Thoughts: Self-Publishing and Social Media

Okay, I'm gonna step out from the big spangly curtain, like the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz, and speak directly to you, dear reader. 

Incidentally, I'm sitting on a beanbag chair as I write this. Drinking a cup of coffee. Seriously, it's just me, no pretensions. In fact, I'm still wearing my Batman - The Dark Knight, pyjamas. That's how real we're being here. No writer, just an average mug. Oh yeah, and the windows open so my cape is fluttering, ever, so, slightly. 

Anyway, I have realized, recently, that despite having a computer and being on it - or my ipad - much of the time I am still pretty 'out of it' when it comes to social media! I know it can be used somehow to develop and promote How To Lose Your Voice Without Screaming - THE GREATEST NOVEL OF ALL TIME!, and can make all of us incredibly famous. (That's what the articles seem to suggest.) However, I look at all the 'buttons' on the pages of Twitter, Facebook etc get dizzy and start hearing the fridge calling me, in that sexy voice,

"Hey, Low Blood Sugar Guy!"

So, the thought is this. Recently, as I've been getting closer to completing How To Lose Your Voice Without Screaming I've been considering the idea of self-publishing, not just excerpts from the novel, but the whole thing as an ebook via Amazon etc. In the past, I've thought that that might be risky, that in the rush to get the novel out I could miss a couple of crucial steps - like working with experienced editors who understand the writing and can really get behind it - and as a result I could publish something that really wasn't ready to be out there. Consequently, I've been thinking of ways of getting  readers to contribute brilliant constructive criticism to help should I take this route. Over the past months I have received excellent comments sent to me personally - comments or ideas ranging from punctuation issues to thoughts on Kingsley, Zeak the Sheik and Doctor Flees. These comments have been very, very helpful, and welcome! Until I began to receive them I really wasn't sure if anyone was reading the work. Then I realized I actually do have a readership, however small, when I discovered the page on blogger that shows how many hits I've been receiving... (In the last few months I've had over fifteen hundred views of many pages. Thank you, seriously...crazy ex-girlfriend?) But, how do I get you who are reading this to share your brilliant ideas on the blog? And to not pull any punches. Your comments might inspire others to share their thoughts, which in turn might get more people to enter the conversation. This would help me become aware of what is or is not working in the novel - i.e. That the BIG SECRET that holds the story together, creates all that magical tension, and gets revealed at the end in a super mind-blowing way, is, actually, painfully obvious to everyone who reads it right from page one - and also remind me of how terrible a speller I am. (Thanks daad!)

So, it occurred to me that I could release the finished first draft, chapter by chapter, and use reader comments to create a much stronger second draft. Instead of relying on the two-person story department of a small publishing house - that works out of the back office of a pet shop - who might help form the novel with some fictional reader in mind, I could get comments from actual readers. And so, the changes I might make would be scientifically tailored by/for the very people that would actually read How To Lose Your Voice Without Screaming... (And, also, would all seven of you mind each purchasing 200, 000 copies?) Is this crazy? It seems to make sense. But, again, how do I use social media to get these readers to share their thoughts?  Please comment...

We would like to gratefully acknowledge the assistance provided by 

The Ivan Von Noshrilgram Foundation, Thiruvananthapuram, India.

How To Lose Your Voice Without Screaming

How To Lose Your Voice Without Screaming is the seventh chapter of Alistair Avery Vogan's novel How To Lose Your Voice Without Screaming.

That evening after he had locked up Laundry-Land, Kingsley carried an old typewriter he’d purchased from a pawnshop, and the stack of paper piled on top of it, to the dining room table. He stood before the table while Mrs. Filmon talked cheerfully in the otherwise quiet room:

"...all alone, he thought about his dilemma. It occurred to the fluffy blue jay Nick, as the wind whistled and the rain poured down upon his soggy backside... ...in the lonely field, that the First National Bank at the..."

She was like filthy wallpaper you might pull away from in a window-less room. Although it caused him great anxiety, especially when he thought about it, had he been another person listening in he would have concluded that the woman speaking was gentle, loving. That she meant no harm. But, it was the inescapable quality that tormented him. Feeling he was powerless.

He dropped the typewriter and the paper on the table loudly and heard her pause, as if regaining her composure. And then she started up again. He opened up the lid of the typewriter and saw an official-looking paper folded beneath a thin, clear plastic case. “Schreibkontrolle,” he read aloud.

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass’s A Taste Of Honey, floated through the wall separating his apartment from hers. Next door Miss Martha was dancing, he fancied, or else, perhaps, moving furniture…

He smiled longingly then, focusing, lifted the package and looked closely at the Adler J-4 typewriter. On the left of the machine at the top of the paddle, like a shining stainless steal shoehorn, stuck out. There were switches, levers, buttons and deep inside its guts, tiny little pieces of metal laid side-by-side like the handles of cutlery all packed up. It was overwhelming. He peered in closely and could make out the tine engravings on each piece of thin metal. He’d need a college degree to operate this thing. There were symbols he couldn’t recognize. On the outside he noted the rows of keys, possessing the same shape as the heal of a shoe. On these were the letters of his alphabet. He put the palm of his hand on the keys and pushed. The metal cutlery handles with the foreign symbols shot up and lodge themselves before a rolling pin-like cylinder embedded in the device. Great. He’d broken it. Mrs. Filmon seemed to grow louder.

At a loss, he opened up the clear plastic package with “Schreibkontrolle” written inside and pulled out the Adler J2 and J4 Instructional Manual.  It was in English.

Writing on J2 and J4

In buying your portable typewriter you have chosen well. The fully operational instructions are intended to serve you as guide enabling you to fully enjoy the various advantages offered by this typewriter. The essential points to be observed when typing with “J2” or “J4” are briefly described hereafter.

Feeling reassured, he read on, noting the five additional features that his Adler Nr. J43906762 possessed compared to the Adler Nr. J2 model. He congratulated himself for purchasing such a fine machine, though noting on some level that he’d most likely never use those features. Still, like purchasing just a little extra life insurance for safe measure, he indeed felt safer. He reached for a pencil and made notes along the manual and parts he might forget, underlying crucial points, sometimes twice.

