neko cam > Recent Status Updates

'The Man in the Thick Black Spectacles' 4/5. I'm reminded of Jeff Vandermeer's 'The Situation' in that it is a strange story concerning a strange office. In fact, upon reflection, perhaps 'The Situation' had been Bizarro before I even knew of the genre! I'll have to re-read it sometime.

'Hairware Inc.' 3/5. Now we're in the swing of things; facial hair as pets! (Also, perhaps I prefer stories at least a little longer than flash fiction)

'Cops & Bodybuilders' 3/5. Silly set up with a funny twist ending.

2/5. Not too keen on it, but sporadic moments of dream-logic were good.

The first author is D. Harlan Wilson.

An old wives' mention of Rhiannon, the Dark Witch of the Coos!

Hah! Flagg is reading the Necronomicon.

Once again it is content espoused during a History & Moral Philosophy class that has me re-reading every line to make sure I've caught its full meaning. This time it's an exploration primarily of why the novel's hypothetical political structure works, and it's a fascinating thought exercise.

Chapter 8, the story of Dillinger and it's resultant flashback to discussion of juvenile delinquency, was one of the most interesting explorations of any such subject I've read in recent memory. This is a passage I'm sure I'll return to several times and reflect upon in the future.

"Spaceships are for acrobats who are also mathematicians."

"My bed is warm and wide," he said, "and life is short."

"If I were an amoeba, he thought, with an infinitesimal body, I could defeat ugliness. A man isn't tiny or giant enough to defeat anything."

"The map had been the first form of misdirection, for what [is] a map but a way of emphasizing some things and making other things invisible?"

"Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead to share with the worms that..."

One chapter into Annihilation and I'm enjoying it greatly. Already so many seeds have been planted and I greatly look forward to their germination.

"And when you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. Desolation tries to colonise you."

I must say that I thought the quality of the story dipped markedly right towards the end there, but the *very* end spiked right up again.

It's remarkable how comfortably and convincingly Vonnegut writes himself into the story.

"I resolved to shun storytelling. I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order, instead, which I think I have done."

Insight to Vonnegut's writing philosophy? Fascinating, and it explains much.

Well things just got a little bit meta.

And then suddenly, out of nowhere, a paragraph giving the precise measurements of the penises of all the male characters introduced thus far.

"Roses are red,
And ready for plucking.
You're sixteen,
And ready for highschool."

Food porn in the truest sense.

"Where I come from, that means you're about to steal a mirror."

"For prices like this, you can run them through your horse and put them on your roses."

I think my familiarity with the story, having seen the movie once or twice and having been exposed to countless pop-cultural references, has ruined the novel for me. My knowing what is to occur saps all excitement and mystery, while the stilted writing style further assures my disinterest. It's a shame, I know, to be turned off from such a classic.

"...There could be no earthling babies without male homosexuals. There *could* be babies without female homosexuals. There couldn't be babies without women over sixty-five years old. There *could* be babies without men over sixty-five. There couldn't be babies without other babies who had lived an hour or less after birth. And so on. It was gibberish to Billy."