Leander Watts's Blog

BE PREPARED TO BE SPELLBOUND

"Hakim Bey: Real and Unreal is a compelling and spellbinding exploration into the enigmatic world of Hakim Bey. Metzger's unique non-narrative approach in recounting his relationship with Bey unfolds with a mesmerizing quality, skillfully intertwining earnestly playful anecdotes. As I navigated the pages, the narrative's immersive nature reached a point where the boundaries between reality and fantasy dissolved, leaving me captivated by the spellbinding allure of Bey's existence."

Garret A.

Review: FLAHERTY'S WAKE: ABORTIONIST, LAWYER, BOXER, AND PRIEST

This tome, eleven years in the writing, is one of the less expected productions from Metzger's eminent pen. It is a narrative history, a docudrama. It is written entirely in the first person voice of the main character, Charles Flaherty, Roman Catholic priest, boxer, amateur physician and abortionist, who lived in early twentieth century Rochester.

Over the years, Metzger has written a number of essays and books dealing with the Burnt Over District of western New York State, which was home to so ...

HAKIM BEY: REAL AND UNREAL - review

 "We can count on one hand the rarified few who truly knew the effervescent Hakim Bey well enough to write an authentic biographique of the infamous unholy man. Th. Metzger is the opposable thumb on that hand. Only a fez-sporting late century Moor, an Old Weird New Luddite, a sui generis scholar of crypto-religious kitsch-funk could offer up this manic account of the 'man made out of words, a story telling itself.' To be sure this effulgent, hallucinatory deep dive into Bey's, and Metzger's, fri...

HAKIM BEY: REAL AND UNREAL - just published

 For a man made of words, it is perversely perfect that none can capture the essence of Hakim Bey. Anarcho-Sufi wise man, scholar of the unknowable, miraculous monologist, psychedelic shaman: all of this is true. Yet it only suggests - rather than defines - this writer and the long shadow that he casts.

Th. Metzger was initiated into the Moorish Orthodox Church (resurrected in 1986 by Hakim Bey and ruled by him in perpetuity.) This new book is the story of their long-distance friendship and their...

Heart of Glass

Last night I watched a German film from 1976: Herz aus Glas (Heart of Glass.) It had subtitles, but much of the language I could make out, hearing the words behind and ahead of the blurry written text. After decades, I finally found this movie that has a mythic weirdness like few others. The director, Werner Herzog, claimed that he hypnotized the cast every day before shooting. Certainly some of them look like they're under a spell. The movie is slow, highly irrational, dreamy, and virtually...

Rock On Baby Queen

As a one-hit wonder who ended up far more successful acting than making music, David Essex here does the cinematic mind-meld. His hit veers toward romance ("prettiest girl I ever seen") then fades into lost-soul call: hissing sibilants ("ssssssshh)" and gospel wails ("Oh my soul"!) More trance than dance, more necromantic spell than pop song, "Rock On" still lingers in the ether - tugging at the souls of lonely planet kids who remember, or who have convinced themselves that their music-spawne...

The Book That Changed My Life

"Chaos," by the Great and Mysterious Hakim Bey, loomed out of the shadows in 1985. Published by the Grim Reaper Press in Providence, it's only 28 pages long. But line for line, phrase for phrase, no book has had as big an influence on me as a writer. Sometimes classified as a collection of rants, "Chaos" is much more than that: with a hundred times the gorgeous weirdness of countless other so-called Great Books. Most of these short poetic pieces made their initial appearances in cheap xeroxed...

Infernal Blessings

For weeks, there's been a small sign on the expressway bridge I pass under as I drive to work: "I love you, Jesus." Today, I saw it had been replaced by another sign: "Lucifer is Light." This got a genuine belly laugh out of me, and seems a good portent for the day. Thousands of cars pass under the sign every day. How many drivers will look up? How many will feel blessed by the light?

The Davi Question

A number of readers have asked: is Davi a boy or a girl., both or neither? That's a hard one to answer. Given that Meet me in the Strange is told by Davi, we never get a solid "he" or "she" - only "I."

I see Davi through a retrofuturist lens. Glam rock, from its beginnings, blurred the boundaries between the sexes. I'd often see the word "androgynous" used to describe Bowie, Eno, Jobriath and other early glam rockers. Literally, "androgynous" means man-woman or masculine-feminine. When the fir...

Retrofuturism

Meet Me in the Strange has been called a "retrofuturist novel." That is, it looks back and embraces much of the style, music, and attitudes of  '70s era glam rock. (And yes I was there, listening to Bowie, T Rex, Mott the Hoople, Roxy Music, Eno, New York Dolls.) It also looks to an alternate future - when the world (especially for two wild teenagers) is mutating into something strange, unpredictable and amazing.

Can a person be haunted by ghosts from the future? Why not? Can we send our...