radiant fracture

From the porch at dusk I watched
a kingfisher wild in flight
he could only have made for joy.

He came down the river, splashing
against the water’s dimming face
like a skipped rock, passing

on down out of sight. And still
I could hear the splashes
farther and farther away

as it grew darker. He came back
the same way, dusky as his shadow,
sudden beyond the willows.

The splashes went on out of hearing.
It was dark then. Somewhere
the night had accommodated him

—at the place he was headed for
or where, led by his delight,
he came.

* * * * * *

I found this one in the process of sending "September 2" to some friends; one of the friends likes kingfishers.

§rf§

The woods is shining this morning.
Red, gold and green, the leaves
lie on the ground, or fall,
or hang full of light in the air still.
Perfect in its rise and in its fall, it takes
the place it has been coming to forever.
It has not hastened here, or lagged.
See how surely it has sought itself,
its roots passing lordly through the earth.
See how without confusion it is
all that it is, and how flawless
its grace is. Running or walking, the way
is the same. Be still. Be still.
“He moves your bones, and the way is clear.”

* * * * * *

Can't not think of Frost, and then at the end of Shakespeare.

Here is an autumnal poem by the brand-new ancestor Wendell Berry. I found one I like even better, but it is called "September 2", so I will do my damndest to post it then.

I find the "it" here a little bedevilling -- it must be the woods, right? But there are so many referents between the "woods" and "it", and the "it" goes on alone without refreshing its connection to any particular thing, that it seems to become a more transcendent idea.

§rf§

I have this little idea for a spooky setting where terminology for strange happenings is created from their resemblance to the characteristics of famous horror writers' work.

(Cf. sovay's "Aickman field" that I keep going on and on about because I like it so much, and which I have refined I think to be not an area of increased improbability but rather a region of numinous uncertainty, sometimes uncomfortably erotic)

Could also be for a specific book ex. a "Shining zone" but I really like this device as also a diagnostic of a writer's preoccupations over time; both a tiny critical appraisal and a fun story element.

Anyway what I am looking for, should you have opinions and enjoy sharing them, is your thoughts on writers of horror or ghost stories who

a) have a characteristic vibe across tales that you feel you can approximately describe and would enjoy attempting to approach in this way (ex. melancholy yet mordantly funny body horror; chilling, wrong-footing, and profoundly alienating ghost stories; etc.)

b) are generally not straight(ish) white cisgender guys, for lo I have beaucoup d'exemples historiques of those fellas (if you have a really good one, okay, I don't want to miss out, but I am trying to cast a wider net)

So it's both a hopeful reading recommendation request (who are your uncanny faves? ancient or modern) and an opportunity to suggest a possible type of uncanny effect that a group of eager/weary young bureaucrats might encounter and geekily name after their favorite writers. (Tell me about a Carter Tide, or Due Architecture, or a Gilman Loop.)

§rf§

PS Full credits obvs. should this actually go anywhere. Might make a fun shared world concept.

PPS I don't need to create a Lovecraft effect. People are ON that. It is COVERED.

PPPS Although. Having said that. A Lovecraft effect that was something like "a person is so bigoted and paranoid that they imagine uncanny effects where there are none" is kind of a fun idea.

I have to leave the house sometime. I sent myself downtown to pick up more black ink and paper for loon prints. On impulse, I leapt onto the #6 bus instead of the homeward vessel and rode out along Quadra through a sudden pelting rainstorm. Riding the bus suits my habitual (and currently intensified) feelings of displacement and liminality.

I got out at Royal Oak Shopping Centre, a disorientingly centreless mass of self-spawning plazas.

The attraction of the Royal Oak is the Smart Bookshop, a longstanding proper old-fashioned used bookstore. In the literature section, this unassuming black hardcover caught my eye:



I opened Mörder Guss Reims: The Gustave Leberwurst Manuscript (1981) to a random page and found a curiously over-annotated poem in German. I only glanced at the German, and I could not make sense of it, but the ratio of annotation to poem had a real Pale Fire shimmer. Sincere? In-? Either way, desirable.



I thought: yes, this is clearly the book I came in here for. I paid my $5 and left with it tucked into my bag.

I did not work out the trick, because I did not try sounding out the cod German. (Try it!)

