Jeff Mach's Blog, page 34

Sea-Slaves

(An Introduction)

Once there was a Mermaid who became the slave of a Fisherman; or perhaps, it was a Fisherman who became a Mermaid’s slave; it’s all complicated and strange, and I don’t think anyone has the whole story, but I’ll tell what I can before I drown.

For it was the Fisherman who saw the enchanted beauty of the Mermaid; and some say he loved her because she was beautiful, which is no great basis on which to build a relationship, only she was beautiful because she made him think of the Sea, and the Sea held his heart beneath its waves, in a long-sunken storage chest.

In many tales, the Mermaid is an ethereal beauty of deep pools and foam, and the Seaman a rough, unlettered, unattractive specimen; but need it be so? What’s a mermaid’s standard of beauty? And what do we say about a man who goes out, daily, to earn bread in defiance of tempest, storm, strange beasts from the underdepths of the waters, and the simple challenges of filling a small, simple fishing net with enough fish to feed yourself, much less anyone else? There is a bravery and a responsibility and a strength and, perhaps, something worth love.

The tales say the Mermaid was the slave of the Fisherman; and one might reverse it and say the Fisherman is the slave of the Mermaid. For was he not captivated by her eyes, by her shapely form, by her siren song?

What if they were both captivated by each other, and if they were slaves, not of force, not of some sort of brutal theft from their lives, but rather, of their love?

A pretty story; but really, between you and I, dear reader, why must we tell lies?

There was only one love here, only one persecutor, only one pitiless and abusive enforcer of What We Ought do With Our Emotions, and that was our very ancient enemy: The Sea.

What was it in her eyes by the ever-shifting currents of the Sea?

What lifted and dropped his heart but the pitiless tides of the Sea?

What made their kisses addictive but the taste of brine?

No, friends, the Sea—endless and ancient enemy of Humanity, devourer of our greatest civilizations, our progenitor and still, in its own mind, our Keeper and Owners—has joined forces with Love, the oppressor who wrecks our lives, wrecks our families, wrecks our happiness in order to bring together those who would otherwise be safely apart and able to live out honest lives.

Beware being drowned by these icy and uncaring forces.

Come with me, friend, and I will help drown you with Words, my first love, my first joy, my onliest begetter.

Words have never claimed to be kind.

Words have never claimed to be sustaining (like sea-water) only to end up filled with salt.

Let us leave the Fisherman and the Mermaid to sadness and slavery, and let us leap from word to word, and if words might suffocate, might suffuse, might crush us, might drive us out of our senses—at least words never claimed to be anything but what they are. They are the tools of civilizations and of monsters; but I repeat myself.

One day, the Mermaid died, or the Sailor died, drowned in tears; and you can read all about it, and so much more.

Leave you the ridiculous and mortal world behind, and come with me for words words words words words words words.

yours truly,

the Slave of Letters,

~Jeff Mach

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To Your Leader

ONCE upon a time, a space alien landed in New York, and said, to anyone who would listen, “Take me to your leader.”

Think “The Day The Earth Stood Still”. Think “To Serve Man”. Think “V”.

The aliens were hostile. Or perhaps they were kind and misunderstood. One thing is sure: They had a death wish.

Are they a terribly advanced species? They must be; who else could cross the great cosmic chasms? Are they fools? They must be. Who wouldn’t realize that this seemingly simple question works only in worlds where world leadership is certain? Even a little bit of time spent reading our world through monitoring our television broadcasts, a perverse and weird occupation for any advanced species, would let you know better, would teach you more about us.

So it’s a strange request. But they make it anyway. And what can you do? One can’t ignore space aliens on one’s virtual doorstep, no matter how one might try. So most likely, they meet with a leader (or, more specifically, and more accurately, they meet with somebody in charge of something.

This tale then heads somewhere like this: The aliens judge us and find us unworthy, or else—

Humans are conquered.

Humans are eaten.

Humans are mistrustful and join not the Brotherhood of sentients in the Universe.

Ah, sorrow. We wanted to much to prove that we were really, truly ready to join the Great Cosmic Harmoniousness, only to, instead, prove once and for all that we are less than Galactic children (for Children can learn, and sometimes want to learn; and we have neither desire nor inclination, lest we be taken over by rival Humans whose thought patterns drown out our own.)

In the end, all Humans are either gobbled, or left behind. It is a tragedy—if you’re a human; otherwise, it’s a narrow escape (for everything in the Galaxy but us.)

