The Bestiary / Mean Girls Club

Issue No. 123

THE BESTIARY – A FANTASTIC FINELY-CRAFTED CATALOGUE OF 26 MODERN DAY BESTIARIES

The Bestiary
by Ann VanderMeer (editor) and Ivica Stevanovic (illustrator)
Centipede Press
2016, 277 pages, 5.5 x 7 inches

Buy on Amazon

Since all the antipodes have been discovered and exploited, there is very little natural mystery left in the word. As Jeff VanderMeer points out in the introduction to the delightful new book The Bestiary, we are left with Bigfoot and Nessie. A little further out into the fringe of the cultural imagination is the dogman and reptilian illuminati operatives, but these also inspire less a sense of wonder than pushing conspiracy theory buttons. But natural history as a genre to conceive of things like the stomach-faced blemmyes and the fiery salamander is all but lost. I find table-top RPG bestiaries often satisfy that itch, but they are still too confined to their own internal world-building.

What is needed is a bestiary that comes from the literary imagination, and to this end, the weird-fiction editor extraordinaire Ann VanderMeer has compiled a catalogue of the fantastic, 26 entries (from A to Z) by writers across the speculative fiction spectrum, and lovingly illustrated by Ivica Stevanovic. Centipede Press has a reputation for finely crafted editions, and while small in size, The Bestiary reflects their attention to detail with rich paper stock and ribbon marker.

I don’t want to give away too many of the surprises, but it’s worth noting a few of the standout entries. There is the “Daydreamer by Proxy” by the novelist Dexter Palmer, a spine-grafting parasite offered by a corporation to its employees to help them deal with the too much daydreaming in the middle of the afternoon. The Iranian writer Reza Negarestani offers what appears to be an excerpt from a bestiary from another dimension, with the “Nolus Barathruma (Homo sapiens sapiens)” an otherworldly entity that induces visions in its host. “Bartleby’s Typewriter” by Corey Redekop describes a turtle-like creature that can mimic inanimate objects, whose classification causes etymologists to declare “the whole profession a mockery.” – Peter Bebergal

MEAN GIRLS CLUB – SATIRICAL SOCIAL COMMENTARY OR JUST FLAT OUT BONKERS?

Mean Girls Club
by Ryan Heshka
Nobrow Press
2016, 24 pages, 6.8 x 9.1 x 0.1 inches

Buy on Amazon

If your understanding of what a Mean Girls Club consists of is defined by the 2004 Lindsay Lohan film, then Ryan Heshka’s new release from Nobrow Press (as part of their wonderful 17 x 23 series) is going to blow your mind. In Mean Girls Club, Pinky, Sweets, Blackie, McQualude, Wendy, and Wanda aren’t the popular girls in an Illinois high school, rather they are a gang of sociopaths who revel in murder, mayhem, pill popping, and depraved dereliction. Heshka’s 1950s bombshells start their day with ceremonial insect venom transfusions, snake worship, a pill buffet, and a fish slap fight, then go on to wreck havoc in a hospital, movie theater, boutiques, and the streets, only to finish off by jacking a lingerie truck, kidnapping patients and nurses along the way.

In a nod to the pulps and pin-ups of the past and rendered in fluorescent pinks and inky blacks, Heskha upends the conventional idea of the B-movie Vixen by adding a layer of such over-the-top brutality and vehemence that it transcends the possible, bringing the trope into the post-ironic age where we have lost the ability to discern what we are meant to take seriously.

Is Mean Girls Club to be read as satirical social commentary? Is it just flat out bonkers? Or is it a combination of both? When viewed through various critical lenses, Mean Girls Club demands that the reader ask certain questions: issues of gender and power, fringe vs center, entertainment vs social order. But this sort of critical response probably misses the point of Heskha’s intent.

Heskha doesn’t seem to care how we approach his work; this book swings to its own pop-culture rhythm, flat and full of energy and horror – perhaps the perfect narrative for precarious times. The viciousness in this book stands starkly in contrast to the stylized elegance of Heskha’s lines and layouts. Its publisher, Nobrow Press, says it has “A vintage throwback appeal with modern sensibilities … with appeal to an alternative subculture eager for art that continues to subvert the conventions of the old guard of comics.” It’s all this and more. But one thing for sure, in Mean Girls Club we have an artist making the art he wants to make. And although it may be a bit uncomfortable for some of us to read, it may just be the art we deserve. – Daniel Elkin

Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.

