Anne & Jeff Vandermeer have been providing a lot of really good fiction, nonfiction, and other miscellaneous goodies over at weirdfictionreview.com including stories by Caitlin R. Kiernan, appreciations of Leonora Carrington, China Mieville’s thoughts on the Weird and a great interview with Thomas Ligotti. And also this fun Weird Questionnaire of sixty questions to be answered in sixty minutes transliterated from the French of Eric Poindron by  Edward Gauvin.
My answers to the Weird Questionnaire are below. (Jeff Vandermeer also blogged his .) [Note: I hadn't read anyone else's answers to this questionnaire at the time of my own writing.]
1 – Write the first sentence of a novel, short story, or book of the weird yet to be written.
Moths emerged from the mummified cat  corpse in an eruption of dancing dust.
2 – Without looking at your watch: what time is it?
2:49 PMÂ Eastern Standard Time
3 – Look at your watch. What time is it?
2:52 PM Transtemporal Understated Time
4 – How do you explain this — or these — discrepancy(ies) in time?
In this case I explain the time discrepancies due to interruptions. Or it could be the malleable plasticity of time.
5 – Do you believe in meteorological predictions?
Yes I do. Let’s bring back the art form of the almanack. We can throw some fantastical stories in as well, and a few recipes of cookery aiming at mutation upon ingestion.
6 – Do you believe in astrological predictions?
To a degree, of Full Moon in Aquarius.
7 – Do you gaze at the sky and stars by night?
When I am out in the country I do, or when the city starlight isn’t otherwise obscuring them and I happen to be outside. Something that should happen more often.
8 – What do you think of the sky and stars by night?
I think the sky and stars by night -though I love the sight of the moon in waning afternoon daylight, over the converted can building that now houses gentrifying yuppies (but hey, maybe my property value will go up) – I think they remind me that my worldly concerns are such a small amount of time, and one day the universe will collapse again into the big crunch, from which will spring another big bang, on to another big crunch. Over and over again. Ylem.
9 – What were you looking at before starting this questionnaire?
Just reading Jeff Vandermeer’s blog is all.
10 – What do cathedrals, churches, mosques, shrines, synagogues, and other religious monuments inspire in you?
The flip answer: a fear of being sacrificed.
A thoughtful answer: In the monotheistic religions: an inspiration towards wondrous plainchant, the organ as played by Charlemagne Palestine, a lust for long sonorous drones. In polytheistic religions with more outdoor shrines, standing stones, pyramids & the like: a zeal for new ancient rituals to assist in communicating with the goddesses and gods -a feeling of working towards a steady state society (“sustainable” in the more fashionable parlance), of connection to land, kin, and cosmos.
11 – What would you have “seen” if you’d been blind?
The invisible landscape. Jorge Luis Borges & John Milton speaking of poetry over a game of chess.
12 – What would you want to see if you were blind?
Chartreuse flamingos dancing in a south Florida trailer park.
13 – Are you afraid?
Not of this questionnaire. Not right now.
14 – What of?
Yes, of some things. Like being forced to divulge my fears. Well, not really. In the past I’d been afraid of things like botulism. My anxieties shift, but I’ve found focusing on “doing something” (like writing, radio, housework…) eases the feeling and I return to abnormality.
15 – What is the last weird film you’ve seen?
Tough question. Inland Empire by David Lynch is probably the weirdest thing I’ve watched in awhile, as being very inexplicable to me, but full of mystery and wonder. Julian Donkey Boy and Gummo by Harmony Korine always come to mind though. As does Gumbo, perhaps by alliterative association, but it was weird. I know the question only asked for one, but I like to elaborate. Especially when drinking good Kentucky bourbon.
16 – Whom are you afraid of?
It’s not so much that I’m afraid of authority figures -managers, bosses, administrators, board members- as it is they hold my livelihood in their hands to some degree (not that I don’t take personal responsibility for getting paid work done). The System. Plutocrats & beauracrats.
