No Fear of the Future

"Don Webb is a genius. He's not widely appreciated. There are some things mankind was not meant to know." -- Bruce Sterling.

One of our genre's great achievements in recent years has been the successful infiltration of the mainstream with a fresh infusion of winking fabulism — explorations of *everyday magic* lurking in the suburban American psychoscape — neighborhood zombies, television programs that invade reality, flea market talismans. Horror tropes repainted with anime eyes in a literary variation of pop surrealism that subtly flags the signposts of contemporary middle-class consciousness, documenting the obliteration of the barriers between reality and imagination.

Then there's Don Webb. Old school slipstream with a stiffer proof, practiced by an actual Magus. They grow their fabulists differently in Amarillo. Maybe it's the nuclear effluent in the water.



Don Webb has been floating clandestine balloons of eldritch literature (mostly in short form -- hundreds of them) since the 1980s. These tiny wonders are beautiful terrors that occupy some unlit zone between Lovecraft and Nabokov. The stories have Don's hypnotic voice, the one he uses to set off flares in the minds of his writing students, a voice that knows how to turn words into spells. They sneak up on you, burrow in behind your pineal gland, and don't leave.

Don Webb is the Left Hand Paul Harvey, broadcasting secret messages to you on an AM wavelength that's not supposed to be there any more.

So go buy the May issue of FSF, turn to p. 108, read "The Great White Bed," and see if you don't agree. Then go buy the new collection When They Came, and wait for the apparition on the cover to start illuminating your dreams.

I've seen as many as five turtles at one time, here, where the outflow from a sewage treatment plant spills into a drainage ditch. They weren't itty bitty wildlings or poor little pet turtles trying to make it in the wild. The day I saw five, two of them were at least twelve inches long from nose to tail tip.

They were odd turtles. Flat and pale. The three little ones looked like animated pancakes. The big ones were quick and wary - one glance at me and they dove under the patch of turbulent water and vanished from sight. When I made myself inconspicuous and waited, they resumed their usual activities. One of the big ones buried itself in some sand and debris under the water, from which it stretched a v-e-r-y l-o-n-g neck up to the air.

Given big funny-looking turtles in a smelly drainage ditch in the middle of Houston, amid outflow from a sewage treatment plant, with lurid green algae at the edges of the water, I started wondering if these were mutant turtles. With a bit of research, though, I discovered that they are probably a species called the spiny soft-shell turtle. Descriptions of appearance and behavior perfectly match what I observed.

Nature has plenty of weird wonders, and even wild things that manage to live in the bowels of a big city.

I know there's going to be a rational explanation from a meteorology/planetology standpoint regarding this phenomenon. I fully understand that intellectually. But damn, that doesn't make this any less freaky. Cue von Daniken's and Hoagland's disciples:

Cassini Images Bizarre Hexagon on Saturn
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
March 27, 2007

Pasadena, Calif. -- An odd, six-sided, honeycomb-shaped feature circling
the entire north pole of Saturn has captured the interest of scientists
with NASA's Cassini mission.

NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft imaged the feature over two decades
ago. The fact that it has appeared in Cassini images indicates that it
is a long-lived feature. A second hexagon, significantly darker than the
brighter historical feature, is also visible in the Cassini pictures.
The spacecraft's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer is the first
instrument to capture the entire hexagon feature in one image.

"This is a very strange feature, lying in a precise geometric fashion
with six nearly equally straight sides," said Kevin Baines, atmospheric
expert and member of Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer
team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We've never
seen anything like this on any other planet. Indeed, Saturn's thick
atmosphere where circularly-shaped waves and convective cells dominate
is perhaps the last place you'd expect to see such a six-sided geometric
figure, yet there it is."

The hexagon is similar to Earth's polar vortex, which has winds blowing
in a circular pattern around the polar region. On Saturn, the vortex
has a hexagonal rather than circular shape. The hexagon is nearly 25,000
kilometers (15,000 miles) across. Nearly four Earths could fit inside it.

The new images taken in thermal-infrared light show the hexagon extends
much deeper down into the atmosphere than previously expected, some 100
kilometers (60 miles) below the cloud tops. A system of clouds lies
within the hexagon. The clouds appear to be whipping around the hexagon
like cars on a racetrack.

"It's amazing to see such striking differences on opposite ends of
Saturn's poles," said Bob Brown, team leader of the Cassini visual and
infrared mapping spectrometer, University of Arizona, Tucson. "At the
south pole we have what appears to be a hurricane with a giant eye, and
at the north pole of Saturn we have this geometric feature, which is
completely different."