When Kingsley had completed perusing the manual he confidently freed the jammed keys. Next, he extended the paper support with terminal indicator , and, of course, released the paper bail. He then inserted a crisp sheet of white paper under the rollers and, with his thumb and index finger, turned the platen knob counter clockwise with his right hand before expertly pumping the line space lever. He felt like Harper Lee…

He sat back and waited for Mrs. Filmon to finish the story. He waited relaxed, like a young boxer in his prime, watching his delusional, aged opponent strutting about the ring just before his last match.

He looked down at the keys and noted, somewhat disconcerted, that they were not, as he assumed, in alphabetical order. He listened to the voice,

"…that the First National Bank at the intersection of First Avenue and Finch was the last friendly bank in the courteous and smiling little village not to have installed a security camera monitoring system..."

He realized that he didn’t know how to type.

“Please stop,” he said. But she continued.

The xylophone chimed at the end of the story and Kingsley positioned himself for her to begin again. He looked around to the four corners of the ceiling waiting. He cleared his throat. “I would like you to say the story as slowly as you can,” he said to no-one.

He waited for “Once upon a time.” He sincerely hoped that she would begin slowly, thought she might. However, she began the story at regular speed, and he looked for the letter “O” key. By the time he found it she was on the second sentence and moving on from there.

He slammed his fists into the keys. “I hate this story!” he said petulantly. “I hate it and I hate you!!” His anger turned to anxiety. He could feel himself disassociating. The walls seemed to be undulating slowly around him. He felt like he was at sea. “Please…”

Kingsley rushed to the bathroom and vomited. Her voice was above him. His eyes darted back and forth. Out the window was a darkness he couldn’t remember. The darkness seemed to be seeping in. He saw the colours of the wallpaper, the door frame his hands, but seemed to sense a blackness beneath everything. Terror slowly enveloped him. For the first time in his life, he looked through the physical world around him, and saw that it was all illusion. Nothing was real. Not himself, the water flowing out of the facet, the buzzing of the tungsten light about him. It seemed as if all of humanity had disappeared and he was deep beneath the earth, in a catacomb.

Out of the darkness a large gloved hand stretched towards him. He could make out the figure of an interplanetary traveler, its head encased in a large egg shaped helmet. Just barely he could make out the eyes blinking behind the copper tinted visor, looking at him. The vision dissolved before him and for a moment, it was utterly silent. He became aware of his heart pumping. It built up speed pounding louder and louder. His heart was going to explode. Frantically, he reached for his new shower curtain and ripped it from the rings.

He ran out into his bedroom and spun around trying to strike the voice. He could hear Mrs. Filmon’s voice patiently rising over the high-pitched shrieking of an insane woman. He swung the shower curtain to the left and right and caught his face in the mirror for fraction of a second. His mouth was opened in a scream. Sweat poured down his forehead, tears filled his eyes. He whipped around and around. With a series of movements not his own he found himself in the living room rushing over the coffee table and up the couch. Suddenly, without warning, it seemed as though someone had kicked his legs out from under him, when in fact, while attempting to move in two opposing directions he had tripped over his own legs. He found both these legs in the air before him. He saw his socked feet ever so slowly eclipsing the dining room lights hanging from the ceiling. He hovered a moment then descended like a wingless Daedalus onto the back of the couch and crashed into the wood of the floor.

A sharp pain issued from behind one ear. On his back, Kingsley’s elbows slid over his torso and thumped wetly on the floor. His forearms and the palms of his hands followed, his body behaving like a carcass on a butcher’s table. Gradually he grew aware of a grey rectangle before him. It was his ceiling above, framed by the back of the couch and the wall.

He closed his eyes and turned what was left of his focus to the dull pain behind his ear. It was his right ear. For some time he thought only of the pain. It was the only thing he knew for certain, the only thing he could count on. Somehow, it was grounding. From the certainty of this pain he expanded his focus. He was behind the couch. The wall was to his right. He was lying on his back. He was Kingsley Kuchner. He lived at 177 East-Seventh Street. He was forty-six… A woman was near. He couldn’t see her. She was speaking to him. He felt a pang of anxiety, but swallowed it. He knew the pain was close at hand to retreat to if that darkness descended. Slowly all the broken pieces of Kingsley returned to their proper spots.

He listened to Mrs. Filmon. She was talking about a First National Bank. He wondered if she even knew he was there… “Who are you?” he whispered. He waited but there was no reply. He was alone. He sat up, then looked over the side of the couch. The shredded shower curtain lay in different locations across the room. A chair lay on its back, a picture on the opposite wall rested at an angle, the rug had been pushed up – and was curving in on itself – against the wall. The stack of paper, the cover of the Adler J4 and the J2 itself existed undisturbed where they had been, as if waiting.

The light above the table shone like a spotlight.

He picked himself up and approached the table.

He pulled the jammed metal on the inside the typewriter. He would, rather than wait for Mrs. Filmon finish her story, begin with what he did know. Painstakingly, he punched the keys with his index fingers

"Once upon a time…"

And to his surprise, discovered he knew all the words.

If you're enjoying THE NOVEL, please share the link with a friend:

http://theivanvonnoshrilgramfoundation.blogspot.com/2011/12/ghost-in-machine.html

Next Chapter: 

Chapter Eight - The Other Eagle Has Landed

For more information, please contact: 
pinecrestpictures@gmail.com

We would like to gratefully acknowledge assistance provided by 

DonkeyJacket, Safia Adam, Sport68, Robert Bodrog, Bob Studholme, Brian Borgford, Craig Lauzon, Patreshia Tkach,  Chi Diep, Anum Siddiqui, Sara Ryan, Hannah Taha, Shaikha Alain, Ayesha Sayed, Leanne Wherret, Bruce McCullouch, Susan Cavan, Tanya Nguyen, Margaret Lambert, Peggy Vogan, Mahmood Farra, Barbara Vogan, ZeBeDee, Paul Marlow, Alison Belsham, Brian L, Melyat, Jagermeister8 and Sir William Newman, editors and story consultants at The Ivan Von Noshrilgram Foundation, Amman, Jordan.)    

