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Tuesday, 10 August 2010
The Brainwright

The Brainwright

posted Friday, 24 September 2004
I NEED SOMEONE TO THINK FOR ME since, as the days close in around me, my mind is blunting: I can only bend my head over such activities as the calculation of the Paschal-cycle, the charting of the milkenway, the cataloguing of diseases in animals like headgargle, chinscab and dotehead... I, nainsell, suffer more than the beasts of the ground. My mind can only live in its memories, when I was muster master in the peninsular wars, puddle-poet and butcher’s broom, when I exorcised some ablacks for the Nabobess of Jawfoot and retrieved my friend the cheesemonger from the coal-gum that had oozed from his chimney one night, when I furdled gorcock corpses to roast upon bonfires of town-weed for the poor folk and extracted nut-bones that had grown, like brittlegrey string-beans, over my uncle’s world-famed gem sculptures, when I was stirrer of imrich, pod-lover hunter with grig bait, muter of dagglings, dulcifier of those men who had suffered too many curtain-lectures and wanted to know how to become digamists, soother of bees’ inflamed honey-bags, cat-band manufacturer for the doors to artists’ courtyards and etching-grounds and, umwhile, when I, nainsell, was brainwright to a man who suffered as I do now. I thought for him day and night out of the goodness of my heart... And what things I saw were no pretty sights. He prowled, with me by his mind’s side, with a seven-shooter grasped in his hand, the trey of spades card in his hat-band, swarms of rosy-marbled moths flocking to the beams from his eyes and, ods-fish, he turned out to be hunting for spatling-poppies (recognizable by their red blooms and glistening saliva dripping down the stalks). They could evidently be made into the thickest imrich to sup, which could then be sold to the workers at the elbow-tongs factory, when they returned home at night along the terraced streets, hungry and gloomy at having to face the inevitable curtain-lectures from their wives. My friend, for whom I was acting as brainwright, told me that they would give more than just a few shillings for such hot soothing broth. Hence the need for spatling-poppies... None of it made sense. None of it does now, as I yearn for my own brainwright. I myself have no friend, not even a wife (who drew her last curtains six Easters ago). I just suffer dotehead, silently, wordlessly... And I remember only the memories, the offices I held (the teasing out of the shorling from the morling wool, being in charge of the offertory at penny-weddings, disentangling nut-bones, muting daggle, thinking for others and so on). The Paschal-cycle has come full circle, my numb brain tells me, and my wife may renew her curtain-lectures from the grave, return to me as the ablack that once haunted the Nabobess of Jawfoot, and turn my brain on her wheel of sorrows. But, no, too fanciful by half. I climb the trap-stairs, yesking on spatling-poppy stew, tufftaffaty hat keeping my head warm. Ods-fish, I forgot the elbow-tongs to loose the cat-band on the sloping door at the head of the stairs. I need to get in. My brainwright sits in the roof, come down, via the milken way, from God, and wants to interview me for a new office, apprentice lavatory cleaner in Heaven... But I can’t get in, and my brain, yes, I feel it finally cheesing over. The last thing I recognize is the trey of spades in the band of my tufftaffaty hat as I put it down beside my nainsell gorcock corpse which daggles down the stairs like a puddle-poet full of incomprehensibilities.

(Published 'Stand' 1990)

 




1. Paul Dracon left...
Wednesday, 3 August 2005 2:46 pm

I sure am glad I don't have to think for The Average Joe as well as myself.

If I was into typical thoughts, I wouldn't be reading this!


2. Weirdmonger left...
Monday, 13 March 2006 11:08 am

This 'story' was reprinted on the dustwrapper of the hardback edition of the 'Weirdmonger' book in 2004!


3. Weirdmonger left...
Monday, 18 May 2009 11:22 am :: http://www.supload.com/sound_confirm.php

'The Brainwright' is read aloud by the author at link immediately above.



Posted by wordonymous at 10:20 AM EDT
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One Siding In Time

One Siding In Time

posted Wednesday, 15 September 2004

When I first saw her sitting opposite me in the train carriage, I wondered if I’d travelled back in time, for she was too old to be as pretty as she was.

Knowing this did not make much sense, even to myself, I decided to strike up a conversation: Anything was better than all that turning in on myself, following my recent bereavement.

“Had many train journeys like this one?”

I pointed to the fields held in view by the train’s delay.

She shook her head, either to indicate a negative reply to my question or to give me no illusions about her reluctance to talk at all. Maybe it was because there were no corridors on the train, no other sign of life other than the fact that there must be at least a driver somewhere towards the front. I’d in fact been the second of the two of us to get into this particular carriage. I pulled down the window and leaned out, mainly because it told me not to do so. This brought the fields into sharper focus and I could just make out the blur of a figure walking slowly along the sky-line, to where the brightness of the late afternoon had been relegated. Night was too early, hustled from bed (I laughed) by the darkening of an unseasonable storm on the other side of the train.

