Headache Medicine

Painting Jazz at the Long Island Museum

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Thu, 03 Apr 2014 03:47:00 +0000

My mom's the museum's PR director. I helped her come up with the name of this program.

Funkmaster Flex, Eat Your Heart Out

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 13:21:00 +0000

From the Pages of Dostoevsky's The Idiot

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 00:58:00 +0000

Bantam edition, 2nd printing, circa 1983.

My 2012 Music Writings

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 17:34:00 +0000

There are several reasons why 2012 was a big year for me, not least of which are 1) I moved out of my parents' house -- those are my records all crated up on the living room floor the night before my departure -- and 2) at the urging of my friends Chris, Cliff and a few others, I started writing about music for a few websites, namely the t.r.o.y. blog and Tiny Mix Tapes (so far for their Delorean Blog mostly). It's been much more fun than I'd expected, definitely improved my critical listening skills, and for better or worse, made me feel less guilty about slacking off when it comes to my other writing habits.

In case you haven't been following my work and would like to, here's a list of some music posts I did this year, from a little video biography piece that got me going back in April to a 3,000-word year-in-summary article that went up a week ago. The pieces I enjoyed writing (and reading) most are emboldened, so if you only want to check out a few, I suggest reading those (unless of course you're not really into hip-hop, in which case check out the Blue Oyster Cult, Bonniwell Music Machine and/or Lee 'Scratch' Perry posts).

Bobby Digital in Video for the t.r.o.y. blog
The Digital Revolution: A Critical Analysis of RZA as Bobby Digital In Stereo for the t.r.o.y. blog
on Blue Oyster Cult's Secret Treaties for DELOREAN
on Scaramanga's Seven Eyes Seven Horns for DELOREAN
on Lee 'Scratch' Perry's The Return of Pipecock Jackxon for DELOREAN
Schoolly D Instrumentals 101 for the t.r.o.y. blog
on Schoolly D's Welcome To America for DELOREAN
on The Bonniwell Music Macine for DELOREAN
on LoDeck and Omega One's Postcards From The Third Rock for DELOREAN
Synthesis, Synchronicity and Singularity: How Three of Hip-Hop's Most Ingenious Independents Helped Make 2012 a Year to Remember, a feature for Tiny Mix Tapes

Now then, if you're feeling my aspiring contributions to the canon of 2012 music writing, I'd sincerely appreciate you heading over to the Best Music Writing Ballot and including some of my work among your nominations. It looks like you can vote for up to 15 pieces. Short of doing all that -- actually, I'm not even sure if that whole contest is still up and running; it looks like it might be defunct, but voting anyway can't hurt -- I also wouldn't mind if you were to pass these joints on to your friends, bandmates, lovers, colleagues, or whomever you think might dig 'em. In fact, I hear that this is how writers lacking agents and publishing houses get their work out there.

Cambridge Nights Season 2

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 03:58:00 +0000

I'm very happy to learn that the Cambridge Nights web series has returned for a second season. In fact, I just found out tonight and this is the first new installment I'm watching (for obvious reasons). I'm not sure how I feel about the interviews getting divided into smaller segments in which the questions are framed for the viewer via on-screen text rather than shown organically as asked by the host/interviewer, but I guess it makes the series a bit more accessible.

Ripped Genes Promo

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 06:42:00 +0000

Pet-store patron purchases unborn human fetus from avian shopkeep.

Swimming instrumentalists mix horns, strings and hormones.

Draughtsman seeks amphibious splice for erotic tryst.

Editor’s namesake awakens to smells of blood, rot, more blood.

Wolfboy’s hired hand lights path, but does he know the way?

Labor pains with explosive implications.

Half-terraformed planet’s native inhabitants cross the border.

Insurgents spring ally from DNA-hacking overlords.

Copycat comes to terms with surroundings and selves.

Spaghetti-slurping journalist learns true meaning of pharmacovigilance.

Guerilla clinic guinea pig invests big in immunity.

