In a new post on the Ghost Paper Archives site, several of the interstitial archivists self-interrogate themselves, both directly and tangentially, on the subject of collaboration.
All posts in category writing
self-interrogation on collaboration
Posted by sean on June 19, 2020
https://sd-stewart.com/2020/06/19/self-interrogation-on-collaboration/
Ghost Paper Archives
Ghost Paper Archives
(GPA) is the imprint under which A Set of Lines has been published. GPA is a publishing collaborative focused on the creation and dissemination of texts and imagery, online and in print, that document facets of the human colonization of Earth. These facets reflect a tendency toward, or even a fixation on, the eerie mundanity of quotidian life on this planet. In short: we’re here, we’ve made a total mess of the place, but what does our daily existence communicate? What about the objects (and beings) we gather around us, or the built environments we inhabit, by choice or otherwise? And what role do dreams play? How can this raw material distill itself into new and disorienting spirits within the textual story container or across the visual landscape (be it moving or still)? The tiniest narrative fronds begin to unfurl.
If you subscribe to the Lost Gander blog, either as a WordPress user or not, I invite you to also subscribe to the GPA site, as that site will hopefully soon be busier than this one has been of late. You can sign up to receive future posts on the right sidebar of the GPA site. As always, thanks for reading!
Posted by sean on May 18, 2020
https://sd-stewart.com/2020/05/18/ghost-paper-archives/
Now Available: A Set of Lines
A Set of Lines: a novel by S. D. Stewart
Last night I drew all night. I copied the images from the textbook and then I drew them again freehand—I made them move on the page, lengthened the lines and darkened the centers.
The tree, the river, the old textbook—a triptych with shifting borders hangs in a place where dreams and memories intersect. Omission and loss haunt those who live here, suspended as they are in an endless struggle to connect. Contracting and expanding as it progresses, the narrative of their existence ever-circles around a shrouded core.
With cover design and interior illustrations by Nate Dorr, who since 2017 has been quietly depicting the beauty of decaying, mutated biospheres in his Disaster Landforms series.
Interior design and layout wizardry by Nathan Grover.
Order the paperback | Download the ebook
Shipping Note: Delivery estimates shown during the order process are the latest possible arrival date. Most U.S. orders will take 7–11 business days to arrive, depending on the selected rate. Economy rate is reasonable: in many cases, the book will still arrive inside of a week. Delivery times outside of the U.S. will vary by location.
Posted by sean on May 15, 2020
https://sd-stewart.com/2020/05/15/now-available-a-set-of-lines/
a dream-story
I arrive in town exhausted. The need to stash my belongings points to a decrepit white Victorian with the air of a boarding house. No one’s around when I enter but this does not concern me. I shove my bags under the bed in an otherwise empty room and return to the street. No one’s outside, either. The town feels like it’s holding its breath. I cross the street to a disused petrol station. As I’m standing in the parking lot a car engine revs from behind the garage. Tires squealing, an old Trans Am speeds out and across the street, up the short incline to the house, and rams through the doorway, disappearing inside. I find this alarming and walk away at a rapid pace.
Now I’m hiding in the woods up the hill and down the street from the house. It’s a pleasant spot, almost like a tended garden but wild enough to offer adequate cover. I keep watch from atop a large boulder. Just as my pulse slows to resting rate a pair of wizard-thieves appears in the street below. They look up in my direction before entering the house. Despite the Trans Am now presumably wedged in the vestibule, only a few minutes pass before they walk out carrying my bags.
I know they are coming for me next, so I don’t bother with further retreat. It will only aggravate them to a higher level of violent intent. When they arrive at my boulder I am calm. They seize me and take me to their camp deep in the woods beyond the town limits.
Over the next few days I attempt to impress them with my rudimentary skills. I levitate small objects and hurl them across the campsite, much to the irritation of its inhabitants. In a moment of insolence I attempt to use my power to asphyxiate the field lieutenant as he delivers a formal complaint about my presence to the lead wizard-thief. A scornful bark escapes the lieutenant’s lips as my weak effort fails. Humiliated I shrink away to my tent. But I know those who matter are secretly impressed. Soon I will be ready. Soon I too will matter.
Posted by sean on January 19, 2020
https://sd-stewart.com/2020/01/19/a-dream-story/
outside the walls
Outside the city walls the scientist retires to smoke his long-stemmed pipe and absorb the local gossip. As the burnt yellow of the sky fades, scattered fires spring up, each circled by a huddle of indistinct figures. The scientist approaches one such group, steps within the fire’s glow and notices a figure seated apart from the others, its face shrouded by a voluminous hood. To this one he turns his attention.
Ah, Liferuiner, it’s been a long time.
The figure nods.
And how many lives have been touched by your handiwork since last we spoke?
The figure stirs, clears its throat.
Actually I’ve been on hiatus, so to speak.
I see. So how have you been spending your time?
I’d rather not say. And you? How go the experiments?
The same as always, my friend. I fear I will never reach the threshold I seek to cross.
Too bad. It is hard for us on the fringes. Our work is never appreciated.
The scientist nods as he puffs on his pipe, watching the Liferuiner jab at the fire with a rough-hewn staff, jostling the reddened coals until sparks shoot forth.
I must return to the laboratory soon, my friend. I cannot tarry here all evening long, as others are wont to do.
The Liferuiner raises its cloaked head, reaches out a withered hand and grasps the fringe of the scientist’s sleeve.
