Shamass? What!

fig. 1. Could this be Shamass?

It occurs to me that I haven’t updated all of the loyal Shamassians who, for whatever reasons, have failed to receive the last few Shamass cards (new series). Yeah, that’s right folks, there is a NEW SERIES of Shamass cards circulating in the Shamassoverse!

The good news is that they actually exist. The bad… well, there is no bad news in the Shamassoverse, even when there is.

Some of you will be pleased to know that Shamass has moved to the postcard format–see below–having reached the limits of the folded card and christmas cheer. And some of you, no doubt, will be displeased, whether by this or something else.

You will, however, be most pleased to know that the latest series is a direct sequel to that sometimes puzzling, always entertaining Shamass TV episode we unearthed some years back.

It could be that Shamass is slowly making it’s way to a final denouement, either through exhaustion or plan. Perhaps, in the not too distant future, Shamass will end, or pause at least. And in any case, hasn’t he died already?

For those wanting to peruse those other missives and ill-named “adventures”, the Island of Doctor Shamass calls, as ever.

But for now, and in no particular order apart from their necessary one, here is the latest Shamass story from go to penultimate woe. Apart, that is, from the LATEST postcard that circulates, in the fleshy world of non-virtual objects, even as I write these words…

fig. 2. The Clockwork Masterplan. Late in 2019, where it all begins. Or ends. Or something.

fig. 3 & 4. The next phase in the saga, arrived circa early 2020…

fig. 5 & 6. and the next at the very end of that year…

fig. 7 & 8. and the next, as 2021 drew to a close.
and then…?

A tale of Shamass as told by Miss Verity Hawkins

the sinister science

The following tale was related to me in a dream. Its source is indisputable, as too its author. It first appeared as A Christmas tale in Julius of H. H. B. Shamass, as told to Miss Verity Hawkins, 104 O.P.More Shamass available here.

***

fig. 1. A broken gadget.

He told me of a dream, or was it the memory of a voyage? He found himself in a far country. Alone on a dark plain he was seized by a great birdlike creature that blotted out what little remained of the pitiful sky. Caught up in its talons and their dread passage, he was unsure for a time if he was the bird or the disquiet of the air.

Soon, he was rudely deposited at the gates of a metropolis. He drifted into the sprawling city. Beneath the dismal sun, its citizens existed in a perpetual twilight…

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The doctor who is Shamass

Over at the sinister science, the wretched scientist has cooked up something utterly unspeakable and yet spoken of: Doctor Shamass Day.

the sinister science

fig1. Who is this Doctor?

Today is the 57^th anniversary of the first broadcast of Doctor Who in the UK. Hence it is known in some quarters of the universe as Doctor Who Day.

While celebrating this day in whatever way, as any fan should and must, I have a related anniversary to mark of my own—Doctor Shamass Day, if you will. “Doctor what?” you might well ask.

A bit over 23 years ago I published the first version of a zine called The Journal of Doctor Shamass. I wrote it around the middle of 1996 and self-published it the following year. For those many Shamassians out there, more info on the particulars of this writing and publishing can be found here.

Perhaps Shamass is everything I wished I was—at that time as now: an exotic loner adrift upon the capricious waves of…

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Thinking through The Time Machine

H. G. Wells “The Time Machine”: where it all began? Or where it all went horribly wrong…

the sinister science

The truth of The Time Machine laid bare, having deleted a false idea and replaced it with the right one. Adapted from the Marvel Classics Comics version of The Time Machine, 1976.

Utopia is dystopia

My thoughts often return to H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. Its stark beauty and tragic breadth—30 million years compressed into a short novel. Alongside of Shelley’s Ozymandias and Olaf Stapeldon’s Last and First Men, it is one of the great evocations of the cosmic (in)significance of humanity. And yet its utter pessimism regarding human nature, and now laughable theories regarding evolutionary degeneracy are hard to take. Unfortunately, it is here, in the 1890s, in which the scientific romance, science fiction in all but name, is given a manifesto: utopia is dystopia. The Time Machine is the real beginning of science fiction simply because of this; the line in the sand that marks…

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Doctor Shamass, 1921 — The Final Dialectic

[…]

After the great epic that was A Christmas Tale of H.B. Shamass, 1896, I followed up in 2017 with the first standalone Shamass tale since 2010: A Christmas Tale of H.B. Shamass, 1921. Here we find Shamass amidst the debris of the Russian Revolution, and a revolutionary process rapidly ossifying into the grey behemoth that bloodily marked the twentieth century as much as fascism and the “free” West.

This return to the lonely tale also marked the end of my PhD research at the ANU, in which I appropriately celebrated my freshly minted doctorate with the death of Doctor Shamass.

Stay tuned for more details on this celebrated death and those that rejoiced and mourned.