Tracking

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 195

How to see the unseen

Mammal Tracks & Bird Tracks

Mark Elbroch is a young tracker quickly gaining a reputation for his obsessive devotion to craft and comprehensive style of seeing. He once spent a whole New England winter tracking a single red fox — which wound up tracking him! More than stories, Elbroch offers an astounding encyclopedia of observed animal signs and visualizations that are the most helpful I’ve ever seen. Pages and pages of life size paw prints, a whole long chapter of diverse specialized burrows, dens, nests, and cavities — many in life size — and all photographed. Elbroch is not only an ace naturalist, but a fabulous communicator. He must sleep with his camera because he captures every nuanced disturbance on film. There’s distinguishing scat, urine and other secretions, by species. And most wonderful of all, several hundred pages on feeding patterns left by each mammal on vegetation and prey. This immense guide (almost 800 pages of full color illustrations and images) is by far the most ecological of any tracking guide ever written. It shows you how to see animals through their effects upon the other living organisms around them. The amount of knowledge, respect, and insight packed into this brick of a book is stunning. I’m sure it will become a classic.

Equally astounding is a companion book on bird signs. Imagine going birdwatching without looking at birds. All you inspect are the ripples each bird makes as it disturbs the environment in its daily routine. At first the ripples are faint, but soon with practice they swell in size and plenty until they seem a wave that all but shouts out the bird’s identification. That’s the Elbroch way of seeing.

These fat books, lovingly published by Stackpole Books, will change the way you walk in the woods. — KK

• Finding a hair. This is an exercise I have practiced over the years to help myself look deeper. Whenever I sit down in the woods, I won’t allow myself to stand until I’ve found a hair within approximately an 8-inch-square patch of earth. When I’m relaxed, it’s a short exercise, but when I’m tense, it may last 30 minutes. When I’m struggling, it’s usually just after I’ve proclaimed that I’ve finally found the first piece of earth devoid of animal hair that I find the first one. The second one is easy.

How to see

Tracking & the Art of Seeing

I’ve had meager success in tracking animals using other guide books. This one employs color photography which matches what I see on the trail much closer that black and white sketches. Also it emphasizes animal scat and browsing patterns. It includes primarily North American mammals. — KK

Since white-tailed deer have only bottom incisors, they leave rough, torn, or squared-off cuts when browsing.

Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

Work light / Dad gift / Searchable Attenborough

Recomendo - issue #519

Best work light

My sister has one of these Nightstick rechargeable floodlights and uses it for crawlspaces and poking around the yard after dark. It throws a strong beam — 600 lumens on high, 225 on low — and the single push-button switch is easy to find by feel. What makes it extra useful are the three built-in magnets and the detachable hook, which rotates 360 degrees so you can clamp it onto a pipe, car hood, or garage door and work hands-free. It recharges from either AC or DC power. — MF

Dad gift

I have recently been enjoying a tool I did not know I needed in my workshop. It’s a no-name high powered blower. When working in a shop, there is a constant need to clean away bits, sawdust, shavings, and other detritus that accumulate on a surface or tool. One blast from this and it is all sent to the floor. This replaces air hoses, or even other dedicated blowers because it fits onto any of the cordless batteries I already own, and because it is charged it is always handy. It also works for cleaning up patios and driveways. This delight in blowing stuff clean might be a dad thing. So I nominate this as a very dad-ish Father’s Day gift. Get one that fits his particular color batteries. — KK

Searchable Attenborough

Searchable Attenborough is a nature documentary archive that has indexed nearly 5,000 episodes across 90 of David Attenborough’s series. You can search by animal, habitat, location, natural phenomenon, or theme, and it accurately points you to the streaming service where you can watch. It feels like having direct access to learning about Earth and all its kingdoms. — CD