I turned back to my fellow passenger to see if she was now in a more talkative mood.

As the train began to move and the rain spattered the window, I thought she must have silently slipped from the carriage, rather to negotiate the tracks than remain alone with the likes of me.

Then I realised that she had indeed been alone all the time, as I smoothed down the tweed skirt, on resuming my corner seat.


(Published ‘Iron’ 1990)

 




1. Paul Dracon left...
Wednesday, 3 August 2005 2:41 pm

This reminds me of that strange feeling that I've gotten once or twice in the past-- that I wasn't really here.

Amazing how much imagery is packed here into such a small space. Like an olive, the typical D.F. Lewis story packs a lot of calories.


Posted by wordonymous at 10:18 AM EDT
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The Birthday Present

The Birthday Present

posted Thursday, 9 September 2004

The town centre was near empty of shoppers. Its covered walkways echoed with the cold steps of no more than a few others.

Fitful waste paper, in all shapes and consistencies of stickiness, had managed, piecemeal, to climb from the wire containers ... and this, despite the wind, if anything, having dropped along the funnels of the precinct.

Trails of quarter-inch proud footsteps, bearing the cross-hatch pattern of heavy boot-soles, were avoided by end-of-day shoppers, gingerly picking their way between them towards the exits.

Darkness, even in these shop-windowed cloisters, crept relentlessly towards the last late-night shopper. And there always was a last shopper, who provided the only bait for monsters born from the common-law marriage of bestiality and sundown.

Today's last shopper on a spree was a teenage girl. She screamed before she saw any monster. She had read her big brother's horror books, Stephen Kings, Clive Barkers, Ramsey Campbells, even H.P. Lovecrafts. She had not understood all the words, but the fear in them had stood out nevertheless and borne the test of childhood's endless past.

The man whom she had passed appeared to her to be a designer antique lamp-standard, so popular in shopping-centres. She did not know that his bones, lusting after flesh to cushion them, were putting out feelers, as they simultaneously planted tapering, crackling roots through the boot-leather, even through the upper crust of civilisation's concrete veneer - heading towards their own mindless version of the Earth's core where unadulterated, unwritten horror flourished with the craving jaws of its own jump-leads.

Not understanding, she did not even realise that the figure she passed was a man at all.

Her elder brother had said the shops stayed open so late on certain nights of the week, you could never find them shut. So, she had taken the last bus to town, in search of her mother's birthday present which she had uncharacteristically forgotten. Maybe she was growing up, just old enough to be relatively independent ... despite the media-led dangers of the world. The concerns of such fledgling adults tended to obliterate earlier, more innocent preoccupations - like remembering birthdays, playing pass-the-parcel or hunt-the-thimble, reading Enid Blyton, Capt. W.E. Johns, Richmal Crompton ... Wurzel Gummidge the scarecrow...

She looked back. The darkness stained the shop windows with moving lines of soldier words, in strict spit-and-polish. Other shadows moved closer, taunting her with a brother's typical back-chat. "Go away!" she screeched, thinking he had followed to frighten his little sister.

She suspected the shops had always been shut and never properly opened - the glorious sunlight only seeping in from the outside as some celebrity had snipped the ceremonial opening-tape with heavy-duty snicker-snackers, clacking, clacking blades, the tape being made of some alien fibrous stuff that could never be cut.

She shook her head vigorously as if to clear it of something. She had been fed too much pap at teenage "slumber parties" - all night films in Dutch Elm Street, the images of splatter flickering over the huddled shapes upon the settees, petting heavily but falling short of humping, desperately seeking carnal secrets amid the concert crescendo of screams from the screen which had no erotic context but pain.

She tried to shake herself free of all this.

Could her brother have tricked her here to test out some outlandish theory of horror which had been bugging and buzzing in his head ever since the fast-forward, sharp-zagged trails of the Evil Dead. Even when he realised that true horror could only be found in books - not videos - the neat straight lines of print merely wound, coiled, rippled tantalisingly towards meaninglessness.

She panted. She was determined not to scream again. That would only tell the monsters where she was. The shop-window dummies stared in disbelief. Many were undressed. She had often wondered why they had such small heads and stylised black-and-white bodies. The nippleless breasts moved as if hands were feeling them from within glove puppets. Flecks of pulsing blood-light stained the inner thighs. The glass between them and her drained the light from the now slow-flashing Coca Cola sign.

The upbedded patterns of the footprints surrounded her like hour-glass cowpats. There never were invisible monsters in Stephen King, she thought. This was more like an old black-and-white B movie. But she had never seen one and could not draw the comparisons which life left clues about at every turn of its pages.

