Postscript for November 2023
Themes of memory, nostalgia, and rebirth emerged entirely unplanned in November’s stories, though the last story of the month trends more toward essay, which also happens to be what it’s about. My tendency to write stories featuring books continues in this month’s slate, and the first story that directly references other Hyperjabber stories appears here.
I find the possibilities of this sort of cross-referencing and hyperlinking exciting because that’s how these stories exist in my mind. They aren’t isolated from each other in discrete, well-defined units, but rather they have fuzzy edges that bleed together and overlap. To be honest, my imagination is a tangled mess of imagery, ideas, characters, quotes, sentences, and words. Hyperjabber is, to a large extent, a way for me to make sense of that big ball of chaos. If you think the stories are strange, imagine what it’s like inside my head.
There’s more to it, though. When reading, I enjoy the repetitions and echos of words and phrases not only because of the poetic pleasure they give, but also because they build thematic loops and open the story to a deeper kind of appreciation. I want to apply those same sorts of techniques across the stories and essays I write on Hyperjabber. I want motifs to echo across multiple stories rather than just reverberate within a single story. I think this will add an extra dimension of enjoyment for readers interested in exploring the entire archive, and I’ll have a ton of fun developing and refining these recurring motifs. Hopefully, this sounds intriguing to you too.
Enough of that, on to the stories.
The Vermillion Menace of “Hyperreal” — This review of an imaginary novel continues a thread begun in “Chatterbox,” and reveals my fascination with the hyperreal, though my treatment of it diverges from how Baudrillard and Eco originally conceptualized it. When I started, the blend of cyberpunk and hyperreal seemed even better than peanut butter and chocolate, and looking back now, I really like the way it all came together. I don’t feel that I’m done with this invented novel, so be prepared for its characters and motif’s to reappear in other stories.
Emporium of Memory — I started with the memory of the bookshop in Brattleboro, and then my imagination created an amalgamation of all of the other shops I’ve known, including the delightful J. Michaels Books here in Eugene and the awesome Powell’s up in Portland. Not to be outdone, my muse embarked on a collecting spree and added imaginary shops to the mix, such as the wonderful A. Z. Fell & Co. from Good Omens and Monsieur Labisse’s expansive bookstore in Hugo. Finally, my whimsy brought in The Stygian Library by Emmy Allen, a lovely roleplaying adventure which resonated perfectly with my conception of this story.
The Ouroboros and the Alchemy of Rebirth — You know how sometimes you have to invent an ancient philosopher to properly comment on a new electronic funk album? That’s what happened here. Abaraxas represents an imagined branch of alchemy that draws on the ideas of Plotinus as well as modern music theory and sound design. Think of it as philosophical music from an alternate history. Also, if you get a chance, definitely give Ouroboros by GRiZ a listen. Even if you’re not a fan of electronic music, I think this will get your head nodding.
Reality Lasagna — An essay laced with fiction about writing essays laced with fiction. As mentioned in the last Postscript, self-referential posts about Hyperjabber are not uncommon because I’m always trying to understand the writing I do here and how it fits into the wider world of literature (meaning works of both fiction and nonfiction of any type and genre). I recently read that Lydia Davis described her writings as stories, but not short stories. A short story, as she used the term, referred to a literary form, a specific set of conventions and expectations developed over the past several centuries. Her stories, which I love and return to frequently, are short, often very short, but they don’t cling to those conventions and they don’t seek to satisfy those expectations. Her short stories are not necessarily short stories. That works for me.
