This may be my final journal entry. So sure am I of my imminent death. There is a beast outside my tent, even now as I scrawl these words. I could hear the wails of agony of my traveling party as it slaughtered them one by one. I am suredly alone now. Alone in this monstrous land. I snuck a glance outside, but in the darkness of the new moon, I could make out little. I sit here wrapt in fear, praying for for the sounds of my faltering breath to make it naught passed these terrible thin canvass walls.
---
I was awoke this morning to the sound of a gunshot. It appears that I passed out from fear last night, my weak constitution gaining the upper-hand as it sometimes does. My traveling party, to my elation, had not been murdered one by one in the night as I had thought.
The scene outside my tent was a grisly one. The remains of the monster lay strewn between our tents. The smell was indescribable. Apparently, dear Bertrand had experienced the same nightmare last night as had I, so certain was he of the deaths of myself and the others. However, with courage that I do not possess, he had exited his tent, and killed the terrorsome creature stalking us.
As it was, the beast had not been stalking us at all. Rather it had come to slay our horses. Only one of the mares fell, drained of all its fluids, looking as though its body had baked in an oven for hours. Skin and bones alone lay heaped in a sorrowful pile.
The shape of the creature itself was troublesome to discern, though I was able to puzzle out some of its description from picking through the fowl wreckage.
- Though larger than a horse in volume, the weight of the creature's remains could not have been more than that of a man.
- It was overall insect like in appearance, with long, spindle legs, and a terrible needle like beak. Presumably, it used this to drain the poor horse of its life blood.
- The analogy to a mosquito would not be out of place, though the creature bore no wings, and between vellum-like sheets of chitin was a coating of thick greasy hair. The texture reminded me of wolfs-pelt.
- Though little remained of the creature's head in particular (dear Bertrand is as true a shot as ever) I was none the less able to determine that it possessed a single horrid eye, gazing out above the long needle of its mouth-parts.
- Our often wheedle-some guide, though frequently unreliable, informed us in a hushed voice that his people told legends of a blood-sucking creature. This beast was said to stand ten feet tall, and bore night-terrors to shepherds as it stole from their flock. His people call this beast Chullvobje, the night thief.
Monday, February 12, 2018
[Land of Nog] Hnrógh and his Books
Probably going to re-write this one later. It ended up really long-winded and dry
---
On my long journey, I had the fortune to spend a needful rest at a small inn. It went by the name of Thrûmonn's, though I could not, for the life of me, find any man named 'Thrûmonn', nor any indication that there had ever been one. The name simply was. The inn was located far into the Zygomish Highlands, at a cross roads, in the shadow of Mount Blemish, which stood as bone-gray monolith to the east. In my mind I was convinced that it was watching me, the mountain that is, as though it were some great barren skull looming in the distance. It was a relief to be indoors, out of its gaze.
My time at the inn was that of mundanity-- inns, it seems, are all very nearly the same, no matter where one goes. And so, as there is very little of note to say about the experience, I will write on the matter in brevity. Perhaps the only article of note was my encounter with a foul-tempered beast of corpulent proportions and foul temperament.
As I did not speak the tongue of these people (although the language of coin has so-far proven universal in most situations) I never was able to ascertain whether the beast was employed by the inn, or was a guest such as myself. Perhaps he was even the proprietor. (Through he was no 'Thrûmonn'-- he seemed to answer to the name 'Hnrógh', though, only when it was pronounced with care. I have a suspicion that this name bares a similar sound to a vulgar word in the language of this land's people)
I will describe this beast for you, so that you, as I, can first experience his strange countenance before learning of his prickle-some mood. The inn had a large back lounge, which one could access by passing through a pair of heavy hanging curtains. The curtains were there, presumably, to contain the thick hazy air of the lounge, clouded by the scent of opium, hashish, and tobacco. However, the smell was not the first thing I noticed-- sitting right beside the door was Hnrógh, his large body impossible to ignore. He was easily as big around as a dinner table. He had no distinction between head and body- indeed, perhaps one could say that he was only a very large head. Around the base of his thick, pear-shaped mass were several bearded mouths, each one with a slightly different scowl. His graying beards were twisted and braided near their ends, adorned with small beads. Between the cracked lips of his several mouths were held the pipe of a hookah- save for one mouth (which is the one he used to admonish me later).
At my first glance, it seemed ot me that he was wearing above his mouths a thick glittering belt of gemstones. Only as I looked closer did I see that this belt was one of eyes, not jewels. Each eye seemed to be a different shade, though all were either blue or gray-- incidentally, the same color as his wrinkled flesh.. Above these multitudes of glassy eyes sprouted dozens of long, sinuous arms- or perhaps you would call the tentacles, like that of a sea creature. These limbs did different things each. Some would pick through baskets of dried meats placed nearby. Some would change out coals on the hookas. But many simply hung idly in the air, occasionally reaching down to turn the page on one of the many books that sat in a great circle around this beast. And he seemed to be reading all of the, all at once, as his eyes darted back and forth over the pages.
It was my love of books that overcame my revulsion, and urged me to approach the hyper-literate monstrosity. I bashfully attempted to introduce myself to this creature. When I was ignored, I realized with embarrassment that the creature almost certainly did not speak my language. I tried instead to communicate through gestures, moving my arms about and pantomiming. When this too got me no-where, I considered that perhaps the creature could not see me. The books were not far from its eyes. Perhaps it was simply near-sighted and deaf. It was then, when I took a single step closer, that all the myriad of eyes turned to look directly at me. It was as though I had unknowingly crossed some sort of invisible barrier to its attention. Before I had a chance to speak, Hnrógh's single unoccupied mouth opened, and (in my own language, without a hint of an accent) said "Go away."
