S.D. Stewart's Blog, page 7

recent dreams

(1) Panoramic view of an obscure private social club—dark wood, dim lighting, a spiral staircase. Here, convicted individuals wearing ankle monitoring bracelets mingle with ordinary club members. I am a new recruit to an elite cadre of enforcers charged with circulating among the crowd and periodically inserting keycards into the ankle bracelets of the convicted […]

jasper the badger

Sir, your badger… Yes, his name is Jasper. Sir, some of the passengers have reported your badger has been biting their ankles. Why do you persist in referring to him as ‘your badger’? He has a name, dammit, and it’s Jasper. Whatever his name, sir, we can’t have him running amok in the cabin. He’s […]

a dream-story

I arrive in town exhausted. The need to stash my belongings points to a decrepit white Victorian with the air of a boarding house. No one’s around when I enter but this does not concern me. I shove my bags under the bed in an otherwise empty room and return to the street. No one’s […]

‘yeah, that’s right, that’s the way it is’

the porcupine and the balloon*

The Porcupine and the Balloon were never meant to be friends….or were they. It will end badly, said the Balloon’s sagging mother. Mrs. Porcupine, her quills white-flecked with age, was less concerned⁠—not foreseeing any obvious threat to her spiny little offspring. You better keep your distance if you wish to stay friends for long, was […]

outside the walls

Outside the city walls the scientist retires to smoke his long-stemmed pipe and absorb the local gossip. As the burnt yellow of the sky fades, scattered fires spring up, each circled by a huddle of indistinct figures. The scientist approaches one such group, steps within the fire’s glow and notices a figure seated apart from […]

bass terror – tetragrammaton

From the 1995 Bass Terror album by Bill Laswell and Nicholas Bullen.

the botanist LIVE

‘There are some elements rooted in established musical theory that make their way into how Botanist songs get written. But really, it’s more a question of summoning. When Botanist music gets recorded, I channel an entity within me that’s been named ‘The Botanist’, a character whose perspective dictates the content of the music and lyrics. […]

r.i.p. david berman

It’s so hard watching them continue to fall . . . Oh Where by David Berman Where did you go, my dear, my day; Where, oh where, did you go? To market, to maker of market, to say Too much of the little I know. Where did you go, my dear, my year; Why did […]

ursula k. le guin documentary

Streaming free during August on PBS.org.