And so it goes.

We use this to comment on how despicable, backwards, and broken Human culture is, how we are not fit to join the Brotherhood of the Universe.

BALDERDASH.

(And BANDERSNATCH; but that’s another tale.)

Let’s be real here.

Any alien who lands in Central Park to make first contact has a strong sense of drama, and untrustworthy intentions. Interstellar travel they’ve got, faster-than-light travel they’ve got, but telephones they ain’t got? They can send a whole ship, but they can’t send a postcard? We’re just supposed to know what to do when they appear out of nowhere?

Where did these beings evolve, such that it’s normal for strange, powerful, unknown things to appear without warning, and not be perceived as threats? Are there no carnivores on their home planets? No volcanoes, seemingly harmless, dormant for years, then suddenly, for all intents and purposes, exploding?

Listen: they come to Earth, they better expect mistrust, missiles, and wildly different definitions of ‘beer’, based on where one lands. Me, I’m a New Yorker. You land in my park with no warning, no explanation, damn right I’m going to steal your tires and write my name on your ship, because either your intentions are very, very sketchy and you deserve worse; or you’re too naïve to survive in this part of the Galaxy, and I feel bad for you. Take it as a lesson. Sorry about the wheels. Let me buy you a pretzel.

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Vaguely Doomenized

(Not that News is ever interrupted these days. What, exactly, is supposed to be more frightening and horrible than what we’re already watching?)

We interrupt tonight’s news to bring you a breaking update. Although most news seems to be about things breaking, doesn’t it? It’s as if it isn’t news if everything is shiny and well-designed.

It appears that Doctor Doom has taken over this very television station, or mostly, and laid bare our minds to his total mind control, or mostly,

His telepathic powers are awesome,

But he does have a tendency to digress.
It’s very useful in his improv classes,
And he’s hoping to do a local open mic night in the near future—
Sorry, apparently some of those
Were inside-thoughts,
Not broadcast brainwaves;
improv is horrifyingly contagious.

What is the Doctor up to?

At this distance, it’s hard to tell,

But the point is that he now controls this station,
(Did I mention this is a station of some sort?)
And soon he will have some Hot Pockets,

Sorry,
I mean,

Soon he will take over your mind as well,

For example, I, myself, am not exactly completely unable to stop myself from saying these things out loud, though I fear they don’t do much to make me a more interesting person.

But in my defense, they ARE newsworthy,

And the telepathic powers at work are of excellent quality,

And now I want a Hot Pocket.

Do we have any Hot Pockets?

….apparently, I’m not the only one under telepathic compulsion here,

There’s a hot pocket riot near the vending machine;

Whoever owns this machine will be rich,

If we don’t tear the machine,
Or each other,
To bits of bits.

At any rate,
Dr. Doom has decided to spend a little time
On a remote mountain

Improving his technique
Before he comes back to take over everything.

Fear him,
For he shall stay there, focusing the awesome powers
Of his parietal lobe

And doing nothing but testing his brain
And eating all of the hot pockets

Which he just stole
From the machine

Without even paying for them,

The jerk.

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A Day in Villainpunk Life

 

·         * * * *

 

 

Villainpunk

 

We interrupt tonight’s news to bring you a breaking update. Although most news seems to be about things breaking, doesn’t it? It’s as if it isn’t news if everything is shiny and well-designed.

 

It appears that Doctor Doom has taken over this very television station, or mostly, and laid bare our minds to his total mind control, or mostly,

 

His telepathic powers are awesome,

But he does have a tendency to digress.

It’s very useful in his improv classes,

And he’s hoping to do a local open mic night in the near future—

Sorry, apparently some of those

Were inside-thoughts,

 

Not broadcast brainwaves.

At this distance, it’s hard to tell,

 

But the point is that he now controls this station,

And soon he will have some Hot Pockets,

Sorry,

 

I mean,

Soon he will take over your mind as well,

 

For example, I, myself, am not exactly completely unable to stop myself from saying these things out loud,

But in my defense, they ARE newsworthy,

And the telepathic powers at work are of excellent quality,

 

And now I want a Hot Pocket.

 

Do we have any Hot Pockets?

 

….apparently, I’m not the only one under telepathic compulsion here,

There’s a hot pocket riot near the vending machine;

 

Whoever owns this machine will be rich,

If we don’t tear the machine,

Or each other,

To bits.

 

At any rate,

Dr. Doom has decided to spend a little time

On a remote mountain

Improving his technique

Before he comes back to take over everything.