17 – Have you ever been lost?
Yes. But I always like to remember a saying attributed to Daniel Boone: “I’m not lost, I just don’t know exactly where I am right now.”
18 – Do you believe in ghosts?
Yes.
19 – What is a ghost?
The spirit of a person -animal or human animal- that has chosen to remain close to the Earth after the physical body has died. Places could also be “haunted” by the bad memories and experiences of people who spent time there. They could be psychic impressions left by previous inhabitants, amalgamated into some newfangled astral construct.
20 – At this very moment, what sound(s) can you here, apart from the computer?
Pierre Boulez, Deuxieme Sonate, as played by Idil Biret, on a CD player.
21 – What is the most terrifying sound you’ve ever heard – for example, “the night was like the cry of a wolf”?
A ringing in my ears, a loud buzzing moving from left to right, that somehow meant I was receiving a transmission from another realm, and when coupled with deja vu, invoked anxiety.
22 – Have you done something weird today or in the last few days?
Not by my standards. I sit down at my desk and tune the 15 transistor, 5 band, Aircastle radio on the Shortwave band up and down the dial and listen for telemetry or whatever foreign stations I can pick up, or any aesthetically interesting static. But that isn’t weird is it?
23 – Have you ever been to confession?
24 – You’re at confession, so confess the unspeakable.
The unspeakable is also unwritable -and better left alone.
25 –Without cheating: what is a “cabinet of curiosities”?
A gathering of dusty unicorn horns, phials of alchymical elixir, naughty toys apprehended from vagrant youth, unsent letters, fragments of text, found objects, ready mades.
26 –Do you believe in redemption?
Only in the sense that people can redeem themselves from the wrongs they have done and hurts they have made in the past. I do believe in forgiveness. I also believe in forgiveness. It need not be mystical or Christian.
27 – Have you dreamed tonight?
I haven’t slept yet tonight, so not in that sense. I did have some hypnagogic experiences while slightly dozing on the bus. About not watering things down. Let it all be full and bright and pure.
28 – Do you remember your dreams?
Yes. And I make a habit of writing down as much as I can remember of them.
29 – What was your last dream?
My last dream was about going to the store Bizzare Bazzar to do some Christmas shopping for my wife. I was looking at green sweaters.
30 – What does fog make you think of?
The fog makes me think of the Celtic Otherworld in most instances. And of Narnia, of seeing a gaslamp and stepping into another world.
31 – Do you believe in animals that don’t exist?
But they do exist.
32 – What do you see on the walls of the room where you are?
Concrete. Pneumatic tubes. A dumbwaiter. Shelves full of classical music CDs. (It’s the next day after drinking some Bulleit. I’m having to answer this in segments. Otherwise I would have seen my own bookshelves, records, turntable.)
33 – If you became a magician, what would be the first thing you’d do?
But I am a magician. Only I practice ritual magic and not parlour tricks. Theurgy is much more a concern for me these days, though I enjoy the thaumaturgical side effects. Currently I’m working with Apollo, Asclepius, Mnemosyne and the Nine Muses.
34 – What is a madman?
A madman is a person who is perhaps haunted by malicious or otherwise unruly entities. Or a madman is a genius, cracked to let in the light, but incapable of conforming to life in the system as we know it. They could also be people who have suffered soul loss from various traumatic events -there is the possibility of being cured.
35 – Are you mad?
I should think not.
36 – Do you believe in the existence of secret societies?
I don’t have to believe. I know of the existence of secret societies.
37 – What was the last weird book you read?
I read all kinds of stuff. The last novel I read was The Great Bay: Chronicles of the Collapse by Dale Pendell. Nothing weird about it really, though it did have a high proportion of cannibalism. Excellent book. The last short story I read was by Caitlin R. Kiernan, entitled “In the Water Works (Birmingham, Alabama 1888)” in Tales of Pain and Wonder. Currently I’m reading the excellent John Cage biography Begin Again by Kenneth Silverman.