Over the course of my stay at Thrûmonn's, I spent a great deal of time watching the beast-- from a small distance, of course. Never once did I see him move from his spot by the door. The staff would dutifully refill his baskets of dried meats, hookah, and skeins of wine. One morning, very early, it was only I and Hnrógh in the lounge (even then, he would still ignore me) and a young servant came in to bring a new basket of food. A stray pillow had fallen from the pile on which the creature sat, and the servant tripped, flinging the basket onto Hnrógh, and falling herself onto one of his books. Enraged, the beast snarled curses in a foreign tongue, and began to beat at the servant girl with several of his long arms until she fled sobbing.
Occasionally, he would finish with a book, and set it in a stack near the pillar beside him, and retrieve a new book from a similar stack. In the evening, a servant would take away the finished books, and bring out several new ones. Each time they would speak to him, presumably to ascertain what he wished to read next (this is how I inferred his name, by the way). His responses were always as curt and brief as I assume he could manage. Curious one evening, I followed this servant in his retreat. He took the stack of literature down a narrow flight of stairs, and through a narrower hallway, which let out into an enormous library. The ceiling was low, but the rows of books stretched back far from the doorway I'd entered through. There were plush chairs set up here and there. I found my manservant in one of them, book in hand-- it seemed he had found this treasure before I-- in part, no doubt, because of my obsession with the beast above. I asked him then, as the thought occurred to me, why that dreadful, many-eyed monster didn't hide himself away down here, considering his love of books, and hatred of company.
The answer my manservant gave was quite apparent in hindsight: Hnrógh simply couldn't have fit through the narrow hallway or staircase.
---
On my long journey, I had the fortune to spend a needful rest at a small inn. It went by the name of Thrûmonn's, though I could not, for the life of me, find any man named 'Thrûmonn', nor any indication that there had ever been one. The name simply was. The inn was located far into the Zygomish Highlands, at a cross roads, in the shadow of Mount Blemish, which stood as bone-gray monolith to the east. In my mind I was convinced that it was watching me, the mountain that is, as though it were some great barren skull looming in the distance. It was a relief to be indoors, out of its gaze.
My time at the inn was that of mundanity-- inns, it seems, are all very nearly the same, no matter where one goes. And so, as there is very little of note to say about the experience, I will write on the matter in brevity. Perhaps the only article of note was my encounter with a foul-tempered beast of corpulent proportions and foul temperament.
As I did not speak the tongue of these people (although the language of coin has so-far proven universal in most situations) I never was able to ascertain whether the beast was employed by the inn, or was a guest such as myself. Perhaps he was even the proprietor. (Through he was no 'Thrûmonn'-- he seemed to answer to the name 'Hnrógh', though, only when it was pronounced with care. I have a suspicion that this name bares a similar sound to a vulgar word in the language of this land's people)
I will describe this beast for you, so that you, as I, can first experience his strange countenance before learning of his prickle-some mood. The inn had a large back lounge, which one could access by passing through a pair of heavy hanging curtains. The curtains were there, presumably, to contain the thick hazy air of the lounge, clouded by the scent of opium, hashish, and tobacco. However, the smell was not the first thing I noticed-- sitting right beside the door was Hnrógh, his large body impossible to ignore. He was easily as big around as a dinner table. He had no distinction between head and body- indeed, perhaps one could say that he was only a very large head. Around the base of his thick, pear-shaped mass were several bearded mouths, each one with a slightly different scowl. His graying beards were twisted and braided near their ends, adorned with small beads. Between the cracked lips of his several mouths were held the pipe of a hookah- save for one mouth (which is the one he used to admonish me later).
At my first glance, it seemed ot me that he was wearing above his mouths a thick glittering belt of gemstones. Only as I looked closer did I see that this belt was one of eyes, not jewels. Each eye seemed to be a different shade, though all were either blue or gray-- incidentally, the same color as his wrinkled flesh.. Above these multitudes of glassy eyes sprouted dozens of long, sinuous arms- or perhaps you would call the tentacles, like that of a sea creature. These limbs did different things each. Some would pick through baskets of dried meats placed nearby. Some would change out coals on the hookas. But many simply hung idly in the air, occasionally reaching down to turn the page on one of the many books that sat in a great circle around this beast. And he seemed to be reading all of the, all at once, as his eyes darted back and forth over the pages.
It was my love of books that overcame my revulsion, and urged me to approach the hyper-literate monstrosity. I bashfully attempted to introduce myself to this creature. When I was ignored, I realized with embarrassment that the creature almost certainly did not speak my language. I tried instead to communicate through gestures, moving my arms about and pantomiming. When this too got me no-where, I considered that perhaps the creature could not see me. The books were not far from its eyes. Perhaps it was simply near-sighted and deaf. It was then, when I took a single step closer, that all the myriad of eyes turned to look directly at me. It was as though I had unknowingly crossed some sort of invisible barrier to its attention. Before I had a chance to speak, Hnrógh's single unoccupied mouth opened, and (in my own language, without a hint of an accent) said "Go away."
Over the course of my stay at Thrûmonn's, I spent a great deal of time watching the beast-- from a small distance, of course. Never once did I see him move from his spot by the door. The staff would dutifully refill his baskets of dried meats, hookah, and skeins of wine. One morning, very early, it was only I and Hnrógh in the lounge (even then, he would still ignore me) and a young servant came in to bring a new basket of food. A stray pillow had fallen from the pile on which the creature sat, and the servant tripped, flinging the basket onto Hnrógh, and falling herself onto one of his books. Enraged, the beast snarled curses in a foreign tongue, and began to beat at the servant girl with several of his long arms until she fled sobbing.