The waste paper, like discarded manuscripts for stories, crawled back to its bins, scaling the wire meshes with the aid of lolly-sticks and can-tabs. They had yearned for the rubbish frights of low budget colour-gore, not the shadowing subtleties of Cat People, Mannequins and Ghosts, all good value at double the cost.

The roots shrunk back, as she suddenly smiled.

Her brother's eyes stared at her from behind the impenetrable shop-front glass where he had found himself trapped inside a dummy, in a dream worse than any of his nightmares.

The invisible monsters took up their print-marks and placed then towards the squally night outside the precinct - where all was boarded up for the night, even the bedrooms.

The lamp-standard man eventually stepped free, his bony roots fully withdrawn from the ground. The man indeed knew that she had forgotten her mother's birthday present - but the best possible present now would be the daughter's return next morning after a night away. He took the girl's hand and chuckled at his own good will.

He did not hear the rattling fingertips on glass somewhere behind, frantic though they were. Nor did the girl.


(Published ‘Trash City’ 1994)

 




1. Paul Dracon left...
Wednesday, 3 August 2005 2:36 pm

Sometimes I have trouble coming up with anything intelligent to say, especially about a piece as intricate as this.

So for this one, "I dig it" will have to suffice!



Posted by wordonymous at 10:17 AM EDT
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A Rootless Thought

A Rootless Thought

posted Friday, 3 September 2004

I am alone in the house.

Rain spatters on the parlour window like a thousand furious demons gobbing on it from the pavement outside.

Too many horrible thoughts ... I try to shake them off, but bashing one sloped-up ear with my fist does not seem to help at all. Makes it worse, in fact.

Shall I switch on the TV? I look up at its empty screen, only to find it staring back at me. It must be dark outside now, as I am no longer able to tell the ill-gathered curtains from their crack.

I suppose I could invent a story for myself ... but with all my ideas fast becoming senseless morbid thoughts, not much hope of that. I cannot summon any impetus, mainly because of the lethargic doom threading my mood in the guise of these words, words that probably don't exist at all, even in my own head. And butterflies clot together in a panic to escape by the narrowing exits of my stomach ... or so it feels.

If it were not for the music on the radiogram, there'd be nothing but the utter silence around me. I assume I must be having some thoughts to prove I'm not a vegetable. If I were truly stagnant, my mind would be a blank ... like the TV screen.

A vehicle roars up the wet hill beyond the curtains, forging a path through all the loneliness out there.

What was that? A thought just that moment careered through my mind like a distraught pet. Inevitably, I've forgotten it. There it was and there it was gone.

The music on the radiogram is now almost becoming part and parcel of the silence, not quite obliterating the knowledge that there IS a silence-in-waiting.

There it was again - that thought! It weltered inside my stomach like the rotting corpse of that pet ... and then abruptly disappeared in such an act of conjuring my mind was incapable of grasping it.

How do I know there was a thought, if I've forgotten it? I can only imagine it leaves something behind inside.

There it was again! I nearly grabbed it full square that time. I seemed to visualise a single bed, a very tidy one, with a cover neatly tucked, a lip of white at the top where the sheet must have been folded over with the use of a set square. Merely an impression, nothing more.

During this thought, I appear to have forgotten about the music. No wonder - the LP has ground to a halt and the sound of reinvigorated silence jeers at me about its victory.

As more cars swish up the hill outside, the thought blinds me more and more with its crescendo of wordless meaning.

There is a child in pyjama trousers that are tied with a straggly cord. It must be a boy. Why is he standing by the bed ... shivering? He's afarid to get in and his breath comes out in misty jets.

The toing and froing of the thought grants me further detail. There is a strange hump at the bottom of the bed.

Amid other unknowable thoughts which interfere with the main one, I comprehend that the vision must be of my own creation. That's the way with thoughts. Something, I suppose, for me to use as a raft to escape the hissing sea of silence ... from its tittering victory over sound ... from the swishing cars which tote dire luggage in their boots ... from the haemorrhaging upon the window pane ... above all, from myself, worse than any of them.

So, if the thought is of my own volition, I can surely do what I will with it. I can encourage that sobbing child to get into the cosy bed and drift into the best dreams I can muster for him. That would warm my vitals. Clear my stomach of the butterflies and ease my concern for his well-being.

No, I won't do that. Too glib. Too easy. But what shall I do? A problem, perhaps, but a diverting poser nevertheless. I know, I'll wheel in his mummy with a carpet beater for his bottom. Serve him right, probably ... the little wretch is begging for a good old-fashioned spanking.

The thought again. This time the child was kneeling down by the bed, tiny hands pressed together, praying ... to God ... to ME? Peculiar that I should make him do that, since I've never believed in God. What shall I make him do next?

