Narcissus' Wristwatch
It’s October 7, which sounds like a craft beer or a jam band from Duluth. Here’s the Potpourri.
Fog of Warp
The COVID-19 brain fog is doing a number on me. I’d planned to take a trip this weekend, but had to cancel. Instead I am lolling about on strange, grisonnant brainwaves. I am reminded of the beautiful, hand-painted seas and skies of the late-90s computer game The Curse of Monkey Island, which began with hero Guybrush Threepwood marooned in the Caribbean in a derelict bumper car.
Satyrs, Faeries, and Fauns, oh my!
I missed my Friday deadline for this issue, but as usual I gave myself the grace of Saturday morning. Speaking of fantasy beasties, I’m trying to get into Baldur’s Gate 3, but it’s an unwieldy load of byzantine TTRPG rules and dorky fantasy writing that doesn’t add up to much thematically beyond a frisson of geek-chic podcast. It’s a very accomplished game, but not really my thing—like achaar, or F1 racing, or socks with funny messages on them.
Beyond the Curve
I ordered a cheap used copy of Kobo Abe’s short fiction collection Beyond the Curve, which doesn’t seem to be in print in English anymore. eBay is a useful secondary market for these things. This is good sick-time reading, Kafkaesque stories of hellish individuality in a rigid world of gesture and procedure. I was inspired to pick this up so I could read The Life of a Poet, the source material for Kihachiro Kawamoto’s haunting animated short of the same name. Intertextuality, baby!
Salted Caramel Pop Chips
Not much to say, they’re just tasty. I lost about 50% of my taste and smell during the first week of COVID. I’m back up to 80% now and feeling grateful; small delights keep the train moving.
Autumn Trees Lining Streets
Another small delight. I saw many today during some (masked, distanced) errands to restock my larder. Golden yellow. Orange and red soon to follow.
Stumptown Coffee Roasters
Grocery store coffee beans aren’t usually the move, but I’m having a good time with Stumptown. Trader Joe’s specialty roasts are pretty good as well. It’s all more expensive, of course, but you tangibly get what you pay for, and I always appreciate that.
Time is a Ribboning Pool,
and Narcissus is the aperture through which the pool observes itself. Seriously, this brain fog is pretty intense. Days and hours dilating in strange permutations. Dreams of unasked-for ultraviolence. Stints in blank euphoria. A faint and gristling urgency, like the kernel of some inexpressible mania. Moral: Get your boosters!
—Dara K. Marzipan