Stoic Decay

3D Stereoscopic CGI

2012-02-08T02:33:00.000-08:00

Bocklin's Isle of the Dead

This is from 2007 and is only about 25% complete. Maybe someday I'll finish it. At this point most (if not all) of the Great Mystery that permeates the original masterpiece(s) is absent, mostly negated by being able to see what is behind the Mediterranean Cypresses. There is definitely more than bare stone in that dense gloom.

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Learn how to view without glasses

Temple Pool Under a Yellow Sky

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Anaglyph Tests Made Around the Same Time as These False Starts

A Question

2012-01-26T15:47:00.000-08:00

6th day of Summer 3995

Lyren the wise once told Eobanus Lassus if he stood unmoving, deep in a forest close by a lake, from sunset until sunrise, facing north with his hands at his sides and his head slightly bowed, a vehvoss—an angilach of the leaf—would grant him an audience.

The sun has been up for an hour. His body occasionally quivers in revolt and with effort is pacified. He is close to giving up but a strange feeling (perhaps only fatigue) has overtaken him. There is something before him. His eyes seem on the verge of focusing on a shape in—or part of—the leaves and brush at his feet.

Frightened his concentration will fail him too soon, he asks the question that has burned his mind for millennia: “Did Argemon create the universe as he claimed, or was that another lie?”

This section is incomplete. More to come, eventually…

Move back 3 years in the past to Not the End
Go to the Fountain World Index

Illustrations for John Cowper Powys' A Glastonbury Romance

2012-01-23T17:30:00.000-08:00

The words emanated from a pale, insubstantial husk upon the air, a husk that resembled the cast-off skin of a snake or the yet more fragile skin of a newt, diaphanous and yet flaccid, a form, a shape, a human transparency, limned upon the darkness above the great chair to the left of the fireplace.
[…]
No sooner were these words uttered, than a simulacrum in human form, seated opposite to the shade of the Rector returned a bitter response.
— Chapter I: The Will

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“Southwood,” residence on Via Del Lago, Palm Beach, Florida

INTERNET ARCHIVE IMAGE USED

Examples of Gothic Architecture, Vol. 3, page 168

Its primordial goodness warring forever against its primordial evil holds life up only by vast excess of energy and by oceans of lavish waste. Even though the cry of a particular creature may reach the First Cause, there is always a danger of its being intercepted by the evil will of this vast Janus-faced Force.
[…]
“It is extraordinary that we should ever have met!” These words, uttered by John in a moment of relaxed gratefulness, struck the attention of that solitary ash tree in Water-ditch Field with what in trees corresponds to human irony. Five times in its life of a hundred and thirty years had the ash tree of Water-ditch Field heard those words uttered by living organisms.
— Chapter II: The River

The man gave him his hand and John stood up. He surreptitiously substituted the handle of his hazel-stick for its ferrule end and grasped it tightly. “If he becomes dangerous,” he thought, “I’ll step backward and hit him on the head with all my force.”
— Chapter III: Stonehenge

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’Tis a daffadowndilly day, like this day be, that leads to these unholy doings.
[…]
She was in fact an animated Euclidean Square moving about over the earth.
— Chapter IV: Hic Jacet

The pit of his stomach suddenly seemed to sink inward then for he thought to himself, “She is going to sleep with him again! I could feel it in the air when we came away.”
— Chapter V: Whitelake Cottage

Sam ought to have had the wit to realise at this moment that had he swallowed his pride and changed his tone all would have been well. Apparently a man can call his love a whore and be forgiven! But he was at once too aggrieved and too simple-minded to take advantage of the tears that were now pouring down her face.
— Chapter VI: The Look of a Saint

From the novel: A Glastonbury Romance

Repaneled

2012-01-23T15:37:00.000-08:00

Re-imagining Comic Book Panels (my versions on top)

Savage Sword of Conan #63
John Buscema

Action Comics #70
Sam Citron

Barnum!
Niko Henrichon

Uncle Scrooge #76
Tony Strobl & Steve Steere

Thor #366
Walt Simonson

Mr. Lonely
Kaz

X’ed Out
Charles Burns

Marvel Mystery Comics #88
Carl Burgos

Illustrations for Isaac Bashevis Singer's Collected Stories

2012-01-23T13:32:00.000-08:00

One night, when the period of mourning was done, as I lay dreaming on the flour sacks, there came the Spirit of Evil himself and said to me, “Gimpel, why do you sleep?”
— Gimpel the Fool

Amid thick forests and deep swamps, on the slope of a hill, level at the summit, lay the village of Frampol.
— The Gentleman from Cracow

This is the first non-digital pen and ink drawing I’ve made in quite a long time. My hand hurts. An odd thing: Working on a computer has become so ingrained that when I drew a pen stroke I didn’t like my left hand actually reached out instinctively to hit ctrl-z on a non-existent keyboard hard-wired inside my head.

Her left pigtail was tied with a white ribbon.
— Joy

I failed to capture the sadness and beauty of this tale, instead showing only a complacent eeriness.

He loved to sit and look at the tall white birches, which trembled even when no breeze blew…
— The Little Shoemakers

At times, they did not even speak, but sat silently, holding hands and weeping.
— The Unseen

Dr. Fischelson trembled and the Ethics dropped from his hands.
— The Spinoza of Market Street

Many feared that Lise would collapse and spoil their fun but she was apparently determined to accept her punishment in all its bitterness.
— The Destruction of Kreshev

There are secrets that the heart cannot reveal to the lips. They are carried to the grave.
— Taibele and Her Demon

We rode near a lake surrounded by groups of flamingos airing their wings, and the water mirrored their long beaks and pink feathers.
— Alone

Though the day had turned cold and windy, they continued to walk until they reached the pine forest, not turning back until dusk when it was time for the evening prayer.
— Yentl the Yeshiva Boy

One day, while Zeidel was sitting, studying a faded manuscript in the library at Crakow, everything went dark before his eyes. At first he thought dusk had fallen and asked why the candles had not been lit. But when a monk told him that the day was still bright, he realized he had gone blind.
— Zeidlus the Pope

I found a Yiddish storybook between two broken barrels in the house which once belonged to Velvel the barrelmaker. I sit there, the last of the demons.
— The Last Demon

From The Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer

Stereoscopic gElm 41 - 60

2012-01-23T12:16:00.000-08:00

Ganesh, Quagmire, & Jesus

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river stones

many boats

Highway 191 & Clark Rd

country road

orchard

Paradise Airport

rock face

far butte

40 MPH

hazy

river lawn

dead end

tracks in shade

the other bank

levee path

branches against blue sky

bare river roots

no vehicles

many twigs

Quorry Across the Multiverse

2012-01-23T12:14:00.000-08:00

Do Androids Dream of…

Quorry the Dancing Peasant

also available in the 3rd dimension

Infantryman

Continental Army

Death in the Eye

“I extrapolate therefore I am afraid.”

First Appearance of Quorry

An Unwilling Offering

After all, some idols eat with more haste and stealth.

Illustrations for Philip K. Dick's Collected Stories

2012-01-23T11:54:00.000-08:00

It was not until he had almost finished washing that he noticed it. He stood for a long time, water running over his hands, staring silently down, unable to speak.

His fingernails were gone.

He looked up in the mirror, breathing quickly. Suddenly he grabbed at his hair. Handfuls of hair came out, great bunches of light brown hair. Hair and nails…
— The Infinites

With apologies to Charles Burns for trying on his shoes and finding them a thousand sizes too large.

Later, he sat at his desk, the spray gun beside him, heavy-duty steel and copper. He touched its damp surface with his fingers.

Seven o’clock. Behind him the radio played softly. He reached over and moved the desk lamp so that it shone on the floor beside the desk.
— Expendable

In the dark room a withered old man lay, propped up on endless pillows. At first it seemed as if he were asleep; there was no motion or sign of life. But after a time Kramer saw with a faint shock that the old man was watching them, intently, his eyes fixed on them, unmoving, unwinking.
— Mr. Spaceship

It was a warm sunny day. The sky was almost free of clouds and a gentle wind moved through the cedars along the bank of the stream. There was a path leading from the hospital building down the slope to the stream. At the stream a small bridge led over to the other side, and a few patients were standing on the bridge, wrapped in their bathrobes, looking aimlessly down at the water.
— Piper in the Woods

The wub stood sagging, its great body settling slowly.
— Beyond Lies the Wub

And there was the Stravinsky bird, made up of curious fragments and bits, and many others besides.
— The Preserving Machine

Out in front the Roogs stopped their truck. He could hear them opening the doors stepping down onto the sidewalk. Boris ran around in a little circle. He whined and his muzzle turned once again toward the house.
— Roog

The side exit let him out on one of the larger underground streets, which was a riot of lights and passing vehicles. He located his direction, and began to search for a communications car to take him home…
— Stability

There was a strange hunger in her eyes.
— The Defenders

There was not much left. The huge concrete piers which they had noticed were not piers at all, but the ruined foundations of buildings. They had been baked by the searing heat, baked and charred almost to the ground. Nothing else remained, only this irregular circle of white squares, perhaps four miles in diameter. […] They walked into the city between the ruined buildings. No one spoke. They walked in silence, listening to the echo of their footsteps.
— The Gun

PKD speculating on the only kind of alien contact the human race will most likely ever have.

“You are to call me—My Lord.”
— The Little Movement

The Speaker moved to one side. “Look,” he said. He drew a sliding wall away, showing a dark square hole. “In there.”

Conger squatted down, staring in. He frowned. “A skull! A skeleton!”

