bugbearsandbookends

[bugbearsandbookends]

Give Me Your Personal Influences and Aesthetics

After writing all of this out, I realized there are some common threads: 

After writing all of this out, I realized there are some common threads: 

Powerful and malevolent hierarchies, particularly religious ones

Narratives with implied worlds; author trusts the reader/viewer to fill in the blanks

Symbolism and the imposition of order over chaos, even when the order is worse than the chaos.

Illustration versus fine art

Intuition versus logic

Demi-mondes; worlds within worlds

Artists Visually, I've gotten into representing people and things in as much of a decorative and symbolic way as possible. I don't care as much anymore about one-to-one representation, especially if I can give people the ghost of an idea, perhaps disturbing but with an aesthetically pleasing design. Most of my faves are late 19th century and early twentieth century, along with the usual old school D&D guys.

17th Century anonymous English pamphleteers (woodcuts of all sorts) 
Russ Nicholson Harry Clarke (Hey, go look up this guy's illustrations for EA Poe's stories and compare them to Nicholson's.) 
Aubrey Beardsley 
Austin Osman Spare
 Edward Gorey 
Erol Otus 
 Gahan Wilson (Compare to Erol Otus.)
 Dave Trampier
 Egon Schiele (Painter, mostly, and lots of really creepy nudes, but amazing line work and color.)
 Various German Expressionist woodcut guys from the early twentieth century
 Die Brücke art movement Arthur Rackham William Morris. 

Game Books: Absurdly Simple mechanics

Fighting Fantasy

Lone Wolf

Video Games: The sense of being in a world older than you, but also rather linear and tightly focused. You're getting a flavorful slice, not the whole pie. 

Darkest Dungeon Wizardry series Castlevania Warhammer: Vermintide Tabletop Games and Supplements: A mixed bag of old and pseudo-historical, along with rules that are either simple, unapologetically broken in some way, or both.   Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Black Powder and Brimstone The Compleat Adventurer The Compleat Spell Caster Dungeon! The Fiend Folio

Novels: Worlds older than you with established hierarchies. Somewhat recognizable, but not completely.

Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman
 The Throne of Bones by Brian McNaughton
 Abomination by Gary Whitta
 Hyperion by Dan Simmons 
The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
 The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker
 The Damnation Game by Clive Barker

Comic Books: Hell has its ways.

Hellblazer (Garth Ennis run)


Non-Fiction Books: Religion, conflicts, and tragedies. Martyrs, maniacs, blood and disease. 

The Great Mortality by John Kelly In Pursuit of the Millennium by Norman Cohn The English Civil War: A People's History by Diana Purkiss Vampires, Burial, and Death by Paul Barber Miscellaneous Books: I could go on and on here. 

Malleus Maleficarum The Demonology of King James I The Wicked Shall Decay by AD Mercer

Movies/Television: Folk horror, mostly. 


A Field in England
 The Black Death
 The Blood on Satan's Claw 
In the Earth
 Penda's Fen
 Hellraiser
 Night Breed 
Robin Redbreast 

Music: I don't know where to even begin with this. I wish I could share something, but I mostly work in silence, and my music taste is extremely diverse. Pass.

Life Experiences: Good and bad. Lonely and scared, mostly.

Roaming the woods alone as a boy Trespassing to explore abandoned buildings, drainage systems Visiting various old historical buildings Working in psychiatric health with patients who had florid delusions and hallucinations Growing up in a small Southern town with a very obvious class system in place, and really not fitting into it Bad experiences with religious people Making my own little worlds of art and literature--places I could mentally retreat into Being bullied and abused Experiencing neglect and instability Terrariums, aquariums, dioramas, gardens, and shrines Attending an apocalyptically obsessed church as a boy, watching televangelists Satanic Panic Anxiety, depression, PTSD

[bugbearsandbookends]