 

Fear him,

For he shall stay there, focusing the awesome powers

Of his parietal lobe

And doing nothing but testing his brain

And eating all of the hot pockets

Which he just stole

From the machine

Without even paying for them,

The jerk.

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The Sabryna – A Swamp Witch Cocktail

It is little-known that I have been conducting experiments on certain specific cocktails.

I wanted to see if one could make a drinkable, desirable, peaty Laphroaig cocktail. With the help of an extraordinary bartender, I succeed, and “The Bloody Bullshot” came into this world, as a variant of the “Bullshot” from Ian Fleming’s story, “The Hildebrandt Rarity”. (You’ll find that recipe, and others, in “The Villainpunk Cookbook”. I’ve also posted a few recipes to the Aethernet; that’s one of them, if I recall correctly. You’re welcome to try it yourself; do let me know what happens. The management is not responsible for the consequences thereof.)

Now, ever since the advent of “Repo! The Genetic Opera”, I have been interested in a really good Zydrate formula. The challenge is actually that, as we know very little of the substance save its color, it’s far too tempting to simply make a blue drink. And that’s hardly new – even if the “Blue Hawaii” wasn’t a staple of Tiki Bars in the 1950s, we’d have Romulan Ale and the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster just from fandom. (I recently attended the wedding of Mr. James Gallagher and the now-Mrs. Gallagher, and I found out that the latter is actually green. Looked like a glass of slightly watery Pernod; hit like Jack Dempsey. It’s just Midori, sour mix, and some sort of what is, I infer, some sort of black magic. But I digress.)

Zydrate, in and of itself, is a fascinating drug. Cordwainer Smith’s “Stroon” granted semi-immortality. Aldous Huxley’s “Soma” granted a mindless bliss, and LeGuin’s somewhat-less-defined “Soma” granted happiness at (almost) no price, Zydrate is known for its qualities of being delivered in a little glass vial, and for inducing a blissful state wherein “you don’t feel nothin’ at all”.

I can’t make the same guarantee of this version. But at least, unlike its movie counterpart, this cocktail isn’t illegal.

Not as far as you know, anyway.

It’s said that “Sabryna” is a swamp-witch of inestimable abilities. This is probably true. The drink below might sound peculiar; that’s because it is:

Peach schnapps. (Yes, peach. I realize there’s blue schnapps, but why would you do that to yourself?)
St. Germaine
Botanical Gin
Blue Curacao

Sour gummy worm. (This is for flavor, not looks. It compliments the overall sweetness of this beverage. A purist might serve gummy worms to the side of the thing, rather than dropping it into the potion. That encourages consumption and helps your willing victim understand that the food item is there for their happiness, not to add a ‘swamp’ look.)

1. Pour out generous servings of everything. Put a bunch into the drink. If it’s not sweet enough, add schnapps and St. Germaine. Too sweet? Add Gin.

2. Stir, stir, stir, stir.

3. Add gummy worms!

Eat, drink, and be intoxicated as a Faerie who discovered a whiskey tree.

HAIL, DIONYSUS!

Enjoy, friends!

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Some Things At Which Faeries Are Excellent

10.      Horseless carriages. Okay, technically, if you have Faerie eyes, they’re not exactly “horseless”, though I’m hesitant to give any other name to those 12-legged abominations. Still: if you want a good car at a good price, see a Faerie. In fact, if you’ve been seeing good cars at good prices, you’ve probably ALREADY seen Faeries.

9.       Directions. Trust me, if a Faerie doesn’t know how to get somewhere, it’s probably not worth getting to.

Not that I’m advising that you be in said place thereafter. In fact, while the Fae give splendid directions, not everyone feels it’s a good idea to tip them off to any potential destination. At least, not a place you like. Or a place I like.

I recommend telling them “Philadelphia”. Philadelphia deserves it.

8.       Great advice. Ever wondered if you should draw against a straight flush? If you ought to have just one more drink the size of a fishbowl before you get on the road? Faeries have the answer to everything, and the answer is probably “YES!”

The “noooooooooooooooooo!” part comes later.

7.       Vast knowledge. Just ask one of the Fae Circus where the biggest, strongest, most unbelievable things is, and that Fae will put to itself with all three thumbs and say, “Right here!”

6,423,179. Rearranging numbers and stealing words.

Don’t ask.

5.       Magic tricks. “Want to see me disappear?” the Fae will ask. “I need nothing except, perhaps, all of your gold and trinkets.” And suddenly…the being is gone.