Anthropomorphism: a matter of profit vs. principle.

Enamored animal activist meets familiar face.

Previews of Ripped Genes stories, for the Morpheus Tales #18 online supplement.

Ripped Genes Out Now

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 00:32:00 +0000

Kindle Edition

Other E-Book Formats

Collector's Print Edition

Coming Soon from Morpheus Tales

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 23:21:00 +0000

Ripped Genes, the Biopunk Special I edited for Morpheus Tales should be out sometime in September. It will be available in e-book and print-on-demand formats. To preview the issue, visit http://issuu.com/morpheustales/docs/rippedgenes or check it out below:

Open publication - Free publishing - More biopunk

I Heard It On Shark Week

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 04:35:00 +0000

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a time when Shark Week was both entertaining and educational? These days, it seems like it's all about high definition closeup shots and slow motion videos of Great White feeding frenzies. As a matter of fact, you could probably count the number of non-Great White sharks they showed the whole week on one hand. I guess it's in keeping with the whole "History Made Every Day" scheme, wherein thought-provoking and informative programming is phased out in favor of ancient alien conspiracies and fat people selling shit.

Having said that, I cannot deny the fact that Shark Week offers some of the most entertaining TV of the year. Of course, the visuals are the main attraction, but this year I found myself chuckling at several of the interviews and voice-overs, so much so in fact that I was prompted to pull out my notebook (remember those?) and record a few of my favorite quotes:

"Colossus came in once, looked at RoboSeal and instantly took a liking to it -- took it out, chewed it to pieces, and unfortunately, that was the end of RoboSeal and our experiment."

"What happened to that - what happened to that whale?"
"It's like a crime scene. You have to solve it."

"If we had that movie Jaws filmed from our boat, it would've been a 10-minute movie... It would've been dead really quick."

"Angry over his loss, Al sets off to kill every shark he sees."

"Her tremendous girth was obvious, but was she pregnant or had she just gorged on a whale?"

Binary Simon

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 01:37:00 +0000

...is my first (and so far only) attempt at creating something for the comic book medium. I put it together for a desktop publishing class in 2007 using stock images, Quark and Photoshop. I've been holding this back since then because it comes off as so ridiculously pretentious -- God makes a cameo and assumes control of the narrative for a few pages -- that it was hard for me to read after I graduated from college and got my mind right. That being said, I feel that by now I've matured to the point where I can laugh at all this and take some measure of pride in a few panels. One last note: I've since forgotten how to use Quark and Photoshop entirely and all that remains of this is the final .pdf that was taken to the printer. For one reason or another, the cover is the last page.
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BxktYCTX8KuWTmNUS0xaY2pPa0E

Oh HELL NO

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 01:36:00 +0000

Jonathan Dean on Marriage

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Wed, 16 May 2012 02:13:00 +0000

I have no words...

My Review of That New HBO Show

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 01:26:00 +0000

As lifted from my facebook page:

Contrary to her own ridiculously self-righteous opinion of herself, Lena Dunham is not the voice of our generation. She is a spoiled art world brat who became famous by portraying a spoiled art world brat on film. This has nothing to do with what is going on in the country or the world right now, and the idea that we as a generation will be remembered for aspiring to this sort of character type is absolute poppycock. In conclusion, Girls is going to be a huge show and I hate you all for watching it.

Bar Door Poetry

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 03:08:00 +0000

The Marketing Campaign of My Dreams

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 22:26:00 +0000

Ads by Jonathan Dean via Clifford Morrissey, one of my co-workers who co-publishes a print magazine (yes, print only, imaginge that!) called Linda (I'm all up in it).

R.I.P. Jean Giraud

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 23:11:00 +0000

Yesterday, the world lost one of its greatest artists, Jean Giraud aka Moebius, a 73-year-old Frenchman who'd been destroying shit since the late '50s/early '60s. To put it simply, Moebius was and always will be a bad motherfucker. If you're unfamiliar with his work, please take some time to appreciate the man's creative genius, a source of inspiration for countless filmmakers, graffiti artists, authors and fellow comic book illustrators the world over.

