A hearty hip hip hooray is in order for Ms. VANESSA VESELKA, whose courageous first novel, ZAZEN, completed its 30-part serialization on the pages of this website last week. Thank you to Stefan Jecusco for the book cover design. And a big thank you to Karin Bolender for getting the original manuscript of this seether in our hands earlier this year.

We’re leaving all 30 chapters online for folks who haven’t read it yet.

ZAZEN is an intense read. The narrator is looking at what’s in front of her—Walmart America—instead of avoiding it (as most of us have trained ourselves to do), and is painfully aware of not only the ecological degradation, species extinction, culture destruction and human suffering that modern consumer capitalism is built on, but also, getting closer to the bone, the heartbreaking inadequacy of progressive activist responses to the horrorshow.

So she starts making credible bomb threats.

One suspects it is the latter plot point that has kept ZAZEN from finding a publisher in 2009, but whatever: it got out there anyway. Ha ha ha.

Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants”
Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats”
Chapter 3 — “New Haiku”
Chapter 4 — “Asian Market”
Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL”
Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage”
Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms”
Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte”
Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen”
Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere”
Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital”
Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect”
Chapter 13 — “Manifestation”
Chapter 14 — “Two Rivers”
Chapter 15 — “Head of John the Baptist”
Chapter 16 — “Breath of Soldiers”
Chapter 17 — “The Avalanche Cabin”
Chapter 18 — “Grace Mountain”
Chapter 19 — “The Sea Goat”
Chapter 20 — “Dancehall”
Chapter 21 — “Into the Snow”
Chapter 22 — “Deer Teeth”
Chapter 23 — “Disco”
Chapter 24 — “Hazard Maps”
Chapter 25 — “La Rue des Oiseux”
Chapter 26 — “Road to Laos”
Chapter 27 — “Batholith”
Chapter 28 — “The Skateboard Sutta”
Chapter 29 — “Della’s Mosaic”
Chapter 30 — “Tiny Living Hearts”

Read Vanessa Veselka’s blog: http://vanessaveselka.wordpress.com/

‘A giant of American music opens the book on his wrenching professional and personal journeys, paying tribute to the vanishing Appalachian culture that gave him his voice. He was there at the beginning of bluegrass. Yet his music, forged in the remote hills and hollows of Southwest Virginia, has even deeper roots. In Man of Constant Sorrow, Dr. Ralph Stanley gives a surprisingly candid look back on his long and incredible career as the patriarch of old-time mountain music. Marked by Dr. Ralph Stanley’s banjo picking, his brother Carter’s guitar playing, and their haunting and distinctive harmonies, the Stanley Brothers began their career in 1946 and blessed the world of bluegrass with hundreds of classic songs, including “White Dove,” “Rank Stranger,” and what has become Dr. Ralph’s signature song, “Man of Constant Sorrow.” Carter died in 1966 after years of alcohol abuse, but Dr. Ralph Stanley carried on and is still at the top of his game, playing to audiences across the country today at age eighty-one. Rarely giving interviews, he now grants fans the book they have been waiting for, filled with frank recollections, from his boyhood of dire poverty in the Appalachian coalfields to his early musical success with his brother, to years of hard traveling on the road with the Clinch Mountain Boys, to the recent, jubilant revival of a sound he helped create. The story of how a musical art now popular around the world was crafted by two brothers from a dying mountain culture, Man of Constant Sorrow captures a life harmonized with equal measures of tragedy and triumph.’

“Rudolph Wurlitzer is the author of the novels The Drop Edge of Yonder, Quake, Flats, and Slow Fade, as well as the nonfiction memoir Hard Travel to Sacred Places. He wrote the screenplays for such classic films as Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Two Lane Blacktop, and Walker, among others, and co-directed the film Candy Mountain with Robert Frank.”

Read the introduction to the new edition of this “headventure” classic by Arthur columnist Erik Davis: download PDF

“In 1950s California, and especially in Los Angeles, there existed few venues for contemporary art. To a whole generation of California artists, this presented a freedom, since the absence of a context for their work meant that they could coin their own, and in uncommonly interesting ways. The careers of Ed Ruscha, Wallace Berman and Ed Kienholz all begin with this absence: Ruscha turned to books as a means of dissemination, Berman pioneered mail art through his magazine Semina and in March 1957, Ed Kienholz, in collaboration with curator Walter Hopps, co-founded one of California’s greatest historical galleries, Ferus. Within months of opening, Ferus, which is Latin for “wild,” gained notoriety when the Hollywood vice squad raided Berman’s first–and, in his lifetime, last–solo exhibition, following a complaint about “lewd material.” Shows by Kienholz and Jay DeFeo followed, but 1962 was Ferus’ annus mirabilis, with solo shows by Bruce Conner and Joseph Cornell, and the first solo shows of Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol on the west coast. The following year, Ferus also hosted Ed Ruscha’s first solo exhibition. After Kienholz and Hopps parted ways—Hopps went on to mount the first American Duchamp retrospective at the Pasadena Art Musuem—the reins were handed to Irving Blum, who got Ferus out of the red and ran the gallery until its closure in 1966. A Place to Begin is an illustrated oral history of this heroic enterprise. With 62 new interviews with Ferus artists and more than 300 photographs (most previously unpublished), it retrieves a lost chapter of twentieth-century American art. Edited by [longtime Arthur contributor] Kristine McKenna, noted expert and co-editor of the critically acclaimed Semina Culture: Wallace Berman & His Circle.”

Sasha and I had had sex pretty much the first time we were alone together. Mostly because, given our introduction, it seemed like a stupid line to draw especially on the beach with the Rapture lapping at our feet. I’m sure Grace would have been disappointed. Falling back on cultural norms at the brink of crisis? Oh well. It looked like my lack of commitment to a more subversive sexual orientation was just going to be another way I failed the revolution. I tried to examine it through a critical lens. But I just saw people.

Download: ZAZEN, Chapter 30 — “Tiny Liver Hearts” (pdf)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Walmart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: This is the concluding chapter of Zazen. Special thanks to Karin Bolender for making this project possible. Previous chapters are available for free download after the jump…

ZAZEN, Chapter 29 — “Della’s Mosaic” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 28 — “The Skateboard Sutta” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 27 — “Batholith” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 26 — “Road to Laos” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 25 — “La Rue des Oiseux” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 24 — “Hazard Maps”
ZAZEN, Chapter 23 — “Disco” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 22 — “Deer Teeth” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 21 — “Into the Snow” (62k, pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 20 — “Dancehall” (pdf, 99k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 19 — “The Sea Goat” (pdf, 57k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 18 — “Grace Mountain” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 17 — “The Avalanche Cabin” (pdf, 66k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 16 — “Breath of Soldiers” (pdf, 83k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 15 — “Head of John the Baptist” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 14 — “Two Rivers” (pdf, 84k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 13 — “Manifestation” (pdf, 94k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect” (pdf, 58k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

Download: ZAZEN, Chapter 29 — “Della’s Mosaic” (pdf)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Walmart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: ZAZEN concludes on Friday, December 11 with Chapter 30.

Previous chapters available for download after the jump…

ZAZEN, Chapter 28 — “The Skateboard Sutta” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 27 — “Batholith” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 26 — “Road to Laos” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 25 — “La Rue des Oiseux” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 24 — “Hazard Maps”
ZAZEN, Chapter 23 — “Disco” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 22 — “Deer Teeth” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 21 — “Into the Snow” (62k, pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 20 — “Dancehall” (pdf, 99k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 19 — “The Sea Goat” (pdf, 57k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 18 — “Grace Mountain” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 17 — “The Avalanche Cabin” (pdf, 66k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 16 — “Breath of Soldiers” (pdf, 83k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 15 — “Head of John the Baptist” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 14 — “Two Rivers” (pdf, 84k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 13 — “Manifestation” (pdf, 94k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect” (pdf, 58k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

Download: ZAZEN, Chapter 28 — “The Skateboard Sutta”

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Walmart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 29 of ZAZEN will be posted Thursday, December 10. There are 30 chapters in all.

Previous chapters available for download after the jump…

ZAZEN, Chapter 27 — “Batholith”
ZAZEN, Chapter 26 — “Road to Laos” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 25 — “La Rue des Oiseux” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 24 — “Hazard Maps”
ZAZEN, Chapter 23 — “Disco” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 22 — “Deer Teeth” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 21 — “Into the Snow” (62k, pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 20 — “Dancehall” (pdf, 99k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 19 — “The Sea Goat” (pdf, 57k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 18 — “Grace Mountain” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 17 — “The Avalanche Cabin” (pdf, 66k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 16 — “Breath of Soldiers” (pdf, 83k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 15 — “Head of John the Baptist” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 14 — “Two Rivers” (pdf, 84k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 13 — “Manifestation” (pdf, 94k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect” (pdf, 58k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

I could easily see it on fire. The wicker dogs, the prom dresses, the camouflage strollers burning. It was beautiful and I couldn’t remember why I wanted to stop it. I think that if I had had a bag full of explosives, I might have let it slip, or forgotten it by the greeting cards and silver balloons with the superheroes on them and the ribbons trailing down to tie the fat baby hands to a generation of merchandising, I might have left it there. But I didn’t have a backpack with a bomb in it and if anybody was going to blow up the Superland™ Walmart, it was going to be me. Not some fucking crusty punk…

Download: ZAZEN, Chapter 27 — “Batholith”

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Walmart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 28 of ZAZEN will be posted Wednesday, December 9. There are 30 chapters in all.