The Saturn north pole hexagon has not been visible to Cassini's visual
cameras, because it's winter in that area, so the hexagon is under the
cover of the long polar night, which lasts about 15 years. The infrared
mapping spectrometer can image Saturn in both daytime and nighttime
conditions and see deep inside. It imaged the feature with thermal
wavelengths near 5 microns (seven times the wavelength visible to the
human eye) during a 12-day period beginning on Oct. 30, 2006. As winter
wanes over the next two years, the feature may become visible to the
visual cameras.

Based on the new images and more information on the depth of the
feature, scientists think it is not linked to Saturn's radio emissions
or to auroral activity, as once contemplated, even though Saturn's
northern aurora lies nearly overhead.

The hexagon appears to have remained fixed with Saturn's rotation rate
and axis since first glimpsed by Voyager 26 years ago. The actual
rotation rate of Saturn is still uncertain.

"Once we understand its dynamical nature, this long-lived, deep-seated
polar hexagon may give us a clue to the true rotation rate of the deep
atmosphere and perhaps the interior," added Baines.

The hexagon images and movie, including the north polar auroras are
available at: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov
and http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the
European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and
assembled at JPL. The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer team is
based at the University of Arizona.

On February 1, 2005, the Associated Press reported the following:

"BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi militants claimed in a Web statement Tuesday to have taken an American soldier hostage and threatened to behead him in 72 hours unless the Americans release Iraqi prisoners. The U.S. military said it was investigating, but the claim’s authenticity could not be immediately confirmed.



"The posting, on a Web site that frequently carried militants’ statements, included a photo of what that statement said was an American soldier, wearing desert fatigues and seated on a concrete floor with his hands tied behind his back. The figure in the photo appeared stiff and expressionless, and the photo’s authenticity could not be confirmed."

Savvy bloggers quickly determined why the abducted soldier looked so stiff. He was an actual 12", 1:6 scale action figure, the gun at his head his own plastic rifle.



Score one for the media jammers. Two years later, the source of the hoax has never been revealed. Disappeared into the abyss of memory with all the other fast-burning sparklers of fear and irony decorating the spectacular mass psychic nightmare of the GWOT, alongside the unsolved anthrax mailings and the tales of the Barney theme being blasted off the walls of improvised shipping containers on the Syrian border, postmodern tool of enemy combatant torture.



The abducted "toy" was Dragon Models' "Special Forces Cody," one of a series of highly detailed real-time poseable action figures for the GWOT produced at headline news speed by postmodern Gepettos in their hidden Hong Kong ateliers. Others included "Tora Bora Ted," "Swift Freedom Delta Force Frank," Covert CIA Agents "Smith and Jones," and Operation Iraqi Freedom gunners "Jackson & Pollack." Retailing at north of 50ドル per figure, these are not designed for your neighborhood 9-year-old. Rather, they are cryptic simulations that bridge the gap between plasticine adolescent ideas of gear-laden action manhood and mediated CNN reality.



I admit against interest that a few of these once cluttered my desktop as ironic totems and well-armed paperweights. A ready team led by Presidential Aviator George W. Bush, fully outfitted to drop a MOAB from his B-2 — Mission: Accomplished.



The only things missing to complete the realer-than-real simulation on these are some of those secret personal dossier file cards like the ones that accompanied G.I. Joes during the 1980s — character writeups with key characteristics, specialties, skills and a bit of personal backstory, equal parts RPG and Mission:Impossible.



The master modelers need look no further than the compleat strategists over at the Defense Intelligence Agency, where you can download a comprehensive set of "Terrorist Recognition Cards" ready for compilation as the deadliest, most ass-kicking set of bubblegum collectibles ever — as if those WWII aircraft recognition cards that trained you to search the sky for enemy silhouettes had been cross-bred with the horror show of "Mars Attacks."



Organized in nifty teams by color-coded regions (red for Afghanistan/Pakistan, green for Iraq, burnt orange for The Horn of Africa, yellow for the Arabian Peninsula, and blue for Southeast Asia), they look to have been put together by some out-of-work members of the Marvel Bullpen, complete with little graphic icons to represent character types: jeweled crown for "Senior Leader," stack of documents for "Operational Planner," gamer soldier for "Tactician," cartoon scimitar for "Operative," loaded forklift for "Facilitator," notepad and pen for "Recruiter," and my personal fave, a little Stratego-style bomb with lit fuse for "Explosives." All you need is a couple of twelve-sided die and you are good to go. I'll trade you two Zakariya Essabars for your Harun Fazul!



We wait anxiously for DIA to cut a licensing deal with Hasbro for a full line of GWOT action figures.

(In another section of the DIA website, they have the agency's collection of military art -- essentially the covers of unwritten science fiction sequels to Ice Station Zebra, featuring imaginative envisionings of Cold War era Soviet weaponry. That's my kind of Pentagon bureau. I wonder if they have any openings.)



