Happy Halloween

“Then Hallowe'en drew near, and the settlers planned another frolic—this time, had they but known it, of a lineage older than even agriculture; the dread Witch-Sabbath of the primal pre-Aryans, kept alive through ages in the midnight blackness of secret woods, and still hinting at vague terrors under its latter-day mask of comedy and lightness.”

--“The Curse of Yig” by H.P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop, first published in Weird Tales, 1929 November

Russian America

“His comrades were Slavonian hunters and Russian adventurers, Mongols and Tartars and Siberian aborigines; and through the savages of the new world they had cut a path of blood.”

--Jack London, “Lost Face,” 1910

"...is the crossroads of the world from now on."

He now spoke reflectively in a fearful mix of Rastafarian glossolalia, old African words and rearranged English, but she understood the message: ‘The people of the Caribbean are different. Their early life in Africa made them so, right from the beginning. Terrible years on the sugar plantations increased the difference between them and white people. We think different. We value different things. We live different. And we must make our living in different ways. The white man has nothing to teach us. We build a good life here, we find the money to buy his radios, his televisions, his Sony Betamaxes, his Toyotas.’

‘Everything you mentioned comes from Japan, not from white people.’

Ras-Negus, always displeased when reality was thrust into his dreams, ignored this...


--James Michener, Caribbean, 1989

The Steppe available

The English version of The Steppe is now available through eBay and Shop Mongolia.

www.TheSteppe.com

El Paso

by Marty Robbins
released in 1959

Out in the West Texas town of El Paso
I fell in love with a Mexican girl
Nighttime would find me in Rosa's cantina
Music would play and Felina would whirl

Blacker than night were the eyes of Felina
Wicked and evil while casting her spell
My love was deep for this Mexican maiden
I was in love, but in vain I could tell

One night a wild young cowboy came in
Wild as the West Texas wind
Dashing and daring, a drink he was sharing
With wicked Felina, the girl that I loved

So in anger
I challenged his right for the love of this maiden
Down went his hand for the gun that he wore
My challenge was answered in less than a heartbeat
The handsome young stranger lay dead on the floor

Just for a moment I stood there in silence
Shocked by the foul, evil deed I had done
Many thoughts raced through my mind as I stood there
I had but one chance and that was to run

Out through the back door of Rosa's I ran
Out where the horses were tied
I caught a good one, it looked like it could run
Up on its back and away I did ride

Just as fast as
I could from the West Texas town of El Paso
Out to the badlands of New Mexico

Back in El Paso my life would be worthless
Everything's gone in life, nothing is left
It's been so long since I've seen the young maiden
My love is stronger than my fear of death

I saddled up and away I did go
Riding alone in the dark
Maybe tomorrow a bullet will find me
Tonight nothing's worse than this pain in my heart

And at last here
I am on the hill overlooking El Paso
I can see Rosa's cantina below
My love is strong and it pushes me onward
Down off the hill to Felina I go

Off to my right I see five mounted cowboys
Off to my left ride a dozen or more
Shouting and shooting I can't let them catch me
I have to make it to Rosa's back door

Something is dreadfully wrong for I feel
A deep burning pain in my side
Though I am trying to stay in the saddle
I'm getting weary, unable to ride

But my love for
Felina is strong, and I rise where I've fallen
Though I am weary I can't stop to rest
I see the white puff of smoke from the rifle
I feel the bullet go deep in my chest

From out of nowhere Felina has found me
Kissing my cheek as she kneels by my side
Cradled by two loving arms that I'll die for
One little kiss and Felina, good-bye


* * *
I read once somewhere that the ironic tragedy of "El Paso" is that the narrator is not shot for being a murderer--they had been in a bar; there would have been witnesses that the cowboy had gone for his gun first. The narrator is chased and shot for being a horse thief.

of *The Steppe*

As technology makes perfectly simulated virtual universes a fact, the most vital human intellectual endeavor is inquiry into how a conscious mind can discern a physical universe.

The notion that one might be the only conscious mind in existence, known as the “Problem of Other Minds” in the Western philosophical tradition, known to Western psychology as “Solipsism Syndrome,” is abhorrently alien to any human who lives with other humans, as almost all humans do. Yet this same notion is so natural to any human in solitude that it is a primary concern of space agency research into how humans can live in vast, empty, extraterrestrial landscapes.

The Steppe is an exploration of the horror and glory of a human accepting that which is humanly unacceptable, yet logically undeniable.

www.TheSteppe.com

Two articles on Mongolia mining

New Statesman:

"Not all of these licenses have been exploited yet, but those that have are causing immense problems already – literally carving chunks out of Mongolia’s beautiful landscapes and leaving a legacy of pollution that will be there for years to come. More than 2,000 of the country’s small and medium sized rivers have disappeared, due to mining operations digging up their sources, and there is widespread soil and water pollution from the mercury and cyanide used in the mining and extraction process."


