Weird Fiction

How is it that a bird of flight can suffer jet-lag?  Strange enough it is indeed!  Parallel processes include the fact that my reconnaissance within medieval villages in the south of France revealed not so many visible noctambules, but the sounds, the sounds! the sounds! It was a figure-ground reversal that haunts me still…It seems that even ancient villages are all tele-synesthetic these days–cable equipped, wi-fi bathed– so that anything more than invisibility would be just another iteration of the simultaneous whirl of globalisation.  Nocturnal predators in these anomalous spaces have adapted in relevant ways—they opt for old fashioned obsfucation of visually detectable coordinates.  And they do just fine panning their incessant hoots from every which where all through the night!

Still, the owl form appears—a laughable skeuomorph idling on fence posts and decrepit walls, a cheap mimicry that betrays the adaptive strategies of these noble creatures.  Like a small maple syrup jug with non-functional handle, these false idols are scattered about the countryside, dismissed by would be prey, gaudy deterrence machines all told.  Yes, yes– these regionally iterative trompe l’oeil reveal in reverse the mutant outgrowth of what was once called the picturesque.  Or, in other words, they reek of an inadequate ability to reset the sleep/wake cycle in response to info-environmental time cues, i.e. history is spatial: technocultural jet-lag.

Necessarily brief this post will be, emphasis on brevity and necessity.  Moonlighting in this Weird milieu for awhile now, I have found my mind so cluttered with restless flows of images, half-formed ideas and in other words am increasingly pestered both passively and aggressively into continuing my reports on these ficto-quizzical agents.  So…despite the current wave of brain addling heat… here are some Metaphortean musings on the creature known as “This Owl”:

This Owl is purported to be omniscient, panopticonscious, densely networked and, at times, creepy as all hell. Rarely materialized into “humanoid” form at Weird Fiction event-scenes, yet always quick to followup with reviews and anecdotes related to any particular evening’s occurrences. Some audiences have reported hearing a faint fluttering of wings, incessant ringing of phones and other anomalous sounds.

While shy of a confirmed link, or two, there is reason enough to consider the “Mothman,” or “Bird man” as an adjunct operative. Zoological authorities will always laugh off any cryptid by pointing to a commonplace look-a-like. In presence of Mothmania circa 1966-67 and onwards, experts aplenty have cited the barn owl to quell anxious denizens of the West Virginian countryside.

Truly, the colossal corpus and red glaring eyes don’t compute with typical taxonomies of owls but the point here is not merely Fortean notions of intermediacy. Owls, especially the species inhabiting info-ecosystems, are most curious and perhaps paranormal creatures, to be wary of…

Visual associations aside, This Owl, like the Mothman (and so many other monstrous creatures) is also a sort of portent or omen of impending crises. Alas, as noted, the heat is close at hand and my Metaphortean diagnostics are greatly incapacitated presently. I will have to end here, taking cover in shadier climes for a spell.

In the mind of the eyes
come a tropicanical slime.
awaiting to advise
Hertzian chimes.

Occupation airwaves
coming to close
frequency bands; leaving the graves
acronyms align
while ghost-eaters doze

This Owl, out, out,
Out on the tune.
No way, not worried about the
electric life on the Moon.
“Oedipus Owl!”
Hear the Children croon?

This transmission just in:

“Our group is called weird fiction. Today we will be exploring the electronic frontier. We are looking for things that we don’t usually see in these spaces. We’ll be going up mountains, we’ll be going down to the depths of the ocean.

Have you noticed that in mythologies all over the world owls are involved?

Stole that grey matter, those ideas, sell them back to you. So the owl character tries to prevent the youth from getting stolen. Usually the owl is there to protect the young people, so usually the owl, as a representation of wisdon, sits on the shoulder of a young person, princes are…like this….thank you. So oedipus and owl share an etymilogical root, which is not surprising.

So, one thing the owl does, is protect the young king, the young would-be king, the young prince, from his father. But, you are always a little bit scared about the owl. Notice the owl can often manifest itself in human form, they have a long beard, and a cane, and they look a little bit creepy.

And there always images of these young boys and these long bearded owl characters, and that is no different than the character army…what is different
what is different
what is different
what is different.”