Perhaps the most important icon on the Terrorist Trading Cards is the little stack of black cash: "Reward for Capture." You know, so when you see a likely terrorist taking pictures of your office building or lurking at you nearest mall, you can pull out the recognition card, and, if there's a cash icon, run to the nearest computer, login to rewardsforjustice.net, and file a report to get your own personal war on terror lottery ticket.

"Help Stop Terrorism

What you know could be worth millions!

If you have information about past or future acts of international terrorism, send us a tip now.

CLICK HERE

You and your family may be eligible for relocation.

Strict confidentiality is assured."

Integrate all of this ready-for-play content and you have the mother-of-all killer apps for a 21st century mobile phone-based game of Assassin with a healthy dose of America's Most Wanted.

Don't believe the hype? Check out the slideshow on the hooded Filipino collecting a suitcase full of Ben Franklins from an unnamed US Embassy official who looks like Paul Bartel making his posthumous cameo on 24.



"You and your family may be eligible for relocation." No purchase necessary? Keep an eye on those secretive new neighbors. They may be under relocation, they may have their own trading cards, or maybe the kid just has his own trunkful of next generation toys for a Zeitgeist fueled by the Power of Nightmares.

I'm a materialist, and as such have a condescending, patronizing, and even punch-in-the-face-able attitude toward devout people with out-of-the-mainstream religious beliefs. (By which I mean snake handlers, Pentacostalists, Five Percenters, religious xenoglossiacs, and the like). It's not that I'm impolite about it; my parents raised me to prefer the bastinado to ever expressing an opinion which would make someone else feel condescended to, patronized, or just looked down upon. Even so, I know that, when speaking with true believers, my face (however much against my will) takes on an expression somewhere between "You're kidding, right?" and "You actually believe that? That's so cute!"

In truth, I envy true believers. In describing one of my ex-girlfriends I said that I wished I was as sure of anything as she was of everything. I wish I was as sure of any aspect of God or divinely-dictated morality as the true believers are of all of them. Most especially, I wish I felt that I lived in a universe whose basic element was religious narrativium. It'd certainly be a more comforting place to live in than the one I've got.

For example, there's the practitioners of Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare, or SLSW. A simple Google search will turn up a number of articles, like "Strategic-Level Spiritual Warfare in Historical Retrospect" or "Spirit Mapping in the City of Chennai, India," but a search of the literature gave me Samuel Hio-Kee Ooi's article in the Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies v9n1 (2006): "A Study of Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare From a Chinese Perspective."

Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare is a relatively recent phenomenon, the phrase itself having been invented in the early 1990s. The basic concept is that (quoting Peter Wagner, at a symposium on power evangelicism),

Satan delegates high-ranking members of the hierarchy of evil spirits to control nations, regions, cities, tribes, people groups, neighborhoods and other significant social networks of human beings throughout the world. Their major assignment is to prevent God from being glorified in their territory, which they do through directing the activity of lower-ranking demons.

Another evangelical site (whose text is saved here) tells us that there are three kinds of Satan-sent evil spirits: "ground-level," which only possess people; "occult-level," which empower "witches, shamans, and magicians;" and "strategic-level" or "territorial," which are the most powerful and which rule over entire territories. The latter are powerful enough to keep the people of their territories in "bondage, sin and darkness," so much so that even the gospel itself cannot penetrate. The demons must therefore be "identified," "bound," "overcome" and "rebuked" in prayer.

Toward this end, Ooi says, there are certain proven steps to take against these demons:

First, seek the name of the ruling spirit and identify its territory; second, seek the function of demons in a particular area; third, if demons occupy a neighborhood, perform a "prayer walk;" and if the demon controls a city, a "praise march;" and if a demon exercises power over a region, a "prayer expedition;" and if a demon rules in a nation, a "prayer journey." The technical name for seeking and digging out the locations and powers of demons is "spiritual mapping."

Peter Wagner's Breaking Strongholds in Your City gives the example of La Plata, Argentina, in which it was discovered that the strategic-level spirit was "the god of freemasonry--Jah-Bal-On." Jah-Bal-On's lieutenants were "a spirit of lust, spirit of violence, spirit of witchcraft, (and) spirit of living death." Also present in the city and influencing its inhabitants were Osiris and Isis. In Resistencia, Argentina, the territorial spirit was Piton, the spirit of witchcraft, who was empowering San La Muerte (the spirit of death), Pombero (the spirit of fear), and Currpi (the spirit of sexual perversion).

Your reaction to the preceding is likely like mine, and doesn't need to be described.