Copyright 2000 (Alistair Avery Vogan / the Von  Noshrilgram Foundation)

How Did I Get Here? - Our Operation In The Middle East

From the Editor's Desk
at the Von Noshrilgram Foundation

The Middle East. Noon. Sun exploding directly overhead in a pale blue sky. Feel it, as if through a large magnifying glass hovering just over your head and shoulders. See a bustling market place, skinned animal limbs hanging, stacked jars of Omani honey, three goats in the back seat of a Mercedes Benz zipping past, leaning towers of cleansers and mounds of vegetables. Honking and haggling. It's all there. So is a white man, “too much white,” who stands with arms outstretched, shoes beginning to melt into the searing heat of the asphalt like cheese from a grilled sandwich as he glares at a map, slowly rotating it clockwise. He glances up, lost in the blur of heads and shoulders drifting past in all directions around him. His lips move silently. He estimates the total kilometers from his present location to his hometown, counting on his fingers. The map falls to the ground and is trampled…

Our Operation in the Middle East

What motivates one to embark on a life overseas? How does one benefit from being that ‘fish out of water’? Will we ever be the same once we’ve fully come to terms with this world’s charms and sorrows? And will these experiences alter us beyond recognition?... 

I stand beside my large desk, in my air-conditioned office of the Von Noshrilgram Foundation, peering around the curtain into the world outside, that Middle East. Outside on a tree branch, on the limb of a skeleton of a tree, skinny birds chirp lethargically in the midday heat and wipe their brows, looking in through the sheets of glass as if to say “Hey brother, how’s it on the inside.” I feel a pang of guilt. I consider the Middle East Operation, it’s success. The loss...

As I am sure it is a textbook description, the doctor said it would hurt “just a little”, an understatement, or spoken like a veteran movie critic who just doesn’t have the heart to give away the really good ending.  And because of this, I chose local anesthetic. On the day, the doctor used five needles to freeze the dermal layer, and, when he felt that he had been successful at this, began. It was “exploratory”, exploratory in the sense that the deeper he delved with his scalpel the more frequently he encountered the conscious part of me quick to announce with that rapid unicycle-like peddling motion of my legs and one arm and a Doctor Seussish flow of syllables in search of a sentence that I, Von Noshrilgram Jr. began here. Because it was “local”, I could hear everything in, as they say, virtual ‘surround sound’. The cutting and snipping and, at times, ripping. It sounded as though he was cutting fabric to make finger puppets, then giving up and shredding them, like a petulant child, into tiny unrecognizable bits. Also, it sounded like he was de-boning mutton with a dull knife so perhaps he was making his lunch at the same time. I heard it, all: the doctor’s multiple wet burps, the man in a rage screaming at the top of his lungs in the next room and my doctor’s consequent barely concealed chuckling, the nurse’s comments that the things the doctor wanted were not in the cabinet, “not this one either,” “the one over here?”, “I don’t know who stocked the shelves,” “the one over there?” and “check that cupboard then?”, and “no, not that one, that one.” 

And so on...

It was like I was there.

I imagined my life at that moment existing on a VHS tape, and I rewound it noisily – our voices and the ambient sounds rising in pitch comically and presenting itself as a code to be deciphered by those who might care sometime in the future - just to the point where the nurse appeared in the doorway of the waiting room and announced my name, like a foreign capital he’d never been to and wasn’t much interested in visiting, as I read the paper. This time, however, I do not look up spirited and fearless, but watch him from the corner of my eye surreptitiously, watch him waiting for me too patiently, while the other future patients glance up. In this perfect universe I begin to whistle, then remember a dinner date and excuse myself, embarrassed, “Wrong day!” I shake everyone’s hand and leave with some aplomb. People wave.

While lying on the operating table with my left arm folded beneath my torso and therefore losing all the feeling it once had but gradually being filled with the sensation that little people were angrily hammering stakes into every inch of flesh to secure small pup tents, I attempted to escape to a more comforting place and thought of a pack of dogs two hundred yards away in a valley across the highway who had pursued me with jaws snapping while I ran for my life in a zigzaggy pattern just the week before. At that moment they were most probably resting beneath the one tree in the dry riverbed with their tongues hanging out, waiting. Outside on the road in the back of a pick-up truck several golden brown camels glanced out onto the town in a superior, bored manner and a nurse swung the operating room door open and announced, “Ding DONG! Anyone home!” 

I jerked up to her surprise. 

“Oh!” she said, looking to the doctor, “…Local?” 

The doctor nodded.

Afterwards, a strange thing happened. The operation was over. I was in agony. My tumor, the size of an egg, floated to my surprise in the clear plastic container, looking out lonely. I felt the distance between us. Like an ex-girlfriend you still share some closeness with but know it can’t work out and you’ve both decided courageously to go your separate ways, yet… there you both are, both feeling vulnerable, both needing each other... somehow. 

Maybe it was all me, but I felt a sadness permeating the room. I found myself wondering how it had all gone so terribly, terribly wrong. I wondered what I could have done differently. What I could have eaten, said, been. If I’d taken a different route, made a different life choice, would it all have still ended up this way? Then the doctor waved at me, cheerfully to get my attention, or perhaps to confirm for himself that he hadn’t accidentally severed some crucial nerve that rendered it impossible for me to form a new thought, and, seeing the blood on his hands, my blood, I passed out.

Three days later, I still feel the pain. It aches. I look out the window, trying to muster the strength to get back to work, to get back 'into the saddle', for the old me to return home. 

A bird, one in particular, seems to be attempting to lock eyes with me. He glances to his companions. I look down at the palms of my two open hands impotently, as if one more hand might help… If I let a handful of birds in today, what precedent exactly would I be setting? I turn away completely, as many have before today. Out of my vision this bird drive heaves, a particle of sand stuck in its throat. Oblivious, for I’m pondering the Middle East Operation, I know a decision must be made. I feel my hand on the curtain and know what needs to be done. There are some chapters it’s best to simply leave behind. And there is, of course, the memory of Ivan Von Noshrilgram Sr, distinguished philosopher botanist, wild game hunter, exotic animal trainer, extinguished firewalker, linguist, writer and humanist lecturer, to perpetuate. I’m still me, darn it.