“The man you are after has been dead for two centuries,” the Speaker said. “This is all that remains of him. And this is all you have with which to find him.”
— The Skull

From Volume One of Philip K. Dick’s Collected Stories: The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford

Exploration

2012-01-23T00:18:00.000-08:00

Illustrations for Stories by H. P. Lovecraft

2012-01-22T18:34:00.000-08:00

And when the church bells rang he would stop his ears and scream, and the grey cat that dwelt with him would howl in unison till the last peal died reverberantly away.
— The Descendant

My friend was dying when I spoke to him, and he could not answer coherently. All he could do was to whisper, “The amulet—that damned thing—”
— The Hound

… the face of the motorman was a mere white cone tapering to one blood-red-tentacle…
— The Thing in the Moonlight

… coming home at evening to a room whose one window opened not to open fields and groves but on to a dim court where other windows stared in dull despair.
— Azathoth

… but still the Pole Star leers down from the same place in the black vault, winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a message to convey.
— Polaris

… an absurd appearance of harmless stupidity by the pale, sleepy blueness of his small watery eyes, the scantiness of his neglected and never-shaven growth of yellow beard…
— Beyond the Wall of Sleep

Men whose eyes were wild with fear shrieked aloud of the sight within the king’s banquet-hall, where through the windows were seen no longer the forms of Nargis-Hei and his nobles and slaves…
— The Doom That Came to Sarnath

But the villagers did not discuss such things with the old man and his wife; because of the habitual expression on the withered faces of the two, and because their cottage was so small and so darkly hidden under spreading oaks at the back of a neglected yard.
— The Cats of Ulthar

Then Kuranes walked through the Street of Pillars to the seaward wall, where gathered the traders and sailors, and strange men from the regions where the sea meets the sky. There he stayed long, gazing out over the bright harbour where the ripples sparkled beneath an unknown sun, and where rode lightly the galleys from far places over the water.
— Celephais

Indescribable shapes both alive and otherwise were mixed in disgusting disarray, and close to every known thing were whole worlds of alien, unknown entities.
— From Beyond

When we gazed around the horizon, we could not find the third tower by the river, and noticed that the silhouette of the second tower was ragged at the top.
— Nyarlathotep

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I saw that the passage was a long one, so floundered ahead rapidly in a creeping run that would have seemed horrible had any eye watched me in the blackness; crossing from side to side occasionally to feel of my surroundings and be sure the walls and rows of cases still stretched on. Man is so used to thinking visually that I almost forgot the darkness and pictured the endless corridor of wood and glass in its low-studded monotony as though I saw it. And then in a moment of indescribable emotion I did see it.
— The Nameless City

Merciful gods of earth, I am falling into the sky!
— The Other Gods

Last night I swallowed the drug and floated dreamily into the golden valley and the shadowy groves; and when I came this time to the antique wall, I saw that the small gate of bronze was ajar.
— Ex Oblivione

Then one night the reddened and fattened Romnod snorted heavily amidst the poppied silks of his banquet-couch and died writhing, whilst Iranon, pale and slender, sang to himself in a far corner.
— The Quest of Iranon

I could comprehend his presence despite the absence of form by a species of pictorial memory whereby his face appeared to me, golden from a strange light and frightful with its weird beauty, its anomalously youthful cheeks, its burning eyes, its Olympian brow, and its shadowing hair and growth of beard.
— Hypnos

From the book: The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft

Existing biology would have to be wholly revised, for this thing was no product of any cell growth science knows about.
— At the Mountains of Madness

He would be lying in the dark fighting to keep awake when a faint lambent glow would seem to shimmer around the centuried room, showing in a violet mist the convergence of angled planes which had seized his brain so insidiously.
— Dreams In The Witch-House

Out of the fungus-ridden earth steamed up a vaporous corpse-light, yellow and diseased…
— The Shunned House

Warren always dominated me, and sometimes I feared him.
— The Statement of Randolph Carter

Did Mr. Carter in fact kill his “friend” Harley Warren and then spin a ludicrous tale of supernatural horror as feeble smokescreen? His own words give a potential motive. Case closed?

From the book: At the Mountains of Madness and Other Tales of Terror

Creating Triumvids

2012-01-22T18:33:00.000-08:00

99th day of Autumn 3992

Edward Caldwell lifts a photo from off a side table. It reassures him. Of all those pictured, he is the only one still alive.

Written lightly on the back in pencil are these words: Left to Right—Edward Caldwell, “White Apple” tycoon Thomas Caldwell, Hap Breyer, & Tom Geith. Looking south as the ferry crosses under Kwintell Bridge. Sangren, Kodjh Province, Novantium. Spring, 3942.

[There is a gap here.]

The process requires power and skill to be successful—the hands of a sculptor to shine.

This section is incomplete. More to come, eventually…

NOTE - The 2nd image from the top was created with the following images: Singer Tower and huge office buildings • Broad Street, north to the Stock Exchange • Liechtenstein castle on edge of the Swabian Alps • Burnside Bridge Eastern view • Under Girard Av.

Go to the Fountain World Index

Illustrations for John Collier's Fancies and Goodnights

2012-01-22T18:28:00.000-08:00

There were the arches, pillars, marbles, hangings, etc. of the most exquisite palace imaginable, and wherever he looked he saw a tiger-skin, and on every tiger-skin there reclined a young woman of surpassing beauty who was certainly not vulgarly over-dressed.
Bottle Party

He had those huge and clumsy hands which can be an asset to a doctor in a small upstate town where people still retain a rural relish for paradox, thinking that the more apelike the paw, the more precise it can be in the delicate business of a tonsillectomy.
De Mortuis

How can I describe the dark inhuman creatures that passed me, silent as shadows?
Evening Primrose

From the book: Fancies & Goodnights

Illustrations for Tales by Clark Ashton Smith

2012-01-22T17:00:00.000-08:00

Now the lamia was vexed, for her beauty was grown an evil legend in both Thebais and Elephantine; so that men were become fearful of her lips and cautious of her embrace, and she had no lover for almost a fortnight.
— Sadastor

It had a pale, hairless, egg-shaped body, large as that of a gravid she-goat; and this body was mounted on nine long wavering legs with many flanges, like the legs of some enormous spider. The creature ran past me to the water’s edge; and I saw that there were no eyes in its oddly sloping face; but two knife-like ears rose high above its head, and a thin, wrinkled snout hung down across its mouth, whose flabby lips, parted in that eternal chuckle, revealed rows of bats’ teeth.
— The Abominations of Yondo

Intent as on some ulterior cryptic purpose, some charnel errand not to be surmised by the living, it went by with a tranquil pace, an effortless and gliding tread in which, despite my terror and stupefaction, I perceived a certain horrible and feminine grace.
— The Ninth Skeleton

And so it was that I set foot on the bridge of shadowy arches, under which the black waters flowed in stealthy division and were joined again in a silence as of Styx and Acheron.
— A Night in Malneant

There was a crash as of many thunders, and the golden lamps went out in a darkness that seemed full of falling dust, of raining fragments.
— The End of the Story

But, though these things and the power they held or symbolized were the terror of the peoples and the envy of all rival magicians, the thoughts of Malygris were dark with immitigable melancholy, and weariness filled his heart as ashes fill the hearth where a great fire has died. Immovable he sat, implacable he mused, while the sun of afternoon, declining on the city and on the sea that was beyond the city, smote with autumnal rays through the window of greenish-yellow glass, and touched his shrunken hands with its phantom gold and fired the bales-rubies of his rings till they burned like demonian eyes.
— The Last Incantation

The only unusual notes were struck by two heavy brass candlesticks on his table wrought in the form of rearing serpents, and a stuffed rattlesnake that was coiled on top of one of the low bookcases.
— The Resurrection of the Rattlesnake

The man was Jonas McGillicuddy, and he was on his way home after a somewhat prolonged absence. His return was unannounced, and would prove as unexpected to his wife and three children as his departure had been.
— The Phantoms of the Fire

Tales from the book: The End of the Story

3D Stereoscopic Drawings

2012-01-22T16:26:00.001-08:00

The Peasant Dance

parallel version • learn how to view

An homage to Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s famous painting -- starring Quorry of Fine Cruel Antics.

hi-res red/blue anaglyph version

cross-eye version

Jim #4 Cover

parallel version

A 3D transmogrification of Jim Woodring’s classic Jim v.2 #4 cover, a comic that sat within easy reach of my desk for about ten years only to be replaced by the even more magnificent The Frank Book which I often pick up when I need an infusion of wonder and happiness. Frank, the Jim cover, and etc. are copyright Jim Woodring.

hi-res red/blue anaglyph version

cross-eye version

The Last Musketeer

parallel version

With utmost respect for that most masterful of cartoonists: Jason. A dimensional reworking of the cover for The Last Musketeer.

hi-res red/blue anaglyph version

cross-eye version

Thangobrind the Jeweller

parallel version

A transformation to 3D of Sidney Sime’s great illustration from Lord Dunsany’s: The Book of Wonder, a chronicle of little adventures at the edge of the world. One of my favorite things about this picture is the large bear (half seen) that is lumbering away into the depths of the trees, just one of the many touches that make Sime grand.

hi-res red/blue anaglyph version

cross-eye version

Stereoscopic Mythical Pornography

parallel version

hi-res red/blue anaglyph version

cross-eye version

Cobblestones

parallel version

hi-res red/blue anaglyph version

cross-eye version

The Feathered Mile

parallel version

hi-res red/blue anaglyph version

cross-eye version

How to View 3D with the Naked Eye

2012-01-22T15:22:00.001-08:00

Get a large hardback book with a spine of about one inch thick.
Center the above image on your computer screen.
Looking at the image, hold the book up flat in front of you as if you were looking at the cover.
Rotate the book so the spine comes toward your nose and as you do so focus on the image as it is revealed.
Try to line the book up so your left eye only sees what is to the left of the gray line and your right eye sees only what is to the right of the gray line.