Doctor Shamass, 1896 – Part 6

[…]

And so it ends. The vast epic that is A Christmas Tale of H.B. Shamass, 1896. Almost four years too late for some of you, but it ends. Here, the sixth and final part of 1896 has swung its way across the world. Some of my readers were lucky enough to receive a printed copy in late 2016 or early 2017. Do forget that you can too join the growing ranks of Shamassians, it’s as easy as I told you so. Conversely you can ignore here: antyphayes [at] gmail [dot] com

As in posts of yore, I can regale you with superfluous directions, and misdirection. For instance, before reading the latest, sixth part (though by no means the latest Shamass related product) you have to read the fifth and the fourth and the so on and so forth and not to forget this one neither–in original zipbook no less.

To recap:

In part 1, Lord Jacks & ass., nemesis par excellence, captured our hero and transported him to the southernmost continent for nefarious ends. As all loyal readers know, such is the case even though this noble blackguard had never yet figured in the back catalogue. Shipwrecked on an icy shore, Shamass, Jacks & some remaining ass. approach the Antarctic plateau and the mysterious entry to the lair of the most enigmatic of souls: Saint Rouge.

In part 2, Doctor Shamass, Jacks & some remaining ass. find succor in the Lair of Saint Rouge, co-conspirator of Lord Jacks. But wait, Saint Rouge is not in league with Jacks, he is a saltwort friend of the good Doctor! Alas Jacks finds out this noble deception and after a brief but decisive struggle throws Shamass into the vast dark of the hollowed out Earth [cf. the diagram on the back of the 1896 (cont.) card].

In part 3, Doctor Shamass, flung into the vast and empty void within the (hollow) Earth itself, fell and dreamt of other days and impossible things.

In part 4, the good Doctore, having been kidnapped, carted, shipwrecked, and sword fightin’, plunging-through-the-very-centre-of-the-earth-n’-rescued-from-the-howling-wastes-of-the-North-Pole-by-themysterious-Miss-X, discovers himself once more in the clinging grasp of his sinister nemesis par excellence. A battle ensues.

In Part 5, Doc S., having been kidnapped, bludgeoned, freighted, shipwrecked and sword fightin’, plunging-through-the-very-centre-n’-rescued-from-the-howling-wastes-of-the-North-by-the-mysterious-Miss-Hawkins, made hasty exit. Meanwhile, stage left a dream ensues. Still later at the end of time and all of creation (or so it seems) he discovers himself once more, with she, amidst familiar blobs of ancient sagacity.

Now read on…

[and don’t forget all things Shamass here]

Updated updated archives

I suspect I do still care.

Check out the new new order!

I’ve finally got around to organising, again, this blog some. I have updated ‘Shamass’, ‘Video’ and ‘Zines’ on the menu above (next to ‘Home’ and ‘About’) or have a guernsey here:

Zines

Shamass

Videos

Yes I have made stuff. More than I sometimes think I have. So much more to construct!

And over at my other blog, notes from the sinister quarter, I have started another archive. But it hasn’t been updated updated, so don’t even bother. Thanks. The end.

closed planet

“trapped”

check out the new story this planet closed at closedplanet.wordpress.com

Whatever happened to Dr Shamass?

[front]

[back]

For a variety of reasons I haven’t been able to produce a Shamass card this year. So instead you’ll have to plump for an electronic missive–an e-postcard no less. And, indeed, this is the face of things to come. Though hopefully I’ll be back with a physical publication next year, in convenient postcard form.

Looking over the vast Shamass repository that makes up much of this anticipative library at the end of time, I notice that I haven’t uploaded a Shamass card since December 2016. Those of youse who receive the Shamass card by way of the post offices of the world know that there have been two more since then, including one in which that exhausting saga involving no less a personage than Lord Jacks & ass. finally came to an end. So, in the upcoming weeks or days I will endeavour to bring the timeless Dr Shamass up to date or at least in sync with one version of the present.

In the meantime, feast your eyes upon the hi-res card (above) or a low-res PDF here.

The new politics?

from Notes from the sinister quarter

.

I designed this image for an imaginary zine called ANTIANTIPOETRYPOETRY dated 1 March 2016. That means it’s been sitting in my dropbox since at least then, maybe a bit before. I called it “the new politics”.

There is little new in Trump’s playbook. Sure the details have changed. Technology has rolled on, capitalism has developed across the globe. If Trump is not a fascist, in the classical sense, then maybe he is a new type of fascist? Or emblematic of a softening of “mainstream” politics for fascism?

Fascism is a form of capital’s rule, one exception in what is already a too long exception.

Is this a new politics? Hardly. A (new) anti-politics? But politics has always been anti. It is the reduction of something to something, the rendering identical of an abstract capacity, whether as a citizen or refugee, worker or consumer.

The politics of the…

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