Ian Patterson's Blog

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Chapter 17 - Motion, Inescapable Revolution

In the dream, I’m flying. There above the surface of the moon, it stretches to curve at the horizon, a monochrome gleam of gray against the dark. I’m too high up. A distant satellite. I’ll fall again, won’t survive this time. Underneath me, the ground moves like grass in a wind. I register that neither of these things exist on the moon, apart from the bubbles of habitation we’ve built. I register this is a dream in the way someone bein...

This piece is part of “Day of the ___ Writer,” an open collab on the daily experiences behind our writing. Post on your pub about your day, and check out our growing mosaic of many lives.

A Day of the Bike Writer

I am a thing of gears and mechanism. A cog that spins dutifully through the day by some unholy internal drive and sets a myriad of other things in motion. An endless array of plates I spin and spin and spin. I am a driven thing, and a driving one. Some days I feel unstoppable. Some days I...

On Injury

When I set out to write The Cog that Spins the Wheel, one of the primary focuses was the commodification of athletes in action sports. I wanted to talk about how capitalism pushes for the spectacle of ever more dangerous sports while not dealing with the outcomes of it—cut the screen to black, drop the athletes contract, don’t pay for their medical bills, let them disappear. In this model, people are just a depreciating asset to raise viewership and marketing dollars. And after they lea...

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Chapter 16 - Waste Not, Want Not

“Before I say anything, know there aren’t any cameras in this room. You can say whatever you want, and the only risk is me. Blue Whale places very little value on maintenance corridors and things meant for recycling.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because I’m not a fucking idiot. Sometimes you have to do things outside the watchful eye. Sometimes you just want to scratch your ass without it being recorded and analyzed. So I bribed one of the securit...

Alex Pretti’s Memorial - Photo by Evelyn Hockstein of ReutersRadicalized by the 22 Hour Taco Stand

After the sacking of Minneapolis started, still-frames of a mother murdered, brains on a headrest, car crashing into a light pole, a nurse made to be still and comply through execution, ten shots to the back, endless barrage of assault on a screen I can’t close my eyes to, the jiffy lube at the corner put up a fence of american flags. They march in rhythm to the ice wind, drawing a border wall again...

Animal Costumes from the 1862 Fairytale Ball of the Jung-München Artist’s Association taken by Joseph Albert, Public DomainThe Death of Love

Love died on a Saturday in January. Ai, Japanese for love and pronounced “Ah-ee”, was known as one of the smartest chimpanzees ever studied. In her lifetime, she learned numbers, enjoyed painting, drew pictures with symbols. She broke herself and others out of captivity to parade casually around the zoo, key held tauntingly in her mouth. She left behind a so...

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Chapter 15 - To Old Friends and New

“Lev, holy shit, you’re on fire!” David waves his hand in the air, the printed whites of reports clutched in his fingers flapping in the breeze.

“I’m most certainly not on fire and would like to remain that way.” A camera swirls around me as I off-load the lift to the hub. Another day, another dollar. “Can we not with the fucking drones before I’ve had my coffee?”

“Ahh sorry, no can do. Remember, all footage could be usable.” David hands me the ...

What follows is an essay about my ongoing serial, The Cog that Spins the Wheel. I wouldn’t say that there are spoilers in here per se, but it certainly signposts a bit of the guiding thoughts. If you haven’t checked it out yet, we’re a little over half-way through the book, and I am furiously drafting new chapters as time is available. It will remain free until I finish it, and decide to take it down for editing.

On Utopia

When I started writing The Cog that Spins the Wheel, one of the driving tho...

Hello lovely peeeooople!

Shit, did I leave this mic on for the last two months? Yikes. Wife’s gonna kill me for that power bill.

As I announced last time, I have a new book on the horizon. And what a book it will be! You’ve seen your friends reading it, you’ve seen my friends reading it (like the wonderful and below, and other kind folks such as , , , , , , , , , , , ), it was edited by the brilliant , and now you too friend, can read it.

I must confess, this was exactly the situation I was tryin...

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Chapter 14 - Throttle Out

“This is one of our simulation rooms. Seen anything like this before? Pretty cool right? Loads of tech in here, only the highest end of course,” David says as I follow him into one of the enclosed circular rooms that dot the office landscape.

I immediately notice the floor holds my weight differently. It has a give and bounce the beige, lifeless carpet of the Blue Whale cubicle farm didn’t. I stare down at it, noting the vaguely dimpled rubber surface. I...