Under Discussion*

“Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.” ~Edgar Allan Poe


The month of October is fraught with dark alleys, vampires and other double, double, toil and trouble antics as they visit their magic on every dark and eerie night until the very last night when the undead walk the streets in search of the rhetorical trick or treat.

But for me, the month of October is about the Gothic Masters and the writers of Science Fiction who not only weave their words but live them as well.


I would much rather be sitting in my room, where the light can not be seen from the front of the house, curled up with a good frightful read. I do not like October 31st when nightfall comes. If it were up to me, I would switch off the TV and the lights, and sit soundlessly in the dark so the trick-or-treaters would think there’s nobody home. This way I never have to endure the horrors and nonsense of Halloween. But alas, that is not to be. This year, while Keith ‘plays’ nice with the neighborhood ghosties and ghoulies, I will be inside the words of some genius madman, walking along the dreary tracts set upon me within the pages of a dark and soundless scare.

And whilst I’m letting my freak flag fly, I may as well come out with it. I love quantum physics’ other universes and parallel continuum theories; cosmology’s cosmic variances and galactic planes; as well as essays on the psychology of the criminal mind. But these are not for autumn discussions so I save them for other seasons. I know. You can hardly contain yourself 'til then. And here I thought we were getting along so nicely, what with my recent Percolations and all......ah well.

"Be a little careful about your library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be sure. But the real question is, What it will do with you? You will come here and get books that will open your eyes, and your ears, and your curiosity, and turn you inside out or outside in." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


*painting courtesy of Lew Lehrman
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