4.       Knowing nothing. “I didn’t do it! No-one did it! It didn’t even happen! I’m not even sure what you’re talking about! (To be fair, this is a trick learned from mortals. On the other hand, when mortals say it, it’s sometimes true.)

3.       Understanding of mortality. “We’re all gonna die someday, mortal fool, so meanwhile, dance and sing while you still can!”

2.       Musicality. After just a few Faerie Cocktails, everything they howl is perfectly in tune.

1.       Domestication. Of course the wild elves can be domesticated, same as wolves. You merely bring them into your home and, within days (sometimes hours!) all inconvenient walls are down, all staircases lead nowhere, all valuables are in a great big pile, and the Fae is sitting there, saying, “Oh, you’ll never BELIEVE what happened….”

_________

Jeff Mach is just this guy, you know?

You can buy my novel, “I Hate Your Prophecy“, if you really want to. Heck, you could buy my other books, too; I won’t stop you.

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A NOTEOF WARM AND EMOTIONALLY-RESONANT GREETINGS FROM THE EVIL EXPO TEAM

As always, as has been our tradition for thousands of years, we welcome you with a heartfelt show of warm and an overflowing bounty of human kindness. Each and every one of those hearts was personally picked by one of our midrange lower-range personal assistants to one of the personal assistant of one of the Chief Executive Officer’s hand-picked second-tier third-secretaries, and so you can be certain that our wealth of caring went into each and every one. Just the wealth of caring, though. The rest of it, rest assured, is maintained safely in our vaults.

We look forward to bringing each and every one of you closer to our eternal dream of success: eating TWO hearts at once with nobody stopping you. Actually, that’s surprisingly easy; nobody here cares at all. But we do intend to help you with the real problem which confronts all of us today: ultimate dominion over this Universe, plus any other Universe which appears to look promising and makes the mistake of getting in our way.

As many of you know, we conquered this and ever other possible Multiverse thousands of years ago, and this Expo is your single remaining chance to curry favor with beings whose powers we cannot begin to comprehend, beings who have TWO executive parking spaces even though, technically, they can only drive one at a time.

And as many of the rest of you know, Dominion is a constant struggle between our assorted forces of those of Goodness, Light, Sanity and Moderation which stand in our way.

How can they both be true? It’s a complex Universe, my dear friends and enemies.

But through it all, Evil Expo is here to equip you with the tools, the contacts, the advanced nanotechnological devices, and the networking you need to fight your battles for dominance and come out ahead, or at least ahead of the poor fools who DIDN’T sign up for this Expo.

We wish all of you good fortune, a wealth of experience, and sufficient savvy to keep robbing the Galactic Banks so you can afford to come back.

Let us, as totally normal human beings who are surely not mutants, space aliens, malevolent forces given shape, demons, tax auditors, monsters that hide in the closet, monsters that hide under the bed, and, in general, creatures whose very existence would end human “sleep” as we know it if only they knew we were even vaguely real—let’s go forth and party, gentlebeings! Because you only live ten or fifty or a hundred times before they forget who you are and you retreat into the shadows to regroup and, hopefully, buy tickets again. In the meantime:

A toast to excellence, hard work, knowledge, and excessively criminal activity! Dark blessings upon you all, and to each and every one of you we wish an absolutely unfair advantage. We’ll help you acquire it. You go forth and use it as you see fit; we’ll duck and run like blazes.

_____________________

Find the Universe’s greatest Villainy convention at www.EvilExpo.com.

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10 Signs You Live In A Utopia

10. Massive segments of your society spend their time pretending very hard that other segments don’t exist. And it’s not people who live incredibly disparate lives; in fact, the more similar they are to each other, the more vehement each side is that the other isn’t real at all.

9. You have cheap and easy access to more music than any other society in the history of ever, while musicians themselves probably find it harder to make a living now than at any other time, and that includes the Stone Age.

8. Misery is a status symbol.

7. Technology is advanced to a level beyond the wildest dreams of wide-eyed futurists of the past, and it’s still seen as deficient, destructive, and frustrating.

6. Oh, and that technology makes it much easier for you to run your life, which would be helpful, except the people who own, sell, market and/or mandate that technology have decided that they should be the ones in charge of your life. And they insist that they’re empowering you, and that you should be happy about it.