Occasionally, he would finish with a book, and set it in a stack near the pillar beside him, and retrieve a new book from a similar stack. In the evening, a servant would take away the finished books, and bring out several new ones. Each time they would speak to him, presumably to ascertain what he wished to read next (this is how I inferred his name, by the way). His responses were always as curt and brief as I assume he could manage. Curious one evening, I followed this servant in his retreat. He took the stack of literature down a narrow flight of stairs, and through a narrower hallway, which let out into an enormous library. The ceiling was low, but the rows of books stretched back far from the doorway I'd entered through. There were plush chairs set up here and there. I found my manservant in one of them, book in hand-- it seemed he had found this treasure before I-- in part, no doubt, because of my obsession with the beast above. I asked him then, as the thought occurred to me, why that dreadful, many-eyed monster didn't hide himself away down here, considering his love of books, and hatred of company.
The answer my manservant gave was quite apparent in hindsight: Hnrógh simply couldn't have fit through the narrow hallway or staircase.
Sunday, February 11, 2018
[Land of Nog] The Yodeling Yolbum
My friend Nick and I have been discussing collaborating on a project. I'll write blerbs about weird monsters, and he'll make illustrations. Here's my first attempt; we may be doing something else instead, we'll see. The idea is that each of these posts will be like a chapter from a travelogue from some noble adventurer, or a traveling merchant, like Marco Polo. I'm setting these in the Land of Nog, which is basically a loose fantasy setting that takes place on the face of an incredibly large, incredibly slow moving giant.
---------
In my travels through the land of Nog, it foremost stands
out in my recollection that never a single night were we at peace from the
haunting howls of the Yolbum. Each supper, precisely following sunset would the
caterwaul begin—first as a single lone yodel, then followed by a cacophony. Early
on our journey, it was a mystery to us, as to where these beasts—whom we
presumed to be most fearsome—were hiding, as our first leg took us through the
vast expanse of the Face Waste. Nary a tree nor hill stood to conceal their
forms, and yet looking out across the pocked earth, one could see nothing, even
if the sound seemed to come from only a stone’s toss away.
It was one night, and, at this point, the yodeling had begun
to wane from wondrous to irksome, that I set out, determined to find my first
Yolbum, and harangue it for it and its kin’s assault on my ears each night.
Thoroughly I sought, late into the night. It was only by high moon, by my
count, when I had all but given up, that my foot caught on a hole on the
ground. Easy enough to miss, looking out over the uneven ground—even then one
could walk right by and mistake it for another of the Waste’s many craterous
divots—yet, certainly large enough to twist an ankle of a blundering oaf such
as myself. Luckily, I merely scuffed my traveling vest as I fell to the ground.
On a hunch, I scurried away from the hole, and lay down
close to the ground to watch the opening, certain that it would reveal to me my
quarry. And indeed it did, only perhaps an hour later. The yodels had waned,
for a time, as they sometimes did, only to start up again suddenly with full
force. As I listened closely, I could hear the sound approaching, like a
reversed echo, until a call sounded from one Yolbum not a mile away. Then, out
from the hole before me slithered a long, sinuous creature. Like a worm, and
fleshy pink, it unspooled itself into a great pile of flesh on the earth around
its den. Along one side, the creature split, all the way down its hairless
length, opening up a long, horrible mouth, filled with small blunt teeth, and
it bellowed its ponderous howl into the night.
In a foolish attempt to gain further insight, I stood, and
uncovered my torch. The moment the light touched its hideous body, the creature
recoiled, slithering its bulk instantly back down into the dark burrow.
Further investigation has revealed this:
- Each Yolbum to emerge from a given hole is a different
individual. I speculate they have a vast network of tunnels under the earth.
- My manservant speculated that they consume the earth
itself, but whatever they eat, there is, as yet, no explanation for the lack of
apparent leavings that must follow.
- Each yodel is subtly different from the last. Either each
creature has a unique call, or the ululations of a given call are random. In a
letter from my dear wife, she fancied that they were singing lullabies to one another
in their strange language, and each song was a unique composition.
---
Additional information
Catching Up with an Old Friend
Been catching up with my friend from middle school, Nick Talbert. He's a self taught artist and graphic designer. He's got some cool shit, I'll plug his various accounts here at the bottom of this post if you want to check him out.
I met Nick in middle school, back in 2001. I'd been home-schooled up until the 5th grade. My parents were military, and had planned on having a bunch of kids, so homeschooling made sense, as the alternative would have been forcing me to get accustomed to new schools every time we moved (if you don't know, the military tends to ship its people around every few years)
As it turns out, all they had was me, and when it became clear they weren't going to have to move, they stuck me into the little Catholic grade school down the road from our house.
Now, when I say little, I mean little. Our 5th grade class was fifteen kids, including myself, and over the years until high-school we'd lose about one or more of that number each year. Nick himself left either near the end of 5th grade or at the beginning of 6th, I don't remember.
Still, he was basically the first friend I made in middle-school, and we've kept up off and on over the years. We mainly bonded over the fact that we both loved to draw. We spent most of our time in class (when we should have been taking notes or doing other things) drawing monsters and comic books.
In middle-school, I had this idea of making a big book full of monsters and their descriptions, sort of a sillier Magical Beasts and Where to find Them, and I would doodle a monster and leave room on the page to go back and fill in details about it. Except I very rarely followed through with that last part. I didn't really enjoy writing back then; I had atrocious hand writing and worse spelling.
Nick, however, followed suit, drawing his own monsters, except he would actually write out the descriptions of them.
In college, when I was going through some of my old stuff, I came across my monstrous manifesto, only the actual title I'd given it as a kid was "The Tomb [Tome] of Creatures", and boy. It was a tome alright. Basically, my methodology had been: fill up a note-book with school notes and doodles of monsters interspersed, and then, at the end of the year, tear out all the stupid useless notes and keep the pages with doodles.
These skeletal notebooks were then stitched loosely together by duck-taping backs to covers, ultimately forming this big shambling masterpiece. It was, however, totally falling to pieces, even from the get-go, and so when I re-discovered it, I took out the pages and rebound them into a three-ring binder, putting some of the more well-worn pages into plastic slips.