Previous chapters available for download after the jump…

ZAZEN, Chapter 26 — “Road to Laos” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 25 — “La Rue des Oiseux” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 24 — “Hazard Maps”
ZAZEN, Chapter 23 — “Disco” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 22 — “Deer Teeth” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 21 — “Into the Snow” (62k, pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 20 — “Dancehall” (pdf, 99k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 19 — “The Sea Goat” (pdf, 57k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 18 — “Grace Mountain” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 17 — “The Avalanche Cabin” (pdf, 66k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 16 — “Breath of Soldiers” (pdf, 83k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 15 — “Head of John the Baptist” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 14 — “Two Rivers” (pdf, 84k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 13 — “Manifestation” (pdf, 94k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect” (pdf, 58k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

Or they’ll stop selling you cheap shit made by slaves and cared for by cannibals who’d fish out their own pancreas if you gave them a hook? It was just another reason I didn’t mind leaving.

Download: ZAZEN, Chapter 26 — “Road to Laos” (pdf)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Walmart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 27 of ZAZEN will be posted Tuesday, December 8. There are 30 chapters in all.

Previous chapters available for download after the jump…

ZAZEN, Chapter 25 — “La Rue des Oiseux” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 24 — “Hazard Maps”
ZAZEN, Chapter 23 — “Disco” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 22 — “Deer Teeth” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 21 — “Into the Snow” (62k, pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 20 — “Dancehall” (pdf, 99k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 19 — “The Sea Goat” (pdf, 57k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 18 — “Grace Mountain” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 17 — “The Avalanche Cabin” (pdf, 66k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 16 — “Breath of Soldiers” (pdf, 83k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 15 — “Head of John the Baptist” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 14 — “Two Rivers” (pdf, 84k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 13 — “Manifestation” (pdf, 94k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect” (pdf, 58k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

I let ignorance radiate. It was a quiet and gentle freedom, utterly foreign…

Download: ZAZEN, Chapter 25 — “La Rue des Oiseux” (pdf)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Walmart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 26 of ZAZEN will be posted Monday, December 7. There are 30 chapters in all.

Previous chapters available for download after the jump…

ZAZEN, Chapter 24 — “Hazard Maps”
ZAZEN, Chapter 23 — “Disco” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 22 — “Deer Teeth” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 21 — “Into the Snow” (62k, pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 20 — “Dancehall” (pdf, 99k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 19 — “The Sea Goat” (pdf, 57k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 18 — “Grace Mountain” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 17 — “The Avalanche Cabin” (pdf, 66k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 16 — “Breath of Soldiers” (pdf, 83k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 15 — “Head of John the Baptist” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 14 — “Two Rivers” (pdf, 84k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 13 — “Manifestation” (pdf, 94k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect” (pdf, 58k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

Download: ZAZEN, Chapter 24 — “Hazard Maps”

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Walmart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 25 of ZAZEN will be posted Friday, December 4. There are 30 chapters in all.

Previous chapters available for download after the jump…

ZAZEN, Chapter 23 — “Disco” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 22 — “Deer Teeth” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 21 — “Into the Snow” (62k, pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 20 — “Dancehall” (pdf, 99k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 19 — “The Sea Goat” (pdf, 57k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 18 — “Grace Mountain” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 17 — “The Avalanche Cabin” (pdf, 66k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 16 — “Breath of Soldiers” (pdf, 83k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 15 — “Head of John the Baptist” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 14 — “Two Rivers” (pdf, 84k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 13 — “Manifestation” (pdf, 94k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect” (pdf, 58k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

“I entered into literature on my own, I live in it on my own and I shall depart from it on my own when the time comes”

http://www.khazars.com/en/

Academician and author Milorad Pavić, professor of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Belgrade University, passed away yesterday of complications following a heart attack at the age of 80. Pavić was one of the most translated Serbian authors, primarily thanks to his “Dictionary of the Khazars”, which gained popularity throughout the world.

The Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences has announced that the funeral will be held on Thursday, December 3^rd, at 12 noon at the Novo Groblje cemetery in Belgrade.

x   x   x

Milorad Pavić (1929-2009), author of cult novels “Dictionary of the Khazars”, “Landscape Painted with Tea”, “Inner Side of the Wind”, “Writing Box”, “Star Cape”, “Unique Item”, “The Tale that Killed Emily Knorr”, “Fake Mole”, collection of stories “Iron Curtain”, “The Horses of Saint Mark”, “Borzoi”, “New Tales from Belgrade”, “Souls are Bathing for the Last Time”, and a series of other books – his literary creation included lexicon-novels, crosswords, tarot cards, the discovery of antique writing boxes, he interpreted astrological signes, passed from life to death, from wake to sleep, from the real to the unreal.

The nether world was what interested him the most. The nether world, he said, is a part of our life, except we forgot that long ago. Onlz artists, women and the Church are, perhaps, aware of this.

He wrote poems, stories, novels, essays, studies in the history of literature, plays, translated Pushkin and Lord Byron. He became a regular member of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1991. He was member of the European Association for Culture and the Serbian PEN Center.

“Dictionary of the Khazars” was the first book that could be read on a computer, in the order it was presented, but in any other order as well. The readers could choose a term and the path by which to reach the end of the novel. Pavić realized in time that the end of literature as we had known it for a long time had come. Images, sounds, signs, compete successfully with the linearity of language, which makes it akin to a slow train. So he tried to create non-linear writing in his books, a writing closer to “the blossoming of the thoughts and dreams of man” and less dependent on the chronological stringing of words into sentences.

Thus the striving to, relying on the initiative of the reader, create new forms of reading, and writing as well. Thus his striving to create a novel-dictionary, a novel-crossword puzzle, a novel-clepsydra, a fortune-telling novel, or a novel for those unfamiliar with astrology, an interactive play in the form of a theater menu, an interactive story in which the readers choose their own path. In such striving, he explained, he was assisted by the readers. Primarily by female readers, since they have a different way of perceiving his books, since they are unburdened by the epic past.

In the 20^th century he became the author of the 21^st century: “Some critics, such as Lance Olsen, think so. Others, such as Alexander Genis, think I have tried to go as far as possible into the past, towards ancient literary lore. In any case, I entered into literature on my own, I live in it on my own and I shall depart from it on my own when the time comes. As for the future, I do now know what will become of the book and of literature. Perhaps it will return to its epic, oral, pre-Guttenberg form, in a manner that we can hardly imagine. In any case, it can already be sensed today that the book and its global reputation will not be the same in the 21^stcentury as in the past one, although only a few years separate us from this past.”

He was the first among Serbian authors to have his own website, books without covers, which are read on a computer. That is why he said that the book must change and adapt to the future, which is merciless as all futures have been. Reading is doubtlessly becoming just as important as writing. He was the first to write a novel-sea. But the reader need not know how to swim to be able to read it. The novel “Unique Item” is a novel with a hundred different endings. He liked to cooperate with his readers, for there are, he used to say, more gifted readers than there are gifted writers.

His heroes were also perfumes, or identifying coupons of the protagonists, but also weapons of death and crime. It is well known who has the sharpest nose – the Foul Fiend. He directs and plans his murders by smell. In his novels dreams are sold and purchased. The ones as yet undreamed, telling of your future, are the most expensive. Mankind is, after all, more gifted in sleep than in waking hours. He claimed that the borders between genres were becoming extinct, that the contemporary novel, read on a computer, should not be more than fifty pages long.

In the novel “The Tale that Killed Emily Knorr” storytelling (the story) kills the listener (the reader). Thus literature, with Pavić, becomes dangerous to the reader.

“In this book the author is accused of being able to kill with a story. Off course this is not possible, but when the world wants to make somebody look bad (which is something that, here in Serbia, we have witnessed directly), then all means are used. In my novel the story is, after all, able to kill. It can kill the one that created it, that is to say – its writer.”

Gallery of Foreign Editions

Download: ZAZEN, Chapter 23 — “Disco” (pdf)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Walmart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 24 of ZAZEN will be posted Thursday, December 3. There are 30 chapters in all.

Previous chapters available for download after the jump…

ZAZEN, Chapter 22 — “Deer Teeth” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 21 — “Into the Snow” (62k, pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 20 — “Dancehall” (pdf, 99k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 19 — “The Sea Goat” (pdf, 57k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 18 — “Grace Mountain” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 17 — “The Avalanche Cabin” (pdf, 66k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 16 — “Breath of Soldiers” (pdf, 83k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 15 — “Head of John the Baptist” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 14 — “Two Rivers” (pdf, 84k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 13 — “Manifestation” (pdf, 94k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect” (pdf, 58k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

Download: ZAZEN, Chapter 22 — “Deer Teeth” (pdf)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Walmart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 22 of ZAZEN will be posted Tuesday, December 1. There are 30 chapters in all.

Previous chapters available for download after the jump…

ZAZEN, Chapter 21 — “Into the Snow” (62k, pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 20 — “Dancehall” (pdf, 99k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 19 — “The Sea Goat” (pdf, 57k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 18 — “Grace Mountain” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 17 — “The Avalanche Cabin” (pdf, 66k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 16 — “Breath of Soldiers” (pdf, 83k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 15 — “Head of John the Baptist” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 14 — “Two Rivers” (pdf, 84k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 13 — “Manifestation” (pdf, 94k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect” (pdf, 58k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

Download: ZAZEN, Chapter 21 — “Into the Snow” (62k, pdf)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Walmart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 22 of ZAZEN will be posted Tuesday, December 1. There are 30 chapters in all.