Original Biopunk Stories Wanted

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 03:37:00 +0000

I will be editing a special biopunk-themed issue for UK-based horror/scifi/fantasy magazine Morpheus Tales. We are looking for cover art and story submissions. If you're interested in contributing please read on. If you're not, but you know somebody else who might be, please spread the word.

From William Gibson’s groundbreaking Sprawl trilogy to the Wachowski brothers’ highly entertaining, if also highly derivative, Matrix trilogy, the literary subgenre known as cyberpunk has seen crossover success in just about every entertainment medium. Ditto for steampunk, which has even made its way into everyday forums such as home décor and fashion. Biopunk, on the other hand, has not yet seen nearly the amount of exposure as its literary kinfolk. One of the main reasons for this is undoubtedly the limited amount of work that this subgenre has produced thus far.

For those who don’t know, biopunk fiction, in short, looks toward a future (or at an alternate present) in which the biotechnology revolution affects everyday life. Look at it like this if it helps: cybernetics and cyberspace are to cyberpunk as biology and biotechnology are to biopunk. The “punk” comes from the subgenre’s frequent use of dystopian settings and the political (or perhaps more accurately, apolitical) implications of the open-source philosophy to which many real-life biopunks (aka biohackers) subscribe. Some seminal works of biopunk fiction are the films Gattaca and Splice; the comic book serial Fluorescent Black by writer MF Wilson and artist Nathan Fox; and perhaps most importantly, the book Ribofunk by Paul Di Filippo, who has actually cited H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau as a precursor to the subgenre.

Morpheus Tales is looking for short works of biopunk fiction for an upcoming special. As always, try to think outside of the box. You don’t have to steer entirely clear of the genre’s main tropes (after all, not too many have been established), but we’re not going to publish a handful of stories about clone armies alongside another handful about Dr. Mephesto’s four-assed turtle and other such genetic oddities. Also, biopunk stories have for the most part taken on a dystopian tone so far, but there’s nothing saying that this has to be the case. Try utopian, try ecotopian, try whatever you like so long as it’s original and readable.

Deadline for submissions will be July 31, 2012.

Please put "Biopunk Special Issue Submission" in the subject of your email and send to: morpheustales@blueyonder.co.uk

Other than that, all regular Morpheus Tales submission guidelines apply: no simultaneous submissions, standard manuscript format, only high quality character- or plot-driven stories of no more than 3,000 words.

The Biopunk Special Issue will be available as an ebook and via print-on-demand services. Contributor copies will be in ebook format.

Looking Ahead

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 05:57:00 +0000

"Inside the Earth, there is a very high civilzation existing, particularly the head of the librarians inside of the earth."

At first I didn't believe her, but then when I noticed the mystical smoke rising from her body I was totally sold.

This is Reality

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 03:14:00 +0000

Don't believe me? Pinch yourself.

Still here? Good.

In the past 30 days, Oakland police officers have caused the hospitalization of not one but two Iraq war veterans who did no more than exercise their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble. The first was hit in the head with a teargas canister; the second, Kayvan Sabeghi, was struck repeatedly with batons. By all accounts, these men were nonviolent demonstrators. At worst, they were engaged in acts of civil disobedience, refusing officers’ commands to move, vacate the streets or fall back.

To where do you fall back when you’re up against a wall?

Last night, another kind of protest occurred. After Penn State University officials announced the firing of head football coach, Joe Paterno, a raucous protest erupted in State College, Pa. A news van was tipped over, a lamppost was brought down; private and public property was destroyed because a man who failed to report an incident of child molestation to the police wouldn’t be able to finish out the season as head coach. I’ve got news for the Penn State student body and anyone else who takes offense to Paterno’s dismissal. The man shouldn’t have been allowed to finish any of the last 10 seasons.