In going through this archeological dig, I discovered that, for reasons unknown, I had a handful of pages from Nick's parallel work, which he'd titled "The Monster Jaboree [Jamboree]". I really don't know why I had them. I think he gave them to me for some unknown purpose before he left our class.
At any rate, with Nick's permission I've compiled these ten pages of his into an imgur album, which you can find here. The descriptions are often quite witty and humorous, more so coming from a ten year old. Heres a selected quote:
"[Twin Snakes] find it easy to sniff humans out to find Blood. They also have x-ray vision to see through humans or anything else. So if you live near one of these don't plan to live anymore."
It's well worth a read-- I've transcribed the writing from each of the pages, as the poor photo quality makes it difficult to read on the images themselves. At some point, I'll scan in and make an album of higher quality images of these and other doodles of my own.
Having a collection of old sketches has been a cherished thing in my life, over the years. There's something about the creativity of childhood that makes for the perfect inspiration later on in life, once your mind has cemented into certain ways of thinking, and I'm always glad I've held on to this stuff all this time.
-------
My friend Nick Talbert has a healthy social media presence, but he doesn't have nearly enough followers, so get in on the ground floor while you still can!
- Nick's Instagram
- Nick's tumblr
- Nick's deviantART
And, if you're interested in commissioning him for design work,
- Nick's fiverr
I met Nick in middle school, back in 2001. I'd been home-schooled up until the 5th grade. My parents were military, and had planned on having a bunch of kids, so homeschooling made sense, as the alternative would have been forcing me to get accustomed to new schools every time we moved (if you don't know, the military tends to ship its people around every few years)
As it turns out, all they had was me, and when it became clear they weren't going to have to move, they stuck me into the little Catholic grade school down the road from our house.
Now, when I say little, I mean little. Our 5th grade class was fifteen kids, including myself, and over the years until high-school we'd lose about one or more of that number each year. Nick himself left either near the end of 5th grade or at the beginning of 6th, I don't remember.
Still, he was basically the first friend I made in middle-school, and we've kept up off and on over the years. We mainly bonded over the fact that we both loved to draw. We spent most of our time in class (when we should have been taking notes or doing other things) drawing monsters and comic books.
In middle-school, I had this idea of making a big book full of monsters and their descriptions, sort of a sillier Magical Beasts and Where to find Them, and I would doodle a monster and leave room on the page to go back and fill in details about it. Except I very rarely followed through with that last part. I didn't really enjoy writing back then; I had atrocious hand writing and worse spelling.
Nick, however, followed suit, drawing his own monsters, except he would actually write out the descriptions of them.
In college, when I was going through some of my old stuff, I came across my monstrous manifesto, only the actual title I'd given it as a kid was "The Tomb [Tome] of Creatures", and boy. It was a tome alright. Basically, my methodology had been: fill up a note-book with school notes and doodles of monsters interspersed, and then, at the end of the year, tear out all the stupid useless notes and keep the pages with doodles.
These skeletal notebooks were then stitched loosely together by duck-taping backs to covers, ultimately forming this big shambling masterpiece. It was, however, totally falling to pieces, even from the get-go, and so when I re-discovered it, I took out the pages and rebound them into a three-ring binder, putting some of the more well-worn pages into plastic slips.
In going through this archeological dig, I discovered that, for reasons unknown, I had a handful of pages from Nick's parallel work, which he'd titled "The Monster Jaboree [Jamboree]". I really don't know why I had them. I think he gave them to me for some unknown purpose before he left our class.
At any rate, with Nick's permission I've compiled these ten pages of his into an imgur album, which you can find here. The descriptions are often quite witty and humorous, more so coming from a ten year old. Heres a selected quote:
"[Twin Snakes] find it easy to sniff humans out to find Blood. They also have x-ray vision to see through humans or anything else. So if you live near one of these don't plan to live anymore."
It's well worth a read-- I've transcribed the writing from each of the pages, as the poor photo quality makes it difficult to read on the images themselves. At some point, I'll scan in and make an album of higher quality images of these and other doodles of my own.
Having a collection of old sketches has been a cherished thing in my life, over the years. There's something about the creativity of childhood that makes for the perfect inspiration later on in life, once your mind has cemented into certain ways of thinking, and I'm always glad I've held on to this stuff all this time.
-------
My friend Nick Talbert has a healthy social media presence, but he doesn't have nearly enough followers, so get in on the ground floor while you still can!
- Nick's Instagram
- Nick's tumblr
- Nick's deviantART
And, if you're interested in commissioning him for design work,
- Nick's fiverr
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
WP: IT-guy with a goat
This is a response I wrote today to a writing prompt on reddit here.
The prompt was: "When the IT-guy took out a knife and a goat you knew your problem was more severe than initially thought."
---------------------------
"Martha? Martha? Can you hear me? Say something won't you?"
"I'm afraid she isn't going to be able to respond," said the pimply technician. He was wheeling a small crate in through the door as Mr. Johnson stood beside his comatose wife, looking somewhat flustered. "This is a bit worse than what you described over the phone."
"What? This exactly as worse-- I mean, as bad as I described it!" said Mr. Johnson "My wife is unconscious! Are you sure we shouldn't be calling an ambulance?"
"It's worse," said the technician, ignoring the question and pushing his glasses up his nose "because you didn't mention she was using an Oculus." he gestured toward the black object strapped to Martha's face as he pulled a small cro-bar out of his tool bag "We see this now and then with Vives, but an Oculus is much riskier. I'm afraid we'll have to do a full transfer"
Mr. Johnson wrung his hands together. His expression, though harried, showed no sign of him grasping anything the technician had just said. "But... but... nobody at Best Buy told us that... that the 'vee ar' thingy was... was dangerous! At least not dangerous like... this." Mr. Johnson looked down at his wife, laying motionless in her lay-z-boy. The laptop on her legs glowed a dull blue, mirroring the vacant, drooling expression on Martha's half obscured face.