Previous chapters available for download after the jump…

ZAZEN, Chapter 20 — “Dancehall” (pdf, 99k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 19 — “The Sea Goat” (pdf, 57k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 18 — “Grace Mountain” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 17 — “The Avalanche Cabin” (pdf, 66k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 16 — “Breath of Soldiers” (pdf, 83k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 15 — “Head of John the Baptist” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 14 — “Two Rivers” (pdf, 84k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 13 — “Manifestation” (pdf, 94k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect” (pdf, 58k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

“Red,” I said and slipped the bracelet she handed me onto my wrist…

Download:
ZAZEN, Chapter 20 — “Dancehall” (pdf, 99k)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Walmart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 20 of ZAZEN will be posted Thursday, November 25. There are 30 chapters in all.

Previous chapters available for download after the jump…

ZAZEN, Chapter 19 — “The Sea Goat” (pdf, 57k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 18 — “Grace Mountain” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 17 — “The Avalanche Cabin” (pdf, 66k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 16 — “Breath of Soldiers” (pdf, 83k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 15 — “Head of John the Baptist” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 14 — “Two Rivers” (pdf, 84k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 13 — “Manifestation” (pdf, 94k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect” (pdf, 58k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

Download:
ZAZEN, Chapter 19 — “The Sea Goat” (pdf, 57k)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Walmart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 20 of ZAZEN will be posted Thursday, November 25. There are 30 chapters in all.

Previous chapters available for download after the jump…

ZAZEN, Chapter 18 — “Grace Mountain” (pdf)
ZAZEN, Chapter 17 — “The Avalanche Cabin” (pdf, 66k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 16 — “Breath of Soldiers” (pdf, 83k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 15 — “Head of John the Baptist” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 14 — “Two Rivers” (pdf, 84k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 13 — “Manifestation” (pdf, 94k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect” (pdf, 58k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

Download:
ZAZEN, Chapter 18 — “Grace Mountain”

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Walmart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 19 of ZAZEN will be posted Wednesday, November 25. There are 30 chapters in all.

Previous chapters available for download after the jump…

ZAZEN, Chapter 17 — “The Avalanche Cabin” (pdf, 66k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 16 — “Breath of Soldiers” (pdf, 83k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 15 — “Head of John the Baptist” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 14 — “Two Rivers” (pdf, 84k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 13 — “Manifestation” (pdf, 94k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect” (pdf, 58k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

She thought I was joking but I meant it. I don’t know where I thought we would go. Everything was already so messed up…

Download:
ZAZEN, Chapter 17 — “The Avalanche Cabin” (pdf, 66k)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Walmart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 18 of ZAZEN will be posted Tuesday, November 24. There are 30 chapters in all.

Previous chapters available for download after the jump…

ZAZEN, Chapter 16 — “Breath of Soldiers” (pdf, 83k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 15 — “Head of John the Baptist” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 14 — “Two Rivers” (pdf, 84k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 13 — “Manifestation” (pdf, 94k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect” (pdf, 58k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

Punk Rock pessimism best describes Arthur contributor Aaron Lake’s Smith narrative of the anguish of being an aging, unemployed, punk. After receiving a zine written by German squatters titled “Happy Unemployed” Smith is forced to realize that the punk rock fantasy of outsmarting the work-world and eradicating deadtime do not so easily go hand in hand. Unlike the happy squatters, Smith is too old to be a crusty, too ambitious for some sort of career success, and too not-German to suckle off a welfare state.

Published by the zine world’s HarperCollins, Microcosm, Unemployment is formatted in the style of a Jack Chick tract. The story reads nothing like a classic Evangelically-polemic Jack Chick storyline until Smith turns to Crimethinc’s Days of War Nights of Love like the Good Book, and is climactically visited by its messianic author in a dream. The religious turn cements Smith’s pessimism, both for integration into capitalism and the faith that his ideals will deliver anything better.

Perhaps Unemployment’s thematically closed approach lead Smith to release it as a single issue instead of as a regular issue of Big Hands. The punk zine form reminds us of a collective project underway, while Unemployment is the isolated story of an isolated person that is lacking something far more significant than a paying job. It’s the perfect read for urbanites like myself who appreciate allusions to Black Flag and Nietzsche within pages of each other, drinking black coffee, and waxing endlessly about the ugly confines of civilization.

Buy it from Microcosm press for 2 bucks.

Download:
ZAZEN, Chapter 16 — “Breath of Soldiers”

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Walmart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 17 of ZAZEN will be posted Monday, November 23. There are 30 chapters in all.

Previous chapters available for download after the jump…

ZAZEN, Chapter 15 — “Head of John the Baptist” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 14 — “Two Rivers” (pdf, 84k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 13 — “Manifestation” (pdf, 94k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect” (pdf, 58k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

I couldn’t stop. I saw the buildings burn in live time. People were crying. They were scared. High school girls huddled together waiting for their parents to come get them. A little Vietnamese boy wailed in his mother’s arms. Oh god, I thought, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god…and I ran my shaking hands through my hair. With short sharp fingernails I scratched at my chest until it was red with crosshatches…

Download:
ZAZEN, Chapter 15 — “Head of John the Baptist” (pdf, 75k)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Walmart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 16 of ZAZEN will be posted Thursday, November 19. There are 30 chapters in all.

Previous chapters available for download:

ZAZEN, Chapter 14 — “Two Rivers” (pdf, 84k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 13 — “Manifestation” (pdf, 94k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect” (pdf, 58k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

I’m learning how to call in bomb threats and bury rats in the back of a restaurant without tipping off the health department. Do I have to come back?

Download:
ZAZEN, Chapter 14 — “Two Rivers” (pdf, 84k)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Walmart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 15 of ZAZEN will be posted Wednesday, November 18. There are 30 chapters in all.

Downloads of previous chapters available after the jump…

ZAZEN, Chapter 13 — “Manifestation” (pdf, 94k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect” (pdf, 58k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

Download:
ZAZEN, Chapter 13 — “Manifestation” (pdf)

ZAZEN, Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect” (pdf, 58k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Walmart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 14 of ZAZEN will be posted Tuesday, November 17. There are 30 chapters in all.

Download:
ZAZEN, Chapter 12 — “Colony of the Elect” (pdf, 58k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Wal-Mart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maxmum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 13 of ZAZEN will be posted Monday, November 16. There are 30 chapters in all.

Download:
ZAZEN, Chapter 11 — “Church of Enlightened Capital” (pdf, 65k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)
ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Wal-Mart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maxmum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 12 of ZAZEN will be posted Thursday, November 12. There are 30 chapters in all.

Download:
ZAZEN, Chapter 10 — “Venus Rodere” (pdf, 64k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Wal-Mart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maxmum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 10 of ZAZEN will be posted Tuesday, November 10. There are 30 chapters in all.

Download:
ZAZEN, Chapter 9 — “The Rat Queen” (pdf, 87k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Wal-Mart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maxmum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 10 of ZAZEN will be posted Tuesday, November 10. There are 30 chapters in all.

Download:

ZAZEN, Chapter 8 — “Lagerstätte” (pdf, 61k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Wal-Mart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maxmum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 9 of ZAZEN will be posted Monday, November 9. There are 30 chapters in all.

Opening Reception: Saturday November 7, 6-9 pm

Please join Hermitage in celebrating the opening of its new home this saturday between the hours of 6-9.

Come look at books, talk amongst each other, and view a surprise film that will be screened at some point in the evening.

35 Meadow Street Suite 307
Brooklyn NY 11206
347-422-0395
http://www.hermitagebeacon.com

Directions:

-By subway, take the L train to the Grand St. stop (4th stop into Brooklyn).
-You will exit the station at the intersection of Grand St & Bushwick Ave.
-Head down Grand St. in the direction of the large school on the corner,
this is away from the business district.
-Walk 3 minutes and take the first right on Waterbury St.
-Walk 3 short blocks and take a left on Meadow St.
-Hermitage is located at the end of the first block in the building on the corner
of the left hand side of the street.
-Enter the building and go to the 3rd floor where you will easily find your way.

Mitch the cook, thought it was eco-terrorists for sure. Kelly, the fill-in dishwasher agreed but then they split over whether it was an anarcho-primitivist cell or the Redwood Action Collective. That’s how the betting pool got started…

Download:
ZAZEN, Chapter 7 — “Cherry Blossoms” (pdf, 75k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Wal-Mart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maxmum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 7 of ZAZEN will be posted Wednesday, November 4. There are 30 chapters in all.

Download:
ZAZEN, Chapter 6 — “Aerial Map of Carnage” (pdf, 76k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 88k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Wal-Mart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maxmum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 6 of ZAZEN will be posted Tuesday, November 3. There are 30 chapters in all.

Download:
ZAZEN, Chapter 5 — “1 800 buy COAL” (pdf, 81k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Wal-Mart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maxmum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 6 of ZAZEN will be posted Tuesday, November 3. There are 30 chapters in all.

Download:
ZAZEN, Chapter 4 — “Asian Market” (pdf, 56k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Wal-Mart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maxmum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 5 of ZAZEN will be posted Monday, November 2. There are 30 chapters in all.

Download:

ZAZEN, Chapter 3 — “New Haiku” (pdf, 64k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 2 — “Pregnant Rats” (pdf, 81k)

ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Wal-Mart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maxmum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 4 of ZAZEN will be posted Thursday, October 29. There are 30 chapters in all.

“Okay,” I said…

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Wal-Mart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maxmum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 3 of ZAZEN will be posted Wednesday, October 28. There are 30 chapters in all.

