I had forgotten, but this video jogged my memory. Interesting story collection that I might read again soon.

I first came across the name, The King in Yellow, in the Blue Oyster Cult song, “ETI,” just a brief reference: “The King in Yellow, the Queen in Red…” But I loved BOC and always wondered what all their symbolism referred to. Who was The King in Yellow?

When I opened The King in Yellow, I couldn’t help thinking, “what if?” Same delicious forbidden fruit feeling I got when I listened to heavy metal as a religious teenager. I didn’t think it was devil music, but it still felt like I was taking a risk.

Blue Oyster Cult – E.T.I.

I remember “Repairer of Reputations” in particular, where Hildred reads the play while recovering from a head injury and becomes convinced the spread of the play has prepared the American people to reestablish Lost Carcosa and make him king. Like something was manifesting into reality.

I’ve had that feeling before, like if you just knew how, you could pull some of that dream stuff out into the world and make it real. I think of it as “the dragon’s whisker.” I know you really can’t. But it FEELS like it.

The play in The King In Yellow used to just seem like an interesting device. No way reading a creative work is going to make you crazy and mistake fantasy for reality.

Then it occurred to me. The Internet does that all the time.

In one way, the Internet is exactly like Infinite Jest, so addictive you can’t stop looking at it, even as your life falls apart. But perhaps the King in Yellow is an emerging inhabitant of the Internet, trying to be born.

He lures you in with that first act, then breaks your mind in the second act, tells you how important you are, has you pining over imaginary empires and your place in them.

That was just stoner brain talking, but now I’m kinda spooking myself.