Hopefully you will be able to see the image in 3D. This is the only method that has worked for me, though it might not work for everyone.

Parallel Version

hi-res red/blue anaglyph version

alternate cross-eye version

Maakies is copyright Tony Millionaire.

Illustrations for Songs

2012-01-22T15:19:00.000-08:00

There is a rusty light on the pines tonight…
— Emily • Joanna Newsom

That there’d be fire underneath…
— Dreamer • Lightning Dust

I can’t promise you anything but I trust there is far greater reason to live.
— Mr. Nichols • Coldcut and Saul Williams

Palmless Prayer/Mass Murder Refrain — A great collaboration between Mono and world’s end girlfriend. A mix of Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3 and Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack for Once Upon a Time in the West. A near masterpiece.

3D Stereoscopic Collages

2012-01-22T15:16:00.000-08:00

The Mighty Boosh: The Sitting Room of The Hitcher’s Grandmother

parallel version • learn how to view

Composed (mostly) of many different (altered) images from: Mr. Punch at Home, in homage to The Mighty Boosh. Please excuse my dodgy rendering of Tony Harrison and Naboo.

hi-res red/blue anaglyph version

cross-eye version

Antique Flat 2D Version

Steampunk

parallel version

Inspired by Max Ernst’s Une Semaine De Bonte: A Surrealistic Novel in Collage.

hi-res red/blue anaglyph version

cross-eye version

Mr. Punch Meet Mr. Ernst

parallel version

hi-res red/blue anaglyph version

cross-eye version

Not the End

2012-01-22T14:58:00.000-08:00

10th day of Winter 3992

“No,” Ampersan says. “We leave it like this, for now.”

This section is incomplete. More to come, eventually…

Go to the Fountain World Index

Egstellion's Third Trial

2012-01-22T14:55:00.000-08:00

89th day of Summer 620

Ammikis offers Egstellion her hand.

He perseveres, reaching for the goad—and victory.

This section is incomplete. More to come, eventually…

Continue forward 3292 years in the future to A Musical Interlude
Go to the Fountain World Index

RePULPed

2012-01-22T14:54:00.000-08:00

Remaking Pulp Fiction Covers (my versions on top)

Thrilling Detective September 1936

Startling Stories March 1952
Earle K. Bergey

New Detective Magazine February 1944

Astounding Stories September 1932
Hans Wessolowski

Fantastic Adventure September 1939
H. W. McCauley

Thrice Gloomy

2012-01-22T14:51:00.000-08:00

Slides on a Dirty Screen

Larry Bowles, a 1940’s gumshoe who took his job title too literally, at the cost of his own life.

Tex Winton, a cowboy who fatally misinterpreted the term gunslinger.

Fred was suddenly afraid, terribly afraid.

“That donkey there is four dollars,” the salesman said.

“Why so cheap?” Donald asked.

“He won’t read latin.”

Olivia just couldn’t understand why so many men were making obscene proposals to her when all she was trying to do was find a good home for Mr. Whiskers.

The 5th day of June 1956, Jon’s first day at the FBI, started with a rather large misunderstanding.

Loose lips sink more than ships.

“Don’t take any wooden nickels,” is a saying I don’t agree with. If someone offered me a wooden nickel I would take it and say, “Wow! A wooden nickel. Thanks, I’ve never seen one of these.”

Grown weary of his teeth, and having finally saved up enough money for a shiny pair of new dentures, Jimmy told Spike what he really thought of him.

A miniature finger-length version of himself stood upon the pillow holding a small stick with which to poke him in the eye. “Am I insane?” he thought. Three days later he was permanently blind in one eye.

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, because one of your enemies may have trained it to go for your jugular.

Sad Gadflies

2012-01-22T14:49:00.000-08:00

#1. Dream of Fair to Middling Women

#2. Measure Once

#3. My Sorrows Will End When Pigs Fly (He Used to Say)

#4. Portnoy’s Complaint

#5. Imitation
Creep Rat © Kaz, Uncle Gabby © Tony Millionaire

#6. Lucky

#7. Heaven

Illustrations for Thieves' World

2012-01-22T14:21:00.000-08:00

The woman turned while still under the canopy. Her shawl fell back to reveal a fair-skinned blond woman of a youthful and delicate beauty.
— The Face of Chaos by Lynn Abbey

Abruptly it was as though the table shrank, and from an immense distance its farther end drew close and along with it a high-backed, throne-like chair in which sat a curious personage.
— Sentences of Death by John Brunner

Dark corridors led him to the appointed chamber… unexpectedly enjoying the royal couch in its owner’s absence, was Lirain’s sister concubine.
— Shadowspawn by Andrew Offutt

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS IMAGE USED

The Convent Solovetskii, Kola Peninsula, Russia

His candle flickered. He glanced up and saw a beardless fat man in an ornate formal robe, scarcely normal dress for a visit to the Vulgar Unicorn.
— The Gate of the Flying Knives by Poul Anderson

A stick pierced his mask, opening a gash in his forehead which began to drip blood in his eyes.
— The Price of Doing Business by Robert Lynn Asprin

He deposits the mute staring man on the slab and selects a heavy cleaver. I’m sorry, Amar. I have to start with the feet. Otherwise it’s a terrible mess.
— Blood Brothers by Joe Haldeman

The villainous character with the cleaver is called One-Thumb. You’d think such an obvious defining feature - only having one thumb - would be at the top of my list as I attempted to capture the protagonist pictorially. But mediocrity is forgetful. When I originally finished this picture One-Thumb had two thumbs and I had to go back and do a digital amputation. The internet is kind to mediocrity.

The emerald day-robe billowed out from behind her as Myrtis ascended the staircase to the lower rooms and up again to her parlor.
— Myrtis by Christine De Wees

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Octoberagon House Interior

Only then—when it was no longer needed—did Lythande see the blue star between the black bristling brows, the cat-yellow eyes of Rabben the Half-handed!
— The Secret of the Blue Star by Marion Zimmer Bradley

He waited a long time, the pipe now at his lips. Then, his cheeks swelled, and the dart shot out. The bear to the right, roaring even louder, grabbed at the missile stuck in its left eye. Smhee fitted another dart into the pipe and took a step closer. The monster on the left lunged against the restraining collar and chain. Smhee shot the second dart into its tongue.
— Spiders of the Purple Mage by Philip Jose Farmer

Those are supposed to be bears. Also the dart is in the wrong eye. Weak draftsmanship and mistakes in adaptation are my calling cards.

The Cirdonian sighed and turned to the right, stepping through the hangings of brass beads into the sanctuary of Heqt. The figure he expected was waiting for him.
— Goddess by David Drake

A weak shaft of light made its way through the jutting roofs of a half-dozen buildings to illuminate a pair of corpses.
— The Fruit of Enlibar by Lynn Abbey

Inside the bedroom a god was yelling in a deep, baritone voice at the nude Amazon, who was still sitting on the edge of the bed.
— The Dream of the Sorceress by A. E. Van Vogt

He rode down Wideway, and he rode past the docks. A ship was being made fast, and a crowd had gathered round it.
— Vashanka’s Minion by Janet Morris

There was no fountain down here by the fish market, and the few lights were not bright.
— Shadow’s Pawn by Andrew J. Offutt

Kurd emerged into the daylight […] stained disheveled dress of one who sleeps in his clothes, the unwashed, unkempt hair and beard, as well as the cadaverously thin body with its long skeletal fingers […]
— To Guard the Guardians by Robert Lynn Asprin

Cappen Varra at the altar of Aiala.
— The Lady of the Winds by Poul Anderson

From the book: Thieves’ World: First Blood

Illustrations for Songs by The Tiger Lillies

2012-01-22T12:47:00.000-08:00

A cop he leers at Louis as he sees him in the street
Louis he sells watches a man has got to eat
Louis

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS REFERENCE IMAGE

View of Notre Dame de la Garde and harbor, Marseilles, France

Your last words you do say a victim dies today
So now you croak upon a rope tied to a hanging tree
Pressganged

They say the sailor was the devil in disguise
he cast a spell on the young girl
seduced her with his lies
Devil’s Child

In the red Chicago sunset
I could smell his rotting bones
Chicago Sunset

Now he’s foaming at the mouth
He’ll bite you like a rabid dog
Drunken Sailor

On the portside Luis Miller Luis Miller’s losing blood
On the portside with his wallet looking for a little love
Luis Miller

In tatoo parlours by the shore they do anchors by the score…
In massage parlours by the shore they do sailors by the score…
In funeral parlours by the shore business is rarely poor
By the Shore

Moral given never learnt
If you hate you’ll be burnt
Captain Bligh

The death carts visit, visit your house today
Cadavours

On the portside whores are singing while the rubbers
they are flinging of a night of fornicating
with sailors far away
Fishermen

The whores they sit in jackies legs on table tops
Showing of their wares to anyone who’ll stop
Jackies Bar

Old Johnny he’s seen mermaids when he run aground
They carried him ashore when he was sure to drown
King Neptune

Under skull and bones to always be alone
A killer storm might break or do the gallows wait
To never see your home always you will roam
To die on some far shore worst than the lowest whore
Skull and Crossbones

From The Tiger Lillies’ beautiful, dark, sad, & ribald, The Sea

A Leap

2012-01-22T12:44:00.000-08:00

100th day of Autumn 3992

The triumvid follows. Not wanting it to touch him, Gejhi Wiothsioeg runs for what he knows to be a dead end. In the distance the bridge-walk is missing a section the width of a trolley-car. Towards this gap he flees, fear and horror of the creature behind him distorting his sense of logic, making him more animal than man.