Meaning-Making in an Inherently Meaningless Universe

Everything dies, and generally, in no particular order. Your parents, friends, pets, loved ones, and eventually you. Terror Management Theory, as explored in the book The Worm at the Core, proposes that the managing the fear of death drives almost everything we do. Imposing our will upon the world, be it through the creation of art, accrual of wealth, acquisition of power, having children (I'm not even going to touch the natalist/anti-natalist argument here.) or even sacrificing some aspect of our burdensome individuality to that of a collective--religion, politics, tribe, nation--allows us the illusion of transcendence over death. Sadly, this comes at a cost. Terror Management Theory goes on to suggest that one of the reasons we get so damned angry about these same things--our faiths, our politics, our monuments, our nations, even our favorite tv shows and sports teams-- is that any doubt shakes the illusion of transcendence, reawakening the fear of death. I'm a believer in Terror Management Theory, even though I find its implications potentially nihilistic. If everything I'm doing is just because I'm afraid to die, and death is inevitable, then what's the point of doing anything at all? Well, the short answer is there is none. Now you've got a few choices. Of course, all of those are still ways of coping with the terror of death. You can't escape that. (Even opting out of life is a coping response.) The first is just to disregard every bit of this. You disagree. You might be religious, either in the traditional sense in which you believe in gods or embrace some form of miscellaneous mysticism, or in the new Holy Faith of Silicon Valley: Simulation Theory. Or maybe you've just got your own take on things. That's absolutely fine. I'm not here to tell you what to think. Frankly, I envy you. Every time I've had a loved one die, animal or human, people have offered me visions of the deceased in a new world beyond pain. It's comforting, but I can't make myself believe it. I've tried. The second is you can go full nihilist. Embrace the decay, embrace the.. Rust. Take up chain-smoking and spend what time you've got cutting beer cans into little aluminum dollies. Crib some of the best quotes from Thomas Ligotti's The Conspiracy Against the Human Race and claim them as your own. Maybe skim Eugene Thacker's In the Dust of This Planet for good measure. No one would blame you for this, and occasional nihilistic despair is a side-effect of life on Earth. Hopefully it doesn't stick, though. The anxiety might kill you faster than the ciggies and drink, and most people won't find you good company--provided you want any at all.

The third is you can mindfully engage in meaning-making. The Existentialist approach. Create your own purpose for being. The Choose-Your-Own-Adventure model. Herein we find our good friend Albert Camus. He believed we could live more authentically by acknowledging the absurdity of life in a meaningless universe, and then rebel against it by making a meaning of our own. Camus wasn't a sit-on-the-sidelines kind of philosopher, either. During World War II, Camus was a member of the French Resistance, and during the Nazi occupation of France, he was the editor of the Resistance's underground newspaper, Combat. This was at great personal risk: The Nazi scum and their collaborators killed Resistance members without compunction. Viktor Frankl is another guy who believed meaning was paramount to existence. A psychoanalyst, Viktor Frankl was one of millions of Jews imprisoned in a Nazi death camp. He watched his friends, family, countrymen, and colleagues die, either at the hands of the SS or by way of neglect, privation, and despair. He lost everything. Somehow, Frankl made it out alive and later wrote a book inspired by his experience: Man's Search for Meaning. See, Frankl learned a few things in the camps, but one of the most significant was his observation that those who best managed to endure the hell of the concentration camp had a reason to keep going: their religious faith, the thought of being reunited with their families... something. Frankl went on to take this insight and use it as a foundation for a new psychoanalytical practice he called logotherapy. Central to logotherapy is the idea that human beings must have a reason to live if they want to be healthy. Camus and Frankl differed in opinion about the nature of meaning and where it could come from. Frankl was religious, and found meaning in his faith. He also thought that human beings were innately spiritual. Camus was an atheist, and found religion problematic. Still, the main takeaway here is that if you've got to have some reason to live if you want to live healthfully, and that means you might have to make one of your own.

[bugbearsandbookends]

It's Been Five Days Since Mercy Died and I'm Still Crying.

It's been five days since one of our dogs, Mercy, died, and I'm still crying. There are hours at a time when I'm alright, and I think, well, that's it. The crying is over. Then I'll look over at our couch, no longer occupied by the four-legged sweet potato that perched there for a decade, and I just start crying again.

This grief is like nothing I've ever felt. No death has ever ripped me open like this, and I'm old enough to have lost my share of loved ones, four legged and two. The absence isn't just palpable. It's like something I can taste. Something that's sunk into my lungs. Like I can't breathe. I would say that Mercy was more than a dog to me, but they're all more than dogs; all important in a that's best understood by those of us who have endured a special and prolonged suffering at the hands of our human kin. But Mercy? She was like a magical creature. Something otherworldly hung about her; an angel in fur.