The NY Times reports: “A grand jury said that Mr. Spanier, the university’s president since 1995, was made aware of a report of an incident involving Mr. Sandusky. Upon learning about a suspected 2002 assault by Mr. Sandusky on a young boy in the football building’s showers, Mr. Paterno redirected the graduate assistant who witnessed the incident to the athletic director, rather than notifying the police.”

What did Paterno have to say about all this, about his former colleague allegedly fucking eight boys, about his own failure to direct the graduate assistant to go to the police?

“It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.”

The benefit of hindsight? Are you fucking kidding me?

OK, so let’s give Mr. Paterno the benefit of the doubt. Let’s say all he heard was that something disturbing, possibly of a sexual nature, had been witnessed. What else could that be? Rape? Incest? Why would you have the witness go to another school official instead of the police?

Pinch yourself.

Opposing government corruption and a flawed socioeconomic system that feeds on the suffering of the poor and disenfranchised will land you in the ICU with a fractured skull or a lacerated spleen, or maybe just in jail if you’re lucky. Failing to report to the police that your colleague fucks children will cost you your job, nothing more. You won’t be arrested. Au contraire, your decades of service as a football coach will be honored with a support-rally-turned-riot. Better yet, you'll be made out to be the real victim in all this. How’s that for school spirit?

Still here? Good.

Graham B. Spanier, the other man who lost his lob over this incident, just so happened to be one of the longest-serving and highest-paid university presidents in the nation. Take that for what it’s worth.

This is reality.

Lee "Scratch" Perry's Words of Wisdom

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 01:41:00 +0000

On September 10th I had the great pleasure of seeing dub legend Lee "Scratch" Perry perform live at B.B. King's in NYC. Everything about the show was absolutely incredible, including the simultaneously hilarious and illuminating proclamations Mr. Perry made between songs. Here are a few that I was sure to remember...

Disclaimer: Lee Perry is a 75-year-old black Jamaican. I am a 26-year-old white American. Needless to say, there may be some minor discrepancies between what I heard and what was actually said. Nevertheless, I'm fairly certain that most of these quotes -- with the possible exception of the last one, which was the final phrase he uttered before exiting the stage -- are accurate.

"Stress, thou be gone. Problems, they be gone."

"There will be no one to save the government from their sins. There will be no one to save the government from their crimes."

"I don't drink alcohol anymore, I don't smoke anymore. The only thing I have to keep me happy is craziness."

"Why you not dream of me? Jesus not coming back. He send me."

"Love your shit and get rich. Goodnight."

T-Bell Complaint Letter

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 23:15:00 +0000

If you agree with the following then let your voice be heard.
Together we can make a difference.

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing today as a faithful, long-time customer who has stuck with your brand through thick and thin, from scattered rat feces findings to widespread E. coli claims, from slight tummy aches to… well, you get the idea. For more than 20 years I have been loyal to your brand and proud to call your stores my preferred venue for fast-food consumption. However, recent menu changes have caused me to question my loyalties. Allow me to elaborate:

As true fans and master feasters, my friends and I have often marveled at Taco Bell’s new and incredible limited-time-only menu additions; and as these ephemeral items vanish we’ll become very disappointed (i.e. the Shrimp Taco), only to become equally delighted by the seemingly permanent addition of another exciting innovation (i.e. the Crispy Potato Soft Taco). To my tastes, the aforementioned tacos exemplify the sheer genius that is the mix-and-match process behind your brand’s culinary creativity: familiar ingredients used differently – always simple yet simply delicious.

Though I’ve made many a repeat order at your company’s fine establishments, I remain open to change and so I approach every new dish with an open mind and a clear palate. That being said, my absolute favorite Taco Bell creation has always been the Grilled Stuft Burrito with Chicken, so it was with great distress and disappointment that I took the news that this item was to be replaced by the decadent XXL Grilled Stuft Burrito. Unfortunately, my dissatisfaction was multiplied a hundred times over when I actually tasted this dreadful replacement. The problem lies not in the size (this is America – the bigger the better); the problem lies in the replacement of the traditional Grilled Stuft Burrito sauce with a combination of sour cream and guacamole. This would-be blending of the Grilled Stuffed Burrito with the 7-Layer Burrito seems like a sound idea on the surface but the quality of the sum, I’m sad to say, is lesser than that of its parts; much, much lesser.

