For those of you who enjoy some of my non-insane work — okay, just partially insane — I’ve got a new short story posted in the short fiction section. It was originally published in Flash Me, an online flash fiction magazine, in 2003, and I’ve reprinted it online here: “The rush of heaven downward“.
I’ve also put a listing of all my (free) online fiction here.
And yea, it shall be a time of great lamentation and strangeness.
The fish of the seas shall drink of the bones of the past, and the birds of the sky shall be coated in its blackness, and the race of Adam shall be helpless before its wrath.
But in this era of evil a man shall send another man a Parcel. And it shall contain a book of fiction, and filled with lies and tales of great wantonness and evil. And they shall both make use of the Mail. And the Parcel will arrive many days before the Pharisees of the Postal Service said it would arrive.
And they will tremble, and fear, for they shall see it as A Sign of the End.
Many art historians believe this to be the famous painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party (Le déjeuner des canotiers) by the French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir, painted in 1881.
They are right on two counts: it was Renoir, and it was in 1881, but the actual title was The Festival of Slorg, and is much more sinister than art historians have always assumed.
According to Brian A. Oard in his essay on this painting, The Lure of Lotus Eating:
It is a scene of the triumphant bourgeoisie celebrating an appropriately commercialized version of the fête champêtre in a place that was once a playground of the aristocracy. By 1880, nearly a century after the Revolution, the French middle classes were comfortable enough to party like aristocrats, and in Renoir they found their Watteau.
But this is what we see on the surface . . . The horrors of the Slorgfest are too much for me to relate to you here, but I would note that while bottles of wine are in evidence aplenty, you will note that all their plates are empty. And what was on those plates? Well, let’s just say the population of homeless people of Chatou, France is smaller by at least two.
A slight deviation from the normal deviancy that goes on here at The Skwib. As you know, I am a writer of novels in addition to this blog, and my second book is now available as a Kindle edition.
As we lead up to the official release of the paper version, I’ve priced the Kindle version at $3.99. (Actually, I priced it at $1.99, but Amazon adds a $2 fee for downloading.) But even at $3.99 it’s a helluva deal. And it’s a limited-time offer!
You can buy it here, and find out more about the book here.
Many people have described this as one of history’s most mysterious paintings. They have described the smile on this woman’s face as “enigmatic” and “curious” and highly erotic. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
As you know, Florence, where Da Vinci painted this, was in a very long and intense struggle with Sienna, a nearby city that also intended to rule all Italy. The military conflict widened as both independent cities created breeding programs to produce women with mental powers. Florence won this corsa del cervello (literally, the brain race) in the person of Mona Lisa, pictured here just before she flattened Sienna with a shattering blast of telekinetic power.
Actual details available at Wikipedia, but yes, it’s Mona Lisa, painted circa 1503-1506.
As always, if you’ve done one of these, let me know via Twitter (@markarayner) or via email: markarayner (at) gmail.com. The gallery will be up by the end of the week – promise!