The flowers in the Woolworths vase, which my father arranged this morning, are beside me as I think. Clustered together, a bunch of pastel colours, each petal pointing at me ... or reaching out for me ... or perhaps they're demons' tongues eager to tell me something if they were not drowned out by the bumptious silence. The cackling silence. The flowers will be good as dead by tomorrow, little do they know. Lost their damn roots, poor bleeders. But, isn't that what has happened to my thoughts? One moment almost laughing at the predicament of the flowers, the next finding myself in the very same boat.

I probably lost my root when I was born, wrenched from my mother's womb ... that's why I'm dying ... like those same flowers plucked from Mother Earth ... that's why all of us are dying.

Back to the little boy. What have I next in store for him? Ah, he appears ready for beddybyes, now preparing to fold back the lip of sheet I thought of earlier on. His tentative movements still reveal the undercurrent of fear ... but fear of exactly what? Perhaps the lump under the covers at the end of the bed gives him the jitters ... and so it should. I would not have thought of it, if it did not have a purpose in the scheme of things.

Let's scrutinise this boy somewhat closer. But, too late, he's gone - I've given up thinking of him. Perhaps I shall return to him later ... only if I want to do so, of course. Shall I switch on the TV, now? The face of my familiar on the screen is very disconcerting. No, I won't switch it on, since I yearn to show the one who watches me that I am impervious to his cold stares. I have the supremacy, after all - by merely filling the screen with the transient images of real life, I can rid the parlour of my familiar's presence. Little does he know that he is at the mercy of the faceless laughter people on the box of tricks.

Yes, he IS staring at me - I just had a look.

The little boy is now getting into the bed very slowly. He has a sweet face. His soft eyes are wide with fear, teeth clenched like a vice. What an angel he is! He gradually slides his legs down the bed ... and I realise that they are not long enough to reach the lump. Frantically, I try to elongate his legs, but to no avail.

Wait ... the LUMP is moving up the bed. Trust me to think of that. I don't believe the little boy is aware of the covers humping along towards him from the footboard. But, IS the lump moving, though? Yes, it is, never fear, but very painstakingly.

Oh, I've faded the thought out. That gives me an opportunity to invent a good ending.

Let's consider the situation - a frightened little boy in bed with a mysterious lump moving up towards him under the covers. What can the lump be? Let's make it something really nasty! The silence whispers in my ear to make it a giant beetle. It's creeping up to nibble the child's toes with its clicking pincers. What a hoot! But this does not seem to fit the thought ... something not quite right. Damn it, I must think of something suitable.

I pick hold of the bright orange cushion from the sofa as if seeking for inspiration in its loud softness. It is so bright, it is a blasphemy to silence. I hug it close as if it's a vital part of me. It feels hairy. I appear to view it as a dead cushion. But if I tore it apart, there would be no blood, no tissue, no swollen innards ... no mind, no thoughts. But one cannot see thoughts ... anyone knows THAT.

I now seem ready to complete the thought. It would be the little boy's pet cat which had fallen asleep in his bed. The child's face is to light up with joy as he pulls it out and strokes the fur. He is to cuddle it close.

The silence is quite correctly silent. The rain has stopped, no longer feeding the walking rootless ones. I'm switching the TV on, at last...

Like a rabbit from a conjurer's hat, a yawning head reaches the blinding light of the bedroom, its long ears taking purchase one by one upon the top lip of the bed-covers to extract itself.

There is, of course, no sign of a child. Only the dead silence of God praying.


(Published ‘ Not One of Us’ 1991 – but written in the Sixties)

 




1. Paul Dracon left...
Tuesday, 2 August 2005 7:52 pm

However not all monsters are so bunny-like. (Excellent story.)



Posted by wordonymous at 10:16 AM EDT
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Monday, 9 August 2010
Seven Miles to Kidwelly

Seven Miles To Kidwelly

posted Friday, 4 June 2004
Thomas Hopper, self-confessed architect and teetotaller, decided to ignore the illogicality of the competition's rules as he did not want to become a snake with its tail in its mouth like the other entrants. If the City authorities wanted the place re-designing, they should not tie brilliance down with dogma and endless ribbons of red tape. And Hopper, if nothing else was as clean-cut as his profile was sharp. Uncaring of fog and folly, he would wind the lanes of the City, eyes awake for a likely cornerstone, a precocious river’s bending or an unknown cathedral’s hazy spire.

He knew his candidature should be based on a river scheme . . . circling St. Paul’s with a wondrous moat or entering its very portals, curling from aisle to aisle through a straddling church for worshippers to hymn across its surging shores. That was centuries ago. . .