 I’ll find my way.

Still, I wonder what my tumor’s doing right now...?

We would like to gratefully acknowledge the special assistance provided by the Middle East Division of The Ivan Von Noshrilgram Foundation Emergencies and Medical Preparedness Department (IVNF - EMPD) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.  



For more information, please contact: 
pinecrestpictures@gmail.com

Hello. Nice to Meet You.

Hello. Nice To Meet You is from Alistair Vogan's short story collection Beyond Good and Eviler.


Chapter One - Surprise

It wasn’t what I’d expected. Anyway, for starters, it wasn’t like the photos... It seemed darker. I entered the school grounds and could see that the main building was considerably older, almost decrepit. I liked it immediately. A dark, grey mold, the result of countless hot and humid summers, had spread across much of its exterior, giving it the appearance of wearing a tattered angora sweater. Somewhere off in the distance, rising above the cries of the cicadas, a chorus of young men screamed, "Baaaanzaai!" - the rally cry of baseball players throughout Japan, and also the shriek of choice for kamikaze. In my mind, with limited associations of Japanese history, the school seemed to be having a hard time shaking off the Taisho era. This was my kind of place.

It was a cloudy day. I passed through the main entrance and was escorted into the staff room in shiny plastic slippers by my new, almost completely incommunicative immediate superior. I was given a cup of tea, and told to relax while I waited for the director. He’d see me soon, I was assured. There was a tension in the air for reasons I didn’t, yet, understand. I stood by the window and grinned stiffly while my new colleagues scurried out of the room. The secretary, a fierce-looking sixty-year-old woman with the eyes of a bald eagle appeared out of a door at the end of the room ominously and made eye-contact with my immediate superior in a way that indicated the director wanted to see me, and for us to hurry. With a firm hand between my shoulder blades, my supervisor guided me down two rows of identical grey desks towards this door, as if I were a model airplane. It was as we neared that I caught the anxious smile on the secretary's face. It seemed to say, "I don't know if this is going to work…" Before I knew it I found myself in the director's office, a dark grey, dimly-lit chamber.

Chapter Two - It’s a Pleasure.

The contrast in illumination was blinding. The curtains and blinds were closed. I glanced around wide-eyed but still it took a moment before my eyes distinguished anything in the black void. When they did adjust I realized I was standing before a stern, older gentleman in a dark blue suit behind a massive and immaculate oak desk. There was a humidor on the left-hand side. He sat facing me at the end of a very long room. I looked at him and he at me, but no words were spoken. He simply nodded, and I was again guided closer by my superior - though now I was acutely aware of the angle at which I was leaning backwards, and the just noticeable hesitation growing within myself. Still, with the grace of an aikido master, I was delivered up against the desk. The director and my immediate superior exchanged glances that said, "…What is this?!" And the director indicated, with a look I interpreted as livid that, perhaps, I’d like to sit.

There was an exchange between the two men, followed by uproarious laughter which was startling. The man behind the desk inhaled half a cigarette then immediately the mirth ceased and he locked eyes with me, his chin dropping. It was The Moment of Truth. His eyes said, "I know what you've done" and I swallowed hard trying to recall what that might be. As I did, he began to speak to me in Japanese at a pace that, for me, was rapid. He spoke at length. I nodded sagaciously, uncertain what he was talking about. When he finished I changed positions and sat upright to indicate that ‘Yes. I was game. I was the man for the job.’ He lit another cigarette and watched me. I realized some sort of response was expected. I listened to everyone’s breathing for a moment then delivered the short speech I had prepared in Japanese, and as I did his expression told me much of the rich impression I was making.

I stopped speaking and could see the director grimacing as if I had been shrieking into a megaphone and that the megaphone, which had picked up my amplified voice, was now sending feedback throughout the room. In fact, at that moment I thought I caught the glass cabinets around us shaking. He jerked his head involuntarily to the right and gave me a full, un-obscured view of his large mushroom-like ear.

I nodded again, uncertain what else I might do.

Chapter Three - Translation, Not Required

My immediate superior stood to my right, slightly behind me. I looked up for some assistance. He appeared to be imagining that I no longer existed. The director turned back and I could see he was considering a change of tactics. Then, in an attempt to bridge the language gap, because I had made it clear my Japanese ability was wanting - or that I was intent on breaking all the laws of Japanese grammar as some form of political theatre – the director began to speak in English. And, when he did, he chose from a collection of common English phrases, one you might find in a small Berlitz pocketbook. Also, I think he picked all the phrases at random. Though in English, my immediate superior translated. I nodded.

A large orange goldfish rose to the surface in the moat surrounding the school grounds. Its mouth stretched open to take in a tossed bread crumb. The fish sparkled in the sunlight and disappeared into the depths of the translucent green.

The director stomped out his cigarette and wove his hand before my immediate superior. Translation was NOT REQUIRED. He paused, lit a yet another cigarette and thought intensely for a moment, looking at his nails. We held our breath. I began to sweat. He snapped his fingers and began to beam. Something good was coming…

We could all feel it.

My superior asked me to stand up. I did. Then, the director pointed to the door with a half-smile like Han Solo and said, to my delight, his voice dropping nearly an octave, "I love you..."

“He means 'thank you’," said my supervisor, not skipping a beat.

The director shot him a look and my supervisor nodded obsequiously. I found my body turning towards the door and moving towards it quickly, as if the room was on fire. This was despite the fact that I, and my superior, could see that the director had more to say.

The door jerked open and the director stepped out from behind his desk, seemingly in slow motion, and looked at me as though I were on a cruise-liner, drifting out to sea, the distance between us growing heartbreakingly by the second. At the corner of my eyes I could see that in the staffroom the English teachers had gathered against the door, and were listening in. Still, I turned to the director. He nodded, reached for the humidor and smiled confidently as Ricardo Montalban might have and repeated, as if to correct my director, "…I love you Mr. Vogan."

