The Horned Whale Swims Luminous

 ‘I see they’re making Melville eat his whale'

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

On Friday 18^th October, 2024 I had the lugubriously ecstatic experience that I’d long awaited – I was out to launch, out to launch me book, that is… and I was indeed fortunate to have the amazing Redwing Gallery there for the ideal launch-pad. I mean, think about it – how do you launch a book? I had visions of hurling a rotund volume through the window of my local library – ya know – make a bit of a splash. Mind you I’ve never been too happy in a cell, so thought better of my original marketing strategy. How does a garret-poet, a pallid quill-driver and feverish scrivener transform himself into a slick, well-oiled hustler, punting his product in the shark-pit of virulent capitalist competitive consumerism, hmmm? Tell me that, if ye can, sitting there in your fine city clothes, swilling your martini while the help fixes you a tray of canapes?

(And talking of canned apes, I have another book, of a very simian nature in the can, waiting to be pumped into the flabby and indifferent face of a succulent humanity.) More on that later – and moron will be the operative word, if ya knows wadd I means…

Anyway, we have to live before we die. We have to dance before the sun goes down. Putting out that book meant a lot to me and perhaps the best thing of all was that people laughed at the funny bits – that was a relief and everyone had a lot of fun. The Horned Whale (a.k.a. An Morvil Kornek) was finally freed from the beach of unfinished novels and it slithered off into An Mor Atlantek, there to fin its way out into the world-mind-ocean, bouncing its eerie cetacean song off the sea-bed of the collective unconscious mind. The mind that swells with currents of thought, that storms with unquiet emotions, that seeths and surges and swells, before settling down to a glassy mirror of perfect calm – the unborn mind, original mind, mind-heart of the universe that sees and knows and reclines replete in its original nature.

Well, there’s no point in being coy about it – we’ve all got one!

I’ve included some footage of the readings, to give you a taste of Whale-meat. Wishing to conceal the main plot from yous, I avoided reading any of the main action-scenes, so what you get is probably more of an impressionistic feel of the vibe of the book. It’s quite a chubby tome, weighing in at a healthy 1 lb, 9 3/4 oz.

Originally published as an ebook in 2016, the Whale has now surfaced and put on a considerable coat of blubber – or paper, as some people prefer to call it. The longish short-story, The Janetta Stone was started back in 2009, as an episodic serial published in The Limpet newspaper. One of the poems in the book was written in the mid 1970’s when I was but a young stream of awareness, streaming through infinite space with a planet-full of writhing, awakening beings headed for the heart of the Milky Way.

Ah, those were the days!

The Kramvil, a novel in the Gothic tradition, started in a similar fashion, but this time it appeared in The Caterpillar –A Visionary Ghetto Tabloid. After a time, I realised that The Kramvil was mutating into a book, so I let the little hatchling have its way, and thus, unknowingly and quite innocently unleashed a squirming, braying and utterly appalling thing of darkness amongst an unsuspecting and undeserving populace. May God in His mercy forgive me – and may He have mercy upon my wretched soul!

During the question and answer part of the launch-evening, I was asked about the etymology of the word eldritch. To clarify further, I quote from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology:

eldrich (sc.) pert. to elves or fairies; weird, unnatural. xvi. poss. from attrib. use of OE. *aelf-, *elfrice ‘fairy realm; (see ELF, RICH).

Readers of H.B.Lunchcart will already be familiar with the term.

Watch the debut of Luminous and reading from The Horned Whale here...

I was also very happy to launch the new musical act 'Luminous', featuring Simon Brown on guitar and me, Jeremy Schanche on Bouzouki and Baglamas. We played 3 rebetiko tunes in 9/8 and a Greek folk tune in 7/8. If I say so myself, I think it was a hot jam. 

Many thanks to Neena and Ros for helping to organize the evening and a splendid time was guaranteed for all.

The book is available from Redwing Gallery, Penzance; various other bookshops in the town, or direct from the author. Also available on Amazon

Thanks for reading and I hope whale meat again...

The Horned Whale Paperback Out Now!