Counterculture design archive

Far Out Company is a curated archive of 1960s–70s counterculture visual art — concert posters, TV shows, underground newspapers, commune newsletters, comix, hippie business advertisements, and album art. I love the DIY design aesthetic of this era: hand-lettered type, day-glo colors, psychedelic illustrations. Artists and designers like Wes Wilson, Rick Griffin, and Milton Glaser were doing world-class work for free newspapers. It’s a good resource for design inspiration or a trippy rabbit hole to fall into. — MF

Art inspiration

Kids are so naturally creative they should be our art teachers. And their creativity is boundless as long as you don’t hamper them by calling the assignment making “art.” It’s more fun than that. Those two premises enliven artist Austin Kleon’s newest book, Don’t Call It Art. Kleon’s mission is encouraging creativity in kids and adults by means of stories, reminders, examples, and bits of his own art. His little tome is charming and inspirational. — KK

Free Pomodoro app

I’ve been looking for a replacement Pomodoro app for over a year, ever since my old browser extension stopped being supported. After trying a few that all wanted subscriptions or felt too distracting, I finally found a truly free one called Breaks. It runs quietly in the Mac menu bar, is easy to use, and lets me customize my focus and break times. — CD

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Book Freak #214: Thoughts Without a Thinker

Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective

Get Thoughts Without a Thinker

Mark Epstein is a psychiatrist who also meditates, and in Thoughts Without a Thinker he uses both practices to make the point that the solid, permanent self we work so hard to build and protect is the same self that keeps us anxious. If you loosen your grip on it, a lot of everyday suffering will decrease.

Core Principles

The Self Is a Construction

We spend enormous energy projecting an image of being complete and self-sufficient. Epstein argues that the feeling of a solid, unchanging “me” behind all of this is something we assemble, not something we find. He describes the self as stitched together out of the gaps in our emotional experience, the raw spots we rush to cover up instead of looking at. Seeing how the assembly works is the first step toward holding it more lightly.

We Suffer When We Avoid Direct Experience

Much of our pain, Epstein writes, comes from being afraid to experience ourselves directly. Feelings are fleeting and constantly shifting, but we treat them as fixed, solid facts about who we are. A passing wave of anger becomes “I am an angry person.” A moment of doubt becomes “something is wrong with me.” When we let experiences stay as fast as they actually are, they have far less power over us.

Bare Attention as Medicine

The central tool Epstein draws from Buddhism is “bare attention”: noticing exactly what is happening, moment by moment, before you pile your reactions on top of it. There is the cold of the air, and then there is your story about the cold. Bare attention watches the raw event and the reaction as two separate things. The goal of this practice is not to feel calm or blissful. It is to watch the sense of a fixed self loosen as you observe it.

Don’t Build a Better Self, See Through It

Epstein calls the Buddha a kind of original psychoanalyst, using a method of self-inquiry centuries before Freud. But he points out a key difference. Much of Western therapy hunts for a “true self” hidden under our defenses, waiting to be set free. The Buddhist view says there is no such self underneath, only layers of constructions to see through. The work is to stop polishing a better self-image and start noticing how the image gets made.

Try It Now

1. Set a timer for five minutes and sit quietly with your eyes closed. Each time you notice a thought, silently label it “thinking” and bring your attention back to your breath. You are practicing watching thoughts instead of being carried off by them.
2. The next time a strong emotion hits, find where you feel it in your body. Is it tightness in the chest, heat in the face, a knot in the stomach? Don’t try to fix it or explain it. Just describe its texture and location for thirty seconds.
3. In the middle of a worried thought, ask: “Who is aware of this thought?” Look for the thinker behind it. Notice that you find more thoughts and sensations, but no solid, separate “me” doing the thinking.

Quote

“We do not want to admit our lack of substance to ourselves and, instead, strive to project an image of completeness, or self-sufficiency. The fabric of self is stitched together out of just these holes in our emotional experience.”

Book Freak is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run Recomendo, the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Recomendo Deals, Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper, and Book Freak.

Good Book Light/2 Free Checked Bags/Best Layover Airports

Nomadico issue #211

Versatile Book Light for Bed or Travel

After years of me bugging my wife to get a book light for places where the bedside lamp is too bright, she finally found one she liked enough to plunk down 14 bucks for: this Compact LED rechargeable light. It folds up small for travel but has an impressive array of functions, like 4 brightness levels, different intensity levels to go more amber when trying to fall asleep, and a flexible head that can bathe 2 pages of a book with light. Battery life is 9 to 80 hours depending on brightness.

