The Hashish Films of Customs Officer Henri Rousseau and Tatyana Joukof Shuffles the CArds

 

The Hashish Films of Customs Officer Henri Rousseau and Tatyana Joukof Shuffles the Cards: by Emil Szittya
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked up this collection of Emil Szittya's prose poems(?) on a lark while visiting my favorite bookstore in the state of Wisconsin, Within Things. I had gone up there to pick up an album by new-to-me experimental ambient artist Elodie and came away with the album, a copy of Damian Murphy's The Bastion Overwhelmed, a friendship with the owner and his wife, and a copy of The Hashish Films of Customs Officer Henri Rousseau and Tatyana Joukof Shuffles the Cards: (A Novel against Psicho-Analise). A nice little haul on a wonderful summer day up in Door County.

As is usual with Wakewood Press offerings, we start with another great intro by translator W.C. Bamberger. I have been impressed with their opening essays time and time again. I would love to see a collection of Bamberger's short essays, each of which is a gem of information and erudite literary analysis. I could read his essays all day long, they're that good.

With Szittya's work, we begin in the border regions of Surrealism, with Dada on the horizon, but not quite free of the grasp of "traditional" writing. In short, it's getting weird, but not weird enough to be really interesting or compelling.

Out of my sadness I paint garish posters for illuminated dilapidated houses. My train has just steamed off with a spring landscape. It is hateful to be a clown.

"Gabriele's Opinion of My Hashish Hours" is the first section of this book that lives up to the promise of the surreal as a mechanism for breaking through to a more honest world by crashing through the gates of semi-structured nonsense into the ridiculousness of existence. This is over halfway through the volume, so it's a slow start. I'm fine with slow starts, in fact there are places where I prefer them. But for such a short book, the velocity just isn't fast enough for this reader.

"The Bordello," following immediately, is a more coherent prose poem. I had hope that the book might be picking up some speed.

The work gained momentum (and elicited more emotion) as it went along. "A Stroll (for Rita Kirsten)" is particularly moving. The sense of melancholy is not stilted, as in the earlier pieces, by absurdity for the sake of absurdism.

And this highlights my biggest problem with the work. Szittya sometimes wears his heart (or intellect) on his sleeve too much. It's as if he referred to The Dada Manifesto every other paragraph to make sure he was staying "on message," though said manifesto didn't appear in print for another two years. Perhaps he wasn't adhering to the party line so much as inventing it.

Regardless of provenience, the work shows hints of "soul," but often times lacks just that. If you are looking to jar your brain into discovering new ways of thought, by all means, you've found it. I just want a little more flow to my explorations, something with a bit more soul.

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Iberian Swordplay: Domingo Luis Godinho's Art of Fencing

 

Iberian Swordplay: Domingo Luis Godinho's Art of Fencing by Domingo Luis Godinho
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I started picking my way through this work a couple of pages at a time, as the archaic language and the author's assumptions about the reader were very difficult to parse. Of course, this is a manual on a certain style of swordsmanship, not a novel or essay or short story, but a textbook. The glossary in the back was somewhat helpful, but as often as not it is self-referential, again, assuming much about the reader's background knowledge and experience.

I've been fencing, off and on, since college - foil, epee, rapier & dagger, and, most recently, messer. I'm not great, but I had good coaching (my first coach was an olympic bronze medalist), and I would feel pretty comfortable if things came down to a real duel with just about anyone (sharp blades make one sharper, as they say). But I admit that learning fencing theory was never my strong suit. So, this one was a bit of a struggle.

At a certain point, after nipping and poking at the work, though, I decided I needed to just plunge in, read, practice some of the techniques, as I understood them. That did seem to accelerate some of my learning, much the same as learning German or Latin or Swahili - immersion is the key.

Part one of the book, on "Sword Alone," was definitely the most tedious, but also the most foundational, as one would expect. A brief introductory chapter by Tim Rivera was definitely helpful, but if I could have any wish about this book, it would be that it was thoroughly annotated and illustrated by Rivera. Swordsmanship is something done in space, and trying to translate the written word into spatial movement in real-time is nearly impossible without some kind of visual representation. This was my biggest complaint about the manual - and it is a HUGE complaint.

