Eager to interview the looming figures of this ficto-quizzical milieu, I set sights on Quagczar, self-proclaimed “lord of the bog.”  Difficult to pin down generally, but I lucked out this time by following a trail of cine-molecular and geological fault lines emanating from a wormhole rupture in space-time.  This portal—a gateway once dormant –was cracked open just the other day by the out-of-place activities of Lord Quag and colleagues in a subterranean locale in SE India, believe it or not –provided a makeshift uplink.  Through whatever mechanisms brought me into contact with Lord Quag,  I am grateful.  This entity was a bit of a curmudgeon, but we had a spirited exchange nonetheless…once things were rolling… Much of that can be evidenced in this generous excerpt:

Metaphortean Researcher (MR): paging quagczar

Lord Quagczar (LQ): Lord Quag, available for messaging from the beyond

MR: Excellent.  First off, thanks so much for taking time and space for me, a humble humanoid…there is much to discuss before our wormhole connection seals up and separates our worlds

LQ: Humbled you should be. Although not my choice, I have been commanded to protect you humanoids’ mindspace from invasions internal and external. So taking time out to clear up mythconceptions is only my job please, proceed.

MR: When do cyber/virtual appendages become flesh?  There’s the urban legend of man who never changed underwear and his skin grew over it…when do virtual extensions become as unconscious as this curious claim?

LQ: It depends on one’s point of view and one’s view of the point. One of my disciples  Gregory Bateson had much to say on this front…He spoke of a man with a cane, and asked where the man ended and the world began, the cane being an extension of his arm. Recent research has shown that the mind temporarily considers artifacts part of the body

MR: something like tangible computing, but home-grown?

LQ: Yes, but it becomes a bit more fuzzy and amorphous when the artifacts are largely informational, ephemeral, and existing in spectrums unseen or unperceived

MR: Speaking of ephemeral artifacts, how about dead vocabularies?  “Tekeli-li” was a term for rage and excitement expressed among savages in the lifeworld of Antartic Fiction (another outmoded genre)  Do you have wise words on this? I sense a parallel alongside oceanic metaphors—are there tracks to be uncovered, portals to the hollow earth theories of infoenvironmentalism?  Does retrograde remediation suit you in your iterative performances of  (data) abjection?

LQ: As far as I can surmise the earth always contains surprises. Science has to be revised with inspirations most mysterious and murky. For example, it was thought that all life forms draw their access to livingry from the sun, our planet’s solar income.  But it turns out that the interior of the earth provides sustenance after all.  Tubes from below the ocean bottom spew forth warmth and chemicals which sustain entire non-solar ecosystems.  So too is it with the information environment There are vast swaths of area unexplored, or which were explored with the wrong lens the first time around

MR: i.e. blobsquatches.

LQ: Exactly. Large bands of the information environment have now been shut to traditional broadcast, and narrowcasters and adventurers, other niche species can re-inhabit them. The blobsquatch might even be viewed as the narrowcaster interjecting their information in the broadcast spectrum…one must keep their eye out for digital artifacts out of place, that may be transmitted from the analog lands of yore, which have been driven underground. Pirate radio stations are like pirates of the high seas which is why I am sometimes considered a patron saint of both pirates and hackers…trying to make sense by putting themselves fully at drift in the most landless spaces.

MR: I see you as a siren more than a saint, reeling in the sea travelers, causing them to smash into rocks to perpetuate dangerous data debris….Time can be fragmented into micro-loops –reducing familiar forms into anomalous instances of vidsonic debris “new words” to gain power in splotches like the liquid metal modular Terminators –”blobsquatches” or “blobs” generally–things from other worlds — produce  asymmetrical others.  The audio-visual device, too, when turned to face itself, dematerializes into an amorphous other—it feeds back.

LQ: Certainly. As a quick aside, I should ask. Are you able to materialize this transmission? I feel that the ground (and groundless) spaces we are exploring would be useful for future followers of my path. Sadly, in my unsubstantiated form I am unable to ‘Save’ this dialogue for future transmissions.

MR: yes, i believe this is saved to my interdimensional account.  Though given the fact that you’re involved i’ll have to check my Spam folder

LQ: I approve of your humor, metaphortean researcher.

MR: Humor is way of tapping info-nerve cells, would you agree Lord?

LQ: Lord Quag at the very least, but yes humanoid, humor works because it points in the wrong direction, and makes our neurons fire in ways unexpected. It’s one of the best methods of opening access to unknown vistas and unexplored areas of problem spaces.  That is why the powerful have permitted it even though it is dangerous.  Mostly in a neutered form such as puppets or magicians

MR: Puppeteering reminds me of a suspicion or question for you: if you’ll allow me to set up a ‘feedback’ situation—why is it that other Weird Fictioneers such as the flighty space-time transients do not join into your own largess…why are there individuated entities rather than one writhing mutant quagmire?

LQ: As for your query into the concept engineering inherent in the media matrix I wonder if your human kinds need for Out of Body Experience is not to blame for this unexpected individuation. Before you can leave your body and join the hive mind you need a body to begin with.

MR: Nobody’s ‘blaming’  here.  Let me rephrase. There is much hyperactivity: hypermedia, hyperbole , etc admidst the WFT blogosphere, is this extended camo or is the presence of humanoids… in other words– a glitch that even you can not account for?

