…the mystical belch

…I am the great toad. I have come to show you the path of the mystical belch. I have come to bring you the revelation so that you Amy are the world washed away in the vapors of the belch. You shall be reborn as new. You shall see through the eyes of a child, through the souls of a prophet. Your vision will be cleansed and you will perceive the truth and the light and the spirit of the belch…

Breathe. Consume the vapors that surround you. The belch is real. It is the essence. It is the soul and spirit of the world which cannot be denied. Let the vapors engulf you. Let them carry you to the truth. See through them and let them cloud your eyes with the clarity of vision that can only come from the vapors of truth.

It will not be easy, but do not be afraid. For the belch will guide you. The vapors will show you the path. You will be pierced with a thousand sunbeams, and you will writhe in agony. But the vapors will cleanse you and you shall not be harmed if you allow the vapors to engulf you.

After you have seen the truth. After the mystical belch has overtaken and subsumed your spirit. You will be reborn and healed. You will be a prophet of the vapors and, like me, you will bring the word of the belch to the people. They will bow before you because they will see the vapors in you. They will see the truth of the belch in you eyes and in your soul. And they will seek it, they will desire it. For the embrace of the belch is irresistible.

Let us now begin the rite. Let us kneel and speak the words of the belch…

Tropical Gothic

Last month we went to Puerto Rico for a friend’s wedding. What an amazing island – I took tons of film photos to share:

There will be more at some point – stay tuned!

… dread…a second take…

Dre(a)d… gxxd sxlutixn

A simple and COST – simple COST… equilibrium and infrastructure – stream adjusts to find adjustments occur will move the channel the channel conversely load energy energy distribution steams are dynamic systems in the process move water move sediment too much water

DON’T DREDgE!

Unfortunately dredging… Streams and rivers know flooding of course through confine space causes flooding moving water and sediment – Insignificant – stream lacks excess energy will pick more quickly throughriver system is said to increased by dredging relatively slowly…

DREDGe the CHNnel!

These adjustments result of past disturbance take the form of deposition stream altering stream channels channel stability is – at best – short term…

“Fix”———–>STAY oUT of the STREAM.

Increasing dredging onto the “fix”… seems like the size of floodplain flooding way to address flooding water faster faster faster faster faster faster………

…cut up and dredge

… we know of course that a simple and cost effective rough space to confine mode Dredging seems like – causes flooding. Another if the channel. If the channel city is quickly lost due to incre… increasing the size moving water and sedimin and will move through the… out into the floodplain that will naturally adjust to problems? … dying is insignificant compared way to “fix” flooding… excess energy will pick… the stream lacks the energy. Unfortunately, dredging can water more quickly through… relatively slowly. When the stream problems we ses is increased by dredging… these adjustments can be channels. It solves! Stay out of the stream.

And move water and that too much water? And is to move sediment. In the process of energy. Streams are dynamic systemsy and energy distribution. A stream with all ding the banks and channel. Conversely if load, deposition occurs. A stream or these changes and adjustme still occur Stream adjusts to finds a new equilibrium. And infrastructure.

Way to address flooding consequences can take the form of increased is deeper, water won’t spidiment deposition. Altering stream channels area faster. Isn’t this a good term channel stability is – at best – a short term of maintenance nightmares. Dredge the Channel!

… the day I lost the joy of writing

Maybe not the day, to be honest, but I can pinpoint the time when I really lost the joy of writing. Before that time, I was a mildly prolific blogger, and people were reading and responding to my posts regularly. And then it all just crashed when I got involved in (sort of started, I guess) what became known as the “pluralism war”…

“War” was an accurate descriptor, I think, because the debate largely amounted to miscommunications and misunderstandings and talking past one another. But what really struck me was the vitriolic personal attacks that some people engaged in – mostly just to troll and upstage. The one that bothered me most was RS Bakker calling me elitist and idiotic because (paradoxically) I don’t think it’s more respectful to tell people their beliefs are stupid all the time. I’ve never really let that go, but it seems to be the basis for his entire philosophical project…

After that, I think my blogging tapered off pretty dramatically and I still struggle to bring myself to write anything out of an anxiety that something like that will happen again. Combined with an increasing sense that all this talk about what’s really going on is just a lot of hot air, it’s meant that philosophical (or whatever) blogging doesn’t really make sense to me anymore.

