly. “No they are not.”
September 23, 2014
From “Menthol Dragons” by Harold N. Engstom
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: dragons, fantasy, fiction, humor, story |Leave a Comment
Excerpted from the Ruins & Rogues Creature Compendium, incorporating materials from the Sorcerers & Sabers Interverse Guide
Menthol Dragon
Size: S (young) to VL (old)
Hit Dice: 12d13+25 (subtract 5 HP for each year of age under 100, minimum 25)
Treasure: Class D (common), Class B (uncommon)
Armor Class: Advanced Placement
Attacks: +6 (claws), Special (breath)
In ages past, the so-called Elemental Drakes who traveled the Interverse tended to reflect he classical conception of the elements: fire, water, earth, air (occasionally adding light and dark). But, as the Interverse is nothing if not a mirror of the Primary World, the invention of new materials has let to new races of Elemental Drakes.
The Menthol Dragon is one such, hailing from either the Interversal Continuum of Smoke or the Interversal Continuum of Disease. It exists in opposition to the Unfiltered Dragons in the former and the Fruit Dragons in the latter. The dragons project a powerful soothing aura for 10′ around them, against which all players wishing to harm the dragons must roll. While they can attack with their claws, causing +6 soothing damage, their breath weapon is their most potent tool. A blast of high-pressure menthol, it will sooth anything into a coma within a 20′ cone. A successful roll against soothing will result in only numbness and an intense desire for cough drops and cigarettes.
September 22, 2014
From “Magicks Straight Out of Prague” by Paige Grasmuck
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: fantasy, fiction, ley lines, magic, Prague, story |Leave a Comment
“He was born in Prague. Everybody knows that city was built on a powerful confluence of ley lines, but it’s not just the usual contact high people get.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“It’s a level of magical skill that has only grown with age and experience, and he hasn’t been in Prague for almost 15 years.”
“What has he done?”
“A Tosca ritual, a Nebbercracker rite, three Class VIII incendiary effects, and an expulsion sphere.”
“Not bad for a year’s work.”
“A year? No, no. He did all that in a week. That’s why the boys have taken to calling him the Spell Czech.”
September 21, 2014
From “Pirates and Ninjas All Taste the Same to Zombies” by Poe Edminster-Caar
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: fiction, humor, ninjas, pirates, pirates vs. ninjas, pirates vs. ninjas vs. zombies, politics, story, zombies |Leave a Comment
This column, a response to the previous columns by William “Black Bill” Cubbins IV and Felisa Lloyd Matsumura-Tamaribuchi is from Poe Edminster-Caar. Dr. Edminster-Caar is a professor of Undead Studies at Ravensholme University in New England and the author of the controversial undead rights book “I Am Zombie.” As one of the first openly zombie faculty members at a major North American university, Dr. Edminster-Caar has won five ZAAD awards and the prestigious Golden Brain trophy from the Swedish Zombie Academy.
I was, as ever, amused to see the childish infighting between pirate affairs commentator “Black Bill” Cubbins and ninja activist Felisa Matsumura-Tamaribuchi in these pages. One can predict their scrapes with almost clockwork efficiency, point and counterpoint, attempts at serious discourse by one hijacked in favor of shrill condemnation by the other, all in the service of flogging their pet horses in the ridiculously named “Pirate-Ninja Peace Process.” Which, as Voltaire might quip, involves neither pirates, nor ninjas, nor peace, nor a process.
It matters not, though, because in the end they will all taste the same when they are devoured by zombies.
I have been accused, occasionally, by living commentators of militantly pushing an “undead agenda” and attempting to pervert the young and the impressionable into taking up a zombie lifestyle. Implicit in that is the backwards notion that zombiehood is a “deathstyle choice” or acceptance of the abhorrent “resurrection camps” where people attempt to “cure” zombies, as if we are suffering from some sort of affliction or disease. I am certainly more reasonably in my pursuits than Mr. Cubbins or Ms. Matsumura-Tamaribuchi, I think, though not for any lack of passion.
Rather, I am confident that time is on my side and that history will prove that we zombies are the ultimate solution to the “pirate-ninja peace process” and indeed all societal problems. Once we’ve all grown enlightened enough to learn that zombiehood is as natural as being alive, and is in fact preferable, we can all agree that laying down and accepting living death will solve all the world’s problems. Mr. Cubbins and Ms. Matsumura-Tamaribuchi are united in their opposition to undead rights, perhaps the only thing they do agree on, but even now any country or municipality that bans open zombiehood is experiencing a brain drain to more undead-friendly locales, and whether by persuasion or open bitings on the street, zombies will soon render both pirates and ninjas obsolete, with those that resist shown the error of their ways through the devouring of their delectable brain matter.