Download: ZAZEN, Chapter 1 — “Burning Ants” (pdf, 79k)

The Story: It’s the very near-future, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest—or a neighborhood near you. 27-year-old Della Mylinek has suffered some kind of breakdown after failing to stop the construction of a local Wal-Mart. In an attempt to regain psychological, financial and emotional stability, she’s moved in with her brother and his pregnant wife and taken a job waiting tables at a vegan restaurant. But her anger remains, and one thing leads to another…

“Zazen” Keywords: geology, veganism, the apocalypse, urban planning, yoga, sex parties, bombs, anarchism, aging new-left revolutionaries, strip malls, paleontology, dark hippies, transcendentalism, lavender hair dye.

The Author: Vanessa Veselka is a writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon. She has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a union organizer, a student of paleontology, an expatriate, an independent record label owner, a train-hopper, a waitress and a mother. Her work has appeared in Bust, Bitch, Maxmum Rock ’n’ Roll, Yeti Magazine and Tin House. Zazen is her first novel. She is online at vanessaveselka.wordpress.com

The Serial: Chapter 2 of ZAZEN will be posted Tuesday, October 27. There are 30 chapters in all.

Thee infamous PSYCHICK BIBLE from Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth receives an updated, expanded, corrected edition, compleat with dozens of new visuals and essays. It’s a sewn-bound hardcover, compleat with ribbon. Thee 544 pages within are printed in two colors on high-quality, acid-free 100% recycled paper stock.

This signed, numbered, limited edition (999 copies only) includes a remarkable DVD of impossible-to-find videos from Genesis P-Orridge archives of early Psychic TV and TOPY creations, which includes the work of Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and Derek Jarman.

The artist, BREYER P-ORRIDGE, says about this edition: “It has been a revelation and become very thrilling for me to see 30 years+ of social, ritual and communal creative explorations condensed into what we feel may become the most profound new manual on ‘practical magick’ taking it from its Crowleyan level of liberation and empowermeant of the Individual to a next level of realization that magick must then give back to its environment, its community, become about liberation and empowermeant to change this ‘world’ and evolve our humanE species.”

Hazel Hill, designer and artist from Los Angeles (www.madeofthis.com), met Genesis through Adam Parfrey (owner and director of Feral House Books). The two entered the project as friends and have come out as life-long devotes to each other and most importantly, Lady Jaye.

Thee price is $69 plus shipping, and can be obtained directly from Feral House: www.FeralHouse.com.

From MaybeLogic Academy website:

The Magickal Realism of H.P. Lovecraft

Once an obscure figure, H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) is now widely recognized as a pulp visionary of the highest order—a prophet of the darkside imagination that everywhere surrounds us now. In this six-week course we will unpack Lovecraft’s unique blend of fantasy, materialism, and meta-fictional play. Linking the revolutionary “outsideness” of Lovecraft’s brand of horror to his scientific materialism, we will also explore the occult potentials of his fictional universe, and its relationship to his own rich dreamlife. The class will close with a group web research project devoted to tracking the “magickal reality” of Lovecraft’s so-called “Mythos” and its central grimoire: the Necronomicon.

WEEK ONE: Meet the Man
An introduction to Lovecraft through a selection of his fascinating letters.

WEEK TWO: The Moldering Past
HPL’s relationship to the past, both literary (the Gothic; occult lore), regional, and genetic.

WEEK THREE: Mad Reason
How HPL fused and contrasted modern scientific rationality and supernatural horror.

WEEK THREE: Writing the Dream
HPL had a remarkable dream life that seeped into his fictions, which often engage the parallel world of dreaming.

WEEK FOUR: Fictional Magick
What elements within Lovecraft’s texts allowed later occultists to turn his fictions into magickal material.

WEEK FIVE: The Meta-Mythos
How the mythos has spread beyond HPL, into other fictions and a widespread subculture of fandom.

WEEK SIX: The Dread Tome
We will spend our last week tracking the magickal reality of Lovecraft’s ultimate grimoire.

Erik Davis is the author of TechGnosis: Myth, Magic & Mysticism in the Age of Information (Five Star Paperback) and The Visionary State: A Journey Through California’s Spiritual Landscape. Besides his popular Maybe Logic classes, Erik has taught courses at UC Berkeley, UC Davis, Pacifica, and the California Institute of Integral Studies.

More course info: http://www.maybelogic.org/courses.htm

From the Gnostic Society website:

October 23, 8pm: Special Lecture on Jung’s Red Book
Reflecting upon the first glimpses into the freshly published Jung’s Red Book, Dr. Stephan Hoeller (pictured above) will preview the forthcoming series in November on this subject entitled “The Holy Grail of the Sacred Psyche”.

Lectures are free and open to the public (free-will donations are appreciated). Refreshments are offered following the lecture. Further information is available by calling 323-467-2685.

The Gnostic Society, 3363 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90039

Solid Sept. 16, 2009 New York Times Sunday Magazine feature on Jung’s Red Book: click here

October 17, 2009
Price War Over Books Worries Industry
By MOTOKO RICH

A tit-for-tat price war between Wal-Mart and Amazon accelerated late on Friday afternoon when Wal-Mart shaved another cent off its already rock-bottom prices for hardcover editions of some of the coming holiday season’s biggest potential best sellers, offering them online for $8.99 apiece.

The price cutting began on Thursday when Wal-Mart announced that it would take pre-orders for 10 yet-to-be-published hardcovers for $10 apiece on its Web site, Walmart.com. Later that day Amazon quietly began cutting the prices of those same titles to the very same $10, prompting Wal-Mart to lower its price to $9, a markdown of 59 to 74 percent off the list price of the books. Amazon had matched the $9 price by Friday morning, and Wal-Mart had lowered its price again, to $8.99, by late afternoon.
…
Independent booksellers have long struggled to compete with discounts offered by Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Wal-Mart. William Petrocelli, an owner of Book Passage, an independent company that has stores in San Francisco and suburban Corte Madera, Calif., said that for now he was relying on the loyalty of customers who valued staff recommendations and author events as much as prices. But, he said, if the low prices siphoned off too many customers and put independent stores out of business, it would ultimately affect what would get published.

“What this does is accentuate the trend towards best sellers dominating the market,” Mr. Petrocelli said. Without independents, decisions about what books to put on store shelves would reside in the hands of a few corporate executives rather than hundreds of idiosyncratic booksellers, he said.

“You have a choke point where millions of writers are trying to reach millions of readers,” Mr. Petrocelli said, “but if it all has to go through a narrow funnel where there are only four or five buyers deciding what’s going to get published, the business is in trouble.”
…
Indeed, [author James] Patterson, who said that while he was glad to be included in the top 10 most popular preordered books at Walmart.com, he could not think of any other industry accepting such dramatic discounts.

“Imagine if somebody was selling DVDs of this week’s new movies for $5,” Mr. Patterson said. “You wouldn’t be able to make movies.” He added, “I can guarantee you that the movie studios would not take this kind of thing sitting down.”

25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom, with text by Alan Moore, edited by Eva Prinz, is out in hardcover now. It is adapted from Alan’s 12,000-word essay on the subject from the sold-out Arthur No. 25, “Bog Venus Versus Nazi Cock-Ring: Some Thoughts Concerning Pornography.”

The promotional text from Abrams:

“Sexually progressive cultures gave us literature, philosophy, civilization and the rest, while sexually restrictive cultures gave us the Dark Ages and the Holocaust.”—Alan Moore

With each new technological advance, pornography has proliferated and degraded in quality. Today, porn is everywhere, but where is it art? 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom surveys the history of pornography and argues that the success and vibrancy of a society relates to its permissiveness in sexual matters.

This history of erotic art brings together some of the most provocative illustrations ever published, showcasing the evolution of pornography over diverse cultures from prehistoric to modern times. Beginning with the Venus of Willendorf, created between 24,000-22,000 bce, and book-ended by contemporary photography, it also contains a timeline covering major erotic works in several cultures. 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom ably captures the ancient and insuppressible creative drive of the sexual spirit, making this book a treatise on erotic art.

above: the winner!

Press release from Michael Moorcock:

FIRST AMERICAN TO WIN THE JACK TREVOR STORY MEMORIAL CUP

The committee awarding the Jack Trevor Story Memorial Cup for humorous writing this year presented the cup to an American for the first time.

Meeting at its traditional venue, L’Horizon, rue Saint Placide, Paris, the Committee consisting of Iain Sinclair (UK), Michael Moorcock (US/UK), Lili Sztajn (France), Jeff VanderMeer (USA), Fabrice Colin (France), Lisa Tuttle (Scotland) and Sebastian Doubinski (Denmark) unanimously agreed to give the Jack Trevor Story Memorial Cup, together with a $1,000 prize to Howard Waldrop, author of Them Bones, The Texas/Israeli War and several collections of short stories including Dream Factories and Radio Pictures and Heart of Whiteness. (All available from Amazon)

The Cup was presented to the winner by Michael Moorcock during a special ceremony at the Doubletree Inn Hotel, Austin, Texas on Friday 14th August 2009.

The usual conditions will apply: that the money be spent within two weeks and the recipient have nothing to show for it by the end of that period. This recalls Story’s remark to a bankruptcy judge when asked what had happened to money from his films The Trouble with Harry and Live Now, Pay Later: “You know how it is, judge. Two hundred or two thousand. It always lasts a week to a fortnight.”