Before you go, I have something for you.
It reaches into a satchel slung across its chest and brings out a small vial of pitch black fluid.
Take this, my friend. May it aid your progress in reaching that threshold you speak of.
The scientist holds up the vial, through the contents of which no light passes. A faint smile flickers across his lips.
I am once again in your debt, my friend. Please do take good care.
He stands and touches the brim of his hat, but the hooded figure has already turned back to the fire, stoking it viciously again with the staff.
Up above the craggy walls of the city loom in the light of the rising moon. The scientist steps forward, now following the path back to the structured madness of his experiments.
Posted by sean on September 14, 2019
https://sd-stewart.com/2019/09/14/outside-the-walls/
r.i.p. david berman
It’s so hard watching them continue to fall . . .
Oh Where
by David Berman
Where did you go, my dear, my day;
Where, oh where, did you go?
To market, to maker of market, to say
Too much of the little I know.
Where did you go, my dear, my year;
Why did you flee from me?
I went from here to there to here
Loitering breathlessly.
Where did you go, my life, my own,
Decades gone in a wink?
Some things are better left unknown
Some thoughts too thick to think.
‘It is autumn and my camouflage is dying . . .’
Posted by sean on August 8, 2019
https://sd-stewart.com/2019/08/08/r-i-p-david-berman/
new print publications
These are limited print editions of projects originally serialized online.
Bunker Diaries is a fictional journal kept by an unnamed instructor while teaching a cadre of listless trainees in a desert bunker. It was serialized here in Fall 2012 and has been lightly revised for this print edition. It is no longer available online.
Inner Harbor Field Reports is a compendium of observations made during lunchtime walks around Baltimore’s Inner Harbor between 2014 and 2019 (heavier on the early years of that range). It began as notes embedded in rambling blog entries (which is why this print edition seems like it starts in the middle of something, but trust me, you’re not missing out on any needed context). Eventually I decided to streamline it into pure observational bliss and moved it over to Tumblr. I had a good run there, until Tumblr inexplicably extended the long arm of censorship and shut down my site. Attempts at appeal failed and as my interest was already waning, I decided to end it there.
I enjoyed this project while it lasted, though, and so I thought it would be cool to memorialize it with this print edition. The text remains largely untouched, with only minimal corrections and revisions. The ending is somewhat abrupt, much like the beginning, closing on a sole entry from 2019. Although there is a postscript explaining the genesis of the project, the lack of contextual intro and outro is purposeful, for the intent of this document is only to offer a narrow slice of the ongoing continuum that is life at the Inner Harbor.
Available from the following independent bookstores:
Atomic Books: Bunker Diaries | Inner Harbor Field Reports
Quimby’s: Bunker Diaries | Inner Harbor Field Reports
Posted by sean on May 29, 2019
https://sd-stewart.com/2019/05/29/new-print-publications/
the phantasmagoria of the mist
Unconsciously, but still of free will, he had preferred the splendour and the gloom of a malignant vision before his corporal pains, before the hard reality of his own impotence. It was better to dwell in vague melancholy, to stray in the forsaken streets of a city doomed from ages, to wander amidst forlorn and desperate rocks than to awake to a gnawing and ignoble torment, to confess that a house of business would have been more suitable and more practical, that he had promised what he could never perform. Even as he struggled to beat back the phantasmagoria of the mist, and resolved that he would no longer make all the streets a stage of apparitions; he hardly realised what he had done, or that the ghosts he had called might depart and return again.
—Arthur Machen, The Hill of Dreams
Posted by sean on February 8, 2019
https://sd-stewart.com/2019/02/08/the-phantasmagoria-of-the-mist/
prelude to nothing (let there be light)
Go to a strange place to take a long test. Everything is unfamiliar but signals an escape. Recall the repellent damp stench of the locker room. Trees waving from the roadside. Airing tires at the gas station. Old men clean the windshields, their starched white coveralls blistered in full noon sun. Now the strange sounds of Fiat Lux wash over the bed. Now a breeze enters the room. On the phone a voice to capture an ache. A head still full of numbers. Names to speak in a rush. Understand little / experience less / imagine all instead. Growing wake of books trails behind. Later too late. Later written to the page. Later loss of letters—loss of history—loss of self. Self walks away—never in pursuit. Transport black bile across state lines. But no: too soon. Return, retrace. Head strikes blacktop, skin inflames summers. Cover with this overcoat before a surge at year’s end. Holy songs and rituals halo material desires. Now far off—now beyond—now tinny at the end of this dead line.
[w. 2015 / rev. 2017-2019]
Posted by sean on January 2, 2019
https://sd-stewart.com/2019/01/02/prelude-to-nothing-let-there-be-light-2/
weighing souls with sand: a response
Touched through by a white wing she stands defiant (or is it expectant) above the crashing waves. Orange storm sky rages above the rocky coastline. Thundering in her ears. Birds soar overhead—their frantic cries pierce the heavy air. I don’t want to leave, I don’t want to leave. The darkening sky. The diminishing hour. A throat clogged with fear. The golden orb sinks toward a depthless chasm, loss radiating from its rim. There is only heavy sand below—sand to weigh a soul down. Perched on the rock, though, perhaps she will ascend, the feathers of the wing lessening her load, her arms open and her soul rough with sand, aching to be brushed clean.
Posted by sean on November 29, 2018
https://sd-stewart.com/2018/11/29/weighing-souls-with-sand-a-response/
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