Welcome to the fifth column of Cyclopean Orm. Lots of pictures this time around. I beg your indulgence.

Ever seen that movie, Rosemary's Baby? Nice film. Ever read the book? A very good read. When someone says, "Jesus H. Christ," do you wonder what the "H" stands for?

Did you know that author Ira Levin had a sequel to Rosemary's Baby published last year? Son of Rosemary is an unsettling book to read. At the end, you can look at it one of two ways, but if you look at it the way I believe Mr. Levin INTENDED, then it should scare the SPRY out of you. Let's just say that the careful use of an anagram indicates a nightmare reality to those in the know.

I realize I am being ambiguous, but I don't want to give anything away.

I read Rosemary's Baby because of Stephen King's recommendation list at the back of his non-fiction book, Danse Macabre. Given I write horrific fiction, I thought it would be a good idea to read some of the more influential works of the last thirty or so years. After all, there is absolutely no need to reinvent the dungeon. Within mere days of my reading Rosemary's Baby, which was published in 1967, a sequel comes out thirty years later in 1997.

At first, I thought that it was an interesting coincidence, nothing more. But it bothered me. Maybe this is proof that electronic mind control is being implemented by companies possessing forbidden technology. You've all experienced it. "Well, I sure wish Johnny Cash or Iron Maiden would come out with another album." Next thing you know, you're at the store and guess what? They have BOTH come out with another album. Why, you're SO LUCKY to have been thinking about it.

What you DON'T know is that there is a Synthetic Quantum Underwater Induction Device housed in a nearby water tower, sending out Parawaves containing consumer instructions. (Every once in while, a SQUID malfunctions and causes a CEO to shoot ten people at Mcdonald's, or a housewife to strangle a kindergarten teacher, or a boy in Oklahoma to steal the clapper from the Minnetonka Christian Camp wake-up/dinner bell.) I know Ross Perot paid for some Tentacle Time and jacked into the local SQUID here during his presidential campaign a few years back. I know this because I kept dreaming about him in a quasi-Masonic setting. I think I saw a painting of a SQUID-like device in one of H.R. Giger's Necronomicon volumes. Where was I?

I went ahead and ordered a cheapo copy of Son of Rosemary through the Science Fiction Book Club. I then got a scorpion in my shoe to get the regular trade edition which was of a higher quality. And of course I wanted to obtain a first edition copy of Rosemary's Baby, since I only had a first run paperback. The idea was to get the two little devil babies and have them sit side by side and emit Imp waves for as long as I owned them; Imp waves and Parawaves are similar, but totally different.

I contacted my trusty book searcher, Warren, and he put out the feelers. Evidently, other anal retentive persons like myself were hunting for the same thing and 1st edition Rosemary's Baby hardbacks were getting up into the hundreds of dollars. Warren located a copy and it was cheap in comparison to going prices. But the deal fell through when the woman who claimed to have it, suddenly claimed to not have it. Perhaps she found out how much they were worth and felt like she was asking too little for it. Maybe someone else took it from her storage area long ago and she didn't know it. Regardless, I pretty much gave up on the hope of Warren finding another reasonably priced copy.

Well, I was wrong.

He found another one for me and I quickly bought it. Now here's the rub. I am a person who ENJOYS getting scared, I LOVE writing dark stories, I LIKE scaring others. And I've read quite a few terrifying tomes.

When I opened the shipping box and looked at the book...

When I TOUCHED it...

I felt something BAD...

I am telling you the truth. Call me superstitious, call me crazy. It happened.

I put the book on the hutch in the dining room and for a couple of days, every time I walked by it, I became uneasy. A strange feeling would befall me. It was as if my eyes were drawn to it, and that a miniature Ira Levin was hiding in the shadows just behind it, whispering evil curses in my direction.

I thought about getting rid of it. Thought. Not considered. I wasn't about to let something go that actually emitted intense, inexplicable "bad waves."

Rosemary's Baby is sitting on a bookshelf just above this word processor, next to Son of Rosemary.

I have a few theories. It could be a true psychometric experience - - the book having absorbed something from a previous owner, it could be the artwork on the cover, it could be something I worked up in my mind, or it could be EVIL.

Whatever IT was, the paperback just didn't have the same effect on me. With the paperback, I was IN CONTROL. With the hardback, I was suddenly behind the eight ball.

And what a beautiful segue. I just received the latest copy of EIGHTBALL by Daniel Clowes. Being a bit of a misanthropic recluse, I don't know how well known the series is to the public at large. To me, its manna from on high, but none of my friends know about it, and when I tried to turn some of them on to it, the cheese dried up into dust. Meaning, they did little but sniff the trap that Daniel Clowes has so subtly and skillfully constructed. Dirty rats.

Issue 19 begins a new story, with a character named David Boring. David's father was at one time a comic illustrator himself and created a character called YELLOW STREAK. When you open to the inside front cover, one of Clowes' classic illustrations shows what the YELLOW STREAK comic book looked like way back when. As far as I'm concerned, this set up a "mood" that permeated the entire issue as I followed the experiences of David Boring. Number 19 is part one of a trilogy and is the best read you're going to get in underground politically incorrect adult comics.