A regular columnist for The Guardian during the 1960s and 1970s, Story also contributed to Punch, The Evening Standard, Sexton Blake Library, The Listener, The New Statesman, New Worlds and many other journals. Milton Keynes’ Writer in Residence, he wrote series for TV and radio as well as many other films and died in 1991 at his typewriter, having written ‘THE END’ to his final novel Shabby Weddings.

Previous winners of the JTS Memorial Cup include Fred Normandale and Steve Aylett.

“If we continue to operate non-sustainably, then in 50 or 60 years, the US and Japan and Europe will be in bad shape. But my friends in the highlands of New Guinea will be fine. Some of my friends made stone tools when they were children and they could just go back to what their ancestors were doing for 46,000 years. New Guinea highlanders are not doomed.”

River Cottage official website

About the book: publisher’s website

More on Arthurmag.com about THE RIVER COTTAGE

Arthur freaks may remember Brian Evenson from his cover feature on Sunn 0))) and Earth, published in Arthur No. 20, and his short bit on an imaginary disease in Arthur No. 7. Following is the opening story from Brian’s newest collection of short fiction, Fugue State, published by Coffeehouse Press and available now from Powell’s, Amazon and the best bookstore near you.

Download: “Younger” from Fugue State by Brian Evenson (pdf)

Younger

Years later, she was still calling her sister, trying to understand what exactly had happened. It still made no sense to her, but her sister, older, couldn’t help. Her sister had completely forgotten—or would have if the younger sister wasn’t always reminding her. The younger sister imagined, each time she talked to her sibling on the telephone, each time she brought the incident up, her older sister pressing her palm against her forehead as she waited for her to say what she had to say, so that she, the older sister, the only one of the sisters with a family of her own, could politely sidestep her inquiries and go back to living her life.
     Her older sister had always managed to do that, to nimbly sidestep anything that came her way so as to simply go on with her life. For years, the younger sister had envied this, watching from farther and farther behind as her older sister sashayed past those events that an instant later struck the younger sister head-on and almost destroyed her. The younger sister was always being almost destroyed by events, and then had to spend months desperately piecing herself together enough so that when once again she was struck head-on, she would only be almost destroyed rather than utterly and completely destroyed.
     As her mother had once suggested, the younger sister felt things more intensely than anyone else. At the time, very young, the younger sister had seen this as a mark of emotional superiority, but later she saw it for what it was: a serious defect that kept her from living her life. Indeed, as the younger sister reached first her teens and then her twenties, she came to realize that people who felt things as intensely as she were either institutionalized or dead.
     This realization was at least in part due to her father having belonged to the first category (institutionalized) and her mother to the second (dead by suicide)—two more facts that her older sister, gliding effortlessly and, quite frankly, mercilessly, through life, had also sidestepped. Indeed, while the younger sister was realizing to a more and more horrifying degree how she was inescapably both her mother’s and her father’s child, her older sister had gone on to start a family of her own. It was like her older sister had been part of a different family. The younger sister could never start a family of her own—not because, as everyone claimed, she was irresponsible but because she knew it just brought her one step closer to ending up like her mother and father. It was not that she was irresponsible, but only that she was terrified of ending up mad or dead.

The incident had occurred when their parents were still around, before they were, in the case of the mother, dead and, in the case of the father, mad. There were, it had to be admitted in retrospect, signs that things had gone wrong with their parents, things her older sister must have absorbed and quietly processed over time but which the younger sister was forced to process too late and all at once. The incident, the younger sister felt, was the start of her losing her hold on her life. Even years later, she continued to feel that if only she could understand exactly what had happened, what it all meant, she would see what had gone wrong and could correct it, could, like the older sister, muffle her feelings, begin to feel things less and, in the end, perhaps not feel anything at all. Once she felt nothing, she thought, knowing full well how crazy it sounded, she could go on to have a happy life.
     But her older sister couldn’t understand. To her older sister, what the younger sister referred to as the incident was nothing—less than nothing, really. As always, her older sister listened patiently on the other end of the line as the younger sister posed the same questions over again. “Do you remember the time we were trapped in the house?” she might begin, and there would be a long pause as her older sister (so the younger sister believed) steeled herself to go through it once more.
     “We weren’t trapped exactly,” her older sister almost always responded. “No need to exaggerate.”
     But that was not how the younger sister remembered it. How the younger sister remembered it was that they were trapped. Even the word trapped did not strike her as forceful enough. But her older sister, as always, saw it as her role to calm the younger sister down. The younger sister would make a statement and then her older sister would qualify the statement, dampen it, smooth it over, nullify it. This, the younger sister had to admit, did calm her, did make her feel better momentarily, did made her think, Maybe it isn’t as bad as I remembered. But the long-term effect was not to make her feel calmer but to make her feel insane, as if she were remembering things that hadn’t actually happened. But if they hadn’t happened the way she remembered, why was she still undone more than twenty years later? And as long as her sister was calming her, how was she ever to stop feeling undone?
     No, what she needed was not for her sister to calm her, not for her sister, from the outset, to tell her there was no need to exaggerate. But she could not figure out how to tell her sister this—not because her older sister was unreasonable but because she was all too reasonable. She sorted the world out rationally and in a way that stripped it of all its power. Her older sister could not understand the effect of the incident on the younger sister because she, the older sister, had not let it have an effect on her.
     For instance, her older sister could not even begin to conceive how the younger sister saw the incident as the single most important and most devastating moment of her life. For her older sister, the incident had been nothing. How was it possible, her older sister wanted to know, that the incident had been more damaging for her than their mother’s suicide or their father’s mental collapse? It didn’t make any sense. Well, yes, the younger sister was willing to admit, it didn’t make any sense, and yet she was still ruined by it, still undone. If I can understand exactly what happened, she would always tell her older sister, I’ll understand where I went wrong.
     “But nothing happened,” her older sister said. “Nothing. That’s just it.”
     And that was the whole problem. The sisters had played the same roles for so many years that they didn’t know how to stop. Responding to each other in a different way was impossible. Every conversation had already been mapped out years in advance, at the moment the younger sister was first compelled to think of herself as the irresponsible one and the older sister was first made to be a calming force. They weren’t getting anywhere, which meant that she, the younger sister, wasn’t getting anywhere, was still wondering what, if anything, had happened, and what, if anything, she could do to free herself from it.
•
What she thought had happened—the way she remembered it when, alone, late at night, she lay in bed after another conversation with her sister—was this: their mother had vanished sometime during the night. Why exactly, the younger sister didn’t know. Their father, she remembered, had seemed harried, had taken their mother somewhere during the night and left her there, but had been waiting for them, seated on the couch, when they woke up. He had neither slept nor bathed; his eyes were very red and he hadn’t shaved. Somehow, she remembered, her sister hadn’t seemed surprised. Whether this was because the sister wasn’t really surprised or because, as the calm one, she was never supposed to appear surprised, the younger sister couldn’t say.
     She remembered the father insisting that nothing was wrong, but insisting almost simultaneously that he must leave right away. There was, the younger sister was certain, something very wrong: what exactly it had been, she was never quite certain. Something with the mother, certainly, perhaps her suicidal juggernaut just being set in motion—though her older sister claimed that no, it must have been something minor, a simple parental dispute that led to their mother going to stay temporarily with her own mother. And the only reason the father had to leave, the older sister insisted, was that he had to get to work. He had a meeting, and so had to leave them alone, even though they were perhaps too young—even the older sister had to admit this—to be left alone.
     Her older sister claimed too that the father had bathed and looked refreshed and was in no way harried. But this, the younger sister was certain, was a lie, was just the older sister’s attempt to calm her. No, the father had looked terrible, was harried and even panicked, the younger sister wasn’t exaggerating, not really. Do you love me? the younger sister sometimes had to say into the phone. Do you love me? she would say. Then stop making me feel crazy, and just listen.
     So there was her father, in her head, simultaneously sleepless and well-rested, clean and sticky with sweat. He had to leave, he had explained to them. He was sorry but he had to leave. But it was all right, he claimed. He set the stove timer to sound when it was time for them to go to school. When they heard the timer go off, he told them, they had to go to school. Did they understand?
     Yes, both girls said, they understood.
     “And one more thing,” the father said, his hand already reaching for the knob. “Under no circumstances are you to answer the door. You are not to open the door to anyone.”

And after that? According to the older sister, nothing much. The father left. The sisters played together until the timer rang, and then they opened the door and went to school.
     But that was not how the younger sister remembered it. There was, first of all and above all, the strangeness of being alone in the house for the first time. There was a giddiness to that, a feeling they had stepped beyond the known world, a feeling the younger sister never for a moment forgot. A feeling which made it seem like not just minutes were going by, but hours.
     “But it was just a few minutes,” her older sister insisted.
     “Like hours,” said the younger sister. “Not actually hours but like hours.” All right, she conceded, not actual hours—though she knew that when it came down to it, there was no such thing as actual hours. But for all intents and purposes she had already lost her sister, once again had rapidly reached a point where she could no longer rely on her sister to help her understand what exactly had happened. But she kept talking anyway, because once she had started talking what could she do but keep on?
     The point was, time slowed down for the younger sister and never really sped back up again. There was a giddiness and a sense that anything could happen, anything at all. There were only two rules: the world would end when the timer rang, and under no circumstances were they to answer the door. But within those constraints, anything could happen.