He leaps with all his strength. A flailing shadow before the newly risen moon, he sails onward. A little more distance, a strong wind at his back, and he would have landed cleanly on the other side. Instead his shins collide with the jagged edge and his momentum tumbles him forward, sending him sprawling roughly across the stone. He staggers to his feet, chancing a look back to see if the triumvid will follow. It is three paces from the gap and it shows no signs of slowing.

Continue forward 10 days in the future to Not the End
Move back 595 minutes in the past to An Impaled Triumvid
Go to the Fountain World Index

Illustrations for the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien

2012-01-21T23:31:00.000-08:00

Post Ringwraith Destruction

Then tottering, struggling up, with her last strength she drove her sword between crown and mantle, as the great shoulders bowed before her. The sword broke sparkling into many shards. The crown rolled away with a clang. Eowyn fell forward upon her fallen foe. But lo! the mantle and hauberk were empty. […] And there stood Meriadoc the hobbit in the midst of the slain, blinking like an owl in the daylight, for tears blinded him; and through a mist he looked on Eowyn’s fair head, as she lay and did not move; and he looked on the face of the king, fallen in the midst of his glory…
— The Return of the King

The Dark Rider

Round the corner came a black horse, no hobbit-pony but a full-sized horse; and on it sat a large man, who seemed to crouch in the saddle, wrapped in a great black cloak and hood, so that only his boots in the high stirrups showed below; his face was shadowed and invisible.
— The Fellowship of the Ring

Many artists have translated Tolkien’s words into pictures — foremost among them (in my opinion) Alan Lee and Ted Nasmith — but of them all Tolkien remains the greatest. His drawings for The Hobbit are nearly perfect examples of how an illustration can expand a text without getting in the way. They don’t dazzle with virtuosic style or draftsmanship. They are solid, almost diagrammatic, renderings that give you a framework upon which to continually build as you read. As my attempts at illustration amply show, I have a lot to learn.

360 Degree Panoramas

2012-01-21T22:19:00.000-08:00

Mt. Hoffman, Yosemite, California

“Spirit of Sacramento” Paddlewheel Riverboat
Appeared in the film “Blood Alley” with Lauren Bacall & John Wayne

River Walk Park, near the Ziggurat Building

Paradise Skypark Airport

Rockville Hills Community Park, Fairfield

Sacramento River Bike Trail

Not a Through Street

Miller Park & Sacramento Marina

Lagoon Valley-Pena Adobe Regional Park, Vacaville

Further Along the Trail

Garcia Bend Park

Atop Mount Manuel, Big Sur, California

Lapse of Logic

2012-01-21T21:37:00.000-08:00

A Dog’s Life:
Six weeks after being born he is gently weaned from his mother.

A Pig’s Life:
Around 15 days after being born he is put in an overcrowded concrete pen.

A Dog’s Life:
If he is a runt then some caring person will point to “that poor little one,” and he will be adopted into a loving home.

A Pig’s Life:
If he is a runt then he will be lifted by his back legs, swung up into the air and then down, dashing his head against the concrete floor until he is dead.

A Dog’s Life:
He is taken to the vet and neutered while heavily sedated, and is treated as well as any human undergoing a surgical operation.

A Pig’s Life:
He is castrated, his tail is cut off, the tips of his teeth are broken off with pliers, and part of his ear is ripped off to aid in identification. All of this is done without pain killers.

A Dog’s Life:
If he gets a patch of dry skin on the back of his paw he is taken to the vet and thoroughly examined. Then his owner buys some costly medicine and spends the next few weeks applying it to the afflicted area.

A Pig’s Life:
If he is seriously injured; suffers from substantial open wounds, paralysis, or running sores and tumors, he will be ignored and left to linger, in the hope that he might possibly stay alive long enough to be dragged aboard the truck to the slaughterhouse.

A Dog’s Life:
He spends the next 10 to 15 years living a life that is in many respects better than the lives led by the human inhabitants of many 3rd world countries.

A Pig’s Life:
He spends the next 6 months in the same overcrowded concrete pen where, with the help of injected antibiotics and hormones, he bloats up to a weight of 250 pounds.

A Dog’s Life:
He is sick and old. He is carried to the car by the family that loves him. During the drive the children he ran with pet him and cry.

A Pig’s Life:
He is packed into a trailer with so many other pigs (many of which are already seriously ill) that at least a few will die before they reach their destination, succumbing to prior injuries or sickness or suffocation.

A Dog’s Life:
At the vet he is taken to a small room with his entire family following. Each family member in turn says goodbye. A veterinarian enters and gives him a shot which puts him to sleep. His family surround him as he dies. He can hear them, he can feel their touch, as he drifts away.

A Pig’s Life:
At the slaughterhouse he is hung upside down by his back legs, where by law he is supposed to be “stunned” and rendered unconscious. But as there is little enforcement the law is often ignored. When it is not ignored, the method of stunning is very imprecise. As a result the odds are better than even that he will be fully conscious, kicking and struggling, when a slaughterhouse worker sticks a knife in his neck.

A Dog’s Life:
His body is taken away and cremated. A few days later his family receives his ashes.

A Pig’s Life:
Because time is money, instead of waiting until he has fully bled to death, he will be delivered to the scalding tank (the next stop on the slaughterhouse assembly line which will soften his skin and remove his hair) and be dumped inside while still fully conscious, boiled alive.

A Dog’s Life:
His family takes his ashes to a pet cemetery. A funeral service is held and his ashes are interred.

A Pig’s Life:
He ends up as sausages and bacon on someone’s plate. Someone who neither cares how he lived nor how he died, but rather how good he will taste on their gluttonous tongue.

What is the difference between a dog and a pig, that one is pampered, while the other endures six months of torture from the moment it is born till the moment it dies? Yes, I know, not all dogs are treated well either (hundreds of thousands are euthanized at shelters each year), and who knows how many are abused and neglected. But if you walked up to someone and said: I beat my dog and then I ate it. They would look at you as if you were a monster (as you would be). If you walked up to that same person and said: I love bacon. They would probably say: So do I! And sausages too!

What logical argument can be put forth as to why a dog’s life is worth so much more than a pig’s? Usually no argument is given at all, because, well, everyone knows a pig is food and a dog is not (though in some places around the world a dog is both food and pet). One argument I have heard often is: Pigs are stupid - which is not true, pigs are at least as smart as dogs and have been found to be easier to train. And if we started killing things for being stupid, then at least half the politicians in the world would be in grave danger (and if we started killing things for being corrupt then there wouldn’t be any politicians left at all).

The words and pictures on this page will perhaps seem overblown and strident to you, unless you have seen with your own eyes how farm animals - not just pigs - are treated. If you have seen this video then you will understand my anger. When you hear the pig hung by its back legs squealing as its neck is punctured with a knife, as you listen to it continue to squeal in agony as its blood gushes forth, you know it is a sound you will never forget. But then if you eat meat you won’t watch the video, you probably aren’t even reading this now, you probably didn’t get past the second sentence at the top of this page. That is why I hate you, why I call you a coward, call you the pus that squirts from a cold sore, call you a runny liquid turd. Why I wish a plague of locusts on your house, wish for cancerous tumors to cover your eyes, wish for wild packs of dogs to feast on your entrails. That is what hatred does to a person, it makes you say foolish things, and it does not in the end make you feel any better. You have made a fool of me. That is what hatred does. It makes you bitter and fills you with bile. So if you eat meat - go fuck yourself, go stick a rusty knife in your ear, go drink a bottle of bleach. I have become a cliche. I know these words are worthless. But I am like a man who curses the chair leg upon which he stubbed his toe, he knows it does no good but he still screams and shakes his fist at the object which has caused him pain.

You might ask: How have I caused you pain, how have I injured you? To which I would reply: You have robbed me of hope, you have shown me that people are indifferent to pain and cruelty, and will ignore anything that threatens to take something from them that they enjoy - even something as insignificant as a pleasant taste on their tongue.

I did not create the words and pictures on this page to try to change your mind, that is something I have learned is nearly impossible. I created this to explain to you the reason why I hate you. Yes, I know, hatred is not a good thing. Hatred eventually destroys all it touches, it will eventually destroy me. I have tried to let it go, tried to pull myself free of it, but hatred is an amazingly obstinate emotion. It does not know reason and it is not easily washed away. So if you eat meat - May ticks with Lyme disease attach themselves to your genitals, may a braying wild donkey crush your skull with its hooves, may a pigeon drop shit on your car every morning.

No doubt you are saying: “Get off your high horse, feller; do you think you’re better than me, do you?” But I don’t think I am better than you, maybe I am a whole lot worse, who knows. Does the man who tells another man he is standing on a dog’s foot feel superior to the man that is standing on a dog’s foot. No, he just wants that man to get the fuck off the dog’s foot because he can see the dog is in pain.

The odd thing is if you (the fictional meat-eater who is not reading this) and I met we would probably get along fairly well, as long as we kept our conversation on the level of: What nice weather we’re having. But then at some point you would pull a Slim Jim out of your pocket and I would see that poor little runt of a piglet having its brains dashed out on a filthy concrete floor, and brutal tendrils of anger and hatred would snake their way through my mind. Knowing it would do no good, I would say nothing. I would walk away, trying to keep saliva and bile from spilling from my mouth like a maddened dog. Perhaps that is exaggerated. Who fucking cares.

Kurt Vonnegut died a few days ago. He is one of my favorite authors and was a very wise man. I was working on this page when he died and I found myself wondering if he was a vegetarian or not. I do not think he was. I searched the internet and could find nothing that indicated he was. I couldn’t remember him ever mentioning anything about vegetarianism in his books, but maybe my memory is failing me. If a wise man like Vonnegut, who almost always looked at things from new and unique angles and then said: “Hey, that’s not right!” - if he never once questioned how the food he ate got to his plate, then what hope is there.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it is right and correct for animals to endure horrific torture so that humans can eat something that tastes good. But how can that be. Pain is pain and cruelty is cruelty, no matter how it is ignored or rationalized away. Again - if you eat meat - May tiny baby squirrels with sharp teeth and claws nest in your pubic hair, may a sixteen-ton weight drop from the sky upon your head, may you be forced to listen to Pat Robertson for eternity.