Asia Times:

"The magnitude of potential investment and forecast revenues from deposit sales have led some to christen Mongolia the 'El Dorado' of the new millennium. While this may be a slight exaggeration, the government's National Development Strategy 2021 anticipates per capita income in Mongolia increasing from US$1,100 today to $7,000 in five years and $15,000 by 2021."

History is the Fiction

"History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction."

--Bill Watterson, Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat

Special Advance Reading

A special advance reading of Radigan Neuhalfen's new novel The Steppe will be held at 4:00 pm Thursday, September 27th, at Chinggis Khaan University.

The Steppe is being published by Chinggis Khaan University Press and will be released in October.

"Crossing Mongolia on horseback one summer, Rad encounters a man who lives alone upon the steppe. Known to the nomads as 'Buddha' but calling himself 'Baatar,' the man lives without a horse, a ger, or a herd of sheep, but with a large, mysterious sword that may once have belonged to Genghis Khan. He claims to survive by hunting and eating monstrous, nocturnal 'creatures' of the steppe.

"As Rad questions Baatar, seeking the truth, he becomes drawn into the man's strange reality. Soon, Rad realizes that he, like Baatar, may never wish to leave the steppe, nor be able to."

Chinggis Khaan University is located in the 11th district of Ulaanbaatar, just east of Dashchoilon Monastery, north of the Baga Toiruu.

--Mongolia Web News

US

Soul Isolate

“The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer.”

—D.H. Lawrence

Lustless

“You are going nowhere young man, but maybe there’s nowhere to go.”

—Benjamin DeMott, “Battling the Hard Man: Notes on Addiction to the Pornography of Violence”

Epiography of The Steppe

New Amazon list of the sources for the epiography of The Steppe.

www.TheSteppe.com

"And pilots, like children, dream only of flying"

Surly Beer

New brewery by Macalester alum in Minnesota, where the bridge fell down.

http://www.citypages.com/databank/28/1393/article15757.asp

"...in June a beer magazine, Ratebeer.com, had judged Surly Darkness, the brewery's Russian Imperial Stout, to be the best American beer in the whole entire world. ...Another magazine, Beer Advocate, also just named Surly the No. 1 best brewery in the entire U.S. of A."

"Americans don't really make anything anymore except software, movies, a few medical devices, and beer."

Surly Brewing

Mongolian Pinkeye

It's that time of year again -- summer travel pieces in the Western media! Pretty much the same as last year's. Anyway, here's one from McSweeney's!

Mongolia on Paper by Roy Kesey

"It helped that I had a bad case of conjunctivitis at the time."

Good Writing

Cracked.com is a quality humor website. Jay Pinkerton is an editor; contributing writers include Maddox, Mike Nelson, Dave Campbell, and many others.

Many pieces critique other works of humor, opining whether something is funny or not funny, but also why it is funny or not funny, and doing so in a way that is funny. It is like reading insightful "theory of humor."

Most of Cracked's pieces are good. This one, by David Wong, is startlingly good:

7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable

"So did we really need a study to tell us that more than 40 percent of what you say in an e-mail is misunderstood? Well, they did one anyway.

"How many of your friends have you only spoken with online? If 40 percent of your personality has gotten lost in the text transition, do these people even really know you? The people who dislike you via text, on message boards or chatrooms or whatever, is it because you're really incompatible? Or, is it because of the misunderstood 40 percent? And, what about the ones who like you?

"When someone speaks to you face-to-face, what percentage of the meaning is actually in the words, as opposed to the body language and tone of voice? Take a guess.

"It's 7 percent. The other 93 percent is nonverbal, according to studies. No, I don't know how they arrived at that exact number. They have a machine or something. But we didn't need it. I mean, come on.

"When we're living in Text World, all that is stripped away. There's a weird side effect to it, too: absent a sense of the other person's mood, every line we read gets filtered through our own mood instead."

In a Submarine That’s Been Hit

I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.

I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering.

If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

I can picture in my mind a world without war. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.

I was sad because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet. So I said, "Got any shoes you're not using?"

A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

On the other hand, you have different fingers.

The other day when I was walking through the woods, I saw a rabbit standing in front of a candle making shadows of people on a tree.

I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep it on all the beaches of the world. Perhaps you've seen it.

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

When I die, I'm leaving my body to science fiction.

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

One night I came home very late. It was the next night.

I like to fill my tub up with water, then turn the shower on and act like I'm in a submarine that's been hit.

Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.

I've been doing a lot of abstract painting lately, extremely abstract. No brush, no paint, no canvas. I just think about it.

Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

I intend to live forever. So far, so good.


