Raymond Gaynor's Blog, page 48

YESTERDAY’S DELETED POST

IN case you’re wondering, yes, I voluntarily deleted yesterday’s post entitled “IS THAT A GUN IN YOUR POCKET…” in deference to the police lives lost in what might be called in history books The Capital Coup [Attempt]. Today, many are wondering why the Capital guards weren’t about to stop it. In my post I wondered how the attempted coup might have gone if everyone knew the Capital guards were not carrying guns, suggesting that events might go different if guards and civil police, like in some other countries, didn’t carry guns. I brought up this issue, admittedly subtly, in THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, in reference to the Enforcers, a future cadre of mixed civil guardians and police. In the book, while everyone makes it a case to avoid Enforcers, the one actual interaction between an Enforcer and a protagonist is when an Enforcer helps reclothe two bromancers after their failed public Sweet Sixteen Sexcapade, a rite-of-passage privilege afforded all residents of NewAmerica. Readers may or may not have noticed that Enforcers, while ominously clothed in black, do not wear military gear nor carry a weapon. Again, the only interaction revealed in the book is one what might be called a “Good Samaritan,” leaving all responsibility for a resident’s actions clearly on the resident.

While some might say this is a utopian idea, I would cite that most British police are not armed. They rely instead on specially trained Authorised Firearms Officers (AFO) to attend incidents where firearms are present or deemed necessary. Maybe it’s time to revisit this idea and the disarming of present America in anticipation of a NewAmerica.

The Edge of Madness

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859

MISSING NEW YEARS FIREWORKS?

LOOKING forward to a great New Year’s fireworks display is solidly on my agenda for every new year, but this year, it’s different. No crowds of people gathered in small groups on a grassy knoll sharing the excitement of a new year (or, if you’re like me, the excitement of leaving 2020 behind-and-good-riddance). Kind of the same-old-same-old without the crowd excitement. Okay, how about this:

https://youtu.be/3Ow0ET-ob3E

I have to say, and I don’t say it lightly, that the digital world does indeed have things pleasant to offer in both the present and presaging the future! I for one, found this a very exciting as well as sensual, at times even erotic New Year’s welcome irrespective of whether one is H, L, G, B, T or Q, red or blue, reader or author! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. It reminds me that 2021 can be the year of creativity unleashed, something I look forward to in literary as well as other aspects of life during the first year of the this decade [if you count 2021 as the first year of a new decade by the Gregorian calendar as I do, given my affinity for the character Gregory Ranlin in WILLIAM MALTESE’S FLICKER #2 BOOK OF ASCENDANCY (Savant 2020)].

So, given a great alternative start to a new Gregorian decade, why not continue it with a reading of my newly released work, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by none other than your blogger, Raymond Gaynor. “Taking up where TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese left off, NewAmerica, a shadow of its former United States of America, provides a challenging and dangerous future place for three young firebrands to live.”

William Maltese's Flicker: #2 Book of Ascendancy

The Edge of Madness

The Edge of Madness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je6CC...

WHAT’S BLACK AND WHITE AND READ ALL OVER?

REMEMBER that one? A particularly well-written novel. Okay, it used to a newspaper, but, hey, when was the last time you sat down, newspaper in hand, and read it from cover to cover. And given they are mostly advertisements these days, all the ads? Not me. Sorry. But a good novel, well, it’s not often you’ll find me without one in hand.

Unfortunately, as reading books continues to defer more and more to watching and listening to videos, perhaps the title should have been, “What’s Black and White and Should Be Read All Over?” And, if it’s a particularly good read, re-read again and again?

I am proud to say that the publisher of THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, Aignos Publishing, an imprint of Savant Books and Publications, is dedicated to avant garde works that are (1) enduring, (2) literary; (3) include a “twist;” and (4) expand the readers’ point-of-view or world-point-of-view. TEOM certainly is enduring if enduring means re-readable (I’m the author and have re-read it over 10 times since publication, each time discovering something new I hadn’t fully realized I’d included). It’s narrative is literary quality. It includes many “twists.” And, I think most readers would agree it stretches one’s point-of-view, and expands one’s world-point-of-view, like it or not.

So, “What’s Black and White and Read All Over?” THE EDGE OF MADNESS!

Available from all five official Savant online sales channels: The Publisher’s Store; Savant Bookstore Atlantic; Savant Bookstore Midwest; Savant Bookstore Pacific and Savant Bookstore Honolulu (https://checkout.square.site/buy/4MI5...), Amazon (including 10 different international channels, in the USA http://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859), GooglePlay at https://play.google.com/store/books/d...) and the Book Depository (with free shipping internationally at http://www.bookdepository.com/The-Edg...)

The Edge of Madness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je6CC...