What hope is there for humanity if it can treat helpless creatures, creatures over which it holds total and absolute power, in such an inhumane manner, and then be coldly indifferent to their suffering.

QUESTION: What hope is there for humanity?ANSWER: There is none.

I’ll end with a quote (because nothing caps a rambling diatribe better that an obscure quote) by Lem de Grosnpreg, a virtually unknown nineteenth century painter of imaginary landscapes who is only remembered (which he rarely is) for a brief (perhaps apocryphal) acquaintance with Herman Melville. The quote is actually Melville quoting de Grosnpreg, and is from a letter Melville wrote, a letter most Melville scholars claim is an outright forgery, though the motive given for the forgery - that a fan of de Grosnpreg’s sought to immortalize him by linking him to a great man - seems flimsy given the fact that Melville’s reputation as a writer was at that time quite low.

I can’t find the book that contains the full letter so I’ll try to give a general idea of the contents from memory. The quote itself I remember quite well, the rest of the letter less so. It begins with Melville telling how he just read in the morning paper that de Grosnpreg shot himself in the head the evening before, only hours after Melville had visited him - Melville notes the visit occurred in the late afternoon - they discussed various things, including a painting de Grosnpreg was working on - how de Grosnpreg grew pensive as the afternoon wore on, going to the window and staring out - then Melville describes what de Grosnpreg was looking at in great detail: the city street, a park, and the Hudson River glowing richly under a dark sun low on the horizon. And this is the point at which he quotes de Grosnpreg. And so here is the point where I quote Melville quoting de Grosnpreg:

“The world is so very beautiful,” he said, staring moodily out the window. “It is too bad people have to enter the frame and ruin the view.”

Aerial

2012-01-21T21:00:00.000-08:00

1. Post Alphitomancy

He dreams beside a powdered barley cake with a bite-sized crater marring its surface.

The dreams are not pleasant.

They may only be half dream and half memory.

This part conscious realization shocks him awake.

He must flee.

A whirring in his head makes him be still.

2. Ubi sum?

The spinning in his skull dissipates.

He has been in this room before.

Though he does not remember ever having entered it.

An incoherent dread hangs in the air.

The chest fills him with revulsion.

The cake brings rusted metal to his tongue.

The picture of a man killing a bull is important.

Why it is important eludes him.

He hears water dripping on metal.

3. The Cognitive Cliche

Drip.

A reflection illuminates an absence.

The skin is familiar. How it came to take the shape it does - the lines and furrows - is unknown to him. His name is?

From outside a strange sound reverberates against the glass of the window.

4. The Green Hill

The sound seduces him.

A caressing broken-rhythmed ululation that is not music.

It ebbs and flows almost at the beat of his heart.

With every step dread grows inside him.

Overshadowed by a peculiar euphoria.

He smells apples.

Apples rotting in grease.

In a graveyard.

5. Avian Love

His heart stumbles and he stops to catch his breath.

The bright sun brings tears to his eyes. His heartbeat grows more irregular.

His breathing ragged, the sound calls him onward.

The sweet/foul smell is overpowering.

As the sound builds in magnetic strength, shrill discordant notes come from the sky.

The message is clear.

Flee.

Danger.

Death.

A Musical Interlude

2012-01-21T14:33:00.000-08:00

69th day of Summer 3912

“What an intriguing animal,” he says nervously. “I admit at first I mistook it for a stole. It’s some type of ape or monkey? I’ve never seen anything quite like it. It has the most wicked looking little teeth. Is it omnivorous? What does it eat? Is it …”

His power to compensate for her silence falters, leaving him manically folding and unfolding his fingers in a disarrayed steeple.

“You wish to create a song of the night?” she says.

“A symphony, yes.” He drops his hands into his frock coat pockets. “I have the beginnings—the first few chords, but…”

“Take my arm. I will guide you.”

“Should I know you. Are you a singer, a fellow composer? Forgive my ignorance.”

She smiles. “Take my arm and I will guide you.”

Covered

2012-01-21T14:28:00.000-08:00

Reinterpreting Comic Covers (my versions on top)

Uncanny X-Men Annual #9
Art Adams

Acme Novelty Library #6
Chris Ware

Savage Sword of Conan #43
Bob Larkin

The Incredible Hulk #351
Jeff Purves

Why Are You Doing This?
Jason

Wolverine #13
Kevin Nowlan

World’s Finest Comics #67
Win Mortimer

3D Library of Congress: Three

2012-01-21T14:19:00.000-08:00

Miss Frigidaire

Scantily clad woman kneeling on bench. LC-USZ62-95638

FILE FORMATS LIST
anaglyph
cross eye
parallel

circa 1928

Oldest Street in England

Church St. facing Henry VII Gateway. LC-USZ62-99598

FILE FORMATS LIST
anaglyph
cross eye
parallel

circa 1905

The Flapperette II

Seated woman, nude above the waist, facing left with her arms over breasts. LC-USZ62-95646

FILE FORMATS LIST
anaglyph
cross eye
parallel
detail cross eye
detail parallel

circa 1928

Fortifications

Peak Hotel & palatial residences from mountain top above Hong Kong. LC-USZ62-98422

FILE FORMATS LIST
anaglyph
cross eye
parallel

circa 1901

From Inspiration Point

View of Yosemite Valley - showing Bridal Veil Falls, El Capitan, Sentinel & Half Dome. LC-USZ62-77746

FILE FORMATS LIST
anaglyph
cross eye
parallel

circa 1902

Festival Hall & Cascades

Woman standing at railing. LC-USZ62-79371

FILE FORMATS LIST
anaglyph
cross eye
parallel
detail cross eye
detail parallel

circa 1904

In the Oriental Section

Three men standing in front of a woman on a camel at the St. Louis World’s Fair. LC-USZ62-90231

FILE FORMATS LIST
anaglyph
cross eye
parallel

circa 1904

Flower Girls of Paris

A man and woman stop at a street vendors's cart. LC-USZ62-133259

May 25th, 1898

In the Pottery Market

Guanajuato, Mexico. LC-USZ62-114714

FILE FORMATS LIST
anaglyph hi-res
cross-eye
parallel
detail cross-eye
detail parallel

circa 1901

Rue Pont Neuf

A Parisian street scene. LC-USZ62-96659

FILE FORMATS LIST
anaglyph
cross-eye
parallel

circa 1901

Lovely Lady

Nude woman, draped with veil, with right hand behind her head. LC-USZ62-95619

FILE FORMATS LIST
anaglyph
cross-eye
parallel
detail cross-eye
detail parallel
detail 2 cross-eye
detail 2 parallel

circa 1923

14th St. East of 6th Ave.

Pedestrians on sidewalk in turn of the century New York. LC-USZ62-92645

FILE FORMATS LIST
anaglyph
cross-eye
parallel

circa 1896

A Mountain Road

People traveling with oxen & carts in Puerto Rico. LC-USZ62-117152

FILE FORMATS LIST
anaglyph hi-res
cross-eye
parallel

circa 1900

Maoris at Home

Group of Maoris posed outside of hut in New Zealand. LC-USZ62-98401

FILE FORMATS LIST
anaglyph
cross-eye
parallel

circa 1921

The cleaning up and conversion to multiple 3D formats of images from the LOC Stereograph Cards Section.

Illustrations for Books by Stephen King

2012-01-21T00:14:00.000-08:00

The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix & the Pain of John Coffey

I’m a bit ambivalent about The Green Mile. As I was almost finished with the book I read this article by Samuel R. Delany. Which made my ambivalence grow. The Green Mile feels racist, but is it really racist? Not intentionally, but I think it is probably racist in the way Delany talks of in his article.

Another thing I disliked about the book (and eventually came to accept because it is true to life) was the cowardice of basically good men who stay cogs in a system that is corrupt and execute a wholly good man, using his own words to ease their conscience:

“I know you been worryin, but you ought to quit on it now. Because I want to go, boss.”

But it is the words that follow that strike me as being more important:

“I’m rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I’m tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we’s comin from or goin to or why.”

Those words are only partly a plea for death. Coffey is mentally a child. I think those words could also be translated as a question: “Since I don’t have a friend who’ll take my hand and help me through this cruel world it’s better I die, isn’t it?” And Paul Edgecombe and his fellow guards don’t offer their hand because the price would be too high and the final outcome would most likely remain the same. This is where I would part ways with Stephen King and write a totally different ending to the book.

I would have Edgecombe go to the warden, the governor, the newspapers, on a hopeless quest to prove Coffey’s innocence. When that failed my Edgecombe would break Coffey out of jail, go on the lam, still writing letters, and John Coffey (an abused child who has always been alone) is not alone and briefly has a friend that will help him through this dark world. It would end in an abandoned farmhouse. Police firing like a barrage of artillery, the walls pierced by holes letting in shafts of sunlight. Coffey and Edgecombe lay dying. And as they die they reach out and clasp hands.

But my ending isn’t true to life (which is why I will never create anything of worth as a writer). Edgecombe has too much to lose. He could never part from his wife or take a chance at leaving her alone to face the Great Depression. Stephen King knows this. Knows that Paul Edgecombe’s love for his wife is what kills John Coffey. Knows that real heroism is rare. And this is why King is not the hack genre writer that some make him out to be. He has his flaws, but he understands the human heart.