What did they play? They played the same things they had always played, but the games were different too, just as the girls, alone, had become different. Her older sister, as always, went along with what the younger sister wanted to play, playing down to her level, but this time anything could happen. The small toy mustangs they played with dared do things they had never done before, cantering all the way across the parents’ bedroom, where they gathered and conferred and at last decided on a stratagem for defeating the plastic bear, which, once bested, was flushed down the toilet and was gone forever. The two girls watched with sweaty faces and flushed cheeks as the bear disappeared: anything could happen. The younger sister pulled herself up on the bathroom counter and opened the cabinet and used the mother’s lipstick on her own lips, something she was never allowed to do, and then used the lipstick to paint red streaks on the horses’ sides, bloodied from where they had been gashed by the bear in battle. The most injured mustang limped slowly away and found a cave to hide in. He lay down inside it and hoped that the cool and the dark either would help him get better or would kill him. At first the cave was just the space under the couch, but the mustang wasn’t getting better, so the younger sister stuck him in her armpit and called that a cave and held her arm clamped to her side. When, later, she reached him back out, the blood had smeared off all over inside the cave, and the horse was miraculously healed and allowed to return to the pack.
     “It’s not called a pack,” her older sister told her over the telephone. “It’s a herd.”
     But the younger sister knew they had called it a pack, that anything could happen and that pack was part of it too. They had known at the time it was a herd but they had called it a pack, and they had said it wrong on purpose. They were building a whole world up around them, full of things more vivid and slippery than anything the real world could offer. Just because her older sister couldn’t remember didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.
     And the sisters had become mustangs as well, had joined the pack as well—couldn’t she remember? They took the two biggest rubber bands they could find and stretched them from their mouths over the back of their heads like bridles. They took old plastic bread bags their mother had saved, and filled the bottoms with paper napkins and rubber-banded them to their legs and then slipped shoes over their hands. And suddenly it wasn’t just pretend but something was happening that had never happened before. Couldn’t she remember? It was ecstatic and crazed and like they were fleeing their bodies—it was the only thing like a religious experience the younger sister had ever had, and she had had it when she was six.
     And then suddenly it all went wrong.

They heard the timer go off and ran to turn it off but they were still wearing shoes on their hands and neither of them wanted to take the shoes off, so they tried to stop the timer by trapping its stem between two shoes and turning it, but the timer stem was old and too smooth to turn like that. So while the timer buzzed on, the younger sister had neighed at her older sister and together they had cantered to the dining-room table and taken a chair, supporting it between them with their hooves, and brought it to the stove. The younger sister stood on it and leaned over the burner, feeling the enamel warm in one spot from the pilot light, and turned the timer off with her teeth, by twisting her head.
     That was, the younger sister knew, the sign that the world had come to an end, that it was over, that now they had to go to school. Only it wasn’t the end, for as soon as the timer was turned off, the doorbell rang. It froze both of them and they stood there, bread bags on their feet and shoes on their hands, and kept very still and very quiet. They were not to answer the door, their father had been very clear about that. But they were also supposed to go to school. How could you go to school when someone was at the door, ringing the doorbell, trying to come in?
     My older sister, the younger sister thought, will know what to do.
     But her older sister was standing there not doing anything. The doorbell rang again, and still they waited, the younger sister nervously rubbing her hooves together.
     They waited awhile for the doorbell to ring a third time. When it did not, her older sister leaned close to her and whispered Come on. But they had taken only a few steps when they heard not ringing but a hard, loud knock: four sharp, equally spaced blows right in a row. And that stopped them just as much as if someone had yanked back on their bridles.
     It was like that for hours—for what, anyway, seemed like hours. Her hands were getting sweaty in the shoes. Her feet in the bread bags were much, much worse, the napkins at the bottom of each bag grown damp. Her mouth, too, hurt in the corners because of the rubber band. Her older sister took a few steps and the younger sister, not knowing what else to do, followed. Her older sister, she saw, had taken the shoes off her hands without the younger sister noticing and had gotten the rubber band out of her mouth and was now creeping very slowly past the door. The younger sister followed, trying not to look at the curtain-covered window beside the door, trying not to see the shadow of whatever was on the other side, but seeing enough to know that, whatever it was, it was big, and seeing too, when the knocking started once again, the door shiver in its frame.
     In their bedroom, her sister helped her get the shoes off. They had been on long enough that they felt like they were still on even once they had come off. The rubber-band bridle got caught in her hair so that her sister had to snip it out with a scissor, which made the bridle snap and raised a red stripe of flesh across her cheekbone and almost made her cry. The rubber bands holding the plastic bags to her legs had left purple grooves on her calves, and her feet were hot and wet and itchy. She dried them off on a hand towel and put her shoes on while her older sister stood on a stool by the bedroom window and tried to see out.
     “He’s still there,” she said.
     “What is it?” asked the younger sister.
     “I don’t know,” said her older sister. “Who, you mean.”
     But the younger sister had meant not who, but what. She wanted to climb on the stool beside her sister and look out as well, but was too scared.
     “What do we do?” she asked.
     “Do?” said her sister. “Let’s play until he’s gone.”

So they had begun again, with the plastic horses again, only this time it was a slow negation of everything that had happened before. Before, it had seemed like anything could happen; now all the younger sister could think about was about how they were trapped in the house, how they couldn’t leave, how they were supposed to leave but couldn’t. The mustangs were just ordinary horses now and could no longer move their plastic legs but simply stayed motionless as they were propelled meaninglessly across the floor. The bear was gone for good and she and her sister weren’t horses anymore, just two trapped girls. Everything was wrong. They were trapped in the house and she knew they would always be trapped. The younger sister kept trying to play, but all she could do was cry.
     Her older sister was comforting her, telling her everything was fine, but the way she said it, it was clear nothing was fine. Everything was hell.
     “What is it?” she asked again.
     “He’s probably not even there anymore,” said her older sister. “I bet we can leave soon.”

And, to be truthful, it probably was soon after that, though it didn’t feel that way to the younger sister, that her older sister went back into the bedroom and climbed up on the stool again and looked out and said that it was safe now and everything was fine and this time seemed to mean it. They gathered their books and their lunches and opened the front door and darted out. The whole street seemed deserted. The older sister, who hated to be late, made them both run to school, and the younger sister reached her class even before Mrs. Clark had finished calling roll. When you looked at it that way, almost no time had actually passed. When you looked at it that way, as her older sister in fact had, really nothing at all had happened.

But for the younger sister there was less of her from there on out. Part of her was still wearing shoes on her hands and a rubber band in her mouth and was somewhere, sides bloody, looking for her pack. And part of her was still there, motionless, trapped in the house, waiting for the door to shiver in its frame. She was still, years later, trying to figure out how to get back those parts of her. And what was left of her she could hardly manage to do anything with at all.

“So what do you want me to do?” her sister finally one day asked, her voice tinny through the telephone. “Play mustangs with you again?” And then she laughed nervously.
     And yes, in fact, that was exactly what the younger sister wanted. Maybe it would do something, it was worth a try, yes. If her sister would only do that, perhaps something—anything—could happen.
     But after so many years, so many telephone conversations burning and reburning the same paths through their minds, so many years of playing the same roles, how could she ask this of her older sister? She knew her role enough to know she could never bring herself to ask this of her older sister. Not in what seemed like a million years.

Excerpt from Fugue State by Brian Evenson © 2009
Published by Coffee House Press: http://www.coffeehousepress.org
Used by permission of the publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Joseph Campbell on Grof’s work: “I know of no work that so well incorporates the findings of Freud, Jung and Rank, adding fresh insights, which the methods of those psychotherapists could never have achieved. I do not doubt that many others working in this field would find Dr. Grof´s discoveries a basis for a whole new strategy of research.”

More: Stan Grof’s website

BLACK FEZ MANIFESTO, &c.
by Hakim Bey
(Autonomedia & Garden of Delight, Brooklyn & Dublin, 2008)
Reviewed by Louise Landes Levi

“Come to Prayer – prayers are better than sleep” Dawn Azzah
“But the sleep of the Knowers is worth more than the prayers of the merely pious” Hadith

Most poets have secret arts and even ‘professions’ that are not part of the official biography. The author of the book I’m about to ‘review,’ to take an example, is (I have heard from a reliable source) an excellent billiards player. One wouldn’t want to encounter him casually at a pool table, no. For my part, those who know me well will, on occasion, show me their palm and ask for a reading. Apparently a line beneath my right index finger indicates a propensity of this sort, or so I was told in Bombay. And why not, a line is a line, a line of verse or a line stretched across the mortal palm.

Earth needs more parking lots
the way you need more patches of asphalt
grafted to your face & genitalia

(fr. SHOE DREAM)

Esoterically, the chakras open, it is said, intuition reads through the labyrinth (of lines). Is this so different than reading a text? And the billiard player—is his first thought best thought to be doubted? The archer and his arrow, the pool player and his cue. We take the cue from Hakim Bey, aka Peter Lamborn Wilson, a national treasure, hidden, of course, but thankfully through publications of this sort and the dedication of publishers Autonomedia and Garden of Delights, in view.

In the back room of an
occult bookstore
near the Pantheon a groupuscule called
ZARATHUSTRAS REVENGE concocted the
bomb plot but
the infernal device turned out to b
a dud but regret
is at least an emotion. I was there
& I am still there
a ghost to myself.

Personally I never go anywhere without a book by Hakim Bey, in tow. How many blessed moments reading through T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Pirate Utopias (then and now, on Isla Margarita not far from Santa Anna, a small village settled by Spanish version of same, holy drop outs, some hundreds of years ago), Avant Gardening, Millennium, Shower of Stars: The Initiatic Dream in Sufism and Taoism, such an esoteric and beautifully written book; and the poems, recent chapbooks, rain queer and The Atlantis Manifesto and those found, almost by chance in an anthology, to name one among many, Wildflowers No. 7 (Shivastan, 2007) or the recently published translation from the Persian Il divan-al-Ghalib (Longhouse, 2009).