With a huff of exertion, the technician popped the top off of the wooden crate with a woody crack, and then turned to look back at Martha "Well," he began with a sigh "the inherent risk with rift technology was covered in your T's and C's when you-"
"'Tees and seas?'" Mr. Johnson interrupted.
"'Terms and Conditions. You signed a waiver saying you read them when you purchased the device. You did read them, didn't you sir?"
Mr. Johnson looked uncomfortable.
"Anyway," the tech continued, as he lifted the lid off of the crate "Facebook owns the Oculus Rift, you know. You always have to be careful with Facebook. Any idiot could tell you they don't have your best interests in mind" The tech chuckled a bit at his own statement, and reached down into the crate, pulling out... a goat.
"Nyeh-eehh" bleated the goat.
Mr. Johnson had sat down on the couch beside his wife, his head dejectedly held in his hands, but looked up suddenly at the barnyard noise "What....?! What on earth-- is that a goat? What... Why do you have a goat?!" Mr. Johnson stood, his face red with confusion.
"Well, funny story actually," said the technician, stroking the goat's head "We were using dogs up until last year, but it turns out goats are cheaper to feed. Something like a chicken would be ideal, of course, but tests have shown that they just don't have the necessary RAM. Goats do though. Funny, right? Goats? RAM?" He pushed his glasses up again, grinning at Mr. Johnson, though the humor seemed to be lost on him.
"Aren't rams sheep though?" chirped the voice of the Johnsons' young daughter, quiet up until now as she watched the spectacle unfolding from the doorway to the kitchen.
"I... er..." The technician's grin dropped and he looked over to the child.
"Cynthia! Ah... go... go on upstairs!" Mr. Johnson waved weakly to shoo her away.
"Is mum drunk again?"
"CYNTHIA!" The man shouted, "I said go! Everything is fine!"
The girl darted back through the doorway, out of sight-- until her father had turned his back, peeking her head out once more to watch. The technician reached again into his bag, pulling out a long USB cable and a small knife. Mr. Johnson began to pull at his thinning hair.
"Alot of customers don't really understand how these things work" He said, gesturing again at the black box strapped over Martha's eyes "It's called the Oculus Rift for a reason," he said, putting emphasis on the word 'rift', with a knowing glance to Mr. Johnson "The device opens up a memetic portal to.... well, look, that part isn't important. The important part is that these things have a direct interface with your soul." The technician pressed the tip of the knife to the back of the goat's neck, parting the skin to reveal a USB port. A small spray of blood spurted from the wound, though the technician quickly stifled it with a handkerchief.
"Nyeh-eehhhhh!" bleated the goat, somewhat distressed.
Mr. Johnson was also somewhat distressed, and his flustered red had shifted to a sickly green. Having run out of sensible objections to the current state of affairs, his mouth worked up and down wordlessly.
"Sorry 'bout that" said the nonplussed technician, wiping a bit of blood from his 'geek squad' tie. He plugged one end of the USB cable into the goat, and the other end into a port on Martha's headset "I'll be out of your hair here in a minute, I promise." he pulled out a tablet and began making swipes on it "just let me get the goat's bluetooth set up. What did you say Mrs. Johnson was doing on her computer when she got corrupted?"
Mr. Johnson sighed and returned his head to his hands as he slouched back down on the couch "She was just... on Facebook, I think." The technician rolled his eyes.
"Any specific apps or games?"
Mr. Johnson thought for a moment "Ah, I think she mentioned something about uh... 'Farmville VR'?"
The tech snorted, stifling a laugh.
"What?" demanded Mr. Johnson "What about this situation could possibly be funny?"
"Ah, sorry-- I'm sorry sir," the tech adjusted his glasses once more "It's just... well, its ironic, considering-"
The tablet in the tech's hands beeped loudly, and both Martha and the goat began to convulse for a full second before both fell still. Mr. Johnson rushed up to his wife's side, anxiously stroking her hair and grasping her hand "Martha! Martha are you okay? Can you hear me now Martha!?"
"Nyeh... n-nyehh?" bleated the goat, shakily standing back up off the floor
"Uh, Mr. Johnson, your wife isn't actually.... in there, anymore"
"What!?" cried Mr. Johnson, horrified "What do you mean... Is she...? Is she.....!?"
The technician shook his head, and gestured down to the goat. "She's in here, sir."
"Nyehh!?" bleatedthe goat Martha, looking worriedly around the room.
"Is mum a goat now? I've always wanted a goat!" said Cynthia, running into the room, sounding very excited.
"The transfer went off without without a hitch!" said the technician, looking pleased as he began to pack up his equipment. He stood up, and straightened his tie "Well, I hope you folks have a nice rest of your day. Your bill should arrive in the mail."
"WAIT!" cried Mr. Johnson as the technician turned towards the door to leave. He looked in distress from the body-formerly-known-as-Martha to the Martha-formerly-known-as-goat, then back up to the somewhat impatient looking technician "How... how do we.... how will......."
Unfortunately, all he could manage to ask was: "...Who's going to cook dinner?"
The prompt was: "When the IT-guy took out a knife and a goat you knew your problem was more severe than initially thought."
---------------------------
"Martha? Martha? Can you hear me? Say something won't you?"
"I'm afraid she isn't going to be able to respond," said the pimply technician. He was wheeling a small crate in through the door as Mr. Johnson stood beside his comatose wife, looking somewhat flustered. "This is a bit worse than what you described over the phone."
"What? This exactly as worse-- I mean, as bad as I described it!" said Mr. Johnson "My wife is unconscious! Are you sure we shouldn't be calling an ambulance?"