I recognize that mine is only one opinion, however, it is one I have heard echoed on numerous occasions. The word is out: the XXL experiment is a failure. You should know that my patronage has decreased significantly since the disappearance of the original, true Grilled Stuft Burrito. And if this item does not return promptly, I might not either. Again, I realize I am only one customer, but consider that there was a time when I ate your food as often as every other day and I suspect you will begin to understand the gravity of my departure.

I leave you for now with this suggestion:
Forget the cream, forget the guac. Bring back the sauce.

Most Sincerely,
Samuel Diamond

Beach Art

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 00:06:00 +0000

Don't know who did this but nice work...

CBD

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 04:09:00 +0000

They've since painted the bricks blue. Not into it.

The Editor

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 05:09:00 +0000

Wrote this Poe/Lovecraft inspired short back in February.
Hope you enjoy.

I once had an editor who fancied himself a better writer than I. This is the story of how we severed ties.

###
I’d just completed my masterwork, a tome of prose so vibrant, so passionately effervescent; to say the words merely “leap off every page” would be at best a clichéd understatement, at worst pure invective. So when my editor, Daniel Simon, not only mouthed this exact phrase, but then called chapter twenty-one “a dull exercise in pointless self-indulgence,” I resolved to terminate our working relationship and move on the next.

“Gor wants a draft by the end of the week and I guarantee that as soon as they read this chapter they’re going to hot-rush the whole manuscript back to my office attached with some pimpled paralegal’s formal request for a return on their advance,” he lamented. The volumes lining my study shuddered in their shelves.

“Well in that case I suppose they’ll hear from my attorneys,” I joked.

“Get real,” he sneered, his polyurethane countenance looking like it was about to ‘leap’ from his skull. “We’re talking about one chapter here, and it’s not as if we’re in the position where we can make demands of the genre’s pre-eminent publishing house.” His imagined gavel drop was followed by the standard consolatory silence.

In this interim I sighed convincingly; his words didn’t so much sink in as they did ooze along the unresponsive surface of rational thought.

Just as he was about to continue I interjected with a humble concession: “I suppose you’re right,” I murmured like a frustrated author settling for the only available offer. “After all, it’s only one chapter.”

“Exactly,” he said. “And honestly, I get it. The drastic tonal shift, the sudden appearance of the third person narrator, the neologisms, broken prose: these meta-fictitious elements lifting the veil to re-emphasize your take on existentialism; and all the while, you get to show off your chops. I get it.” He placed a fatherly grip on my shoulder. Every fiber of my inner-being danced with voodoo hysterics, but I held back, kept still. “It’s just that the publisher isn’t going to see any of that. All they’re going to see is a reclusive writer basking in his own talent without any regard for the audience.”

It became too much; I had to stand. I walked to the opposite end of my study and peered out the window. Ghostly winds roared wild between the narrow spaces separating my Kew Gardens loft from the neighbors. Grey branches rattled on ancient cobble. The streets were almost totally vacant, the harsh cold keeping even the most desperate fiends behind closed doors…

“I mean, maybe you can turn that chapter into a one-shot short story,” Daniel said. “I’m sure there’s a ton of genre ‘zines out there that would still kill for one of your shorts, and in all likelihood it’ll get anthologized by year’s end,” he opined over my shoulder.

I wondered how long he’d stood there, his tiny gears turning at full steam, trying to draw up a way to make that last bit come off as non-patronizing as possible. I raised my gaze from the sidewalk to the studios across the street, making sure Daniel noticed my smile in the window’s reflection. “You know what, Dan?” I said, turning to face him. “For once, you’re absolutely right.”

