I have a split personality. "Jason Merkoski" is my professional
personality. "Jason Murk" is my fictional personality. Attached are
graphs of the connections that each of my personalities has, in the
social networking Web 2.0 universe. The hilights? Merkoski is linked
to by famed 1980s technology evangelist Guy Kawasaki, and Murk has
books for sale at Penguin Books India.
I have a split personality. "Jason Merkoski" is my professional
personality. "Jason Murk" is my fictional personality. Attached are
graphs of the connections that each of my personalities has, in the
social networking Web 2.0 universe. The hilights? Merkoski is linked
to by famed 1980s technology evangelist Guy Kawasaki, and Murk has
books for sale at Penguin Books India.
I have a split personality. "Jason Merkoski" is my professional
personality. "Jason Murk" is my fictional personality. Attached are
graphs of the connections that each of my personalities has, in the
social networking Web 2.0 universe. The hilights? Merkoski is linked
to by famed 1980s technology evangelist Guy Kawasaki, and Murk has
books for sale at Penguin Books India.
I have a split personality. "Jason Merkoski" is my professional
personality. "Jason Murk" is my fictional personality. Attached are
graphs of the connections that each of my personalities has, in the
social networking Web 2.0 universe. The hilights? Merkoski is linked
to by famed 1980s technology evangelist Guy Kawasaki, and Murk has
books for sale at Penguin Books India.
I don’t think I ever blogged about chess before, not sure I will again, but I love the chess font, and I found this textbook illustration to be one of maximum tension. Like a powder keg. There’s a (Borgesian) garden of forking paths from here, and it can go any and all ways, explode in all ways, and this is one of those chess games where there’s no correct analytic decision which can be made, no right move. This is actually one of those chess games where you knock all the pieces over and go for a run in the sun.
The Oscura Press is pleased to publish a new book by Jason Murk called The Dreambook of Skyler Dread. (Well, okay – for the full disclosure, the Oscura Press is mostly Jason Murk anyway.) This book is nine years in the making, although it had an eight year hiatus. It started during the author’s sojourn in the exotic land of Canada – aw, heck, here’s the introduction from the book:
Towards the end of 1999, somewhere between drafting chapters 9 and 10 of The Western, I came across a set of engravings at the University of New Mexico library. These were woodcut engravings of temple scenes, snake charmers and sadhoos from King Edward VII’s India. Around that same time, I was plundering hoardings of Astounding Stories magazine covers, looking for images to loot for chapter 10 of my novel. It was one of the most creative periods of my life, and since then, I’ve always somehow associated those woodcut engravings with science fictional starflight scenes.
Time passed, I finished writing The Western, I changed jobs a couple times, I scored a couple volumes of nineteenth-century engravings and a couple boxes of those 1970s comic books I had read as a kid, and I found myself stuck for a couple months in Toronto — in one of those former British Dominions beyond the Seas — stuck in Toronto while I could have been in India instead, and now look, look:
Imagine for a second that Rudyard Kipling once wrote a book of science fiction — jungle fiction, Vedic starship fiction. Imagine that he wrote it somewhere between chapters of Kim, around where he writes “The Lama looked forth, a hand on either side, with eyes that shone like two opals. From the enormous pit before him, white peaks lifted themselves yearning to the moonlight. The rest was as the darkness of interstellar space.” Imagine that Kipling just-now begins inter-alia a short science fiction book, imagine that he puts down his draft of Kim, picks up another pen, and stares off into interstellar space — most of the universe, after all, is unknown matter — dark matter, dark energy — and we’re only aware of that liminal amount which comprises our stars and galaxies, tiger skins and peacock plumes. But what about that unknown dark-known intuitionist madly perspiring neutrino congers-orrery of Tilt-A-Whirl galactic Ganesha intrigue? What about stone spacecraft flights to King Edward VII’s India on a summer’s night? Tiger-axioms, the night language of alien souls when they speak to themselves in the dark? This unknown dark-known dreaming, this is the night-star of Mitra and Varuna, this is the Dreambook of Skyler Dread. This then is that book that Kipling might have written, best beloved. And the book starts in…
… another time, another world. In the age of wonder!
The Dreambook of Skyler Dread is available from better book retailers worldwide – yes, it’s available in Canada too!