…AND ALL FOR A BETTER NEW YEAR

HOPE. There’s nothing like it. Hope seems to me to be unique to our species (though every such claim in the past has eventually proven wrong). Still hope is something that can remain undaunted irrespective of the events of the past and the most dystopian futures. Not that 2021 is dystopian, though I often hear such and am aware of the various “Five-Year Hell” prophesies that correspond roughly with my own Dark Age predictions. But that hasn’t affected my hope that we humans will, in fact, begin to accomplish things right now that we’ve done so many of them wrong. Science says we learn from mistakes more than successes, and, well, that’s certainly something hopeful. We’ve sure made our share of mistakes in 2020.

I personally view hope as a gift of the Goddess rather than the God. Maybe it’s the need to cling to hope when given that birth is always risky. Then again, that Goddish-thing, war, certainly evokes risk, but intereastingly instead of hope, it seems to require bravado, increasing both the violence of war and the need to eliminate any empathy, another thing that seemed to me to be unique to our species, and, I’ve learned since, isn’t.

One truism most would agree with is that we humans do seem to be the most violent of species. I am of the opinion that money and power (power being the bedrock concept of violence and war, and money, the “financier” of conflict) are childhood illusions, and that someday (soon I hope) we humans will grow into young adulthood, leaving money, power and violence behind, replacing them with hope, empathy, cooperation and stewardship. That which actually makes our species more resilient. That may sound untopian; however, I’m not talking utopian anymore than I am dystopian when say that we’re currently trapped in a childish world of illusion of money, power and conflict. Get a copy of TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese, and a copy of its sequel THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor and see if you don’t, in the end, agree with me. Can we, as a whole, actually accomplish such a change? I think so, but the world, as I suggest in THE EDGE OF MADNESS would likely be quite different. There’s always need for balance.

Total Meltdown: A Tripler and Clarke Adventure

The Edge of Madness

THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor is now available in digital format for Android users from GooglePlay at

https://play.google.com/store/books/d....

A BETTER NEW YEAR TO ALL…

JUST a quick short post this time to wish all my author-colleagues, followers and friends, a better New Year than the last.

Sincerely,
Raymond Gaynor

https://i.postimg.cc/RC7RRMyb/Raymond...


Author of
THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020)

Co-author with A. G. Hayes of QUANTUM DEATH (Savant 2016) and with William Maltese of TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009)

Author website and Official Blog at https://garymartine.yolasite.com/raym...

Author Facebook site at https://www.facebook.com/raymond.gayn...

Author Twitter site at https://www.savantbooksandpublication...

Amazon author page at https://www.amazon.com/Raymond-Gaynor...

Amazon Goodreads author page at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

The Edge of Madness

AND NOTHING ABOUT MUCH ADO

THE year ends today. Whew. And good riddance. I don’t think I could stand much more dis-information and dis-integration.

Today’s topic then is rightfully about “chaos.” Chaos has to it’s name, a whole scientific theory: Chaos Theory, “an interdisciplinary theory stating that, within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, interconnectedness, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals, and self-organization.” To that, given the events of 2020, I would add the seeming befitting categorical distinction of “organized crime” (which presumes there exists dis-informed, dis-integrated, dis-organized crime on off-years, which I suspect might actually be true, at the least, fake true). The Encyclopedia Brittanica would take it a bit further, defining “chaosology” as “the study of apparently random or unpredictable behaviour in systems governed by deterministic laws. A more accurate term, deterministic chaos, suggests a paradox because it connects two notions that are familiar and commonly regarded as incompatible.”

Deterministic chaos? Is that what we experienced throughout 2020 and the preceding three years in USA? More like “determined” chaos, I think. Hey, I read THE ART OF THE DEAL way back when the idea of a Chaos President was truly indeterminate and, well, yes, absurdly chaotic. But back in 2016, I must admit, it didn’t seem so. At least, at first. So, what to call chaos that’s fake news rolled up into a theory of business where everybody participating “gets the business?” I’m thinking, “deserved chaos,” and I think that idea fully merits its own unique chaos theory.

I would like to say that THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor is a good example of a plausible future study that touches directly on the illusory idea that out of chaos will come something good and stable, but, well, that would be more fake news. THE EDGE OF MADNESS is a plausible future study on what could and likely would result from a period of destructive national political chaos like that described in its naughty, irreverent, LGBTQ bromance prequel, TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese. What actually comes of chaos is…well…more chaos. Making today’s post truly nothing about much ado.

The Edge of Madness
Total Meltdown: A Tripler and Clarke Adventure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je6CC...

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

TODAY’S post is, in my mind, the perfect segue from yesterday’s post, THE RETURN OF THE KING, given the King never returned and hopefully won’t anytime in the future. Still, there’s a certain veracity and candor hidden within yesterday’s and today’s post.

