i'm hit but i can make it.

I. so. feel. this.



Thank you artist Matt Straub for your pop romancification of the Hollywood Western, though those motifs have nothing to do with why I relate to this particular cowgirl. And for those motifs, Jackson Crawford & Amy Novelli, I hope you know this guy's work, as you'd probably like it.

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While a mostly happy bookstore fixture for over two decades, Guillermo Maytorena IV is currently willing to entertain your serious proposals for employment as a literary/cinema critic, goth journalist, castellan, airship pilot/crewperson, investigative mythologist, or assisting in a craft brewery. Should you be connected to any of the above or equally interesting endeavours, do contact him.

importing content to Dark Entries, the new NorsePlay, & the closure of GooglePlus.

While I could vent for a whole entry about Google's short-sighted betrayal of millions of loyalist users in closing GooglePlus this April, I've contacted the owners with solid advice to keep their underappreciated but quite good online network up, and signed a petition, which is the best follow-through I can do.



Lacking an established VR-based Internet 3.0 site to setup a cyberhome on, I've decided to instead take a break from social media until new acceptable networks have improved structures for interactivity, custom fine-scalable filtering tools, and most importantly permanent nodes for users & their content. Until that evolves, I'm instead using my already established & dependable blog for my online presence.



Words aren't going anywhere no matter how sophisticated digital expression gets.



Thanks to the Google Plus Exporter (so much gratitude to coder Alois Bělaška), I'm shifting one of my G+ collections' content from my profile to here, and a second collection into a new subject specific blog. This means a few years of my most worthwhile & thoughtful social media back content will be integrated into these blogrolls. If you've followed me on both Dark Entries & G+ you'll be witness to the redundancy, but I know the re-runs hold up. If you only follow me here, there will be many new to you but backdated entries to enjoy, share, & comment on.


Dark Inscriptions, my microblog sounding-off reactionary smallform version that compliments this one, will add ~100 entries here, and adorn this Dark Entries blog which you already know & love. While I'd reserved this blog for mostly longform pieces as per my journalism degree background, this merging will change that format in future to both short & full posts here. Hit the follow button in my Blogger-specific subscribe box and stay tuned.


When launching my new NorsePlay blog, there will eventually be 400+ curated shortform posts, re-posts of the few longer NorsePlay entries from here, plus a longform writer's statement about the importance of NorsePlay to start it off with. If you've followed my Norse Mythology-related content on G+, NorsePlay is where it'll be re-housed and enthusiastically continued. If you've liked the NorsePlay-headed entries here, do follow that focus on the forthcoming new blog. I'll announce when the new site publishes in a new post here soon.



This dual archive of content will appear gradually, as each backlogged post will need a slight manual format adjustment to fit Blogger's pages, so rest assured you won't get a megaflood of notifications once you subscribe to either or both of my blogs.

[Well, now the G+ closure narrows that choice down, really.]

While this change is born of disappointment in GooglePlus' lack of vision & self-imposed defeat, the relocation to here will give my content more standalone stability. And the pro-active & specific audience it deserves -- that's you. Thank you all for your new & continued readership & personal enthusiasm.

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While a mostly happy bookstore fixture for over two decades, Guillermo Maytorena IV is currently willing to entertain your serious proposals for employment as a literary/cinema critic, goth journalist, castellan, airship pilot/crewperson, investigative mythologist, or assisting in a craft brewery. Should you be connected to any of the above or equally interesting endeavours, do contact him via LinkedIn or in the comments below.

they traveled from afar to see me.

Hails to Dani Thomas, Vincent Enlund, Jeremy Hehn, Patrícia Rohwedder, & Analise for coming all the way down to Tucson to check on me and offer their face-to-face Heathenry. Maybe that's my personal Luck at work, maybe that's their sense of Honor & Right Action to counsel going above & beyond geographical & emotional distance, but I'm grateful to have such sterling people in my corner. Thanks for making the awesome mead available, the gift of the wooden combi-goat, and your combined Wisdom. My Hospitality's always open to you all. Much love.

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While a mostly happy bookstore fixture for over two decades, Guillermo Maytorena IV is currently willing to entertain your serious proposals for employment as a literary/cinema critic, goth journalist, castellan, airship pilot/crewperson, investigative mythologist, or assisting in a craft brewery. Should you be connected to any of the above or equally interesting endeavours, do contact him.

my Dad died today in a room with buttercream walls.

My Dad died today in a room with buttercream walls.



There's a retelling of the moment where Odin gets swallowed by the wolf described as suddenly all the magic everywhere disappears and color just drains from the worlds.



It is like that.

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While a mostly happy bookstore fixture for over two decades, Guillermo Maytorena IV is currently willing to entertain your serious proposals for employment as a literary/cinema critic, goth journalist, castellan, airship pilot/crewperson, investigative mythologist, or assisting in a craft brewery. Should you be connected to any of the above or equally interesting endeavours, do contact him.

the storm drain looked back at us.

