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Don’t tell Ursula K. Leguin or it’s my head!

Scoop of the century! Scoop of the cerebellum! FU strikes again while the iron is hot and brings us an impossibly relevant interview with a most eloquent genocidaire—who says art and science don’t never mix? It was incredible to see the sheer haphazard negligence of her artistic statement, considering the magnitude of her crimes, how nonchalantly committed she seemed to the enterprise. She reminds me of a sort of Ultra-Bathory, the supreme architect of Dame Cruelty, a schemer and a dreamer and a narcissist to boot. So refreshing to see a real DEAD VOICE in the arts!

And a special nod towards the resuscitation-interview as a source of inspiration for us all. An artform almost lost to science, but salvaged at the last second by animation aficionado Shem. In Philip K Dick’s Ubik, corporate bodies are kept in a delayed state of decomposition, a half/life, which allows their former employees to commune with them… Albeit at the hallucinatory level of the Bardo. “How do you know you aren’t dead already?” Asks Burroughs. Shem’s answer is to interview dead killers, a solid triplication of the paradox.

There is a sort of polaroid on page 5 I recommend you deeply avoid.

The Dreamgutter map of Hypnagogic Lands is a welcome addition to the great classics of “inner geographies”. It’s right up there with the historical “maps of love” by Chauveau et al… Albeit decidedly more sinister! I could see vistas of new sciences here, topographies and geologies and heat maps taken to excess. There is a certain anatomical, sinewy texture to the dream geographies on display here, which aligns perfectly with the bizarre bio-architectural horrors outlined in the brief descriptions. We could very well do a doctorate on each.

Keeping up with the cryogenic on-ice dead guy revival theme, this month’s Romonde invokes the emergence of some entity, referred to as “someone” or the “coffin dweller”, from an icy coffin thing, challenged by the (variously spelled?) Scrapwriter aka Scapwriter, who makes the case for its survival and is uh, unceremoniously countersignalled. I take this to be an UNMETAPHOR for a situation NEVER YET FACED by any living writer or creative. The key word is “yet…”

Turn on your scamcorders…

“…Spiralling down into the dark depths of determination…”

I should also take this opportunity to thank Shem for the extremely cogent adaptation of the ELECTRIC SCREENPRISION MANIFESTO. I don’t think a text has ever gotten a more faithful adaptation to the silver screen. Shem has the uncanny ability to pry the shape and sounds of one’s associational nightmares straight from the greymatter, and leash it with no big deal to the source text. If this is the treatment I got, imagine what he would do with Anne of Green Gables!?

And finally, a delicious “digestif” in the elegant and compressed Canticle of Chrysalis. I infer from the title that this is what those damn teenage caterpillars are muttering to themselves as they undergo metamorphosis. Equal measures gnostic and toxic. HOW QUAINT!

By the way, I referenced/linked to your amazing memoirs collection in an article I did for the latest issue of ChoiceBeat:

https://willyelektrix.itch.io/choicebeat-issue-17

This is incredible! Heatwave brainrot in action. First person shooterpoem. I totally see the Judge Dredd and br0kenleg (one of the best) connectivities. In some of the Judge Dredd comics he goes out into these mutant wasteland deserts… I love everything about this!

Someone's bread minus is another's bread plus? In any case, we covered it in the latest choicebeat!

https://www.flipsnack.com/choicebeat/choicebeat-issue-17

What a tremendous experience...We didn't really do justice to the full breadth of its oversaturated glory, but we covered Meanderware alongside other nonfiction games in the latest issue of ChoiceBeat!

https://willyelektrix.itch.io/choicebeat-issue-17

Update: we liked it so much we covered it in an article in the latest issue of ChoiceBeat!

https://willyelektrix.itch.io/choicebeat-issue-17

This Videotome was amazing. So amazing that we covered it in an article in the latest issue of ChoiceBeat!

https://willyelektrix.itch.io/choicebeat-issue-17

Update: I liked it so much that I covered in in an article in the latest issue of ChoiceBeat!

https://willyelektrix.itch.io/choicebeat-issue-17

Thank you!!

bahaha thank you! yes i was always inspired the density of obscure monuments here!

This is brilliantly 1) structured 2) insinuated. May the ludoritual night be long and furtive!

I got similar vibes from certain levels of LSD dream emulator, but this is more abstract and poetic!

