AN INVITATION TO UNLOAD!

I'll bet a lot of Authonomites were weird kids--weren't you??

Now I'm a somewhat respected member of the community, as my bio indicates. But it was not always so.

When I was 17, I used to consort with juvenile delinquents. They had already been incarcerated in a tough reform "school"--actually a juvenile prison in Illinois, the one used for the film Bad Boys starring Sean Penn.

They were pretty tough. By comparison I was a nerd and a weakling. But I controlled them. It helped that they were stupid and gullible, like most criminals.

How did I control them? you ask. When they wanted to rob liquor stores or commit other crimes, I told them H.P. Lovecraft stories. But not as fiction. As REALITY. I made them cry (really! I'm not kidding! They almost wet their pants!) and forget their nefarious schemes. As long as I was around, they committed no crimes. I didn't want to have the police interested in me, so I just abused my companions' dull imaginations without mercy.

I no longer abuse people's imaginations (I hope), but I do enjoy reading or telling a horror yarn with a certain amount of style. Also with some really funny moments.

A Stony Path contains stories and poems and is here mainly for comments, not backings. Comments are welcome also on Faust's Butterfly.

Posted: 28/10/2009 12:33:29
Last Edit: 04/01/2012 01:44:26 by William Holt

report abuse

I'll bet a lot of Authonomy participants were weird kids--weren't you??

Now I'm a somewhat respected member of the community. But it was not always so.

When I was 17, I used to hang out with juvenile delinquents. They had already done time in a tough reform "school"--actually a juvenile prison in Illinois, the one used for the film Bad Boys starring Sean Penn.

They were pretty tough. By comparison I was a nerd and a weakling. But I controlled them. It helped that they were stupid and gullible, like most criminals.

How did I control them? you ask. When they wanted to rob liquor stores or commit other crimes, I told them H.P. Lovecraft stories. But not as fiction. As REALITY. I made them cry (really! I'm not kidding! They almost wet their pants!) and forget their nefarious schemes. As long as I was around, they committed no crimes. I didn't want to have the police interested in me, so I just abused my companions' dull imaginations without mercy.

I no longer abuse people's imaginations, but i do enjoy reading or telling a horror yarn with a certain amount of style. Also with some really funny moments.

Faust's Butterfly--a creature not to be provoked if you know what's good for you. http://www.authonomy.com/ViewBook.aspx?bookid=12929

I think I ended up as a "weird adult" anyone who wears bloodstained helms all day long, well ... you have to wonder. Just wanted to say hi, read your book last night and gave you a winded review. I still need to read on, I'm stalking Faust ....

JP




Posted: 28/10/2009 22:14:21
Last Edit: 29/10/2009 00:55:48 by JP Noel

report abuse

Nota bene: This is maybe silly, but in Faust's Butterfly I'm attempting to let my unseen narrator be a sort of anti-Lovecraft. My dad was a good critic of prose, and when, at 17, I persuaded him to read one of HPL's short stories--"The Colour Out of Space" maybe? he came across the expression "crystalline horror."

"What," he asked, "is this writer trying to say by this pair of incompatibles?" And I had no answer.

you ever read The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen? I heard Lovecraft really liked it, so I read it and was utterly blown away.

Posted: 28/10/2009 22:16:20

report abuse

Weird? You call that weird?

When I was a teenager you had to start with the sociopaths before you could graduate to the delinquents. They were practically saints.

Posted: 28/10/2009 22:17:42

report abuse

I'm weird
I'm technically still 'growing up'
I'm definitely a weirdo. I have no real friends, my best conversations are with myself, my humour is extremely juvenile, I'm obsessed with vampires to the point of addiction, I'm a book worm....the list goes on....

OH!
And I like people who have mental disorders. Not serial killer types, the ones who can reign it in. It's weird that I imagine my perfect guy to have a weird mind. Someone who has had to endure treatment because of their mind. It's hard to explain...
I basically like dangerous men...

Posted: 28/10/2009 22:19:38
Last Edit: 28/10/2009 22:23:23 by Poison Ivy

report abuse

Nota bene: This is maybe silly, but in Faust's Butterfly I'm attempting to let my unseen narrator be a sort of anti-Lovecraft. My dad was a good critic of prose, and when, at 17, I persuaded him to read one of HPL's short stories--"The Colour Out of Space" maybe? he came across the expression "crystalline horror."

"What," he asked, "is this writer trying to say by this pair of incompatibles?" And I had no answer.

I finally, though, got to use that word "crystalline," with which I have always been in love, a little more precisely than old HPL did. It happened in rather a dispiriting poem, and that poem was one of several seeds (minor field--biological science, specializing in invertebrates; a nightmare; another poem; Philip Wylie's The End of the Dream; Aldo Leopold's Sand County Almanac; Loren Eiseley's many short essays; etc) that finally led to Faust's Butterfly. In case anyone is interested, here's the poem:

Vacation

Things in my office, vacant of life, wait--
the earthbrown carpet for the vacuum,
paper for a vacancy in a file,
a clock for someone to need the time
its crystalline cycling the only movement
in this small dead world
since the poisons entered.
Crickets, silverfish, psocids lie about
in corners, under papers, behind books.
I shall find their skeletons when I return--
brittle, dust-light, empty, their dry insect odor
masked by a lingering poison perfume.
I shall check the clock; I shall wonder
how much time is left.

My bones weigh more than an insect's.
My flesh hangs heavily upon them.
I wonder, will enough of me still be left
to interest these insects' kin
when they begin
their long vacation
from us
and even our poisons
decay?

Posted: 29/10/2009 01:48:19
Last Edit: 03/04/2010 00:32:22 by William Holt

report abuse

When all the other kids were doing their gymnastics routines to New Kids on the Block I was doing mine to Bonnie Raitt.

I remain kinda weird to this day.

Posted: 29/10/2009 01:50:11

report abuse

Great! Please send more weirdness! Little weird, big weird, doesn't matter! I'll bet we could weird each other out with our various odd propensities, priorities, and even paranormalities!

The most interesting people on earth appear to have gravitated to this website.

Posted: 29/10/2009 02:03:53
Last Edit: 29/10/2009 02:06:02 by William Holt

report abuse

Weird? You call that weird?

When I was a teenager you had to start with the sociopaths before you could graduate to the delinquents. They were practically saints.

And where was this? I grew up near Chicago. I thought I had the most evil acquaintances anyone could wish for.

Somebody from Detroit came there a while back and said, "I thought Detroit was corrupt through and through until I came to Chicago and found out that REAL gangsters control everything there."

Posted: 29/10/2009 02:08:59

report abuse

Nota bene: This is maybe silly, but in Faust's Butterfly I'm attempting to let my unseen narrator be a sort of anti-Lovecraft. My dad was a good critic of prose, and when, at 17, I persuaded him to read one of HPL's short stories--"The Colour Out of Space" maybe? he came across the expression "crystalline horror."

"What," he asked, "is this writer trying to say by this pair of incompatibles?" And I had no answer.

I loved Lovecraft. But although some of his stuff was undoubtedly down-and-dirty horror (all the rats stuff - ick) some of it was science fiction. Especially 'At the Mountains of Madness'.

Posted: 29/10/2009 02:10:53

report abuse