“Well, I appreciate that,” he said with a crass chuckle.

“How about we grab a few drinks down the street?” I offered.

He took his Blackberry from his front pocket, asked the digital planner for permission. “Uh, yeah, I’m free for at least a few hours,” he said. “To be honest, I’d planned for you to fight me harder on this.”

“Ha, my reputation precedes me,” I replied.

###
As we sat across one another at a booth in the last-of-its-musty-kind barroom two blocks from my apartment, Simon jabbered on; about what, I couldn’t say - some mundane industry gossip, no doubt. I kept the conversation moving along, but unbeknownst to him, my thoughts dwelled elsewhere. When he once again paused to finger his Blackberry I took the opportunity to change the subject.

“I noticed you scoping my shelves earlier.”

“Ah yes,” he said, his thumb wiping condensation from the glass of his vodka-tonic. “Quite a collection you’ve got there.” He took a large, reckless gulp then placed his drink back on its coaster, his eyebrows rising as he went to speak. “Maybe someday it’ll rival my own.” He belched.

“Well, you must have some collection then.” I took a small, calculated sip of my lager. “Funny though, your name never once came up in my frequent haunts.”

Simon coughed, barely struggling to hold back a drunken snarl. “It’s time you found some new ones then, man.”

“Perhaps.”

“Perhaps definitely,” he proclaimed, the liquor raising his audacity by the ounce. “I hate to brag, you know, but I’ve been called one of the foremost collectors of contemporary horror in the country.”

Is that so?” I prodded.

“Damn, right. There isn’t a bookseller in the state that I don’t know on a first name basis. Go ahead and try me.”

“No, I couldn’t really.”

“Come on.”

“I really can’t.”

“Oh, come on,” he insisted.

“No, you don’t understand.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I should have spoken more clearly about those haunts of mine. You see, most of my collection comes from overseas."

“What are you talking about? I saw what you had: first edition Vonnegut, PKD, some early Poe anthologies. None of that comes from overseas. None of it’s particularly rare either,” he scoffed.

“Ah, but you only scratched the surface of my collection, the bulk of which I keep in a separate storage facility.”

“And where is that?” he demanded. The foolish look in his eyes told me I now had his full, drunken attention.

“A warehouse, two levels, not far from here actually. We could walk over if you like – it would only take about fifteen minutes.” I finished my beer and grabbed my coat as if preparing to leave, but Simon reached out to stop me, as I expected he would.

“Er, hold on a minute there.” His tone grew amusingly condescending with his level of intoxication. “Just what kind of jewels do you have over there?”

“Oh, let me think: an obscure printing of Will’s Horrid Mysteries, an early copy of Lyrical Ballads—”

“Early this, obscure that. Come on, man!” he shouted then laughed. “I’m just kidding. It sounds like you’re on your way. Let me know if you ever find something really valuable. Until then, I think it’d be best if we kept our relationship strictly editorial, if you catch my meaning.” He looked at his phone, checked the time, temperature, four-day forecast, who the hell knows what? “It’s getting late. Hate to drink and ditch, but I’ve really got to run,” he said sliding clumsily from our booth to balance on tilted legs.

“There’s one other thing,” I said.

“Oh, what’s that?”

“I have, in my storage facility, an original Necromancer.” His eyes became agog. “The original, I should say.”

“It can’t be. It doesn’t exist”

“Oh, but it does, and I have the only copy.”

“But how?”

“Through an anonymous source.”

“Who?” he demanded.

“Sorry,” I laughed, “but then it wouldn’t anonymous.”

"You’re serious. You really have the original Necro?” he asked, his doublespeak abbreviation turning my stomach over; the man even spoke like a text message.

“Yes, I am and I do,” I said through gritted teeth.

“I must see it,” he shouted.

