Brain Spelunking

tracked time: 4h 6m

In the back of Barlowe’s Guide to Fantasy (1996), I believe, there are sketches for a book called Pilgrimage to Hell, which appeared two years later under the title Barlowe’s Inferno. Three years later, a follow-up emerged called Brushfire. All three of these things have had a strange hold on me. The sketches are nightmarish, a big shift from the fairly safe and reasonable creatures in the Fantasy and Extraterrestrial books and an even vaster gulf between them and The Pop-up Book of Star Wars, Barlowe’s first published work. I’ve never come across the actual Hell books, though, only seen their covers and a piece here or there, once in person at the Enchanted show. Until I learned about Psychopomp (2021), that is.

A massive book, it collects just about every piece of Barlowe’s Hell that existed at the time — the contents of Inferno, Brushfire, the art from Barlowe’s two novels about Hell and a gigantic section of character design work (though not the sketches for Pilgrimages, oddly). This vision is both strange and unsettling. I don’t find it horrible, but rather more melancholy than anything. So many of Hell’s inhabitants are petrified to varying degrees, a state I find sadder than upsetting. I also find it so outside my preconceptions of Hell as a medieval torture chamber that it winds up verging on science fiction.

Barlowe is a real master of details, too. The cover alone, a self-portrait, gives you enough amulets and talismans to stare at for an afternoon before you even start trying to parse the background. The city behind is vast, the statues massive, the souls tiny, but is Barlowe a giant or is it a matter of perspective? Psychopomp is rife with these conundrums of scale.

Now, unlike Michael Newton’s book of hope, I appreciate the clarity of this book’s title: Encyclopedia of Things that Never Where (1985). Stating that definitively really gets all that belief malarkey out of the way and lets us appreciate these things on their own imaginary terms (as Georgess McHargue encouraged us to do on Monday).

This book is more like a collection of several small topical encyclopedias, each discrete from the others and in their own alphabetical order. Nor do they necessarily make a perfect or intuitive sense all the way through. Things of the Cosmos is mostly gods of major mythologies, but also King Arthur and his knights. Things of the Ground and Underground collects faeries and tree spirits, but also the manticore, Minotaur and Sphinx. Things of Wonderland seems to imply things from literature, but really it collects all manner of fantastical places, from fiction, but also from legend. Things of Magic, Science and Invention could just as well have been called Things and left it at that; it collects notable items, from Thor’s hammer to Jekyll’s potion to the many unusual uses for nails. Things of Water, Sky and Air covers all the creatures not detailed in Earth chapter — Grendel is here, griffins, too, and all the sea serpents. Finally, Things of the Night details the undead and other creatures who hide from the sun, whether they go bump or not.

Toronto is not a wildfire-prone area. It is extremely close to the USA border, and the smog is currently affecting NY right now. There is literal chunks of debris in the air. The sky is orange, and the sun is nowhere to be seen.

Climate change and its effects are right outside your door. Data centres are the cause for the insane heat waves across the globe, and the increase in wildfires and other natural disasters.

You will watch recordings of the world burn around you, and only when you are behind the camera will you realize there is no going back.

For those of you who aren't familiar, I live in an exceptionally flammable part of the United States, and despite the fact that every goddamn year multiple parts of my state catch fire, destroy homes and kill people, the local assholes insist on getting drunk and setting fire to a bunch of illegal explosives anyway. In 2023, God granted me a Miracle that prevented my house from burning down.

Last year, I had to resort to Psychological and Chemical Warfare to keep the patriotic arsonists at bay.

This year is apparently An Important Birthday for the clusterfuck we have the nerve to call a nation, so despite the fact there is so much smoke in the air that the sun has literally been blood red for the last week, the pyrotechnic fetishists are out in force.

Last year, I hit upon the concept that if my neighbors were going to act like problem animals, it would make sense to use the management techniques on them that you might use on say, a Bear that was doing serious property damage. Thusly, I created The Stench, a nontoxic but FOUL smelling concoction that I could discretely spray around the flammable gatherings and render the area extremely uncomfortable to occupy for the rest of the night, forcing them to give up or move on.

If this seems harsh: There is no story from 2024 because a grass fire was started by fireworks less than 12 miles from me and the high winds put me in the evacuation zone in under an hour. Over fifty people lost their homes. Errant fireworks burning my house down is a very real possibility, and I pay the price in anxiety and insurance premiums.

