Introduction
On one level, this is a collection of disparate texts types: poetry, aphorisms, a comic, short stories, and a play, any of which could stand alone.
As a philosophical whole though, The Beast Machines can be understood with a specific function in mind, which is to act as an ”Enzymatic Knowledge Machine‘‘ of the type described in “Technoethics”.
Specifically, the work, in its five acts/sections, aims to form a “constellation” that illuminates discourse as a form of despair. And, though therefore negative in its emotional tone, it seeks to demonstrate that it is freeing to be told all is lost, especially when it seems most rational. That’s to say that, whether all is lost or not conceptually – there being no rational solution to the puzzle of life – the will as visceral lived experience goes on.
An extract and the full file are available below. I published The Beast machines as “Paul Buckle”.
An Excerpt From The Beast Machines: The Spectacle vs the Beast
The following extract is taken from the short story “Freeing Quigley”, a contemporary satire on the media entertainment industry that forms one part of The Beast Machines’ section “The Show”. Each part has a particular “victim”. In this part, the victim is the host.
Quigley there, a skull tentacle careening over his sweaty brow—which brow threatens to trap it in its sticky embrace. Would be a pity as this particular lock, longer and more adventurous than any other, is his most lively appurtenance, physical or mental—his thin body being uninspiringly limp, hardly more than a prop for the large nose and angular ears, and his demeanour only as animated as required to produce the banalities of a primetime TV host. Let’s not bother exploring the inner mental wardrobe, no more (and probably less) attractively kitted out. So, the hair flits and his mouth pops an inquiry of familiar enterprise.
“Any new songs for us, Shaun?”
Shaun says nothing. Quigley sits still. The studio lights shine in their eyes. Shaun doesn’t look at Quigley. Shaun seems to be looking into the lights. He isn’t blinking. Quigley wonders if Shaun is conscious.
No natural at the interview game, our Shaun—mouth farts crawl forth fitfully and only with effort is meaning to be had. The most captivating bit never the sounds but the thing producing them—Shaun, the waxen mug sweaty and pale; skin, a muddled cheese of creamy pocks; nose, a formless pudge; shriveled lips round black teeth. A sight to embarrass a coffin. Time is not Shaun’s friend. Time has puked all over Shaun, digested him, and now leers over about to suck up the remains. Quigley fears that any pause may be permanent. And a part of him hopes it is.
Shaun turns and stares at Quigley. His mouth hangs immobile. Eyes, an empty question. Quigley’s stiff frame wobbles in the bright, wobbles a smile, breaks the air that way, softly wobbling silent groans of inadequacy. Fidgeting, he almost scratches his balls, and the awareness squeezes a flush of embarrassment. He jerks his stray hand from his crotch.
Shaun sees and gives his hissy laugh. Quixotic Shaun, jester Shaun, helpless, seething, child-monster, Shaun. The laugh pisses out of him, a vicious mirth sprinkling its stink—whiskey, cigarettes, beans. Now, under the lights, Quigley is afraid. The audience smell it, smell him—the child in the man—sweating in silence.
“Were ye lookin’ for yer balls, Quigley?” says Shaun with delight.
The audience roar raucously, and Quigley fixes a strained grin.