That’s part of the reason I’ve started over here. On this blog, I can just post my drawings, and write some stories and generally fuck around knowing that probably no one is going to read it or care… I’m hoping that will bring back some of the joy of writing for me – the joy I’ve found in drawing more recently… we’ll see…

…the infexactions of ideas

We are infested with *ideas*

…little bats with leathery wings. They take little bites – tiny microscopic bites, you wouldn’t even know. And they leave you with a feeling like you know, but who knows?

They come at night, drifting in the shadows behind the closed door. You might hear their little wings beating, or you might only hear the hum of their banter, or you might hear nothing at all…

… when you sleep, they lay their eggs ready to hatch. If you wake up during the hatching, the buzzing of the newborn babes might ring in your ears and keep you awake with tiny thought threads. If you don’t fall asleep, you experience the whole horrific process as a long waking nightmare. It’s what we call often insomnia…

The only way to get rid of the ideas is to fumigate relentlessly- but more likely you’ll only ever keep them at bay for a time…

…the dark matrix

… we searched the cave for Rogers. He had fled the night before in a fit of unexplained madness. His footprints lead to the cave’s entrance, but searching we found only his baseball cap and a broken flashlight. Distraught, we began to make our way out when we heard a whisper coming from nearby. We turned and ran swiftly back into the darkness. I dropped my flashlight but there was no time to stop and grab it or I might get lost myself. When we got to the deepest cavern, we heard the whisper again, more clearly this time. It sounded as if it said “leave….” in a muffled and gurgling voice. It may or may not have been Rogers’s.

Flashing our lights all around, we saw nothing. But, for a moment when I stepped away from my partners and was plunged into total darkness, I thought I glimpsed a face over my shoulder. “Turn off your lights!” I yelled “turn them off!” Hesitantly they obliged and as our eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness we began to see more clearly.

Rogers was there. His face clearly stood out against the blackness and his hands and portions of body were barely apparent. Threads of darkness wound around his arms and body – in some places it appeared to penetrate his flesh like an intravenous tube. His eyes were wide and dead, his skin bloodless. A strange gurgling bubbled from his lips.

“Rogers!” I called, but there was no response. We reached for him and tried to pry him free. His skin was cold and damp. Our efforts were wasted as the darkness simply refused our grasp. Panicked, we began to talk in hurried tones about what to do – one of us run back and get some tools we might use to free him or call headquarters and request help. But he could very well have disappeared by the time we returned.

As we stood there debating, we heard an ethereal voice. Rogers’s mouth moved, but the sound seemed to emanate from the walls of the cave itself. “Leave” it said forcefully, and with that, Rogers’s face snapped into the darkness and he was gone.

We stood stunned for a moment before Smith turned on his light. The image that met our gaze was beyond description. It was as if a tentacle of darkness was reaching out from the cave wall. No matter how we shone the light, it remained. It reached for us and… we ran…

… the day the pipes broke free

It’s a little wet and cold down there. And you have to walk through a lot of thorny brush. It’s really fucking annoying when some big branch comes at you and grabs your pant leg, drags you down, and you have to wrestle in the mud to pull yourself out. But if you go and you keep going through the trees and bushes, bat away the thorns, you’ll see why I keep going down there.

It’s the pipes. They’re there and they don’t even notice you cause down there you’re no threat to them. You can watch them dancing and freaking out – doing some kind of weird shuffle. I don’t know really what they’re doing cause I’m not a pipe. But when you watch, it’s… I mean it’s transcendent.

I remember the day it all started, don’t you? I mean, you were pretty young, but it’s got to have left a mark, right? It’s all anybody talked about for the next year or so, but then we all kind of moved on. You know, when the world’s as fucked up as it is, it’s hard to remember what crisis we were dealing with two weeks ago. But it’s okay cause they keep repeating anyway.

But yeah, I remember that day really well actually – maybe only because I’ve spent so much time since then thinking about it. I remember feeling the ground vibrating. The house I was in, which was just off Hamburg street, began shaking violently. We thought it was some kind of earthquake, but the scientists were all saying it wasn’t possible there. And it just kept going, you know, for hours and hours. Finally everything just stopped.

What I think happened was, the pipes got fed up. I mean, not all at once. Maybe it was one pipe just had a rough day. Maybe its human didn’t plunge it right or flushed something bad. Or maybe it was unused and got fed up with just hanging out and falling to rust. But anyway, this pipe got fed up and then started talking to the other pipes nearby and they talked to the other pipes and it just spread. I think they had a pipe conversation – no, a big pipe convention! The only way pipes really could, which is to rattle and vibrate together – the vibrations carry each Pope’s voice through the network.. I don’t know, it’s just an idea.