The Stench is noxious but harmless, and also very effective at building a buffer zone around my home. But sneaking up to parties on foot in this heat is both exhausting and nerve-wracking. There have to be more effective ways to do this

-And there is! It involves Weeds and Business Cards :)

On one hand: FAR fewer fireworks parties this year!

- Only nine to last year's thirteen - three of them had the good sense to be firing their recreational explosives out over the local reservoir - That's far from foolproof - and really bad for the fish - also y'all are RIGHT NEXT to where the Bald Eagles are nesting - but congratulations on at least attempting some risk mitigation!

On the other hand.

I want to boost everything this person has said and add on.

The reason I call myself a tomboy now, despite it being seen as a childish word and having had someone swear at me over it because ‘tHeRe’S nO suCh thInG as BoY thInGs anD giRL thIngS sHut uP’ is because I couldn’t call myself that or be like that when I was a kid. It was seen as a negative thing and I was already bullied enough. “Looking like a boy” was the worst thing that could happen to a girl.

And I’m not even 26 yet. We aren’t talking 30+ years ago, we are talking 2000s and even 2010s. It’s only since trans people have become more accepted in the past few years that gender nonconformity has too.

And the people who helped me accept my gender nonconformity more than anyone else? Were trans people. They taught me, “there’s nothing wrong with how you feel. You’re still a valid woman no matter what you wear, how you have your hair or what you’re into ❤️”

And don’t even get me started on how people treat gender nonconforming men. JK Rowling has a lot of nerve to be like “uwu boys can wear dresses and only us gendercrits accept that!” when she has, even in recent works, made femininity in men a negative trait, as well as making masculinity in women a negative trait also.

A lot of people still don’t accept gnc people even now. Just last year I had someone tell me they’d never let their daughter “dress like a boy”, and I’m always terrified to walk into a bathroom in case the next JK Rowling is in there, sees my gender expression and pepper sprays me or worse.

If it is hot, you will need to drink more than normally because you are sweating. You can drink too much, though usually your body knows how to regulate it.

Yes, if it is liquid and not alcoholic it counts to your drinking intake. Yes, drinking lemonades, coke and whatever counts. All of it is still mostly water with some sugar and flavors added. It is fine. Be careful about taking in too much caffeine though, as it is a mild diuretic (means it makes you pee more and hence lose more water).

Yes, you also need electrolytes as you sweat them out. But you do not need to drink sports drinks. Eat some yoghurt with fruits, or some watermelon with salt, or maybe cold soup. It will refill your electrolytes.

No, it is not dangerous for you to sleep in front of a ventilator. This is a complete myth that has absolutely no basis in science whatsoever and literally originates with an Urban Legend. Especially with the recent heat wave in Europe for a lot of people the alternative is the possibility of heat stroke. It is fine. Sleep in front of that ventilator. Just make sure you are not getting too cold.

No, using sunscreen does not stop you from taking in Vitamin D, unless you are permanently using super high standard sun screen and are reapplying it every 6 hours as intended. And let's face it: you are not. Your skin gets enough UVB to make Vitamin D, don't worry about it. Skin cancer is worse.

Yes, switching between a very hot outside and a very cold context (be it super high AC or just jumping into cold water) can be a danger for your cardiovascular system, though unless the weather is very hot or the water very cold making the contrast very extreme, it is normally not a danger to people who do not have otherwise issues with their cardiovascular system. Though being a bit careful and allowing yourself to acclimatize is not a bad idea in general.

Yes, you should definitely not leave any living thing in a car while it is hot. Just don't. Cars heat up while standing very quickly and will become a death trap. If you leave an animal or a child alone in the car for even just 5 to 10 minutes, they might die. Don't do that shit.

Yes, you need to be extra careful about your medications. For once, most medications are not meant to be stored at above 25°C (don't ask me what this is in American units). But also a bunch of medications - especially psychoactive medications - will make your body worth at temperature regulation. So be careful.

Yes, you need shadow. Ideally the shadow of trees, because there is indeed a difference between that and the shadow of a building. But any shadow is good, especially during extreme heat.

In the same vein: be also careful about drugs during heat waves - like, the recreational type. Some of them work differently when your body is warmed up like that. Just... ideally read up online on possible side effects that might occur/be worse if taken during the heat.

Source

Slavery is literally happening now. Police never stopped being slave catchers. People are supporting it now just like they supported it then.