We were woken up by the crash of something large and fragile, not in the bedroom but somewhere close, definitely inside the apartment. The first inclination was to blame Dante or Zephyr, but they seemed equally perplexed as we examined the crystal decanters in the dining room and the earthenware collection in the living room and found all of these pieces intact. The orchids remained perfectly still -- perhaps even indignantly so -- in front of the window, and we resisted the temptation to contemplate The George Washington Bridge, lit up like a giant circus tent over the Hudson, as we turned our attention to the more remote areas from which we surmised the noise must have come. In fact, as we soon discovered, two shelves in the maid's bathroom had collapsed under the weight of the twenty or thirty bath sheets kept on hand for the hordes of guests we know will never arrive--the gay recluse never entertains except in theory--which had fallen from a height of perhaps 12 feet onto a smaller glass shelf above the sink, itself left intact, but from which a small vase had been knocked to the ground, where it now lay shattered on the tiles among the heaps of towels, fractured shelving, and scattered cloves that had been contained in the vase. Though the damage was admittedly slight and took less than five minutes to clean up, we found it impossible to return to sleep as we questioned why the shelf--stable for so many years, and holding the exact same number of towels--had chosen this particular moment to free itself from its moorings. At three in the morning, it becomes difficult to consider such a question without a mix of terrible dread and expectation, as if it were our own life about to be unhinged from the walls of reality.
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09/20/2007
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A RADICAL NEW MYTH ABOUT SEX, FAITH, AND THOSE OF US WHO WILL NEVER DIE
A young boy wanders into the woods of Harlem and witnesses the abduction of his sister by a glowing creature. Forty years later, now working as a New York City homicide detective, Gus is assigned to a case in which he unexpectedly succumbs to a vision that Helen is still alive. To find her, he embarks on an uorthodox investigation that leads to an ancient civilization of gods and the people determined to bring them back.
In this colossal new novel from the author of The Metropolis Case, the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice collides with a new religion founded by three corporate office workers, creating something beautiful, illogical, and overwhelming. Part sex manifesto, part religious text, part Manhattan noir—with a dose of deadly serious, internet inspired satire—#gods is a sprawling inquest into the nature of faith and resistance in the modern world. With each turn of the page, #gods will leave you increasingly reborn.
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-- The New York Times
Music: Death Culture at Sea and Saturnine
Listen or download songs and records from my indie-rock past with Saturnine here and Death Culture at Sea here.
Music Video: Remembrance of Things Past
Watch the rock opera Remembrance of Things Past written and performed by Saturnine and Frances Gibson, starring Bennett Madison and Sheila McClear.
Video: The Chaos Detective
The Chaos Detective is a series about a man searching for 'identity' as he completes assignments from a mysterious organization. Watch the first episode (five parts) on YouTube.
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