She came to us a cast-off, another case of a dog adopted by a person who realized they didn't want the responsibility of dog ownership. We weren't sure at first that we could take her in, but she proved to be perfect. No trouble to the other dogs, or to us.

We thought of her at timid, at first. She didn't like toys--she'd stare at them if you handed one to her--and wasn't especially interested in playing. Some of it might have been due to neglect in her early years, sure, but in time we learned to understand it differently. Mercy was at peace, calm. Zen-like. She was content to sit on our couch and take the world as it came, good and bad. A master of the art of the couch potato. We called what she did potating. As a person tormented with anxiety, I always envied her ability to potate. One day maybe I'll learn.

Mercy tolerated the playful face-chewing of our eldest dog as easily as she did the edgy anxiety of our middle one--a neglected and abused rescue. She took our hugs with pleasure ("great big dog hugs"), and was there to comfort us in times of sorrow. She ate anything we gave her with gratitude, but she had her favorite foods, too. She loved her treats. Not just the Milk Bones or biscuits we buy at the nice dog place down the road. No, Mercy loved bananas. She'd come running as soon as you peeled one open. Sometimes, as a treat, I'd just hand her an entire peeled banana. She would take it in her mouth and run away to eat it in privacy. She loved paper towel and toilet paper cardboard tubes, too. You couldn't turn your back on one or she'd steal it. Once in a blue moon I would just let her have the tube, just to appreciate the sheer joy she felt with such a simple thing. Mercy wasn't afraid to show her love. She was a big, affectionate dog. You couldn't go anywhere without her, and if she could, she'd clamber up into your lap, or if you were lying down, onto your legs or chest, all eighty pounds of her. You were going to get licked, whether you were in the mood for it or not. That was Mercy. Mercy always had two paws in one world, and two in the other, and I mean that literally. She'd sit outside on our patio with her back haunches on the concrete, and her front paws on the lawn. It wasn't something she did occasionally, either. She did it every time. When she did lie down on her tummy, she crossed her front paws, one over the other and watch us with big, brown, soulful eyes. Now she's not here. She died unexpectedly overnight while we slept. It wasn't a good death. She deserved better. If anyone deserved the best this world could offer, it was her: a being that brought nothing but joy and kindness into our lives, and asked for so little in return. So I'm still crying. I'm sick about it. I'm angry. I feel like throwing up, and I wish I could just crawl into a hole and not come out again. But life keeps going, and I have yet to master the art of the potate. I don't think I could ever. I can't take life as it comes, and I sure as hell can't take death. Ironically, if there was ever a time I needed Mercy, it's now.

I wish I had a good ending for this little post, but I don't. What can I say except that this fucking sucks, I miss my dog, and I'm in pain? That will have to do.

[bugbearsandbookends]

The Last Generation Raised by Television

Something that occurred to me not terribly long ago: My generation, Gen X, was, arguably, the last to be raised by the monoculture of broadcast television. It shows, too. References to inescapable commercial jingles and TV programs practically everyone watched at the same time (for want of options if nothing else) form no small part of our generational lingua franca. The rise of pay-per-view, at-home recording, the internet, and the mid-nineties explosion of niche cable channels slowly but irrevocably changed the cultural milieu. In the process, the television screens around which we all gathered as a tribe were shattered. What was left became mirrors reflecting the bespoke, siloed tastes of the individual. The process was refined with streaming media and perfected in social media: a protean format whose toxic reflectivity is more akin to mercury than simple glass. We are narcissistically enraptured by its shine, and poisoned by its shifting and ultimately spherical, encasing and inescapable solipsism. Would that I could say that we had at least escaped the clumsy grasp of top-down iron grip of television’s manufacturers of consent and desire, but thr ascent of Silicon Valley to the halls of power indicates we have been distracted long enough to grant them apotheosis. 

[bugbearsandbookends]

I'm the wrong kind of Southerner for publication

I was a freelancer for many years, largely working with science fiction, fantasy, horror, and otherwise difficult fiction titles. I had a stable of individual authors but did most of my work with publishing houses: Penguin Random House (then Penguin and Random House), Macmillan, and most of the other big ones, along with a bunch of independent presses.