The ancient Greeks, our historical fore-fathers and -mothers gave us a solipsistic truism: Truth value exists within only one of the five classic appeals to humanity: logos. An appeal to reason and logic, a logos appeal is “true” only when the intent of the speaker or writer is pure, the arguments are appropriate and the evidence solid. In form, but not intent, or appropriateness, or solidly evidenced, it has been used to perpetrate some of the most egregious falsehoods ever. Recall for a moment ex-President Bush’s near perfect formal logos appeal to go to war with Iraq which, while appropriately argued, was based on a personal grudge against Saddam Hussein and used engineered evidence. Many died as a result. Still, honest, appropriate, well-evidenced logos has the power of truth inherent in its appeal.

The second appeal, pathos (an appeal to emotion), has no truth value, but it does have an important purpose. When there is insufficiently clear intent, arguments or evidence — as with much in this life, like, for example, choosing a mate — our emotions can serve as a decision guide, based as they are on everything we’ve individually experienced thus far. But as the character Commander Spock in StarTrek was wont to say, one must control one’s emotions lest they control you.

The third appeal, ethos (an appeal to morality or religion), sadly, also has no truth value, the “problem” being that ethics, morality and religion are products of their times and culture. They are impermanent and changeable, though more slowly than emotions. They are typically more a reflection of consistency than truth.

The fourth appeal, keiros (an appeal based on a popular authority) again has no truth value. More enduring than emotions but less so than ethics, morality or religion, popular figures as are commonly being presented on social media, come and go over time (the kernel of truth), but having a typically monetary “purpose,” rarely if ever fully encompass truth.

The fifth appeal, numos or nomos (appeal to the law) is a powerful governmental appeal, but outside a particular government (and often inside if the law is imperfect), it again has no enduring truth value. Laws come and go, depending on the people doing the governing and being governed. Numos or nomos, can, however, be seen to, on occasion, represent the momentary needs, wants and desires of the governing and governed.

In short, in my opinion, what 2020 has suffered by and from is the lack of good logos appeal. Business, which typically incorporates all five appeals as well as numerous logical fallacies in what it calls advertising and marketing, and idealizes the acquisition of money, has little if any intrinsic truth value. I struggled with this issue in THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor. If money and power are the illusions I claim and try so hard to so point out by outright exaggeration in the novel, then what will replace (or, in the case of the novel, has already replaced) them?

The Edge of Madness

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859

Business, I think, isn’t capable of good governing, and should never be permitted to monetize government. The same is the case, I think, regarding critical social issues like health care, care of widows and orphans, social security and education — to name a but a few. Business by its nature is inhumane. Recognizing this, acknowledging it, and dealing with it are the three biggest issues, in my mind, of 2021.

THE RETURN OF THE KING

WITH all due deference to J. R. R. Tolkien, in this day and age it is, at best, dubious if the return of the King is something to which anyone should look forward. The USA has had its fling with Elvis and King Trump. Now it’s time to get back down to governing democratically.

You might be surprised, when I say I’m not uniformly against kings, queens, royalty or aristocracy. Not scientists or religious leaders, either. They all can serve a higher purpose acting as examples of moral rectitude, searchers for the truth, watchdogs, foils, even influencers, spoilers and sponsors. And one can rationally argue that in times of war, democracy isn’t necessarily the most efficient way to run a nation. These days Japan has it all: a monarchy with royalty; a diet with prime minister; and in times of war, a military shogun.

But democracies aren’t as inept as some would have us believe, in peace or war. It all depends on the people and their representatives. If the representatives represent the needs, wants and desires of those who vote for them, and are able to compromise for the good of all and in the spirit of progress, then it works grandly. Without a king, kingly president, or a president unable to self-confine to effectively and humanely administering the many departments necessary to govern, democracy can become one of the most ineffective and, most importantly, inhumane forms of governance. That behooves strictly maintaining the division between administrative, judicial and legislative (and not blurring their boundries), and strictly maintaining the attributes of a good representative as mentioned above. The idea of sowing chaos may be good for business (though I personally think it not), but it has no place in enduring democratic governance.

At the moment, it may seem all of Trump, by Trump and for Trump, but I believe that logic and rationality, the cornerstones of truth, will eventually prevail and return our nation, as that most famous of Republican Presidents, Abraham Lincoln once said, “of the people, by the people, for the people” once again.

Still, I would make two “predictions” for the coming year:

First, COVID-19 won’t be gone by this time next year. From a strictly “business” point-of-view, there’s no reason. There’s too much money to be made yet from the pandemic and, sadly, the infrastructures necessary to insulate government from a future disaster aren’t any closer to being in place than before.

