#patternist

So on r-rook.studio, I’ve been building an Appendix N for Moonlight on Roseville Beach by looking at what genre paperbacks might show up in the town’s Paperback Exchange in 1979.

This time, I'm looking at Octavia Butler's exploration of a psionically powered far future that has its roots in very personal stories of people blessed and cursed by psi phenomena in the 20th century: The Patternist Series.

He has his fingers in all sorts of business dealings, including the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

It's impossible to lie to him, and he kills his own people who defy his will. If you try to run away, he will find you and steal your body.

Although he was born to a certain culture, due to his travels and his constant changing appearance, he thinks he has no race, that he isn't human any more.

He has an immortal mate who is sick of his cruelty and a daughter who eventually rises up against him.

Book #132 of 2021:

Unexpected Stories by Octavia E. Butler

This posthumous collection by renowned African American science-fiction icon Octavia E. Butler is regrettably slim, but it lives up to its title, presenting two of her early works that had been previously unpublished. The novella A Necessary Being does not appear to have ever been submitted anywhere and was only discovered amongst her papers after death, while the short story “Childfinder” was the writer’s first sale, to a planned anthology from mentor Harlan Ellison which ran into difficulties and was famously never released. Only in this 2014 publication has either been made available to the public.

The longer piece is the more striking, depicting an alien species whose members can turn their naturally-blue fur a variety of different shades, from blindingly bright to nearly transparent, but who are sorted into a rigid caste system by the tint of each’s default hue, which is not entirely hereditary. There’s a storyline too about coercion and choice and how hierarchy restricts at all levels, yet as is often the case with Butler, the ideas seem likely to linger beyond the specific plot or characters. (The tale is also apparently connected with the novel Survivor from her loose Patternist series, although I haven’t read that one yet.)

The shorter entry is less immediately impressive, but it returns to some of the author’s regular preoccupations, like telepathic powers and earthbound racism, as it details a black woman’s efforts to shelter neighborhood children of psychic potential from the predominantly-white organization looking to abduct/recruit them. I don’t think this one is meant to tie in with any larger narrative, but it certainly feels of a similar vein to many other Butler stories. Together the paired halves of the book represent a strong reminder of the talent we lost when she passed, and are a fine addition to her existing body of writing.

★★★★☆

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Reddie song of the day: Bikes by Patternist 

I'm never gonna see this place again With these colonial red houses in my eyes The catacombs we roamed to kill the day While mom tried hard to feel alive

The lower-middle class, it finds a way And so we packed the car with all that couldn't stay To circumnavigate the lower-48 But none of it was ours to take, you know

It's the way I make myself miserable Over and over Over and over

I'm never gonna see his face again The crooked bottle rocket scar from that July We set fireworks at John Birch billboards Outside county lines I'm not fine

It's the way I make myself miserable Over and over Over and over It's the way I make myself miserable Over and over Over and over

My god, I've changed I'm losing myself to thinking this way Get a grip, kid C'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon

It's the way I make myself miserable Over and over Over and over It's the way I make myself miserable Over and over Over and over

Find A Song about someone who winds up in the hospital after a particularly self-destructive emotional breakdown

Patternist - I Don't Feel Real

Fronted by musician Gabe Mouer, Patternist is a blend of rhythmic synths, heart-thumping percussion, lush arrangements coupled with Gabe's wistful lyrics.

The band's debut album "I Don't Know What I'm Doing Here" hits stores on September 6, 2019 via InVogue Records.

Gabe Mouer/Patternist on the new single: "I Don’t Feel Real was the first step towards me taking more of a narrative approach to songwriting. Just after the release of Give It Up [EP], I had this debilitating crisis of identity as a songwriter that spiraled into feeling like I sort of didn’t have anything to offer anybody, and really like I had no real prospect for the future. You know, stuck in this very myopic view of my life I just walked around feeling entirely empty, which is where the phrase “I Don’t Feel Real,” came from. But I knew when I sat down to write that I didn’t want to be like, “I’m sad,” for 3 minutes, it just wasn’t interesting to me and I didn’t think it would be interesting to anyone listening to it. So I wrote this story about someone who winds up in the hospital after a particularly self-destructive emotional breakdown, who’s forced to acknowledge what a burden that can be to the people around them. Strangely enough, it felt more personal to mix the fictitious with real-life experiences. "

WHO DO YOU DRIVE TO?