--Steven Wright

Comic Book Heroes

a far horizon in every direction

Have no fear
of the solitude.


Fear the creatures.




www.TheSteppe.com

the future

"The actual future, in many ways, came without warning. The things that radically changed the world as we know it—instant messaging, picture phones, Napster, scoop-shaped tortilla chips—don’t turn up in the sci-fi visions into which we all bought while reading Jules Verne or George Orwell."

--Oops: 20 Life Lessons from the Fiascoes That Shaped America, Martin J. Smith and Patrick J. Kiger, 2006

Query

What is another word for "thesaurus"?

Creature of the Steppe: Gantsaaraa

Xeer talin am'tan: Gantsaaraa
(detail)
D.Ganbold
1982- Mongolian


www.TheSteppe.com

Chinese loch monster across the border

"Not just one, but more than a dozen huge creatures can be seen churning across Lake Kanasi in remote western China...

"A rare video filmed by a tourist at the lake in the Heavenly Mountains of the wild Xinjiang region, has reignited debate over the existence...of an legendary beast that has been rumoured for centuries to live in the depths of Lake Kanasi.

"Local myth among the Chinese Mongolians living in the scenic mountains near the Russian and Mongolian borders has it that the animals have been known to drag sheep, cows and even horses from the shore and into the deep to devour them."

--The Times

The Steppe - Questions for Discussion and Review

1. The Classical Greek philosophical school of Skepticism holds that any knowledge of a physical universe is impossible. What is the horrific implication of Skepticism as presented by The Steppe?

2. What is the “gloriful” implication?

3. Moore’s argument for “common sense” over Skepticism, often summed up by the phrase: “Here is a hand,” argues that there is no more logical basis to distrust the perceptions of your senses than there is to trust them. How does Baatar address this argument?

4. Wittgenstein’s argument against Skepticism claims that Skepticism is thinkable only through a misuse of language, specifically through confusion regarding the contextual meaning and usage of the verb “to know.” How does Baatar address this argument?

5. How might The Steppe actually be considered a reductio ad absurdum argument against Skepticism?

6. Solipsism is the absence of belief that other human beings exist as consciousnesses. Despite the acknowledged logical consistency of Solipsism, there has never been a Solipsistic philosopher. Is Baatar a Solipsist?

7. Consider the original final line of The Steppe: “This narrative is dedicated to you, the reader, though I do not know and cannot know whether you exist.” Is Neuhalfen a Solipsist?

8. Consider Rad as an unreliable narrator who reports only his own subjective reality which, in the course of The Steppe, changes through exposure to Baatarism. How might the supernatural elements of Rad’s narration be explained naturally? (For example, in “Chapter Twenty-Two: Makhchin,” despite what Rad describes, an observer might report Rad killing and eating his own horse.)

9. How does The Steppe’s lack of a narrative counterpoint to Rad’s subjective reality reinforce the philosophical tenets of Baatarism?

10. One of The Steppe’s epigraphs alludes to Beowulf and one is taken from the epic poem itself. How is Baatar like Beowulf?

11. How is Baatar like Grendel?

www.TheSteppe.com

Spanish Civil War

The tanks had not come up in time and finally had refused to advance, and two of the battalions had failed to attain their objectives. The third had taken theirs, but it formed an untenable salient. The only real result had been a few prisoners, and these had been confided to the tank men to bring back and the tank men had killed them. The General had only failure to show, and they had killed his prisoners.

“What can I write on it?” I asked.

“Nothing that is not in the official communiqué. Have you any whisky in that long flask?”

“Yes.”

He took a drink and licked his lips carefully. He had once been a captain of Hungarian Hussars, and he had once captured a gold train in Siberia when he was a leader of irregular cavalry with the Red Army and held it all one winter when the thermometer went down to forty below zero. We were good friends and he loved whisky, and he is now dead.


--Ernest Hemingway, “Under the Ridge”

Saturn Devouring His Son

Saturno devorando a su hijo

Francisco Goya
1746-1828 Spanish

Morality

Philidor stared at him incredulously. “You expect us, the Expiationists, to become your soldiers?”

“Why not?” asked Xanten ingenuously. “Your life is at stake no less than ours.”

“No one dies more than once.”

Xanten in his turn evinced shock. “What? Can this be a former gentleman of Hagedorn speaking? Is this the face a man of pride and courage turns to danger? Is this the lesson of history? Of course not! I need not instruct you in this; you are as knowledgeable as I.”

Philidor nodded. “I know that the history of man is not his technical triumphs, his kills, his victories. It is a composite, a mosaic of a trillion pieces, the account of each man’s accommodation with his conscience. This is the true history of the race.”