***

“Jack’s in the salt-cellar Gammy ga ga,” was chanted by the marchers as they wended between the East End streets. Incidents and causes had been forgotten since the demonstration started in the years following the war. All that was known stemmed from a Messiah in South Wales tying himself to the railings of Llanelly’s town hall . . . a trek that spent itself even before the enthusiasm died. The call was taken up; the chords were struck and echoed from mind to mind along their collective sewers.

“Jack’s in what bleeding salt seller?” scorned the gossips as they churned along the streets in ungainly array. They were off to the pub near St. Paul’s tube station, to quaff the new brew. Their banter reverberated along the cobbled wharves and lean-to warehouse ways, as the night drew black clouds across the sky in the shape of a giant necromancer.

In the snug, later, the gossips doffed their caps and did what they knew best:-

“You know who broke the dome in two?”

“Was it the war, wasn’t it, yobbo?”

“No, ol’ Tom Hopper – he did it while all the burghers slept off a drunken foray.”

“Mere pipe talk . . . git Guv!”

One particular gossip, with a homely hat seemingly sewn to his head, signed halt to the idiosyncracies that pub talk characteristically embodied:-

“It was the night that the Great Railway Station exploded and the train careered driverless through the square mile . . .”

“.. . . like a beast off the river . . .”

“ . . . ending up in the pews!”

Chortle guffaw chuckle.

Old Tom Hopper popped his head over the bar-counter and scowled. Taunts were thrown at him by the motley locals and the landlord, Matthew Shakewell, poked his tongue out at him in mock salute. And drinks inspired a royal flush and a crate of laughter.

But colour drained from all the faces, as night drew on. Arthurian figures and Welsh wizards, etched on the bar mirrors, faded in the afterglow of yet another sudden blackout drill . . . and tongues wagged and coiled to tales of deeper myth and machination. Hours on . . .

“Well, nuncle,” said one nearest to Tom’s hangdog brows, “tell us of the shapes in the sky . . .”

Tom fetched a cough, broke a pork scratching between brown teeth and chose a word to start off:-

“Wings . . . and scales across the nose of the storm. Cometh the Great Old Ones, mighty as the mountains of Scotland, and stretching from Cardiff to Croydon, casting their mammoth shadows and dire doom across the heartland of our squares and inns’ swinging signs. Jack and Jill went up the hill but ne’er was the top in sight. A pinch over yon shoulder, and ‘scape the tomb’s very dungeon . . . not in mine eye though, for it’ll sting, it’ll weep, and I’ll then not warn off the signal shapes . . .”

“You told them that, nuncle?”

“I told ‘em till I was blue in the chops . . . they strung me over the railings for preaching witchdom, and others too in far off lands within our seas were broken-backed for swearing out the shapes . . . in the darkening skies of our green and pleasant land.”

A tear budded at the corner of old Tom’s deep well . . . and he told of a river of his dreams, where gondola-steamers would stretch their paddle-wheels to the strong wine of song.

The locals gathered in close formation as if to hear the ensorcellements of Tom’s tales. They crowded in so tight, that only his voice could be heard piping . . . until even that stopped.

A black sun was coughed from the throat of dawn, as the drunkens barged home, their wings folded tight above their nodding heads to protect them against the shedding of the sky.


Published in 'Cerebretron' 1987.
This was my second ever published story and the title derives from a black and white snapshot of me as a little kid standing by a milestone saying: 'Seven Miles To Kidwelly'. Like a lot of my stories then, it was inspired by my own novella 'Agra Aska' written in the early eighties and by my unpublished novel 'The Visitor' written in the early Seventies. The story leaves a lot to be desired!

 




1. Paul Dracon left...
Tuesday, 2 August 2005 9:19 am

The point I got from this story was this: He works all day, and then at night, he gets drunk and talks of magic.

Works for me!


Posted by wordonymous at 1:13 PM EDT
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Sunday, 31 January 2010
CERN Zoo
'The Virtual Revolution' on BBC2 TV last night says World Wide Web (WWW) was invented in CERN. Seems therefore a good name for the Internet: CERN Zoo?

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the_cern_zoo_page.htm

Posted by wordonymous at 1:49 PM EST
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Sunday, 11 October 2009
My new stories in 2009

Over a thousand new and previously published stories by DFL:

http://weirdmonger.mindsay.com/reinvented_wheel.mws

NEW STORIES IN 2009:

 

All Endings Are Happy: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/all_endings_are_happy.htm

KNOTS: All Endings Are Happy: http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?p=15898

A Cthulhu Mythos Story: http://weirdmonger.mindsay.com/a_cthulhu_mythos_story.mws

GLIMPSE: http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2009/01/glimpse.html

Drowsy With Divinity: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=80029030&blogID=464312875

And The Exploding Marrow: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/and_the_exploding_marrow.htm

Diary of a 21st Century Drunk -

Entry One: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=136537694&blogID=466078745 