THE HORNED WHALE or An Morvil Kornek

This new anthology by Jeremy Schanche features the Gothic novel The Kramvil. Set in Newlyn, or rather ‘New Lynnsmouth’ in 1911. It features such characters as Jack Lane, Florence Place and Old Paul Hill... The tale explores the themes of pioneer aviation, romance, mystery and a scientific experiment that goes horribly wrong when the young scholar, Elias Gillpington, gets involved with the eccentric inventor Lazarus Taxon.

The short story The Janetta Stone recalls my days underground at Wheal Roots, near Wendron in the mid-seventies, as well as drawing inspiration from the time I ‘bounded’ Battery Rocks in a mineral-claim that was registered according to the ancient Stannary law-code which still survives in Cornwall.

Ghost-Hulk of a Phantom is a comic tale of a struggling writer and his misadventures in trying to get published. A collection of poems is included in The Horned Whale.

The style blends humour, mysticism and a splash of surrealism. The locations, mainly occurring around West Penwith, will be familiar to many local readers, as will the wit and wisdom of the Cornish people.

The anthology also contains nineteen poems.

Illustrated with the author’s pen and ink drawings, The Horned Whale – or An Morvil Kornek – is out now.

Buy it here!

Listen to this wonderful music by Erik Satie. I listened to this constantly as I was writing The Kramvil, and it helped inspire the atmosphere of the book.

BOOK LAUNCH

Friday 18^th October, 2024 – Redwing Gallery, 32 Alverton Street, 

Penzance, Kernow - 7:30pm

Book Details:

Title: The Horned Whale or An Morvil Kornek

Author & illustrator: Jeremy Schanche

Pages: 522

Publisher: The Invertebrate Press

Distributor: Amazon

ISBN: 978-0-9934909-0-3

Price: £15

Dimensions:  5 by 8 inches  (12.7 x 20.3cm)

Weight: 1 lb, 9 3/4 oz  (.73kg)

Publication date: 30/9/2024

Genre:  Idiosyncratic...

Down Wheal Roots - looking for Old Janner...

An average day at The Invertebrate Press Office

Outside the house of Lazarus Taxon (left, guano-spattered)

https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/gallery/jeremy-schanches-global-awareness-month-1257151

Whale of a Beast - Arthur Buxtereide interviewed by Ripley Porter of The Penwithershins Gazette

 In the 2nd October issue of The Penwithershins Gazette was an interview with Arthur Buxtereide, conducted by Ripley Porter, Arts Editor: 

RP: Arthur, without giving too much away, would you like to tell us about your new book, which is titled Whale of a Beast? 

AB: Certainly Rip. It concerns some monstrous goings on in West Cornwall, some years back. The sea plays a large part in it. It’s a mystery/romance, written as a non-linear adventure in linguistics. 

RP: Sounds intriguing! Any car-chases in it? 

AB: Sadly not, but the book’s not out for three weeks, I could put one in if you like. 

RP: That’s very considerate of you, Arthur, but I’m sure the book is better without any input from me! So it’s out in three weeks, you say? 

AB: Yes. October 18th. Published by Reid, Warbler. 

RP: And is it your first book? 

AB: That’s right, my first. Before becoming an author I used to install and inspect fire-escapes, mostly commercial premises, but occasionally somewhere really unusual. In fact, it was when I was installing a fire-escape on a lighthouse that I first got the idea to start writing. It was the sea, being around it on a daily basis, I found it naturally inspired me to start stringing words together, so it started from there. 

RP: Quite a journey – from commercial fire-security solutions to Dadaist novel/poems, isn’t it? 

AB: These things happen Ripley. 

RP: Have you always lived in Cornwall? 

AB: My childhood and youth I spent here. I studied philosophy at the Camborne School of Minds. During the fire escape years I was based in Dulwich. I felt I was wasting time though, I needed a more fulfilling life, a way of, I know it’s a cliche, but a way of expressing myself. 

RP: So you moved back to the west-country to become a writer? 

AB: That’s it exactly. 