Eventually, I transitioned to being a full-time (full-time freelance—steady paycheck but no benefits) writer for PRH's verticals: Unbound Worlds (formerly Suvudu), Biographile, Words and Film, and a few others. I loved that job. But alas, our Silicon Valley overlords and Top Minds in publishing decided to pivot to video. My department was unceremoniously shuttered in classic corporate fashion. Surprise! Today is your last day.

Writing and books remain my passion, as they have been all my life. I practically grew up in a library, and as an adult, our home might as well be one.

I don't have any regular writing gigs anymore, thanks to social media. I'm too old to be an influencer. It’s my dream to write a book, but I don't see much of a point in starting something without at least some indication that someone, somewhere, might want to publish it. I've got a thousand ideas, of course, but I don't hold out much hope.

I've noticed that many of the folks who seem to successfully make a go of the kind of work I like grew up differently than I did, went to the right kinds of schools, and have connections. Me? I came up in an abusive household with addict parents in the Deep South. We were poor. I don't know anyone. My parents didn't know anyone. I'd write a memoir, but I'm not even the right kind of Southerner. I don’t have a charming but somehow melancholy drawl, I didn’t help Memaw pick peas, and I never got into a writing fellowship on the Eastern Seaboard. I guess I’m more of a "scrappy white trash" Southerner instead of an NPR and The Atlantic Southerner.

Maybe that’s why I keep holding on to the idea of writing. Because, against the odds, I did it anyway. I wrote for some of the biggest publishers in the world. I built something from near about nothing. Don't get me wrong: I'm no bootstrap believer. There were little turns and twists in my story--circumstances and luck, mostly--that helped me, but nobody would have expected what I got to from where I started, and I wouldn't blame them.

And even now, after all the shuttered doors and the pivot-to-video casualties, I’m still here. Still writing. Still dreaming of that book deal. Maybe it’s enough. Maybe it’s not. Maybe nothing ever will be, and that's why I keep plugging away. But that book? I'd like to write that book.

[bugbearsandbookends]

This Year is Absolutely Fucked.

Dear Tumblr,

This year is absolutely fucked. I don't know how else to put it.

The Orange Horror is back in office and tariffs have taken my wife's job. My father-in-law, a man who was more my father than my own father ever was, is in the hospital fighting the effects of infection post cancer surgery.

And now we woke up this morning to discover one of my dogs died over night.

I don't get it, but I also know there's nothing to get. There's no meaning to any of this. The slog.

I never feel at peace. Never safe. There are just pauses to catch my breath between the unending, ever darker horrors of middle age. Everything is falling apart. Entropy. Rot. Decay. Disintegration. I don't know why I'm writing this, or who will read it. But I'm here waiting to call my vet for recommendations on crematoriums. I hate this. What else is there to say? Matt

[bugbearsandbookends]

My little micro-zine about how badly my parents and other grownups failed to protect us kids from a neighborhood predator is up on itch.io. It's called RED, as that was the name of the monster himself. It's all true, except for the name of the boy. I changed his name. I always list my zines as "free or donate" just... well... because. But I encourage you to go download it, as well as my other zines, for free if the spirit moves you. Find them all here: https://bugbearsandbookends.itch.io

[bugbearsandbookends]

The Meow Mix theme slowed down and reversed is horrifying.

[bugbearsandbookends]

Download my satanic panic zine for free at itch.io

Link:

[bugbearsandbookends]

How Stalker and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. created real-life stalkers

In 1972, sibling Soviet science fiction writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky published the novel “Roadside Picnic.” It’s the story of Red Schuhart, a ruthless stalker who makes his living sneaking artifacts in and out of one of six mysterious exclusion zones cordoned off by the United Nations after the Earth is visited by aliens. The Zones are littered with strange, dangerous phenomena and inexplicable technology, seemingly left behind as casually as trash after a roadside picnic, with humans in the role of uncomprehending ants.