“I don’t know,” I teased. “After all, like you said, it’s getting late. Perhaps another time—”

“Fuck that, man. That was then, this is now. Come on, you said yourself that the place is nearby. Let’s head over now.”

“Alright then, one more drink and we’ll be on our way.”

###
As I fumbled for the key to my warehouse’s front entrance, I relished in the success of my ruse; my editor had absolutely no idea that his presently vodka-redolent breaths, colored grey by frigid moonlit night, would be the last this world would ever see of him.

“Come on already, shaky,” he taunted, his teeth chattering in the cold.

“A thousand apologies - could you lend me your phone for a second? I can’t seem to find the right key.” Before I could finish my sentence the phone appeared in my hand, beaming an unearthly shade of blue. “Ah, there we go,” I said, quickly picking out the key and opening the door.

“About time,” Simon said, “I thought we were going to freeze to death out here.”

I flicked a switch on the wall and the room became awash with fluorescent light, revealing a hoarder’s trove of penny-paperbacks, classic comics, and other various discarded diamonds in the rough; walls of books stacked ceiling high, forming aisles upon aisles.

Simon coughed or made some other atrocious sound. “In here?” he gasped, as I led him past the entry-way.

“Of course not,” I laughed. “This floor only houses everyday reading material. I doubt you’d find anything truly collectible down here. The real treasure awaits us upstairs.”

I led the way, craftily negotiating the aisles’ twists and turns, while Simon followed kicking up dust. If the depth of my collection didn’t overwhelm my editor, then surely the sheer state of it must have. The aged assemblage of paper on paper stood as an outright offense to his Broadway-born couture. This man was no writer; he was barely a reader. As we scaled the steel steps leading to the next floor, I felt the vibrations of his trembling hand on the banister.

When the electronically sealed stainless steel door came into sight, Simon let loose a sigh of relief so long-winded it bordered on vulgarity. “Something troubling you?” I asked.

“Oh, no, just glad to see you’re paying the rarer books the respect they deserve.”

“But of course,” I said, placing my eye before the door’s retina-scanner. With an affirmative beep the mammoth safety lock unlatched and the door cranked open to reveal a white-walled room containing one shelf, one desk and one chair. As we entered the temperature control system hummed into effect, dropping the stasis temperature a fraction of a degree to compensate for our added body heat.

“Most impressive,” Daniel said. “Now, let’s see if this well-maintained, albeit meager, collection lives up to its hype.”

We approached the lone stainless steel shelf, which was finished with baked enamel and sealed behind a thin pane of glass. I let Simon sidle before the shelf several times, his eyes - still red from booze - peering eagerly through the glass. Then, when he scratched his head and came to halt at the shelf’s left-most section, I swung the chair out from the desk, placed my right hand on his shoulder, motioned with my left to the chair, and said, “If you wouldn’t mind.”

His lips motioned to make some smart-aleck retort, but all that came out was a reserved if not cordial “Sure.” I watched him sit, then turned back to the shelf and pulled out the same key chain from before. “Not those damn keys again,” he moaned.

“No worries,” I replied. “This one, I never miss.” I unlocked the glass window and removed The Necromancer, which had laid flat on its side in a home-made, black leather bound book jacket. Slowly, I walked over to the desk, all the while studying Simon’s naive enthusiasm. I gently placed the book on the table and removed its jacket. Again, his eyes became agog. “Now, before you examine the rest of the book, I hoped you might take a look at the colophon. You see, there’s an odd phrase there that I can’t seem to decipher. Perhaps you’ll have some luck with it.” I turned to the book’s final page and pointed at the backwards-Latin printer’s mark.

“sirednocsba rotatlucco sibrev A,” he read.

By the time he raised his confused little head to meet my frenzied gaze his figure had already begun to fade. He opened his mouth, as if to scream, but not even air escaped. No ‘ptoof,’ ‘whoosh,’ or other ridiculous onomatopoeia accompanied his disappearance; the fibrous strands of his being merely blurred into nothingness.

When he was gone I returned the book to its place and went home a happy man.