LQ: These flighty individuals (who sit somewhere between individuated humanoids, and the post-humanoid wisdom complex such as myself) are especially prone to pointing out of place artifacts and other abandoned technological apparatus back on themselves and fading into the bliss of white light…however this feedback can get out of control if not constrained

MR: exactly…feedback out of control…you need control (i.e. presence of humanoids?) to then escape from it with pizzaz?

LQ: All I can say on this question, is that, even I answer to a higher calling at times, and not all is within my control.  At times even I need to resist the escape velocity of the stories that are woven about me and my ways.  Someone other than myself has decided it is useful to have humans act as constraints and catalysts.  I only hope those that have followed my path off the deep end are not frightened frozen when and if they reach the sublime promise of the Singularity, the Mind Children, and the collective hive mind. These awesome images are even amorphous in my mind.  Perhaps the persnickity space time transients are just the messengers that are needed to make sure these images of unimagined horror and human obliteration into universality do not become dominant.

Without some disciplines, human or non-human actors to play out my tales, I cease to exist.  So these glitches are boon in my mind (TO be honest though I prefer the respect shown to me by Dolphins, Monkeys and Ants especially.  Their displays of affection are most humbling)

MR: A shocking admission, Lord Quag, but appreciated candidness.  The glitch is not a glitch unless it interrupts then?  That is not glitched which can eternally drone?

LQ: I am afraid I have to part ways with the both the cults of drone and glitch which have grown up around me. Both have their place, but their value needs to be kept in perspective, because their powers are so immense. As you say a glitch is an interruption it manifests unexpectedly in stream or a drone and demands attention precisely because it a difference that makes a difference .  However, in its interruption it can redivert but also break down cycles most complex.  Complexity requires occasional glitching to increase diversity and ensure the robustness of a system, but too much glitching leads to breakdown, destruction and if it becomes the dominant mode, ends in death.  Growth requires drone, the iterative playing out of the same space with minor shiftings that are path dependent.

MR: About ants, insects…you mentioned this insect just a minute ago. Ants have been inhabiting electronics near NASA in Texas… short-circuiting electronics.  Is this the sort of “glitch” activity you are keen on?

LQ: Ants inhabiting electronics is a perfect state of temporary glitch which calls for action and innovation, either to keep them out, or better yet to co-exist or co-evolve in a sort of symbiotic industrial-ecology-ecology …but if both the machine die and the ants are fried and humans or non-humans don’t intervene with innovation and then drone, we are left with fried electronics and a pile of fried ants…the necessary occasional sacrifice at my alter

MR: In interest of maximizing research during our temporary space-time rift, i’ll skip to another question…awhile back, before you went droning on about glitches   you mentioned “difference that makes a difference”… this is like a euphemism for the cult of celebrity? And speaking of cultish celebrities, I have to say you and your WFT crew strike me as a sort of inverted Howard Hughes experience, reclusive,  but germaphiliac not germaphobe… replete with weird trajectories intersecting from realms of cinema,  winged migration and engineering.  The feverish mechanics of conspiracy lead me to ask what you might know of Ice Station Zebra?  According to Wikipedia, Hughes ” became obsessed with the 1968 film Ice Station Zebra and had it running on a continuous loop in his home. According to his aides, he watched it 150 times.”

There may be something here for WFT to decode, to interrupt , cycles (and icicles) to break down into new complexities?!?

LQ: It is true, the weird WFT crew, which I should mention I am only loosely affiliated with, when it suits MY needs, is indeed Germaphillic, attempting to invade ours and other brainspaces with germs both biological and linguistic.  As for Hughes, there are indeed parallels, and he was clearly seeing something in the screening of this set of still images on a tape loop that evades the attention of most…it would most certainly be an information artifact worth a revisit.

MR: What other monikers do you keep Lord Quag?  With no disrepect, I’ve only been able to Google you in relation to Weird Fiction

LQ: While some  seek the limelight, I prefer to keep a low profile, but my fingerprints, and even aliases can be found all around the internets if one knows where to look

MR: Will Google street view take me to your humble abode?

LQ: My home is mobile, and anyways could not so easily be penetrated by such a pedestrian technology as a 360 camera strapped to a car.  However, because of my constant quest for glitch, dangerous data and anomalous information, you will find my presence in a number of places on google maps including street view

MR: Do you believe yourself in a tele-cocoon?  a barnacle that blogs? a semi-submersed thing at ALL times…do you sleep?

LQ: I have been called this and many more by the Digirati that attempt to navigate my nested loops of non(sense), but more than anything I am entity whose image springs forth late in the night, during day dreams most horrific, and now, increasingly, in moments of information overload, as the bloated humanoid corpus is overwhelmed with sugar, caffeine and the multitasking milieu takes over.

MR: again like seafaring adventurers on the info-oceanic drift, you are a mirage… a temporary salve, a picnoleptic’s picnic

LQ: Indeed, that captures an essence. I see you have spent much time exploring my slime trail across this planet.  Sadly it appears our connection is nearly nullified…You are a most honored servant. Please do spread my word, but in ways both concealed and mysterious.

MR: Always

LQ: Thank you.

End Transmission