5.  Whereas other PEOPLE tell you that the World is a bad place, and if you’re not actively unhappy, it’s because you don’t care about all the bad things. You are somehow expected to be seriously hurt by the horribleness of all things, yet also have the energy to fix them. And that’s the EASY path, from the people who think things CAN be fixed.

4. You’re urged to be happy about all the good things that are happening, but only relatively happy, because the awful things predominate. It’s your job to make a better future; but you’re possibly a traitor if you want to fix things. Because possibly, you’re supposed to believe that things are NOT fixable, and the only way to make the awful things better is to increase the awful until everything is destroyed, and only then can we make good things. But we still won’t deserve them, of course.

3. Point #4 is not a weird, fringe view. We are continually assured by our mainstream information sources that things are essentially infinitely terrible.

2. Also, those technologies which run your life are considered “smart”, which is to say, they know a whole lot about you, and can attend to your needs with great convenience, and are also openly engineered to CREATE more things for you to need and more reasons for you to be unhappy, and again, this is not a conspiracy theory; this is something they advertise as a feature.

Finally, we’re also trying to destroy our language, and so we’re giving new meanings to words, or even giving opposite meanings to words. Did you know that “Utopia” is just another word for “Dystopia” now? It isn’t…at the time of this writing. So if it’s any comfort, 1 of these 10 things is a lie. And if it’s any discomfort: 9 of them are quite true. But hey – if you’re reading something on the Internet and only ten per cent of it is a lie, you’re pretty fortunate. So all in all, if you made it this far, you win! Also, “Win” is another word for “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH”; but I imagine you knew that already.

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The Under-Rock

I live under a rock, and I live comfortably
And I am vastly flatter than anyone has a right to be.
For I am but a shadow that never has been cast
I think my time will come when enough magic has amassed.

To let me out into the sun, where I rightfully belong
And I can do ever so frightfully wrong.

What shape is a shadow the comes nowhere from?
Am I full of spikes? Am I stubby-legged thumb?
Inky black potential. I have teeth, though I’ve no lips.
I’ve a mouth made of the darkness of the very last eclipse.

You know you have a shadow, you think it ordinary
You think you understand it, this dark thing that you carry
A shadow is just natural when the light has been blocked.
And try to never ask what happens if it is unlocked.

I am an uncast Shadow.
I am the evil twin. O
f something far more dangerous than anything that’s ever been.
I live under a rock. When that rock is overturned
I’ll teach ungentle lessons that will never be unlearned.

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The Circus Leaves

(the Circus never leaves.)

What is the Circus, if not those who make it be?
Attendee, performer, nail-biting manager,
Uncomplaining tentpole-hammerer,
Exacting make-up artist,
Slapdash but effective electricity-stealing rewirer,

Moon-painter,
Cannon-maintainer,
Leftover-fire-eater (waste note, want not) –

You, of course,

Me,

All of us;

Every eager audient,
Every doubting sport-spoiler,
The grumbling manager,
The worried lass whose job it is to fill in
All those holes in the concrete
Left by illicit tent-poles-hammering;

The Elephants, who no longer perform,
But, instead, keep the books, and rarely
(but sometimes)

Forget.

There is a Bridge
Which is inconveniently not anywhere near as metaphorical as one might prefer,
Between You at the Circus and You the rest of the time.
At the Circus, you can be more alive than Frankenstein’s thunderstruck experimental doom,

More yourself than you could explain to any carping Zen master interrogating you about your True Nature, but

That doesn’t mean you need the Circus, must literally follow it from town to town and wormhole to wormhole.

No: The Circus is a place which has far too much wanderlust not to be, a little bit,

In your pocket, in your commute, in your left ventricle,
And that Bridge between the time you’ve spent here

And the time where (according to Responsible Authorities) you are somewhere else,
That Bridge is more solid, more reified, than anything.

The Bridge persists; on one side is whatever you are feeling now,
And on the other side is the Circus,
And even when you can’t find the Circus,

It’s there,

And sometimes it’s on both sides,
The bandleader-high-stepping across the center of the Bridge, this way and that,
and

The Bridge persists.
The Circus persists.
It is only the mundane,
Too dull to exist without its anti-glamour of cement and pessimism,

Which doesn’t really exist.

Nothing is normal;
Everything is the Show of Shows.

You don’t have to run away to join the Circus;
You join the Circus,

And it will run next to you,
Offering kaleidoscope lights
On even the dullest roads.

Everything is lit by Faerielight;
And Faerielight changes everything.

This is your home;
Prestidigitate on in

anytime you want.

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