###
As for the chapter my oh-so-ambitious editor hoped to hide, it remained undisturbed in its rightful place and never affected the book’s critical or commercial reception in the least.

There was, of course, some vague inquiry into the whereabouts of Mr. Simon, for although he was now hidden from existence, he had indeed existed and I was the last to see him before his sudden disappearance occurred. But what could I tell them? We looked at some books and then he left, and that was all.

A Fable From 2005

noreply@blogger.com (Samuel Diamond) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 04:09:00 +0000

“The Wormhole”

Once upon a dimension of perception, there was a boy named Stephen. Stephen was similar to most young children in that he loved to explore. It was on rare occasion that he came in for dinner without scuffed pants and plenty of extra dirt added to his already dirty-blonde hair. What differentiated Stephen, however, was the unique rapidity with which his curiosity evolved into determined fascination. Even as an infant, he was possessed by an obsession with the unknown. At the ripe young age of seven days, Stephen made his first solo journey into uncharted territory. When his parents found him, he was lying on his back underneath the crib, his little legs squirming in a victory dance. Indeed, his young mind grew to embrace the continuous expansion of his surrounding world.

By age nine (years), Stephen had learned all he could understand about math and science, and some he couldn’t. He still wanted more. The world, it seemed, was not big enough for Stephen. So he took to the stars. Stephen began reading everything there was to read about space. In his mind, he was making the obvious jump from physics to astrophysics.

Eventually, astronomical phenomenon became Stephen’s main focus. Black holes, in particular, sparked his interest. Stephen made it his personal duty to read every book ever written on the subject. He discovered that there were different types of black holes. Some were located at the centers of galaxies. These supermassive black holes acted like nuclei or suns, powering their systems. Other black holes were left over from the deaths of massive stars.

The black hole that intrigued Stephen most was the Schwarzchild black hole, one characterized by its nonrotating, collapsed core. Stephen believed that this particular entity acted as wormhole, through which one could enter alternate universes. It was within these regions of dark matter, Stephen decided, that he had found and would find his grand purpose. He would find the gateway to more.

So at the seasoned age of twelve, Stephen traded his muddy sneakers for work boots and his grass stains for oil streaks, and he began building his spaceship. He worked day and night on the spaceship, isolating himself in his garage, leaving the rest of the world behind. Days became years.

Sometimes “by the will of physics,” so he told himself, a young girl from the neighborhood would approach Stephen. She would ask him questions about why exactly he spent so much time locked in a garage. He would reply by asking if she would like to see his spaceship. Usually if this didn’t just scare her away, it would earn Stephen a slap in the face. But that didn’t matter much.

On his twenty-first birthday Stephen wished the world farewell and launched himself into space. He’d set his course for thousands upon thousands of light years away to the Schwarzchild black hole. As decades became millennia, two things kept Stephen alive: blind determination and the advanced stellar-powered computer system wired to his brain and other organs.

By the time a few hundred thousand years had passed, only mind and machine remained. Stephen was consoled thinking of himself as a powerful mechanized druid traveling on a necessary quest for the greatest truth. His many gears and circuits agreed. His spaceship affirmed that the destination grew nearer with each passing light year.

When the event horizon finally became imminent, Stephen’s mind prepared itself for entry. The memory banks erased any and all doubts from their emotional database. There would be no turning back now.

Stephen watched the surrounding light experience extreme shifts from blue to red, and for a second he felt a bit younger. Then, Stephen and his machines entered the event horizon. As he was sucked in beyond the speed of light, Stephen’s robotic hindsight witnessed the end of the universe. Shattered fragments of universal catastrophe reflected themselves in passing instances. Stephen bid his universe a final farewell as he approached the lightless core.

The instant he entered, however, was the instant in which he was completely destroyed. Even the strongest, most rare metals in the universe could not have saved Stephen from the immense pressure of the core. As soon as he began his journey through the wormhole, he was crushed into nothingness.

THE END