THE NEWS: oh boy, things are uncivil, you should probably be concerned though no one is asking your opinion about anything
ME: [ensconced inside a hermit crab shell-like structure made of unread books, mud brick, and pointy sticks] I need a bigger shell
lost time incident 77
Welcome to another lost time incident. The seconds keep ticking along and getting away from us, forming a chain hand-to-hand that drags us into the future against our will. According to clocks and pendulums, stone circles and star charts, it’s been about a month since I sent one of these out and there’s a good reason for that: I only just this morning clawed myself out of a deep pit of muck in which I was imprisoned by the Verdant Monarch as revenge for attempting to usurp the throne. I’m covered in mud and ready to type.
Okay, actually, I was playing host the last few weekends to some work colleagues from India. So it goes. I showed them the ocean. I made sure they tried fresh strawberries and chipotle salsa (not at the same time). All the wonders of this part of the world.
All of which means my book project has been untouched as well. What I did instead, to create the illusion of progress, was I paid an artist to create some artwork for the project. Here’s two images from maddison (aka DataErase). I love her animation/glitch aesthetic and wanted to see what she would come up with after seeing a bit of my witches.town writing. The results:
I really should get back to editing that project. But not today!
Today, I’ll send out this newsletter and that will feel like enough of an act of creation that I can go back to laying on the couch reading books, listening to the sounds of passing planes and trains through the open window.
Anyway, here are some more words!
get it?
“I’m not here to make friends.” – Dr. Frankenstein, consoling himself when his corpse-son has nothing in common with him when it comes to interests or hobbies
monster self defense ($80 M-W-F)
Mummy: This one’s easy and a good monster to start with when you’re learning the art of self-defense. Get in a ready stance, feet planted wide, and find your center. Then, give the mummy a compliment and offer a high five. When it puts its hand up, slap its hand so hard the whole creature falls to dust from the impact. This technique’s so easy, there’s room for me to teach you in the course description, which I just did.
Want to defend yourself from Dogmans? Draculas? Fishwitches? MANY MORE?!? Gotta pay $80 for the rest and these are just the tip of the monster pile of self-defense knowledge I can impart. See you on the musty mats of the community centre!
morning affirmations from my rejected manuscript of inspirational living advice
Each of the following affirmations are free to a good home, because apparently the publishing world is not yet ready for my truths, even though they look amazing when placed on a photo of a natural landscape.
Repeat as required daily:
we are updating our occult privacy policy
You are receiving this communication from us because at some point in the last few years, we have:
and/or
Due to new legislation, now we have to ask: Is it okay if we keep doing that?
ending theme song
Oh boy, that was fun, wasn’t it? Wow. Sure, some people like riding roller coasters, or falling in love, but subscribers to this mailing list know that nothing compares to idly scrolling down a long column of words.
The wind just knocked over a screen we put in front of our open front door to keep our neighbor from peering in, which means that either our neighbor now has control of the weather, or maybe it’s a windy enough day that we need to reconsider our open door policy.
If you don’t hear from me again, just assume I’ve ascended into the heavens, snatched up by powerful gusts that managed to lure me to the door with the screen-toppling ruse, and that from now on I can be found in the clouds.
Whoosh!
—Michael Van Vleet
Hey! Did you enjoy reading this? But did you find yourself thinking “Dang, if only this sort of thing were delivered directly into my inbox so I didn’t have to spend time on a website as if it were still the 90s or something!”?
You’re in luck! You can subscribe to the LOST TIME INCIDENT newsletter and finally class up your inbox.
young vampires on social media taking selfies with fake stakes sticking out of their chests, putting “stake me daddy” in their bios
vampire meme straight from the vampire web [descriptive text – no image]
—
what they think we’re like
[image from Bram Stoker’s Dracula of Gary Oldman in titular role / Impact text reads THE BLOOD IS THE LIFE]
what we’re actually like
[image of young vampire reclining on sand in the shadows under an oceanside dock, wearing a white t-shirt upon which has been written THE BLOOD IS WHATEVER, ACTUALLY, miming as if about lick a mussel-encrusted support pillar]
1) Glitter pens available for dazzling up name tags
2) Top shelf cookies on the break table
3) Matching robes stored on site, cleaned between every ritual and kept in cedar wood cabinet so they smell nice
4) Only rarely, and when absolutely necessary, tossing a member into a whirling colorless void, ignoring their screams and basking in the rush of power the Lord of Eight Teeth offers to its loyal subjects
5) No cost day care
“I’m not here to make friends.” – Dr. Frankenstein, consoling himself when his corpse-son has nothing in common with him when it comes to interests or hobbies
Mummy: This one’s easy and a good monster to start with when you’re learning the art of self-defense. Get in a ready stance, feet planted wide, and find your center. Then, give the mummy a compliment and offer a high five. When it puts its hand up, slap its hand so hard the whole creature falls to dust from the impact. This technique’s so easy, there’s room for me to teach you in the course description, which I just did.
Want to defend yourself from Dogmans? Draculas? Fishwitches? MANY MORE?!? Gotta pay $80 for the rest and these are just the tip of the monster pile of self-defense knowledge I can impart. See you on the musty mats of the community centre!
Each free to a good home. Repeat as required daily:
I am strong. I am valued. The world will burn and I will learn to breathe ash.
The world acts through me and I act through the world. I am one with shadows and fate.
I am a person deserving of success. I will drink water. I will walk on two legs. I will maintain my form, all day, even when startled by earth fauna.
Social standards change all the time and if I were to just discard all these tomes bound in flesh, written with blood, then what would I do with all my leftover buckets of blood? Not to mention the shifting piles of skin?
I’m not saying that crafting these forbidden books was a great idea, but I’m saying: What’s the big hurry to get rid of them? Just because there’s a few tiny crowds of peasants bearing torches and clubs approaching?
C’mon.
They might still change their minds.
You are receiving this communication from us because at some point in the last few years, we have:
and/or
Due to new legislation, now we have to ask:
Is it okay if we keep doing that?
[a picture of you, dressed in ragged clothes and translucent, untethered from the material world, an unhappy spectre]
[a picture of a whirling vortex of spectral teeth attached to an arcane digestive system that renders spirits into raw spectral energy, shredding ghosts and composting them into something unrecognizable as part of a post-life ecology that’s barely imaginable]