Entry Two: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/entry_two.htm

Entry Three: http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2009/01/man-oba.html

Entry Four: http://weirdmonger.livejournal.com/109295.html

Entry Five: http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=2526

Entry Six: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=145421249&blogID=467220266

Entry Seven: http://weirdmonger.mindsay.com/the_knot_of_knots.mws

Entry Eight: http://simplon.blogspirit.com/archive/2009/01/30/on-the-poe.html

Ligottus: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/ligottum.htm

Derivatives: http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2009/02/derivatives.html

The Fubbcuckle: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/name_for_the_credit_crunch.htm

Yesterday Was A Funny Day: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/yesterday_was_a_funny_day.htm

The Stumbling Fear: http://shocklinesforum.yuku.com/sreply/98667/t/Credit-Crunch-recession-or-depression-.html

Build A Character - http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=2615

The Orchard - http://www.ligotti.net/showpost.php?p=17395&postcount=1

Demolish A Character: http://www.ligotti.net/showpost.php?p=17426&postcount=3

5 Apr: The Art Gallery: http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2009/04/art-gallery.html

9 Apr: Naan Bread & Slippers: http://weirdmonger.livejournal.com/109682.html

12 Apr: Cern Zoo: http://weirdmonger.mindsay.com/?entry=345388

17 Apr: The Drains Are Blocked: http://weirdmonger.blogdrive.com/archive/299.html

2 May: Celliano: http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=2878

15 May: A Handbag: http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2009/05/handbag.html

http://weirdmonger.livejournal.com/110014.html 'Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" by the Clacton Writer's Group (14.5.09)

 

24 May:  Éclaircissement (a poem): http://www.ligotti.net/showpost.php?p=21796&postcount=319

19 Jun: Last Song: http://weirdmonger.livejournal.com/110864.html

19 Jun: The End of the Pier: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the_end_of_the_pier.htm

21 Jun: Taught by Masters: http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2009/06/taught-by-masters.html

29 Jun: Made From Passion: http://weirdmonger.mindsay.com/made_from_passion.mws

11 Aug: Tea and Biscuits:

http://weirdmonger.livejournal.com/114066.html

16 Aug: A Candle Dream

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/a_candle_dream.htm

17 Aug: The Art of Caring for Candle-Dreeamers

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the_art_of_caring_for_candledreamers.htm

10 Sep: Rods & Mockers

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/rods__mockers.htm

15 Sep: Two Old Gents

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/two_old_gents.htm

25 Sep: Another Two Old Gents

http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2009/09/another-two-old-gents.html#links

26 Sep: Yet Another pair Of Old Gents

http://weirdmonger.mindsay.com/yet_another_pair_of_old_gents.mws

8 Oct: The Two Old Gents Have Flights Of Fancy http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2009/10/two-old-gents-have-flights-of-fancy.html

11 Oct: Pirate

http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2009/10/pirate.html


Posted by wordonymous at 9:37 AM EDT
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Tuesday, 18 August 2009
DFL reviews

SPECIFIC LINKS FOR ALL MY REVIEWS ARE SHOWN FURTHER BELOW ON THIS PAGE

 

Mark Valentine to me about review of 'The Nightfarers', quoted here with permission:

"The way you turn the pages of the book releases ideas and images that present the stories freshly even to me."

 

HERE: Latest Discussion / Comments on DFL Real-Time Reviewing (started 31 July 09)

 

HERE: Ramsey Campbell: "Awed by your thoughts, Des - I'll say no more."

 

HERE: Des, your reviews are almost as well-written as the book themselves. Well done, sir. :-)

 

Allyson Bird HERE: "This is such a unique experience. It's like having my own subconscious talking to me."

Neil Williamson's blog HERE. "Had an interesting experience this week of watching an “as live” review of The Ephemera taking shape as it was being read."

 

Tim Nickels' website: HERE: The full effects of this revelation have yet to manifest themselves... and yet the truth, little by little, is seeping out: a Major Excavation by an eminent Field Expert was conducted over several days in May 2009. His results may be found HERE...
.
Jai Clare to me about review of 'The Cusp of Something', quoted with permission:
"Your comments were very insightful and I particularly loved that you got the placing of the last story and all it contained and meant for the collection."
.
Simon Bestwick HERE: "Des, just wanted to say a heartfelt thankyou for this ongoing review. Very grateful. And oddly touched."
.
Joel Lane (in blog comment on actual review page): "Des, thank you for these thoughtful and heartening comments. I mean the stories to find some resonance in the concerns of readers as well as my own concerns – so, for example, the fact that some of these stories strike you as referring implicitly to the Internet may not reflect my intentions, but it shows that you're relating the stories to what you think and feel about the world. Which is exactly what I would hope for. Cheers!"
 .
Gary McMahon: HERE: The legendary Des Lewis has seen fit to assemble a stream-of-conscious review of my latest collection.