RP: Now I have to say that I’ve read the book Arthur, and it’s not exactly an easy read, is it? I mean, it’s studded with foreign words, Cornish words, a lot of apparently made-up words, long passages of free-floating word-association and stream-of-consciousness surrealism, dream-imagery… I mean, let’s be honest, the average punter is going to be totally flummoxed by this, don’t you think? 

AB: Well, sure, it’s not for everybody perhaps, but I think it’ll have its audience, given time. Also, I think it’s good for readers to stretch themselves, challenge themselves a bit sometimes. There’s always a fundamental choice for any writer, any artist in any media – are you going to be yourself or are you going to pander to fashion and shape your product according to a populist concept of how a book should be, or how a film or song or pair of trousers should be? Anyway, my book’s not really all that surreal. It’s got plenty of romance for the girls and adventure for the boys, even if it hasn’t got a car-chase! 

RP: Why did you decide to sprinkle the text with Cornish words? 

AB: Because Kernewek or the Cornish language is the key to a much deeper poetic understanding of the place and the people. I regard it as a magical touchstone, the door to another realm, a cultural missing link that is loaded with information. Poetically, it has a unique sound and resonance, and to me, certain words of Cornish have a talismanic power, a power to enchant. 

RP: Should I ask which ones? 

AB: Let’s just say they’re in the book! 

RP: Well, thank you very much Arthur Buxtereide for talking to me today. It’s always a pleasure to meet a local celebrity, a local success-story. I hope the book’s a best-seller! Available October 18th, published by Reid, Warbler, it’s Whale of a Beast by Arthur Buxtereide. 

Adventures Close To Home

  
Under the quixotic realization that the motor-car constitutes a ghastly death-threat to our dear world I accompanied my eighty-four year-old mother to the symbolic temple of this auto-destruction and there we did exercise our right to protest. Little did we know the swinish hornet’s nest that would soon swirl about us and bespatter the tarmac with words of hatred, threats of violence and death and acts of menace and intimidation directed at us by ye Public of this - England, our England.

The film starts with footage from a street-demo in Penzance organized by a youth-group protesting at the path being taken straight towards environmental melt-down. This was a good natured affair, sunny and trouble-free. Characters visible include my mother, the former Member of Parliament Andrew George and a cadre of XR coming to check on my spontaneous discussion with our camera-lady, Diane; nervously hoping that I would ‘toe the party line’. Perhaps he found my goose-grass wig unsettling.

A little short of three minutes in, we suddenly jump a couple of weeks forward in time to 13^th April, 2019, a day of freezing wind and zero support as we walked out to the garage for a curious hybrid version of no pasaran at the Not-OK-Corral. The action had been announced within our local Extinction Rebellion group for some weeks, together with a request for legal-observers. In the end, the only help we got was from a friend with a camera, so at least we’d have a form of witness, a piece of evidence to support our case. Our intention was pure and simple – to get arrested. This would lead to a court-room appearance at which there would be an opportunity to make a grand speech and grab some strong publicity for our humble cause of trying to save the ol’ planet from immanent destruction at the hands of the poisonous mechanism that chokes, envenoms and slowly kills off this joyous and miraculous globe – this radiant oasis of life in the depths of cold space. They gotta let you have your say in court, whoever you are, and I was hoping to ram the environmental crisis into the face of Babylon for all I was worth.

When dreaming up our plan of action I imagined that somewhere between five and ten minutes of brazenly obstructing incoming traffic at the local garage would suffice to see us bundled into the wagon and hauled off to Camborne. The preliminary action on the forecourt was merely bait to draw the cops. These folks had other ideas though and had no intention of promoting our little revolution, knowing that the so-called International Rebellion was going off in London in two days’ time.

The little clip of existing film of the action, lasting around two and a quarter minutes, captures something of the atmosphere out there on that windy day, but the actual event took an entire hour to unfold. What happened after the film ends was a third ultra-hostile motorist of the scarlet-necked variety, giving out the threats and insults; getting surrounded by a mob of garage and café workers all yapping at me at once and even one or two gestures of support from motorists.