But...am I the only one to feel, on some level, jealousy toward the practitioners of SLSW? These men--I assume they're all men, given the Pentecostal attitude toward women--are living the lives of the heroes of fantasy novels, or comic book superheroes. The SLSW practitioners travel to a city, state, or country, confront demons, and defeat them, thereby freeing the afflicted from the grip of Satan. (From the SLSW practitioner's own perspective, of course--but isn't that all that any of us have?). The lives of SLSW practitioners are lacking the randomness and unsurety which materialists like me must accept as a fact of life. What the SLSW practitioners have instead is religious narrativium, with themselves as the heroes. The rest of us get plots written by Raymond Carver or John Cheever; the SLSW practioners get plots written by William Hope Hodgson (in his Carnacki stories) or Algernon Blackwood (in his John Silence stories). The SLSW practitioners are Buffy or Angel or the Charmed trio in their own lives. I'm...not.

I wouldn't swap my own delusions for those of the SLSW practitioners, but I do envy them their self-image.

I have a story coming out in Horrors Beyond II – Stories of Strange Creations. This is a new anthology from Elder Signs Press. In addition to the regular trade paperback, there will be a hardcover and a trade paperback limited edition signed by the authors. So in the last few months, a ream box containing many sheets of cotton bond paper journeyed around the country to each author in turn. We had to autograph every signature sheet, inside the margins indicated by a signing guide, being sure to leave room for the other twenty signatures. It was all meticulously organized by the editors of ESP, with crystal-clear instructions, but....

Signing one's name on enough pages to fill a ream box – now that was horror!

Actually it wasn't as taxing as I expected. With a smooth-flowing pen, the signing guide paperclipped to a firm piece of cardboard, and a good-sized desk surface to work on, it was a snap.An odd thing happened, though:about a third of the way through, my hand forgot how to make the "n" in my last name. I broke off, rested my hand, and studied my signature on the first few pages in the ream box. But the trick was to be in unthinking reflex mode.When I paid some bills and signed my name on the checks, that got my name-signing reflex right back on track and all was well.

My story in the anthology is titled "The Mortification of the Flesh."

P. S.I borrowed from the library the CD mentioned in my February 13 blog ("From the Sublime to Something Else") to give it a listen. The CD is Gregorian Chant Elvis Presley, performed by the Brotherhood of St. Gregory. It's less exotic than I expected. But more disconcerting. The music sounds like a cross between steamy Presley lyrics and guileless folk mass instruments (especially guitar) and voices (especially tenors).Pointed cognitive dissonance ensues when hearing the word "can't," as in "Can't Help Falling in Love," sung with church-chorister pronunciation: cahn't.

Yesterday I talked about the evolving state of virtual book promotion and publicity, and suggested that in the latest hot trend to hit the online world--Second Life--virtual rights for virtual books by authors' online avatars would soon be selling for real world money. While that hasn't exactly happened yet (that I know of) I opened up today's San Antonio Express-News and discover a feature on Metaversatility, a company that specializes in positioning real-world companies advantageously in the virtual realm of Second Life:

In the past year, dozens of companies have bought land, launched businesses and started marketing campaigns in Second Life, including IBM, Dell, CBS, NBC and Toyota.

Metaversatility has already landed some big clients. Last month, the company designed key elements of Advanced Micro Devices' Developers Central Pavilion in Second Life. AMD plans to use the space for meetings, lectures and networking opportunities.

Corporations are now choosing the virtual world of Second Life for meetings, as opposed to the old standby conference call. The mind boggles. This is so close to the science fictional holographic gathering that I have to wonder how far off that leap in technology may actually be. Of course, it takes the virtual gathering a step beyond the simple popular culture view by introducing the entire avatar element. No matter how widespread this practice becomes, I have a hard time envisioning a corporation like, say, IBM gathering in a Second Life boardroom with a Sleestack knockoff debating long-term quantum computing viability with a scantily-clad Warrior Princess.

Six months ago, International Business Machines Corp. launched a business devoted to designing business applications for the virtual world. IBM recently designed spaces in Second Life for Sears and Circuit City, and it is working with more than 250 customers, said Sandy Kearney, program director for IBM's 3-D Internet and virtual business.

The virtual world offers lots of opportunities for media and entertainment, financial services, government and retail companies, Kearney said. For many companies, their virtual world plans are in the strategic early stages.

But maybe that's the appeal. Do button-down dress codes apply in Second Life? I know the virtual society has its own evolving etiquette, but how long before corporations begin issuing guidelines and dress codes for employees' online avatars? The obvious parallels to The Matrix notwithstanding, I find it fascinating to watch how an intangible virtual world is developing such a tangible presence in the real world.