Xanten made an airy gesture. “A.G. Philidor, you oversimplify grievously. Do you consider me obtuse? There are many kinds of history. They interact. You emphasize morality. But the ultimate basis of morality is survival. What promotes survival is good; what induces mortifaction is bad.”

“Well spoken!” declared Philidor. “But let me propound a parable. May a nation of a million beings destroy a creature who otherwise will infect all with a fatal disease? Yes, you will say. Once more: ten starving beasts hunt you, that they may eat. Will you kill them to save your life? Yes, you will say again, though here you destroy more than you save. Once more: a man inhabits a hut in a lonely valley. A hundred spaceships descend from the sky, and attempt to destroy him. May he destroy these ships in self-defense, even though he is one and they are a hundred thousand? Perhaps you will say yes. What, then, if a whole world, a whole race of beings, pits itself against this single man? May he kill all? What if the attackers are as human as himself? What if he were the creature of the first instance, who otherwise will infect a world with disease? You see, there is no area where a simple touchstone avails. We have searched and found none. Hence, at the risk of sinning against Survival, we—I, at least; I can only speak for myself—have chosen a morality which at least allows me calm. I kill—nothing. I destroy—nothing.”


--Jack Vance, The Last Castle

deep in the glens

“…Reuben’s spirit shone at intervals with an outward gladness; but inwardly there was a cold, cold sorrow, which he compared to the snowdrifts lying deep in the glens and hollows of the rivulets while the leaves were brightly green above.”

--Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Roger Malvin’s Burial”

Verse

Send my love
To my home
But sent my mail
To a Tijuana jail

--Gilby Clarke, "Tijuana Jail"

Khovsgol Diving Expedition

"Steven Schwankert is the founder of Beijing diving school SinoScuba. From August 9 to 23 this year, he will lead the first-ever diving expedition to Lake Khovsgol...

"We're not claiming it's the first time anyone has dived in the lake.... However, it has only been dived a few times, and we are the first diving scientific expedition to the lake.

"...there may be Buddhist relics thrown into the lake in the 1930s by monks who wanted to preserve them during a persecution."

--Danwei

Olon (Hungry)

Olon
(Hungry)
D.Ganbold
1982- Mongolian

Bought a painting last week from the painter D.Ganbold.

The painting charges unusual colors: red for the night sky, turquoise for the wolf, pink for the eyes.

Gers in the UK

The Guardian

Xenophobic Nationalism

“Young urban women are a real problem for conservative nationalists for several reasons. First, they are seen as more European than Asian, which renders problematic the conservative/nationalists’ portrayal of Mongolia as an Asian state. Second, if they are well educated and professionally successful, they are capable of escaping the confines of patriarchy-cum-conservative/xenophobic nationalism and make independent decisions about marriage, partner choice, and childbirth. Third and worse, if they are multi-lingual and/or well-traveled, they have greater chances to ‘betray’ their biological-cultural community by establishing sexual relations with foreign men and giving birth to ‘half-breeds’ with questionable loyalties to the Mongolian state. Fourth and worst, if they are politically prominent, they threaten to invade the last reserves of the masculinist/patriarchal domain and break the male monopoly over the control of the state power. Therefore, the image of womanhood constructed by the conservative/xenophobic nationalists is projected as the full measure of Mongolian women’s Mongolness and, consequently, of their patriotism.”

--Undarya Tumursukh, "Masculine Constructions of National Identity and Man-Made Images of the Mongolian Woman in Post-Socialist Mongolia"

Chris Kaplonski

"Anthropology, Mongolia and more..."

Dinosaur Soft Parts

North Carolina State University's Mary Schweitzer in Montana, Macalester College's Ray Rogers and Kristi Curry Rogers in Madagascar, and Montana State University's Jack Horner in Mongolia are recovering specimens of the soft tissue of dinosaurs.

MSNBC

Age of Info

Discovered Google Earth last night.

1. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
2. Minot, North Dakota
3. Karlsruhe, North Dakota
4. St. Paul, Minnesota
5. Provideniya, Chukotka, Russia
6. Nome, Alaska
7. South Pole
8. Baghdad, Iraq
9. Besancon, France
10. Cancun, Mexico

8 syllables die hard

“Eight syllables of ass-kicking-American-cowboy awesomeness: ‘Yippee Ki Yay, Motherfucker.’”

--Daniel O'Brien at Cracked

Endure what life

"Never to have lived is best"

--William Butler Yeats, Sophocles' "Oedipus at Colonus"

Finality

But me they’ll lash me in hammock, drop me deep.
Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I’ll dream fast asleep.
I feel it stealing now. Sentry, are you there?
Just ease this darbies at the wrist, and roll me over fair,
I am sleepy and the oozy weeds about me twist.

--Herman Melville, final lines of Billy Budd, Sailor (An inside narrative)