Mike Noonan meets Max Devore and Rogette Whitmore

His wheelchair hardly looked like a wheelchair at all. What it looked like was a motorcycle sidecar crossed with a lunar lander.
— Bag of Bones

Video & Sound

2012-01-20T23:18:00.000-08:00

Twilight is Falling

“It is reminiscent of the short films of Jan Svankmajer but without the hypnotic genius, skill, inventiveness, or quality.” -- Ned G. Pergmelsor

A few different versions can be viewed at the Internet Archive:
• Ultra Widescreen Version (2002)
• 2006 subtitled edition
• Original Cobbled Version (2001)

A couple of the above versions can also be viewed in a lower quality on YouTube and Vimeo

Colbert Report

My entry in the John McCain Green Screen Challenge: John McCain in 3D, was shown on the July 17th Colbert Report! You can watch the whole show on the Colbert Nation Website or see the original clip on my YouTube Page.

Audio Experiments

aka Odd gElm - an aborted attempt at podcasting
all files of which can be downloaded as mp3, ogg, and flac, from the Cast Off Absurdities page at the Internet Archive.

Poor Man’s Blade Runner & Loop Menu Loop & Elegy were background audio for a Macromedia Director project.

March of a Soldier into a Solitary Death of Water was the soundtrack for a short animated film that I abandoned in the early stages. For an idea of what the visuals might have looked like imagine the following: A soldier, scarred, prosthetic ridden, among twisted glass and metal. Fires across a ravaged cityscape. A heavy, dark, nighttime sky with mortars and bombs whistling down from everywhere. The soldier marching deliberately forward, uncaring and weary, into a cathedral-like warehouse perched atop a cliff overlooking the sea. Memories of birds and grass and the sky. An explosion and shattering glass. Remembered voices and then a single gunshot. The soldier falls at the edge of the cliff within the warehouse where the side has been blown away. Water dripping until an immense explosion sends the soldier over the side, falling into the sea. A brutal underwater machine of war passes, as rain and shrapnel and bullets pepper the water’s surface. Drifting, as huge whale-like behemoths sing, the soldier’s body sinks deeper through the darkness. Eventually the soldier’s body floats to the surface. A mortar explodes nearby sending water cascading, pushing the soldier’s body up onto the shore of a stony beach. In the distance past the soldier’s gaping, sightless face, the war goes on. From somewhere birds can be heard singing.

Harbor Escape & Re-Coiled were part of the soundtrack from sections of Twilight is Falling that were not completed.

Dark Pitch Howl was from an abandoned animation.

Kurosawa was used in the soundtrack for a later edit of Twilight is Falling.

Stykos - A Fountain World Story - sound collage. An ancient god and two hunters meet in a forest.

City of Dreadful Night - awash in dark sound - another sound collage. The beginning of James Thomson’s The City of Dreadful Night set against a dark soundscape.

Librivox

Listen to me reading great stories poorly.

A full recording of The Book of Wonder by Lord Dunsany; and other Audiobooks I’ve been a part of.

It Does Not Follow

2012-01-20T22:44:00.000-08:00

“That was heavenly,” she said. He did not respond. His eyes were vague.

He was remembering the past because the future was pleasant.

A bridge on a mountain pass. Alone. Yet not alone. Sudden fear.

Paralyzed. He thought he heard an odd sound. Just the wind in his ears?

A choice: investigate or forever after be a coward.

As the sun went down he found part of an arm and a pair of shoes.

A few sizes too small, he tossed the shoes over the side and ran.

An Impaled Triumvid

2012-01-20T22:23:00.000-08:00

100th day of Autumn 3992

The mock-human creature hangs out the broken window impaled on the shard of glass protruding from its upper back. It is still moving, still alive, struggling like a worm cut in half to free itself.

Stereoscopic gElm 21 - 40

2012-01-20T19:14:00.000-08:00

paddlewheel riverboat from “Blood Alley”

ornate railings, scrollwork

river, overpass

FILE FORMATS LIST
anaglyph hi-res
cross eye
parallel - side by side
detail cross eye
detail parallel

No Trespassing or Dumping

FILE FORMATS LIST
anaglyph hi res
cross eye
parallel

fence, silo

pilot house

the stern

grounded

empty bottom deck

gnarled tree roots

boat-sinker

the waterwheel

starboard side with graffiti

mooring posts

Water Collector No. 1

art deco lettering

shade brambles/light hill

stones

stairs

balustrade urn

Illustrations for Assorted Books

2012-01-20T15:03:00.000-08:00

Kircher had lied to him—either that or he’d been horribly deceived. There was no pleasure in the air; or at least not as humankind understood it.

He had made a mistake opening Lemarchand’s box. A very terrible mistake.
— The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker

My attempt at Robert Aickman’s Painted Devils for the Polish Book Cover Contest at 50 Watts.

In the peculiar city of Ir, Madam Roska and Zdim study the Sibylline Sapphire in the oratory.
— The Fallible Fiend by L. Sprague de Camp

My first attempt at Mnemonic Iconography. John D. MacDonald’s 14th Travis McGee novel The Scarlet Ruse with one boxed icon for each of the 21 chapters.

Blogo the Rare Beast, from Philip Jose Farmer’s A Barnstormer in Oz — A Rationalization and Extrapolation of the Split-Level Continuum.

There was something simian in its flayed, palpitating form, but sketchy, as if it had been born prematurely.
— The Inhuman Condition by Clive Barker

He was quite near the back of Mr Jones’ rocking-chair, and the encroaching waves pushed him ever nearer and nearer. Mr Jones and Mrs O’Toole remained oblivious of his presence.
— Grimus by Salman Rushdie

She saw the blood on his hands. She saw the blood oozing out of his left side, staining the waistband of his shorts.
— Touch by Elmore Leonard

David clipped his badge to his lapel, and stepped out of the hospital and onto the hot asphalt floor of the world within the fences of the Works. Dull thunder came from the buildings around him, a truck honked at him, and a cinder blew in his eye.
— Deer in the Works from Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut

Dan Simmons

2012-01-19T23:58:00.000-08:00

A question: How conservative is the author of Drood and Hyperion? Short answer - he apparently believes Fox News is one or two notches to the left of the political average in this country. Longer answer below.

From his books you'd think Dan Simmons was a pretty smart guy. A more than cursory look at his website will disillusion you of that notion rather quick. Given the number of times he approvingly posts their articles in his forum, he still thinks the idiot chicken-hawks that helped push the country into the Iraq War, men like David Brooks, John Bolton, Charles Krauthammer, and Bill Kristol are sage dispensers of wisdom. Which gives lie to his explanation here that his Time Traveller's Tale was simply a speculative-fiction essay/book report about some interesting books he'd recently read, when in fact it was a full-bore polemic trying to scare people and convince them that (among other things) it really is good and honorable and necessary to kill thirty innocent civilians as long as you kill one suspected terrorist in the process.

In homage to his Time Traveller's Tale I wrote my own little speculative-fiction essay/book report based on some interesting things I've recently read on his website.

A grizzled, scarred, one-eyed Time Traveler appeared in my living room last week and told me the following story:

Along the Front Range of Colorado, in his cabin just south of the Rocky Mountain National Park, noted author Dan Simmons ponders the problems of the world and how easily they could be solved if only his fellow Americans were allowed to see reason. But the liberal elite would never let that happen. They controlled the media and the colleges, continuously spouting the need for tolerance and diversity, tolerance and diversity. Why couldn't they see that Western civilization was on the brink of destruction.

“Naive fools,” he mutters.

A sudden loud thump from just outside the cabin snaps him from his reverie. He drops below his desk and pulls a Ruger .40 S&W semi-automatic from a quick-draw holster at his waist. Crawling across the floor on his knees, he peeks out the window. A squirrel runs along the deck and jumps to a nearby tree. “You're lucky you're not a muslim or an illegal,” he says, standing and brushing off his clothes. The squirrel watches him curiously. He lifts the S&W and places the tip against the glass of the window. “Pow,” he says. “Pow, Pow. You fucking socialist cocksucker.”

In response the squirrel chatters in a way that sounds like mocking laughter.

“Goddamn you liberal eco-terrorist!” Pushing open the window, he aims and fires. One shot hits the deck, another buries itself in the dirt, the last goes straight into the engine of his brand new Land Cruiser. Running to the front door of the cabin he unbolts the long row of locks and then surveys the damage to the SUV. Oil is pouring out the front grill down over the TOM TANCREDO FOR PRESIDENT bumper-sticker. “I'm sorry Tom,” he says, wiping a tear from his eye. “Fucking... fucking Iranians.”

He looks up where the squirrel is perched at the top of a pine tree. “You've got nowhere to run now, you weak-kneed traitor.” He goes to his shed and grabs a can of gasoline and then pours it over the trunk of the pine tree. He lights a match and sets it on fire. “Not even the ACLU can save you now,” he says. The squirrel watches him for a moment and then jumps to a nearby tree. “Hey, get back here, you coward.” The squirrel jumps to another tree and then another. Simmons follows it from the ground.

Eventually he hears an odd sound behind him. He turns and sees the burning pine tree fall over onto his cabin. The fire grows.

“No, NO, NO!” he screams, running down the dirt road, shouting at the top of his lungs: “Fucking liberal muslim mexican illegal terrorists burned down my cabin!”

“So that's going to happen in the future?” I asked the Time Traveller sceptically.

“Yes,” he said. “In about ten years when his paranoia and conservatism grows uncontrollable.”

“But you yourself made that paranoia grow.”

“Definitely,” he said, tugging fake prosthetic scars off his face and removing his eyepatch.

“So muslims don't take over the world then?”

He laughed. “Surprised?”

“But then why tell Simmons all that stuff?”