My immediate superior whispered "Just bow, bow, …bow."

…I bowed and said “kornichiwa!” and my body glided effortless into the staff room. It was going to be a good year. I just knew it.

京都の日本組　の ザ　アイバン　ヴォン　ノシリルグラム　ファウンデション　ドもありがと 

For more information, please contact:
Ivan Von Noshrilgram Jr. 

Why We Read - The Western Canon According to Ivan Von Noshrilgram, Sr.

Why We Read - The Western Canon According to Ivan Von Noshrilgram, Sr is from Alistair Vogan's short story collection Beyond Good and Eviler.

Books. Why? And, really, to what end?

Books are often heavy. But they are useful. Books - or livres in French - help us understand the writer's intention. "What does the writer mean?" we might ask. One may regard a book affectionately, watch it closely on the shelf in its natural habitat, but to read is much more fruitful. It brings us closer to the author.

In the summer of 1972 Ivan Von Noshrilgram, Sr. created a digest of the very valuable Western Canon. Why an abbreviated Western Canon? Life is short. With the demands of life who has time to involve oneself with ideas, or more importantly, the thoughts of others? And, if you are operating heavy machinery, like a hair-dryer, or a large riffle or something, isn't that dangerous? ...Yes. But these are dangerous times, and dangerous times require extreme measures. One of them is reading.

What follows is The List interspersed with quotes from The Von Noshrilgram Problem: Philosopher-Botanist, or Extinguished Firewalker? which we believe demonstrate his peculiar genius. Eunice and I, and everyone at The Foundation hope you find this of some value.

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

"Gee. I like those stories by William Shakespeare - whatever language that is he writes in. Born in sixth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth he had a mind greater than all others. He was ahead of us then; he is ahead of us now. Some would argue, as literary scholar Harold Bloom did the other day when we were eating toast, that William Shakespeare invented the human too. Imagine that.

I think you should read "the Bard", however, there is an order in which his most successful works should be tackled. To crack the nut that is Mr. Shakespeare I recommend the following plays":1) The First Part of King Henry the Sixth

2) The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth

3) The First Third Part of One-eighth of Henry the Twelve

4) Most of Henry

5) Just Henry's Bum

6) Romeo and Juliet

7) also, the one with all the talking, where the people die at the end

The ANCIENTS

"...The Greeks were sober thinkers. And they worked out a lot. They also influenced a lot of people that followed them. (That's why they're in the canon and you're not.) I highly recommend this list, if not for the wisdom of these early people then simply for reassurance that there are some important recurring themes in literature... Watch the cat there. Look out! ...by my slippers!":

1) Rhesus

2) Medea

3) Phoenician Women Wowsy wow wow

4) A Letter Concerning Toleration

5) An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

6) Hugging 'the Right Way'

7) Shut Up Eat Your Dinner I'm The Adult

8) Because I Said So I am Taller And My Mass is Greater

9) An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (The sequel)

10) I said "Just Do It Young Lady"


The UNIVERSE (How does it reeeeally work?)

"...The Universe is there. No, there. ...There! Look at my finger, AND FOLLOW IT KID. ...Well, it was there a second ago. When? When you stepped out for crackers. Anyway there is a universe...why not try to understand it?...":

1) On the Sphere and Cylinder Measurement of a Circle

2) Quadrature of the Parabola

3) On Spirals

4) The Straight Line, Curvey Ones Too

5) How to Use a Yo-yo, volumes 1 through 18

The MYSTERIES OF THE HUMAN MIND

"...Your mother called...":

1) Selected Papers on Hysteria

2) The Origin and Development of Psycho-analysis

3) The Interpretation of Dreams

4) I Didn't Say Banana I Would Know If I Had Said Banana

5) You Definitely Said Banana I'm a Medical Doctor

Edited by Alistair Vogan

that downward spiral

That Downward Spiral is an excerpt from from Alistair Vogan's short story collection Beyond Good and Eviler.

Scott found his way inside the Wendy's, ordered and sat alone at the periphery of tables and chairs fastened to the floor. He sipped his coffee while he watched the other cars zip past on highway 401. It was like a race and they were getting ahead.


Twenty minutes passed. The coffee was getting cold. What was Emily doing? He looked towards the door with the icon of the woman stamped on the plastic square. She didn't emerge. Unexpectedly, sitting by himself and suddenly aware of it, he missed her. He realized that other men at this point would begin to worry about their missing consort, so he tried, thought maybe he could be worried, but ultimately was distracted by the large cheek of a woman's buttocks which he realized was being pressed against the back of his skull. He looked up just as the woman, looking down in a studied, bored manner, noticed him. She’d thought his head was the back of a chair. She apologized listlessly and moved an inch closer to the back of the line. She wanted a cheeseburger. In 11 minutes she'd order a "cheeseburger" but there wouldn't actually be any cheese on it. Not any thing a person seventy years ago would recognize as cheese. Scott looked at the menu, her ass, then the picture of the hamburger illuminated from behind, and thought the cheese looked like an orange bathroom tile. Suddenly the woman jerked around and swiped him viciously in the ear with the faded ski-pass fastened to the zipper on her ski-jacket. "Kyle!?" Scott winced, and checked his ear irrationally, to see if it was still there, then his hand for blood.


"What?" a voice yelled in the distance by a simulated driving video game.


"Kyle. Get the hell over here!" and then looked at Scott who was holding his ear. She scowled at him like she couldn't believe she'd let his head touch her ass.


The door to the woman's washroom opened and displayed the chaos within. Scott forgot about the pain. He thought he saw Emily coming. He stood up but realized it's wasn't her. I am worried, he thought. See? He sat down and looked around Wendy's lost, like a golden retriever tied outside a supermarket.

***

Inside the bathroom Emily caught a glimpse of Scott before the door shut. She knew by the position of his eyebrows in the middle of his forehead that he missed her. Well, good, she thought.

So she took her time. She washed her hands. She had a detailed conversation with a nice lady about the nice lady's new teeth. The woman reminded her of her aunt Elsie, and she was learning stuff.