Every World Cup Player in One Place

Like most people who grew up in the USA, I get bored with most futbol/soccer matches since all that running around usually doesn’t accomplish much. Apparently that’s a surprise to FIFA since 175,000 too-expensive World Cup tickets remained unsold this week. If you want to dive in deep though, The Guardian has you covered: this website provides details on every single player from every country that’s participating in the event this year. Study up before arriving at the sports bar wherever you’ll be in the world.

Airline Hook-ups and a better Delta Amex

This has been a busy month already for airline news. Philippine Airlines is set to join the OneWorld Alliance, which will add 31 new markets nobody else in that group is serving. Southwest added another “interline partner” with Singapore Air, which means you can complete your last leg on Southwest when the first one is booked on Singapore, via one ticket. (They’ve also done this with Icelandair, Turkish, ANA, and Philippine Airlines.) Last, if you have a Delta Amex, that just got a lot more valuable. Delta added a second free checked bag on domestic flights, in addition to the one for you and your companions. Get it here and earn 70-90K SkyMiles points depending on your spend and there’s no annual fee the first year!

Best Layover Airports

If you’re going to have a long layover somewhere, which are the best airports to be stuck in? This report crunches a lot of data—including which are best for sleeping—and my only quibble is that the quantity of lounges is rated too highly. (The only lounge stat that matters to a traveler is which one they can actually get into.) Asia dominates the top-20, with Singapore’s Changi Airport predictably taking the gold medal. Did you know they have 247 places to eat there?! Atlanta made a surprisingly good showing at #3, with others in the top-10 including Seoul, Dubai, Tokyo Haneda, and Shanghai. Bogota scored #2 in the Americas, while Heathrow and Schiphol were tops in Europe.

A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

What’s in my NOW? — frank

issue #258

I’m following where I feel there is energy flowing and honoring that. These days I’m just making projects with Claude and other AI agents together. It’s the age of dreamer to manifest into reality what one envisions without any middleman involved. Also I’m writing occasional essays at: pilgrima.ge

PHYSICAL

• LEZER Trigger Massage Point
  This item has been a life saver for me when I have an ache on my back or soreness near my groin area where I just needed something to target it right at the spot with some tough love. This was exactly what I was looking for and it does the job beautifully every time I needed it. I carry this with me when I travel since it’s light and small.
• Axiom S2 VX Pack
  I recently just switched to this backpack after having my only one-bag as the Tom Bihn Synapse 25 for over 12 years (which I love too). This bag has great design in terms of laying out various compartments including a place for your water bottle on the side for easy access and easy laptop access on the opposite side. There is only one easy-access pocket on the top near the handle too. I find this bag’s size to be fair for my one-bag travel if I don’t bring an extra pair of shoes.
• Luna Sandals – Mono Winged Edition
  Before these sandals, I was wearing Earth Runners running sandals. The straps on the Earth Runner aren’t that durable and usually breaks around two years. I’ve had these Luna sandals for over 3 years and they’re still going strong. They’re very durable and I walk, hike, and run in these during my travels as well as every day wear.

DIGITAL

• Claude CodeI first started coding with Claude back in February and now over 20 projects later still making new ones as well as updating existing ones. I feel like it’s the best coding agent out there albeit other people dig Codex more. I feel like you really need to get the right skills and plugins in order to truly unlock the full power of these agents. I’d recommend superpowers and compound-engineering as some plugins to install. You can just use Claude as a harness without paying for Anthropic’s plan by using DeepSeek API. Another great harness is Open Code.
• Pilgrim – Mindful Walking
  This app is great for me to take daily walks with. Sometimes when some ideas or inspirations hit, I’d hit record and note down those thoughts which then gets transcribed on-device for me to use along with some of the context on my walk like where did the inspiration hit as well as the weather and moon cycles. And when I travel and just wander about, it gives me a great summary on exactly where I had walked on a map as well as the ability to create a small web page and postcard-like image for me to share with my friends.

INVISIBLE

energy begets more energy

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What’s in my NOW? — frank