I wrote about these events shortly after they happened, but as two years have passed – and as I have also found the lost footage – I thought it was worth taking another look at the ‘garage-incident’. I can laugh about it now – at the time it took two or three days to get rid of the slightly polluted and razzled sensations arising from the adventure. Also, the whole thing took on a slightly dark shadow due to the reaction of the XR ‘leadership’ which ranged from horror to condemnation – there was no recognition from them of any value in our action, yet there were not, and to my knowledge never have been any direct actions undertaken locally by the group whatsoever – despite dozens of members claiming to be fully prepared for such engagement in the ecological struggle for survival.

Of all the protests I have ever experienced, this one was by far the most intense, the most menacing, the most sinister. I agonized as to whether or not I should ‘let’ my mother be a part of such a thing – ultimately coming to see that it was her political right to participate, if she so insisted, and that I did not have the right to refuse her cooperation. Without at least one companion in the field I might not have continued with the action. Also, until the last minute, we were expecting some participation from our brothers and sisters in the movement.

The way it played out, the two of us decided that we would act, whether or not anyone would join us. Once having made that decision, the whole psychic drive was forward. There wasn’t any idea of abandoning what we considered to be the right and necessary thing to do. Later we got a lot of criticism from the group over the action, people seemed incredulous that we went through with it. The thing is that when you psyche yourself up for an intense experience you have to be serious in your intention. If doubt takes hold, vacillation will wreck the operation. There was a powerful sense of ‘no-going-back’. We wanted to get arrested, not spend an hour in the freezing wind, risking getting mowed down, cursed and reviled, thinking ‘when are those cops going to get here?’ Kind of ironic really. We literally couldn’t get arrested. There’s humour in the chaos – and as the CCTV footage from the garage cameras and also the ones on the cops jackets would show – there was chaos aplenty.

The point about it all though is the intention, the motivation. We were trying to bring awareness of the worst crisis this world has ever faced – of the sickness of our planet due to man’s blindness and greed – our willingness to cling to a shallow culture of consumption and ‘convenience’ even as it drives the living world towards an ugly and inexcusable doom.

REMIDIATION SOUGHT:

If you are a driver, please plant and raise one tree for every year you have driven your car. This will go some way towards reabsorbing your emissions. Think of the future.

* * * * * * *

"By going against the established behaviour-pattern of these other primates I was violating an unwritten code of the somnambulists – never challenge the basic reality – never try to wake the dreamers – they will turn and rend ye –"  This quote comes from my original article written the day after the event. You can read the whole thing here.

Why I Joined Extinction Rebellion.

Why I Left Extinction Rebellion.

Why I Hate Fast Cars

Follow @real Donald Chimp on Twitter for latest President Chimp news!

The true life-story of PRESIDENT CHIMP is out now, on Smashwords, Apple and many other outlets.

The Leader Speaks:

OK. Alright. Let’s see. Yes. Good people. Great team! Never trust those lying enemies of the people, the so-called FAKE NEWS journalists, terrible people, terrible people. Really bad people. Rubber bullets for them! Tear-gas for them, I say! Really terrible people these fake-news media. That’s why I always use Twitter and you can now follow me: @realDonaldChimp – that’s right ‘cause I am the one and only real Donald Chimp – GOT ME?

OK hom saps, now lis’en up, ok? Don’t trust those lying liberal sewers – I’m talking about The Akron Klaxon. I’m talking about The Buffalo Bugle. You know who you are. You know who you are, The Limpet, Pravda and The New York Times. Enemies of the people. So follow Real Donald Chimp if you wanna get the latest Presidential news straight from the Chimp’s mouth.  Got me? OK.

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Yeah well I ain’t got time to sit around here listening to you liberal, soft-on-crime, unpatriotic losers anymore so just do what I say and I’ll keep the dogs on the leash – for now – you bunch of whining, left-leaning intellectuals!  


Alright now let’s get on with ignoring this so-called ‘fake-virus’ which has hardly killed any Americans at all and get this stinking capitalist-pig-circus back on the road – shall we? Goddam your ass!

His Latest Tweet:

https://twitter.com/realdonaldchim1/status/1269995065759412227