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I just woke up from a dream in which: 1) A flying shellfish with real human teeth clamped on to my hand and could only be detached by smashing it gruesomely against a wall several times, 2) a childhood friend who died a few years ago showed up to a social function and I had…
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Xanadu, in real life, is a city that was constructed by the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan in Northern China. It was first described to Europeans by Marco Polo, and in the proceeding centuries took on a legendary status in the European imagination, similar to the effect of the marvels described in 1,001 Arabian Nights.
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In November of 1856, closely preceding the publication of what would be his final novel, The Confidence-Man, Herman Melville went on a trip. He was thirty-seven years old. Financed by his father-in-law Lemuel Shaw with funds advanced from his wife’s inheritance, this trip took Melville through Europe, across the Mediterranean to Egypt, and finally, to…
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In a few months, I will no longer be a Coastal Man. After almost 29 years spent within fifteen kilometers of the Pacific Ocean, I am setting my course for a new ocean, albeit one that dried up some tens of millions of years ago. I will hammer down my proverbial tent pegs right in…
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The following essay includes details from the entirety of the film, The Boy and the Heron, which is still in theatres.
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I started this year with one new year’s resolution. This resolution was the same resolution that I carried into 2022 and 2023: I wanted to finish a draft of my novel, Pierre, or, Knights, Snails, and Plastic Boogie. Now, this is one of those resolutions that’s perfunctory at best and wholly meaningless at worst. If I have…
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Haiku are image poems; they don’t tell a narrative but instead tell of a single event. Despite being singular, the event gestures toward a larger world. A seasonal reference (in this case daikon, signifying winter) provides a time. The presence of a daikon farmer and a person asking for directions implies a rural environment. It…
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A Frivolous Poem from the Balckwell Archives
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In mathematics, the word “identity” refers to two expressions that produce the same value. The most obvious example I can think of is x + 0 = x. No matter what you put as x, the two expressions on either side of the equals sign will have the same value. As with all English words that have found themselves…
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It’s December, which is about as good a time as any to reflect on the year gone by and preflect on the year to come. As we did last year, I will separate out the myriad activities/productions that make up the Balckwell Online Entity, and for each one, tell you what’s been going on, as…
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Balckwell Rising! 