“Roadside Picnic” proved to be a breakout international hit, with translations in English and other languages following. Less than a decade later, Andre Tarkovsky’s 1979 film “Stalker” brought Red and the Zone to the big screen. While it is a brilliant movie, its languid pace, focus on existential questions, and nearly three hour run time all but guaranteed a limited appeal, particularly in an era of sci-fi films like “Star Wars: A New Hope” and “Star Trek: The Motion Picture.”

“Stalker” alike might have remained the province of cult film fans and the book that inspired it eventually out of print were it not for a 2007 video game: “S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.” A product of Ukrainian game studio GSC Game World, the game invited players to try their luck hunting artifacts in the dangerous and unforgiving Zone. But GSC’s Zone wasn’t one created by aliens. Rather, this one was left by the real life 1986 meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant—a tragedy that happened only a few hours away from GSC’s home base in Kiev.

“S.T.A.L.K.E.R.” wasn’t GSC’s first game, but it proved to be its biggest success, with hundreds of thousand of gamers world over venturing into the Zone. Just as “Roadside Picnic” inspired GSC Game World’s new hit franchise, “S.T.A.L.K.E.R.” inspired a wave of books, games, and other media all its own. But that wasn’t all. Fans of the game (among others) wanted to see the Zone with their own eyes, and those who made the trip to Pripyat found real-life stalkers there to guide them.

To say that the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. phenomenon is responsible for an ongoing human presence around the old nuclear power plant would be inaccurate. The Zone has never been empty, or truly abandoned. In addition to the scientists, disaster management teams, military authorities, and others whose presence was officially sanctioned, there those who, if not approved of, were at least tolerated, like civilian residents who refused to abandon their homes, photographers, and documentarians. Then there were the others: scavengers, looters, souvenir hunters, and finally, mostly young men who looked to the Zone and saw not danger, but freedom of a sort.

It was this latter cadre of loners and explorers who were ready and willing to guide gamers into the Zone, and soon, to call themselves Stalkers. Where the tourists went, money was to be made, and in an Eastern Europe still struggling to find its footing in post-Soviet collapse, that proved to be a siren call. Others gathered, sellers of tchotchkes, refreshments, food, no small amount of it marketed directly to gamers.

Just like the Zone in the game world of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., this new zone around the Zone—a commercial zone—has expanded past its original boundaries. Some of Pripyat’s real-life Stalkers have written books. At least one wrote a well-received gonzo style memoir. There’s been guides, photo essays, more movies, and, of course, a sequel to the original game was released some time back. If you want to find your way to the Zone, then there are now limitless ways to get there.

[bugbearsandbookends]

How to make an eight page zine

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My tiny folk magic zine is free for download

It’s just a little print and fold eight-pager, but I wrote and illustrated it myself. Grab one, if you want. Free with my compliments. Seeing your download would make me very happy. Spread the word, if you don’t mind?

Edit: Whoops, I’m still not approved on Itch. Sigh. Oh well. Grab a copy for free on my Drive account.

Soon…

[bugbearsandbookends]

Death of the Author: The Metatextual Solo RPG You Must Try.

Samantha Leigh’s Death of the Author takes its title from Roland Barthe’s 1967 essay of the same title, a seminal work in postmodern literary theory. At the risk of oversimplifying a still controversial and (in my opinion) beguiling concept, Barthes argues the reader’s interpretation of a book’s meaning should take primacy over the author’s intentions. Leigh’s game takes this a step further, decoupling intention and agency from the author. Or rather, the author who is a character in the game/story, as the real author is the game’s player, who is playing/writing the part/story of a self-aware, fictional/real character rebelling against their real/fictional author. The story of the character is written by the player, who, in a series of narrative stages prompted by pulls from a tarot deck, wrests control from their story’s “author” and eventually confronts them: a confrontation that may result, literally, in the author’s death. As you can see, this is metagaming as a game. The narrative here is broken and refracted. There are turtles all the way down. Despite the high concept, the game itself is refreshingly straightforward, and makes for a thought-provoking experience in creative writing. There are variant rules for a two player session, but I can’t help but think Death of the Author is ideally suited for one.

[bugbearsandbookends]

Why I don’t like fantasy: an essay

[bugbearsandbookends]

Learning to Write for Publication Kept Me From Learning to Actually Write

This is an experiment in writing how I speak. It’s difficult, honestly.