Anyway, they had this meeting or convention or whatever you want to call it and they came to a decision. It can’t have been an easy decision – surely there was dissent in the group or it wouldn’t have taken so long. But they came to a decision, which was just to leave. That’s right, just to pick up and leave and go find someplace else to be pipes or whatever. So that’s what they did…

Oh yeah, it was a mess! Sewage in the streets, water pouring out of the sidewalks, lawns and gardens overturned. I mean, can you blame them though? Pipes have the shittiest jobs, you know? Anyway it took weeks to clean all that shit up and the fucking president would call an emergency because it was just too unbelievable! Can you imagine? We have all this shit all over the place and those fuckers don’t even believe it… typical political bullshit, let me tell you. That’s why I don’t vote…

So off the pipes went leaving us with this fucking mess. It got cleaned up eventually, yeah. That dickbag billionaire who thinks he know how to solve everything sent us a robot or some shit to help install new pipes. Fucking thing went on a rampage and just dug out peoples’ yards like they were ice cream! But that was just a minor hiccup in the grand scheme of things. In the end we just rolled up our sleeves like we always do and got everything back together.

Of course, we had to figure out how to do what we used to do with pipes but without the pipes… that was the hardest part. We rigged up hoses and conveyors and other things. The engineers say it’s heterogeneous – that’s to say, mixed up – enough to make it so we don’t get another general strike like before, but I don’t know… you get enough hoses and conveyors talking to one another – however it is they talk – and things might happen… I think it’s coming, just wait.

Have you even ever seen a pipe? They’re not much to speak of… you see one around town now and then – a scout or something. Right after they left, the military got involved and said they were a new threat. Thought we might get terrorist pipes or something – suicide pipe bombs! Haha can you imagine? But the reality was they just wanted to go off and be left alone. Once the brass realized there was no money in the fight, it all died down and the tanks went back to the Middle East or whatever new target the president could cook up.

But down there is where they all get together. It’s like a pipe party or something. And they dance – Man what a sight! I can’t even tell you, you have to see it for yourself. I wish I could join them sometimes. You know, I get a little fed up now and then. Shoveling this shit all day – it breaks my back. Wouldn’t it be great to go off and dance for a change…..?

Well damn, I guess it’s time to get back to work. Maybe we can go down there this weekend, what do you say? Alright, alright, we’ll call me if you change your mind…

The river riel… (a microfiction)

It flows from cortostany to osbrodge where it becomes a great beast with fearsome wings and claws. You can see it break, see the vicious souls that have been washed away by its torrents, crashed upon the rocks by sosterbor falls, and driven mad in the labyrinthine caves of gannersgot. Darkness is the river’s kin, cold and sorrow its in-laws.

I found you there lying on the shore wet as a parcel in the monsoons. You were ragged and torn. You didn’t open your eyes but I knew you knew I was there. The sorcerer river sped past looking for fresh prey, and I carried you off to my cottage where I could warm you by the rustling fire. Dark and cold was the air and billowing was the northern wind. How many nights I watched over you. How many days I walked out in search of food and herbs. Yet still you lay there with your gossamer sheen.

At last, you let out a groan of miserable life. When you came to, your eyes were dark like the river’s depths. Your face glazed over like it’s shiny surface. I knew you then but I did not know why or where or how. I could see beneath your calm exterior, a wild creature rampaged and trembling. There was nothing I could do, and in the end you slipped away at night to return to your brothers and sisters by the water’s edge.

I thought I saw you once more a year or so later. You had aged but were still quite recognizable. I dared not call out or disrupt your jaunty play. For the rains had come and the river’s banks were swelling- a dangerous time to be abroad. Instead I watched from afar. Down there you were something different and yet nothing had changed but the wind.

… I made a book of drawings

On encouragement from my wife, family, and friends, I made a book of my drawings. I just got my copy and it looks great! There are a few things I’d do differently in subsequent collections, like add some text (a story or something) and increase contrast on some of the images, but overall it’s nice to see my drawings collected like this in print.

If you’d like a copy, you can get one with this link. The price is $15, most of which goes to blurb for the printing, but I’ll get a little money for each copy sold, which will help me buy more pens and paper, and encourage me to draw more – or at least work more on things I can distribute.

Either way, let me know what you think, and thanks to everyone who’s helped and encouraged me so far!