It hadn't always been this way. This she knew. She hadn't always had to put up with this. Really, he was a good guy, she thought, as she nodded at the woman's teeth. A lot of people didn’t really understand him like she did. Jesus. Had she just thought that? she wondered; because that sounded really stupid …Anyway, this rough patch would pass. Definitely. She was really certain. She would never walk out on him. That’s for sure. She would never walk out on him... Anyway. She smiled and promised herself she'd start flossing. She watched the nice older lady leave then she washed her hands for the forth time, starting to feel a little guilty.

She gathered her strength.

Outside the women's washroom, Scott looked up and saw her exit the bathroom business-like. He felt like he hadn't seen her in weeks. He was happy. He smiled and stood up, thinking they'd leave, but she sat down. "It's a madhouse in there." She took a coffee and spotted “those teeth” in line. "Good. My coffee's still warm." She yawned and adjusted herself, not looking at Scott who, she thought, was really struggling hard to look incredulous.

"What's going on? I thought you were kidnapped."

"Oh that's sweet. You were thinking about me?"

"...What’s that mean?"

She locked eyes with him, "The traffic is picking up Scott. Maybe we should get going."

"Well...you were gone a long time," he said uneasily. “…I was really worried.”

She asked him how long but, yep, he was stumped. He pulled a number out of a hat. "Uh. About eleven minutes maybe?"

She shrugged.

“I went twice. I thought maybe I’d missed you somehow.”

"How do guys get out so quick?" and took a long look at him, trying to measure his sincerity.
But he thought she was waiting for a response. This disoriented him. "Mmm. Seriously? You want to know?" he asked.
"No. I don't think so. Thank you," she said coldly, feeling she had allowed herself to inadvertently lose control.

"Well, most of us don't wash our hands."

"Great. Well." She said through curling lips, "That's really disgusting."

She tried to look around Wendy’s like she expected to see someone else she knew, someone more important to be specific, or, more generally, she looked in a way that suggested essentially that she had much better things to do than to sit at a table which was fastened to a floor.

Gradually she became conscious of the act of looking rather than actually seeing, and she could feel him watching her anyhow so she turned to him deadpan.

“So now what?”

Terrifying Story

Terrifying Story is from Alistair Vogan's short story collection Beyond Good and Eviler.


Note: the following is the first three abreviated chapters of a novel-in-progress. Please pardon any indecisiveness that may appear to exist in terms of theme, character, style, story-line, genre or raison d'etre. And also pace. Pace and tone... and maybe direction. Really, it's a work-in-progress. It's to be published by Double Day, though, in the spring of 1999! Maybe. They don't seem to be answering their phone. 'Cause, have they relocated then?


A Disclaimer


This is possibly one of the most frightening stories you will ever encounter. This cannot be overstated. You are forewarned. I suggest, if you are weak-hearted, easily anxious or find comfort in animated films with talking animals and sweeping orchestra scores, you move along and find yourself elsewhere. Basically, this isn't for little girlz.

Ivan Von Noshrilgram, Sr.'s

Terrifying Story

Chapter One

The way it happened (Brace oneself)...

It was not long ago. It was a dark and humid night. Frightened, I ran from my house into the street. To where I ran and for how long, I can not really be certain. I would rather not think about it.

That night, thick, lead black clouds slid over the moon like glaucoma. Visibility was low. I bumped into things my mind could not identify. A thick humid wind swept across the landscape and tore at the shrubs, trees and my lone slouching figure as I entered the threshold of the Necropolis. A tree limb cracked and tumbled over a rooftop like a discarded corpse. Glass was heard shattering but only momentarily because the deep rumble of thunder muted it. Presently the rows of cold stone and the caste iron gate were released from the dead black night by a long artery of lightning cutting across the sky. A duck quacked menacingly overhead and with sinking dread I realized I had left my hairpiece on the dresser.

No. It was a woman's throaty scream I heard - perhaps of a cheerleader - emminating as if from the darkness itself, causing the hair on the back of my neck to bristle. Then, as I entered the threshold of the Necropolis an actual duck, (Anas Platyrhynchos), most certainly hovering menacingly directly above, unleashed such a most blood-curdling quack as one would not expect this side of Hades. Without hesitation I passed through the first row of dusty tombstones stealthily, then the next, and it was there that I saw a lone figure, in possession of a large rusted shovel, slip behind the base of an ancient tree. Watching his shadow cast upon the bushes I made out his awkward attempts to hide the shovel in his fedora. Naturally, being a private detective and familiar with all things evil and malicious, I was one step ahead of him. Ever so slowly, very slowly indeed, I slipped my hand inside my Holt Renfrew sports jacket and reached for my trusty revolver but, somewhat dismayed, I discovered my cordless electric shaver, by Braun. Reflexively I switched it on, began to shave - starting with precision at my left cheekbone and progressing with carefree movements towards my chin, even whistling a short section from Guys and Dolls! - and therefore gave myself away. Immediately I sensed the moist odour of rotting flesh. I began to gag when from behind two powerful, icy hands grasped my nostrils, and began to "yank" in opposing directions...

Chapter Two

No. Not quite right. Indeed...It was my throat. Yes. I distinctly felt the hands upon my naked throat. I dropped the blasted razor. Of course it is moments like this that action is required, decisive, precise and effective, even brutal. However I attemped to scream. Cold fear stifled it, and then, perhaps out of denial, while tapping my index finger upon my protruding lower lip I began to ponder why I would have allowed myself to leave the house anyway without the hairpiece. I am always punishing myself that way. In fact I can spend hours devoted to it. Was it intentional on a subconscious level? Was I my worst enemy? One cannot have an afro one Monday, then not Tuesday, but then have one again on Thursday. There are natural laws after all that everyone recognizes, I said to myself as I was being strangled and my razor buzzed at my feet.


