BLACK CLOCK 4 - four

Black Clock #15

by Steve Erickson (Editor)

158 pages.

158 pages, Paperback

First published March 19, 2012

About the author

Steve Erickson is a distinguished American novelist known for a visionary, dream-fueled style that blends European modernism with American pulp and postmodernism. Raised in Los Angeles, he studied film and political philosophy at UCLA, influences that permeate celebrated works such as Days Between Stations, Tours of the Black Clock, and Zeroville. Critics, including Greil Marcus, have labeled him "the only authentic American surrealist," placing him in the lineage of Pynchon and DeLillo. His most acclaimed novel, Shadowbahn, was hailed as a masterpiece even prior to its release and was later adapted for BBC Radio. A "writer’s writer," Erickson has published ten novels translated into over a dozen languages, consistently appearing on best-of-the-year lists for The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. He is the recipient of the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an American Academy of Arts and Letters award. Erickson served for fourteen years as the founding editor of the journal Black Clock and is currently a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Riverside.

Reviews

[Ian Scuffling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cool conceptual magazine--this one includes a re-imagined film history in which Jodorowski's Dune gets made and Joseph McElroy's Lookout Cartridge gets a filmic adaptation (one could only dream), and has alternate history film posters, eg. Kill Bill starring Marilyn Monroe and John Wayne. Danielewski's work shines in the volume, though, with a piece that rewards readings of The Familiar but stands alone beautifully as a piece of film essay/research examining a mysterious short film known solely as "Clip #4" with a really killer twist at the end that has haunting reverberations throughout the whole piece.

RIP Black Clock. Such a cool, high-concept and artfully minded journal of fiction. You will be missed.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

While perusing chilly aisles for some 'spooky' shorts from favorite authors, checking for ripeness capable of satiating a lengthy Halloween season, I shop hungry for a Danielewski short. Without spoiling (either its freshness or your literary experience), "Clip 4" is all red and bulbous gem, kingly perched atop the brown titled crate, and remembered as delicious steal, though I paid for it along with the rest of my cart.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

My rating applies only for Danielewski's short story, "Clip 4".

[Brad]

I heard about this because it contains Mark. Z. Danielewski’s short story “Clip 4,” which as far as I know appears nowhere else. I couldn’t track down a copy of Black Clock 15--even using interlibrary loan--but I was able to track down a PDF of Danielewski’s contribution: http://tomabba.com/test/Clip4.pdf

As for the story itself, “Clip 4” is a murky short story that is unsettling, but tough to piece together…if it even can be. It has several features House of Leaves fans will recognize: multiple “writers,” a story within a story, cryptic footnotes, scholarly writing about a fictional source. Reading some forums, it apparently links to Danielewski’s The Familiar series, as well, but I haven’t read those books.

After reading the story twice back-to-back, I give “Clip 4” two-and-a-half stars.



A scholarly text written by Realic S. Tarnen to analyze “Clip 4,” including draft notes by the author’s girlfriend, Caroline Weld.

Somewhere during Darc’s film Zoo is a mysterious scene known as “Clip 4.” It is a dialogue about links (or lynx?) between The Man and The Kid, as they are known. There isn’t a ton of scholarly material written about it, but two major papers on it include Vintage Startle’s piece that alleges it is staged to appear to have been around the start of the Vietnam War and Cobin Caokrai’s piece that alleges it is a real document from that time. These two destroyed one another’s properties in a rage against the other, but neither pressed charges.

The author claims to have received an email whose origin was encrypted identifying both The Man and The Kid. He tracked down The Kid, Zeke Rilvergaile, a young man who matches the The Kid, who died horrifically and mysteriously and is buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery. As for The Man, Toland Ouse, he is still alive, though aged many years and living in the same house that Clip 4 was clearly filmed. Ouse says that Rilvergaile and he met only once and that Rilvergaile was asking if something was true about a clip he showed him using a projector, a clip of Ouse’s daughter. (Ouse says his daughter disappeared, but went on to write under countless pen names, many of which were famous people who already existed, often music criticism.) The clip is of Ouse’s daughter Audra drowning. Ouse admits that she couldn’t have gone on to write anything since she had drowned. (What was all the pen name stuff about then? Denial of her death?) Ouse admits that everything in Clip 4 is indeed his home, but that there was no camera filming them that day, much less one panning and such.

Within a few weeks, the author was found dead from a hit-and-run in four distinct pieces. The clip of the author with Ouse is known as Clip 5. Ouse’s whereabouts are unknown.