 

Matt Cardin's blog here about the DFL review of his book: HERE. "So here’s a sincere thanks to Des for his perceptive and insightful reading of my work."

 

A review of DFL's review of Ligotti's book below: HERE. "If you're looking for a brief romp through weird literature and the banker Meltdown, or have wondered what one weirdmonger on the fringe thinks of another wordsmith of the high weird, then you have found your destination."

 

HERE: "Des you make me want to buy books. My dream is to have you one day do one of these enlightening reviews about a collection of my stories. Brilliant stuff!"

 

 

 

 

 

Paul Meloy: HERE: "Des, this has been an absolute pleasure! Delightful, unique, touching...an honour. I predict these stream-of-consciousness reviews will become the essential thing to have and be in great demand! Thanks for taking the time to do this, Des!" and LATER publicly on the same thread: "I have to say I'm awestruck by the amount of hits this review is getting. It says so much about the respect Des has as a renaissance man of strange otherness. If I wore a hat, it would probably be a fez. And I would lift it to you, Des."

Allen Ashley HERE: "....an astonishingly detailed and complimentary review of my collection “Somnambulists” by the wonderful writing and editing legend Des Lewis. All I can do is to recommend that you have a look at it if you have 10 or 15 minutes to spare. [...] Thanks again to Des for such a great review and thank, of course, to Andrew for helping make it all possible in the first place."

August 2009: Simon Strantzas: HERE: "Fascinating stuff!"

 

EDIT (22 APR 09): These reviews have developed into what I now call Real-Time Reviews of Books. The more recently dated ones below show this development more markedly.

 

 

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May 2007: DFL's review ('On The Hoof') of Thomas Ligotti's 'Conspiracy Against The Human Race': HERE

with TL's reply.

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Nov 08 - Jan 09:

 

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/glyphotech_by_mark_samuels.htm

 

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/beneath_the_surface_by_simon_strantzas.htm

 

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/omens_by_richard_gavin.htm

 

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/divinations_of_the_deep_by_matt_cardin.htm

 

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/rain_dogs_by_gary_mcmahon.htm

 

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/teatro_grottesco_by_thomas_ligotti.htm

 

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/how_to_make_monsters_by_gary_mcmahon.htm

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(3 Feb 09): http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/tamar_yellin.htm - Tales of The Ten Lost Tribes

 

 

(17 Feb 09): http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the_reach_of_children__by_tim_lebbon.htm

 

(21 Feb 09): http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the_impelled__other_headtrips_by_gary_fry.htm 

(7 Mar 09): World Wide Web And Other Lovecraftian Upgrades - by Gary Fry

(11 Mar 09): Beneath The Ground - edited by Joel Lane

(15 Mar 09): UNBECOMING And Other Tales Of Horror - by Mike O'Driscoll

(20 Mar 09): The Ephemera - by Neil Williamson

(25 Mar 09): Somnambulists - by Allen Ashley

(29 Mar 09): The Villa Désirée and Other Uncanny Stories - by May Sinclair

(11 Apr 09): Sanity and Other Delusions - by Gary Fry

(12 Apr 09): http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/sleepwalkers__marion_arnott.htm

(15 Apr 09): ISLINGTON CROCODILES by Paul Meloy

(20 Apr 09): http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/mindful_of_phantoms.htm by Gary Fry.

(6 May 09): The English Soil Society - by Tim Nickels 

(6 May 09): The Cusp of Something - by Jai Clare

(15 May 09): Visits To The Flea Circus - by Nick Jackson

(27 May 09)Mostly Monochrome Stories - by John Travis

 

(30 June 09) Bull Running For Girls - by Allyson Bird

30 June 09: Allyson Bird HERE: "The title story is set in late June 2003 - '4,000 dead in Spain and over 18,000 in Italy by the end of summer.' It really is a strange coincidence that you are reading it today of all days. It is cooler up here on the moors though.
It's an important experience for me - reading your real-time review. I'm very much alongside you as you write."

5 July 09:  "That was quite a journey Des and it was a wonderful experience to take part in the small parallel observations too. I read the real-time review of that last story and shed a tear too."

 

(6 July 09) The Terrible Changes - by Joel Lane

(9 July 09) Pictures of the Dark - by Simon Bestwick

(16 July 09) ANONthology (HarperCollins)

(20 July 09) Primeval Wood - by Richard Gavin

(25 July 09) Ghosts and Grisly Things - by Ramsey Campbell 

 

(17 August 09) Black Static - issue 12 
.
.