“Well, you see, the future is awful dull. Just about the only fun thing left to do is travel back in time and wind-up conservatives and watch them gibber.”

Note 1: The above is of course an exaggerated caricature of Simmons. He is a complex person. As I read more and more of the stuff on his website, I actually for a brief moment entertained the wild notion that he was in fact playing a game with his readers pretending—like Stephen Colbert—to be a right-wing asshole as an elaborate joke, but that idea quickly faded as humor and irony are rare in his fiction. He is a serious man.

And just to be clear I do not think the future will be a dull place, in fact I'm fairly certain the future will make the present look like a utopia. I'm guessing one of the main causes of this downfall will be a vicious cycle of conservatives in one part of the world strengthening the hand of conservatives in another part of the world who in turn strengthen the hand of conservatives in another part of the world with a predictable outcome.

Note 2:

Note 3: I'm honestly curious, how many gay men can an author portray more often than not in a bad light before it becomes clear that, at least subconsciously, gay men make him uncomfortable.

October 2008 Message from Dan
- Jim Harlen: a gay-bisexual HIV positive senator who regularly rapes young children.
Hardcase
- Leonard Miles: a gay mob lawyer that likes young boys.
- Carl: a large gay mob bodyguard that is painted as vain and very stupid.
Hard Freeze
- James B. Hansen: a horrific serial killer-rapist who often changes his identity but draws the line at adopting a gay persona because he is no pervert.
- Johnny Norse: a bisexual mafia button man that is dying of AIDS.
- Dr. Howard K. Conway: an elderly gay dentist that knowingly helps James B. Hansen cover his tracks by providing dental records.
- Timmy: Dr. Howard K. Conway's muscled pretty-boy gay lover.
Hard as Nails
- A questionable scene in a gay club called Knob Gobbler's.
- Toma Gonzaga: a gay mob boss (actually a somewhat sympathetic character, at least for a drug dealing murderer).
- A homicide detective, explaining why she smells like death, tells about two gay lovers killing each other in a pretty little house in Allentown.
Lovedeath
- The second story Dying in Bangkok has as its protagonist a gay man with AIDS named John Merrick, which is ?coincidentally? also the name of The Elephant Man in the movie by David Lynch. To me, being named after John Merrick would be a noble thing, perhaps Simmons thought so as well. But maybe it went more like this in his mind: What shall I call the main character who is gay? His subconscious makes connections and spits out John Merrick. The connections under the surface of his mind being: gay men = freaks of nature. The story also has a Thai police inspector standing over the corpse of a man with his genitals removed telling of how he has seen this before and that it is always a queer thing, a fight between faggots.
- In the third story Sleeping with Teeth Women the main character Lame Badger reacts with great anger at the suggestion that he is winkte; and the narator tells that though the Lakota Sioux considered winkte to be wakan (holy) that no self-respecting Lakota brave would want to be one, an attitude that a few google searches suggests might be an exaggeration by Simmons.
- 4th story - Flashback: A teenager at a crowded mall trying to pick someone to shoot in a thrill killing settles on two gay dudes strolling arm in arm laughing and hugging each other, until he sees their yapping little poodles following on leashes. As he searches for a different victim, another teenager thrill-kills an old woman and is then killed by the two gay men who happen to be off-duty police officers.
- 5th (and last) story - The Great Lover: Simmons creates a World-War I poet named James Edwin Rooke that Simmons states in the foreword is a composite of the real World-War I poets A.G. West, Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke, Charles Sorley, and Wilfred Owen. Most of the story is spent detailing the horror and stupidity of trench warfare, with the remaining being used to paint Rooke as a great lover and seducer of women. Sassoon (who seems to be the main basis for Rooke) and Owen were gay, Brooke was bi-sexual. I guess that is one of the great lures of fiction: to take what you like and excise what you do not.
The All-White Elephant in the Room
- In this lengthy forum post the user ScottSA argues against gay marriage by comparing it to necrophilia and states "I disagree vehemently with attempts to endorse or normalize homosexuality in our society." Another user Peter, a gay man, takes offense and (perhaps unwisely) asks Simmons as the site moderator if ScottSA's comments aren't beyond the pale. Simmons ignores him, and then eventually berates Peter for not "leaving him out of what has been largely a 'problem' of his own manufacture," because apparently while Simmons will ban comments he views as racist or personal attacks, he doesn't seem to think being compared to a necrophiliac is a personal attack. The discussion between ScottSA and Peter and other users continues. Simmons makes a couple of arguments for tradition as to why gay marriage is a bad idea. Then on the last page Simmons ends the discussion by stating "this personal argument" between ScottSA and Peter had better end or they will have to leave the forum, finishing with: "I don't give a good goddamn about anyone's sexual proclivities or anyone's problems with other people's proclivities. If you're tempted to drag either of those things in here again, where others don't want to hear it and are trying to discuss ideas outside the sphere of who chooses to fuck who or what and how and why, remember and follow this simple rule: KEEP ... IT ... TO ... YOURSELF."
The Terror
- I haven't read this novel by Simmons, but this review has some interesting comments attached to it. One reader states: "There were some homophobic elements to the novel that bothered me." With a response by Jeff VanderMeer: "It wasn't homophobic." And one from Adam Roberts: "… homophobic? You think? I'm not so sure. A couple of the bad guys are gay, true; but then so are a couple of the good guys. I'd say that the treatment of same-sex desire (in a book set, after all, in the British navy in the 1840s) was stilted and rather earnest rather than homophobic; not terribly convincing or well handled, but not advancing an agenda of hatred or fear of gay men, surely."

Note 4: Scary/Amusing Forum Posts by the Noted Author

"Fox News is one or two notches to the left of the political average in this country," claims Simmons, apparently truly believing some study he doesn't have the time to cite.
Inability to See Evil for What It IsA. Progressives have no soul, no core, and no values of their own.B. Kids from various city schools are being foully transported to a huge city auditorium to hear a dance, song, narration celebration of Mayan and Aztec cultures. "The educators have lost their minds."C. "Where was the City of New York and the families of those murdered on 9-11-01 when that obscenity of a mosque was granted the right to build anywhere near Ground Zero?" the Noted Author screams, false Glenn Beck tears in his eyes. As counterpoint here is a mother whose Muslim son, a New York Police Department cadet, died at Ground Zero trying to help people.
"I've thrown enough right-wingers off this particular site to stock a thousand circles of Dante's Hell for Right-wingers." It is amazing how, even as he slides further and further to the right, the Noted Author truly believes he occupies a place in the exact center of the political spectrum.
October 2005 Message from Dan -- A long rambling (even for Simmons) piece that talks about Hurricane Katrina, in one part comparing it to floods in the Midwest in the early 90's, where he makes the subtle insinuation: "White people react to a flood like heroes. Black people react to a flood like animals." He also parrots the rather common conservative talking point: They (black people) ignored a mandatory evacuation order and then immediately after the flood began looting plasma TVs. Perhaps Simmons (the very wealthy man that he is) is unaware of poverty and how difficult it is to flee a city when you don't own a car, and that most of the people who were "looting" were trying to find water and food for themselves and their family.

Note 5: A Couple of Speculative Jokes

Why did Dan Simmons cross the road?
To shoot the Muslim child playing on the other side.

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Dan Simmons.
Dan Simmons who?
Dan Simmons is going to burn down your house with your entire family inside you bloodthirsty Muslims.

Note 6: Really?

Given the recent horrific events in Norway I thought I'd check in on Mr. Simmons and found this: What's Wrong in the Paradise of Political Correctness - an Op-Ed by Giulio Meotti posted by Simmons, which explains how all the young Norwegians on the island of Utoeya were killed by political correctness and not by a right-wing islamophobic terrorist. Interestingly, the argument put forward by Meotti, that the victims were killed because they were tolerant liberals, is also the reason Anders Breivik said he was forced to kill them. Meotti also gets as close as he can without actually saying it that the victims were cowards that allowed themselves to be slaughtered like sheep.

Of course, simply posting an execrable article doesn't mean you agree with it; but it seems to be something of a pattern for Simmons, a pattern that goes like this: 1. Post article by conservative. 2. Let the right-wingers who frequent the Hot-Button-Issues section of his forum declare why the article is correct. 3. Occasionally post a comment slightly disagreeing with the article, sometimes distancing himself from a comment by one of the far-right forum members in a manner that (perhaps in his own mind) establishes Dan Simmons as a bona-fide centrist.

But then in a later post he writes this: “Norway's self-perceived and much-touted 'utopia' is not the world's future. Nor should it be.” So I guess he really does agree with Meotti. This post is a humdinger and is quite revealing. He praises the National Review's Victor Davis Hanson. He indulges in a favorite pastime of the extremely wealthy (making it clear that poor people are poor because they are lazy): “the failure to thrive some people insist on showing despite richness of opportunities around them.” He explains, “the assumed near-infinite elasticity of 'human nature' has been such a central part of the modern liberal nation state's philosophical underpinning that -- with the exception of being 'gay', which all liberals accept as being genetic and except from their long, long list of all the things that can be altered by proper social programming -- any serious consideration of the possibility that something like 'poverty' can't be defeated by the proper finagling amounts to real blasphemy.”

Final Note

I truly regret ever having stumbled upon Dan Simmons website. When I was younger "Summer of Night" was one of my favorite books. I haven't read it in fifteen years. I was looking forward to reading it again. Now I'll have to wait a few years until the Author fades enough into the background to not ruin the Book.

What I regret most of all are the hours I spent trying to figure out just how far to the right Dan Simmons leaned, especially when I could have just read this or waited until he wrote Flashback and removed what little doubt remained that a particularly virulent form of right-wing conservatism flows through his veins like poison.