Powell’s Books was the first retail store to have my new book (Dreambook of Skyler Dread) listed for sale with the new cover image.
I mean, heck, I work for Amazon.com, and it still doesn’t even list my new book yet!
http://www.powells.com/biblio/9780978628314?&PID=719
Here’s a glimpe (or three) of Expo West, the largest natural/organic trade show in the world. Trade shows are always a bit surreal — too much of one thing in one place puts one into an altered state — but this year’s expo was particulary peculiar because the natural/organic niche is generally premium-priced, and the financially-ravaged world is now in the throes of learning to embrace povo chic. Yeah, the core organic consumers will keep on the path, even if they have to live in teepees or rusted old VW vans, but they’re not the ones to be suckered in by the latest nutriceutical pre-bottled tea (one lump of GABA or two?) or fancy-wrapped chocolate impregnated with goji essence and colloidal silver flecks. So I found myself with a heightened sense of the surreal as I strolled the aisles of the cavernous convention center and smiled politely at the come-hither sample-bearers as I tasted far too many products that I’m not sure the world needed even before the economy collapsed. But instead of a long missive on the bizarreness of it all, I’ll let a few images speak for me instead. Herewith, a glimpse from day 1.
Not much explanation needed, but it must be noted that the weary man in the background whispered something to me about the impossibility of authenticity in a postmodern world as I walked off the edge of the plush white carpeting.
Onwards, to day 2. (Yes, that’s organic cotton candy.)
This was one of those perfect moments. I was already impressed enough by the symbolism of the display (think about what’s subtantial and necessary at a time like this), and I had my cellular phone all poised and ready to snap, and then I saw the suit and the arm and the bag — oh, the shiny shiny bag! I can’t decide if I’m more impressed by the dainty angle of her fingers or the disembodied hand dangling from her bicep. Eat it quick, before it evaporates!
And finally, day 3. I had ventured downstairs into the ghetto of little-known foodstuffs, where quirkiness was firmly on display and boothbabes had an extra air of desperation, and I happened upon this incredible booth — perhaps the least likely in the show to tempt people to grab and consume its wares. Contemplate the expression on the seated man’s face, and all will become clear. What is the sound of a glass orchestra without a conductor? And how many of those cups contain urine? And is that charmingly-looped handwritten ‘L’ on the ‘Natural Colors’ sign perhaps the most authentic thing at the entire show? Perhaps next year’s expo will reveal the answers. How many of this year’s exhibitors will remain? Let this post be a marker of a changing landscape, and let the days pass.
The Oscura Press laughed its collective ass off at David Rothman’s great blurb about us on a recent teleread.org post (http://www.teleread.org/2009/03/15/find-out-when-p-books-reach-the-kindle-via-the-mysteria-service). We loved being described as aggressively non-profit!
“The Mysteria service links up with your Amazon wish list and tells when paper books become available in the Kindle format. The owner is the aggressively nonprofit and proudly anarchistic Oscura Press. Mysteria also points to new MP3s or videos of titles you want.”
He further goes on to write: “Suggestion for Amazon competitors: Why not add a similar service? For that matter, I can imagine Amazon itself co-opting Mysteria. Buying it out, even? From the anarchists? You never know. One more reason to drop the DRM, Jeff? Just joking.”
Hmm … even anarchists can dream. Just because we’re anarchists doesn’t mean we dream of antique 1890s pipe-bombs, or of climbing plum trees in the Amazon parking lot and dropping fresh ripe plums onto the windshield of Jeff B’s car. (We’re not even sure the Amazon parking lot has plum trees, frankly.) But if Mysteria were to be bought out by Amazon we’d probably:
Amazon doesn’t do a good job letting you know when a print book becomes a Kindle book…. I ran into this problem so many times that I created a website which lets me monitor print books on Amazon.com to alert me the moment they become Kindle books:
http://oscurapress.com/mysteria
And while doing that, I found that it was pretty easy to do the same for MP3 songs and Unbox videos as well. There’s a slow but steady digital revolution happening, and all the world’s content is (slowly, but steadily) being converted. Mysteria lets you pick the content you want in your wishlist, and once it’s converted to digital format, sends you an email.
It’s a brand-spanking new application, so I’m really interested in hearing early-adopter feedback if you have it. You can email me at jason@oscurapress.com
Thanks!