Part Two: Sword and Shield, can be summarized: protect your hand, slash at your opponent's legs or stab him in the belly, and whatever you do, do it really, really quickly, like a snapping turtle.

There are other sections on a variety of topics, not all of which I will mention. Some standouts, though, were:

Part Four: Two Swords. Need to know how to clear a street? It's in there. Surrounded by enemies who are threatening your treasure or your lady? There are solutions to that.

I should note here, also, that in both the section on Two Swords and in Part Six: The Two-Handed Sword, there are very clear instructions on how a bodyguard should defend an individual in his charge, and there are a lot of details beyond just the proper footwork and cutting or thrusting techniques that I just would not have thought of. Things like: Where is it best to place your back (or not) at a four-way intersection? What if your back is literally against the wall? How do you defend yourself and another in those circumstances? And so forth.

I always wondered why those beefcake sword and sorcery covers and frontispieces (see: almost every issue of Savage Sword of Conan) had the hero standing and a woman kneeling or sitting at his feet. Turns out this was how people were trained to defend a woman from a crowd (royal bodyguards and such). When surrounded, you have to swing in wide arcs. If she's standing behind or beside you . . . well, it's bad optics, at the very least, to accidentally decapitate the person you're trying to protect.

Part Eight: Self-Defense and Tricks, might just as well have been titled "dirty tricks". Literally dirty, like keeping a pocket full of fine sand to cast into the eyes of an opponent who "has greater advantage" or to use against multiple opponents who justifiably want to kill you because you are a scumbucket. Godinho essentially says the quiet part out loud about how you got yourself into this stupid mess, here's how you get out, but in a more refined way. Screw honor, you've got to defend yourself! By far the most entertaining section of the book!

Will I stop reading fencing/swordsmanship manuals? Heck no. I benefited greatly from reading Cappo Ferro's Gran Simulacro multiple times in the past, and I am very much looking forward to tackling Hans Lecküchner's work on Messer fighting. I am unlikely to return to Godhino's principal work on Sword Alone (though I've taken a couple of small lessons from it), but the sections on Two Swords and Two-Handed Sword are gold - if only they were clearly illustrated.

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Censure forthcoming from Zagava

 I am thrilled beyond measure to announce that Zagava is publishing my short story collection Censure in 2026, first as a very limited slipcased hardbound edition, then as a paperback edition. 15 dark tales, 4 of them previously-unpublished, the rest from a bevy of obscure and difficult-to-find editions (some of them also very limited). The cover art is by one of my favorite artists: Odilon Redon, the Symbolist master. Exact publication date is TBD, but here is a taste of what's coming:

Link to the signed and lettered edition is here!

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The Shub-Niggurath Cycle: Tales of the Black Goat with a Thousand Young

 

The Shub-Niggurath Cycle: Tales of the Black Goat with a Thousand Young by Robert M. Price
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this years ago, about twenty years ago, in fact, when I was finishing graduate school. I'll be honest, I don't remember if I owned the book and got rid of it or if I got it from the library, but, in any case, I didn't have my own copy for a long, long time. So, when I spotted this at a local antique store for a pittance, I just sprang for it. The question is, would it live up to my now-higher expectations of writing craftsmanship?

Lewis Spence's "The Horn of Vipula" was pulp as they come, with everything that implies: predictability, a not-so-surprise ending, plot "reaches" like miniature deus-ex-machina, and language that strives to be better than it really is. Meh. Not a great start to the anthology.

M.P. Dare tries to channel M.R. James in "The Demoniac Goat". He's largely successful but lacks the full gravitas of the master of the ghost story. Still, a decent enough story about an ostensibly dead priest and his pet goat. Well, who was the pet, really?

Even the editor notes the hackneyed subject matter of J.S. Leatherbarrow's "The Ghostly Goat of Glaramara". I agree with the editor's assessment. Ostensibly, he put it in the anthology for historical reasons. But some history is best forgotten.

I've read and enjoyed Ramsey Campbell's "The Moon-Lens" before, and while many consider it something akin to juvenalia, with a structure that pastiche's Lovecraft's own, I still find something intriguing here. It bridges the gap between folk horror and cosmic horror in a way that highlights the strong points of each. Maybe I just have a soft spot for it, as I would likely rate it more highly than others.