History is on our side; we will exhume you.
September 20, 2014
From “Down With Talk Like A Pirate Day” by Felisa Lloyd Matsumura-Tamaribuchi
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: Distinguished Daimyo, Felisa Lloyd Matsumura-Tamaribuchi, fiction, humor, Matsumura-Tamaribuchi, ninjas, pirates, pirates vs. ninjas, politics, Sharper Blades, story, Tokugawa Chair of Shinobi Studies, United Ninja College Fund |Leave a Comment
Yesterday’s post by Willam “Black Bill” Cubbins has elicited the following response from Felisa Lloyd Matsumura-Tamaribuchi. Ms. Matsumura-Tamaribuchi is a noted participant in the Occupy Treasure Island movement, the Sharper Blades, Sharper Minds katana outreach program, and the United Ninja College Fund. She is a current Distinguished Daimyo at Kaizoku University and is the Tokugawa Chair of Shinobi Studies there.
I actually find myself agreeing with the vile corsair “Black Bill” Cubbins when he wrote in his recent column warning against cultural misappropriation and lack of diversity within “Talk Like A Pirate Day,” a pseudo-holiday that no doubt many of he and his fellow repulsive buccaneers would like wiped off the face of the earth in as much as it highlights their inability to form articulate and coherent thoughts and sentences and their predisposition to plunder and violence.
But I would go even farther than “Black Bill” and argue that he and his race and their expansionist piratism are guilty of the very charges with which they seek to tar and muzzle their opponents. After all, what is the pirate-promoted image of the ninja as a violent and mercenary group of assassins but cultural misappropriation? What is the racist, xenophobic, colon-blocking, and meteor-summoning pirate occupation and oppression of ninja islands of spice and gold if not a lack of diversity? Humanity may be a beautiful rainbow, but it is clear that pirates are the reddest part of that rainbow, unable to communicate except by cannon fire and boardings in what they hypocritically call self-defense.
What about the Battle of Kagishuma Shrine Island which “Black Bill” mentioned in passing? Even though pirates claim to have given up their claims to that sacred outpost of ninjadom, they saw fit to invade it again over the summer, cannons and flintlocks blazing. By rough estimates compiled by the Ninjauthority, a completely impartial and independent group, over 200,000 ninjas died in the assault out of a prewar population of 200,001. And all that just because the ninjas of that peaceful island were exercising their sacred right, as ingrained at the bedrock of our culture and heritage, to raid passing pirate galleons and stuff the flayed skins of their crews with straw for use as targeting dummies. The pirate-run media has, of course, only taken their side in the matter through their biased reporting of ninjas going into battle wearing their own children as armor (which anyone with five minutes and Wikipedia knows is actually both a sacred tradition and a necessity on tiny Kagishuma Shrine Island).
In short, we must take “Black Bill” Cubbins at his word every “Talk Like A Pirate Day,” and indeed every day of the year, by pledging our lives and our treasure to the cause of throwing every last pirate back into the sea and slaughtering them to a man in the name of the peaceful ninja peoples.
September 19, 2014
From “Talk Like A Pirate Day Tips” by William “Black Bill” Cubbins IV
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: fiction, humor, ninjas, pirates, pirates vs. ninjas, story, Talk Like A Pirate Day, University of Plunder Bay, William Kidd Center for the Study of Pirate Culture |1 Comment
William “Black Bill” Cubbins IV, our regular commentator on pirate affairs, is pirate-in-residence at the University of Plunder Bay as well as executive director of UPB’s William Kidd Center for the Study of Pirate Culture. A devout pirate, his most recent prize was a Chinese junk full of junk food bound for snooty Californian importers.
Ahoy me hearties. On this, the most visible day for pirate culture, I’d like to issue a call to reason. Talk Like A Pirate Day is an opportunity to engage with pirate culture, but also an occasion for flouting hurtful pirate stereotypes. I’d like to share these simple tips with you:
-Remember, pirates are a culture, not a costume. It is never okay to dress as a pirate or, god forbid, a “sexy pirate” unless you identify with pirate culture.
-Slurs like ass pirate or widely discredited defamatory texts like Protocols of the Elder Pirates are never something that a pirate would use in daily conversation. Terms like buccanner or corsair are still controversial; the one thing everyone agrees on is that only pirates can decide when they are appropriate and that only pirates should use them.
-Pirates have many dialects. Try speaking the South China Sea or the Horn of Africa dialects of pirate to help educate people on our diversity and rich cultural heritage.
-Keep in mind the many pirates killed or wounded by vicious ninja attacks during this summer’s tragic Battle of Kagishuma Shrine Island. There are still many places in the world where ninjas actively seek the extermination of us and our way of life.
Excerpts From Nonexistent Books 