Finally, the problems resulting from business trying to run a government won’t go away. They may even, like COVID, amplify, become a pandemic and issue forth new, even more destructive variants. There’s just too much money floating around as a result of the first and second (and possibly a future third, even fourth) necessary COVID recovery bills. Business, like flies, is irresistibly attracted to honey and feces. The critical point will be when citizens tire of paying for “getting the business” done to them, and demand a return to a better and brighter future “service” economy and all it reapresents.

Of course, I could be wrong. Predictions are, after all, notoriously 50-50, gaining strength only when what’s predicted just happens to happen. I would argue, however, like with TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2016) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese, and its sequel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, the value is in hearing or reading the prediction, so that voting citizens can choose more consciously and wisely.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859

HOW TO MAKE A READ EROTIC?

NOW there’s an issue deserving of an author’s thoughts during these dull days between Christmas and the beginning of a new year. Is what makes a work erotic primarily in dialog or narration? The former? Both? Neither? Is it a scene, the actual words chosen, the implication…

I guess it depends on what the reader thinks is erotic, erotic meaning “relating to or tending to arouse sexual desire or excitement” according to a contemporary online dictionary. Unfortunately what should be a simple question is, at best, highly existential, given the incredible range of triggers that can arouse sexual desire or excitement. Okay, given that perplexity, once again, is what makes a work erotic a product of the narrator’s voice (the typical occult “storyteller”) or the protagonists and/or antagonists as well as the supporting person’s voices? I’m curious to hear what you, the reader think. Remember, the question’s ultimately not about what but how.

I played with this question throughout THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, beginning with a sensuous view of what it might be like while developing in the womb through birth, both from the narrator’s and the as yet unborn’s point of view, all the way through what — set in the future — two of the three protagonists’ “Sweet Sixteen Salsa Sexcapade,” a public bromantic act that was never actually consummated. Add a love triangle and an act of desperation over an unrequited love. But was it the dialog or the narrative that hopefully created a feeling of eroticism in the reader, if, indeed, it did at all? EDGE OF MADNESS readers unite and please comment on this post with your answer. I’m as Curious Yellow as an author can possibly be.

While waiting for feedback, I’m off to work on the sequel to the first book, TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese, and the second book in my Prophesy series, THE EDGE OF MADNESS, which I’m tentatively calling “Shadow.” In it, everyone from THE EDGE OF MADNESS learns something important that “up’s the ante” over whether to stay and make the best of what they have (and they have A LOT when together), or to leave either together or separately to seek new fortunes. It’s not an easy choice, but it’s another classic one, not unlike whether to speak out, live or simply experience what’s happening all about into one’s definition and experience of eroticism.

The Edge of Madness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je6CC...

THE LONG JOURNEY FROM CHRISTMAS TO NEW YEARS

I don’t know about you, but I find the time from Christmas to New Years particularly long and dreary. For me, Christmas is the real end of the year, the New Year the beginning of the next, and the time inbetween more like a funeral, with everyone wearing black while brooding over all they’re missing. Add the pandemic and the increasingly chaotic state of government affairs and it seems like everyone is reluctantly walking through molasses to the sound of a funeral dirge. Okay, color me black (but with little sparkles here and there) and brush it off to post-holiday blues, but I think not. I’ve never been dystopian nor utopian but rather well grounded in between both as a person and author. I’ve had plenty of darkness at the beginning of my life, and plenty of warm and fuzzy light in my adulthood. The opposite of how I view the time between Christmas and the New Year.

I’m reminded that for many, the New Year far overshadows any religious, spiritual or cultural holidays, and I’m one who enjoys sending off the old year in the Japanese tradition, with a cup of Toshikoshi soba as the sun sets, gettin up before sunrise to welcome the new year sun with a hot cup of tea in hand and a bite of chocolate or azuki pastry. The morning can then be spent preparing the afternoon New Year’s “osechi-ryori” feast. This late afternoon dinner consists of numerous small food offerings, not unlike Spanish tapas, including some of my personal favorites, kuromame (sweetened black beans); kamaboko (fish cakes); kurikonton (boiled mashed sweet potatoes and sweet chestnuts); namasu (shredded carrot and Japanese radish seasoned with vinegar; ebi (shrimp); kinpira gobo (burdock root marinated with vinegar and sesame); and subasu (lotus root seasoned with vinegar), all while watching the popular Japanese New Year’s musical variety program, Kouhakuutagassen, on television and visiting a shrine or temple late that night. It’s sort of like eating fast food snacks while watching football and attending church service that night. Except I’m not particularly fond of violence and contact sports.

2020 has, rightly in my mind, been popularly dubbed “The Plague Year” in passing. I certain hope the New Year is such that it will acquire a better epitaph.

Sincerely,
Raymond Gaynor

The Edge of Madness
Total Meltdown: A Tripler and Clarke Adventure
Quantum Death

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859