Civilization in ruin is always a good idea.
Industrial decay has the same
beauty as Persepolis – the melancholy
of vast suffering ended & barely
remembered, like dental pain.

( fr. TO SHELLEY, AN INSTASONNET)

HB’s verbal presentation of the poems is, to say the least, an art apart. Declamation, no, a lecture, in the style of the didactic, definitely not, a mild reading of verse to comfort and align the chakras and channels, no, tranquility seekers, go outside and stargaze. Hakim Bey (aka PLW) is a shaman, and he plays his drum and his role wherever and whenever he can.

Chamomile & melatonin
poppies & hot milk
milk with a skinskim
of yellowish cream

‘assumes the shape of an egg’
& performs the opposite of hatching

( fr. SOMNIUM)

He has, therefore, developed a unique reading style. It is everyone’s privilege, and especially the lovers of his poetry (and his mind) to listen to and to behold it.

Cloistered alone round the faded hearth
Sweeney thinks he remembers being
driven woodsqueer eating watercress & nettles
till he became a kind of green man
himself. The college bell rolls emptily
Tristan Tristen driven frantic with
love potion flees to the forest
filthy & naked. Was that me?
Surely the zoning code would
forbid it or rangers would soon come round
with citations for violating
protected wilderness. Surely by now
I’d be in therapy no longer bothered
by Isolde or the horrors of war.

( fr. MAD SWEENEY)

Black Fez Manifesto is a collection of brilliant antidotes, an encyclopedia of esoterica so complex a conventional review cannot possibly cover the terrain. A film containing this broad range of imagery, symbol and historical allusion, would last a few days at least. PLW does not assert a new paradigm; he does not uncover concealed truths, or those, held by ‘tradition’ (i.e. secular or ‘spiritual’ authority) to be so. He is not constructing a religious metaphor and certainly not a cult, heaven forbid—even hell would forbid such an attempt (on his part).

The Enlightenment is a Good Ship Lollipop of which
we’re the ratites norvegicus scuttling
ashore in rain-light sighing sauve qui petu.
Our guru knew that Dr. Brink of Kingston
his enchanted forest now reduced to a few
tombstones in a suburban back yard backed
up to the exit ramp for route 202
will supply us with graveyard grisgris
quack-spagyric brews & slews of roots
& simples.

( fr. DR. BRINK 1754 – 1843 )

HB deconstructs world history and places it at our disposal. His deconstruction is, however, not ‘postmodern,’ there is too much esoteric knowledge, and indeed mastery, for us to simplify in this way. HB is not reducing knowledge.

The days are our slaves
We set up maquiladoras on the Moon
An albine Persian cat
Watch yr. fingers the Sun’s dog’s
Convorting with its little pal
Nicola Tesla.

( fr. DOG OF THE SUN)

He is putting it together as an entirely new script or anti-scripture (and not one which requires linear analysis, i.e. logical derivation). For, it is true, if we haven’t seen it until now—when will we?

People of the Future are reading us
now & envying our thenness
blighting our crops & wilting
our infants, gnashing their gaze
over our intimacy with species long extinct.

(fr. CREEPY SENSATION)

As those who have even casually read his work know, HB is concerned with the Neolithic, so it is to be expected that a great deal of botanical reference weaves its way through the signs and symbols of antiquity, as well as in the post-modern reminders of the decomposition we witness in the social, spiritual and economic ecology of the 21st century.

Invest yr. Bank of Hades billions
in the Imaginal Wall St. of money gone
to heaven. Sipping the
green wines of science fiction with
futures so neoplatonic you can smell them suddenly

( fr. FINANCIAL SONNET)

For those who have followed the evolution of PLW, & his shadow HB, or the reverse if you prefer, Black Manifesto is another sign or signal, an almost ontological proof of the existence of our local (planet Earth/Solar System, Galaxy Milky Way) genius and friend, for remarkable warmth issues forth from the man, in verse or in person, considering the vast, almost unfathomable erudition he has cultivated in his brief visit to the human realm.

I was pouring over a manuscript of Tocharian B
The sweat of my pores in the dead
oasis of Turfian when suddenly the shilling
in my akashicomter ran out & I
snapped back on silvery umbilical to
the mere here.

(fr. A LUNAR GARDEN OF LEGAL PHANTASTICA)

For those not familiar with PLW, one might bring along (to one’s favorite café or reading site) a dictionary and an Encyclopedia Britannica, to more easily check citations and references. A glossary would be impossible as the book is a mere 100 pages.

Anarcho-monarchist direct action:
sit on throne facing auspicious direction
doing absolutely nothing.

I‘ve lost you. You’ve forsaken
the ancient secret of crystal radio
for an alien wavelength

( fr. GHAZAL))

And getting back to Palm Reading, I say to my reader, one of the laws of the profession: never show your hand to someone who is NOT at your level. The reader will enter your secret domain and, the warning implies, if at a lower level, psychically or spiritually (and thus in intent) create havoc. The gloved hand is your protection. I, an acquaintance of the author, took months to write what you have read by this time, simply because of that rule. Forgive me reader, if I have been unworthy of the text and immediately read it yourself to see, one way or the other.
And if by chance you see a white haired gentleman, with a distant yet very warm look in his blue eyes, a nice beard, an altogether attractive ensemble, in the pool room, flee (while your weaknesses – as a player – are still unexposed) because you have met your match. If, on the other hand, your ignorance needs exposure, of a certain sort, greet the gentleman and when you have played your round read Black Fez Manifesto to see what was really going on in the billiard hall.

BLACK FEZ
As emblem of our joint

Intransgient disgust with the lukewarm
Necromanric vacuum of dephlogisticated
corpse breath
That passes nowadays for Empire
& organic death

(fr. BLACK FEZ MANIFESTO)

Louise Landes Levi
Pedro Gonzalez, Isla M.
12 April 2009 – 6 May 2009

w. a tip of the fez to Esther, Orlando & Gerri for kind shelter
& RF for the cue.

Louise Landes Levi is a traveler, scholar, poet & musician, following a long lineage of beings devoted to the road, to the book & to the equality of beings. University of California, Berkeley in the 1960’s. Member of Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company–then travels to Inda & long studies in Europe. Self-publisher (Il Bagatto Press) & published by friends & colleagues fr. 1982 onward. Translator of Henri Michaux, Rene Daumal & Mira Bai. More: http://www.mipoesias.com/Volume19Issue3Gudding/levi.html

Arik Moonhawk Roper (a longtime Arthur contributing artist) will be celebrating the launch of his new book Mushroom Magick this Friday in New York. In creating this book, Roper has added his own indelible mark to the long history of mushroom art, presenting over 90 of his original portraits of hallucinogenic species of mushroom alongside educational writings by friends and scholars Erik Davis, Daniel Pinchbeck and Gary Lincoff. Learn more about and see images of Roper’s richly water-colored illustrations of these mysterious fungi in this blog post.

Be warned: If you are not wary of the importance of the mushroom’s existence on earth, after reading this book you will no doubt be conscious of the fact that fungi are communicating with our world in ways that are nothing less than mind-blowing…

Friday, May 15th, 6-8pm (on view through May 30th)
Gavin Brown’s enterprise
620 Greenwich St. / New York, NY 10014
Free admission

(Originally published in Arthur No. 5/July 2003)

“When You Understand War, You Fear It.”

Jonathan Shainin speaks with Pultizer Prize-winning New York Times war correspondent and author CHRIS HEDGES about the horrors of war–and its packaging as entertainment.

Chris Hedges has been to war. He has seen killing and dying up close in El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia, the West Bank and Gaza, Iraq and Kuwait, Sudan, Algeria, Yemen, Bosnia and Kosovo. He has memories no one should have, and a thousand stories like these:

I have been in ambushes on desolate stretches of Central American roads, shot at in the marshes of southern Iraq, imprisoned in Sudan, beaten by Saudi military police, deported from Libya and Iran, captured and held prisoner for a week by the Iraqi Republican Guard during the Shi’ite rebellion following the Gulf War, strafed by MIG-21s in Bosnia, fired upon by Serb snipers and shelled for days in Sarajevo with deafening rounds of heavy artillery that threw out thousands of deadly bits of iron fragments.

And now he has come back. He is here to tell us that war is still hell, no matter how awesome it looks on television. Hedges’ lessons from a life reporting war, which comprise the brilliant War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, published last fall, are not new, but they are increasingly necessary. In Empire America, where ends justify any means, war is increasingly seen as a bloodless policy instrument with which to reshape the world in our image. The costs to both sides are rarely part of the picture.

For these costs, as Hedges amply demonstrates with examples gathered in nearly 20 years of covering carnage, are rarely confined to the losing side. Societies at war traverse a long path of moral degradation, their cultures irrevocably damaged, hate for the other and disregard for the lessons of the past strewn like rubble in their collective memories. “In wartime,” Hedges writes,

the state seeks to destroy its own culture…. In times of conflict, authentic culture is subversive. As the cause championed by the state comes to define national identity, as the myth of war entices a nation to glory and sacrifice, those who question the value of the cause and the veracity of the myth are branded internal enemies.