Just now I web-searched and found out what sort of artefact this is. It is a remarkably poker-faced object in both design and presentation. However, the copyright page gives the game away:



Macaronic literature! Facetiae!

I do think this John Hulme must be a Nabokov fan. I have not yet been able to find out anything about him online, except that this seems to have been his Own Particular Genre. (I do not think he can be the contemporary author/director of the same name, since he would have had to publish this book at the age of 12.)

§rf§

Hello! Do you have opinions on this year's Hugo nominees? I would enjoy hearing them -- not for any reason other than the sheer pleasure of thinking about books. Comment freely with your opinions, predictions, and recommendations.

The Backstory

sabotabby got me hooked on the Ancillary Review of Books' podcast A Meal of Thorns via her post on the MoT episode about Ready Player One, and I've been traipsing through the back catalogue.

Last year, host Jake Casella Brookins and frequent guest Roseanna Pendlebury hashed through the Hugo short lists book by book in great toothy detail. The episode was a sublime listening experience as I wandered through the wooded trails around Pkols / Mount Doug a few weeks ago, mostly because I agreed with almost everything they said. (At least about the books I'd read.)

(Last year I happened to do pretty well on Hugo reading. Without trying very hard, I read half the books -- 3/6 novels and 3/6 novellas. This year, not so much -- I've only read Amal El-Mohtar's novella The River Has Roots.)

(NB El-Mohtar's episode of MoT on The Traitor Baru Cormorant is also excellent.)

On precedent, I've been eagerly looking forward to the MoT Hugos episode this year, but so far they don't seem to have one planned.

Hence my rough approximation. Let me interview you about the Hugo noms you read and your takes thereon.

I guess I'll go first:

I liked The River Has Roots a lot. I'm shocked to discover it's El-Mohtar's first solo long-form fiction -- her voice has, to my ear, such assurance, both here and in This is How You Lose the Time War. She knows what she wants to do with this story and she does it, piece by piece. For such a small book, the story feels spacious. It's economical but doesn't feel rushed or compressed to me. I would have liked to know a little more about how she was imagining the phenomenon of grammar. I enjoyed the chicken.

Now you! (If you want.) -- Any Hugo short lister is fair game, whether I have read it or not.

§rf§

Congratulations to everyone who made the ballot for the Aurora Awards, but really mostly to Rachel A. Rosen for rocketing into three (3) (three!) (3!!) categories:

Best Novel - Blight, second book in the Sleep of Reason series
Best Short Story - “What If We Kissed While Sinking a Billionaire’s Yacht?“
Best Fan-Related Work, Wizards and Spaceships Podcast

Tribute to her excellent writing (and talking) and also to the uncrushable grit of small press publishing.

§rf§

What is the name of the hockey team from ancient Uruk?

Happy Trans Day of Visibility! 25 years this TDOV. Trans health care saves lives!

Thank you, universe, for the chance to become middle-aged and wear goofy hockey jerseys. Help me make it so that the ones who come after me have the same chance, and better.

§rf§

PS I could say a lot of other things, but then we'd never get out of here.

Here's the thing I've been helping to organize! Just picked up my posters for distro today.

A blurb:

Come celebrate the Rachel Reid book that started the whole phenomenon. Attend Victoria Festival of Authors' spring fundraiser at the Sports View Lounge above Oak Bay Rec on May 8th (7-9 pm). There will be burlesque, drag, and 🌶🌶🌶🌶 readings from real-life Victoria residents who have broken barriers around gender and sexuality in Canadian sports. Even better than the cottage!

Ticket link is here.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Thanks to contrarywise for the title!

This comes from Sleeping in the Courtyard: Contemporary Kurdish Writers in Diaspora (2025, Ed. Holly Mason Badra), which I am reading and getting much from.

Object Exercise

First you must gather the objects.
Open the polish and polish each object
until every object is coded in polish,
a thin film that takes on the shape
of the object. Then dissect every
object with a circumstantial blade.
When the object is fully dissected,
remake it, but more in your image.
Then use concise scissors to prune
the object, removing what wilts
or yellows. Turn up the object
sound. Then dissect again. Hold
each piece to check for resistance:
if it withers, it's an object.
If it's shudders, it's a subject.