Tag: #Jeff Noon

Liminal horror for a liminal age

December 6th, 2023

Several nights ago I spent several hours watching videos involving Valley View Mall, an abandoned mall in Dallas, TX. It has since turned into quite a rabbit hole.

The Oldest View, a DIY horror series on YouTube from teenage CGI whiz kid Kane Pixels, features an abandoned mall modeled on Valley View Mall. And a rolling giant.

I know the mall is modeled on a real place. I believe the giant is based on a real piece of public art.

Kane Pixels is about to have a movie out on A24 based on the Backrooms, a found footage series about an infinite maze of shabby hallways in an aging modern building. You end up there by “no clipping” out of reality.

The other was an urban explorer video by some guys who took an unauthorized tour of the mall shortly before it was torn down.

Naturally I had a nightmare. People either needed help or were out to get me, I had to run in slow motion down dark hallways and I had locked my keys and cellphone in the car.

Malls are an obvious setting for what they call Liminal Horror, creepypasta about the uncanny, places almost but don’t quite make sense. Familiar yet strange. Like empty places that were meant to have lots of people.

The Backrooms is already a cultural phenomenon on YouTube, with other creators expanding on Kane Pixels’ series. They’ve created lore and additional levels. There’s even a video game.

Really entertaining found footage horror series. Soon to be the subject of a movie on A24. Looking forward to seeing what this kid can do.

It seems appropriate that this type of storytelling is popular right now. I think it captures the uncanniness a lot of us feel right now.

Kinda like New Weird, the genre of fiction I’ve been attracted to recently, by the likes of Jeff Vandermeer, Jeff Noon and China Miéville. Stories that combine science fiction with other genres like horror fantasy.
Facing my pronoun problem

April 30th, 2023

I have a problem with pronouns. Sometimes I say “them” when I mean “us” or “us” when I mean “them.” I can’t tell these days. But the hardest ones of all are “him” and “I.”

That thing I did 30 years ago, was it me or him? It sure feels like it was me, but what about the things that I would never do? That had to be somebody else…

Change your singular pronouns and you also change your plural ones. It gets really confusing.

Few people get to see your true face. Sometimes you don’t even see it yourself. The one you show the world is usually a mask, a persona.

You kinda know it’s not really you, but it’s your “Sunday go to meeting” face, your “go along to get along” face. You take it off when you get home.

(Interesting how not wearing a mask can also be a mask.)

Identity is trickier. That’s the mask you show yourself. It might look like a “go along to get along” face, but you’ve been getting along so well, it doesn’t feel so much like a mask. Until it does.

But as you live and learn, something changes.

One day you the mask doesn’t feel like an “I” anymore. It becomes “him” (or her or they or it, but for me it was “him”).

The people you considered “us” tell you it’s beautiful, but you no longer love it and it’s heavy and it chafes and you want to take it off, but you know they won’t let you.

Gradually “us” turns into “them.” Which is rough, because in your dreams, you’re always “me” and the people you love are always “us.”

All day, every day, we are judged for the masks we wear and judged if we don’t wear mask – especially then. Mask salesmen abound, telling us “this is the last one you’ll ever need,” if you can afford it.

Jeff Noon, the most psychedelic sci fi writer since Rudy Rucker, wrote an interesting novel called Mappalujo about a mysterious land where masks play a major role. I didn’t understand the symbolism when I read it the first time, but I do now.

I’ve worn many masks over the years. I identified so strongly with some of them, I refused to believe that’s what they were, even as they began slipping off. But sooner or later I had to admit it. This is not who I am.

When enough “I’s” turned out to be “hims,” the message started to sink in: They’re all masks.

Though it still hurts like hell when you take them off. Especially when you have no idea what’s underneath, and people you considered “us” suddenly become “them” to you. That’s the pronoun problem I wish I could solve, because I like my people like I like my music – eclectic and all over the world.

Tag: #Jeff Noon

Liminal horror for a liminal age

Facing my pronoun problem