War, to Hedges, is a kind of drug, a powerful and addictive substance that lends meaning and purpose to our often-trivial lives, producing a cause behind which to rally and a sharp division between good and evil. This seductive kernel of truth lies at the center of the heroic myth of war, the myth that is peddled so effectively by states at war, by the press, and by novelists and filmmakers who glory in war’s noble sacrifice.

Works of fiction, on screen or on paper-even those with an ostensibly “antiwar” message-rarely succeed in demythologizing war itself; they are too easily seduced by its overwhelming power. Hedges’ forthcoming book, What Every Person Should Know About War, is his attempt at countering the myth head-on. A dispassionate manual of war with “no rhetoric” and “very few adjectives,” its question-and-answer format (“What will a bullet do to my body?” “What does it feel like to kill someone?” “Will the enemy mutilate my dead body?”) shines an unusually harsh light on the true human costs and consequences of our often reckless turn to war.

Currently with The New York Times–where he was part of a reporting team that won the Pulitzer Prize–Hedges has now quit war reporting for good. Arthur spoke with him from his home in New Jersey about the war just completed and how to put a stop to those not yet underway.

Arthur: What was it like to watch a war from the sidelines?

Hedges: Disturbing. It’s not the first time I’ve done it.

Arthur: But now you’ve quit for good.

I don’t want to go there, I don’t want to do that any more. But it’s disturbing. It’s a little close to home: I spent seven years in the Middle East. I know Basra pretty well; I certainly know the Kurds very well. I was probably a little obsessive about it.

Arthur: What strikes you when you read reports of the fighting?

Look, thousands of Iraqis died. It’s terrible, it’s always terrible.

Arthur: You weren’t in favor of the war.

No, not at all. I just don’t think you can wage war unless there’s a good cause. You don’t go to war unless your nation or your interests are credibly threatened. There was no such threat.

Arthur: You couldn’t apply those standards to intervention in Yugoslavia, though, and that was something you favored. Is it a slippery slope?

Well, I favor the use of force to stop genocide. If you stop the killing in Kosovo or Bosnia, or in Rwanda, where we should have stopped the killing, that’s not the same as occupying another country. I don’t see this as a legitimate war. I see intervention to stop genocide as legitimate. That’s not quite the same as a war, though.

Arthur: Does the war in Iraq fail this test because there was no massacre underway?

Well, there were massacres. Certainly, in Anfal [the Kurdish genocide], more than 180,000 Kurds were killed; after the Persian Gulf war, tens of thousands of Shi’ites were killed. I made two trips into the marshes of Southern Iraq, because I felt that there should have been some kind of intervention. But now the people are all dead. So to somehow use that as an excuse…that he “kills his own people.” When he was killing his own people, we could have done something about it, and we didn’t.

Arthur: You write about the hijacking of memory, the abuse of the memory of massacres past. Is this an example?

This is just propaganda. The sanctification of victims and the demonization of enemies by victims is a little different. Here, they were looking for any justification to go in, and they threw this one out. In this case, it’s more the crudity of power, and the mendaciousness of those who hold it.

Arthur: You describe at great length the intoxicating and narcotic effects of war making, whether that’s for soldiers or for journalists who are on the front lines. Can we deduce a similar intoxication for the men who plan and execute wars?

That narcotic of war is something very specific to those who live through it. Those who wage war usually do so for hard, concrete, and often very cynical reasons. I’m not sure they’re caught up in the drug of war.

Arthur: Do you see, though, in the architects of war in the current administration, some kind of elation at their power to remake the world? It strikes me that there’s a frightening degree of credulity there-they don’t seem like cynics, to say the least.

I think they’re very cynical. Most people in power are. They have no intention of bringing democracy to Iraq. The things they put out for public dissemination and the things they say privately are very different.

Arthur: Is it possible to learn lessons from a war like this?

Most generations have to learn it the hard way, through a lot of blood. We learned it after Vietnam, and now we’ve forgotten it.

Arthur: What happened after Vietnam? How did we learn?

We became a better country because of the defeat. We were humbled, and probably even humiliated. We asked questions about ourselves we didn’t ask before, and in that, we gained a kind of wisdom. So many kids died in Vietnam, we were forced to confront the reality of war.

Arthur: You open one chapter with a quote from Hiram Johnson: “The first casualty when war comes is truth.” In other words, the state and the press collude to cover over what truly happens on the front lines.

It’s not so much that they cover over. The lie at war is always the lie of omission; it’s what they don’t tell you. They have the capacity, in real time, to let us watch a nineteen-year-old kid bleed to death after stepping on an anti-tank mine. But you can be pretty sure those images are not shown.

Arthur: Will the truth at war always be the subject of endless contestation? Is it an illusion to think that we can get to the bottom of things?

No, no. Because the problem is that war is packaged and given a kind of coherency and heroism it doesn’t have. If Fox News set up and spent 20 minutes showing you a kid dying in the sand, it would be so horrifying, people would begin to have a sense of what war is. But they’re not going to show you that. Everything is sanitized. And they’re not going to show it to you because mythic war, this mythic war narrative, is very good for their business. We don’t show anybody getting killed. We don’t show the reality of war. Nobody saw war on these broadcasts. I know, I’ve been to war; this had nothing to do with war. This was entertainment.

Arthur: How did war become entertainment?

It’s always been entertainment, since the creation of the modern war correspondent. It’s always been the same.

Arthur: Since the Crimean war…

Right. It’s not any different. The press is always part of the problem in wartime. Always has been. They buy into the cause, and more importantly, they disseminate the myth. That’s what they’re good at.

Arthur: Judging by what I read on Romenesko every day, a lot of people seem to think that the coverage of this war was terrific, from a professional standpoint.

Well, I don’t. [laughs] There’s been some decent reporting from the print people. Let’s be clear, there is still integrity in print media. There isn’t any in commercial broadcast media. I’m really going after commercial broadcast media. There have been some good stories in the New York Times, but the fact is, the overall presentation of the war has not come close to striking at what war actually is.

Arthur: Is this a lost cause? The kind of coverage you’re advocating–even you seem to believe no one would ever show it.

It is very rarely conveyed. It is conveyed when you’re not involved. The war reporting we did out of Bosnia was like that. But when your own country is involved, you believe that your job is to support and boost morale, to support the cause.

Arthur: You quote Randolph Bourne, who wrote that “War is the Health of the State,” at the opening of a chapter called “The Plague of Nationalism.” Are people unwilling to hear the truth about war, because they’re co-opted into the national cause?

This is what people clamor for, it’s what they want. They want the myth, they don’t want the reality. And there are plenty of people out there willing to feed it to them. It’s more than co-opted; they enjoy it. It’s a kind of empowerment. You saw it with the way that we sat around and worshipped all of our own weapons in this conflict. It’s more than just being co-opted. We’re part of the problem.

Arthur: What should we do to not be part of the problem? Or is that a naïve approach?

Well, I guess I have to answer that personally. That’s why I wrote the book, that’s why I speak the way I speak. I think that it’s hard to face the reality of war, because along with that comes a kind of recognition of our own capacity for evil, for atrocity. And that’s what’s so hard to confront, and it’s what is so hard for those of us who’ve spent a lot of time in war to bring back, and to deal with.

Arthur: And that’s what no one wants to hear.

It’s not pleasant.

Arthur: Anthony Loyd has a striking passage in My War Gone By, I Miss it So, his book on Yugoslavia, on the sight of the dead. He says he is unable “to connect the thought of a living, breathing person with the discarded husk death leaves, even when I have seen the whole transition from life to death…when I look at a corpse it always seems as if there is more than simply life missing.”

Those are burdens you bear, like anybody who lives around violent death for that long. You tend, in the process, or the moment, to be very clinical about it. But it begins to haunt you afterwards. It’s certainly a burden, it’s something you have to carry, and that’s hard. It’s not something I try to think about very much.

Arthur: What lessons can we take from the book?

It’s a pretty savage critique of the culture of war. I’m not trying to list conclusions, I’m really just trying to explicate the disease that war is. That’s really what I set out to do. I wasn’t trying to write a book about how not to go to war. That was never the point. I just wanted to explain what war did to you, and what war did to societies, both the immediate and the long term effects. I think the more you’re aware of this, the more you can guard against it. When you understand the disease, and what it’s doing to you, you can hopefully take remedial measures to protect yourself.

Arthur: But you’re not a pacifist. You’re not opposed to war.

No, I am opposed to war. But at times I recognize that it’s inevitable. I don’t believe in just wars. I believe some wars have to be fought. But the notion of ‘just war’ I find difficult to swallow.

Arthur: You write that war has been sanitized. We’re at this point today where there seems to be societal picture, especially after this war, that war can be a bloodless policy instrument.

Well, that’s the lie we’ve been sold.

Arthur: What can be done about it?

Not to use the language, not to dehumanize the other, and turn them into objects, not to fall for that kind of euphoria, to be wary of the narcotic of war. Not to become intoxicated with self-exaltation.

Arthur: What signposts do you see that indicate that we’re a culture in trouble?

We denigrate those who oppose us, and we exalt ourselves. Reporting becomes cheerleading, and the state takes upon itself all sorts of powers we would never give it in peacetime. War is the same disease no matter where you are. I think we’ve folded in ourselves since 9/11 completely. We’ve squandered all of the empathy that we had following September 11.

Arthur: Are you angry about the war in Iraq?

Sad is probably a better word. It’s tragic. Tragic is the word I’d use.

Arthur: What can be done? Do we embrace, and come to terms with, the tragic?

I think that to the extent that we can see war for what it is, and war for what it does, both to those arrayed against us and to ourselves, that becomes the best antidote to war. When you understand it, you fear it.