"It's worse," said the technician, ignoring the question and pushing his glasses up his nose "because you didn't mention she was using an Oculus." he gestured toward the black object strapped to Martha's face as he pulled a small cro-bar out of his tool bag "We see this now and then with Vives, but an Oculus is much riskier. I'm afraid we'll have to do a full transfer"
Mr. Johnson wrung his hands together. His expression, though harried, showed no sign of him grasping anything the technician had just said. "But... but... nobody at Best Buy told us that... that the 'vee ar' thingy was... was dangerous! At least not dangerous like... this." Mr. Johnson looked down at his wife, laying motionless in her lay-z-boy. The laptop on her legs glowed a dull blue, mirroring the vacant, drooling expression on Martha's half obscured face.
With a huff of exertion, the technician popped the top off of the wooden crate with a woody crack, and then turned to look back at Martha "Well," he began with a sigh "the inherent risk with rift technology was covered in your T's and C's when you-"
"'Tees and seas?'" Mr. Johnson interrupted.
"'Terms and Conditions. You signed a waiver saying you read them when you purchased the device. You did read them, didn't you sir?"
Mr. Johnson looked uncomfortable.
"Anyway," the tech continued, as he lifted the lid off of the crate "Facebook owns the Oculus Rift, you know. You always have to be careful with Facebook. Any idiot could tell you they don't have your best interests in mind" The tech chuckled a bit at his own statement, and reached down into the crate, pulling out... a goat.
"Nyeh-eehh" bleated the goat.
Mr. Johnson had sat down on the couch beside his wife, his head dejectedly held in his hands, but looked up suddenly at the barnyard noise "What....?! What on earth-- is that a goat? What... Why do you have a goat?!" Mr. Johnson stood, his face red with confusion.
"Well, funny story actually," said the technician, stroking the goat's head "We were using dogs up until last year, but it turns out goats are cheaper to feed. Something like a chicken would be ideal, of course, but tests have shown that they just don't have the necessary RAM. Goats do though. Funny, right? Goats? RAM?" He pushed his glasses up again, grinning at Mr. Johnson, though the humor seemed to be lost on him.
"Aren't rams sheep though?" chirped the voice of the Johnsons' young daughter, quiet up until now as she watched the spectacle unfolding from the doorway to the kitchen.
"I... er..." The technician's grin dropped and he looked over to the child.
"Cynthia! Ah... go... go on upstairs!" Mr. Johnson waved weakly to shoo her away.
"Is mum drunk again?"
"CYNTHIA!" The man shouted, "I said go! Everything is fine!"
The girl darted back through the doorway, out of sight-- until her father had turned his back, peeking her head out once more to watch. The technician reached again into his bag, pulling out a long USB cable and a small knife. Mr. Johnson began to pull at his thinning hair.
"Alot of customers don't really understand how these things work" He said, gesturing again at the black box strapped over Martha's eyes "It's called the Oculus Rift for a reason," he said, putting emphasis on the word 'rift', with a knowing glance to Mr. Johnson "The device opens up a memetic portal to.... well, look, that part isn't important. The important part is that these things have a direct interface with your soul." The technician pressed the tip of the knife to the back of the goat's neck, parting the skin to reveal a USB port. A small spray of blood spurted from the wound, though the technician quickly stifled it with a handkerchief.
"Nyeh-eehhhhh!" bleated the goat, somewhat distressed.
Mr. Johnson was also somewhat distressed, and his flustered red had shifted to a sickly green. Having run out of sensible objections to the current state of affairs, his mouth worked up and down wordlessly.
"Sorry 'bout that" said the nonplussed technician, wiping a bit of blood from his 'geek squad' tie. He plugged one end of the USB cable into the goat, and the other end into a port on Martha's headset "I'll be out of your hair here in a minute, I promise." he pulled out a tablet and began making swipes on it "just let me get the goat's bluetooth set up. What did you say Mrs. Johnson was doing on her computer when she got corrupted?"
Mr. Johnson sighed and returned his head to his hands as he slouched back down on the couch "She was just... on Facebook, I think." The technician rolled his eyes.
"Any specific apps or games?"
Mr. Johnson thought for a moment "Ah, I think she mentioned something about uh... 'Farmville VR'?"
The tech snorted, stifling a laugh.
"What?" demanded Mr. Johnson "What about this situation could possibly be funny?"
"Ah, sorry-- I'm sorry sir," the tech adjusted his glasses once more "It's just... well, its ironic, considering-"
The tablet in the tech's hands beeped loudly, and both Martha and the goat began to convulse for a full second before both fell still. Mr. Johnson rushed up to his wife's side, anxiously stroking her hair and grasping her hand "Martha! Martha are you okay? Can you hear me now Martha!?"
"Nyeh... n-nyehh?" bleated the goat, shakily standing back up off the floor
"Uh, Mr. Johnson, your wife isn't actually.... in there, anymore"
"What!?" cried Mr. Johnson, horrified "What do you mean... Is she...? Is she.....!?"
The technician shook his head, and gestured down to the goat. "She's in here, sir."
"Nyehh!?" bleated
"Is mum a goat now? I've always wanted a goat!" said Cynthia, running into the room, sounding very excited.
"The transfer went off without without a hitch!" said the technician, looking pleased as he began to pack up his equipment. He stood up, and straightened his tie "Well, I hope you folks have a nice rest of your day. Your bill should arrive in the mail."
"WAIT!" cried Mr. Johnson as the technician turned towards the door to leave. He looked in distress from the body-formerly-known-as-Martha to the Martha-formerly-known-as-goat, then back up to the somewhat impatient looking technician "How... how do we.... how will......."
The human mind is an amazingly stalwart machine. Despite being
presented with an absurd situation, in the midst of a thoroughly
emotional ordeal, one could very nearly palpably see Mr.
Johnson's mind fighting to force a relevant inquiry out of his
stammering mouth. 'How do I get her back into her proper body?' he might
ask. Or perhaps, 'What do goats eat?' or even 'Can I count a goat as a
dependent on my taxes?'.
Unfortunately, all he could manage to ask was: "...Who's going to cook dinner?"
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
2017 Reading List, and Why We Read
Books I read in 2017:
...
Yeah, there's nothing here.