Careful restraint is not the watchword in John Glasby's "The Ring of the Hyades". Lovecraft's greatest folly: naming the un-nameable, describing the indescribable, leaks into Glasby's writing like a Rorschach test of purple prose. The story is alright, but rather predictable for anyone even vaguely familiar with the Mythos. I suppose that makes it a safe read for fans, but it would be jarring for newcomers.

During my years as an editor, I had an unbreakable rule that I would never publish my own work in an anthology I was editing. Price, in his . . . uh, work(?) "A Thousand Young" provides a shining example of why every editor should take this ethical stance. I hated this story. It was a twelve-year old's darkest sexual fantasy. Oh, and trigger warning: R**E. Yeah, no. No stars, not even one. Just . . .don't.

Odd that a story so poor as Price's should be followed by a sandal and sorcery story so nearly perfect as Richard L. Tierney's "The Seed of the Star God". Price can't write them, but he can pick them! Now I'm wondering if there is a full collection of Simon of Gitta's tales. I would read that! Sword, sorcery, and sacrifice in the decadence of the Roman Empire. SPQR!

It's not the story that sang to me. Glen Singer's "Harold's Blues" is an old tale, a very tried and true tale, about selling one's soul for music. You already know the story, from start to finish. But the register in which this was sung . . .well, that's where the magic lies. That old, dark magic that brings songs and storms and screams in the night. Familiar, but unsettling.

Lin Carter may have been a better writer of Lovecraftian tales than Lovecraft himself. "Dreams in the House of Weir," a story steeped in the mythos, but with just a modicum more of restraint than HPL lacked, teases the horror out instead of bashing readers over the head with it. There's a slow pull on the thread of cosmic horror here that unwinds one's sanity. If your dreams become wondrous, you should start to fear.

. . . and Carter further demonstrates his skilled pen by way of the poem "Visions from Yaddith," which is quoted in the previous story. I'm rather curious which came first? The story? Or the poem? Each path carries some interesting implications about the writing process that I need to ponder on a while. I could see each having its benefits, and I've done both, but without much intentionality. I must think on this. It's been a while since I've tried my hand at poetry.

I wavered on M.L. Carter's "Prey of the Goat". It swung from interesting to hackneyed, back to good, then to trite, wallowing in mediocrity. In the end, I'm in the "meh" camp, with a slight twinge of "interesting," but not interesting enough to take me beyond a bland assessment. Could-have-beens and all that rot.

"Sabbath of the Black Goat" carried a not-so-surprising ending. Add to this the hyper-compressed, yet somehow thin info dump by Stephen M. Rainey and you have a rushed, middling story. I suspect there was some word count restriction on the story, but whether the story should have been longer or shorter is difficult to say. It's clear, though, that the pulp suit just doesn’t quite fit right.

Another Price story, but this one co-authored with Peter H. Cannon, "The Curate of Temphill" reads somewhere between M.R. James and Umberto Eco; meaning I quite liked it. I have to attribute this to the co-authorship(?), something I've done myself with good results (with author Brendan Connell, whose work I continue to greatly admire). This tale of Templars and heretical prophecies is an unexpected and welcome find in such an anthology. No Old Ones here, but they are not needed.

David Kaufman's "Grossie" might be the most effective story of this anthology (and also has the worst title, though it fits). It's as subtle as Lovecraft is unsubtle. There is a menace of place here and the faint aroma of ancestral evil, just enough to pique the imagination, just enough for the reader to really feel the underlying horror without facing it directly, an underlying genius loci with inimical intent. Don't be fooled by the puerile title. Another tale where the Old Ones don't make a direct appearance, and they don't have to. In fact, having an "unspeakable" horror show its face would have destroyed this beautiful (but dark) story.

"To Clear the Earth" is a story lost and found to me. I remember, in the mid-90s, reading a mythos story that made a deep impression on me. It was cosmic horror writ-large, on an Earth-ending scale, but in more of a science fiction paradigm than horror. The setting was Antarctica (which makes me wonder why it wasn't in the Antarktos Cycle). And here it is, by Will Murray (also the author of the Doc Savage and Destroyer series). It doesn't resonate as much now. I was surprised by the ending (which I had forgotten), so that wasn't the problem. I think it might be the pulp-adventure tone of the second half of the story, or maybe it was the info-dumping that took place throughout. I guess it was needed back in the day, but nowadays the Mythos lore is so common as to be trite. Or maybe I've just played so much Call of Cthulhu that I recoil at explanatory passages, especially ones about the Necronomicon. In any case, the story, while good, didn't have the same magic (nefarious or otherwise), as it did last century.