Two nights ago, my dog & I walked past a storm drain on 15th St, just southeast of 6th Ave. A pair of oversized burning amber eyes stared out at us set slightly further apart than humanly normal. After going a quarter block away, I thought wait, should I go back and investigate? Then I figured if it reached out and got me, what would happen to the dog? Or if it grabbed the dog instead, then I would have to descend into the tunnels to rescue or avenge him, probably against superior numbers. We kept walking. Heather, veteran of many more horror movies than I, said we definitely made the right choice, but now I'll always wonder about it.



[For more Tucson underground weirdness, check out this longer blog.]

o' how i burn brilliantly on my course.

Máni & Sunna run through the heavens,

just ahead of the wolves who will one grim day catch them.

They can expect nothing better than this.

But o' how they shine.



I run ahead,

the teeth of my dying father

and my dying marriage

that bloody my heels into sunset.

But o' how I burn,

brilliantly on my course.

the sound of separation.

Recently I began transferring my digital music to my BlackBerry, and in the process thought I was in a place in my life where I didn't need any of the sad music anymore. I had what I needed forever, and the things that the music wept for didn't apply. I was happy.

Now, suddenly, unexpectedly, I find I again need that music, those tracks that will weep with me in the days to come.

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While a mostly happy bookstore fixture for over two decades, Guillermo Maytorena IV is currently willing to entertain your serious proposals for employment as a literary/cinema critic, goth journalist, castellan, airship pilot/crewperson, investigative mythologist, or assisting in a craft brewery. Should you be connected to any of the above or equally interesting endeavours, do contact him via LinkedIn or in the comments below.

accepting my deification.

Yesterday a man whom I consider locally influential and seriously accomplished emphatically insisted on telling me:



"You're famous in this city. Tucson knows who you are. Accept it." 



Tucson, thank you for confirming my inner superiority complex and giving me the apotheosis to local god I know I've been worthy of. I love you back.

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While a mostly happy bookstore fixture for over two decades, Guillermo Maytorena IV is currently willing to entertain your serious proposals for employment as a literary/cinema critic, goth journalist, castellan, airship pilot/crewperson, investigative mythologist, or assisting in a craft brewery. Should you be connected to any of the above or equally interesting endeavours, do contact him.

the politeness of melee weapons.

If it were again socially acceptable to carry the melee weapon of one's choice, we feel the level of condescension in dialogues would quickly evaporate.

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While a mostly happy bookstore fixture for over two decades, Guillermo Maytorena IV is currently willing to entertain your serious proposals for employment as a literary/cinema critic, goth journalist, castellan, airship pilot/crewperson, investigative mythologist, or assisting in a craft brewery. Should you be connected to any of the above or equally interesting endeavours, do contact him.

The Speaker in the Darkness.

Out of the dark bedroom a voice that wasn't my wife's spoke:

"Cold ... chilly ... chilly."

I froze, wondering who was talking -- it was the dog!

Since then I've listened carefully every night for him to slip up and mutter something, anything, again ... .

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While a mostly happy bookstore fixture for over two decades, Guillermo Maytorena IV is currently willing to entertain your serious proposals for employment as a literary/cinema critic, goth journalist, castellan, airship pilot/crewperson, investigative mythologist, or assisting in a craft brewery. Should you be connected to any of the above or equally interesting endeavours, do contact him.

on technological irrelevancies.

XBox or Playstation is Coke versus Pepsi ... and just as irrelevant. Don't offer me bread & circuses with your trillions. Give me a real paradigm shift. Domestic robots I can lease to my workplace so I can have more time off or program to plant food or make goat cheese while I'm away so we can get off this grocery bill food chain wage enslavement treadmill that goes to death and we can instead retire early. Flying cars with safe hive mind autopilots so we can travel, adopt grander perspectives, and free will engage more than the programmed post-cathode ray windows in our homes. Game change it already. Imagine harder, world. Put that on your to-do list.

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While a mostly happy bookstore fixture for over two decades, Guillermo Maytorena IV is currently willing to entertain your serious proposals for employment as a literary/cinema critic, goth journalist, castellan, airship pilot/crewperson, investigative mythologist, or assisting in a craft brewery. Should you be connected to any of the above or equally interesting endeavours, do contact him via LinkedIn or in the comments below.

the bow gallops.

Friction is what makes the magic happen, the draw & press of bow which sings the sighs we all sigh, the growl & scream. The hollow wood body is our body, the sounds we make to fill our own void, and that's why what Rasputina does is more than a gimmick with costumes because all that surface stuff is just a camouflage trick to lure you in. Here, in the friction, the killing is made, and the Hunter's Kiss delivered.

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While a mostly happy bookstore fixture for over two decades, Guillermo Maytorena IV is currently willing to entertain your serious proposals for employment as a literary/cinema critic, goth journalist, castellan, airship pilot/crewperson, investigative mythologist, or assisting in a craft brewery. Should you be connected to any of the above or equally interesting endeavours, do contact him.