I did alot of things in 2017, but regrettably, reading wasn't one of them. I think I was working my way through S.M. Stirling's Nantucket series at some point, but I never finished the trilogy, and I may have only been reading those in 2016 anyway.
As I'm thinking about it, I believe I also read Brent Weeks's The Blood Mirror, book four of his Lightbringer series, and a couple other's as well, a few of Stephen Baxter's books in the Xeelee sequence- though again, I may be conflating with the previous year.
I used to read more. Back in college, I would consume books, lose myself in them. Over time, I've fallen into the habit of getting most of my entertainment from movies and shows-- and though I still read, its all mostly scholarly, or news articles.
In short, I'm ashamed, but there's no point dwelling on the past.
Though I don't typically make resolutions, reading more this year could certainly be called one; I've gotten off to a good start. Gyo, a graphic novel by Junji Ito, and Ra by Sam Hughes (known better as 'qntm', from his blog Things of Interest) in this month alone-- and I'm slowly working my way through House of Leaves at the moment. All three I recommend, though I'll go more into detail about them when I do another reading list post at the end of the year. If I keep myself honest, there will be more than just those three as well.
---
Why do we read?
What is it about the printed word transcribing the narrative form that has so outlasted and outshined every other comparable medium over the millennia, or has so exemplified depth, and sophistication where others can be, and often are written off as jejune?
It is true that books weren't always the primary storytelling medium- obviously before the advent of writing, there were still narratives, passed down in songs and stories of oral tradition. And though even early on writing was used to record important works of fiction and philosophy alike, it was centuries before the common man was literate-- and it has always been the common man who is the true audience of fiction.
Bards and playwrights played storytellers for much of history; its only the past handful of centuries that the novel has rained supreme.
But why?
Why is it that the novel was not replaced by cinema, television, radio, graphic novels, blog posts or meta-fiction? Why are most contemporary popular films and TV shows based in-part, or outright on books that came long before them?
I have a couple ideas. First and foremost is the obvious-- anybody can write a book. Writing a book takes only time and, I suppose, something to write about. Not everyone can write a good book, but the medium is inherently accessible. All other mediums fall short in this metric, and the result is that most of the world's fresh ideas will be born on paper long before someone decides to throw enough money at them to turn them into something else.
However, I think the real picture here is more than just economics.
When you read a book, you're effectively processing a kind of code; like punchcards being fed into your brain through your eyes (or fingers, I suppose, if you're reading braille)-- and that code is telling your brain how to construct a world, a narrative on its own. Visual media, comics, movies, etc., are showing you someone else's vision. This is why it is so easy to turn your brain off as you watch something. It is virtually impossible to read this way. If the brain looses focus while reading, you'll find yourself at the end of a paragraph your eyes continued to scan without any knowledge of its contents.
One could argue that this is because words are a more primitive means of conveying thought, and thus can offer more subtle meaning and structure. The continuation of this thought is then that, as the written word is simply a means of conveying the spoken word, which came first of course, that then, a spoken dialogue, or any narrative transmitted orally should be the ur medium, the most primitive form of story-telling, and thus also the most sublime.
This is false.
The reason is subtle, but important. Books differ from other media (except for graphic novels*) in a matter of time. That is, films, for instance, or music, or a spoken dialogue, all proceed through time at a steady rate-- and, more importantly, can only be consumed linearly, one instant at a time.
Yes, you can rewind a movie to watch the same scene over again, but you can still only process what you're viewing one frame at a time at a constant rate.
Words on paper (or screen) function differently.
We do not read one letter at a time, our brains process words as a whole; for example, this quote is often passed arround:
"It deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."
- That said, curiously, if one attempts to slowly process each word, the text becomes illegible, but if you just let your eyes scan across the lines, it reads without trouble.
Beyond this, when reading, even the individual words aren't wholly important. Our brains process sentences as complete thoughts- obviously, you can't think about a whole sentence until you've read all of it, so while the brain keeps a running dialogue in its head, the complete thought isn't fully processed until after the punctuation. And books, unlike other media, are perfectly suited to being set down and paused for an arbitrary amount of time, at any point, giving the reader as long as they need to process each thought.
And so too, even beyond the sentence, beyond the paragraph, an entire page of a book exists in situ, allowing the eyes to dart back and forth, up and down, back to previous statements as needed. When reading something particularly thick, we may scan a line several times in-order to fully grasp its meaning.
This, in a way, loops back to the idea of accessibility. If you're watching a film, or listening to a lecture, and something stated goes over your head, you have little recourse to backtrack, or pause to digest, in part because these media rely on a flow, and stopping it is disruptive to experiencing them. But a reader sets his or her own flow.
I've mused on this topic enough for now, I think.
* Graphic novels share more in common with cinema than with textual novels, though they exist somewhere in between. More on that later. Suffice to say, despite existing frozen in time as textual narratives do, graphic novels have a different sort of pacing to them, and are processed differently by the mind as they are read- again, not unlike a film, only with a frame-rate dictated by how fast one can turn a page.
...
Yeah, there's nothing here.
I did alot of things in 2017, but regrettably, reading wasn't one of them. I think I was working my way through S.M. Stirling's Nantucket series at some point, but I never finished the trilogy, and I may have only been reading those in 2016 anyway.
As I'm thinking about it, I believe I also read Brent Weeks's The Blood Mirror, book four of his Lightbringer series, and a couple other's as well, a few of Stephen Baxter's books in the Xeelee sequence- though again, I may be conflating with the previous year.
I used to read more. Back in college, I would consume books, lose myself in them. Over time, I've fallen into the habit of getting most of my entertainment from movies and shows-- and though I still read, its all mostly scholarly, or news articles.
In short, I'm ashamed, but there's no point dwelling on the past.