I've never spoken with Mr. Clowes, but I can, without hesitation, state that we are kindred spirits. Though I find his work extremely funny, I also see bits of horror in there that really get my goat to snort. I did write him. Twice. Once when cleaning out the memorage room, and once to get permission to reproduce the covers of issue's 17 and 19 for this article. (In regards to my first contact, Mr. Clowes was the beneficiary of an old comic strip advertising a cooking compound called SPRY.)

I wanted you to see #19 (the embracing couple) because it is the one I'm recommending in this column (though in the big picture of things I highly recommend them ALL.) I wanted to show you #17 (the big head) because of a strange animal head jutting out from the wall in the upper left quadrant of the cover illustration.

The Blue Rubber Rabbit gets around boys and girls, yes he does.

I tried to figure out why most of the people I showed it to didn't enjoy it. Unless you are uptight, and/or threatened, how could you NOT like it? And it's not like I was showing it to Lutheran ministers. I bet those people wouldn't like my Cyclopean Orm columns either. They're scared I tell you. Scared as rabbits. But, my girlfriend likes it. I'm sure Felix Furlow likes it. I like it.

I think YOU will like it. Excuse me for waxing Jungian, but Clowes has the ability to stick a siphon tube into the tank of the collective unconscious and suck out what exists in many of our confused minds. For example, if I reminisce about my 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Workman, I can be sure Clowes has written or will write something that covers that very thought/emotion. If I happen to fantasize about a woman from the 1940's wearing black hosiery and carrying a whip, Clowes will somehow have it covered. EIGHTBALL is the only comic I religiously subscribe to and collect. (Although, I do mean to collect all of the old Vampirella comics someday. Right now, I have but two. If memory serves, the cover of issue #69 of Vampirella affected me in a similar way that Mrs. Workman id, er. . .did.)

By the way, you can see which one is me in the group shot. The girl on the top row, last on the left later became my girlfriend for a short while. She was an angel. The guy that looks like a devil was exactly that. Tormented me for years. And of course, on the left there is Mrs. Workman.

And God I had a crush on Mrs. Workmen. She looked like she stepped right off the cover of a Travis McGee novel. Auburn hair, green eyes. When I first saw her, sexual imprinting took about fifteen seconds. If I could meet her now, I don't know if I could trust myself.

"You don't remember me, do you? I was the kid with the big eye. I sat in the third row, fifth desk in the class of seventy-one. I didn't know what sex was then, but you made me want it anyway. . .hey . . . where are you going?! Mizzzzz Workman, come back!"

You might read something JUST LIKE THAT in EIGHTBALL and by God, it will resonate within you.

Maybe like the hardback Rosemary's Baby resonated with me just the other day. Or the resonating fact of how I actually used to own a lucky penny just like David Boring's, of which you will read about in EIGHTBALL #19.

Yeah, I sound like an EIGHTBALL freak, I know. But I bet YOU don't have issues 1 through 19, or a handwritten note from Daniel with trivia about Gene Simmons of KISS, or the Zippo lighters, or the "Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron" mock movie poster . . . or . . or

"Mizzzzz Workman! Come Back!"

If you want to subscribe to EIGHTBALL or buy a Devil Girl Zippo Lighter, get a hold of the people at Fantagraphics. These guys also happen to sell a most awesome book I recommend, called Kafka, by David Zane Mairowitz - illustrated by Robert Crumb. They even have Anton Szandor LaVey's The Devil's Notebook that I've read and enjoyed immensely. You just haven't lived until you've discovered the Law of the Trapezoid. By the way, in Daniel Clowes' book GHOST WORLD, you get to see renderings of LaVey as a minor character. I heard that this book/story is being made into a movie and is being directed by Terry Zwigoff, the man who did the film called CRUMB, a biography of Robert Crumb. THAT film was an experience all to its own. Yes, Fantagraphics even sells the video. (See all the beautiful self referencing? The fact that I have been studying Goedelian Theory is obvious.)

http://www.fantagraphics.com

To find just about any book you are looking for, give this consummate professional a call. His searches are FREE and you are not obligated to buy the book once he finds it:

Mr. Warren Johnson - 1 800 928 5206

or you can email him: 2harvest@presys.com

Warren Johnson
Second Harvest Books
P. O. Box 3306
Florence, OR 97439-3306

If you want to study Goedelian Theory, you're on your own. (hint: investigate author/mathematician/philosopher, Raymond Smullyan)

Tell them all that the Cyclopean Orm sent you. I'm not giving you Daniel's address. Not until you are a member of the Inner Circle Of Orm.

And the Blue Rubber Rabbit says, "Phase Five complete. Behold, the moon is full and I have become as unto the rare werehare."

Copyright 1998, Cyclopean Orm