Another "Quaaaack!" - this time yet more blood-thirsty, creating an expanding circle of waves over the black blades of the Necropolis lawn - and the violent flapping of wings too which pulled me from the security of my dream world. The "Anas Platyrhynchos" continued to hover above, periodically slapping its massive webbed feat - as dry as Dorothy Parker - against the sides of my skull. Oh its cry! Its heartless cry! "Surely this must be the winged messenger of Satan," I said aloud. "Kuuuwaaaaaaack!" it seemed to respond in its filthy avian code.


The assassin's hands laid upon my throat, to my surprise, seemed to vaguely lose interest in their quest; and I instantly changed form, very cleverly assuming the attitude one might when shopping for retirement gifts at Walmart for a loved one. But I was out of luck that eve. He was not misled, no, and so the talons returned with renewed vigour - though I was certain I had delivered a convincing imitation of discovering the perfect cow oven mitts for someone dear in middle-management. Perhaps my hearty, "Do I get air-miles then?" lacked the necessary emotional depth... Nonetheless, I found myself at the tipping point, struggling for my life, trying to free my neck from these shackles of bone and flesh. I wrestled as a young Charles Bronson, or Clint Eastwood might have; perhaps even reminiscent of stolid Russel Crowe in Gladiator. Finally, against my will, I let out the pitifull scream of a seven year-old girl, a math whiz, and mockingly it echoed from across the endless rows of tombstones. Also adding to the torment my roller skates caused me to falter - my right leg slid forward, my left back - ripping my slacks and I, losing my balance, shot sideways forehead-first into a pine, a sapling, really. It was more damaged than I was. Also, I dropped my Fran Lebowtz action figure. ...All this apparently unnerved the dark assailant.

Chapter Three

(the terrifying denouement)

And just like that the well-girthed bird arose into the night air and began moving south, its body black against the cold and sparkling indifference of a canopy of stars. Exhausted, I collapsed on the ground in a heap, and wept beside the sapling... now barely alive. My antagonist? I do recall his unfavorable laughter, and the sound of his footsteps as he stomped across the dry grass through the rows of tombstones, then over a gravel road and finally disappeared into the bushes... with my cordless electric razor, by Braun. Was I shaken? Oh yes! For a moment I was a man beaten perhaps. Delirious, and seeking comfort, I reached for a telephone and ordered a large Hawaiian pizza with double cheese, making sure to check for any existing drink specials cause they won't always tell you about them, will they? I like cream soda. However, none came! No part of my order. Because there was no telephone. Just as their was no gun; as there was no hair, as there was no "digity". Only terror. Terror. ...Terror.


Then, I slipped into the Void and experienced a dreamy nothingness - as if I was at that moment in my Remembrance of Things Past pajamas - and later, since I would spend the entire evening and much of the morning on wet grass, hives and a real zeal for scratching.


the end




Important Terrifying Facts


Terrifying Fact # 1: In 1975 ninety-seven people were murdered in the safety of their homes, while sleeping.

Terrifying Fact # 2: In Texas forty-nine people await the death sentence. Method: lethal injection.

Terrifying Fact # 3: I like cheese. (Maybe not so terrifying, in retrospect.)

Terrifying Fact # 4: The serial killer is often highly intelligent and a integrated member of society. He is not unlike you or I.

Terrifying Fact #5: I am not unlike you or I.

Terrifying Fact # 6: It takes a rotting cadaver 47 days before the lungs begin to collapse.

Terrifying Fact #7: No one knows why, but sometimes, often 15 hours after the time of death, the deceased's heart begins to beat again.

Terrifying Fact # 8: Death is a real commitment most are reluctant to make.
Dead people are good listeners.
Dead people are cool to respond with uproarious laughter but, alas, rarely snicker.
Dead people are the least productive in the workplace and frequently
incommunicative.

Ivan Von Noshrilgram, Sr

(Distinguished philosopher botanist, wild game hunter, exotic animal trainer, extinguished firewalker, writer and humanitarian lecturer. And terrifier.)

Edited by Alistair Vogan

Eulogy for Ivan Von Noshrilgram, Sr.

Eulogy for Ivan Von Noshrilgram, Sr. is from Alistair Vogan's short story collection Beyond Good and Eviler.


(Recited at an undisclosed Navajo Indian reserve, Four Corners, New Mexico, 1999.)


He was what they used to call a 'hep-cat'.
He walked a 'road traveled', sure, but it wasn’t a highway.
And there was a spring and life in his gate
but the white picket. White picket? ...It was yards away.


His words were tempered, not tossed:
A box was a thing people got stuck in,
- not a void others filled up with crap then gave away on special occasions, he’d say.
...He said a lot of things.
Then, he’d clear his throat, hike up his pants...
Yes sir... he’d be ready to Bowl!


He Bowled ‘cause it was ‘the right thing to do.’
- you needn’t question everything.
Just as the ball, cold and solid, would disappear before him,
In time, it would return fresh, ...anew
"Not unlike the cycle of death and rebirth,"
the dance of Siva.
He said these things
and people took notice.


His bowling shirt and shoes were his uniform.
Well, not his whole uniform.
There were pants,
black acrylic socks;
and, for a time, a mustache.
But in this ritual,
with the team shirt and pants, the shoes, socks
and a large order of nachos with processed cheese and jalapeno peppers
‘It’ all came together
while his consort worked the room at the El Macombo Chinese Restaurant
across the highway.


Yes, indeed, there was perfection.
It was that simple.


...Why complicate it?



...Mishima Yukio
From the original forward of 'The Decay of the Angel'.

Recited by Akihiro Miwa at the funeral service for Ivan Von Noshrilgram, distinguished philosopher botanist, wild game hunter, exotic animal trainer, extinguished firewalker, linguist, writer and humanist lecturer.　And bowler.

Edited by Stephen Carter

The Von Noshrilgram Epistle, 1983

The Von Noshrilgram Epistle, 1983 is from Alistair Avery Vogan's short story and essay collection, Beyond Good and Eviler.

It was 1975: the year The Muse first spoke to me. Or, should I say, through me. It was a Wednesday, to be precise, and a chilly, blustery fall day. Almost winter, the trees, cold and hard, held but a few brittle leaves which rattled relentlessly in the wind. Bereft of summer’s beauty the landscape was a suffocating blur of gray and brown. I felt ill at ease. I stopped. And then it began...