Though I don't typically make resolutions, reading more this year could certainly be called one; I've gotten off to a good start. Gyo, a graphic novel by Junji Ito, and Ra by Sam Hughes (known better as 'qntm', from his blog Things of Interest) in this month alone-- and I'm slowly working my way through House of Leaves at the moment. All three I recommend, though I'll go more into detail about them when I do another reading list post at the end of the year. If I keep myself honest, there will be more than just those three as well.
---
Why do we read?
What is it about the printed word transcribing the narrative form that has so outlasted and outshined every other comparable medium over the millennia, or has so exemplified depth, and sophistication where others can be, and often are written off as jejune?
It is true that books weren't always the primary storytelling medium- obviously before the advent of writing, there were still narratives, passed down in songs and stories of oral tradition. And though even early on writing was used to record important works of fiction and philosophy alike, it was centuries before the common man was literate-- and it has always been the common man who is the true audience of fiction.
Bards and playwrights played storytellers for much of history; its only the past handful of centuries that the novel has rained supreme.
But why?
Why is it that the novel was not replaced by cinema, television, radio, graphic novels, blog posts or meta-fiction? Why are most contemporary popular films and TV shows based in-part, or outright on books that came long before them?
I have a couple ideas. First and foremost is the obvious-- anybody can write a book. Writing a book takes only time and, I suppose, something to write about. Not everyone can write a good book, but the medium is inherently accessible. All other mediums fall short in this metric, and the result is that most of the world's fresh ideas will be born on paper long before someone decides to throw enough money at them to turn them into something else.
However, I think the real picture here is more than just economics.
When you read a book, you're effectively processing a kind of code; like punchcards being fed into your brain through your eyes (or fingers, I suppose, if you're reading braille)-- and that code is telling your brain how to construct a world, a narrative on its own. Visual media, comics, movies, etc., are showing you someone else's vision. This is why it is so easy to turn your brain off as you watch something. It is virtually impossible to read this way. If the brain looses focus while reading, you'll find yourself at the end of a paragraph your eyes continued to scan without any knowledge of its contents.
One could argue that this is because words are a more primitive means of conveying thought, and thus can offer more subtle meaning and structure. The continuation of this thought is then that, as the written word is simply a means of conveying the spoken word, which came first of course, that then, a spoken dialogue, or any narrative transmitted orally should be the ur medium, the most primitive form of story-telling, and thus also the most sublime.
This is false.
The reason is subtle, but important. Books differ from other media (except for graphic novels*) in a matter of time. That is, films, for instance, or music, or a spoken dialogue, all proceed through time at a steady rate-- and, more importantly, can only be consumed linearly, one instant at a time.
Yes, you can rewind a movie to watch the same scene over again, but you can still only process what you're viewing one frame at a time at a constant rate.
Words on paper (or screen) function differently.
We do not read one letter at a time, our brains process words as a whole; for example, this quote is often passed arround:
"It deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."
- That said, curiously, if one attempts to slowly process each word, the text becomes illegible, but if you just let your eyes scan across the lines, it reads without trouble.
Beyond this, when reading, even the individual words aren't wholly important. Our brains process sentences as complete thoughts- obviously, you can't think about a whole sentence until you've read all of it, so while the brain keeps a running dialogue in its head, the complete thought isn't fully processed until after the punctuation. And books, unlike other media, are perfectly suited to being set down and paused for an arbitrary amount of time, at any point, giving the reader as long as they need to process each thought.
And so too, even beyond the sentence, beyond the paragraph, an entire page of a book exists in situ, allowing the eyes to dart back and forth, up and down, back to previous statements as needed. When reading something particularly thick, we may scan a line several times in-order to fully grasp its meaning.
This, in a way, loops back to the idea of accessibility. If you're watching a film, or listening to a lecture, and something stated goes over your head, you have little recourse to backtrack, or pause to digest, in part because these media rely on a flow, and stopping it is disruptive to experiencing them. But a reader sets his or her own flow.
I've mused on this topic enough for now, I think.
* Graphic novels share more in common with cinema than with textual novels, though they exist somewhere in between. More on that later. Suffice to say, despite existing frozen in time as textual narratives do, graphic novels have a different sort of pacing to them, and are processed differently by the mind as they are read- again, not unlike a film, only with a frame-rate dictated by how fast one can turn a page.
Sign Post
This is the first post.
If you're looking for something substantial here, prepare to be disapointed. This post is merely, as the title indicates, a signpost, marking the beginning of a timeline.
Or the end, if you, reader, are like me, and are reading the posts on this blog in reverse order as I often do. Or perhaps you've started here, intending to proceed forwards chronologically-- in which case it is a signpost none the less.
I've started this blog as a place to post my thoughts, and though I've attempted this in the past, the hope is that this one will stick, as I've reached a point in my life where I feel that, in addition to (hopefully) having something interesting to say, I also have the discipline needed to make posts regularly and coherently. Time will tell I suppose.
Or has already told, if you're from the future, and are actually reading these words-- If I fail to actually post regularly, then it seems silly to imagine anyone in the future reading this at all, save perhaps for myself.
If this signpost marks the end of a counter-calendrical progression through my thoughts, then thank you for reading. :)
If you're looking for something substantial here, prepare to be disapointed. This post is merely, as the title indicates, a signpost, marking the beginning of a timeline.
Or the end, if you, reader, are like me, and are reading the posts on this blog in reverse order as I often do. Or perhaps you've started here, intending to proceed forwards chronologically-- in which case it is a signpost none the less.
I've started this blog as a place to post my thoughts, and though I've attempted this in the past, the hope is that this one will stick, as I've reached a point in my life where I feel that, in addition to (hopefully) having something interesting to say, I also have the discipline needed to make posts regularly and coherently. Time will tell I suppose.
Or has already told, if you're from the future, and are actually reading these words-- If I fail to actually post regularly, then it seems silly to imagine anyone in the future reading this at all, save perhaps for myself.
If this signpost marks the end of a counter-calendrical progression through my thoughts, then thank you for reading. :)
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