Fugitive ludo-criticism! Great points

Exquisite nocturne; a night-walk complete with fragmentary subvocalizations from the starless atmosphere itself. An AWKWARD POETIC GROPING AROUND. Until one\s eyes adjust to the night. Superb. This is the real deal!

thank you so much, i’ll send you a big dollop once i remember who i am!!!

thank you, I need help I’m a manifestoholic

You’re absolutely right there is an enjoyment / over enjoyment / “jouissance” angle on this…

And I was certainly channeling some of your glitch dungeons when writing this——our most accurate guide to the manacle-verse…

No sorry I have no idea! 

*takes notes* "disgusting, indecent, appalling..." 

YOU GOT IT AMIGO

my kinda demands!

"i come to find something new to think about" is a wonderful condensation. And totally agree that reviews, comments etc should only come from a place of connection and wonder. A negative review is pointless, even a great work will contain significant parts of cliche and mediocrity, who cares, that's obvious and has no bearing on what makes something special!

Three cheers for radical idiosyncracy, free games, star=rating abundance, and roads free of pedestrian bloodspatter!

Nice thoughts! When you think about it, aren't most things doomed to obscurity? I might be tempted to invert the title and say "Popularity is a stochastic problem!"

I agree as well! It feels like a real “line of flight” from the manifesto jam. I enjoyed how much discussion that jam provoked, and I like how a piece of it just got on a spaceship and planted its flag here as ANYTHING JAM. It’s like a spinoff series. 

One thing I do enjoy about jams is the arbitrary deadlines, I feel the arbitrary deadline is often the main point, and the theme/rules secondary. It would be interesting to think of them more like weird calendrical traditions or holidays that demand some kind of communal participation. This is how the tragedy competitions worked in ancient Athens.  This is also kind of how the bi-annual, solstice-aligned Decker jams are starting to feel, like holiday events. But Anything Jam is really getting me to reflect on the structure of jams themselves.

An uncompromising and beautiful clarion call to action alongside some spellbinding detourned visuals and design. This deck demonstrates that the refusal to accept any concession to fascism, likewise any liberal-friendly demarcation between politics and art means a double flow of radicalism in both directions. There are some genuinely Eisenstein-level montage choices here (EYES /FACES / HANDS / the snortling CHUDVISAGES of the Techbro Class...) Kinetic agitprop for the visual novel era! The whole time that Brecht/Eisler song was in my head:

“Vorwärts und nicht vergessen … die Solidarität” (Forwards, and don’t forget solidarity)

This is so freakishly visceral with the visuals added! It reminds me deeply of the Church scenes in Jodorowsky's Sante Sangre and indeed with the general sacro-musty mummified vibe of some Santa Muerte. Just that absolute in your face centerstage vision of a judging angelic entity, blood n guts, the interplay between diabolically grinning DEITY and/or DRESS-UP DOLL, the language resonating with Gustave Moreau and Mallarmean symbolisme... All from the POV of being offered up as the sacrifice myself! Stunning!

INSCRUTABILITY WE TRUST!

Three cheers for the time breakers!

Also re: "timelessness", it's quite instructive to go back 50-100 years and see who people thought were "timeless" creators. The majority have been memory-holed!

100%! Gratitude is a psyop! Any creation worth our time is an act of defiance. 

This is so well put! Craft is such a slippery idea. You made me think, there's an argument to be made that since the middle ages "craft" has never really changed, has always just been a kind of guild secret, an early form of IP combined + networking and accompanying status signifiers. Where "craft" pops up, "sales figures" aren't far behind...

Bahaha. Literally if PkD wrote sword and sorcery...

it will be

Yes!!! You really dropped the fish in the percolator for this one.

Controversial counter-manifesto in the comments:
I think it's interesting to contrast Lynch and your call against over-reliance on inauthentic homage/pastiche (which I absolutely agree with!) vs invoking what "French New Wave" did... If you think about what the Cahiers de cinema gang did, wasn't that mostly just cinematic rehash, homage and pastiche!? 

(the above is my in-progress submission to comment-jam 26)

I love how menacing and restrained it is!

LUDO BOY has such 90s Cracked Magazine energy and I am so here for it!

I really appreciate it! Honestly it’s hard to tell if I am getting anything over the fence otherwise and just drowning in my own paychobabble. So thank you!

Thank you for this profoundly relevant commentary! I totally agree that noise is an index of freedom of a sort… Actually it reminds me of a quote I read recently on Philip K. Dick re: information theory.., “Maximum entropy is maximum message.”

Hole-based analysis, cavernomaniacs assemble! It’s an honour to be mentioned alongside so many other circuitous nodules of the gaping void, and in such a nicely designed format. Also, the first time I've ever seen ARTAUD connected with UI!?  

we must awaken it from its binary slumber!

immaculate, spasmodic, writheworthy!