I’ll never forget that moment! It was the beginning and I was transformed! The change was irrevocable and clear and, to further emphasize the impact of this, I remember distinctly the smells in the air, the clothing I wore, every item my pockets and the foolish thoughts running through my 61 year-old head just moments before it happened. It seems some things one never can forget. They are stamped in our mind with an indelible ink that perhaps only death can erase.

I was on a bicycle. I should mention that. It was a warmer day than most. I wore a cardigan. It was open but I was still quite hot. There was also a light breeze and the fragrance of incense from nearby Kinkakuji temple blew across a humble rice field towards me, of all people. I remember that smell. I have it now in my mind. It was thick and dry, and, as it sailed upon a crest of a capricious burst of air, my cardigan slapped against my sides as if to say “Hey Von Noshrilgram! Today’s the day!” I was but five minutes from the home of the abbot of the previously mention temple when I heard The Voice clearly, through the rustling of the tassels on the little girl’s bicycle I had mistakenly grabbed at the train station and now found myself riding. (This sort of accident is commonplace in Japan, or I am told. We’re often in such a rush to get home, and frequently it’s dark.)

I cannot remember the words exactly. The Voice spoke in a deep knowing way with such eloquence I felt it must to be shared. It was the sound of Truth. It whispered, in a conspiratorial tone, with a disorienting sense of a familiarity:”…WOWY, YOUR HEAD… IT SUUURE IS POINTY.”

Overcome, my flip-flops stumbled upon the pink plastic pedals of the Hello Kitty 3000 TM and I zigzagged along the street for several meters. I stopped at the community information board and leaned on it as I replayed The Voice in my head. “Could this be true?” Could The Muse, one of the nine deities of Greek and Roman mythology which presides over the branches of learning and the arts: The Muse that inspired all great artists and intellectuals of recorded western history be demanding my attention? Me? Ivan Von Noshrilgram, Sr., celebrated botanist, wild game hunter, exotic animal trainer, humanist lecture, distinguished fire walker, writer and linguist? Still leaning, I snapped the kickstand out - not unlike Marlon Brando in The Wild Bunch.

I did not try to interpret. I simply continued to lean - mostly because my cardigan was hooked solidly to a hamlet of staples protruding from the lamppost. My forehead, pressed into the grain of the wood, I began to work at the staples anxiously.

“...WHAT?” it whispered incredulous. “IT IS... ON THE BACK, BEHIND YOUR EARS. EEEK! LOOK AT THOSE EARS!!!”

I yanked my sweater free, inadvertently removing substantial patch of wool the shape of a rectangle. I looked through it unimpressed and saw an angry little girl with a Hello KittyTM knapsack hanging menacingly from her shoulder. To her right a mob of hardened seven year-olds stared me down.

Gurgle, gurgle ...gurgle. (This mysterious sound emanated from somewhere in the void before me.) “HEAR THAT?” Said the Voice. DID YOU? THAT SOUND MEANS... WEEEEEHEEEE! IT’S LUNCH TIME!”

I let the bicycle drop and ran...

Several Months later:

It might be clear to the reader not so inclined to the extra-ordinary that all might not have been precisely as it struck me then. Well, you are right. Indeed. We often, as humans, or what-have-you, find ourselves overwhelmed magically by one thing or another; we become hypnotized by the sounds and lights; we, immersed in experience, later find our reason has been dissolved by phantoms, by our own self-generated illusions. This is precisely one of those times, when, lost in Newton's world - a mundane and finite labyrinth - we subconsciously yearn for some form of emancipation into another realm where we might fly. "Oh, fly a little child!...Fly!" But fly too high and the unforgiving light of Reason melts our puny wax wings - or, informs us, in a round about way, that a toaster is not an acceptable form of transportation. And so we plunge back to the big ugly sphere where one plus one equals two: the empirical world of induction.


Certainly, there was a point when something simply clicked. A Revelation, you might say. The drapes of illusion were yanked rather viciously from my eyes, and I saw, as if for the first time. I suppose we all must have moments of folly. Sometimes these are moments that are swift and enlightening and if we are lucky, no one sees - like when your dress shirt is tucked into your underpants and the elastic wanders up to your sternum. But sometimes these moments are episodes that are followed by the necessity of medication, or sometimes, simply, a gentle tap to the nape of the neck with a large frozen turkey.


My revelation was swift. It came at a crossroads - in the kitchen, between the garage and the refrigerator. When I was hit, the impact was earth-shattering. I tried to remain calm, tried to keep my crumbling universe concealed, but I exposed myself, really, that very moment before the open refrigerator when I inserted the car key into the coleslaw and tried to start up the meat drawer. That I wasn't in possession of a valid crisper doesn't seem, after sober consideration, to warrant a sixty thousand-yen traffic ticket. Can one really double-park a collection of poultry? I suppose I should thank the Japanese police officer for pulling me out of such an obvious state of denial. (That said, I'll never wave to pedestrians from a moving vehicle with such unconditional love...)


But, my revelation! My revelation that The Muse was not The Muse, was certainly devastating! I think more so because what I believed to be one of the "nine deities of Greek and Roman mythology which presides over the branches of learning and the arts" was it seems in fact, my Ukrainian aunt, Aunt Oogie, who appears was transmitting psychic messages while sleeping before her new thirty-six inch television. And naturally, she denies any involvement. Why my aunt aunt? Sigmund Freud would have had a field day. Yes, the ceaseless references to ten-pin bowling could have tipped me off. Yes, that the Golden Girls might not be the prime motivating force of The Muse simply did not occur to me. But there is a silver lining. I now know, after some meticulous research that sponge cake is not included in the vernacular of any known Greek deity.


CONCLUSION


We all have 20/20 vision when we look back at our blunders. But before we truly learn our lessons there is often great beauty to our visions. It seems all things Beautiful are illuminated poorly, and in the shadows we hide our longing. I guess, if you're Mr. Freud, that's probably where you'd hide your mother.

Edited by Radha Singh