38 – Would you like to live in a castle?
No. It would probably be too cold and drafty.
39 – Have You Seen Something Weird Today?
Yes. I was looking at a doll a man gave to my department at the library. A curious bit of folk art made from sewn felt and cloth, kind of like an Abe Lincoln with a handkerchief over his face and an amputated arm and leg.
40 – What is the Weirdest film you’ve ever seen?
…Gummo is still at the top of the list.
41 – Would you like to live in an abandoned train station?
No. But I probably know someone who would. Besides, if I lived there it would no longer be abandoned now would it?
42 – Can you see the future?
Sometimes I can make out where one branch forks off from another deeper into the garden.
43 – Have you considered living abroad?
I’d like to stay in Iceland for awhile.
44 – Where?
Iceland.
45 – Why?
It’s a country whose culture I am fascinated with.
46 – What is the weirdest film I’ve ever owned?
Blood Sucking Freaks…
47 – Would you have liked to live in a vicarage?
Only if I am a vicar who also doubles as a mystery detective.
48 – What is the weirdest book you’ve ever read?
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban stands out. Les Chants de Maldoror another classic.
49 – Which do you like better, globes or hourglasses?
Hourglasses.
50 – Which do you like better, antique magnifying glasses or bladed weapons?
A knife with a compass on the end.
51 – What, in all likelihood, lies in the depths of Loch Ness?
Protean goop from recent antiquity.
52 – Do you like taxidermied animals?
Only when they are Labrador Ducks.
53 – Do you like walking in the rain?
Yes.
54 – What goes on in tunnels?
Transportation -an other unspeakable acts of depravity.
55 – What do you look at when you look away from this questionnaire?
My shortwave radio or the carved frog figure sitting on my altar.
56 – What does this famous line inspire in you: “And when he had crossed the bridge, the phantoms came to meet him.”?
A sense of being close to my ancestors on the Other Side.
57 – Without cheating: where is that famous line from?
I have no idea.
58 – Do you like walking in graveyards or the woods by night?
Yes.
58 – Write the last line of a novel, short story, or book of the weird yet to be written.
Once again awash with glittering snail slime.
59 – Without looking at your watch: what time is it?
8:57 PM -nearly a week after I started my piecemeal work on this questionairre.
60 – Look at your watch. What time is it?
9:00 PM …
almost time for:
Silver Star Radio Episode 8 airs on the Winter Solstice, December 22nd and features a phone interview with special guest Taylor Ellwood:
Taylor Ellwood is the Managing Non-Fiction Editor of Immanion Press, which publishes cutting edge esoteric and occult books. He’s also the author of Pop Culture Magick, Space/Time Magic, Inner Alchemy and Multi-Media Magic, and the forthcoming book Magical Identity. Visit him online at http://www.magicalexperiments.com
Magical Identity is Taylor’s latest book, due out in March 2012. Magical Identity explores the role of identity within magical work, using themes of neuroscience, space, time, and definitions to understand where identity fits into the magical process as well as how we can use it to enhance our magical process.
This episode will also feature a variety of magickal musick including material fro Stone Breath and Mike Seed w/ The Language of Light from a recent limited twelve inch record put out by R. Loftiss and the good folks at Anticlock Records ( http://www.anticlock.net/ )
Tune in locally on 88.3FM Cincinnati or translocally at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/waif-cincinnati
The show airs from 10PM to Midnight Eastern Standard Tribe, Thursday, December 22nd.
Expect the podcast to be up sometime before the first day of 2012. As usual, I’ll send out the link when it is ready…
The Dreamreader narrates, “Dreamreading proves not as effortless as she has explained. The threads of light are so fine that despite how I concentrate the energies in my fingertips, I am incapable of unraveling the chaos of vision. Even so, I clearly sense the presence of dreams at my fingertips. It is a busy current, an endless stream of images. My fingers are as yet unable to grasp any distinct message, but I do apprehend an intensity there.”