Trunk: Chapter Two - A Day at the Market

2012-01-19T23:39:00.000-08:00

Trunk: Chapter One

2012-01-19T23:38:00.000-08:00

Exordium: Magic

2012-01-19T23:37:00.000-08:00

The Obama Years

2012-01-19T22:22:00.000-08:00

June 21, 2008

John McCain vs. Barack Obama

In the short term choosing the lesser of two evils will always seem like an absolute necessity, but when viewed on a scale of decades instead of years it becomes clear this false choice will only postpone the destruction of what you would seek to preserve.

A Possible Solution: INSTANT-RUNOFF VOTING

August 11, 2008

Don’t Worry Blorknix, They Don’t Feel Pain Like We Do

FUR IS DEAD

January 11, 2009

3 = 800

Thursday, January 8th, the United States Senate unanimously declares its strong support for Israel’s assault on Gaza.

When we pass this resolution, the United States Senate will strengthen our historic bond with the state of Israel, by reaffirming Israel’s inalienable right to defend against attacks from Gaza, as well as our support for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid commented.

It’s hard for Israeli troops to protect civilians because the area is so densely populated. - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice commented.

We have expressed our deep concerns about the situation with innocent lives being lost. But, again, this is a problem, unfortunately, that was brought on by Hamas. - White House spokesman Scott Stanzel commented.

The Israelis are responding exactly the same way we would. - Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell commented.

Today, we reaffirm that Israel, like any nation, has a right to self-defense when under attack. - House speaker Nancy Pelosi commented.

This UN resolution calling for a ceasefire does not suit us because it is not in the best interest of the Palestinian people. - Hamas official Raafat Morra commented.

We don’t have any intention whatsoever to target civilians. The targets we choose are military targets. If there were civilian casualties, it would only be under the responsibility of Hamas. - Israeli Self-Defense Forces spokesperson Maj. Avital Leibovich commented.

Israel’s attack was perfectly proportionate. - Alan Dershowitz commented.

Three Israeli civilians and eight hundred Palestinian civilians more than half children were not available for comment, you can’t speak when you are dead.

The Pain You Never See

February 9, 2009

War

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.
— Ernest Hemingway

Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood.
— Gandhi

September 26, 2009

Baucus Just Fucked Us

• Baucus Unveils Health Plan Absent of Public Option
• Single Payer Action

December 2, 2009

Obama’s Mom

Barack Obama’s mother joked when he was a teenager that her son seemed interested only in basketball and that “She despaired of him ever having a social conscience.” After almost a full year as president it seems more and more likely that he never did. He is not a liberal. He is not a conservative. He is a politician. His positions are wobbly and nearly always gravitate towards money and power. He speaks with a golden tongue. You very much want to like him and believe he is a man of principle, but the positions he has taken (positions most of which [surprise] he said he would take when he was a candidate) and the people he has surrounded himself with, disillusion you of that fantasy. He will serve four years as commander in chief and then lose the presidency to a fecal republican regressive. History will remember him as the first black president of the United States of America. One can’t help but think that his mother would have made a better president, or at least that she would have tried to do the right thing instead of what might be politically advantageous at the time.

June 1, 2010

They Violently Jumped in Front of Our Bullets

“The people on the boats were very, very violent toward the soldiers,” said Israeli military spokeswoman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich.

June 5, 2010

BP

The FBI defines a criminal enterprise as a group of individuals with an identified hierarchy, or comparable structure, engaged in significant criminal activity. These organizations often engage in multiple criminal activities and have extensive supporting networks.

The FBI defines organized crime as any group having some manner of a formalized structure and whose primary objective is to obtain money through illegal activities. Such groups maintain their position through the use of actual or threatened violence, corrupt public officials, graft, or extortion, and generally have a significant impact on the people in their locales, region, or the country as a whole.

— from the Federal Bureau of Investigation Organized Crime Glossary

June 7, 2010

Linda?

While in radio contact, the Israeli navy officers addressed the boat as “Linda” - the vessel’s name before it was renamed for Corrie, an American college student crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer during a 2003 Gaza protest.
— Israel remains defiant, seizes Gaza-bound aid ship

It makes no sense for Israel to deny the name of the ship. As a public relations strategy it is foolish and doomed to failure. I don’t see how they could possibly gain anything by doing this. The media has been calling the ship the Rachel Corrie from the beginning, they’re not suddenly going to start calling it the Linda. Which makes this either: 1. A crude way for the Israeli military to spit on Rachel Corrie’s grave; or 2. Just another reinforcement of the Groucho Marx saying: “Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.”

June 14, 2010

Silly Beliefs

China Mieville is extraordinarily smart. Which is why the following excerpt from an interview about his new book Kraken had me scratching my head:

There are also ideas about real religions in the book but I didn’t want to be rude about the faithful. I’m an atheist but I don’t have any sympathy for that Richard Dawkins style of atheism which treats religion as an intellectual error.

Maybe I’m missing the point but believing in something — whether it be god or the Loch Ness Monster — without credible evidence is an intellectual error, isn’t it?

Also, given the above mention and this post on his blog, Mieville seems to find Dawkins rather distasteful. Dawkins is at times rude when he argues against religion, but when silly beliefs — that often lead to harmful actions — cross into the public sphere and are treated as sacred and above reproach, pointing out harshly how ridiculous those beliefs are seems a necessary and healthy thing.

Mieville (and the many others who single out Dawkins from the group of “New Atheists”, presumably because he is the most famous) would be better off condemning Sam “benign dictatorship” Harris, Ayaan Hirsi “crush your enemy” Ali, or Christopher “I will vote for Bush” Hitchens — all three of whom endorse policies that end up killing more innocent civilians than the religious extremists they rail against. From all I’ve read, Dawkins is moderate and uses — and advocates the use of — only words and ridicule to reduce the amount of silly beliefs in the world.

Dawkins biggest flaw is that he sometimes makes common cause with and defends Harris, Hitchens, and Ali. This is a great error on his part for if they become the dominant public face of atheism, it will be an ugly face corrupted by violence and “collateral damage.”

Another excerpt from the interview that I found curious:

There are loads of religions which have these extraordinary, to an outsider, belief systems. Loads of religions seem ridiculous. You think about Mormonism or Scientology but what about things like the theology of the Anglican church? Babies born of virgins and all that sort of thing. I don’t want to be rude about people’s beliefs. The idea that some are less ridiculous than others isn’t helpful; how they behave is a different matter. I have every sympathy with people who are enraged by how the Catholic church behaves, but that’s not about the belief system but about how people behave.

Belief systems are not haircuts, they have a direct and major influence on how people behave. To separate belief from behavior seems disingenuous. The degree to which one results in the other can be argued, but that they are linked can not.

To sum up what I rather awkwardly wrote above:

When a silly belief is harmless, then it is rude — and pointless — to ridicule it.
When a silly belief is harmful, then it is necessary to ridicule it, preferably in a manner similar to Monty Python’s Life of Brian, where the rudeness is softened by laughter.

To be fair, I’ll end with a silly belief of my own that I now find hilarious: For most of my life I believed that with a lot of hard work I might actually become a halfway decent writer.

June 27, 2010

It All Becomes Clear

• Former torturer hospitalized after feeling discomfort

July 9, 2010

Want to Kill Someone & Only Get a Slap on the Wrist?

JOIN THE POLICE!

Even with direct video evidence that shows you executing someone you’ll only be convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

And if there’s no video evidence to contradict your false statements, then there are only a few words you need remember: acquital — not guilty — mistrial.

* Along with your badge and gun, you also get a free pass allowing you to beat the shit out of peaceful protesters at left-leaning demonstrations.

** Also, calling policemen pigs is unacceptable. Pigs are clean intelligent animals and they are done a great disservice when their name is sullied in such a manner.

October 8, 2010

Heroic Plating

• A Long History of America’s Dark Side

October 20, 2010

Be Afraid

Which is why the case for voting for the lesser of two evils—holding our noses to elect Democrats who don’t represent our interests—is flawed. Putting the Democrats in office is no way to stop the right, as we’ve seen in the past two years…
— Democrats scare out the vote

For an example of this excusatory fear-mongering (from someone I thought would know better) read this: The “Teach-the-Dems-a-Lesson” Myth; which, in addition to being weak and execrable, contains this:

Obama and the Democrats did scale back their proposals, like the job stimulus plan, and they sacrificed key features, such as the public option for health insurance, in their bid for legislative accomplishments.

Glenn Greenwald exposed the falseness of that bolded claim here: Truth about the public option momentarily emerges, quickly scampers back into hiding.

December 10, 2010

A Perfect Photo of the Future

A privileged elite (just one of a long line of thieves and scoundrels) craps his trousers - soiling the Corinthian leather of his Rolls Royce - when the real world (which he and his forebears and cronies helped create through high thuggery) intrudes angrily on the party that is his life.

Remember this photo. AP photographer Matt Dunham has captured the future.

A poor man kills a poor man over a loaf of bread.
Is this sadder
than a poor man cutting off a rich man’s head?
— from Nonsense Rhymes for the Last Age of Man by Roger Lenspeg M.D.

February 18, 2011

Freedom is Good, Except When it Isn’t

February 15, 2012

“Losing” the World

… the political system has been increasingly shredded as both parties are driven deeper into corporate pockets with the escalating cost of elections, the Republicans to the level of farce, the Democrats (now largely the former "moderate Republicans") not far behind.
— Noam Chomsky: American Decline in Perspective

It Goes Bad

2012-01-18T05:08:00.000-08:00

35th day of Spring 3991

The fear and apprehension on Tom Geith’s face vanishes. He smiles and lets out a high-pitched laugh, almost a giggle.

“Look behind you.”

This section is incomplete. More to come, eventually…

Go to the Fountain World Index