This is not an actual column of mine.
Just another leftover from yesterday’s bar night. Look at what the writer dragged in!
I was discussing the usual stuff about stuff with a few “High Ranking Politicians” and other drunkards. As usual, we were not really pursuing any one topic. Skylarking flapdoodle was meandering around, seemingly random pieces of discourse passing through our midst, occupying for a short span of time that flat we call our brains. I never had, and still do not have, the perception of feeling my personal identity. I appear to myself as the place where something is going on, but there is no “I”. Anyway: One of the things channeled was the current trouble you miners out there are put through by the council these days. Just because you are proud members of the proud Guild of Miner’s.
Who says you are? Far as I can tell, you are digging for archaeological artifacts of former times, struggling hard to enrich our cumulative knowledge-chest on eras gone by. Granted, most of you are not doing all that well. Being able to read and write would certainly come in handy for a researcher. But science is a lazy old mammoth, moving with geological slowness towards our bright future of mammothlike wisdom. And in this struggle of yours, if you happen to come by any old minerals or crude materials blocking your way, why, certainly they have to be disposed of, so why not sell them to someone willing to pay – you are down there anyway, the funding of expeditions is expensive, hell, it’s a win/win for everyone. So. You see.
Go join the the Archaeologist’s Guild. If there is one, I couldn’t bother myself to check. Otherwise it’s easily being proclaimed. Or think about founding a Treasurehunter’s Guild, in case you are still ACTUALLY searching for that buried wishing-well down in the mines every day.
And the administration will definitely need time to catch up with their regulations! Hell, you can found the Guild of Your Mom!, while you are at it! All you need is some 1000 members and a slice of your time. 10.000 members and you get a representative in the high council, but hey, you can’t have it all!
There.
Obviously, this will disintegrate „the system“: This is Baruch Caan’s golden bullet. Because if it is as easily disintegrated, well… Let’s go for it. And because my golden bullet has a name to back itself up (that’s what a Jawsmith deals with): „Liquid democracy“. Yeah, there’s a whole concept behind it (basically it ought to distribute power on fluid, dynamic levels, that can spontaneously swarm around people as lightly as around guilds or organizations). You can check it up online, I’m too busy working on my ideas as a Guild representative.
Because (now a piece of advertisement:) once you are at the council hall, think about joining the Guild of Jawsmithery (I checked: No rule prohibits you from joining more guilds at the same time). It’s where the Pam! hits the fan! The Guild of Jawsmithery demands 7 minutes of guaranteed uninhibited madness per hour for it’s members! Only 998 more members! A major new player is in town, dear monster/peoplekind!
Or, this is all just a pretty lame joke, since I’m running against a deadline, and there’s nothing else to write about. Or it’s both and none of the above. That’s the beauty of our mastery: Performative self-contradiction got no claim on a Jawsmith! Want to wield that power?
Join the guild!
998, don’t be late!
I am not Fiction (but anything else)
Baruch Caan
Dear Baruch,
let me join your promising guild of mouthfuls of jawsmithed madness and there´s only 997 more to go.
Non-Fictionarily yours
Andrej Zathoth from the ´urbs
Yes, of course. Thank you very much.
You shall be appointed Prime Custodian of the Forge.
Now go over to the council hall and sign in like anyone else.
After a long absence, I return to you, Baruch – like a slightly bewildered lover who realises that nobody else finds him as attractive as his ex. Or maybe not. After all, I never stopped enjoying this particular game – but other things demanded my time and effort than my little banter with you.
I never stopped watching, of course. My moniker itself should be enough to tell you that without my having to. From iffy speculations on what magique might or might not be – or rather, DO – to little discourses on the way faith works and the way it should work, you were doing quite well. I was a little disappointed to see more blatant political rhetoric here, even if it is ostensibly about the situation in Catherinesborough and not elsewhere, I must confess – felt like you were losing your touch and subtlety. But then…
You have reached quite a bit of mass now, Baruch. I wouldn’t call it critical just yet – a long way to go there – but quite a bit of mass indeed. And you need to start stirring this kind of thought in your readers, because otherwise they’ll habituate and you will lose your ability to influence them. Once they have made a statue of you, the drawback is that you’re made of stone, look up to you though they may.
I have also been observing you through other mediums than this discourse – not for the first time, but for the first time being able to blend into a crowd as I do so. Everyone is watching you, Baruch, you with your guilds and jawsmithery – an interesting and important change from wordsmithery, incidentally – and as they do so, they are losing sight of other things. Some people are losing sight of disgruntled masses who gather to fight the loss of what they think is autonomy. Other people are losing sight of what your movements actually mean, and what you are gaining access to in the interim. Not everyone is fooled by the small picture, of course, but you’ve pulled a lot of wool (fur?) over a lot of eyes.
The method, of course, is transferable. Talking about flow and being beholden to one’s own rules and input first, then discussing how to topple an administrative system the next? Overload them with information, with work, and use the time in between. Meanwhile, your thoughts on the magique/science discourse are churning away in the background, and whether the DUF exploited or championed that discourse when they usurped the king is being considered. It’s not difficult to trace your path, Baruch. The only reason they can’t manage it is because they’re already walking down it.
And maybe you’re wondering, in your turn, at the change in me. No veiled challenges, less condescenscion than usual, very little time spent going over your words and paradigms? Could this be the same lover who left you? Will the relationship continue as before? But darling, I’ve changed as much as you have! How could it?
Maybe I should take a leaf from This Here Observer’s book and explain my long absence a little. On the other hand, I see no reason to give you information that others could use. Suffice to say: I’m following a lot of threads right now, Baruch, and though you still haven’t surprised me, you’re taking one of the more effective routes I envisaged. You’re doing well. The situation in Cull Haven might even be affected.
It won’t be as simple as the Bloody New Year’s Eve, of course. That will not happen again in the way it once did. There are more factors involved, more security issues. But change is glacial, change is a mammoth as much as science is. The question still remains whether the mammoth hunters will spear it or not.
I find my mind wandering a little. My writing suffers for it. I’ve learned too much in recent times to play my normal games with you. I will gladly return to them, though – if I am given the chance. No guarantees that I won’t disappear again, my lover.
I am still enjoying this, distracted though I may be. And again the question – who am I, Baruch? This is not a trite mystery, a silly challenge directed at finding me. You could find me if you wanted to, nobody is completely untraceable or completely safe, but the effort involved makes it a lot less attractive to hunt a phantom like myself when you’re playing at politics elsewhere. What I’m asking is not for you to find out who I am, but for you to consider who I might be. I am not yet your enemy, Baruch. But I am also not your friend. I think I gave my own best answer earlier – I’m more like your lover. For all that any number of people use FictionNet to chat and act out their fantasies, this is a country of words. And when words mingle and flow around each other the way ours do… well, is the intention behind it so important? It is the act that matters.
And now, that seems to have changed for a moment. Have you jilted me somehow? Have you done anything recently that might make me childishly withhold the closeness of our words? You know better than I should what you’ve been up to. And you know I take the long view.
All the shadowy talk of the DUF – we both know they aren’t such a danger to you as they could be. They have the resources to find and stop you, yes – but is it worth the effort? You might have convinced them it is not. I know different, as do you, but who listens to such strange voices as ours?
When the swords outside your door are sheathed again – and hopefully not in your body – I’m sure we might resume our little rendez-vous. For now, we both have other fish to fry. Have you been watching the movements of your brothers and sisters in faith? Not High Priests of your own stripe, nor those who fail to inspire you, but those who can move so freely in many lands…