the Newis Glad:

Summer is here, if you want it.

Now that nos. 45 and 46 are complete and in the world, a number of elements of this new season, Summer, the third season of the epic, might well be coming into focus. —Head over to Chapbooks, and scroll down to the brand new section where the third season chapbooks will be collected, and you’ll notice that no. 45 is the first installment of vol. 5, the Greene Chapel—and that no. 46 is the first installment of vol. 6, Eleleu Ie.

Things to keep in mind:
The secret of law.

The aptness of this satire in 2025—in which the law is even presuming to rule on biological “reality”—draws attention to the similarities between the 2020s and the 1920s, which seem much closer to the present now than, say, the 1940s or 1950s. Like our current government, the good burghers of Lud-in-the-Mist can’t counter, or even account for, the ongoing collapse of the dominant symbolic order around their ears because they are unable to recognise on ideological grounds the very forces that are opposing them.

Things to keep in mind:
The secret of vampirism, among other things.

Certainly there is no future for the genre except as a metaphor within some other work. By now the whole complex of ideas has passed so into the general culture that it is conceivable in art only as lyric imagery or as affectionate reminiscence. In fact, the vampire tradition has hardly been used in lyric verse—I can only remember one poem in Fantasy and Science Fiction. I always thought Italian directors would do very well with vampires as cultural symbols for the rotten rich—many of the traditions about the vampire are close to the atmosphere of films like La Notte or La Dolce Vita.

the most Recent installment:

Berlin– “Hippy-dippy foodie crap”– at Least, the money– the Bad Old Days–

“Berlin,” he says, huddled unbelted in the passenger seat, head against the window, loose hair stirred by the howl of a heater on high, his bare legs, bare arms pricked with gooseflesh, wet bare feet clutched one over the other on the floorboard.

“I thought it was Dubai,” she says.

His head rolls side-to-side against the glass, “I was never,” he says, and then “stop it,” and “What?” she says, the car, slowing. “Not you,” he says. “Not you. I was never in Dubai.”

“I could’ve sworn,” she says.

“The abandoned,” he says, “limousines. Himmelblau. Ellenellenellen Ell,” he says.

“The show, right, that was the summer Katarci had that amazing,” and “Please,” he says, quietly, “that sublet,” she says, “down by Yaam Beach.” Clack and swipe of windshield wipers. She’s made a turn, they’re sweeping up a ramp. “You’d just met that guy, what was it– that obnoxious little fucker?”

“Charles,” says Mr. Keightlinger.

“Really?” Her black hair’s spiky short. Her hoodie’s black, of some rubbery felted stuff. What can be seen of her tattoo, stretched up along her throat toward the point of her jaw, leaves, branches, a songbird’s beak, all sharp black lines. “I thought it was weirder than that.”

“No,” he says, folding his arms about himself. “It was only ever really Charles.” They’re going across a bridge. Through the rain-smeared glass behind his head the city, stood up about a curl of river, and more bridges, there and there and there.