"As I turned the pages I had the feeling that, step by step, I was following the map of a sick and broken mind. Line after line, the author of those pages had, without being aware of it, documented his own descent into a chasm of madness. The last third of the book seemed to suggest an attempt at retracing his steps, a desperate cry from the prison of his insanity so that he might escape the labyrinth of tunnels that had formed his mind."

from 'The Angel's Game' by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

============================================================

PS:

 

Review of the TWELVE NOVEL SERIES: Warriors of Love (begun 30 July 09)

 

Mark Samuels' WHITE HANDS: http://nightshadebooks.com/discus/messages/8/752.html?1227381699 (June 2003)

 

Real-time notes on Robert Aickman: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/robert_aickman.htm

 


Posted by wordonymous at 3:10 PM EDT
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Friday, 19 June 2009
Last Song

Richard Strauss wrote Four Last Songs for Soprano and Orchestra. Many think he is related to Johan Strauss of Vienna Waltz fame – but nothing could be further from the truth.

Is anything further from the truth than anything else? Truth is relative, some seem to believe. A moveable feast. A convenience. Their whole life is geared – at least subconsciously – to the fact that Truth is a matter of opinion rather than an intrinsic, unswerveable incontrovertibility. Life would be a misery if strait-jacketed by a so-called certainty of truth. Life is best when one can shift it about on the table, its various facets changing with the light or the angle of viewing it – ballooning one minute, shrinking the next. Truth can fall off the table and creep about of its own volition, now a rodent-like truth, later a ghostly truth, sometimes merging with the carpet itself or becoming just another indistinguishable aspect of its pattern.

Music can carry an intrinsic truth, however, an ineluctable noumenon of its own. Not the music itself, but an emotion in its weave that no listener can avoid. Nobody can compare that emotion felt by one listener to the emotion felt by another. Reality is only viewed via a single mind. Your mind. That is the only truth, your relationship with your own mind. A mind that can only be the same mind that observes it.

So, dear Richard Strauss, how can there be more than one last song? Perhaps, the last song becomes the next last song that becomes the next last song that becomes the next last song, or halfway through the song, then halfway through the rest of the song, or halfway through the rest of the rest of the song, ad infinitum, ad absurdum, with the listener moving from mind to mind, self to self, last song to last song – and we can therefore live forever, square-dancing inside a sound-woven song-space with four unseen, unreachable corners.



Posted by wordonymous at 9:05 AM EDT
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End of the Pier

At the end of most old piers there would be an even older theatre where some of our favourite comedians, singers and novelty acts performed every summer. The gurgle of waves against the wooden pillars joined the silence when the theatre finally closed down as all of them did ... eventually.  But, of course, even in their heyday, winters were not a time to be at the end of the pier. The waves grew noisier, even outblasting the band’s accompaniment of the Bachelors or the King Brothers or Edmund Hockeridge or Dickie Valentine or Marion Ryan or Dorothy Squires... Today, they were but memories. Yet, who have we here, walking towards the end of the pier, as the snowflakes crowd in like the ghosts of killer bees? It is short enough to be Charlie Drake, but dressed more like Hylda Baker who is followed lugubriously  by a tall man called Cynthia, Hylda’s stooge.  “Be soooon, I said, be soooon...”. “Hello, my darlings.” “HHHHancock’s Half Hour.”  There is nobody there at all. No, that’s a lie. I am there, unseen, unfollowed, only made visible  by the human-shaped shape within the snowstorm.  I start singing aloud to prove to myself that I am there at all. I wonder who I was all those years before. Was I famous? Did I get cameo parts on TV like the Arthur Haynes Show. Was I – God forbid! – Mr Pastry? No, I suddenly started stamping up and down the boardwalk to blot out the surging tides beneath. I start shouting but the snow fills my mouth. I dance, I sway and, even at my age, I somersault and leapfrog others of my kind. And they leapfrog me. Suddenly, the derelict theatre lights up – fleetingly – and we follow each other into the foyer and the well-remembered auditorium, now tiered with hard shadows instead of stalls. Tommy Cooper stands in the upper circle, uncharacteristically serious, sad-looking, silent, but still wearing his red fez. Or is it Tommy Trinder pretending to be someone he is not? I take off my Norman Wisdom cap - sodden with melting snow - and am the first to clamber on the rickety, creaking stage. I am determined to bring the house down. “Why am I such a fool?” I shout at the stacked shades before me. And the voice echoes back: “Because you are not only a has-been but you always were.” But to have been is better than never to have been at all. I smile. Everyone should visit their own end-of-the-pier at least once in their life. Alma Cogan sits in a box watching me. But now I have gone. Not back into the snow. But into the dark cold skies of my new beginning. Nobody claps. Not even Alma.

 

 

 

Written yesterday as a speed-witing exercise at the Clacton Writer's Group and first published here.


Posted by wordonymous at 8:21 AM EDT
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