So, alas, the me of twenty years ago enjoyed this anthology far more than the me of now does. Age happens. Experience happens. Nostalgia happens. And sometimes, nostalgia is deceptive. Live and learn.

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Garycon 2026 Preview

 Here's what's coming my way at Garycon 2026 (presuming it's not cancelled due to WWIII). Shadowdark, Traveller, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Empire of the Petal Throne, Riverbank (I am VERY excited to play this!!!), Vaesen, War of the Ring, and, of course, Call of Cthulhu:

Addendum:

A spot opened up on one of the games I wanted to get in, but couldn't at first, so I took it. It's another Traveller game, which means I'm not going to be playing Vaesen this time around. There are typically more Vaesen games offered at Gameholecon, anyway, so I'll pick one up then. Just couldn't pass up the chance to pick up a mercenary ticket!!!

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I Foresee the Wild Ahead

 I'm not much of a homeowner. I often ask myself why I even own a home. The neighbors probably do, too. I'm not that guy who manicures his lawn with nail-clippers (those are the people across the street). I wouldn't survive a week in an HOA. Besides, I have no desire to deal with the politics of an HOA. Sounds like my idea of hell. 

I'm lucky enough to have a pretty "cute" home. Kind of a gingerbread bungalow. It needs work, and now that I've finally (after eight years - thank you California legal system) got my deceased parents house off of my hands (and out of the $800/month rent I had to pay to keep it on the trailer park's land), I can focus a little more on the house. Yeah, I know, I'm very, very lucky and privileged to own my own home; I get it. I look at my kids and wonder how they will ever be able to afford a home with the billionaire's cards stacked against them (and the other 98%). But, like I inferred, I am a horrible house manager.

And I really, really, REALLY hate mowing the yard. I mean HATE with a visceral passion. Might have something to do with my upbringing, where military housing is meticulously watched and people are ticketed for the slightest infractions - hey, I just discovered why I hate the idea of an HOA! Cool! Anyway, I hate mowing the yard. It has all kinds of bad associations for me. The only good association I can think of is when I was 12 and I got a walkman and a copy of Black Sabbath's Mob Rules album and listened to that full blast for the first time while mowing my yard. That . . . was cool. 

But back to my hatred: I might have found a solution. I've posted on here a few times about my (nearly daily, on weekdays, at least) wanderings on The Ice Age Trail here in Janesville. The particular stretch that I haunt the most is a restored prairie, replete with native prairie grasses and wildflowers, an incredibly diverse range of birds, one mink, and at least 11 deer, as of my last count (a week and a half ago). All of this in the city. 

So, I figured, hey, I hate mowing the yard, and I can do with it what I want because: no HOA! I've also seen others do what I'm about to do: plant native Midwest wildflowers and tall grasses. So long as I don't kill them the first year, they're perennials, so they should seed and grow themselves, more or less. No muss, no fuss. Not quite sure what I'm going to do in the fall, though, because I can't burn them down like they do on other prairies. Might burn the house down, which is a neighborly-limiting maneuver. I'll have to figure that one out.

We're going to start small. You can see the little wedge we're targeting in the photo above. We'll be expanding that and creating a sort of triangular lot alongside our house to start with. We've tried and failed a couple of different experiments there (mostly due to critters getting in and eating our squash - too bad I can't fire my .357 within city limits, or there would be a bunch of hollow rabbit and squirrel skins littering my yard), so let's see what we can do here. If it works well, then we'll expand next year. Who knows, there may come a time when I am surrounded by nothing but wildflowers and knee-high native grasses? That can't be all bad. 

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The Eigengrau Oracle Deck

 Eigengrau n. The dark grey color seen by the eyes in perfect darkness as a result of signals from the optic nerves.

I just received my most recent spontaneous did-not-plan-on-buying-anything-at-all purchase, the Eigengrau Oracle Deck. Whether for Art or for Working, you can't go wrong. This is a beautiful artifact.

You can pick up a copy here. Recommended.

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