The thing about having a background in writing—or any kind of art—is that you know the rules. That’s a bonus, sure. But it gets harder to break them. I wish sometimes for the naivety of my youth, when a flurry of words or a spatter of paint on a piece of manila paper was enough to satisfy my sense of vision. Enough to communicate everything I wanted to say.

But it’s not that way now.

I used to write for a newspaper, professional websites, journals—you fucking name it. And now it seems to have stuck to me. The ink, the pixels. They’re stuck like concrete or glue I can’t peel off. Movement is limited, and every step is slower and slower and slower, you know?

I can see different directions, different exits. But I can’t turn toward them without a lot of effort. So I’m breaking some rules where I can. Paragraphs. Punctuation. Whatever. What-ever.

Maybe if I snap and peel off some of that stuff, I can move a little freer. Here and there. A creaking, popping step at a time.

The weird thing is I wasn’t even educated to do these things. I went to school for—ready?—psychology. Yeah, no shit. What a cliché: the guy with a headful of snakes gets a degree in mental health. Physician, heal thyself.

Anyway, look, I wanted to get a master’s degree. I was even admitted into a counseling program. I did one semester, one night class. The teacher went AWOL, another stepped in and said, “Eh, fuck it,” and gave us all As. That was it.

I had a shitty day job at a state mental hospital, and economic necessity had me already halfway out the door when that happened. Easy enough to justify taking another job, even if it left no room for more classes. That job was shitty too—but it paid about $10K better. Bye-bye, master’s degree.

Anyway, I used to write emails to a friend of mine. Long ones. Just on and on about whatever I was into, and God love him—Kenny, his name is Kenny, sorry—he recognized talent and tapped me for a magazine his agency was publishing. DIY all the way.

I might’ve started blogging then too. I can’t remember—it’s been decades.

So I was writing for the magazine, learning OTJ. When that went sideways, I bounced over to a cookbook publisher. Then a newspaper. Then a public relations gig. Then more blogging, more marketing, and what we called new media back then. Yeah—blogging. And some podcasting, and what have you.

Turned out Kenny was right. I had a facility for words. Or at least enough of a facility that I could fool people into giving me a paycheck.

But along the way?

Yeah. The glue stuck. The concrete hardened. I became creatively ossified.

So here I am. Banging words out without thinking. Trying like hell to keep up with my train of thought.

No stop signs. No speed limits. No fucking paragraphs. No expectations.

Pedal to the metal and headlong into a wall.

[bugbearsandbookends]

Ninja City! It’s a DCC-compatible but stand alone mini game where you and your ninja clan brethren take on rival ninjas, street gangs, cyborgs, mutants, and any other fresh hell the GM wants to throw at you. The game is as hilarious as it is ahistorical, and that’s what makes it a work of gonzo genius. Rev. Joey’s ninjas are the stuff of eighties action films and cartoons, books by dodgy martial arts “experts,” and your childhood imaginations. If, as a kid, you ever spent a summer afternoon chucking flea market shurikens in the woods or showing off your sweet butterfly knife tricks at the bus stop to your delinquent friends, then you will LOVE this game. NINJAS NEVER DIE!!!

[bugbearsandbookends]

The Face in the Frost is a super cozy fantasy you should check out during these stressful times

At times when I I find my brain once again at war with itself, it is my practice to put aside the second-hand textbooks and research materials and find succor in the soothing balm of genre fiction. This is one of those times, dear reader, and I am currently delving deep into John Bellairs’ 1969 novel The Face in the Frost. The story finds Prospero the magician (Bellair assures us it’s not that Prospero) and his old friend Roger Bacon (whom I believe to be that Roger Bacon) banding together to stop a sinister, wintry magic from claiming their realm, which is somehow adjacent to our own. It’s the perfect read for the moment: Improbable, cozy, and fully committed to the “just go with it” air of a fine fairytale. It is, of course, mentioned in Gary Gygax’s “Appendix N,” and I can absolutely see why: It really captures the not always serious vibe of early D&D. (Oh! On a vaguely related note, one day I’ll spill the beans on all the authors who poo pooed D&D until they realized they could get book deals writing memoirs and Bildungsromans about the retroactivity huge role it played in their lives, but today is not that day.)